1. Dr. A. T. Schofield states that he was yachting on the Zuyder Zee with a party of twelve, and it was highly important that they should reach Enkhuizen in time to catch the mail train. Starting as they thought with plenty of time, they were dismayed by the captain’s report that there was not the slightest chance of catching the train, as the wind was contrary and a heavy storm had arisen. Dr. Schofield offered up a short and earnest prayer in his cabin, that if it were God’s will they might still catch the train, as it was very important that they should get back to London at once. Hardly was the prayer finished when his nephew shouted out, “The captain says we shall be in Enkhuizen in half an hour”. The doctor replied, “It cannot be. He told me he could not tell when we should be in, that it might be two or seven hours.” In less than five minutes after the prayer was offered, the wind changed right round and blew direct for the harbour, consequently they were in with a margin of time to spare. Dr. Schofield says that he has some hesitation in mentioning this case, because he anticipates the immediate rejoinder that it might happen by chance, or it was a mere coincidence. [Note: Studies in the Highest Thought, 48.]
2. One definite answer to prayer was a great encouragement to the faith of Hudson Taylor. They had just come through the Dampier Strait but were not yet out of sight of the islands. Usually a breeze would spring up after sunset and last until about dawn. The utmost use was made of it, but during the day they lay still with flapping sails, often drifting back and losing a good deal of the advantage gained at night. The incident is related thus:—
“This happened notably on one occasion when we were in dangerous proximity to the north of New Guinea. Saturday night had brought us to a point some thirty miles off the land, and during the Sunday morning service which was held on deck I could not fail to see that the captain looked troubled and frequently went over to the side of the ship. When the service was ended I learnt from him the cause: a four-knot current was carrying us towards some sunken reefs, and we were already so near that it seemed improbable that we should get through the afternoon in safety. After dinner the long-boat was put out and all hands endeavoured, without success, to turn the ship’s head from the shore.
After standing together on the deck for some time in silence, the captain said to me:—
‘Well, we have done everything that can be done. We can only await the result.’
A thought occurred to me, and I replied:—
‘No, there is one thing we have not done yet’
‘What is that? ’ he queried.
‘Four of us on board are Christians. Let us each retire to his own cabin, and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us immediately a breeze. He can as easily send it now as at sunset’
The captain complied with this proposal. I went and spoke to the other two men, and after prayer with the carpenter we all four retired to wait upon God. I had a good but very brief season in prayer, and then felt so satisfied that our request was granted that I could not continue asking, and very soon went up again on deck. The first officer, a godless man, was in charge. I went over and asked him to let down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging.
‘What would be the good of that?’ he answered roughly.
I told him we had been asking a wind from God; that it was coming immediately; and we were so near the reef by this time that there was not a minute to lose.
With an oath and a look of contempt, he said he would rather see a wind than hear of it.
But while he was speaking I watched his eye, following it up to the royal, and there sure enough the corner of the topmost sail was beginning to tremble in the breeze.
‘Don’t you see the wind is coming? Look at the royal!’ I exclaimed.
‘No, it is only a cat’s paw,’ he rejoined (a mere puff of wind).
‘Cat’s paw or not,’ I cried, ‘pray let down the mainsail and give us the benefit.’
This he was not slow to do. In another minute the heavy tread of the men on deck brought up the captain from his cabin to see what was the matter. The breeze had indeed come! In a few minutes we were ploughing our way at six or seven knots an hour through the water . . . and though the wind was sometimes unsteady we did not altogether lose it until after passing the Pelew Islands.
Thus God encouraged me ere landing on China’s shores to bring every variety of need to Him in prayer, and to expect that He would honour the name of the Lord Jesus and give the help each emergency required.” [Note: Hudson Taylor in Early Years, 196.]
3. Once when a sudden and terrible hailstorm was pouring down upon the fields, and likely to occasion serious damage, a person rushed into Bengel’s room, and exclaimed: “Alas, sir, everything will be destroyed; we shall lose all!” Bengel went composedly to the window, opened it, lifted up his hands to heaven, and said, “Father, restrain it”; and the tempest actually abated from that moment. [Note: D. M. McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Frazier, 155.]
