Printed by The Christian Herald for COPYRIGHT, 1918 By THE CHRISTIAN HERALD PREFATORY NOTE "Is it possible I am in the wrong place? Is this the Bible Conference on the Return of Our Lord?" A woman who had just climbed to the fourth gallery of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia asked this question. Evidently she had just arrived from a distance, as she deposited her bags on the floor by her seat, patting a boy for lugging them up the precipitous stairways for her. She had taken a glance at the crowded galleries and floor below, and then at the stage. The latter did have rather a theatrical appearance. The speakers and Conference leaders were grouped in the center, surrounded by a white-clad choir of three or four hundred women singers, with a sprinkling of men singers. "Yes, Madam, this is the Bible Conference," said a gentleman on one side of her, while another, on the other side, remarked, "The Lord has a whole lot of people who love His appearing.' With arms akimbo she stood gazing at the crowd and exclaimed, "Well, I do declare!" The visiting woman had not expected a Korean revival crowd. Indeed she was fortunate to get in at all that day. The seating capacity of the Academy of Music is 3300, and on the first evening and the second and third afternoon and evening the Academy overflowed. On the third evening the overflow filled two floors of a church, the Chambers-Wylie Memorial, and in turn the overflow overflowed into the Witherspoon Hall. The attendance and enthusiasm at the Bible Conference on the Return of our Lord, held in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, May 28, 29 and 30, 1918, passed far beyond the expectations of the management of the Conference. A Philadelphia business man was so impressed by the great Advent meetings held in London in the autumn of 1917 that he was led to confer informally with a few earnest fellow Christians, and, with their prayerful approval, call together a larger group of ministers and laymen of Philadelphia to consider holding a widely representative Conference on the Return of the Lord. Accordingly, on January 19, 1918, thirty-seven ministers and laymen met for prayer and counsel, and unanimously decided to issue a Call for such a Conference. The following Executive Committee was appointed: Charles L. Huston, Chairman; Vice-President and General Manager of the Lukens Steel Co., at Coatesville, Pa., and Chairman of the General Assembly's Committee on Evangelism of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. Roger B. Whittlesey, Recording Secretary; Secretary-Treasurer of the China Inland Mission, whose headquarters for North America are 235 W. School Lane, Germantown, Pa. 199 X28 |