The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-03-18
8eligiuus Mistellamp.
The Heritage Of Prayer.

DIR. Austin Phelps, in his volume
" My Portfolio" mentions an invalid
Christian woman from Richmond, Vir-
ginia--a person of education, culture
and judgment-who, debarred from
other forms of Christian service, often
devotes herself to intercession on
the behalf of friends, acquaintances,
strangers, or persons whom she meets
for a day and never expects to meet
again. The following is one of many
instances which illustrate her expert
ence of the answers granted to believ-
ing prayer: A few years ago two stran-
gers entered the car in which she was a
traveller, and seated themselves so near
her that she could not avoid overhear-
ing their conversation. In the remarks
of one of them she soon became in
tensely interested. She inferred from
them that he was an impenitent man,
and for some reason supremacy UNI
happy. This was sufficient to enlist
her prayerful desires in his behalf. He
became at once the subject of her in
tercessory converse with God. When
she left the cars that face, so full of
the suffering of turbulent spirit, re-
manned with her. For weeks afterward
something moved her to pray for that
stranger that he might find peace in
Christ. As time passed on her special
interest in him gave place to more re-
cent objects of supplication, and she
thought no more about him. She had
dropped the tribute of her prayers into
the troubled current of his life and left
both it and him with God. Some years
oft or o,.l ol xr;cit Of
miles distant from her home, friend,
who invited her to 90 and hear cele
brated preacher who had been laboring
there with success. She went. When
the preacher rose in the pulpit she in
stantly recognized the face of the stran-
ger who had, years before, so deeply
moved her sympathy in the cars-a
face now no longer clouded by the dis
quiet of an impenitent spirit, but radi-
ant with the Joy of one who knew the
peace of Christ and was striving to i'm
part it to other souls. AT the time of
their first meeting he was indeed, of
all men, one of the most miserable
crushed by affection, but not subdued
in heart; quickened by the Spirit of
God, yet resolute in sin; with eyes
opened to his lost state, but blind to
the gift of a Savior; whirled in the
great crisis of his moral destiny which
comes but once to any man yet without
God, and having no hope; both worlds
shrouded by the very blackness of dark
ness. Few men have ever needed
prayer more sorely than he did in that
juncture. 1t was one of those emer-
gencies of moral conflicts in which it is
like God to interpose with a singular
rescue. The appearance of the stranger
now in Christian pulpit tells the issue.
His conversion had followed within the
year of his proximity to his praying
fellow-traveler in the cars. The choicest
of all heritages is the heritage of
prayer. How many such petitions
have gone up and are to-day recorded
before the thronel When no human
voices can be heard in the tumult of
earthly passion, or the confusion of
worldly strife, there are whispers from
pale lips that can be heard at the right
of the Majesty on high. And when all
earthly ears are deaf to the cry OF
human sorrow, " the eyes of the Lord
are upon the righteous and his ears are
open to their cry."-The PresJyterian.