4. One day, about this time, I heard an unusual bleating amongst my few remaining goats, as if they were being killed or tortured. I rushed to the goat-house, and found myself instantly surrounded by a band of armed men. The snare had caught me, their weapons were raised, and I expected next instant to die. But God moved me to talk to them firmly and kindly; I warned them of their sin and its punishment; I showed them that only my love and pity led me to remain there seeking their good, and that if they killed me they killed their best friend. I further assured them that I was not afraid to die, for at death my Saviour would take me to be with Himself in heaven, and to be far happier than I had ever been on earth; and that my only desire to live was to make them all as happy, by teaching them to love and serve my Lord Jesus. I then lifted up my hands and eyes to the heavens, and prayed aloud for Jesus to bless all my dear Tannese, and either to protect me or to take me home to glory as He saw to be for the best. One after another they slipped away from me, and Jesus restrained them once again. Did ever mother run more quickly to protect her crying child in danger’s hour than the Lord Jesus hastens to answer believing prayer, and send help to His servants in His own good time and way, so far as it shall be for His glory and their good? A woman may forget her child, yet will I not forget thee, saith the Lord. Oh, that all my readers knew and felt this, as in those days and ever since I have felt that His promise is a reality, and that He is with His servants to support and bless them even unto the end of the world! [Note: John. G. Paton: An Autobiography, i. 266.]
5. A water famine was threatened in Hakodate, Japan. Miss Dickerson, of the Methodist Episcopal Girls’ School, saw the water supply growing less daily, and in one of the fall months appealed to the Board in New York for help. There was no money on hand, and nothing was done. Miss Dickerson inquired the cost of putting down an artesian well, but found the expense
too great to be undertaken. On the evening of December 31, when the water was almost exhausted, the teachers and the older pupils met to pray for water, though they had no idea how their prayer was to be answered. A couple of days later a letter was received in the New York office which ran something like this: “Philadelphia, January 1st. It is six o’clock in the morning of New Year’s Day. All the other members of the family are asleep, but I was awakened with a strange impression that some one, somewhere, is in need of money which the Lord wants me to supply.” Enclosed was a cheque for an amount which just covered the cost of the artesian well and the piping of the water into the school buildings. [Note: E. M. Bounds, Purpose in Prayer, 129.]
6. Some years ago in London a clergyman had succeeded, with the help of some friends, in opening a “home” in the suburbs to meet some special mission needs. It was necessary to support it by charity. For some time all went well. The home at last, however, became even more necessary and more filled with inmates, whilst subscriptions did not increase but rather slackened. The lady in charge wrote to the clergyman as to her needs, and especially drew his attention to the fact that £40 was required immediately to meet the pressing demands of a tradesman. The clergyman himself was excessively poor, and he knew not to whom to turn in the emergency. He at once went and spent an hour in prayer. He then left his house and walked slowly along the streets thinking with himself how he should act. Passing up Regent Street, a carriage drew up in front of Madame Elise’s shop, just as he was passing. Out of the carriage stepped a handsomely dressed lady. “Mr. So-and-So, I think,” she said when she saw him. “Yes, madam,” he answered, raising his hat. She drew an envelope from her pocket and handed it to him, saying: “You have many calls upon your charity, you will know what to do with that”. The envelope contained a Bank of England note for £50. The whole thing happened in a much shorter time than it can be related; he passed on up the street, she passed into the shop. Who she was he did not know, and never since has he learnt. The threatening creditor was paid. The home received further help and did its work well. [Note: W. J. Knox Little, in In Answer to Prayer, 46.]
7. An extraordinary case of sudden restoration to health from the very door of the grave was reported in the newspapers of 20 February, 1912, and some following days, especially in the Evening News of 20 February and the Daily Chronicle of 21 February. The whole story may now be read in a small book entitled The Living Touch, by Dorothy Kerin, which was published in the end of 1914. In this book Miss Kerin gives a sketch of her life leading up to the time when her health gave way, and then describes fully her illness and sudden and complete recovery.
The doctor who attended her is quoted as saying she had suffered enough to kill half a dozen people. In attending her he said he had found all the gravest symptoms of advanced tuberculosis, of diabetes, and other complications. She had been attended, under him, by twelve nurses up to the present, and a chart was kept of her temperature. This chart shows that her temperature rose and fell in the most alarming way—sometimes reaching as high as 105°.
