ART. IX.-HEAVEN'S WINDOWS OPENED

THE town of Stoneton lies in a valley surrounded on every side by mountains. For many years the place was a synonym for wickedness, individual, social, political. The extreme north end was termed "Hell's Kitchen." Political impurity expressed itself in the buying and selling of votes. Men sold their votes at public auction. Social impurity blotched the town as with cancer spots. The marriage tie was extremely lax. Men were known to exchange wives. The demon of intemperance possessed the town, refusing to be exorcised. There were five large hotels, all licensed, and numerous cider mills. Law and order were publicly violated in the grossest manner. Within the memory of one citizen forty men had been killed in fights, brawls, and in several instances, in coldblooded murder. Stoneton was the borderland of Sodom.

Within the main village of the town were churches of three denominations: Methodist, Baptist, and "Christian." Each contained people of deep spiritual life and rare virtue, but all exerted, as a whole, an unhealthful influence upon the community, forasmuch as they winked at immorality and compromised with evil, while the fierce devil of jealous competition possessed all three.

From a human standpoint the possibilities for spiritual awakening or moral purification seemed hopeless. Nothing but a marvelous manifestation of divine power, convicting, converting, and sanctifying, could avail. But as the mountains are round about Stoneton, so was God round about his people. And "with God all things are possible." "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." "All things are possible to him that believeth." Within six months God had answered the faith of the faithful among his people. He had shaken the town, as by a moral earthquake, to its foundations. He had covered hills with glory and filled valleys with the light of his love. He had breathed into society a more healthful life. He had reclaimed scores of backsliders to a life of spiritual power. He had converted two hundred and fifty souls. He had added one hundred and forty-nine probationers to one church. He had annihilated all the saloons. He

had opened the hearts of the people of a poor church to the gift of $270 for missions. All this, together with a quickened social conscience, a public opinion turned against past evils, and many another blessing came to the community. This great revolution and transformation are traceable only to divine power.

The work began with a manifestation of the Holy Spirit to the pastor of the Methodist church. For months he had sought by close study of God's Word, by prayer and self-examination, and with steadily increasing light, to be a vessel, sanctified and meet for the Master's use. In a short time he saw that power must be preceded by weakness, life must be preceded by death. He found his own heart filled with self. Purity must precede power; self must be cast out. It was seen that God must own us before he can use us. The thought came one midnight that to give God all is to put all to God's use. The minister began to confess to himself that he had not preached to be approved of God alone. His fault had been a lack of boldness in uttering the word. There had been too much regard for popular approval. There followed a strong determination to speak on the following Lord's Day very plain truth regardless of man's approval. When, shortly after that Sunday, he received an urgent invitation to preach in a large church in a neighboring town, the thought came, "Go, but you need not preach that plain sermon there." This temptation to moderate his boldness he victoriously resisted, and from that time on he was conscious of a change in his inner life. New messages that were like grapeshot from the pulpit startled the people. Friends feared that the church might be injured by the intense, plain truths, but a new fearlessness had been born within his soul, and with it a supreme longing to be approved of God whether men would hear or forbear. Angry opposition soon arose. The minister's bold denunciation of the buying and selling of votes cut deep. His utterances against the social evil and adultery provoked wrath. His charge of hypocrisy in church life was unwelcome. His assaults on the saloons seemed to stir the devil himself. But this plain preaching was a luxury to him for it brought a sense of freedom and the delight of pleasing God. The pastor soon planned for a series of revival services. Lit

tle did he dream of the plan of work afterward unfolded, the spiritual results to be reaped, the manner in which he would by many be reviled or the many things that were to lead up to the permanent overthrow of the saloons. At this time not more than fifty of the six hundred voters of the town could be relied upon to cast a vote for "No License." Yet assurance, as strong as it was strange, possessed the pastor's soul that by one hundred majority the saloons would be voted down. He went so far as to warn a man against purchasing a saloon, telling him that before spring there would be a wave of public opinion large enough and strong enough to swamp him. The advice met an insolent reply. That man lost his invested money.

