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tihxaxy of t:he theological ^tminavy 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
 
 BV 220 .T8 1900 
 Trumbull, H. Clay 1830-1903. 
 Illustrative answers to 
 prayer 
 
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ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWERS 
 TO PRAYER 
 
 A RECORD OF PERSONAL 
 EXPERIENCES^ 
 
 DEC 16 1964 
 
 BY 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 \uthor of " Prayer : Its Nature and Scope ; " '* War 
 Memories of an Army Chaplain," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
CorTKIGKT, XQO* 
 BY 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
preface 
 
 If any are unwilling to believe that God 
 hears the particular prayers of his trustful 
 children, and is ready to grant them spe- 
 cial answers, proportioned to their needs 
 and their faith, these pages are not for 
 them. These narrations are not offered as 
 proof of the unprovable; they are not 
 written to change the belief, or the non- 
 belief, of unbelievers. 
 
 If, however, any are glad to be reassured, 
 by the testimony of a brother believer and 
 fellow-disciple, of the truth that our Father 
 in heaven is as ready now as in Bible days 
 to hear and to answer the prayers of his 
 earthly children, according to their need 
 and their faith, these pages are for them. 
 These narrations are proffered as testi- 
 monies of one who knows whom he has 
 believed, and who has had constant and 
 repeated experience of his Father's un- 
 
IPrefacc 
 
 varying love. They are offered in the hope 
 that they will encourage and strengthen 
 the faith of readers who do believe. 
 
 In a former volume, entitled " Prayer : 
 Its Nature and Scope," I have given my 
 views of prayer, its duty, its essential limi- 
 tations, its privileges, its perils, and its 
 comforts. In this volume I record some 
 of my personal experiences, or the experi- 
 ences of those whom I have known or 
 known of, as illustrative of such prayer as 
 God welcomes and honors on the part of 
 those who feel their need of him, and who 
 trust him according to his word. The two 
 volumes really belong together, each being, 
 in a sense, the complement of the other. 
 
 I send out this volume, like the other, 
 with the prayer that God will bless it to 
 its readers according as its teachings are 
 sanctioned by his Word and Spirit. 
 
 H. C. T. 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 June 8, igoo. 
 
Contenta 
 
 I 
 
 rASK 
 
 Expecting Answers to Prayer .... i 
 
 II 
 Boyhood Lessons of Trust in God . . 5 
 
 III 
 Sleighing that Strengthened my Faith ii 
 
 IV 
 Knowing God's Voice when He Speaks . 19 
 
 V 
 
 Children Guided on a Scotch Moor . 33 
 
 VI 
 God Deciding my Place in War Time . 39 
 
 VII 
 Led Unmistakably to the Editor's 
 
 Chair 47 
 
 VIII 
 God's Protection of One's Good Name 57 
 
 IX 
 Given a Treasure in Friend and 
 
 Helper 65 
 
 V 
 
Contents 
 
 X 
 
 TAGM 
 
 Teaching Lessons of Trust to my 
 
 Helper 75 
 
 XI 
 Taught Lessons of Faith by my Helper 81 
 
 XII 
 
 God's Tenderness with a Doubting 
 
 Truster 89 
 
 XIII 
 Trusting God rather than a Child of 
 
 God 99 
 
 XIV 
 Similar Experiences by Personal 
 
 Friends 105 
 
 XV 
 Prayer of a Soldier Prisoner An- 
 swered in 
 
 XVI 
 How God Led the Leaders in the Cen- 
 tennial Exhibition 121 
 
 XVII 
 Help in the Night Prayed for, and 
 
 Sent 137 
 
 VI 
 
iBxpccttna Hnswers to prater 
 
 God is the same yesterday and to-day 
 and forever. The Bible record abounds 
 with illustrations of specific answers to ex- 
 plicit prayers by those who called upon 
 God in their need, and who, in his service, 
 were answered according to their needs 
 and their trust. 
 
 The same God who gave answer to the 
 prayers of Abraham and Jacob and Moses 
 and Gideon and David and Elijah and 
 Peter and Paul and Cornelius, according to 
 the Bible record, is as ready to give an- 
 swer, according to his promises, in our day 
 as in theirs. A host of living witnesses can 
 bear testimony to God's unvarying fidelity 
 in this sphere of his universal sway. 
 
