The Wonders of Prayer Part 9

"'Aunt Sally,' says the _American Messenger_, was a devout, working, trustful Christian. Her husband was a cripple, almost helpless, an unbeliever, and to some extent an opposer of religion. They lived alone.

The severity of a northern winter was upon them, and in spite of her best exertions their stock of fuel was scarcely a day's supply.

"'What can be done?' was the anxious inquiry of the unbelieving husband as they were rising from their bed. 'The Lord will provide,' was 'Aunt Sally's' cheerful reply. 'I know you always say so, and so it has always proved,' was the answer of her unbelieving companion; 'but I see no way in which we can be provided for now.' 'Nor do I,' said 'Aunt Sally.'

'But help will come. G.o.d will not desert us.'

"That winter's morning had not pa.s.sed when their son, who had been a soldier in the Mexican war, entered the door. It had been long since they had heard from him, and they feared he was not alive. The sun went down upon an abundant supply of fuel, cut in the forest by the strong arms of the soldier-boy, and drawn to the door by means of his procuring. The unbelieving husband and father declared he would never be distrustful again.

G.o.d CARETH FOR YOU.

"Nearly forty years ago I was given up by the doctors for a dying man from consumption. I had a wife and five children dependent on me, and for many months was unable to provide for them by my own labors. All our earthly resources were gone, and one Sabbath morning, when breakfast was over, we were entirely dest.i.tute; there was no meal in the barrel nor oil in the cruse. In family wors.h.i.+p I read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. I think up to that time I had never found the word of G.o.d so sweet and precious. I had very near access in prayer, and was enabled to lay my burden at the Saviour's feet. I closed with the Lord's Prayer; it seemed made on purpose for me. I think the pet.i.tion, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' was offered in faith.

"_Within an hour there was a rap at the door_. When I opened it a young man stood there who had come three miles to bring us bread, sugar, and money. He apologized for coming on the Sabbath morning, but said an aunt of his was at their house the evening before, and felt so anxious about us she could not go away till he promised her he would come and bring us those things."

A PRAYER NOT ANSWERED.

"Many years ago, a man then recently married, settled in my native town.

It was then quite new, dest.i.tute of religious privileges, and given to all manner of wickedness. There was no Sabbath, and no sanctuary. The man was pious. The thought of bringing up a family in such a place distressed him. He wished to remove; and he used to retire daily to a little grove, and _pray that G.o.d would send some one to buy his farm_.

This prayer was not answered. Better things were in store. A neighbor was taken sick. He visited and conversed with him. In the midst of the conversation, one sitting by interrupted him and said, 'Sir, if what you say is true, I am lost.' This gave new interest to the occasion. Prayer was offered, the Spirit was found out, and many were converted. A prayer-meeting was started; other revivals followed; in due time a church was organized, a house of wors.h.i.+p built, and a pastor settled, mainly through the instrumentality of that one man; and he trained up his family there, and lived to see most of them members of the church of Christ. Do not despair, G.o.d will _either answer your exact prayer,_ or _do something better for you_; He knows what is for your best good."

TRUST IN THE LORD.

"A pious woman, who was reduced to extreme poverty and deserted by her intemperate husband, was taken sick, and lay several days without physical power to provide food for her two little children. She had directed them where to find the little that was remaining in the house, and they had eaten it all. Still she lay sick, with no means of obtaining more, as night closed upon the hungry household. The children soon forgot their hunger in sleep; but not so the mother. She saw no help for them but in G.o.d, and she spent the night-watches in spreading before him their necessities. As the morning approached her confidence in G.o.d increased, and that pa.s.sage from his word rested with peculiar sweetness upon her mind, 'Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and _verily thou shalt be fed_.'

"Morning came. The starving children managed by her direction to build them a little fire, and almost before they had commenced telling their mother of their hunger, a stranger came in. She introduced herself as Mrs. J., saying she had known for some time that there was a new family in the neighborhood, and intended to call and make their acquaintance, but had been prevented. _During the last night she had been so troubled and disturbed about it_, that she thought she would run in early, lest she should again be prevented, and see if there was any way in which she could be of service to them. The mother in bed, with her head bound to mitigate its pain, revealed the story of her sufferings, and the good lady soon learned their entire dest.i.tution. They were immediately made comfortable; and all will be glad to know that it was the beginning of better days to that deserted wife and mother."

THE NECESSITY OF ASKING G.o.d'S BLESSING EVERY DAY, UPON YOUR DAILY WORK.

