03 - Confirmed By Divine Attestation

God has always signally owned and blessed the faithful preaching of the word in the streets, lanes, highways, and hedges, through all the history of the Church to the present time. Without going back to instance the singular courage displayed and success attained by the out-door preaching of some of the Vaudois missionaries, in the Dark Ages, we would invite attention to the "field and street preaching" of more modern days. Witness the labors and successes of Whitefield, and Wesley and Fletcher, and their coadjutors in the same work. God made the out-door preaching of those men a leading, instrumentality in awaking the masses of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain," and in bringing about the great reformation of the eighteenth century. See the labors and good fruits of the street preaching of "the apostle to the Irish," Gideon Ouseley. Should there be a resurrection of the brute creation, the experience of "Ouseley’s white horse," from whose back he so often preached, will furnish an interesting chapter in the annals of "the new heavens and new earth." Again, witness, in quite modern times, the street preaching and Gospel triumphs of the champions of the " Free Church of Scotland."

Thus Jesse Lee drove the entering wedge of Methodistic Christianity into New England. American camp meetings of the different Churches come under the apostolic precedent of out-door preaching. See how they have been honored of God. Recount, if you can, the multiplied thousands of souls who have been converted at camp-meetings, multitudes of whom have washed their robes in the blood of Jesus, and are today seated above the circle of the heavens, praising God for camp-meetings. Strike out of the Church in America all her ministers and members who have been brought to God through the instrumentality of camp-meetings, and you will have a practical demonstration of the truth of our position which will astonish you. I instance camp-meetings not as a proof that the Gospel ministers of America have fulfilled all their duty in regard to out-door preaching, but as evidence that they have gifts eminently qualifying them for that work, and especially to demonstrate the truth of the position with which I set out, namely, that God has always signally owned and blessed the out-door preaching of his ambassadors. But says one, " The most of your instances relate to periods when houses of worship were not available, or were entirely inadequate to meet the demand. We have plenty of good churches now, and if the people want to hear the Gospel, let them come to church." Thank you, sir; that will help me to another argument, which I will, according to " Thomsonian practice," call Number