 All this is strictly within the operation 
 of natural laws, as God sees and controls 
 natural laws, although in finite man it re- 
 
miustrative answers to prater 
 
 quires the eye of faith to perceive that the 
 natural is subordinate continually to the 
 supernatural. The trustful child of God 
 can realize that, according to God's order- 
 ing, faith-filled prayer is as truly one of 
 the providential forces in nature as is elec- 
 tricity ; and that, in conformity with the 
 letter and spirit of God's promises with 
 reference to such prayer, the greater force 
 may as truly operate, on occasions, for the 
 advantage of a particular child of God, as 
 does the lesser force when that child sends 
 a personal message and receives a specific 
 answer over the wires of the telegraph or 
 of the long-distance telephone. 
 
 One who believes that the " laws of na- 
 ture," by their very mention, presuppose 
 the existence and control of an intelligent 
 Lawgiver, cannot conceive of that Law- 
 giver as unable or unwilling to have his 
 laws operate in particular providences, as 
 well as in general, for the help of those 
 who come to him in accordance with his 
 specific directions. Reasonable men must 
 
iBipectlne Answers to ipra^et 
 
 believe that God can control and direct 
 his laws at least as well as man can control 
 and direct laws which he makes. There- 
 fore it is that so many of God's chil- 
 dren come to their Father in faith-filled 
 prayer, expecting to receive specific an- 
 swers to their prayers, and are not dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 Faith rests not on prayer, but on God. 
 Prayer is merely one of the means of 
 communicating with God ; yet prayer is 
 not the only means. Faith is more than 
 reason, but faith is ever reasonable. As 
 Dr. Mark Hopkins expressed it : " Faith 
 takes God at his word, and surely that is 
 reasonable. It is the most reasonable thing 
 in the world to believe that God will do as 
 he has promised." Such reasonable faith 
 is the basis of all proper prayer. 
 
 God's specific promises of answer to 
 faith-filled prayer, as given by Jesus Christ 
 to his disciples, are none of them uncon- 
 ditional and absolute. All of them have 
 
 well-defined limitations within their very 
 3 
 
HUugtratlve Bnawets to iptaieet 
 
 form and letter, which limitations are as 
 important as the main promise itself. Yet, 
 strange though this be, the limitations 
 affixed to Christ's specific promises of an- 
 swer to prayer are often ignored by his 
 professed followers when they would seek 
 or claim an answer to prayer ; and because 
 of this ignoring they wonder or doubt as 
 to the uncertainty that seems to attach to 
 the promise.^ 
 
 The personal testimony borne in the 
 following pages to God's fidelity to his 
 promises in particular instances is offered, 
 not to prove to doubters that God is ever 
 as good as his word, but to confirm the 
 faith of those who believe, and who are glad 
 to have their imperfect trust confirmed. 
 
 1 See Prayer : Its Nature and Scope, by same Author, for 
 a treatment of " Prayer a Providential Force in God's 
 Plan," "What to Pray for, and Why," "Limitations of 
 the Right of Prayer,*' " Praying in Faith better than Faith 
 in Prayer," " Mistaking Presumption for Faith," etc. 
 
II 
 
 3Bo5boo^ %CB5on5 of Zvnst in 6o^ 
 
 What can be firmer as the basis of a 
 boy's intelligent faith in God than the ex- 
 plicit promises of his Father in heaven as- 
 sured to him by a godly mother, and con- 
 firmed by her testimony as to that Father's 
 readiness to make good his word in our 
 day and sphere ? Such a basis was given 
 to me in my boyhood days by my mother, 
 and that basis has not failed me from then 
 until now. 
 
 Bible promises and Bible stories were 
 told to me by my faithful and faith-filled 
 mother before I had read them for my- 
 self; and they seemed all the truer to 
 me because she said they were true, and 
 surely I could never question or doubt my 
 mother or my mother's words ! Then she 
 added to the sure promises of God her 
 confident testimony of much that she had 
 5 
 
illustrative Bnswerg to ipraiser 
 
 known of God's willingness to hear and to 
 answer the prayers of his children in their 
 need and their faith, and she enjoined it on 
 me to trust God ever accordingly. Thus 
 I came to know and to trust Him who, in 
 our dependence and need, is ready to min- 
 ister to his children "as one whom his 
 mother comforteth." One incident which 
 my mother recited to me out of the ex- 
 perience of a neighbor of hers, impressed 
 indelibly upon my mind the truth that 
 God is, in our day, the God of the widow 
 and the fatherless, as ready to hear and to 
 answer faith-filled prayers as he was in the 
 days of Elijah and Elisha. 
 