The testimony is also quoted of Dr. R. Julyan George of Paignton, who says: “Having attended Miss Dorothy Kerin, I can testify to the serious nature of her illnesses, and to the fact that her recovery in each case was sudden and unusual. When I was first called in, on September 1, I found her in a semi-conscious state, and was told that she had been the victim of a violent assault. Examination showed fractured base of the skull and probably rupture of the drum of the left ear, with deafness on that side. Profuse haemorrhage from nose and ear soon set in, and her condition was such as to cause considerable anxiety. On the evening of September 11, I received an urgent summons, and found the patient with a very high temperature and rapid pulse. Soon after my arrival, however, she went into what appeared to be a state of ecstasy, and when she came to herself she told us she had seen a vision. She said to me, ‘Did you see Him? He came and put His hand on my head, and I am cool, cool all over me. He promised to come again.’ I then took the temperature, and found it had dropped in a few minutes from 104° to 99°; the pulse had also fallen from 162 to 100. In spite of this experience she still remained in a very serious condition, with increasing weakness and constant haemorrhage, but less pain in the head. In addition, symptoms of acute appendicitis appeared, and my diagnosis being confirmed by Dr. C. Hyde Cosens, arrangements were made for Miss Kerin’s removal to a Nursing Home, should an operation be necessary. On September 30, when I saw her early, she was quite deaf in both ears, and I was obliged to write on a piece of paper, ‘It is an attack affecting your hearing. You must remember His promise. He will come again.’ I was afraid of further developments and promised to return shortly. Returning two hours later, I found her fully dressed, and to all appearances perfectly well. Again she said she had seen a vision and had been healed.”
There are other testimonies in the book—of nurses and of friends—as well as a minute account of the illness and recovery by Miss Kerin’s mother.
This case is the more interesting that the prayer was silent, and rather the expression of faith than petition for recovery. After being restored to health Miss Kerin prayed very earnestly that God would show her what He had brought her back to do. She says, “I prayed much that God might guide me and point the way of ministration, and it has been shown me that the gifts of God can only be received through prayer. We shall find spiritual joy, or soul-health, through communion with God, and bodily health will follow as growth follows rain and sunshine.”
ii. Intercession.
If it were not too delicate a subject, says Dr. Horton, I could recite instances, to me the most remarkable answers to prayer in my experience, of changed character and enlarged Christian life, resulting from definite intercession. It is an experiment which any loving and humble soul can easily make. Take your friends, or better still the members of the church to which you belong, and set yourself systematically to pray for them. Leave alone those futile and often misguided petitions for temporal blessings, or even for success in their work, and plead with your God in the terms of that prayer with which St. Paul bowed his knees for the Ephesians. Ask that this person, or these persons, known to you, may have the enlightenment and expansion of the Spirit, and quickened love and zeal, the vision of God, the profound sympathy with Christ which form the true Christian life. Pray and watch, and as you watch, still pray. And you will see a miracle, marvellous as the springing of the flowers in April, or the far-off regular rise and setting of the planets, a miracle proceeding before your eyes, a plain answer to your prayer, and yet without any intervention of your voice or hand. You will see the mysterious power of God at work upon these souls for which you pray. And by the subtle movements of the Spirit it is as likely as not that they will come to tell you of the Divine blessings which have come to them in reply to your unknown prayers.
1. “I read recently the authentic case of a sailor coaxed into a mission service. He left early and unimpressed. As he went out, a lady bade him good-bye, and said, ‘I shall pray for you’. He returned a rough answer. Some days later he astonished the comrade with whom he had attended the service by demanding, Is that woman still praying? ‘She is sure to be,’ was the reply. He made an angry exclamation, but in a few days, despite himself, he was drawn back again and yet again to the service, finally to find salvation.” [Note: E. S. Waterhouse, The Psychology of the Christian Life, 77.]
2. “Some years ago, one of our great expresses was rushing through the night, and the engine-driver had to get off his secure place to do something to his engine, and missed his footing and fell. How he saved himself he never knew, but he caught hold of something on the engine and swung himself back again to a place of safety. When he reached home it was the early hours of the morning. He took off his boots and went quietly upstairs, not to awaken his sleeping children, and as he passed the room where his little daughter was sleeping the door was burst open, and out she rushed in her little nightdress, flung herself into his arms, put her arms round his neck and her cheek against his and said, Oh! daddy, daddy, I am glad to see you. I had such an ugly dream. I dreamt you were killed on the railway, and I got out of bed, and I knelt down, and I asked God to take care of you.’ That strong man believes that God heard the prayer of that little child, and that to her he owes his life, and so do I. [Note: Bishop G. H. S. Walpole.]
