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“For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day; but this is that which hath been spoken by the prophet Joel:

And it shall be in the last days, saith God,
I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh:
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
And your young men shall see visions,
And your old men shall dream dreams:
Yea, and on My bond-servants and on My bond-maidens in those days
Will I pour forth of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.”
Acts ii. 15 - 18.


I HAVE not read these words as a text, but as an introduction to what I desire to say, as God shall help me, concerning the most recent manifestation of the Pentecostal power. I refer to the great work of God that is going on in Wales at this time; and I trust that something more than curiosity makes you desire to hear of this work, for I am not speaking with any intention to satisfy curiosity. I want now in the simplest way to speak to you, first, very briefly, and as far as it is possible, of what my own eyes have seen, my own ears heard, and my own heart felt.

I do this in order that we may ask finally, What are the lessons God would teach us in this day of His visitation? Yet I cannot help reverting, before going further, to the passage that I have read in your hearing. Peter stood in the midst of one of the most wonderful scenes that the world has ever beheld. When men said of the shouting multitude that they were drunk, Peter said, “No, these men are not drunken as ye suppose;” but “this is that” which was spoken by the Prophet Joel.

If anyone shall say to me, “What do you think of the Welsh revival? “ I say at once, “This is that.”

This is no mere piece of imagination, and it certainly is not a piece of exaggeration. “I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” is the promise now evidently fulfilled in Wales. If you ask for proof of that assertion I point to the signs. “Your young men shall see visions!” That is exactly what is happening. It does not at all matter that this cynical and dust-covered age laughs at the vision. The young men are seeing it. “And your old men shall dream dreams,” and that is happening. The vision goes forward, the dream goes backward; and the old men are dreaming of ‘59, and feeling its thrill again. “Yea, and on My bond-servants and on My hand-maidens,” that is, on the slaves and the domestic servants, “I will pour My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.” It does not at all matter that some regular people are objecting to the irregular doings. “This is that.” If you ask me the meaning of the Welsh Revival, I say,

IT IS PENTECOST CONTINUED,

without one single moment’s doubt.

But, for a few moments let me speak of the thing itself. Let me talk familiarly and quietly, as though sitting in my own room.

I left London on Monday, reaching Cardiff at 8:30 that evening, and my friend who met me said to me, “What are you going to do? Will you go home, or will you go to the meeting?” I said, “What meeting?” He said, “There is a meeting in Roath Road Chapel.” “Oh,” I said, “I would rather have a meeting than home.” We went. The meeting had been going on an hour and a half when we got there, and we stayed for two hours and a half, and went home, and the meeting was still going on, and I had not then touched what is spoken of as — it is not my phrase, but it is expressive — the “fire zone.” I was on the outskirts of the work. It was a wonderful night, utterly without order, characterised from first to last by the orderliness of the Spirit of God.

But it is of Tuesday that I would specially speak. I was the whole of that day in Clydach Vale, spending eight hours in the actual meetings and the rest of the time in the company of Evan Roberts, whom God has so wonderfully raised up. When I had been to the evening meeting on Tuesday I told him I would not come back on Wednesday, for reasons to be stated hereafter. Let me only say now in passing that I am perfectly convinced that we had better keep our hands off this work. I will explain that more fully presently. On Wednesday we returned to Cardiff and, in answer to an invitation, Mr. Gregory Mantle and I took a meeting in this Roath Road Wesleyan Chapel, and on Thursday we took three meetings, spending seven hours there.

I want to speak of the Tuesday only. It was my holy privilege to come into the centre of this wonderful work and movement. Arriving in the morning in the village, everything seemed quiet, and we wended our way to the place where a group of chapels stood. Oh, these chapels through Wales! Thank God for them! And everything was so quiet and orderly that we had to ask where the meeting was. And a lad, pointing to a chapel, said, “In there.” Not a single person outside. Everything was quiet. We made our way through the open door, and just managed to get inside, and found the chapel crowded from floor to ceiling with a great mass of people. What was the occupation of the service? It is impossible for me to tell you finally and fully. Suffice it to say that throughout that service there was singing and praying, and personal testimony, but no preaching. The only break in upon the evidently powerful continuity of the service was when some one in the meeting, who happened to know me, said that they would like to hear me speak. And that is

