THE KING’S BUSINESS
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church edifice perhaps tended to repel the poor. I felt that for many months our hearts had been getting wedded in closer sympathy; and that night there was a certain indescribable melt ing of hearts as though the Spirit were fusing us all together. I drew involuntarily near the praying assem bly and, opening the Bible, I read the leading promises to praying souls, one after another, in such a way as to lead our hearts up from the broad est and most general to the highest and most specific. I note the very passages from God’s Word, because the considera tion of them in this very order was to me at first, and to my people after ward, a special means of quickening our faith: Hebrews xi:6 ; James i:5, 6, 7; I John v :10; Matt, vii :7; Ephes. iii:20; Hebrews iv:15, 16; Matt. vi:7, 8 ; Hebrews iv:13; Psalms lxvi:18, 19; Mark x:51, 52; James v :16-18; Jerem. xxix :13; Hosea xii:4-6; Luke xviii:l-8 ; Rom. viii:26, 27; Psalms Ixxviii :41; Matt, xiii :58; Mark vi :5, 6 ; John xv:7; John xvi:23, 24, 26, 27; Matt, xvii :19-21; I John v :14, 15; Jerem. xiv:21; Matt. xviii:19, 20; Daniel ii:17-19; Acts i:14 and i i :1-4; Acts iv:31; Acts xii:5, 12-17'; Acts xvi :25, 26. A DIRECT ANSWER. The effect of this grand climax of Scripture testimony was to drive out unbelief and fit us all to pray in faith. I knelt among them and we earnestly besought God to remove even a moun tain obstacle that might hinder uS as a church from effectually reaching the unsaved. We felt the Spirit interced ing within us “with groanings which cannot be uttered,” for a true revival of God’s work, a new pentecost of power. No one who was present will ever forget the solemnity of those mo ments, when a whole people wrestled with God for a blessing. While we were praying that church building
was already burning. When the pray er ceased, we found the room partially filled with smoke, but attributed it to the contrary wind driving down the flues. In fact, the fire had ignited the lath near the stovepipe, and was slowly working its way behind the plaster, and so escaped detection. Early the next morning the flames burst forth and laid the beautiful building in ruins. I felt that this was God’s way of opening a door great and effectual to the neglected masses about us, and I was at peace. We at once secured an opera house, where for sixteen months I preached the gospel extemporaneously, with a marked blessing on my work. More souls were hopefully converted in one year than in the whole of my previ ous ministry; and they were almost exclusively from these outsiders whom we had hitherto failed to reach; and from the day' of that fire the Fort Street Church of Detroit was largely attended by a class of people whom we had found it so difficult to reach before. The extemporaneous preach ing of a simple and free gospel for sixteen months in a place of popular amusement somehow drew us to these neglected masses .and drew them to us, and the effect has been to change the relations of that church to the whole community and greatly increase its power for good. You see that the facts leave no room for explanation on a natural basis. So far as the fire was con cerned, it might have been a simple coincidence that it occurred the very night of that prayer meeting, but let it be remembered that for six months before I had been confident, in answer to prayer, that God would in some signal way lead us and give us access to souls, and on the very last Sabbath before the church building was burned had communicated that confidence. That confidence proved so prophetic that it cannot be accounted for except
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