There were some subjects on which it was impossible to venture without eliciting vehement demonstrations.  A friend of mine, who had come from some distance on a visit, went with me on one occasion to an afternoon Bible class.  I asked him to address the people, and in a quiet way he proceeded to talk about heaven.  As he described the city of gold, with its pearly gates, its walls of jasper, its foundations of sapphire and precious stones, and to tell them that “the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:2-3), I began to feel somewhat uneasy, and feared that he was venturing on tender ground, when all at once there was heard a shriek of joy, and in a moment almost the whole class was in an ecstasy of praise.  My friend was greatly dismayed, and also frightened at the noise, and seizing his hat, he made hastily for the door.  “Stop! stop!” I said; “you must stand fire better than that.”  I quietly gave out a hymn, and asked some of them to help me sing, and then we knelt down to pray.  I prayed in a low voice, and soon all was still again, excepting the responsive “Amens,” and the gaspings of those who had been thus excited.

It may be asked, why did I permit such things?  I lived amongst a people who were accustomed to outward demonstrations; and by descending to them in their ways I was enabled to lead many of them to higher things, and to teach them to rest not so much on their feelings, as on the facts and truth revealed in the Word of God.  But theorize as we would, it was just a question, in many cases, of no work, or of decided manifestation.  We could not help people being stricken down, neither could they help it themselves; often the most unlikely persons were overcome and became excited, and persons naturally quiet and retiring proved the most noisy and demonstrative.  However, it was our joy to see permanent results afterwards, which more than reconciled us for any amount of inconvenience we had felt at the time.

When the power of God is manifestly present, the persons who hear the noise, as well as those who make it, are both under the same influence, and are in sympathy with one another.  An outsider, who does not understand it, and is not in sympathy, might complain, and be greatly scandalized.  For my own part, I was intensely happy in those meetings, and had become so accustomed to the loud “Amens,” that I found it very dull to preach when there was no response.  Prayer meetings which were carried on in a quiet and formal manner seemed to me cold and heartless.  “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep” (Ps. 107:23, 24).  Some spiritual mariners never venture out of a calm millpond, and rejoice in very quiet proceedings; they do not look like rejoicing at all.  They resemble the people who are going through a formal duty, and, “like a painted ship upon a painted ocean,” they are never tossed.  Most undeniable it is that many trying things happen in the excitement of a storm.