Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in KoreaUnderwood, Lillias H. (Lillias Horton)
Religion
Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea
Underwood, Lillias H. (Lillias Horton)
Korea -- Description and travel; Missions -- Korea
In our churches the sight of the increasing crowds every Sunday deeply
stirred us. To see the throngs which not only filled to suffocation
the little buildings but stood crowding the windows and doors, was to
us who had seen the first feeble timid beginnings of a little handful
of men and women, beyond power of description, glorious and thrilling.
We knew that this eager, anxious throng were there because _Jesus of
Nazareth was passing by_. At every service Christians came to the
missionaries bringing those who had made their decision for Christ;
from one or two to whole families. Idols were cast away and Christ was
chosen. We could hear the Master’s stately steppings and we felt that
the place whereon we stood was holy ground.
In Pyeng Yang, fervent prayer was continually offered for a special
manifestation of God’s power, by natives and missionaries in special
daily meetings as well as in private. Just before Christmas special
noon meetings were held by the missionaries for the Men’s Bible
Training Class. These men from the country, said by Mr. Swallen, who
had charge of the enrolment, to number about one thousand, had come up
for the winter Bible class, from many villages and distant districts.
Some had walked many miles, most of them bringing their supplies of
rice with them. On January 6th, evening meetings for the Class and the
people of the city began in the large Central Church which holds about
fifteen hundred. As it would have been much too small for an audience
of both sexes, it was arranged for the men only to meet in this
building and the women were asked to meet separately in four different
places, and the schoolboys in the Academy chapel. The Central Church
was full of men every night. The meetings grew in power until Saturday,
which was best day of the whole week. Sunday evening the expected
blessing was withheld, but on Monday night the wonderful manifestation
of God’s Presence came.
It was marked, as had been those in Won San and Mokpo, by “a spirit
of prayer,” conviction of sin, confession and intercession. Awful and
overwhelming conviction of sin was its most marked feature. Men wept,
groaned, beat their breasts, falling to the ground and writhing in
agony. Mr. Lee, speaking of one of those who confessed said, “In a
broken voice he began to pray and such a prayer I never heard before.
We had a vision of a human heart laid bare before its God. As he
prayed, he wept. In fact he could hardly control himself, and as he
wept, the audience wept with him. We all felt as if we were in the
presence of the living God.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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