anxiety among the men. Many express hope-say twentyfive or thirty-that they have lately passed from death unto life. Our prayer-meetings are very interesting, and nearly one-third of the inmates of the hospital attend. It would be sure to move your hearts if you could see those men come into our meetings. Some come in on crutches, some on sticks and canes; some with bandages around their heads; some with broken arms, and some with broken legs; some blind, some sick-too sick to be out of bed, but creeping into the prayer-meetings because they are so anxious on the subject of religion that they cannot stay away. They long to know how they can be saved. They long to know how they can have religion. They ask for religious reading with an intensity of interest of which you can have very vague conceptions. I have come for religious reading to-day, and I am in this meeting to solicit your prayers in behalf of these anxious men.”

What a testimony we have here in behalf of the prayermeeting! Men in earnest concern about their soul's salvation-creeping into the prayer-meeting when sick-too sick to be out of bed-earnest for religious readingearnest to have a place in the united prayers of Christians assembled in the prayer-meeting. Some things we surely learn here: 1. The prayer-meeting is always a point of attraction, and deep interest, to the awakened and earnest sinner. 2. The prayer-meeting furnishes a very accurate discriminating test of character. The live Christian loves its enjoyments, the spiritually dead have no delights there.

A chaplain in a hospital says:

"I am crowded to death with my duties, and truly they are privileges; for I think a hospital one of the best places to do good in, of the whole field of work. God is truly blessing us in this hospital. Prayer-meetings in different

wards every night, except Saturday night, are well attended. A healthy interest is growing."

"One who had been visiting a hospital for which we had often been asked to pray, said he wished all in this meeting could have been there. It was an affecting sight to see these men come hobbling down on their crutches and sticks, in great numbers, to attend the place of prayer. A more solemn prayer-meeting is not often attended. Great numbers were deeply moved during the meeting, and many tears were seen falling. Then, when tattoo beat, which was a signal to close the service, you ought to have seen how anxious the men were that it should be extended." Extracted from "Five Years of Prayer," pp. 200–214.

These extract gleanings from the army and hospitals, exhibit rather exceptions than the general rule. Iniquity and irreligion rather than prayer-meetings, or respect for religion in any way, were too common. But wherever religion had a hold upon the soldiers in the camps, there the prayer-meeting had a place, and there, cherished with affectionate concern, and there illustrating a law of true religion, whose Author is the Spirit of God, namely-That wherever grace is implanted in the heart, the subject is led to pray. Wherever religion is revived in any community or society, there will be social prayer. As the vapors of the clouds are, by a certain law of nature, condensed, and descend in rain-drops and showers, so will the attractive power of the social principle, when sanctified and constrained by love, draw sweetly, yet irresistibly, Christians revived together for prayer and religious conference. Thus it was in the camps. When a few pious soldiers were thrown together in a regiment, though from different and extreme points of the land, they soon, by some mysterious influence, were thrown together, and linked, as kindred

spirits, by kindred ties, in sacred fellowship, seeking for its enjoyment-the social prayer-meeting.

PRAYER-MEETINGS AMONG SEAMEN.

The interest taken in the spiritual welfare of seamen is, perhaps, one of the. distinguishing features of the age. When we consider the obstacles in the way, and the nature of the field itself, scarcely any other department of missionary labor has been more signally crowned with success than that which contemplates the sailor, the marine, and the entire naval department. Recent missionary enterprise has made the Marine Hospital, the Port Society, the Sailors' Home, the Mariners' Church, familiar institutions to active Christians of modern times. These things belong to the age of missions and Bible Societies. And in connection with these will be found material for Revival Sketches and Prayer-Meeting Narrative.

"The pastor of one of the Mariners' Churches in the city of New York, stated, not long since, that within four years he had admitted to the communion of his church more than five hundred persons, more than three hundred of whom were seamen, and that there were members of his church on twenty-two ships of war belonging to the United States naval service, and that on seven of them are held daily prayer-meetings.

"A statement published in 1863 says, 'that number has so increased under the divine blessing, that on our seventh anniversary, in March, 1863, the membership had reached over seven hundred and sixty. During that period, we have good reason to believe, that full one thousand souls have been hopefully converted, as the result of the combined labors of the pastor, the missionaries, and the membership of the Church and Port Society.' On a single

cruise of one of our national vessels, there were seventy hopeful conversions, and the daily prayer-meeting was constantly maintained for the space of two years."

A Saturday evening prayer-meeting has been for some time organized and sustained in the New York Sailors' Home. Here, in connection with the prayer-meetings, interesting awakenings and revivals have often been enjoyed. Thrilling incidents of prayer-meeting revivals might here be recorded far beyond what our space would

warrant.

The following are among some of the impressive statements made in the New York daily prayer-meeting:

"A sailor arose in the back part of the room, and said the Lord had mercy on him in answer to prayer. He was awakened at sea, when far from any means of grace or communications with his friends, and converted on board ship, before reaching a port. He did not know what to make of it when religious anxiety first came upon him. He, however, could find no rest till he found it in coming to Christ. He thought, at first, that he could never live religiously on shipboard; but he had found that he could not keep hid, that he hoped he had become a Christian. He told his shipmates of the great change, and boldly declared to them that hereafter he would be on the Lord's side. He found it more easy than he expected to stand up for Christ. No one ridiculed or opposed him, and in this he was disappointed. But not till he came into port could he understand why the Lord had sent his Spirit to convince him of sin while at sea. He found that he had been made the subject of special and daily prayer. His brothers and sisters and the daily prayer-meetings had carried his case to the throne of grace, and now he could understand why, away at sea, he had been convinced that he was a sinner, and needed a Saviour."

In this narrative we have a very illustrative instance of the power of persevering, concerted, social prayer. "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

A ship's captain, in very earnest terms, described the change which had come over his spirit as follows:

"I had a pious sister who urged me to come to this meeting. I told her, 'No, you don't catch me in a prayermeeting, or any little room like this. Have I not paced the quarter-deck of a ship? Humph! I go to a prayermeeting! Not I; when I go to a meeting, I will go into a church—a church, mind you, and not a small lecture-room.' But she insisted and urged, and somehow I got in here, I don't know how. And when I had been here only a very short time, at the first meeting, O what a change came over me! I had been puffed up, and was a great man in my own estimation. I felt I was a man of importance; I was a proud sinner. But in a few minutes, in that first hour in this meeting, I had such a sense of my own littleness as I never had before. I never dreamed that I was such a little creature. My importance was all gone. O, I tell you, it was a blessed place to me before I got out of it, this despised Fulton street prayer-meeting; for though I had not said it, I had, in my heart, despised it."

"One who had come in from sea, arose in the meeting and said, ‘About one year ago, I stood up in this meeting and requested your prayers. I stated that I was about going on the steamship Hermann, on her voyage to San Francisco, and I desired that your prayers might go with us. For three weeks after we left this port we tried to get up a daily prayer-meeting on board. We met with opposition; but finally the opposition gave way, and our meetings commenced. Soon the Holy Spirit was