As he stood at the door of her bedroom, he heard some one praying. It was his little Jane, and he heard her say, "Do, G.o.d Almighty, please lead daddy to hear Mr. Stowell preach."
She had often asked him to go, and he had always said, "No, no, my child." After listening to her prayer, he determined, the next time she asked him, to accompany her, which he did, and heard a sermon which took his attention and p.r.i.c.ked his conscience. On leaving the church, he clasped the hand of his little girl in his, and said, "Jane, thy G.o.d shall be my G.o.d, and thy minister shall be my minister." And the man became a true follower of the Lord.
A CHILD"S PRAYER FOR RELIEF
An interesting little daughter of a professor in Danville, Kentucky, in the Summer of 1876, in eating a watermelon, got one of the seeds lodged in her windpipe. The effort was made to remove it, but proved ineffectual, and it was thought that the child would have to be taken to one of the large cities to have an operation performed by a skillful surgeon. To this she was decidedly opposed, and pleaded with her mamma to tell her if there was no other way of relief. Finally, in order to quiet her childish fears, her Christian mother told her to ask G.o.d to help her.
The little one went into an adjoining room and offered her prayer to G.o.d to help her. Shortly thereafter she came running to her mamma with the seed in her hand, and her beautiful and intelligent face lighted up with joy. In response to the eager inquiry of the mother, the little one said that she had asked G.o.d to help her, and while she was praying she was taken with a severe cough, in which she threw up the seed.
G.o.d"S CARE OVER HIS PEOPLE--THE PRAYING WIDOW
A young widow with two children was living in the city of Berlin. She was a Christian woman, and trusted in Jehovah-Jireh to take care of her.
One evening she had to be away for a while. During her absence a man entered her house for the purpose of robbing her. But "the Lord who provides" protected her from this danger in a very singular way. On returning to her home she found a note lying on her table, which read as follows:
"Madam, I came here with the intention of robbing you, but the sight of this little room, with the religious pictures hanging around in it, and those two sweet-looking children quietly sleeping in their little bed, have touched my heart. I cannot take anything of yours. The small amount of money lying on your desk I leave untouched, and I take the liberty of adding fifty dollars besides." The Bible tells us that "the hearts of men are in the hands of G.o.d. and he turneth them as the rivers of waters are turned." He turned the heart of this robber from his wicked purpose, and in this way he protected the widow who trusted in him.
G.o.d SAVED A FAMILY MERCIFULLY.
One morning a Christian farmer, in Rhode Island, put two bushels of rye in his wagon and started to the mill to get it ground. On his way to the mill he had to drive over a bridge that had no railings to the sides of it. When he reached the middle of this bridge his horse, a quiet, gentle creature, began all at once to back. In spite of all the farmer could do, he kept on backing till the hinder wheels went over the side of the bridge, and the bag of grain was tipped out and fell into the stream.
Then the horse stood still. Some men came to help the farmer. The wagon was lifted back and the bag of grain was fished up from the water. Of course it could not be taken to the mill in that state. So the farmer had to take it home and dry it. He had prayed that morning that G.o.d would protect and help him through the day, and he wondered what this accident had happened for. He found out, however, before long. On spreading out the grain to dry he noticed a great many small pieces of gla.s.s mixed up with it. If this had been ground up with the grain into the flour it would have caused the death of himself and his family. But Jehovah-Jireh was on that bridge. He made the horse back and throw the grain into the water to save the family from the danger that threatened them.
A CHILD"S FAITH IN THE LORD"S PRAYER.
About the 30th of July, 1864, the beautiful village of Chambersburgh was invaded and pillaged by the Confederate army. A superintendent of a Sabbath school, formerly resident in the South, but who had been obliged to flee to the North because of his known faithfulness to the national government, was residing there, knowing that if discovered by the Confederate soldiers, he would be in great peril of life, property and every indignity,--in the gray dawn of that memorable day, with his wife and two little girls, again on foot, he fled to the chain of mountains lying north-west of the doomed village.
After remaining out for some days and nights, with no shelter but such as was afforded by the friendly boughs of large forest trees, and without food, they became nearly famished. At last, the head of the family, unable to endure the agony of beholding his wife and children starving to death before his face, and he not able to render the needed relief, withdrew to a place by himself, that he might not witness the sad death of his loved ones. With his back against a large oak, he had been seated only a short time, when his eldest little daughter, not quite ten years old, came to him and exclaimed:
"_Father, father, I have found such a precious text in my little Testament, which I brought to the mountain with me, for very joy I could not stop to read it to mother, but hastened to you with it. Please listen while I read_." To which he said:
"Yes, my child, read it. There is comfort to be found in the Scriptures.
We will not long be together on earth, and there could be no better way of spending our last mortal hours." To which she replied:
"O, father, I believe that we will not die at this time; that we will not be permitted to starve; that G.o.d will surely send us relief; but do let me read." Then opening her dear little volume, at the ninth verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew, she read as follows:
""_Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread." O, father, to think that our dear Saviour Himself taught His disciples to pray for their daily bread. These are His own words. It is not possible, therefore, that He will allow any person to starve, who, in His own appointed language, asks Him for food. Will He not, dear father, hear our prayers for bread_?"
