CHAPTER 20
A Stranger from London, 1853.
A lady in London, reading in the Cornish newspapers about our revivals, became much interested, and having a strong desire to witness such a movement personally, proposed a visit to her uncle in Truro, who had sent her those papers. Being accepted, she came down a long way in those days, when railway communication was not so complete as it is now.
This same lady was present at my church on Sunday morning; and expressing a wish to attend the afternoon service, we gladly welcomed her to the parsonage. In course of conversation, she spoke of churches in London where the Gospel was preached in its fullness; and I naturally asked her whether they had "after-meetings." She said, she did not know what I meant. "Prayer meetings, for conversion work, I mean."
"What is that?" she inquired. "Is not conversion God's work?"
"Yes," I answered, "indeed it is; but so is the harvest yonder in the corn-fields: it is all God's work, but men have to plough the ground and sow the seed."
"Oh, is that what you call revival work? I have read of it; and, to tell the truth, I have come all the way from London to see it."
She evidently had an idea that revivals were something like thunder-storms, which come of themselves, no one knows how or why; or something that is vented, like an occasional eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
I said, "Revivals—that is, the refreshening of believers and the awakening of sinners—ought to take place wherever the Gospel is preached in faith and power."
She could not understand it, and said, "It is not so in churches, is it?"