Part 2 (1/2)
Do you know what it will cost?” ”Yes,” I replied. ”5000” ”Well,” said my friend, ”you shall get the money when you want it.”
It was a new song of praise to G.o.d that day, I can tell you, and we went on to build our church. Now, even it we find too small, and we are praying to the Lord for 2500 to enlarge the building, and enable us to accommodate five hundred more wors.h.i.+ppers.
I thought that, having got the church, we might, as we were building a tower to hold the tank for our water supply, also get a clock and chimes to enliven the village. So we prayed that the Lord would send money for that purpose. I thought that about 500 or 600 would be sufficient.
While the building was going on, we prayed for the money, and I was certain it would come. The architect was hurrying me and pointing out that if the clock and bells were really to go into the tower, the work must be done at once. I told him there was no fear that the money would not come. If the money had not come, and the tower was completed, the placing of the clock and bells at a later period would have mean practically taking down and rebuilding, because with our water tank in position, the work would have been impossible. My architect kept bothering me, but I was sure the money would come, and one night I went home and found a cheque for 200--1500 to build a house, and 500 for the clock and bells. The clock and bells cost 800, and the lady who sent the money paid the additional 300.
A village like our Homes, with 1200 of a population, needed a good water supply for sanitary purposes. For a very long time we depended on a well, and stored the water in tanks, but frequently the supply fell short, and we felt that if we could get the proprietors in the upper district--none of the surrounding proprietors, by the way, had ever taken much interest in the work of the Homes--to give us the privilege of bringing water into the grounds, we should be able to do much to improve that state of matters. Sir Michael Shaw Stewart gave us the right to use our own burn higher up for the purpose, and gave us a piece of ground at a nominal rent of 12s. a year, for a reservoir and filter, but the money to carry out the work was not in hand, and we prayed to the Lord to send us from 1200 to 1400, which we antic.i.p.ated would be the cost of the undertaking.
Some time later a lady called at James Morrison Street (Glasgow), and left word that an old woman who lived in Main Street, Gorbals, wished to see me. On the following day I called at the address given, and found the person who had sent for me. She was an old woman living in a single apartment, and she was very ill and weak. ”Are you Mr. Quarrier?” she asked. I said I was. ”Ye were once puir yersel',” she went on; ”I was once a puir girl with naebody to care for me, and was in service when I was eleven years old. I have been thankful for a' the kindness that has been shown me in my life.”
She went to a chest of drawers in the corner of the apartment, and after a little came and gave me two deposit receipts on the Savings Bank, each for 200 and on neither of which any interest had been drawn for twenty years. When I cashed them I received 627.
I said ”Janet”--Janet Stewart was her name--”are you not giving me too much?” ”Na, na, I've plenty mair, an' ye'll get it a' when I dee.”
We did the best we could for Janet, but she did not live much longer.
Within a week I received a telegram that Janet was dead, and she had died, I was told, singing ”Just as I am without one plea.”
In her will she left several sums to neighbours who had been kind to her in life, and to our Homes was bequeathed the balance. Altogether the Orphans' share was 1400. The money defrayed the cost of our water scheme, and I always think how appropriate the gift was, for nearly all her life Janet had been a washerwoman and had earned her bread over the wash-tub.
The direct answers to prayers of which I could tell you would fill a volume, and what I have mentioned are only those fixed in my memory. I have always asked G.o.d for a definite gift for a definite purpose, and G.o.d has always given it to me. The value of the buildings at Bridge-of-Weir is 200,000, and since we started, the cost of their ”upkeep” has been 150,000. And we are still building as busily as in the beginning.
VI
BY MR.
LEONARD K. SHAW OF MANCHESTER
The work for homeless children in Manchester was cradled in prayer.
Every step in preparation was laid before G.o.d. But what I want specially to insist upon is the real connection there is between prayer and work.
