The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1889-01-03

lSalah OF the teXG, with a prescription in
their hands, and the word of the Lord in
their mouths.
John Abercrombie, the most celebrated
physician of Scotland, prayed when he went
into the sick room, and he wrote no more
about diseases of the BRAIN than about
philosophy of the moral feelings" / don't
know how much of the medical success of
Sydenham, aud Cooper, and Harvey, and
Rush, depended upon the fact that they
knew how to pray as well as to prescribe
don't want physician who sees no God in
human anatomy to doctor my broken bones.
If God made us land think he did), and if
the Bible is true q am rather disposed to
think it is), then it is notstrange that pray
er does traverse natural cause; aye, that it
INTRODUCES q new cause. When God made the
law He did not make it so strong He could
not break it,. If God made our bodies, when
they are broken He is the one to mend them;
aud it is reasonable that we should call him
to do it. Ifmy furnace in the cellar breaks
down, there is no one so competent to
repair it as the manufacturer. If my
watch stops there is no one so competent to
set it going as one who madeit. If the body
is disordered. the call in the Maker for it. 1t
is not all, as these physicians tell US, mat
ter of ventilation or poisoned air, OF
cleanliness or dirt, of nutritious
diet or poor fare. | have known
people to get well in rooms where the windows
nave DeGu SIN weeks uOWu, JlSnU SnuU, anu
have known them to die right under patent
ventilators. | have known children sickly
who every day had their BATH and haye
known children robust, the washing of whose
faces would make their features unrecogniza-
BILE.
God did not make the law and then run
away from it. What is a law of nature? 1t
is only Gods usual way of doing things.
But he has said that if his children ask him
to do a thing and he can consistently do it,
he will do it. Go on with your pills and
plasters, and nostrums, aud eixirs, and
your Cathoicon, 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
nstrumentaHty.
| would have you also See-fOr it is another
lesson of the subject-that our prayer must
also be accompanied by means. tits an out
rage to ask God to do thing while We sit
indolent. The prayer, to be acceptable, must
come not only from the heart, but from the
hands. We must work while We pray, de-
vOtion and work going together Luther
came to Welancthon's bedside and prayed
for his recovery. and insisted, at the same
same time, that he should take some warm
soup, the soup being just as important as
tie prayer. In the time of the great plague
that came to York of England, the priests
prayed all night and all day for the removal
~
out the dead dogs and cats that lay in the
cutters, causing the sickness. We must use
means as well as supplication. If a man has
evening prayers" asking for health, and
then sits down TO full snpper of indigesti-
bles at eleven O'Clock at night, his prayer is q
mockePy A farmer has no right to pray for
the safety of his family when he knows there
is no cover on his cstern. The Christian
man, reckless about his health, ought not to
expect the same answer to his prayer as the
Christian man expects who retires regularly
at ten o'clock at night, and takes his morn
ing bath with the appendix of 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 ship!" God is not weak needing
our help, but is strong, and asks us to coop
crate 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
q lesson that this age needs to learn. Ii all
communication between heaven and earth is
cat off, let lis know it. If all the Christian
prayers that are going up toward God never
reach him, then, | 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: II don't believe the Bible; ! think that
those things we're 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 rain
was going to come anyhow? Did Daniel
pray in the wild beasts den just at the time
when all the lions happened to have lock
jaw? Did Jesus pray at the grave ofLazarus
just at the time when Lazarus was GO
ing to dress himself and come out any
how? Did Jesus lose His place in His ser
mon, and make a mistake, when He said
"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and We
shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto
yOu'? And, lest some we're so stupid they
could not understand it, he goes on: "For
everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that
seeketh finGeth; and to HIM that knocketh it
shall be opened"
But some one persists in saying: II don't
believe anything of the Bible" Then l ap,
peal to your instincts. Prayer in certain cir
cumstances is as natural to man as the
throbbing of the pulse, us the respiration OF
the lungs. Put a company of men-l don't
care how bad they are-in some imm in ent
peril, and they will cry out: "God have mer,
cy on us!'' | challenge that these men who
don't believe in prayer charter a steamer, 60
out in the "Narrows," swing out eight OF
nine hundred miles to sea, and then heave 70
and wait for O cyclone. And after the cy-
CLIQUE comes and the vessel has gone under
ten times, when they did not expect it
would rise again. and the bulwarks have
been knocked in, and the masts are gone
III they do not pray, l will surrender
| my theory. Do you tell me that
this instinct which God has put in us he put
there just to mock us for his own crue
/ amusement? If God implanted that instinct
| in the human heart it was because in His
own heart there was sonnet hing responsible
Toprove that God does hear prayer, prayer, put
on the witness stand Abraham, isaac, JaroD
Ezekiel, jeremiah, Micah, John, Paul, Peter
and King Hezekiah. Tell me, ye ancient
battle fields, We oriental threshing floors, W
| smacks, is God deaf, and dumb and blind
before all human petition? That God an,
swers prayer, bring the 10, 900, 900 facts o
| Christendom to prove. There has never
paper enough come out of the paper mills tC
write the story. Has not many n mother
prayed back her bad boy from the ends o
the earth-from Canton, from Madras, from
| Constantinople-unt he knelt beside her il
| the old homestead? Have there not beer
desperadoes and renegades who havelooket
| into the door of q prayer meeting to laugl
| and scoff at it, who have been drawn by &hC
| power of prayer, until they ran to the altar
| crying out for mercy? Did not the black
smith in Lyons, New York, pray to God un
| til there came q great awakening that
| shook the co community.
In my parish in Philadelphia, one night al
q meeting, ! asked young man to go into
o room at the side of the church and talk up
on the theme of religion. He grew violently
angry and shook his fists at me. We resolv
Vi to pray for that young man, and we pray
ed that he might yield his soul to God, Ant
when, mcknight at the meeting, the sidedoo
was flung open, he was the first to step in
Prayer had captured him. l had class
mate in college whose uncle, DR.. John Scud
der, of India, who wrote to him saying: 81
will pray for you every day until such day
and then will give my attention to some
other subject" The last days of these pray
ers, when they had all gathered up before tn
throne of God, my classmate surrendered
his soul to Jesus, This is no second han,
story, saw the letter and knew the youn,
| man.
But why should go SO far I? have ha,
in my own experience, and have had in tn
history of my own family the evidence tha
God answers prayer. My mother with thre
Christian women, assembled week after wee
and prayed for their children; the.
kept up that prayer meeting of four person
year after year. The world knows nQthin
i - G1l A