A Revival in Poland Began with Praying Children

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In the early 18th century, a revival took place in middle Europe that has received little attention. It had something most unusual about it: it was a revival among the children.

Lutherans were being increasingly marginalised by the Roman Catholic authorities in Silesia, (the borderlands of Poland and Czech today), but the schoolchildren would not accept this. Some time in 1707, the children of Sprottau (today Szprotawa) started to meet in the field outside the town, two or three times a day, to pray for peace in the land and for freedom of religion. They would read some Psalms, sing hymns and pray. There are reports of them falling on their knees, some even lying prostrate, and repenting of their sins. Then, when the right moment seemed to have come, they would close with a blessing.

The old town of Sprottau with the fields where the children prayed

The movement spread through the mountain villages of Upper Silesia and into the towns. Not all adults were happy about this, fearing the consequences; some tried locking their children in the house, but they would climb out of the windows! In some villages, Roman Catholic children joined the Lutheran children to pray. Reports began to circulate in local newsletters, spreading ever wider until the news was known in England and Massachusetts. To some it became known as the Kinderbeten (children’s prayer) Movement.

Some adults were drawn to the move of God. They would form a circle around the praying children. In some places, the combined number might reach 300 souls. Magistrates brought pressure to bear to disperse these meetings. One bailiff came with a whip, but when he heard the prayers, he could not use it.

Children at prayer in Africa

Out of this “children’s revival” grew a movement of renewal that touched the area. In time, it found its centre in the Lutheran Jesuskirche church in Teschen (now Cieszyn), which opened in 1750. Here, so many attended services that hundreds had to stand outside the building. Sunday services began at 8 a.m. and continued through the day, in several languages. In turn, the Teschen church provided some of the original members of Count Zinzendorf’s community and fellowship at Herrnhut, known in the English-speaking world as the Moravians.

God’s Presence in a Children’s Prayer Meeting: an Account from the Ulster Revival of 1859

In a collection of pamphlets at the Bodleian Library in Oxford I came across a short account dating from the remarkable Christian revival of 1859 in Northern Ireland. It is written by an anonymous clergyman and entitled Revival in Belfast, the Meeting of the Wee Ones (Dublin, 1860).

Having heard of a group of children meeting regularly to pray and intercede for God’s work in their lives and His blessing on their land, he went to see for himself. The meeting was held in a large attic on the outskirts of Belfast. This is what he found.

He arrived to find the steps crowded with children, and he helped some of them up to the attic level. A mother who saw him exclaimed: “Oh no, here’s a minister! He’ll stop the wee ones!” But he assured her he had come only to learn. She told him the meeting had been going on every evening for two months, from 7.30 till 10. The minister counted 48 children squatting on the floor, eager and reverent. When one of the candles fell on a boy’s head and singed his hair, there was not a stir, not even a titter; he quietly picked it up and put it back.

At the far end of the loft were benches occupied by 70-80 adults, but it was the children who led. The leader, a lad of 13, prayed with power and conviction: Show us our mountain of sin, so we can feel you are our Saviour from them. Jesus, you can set us free for ever! Loose the bonds, Jesus, our Deliverer! Teach us truth and purity! Search all our thoughts, examine our hearts, show us all the things that are hateful in your sight! Burn out our inmost sins and wicked thoughts, against you and against each other. Burn them out, o pure Jesus, but save us in the burning!

A boy of 12 tried to read from the scriptures but got stuck on the long words, so exhorted instead: Won’t you come to Jesus and be baptised in the Spirit? Oh come away from the devil and come to Jesus! Prepare the way of the Lord! You know you don’t feel free from the devil! Jesus wants to come to you!

And so it continued, the boys speaking one by one in orderly fashion. One needed practical help: his parents could not afford the next week’s rent. The children all got out the pocket money and the need was met.

