THE KING’S BUSINESS
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were crowded, and a revival broke out that swept to and fro over the district for three years. “Is there no peril that by this constant unseating of the Spirit He may be finally driven from His sanctuary, repeating, as He retires, the solemn lament of the Sa viour : ‘Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!’ . . . That He may, and sometimes does, finally withdraw from His temple there can be no question. Do we not know of churches, once fervently evan gelical, which are now lying under the doom of desertion by the Spirit? The writer thinks, with all charity, that he has seen such; churches upon which- the Lord’s sentence has gone forth, ‘Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.’ The bodv may still remain indeed, the creeds and confessions may remain intact, and the forms of worship may even be multiplied and enriched as the years go on; but these outward forms are only memorials of a departed glory, like the deathmask, which preserves the mould of features that have long since crumbled into dust.” Notwithstanding the fact, of which few are aware, that the United States leads Germany, and indeed the world, in beer consumption, and is second only to Russia as a market for distilled liquors, the tem perance movement is gaining ground faster here than in any other country, and the liquor business has had to organize and fight for the life of its traffic. This anomaly exists because the saloon has now been banished from one-half of the population and two-thirds of the geo graphical area of the land. In an inter esting article on the subject in the July Re view of Reviews it is shown that in 1868 there were 3,500,000 people living in terri tory where the drink traffic had been out lawed ; in 1900 the number had increased to 18,000,000; in 1908, or only eight years after, the number had doubled to 36,000,000, and today there are 46,029,750 persons, or a fraction over one-half of the population
appeal for money, but at the close, as per sons grasped his hand, one well-meaning young man said to him, “We’ll try to send you something more substantial than pray ers.” Quickly came the reply, in deep earnestness, “My friend, you can't do that. We shall be glad of anything you may send; but more than all else we need your daily prayers.” The reason why prayer is the greatest contribution we can ever make is that it releases God’s energies. As James H. McConkey has pointed out, its secret is in the six words, “If ye ask, I will do.” Dr. J. H. Jowett tells the following: “One of the workers of our new Digbeth Institute, Birmingham, works all day to earn twenty-five shillings a week, and finds refreshment and recreation at night in get ting into the gap between sinners and God. He had his eye on a man that was a per fect beast—devil-ridden, \lust-ridden, bat tered, bruised, altogether in bondage. Night after night he went to this' man’s slum house, and tried to keep him from the public house. The other night my working-man brother came to my vestry, and said, ‘Mr. Jowett, the eightieth time did it !’ Eighty nights, seventy-nine fail ures ; the eightieth time he got the man to the Institute. By the mercy of man he led him to the mercy of God, and tonight while I speak he is at home in Christ.” During a revival a leading old elder arose, and said, “Pastor, I don’t think there is going to be a revival here so long as Brother Jones and I don’t speak to each other.” He went- to Jones, and said, “Brother, you and I have not spoken to each other for five years. Let’s bury the hatchet. Here’s my hand!” A sob broke from the audience. Soon another elder arose, and said, “Pastor, I think there will be no revival here while I say fair things to your face and mean things behind your back. I want you to forgive me.” Soon many arose and settled old scores. Then God began to visit them. The meetings
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