John Mecredy, pastor of a church in Saintfield, Ireland, longed for revival in his community. After preaching a sermon on Lamentations 5:20, 21, a greater earnest seeking of God’s reviving work ensued. Mecredy also publicly confessed that 11 years had gone by without a single conversion taking place under his ministry and begged his members to pray and seek the Holy Spirit.
Suddenly, members came under conviction and were converted. They shared what God was doing in their lives, and others began responding as stricken—some in their own houses, others at our meetings, until at length above two hundred . . . found peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. The prayer-meeting then became crowded; so that I have seen twelve hundred people in attendance night after night. . . .
“There are now crowded congregations upon the Sabbath; many come out to hear who for years did not. . . . [I]nstead of shunning religious conversation with their minister [they] are anxious for it.”*
The great need of our time is it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Pastor Mecredy’s experience in 1859 could be repeated many times over in our day?
—Dan Augsburger, MA, writes from Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States
* John Mecredy to Henry Grattan Guinness, letter, September 1859, in The Revival in Ireland: Letters From Ministers and Medical Men in Ulster on the Revival of Religion in the North of Ireland (Philadelphia: William S. B Alfred Martien, 1860), 9–13. For a complete copy of the letter, visit www.path2prayer.com /article.php?id=1124.
