little over a year after preaching my first sermon in Brooklyn. The
church seated 3,500 people, and yet we were compelled to use the old
church to take care of all our active Christian work besides.

The first Brooklyn Tabernacle was, I believe, the most buoyant
expression of my work that I ever enjoyed. It drew upon all my energies
and resources, and as the sacred walls grew up towards the skies, I
prayed God that I might have the strength and spiritual energy to grow
with it.

Prayer always meets the emergency, no matter how difficult it may be.

That was the substantial backing of the first Brooklyn
Tabernacle--prayer. Prayer furnished the means as well as the faith that
was behind them. I was merely the promoter, the agent, of a company
organised in Heaven to perpetuate the Gospel of Christ. It was
considered a great thing to have done, and many were the reasons
whispered by the worldly and the envious and the orthodox, for its
success. Some said it was due to magnetism.

As a cord or rope can bind bodies together, there may be an invisible
cord binding souls. A magnetic man throws it over others as a hunter
throws a lasso. Some men are surcharged with this influence, and have
employed it for patriotism and Christianity and elevated purposes.

It is always a surprise to a great majority of people how churches are
built, how money for which the world has so many other uses can be
obtained to build churches. There are names of men and women whom I have
only to mention and they suggest at once not only great wealth, but
religion, generosity, philanthropy, such as Amos Laurence, James Lennox,