REVIVAL IN CENTRAL CHURCH, NEW ORLEANS.
W. S. ALEXANDER, D.D.
It has been our custom in previous years to begin our special religious meetings the first of January in connection with the “Week of Prayer.” But this year the Church seemed in readiness at an earlier date, and we felt that we were obeying the call of the Lord to “go forward” when we began our special effort to reach the impenitent, on the night of December 1st. The Friday preceding had been observed as a day of fasting and prayer. For many days the spirit of prayer and consecration had been evidently deepening upon the part of the great majority of the Lord’s people. People who, for some trivial reason, had been alienated, came together in the spirit of forgiveness. A great desire was expressed, and I have no doubt felt, to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Our lady missionary with unsurpassed devotion, visited all the families of the congregation, making in the short space of ten weeks some 600 visits. The effort was made to reach every one who sustained even a nominal relation to our church, as a member or casual attendant, and invite him to our revival services.
The result was all and more than we anticipated. The church was thronged every night. The very first night several presented themselves for prayer. The number of inquirers increased till we counted more than fifty. One by one, with a quietness and depth of feeling that impressed every heart, these earnest inquirers came into the light, and were made to “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The two manly and dearly beloved sons of the Dean of our Faculty, were among the first to share in the blessings of the revival. God only knows our joy when they came forward with the rest, and bowed before God as suppliants for His mercy and forgiveness. Never did the words of Holy Writ, which have fallen from the lips of so many believers, sound sweeter than when one of these young men recited as his verse at the breakfast table, the morning after his conversion, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”
A pleasant and somewhat unusual feature of this revival has been its influence upon the men. On more than one occasion we counted twelve men on the “Mourners’ seats.” Thirty-four professed conversion. We hope and believe they have been “born again.” A class of 35 are waiting in joyful anticipation of taking the vows of God upon them in the Church, and of receiving their “first communion.”
I should do injustice to my own feelings did I not speak of the earnest sympathy and hearty co-operation of all the teachers in the University in this religious movement. We moved in this matter as a united body, with but one object in view: the glory of God, and the upbuilding of the Kingdom of His Son.