WHY I DECIDED NEVER TO GO AGAIN

into these meetings. For the moment the thoughts of the meeting were turned toward me there was a break in the continuity and the power. If it were possible for me in any way to disguise myself I would go back again, and get back into the middle of the movement, but I am afraid it is a little too late in the day for that. Of course I did not move to speak, but when, presently, it was evident that there was this break, I rose and spoke a few words, urging them not to allow the presence of any stranger to divert their attention, and the meeting moved on, and I was allowed to hide myself again. It was a meeting characterised by a perpetual series of interruptions and disorderliness. It was a meeting characterised by a great continuity and an absolute order. You say, “How do you reconcile these things?” I do not reconcile them. They are both there. I leave you to reconcile them. If you put a man into the midst of one of these meetings who knows nothing of the language of the Spirit, and nothing of the life of the Spirit, one of two things will happen to him. He will either pass out saying, “These men are drunk,” or he himself will be swept up by the fire into the Kingdom of God. If you put a man down who knows the language of the Spirit, he will be struck by this most peculiar thing. I am speaking with diffidence, for I have never seen anything like it in my life; while a man praying is disturbed by the breaking out of song, there is no sense of disorder, and the prayer merges into song, and back into testimony, and back again into song for hour after hour, without guidance. These are the three occupations — singing, prayer, testimony. Evan Roberts was not present. There was no human leader.

Mr. Mantle was with me, and spoke a word or two, when a man in the gallery rose and said to him in broken English, “Is your work in London near Greenwich?” “Yes,” said Mr. Mantle, “close to Greenwich. ” “Take this address down,” said the man, “my brother is there. He is drinking and a sceptic. I am praying for him.” Mr. Mantle pulled out his note-book and said, “Give me the address,” and he dictated it to him, and then they started singing “Songs of Praises,” and the man prayed, and Mr. Mantle is on his track to-day. That is an incident. A most disorderly proceeding, you say? I will be very glad when that happens here, when you will break through all conventionalities. When a man is in agony about the soul of his brother, he will dare to ask. But it must only be as the spontaneous answer of the soul to the Spirit of God.

In the afternoon we were at another chapel, and another meeting, equally full, and this time

EVAN ROBERTS WAS PRESENT

He came into the meeting when it had been on for an hour and a half. I went with him, and with the utmost difficulty we reached the platform. I took absolutely no part, and he took very little part. He spoke, but his address — if it could be called an address — was punctuated perpetually by song and prayer and testimony. And Evan Roberts works on that plan, never hindering anyone. As the result of that afternoon I venture to say that if that address Evan Roberts gave in broken fragments had been reported, the whole of it could have been read in six or seven minutes. As the meeting went on, a man rose in the gallery and said, “So and So,” naming some man, “has decided for Christ,” and then in a moment the song began. They did not sing “Songs of Praises” they sang “Diolch Iddo,” and the weirdness and beauty of it swept over the audience. It was a song of praise because that man was born again. There are no enquiry rooms, no penitent forms, but some worker announces, or an enquirer openly confesses Christ, the name is registered, and the song breaks out, and they go back to testimony and prayer.

In the evening exactly the same thing. I can tell you no more, save that I personally stood for three solid hours wedged so that I could not lift my hands at all. That which impressed me most was the congregation. I looked along the gallery of the chapel on my right, and there were three women, and the rest were men packed solidly in. If you could but for once have seen the men, evidently colliers, with the blue seam that told of their work on their faces, clean and beautiful. Beautiful, did I say? Many of them lit with heaven’s own light, radiant with the light that never was on sea and land. Great rough, magnificent, poetic men by nature, but the nature had slumbered long. To-day it is awakened, and I looked on many a face, and I knew that men did not see me, did not see Evan Roberts, but they saw the face of God and the eternities. I left that evening, after having been in the meeting three hours, at 10. 30, and it swept on, packed as it was, until an early hour next morning, song and prayer and testimony and conversion and confession of sin by leading church members publicly, and the putting of it away, and all the while no human leader, no one indicating the next thing to do, no one checking the spontaneous movement.

