Hard as the conditions seemed, the brother agreed to them. The
conditions, in fact, look egotistical and perhaps selfish on the surface,
but when the United Brethren pastor explained his reasons for them they
were seen to be neither. On the contrary they were meant for the highest
good of both churches, and were abundantly vindicated by the outcome.
He was intensely anxious that Centerpoint have a genuine revival of
religion. To promote such a revival at any cost was his purpose. That
this purpose might be realized he would not permit modesty, formality, or
any other creature to stand in the way.
The United Brethren Church was the more commodious and had the advantage
in location. This was the reason for the first condition. The reason for
the second and third conditions was that Centerpoint had been preached
to death. A change of methods was imperative if the people were to be
reached. He wanted a meeting without preaching, without too much human
agency, but where God himself might control to his own glory. Only by
having the management left to him could he apply the remedy needed
according to his diagnosis of the case.
His plan was now to be put to the test—a revival without preaching, the
laity to do the work as they felt divinely moved. The meeting began on
a Friday evening. But with no life there could be no real activity.
The chariot wheels dragged heavily at the first. On Sunday morning he
announced that at four o’clock p. m., a children’s meeting would be held.
Aside from selected helpers, only children within a certain age limit
would be admitted. Such meetings even at that date were quite uncommon.
The announcement, therefore, aroused a great deal of curiosity. But that
was one point in the announcement. Something must be done to stir the
people. There must be a new avenue of approach to their cold hearts.
The children’s service produced the desired effect. At the appointed
hour the house was filled to overflowing. There were three helpers,
all ministers, present, who did their part according to Newgent’s
directions. Songs were sung, prayers offered by the ministers as they
were called upon, a brief talk by the leader, some simple propositions,
and the meeting closed in less than a half-hour from the time it began.
But that half-hour turned the tide in Centerpoint. The children became
the vanguard in a religious movement that was to shake the town from
center to circumference. Many of them went home weeping to speak of the
longing of their tender hearts to fathers and mothers, who, in turn, were
awakened to a consciousness of their own need.
At the evening service which followed, seventy-five persons came to the
altar, most of whom professed conversion. The revival was no longer a
problem. It spread throughout the town and community like fire in dry
stubble. The church arose from the grave of lethargy and formalism, cast
off her grave clothes—and the doctrine of the resurrection was again
abundantly demonstrated.