A PRAYER-MEETING WITH A NUB TO IT.
It was Friday-evening union meeting in the week of prayer, and a very good meeting it was. Every one present, men and women, especially the women, I think, felt the importance of the subject of our supplications,—that the sources and channels of the influence of the press might be purified. There had been some things to set us thinking on the subject. An awful outbreak of crime in our part of the State, that was not to be traced to drink, nor to avarice, nor to lust, nor to ignorance, nor to false religious teaching, nor to immigration, had made many people wonder whether illustrated journals of crime, depicting in full detail the methods used by eminent and successful criminals to accomplish and conceal their work, might not perhaps have had an unfavorable influence on the public morals. And some remarks of a brother connected with the School Board, to the effect that the moral tone, and even the scholarship of the public schools, was suffering from the circulation of a certain class of “boys’ papers,” were listened to with a hushed attention, as if there were great searchings of heart in many a father’s and mother’s bosom in the meeting. But there was not much speech-making, and there was a good deal of very serious, earnest praying to God to interfere and set this matter right. It was not till toward the end of the hour—about the time when the brother who presides generally remarks, “Brethren, we have only a few minutes more; do not let the time be wasted”—that the new minister, who has just come to preach at the church over on the North side, rose and made one of the strangest prayer-meeting addresses I have ever heard. “My friends, I am a new-comer in Littletown, and I confess that I do not understand you. You do seem to be very much in earnest, to feel the greatness of this evil, and to be praying sincerely to the Lord to remove it. The question that puzzles me is why you don’t remove it yourselves. I have observed that these papers that you so justly complain of are openly exhibited and sold on your best business street at shops where you all have dealings, and which pass for respectable shops. The trade only exists by your tolerance. If you will stand by one another and agree to shun any shop that refuses to pledge itself to conform to reasonable demands in this matter, you can have your own way about it. At least, you can put a mark on any place where papers confessedly pernicious are openly sold, as a disreputable place, to be shunned by decent people as they shun a common dram-shop. But there won’t be any such place; for this town is not large enough to support a news-office from which the support of respectable people is withdrawn. I merely suggest that if you really are in earnest you do something about the matter, and do it now!” And when he said “now,” the new minister brought his hand down on the seat in front of him with a thump that made us all start. Well, I assure you that there was no need that evening to exhort the brethren to “occupy the time.” Col. Harkins (he is a deacon now, but we call him colonel still) jumped up and said, “That’s right! I am ready for action.” And Elder Wilson shouted “Amen!” from the back seat, and the teacher of our high school—But I need not try to tell you what we said; what we did was more to the purpose. The minister of the old stone church, who presided, asked that after the benediction the men who were willing to take hold and do something should stay just long enough to appoint a committee. And then he was just lifting up his hands to give the benediction, when the new minister came skurrying up to the platform and said:— “Wait a minute, brother. This committee won’t know what they can do unless they know how much they are to be backed up. How many of these people will stand by one another and by us in pledging themselves to have no dealings with a shop at which criminal and corrupting papers are sold? I would like to know.” And when the chairman put the question, it would have done your heart good to see how all the great roomful, men and women, came up to their feet. Well, they appointed a committee in three minutes, and then these appointed a sub-committee to go around and call on the news-dealers; and I was put on this sub-committee, though I confess I did not want to be. But the gallant colonel was going to lead, and I did not see how I could refuse to follow. We were fortunate—rather, we were providentially guided—in our first call. For the head of the firm met us like a man and a gentleman, let me say like a Christian. For, though he did not deny that he had felt annoyed at some things that had been reported to him as said in our meeting, he said frankly, “You are right. The abuses you complain of ought to cease. But where will you draw the line? What rule do you propose to lay down, gentlemen?” For my part, I was perplexed what answer to make to this very obvious question. So I stood in the background, and let the colonel speak. And he said just the right thing. Said he: “Mr. Jenkins, you have met us like a gentleman in this matter, and we cannot do better than refer the question back to you. You understand it better than we do. What do you say?” “Well,” said Mr. Jenkins, “you will find some difficult questions about this business before you get through with it. But I will give you a start. Just look over that counter, and I will hand you six or seven papers from it that are not fit for anybody to sell or read. I had as lief have a rattlesnake come into my house as one of those papers.” And he made up a bundle of them,—the majority were “boys’ papers,”—and said, “You have my promise that these shall not be sold here in future. There are some others about which I am willing to talk to you another time.” “You shall not be a loser by your honorable and straightforward conduct,” said we in reply. “We will undertake that if your competitors attempt to get an advantage by picking up what you frankly abandon, they shall lose more than they gain by it.” And so we broke the line that morning. You will easily understand that when we went around to the other news-stands, and told them of the handsome proposal of Jenkins and Jobson, all the rest had to fall into the same arrangement, and even to show a little advance in public virtue over their competitors. And now we propose to hold an adjourned prayer-meeting to hear the committee’s report, and clinch the matter so that it will hold. I suspect that the church will be pretty full, and I should not wonder if it should turn out to be a praise-meeting. And we do not feel as though we had been working instead of praying, but as though the action to which we were inspired at that week-of-prayer meeting had been God’s own answer to our prayers.—Christian Weekly.