THE KING’S BUSINESS
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appeals to the consciences of sinners. After a lapse of nearly an hour, it became mani fest that more than one-half of the congre gated multitude could not hear the voices of the speakers on the platform, when it was suggested that the people should separate into distinct congregations or groups, and that a minister should preach to each group. This was immediately done, and some three or four separate audiences were soon listen ing with most marked attention to as many preachers, for all the ministers of all the evangelical churches in the town were pres ent. PECULIAR ATTENTION “I was engaged in addressing a large group of people composed of all ages and of all ranks of the community, from a por tion of Scripture, when I became struck with the deep and peculiar attention which mani festly every mind and heart was lending to what I spoke. As to manner, my address was very calm; as to matter, it consisted of plain gospel truth, as it concerns man’s lost condition on the one hand, and the free grace of God, as displayed in salvation, on the other. I know that the addresses of my brethren were of a like character. I never saw before, in any audience, the same searching, earnest, riveted look fixed upon my face, as strained up to me from almost every eye in that hushed and apparently awe-struck multitude. I remember, even whilst I was speaking, asking myself, How is this? Why is this? And yet, however, the people stood motionless, and perfectly silent; when, about the time at which the last speaker was closing his address, a very peculiar cry arose from out a dense group at one side of the square, and in less than ten minutes a similar cry was repeated in six or eight different groups, until, in a very short time, the whole multitude was divided into awe-struck assemblages around persons prostrate on the ground, or sup ported in the arms of relatives or friends. I hurried to the center of one of these groups, and having first exhorted the per sons standing around to retire, and leave me to deal with the prostrate one, 1 stooped
bors came in, and at once cast tbemselves upon their knees and joined in the cry for mercy. These increased, and continued to increase, till first one room, then another, then a public office on the premises, in fact, every available spot, was filled with sinners seeking God. Clergymen of different de nominations, and men of prayer, were sought, and they spent the day in pleading for the mourners—sweetest of all the toils this earth doth witness, when men, them selves enjoying heavenly peace, labor in in tercession for those who are now, as they were once, broken-hearted by a sight of their sins, and striving to enter in at the strait gate, in order to walk in the narrow way! Thus passed hour after hour of that memorable day. Dinner was forgotten, tea was forgotten, and it was not until 11 o’clock at night that the school premises were freed from their unexpected guests.” ANOTHER ACCOUNT The following statement respecting the movement in Coleraine is furnished by the Rev. J. A. Canning, of that town : “Upon the evening of the 7th of June, 1859, an open-air meeting was held in one of the market-places of the town, called the ‘Fair-Hill.’ The announced-object of the meeting was to receive and hear one or two of the ‘converts,’ as they began to be called, from a district some eight or ten miles south of Coleraine. The evening was one of the 'most lovely that ever shone. The richly wooded banks of the river Bann, which bounds one side of the square in which the meeting was held, were fully in prospect, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Shortly after 7 o’clock, dense masses of people, from town and country, began to pour into the square by all its approaches, and in a short time an enormous multitude crowded around the platform from which speakers were to address the meeting. After singing and prayer, tile converts, a young man and a man more advanced in years, and both of the humbler class, proceeded to ad dress the meeting. Their addresses were short, and consisted almost entirely of a detail of their own awakening, and earnest
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