At once and forever the scales fell from the eyes of that parent. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he clasped his child to his bosom, and earnestly repeated the Lord"s Prayer. _He had scarcely finished it when a small dog ran to where he and his daughter were upon their knees, and barked so fiercely as to attract to the spot its owner, a wealthy Pennsylvania farmer,_ who was upon the mountain in search of cattle that he had lost for several days. The kind-hearted tiller of the soil immediately piloted the suffering family to his own comfortable home, and properly provided for their wants.
A CHILD PRESERVED FROM WOLVES.
A little girl only nine years old, named Sutherland, living at Platteville, Col., was recently saved from death by ferocious forest wolves as follows: The child went with her father on a cold afternoon to the woods to find the cattle, and was told to follow the calves home, while the father continued his search for the cows. She did so, but the calves misled her, and very soon she became conscious that she was lost.
Night came on, and with it the cold of November and the dreaded wolves.
With a strange calmness she continued on her uncertain way. The next day, Sunday, at 10 A.M., she reached, in her wanderings, the house of John Beebe, near a place called Evans, having traveled constantly eighteen hours, and a distance of not less than twenty-five miles. _All night the wolves growled around her, but harmed her not_; neither was she in the least frightened by them. All know that in ordinary cases fierce packs of blood-thirsty wolves would devour a man, and even a horse. But this little one was invincible in her trusting, simple faith.
The narrative states: "She said that the wolves kept close to her heels and snapped at her feet; but her mother told her that if she was _good_ the Lord would _always_ take care of her; so she asked the Lord to take care of her, and she knew the wolves would not hurt her, _because G.o.d wouldn"t let them_!" The child was hunted for by a great number of people, and being found was restored shortly to her parents in perfect health and soundness.
JESUS CURED ME.
In the family of a missionary pastor in Kansas, was a daughter of twelve years of age, seriously afflicted with chronic rheumatism. For three years she suffered, until the leg was shrunken, stiff at the knee, shorter by some two inches than, the other, and the hip joint was being gradually drawn from its socket. The child read of Mrs. Miller"s cure by prayer, originally published in _The Advance_, and wondered why she could not also be cured by the same means. She repeated to her mother some of the promised answers to prayer, and asked: "Don"t Jesus mean what he says, and isn"t it just as true now as then?" The mother endeavored to divert her attention by representing the affliction as a blessing. The physician also called and left another prescription, and encouraged the child to hope for benefit from it. The child could not, however, be diverted from the thought that Jesus could and would heal her. After the doctor"s departure she said: "_Mamma, I cannot have that plaster put on."_
"Why, dear."
"_Because, mother, Jesus is going to cure me, and he must have all the glory. Dr. ---- doesn"t believe in G.o.d; if we put the plaster on, he will say it was that which helped me; and it must be all Jesus_." So earnest was she, that her mother at length placed the package, just as she had received it, on a shelf, and said no more about it.
The little girl and her mother were alone that day, the father being absent from home. When the household duties were done she called her mother to her.
"Mother, will you pray now to Jesus to cure me_? I have got the faith; I know he will if you will ask him_." The mother, overcome, yielded to her daughter"s request, and commenced praying. She was blest with unusual consciousness of the presence of G.o.d, and became insensible of all outward surroundings, pleading for the child. She remained in this state of intercession for more than an hour, when she was aroused by her daughter, who with her hand on the mother"s shoulder was joyfully exclaiming, "_Mother, dear mother, wake up! Don"t you see Jesus has cured me? O, I am well! I am all well!" and she danced about the room, literally healed._
One week from that day, the girl was seen by the writer in the "_Advance,"_ who says she was _out sliding on the ice with her companions_. From that day to this she has had no further trouble; _the limb is full, round and perfect_; there is _no difference between it and the other_.
To every question asked she replies, with the overflowing grat.i.tude of a loving heart, "Jesus cured me!"
THE LITTLE BOY WHO WANTED HIS SISTER TO READ THE BIBLE.
Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, of London, tells of the excellent faith of a little boy in one of the schools of Edinburgh, who had attended a prayer-meeting, and at the last said to his teacher who conducted it:
"Teacher, I wish my sister could be got to read the Bible; she never reads it."
"Why, Johnny, should your sister read the Bible?"
"Because if she once read it I am sure it would do her good, and she would he converted and saved."
"Do you think so, Johnny?"
"Yes, I do, sir; and I wish the next time there was a prayer-meeting you would ask the people to pray for my sister, that she may begin to read the Bible."
"Well, well, it shall be done, John."
So the teacher gave out that a little boy was anxious that prayer should be offered that his sister might read the Bible. John was observed to get up and go out. The teacher thought it very rude of the boy to disturb the people in a crowded room, and so the next day, when the lad came, he said:
"John, I thought it very rude of you to get up in the prayer-meeting and go out. You ought not to have done so."
"O, sir," said the boy, "I did not mean to be rude; _but I thought I should like to go home and see my sister reading her Bible for the first time_."
_True to his faith, when he reached his home, he found the little girl reading her Bible_.