It seems that a friend of his was powerfully impressed that morning, and without seeing the family or knowing anything about their need, had packed up a barrel of flour and sent it.
Others of his friends, who were interested in his work, and felt confidence in his work, unknown to him, selected a new house, and furnished it throughout with every facility for convenience and comfort, and when all was completed invited him and his family to it, and made him a present of the loan of his house, and all its contents.
Thus the Great Helper remembered him and answered his daily prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread."
Persevering Prayer.
At one of the prayer-meetings at the Brooklyn tabernacle, Mr. Moody closed by narrating an instance of persevering prayer by a Christian wife for an infidel husband. She resolved to pray for him at noon for eighteen months, and at the expiration of that time, her knocking not having been responded to, she exclaimed, "Lord, I will pray for him, every day, and at all hours, as long as life lasts."
That day the Lord heard her knock, and gave her the desire of her heart, in the conversion of her husband. When the Lord saw her faith would not give up, he sent the answer immediately.
Noah's Prayer.--He Did Not Get Discouraged.
The life of faith and the necessity of uncompromising hold on the promise's, expecting their fulfillment, is admirably explained in the illustration of Noah's prayer. One day Mr. Moody was much discouraged, and it was as dark a Sabbath as ever he had, and a friend suggested to him to study the life of Noah.
"I got out my Bible, and the thought came over me, 'Here is a man who labored and talked a hundred years, and didn't succeed; didn't get a convert notwithstanding all his efforts, all his prayers, but he didn't get discouraged.'
"But he took God at his word; he worked right on; he prayed right on; and he waited God's time. And, my friends, from that time, I have never been discouraged. Whenever I think of him, it lifts me up out of the darkness into the light. Don't get discouraged."