er? Let all who long for the coming
revival, and seek to hasten it by their prayers, pray this above
everything, that the Lord may prepare His prophets to go before Him at
His bidding: "Cry aloud and spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet,
and show My people their transgression." Every deep revival among God's
people must have its roots in a deep sense and confession of sin. Until
those who would lead the Church in the path of revival bear faithful
testimony against the sins of the Church, it is to feared that it will
find people unprepared. Men would fain have a revival as the outgrowth
of their agencies and progress. God's way is the opposite: it is out of
death, acknowledged as the desert of sin, confessed as utter
helplessness, that He revives. He revives the heart of the contrite one.

4. "_Revive Thy work, O Lord!_"--There is a last thought, suggested by
the text from Hosea. It is as we return to _the Lord_ that revival will
come; for if we had not wandered from Him, His life would be among us in
power. "Come and let us return to the Lord: for He hath torn, He will
heal us: He hath smitten; He will bind us up: _He will revive us_, and
we shall live in His sight." As we have said, there can be no return to
the Lord, where there is no sense or confession of wandering. _Let us
return to the Lord_ must be the keynote of the revival. Let us return,
acknowledging and forsaking whatever there has been in the Church that
is not entirely according to His mind and spirit. Let us return,
yielding up and casting out whatever there has been in our religion or
along with it of the power of God's two great enemies--confidence in the
flesh or the spirit of the world. Let us return, in the acknowledgment
of how undividedly God must have us, to fill us with His Spirit, and use
us for the kingdom of His Son. Oh, let us return, in the surrender of a
dependence and a devotion which has no measure but the absolute claim of
Him who is the Lord! Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart,
that He may make and keep us wholly His. He will revive us, and we shall
live in His sight. Let us turn to the God of Pentecost, as Christ led
his disciples to turn to Him, and the God of Pentecost will turn to us.

It is for this returning to the Lord that the great work of intercession
is needed. It is here the coming revival must find its strength. Let us
begin as individuals in secret to plead with God, confessing whatever we
see of sin or