The Amphitheatre. Leeds - Richard Weaver (1863)



Mr Weaver returned to Leeds and preached last Sabbath in the Amphitheatre, the place being crowded both morning and evening and thousands being unable to gain admission. The scene in the Amphitheatre was most imposing; between five and six thousand persons on both occasions crowding the vast area and galleries. Numbers had travelled many miles; some had come as far as seventy, and one gentleman all the way from Scotland. Mr Weaver prayed as well as preached with extraordinary power. His proclamation of God's wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, mingled with invitations and encouragements to penitent sinners to embrace Christ at once as their Saviour, accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, were listened to with the most profound attention. At the close of the evening service, many thronged the stage to be talked and prayed with, fifty in all recording their names as professing to have obtained Salvation through faith in the blood of the Lamb. 

"The Revival," October 22nd, 1863.

 

Mr Weaver's second services at the Amphitheatre, Leeds, were fully as effective as the first. At night, between 50 and 60 recorded their names as having found peace through believing in Jesus. The following paragraph from the 'Leeds Mercury' of the 26th October, conveys the pretty correct idea of the services and the preacher. “Maybe seldom has there been so much excitement caused by religious services in Leeds as was exhibited yesterday and yesterday fortnight at services conducted by a converted miner named Richard Weaver. In order to afford as much accommodation as possible for hearers, the Amphitheatre, in King Charles' Croft, which will hold more people than any other building in the town, was obtained and on the days named Mr Weaver held religious services there. Not only was the place crowded to excess but on each occasion hundreds, if not thousands, were unable to obtain admission to the building. So great was the anxiety to hear Mr. Weaver, that the doors were besieged hours before the time announced for opening them and at each service the place is filled directly after the doors opened, which was about an hour and a half before the time for the service to commence. Mr. Weaver's style is remarkably simple and unpretending. He selects a text, offers a few plain observations thereon, and then proceeds to the narration of anecdotes and incidents in his own life. It is in this part of his address, and the homely yet very touching and forceable appeals to flee from vice and sin, the graphic manner in which he pictures death-bed scenes, and the agonies of the last moments of a sinner's life, that he seems to produce the greatest impression upon his hearers. Numbers
came from long distances in carts, and it is computed that at the four services held at the Amphitheatre upwards of 22,000 persons listened to Mr Weaver."

"The Revival", November 12th, 1863.


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