An Irish Revival; Castle Official Shot; Daylight Murder
(From our on Correspondent.)
Dublin, Mr. March 29th.
Captain Cecil F. Lees was shot dead in the streets of Dublin this morning, and his murderers escaped without leaving any clue.
Father and Son
Early yesterday morning forty armed civilians visited the home of William Fleming, a Protestant farmer living at Drumngarra, County Monaghan, and called on him and his son Robert, aged twenty-five, to come out at once and hand over a gun. They refused, and the house, was set on fire. The Flemings were taken to the main road, placed against a ditch, and shot. Robert was killed instantaneously, and his father was badly wounded in the stomach and back. The wounded man crawled to an outhouse near his farm, where he was found by the police. His life is despaired of. Some months ago the Flemings’ house was raided for arms, and the occupants refused to surrender.
ONE reads these and similar accounts day by day with intense sorrow. When will it all end? What is the cure for this terrible condition of things? I have by me a letter from a friend of Ireland just received Dear Dr. Wreford,
“I enclose you a check to enable you to send 20 parcels of Testaments, etc., to Ireland, and may God bless all those that are working amongst the, people in that most unhappy country.”
How gladly we send these twenty parcels containing the Word of God. How gladly we have sent thousands of Testaments to Ireland. And how gladly we shall send thousands more as we have means and opportunity.
Our thoughts have gone back to the mighty revival in Ireland in 1859 and 1860. Then we are told a most marvelous work of God began at a village called Conner, in the County of Antrim. It extended to Kells, Ahoghill, Ballymena, Rasharkin, Ballymony, Moorefoot, Coleraine, Newtown Limavady, and spread largely through the Counties of Antrim and Derry.
One of those used by God to commence this mighty work was a man in poor circumstances, but little educated. He was led to seek God through great anxiety of soul, and when he was brought into peace he felt for those around him. With two or three others he united in prayer to God for a revival of His work. They prayed and God heard, but in a way they never expected. It was the Word of God and prayer that began the blessed work in Ireland in 1859. It did not begin from a high ecclesiastical source, but from the faithful praying of poor and unlearned men. They prayed and preached, and tens of thousands were converted. I cannot enter into details of the work now, but I wish to repeat what I said in January “Message,” that “nothing lies beyond the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God.” We believe also that if today there should arise one utterly believing man of prayer the whole history of Ireland might be changed.
May God raise up such an one today, and may God’s people everywhere pray that the Spirit of God may come down upon Ireland. Who dare limit the power of God? Who will lay hold on the throne of God now and cry in earnest believing faith, “God save Ireland?”