After the ordinary means had failed to give him what he believed he ought to possess, he went into his study, and without laying off his clothes, continued in earnest prayer until called to breakfast in the morning. As he passed me, he simply said, in a very subdued, tender tone of voice:
"Brother, he's come; he's come."
He went with us to church, and as soon as meeting was opened, he arose, all subdued and tender, and asked two of his elders to come forward and kneel and pray for him, and after that he would pray for his church. But nearly his whole church rose in mass, and kneeled around their pastor. The scene that followed beggars description. The Spirit fell in melting, subduing power upon all in the house. Oh, the tears, the confessions, and yet the joy that filled that house! That day but little secular business was done, even among the unconverted. The town seemed like a boiling pot. Men entered each other's shops, but could not work. At night the strongest, as well as the weakest, rushed into the inquiry meeting, filling the house, the unconverted praying with and for each other. The plowing and sowing had been so thoroughly done by Dr. Yale in his long years of pastoral work there, that all seemed to know what to do to be saved, and only needed the Spirit's power to rest upon them to lead them to immediate action. I think but few persons were left out of the fold, within a reasonable distance of that centre.
This wonderful result could be traced largely to that night of prayer on the part of the pastor; not to wonderful preaching or measures.
I write this to ask the pastors and churches if here may not be found the secret of their weakness and want of power with men to lead them to Christ. They have not power with God.
Not because they are immoral, or unfaithful, or unsound, but because they have not tarried in that upper room until they were endued with power from on high. -- A. B. Earle, From: "Incidents Used ... In His Meetings," published in 1888