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The Importance of Prayer Meetings in Promoting the Revival of Religion
The Importance of Prayer Meetings in Promoting the Revival of Religion Author:Robert Young Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: as 1834, some thousands were led to their Saviour in the Friendly Isles; and a missionary who watched the progress of the gracious work, informs us, in one of hi... more »s communications, that a thousand persons were converted in one day; and not merely from paganism to Christianity, but, as far as he was able to ascertain, from Satan to God. I might refer to many other revivals of religion, which have been marked, by large numbers of sudden conversions to God ; but I hope that you are now satisfied that such conversions are neither unphiloso- phical, unscriptural, nor unusual. CONVERSATION III. Hearer. There is another thing connected with what occurred last sabbath evening which to me appears mysterious. I do not understand how it was that those persons found salvation in the prayer meeting rather than under the sermon, when we are told it is by " the foolishness of preaching the Lord saves them that believe ;" and also that " faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Minister.. I see no difficulty in accounting for that. Some had been awakened under the word, and others more deeply impressed with the importance of eternal things than they had previously been ; and their conversion was the result of the ministry of the truth. Nor should you forget that three or four short and pointed addresses were delivered during the prayer meeting, in which sinners were urged to an immediate surrender of themselves to God, and penitents directed and encouraged to accept of Christ as proposed to them in the gospel; so that the word of reconciliation was as fully preached during that religious service as it had been in the more formal way of a sermon. H. But as you advanced no new truths in the prayer meeting, I do not yet see why they appeared to be more effective in that se...« less