Acts 2:39 For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call. There was in my ancestral line an incident so strangely impressive that it seems more like romance than reality. It has sometimes been so inaccurately put forth that I now give you the true incident. My grandfather and grandmother, living at Somerville, New Jersey, went to Baskingridge to witness a revival, under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Finney. They came home so impressed with what they had seen that they resolved on the salvation of their children. The young people of the house were to go off for an evening party, and my grandmother said, "Now, when you are all ready for the party come to my room, for I have something very important to tell you." All ready for departure, they came to her room, and she said to them, "Now, I want you to remember, while you are away this evening, that I am all the time in this room praying for your salvation, and I shall not cease praying until you get back." The young people went to the party, but amid the loudest hilarities of the night they could not forget that their mother was praying for them. The evening passed, and the night passed. The next day my grandparents heard an outcry in an adjoining room, and they went in and found their daughter imploring the salvation of the gospel. The daughter told them that her brothers were at the barn and at the waggon-house under powerful conviction for sin. They went to the barn. They found my uncle Jehiah, who afterwards became a minister of the gospel, crying to God for mercy. They went to the waggon-house. They found their son David, who afterwards became my father, imploring God's pardon and mercy. Before a great while the whole family were saved; and David went and told the story to a young woman to whom he was affianced, who, as a result of the story, became a Christian, and from her own lips — my mother — I have received the incidents. The story of that converted household ran through all the neighbourhood, from family to family, until tim whole region was whelmed with religious awakening, and at the next communion in the village church at Somerville over two hundred souls stood up to profess the faith of the gospel. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. |
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