 My boyhood's home was on the New 
 England seacoast, at a point where Long 
 Island Sound opens into the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Seventy-five or a hundred years 
 ago there was, in a New England village, 
 no such wide distance between the rich and 
 the poor as nowadays there is in many a 
 prosperous community. Few families had 
 household servants. Servants, indeed, were 
 
So^booD %cseone of ^ru5t In (3oO 
 
 not then known there as a class. Families 
 who were " better off" than their neighbors 
 were accustomed to call on the women and 
 girls of those neighbors to act as " help " 
 in household work, such as washing and 
 baking and house-cleaning and sewing and 
 nursing. Men and boys who were not in 
 any particular trade, or who were not on 
 the water as sailors or coasters, were accus- 
 tomed to do service for their well-to-do 
 neighbors as " help " in planting and har- 
 vesting and wood-chopping, and other odd 
 jobs. Thus, while most were enabled to 
 get along day by day moderately well, 
 there was at times a family where a widow 
 and her fatherless children, or others, would, 
 through special circumstances, be pressed 
 for means of support beyond the knowl- 
 edge of their neighbors. 
 
 Such a family lived not far from my 
 mother and grandmother, in a house often 
 pointed out to me as I heard the story 
 afterward. The mother and her two chil- 
 dren served and trusted God, and did the 
 7 
 
miustrativc Bnswcrs to ipta^ser 
 
 best they could for themselves, as they 
 found opportunity, in doing such work as 
 their neighbors could furnish them. But 
 at one time the mother found herself in 
 extremity. As a stormy night shut in she 
 had not a particle of food for the next day's 
 need. When they lay down that night, 
 she prayed with her children, without tell- 
 ing them of her helplessness — for, indeed, 
 she was not helpless while she trusted God 
 as her helper. With the new, bright morn- 
 ing the mother prayed for their daily bread, 
 assured that her Father could supply it — 
 as he alone knew how. 
 
 She asked her children to go down to 
 the shore before breakfast, and get some 
 clean sand from the beach for their sitting- 
 room floor. Before the days of woolen car- 
 pets, in the humbler New England homes 
 they were accustomed to strew sand on 
 the floor, and to ornament the borders by 
 arranging it in figures with a broom. 
 When the children had gone, the mother 
 again kneeled and prayed for their daily. 
 
:fl5oi2boo& Xessons of Zxnet in (5oD 
 
 bread. After this she spread the break- 
 fast-table, for which she had no food. 
 
 Suddenly the children returned without 
 the sand, but bringing gleefully a nne fish, 
 which they had found in a hollow of the 
 beach, as left by the outgoing tide after 
 the storm, and which they together had 
 captured. As w^ith a grateful heart she 
 thanked God for his goodness, and began 
 to prepare the fish for their breakfast, she 
 was called to the door by a visitor. 
 
 A man from the country above the vil- 
 lage had called to say that on one occa- 
 sion her husband, now dead, had done 
 some work for this man for which he 
 had not been paid. The man had now 
 brought a bushel and a half of corn-meal 
 to give the widow on account, promising 
 to bring more by and by. As with swell- 
 ing heart the mother thanked the donor, 
 and brought the meal into their now 
 doubly glad home, she told the children of 
 how God had answered her prayer, and 
 they kneeled together to give him thanks. 
 9 
 
HUuBtratipe Bnswers to prater 
 
 Then she hastily made a "johnny-cake " 
 of the Indian-meal, and baked it by the 
 fire, while she broiled the fish for their 
 breakfast. Together they asked God's 
 blessing on that God-given meal, and 
 thenceforward they served and trusted God 
 more fully and joyously than ever. 
 
 The village neighbors, when they learned 
 of God's care of one whom they had unin- 
 tentionally neglected, resolved henceforth 
 to minister more faithfully to her whom 
 God had privileged to represent him in 
 their community. When I heard that story 
 from my dear mother, it didn't seem any 
 more strange, or any less true, than the 
 Bible stories. Indeed, it didn't seem so 
 very strange anyway. It seemed just like 
 God. And I think so still. I've never had 
 reason to think differently. 
 
