GIPSY SMITH IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 14117, 21 July 1909, Page 3

GIPSY SMITH IN AMERICA.

A MARVELLOUS STORY.

Gipsy Smith writes to the 'British Weekly ' as follows :

After leaving Denver, Colorado, we came on to St. Paul and to Minneapolis, Minnesota, the twin cities of the Northwest. St. Paul is the capital of the State. Here is the State Parliament Honse, where its laws are made. Minneapolis is the University centre of the State, and I am told it is one of the largest universities in America. There are from 6,000 to 7,000 student*. In these cities I have spent already five weeks. I began in St. Paul, in the beautiful auditorium seating 7,000 people, which was crowded to the doors from the opening day of the mission with its cosmopolitan citizens. Governor Johnson and the-legislators, and the mayor and members of the Council, all came in a body to the meetings. Indeed, when the crowds are so vast, it is difficult to tell who is who; but the Gospel knows no- difference, and those great crowds listened as one man, and day after dav the interest deepened and widened until the last meeting. Ihe number of those who passed through tlie inquiry rooms I do not think were ever tabulated; but they were alwavs crowded, and my rooms were consulting rooms all day long, and then I had to deal with a lrost of letters coming from people who were deeply impressed, in and out of the city. There were some who never saw me. but read extracts of the sermons through the Press, for the Press gave my words wings and sent them far and wide, and tlie blessing in this way was spread all over tlie State.

—Practical Results.—

.The net results can never be told. The ministers are writing to say that their J Li" D j g P ra y er me&tings are more than doubled, that they are now beginning to realise how blessedly the mission has helped them. One minister writes to say that he is taking in a hundred new members, another seventy, another fifty, another thirty, and so on. all over the city. The business men are testifying of good resuite in their business; old debts are being paid, which is a sure sign of the work 01 grace. A letter reaches me from a good minister, who has been written to by one of his parishioners, saying that his son, a brilliant graduate of one of the universities, who, since leaving the college, has nearly wrecked hie homo and broken his mother's heart through drink and a life of sin, came into the meetings, and, though he never revealed himself, was truly converted. You may imagine the joy when he went home to tell his mother. He has joined the church, and already shows evident signs of a useful life; and the husband and father, in writing to his pastor, says that his mother already looks ten years younger. The banks of St. Paul have publicly declared that their deposits in the. savings departments have increased enormously during the last month —more than in any other given period : and they can only account for it by less drinking, less plensure-seeking, * and therefore more money saved, and they attribute it to the mission.

A healthier atmosphere pervades the city. For these weeks people have been reading in their morning papers and evening papers column after column about the work of God in their midst; they have been made to think, made to face the verities of etornitv: and these things must leave behind" them purer thinking, nobler living, and desires for God and goodness which ought to tell for time and eternity. -2,0C0,000 People in Ten Months.I am now drawing to the close of the work in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is the bigsier city of the two ; and although the building is not nearlv as large as the one in St. Paul, it 'is one of the snuggest an 3 prettiest auditoriums I have over been in, and I never enjoyed my work more in my life than I have done in this building and in this city, among the good people of Minneapolis. Day by day crowds have gathered, hungry for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the building, of course, has been far too small, and overflow meetings have been arranged one block awav, in a large and beautiful Presbyterian church. And although a snowstorm at time of writing has been raging for three days it has m-ado no difference to the crowds or to the overflow meeting!). Jt would seem that the interest has reached the place where it can defy everything. We finish our work here in Minneapolis on Monday, May 3. and then journey to Toronto, Canada, where we begin work on tho Bth, closing on May 24. This will be our last work on this' side of the ocean for this trip, and T shall not be sorry, for I have preached during the last ten months to considerably over 2,000,000 of people in the aggregate, and preached over 500 times to the greatest crowds of my life, and you and everybody else in the Old Country will understand the weariness this has brought to me, and T am lookine forward to June 2, when I sail for HOME, hoping to reach dear old England on the 9th of that month.