Part 31 (1/2)
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.