 10 
 
Ill 
 
 Sletabing tbat Strengtbeneb 
 m^ ffaitb 
 
 When, in my young manhood, I came 
 openly and actively into God's special 
 service, the faith side of my nature was 
 stronger than the love side. Had I been 
 always as ready and w^illing to enter on 
 and continue in the path of duty as I was 
 to recognize the fact that God called me to 
 do this, and that he was ready to sustain 
 me in it, I should have been a better child 
 of God in all these years. What I now 
 testify to, therefore, is that God was ever 
 ready to give me guidance and help in 
 answer to prayer, not that I was always 
 willing to be guided of God, and to serve 
 him faithfully. 
 
 My first special work in God's service, 
 when I had newly consecrated myself to 
 him, in the spring of 1852, was as the 
 
miustratlvc Bnswcrs to ptascr 
 
 superintendent of the Morgan Street Mis- 
 sion School in Hartford, Connecticut, just 
 then started among the poor and the 
 vicious, in an old rickety building near the 
 river side. I had been called to that work 
 by a summons as unexpected and as posi- 
 tive as that which Elijah gave to Elisha 
 when he took him from his plow; and I 
 had no more reason than had Elisha to 
 doubt that it was God's wish for the called 
 layman to enter his special service just 
 then and there. 
 
 My very first address to the little band 
 of workers, in that garret-room mission 
 school, was based on the words of Jesus, as 
 recorded in Mark 1 1 : 22-25 • " Have faith 
 in God. . . . Therefore I say unto you. 
 What things soever ye desire, when ye 
 pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye 
 shall have them." This was before I had 
 been chosen to the superintendency of the 
 school, and, as I afterwards learned, it was 
 one of the reasons that led to my call to 
 
 that position. At all events, I early found 
 12 
 
Slctabin^ tbat Strenytbcned ni^ Jfaitb 
 
 myself recognized by the teachers as a firm 
 believer in God's readiness to hear and 
 answer faith-filled prayer, now as of old. 
 This laid upon me a special responsibility 
 for practicing as I preached among that 
 band of young workers for Christ. And 
 an unsought and unexpected occasion 
 arose for putting my belief to a test before 
 them. 
 
 Early in the history of our school one of 
 our larger boys was sent to the state 
 prison for setting fire to an old building in 
 the neighborhood in order to bring out the 
 volunteer fire department with which he 
 was connected. As others of our larger 
 boys might be counted as, in a sense, can- 
 didates for the state prison, we were 
 desirous of making use of this unfortunate 
 occurrence as a warning to our charge. 
 When, later, a Christmas celebration was 
 talked of, we had this matter to consider 
 in connection with our movements. 
 
 As a band of teachers we came together 
 and prayed earnestly for special guidance 
 13 
 
miustratlve Bnsweta to Ipra^er 
 
 in our plans. We asked God particularly 
 to show us what we should do on the 
 coming Christmas to enable us to impress 
 our pupils for good while they were in our 
 charge. Then, after consultation, we de- 
 cided to arrange a sleigh-ride for all hands, 
 on Christmas morning, to Wethersfield, a 
 few miles below Hartford. After passing 
 through the several prison departments 
 there, we would have a meeting in the 
 prison chapel, with fitting addresses and 
 warnings. Returning to Hartford at noon, 
 we would give the pupils a dinner in the 
 old City Hall, which we had obtained con- 
 sent to use for the day. This plan met 
 with the approval of all, and we proceeded 
 with our necessary arrangements. 
 
 We had several meetings to complete 
 the details, and at each of these we re- 
 newedly prayed for guidance. One even- 
 ing a teacher abruptly suggested that 
 possibly there would be no snow on 
 Christmas, and, if so, all our plans would 
 come to nought. Inexperienced as we 
 14 
 
Slciflbftig tbat StrengtbencD m^ JFaftb 
 
 were in such matters, this possibility had 
 not been considered by us. Quite a num- 
 ber of the teachers were startled. 
 