From the first my practice has been to lay our wants before G.o.d in prayer, and at the same time to use every means within our reach to obtain what we desired. I well remember in the early days of the work how anxiously we discussed whether it was to be conducted on the ”faith” principle, as it is called, or on the ”work” principle. Looking back on the way by which we have come, it seems to me now that faith and work necessarily go together. Earnest believing prayer is not less earnest and believing because you use the means G.o.d has put within your reach. Your dependence upon G.o.d is just the same. You send out an appeal, but it is G.o.d who disposes the hearts of the people to subscribe. So I say the connection between praying and working, though not always seen, is very real. Day by day the special needs of the work are laid before G.o.d, and day by day they are supplied.
Of direct answers to prayer I have had many sweet and encouraging a.s.surances, particularly in connection with our orphan homes. In the first five years of the work, we only took in boys between the ages of ten and sixteen. At that time of life, boys who have been brought up on the street are not easy to manage, and a friend to whom I was telling some of our difficulties, suggested that we should take the boys in younger. To do so meant a new departure, and on going into the matter I found that a sum of about 600 would be needed to start such an orphan home as was suggested. I said to my wife, ”Let us pray about this; if it is G.o.d's will that we should enter upon this new branch of work, He will send the money.” We resolved that should be the test; if the money came we would start the home, otherwise we would not. Our annual meeting came round soon after, and in the report I made an appeal on behalf of the new scheme. The report was sent out with much prayer, but no individual person was asked to contribute. In a few days I received a letter from a gentleman residing in Southport, enclosing a cheque for 600. The house for the first of our orphan homes was bought for 500, and the balance of the cheque enabled us to furnish it.
At the end of the following year, the home was full of fatherless and motherless little ones, and others were seeking admission for whom there was no room. I sent out a second appeal, asking G.o.d to put it into the heart of someone to provide a second home. A few weeks afterwards a lady well known in Manchester paid us a visit at the home and two days later I received from her a cheque for 1000. In this way we got our second home. Another year and this second home was also full. Again I prayed G.o.d to dispose the heart of some one to help us, and I sent out another appeal. One day, perhaps two or three weeks later, a gentleman stopped me in the street and said he had been wanting to see me for some days, as he had a cheque for 700 waiting for me at his office. At the moment the orphan home was not in my mind, and I asked what the cheque was for.
Why, he said, I understand your two orphan homes are full and that you want another. And so we got our third home. Another year and it too was full. Again after earnest prayer I received a cheque for 1000 from another Manchester gentleman, who in some way had come to know that a fourth home was needed.
In these four cases you have, I think, remarkable instances of direct answer to prayer. So, at any rate, I must always regard them. I need not say how encouraged we were, year after year, to go on with the work, though each additional home meant a large increase in our annual expenditure.
The money with which the fifth orphanage house was bought was not given in one sum nor specially for the purpose, and the circ.u.mstances would not warrant me in saying that it came in direct answer to prayer. When a sixth home became necessary an appeal was made to the schoolgirls of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re, and they found the 500 for the purchase money.
This house is called ”The School Girls' Home.” The inscription on the memorial stone, ”His children shall have a place of refuge,” was suggested by the late Bishop of Manchester.
In smaller, but perhaps not less important matters, we have had unmistakable proofs that G.o.d answers prayer. One case which occurred in the early days of the work greatly impressed me. A letter came one morning from Stalybridge asking us to take in five little children who had been left dest.i.tute and without a friend in the world. I went over to make inquiries, and found the children in the same room with the dead body of their mother, which had little more to cover it than an old sack. Our means at that time were very small, and I thought we could hardly venture to take in all the children. The clergyman of the parish pleaded with me to take at least two or three. I asked what was to become of the others, and the answer was that there was nothing for them but the workhouse. What to do I did not know. I made it a matter of prayer, but all that night it lay upon my heart a great burden. Next morning I came downstairs still wondering what to do. Amongst the letters on my table was one from a gentleman at Bowdon, enclosing, unasked, a cheque for 50. In those days 50 was an exceptionally large sum for us to receive, and I took the letter as a direct word from G.o.d that we should accept the care of the children. We did so, and I am glad to say every one of them turned out well.
But direct answers to prayer are not confined to mere gifts of money.
Over and over again during these twenty-seven years of rescue work I have put individual cases before G.o.d and asked Him to deal with them, and it is just wonderful how He has subdued stubborn wills and changed hearts and lives.