A WATCH GIVEN TO THE LORD—­HOW THE LORD RETURNS A BETTER ONE.

“Last year, during a season of great need, I sold my watch; yesterday, the Lord returned it by a gift of a much better one from a friend, who had purchased it abroad, knowing nothing of my need, thus proving, ’He that soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully.’”

THE LORD GAVE DOUBLE WHAT WAS ASKED FOR.

“This morning and noon I called upon the Lord in prayer for the means to pay a bill of $100.  By three P.M., a check was sent me of $200.”

BLESSINGS AMID CALAMITIES.

“The roof of one of our houses having caught fire from a spark from a neighbor’s chimney, it was mostly destroyed; some of the furniture, and the whole home badly damaged by water.  All hearts thanked the Lord the circumstances were no worse.  In the midst of our calamity, blessings surrounded us.  An unknown donor sends in 20 tons of coal.  For weeks I have been praying for the means to purchase our Winter fuel, and now the Lord has inclined the heart of an unknown friend to supply our need.”

A REMARKABLE PROMISE.

At one period in the history of the Consumptive’s Home, a sum of three thousand dollars placed in the safe, and reserved to be used for payment on the purchase of a new building was stolen, and there was not left a single dollar; every penny was gone.

Nothing daunted, again going to the Lord, and pleading the Lord’s own promise, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”  The request was made in prayer for the three thousand dollars, and the promise of the amount was definitely made to be paid out a certain day.

The day came.  Before it had arrived, the Lord had sent the three thousand dollars with unusual contributions, and both the promises of the Lord and that of his children were kept.

The ordinary business man would have said it was foolishness for a poor man, with not a penny in the world, all his means stolen from him, to positively promise on a certain day the next month, to pay so large a sum, exactly the same as was stolen.

The skeptic would have said, “All foolish to plead before an unseen God, and ask for such a sum.  You will never get it.  Why didn’t your God prevent your money from being stolen.  If your Bible is true, he ought to have protected you from loss.”

The answer to all these is thus:  The Doctor did trust in the promise of an unseen God, whom he had tested in the past many hundred times, and who had always been faithful in keeping his promises, and his faith knew that his God would not suffer his own work to fail nor suffer reproach.

Still further to silence the skeptic, let it be said that after the robbery became known, the sympathy for the institution became so much greater, that the contributions voluntarily sent in consequence thereof replaced the three thousand dollars within thirty days, and produced far more in excess, to go towards other needs.  Thus an adversity became a blessing.  The Lord uses sorrow to produce good.