Now, for one moment let me go a step further and speak just a word or two about

THE MAN HIMSELF

Evan Roberts is hardly more than a boy, simple and natural, no orator, no leader of men; nothing of the masterfulness that characterised such men as Wesley, and Whitefield, and Moody; no leader of men. One of the most brilliant writers in one of our morning papers said of Evan Roberts, in a tone of sorrow, that he lacked the qualities of leadership, and the writer said if but some prophet; did now arise he could sweep everything before him. God has not chosen that a prophet shall arise. It is quite true. Evan Roberts is no orator, no leader. What is he? I mean now with regard to this great movement. He is the mouthpiece of the fact that there is no human guidance as to man or organisation. The burden of what he says to the people is this: it is not man, do not wait for me, depend on God, obey the Spirit. But whenever moved to do so, he speaks under the guidance of the Spirit. His work is not that of appealing to men so much as that of creating an atmosphere by calling men to follow the guidance of the Spirit in whatever the Spirit shall say to them.

I do not hesitate to say that God has set His hand upon the lad, beautiful in simplicity, ordained in his devotion, lacking all the qualities that we have looked for in preachers, and prophets, and leaders. He has put him in the forefront of this movement that the world may see that He does choose the things that are not to bring to nought the things that are, the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; a man who lacks all the essential qualities which we say make for greatness, in order that through him in simplicity and power He may move to victory.

For a moment let us stand back, and look at the whole thing more generally. Let me speak of some of the incidental

PECULIARITIES OF THE MOVEMENT

as I saw it, and gathered information concerning it on the ground. In connection with the Welsh revival there is no preaching, no order, no hymnbooks, no choirs, no organs, no collections, and, finally, no advertising. Now, think of that for a moment, again, will you? Think of all our work. I am not saying these things are wrong. I simply want you to see what God is doing. There were the organs, but silent; the ministers, but among the rest of the people, rejoicing and prophesying with the rest, only there was no preaching. Yet the Welsh revival is the revival of preaching to Wales. Everybody is preaching. No order, and yet it moves from day to day, week to week, county to county, with matchless precision, with the order of an attacking force. No books, but, ah me, I nearly wept to-night over the singing of our last hymn. Mr. Stead was asked if he thought the revival would spread to London, and he said, “It depends upon whether you can sing.” He was not so wide of the mark. When these Welshmen sing, they sing the words like men who believe them. They abandon themselves to their singing. We sing as though we thought it would not be respectable to be heard by the man next to us. No choir, did I say? It was all choir. And hymns! I stood and listened in wonder and amazement as that congregation on that night sang hymn after hymn, long hymns, sung through without hymnbooks. Oh, don’t you see it? The Sunday school is having its harvest now. The family altar is having its harvest now. The teaching of hymns and the Bible among those Welsh hills and valleys is having its harvest now. No advertising. The whole thing advertises itself. You tell me the Press is advertising it. I tell you they did not begin advertising until the thing caught fire and spread. And let me say to you, one of the most remarkable things is the attitude of the Welsh Press. I come across instance after instance of men converted by reading the story of the revival in the Western Mail and the South Wale: Daily News.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE MOVEMENT?

In the name of God let us all cease trying to find it. At least let us cease trying to trace it to any one man or convention. You cannot trace it, and yet I will trace it tonight. Whence has it come? All over Wales — I am giving you roughly the result of the questioning of fifty or more persons at random in the week — a praying remnant have been agonising before God about the state of the beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come. You tell me that the revival originates with Roberts. I tell you that Roberts is a product of the revival. You tell me that it began in an Endeavour meeting where a dear girl bore testimony. I tell you that was part of the result of a revival breaking out everywhere. If you and I could stand above Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here, and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any collusion or pre-arrangement. It is a Divine visitation in which God — let me say this reverently — in which God is saying to us: See what I can do without the things you are depending on; see what I can do in answer to a praying people; see what I can do through the simplest, who are ready to fall in line, and depend wholly and absolutely upon me.

What is the character of this revival? It is a Church revival. I do not mean by that merely a revival among church members. It is that, but it is held in church buildings. Now, you may look astonished, but I have been saying for a long time that the revival which is to be permanent in the life of a nation must be associated with the life of the churches. What I am looking for is that there shall come a revival breaking out in all our regular church life. The meetings are held in the chapels, all up and down the valleys, and it began among church members, and when it touches the outside man it makes him into a church member at once. I am tremendously suspicious of any mission or revival movement that treats with contempt the Church of Christ, and affects to despise the churches. Within five weeks

20,000 HAVE JOINED THE CHURCHES

I think more than that have been converted, but the churches in Wales have enrolled during the last five weeks 20,000 new members. It is a movement in the Church, and of the Church, a movement; in which the true functions and forces of the Church are being exercised and filled.

