Christian Churches and Churches of Christ; Lutz, Henry Frey, 1868-1926 -- Biography; Restoration movement (Christianity)
There are some things that seem too sacred to drag before the public.
For years I said very little in my public ministry about my experience
with doubt. While, as city evangelist of Greater Pittsburg, I was
assisting a minister in a revival, he learned incidentally of my
experience with infidelity; and as there were a number of skeptics in
the community, he urged me to preach on the subject. The message seemed
to do much good to the large audience that heard it. Since then it has
been repeated a number of times, and the largest auditoriums have not
been able to hold the people who were eager to hear it. This
demonstrates that the message supplies a great need, and has encouraged
me to prepare this book for the public. The Christian Temple in
Baltimore was packed with people, and on account of the jam the doors
were ordered closed by the policeman in charge half an hour before time
for the service. At Portsmouth, Va., twenty-five hundred were crowded
into a skating-rink, and many failed to get admittance. At Halifax,
Can., hundreds were turned away. But this has been the experience
wherever the sermon has been thoroughly advertised. To illustrate this,
I quote from the Harrisonburg (Va.) papers of Jan. 9, 1911, where the
sermon was delivered the night before in Assembly Hall, the largest
auditorium in the city. About sixteen hundred people were jammed in the
hall and many crowded out. It was the largest audience that ever
assembled in that city for a religious service.
"Evangelist Lutz says that on every occasion on which he has delivered
his address on 'My Conversion from Infidelity,' no matter how large the
hall may have been, people have turned away for lack of room. Last
night's attendance at Assembly Hall maintained the record. Presumably
the hall has never been more closely packed. Seats, stage, box, aisles,
windows, doorways, were filled, and many found place in the flies of
the theater. A number couldn't find places anywhere and went away. Mr.
Lutz is a fine example of evangelist. He has a magnetic personality and
a strong, oratorical way of talking, fluent in speech and filled with
figurative language and the phrases of his profession."--_Harrisonburg
Daily Times._
"Evangelist H. F. Lutz spoke last night at Assembly Hall on 'The Story
of My Conversion from Infidelity.' The audience showed close attention
and earnestness. Many were turned away because of the crowded condition
of the hall. Many people from the near-town sections came to attend the
service."--_Harrisonburg Daily News._
I trust that my bitter experience with rationalism, infidelity and
doubt will help to reveal their true nature and thus keep many young
men from these dangerous rocks, and will help to deliver many others
from this terrible bondage. May the Father graciously bless my humble
efforts to win souls to Christ and to help bring about Christian union
on the primitive gospel in order to the Christian conquest of the whole
world. Henry F. Lutz.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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