EVERY WORK, HOWEVER GOOD, NEEDS SPECIAL, SPECIFIC, DAILY PRAYER FOR ITS PROSPERITY.

"A colporteur in the Wabash valley became quite discouraged and was almost ready to give up his work, on account of the smallness of his sales. On every side, his ears were filled with complaints of 'hard times;' the wheat crop had partially failed two years in succession--the California emigration, and railroad and plank-road speculations had almost drained the country of money. Frequently he would be told, that if he could come after harvest they would buy his books, but that it was impossible to do so then. His sales were daily decreasing, and he became more and more disheartened, until one night, after a laborious day's effort, he found that he had _only sold twenty-five cents' worth_! He felt that he could not go on in this way any longer. He was wasting his strength and time, and the money of the Society. On examination of the state of his heart, he found that it had, gradually and almost unconsciously, grown cold and departed far from Christ. He felt that he had not prayed as he ought to have done, especially _he had neglected each morning, and on his approach to each dwelling, to pray that then and there G.o.d would guide him, and own and bless his efforts to sell books._ He saw that probably here was at least a part of the cause why his sales had become so small. Early the next morning, before any of the family were up, he arose and retired to the adjoining woods, where he had a long and precious season of communion with G.o.d. There he anew dedicated himself and his all to the service of Christ. There, as under the eye of the Master, he reviewed the time he had labored as a colporteur, and prayed for forgiveness for the past and grace for the future. There he told the Saviour all about his work, and asked him to go with him that day, preparing the way and enabling him to succeed in the work on which he had entered. The result was what might have been expected. He went forth a new man; his heart was interested more deeply in the truths which he was circulating--they were more precious than ever to his own soul, and he could recommend his books, as he failed to do when his heart was cold and prayerless. _That first day he sold more books than during the whole week before._ In one instance, he sold several dollars' worth in a family where, as he was afterwards told by pious men in the neighborhood, the father was most bitterly opposed to everything connected with true religion. G.o.d had prepared that man's heart, so that he was ready to purchase quite a library for his family.

And in many families that met him that day with the usual salutation, 'no money,' he succeeded in disposing of more than one volume by sale.

As he went from family to family, lifting up his heart in prayer to G.o.d for success in the particular object of his visit, G.o.d heard his prayers and owned his efforts. And so, he a.s.sured me, it had been since; whenever he had been _prayerful_--_prayerful for this particular object_, and then had diligently and faithfully done his best, he had invariably succeeded in doing even more than he expected."

PRAYER FOUND THE REMEDY FOR THE DISEASE.

"A correspondent of _The Ill.u.s.trated Christian Weekly_, states that a mother of her acquaintance had a child taken alarmingly ill. She sent for the physician. The child was in convulsions. The doctor began at once vigorously to apply the customary remedies--cold water to the head, warm applications to the feet, chafing of the hands and limbs. All was in vain. The body lost nothing of its dreadful rigidity. Death seemed close at hand, and absolutely inevitable. At length he left the child, and sat down by the window, looking out. He seemed, to the agonized mother, to have abandoned her darling. For herself, she could do nothing but pray; and even her prayer was but an inarticulate and unvoiced cry for help. _Suddenly the physician started from his seat. 'Send and see if there be any jimson weed in the yard_,' he cried. His order was obeyed; the poisonous weed was found. The remedies were instantly changed. Enough of the seeds of this deadly weed were brought away by the medicine to have killed a man. The physician subsequently said that he thought that in that five minutes every kindred case he had ever known in a quarter century's practice pa.s.sed before his mind. Among them was the one case which suggested the real, but before hidden, cause of the protracted and dreadful convulsions. And the child was saved.

"Now, is there anything inconsistent or unphilosophical in the belief that, at that critical moment, a loving G.o.d, answering the mother's Helpless cry, flashed on the mind of the physician the thought that saved the child? Is it any objection to that faith to say, the age of miracles is past? If the mother, may call in a second physician, to suggest the cause and the cure, may she not call on G.o.d? What the doctor can do for a fellow-pract.i.tioner, cannot the Great Physician do? Though the doctor had often tried and thought, yet it was not till the last prayer and call on G.o.d, brought the remedy to his mind."

PRAYER INSTANTANEOUSLY ANSWERED FOR CONVERSION.

On the evening of the fifty-first daily prayer-meeting in Augusta, Ga., a large gathering a.s.sembled in the St. John's M.E. Church, at which Dr.