Now, what effect is this work producing upon men? First of all, it is turning Christians everywhere into evangelists. There is nothing more remarkable about it than that, I think. People you never expected to see doing this kind of thing are becoming definite personal workers. Let me give you an illustration. A friend of mine went to one of the meetings, and he walked down to the meeting with an old friend of his, a deacon of the Congregational Church, a man whose piety no one doubted, a man who for long years had worked in the life of the Church in some of its departments, but a man who never would think of speaking to men about their souls, although he would not have objected to some one else doing it. As my friend walked down with the deacon, the deacon said to him, “I have eighteen young men in an athletic class of which I am president. I hope some of them will be in the meeting to-night.” There was a new manifestation. Within fifteen minutes he left his seat by my friend and was seen talking to a young man down in front of him. Presently the deacon rose and said, “Thank God for So and So,” giving his name, “he has given his heart to Christ right here.” In a moment or two he left him, and was with another young man. Before that meeting closed that deacon had led every one of those eighteen young men to Jesus Christ, who never before thought of speaking to men about their souls.

My own friend, with whom I stayed, who has always been reticent of speaking to men, told me how, sitting in his office, there surged upon him the great conviction that he ought to go and speak to another man with whom he had done business for long years. My friend suddenly put down his pen, and left his office, and went on ‘Change, and there he saw the very man, and going up to him, passing the time of day to him, the man said to him, “What do you think of this Revival?” And my friend looked him squarely in the eye and said, “How is it with your own soul?” The man looked back at him, and said, “Last night at twelve, from some unknown reason, I had to get out of bed and give myself to Jesus Christ, and I was hungering for some one to come and talk to me.” Here is a man turned into an evangelist by supernatural means. If this is emotional, then God send us more of it! Here is a cool, calculating business shipowner, that I have known all my life, leaving his office to go on ‘Change and ask a man about his soul.

Another characteristic is that you never know just where this fire is going to break out next. A preacher in one of the towns down there said, “I have got a sermon in my pocket. It has been there for three weeks. I went down to my church three Sundays ago with a sermon prepared, my notes in my pocket, and that morning some man broke out in testimony, and it was followed by prayer and singing, and it has never ceased, but two hundred people have joined the church.” He said, “I am keeping that sermon!”

The other day,

DOWN IN ONE OF THE MINES

—and I hope you understand I am only repeating to you the instances that came under my personal observation— the other day in one of the mines, a collier was walking along, and he came, to his great surprise, to where one of the principal officials in the mine was standing. The official said, “Jim, I have been waiting two hours here for you.” “Have you, sir?” said Jim. “What do you want?” “I want to be saved, Jim.” The man said, “Let us get right down here,” and there in the mine the colliery official, instructed by the collier, passed into the Kingdom of God. When he got up he said, “Tell all the men, tell everybody you meet, I am converted.” Straightway confession.

The horses are terribly puzzled. A manager said to me, “The haulers are some of the very lowest. They have driven their horses by obscenity and kicks. Now they can hardly persuade the horses to start working, because there is no obscenity and no kicks.” The movement is characterised by the most remarkable confessions of sin, confessions that must be costly. I heard some of them, men rising who have been members of the church, and officers of the church, confessing hidden sin in their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking prayer for its putting away. The whole movement is marvellously characterised by a confession of Jesus Christ, testimony to His power, to His goodness, to His beneficence, and testimony merging for evermore into outbursts of singing, New let us stand back a little further and speak of

THE ESSENTIAL NOTES

as I have noticed some of the incidental peculiarities. I say to you to-day, beloved, without any hesitation, that this whole thing is of God, that it is a visitation in which he is making men conscious of Himself, ,without any human agency. The Revival is far more widespread than the fire zone. In this sense you may understand that the fire zone is where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel the flame that burns, But even when you come out of it, and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere, men everywhere are talking of God, Whether they obey or not is another matter. There are thousands who have not yielded to the constraint of God, but God has given Wales in these days a new conviction and consciousness of Himself. That is the profound thing, the underlying truth.

