Part 7 (1/2)
PRAYING FOR A SEWING MACHINE.
”One day a lady friend said to me: 'Would you like some nice sewing, easy to do?' I answered, 'Yes.' 'Have you a sewing machine?' 'I have not, but am praying for one.' 'That is right; so you believe you will have it by praying for it?' I replied: 'If the Lord thinks I need it, He will send it.' I had learned to use my sister's, but I wanted one of my own, to use just when I felt like it. So the thought kept in my heart, 'Why can't I pray for one?' And yet it seemed foolish to go in prayer to G.o.d for such a simple thing, but I had not then learned that _all things,_ with Him, meant every wish and want of the human heart. But there was no other way. He must send my machine, or I could have none. I prayed very earnestly. After a few weeks of waiting, one golden winter morning it came--my beautiful machine--just what I wanted. This seemed so wonderful to me, that it seemed to bring me into nearer companions.h.i.+p with the Lord, and ever after, whatever I needed, I went directly to Him for. A ministerial friend once asked me what it was I had covered up on the stand. I told him it was my piano, taking the cover aside and showing him at once how my beautiful sewing machine worked. _'What tune do you play oftenest?'_ he asked. _'Rock of Ages_ is its favorite one, and I never sew without singing it.'”
MONEY FOR POSTAGE.
”One day I opened my port-monnaie to get change for some little needful, when I found I had but ten cents. I used five of it. As visions of six or seven letters and many little things I needed came up before me, I said aloud: 'The Lord will have to send me some money pretty soon.' I think once through the day I prayed for some money, but felt no uneasiness about it. That evening a lady friend called to say good-by for the winter, and as she left gave me _fifty cents for postage._ While I was calling He answered me. About a week before this, I thought I would ask the Lord for $5 for my physician. He had come so faithfully, day after day, without ever expecting one dollar, because I had told him freely my circ.u.mstances. But I felt I must give him something for a gift at least. So I asked for five dollars. Day after day pa.s.sed away, and I thought perhaps the Lord did not want me to have it. But still I prayed, asking it for His will, not mine. One morning a letter came from a very dear friend, containing a check for the amount for which I had prayed, and a little beside. It seemed such a signal answer to my prayer, that I could scarcely speak, and in my heart a glad prayer of thanksgiving went up to Him, who had told me _to ask and I should receive._ A friend, to whom I told this, said: 'Now you need this money yourself; I would not give it to the doctor now--wait awhile.' 'But,' I replied, 'I dare not do it. I need it, I know, but I asked G.o.d for it for my doctor, and I must give it.' And here let me say, when we ask G.o.d for money, it is sacred, and must be spent only to please Him.”
PRAYING FOR A BIBLE.
”For a long while it has been my habit to be entirely guided for the day by the first verse in the Bible on which my eyes rested. While dressing for the day, I glance at the open page, or sometimes turning over the leaves. But my old Bible was poor print and small, and it troubled me for a long while. So I thought I would ask the Lord to send me a new one. I told Him all about it. One day, this Summer, the postman brought me a package of magazines and a letter. I began to undo the package, eager to scan their welcome pages. My sister laughingly said she would read my letter, and suiting the action to the word, opened the envelope.
I really did not mind what she was doing, until she said: 'Why there is some money here, but no letter.' So she handed me the half sheet of paper, with the money folded inside. I looked it over, and there were only these words in pencil: 'For a Bible, and three dollars.' We looked at each other; I could not say a word, until she said, 'What does it all mean? 'I answered, 'The Lord sent it, I know; where could it come from?'
It was wonderful--wonderful because I could not remember as I ever told any one that I was praying for a Bible.”
A SPRING MATTRESS.
”Last Summer, when I bought my bedstead, I did not have money to get either springs or a mattress, so I fixed up a clean, straw bed, and covered it nicely with a thick comfortable. It was pretty hard--I did not rest well. So, one sleepless night, I said aloud, 'I will just ask the Lord to send me a set of springs.' I kept on day by day. When I felt the severe pain which denoted illness, I thought of my hard bed and prayed more earnest. One day my physician spoke of my hard bed. I told him I was going to have a better one; I was praying for some springs.
