Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-01-05

who retires regularly at 10
o'clock at night, and takes
his morning bath with the appendix
o a Turkish towel. Paul said to the
passengers Of the A~lexandrian corn ship
that they should get safe ashore, but he
told them they must use means and that
was: Stick 10 the old ship God is not
weak, needing our help, but God is
strong and asks us 10 cooperate with
him that we may be strong, too. Pray
by all means, but don't forget the fig
poultice,
PRAYER ANSWERED.
That God answers prayers offered in
the right spirit, seconded by our
effort, is the first and last lesson of this
text and it is a lesson that this age needs
20 learn. If all communication between
heaven and earth is cut off, let us know
it. If all the Christian pray rs 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
nswer prayer. The text shows it. You
say; Il don't believe the Bible; | think
that those things were merely coin
cidences, which are often brought as an
swers 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 the
lions all happened to have lockjaw? Did
Jesus pray at the grave Of Lazarus just
at the time when Lazarus was going to
dress himself and come u anyhow Did
| Jesus lose His place IN His sermon and
make a mistake wh'n lie said; ASK and
it shall be given you; seek and We shall
ind; knock and it shall be opened unto
! your" And lest some were so stupid
they could not understand it He goes on:
For everyone that asketh receiveth and
he that seeketh findeth and 10 him that
knocketh it shall be opened"
But some one persists in saying; Il
don't belie7e anything of the Bible"
Then | appeal to your own instincts.
Prayer in certain circumstance is as
natural TO man as the ~throbbing in the
pulse, as the respiration Of the lungs.
Put n company of men-I don't care how
bad they arc-in some imminent peril,
and they will cry out. God have mercy
on ust' | challenge that these men who
don't believe in prayer charter a steamer,
go out in the "Narrows," swing out 500
vi w IN " pNhs olih hiiNhi w CIV
wait for a cyclone. And after the cy-
clone comes and the vessel has gone
under ten times, when they did not eX-
pect it would rise again, and the bull
warks have been knocked in, and the
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
l,c A-,, a,,,,1 &c God -,
planted that instinct in the human heart,
it was because in his own heart there was
something responsive.
WITNESSES THAT PRAYER IS ANSWERED.
To prove that God does hear prayer, |
put on the witness stand Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Ezekiah, jeremiah, Micah,
John, Paul, Peter. and King He2ekiah.
Tell me, we ancient battle fields, We
oriental threshing floors, We Judean corn
fields, We Galilcan fishing smacks, is God
deaf, and dumb, and blind before all
human petition? That God answers
prayer, | bring the 10, 200, 900 facts of
Christendom to prove. There has never
paper enough come out of the paper mills
TO write the story. Has not many a
mother prayed back her bad boy from
the ends of the earth-from Canton, from
Madras, fron Constantinople-until he
knelt beside her in the old homestead ?
Have there not been desperadoes and
renegades who have looked into the door
Of a prayer meeting to laugh and scott at
il, who have been drawn by the power of
prayer until they ran TO the altar crying
out formerly? Did not the blacksmith
in Lyons, \. Y, pray to God until there
came a great awakening that shook the
community?
In my parish, in Philadelphia, one
night, at a meeting, | asked a youngman
to go into a room at the side OF the
church and talk upon the theme Of re-
ligion. He grew violently angry and
shook his fists at me. We resolved to
pray for that yong man, and we prayed
that he might yield his soul to God. And
when, next night, at the meeting, the
door was flung open, he was the first TO
step in. Prayer had captured him. |
had a classmate in college, whose uncle,
DR.. John Scudder, of India, wrote to him
saying: 81 will pray for you every day
until such a day, and then 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 classmate surrendered his soul to
Jesus. This is no second hand story.
saw the letter and knew the young man.
EXPERIMENTAL KNOWLEDGE.
But why should ! go SO far? ! have
had in my own experience, and | have
had in the history of my wi family the
evidence that God answers prayer. My
mother, with three Christian women, as
sembled week after week, and prayed for
their children; they kept up that prayer
meeting of four persons year after year.
The world knew nothing Of it. God
answered all those prayers. All the
group came in; the eleven sons and
daughters Of my mother came in, myself
the last.
Sickness came to my household-hope-
less sickness, as it seemed TO many. AT
8 o'clock on Saturday afternoon the
invalid was carried to the steamer
for Savannah. Al II o'clock the next
day, being Sunday, standing in this very
place a man Of God prayed for the re-
covery of the sick one. At that time, II
o'clock, she who had been Frustrated
three weeks with some help walked upon
deck. The case was as near TO being mi
~raculous as / can imagine. That she was
hopelessly sick people who sat up with
her night after night and are here can
testify. That the prayer for her recovery
was offered in this pulpit thousands OF
people could testify. That at ii O'Clock