Long Nights Of Prayer

“I could sit up all night to read or talk about revivals,” He says. “It was the Spirit that thus moved me.’’ Even while studying, his mind would oftentimes be elsewhere than on the subject under consideration. He could see the raging angry billows whereon myriads of souls were being tossed, and he longed to ‘‘throw out the lifeline.’’ Gradually he grew nearer amid nearer the Light. He prayed almost without ceasing.” Sometimes, when his mother went into his room to call him to a meal she found him on his knees. “He used to say,” said Mrs. Roberts to me a short while ago, that prayer was more important to him than food.’’ One night, while praying by his bedside, he was “taken up to a great expanse ‘‘—I will give his own words—’’without time or space. It was communion with God. Before this I had a far-off God. I was frightened that night, but never since. So great was my shivering that I rocked the bed, and my brother, being awakened, took hold of me, thinking I was ill. After that experience I was awakened every night a little after one o’clock. This was most strange, for through the years I slept like a rock, and no disturbance in my room would awaken me. From that hour I was taken up into the Divine Fellowship for about four hours. What it was cannot tell you, except that it was Divine. About five o’clock I was again allowed to sleep on until about nine. At this tune I was again taken into the same experience as in the earlier hours of the morning until about twelve or one o’clock.’’ Seeing that he was supposed to give all his time for college preparation, his family were naturally curious to know why Evan did not get up earlier. While at the colliery and the forge, he rarely, if ever, lost any time through over-sleeping, and why he should now lie abed so late no one could understand. But all questions on this head were not satisfactorily answered. It was too Divine to say anything about, ”he says. “I cannot describe what I felt it, and it changed my whole nature.” This went on for three months, and during that period he occasionally preached at one or two of the neighbouring chapels. “Not much use your going to college,” said a pastor, after one of the young man’s efforts. “You are a preacher already!“ But Evan simply smiled. Certain secrets he possessed, and these he gave to no one. “God had told me,” he says, “that I was to take part in a great revival; but kept the secret to myself.’’