A correspondent of the Portadown Weekly News says—" At Ballydonaghy, I believe I am within the mark when I say that hundreds have sought and found peace and hundreds are yet seeking earnestly and perseveringly. How different the appearance of this country from what it was but a short time since; the features of the landscape present the same appearance, but even as the enjoyment of the beauties of nature is influenced very materially by the state of our physical health, so is the happy and heaven-born change which has come over the spirit of many persons' dream (a dream of death) enjoyed by those who have long and anxiously watched and prayed for the harvest of the Lord. How great the power and love which draws people, as it were, from the four winds of heaven to the little magnetic circle in the corner of some field which has been named as the place of prayer.—Groups are hurrying from all directions, and even an indifferent physiognomist can trace in the countenance of each a strange disquietude of spirit, a fearful fleeing away, as it were, from some scarcely defined evilsHundreds come and kneel at our prayer-meetings, and scarcely has a hymn been sung and a prayer been made, when a loud and prolonged wail of agony, followed by another, and another, is heard thrilling with the intensity of its anguish through the most mysterious parts of our nature. What is the power that covers with drops of agony the brain of that hardy son of the soil? that brings down that bald and grey head to the very foot of the cross? that brings the father and mother, with son and daughter, all to cry and supplicate for mercy and protection against the day of wrath? What the mysterious power that produces so many cases of physical prostration, but spiritual activity, where it seems as if the soul for the time being, would shake off by a mighty effort the bonds of mortality and sin by which it is shrouded, and soar away and wash and purify itself in the stream opened on Calvary? Cavillers, sceptics, and infidels may say what they please. Glory be to God, we know "it is the power of God unto salvation to all them that believe." May that power overshadow and lead us as it did the Israelites, till the glory of God fills our entire land.
From ‘The Revival Newspaper,’ Volume i, p28, August 20th 1859.