HAVING been requested to send you a short notice of the Lord's work in this place and district during the past spring and summer, I feel that I cannot remain altogether silent, and refrain from bearing my testimony to what has appeared to me, as to other ministers in this neighbourhood, to be a real work of the Spirit of God.
At the same time, while in most of the small towns in Annandale there has been an awakening, now in one locality and now in another, during the past six months, - for which we desire to return unfeigned thanks to the God of all grace, - I know that it is the judgment of most or all of the ministers who have taken part in it, that as little publicity as possible should be given to it, especially in print. We cannot report that the community as a whole has in this district been moved, as in some other places, or even that the Lord's people have been generally stirred up to prayer and effort, as has been the case in the large cities; still, wherever and whenever special efforts have been made for arousing the careless and seeking to turn sinners to the
Saviour, these have been unmistakeably owned by the Lord.
The classes mainly impressed have been children and young persons (say from 15 to 25) and while many cases of deep and apparently genuine conviction of sin may have stopped short of saving conversion, and may give us reason to mourn over blossom that has gone up as dust, and goodness that has been like a morning cloud and as the early dew that goeth away, we cannot but rejoice over a considerable number who give every evidence, so far as we can judge, of having really given themselves to the Lord.
"Times of Blessing," Aug 20th, 1874.
Location unknown.