“Very well,” said Mr. Mapleson.  “Will you meet Deacon Goodsole at my house to-morrow evening, half an hour before the prayer-meeting, to unite in special prayer for Mr. Gear?  I will see the Deacon.  I am sure he will come.”

“I am sure he will,” I added warmly; “as sure as that I will be there myself.”

With that I bade Mr. Mapleson good-night and hurried away.  For tea had long been waiting, the children’s bed hour was near, and Jennie was growing impatient to be at home.

Wednesday evening Mr. Mapleson, the Deacon and I went into our church prayer-meeting from half an hour spent in Mr. Mapleson’s study in prayer for Mr. Gear.  Mr. Mapleson had seen Mr. Gear that morning.  But the stricken father was very silent; he offered no communication; and Mr. Mapleson had pressed for none.  I confess I had hoped much from Mr. Mapleson’s interview, and I went into the prayer-meeting burdened and sorrowful.

I think I have already remarked that Mr. Mapleson’s conduct of a prayer-meeting is exceedingly simple.  He seldom says much.  He sets us all an example of brevity.  A few words of Scripture, a few earnest words of his own or a simple prayer, usually constitute his sole contribution to the meeting, which is more truly a meeting for prayer than any other prayer-meeting I ever attended.

That evening he seemed loath to open the meeting.  We were little late in beginning.  When we did begin we were late in getting into the heart of it.  He called on one after another to lead in prayer.  I did not know but that he was going to omit the reading of Scripture and his own remarks altogether.  Our prayer-meeting commences at half-past seven.  The pastor never allows it to overrun an hour.  And it was after eight when he arose to read.  He read from the twelth chapter of Acts, the account of Peter’s deliverance from prison.  He read it from beginning to end without a comment, and then he spoke substantially as follows.  His words were very simple.  But that meeting has left an impression upon me that time will never obliterate.  I believe I could repeat his words to my dying day.

“A great deal is said and written,” said he, “about the apostolic faith.  But the apostles were men of like passions as we ourselves.  They fought the same doubts.  They prayed in the same hesitating, uncertain, unbelieving way.  Peter was in prison.  His friends could do nothing to effect his deliverance-nothing but pray.  So they assembled for that purpose.  They had the promise of the Lord, ’If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven.’  But they did not believe it.  They took some comfort in praying-as we do.  But they did not expect any answer to their prayers.  The thought that God might really afford deliverance never seems to have occurred to them.  And when Peter, delivered by the angel of the Lord, came knocking at the gate of the house, and the startled disciples wondered what this midnight summons might mean, and the servant returned to report that Peter stood without, they laughed at her.  You are mad, said they.  And when he persisted in his knocking, and she in her assertion, they added with trembling and under-breath to one another, in mortal fear, “It is his ghost.”  Anything was more credible to their minds than that God should have answered their united prayers.