ossibility of slavery. It
was taken up in the solemn spirit of religious duty. None who were
present are likely to forget the scene when the emigrants from New Haven
assembled in the North Church to be sped on their way with prayer and
benediction; how the vast multitude were thrilled by the noble eloquence
of Beecher, and how money came out of pocket when it was proposed to
equip the colonists with arms for self-defense against the ferocity of
"border ruffians." There were scenes like this in many a church and
country prayer-meeting, where Christian hearts did not forget to pray
"for them in bonds, as bound with them." There took place such a
religious emigration as America had not known since the days of the
first colonists. They went forth singing the words of Whittier:

We cross the prairies as of old
Our fathers crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The empire of the free.

Those were choice companies; it was said that in some of their
settlements every third man was a college graduate. Thus it was that,
not all at once, but after desperate tribulations, Kansas was saved for
freedom. It was the turning-point in the "irrepressible conflict." The
beam of the scales, which politicians had for forty years been trying to
hold level, dipped in favor of liberty and justice, and it was hopeless
thenceforth to restore the balance.[342:1]

Neither of the two characteristics of this time, the abounding material
prosperity or the turbid political agitation, was favorable to that
fixed attention to spiritual themes which promotes the revival of
religion. But the conditions were about to be suddenly changed.

Suddenly, in the fall of 1857, came a business revulsion. Hard times
followed. Men had leisure for thought and prayer, and anxieties that
they were fain to cast upon God, seeking help and direction. The happy
thought occurred to a good man, Jeremiah Lanphier, in the employ of the
old North Dutch Church in New York, to open a room in the "consistory
building" in Fulton Street as an oratory for the common prayer of so
many business men as might be disposed to gather there in the hour from
twelve to one o'clock, "with one accord to make their common
supplications." The invitation was responded to at first by hardly more
than "two or three." The number grew. The room overflowed. A second room
was opened, and then a third, in the same building, till all its walls
resounded with prayer