OPENING MEETINGS AT INVERNESS.
The friends at Inverness were among the first to call for the services of Messrs Moody and Sankey after their arrival in Scotland. It was because of their earnest importunity and evident preparedness that a jump was made from the southwest to the north. The Highland capital is blest with some very live ministers, and all the pastors of the town, with a singular exception, have united in the call,
Rev Dr. Black, of the Free High Church, was so anxious that the meetings should have a good start that he paid a flying visit to Ardrossan last week to secure Mr Moody's consent to the arrangements of the local committee,
Saturday last was spent in travel from Ardrossan to Inverness, Nevertheless, Sabbath afternoon found them busily at work in a mass meeting gathered in the hall of the new market, the largest place of concourse in the town, with a good deal of standing room, must accommodate more than a couple of thousand persons.
Meetings were held afternoon and evening. At both services the hall was crowded out, and overflows were held in Dr Robson's U.P. Church, on the other side of the street.
The big hall was very draughty, and is not heated, so that the comfort of the audiences could scarcely be secured. But Mr Moody seemed to have no difficulty holding the close attention of the great multitude. If we may trust the occasional census returns that are issued as to Church attendance, the common people are ceasing to find any attraction in the ordinary services of the sanctuary. We do not attempt to lay our finger on the source of the prevailing indifference, but it is clear enough that people will flock to hear a man who speaks to them as if he meant business, in a language they can understand, and with a message that meets their common need. There is no element of novelty now in the meetings of Mr Moody and Mr Sankey, but we can detect no trace of any failing interest in their work among the masses wherever they go.
It was really a wonderful and inspiring sight that greeted the eye from the back of the platform on Sunday evening. All round the great building there was a deep fringe of standing listeners, but their riveted attention and interest showed no signs of faltering throughout Mr Moody's discourse. It was an extremely powerful one, it is true, and the subject, "Sowing and Reaping," was one that comes home to all sorts of hearers.
Mr Moody stood on two chairs near the back of the platform, so as to reach the corners of the hall with his voice. His home-thrusts and appeals were intensely searching, and one could scarcely understand the possibility of anyone remaining unconvinced of the eternal, unspeakable truth of the apostolic text: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap." Owing to the coldness of the building no second meeting was held, but many lingered as long as possible, and seemed quite loth to leave. The large overflows in Dr Robson's Church were, of course, equally favoured with the big hall as to Mr Sankey's presence, and the singing evangelist had a very busy afternoon and evening. He not only sang in both places at the two services, but spoke on both occasions in the church, assisted by Dr Black and other friends. Mr Sankey's words in the evening, interwoven with bits of personal experience and with telling illustration, were most impressive. The day's engagements were altogether memorable, and furnished an earnest of still greater things during the succeeding days for the revival and increase of true religion in this community.
INCIDENTAL NOTES.
The noon meeting at the Glasgow Christian Institute, addressed by Mr Moody, to which a brief reference was made in our report last week, was in many respects noteworthy All the public notice given was an advertisement in the morning papers, but that was enough to crowd the building, while the platform was thronged with ministers and well-known workers from Glasgow and Edinburgh.
One of the speakers was Rev John Smith, of Edinburgh, who told of a very hopeful and interesting movement that had spontaneously sprung up among students in that city. Some two hundred of them, joined by Christian businessmen, are meeting for an hour early every morning, to pray for a manifestation of the spirit's power. Mr Moody's address was on Prayer. He pointed out that, before all the great epochs of his life, Jesus Christ spent some time in prayer, and it was in answer to believing prayer that bygone revivals of spiritual religion had come. In the later part of the meeting there were some delightful experiences related by ministers and others as to definite answers to prayer. In a movement like this, incidents of a deeply encouraging kind frequently come to light.
SIX DAYS WORK IN INVERNESS
The beautiful capital of the Scottish Highlands is a busy centre during the tourist and shooting season. Visitors pass through it from all parts of the civilised globe, including many of our American cousins, who are great travellers. During the dull damp months of November and December the town relapses into comparative stagnation. The visit of Mr Moody and Mr Sankey has roused it from its winter dormancy, and for a week the Music Hall, in the centre of the town, has been a rallying ground for great crowds of people night after night. This is Mr Moody’s third visit and Mr Sankey’s second, but on no former occasion have they been more heartily welcomed or their labours more honestly appreciated.
