HOW THE LORD RESCUED HIM.

A wonderful incident is told by Dr. S.I.  Prime among his many facts relating to prayer, as published in The Observer and “The Power of Prayer.”

“A young man held a good position in a large publishing house in this city.  He was about thirty years old, a married man, and happy in all the relations of life.  The missionary of the church knew him through years of comfort and prosperity.  Years passed away, and there came a dark place in his life.  Intemperance, of the most depraved kind, made his career most dreadful.  He disappeared, and was not heard from for some time.  He separated himself from his family, and from all good.

“He was met in Boston one day by an old friend, after long years, who noticed a marked difference in his appearance.  He approached him, grasped him by the hand and said: 

“’I am a changed man.  I one day got up in the morning, after a night of wakefulness, and thinking over what a wretch I had become, and how wretched I had made my poor wife and children, I resolved to go to the barn, and there all alone, to pray that God would take away utterly forever my accursed thirst for rum, and to pray till I felt answered that my prayer was heard.  I went down on my knees, and on them I stayed until I had asked God many times to take away all my appetite for rum and tobacco, and everything else which was displeasing to Him, and make me a new creature in Christ Jesus—­a holy, devoted Christian man, for the sake of Him who died for sinners.  I told God that I could not be denied; I could not get up from my knees till I was forgiven and the curse was forever removed.  I was in earnest in my prayer.

“’I was on my knees two hours, short hours, as they seemed to me; two blessed hours, for I arose from my knees assured that all of the dreadful past was forgiven, and my sins blotted out forever.  Oh!  I tell you, God hears prayer.  God has made me a happy man.  I left all my appetite in the old barn.  In that old barn, I was born again.  Not one twinge of the old appetite has ever been felt since then.’”

JESUS KEEPS ME FROM DRINKING.

A young man arose in the Fulton Street prayer-meeting one day, and detailed his struggles and triumphs with his appetites.  He was a perfect drunkard, helpless, poor; his friends’ best efforts to reclaim’ him were of no avail.  The most solemn vows that he had ever taken, still were unable to hold him up.  At last he gave himself up for lost.  There seemed no hope for him, and in his despair he wandered away to the ocean shore.  He met a young man who showed him a good many favors, and to whom he offered a drink from his flask of liquor.

“‘No,’ said he, ’I never drink intoxicating drink, and I ask the Lord Jesus to help me never to touch it.’

“I looked at him with surprise, and inquired, ‘Are you a Christian?’