And then another essential note to be remembered is this. I have already said that it is essentially a Church Revival in the broadest sense of that word. What is the Church doing ? If you go to Wales and get near this work you will see the Church returning to the true functions of her priesthood. What are the functions of the Christian priesthood ? Of course I need hardly stay to say that I am referring to the priesthood of the Church, for there is no priesthood in the Church separated from the Church; and I am not at all sure that God is not restoring to Wales the true functions of priesthood, partly because she refuses to be dominated by any false system of priesthood. There arc two essential functions to the Christian priesthood: The first is eucharistic, the giving of thanks; the other is intercessory, praying. That is all. That is going on. The Church everywhere singing and praying and offering praise, and pleading with God. Every meeting is made up almost exclusively of these things. Evan Roberts, and those who sing with him, and those who are speaking in other parts, are urging the people to praise, to pray, and the Church everywhere is doing it; and while the Church is praising, singing plaintively in Welsh such songs as

“Oh, the Lamb, the gentle Lamb,
The Lamb of Calvary,”

or while the Church is singing of the love of God, men and women are coming down broken-hearted, sin-convicted, yielding themselves to Jesus Christ. It is a great return on the part of the Church, under the inspired touch of the Spirit of God, to the exercise of its priestly functions—giving praise and interceding.

And then it is a great recognition of the presence and power of the Spirit manifesting itself in the glorification of Christ. What are the

EFFECTS PRODUCED UPON THE CONVERTS?

Again I am taking the largest outlook. Two words, I think, cover the whole thing—vision and virtue. Men are seeing things! Oh, yes, it is quite cheap and easy to stay at a distance and smile. It is intensely easy for the Lancet to predict insanity. I will tell you something in passing. The insanity that will be produced in Wales by this Welsh Revival will be as nothing to the insanity from drink which it will cure.

It is intensely cheap and easy for cold-blooded men at a distance, who know nothing of Celtic fire or spiritual fire, to smile at this whole thing, this seeing of visions. But while you smile, these men are seeing visions. They will tell you crudely of them, perhaps, but it is one of those strange things that no man can ever tell of a vision when he sees it really. They are seeing God. Well, but you say that will pass. It is passing. The vision is passing out into virtue, and men are paying their debts, and abandoning the public-house, and treating their horses well. Oh, my masters! Did you say the next Revival would be ethical? It is that, because it is spiritual, and you will never get an ethical revival except in this way. Vision is merging into virtue, and theatrical companies are packing up and going back because there are no houses, and on every hand there is sweeping down these Welsh valleys a great clean river. It is the river of God, and men are being cleansed in it, in personal and civic relationships. We are quite willing to appeal to the coming years about this work, but the evidences are already present on every hand. Tradesmen are being startled by men paying debts even though the statute of limitations has run out. Tradesmen, you know what that means! An emotion that will make a man do that is worth cultivating, and it is good all the way through.

This is very fragmentary, but it must be if a man talks of these things. No man ever yet could describe a burning bush, and I know I have not described this to you.

Will you let me hold you while I say something to you about

OUR OWN LESSONS?

First of all as to Wales itself, and especially to this great district. I am perfectly sure that it will be a good thing for us if we let it alone. By that I mean that General Booth never manifested his wisdom more than when he packed up and came home. And I love him, and have for years. Any of us that go down there with any thought in our heart we can help, we had better leave the thing in God’s hand. To me it is so sacred a manifestation and glorious that I became frightened, as it wore on, lest my presence, without any desire that it should be so, should check the great movement. That was why I said to Evan Roberts, “I am going away, man, because I will not, so help me God, hinder by five minutes this great work.” I feel we had better let that thing run. We did not originate it anywhere, and— forgive the Americanism—we cannot run it. We had better stand aside and pray, and get ready for what God means to do for us.

What are

THE GREAT VALUES OF THIS MOVEMENT

in Wales? First, the reaffirmation of the spiritual. Secondly, this marvellous union of the spiritual with the practical, this manifestation of an ethical result from a spiritual renewal. Let me say it. I am not at all sure that God is not rebuking our over-organisation. We certainly have been in danger of thinking there could not be a Revival, or any work done for God, unless we had prepared everywhere. I am the last man to speak against organisation in its proper place, but I am inclined to think God is saying to us, Your organisations are right providing you do not live in them, and end in them. But here, apart from all of them, setting them almost ruthlessly on one side, Pentecostal power and fire are being manifested.