Then, to the clergyman’s shock, the girls began to pray. A 17 year old prayed fervently for the conversion of her family and for forgiveness for all her ingratitude to God. Then, ‘a small girl of about 10 arose, frail in body and clothed in rags. Trembling with the Lord’s anointing, she raised her hands and proclaimed Jesus crucified for our sins. The power fell instantly. A teenage boy slumped to the floor. Many began to weep. Two or three 12-year-olds lay prostrate on the floor. Cries filled the air: “Mercy! Jesus, can you save me? Help, I’m finished!” Others felt the touch of God’s mercy and sang loud praises, tears streaming down their beaming faces.’

Finally, well past ten o’clock, the gathering ended with a favourite hymn from the Primitive Methodist hymnal, Ye sleeping souls, arise!, and one humbled but inspired clergyman returned to his hotel praising the Lord.

Quaker Elizabeth Fry Overcame Depression and Left Her Mark on a Nation

From 2001 to 2017, her face was on every Bank of England £5 note. But who was Elizabeth Fry? She was born into a banking family in Norwich, England, in 1780. When she was 18, she heard a Quaker preacher and experienced a deep conversion to faith in Christ. She joined a Quaker assembly, where the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit was welcomed and valued. One day, a woman had a prophecy for her: “You are born to be a light to the blind, speech to the dumb and feet to the lame.”

From that day onwards, Fry was moved to charitable acts. She collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday School to teach children to read. Marriage took her to London, and motherhood kept her so busy that after 12 years she lamented: “I fear my life is slipping away to little purpose.” How wrong she was!

Another Quaker minister told her of the horrifying conditions in the capital’s prisons. Fry went to the infamous Newgate jail to see for herself. She found hundreds of women and their children living violent lives in unsanitary conditions and sleeping on the floor without bedding.

Fry sprang into action. Immediate practical needs had to be met. She enlisted local women to make clothes for the children. She got permission to start a school for prison children. She founded an organisation of women who would visit prisoners, pray and read scriptures with them, and provide them with materials to sew and knit goods which could be sold to give them some income.

But more visionary action was required if lasting change was to happen. Fry took to spending some nights in the jail and invited members of the aristocracy to come and do so too, to experience at first had the inhumane conditions. Her brother-in-law, a Member of Parliament, also promoted her work in government circles. The atmosphere at Newgate changed so noticeably that Fry’s model was followed in other towns and even abroad. She became well known. She was the first woman ever to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee, which led to a series of prison reforms in the 1820s. Queen Victoria admired her and made donations.

Fry’s work didn’t stop there. Even while raising 11 children and suffering from what today would have been recognised as post-natal depression, she established a night shelter for the homeless in London; campaigned for more humane treatment of orphans; raised awareness of the plight of newly-released prisoners with nowhere to go; began an outreach ministry to sailors and founded a school for nurses. It was nurses trained at Fry’s school who went with Florence Nightingale to the Crimea.

She was incensed at the transportation of women prisoners to Australia. The night before they left, there were always riots in the prisons. The women would reach Australia penniless and with dependent children, leaving prostitution as the only option for many. Elizabeth lobbied parliament and personally visited all deportees, giving them materials for making clothes on the voyage which they could sell on arrival.

UK banknote commemorating Elizabeth Fry

Together with her husband, Fry also agitated against capital punishment. At that time, upwards of 200 crimes were punishable by death. After initial indifference in high circles, they gained the ear of Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, who met with them and started the process of penal reform.

Elizabeth’s motives in all these activities were avowedly Christian. Her faith was the centre of all she did. Quakers allowed anointed women to preach, and Elizabeth did so. It is said that her voice carried such emotion that hard hearts would weep.

“Let us cleave to God in spirit,” she exhorted, “and make it the first business of our lives to be conformed to His will and live to His glory, whether prosperity or adversity be our portion, and though our years pass away like a brief tale. Through His unbounded love, the blessings of the Most High will rest upon us.”

Fry proved it. The prophecy was fulfilled absolutely. Called “the Angel of Mercy” in her lifetime, when she died in 1845 over a thousand people lined the way to her grave, to honour the passing of a truly great woman.