It has certainly been refreshing to a degree to see how local leaders of religious thought and life have gathered round the evangelists and co-operated with them in this special Gospel campaign. The minister is still a great power in the North of Scotland and when the chief under-shepherds unite one can count pretty surely that their flocks will follow suit – for a time at any rate. Of course, Mr Moody and Mr Sankey know nothing of denominations in their work, but party feeling runs high just now in these northern parts, in church as well as in political life. The great question of Disestablishment looms up and its spectre cannot be exorcised. All the more credit we say to those who differ strongly and honestly as to this and other subjects, that they have agreed to let subjects of contention be covered out of sight by the rising tide of spiritual concern and of common interest in the evangelisation of the people. One pastor in the town, it is true, has to the sorrow of many of his best shown no active sympathy with the movement, though he has not publicly opposed. The commonly-accepted explanation is that as one of the ultra-conservative school of ecclesiastics, he rejects the use of “human hymns" so-called, and the introduction of instrumental music in the service of praise and of Gospel song. Prejudice lingers long in places remote from the throbbing cosmopolitan centres of life, and the "kist of whistles,” is still a bugbear to many honest, earnest and saintly people. However, if this good pastor has carefully abstained from participation in the past week’s work his congregation has not. It has been a curious experience to some, if not most, of the workers in the inquiry-room these bygone days to find that nearly all those with whom they conversed, and on whom they pressed religious decision, reported themselves as attenders at this minister's church. We merely record the fact and abstain from comment upon it.
In most respects one of these special missions is wonderfully like another, and the task of the systematic chronicler is rendered very difficult if he wishes, Athenian-like, to "tell some new thing." At the same time, the good old Gospel has this marvellous charm about it - that it is ever new; and if any living man has the gift of investing it with perennial freshness, in its spoken form, that man is Mr Moody. It is manifest that in his multifarious and unceasing activities, little time is left him to "study up” new discourses, or even greatly to vary the phraseology of those which have proved such powerful instruments for good in his past evangelistic work. There is not a spice of exaggeration in the statement that during the Inverness Mission his addresses have held the large and diverse audiences spellbound. But there is really no mystery about it - no secret that is hard to discover, and harder still to understand. The simple explanation is that he preaches a full-orbed Gospel, and he preaches it as if he believed it, and had proved, experimentally and otherwise, its saving potency for all sorts and conditions of men. Moreover, he preaches it so simply and plainly that the most unlearned wayfaring men can grasp its meaning, and can see the wisdom of complying with its sanctions and demands.
And that is what many have been doing. For the first evening or two the reticence and stiffness of the Scotch religious nature asserted themselves, but the later inquiry meeting in the United Presbyterian Church (which is just across the street from the Music Hall) were times of blessed ingathering. There have been no great overflows, though on several evenings at the end of the week the crowds were so large that Mr Sankey retired after singing his solos in the mass meeting and took charge of an overflow in the church. There he was helped by local and other friends. Mr Sankey's Gospel songs have been sung with much feeling and power, softening the hearts of the charmed listeners, and preparing them to bow before the strenuous and loving appeals for instant decision that came from the speaking evangelist.
The ministers of the town, reinforced by others from more or less distant places, night by night clustered on the platform and led the meetings in earnest prayer while they listened to the words of their “lay” brother as intently and gladly as though he were a Socrates and a Demosthenes, a John the Baptist and a Paul, rolled into one.
And many a plain home-thrust has been given by Mr Moody to the ministerial mind and conscience. The thorough sincerity of the speaker dissolves all idea of taking offence, though no class of men are more sensitive to criticism and more tenacious of their ecclesiastical prestige. What an untold boon it would be for Scotland if all the occupants of its pulpits were fully inoculated with Mr Moody's keen common sense, his plain fearless speech, his large-hearted sympathy and humanity, and his quenchless zeal!
THE BIBLE READINGS
were all held in the afternoons in the Established High Church, of which Rev Dr. Norman McLeod is pastor. During previous visits of the evangelists, the ministers of the National Church in Inverness did not show any sympathy with their work.
Therefore we suppose that never before in the history of the venerable building have its walls resounded with "the music of the Gospel " sung in the sweet and melting strains that Mr Sankey has at command; never before have they heard such a rush of heart-moving utterance as that of Mr Moody, while he spoke of the conditions of true prayer, of the rest that Jesus gives, and of the necessity of open confession of Him before men. One very interesting feature of the afternoon meetings was the presence each day of some sixty or seventy young maidens— pupils in the Royal Academy - who were conducted thither in a body by the lady superintendent of the school. To these young people Mr Moody now and then spoke specially with much tender earnestness. Surely the memories and sacred influences of these pathetic counsels will abide with them and do much to colour their future lives.
