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THE KING’S BUSINESS
at the skirt o f my coat. I looked around, and there was Judge G. He had gone down through the basement room, and up those narrow stairs, and crept up the pulpit steps, far enough to reach me and pull me by the coat. When I turned around' to him, and beheld him with great surprise, he said to me, ‘Mr. Finney, won’t you pray for me by name ? and I will take the anxious seat.’ I had said nothing about an anxious seat at all. The congregation had observed this movement on the part o f Judge G. as he came up on the pulpit stairs; and when I announced to them what he had said, it produced a Wonderful shock. There was a great gush o f feeling in every part o f the house. Many held down their heads and wept; others seemed to be engaged in earn est prayer. He crowded around in front of the pulpit, and knelt immediately down. The lawyers arose almost en masse, and crowded into the aisles, and filled the open space in front, wherever they could get a place to kneel. The movement had begun without my requesting it; but I then publicly invited any, who were prepared to renounce their sins, and give their hearts to God, and to accept Christ and His salvation, to come for ward, into the aisles, or wherever they could, and kneel down. There was a mighty movement. W e prayed, and then I dis missed the meeting. “As I had been preaching every night, and could not give up an evening to a meeting o f inquiry, I appointed a meeting for the instruction o f inquirers, the next day at 2 o’clock, in the basement o f the church. When I went, I was surprised to find the room nearly full, and that the audi ence was composed almost exclusively of the more prominent citizens. This meeting I continued from day to day, having an opportunity to converse freely with great numbers, and they were as teachable as children. I never attended a more inter esting and affecting meeting o f inquiry, I think, than that. A large number o f the lawyers were converted, Judge G., I might say, at their head, as he had taken the lead in coming out on the side o f Christ.
WOULD NOT. GO TO HELL “ This revival made a great change in the moral state and subsequent history of Rochester. The great majority o f the lead ing men and women in the city, were con verted. A great number o f very striking incidents occurred, that I shall not soon forget. One day the lady who first visited me and whose conversion I have men tioned, called on me in company with a friend o f hers with whom she wished me to converse. I did so, but found her to all appearance very much hardened, and rather disposed to trifle with the subject. Her husband was a merchant, and they were persons o f high standing in the community. When I pressed her to attend to the sub ject, she said she would not do it, because her husband would not attend to it, and she would not leave him. I asked her if she was willing to be lost because her hus band would not attend to it; and if it was not folly to neglect her soul because he did his. She replied very promptly, ‘I f he goes to hell, I want to go. I want to go where he does. I do not want to be separated from him, at any rate.’ It seemed that I could make very little, if any, impression upon her. But from night to night I had been making appeals to the congregation, and calling forward those that were pre pared- to give their hearts to God, and large numbers were converted every evening. “As I learned afterwards, when this woman went home, her husband said to her, ‘My dear, I mean to go forward to night, and give my heart to God.’ ‘What!’ said she, ‘I have today told Mr. Finney that I would not become a Christian, or have anything to do with it; that you did not become a Christian, and I would not; and that if you went to hell, I should go with you.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I do not mean to go to hell. I have made up my mind to go forward tonight and give my heart to Christ.’ ‘Well,’ said she, ‘then I will not go to meeting, I do not want to see it. And if you have a mind after all, to become a Christian, you m^y; I won’t.’ When the time came, he went to meeting alone. The
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