STRATFORD.
The visit of the evangelists to Stratford for the first three days of the present week was the signal for renewed interest in aggressive work. The mission opened on Lord's Day morning by a meeting for workers, beginning at nine o'clock and lasting about an hour. Christian people from the entire region made up the earnest audience which crowded the building. The visitors included a goodly number of evangelists and others visiting the metropolis, and several ministers found it possible to begin their day's labour by showing practical sympathy in the mission. The light and spacious hall occupies a site near the scene of the work of Messrs Moody and Sankey in the district eight years ago. It was erected in order that evangelistic effort might have a home and centre in a very needy locality among a dense population. Naturally, our American friends have all along taken a lively interest in an agency which is the outcome of their own toils; as Mr Moody said at one of Sunday's meetings, they felt quite at home in the Conference Hall. Mr Moody laid the foundation stone; now he enjoyed the privilege of using the building for its sacred purpose.
The workers' meeting began well before the appointed hour with a number of stirring melodies. Then Mr Sankey gave "Throw out the lifeline." This piece has of late been sung frequently at meetings in Stratford, and all listened with pleasure to Mr Sankey's powerful and pathetic rendering. The meeting was made up of those who profess to find joy in Christian service, and the song was as stimulating as it was obviously appropriate. Reading 1 Corinthians i. 18-31, Mr Moody distinguished between foolish preaching and the foolishness of preaching...
If we use the talents we have, God will give us more. The meeting was inspiring throughout, the congregation dispersing with praise to God for timely words of stimulus and encouragement.
In the afternoon and evening, the building was crowded, and hundreds were turned away. At the evening meeting, Mr Moody read Psalm xxxii., and prayed that the Great Deliverer from the bondage of sin might pass by so that many might be emancipated into the liberty of the Kingdom of God. The longer I preach, he said, and the more I mingle with men, the more I am convinced that it is downright sin that keeps men from the kingdom of God. They talk of intellectual difficulties and so forth, but they will not face the fact that they must give up their sin. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people, and only those who have the heavenly nature can go there. God will have his children break with sin before He receives them. The way to God's favour has been opened by Christ, but repentance is the indispensable condition.
Having shown that to despise God's command and reject his invitation is to go further into sin, Mr Moody exhorted his hearers to rely upon God's word that those who return with him shall be "abundantly pardoned." Citing the well-known epitaph: "I have sinned, I have repented I have been forgiven, I shall rise, I shall reign," he firmly but tenderly urged its terms upon all, concluding with an earnest appeal to those who sin in secret as well as those who sin in the sight of men.
Mr Sankey followed with "The Ninety and Nine: and the choir sang "Why not now?" As in the afternoon, many anxious ones entered the enquiry room and were there encouraged to cast themselves upon the merey of God and direct their steps Zionward.
On the afternoons of Monday and Tuesday meetings were held for women only, and in the evenings for men only. In each case the large building was crowded, and such was the impression made that many attended the after-meetings. It is believed that spiritual blessing attended the converse of earnest Christian workers with many individual inquirers.
From, "The Christian," June 2nd, 1892.
THE WORK AT STRATFORD
We have to record that the visit of these brethren to Stratford has been the occasion of mighty blessing, and we anticipate the wave will flow on. Mr Moody expressed himself as greatly pleased with the hall and the work that is going on inside and outside its walls. But he had one regret - that there yet remained a debt of £530 on the building, and a charge of £270 by the local authorities for making the roads on either side: in all £800. He expressed the belief that if only the Lord's stewards knew of the sort of work being done, this deficiency would at once be wiped out.
On the Sabbath the large hall, seating nineteen hundred, and all the smaller halls and rooms are full of active service for Christ, no less than ten meetings inside and four outside in the day, including young men's Bible Class numbering over two hundred, as well as two services in the Welsh language. Every day the doors are open, and some work for Christ is going on. Our Mizpah Band, numbering four hundred working men. has a male choir and an Evangelstic Band going all over London after the day's work, to sing and testify for Christ without any payment other than the bare railway fares. Seven or eight open-air meetings are held every week. The mothers' meeting numbers some two hundred, and the women's Mizpah Band the same number.
As treasurer, I must say it would be a great joy to see this work free of the incubus of debt, and if the Lord lays it upon the hearts of his servants to be sharers with us in this labour of love, we will praise Him who allows us to be co-workers with Him in such blessed work.
C. BOARDMAN, Hon. Treasurer.
From, "The Christian," June 9th,1892.
I do not know where the Hall is/was where.It was erected in memory of the large temporary building, set up for Moody and Sankey's Mission in 1882. Many were aaved there.