MR MOODY AND SCOTCH WHISKY.
If this tour through Scotland were remarkable for nothing else, it would be memorable for the repeated attacks Mr Moody has made on the baneful drinking customs of the country. Most places have something peculiar to themselves, but this habit of indulgence in strong drink seems common to all. We are sometimes told that it is the lack of cheerful, comfortable homes that drives men to the public-house. There may be something in it, but, generally speaking, it is a poor and extremely partial excuse. There is many a home in Inverness, where comfort and even plenty reigns, that is yet cursed by the liquor habit to an extraordinary degree. The evangelists have been charmed with the natural beauties of the city; Mr Moody admits that it is second only to Northfield. But like every other visitor who is able to see beneath the surface of its social life, they are grieved and horrified at the prevalence of the drink fiend. One hears on every hand of young lives ruined, of hearts broken, and of homes blighted, by the ruthless destroyer. And so Mr Moody has never missed an opportunity of girding right valiantly at the Giant Alcohol, that is slaying its victims on every hand; he has dealt it some powerful blows. His appeals have been mainly to the members of Christian churches, so many of whom by their encouragement of the social use of intoxicants, keep the evil well alive. Scotch whisky, its drinkers, and its sellers in the town have had a poor time of it these past days. Many young people who have attended the meetings, and have received a deep and true spiritual stimulus, are closely related to those engaged in the traffic, and they have felt extremely uncomfortable under the scathing words of this preacher of righteousness and sobriety…
An extra meeting was held in the Music Hall on Friday at noon, with the view of catching some of the country folk present in the town that day, when the second feeing market of the November term, called "Rascal Fair," was held. There was a good gathering and Mr Moody's message was a very urgent one. A drinking man has found his way into the hall and after some interruptions, he left with a companion. Mr Moody made it a text of a very impassioned exhortation, and made a break in his address to offer earnest prayer for the poor man. This meeting for the country people in other respects was an interesting and hopeful one.
The stay of Mr Moody and Mr Sankey in this country will be brief at the longest, and the only way to cover the largest amount of ground will be to have short missions - not more than six days at any one place. We have been accustomed to think that little can be done, within the compass of a week, in bringing about a religious awakening; but that may be because of our little faith. We have not yet reached the height of possibility as to what can be done in a short mission when the Christians in any place are of one heart and mind, and have beforehand prepared the way for the special workers. With a view to get some valuable hints and suggestions in this line for friends elsewhere, our representative interviewed Rev Dr. Black and Rev Mr Connell, the two most active ministerial workers in connection with last week's mission in Inverness. In reply to his inquiries the information given was in substance as follows:-
First and foremost, the ministers of the town pledged themselves to friendly and united approval of and participation in the mission - with the one exception already referred to. Then it was agreed that union prayer meetings should be held each evening through the week preceding the mission. These meetings were held in a different church each evening. In this way the mission was thoroughly made known, the hearts of all church members were knit together in desire and in holy believing expectation. A good Gospel choir was formed and drilled by the best available teacher. The town was divided into districts, and visitors - both ladies and gentlemen - called on all the residents, rich and poor, with notices of the coming meetings. By this and other means the way was well prepared.
The Inverness friends are strongly of opinion that, wherever practicable, the opening meeting of a week's mission should be held on the Sabbath in some large and neutral place of meeting. This gives the work a good start, marks it off as unsectarian, and gives a tone to all the meetings that follow. The results in the case of Inverness seem to justify the plans adopted. The two ministers referred to are of opinion that the fruits of the week's meetings already ascertained are larger and more satisfactory than in any former mission in the town. As to the following up of the special effort, it is felt that unless a capable evangelist can be had to continue the meetings, it does not serve much good purpose to keep up the nightly gatherings when the chief workers have passed on. The converts, of course, must be followed up and passed on to the care of the respective pastors who are in sympathy, according to church connection. Where that is not all that can be desired, it may be advisable to appoint devoted lady-visitors to call on the converts and seek by personal conversation to strengthen them in the step they have taken.
From, "The Christian," December 10th, 1891.
I assume the Victorian Market is the Market Hall. The U P Church has been replaced by the Bank of Scotland at 19 Union Street