And so I kept on. One day, a lady friend said something about my bed. I did not say much. Somehow I felt I must not; I wanted to have it all the Lord's doings, if I ever had any. One day my sister said a man was at the door, who wanted to fit a set of springs to my bed. Why, I can't tell how I felt; even after G.o.d had answered my simple prayers, and honored my faith so many times, I was astonished at this. But she helped me up, and the bed was fitted with nice, new springs. And they were mine. The man could not tell anything about them. My sister says, 'Annie, did you order them?' I said, 'No.' 'Don't you know who sent them?' I said, 'No.' 'Did you ask Mrs. W---- to order them?' I said, 'I did not; I would lay here six years before I would do it. No, somebody had a hand in it, but the Lord sent them, because I prayed for them all the time.' A friend was present when my physician called. I told him about the new springs. His kind face lit up grandly at this new evidence that G.o.d did answer humble, faithful prayer, and he turned to my friend with the words: 'I am glad they were just what she has been praying for.' I do not think he had anything to do about them. But these springs are only another proof of his love and power, in touching the hearts of his children to help others. And they have their reward. Soon after this, a lady sent me a white spread for my bed. Surely, G.o.d is good to his little ones.”
THE HEALING OF MARY THEOBALD.
The following incident is related by her pastor, at Woburn, Ma.s.s., who, for three and a half years, was well acquainted with her physical condition, and who testified, in _The Congregationalist_, that no medicine, or physician's aid or advice, was of any avail:
”From the first of my acquaintance to the last, she had an unswerving confidence in her recovery. Many times has she said to me: 'I believe that I shall be well. Jesus will raise me up. I shall hear you preach some day.'
”But, in common with the friends who were watching her case, and with the physicians who had exhausted their skill upon her in vain, I had little or no hope for her. It seemed to me that her life was to be one of suffering; that G.o.d was keeping her with us that we might have a heroic example of what His grace could enable one to bear and to become.
”A few days ago, I received from her lips the following statement of the origin and progress of her sickness: 'My first sickness occurred when I was about sixteen years old. This illness lasted for a year. Indeed, I was never well again. That sickness left me with a bad humor, which, for two years, kept me covered with boils. When the boils disappeared, the trouble was internal. Physicians feared a cancer. For ten years, I was sick, more or less--sometimes able to work, sometimes utterly prostrate.
”'My second severe illness began in the Autumn of 1871. I had been failing for two years. Then I was obliged to give up. I was on the bed five months. From this illness I never recovered so as to labor or walk abroad. When not confined to my bed, I have been on the lounge, as you have known me. No one can ever know the suffering which these years have brought me.'
”My acquaintance with her began in the Spring of 1873. Several times since I have known her, she has been carried so low that we have thought her release near at hand; and, indeed, the general tendency has been downwards. I recently asked an intelligent physician, who had attended her for a year or more, to give me the facts in her case. He replied: 'She is diseased throughout. Her system is thoroughly soured. It responds to nothing. Almost every function is abnormal. There is no help for her in medicine.' Other physicians had tried their skill with the same result. It was generally admitted by doctors, friends and family, that nothing more could be done for her. While all saw only suffering and an early death in store for her, yet she confidently expected to be well, and her faith never waned.
”It was her custom to spend a few weeks each year in the family of one of the sisters in the church. At her last visit, it was evident to this lady that Mary was not so well as in former years. One day, when conversation turned upon this topic, she felt constrained to express her fears. But Mary was hopeful. A proposition was made, and arrangements were perfected to visit Doctor Cullis, to secure the benefit of his prayers. But her feebleness was so great that the plan was abandoned.
'If,' said Mrs. F., 'faith is to cure you, why go to Doctor Cullis, or to any one? Let us go to G.o.d ourselves; and, Mary, if you have faith that G.o.d can and will cure you sometime, why not believe that He will _cure you now?_'
”She felt herself cast on G.o.d alone. All hope of human help was at an end. She had thought it, hitherto, enough patiently to wait His time.
She saw that, after all, she must not dishonor G.o.d by limiting His power. Again her Bible opened to the familiar pa.s.sages, '_the prayer of faith shall save the sick_;' 'according to your faith be it unto you.'
She felt that the time for testing her faith had come. She would dishonor the Lord no longer. Requesting the prayers of the family that G.o.d would now grant healing and restoration, she tottered to her couch, and, asking that in the morning she might be well, calmly closed her eyes in the a.s.surance that it would be so. _And according to her faith, so it was. She came forth in the morning without a remnant of the pain which had filled a decade of years with agony_. That Sabbath was to her, indeed, 'a high day.' A week later the frequent prophecy that she should hear me preach was fulfilled.
”_Not a vestige of suffering remained_. So far as that is concerned, there was not a hint left that she had been an invalid for almost a score of years.