3. “A Cambridgeshire farmer told me that some time ago a lad of his, about seventeen years of age, ran away to London. The father went in quest of him, and visited all the boy’s relatives in the metropolis, but could learn absolutely nothing of the wanderer. The farmer’s task seemed hopeless, like hunting for a needle in a haystack. But he believed in prayer, and on the Sunday morning, as he stood in perplexity in the streets of the great city, he cried, ‘Lord, lead me to my boy’. Soon afterwards he felt a strong desire to go to the City Temple, where Dr. Parker was preaching. On reaching the building he was taken up into the gallery, and one of the first persons he saw was his missing son. The lad confessed that he had intended leaving on the following Tuesday for Liverpool, from whence he meant to go to Australia. He returned home with his father, saw the folly of his conduct, and has since become a comfort and credit to his parents.” [Note: W. Haughton, Twentieth Century Miracles, 9.]
4. A case was reported in a recent newspaper. I have no reason for either believing it or disbelieving it, beyond the fact that there are a thousand similar instances lying all round, and this one has been selected by me because it lies at hand, and will serve for an example of a whole region of spiritual phenomena.
The incident, which is reported in the Morning Leader of 29 November, 1904, is headed and reported as follows:—
“Preaching on Sunday, at Hanley Tabernacle, the Rev. Dr. J. G. James, M.A., of Yeovil, told an extraordinary story of telepathy.
“During the South African War a father prayed daily for his son, who was at the front. One night, moved by a strange impulse, the father felt bound to go on praying, and he continued in prayer until the morning.
“Some time afterwards a letter from the front revealed a remarkable fact. On the very night that the father was constrained to remain praying, his son was taken out of the hospital, where, unknown to his father, he had been down with enteric, and placed in the mortuary among the dead. The hospital doctor, however, was possessed by peculiar uneasiness, and could not rest; so he got up and went to the nurse who had ordered the removal of the body, and asked if she were sure the patient was dead.
“Although she said she was sure, the doctor went to the mortuary, and found that there was still breath in the body. The patient was taken back to the hospital, and eventually restored to health.”
From an actual letter of the father, published in the Western Chronicle, Yeovil, 23 December, 1904, we are able to make some expansions of the story and some corrections. It should have been stated that the news of the young man’s illness had been telegraphed home. Here are his father’s own words:—
“At the commencement of his illness his young wife received a telegram from the War Office to say that her husband was dangerously ill. For all those weeks we could hear nothing more concerning him. You can imagine the anxiety and the intensity of our prayers. It must have been about the sixth week after the intelligence of his illness, while I was in bed trying to sleep, he stood before me erect, and waving his hand, said, ‘Good-bye, Dad’. I was immediately impressed with the consciousness that he was in imminent peril, so rising and going downstairs, I spent the night in prayer. . . . About six o’clock in the morning, I felt that whatever might be the nature of the calamity it was averted.” [Note: J. Rendel Harris, The Guiding Hand of God, 53.]
5. “On one occasion I was summoned from my study to see a girl who was dying of acute peritonitis. I hurried away to the chamber of death. The doctor said that he could do nothing more. The mother stood there weeping. The girl had passed beyond the point of recognition. But as I entered the room, a conviction seized me that the sentence of death had not gone out against her. I proposed that we should kneel down and pray. I asked definitely that she should be restored. I left the home, and learned afterwards that she began to amend almost at once, and entirely recovered; she is now quite strong and well, and doing her share of service for our Lord.” [Note: R. F. Horton, in In Answer to Prayer, 78.]
6. “A young woman who had found the Saviour at one of the meetings when Mr. Matheson was with us, requested special prayer one night on behalf of her brother, a sailor, who had not been heard of for a long while. Prayer was offered for the conversion of the wanderer. Some three months afterwards the young woman appeared at a meeting, and introduced her brother in a state of religious concern. Strange as it may appear, he had been awakened at sea on the very night on which prayer had been offered on his behalf. His own account of the matter was this: He was pacing the deck in the stillness of the night, when a thought about his soul took hold of him, and the more he strove to put it away from him the worse he grew. He had no peace till he returned home.” [Note: J. Macpherson, Duncan Matheson, 133.]
