May I put this word in here as a parenthesis in the story—­that God oftentimes allows us to be shut in—­He does not shut us in—­He does not need to—­simply take His hand off partly—­there is enough disobedience to His law of our bodies all the time to shut us aside—­no trouble on that side of the problem—­with pain to Himself, against His own first will for us, He allows us to be shut in, because only so can He get our attention from other things to what He wants done; get us to see things, and think things His way.  I am compelled to think it is so.

She said, “I will pray.”  And she was led to pray for her church.  Her sister, also a member of the church, lived with her, and was her link with the outer world.  Sundays, after church service, the sick woman would ask, “Any special interest in church to-day?” “No,” was the constant reply.  Wednesday nights, after prayer-meetings, “Any special interest in the service to-night? there must have been.”  “No; nothing new; same old deacons made the same old prayers.”

But one Sunday noon the sister came in from service and asked, “Who do you think preached to-day?” “I don’t know, who?” “Why, a stranger from America, a man called Moody, I think was the name.”  And the sick woman’s face turned a bit whiter, and her eye looked half scared, and her lip trembled a bit, and she quietly said:  “I know what that means.  There’s something coming to the old church.  Don’t bring me any dinner.  I must spend this afternoon in prayer.”  And so she did.  And that night in the service that startling change came.

Then to Mr. Moody himself, as he sought her out in her sick room, she told how nearly two years before there came into her hands a copy of a paper published in Chicago called the Watchman that contained a talk by Mr. Moody in one of the Chicago meetings, Farwell Hall meetings, I think.  All she knew was that talk that made her heart burn, and there was the name M-o-o-d-y.  And she was led to pray that God would send that man into their church in London.  As simple a prayer as that.

And the months went by, and a year, and over; still she prayed.  Nobody knew of it but herself and God.  No change seemed to come.  Still she prayed.  And of course her prayer wrought its purpose.  Every Spirit-suggested prayer does.  And that is the touchstone of true prayer.  And the Spirit of God moved that man of God over to the seaboard, and across the water and into London, and into their church.  Then a bit of special siege-prayer, a sort of last charge up the steep hill, and that night the victory came.

Do you not believe—­I believe without a doubt, that some day when the night is gone and the morning light comes up, and we know as we are known, that we shall find that the largest single factor, in that ten days’ work, and in the changing of tens of thousands of lives under Moody’s leadership is that woman in her praying.  Not the only factor, mind you.  Moody a man of rare leadership, and consecration, and hundreds of faithful ministers and others rallying to his support.  But behind and beneath Moody and the others, and to be reckoned with as first this woman’s praying.