The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1896-01-31

places "a OF nara limeS Woufu Tell
how, in response to s~upplication, they
got the money to pay the note. II all
farmers in time Of drought would tell
how. in answer to prayer, the rain came
just in time to save the crop. If all
parents who prayed for a wandering
son to come home would tell how, not
long after, they heard the boys hand on
the latch Of the front door.
There fingers on this side of the river
that divides earth and heaven, ready
at any time to cross over, the apostle OF
prayer for this century, jeremiah CAL
vim Lanphier, the founder of the Full
ton Street Prayer Meeting, and if he
should put on his spectacles and read
this, I salute him as more qualified than
any man since Bible times in demon
strating what prayer can do. Dear
Brother Lanphier! The high heavens
are full of his fame. Having announced
a meeting for II o'clock, September %,
1857, he sat in the upper room on Fulton
street, New York, waiting for people to
come. He waited for a half hour, and
then a foot fall was heard on the steps,
and after awhile in all six persons ar
rived; but the next day twenty, and the
next day forty, and from that time to
this, for over thirty-eight years, every
day, Sabbath excepted, that Fulton
Street Prayer Meeting has been a place
where people have asked prayer and
answers to prayers have been an
nounced, and the throb of that great
heart of supplication has thrilled not
only in the heavens, but clear around
the world, more than any spot on earth.
That has been the place where the re-
deemed of the Lord said so!
There are hundreds of ministers who
have hard work to make be-
cause no one expresses any apprecia-
ton. They are afraid of making him
vain. The moment the benediction is
pronounced they turn on their heels
and go out. Perhaps it was a subject
on which he had put especial pains. He
sought for the right text, and then did
his best to put the old thought into
some new shape. He had prayed that
it might go to the hearts of the peo-
pie. He had added to the argument
the most vivid illustrations he could
think of. He had delivered all with
a power that left him n~ervously eX-
hausted. Five hundred people may
have been blessed with it, and resolved
upon a higher life and nobler purpose.
Yet all he hears is the clank Of the
pew door, or the shutting of feet in
the aisle, or some remark about the
weather, the last resort of inanity.
Why did not that man come up and
say frankly, you have done me
good?" Why did not some woman
come up and say, Il shall go home to
take up the burden of life more cheer
fully?" Why did not some professional
man come up and say, Thank you,
dominic, for that good advice. I will
take it. God bless you" Why did
they not tell him so? I have known
ministers, in the nervous reaction that
comes to some after the delivery of a
sermon with no seeming result, to go
home and roll on the floor in agony.
But to make up for this lack of out
spoken religion there needs to be and
will be a Great Day, when amid the
solemnities and grandeurs of a listen
ing universe God will SAY So" No
statistics can state how many mothers
have rocked cradles and lowered over
infantile sicknesses and brought up
their families to manhood and woman
hood, and LAUGHED them upon useful
and successful lives, and yet never re-
ceived one THANK you" that amounted
to anything. The daughters became
queens in social life and are afianced
in highest realms of prosperity; the
sons took the first honors of the univer-
sity and became radiant in monetary
or professional spheres. Now the secret
of all that uplifted maternal influence
must come out. Society did not say
so; the church did not say so; the world
did not say so, but on that day Of all
other days, the Last Day, God will say
so.
There are men to whom life is a grind
and a conflict, hereditary tendencies to
be overcome, accidental environments
to be endured, appalling opposition to
be met and conquered, and they never
so much as had a rose pinned to their
coat lapel in admiration. They never
had a song dedicated to their name.
They never had a book presented to
them with a complimentary word on
the fly leaf. All they have to show for
their lifetime battle is scars. But in
the Last Day the story will come out,
and that life will be put in holy and
transcendent rhythm, and their courage
and persistence and faith and victory
will not only be announced, but re-
warded. These ere they that come
out of great tribulation and had their
robes washed and made white in the
blood Of the lamb" God will say so!
We miss N of the chief ideas of a
Last Judgment. We put into the pic
ture the fire, and the smoke, and the
earthquake, and the descending angels,
and the uprising dead, but we omit to
put into the picture that which makes
the Last Judgment a magnificent op-
p%ortunity. We omit the fact that it is
to be a day of glorious explanation and