"A pious woman, who was reduced to extreme poverty and deserted by her intemperate husband, was taken sick, and lay several days without physical power to provide food for her two little children. She had directed them where to find the little that was remaining in the house, and they had eaten it all. Still she lay sick, with no means of obtaining more, as night closed upon the hungry household. The children soon forgot their hunger in sleep; but not so the mother. She saw no help for them but in God, and she spent the night-watches in spreading before him their necessities. As the morning approached her confidence in God increased, and that passage from his word rested with peculiar sweetness upon her mind, 'Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.'
"Morning came. The starving children managed by her direction to build them a little fire, and almost before they had commenced telling their mother of their hunger, a stranger came in. She introduced herself as Mrs. J., saying she had known for some time that there was a new family in the neighborhood, and intended to call and make their acquaintance, but had been prevented. During the last night she had been so troubled and disturbed about it, that she thought she would run in early, lest she should again be prevented, and see if there was any way in which she could be of service to them. The mother in bed, with her head bound to mitigate its pain, revealed the story of her sufferings, and the good lady soon learned their entire destitution. They were immediately made comfortable; and all will be glad to know that it was the beginning of better days to that deserted wife and mother."
The Necessity of Asking God's Blessing Every Day, upon Your Daily Work. Every Work, however Good, Needs Special, Specific, Daily Prayer for its Prosperity.
"A colporteur in the Wabash valley became quite discouraged and was almost ready to give up his work, on account of the smallness of his sales. On every side, his ears were filled with complaints of 'hard times;' the wheat crop had partially failed two years in succession--the California emigration, and railroad and plank-road speculations had almost drained the country of money. Frequently he would be told, that if he could come after harvest they would buy his books, but that it was impossible to do so then. His sales were daily decreasing, and he became more and more disheartened, until one night, after a laborious day's effort, he found that he had only sold twenty-five cents' worth! He felt that he could not go on in this way any longer. He was wasting his strength and time, and the money of the Society. On examination of the state of his heart, he found that it had, gradually and almost unconsciously, grown cold and departed far from Christ. He felt that he had not prayed as he ought to have done, especially he had neglected each morning, and on his approach to each dwelling, to pray that then and there God would guide him, and own and bless his efforts to sell books. He saw that probably here was at least a part of the cause why his sales had become so small. Early the next morning, before any of the family were up, he arose and retired to the adjoining woods, where he had a long and precious season of communion with God. There he anew dedicated himself and his all to the service of Christ. There, as under the eye of the Master, he reviewed the time he had labored as a colporteur, and prayed for forgiveness for the past and grace for the future. There he told the Saviour all about his work, and asked him to go with him that day, preparing the way and enabling him to succeed in the work on which he had entered. The result was what might have been expected. He went forth a new man; his heart was interested more deeply in the truths which he was circulating--they were more precious than ever to his own soul, and he could recommend his books, as he failed to do when his heart was cold and prayerless. That first day he sold more books than during the whole week before. In one instance, he sold several dollars' worth in a family where, as he was afterwards told by pious men in the neighborhood, the father was most bitterly opposed to everything connected with true religion. God had prepared that man's heart, so that he was ready to purchase quite a library for his family. And in many families that met him that day with the usual salutation, 'no money,' he succeeded in disposing of more than one volume by sale. As he went from family to family, lifting up his heart in prayer to God for success in the particular object of his visit, God heard his prayers and owned his efforts. And so, he assured me, it had been since; whenever he had been prayerful--prayerful for this particular object, and then had diligently and faithfully done his best, he had invariably succeeded in doing even more than he expected."
Prayer Found The Remedy For The Disease.
"A correspondent of The Illustrated Christian Weekly, states that a mother of her acquaintance had a child taken alarmingly ill. She sent for the physician. The child was in convulsions. The doctor began at once vigorously to apply the customary remedies--cold water to the head, warm applications to the feet, chafing of the hands and limbs. All was in vain. The body lost nothing of its dreadful rigidity. Death seemed close at hand, and absolutely inevitable. At length he left the child, and sat down by the window, looking out. He seemed, to the agonized mother, to have abandoned her darling. For herself, she could do nothing but pray; and even her prayer was but an inarticulate and unvoiced cry for help. Suddenly the physician started from his seat. 'Send and see if there be any jimson weed in the yard,' he cried. His order was obeyed; the poisonous weed was found. The remedies were instantly changed. Enough of the seeds of this deadly weed were brought away by the medicine to have killed a man. The physician subsequently said that he thought that in that five minutes every kindred case he had ever known in a quarter century's practice passed before his mind. Among them was the one case which suggested the real, but before hidden, cause of the protracted and dreadful convulsions. And the child was saved.
"Now, is there anything inconsistent or unphilosophical in the belief that, at that critical moment, a loving God, answering the mother's Helpless cry, flashed on the mind of the physician the thought that saved the child? Is it any objection to that faith to say, the age of miracles is past? If the mother, may call in a second physician, to suggest the cause and the cure, may she not call on God? What the doctor can do for a fellow-practitioner, cannot the Great Physician do? Though the doctor had often tried and thought, yet it was not till the last prayer and call on God, brought the remedy to his mind."
Prayer Instantaneously Answered for Conversion.
On the evening of the fifty-first daily prayer-meeting in Augusta, Ga., a large gathering assembled in the St. John's M.E. Church, at which Dr. Irvine presided, and some very touching communications were read. One was from a widowed mother, asking thanksgiving for the salvation of her youngest daughter, recently from a boarding-school in New York city, where she had finished her education. Some weeks ago she had sought the prayers of the daily prayer-meeting for the conversion of her precious child, who was spending a few weeks with some friends seventy miles from Augusta. Prayers were offered accordingly, but without intimation of any change. The loving mother sent in a second application or prayer to Dr. Irvine, to be read on a recent Monday morning; all this without her daughter's knowledge. On Tuesday the mother received a letter from her daughter, dated two o'clock on Sabbath, informing her that on that day, and at that hour, she had resolved to give her heart to Christ, intending to ask admission to the church at the next communion. Strange to say, at the very moment when the faithful mother was writing her application for prayers for that child, she was announcing her own conversion.
What a verification of the blessed promise: "Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear."