The Faith Of Dorothea Trudel.
The life of Dorothea Trudel has afforded some remarkable instances of answer to prayer; during the years 1850 to 1860, at the Swiss village of Männedorf, near the Lake of Zurich, and that of Molltingen, were seen and witnessed, cases of cure in response to unyielding faith in the promises of the Lord.
Dorothea Trudel was a worker in flowers, and in time came to have many workers under her, and when she was about thirty-seven years of age, four or five of her workers fell sick. The sickness resisted all treatment, grew worse, appeared to be hopeless. She was a deep, earnest Christian, and while diligent and unselfish as a nun, yet her anxiety for her work people drew her to earnest prayer and study of the Scriptures for relief. Like a sudden light, she says, the well known prayer of the Epistle of James, 5: 14, 15, flashed upon her.
"If medical skill was unavailing, was there not prayer? And could not the same Lord who chose to heal through medicines, also heal without them? Was he necessarily restricted to the one means? There was a time when his healing power went forth directly; might it not be put forth directly still?"
Agitated by these questions, she sought help in prayer, and then kneeling by the bedside of these sick people, she prayed for them. They recovered; and the thought that at first had startled her, became now the settled conviction of her life.
Her reputation spread; others who were sick, came to her for relief, but she sought only the recovery of the patients by prayer alone. Many recovered. Her doors were besieged, and at last she consented to receive invalids at her home, from compassion. By degrees her own house grew into three, and at last it became in fact a hospital.
She lived a life of humility, and perfect simplicity, yet strength of faith, and at her death her work was, and still is, carried on by Mr. Zeller, who also has had marvelous successes in answer to prayer.