CENTRAL MISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 209, 4 September 1899, Page 2

CENTRAL MISSION.

The Rev. David O'Donnell attracted a large audience to the Central Mission Hall when h e gave a farewell address on the eve of his departure for Napier on evangelistic work. The reverend gentleman took for his last night's discourse the healing of the man with tlie withered hand, as described in the sixth chapter of Luke, and drew a very vivid and touching picture of the whole scene as there described, first pointing out how a person with one of his faculties or limbs disabled was subject to so many disadvantages in the struggle of life, the results of those disadvantages affecting not only himself but all those dependent on him as well; and then the preacher went on in a very powerful discourse to apply the text spiritually, showing how'many a man and woman in Auckland was suffering from some withered limb, or besetting sin, such as drink, gambling, or other vice, and %o was prevented from following out the will of God. In a very pathetic manner Mr O'Donnell traced the home-coming of a man having the besetting sin, or withered arm, of a drunkard, how his wife listened with throbbing heart for his home-coming, having first carefully got rid of her little babe, lest its maddened father should do it a mortal injury; and the other side of the picture, the bright and right one, after Jesus had met him and the withered arm had been made whole as the other. The usual prayer meeting was held after the discourse, when several found their way into the enquiry room.