Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-12-05

IIC Will OuU WIN
anxiety as we'll as by the rapid journey
to and from Cana, is soon in restful UNI
consciousness. Joanna was o Christian
before. but l warrant she was more of q
Christian afterward. Did the father
Chuza accept the Christ who had cured
his boy? Is there in all the earth pa
rent so ungratcful for the convalescencc
or restoration of an imperiled child as
not to go into a room and kneel down
and make surrender to the almighty love
that came to the rescue?
Do not mix up this case with the an
CRY discussions about Christian science,
but accept the doctrine, as old as the
Bible, that God does answer prayer for
the sick. That Capernaum boy was not
the only illustration of the fact that
prayer is mightier than q typhoid fever.
And there is not 4 doctor of large prac-
tice but has come into the sick room of
some hopeless case and, in a cheerful
manner if he were Christian, or with
bewildered manner if he were, a skeptic,
said: ''Wcll, what have you been doing
with this patient? What have you been
| crisis is past. After all, l think he will
get well.'' Prayer will yet be acknowl
edged in the worlds materia medica, and
the cry is just as appropriate now as
when Chuza, the courtier from Caper-
naum, uttered in Christ's hearing,
''Come down ere my child die!" If the
prayer be not answered in the way we
wish, it is because God has something
better for the child than earthly re-
covery, and there are thousands of men
and women now alive in answer to ia
theirs and mothers prayers. myself one
OF the multitude.
The mightiest agency in the universe is
prayer, and it turns even the Almighty.
1t decides the destinies of individuals,
families, and nations. During our sad
civil war gentleman was guest at the
White House in Washington, and he
gives this incident He says: II had
been spending three weeks in the White
House with Mr.. Lincoln as his guest.
One night was just after the battle
of Bull Rum was restless and could
not sleep. 1 was repeating the part
which l was to take in a public per-
Torrance. The hour was past midnight
Indeed, it was coming near to the dawn
when heard low tones proceeding from
a private room where the President
slept. The door was partly open / in
stinctively walked in, and there 1 saw
sight which l shall never forget. 1t was
the President kneeling before an open
Bible.
''The light was turned low in the
room. His back was turned toward me;
for moment was silent as l stood
looking in amazement and wonder. Then
he cried out in tones go pitiful and sor-
rowful: s'Oh, thou God that heard
Solomon in the night when he prayed
for wisdom, hear me! cannot lead this
people, canot guide the affairs of this
nation without Thy help. / am poor and
weak and sinful. Oh, God, who didst
hear Solomon when he cried for wisdom,
hear me and save the nation!' You see
| we don't need to go back to Bible times
| for evidence that prayer is heard and
! answered.
| But some one may say that Christ at
! Capernaum healed that courtier's child,
yet He would not have done it for one in
humble life. Why, in that very Caper-
| naum He did the same thing for dying
slave, belonging to the man who had
rs,sdf q present. to the town of the church
OF which Jesus was pastor, the syna--
gogue among whose ruins to-day leap
from fragment to fragment. This was
| the cure of Roman soldiers slave, whose
only acknowledged rights were the wishes
| of his owner.
s'But,'' says some one, sswhy was it
that Christ, coming to save the world,
should spend so much of his time on and
around so solitary place as Lake Cali
! lee? There is only one city of any size
Oh it's beach, and both the western and
eastern shores are a solitude, broken
only by the sounds coming from the mud
novels of the degraded. Why did not
Christ begin at Babylon the mighty, at
Athens the learned, at Cairo the historic,
at Thebes the hundred-gated, at Rome
the triumphant? If Christ was going to
save the world, why not go where the
worlds people dwell? Would man
wishing to revolutionize for good the
American continent, pass his time amid
/ the fishing huts on the shores of New
foundland?''
My friends, Galilee was the hub of the
wheel of civilization and art, and the
center of population that staggers
realization. On the shore of the lake we
sail to-day stood nine great cities
Scythopolis, Tarich, Hippos, Gamala,
Chorazin, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Mag
| dala, Tiberias-and many villages, the
smallest of which had $1,000 Inhabitants,
according to JOsephus and reaching from
| the beach back into the country in all
directions. -Four thousand ships, history
| says, were at one time upon these waters.
BATTLES were fought there which shocked
all nations with their consequences.
Upon those sea fights looked Vespas-
ian and Titus and Trajan and whole en-
pires. From one of these naval encoun-
tiers so many of the dead foated to the
beach they could not soon enough be en-
tombed, and q plague was threatened.
Twelve hundred soldiers esca ping from
these vessels of war were one day mas
sacred in the amphitheater at Tiberias.
For three hundred years that almost
continuous city encircling Lake Galilee
was the metropolis of our planet. 1t was
to the very heart of the world that
Jesus came to sooth its sorrows, and par
don its sins, and heal its sick, and eman-
cipate its enslavcd, and reanimate it's
dead.
And let the church and the world take
tho suggestion. While the solitary
places are not to be neglected we must
strike for the great cities if this world is
ever to be taken for Christ. Evangelize
all the earth except the cities and in one
year the cities would corrupt the earth.
| But bring the cities and all the world