“It was her custom to spend a few weeks each year in the family of one of the sisters in the church.  At her last visit, it was evident to this lady that Mary was not so well as in former years.  One day, when conversation turned upon this topic, she felt constrained to express her fears.  But Mary was hopeful.  A proposition was made, and arrangements were perfected to visit Doctor Cullis, to secure the benefit of his prayers.  But her feebleness was so great that the plan was abandoned.  ‘If,’ said Mrs. F., ’faith is to cure you, why go to Doctor Cullis, or to any one?  Let us go to God ourselves; and, Mary, if you have faith that God can and will cure you sometime, why not believe that He will cure you now?’

“She felt herself cast on God alone.  All hope of human help was at an end.  She had thought it, hitherto, enough patiently to wait His time.  She saw that, after all, she must not dishonor God by limiting His power.  Again her Bible opened to the familiar passages, ’the prayer of faith shall save the sick;’ ‘according to your faith be it unto you.’  She felt that the time for testing her faith had come.  She would dishonor the Lord no longer.  Requesting the prayers of the family that God would now grant healing and restoration, she tottered to her couch, and, asking that in the morning she might be well, calmly closed her eyes in the assurance that it would be so. And according to her faith, so it was.  She came forth in the morning without a remnant of the pain which had filled a decade of years with agony.  That Sabbath was to her, indeed, ‘a high day.’  A week later the frequent prophecy that she should hear me preach was fulfilled.

“Not a vestige of suffering remained.  So far as that is concerned, there was not a hint left that she had been an invalid for almost a score of years.

“She immediately took her place in the family as a well person. Two days after, I saw her.  She came to meet me with a step light and strong, and with a face written all over with thankfulness and joy.  Since that time all the abandoned duties of active life have been resumed.  When last I saw her, she was in bounding health and spirits, declaring that she could not remember when she had felt so happy and well.  That night—­one of the coldest of the winter, the roads at their iciest—­she walked more than half a mile to and from the prayer-meeting.

It is difficult for those who are not conversant with the case to believe it, yet there is no illusion in it. That she went to sleep a suffering, feeble, shattered woman, and, awoke free from pain, and that she has been gaining in strength ever since, are facts that cannot be doubted.”

HOW PRAYER HELPED HIM TO KEEP THE PLEDGE.

In a rural district, in the North of England, lived a shoe-maker who had signed the temperance pledge often, but never had strength to keep it.  After a while, he was able to keep it, and reformed entirely.  A friend was curious to learn how he had been able, at last, to win the victory, and went to see him.