What shall we do in the presence of this great movement? Imitate it? Imitation will be fatal. Let no man come back and attempt to start anywhere in London meetings on the lines of those held In Wales, and for this simple reason: that no man started them there. If somewhere here there should break out some great manifestation such as this, then God grant we be ready to fall in line. You cannot imitate this kind of thing. What shall we do? If we cannot imitate, we can discover the principles. What are they? Let us listen for the Spirit, confess Christ, be absolutely at His disposal. Oh, but you say to me, Are not we all that? Well, I do not know. God help us to find out for ourselves. I think we are in terrible danger of listening to the Spirit, and when His voice speaks to us, quenching Him. You say, Something moved me to speak to that man about his soul, but I did not like to. That is how Revival is stopped. Speak to him. Listening to the Spirit, confessing Christ openly; absolutely at His disposal.

Let us in our Church work, not attempt to imitate the thing afar, but let us prayerfully take hold of every organisation and every method, and strengthen it. Strengthen it how? By seeing to it that through the organisation the Spirit of God has right of way; by bringing your Sunday-school class, dear teacher, into a new realm, and instead of treating it as a company of boys and girls you care for very much, that you teach and interest on Sunday afternoons, treat it as a company of souls to be saved. Begin to try and teach along that line; instead of treating our congregations as congregations to be instructed ever in holy things, treat them as men and women that are to be persuaded to holy things, and consecration, and Jesus Christ. And in order to the doing of all this, what we supremely need is that we ourselves should be at the end of ourselves, that we should dare to abandon ourselves with some amount of passion to our work. Oh, we have been too

“Icily regular, faultily faultless,
Splendidly null.”

What we do need is the abandonment of ourselves to the great truths we know so well, to the great forces that indwell. Let us “strengthen the things that remain.”

And so—now forgive me if I address myself to my own people—shall we not turn ourselves—ministers and staff and officers, and all the members, and shall we not say, at least we can now take up this work and make it instinct with new devotion and life, at least we can take hold of the thing that lies closest, and put into it the passion of a great devotion. We can begin there. The

CHURCH OF GOD NEEDS THREE THINGS

It needs first to set itself to get things out of the way for God. I appreciate the almost puzzled look upon some of your faces. What things? I do not know. All the things that are in His way: Your habit that you know is unholy; your method of business that will not bear the light of day; your unforgiving heart towards a Church member. Oh, God forgive me that I mention anything! You know, you know. They are in God’s way, these things. They must be cleared out. That is the first thing. There may be other things in God’s way. Any organisation in Church life that does not make for the salvation of men is a fungous growth, and the sooner we drop it off the better. Oh, I know churches where classrooms are so tremendously full there is no room for a prayer meeting. Are we ready to put things out of the way for God? I think we are. I think that if God manifests Himself, and men begin to be saved, I do not think there is a Guild Social we will keep. I do not think there is any bazaar coming on that will hinder it! Oh, if there is anything, we must be prepared to sweep everything out for God to have highway. That is the attitude the Church must be prepared to take.

Now let me say also to the other Churches, that is

THE TRUE ATTITUDE.

There is nothing so important as the saving of men, and when the Church says that, and is ready, God will come. We need then to wait upon Him in earnest, constant prayer. Oh, brothers, sisters, pray, pray alone; pray in secret; pray together; and pray out of a sense of London’s sin and sorrow. It is so easy to be familiar with these things, until they have lost their power to touch us. Oh, the sin and the sorrow of London! May God lay it upon our hearts as a burden. And out of that agony let us begin to pray, and go forward the moment He opens the door, and indicates the way. I do not expect—and especially to young Christians do I say this—I do not expect just the same kind of manifestation. God always manifests Himself through the natural temperament, and you can never have the poetic fire and fervour of a Celtic Revival in London. But you can have a stern, hard, magnificent consecration, and results that characterise your own nationality. Are we ready for God? I feel like apologising to you tonight for this broken talk. I have talked out of my heart. I have tried to talk of fire that cannot be described. I have tried to talk out of the tremendous sense that God is abroad, and I talk out of the desire that I cannot express—that somewhere, somewhen, somehow, He may put out His hand, and shake this city for the salvation of men.






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