Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-24

l. think that those things were
merely condolences, which are
often brought as answers to prayer. -
Do you say that? Was it mere happens
that Elijah prayed for rain just as the
rain was going to come anyhow? Did
Daniel pray
IN THE WILD BEASTS DEN
just at the time when all the lions hap
pened to have the lockjaw? Did Jesus
pray at the grave of Lazarus just at the
time when Lazarus was going to dress
himself and come out anyhow? Did Jesus
lose His place in His sermon and make
mistake when He said: "Ask and it
shall be given you; seek and ye shall
find; knock and it shall be opened unto
yOu?'' And, lest some were so stupid
they could not understand it, He goes
on: "For every one that asketh re-
ceiveth; and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened. -
But some one persists in saying: 81
don t believe anything of the Bible
Then l appeal to your own instincts.
Prayer in ceftain circumstances is as ma
tural TO man as the throbbing in the
pulse, as the respiration of the lungs.
Put a company of men-I don t care how
bad they are-in some imminent peril,
and they will cry out, Good have mercy
ON us.'' l challenge that these men who
don t believe in prayer charter a steamer,
go out in the ''narrOws, ~ swing out 800
or 900 miles to sea, and then heave-to
and wait for a cyclone. And after the
cyclone comes and the vessel has gone I'M
der ten times, when they did not expect
at would rise again, and the bulwarks
gone-if they do not pray willsurrender
my theory. Do you tell me that this in
stinct which God has put in us, He put
there just to mock us forH is own cruel
amusement? If God implanted that
INSTINCT IN THE HUMAN HEART,
it was because in His own heart there was
something responsive.
TO prove that God does hear prayer,
put on the witness stand Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Ezekiel, jeremiah, Micah, John,
Paul, Peter and King Hezekiah. Tell me,
ye ancient battle fields, We oriental
threshing floors, We Judian corn fields,
We Galilean fishing smacks, is God deaf,
and dumb, and blind before all human
petition? That God answers prayer,
bring the ten million facts of Christen-
dom to prove. There has never paper
tIlCheh GUILTY Oil VI tilC pdDCI Hills "
write the story. Has not many mother
prayed back her bad boy from the ends
of the earth-from Canton, from Mad
ras, from Constantinople-unt he knelt
beside her in the old homestead? Have
there not been desperadoes and renegades
who have looked into the door of
prayer-meeting to laugh and scotf at it,
who have been drawn by the pow
er of prayer, until they ran
to the altar crying out for
mercy? Did not the blacksmith in
Lyons, New York, pray to God until
there came a great awakening that shook
the community.
in my parish in Philadelphia one night
at meeting [ asked a young man to 90
into room at the side of the church aud
talk upon the theme of religion. He
grew violently angry and shook his fists
at me. We resolved to pray for that
young man, and we prayed that he might
yield his soul to God. And when, next
night, at the meeting the side door was
flung open he was the first to step in.
Prayer had captured him. l had Il class
mate in college whose uncle, DR.. John
Scudder of India, wrote to him, saying:
81 will pray for you every day until such
day, and then l will give my attention
to some other subject The last day of
these prayers, when they had all gathered
up before the throne of God, my, ,alassS4.'
mate surrendered his soul to Jesut -
THIS is NO SECONDHAND STORY. SO
saw the letter and l knew the JsEhg
man.
But why should l go so far? k5aave hadS
in my own experience, and 1 have had in'
the history of my own family the evidence
that God answers prayer. My mother,
with three Christian women, assembled
week after week and prayed for their