How the Lord Controls even the Locomotive and the Railroad Train.
A remarkable instance of how the Lord controlled circumstances for the detention of one train, and speeded the arrival of the other, in answer to the prayer of a poor widow, who was in anxiety and distress, is thus known to the editor of The Watchman and Reflector:
"Not long ago an engineer brought his train to a stand at a little Massachusetts village, where the passengers have five minutes for lunch. A lady came along the platform and said: 'The conductor tells me the train at the junction in P---- leaves fifteen minutes before our arrival. It is Saturday night, that is the last train. I have a very sick child in the car, and no money for a hotel, and none for a private conveyance for the long, long journey into the country. What shall I do?' 'Well,' said the engineer, 'I wish I could tell you.' 'Would it be possible for you to hurry a little?' said the anxious, tearful mother. 'No, madam, I have the time-table, and the rules say I must run by it.'
She turned sorrowfully away, leaving the bronzed face of the engineer wet with tears. Presently she returned and said, 'Are you a Christian?' 'I trust I am,' was the reply. 'Will you pray with me that the Lord may, in some way, delay the train at the junction?' 'Why, yes, I will pray with you, but I have not much faith.' Just then, the conductor cried, 'All aboard.' The poor woman hurried back to her deformed and sick child, and away went the train, climbing the grade. 'Somehow,' says the engineer, 'everything worked to a charm. As I prayed, I couldn't help letting my engine out just a little. We hardly stopped at the first station, people got on and off with wonderful alacrity, the conductor's lantern was in the air in half a minute, and then away again. Once over the summit, it was dreadful easy to give her a little more, and then a little more, as I prayed, till she seemed to shoot through the air like an arrow. Somehow I couldn't hold her, knowing I had the road, and so we dashed up to the junction six minutes ahead of time.' There stood the train, and the conductor with his lantern on his arm. 'Well,' said he, 'will you tell me what I am waiting here for? Somehow I felt I must wait your coming to-night, but I don't know why.' 'I guess,' said the brother conductor, 'it is for this woman, with her sick and deformed child, dreadfully anxious to get home this Saturday night.' But the man on the engine and the grateful mother think they can tell why the train waited. God held it to answer their prayers."
Think of this wonderful improbability according to natural circumstances. These trains never connected with each other, nor were intended to. There was no message sent ahead to stop. There was not the slightest business reason for waiting, yet the second conductor, on arrival of the first, asks this question, "What am I waiting for," and the answer of the first is more singular, "I don't know."