The Death of a Prayer Meeting
Died—in Laodicea, the Prayer Meeting, aged one year. The health of this meeting was poor, most of the year, and its life was despaired of. But anxious friends kept it alive, and sometimes it would so revive as to encourage them. Discouragement, however, at last prevailed, and the prayer meeting is dead. It died from neglect. Not a Christian was present when it died. Over forty were living within a mile of it, and not one was there. Had two only been there, its life might have been saved, for where two are agreed as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done unto them. Two-thirds of the forty might have been there, had they been so disposed. But they were not, and the prayer meeting died.—Gen. Evangelist. We doubt very seriously whether there were any Christians within a mile of that prayer meeting: if there had been, it would not have died. Prayer meetings never die with Christians within a mile of them. The Christians die first, and then the prayer meeting dies as a matter of necessity. There are not many Christians in Laodicea; and unless they buy gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich, and white raiment that they may be clothed, the Lord will spue them out of his mouth. Rev. iii, 14-18.