One Sunday morning, standing at sunrise on the summit of a lofty bluff, there came to the minister a vision of the true plan of work. He beheld the sun streak the east with glory. The hills on every side were tipped with gold. The mountain peaks one by one became transfigured. Finally the splendor poured down into the valley and the nestling village was deluged with sunshine. To his soul this scene prophesied that soon the Sun of Righteousness would rise on that benighted community. Away in the east lay a section of the town known as "East Hollow"; behind the bluff was "Stillman Village"; to the south was another settlement; away to the north was what is known as "Potter Hill." At each of these points was a schoolhouse and a hamlet. The main church was in the village, in the central valley. Suddenly a plan flashed out clear before the pastor's mind. He determined to follow nature's method in the sunrise-first the hills, then the valley. The Lord had spoken to him in the vision. The voice of nature became to him the Voice of God. He announced that morning the program of meetings in these words. "God is about to bless us wonderfully. He is to glorify hills and valley as with sunrise. He will convert two hundred and fifty souls and add at least one hundred and twenty-five probationers to this church. He will bind about this town a chain of salvation. Each link will be forged in the furnace of a wrathful love. In the spring God will draw in that chain and choke the saloons to death."

The plan, as suggested in that sunrise vision, was carried out

to the letter, and there was a revival at each point. When the winter's work had been definitely outlined the objects of prayer and faith and work were before the people. Meetings opened in the East Hollow schoolhouse and continued there for seven weeks. The services were attended by great spiritual power and results. Twenty backsliders were reclaimed, forty souls converted. East Hollow became a Methodist stronghold. Cider, liquor, tobacco, snuff, were cast away. Profanity and Sabbath-breaking to a large degree ceased. The desert blossomed as the rose. The next point for work was Stillman Village. Here existed peculiar difficulties. The community was divided by bitter feuds. The quarrels had survived for three generations. Men and women passed each other in morose silence. Such was the sullen and ugly condition of feeling. The village lay, like Lazarus, in the grave. A stone lay against it. But Jesus said to Martha: "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" God showed his face in mercy and bared his arm in power.

One evening the minister had dismissed the service and was climbing a long hill leading away from the village. Reaching the summit he turned to look back. Like a cold wave there came over him all the difficulties of the situation. Thus far the community quarrel had served as spiritual insulation. It was a barrier to success apparently insurmountable. Hatred freezes the soul and he who harbors it dwells in a wintry land where spiritual springtide cannot come. Then on the summit there came a temptation from the evil one. The devil said: "It is impossible to have a revival here. The barriers are too great." The minister cried aloud: "You are a liar and the father of lies. If God were not to work here, you would not take pains to lie to the contrary. You came to me in East Hollow before the great victory there. I recognize your voice." Then he looked up and said aloud: "I thank thee, O God, that there is to be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit here. I praise thee that peace shall dwell in that village"; and there came into his soul an assurance that was the "substance of things hoped for." He went down to his home and as he went he laughed in holy jubilance. He said to his mother: "God is going to bless Stillman Village greatly." "What evidence?" said she. "The

devil's statement to the contrary," was his reply. The following evening the house was packed. The text for the evening was "God is Love. He that loveth not, knoweth not God." The theme was "Hatred is murder." The meeting closed. Two women came and said: "Mr. D., come with us; we wish to ask forgiveness of Mr. J." Others did the same. The people remained. There were confessions; and tears of joy glistened, that were as diamonds to the eyes of the angels. Old grudges were buried. Women embraced each other. Men clasped hands. The prayer of faith was answered.

Passing up over the hill the minister stood on the same spot where the night before he had been tempted of the devil. Again he turned. All was silence save the ripple of a tiny brook that murmured in music like the strings of a harp under a seraph's touch. The starry sky was ablaze with light. The heavens were declaring the glory of God. Suddenly there flashed before his mind the angels' song breathed over the fields of Bethlehem. Looking up to the sky he seemed to hear the song from above, "Glory to God in the highest." Looking down at the village slumbering at his feet he seemed to hear a song from below, "And on earth peace, good will among men." Heaven and earth were in harmony. Celestial glory found its echo in terrestrial peace. From that night God's Spirit worked. Souls were saved each night. At a service in the schoolhouse, twelve boys kneeled together in a circle. Backsliders who for twenty-five years had dwelt in darkness came forth into light. A young woman sat one night with head bowed on the desk in front. Invited to come to Christ, she sobbed, "I am not worthy." She came that night. In two weeks we buried her, but in the outpouring of God's Spirit she was anointed for her burial. In that schoolhouse, hidden among the hills, thirty-five souls came into the fold of Christ. Some of them now stand before the throne. At the conclusion of the services in this hamlet meetings were begun on Potter Hill, a region notorious for its wickedness. Conditions here were most unfavorable for a revival, yet many souls were saved.

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At length the work opened, at the earnest entreaty of the village people, in the main church. According to the "pattern shown in the mount" the people from the outside districts