“Your letter came to hand in the SAME MAIL, at the SAME INSTANT of TIME, with a letter from a brother in distress WANTING THE SAME AMOUNT. And now you have made him happy, and my heart glad, and the Lord will bless you for it."

     D.L.  MOODY.

Had there been a direct revelation from heaven, it could not have been more astounding than this, to the heart of that Christian.  His own prayer was answered, as to his search for the evidences of the Holy Spirit, but oh, how wonderfully!

None but a Superior, Higher, Overruling Spirit, could have known the thoughts and desires of each heart.  Nothing but an Omnipotent hand of Power and Wisdom could have brought these two letters together at that identical instant of time.  None but an All-knowing Father could have fixed the amount of money which the one was to give and the other was to pray for.

This was a wonderful conjuncture of time, desire and amount, and could never have happened by any chance operation of Nature or the natural heart and will.  Strangest of all, neither of the parties had ever met, known or corresponded with each other before.  Neither did Mr. Moody know of the desire of the one, nor the necessity of the other, until in the act of opening the two letters side by side.  In the one envelope was the prayer; in the other the answer.

That check, those letters, with all signatures and endorsements and those persons are this day living and can testify to the authenticity of the circumstance.

THE PRAYER OF FAITH.

The family of Mr. James R. Jordan has resided in Lake View, Chicago, since the spring of 1871.  They are members of Lincoln Park Congregational Church.  The father, Mr. James R. Jordan, died in October, 1882, aged eighty-four years.  Through a long series of financial trials, sorrows, afflictions by death and pressing cares, this family learned to depend on God for their daily prosperity; and the cures wrought in them, according to God’s Word, are only a small portion of the remarkable answers to prayer with which their history is filled.

It is an instructive fact for Christian meditation, that when the exercise of intelligent faith was necessary to their cures, the faith was there ready for exercise. They had not to begin, as, alas! so many do, at the very foundation, and find out first, what faith is, and next, how to exercise it.  They had learned long before what faith is and what faith is not; that faith is trustful obedience to the Word of God; that it is not a determination to have one’s own way, nor to expect the immediate gratification of a desire, simply because the desire has been made known to God.  They knew that faith obediently accepts God’s commands and promises, expects to comply with the conditions of those commands and promises, and, so complying, expects to receive the results of such obedience at such times and in such ways as God appoints; all of which truths they found, and all of which may be found in the Holy Scriptures.