 In this emergency I ventured to say, 
 without a thought of presumption, that, as 
 we were in God's special service, and had 
 been asking his guidance in our plans, we 
 might confidently trust God for his part in 
 the program for Christmas Day, and, as 
 the weather was at his control, we need not 
 doubt him concerning it. 
 
 " Oh, well!" spoke out one of the 
 teachers ; " if Mr. Trumbull will 'agree to 
 furnish the snow for sleighing, we can 
 safely go ahead with our arrangements." 
 
 " Mr. Trumbull doesn't propose to fur- 
 nish the snow for sleighing on Christmas," 
 I answered promptly. " He only suggests 
 that, as we have been led of God to make 
 plans in God's service, where snow for 
 sleighing is a necessity, it seems to be a 
 distrust of God to suggest that, while we do 
 our part as God directs, he may not do his 
 part." 
 
 15 
 
miustrattpe Bnewers to praiger 
 
 At this we went on with our arrange- 
 ments. It is to be borne in mind in this 
 narration that I am by no means defending 
 my course in this matter as a wise or a 
 proper one, but that I am simply recording 
 God's loving dealings with me in his ser- 
 vice when I emphasized, however unwisely, 
 the importance of trusting God to give an 
 answer to our faith-filled prayers in his 
 service. 
 
 When I went home from the meeting of 
 teachers that evening, I realized the respon- 
 sibility of my position in this emergency. 
 Accordingly I went on my knees before 
 God to call for guidance and help. I told 
 God that if I had unintentionally erred in 
 what I had said about the sleighing, I now 
 prayed that the tender faith of those young 
 teachers, whom I was set to lead in his 
 service, might not be harmed through any 
 error or presumption of mine. And from 
 the evening I prayed, day by day, that we 
 might be helped, through his leading, to a 
 
 firmer faith in him. 
 
 i6 
 
SletQblns tbat StrenotbeneO m^ 3faitb 
 
 . As Christmas drew near there were still 
 no signs of snow. Yet we went on with 
 our arrangements, as if we were sure of 
 good sleighing. Repeatedly I checked 
 attempts at discussion over the prospects 
 of the weather as a matter outside of our 
 control. On Christmas Eve we met for the 
 last preliminary conference, and then we 
 separated for the night with an agreement 
 to meet at the school-room the next morn- 
 ing. At my home, as I looked out of my 
 window before retiring, I saw a clear 
 star-lit sky, but I knew that my Father was 
 back of the sky and stars, and, committing 
 the whole case to him trustfully, I lay 
 down and slept. 
 
 Christmas morning I rose to find some 
 four inches of snow on the ground, — a 
 good basis for excellent' sleighing. The 
 sun was shining. I thanked God heartily, 
 and prepared for the day. Everything 
 passed off as we had hoped. We had our 
 sleigh-ride to Wethersfield and our im- 
 pressive service in the state-prison chapel. 
 17 
 
HUustrattve Bnswers to praisct 
 
 We came back in the middle of the day to 
 have our dinner for the pupils in the old 
 City Hall. When we entered that hall the 
 snow was already melting on the ground. 
 When we came out from that hall, after 
 several hours there, the snow had prac- 
 tically disappeared ; and, when the night 
 shut in, the ground was again bare. 
 
 Those teachers felt that God had sent 
 that snow to enable us to use it for his 
 service as we had planned and prayed 
 under his guidance. I have never had any 
 doubt on that point. 
 
 More than forty years after that day one 
 
 of the most prominent of those teachers, 
 
 who had ever since been active in God's 
 
 sei-vice, recalled gratefully that God-sent 
 
 Christmas snowstorm, as we were together 
 
 in the Adirondacks. and she spoke earnestly 
 
 of the aid it had been to her faith at the 
 
 time and thenceforward until now. I have 
 
 never ceased to thank my loving Father 
 
 for the aid he thus gave to the faith of 
 
 those teachers, and to my faith. 
 i8 
 
IV 
 
 Iknowing Gob's IDoice wben be Speafts 
 
 If prayer includes as one of its privileges 
 coimniinion with God, it follows that God 
 has a part in this communion, as well as 
 man. If a child of God confidently asks 
 guidance from his Father, the Father may 
 be expected to respond to the child with 
 the special guidance sought. This seems 
 a reasonable expectation on the child's 
 part, and an expectation that seems justi- 
 fied by God's explicit teaching to his chil- 
 dren, in both the Old Testament and the 
 New. In all the ages God's most trustful 
 children have felt that they could expect 
 explicit direction in response to prayer, 
 and multitudes of them have been ready to 
 bear witness that they have not been dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 God promised his people by the prophet 
 Isaiah, as they had need and sought his 
 19 
 
