A FAMILY PRAY FOR A GOOD SERVANT.

“About three years since my family comfort was very much disturbed by failure to obtain a good housemaid.  And, having been accustomed to wait upon God for right direction in my temporal as well as spiritual affairs, in simple faith I asked Him to direct me on reaching New York City to where I would find a girl of good character that would appreciate a Christian home.  My steps were led to a boarding-house on Greenwich street, and on inquiring for a German or Swede girl I was told they had a nice Swede just landed.  I talked to her through an interpreter and was satisfied from what she said, as well as from her countenance, that she was the one I was searching for.  She came to my home and proved, in two years’ service, almost faultless.  In conversation one day, a short time after she came to our home, she said she had had several places offered her that morning before I came, but she did not like them; but as soon as she saw me, felt that she could go with me—­she was a Christian, member of the Lutheran church and wanted a Christian home.  Her desire was granted and my prayer was answered.”

A RECOVERY FROM A DEATH-BED.

“Some forty years ago, in a rural parish in New England, a young man lay apparently on his death-bed with a putrid fever.  His aunt, in whose family he was staying, was a woman who had long lived in habitual intercourse with the unseen world through prayer.  One afternoon, when it seemed to those around him that the sick one must die, she went away alone to speak with God.  With intense earnestness she pleaded for the young man’s life.  And, being deeply interested in the portion of our country then beginning to be settled, she asked also that he might become a home missionary at the West.  There were various circumstances which made this latter request, as well as the other, seem very unlikely to be fulfilled.  And yet it was.  The young man recovered, pursued a collegiate and theological course, and still lives and labors as a most devoted and useful Christian pioneer.  More than once he has been a member of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and his name is familiar to many.”

A POOR STUDENT PRAYS FOR MONEY.

“I was a poor student in a Manual Labor Institute at the West.  The month of February was our regular Winter vacation.  We were privileged to keep our rooms and have board at one dollar a week.  But I had absolutely no money.  I was six hundred miles from my friends, and they were unable to furnish me with funds.  I had no books for the new term, though these were a necessity if I went on with my class, and there was no work about the Institution, nor that I know of in the neighborhood at that season.  My case seemed an exceedingly bad one; and I had no idea from where any help could come.  So I went