A SERVANT’S PRAYER FOR A GOOD HOME.

“I was brought up religiously as a servant in a family in Connecticut, and from twelve years of age until twenty-three, knew no other home.  The old couple died, and I lived with their children, but they were so different that I became very unhappy and hardly knew what to do or which way to turn.  I had no relatives and knew nothing of any world save the little one in which I had all my life moved, and I was terribly afraid to try any other.  I could only offer my constant prayer for help, and it was answered so much beyond my highest hope, and so kind were God’s dealings with me that I was taken, almost without an effort of my own, into a warm, loving heart, and such a happy home, and all so easily and smoothly that to me it seems like a miracle; and never can I forget while I live, nor cease to believe that truly ’He is the hearer and answerer of prayer.’”

“BEFORE THEY CALL I WILL ANSWER.”—­A PASTOR PRAYS FOR DECISION AS TO GOOD CHOICES.

“The writer was once in great trouble to know what was duty.  Urged by ministers and laymen in high standing to undertake a work not exactly in the line of the ministry, he hesitated.  God’s displeasure was feared, lest in doing what was desired ‘sin might lie at his door.’  To refuse the wish of good and wise men might be resisting God’s call.  In this trial of conscience he sought in fasting and special prayer the guidance of his Heavenly Father.  While so doing the above promise came very distinctly to his mind.  He brought it to God as his own promise, and pleaded, if it could be graciously done, that He would literally fulfill it to the suppliant.  In the very act of thus pleading, he heard a rap on the door.  Opening it, there stood his mother-in-law.  She said, ’Two gentlemen are in the parlor waiting for you.’  I went down, and the interview revealed the exact fulfillment both of the promise and the prophecy.  The Lord answered my prayer two days before I called on Him.  One of the two came from New York to my home in a Western city to inquire about the very thing which was troubling me.  He was to me an entire stranger, never having heard of him until I saw him.  Having consulted his friend, the Rev. M.W.  Jacobus, D.D., they together came to call on me about the matter at the very moment I was pleading with God that He would mercifully, ‘while yet speaking, hear me.’  Now could Tyndall and his followers desire a more literal, a more exact fulfillment of this prophecy and promise as proof of its inspiration, and of prayer as God’s ordinance than that prayer for such fulfillment of these words actually before the prayer was made, and while the petitioner was ‘yet speaking?’”

It will be noticed that the best judgment of good men advise one course, but trust in God for superior wisdom brought the case to answer in a totally different manner, by means of an unknown person, a total stranger, who neither knew him nor his desire.  The circumstance should convince the world.