miusttatlve Bnswers to IPragei: 
 
 help, ** Thine ears shall hear a word behind 
 thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it ; 
 when ye turn to the right hand, and when 
 ye turn to the left" (Isa. 30 : 21.) Again 
 God promised by his apostle James, " If 
 any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of 
 God, who giveth to all hberally and up- 
 braideth not; and it shall be given him. 
 But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting : 
 for he that doubteth is like the surge of 
 the sea driven by the wind and tossed" 
 (James 1:5,6). 
 
 These promises I, like many another, 
 early recognized as assured of God, and I 
 was encouraged by them. Yet I knew 
 that many had permitted themselves to be 
 misled through not interpreting these 
 promises aright, and I had to admit that 
 one might fall into grievous error and 
 unjustifiable excesses through fanaticism or 
 folly, even while he supposed he was fol- 
 lowing; God's literal counsel. I even saw 
 that I was sometimes inclined to follow an 
 
 impulse or an unreasonable impression as 
 20 
 
•fi^nowiuQ 0oO's Dolce wben be Speafts 
 
 to my personal duty, when I really desired 
 to act as God directed. Therefore I ques- 
 tioned in my mind whether I was being 
 misled by an uncertain sound in my spir- 
 itual ears, and, if so, how this could be 
 avoided. 
 
 While I was speaking of this subject, 
 one day, with a friend known and prized 
 from my boyhood, the Rev. Dr. Henry M. 
 Parsons, then of Springfield, later of Bos- 
 ton and of Buffalo and of Toronto, he 
 said to me suggestively : " Henry, it's a 
 great thing to know the Lord's voice 
 when he speaks to us, and not to mis- 
 take anything else for it." That utter- 
 ance started me on a new train of thought, 
 and I began to consider the Hmitations 
 within which alone I might properly expect 
 to hear God's voice directing me. These 
 recognized limits have helped me ever 
 since to exclude what might otherwise 
 have been a cause of my frequent mis- 
 leading. 
 
 In the first place, we have no right to 
 
 21 
 
miustrative answers to ipra^ser 
 
 seek special guidance from God when our 
 plain duty for the hour is already pointed 
 out in the teachings of his Word, or in the 
 circumstances of our position or relations. 
 We need not ask God whether we shall 
 love our parents or our children, or be 
 good citizens, or give help to those who 
 need it, and who apply to us for what we 
 have to give. Nor need we ask God to tell 
 us whether we are to work or to sleep or 
 to eat or to take exercise at proper hours. 
 If escaping gas fouls the atmosphere of a 
 close room, we ought to know that open- 
 ing a window to the fresh air is our duty, 
 without waiting for any new revelation from 
 God. Only within reasonable limits, and 
 then where we are otherwise unable to 
 know just in what way we are to act, is it 
 proper for us to ask God's added and 
 special help and guidance in our sphere. 
 In the next place, it is evident that God 
 will never contradict himself Having laid 
 down in his Word well-defined principles 
 for our guidance, God will never call on us 
 
 22 
 
'(knowing (3oD'6 Voice wben be Speaftg; 
 
 to act otherwise than in accordance with 
 those principles. " God is not a God of 
 confusion," but of order and of peace. 
 Where our duty is already clear, we may 
 be sure that nothing is from God that 
 would tempt us to do differently. This 
 shuts out all wrong-doing as possibly 
 directed of God. 
 
 Then, again, no call can be from God 
 when it would seemingly summon us to a 
 new duty while we are already in the dis- 
 charge of a particular duty in God's provi- 
 dence with which the new task would 
 conflict. Thus, for example, if we had left 
 our home to summon the doctor for a sick 
 member of our family, we might know that 
 God would not call us on the way to turn* 
 aside and visit a needy neighbor in order 
 to give sympathy or help. God is never in 
 such extremity that he has to call one 
 child of his to two conflicting duties, — if, 
 indeed, duties ever do conflict. 
 
