The Penn's Grove record., 1889-01-12
who do believe in the Bible. / want to
tell YOU that prayer is

THE MIGHTIEsT OF ALL REMEDIES,
and that the allopathic and homeopathic,
and the eclectic schools will yet ac-
knowledge it. Here are two cases OF
sickness precisely alike: the same kind
Of medicine is given to both of them,
and In the same quantities. The one
patient RECEIVERS, and the other does
not. WhyY God blesses the one remedy,
and does not bless the other. Prayer
has helped many a laundering doctor
through with a case that would have
otherwise become completely unmanage.
able. There is such a thing as Gospel
hygiene, as Christian pharmacy, as
divine materia medica, That is a fool
ish man who, in case OF sickness, goes
only to human resources, when we have
these instances Of the Lords help in
the sick-room. Before you call the doc
tor, while he is there, and after he goes
away, look up to Him who cured Heze-
kiah. Let the ap~otliecary SELL the
poultice, but God makes ii draw. Oil
| am glad 10 have a doctor who knows
how to pray. God send salvation to all
the doctors! Sickness would be oftener
baked, death would be oftener hurled
back from the door-sill, If medical men
came into the sick-room, like Isaiah OF
the text, with a prescription in their
hands, and the word Of the Lord in
their mouths.
John AbercrombIe, the most cele-
brated physician of Scotland, prayed
when he went into the sick-room, and
he wrote no more ably about diseases
of the brain" than about ''the phil
osophy Of the moral feelings" l don't
know how much Of the
MEDICAL SUCCESS
of Sydenham and Cooper and Harvey
and Rush depended upon the fact that
they knew how to pray as we'll as to
prescribe. 1 don't want a physician who
sees no God in human anatomy to doc
TOR my broken bones. IL God made us
land / think lie did,, and If the Bible
is true land l am rather disposed to
think Il is), then 1t is not strange that
prayer does traverse natural cause; ay,
that it introduces a new cause. When
God made the law, he did not make 1t
so strong lie could not break it.
If God made our bodies. when they are
broken He is the one to mend them;
and it Is reasonable that we should call
Him in to do it. If my furnace in the
cellar breaks down, there is no n so
competent to repair 1t as the manufac-
turer. If my watch stops, there is no
one so competent to set it going as the
one who made it. If the body IS disor-
dered, call in the Maker Of it. 1t is not
all, as these physicists tell us, a matter
IF ,,n,t;I,fIap n - poisnpau air nf aIaap.
illness or dirt, Of nutritious diet or poor
faie. l have Known people to get well
in rooms where the windows had been
SIX weeks down, tight shut, and 1 have
known them to die right under patent
v~entilators. l have known children
sicksy who every day had their bath,
and l have known children robust, the
washing of whose faces would make
their features unacceptable.
God did not make the law and then run
away from it. What is law of nature?
1t is only
GODS USUAL WAY OF DOING THINGS.
But He has said that If His children
ask Him to do II thing, and lie can con-
sistently do it, lie will do it. Go on
with your pills and plasters and nos
trums and eliXirs, and your catholicon,
but remember that the mightiest agency
in your recovery is prayer. Prayer to
God brought the kings cure, the lump
of figs being the God-directed human
instrumentality.
l would have you also see-for it Is
another lesson of the subject-that our
prayer must also be accompanied by
means. 1t is an outrage to ask God to
do a thing while we sit indolent. The
prayer. to be acceptable, must come not
only from the heart, but from the
hand. We must
WORK WHILE WE PRAY,
devotion and work going together.
Luther came to Melancthon's bedside
and prayed for his recovery, and in
sisted, at the same time, that he should
take some warm soup, the soup being
just as important as the prayer. In the
time of the great plague that came to
YORK, in England, the priests prayed
all night and all day for the removal of
the plague, but did not think of clear
ing out the dead dogs and cats that lay
in the cutters, causing the sickness.
We must use means rs we'll as supplica-
tion. If a man has ''evening prayers"
asking for health, and then sits down
to a full supper of ~indigestibles at II
O'Clock at night, his prayer is a mockery.
A farmer has nc right to pray for the
safety Of his family when he knows
there is no cover on the cistern. The
Christian man. reckless about his
health, ought not to expect the same
answer to his prayer as the Christian
man expects who retlreS regularly at 10
O'Clock at night, and takes his morning
bath with the appendix Of a Turkish
towel. Paul said to the passengers of
the Alexandrian corn ship that they
should get safe ashore, but he told them
they must use means, and that was:
''Stick to the old shipl" God is not
weak, needing our help, but God is
strong, and asks us to cooperate with
Him, that We may be strong, too. Pray |
by all means, but don't forget the fig
poultice.
That God answers prayers offered in
the right spirit, seconded by our own
effort, is the first and last lesson of this
text, and it Is a lesson that this age
needs to learn. II all communication
between heaven and earth is cut off,
let us know 1t. If all the Christian
prayers that are going up toward God |
never reach Him, then, I say, let
silence smite the lips of the afflicted
world, and the nations smother their
groans and die quietly.
GoD DOES ANSWER PRAYER,
The text shows it. You say: ST
don't believe the Bible; 1 think that
those things were merely condolences,
which are often brought as answers to
prayer" Do you say that? Was it mere
happen-so that Elijah prayed for rain
just as the ain was gong to come any,
how? Did Daniel pray in the wild
beasts den just at the time when all
the lions happened to have lock-jawp
Did Jesus pray at the grave Of Lazarus
just at the time when Lazarus was
unin0 IN 1raco hiucaIf op1 a1,aa a,t