A STRANGE REVIVAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3992, 18 December 1891, Page 2

A STRANGE REVIVAL.

War Against Ooroets.

A few weeks ago the Free Methodists began a series of revival meetings in Sydenham, Ontario, so says the New York World, and made many converts. As tho number of converts increased so did the excitement, and the meetings, which were held in the town hall, grew so noisy that complaints were made to the authorities and the revivalists adjourned to a large vacant lot in the edge of the town. Here they were addressed by J. F, Fraser, a revivalist, who sailed into the prevailing mode of female dress, and said that women are born beautiful and die misshapen because ot the wearing of corsets. Fraser is an earnest speaker and his words created very great excitement among those present.

" Throw off the acsursed invention I" he cried, " throw it off and go to God as you left Him! Burn them rather than burn yourself in everlasting fire 1"

This suggestion struck a responsive chord, and he had hardly ceased speaking when an enthusiast piled up material for a bonfire and applied a match. It was a weird scene, the dusky evening, tbe crowd of religious enthusiasts, quivering with excitement, surrounding a fire which shot up long tongues of flame. " Throw off the garment!" shouted the revivalist.

'• Burn them !" hysterically cried a feminine voicein the crowd, and pushing and panting, a young woman of twenty five forced her way to the centre near the bonfire. She was tugging at her dress. There was a sudden gleam of white shoulders in the glare of the firelight, and she flung her corset into the flames saying she would die as God made her not as she had made herself.

Her example was contagious, and m less than half an hour not a woman in the crowd wore a corset, aud nothing remained iu tkp blaze but a mass of grotesquely twisted steels, amid which the flames playfully flickered. The excitement was so intense thai several women grew faint but they had burned their corsets, and were happy.

The Free Methodists consider the revival a great success, and talk of carrying the war into the States.