Irvine presided, and some very touching communications were read. One was from a widowed mother, asking thanksgiving for the salvation of her youngest daughter, recently from a boarding-school in New York city, where she had finished her education. Some weeks ago she had sought the prayers of the daily prayer-meeting for the conversion of her precious child, who was spending a few weeks with some friends seventy miles from Augusta. Prayers were offered accordingly, but without intimation of any change. The loving mother sent in a second application or prayer to Dr.

Irvine, to be read on a recent Monday morning; all this without her daughter's knowledge. On Tuesday the mother received a letter from her daughter, dated two o'clock on Sabbath, informing her that on that day, and at that hour, she had resolved to give her heart to Christ, intending to ask admission to the church at the next communion. Strange to say, at the very moment when the faithful mother was writing her application for prayers for that child, she was announcing her own conversion.

What a verification of the blessed promise: "Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear."

HELP FOR THE s.h.i.+PWRECKED.

Admiral Sir Thomas Williams, a straight-forward and excellent man, was in command of a s.h.i.+p crossing the Atlantic Ocean. His course brought him in sight of the Island of Ascension, at that time uninhabited, and _never visited by any s.h.i.+p_, except for the purpose of collecting turtles, which abound on the coast. The island was barely descried on the horizon, and was not to be noticed at all; but as Sir Thomas looked at it, he was _seized by an unaccountable desire to steer toward it_.

He felt how strange such a wish would appear to his crew, and _tried to disregard it; but in vain_. His desire became more and more urgent and distressing, and foreseeing that it would soon be more difficult to gratify it, he told his lieutenant to prepare to "_put about s.h.i.+p_" and steer for Ascension. _The officer to whom he spoke ventured to respectfully represent that changing their course would greatly delay them_--that just at that moment the men were going to their dinner--that at least some delay might be allowed.

But these arguments seemed, to increase Captain Williams' anxiety, and the s.h.i.+p was steered toward the uninteresting little island. All eyes and spy-gla.s.ses were now fixed upon it, and soon something was perceived on the sh.o.r.e. "It is white--it is a flag--it must be a signal!" And when they neared the sh.o.r.e, it was ascertained that sixteen men, wrecked on the coast many days before, and suffering the extremity of hunger, had set up a signal, though almost without hope of relief. What made the captain steer his s.h.i.+p in the very opposite direction to what he and his crew wanted to go, but the _superhuman Spirit of G.o.d_.

SAMUEL HARRIS'S LAWSUIT, AND HOW THE LORD SETTLED IT FOR HIM.

"When Samuel Harris, of Virginia, began to preach, his soul was so absorbed in the work, that he neglected to attend to the duties of this life. Finding, upon a time, that it was absolutely necessary that he should provide more grain for his family than he had raised upon his own farm, he called upon a man who owed him a debt, and told him he would be glad to receive the money.

"The man replied: 'I have no money by me, and cannot oblige you.'

"Harris said; 'I want the money to purchase wheat for my family; and as you have raised a good crop of wheat, I will take that of you instead of money, at a current price.'

"The man answered: 'I have other uses for my wheat, and cannot let you have it.'

"'How then,' said Harris, 'do you intend to pay me?'

"'I never intend to pay you until you sue me,' replied the debtor, 'and therefore you may begin your suit as soon as you please.'

"Mr. Harris left him, meditating. Said he to himself, 'What shall I do?

Must I leave preaching, and attend to a vexatious lawsuit? Perhaps a thousand souls may perish in the meantime, for want of hearing of Jesus!

No; I will not. Well, what will you do for yourself? Why, this will I do; I will sue him at the Court of Heaven.' Having resolved what he would do, he turned aside into a wood, and on his knees laid the matter before the Lord. Mr. Harris felt such an evidence of Divine favor,--he felt, to use his own expressive language, that Jesus would become bondsman for the man, and see that he was paid if he went on preaching.

Mr. Harris arose from prayer, resolved to hold the man no longer a debtor, since Jesus had a.s.sumed the payment. He therefore wrote a receipt in full of all accounts against the man, and dating it in the woods, where he had prayed, signed it with his own name. Going the next day by the man's house, on his way to meeting, he gave the receipt to a servant, directing him to give it to his master. On his return from meeting, the man hailed him, and demanded what he meant by the receipt he had sent him in the morning.

"Mr. Harris replied: 'I mean just as I wrote.'

"'But you know, sir,' answered the debtor, 'I have never paid you.'

"'True,' said Mr. Harris, 'and I know you said that you never would unless I sued you. But, sir, I sued you at the Court of Heaven, and Jesus entered bail for you, and has agreed to pay me; I have therefore given you a discharge!'

"'But I insist upon it,' said the man; 'matters shall not be left so.'