 The limitations indicated by such guard- 
 ing principles as these practically shut out 
 23 
 
15Uu6trati\>e Bnswers to prater 
 
 most of the difficulties which might lead 
 one amiss in supposing that a guiding 
 voice came from God in answer to special 
 prayer. In all the years that followed this 
 decision I have had little hesitation in 
 accepting God's voice as God's voice, while 
 I have had frequent occasion to hear and 
 to heed that voice in little matters and in 
 greater. I give a few illustrations out of 
 many that I might give as showing how 
 good it is to know God's voice and to con- 
 form to its teachings. 
 
 I was at work at my library table in 
 Hartford one evening. I had just finished 
 a piece of work for a Sunday-school maga- 
 zine in Chicago. I had definitely promised 
 the article, and it must be mailed that 
 evening in order to be on time. I was, 
 moreover, to leave home on the midnight 
 train for Boston in order to fill an impor- 
 tant religious appointment on the next day. 
 As I was folding my finished Chicago 
 manuscript I was startled by hearing a cry 
 
 of pain from my wife in the room above 
 24 
 
•Knowing GoO's Doice wben be Speaks 
 
 me. Starting from my seat, I bounded 
 upstairs to my wife's assistance. She had 
 burned her hand sh'ghtly with a spirit- 
 lamp. Having assisted her in its treat- 
 ment, I returned to my Hbrary; but my 
 finished manuscript was not to be found. 
 
 After searching the table and the floor 
 for it, I went upstairs again to see if by 
 any possibility I had taken it with me, or 
 dropped it on the way. Then I searched 
 my eight or ten pockets, thinking that I 
 might have slipped it into one of these as I 
 sprang at the cry of pain. But still it was 
 not to be found. The time approached for 
 my start for Boston. The manuscript for 
 Chicago must be mailed before I left. I 
 was in extremity, and I realized it. So I 
 dropped on my knees at my study table, 
 and called on God for help. 
 
 I am accustomed at such a time to state 
 fully the case to my God, as if to convince 
 myself that I am not shirking any duty, 
 but am doing as I am entitled to do in 
 his service. I told God that all this had 
 
miustrativc answers to ipra^er 
 
 occurred while I was at work as his child. 
 The manuscript was for him ; so was my 
 jumping to my wife's relief, so also was my 
 purposed trip to Boston. Moreover, I had 
 exhausted my efforts to recover the paper, 
 which must be found at once. He could 
 help me. What should I do? At once 
 there came the familiar voice to me, or the 
 mental impression as if a voice had said : 
 
 ** Stand up, and throw off your coat and 
 vest." 
 
 No explanation was added. I asked for 
 none, but instantly I did as I was directed. 
 As my vest was turned back I discovered 
 the missing manuscript in a pocket in the 
 inner lining of that vest, which I had not 
 before known was there. Without stop- 
 ping even to wonder over the incident I 
 dropped again on my knees, and gave God 
 thanks for his goodness ; then I hurried on 
 my way to Boston, mailing the paper as I 
 went. 
 
 A little subsequent thought made the 
 
 probable course of events clear to my 
 26 
 
IRncwing (BoD's Dolce wben be Speafts 
 
 mind, yet without lessening the impor- 
 tance of God's special ministry in it all. 
 My coat had been buttoned over my vest 
 as I rose from my chair at the call for help 
 in the upper room. I had instinctively 
 attempted to put the paper into the right 
 breast-pocket of my coat. Unintentionally, 
 I had slipped it inside the vest as well as 
 the coat, and it had entered the pocket of 
 which I was not aware. Up to that time 
 I had never known of such a pocket, 
 although I afterwards found that such 
 pockets were common. 
 
 While this was all within the realm of 
 the natural, I was none the less helpless to 
 find the missing paper within the time 
 allowed me; and I needed God's super- 
 natural oversight of the natural in order to 
 enable me to do my duty for him in my 
 little sphere. And he came to my relief 
 with his guiding voice, as he is ever ready 
 to do for his children, according to their 
 need and their faith. 
 
 At another time, I was one day making 
 27 
 
Illustrative answers to pra^ger 
 
 arrangements to leave my Hartford home, 
 in the evening, for a long trip to the North 
 and West, in the line of my Sunday-school 
 evangelistic work. I called at the bank, 
 and drew a sum of money sufficient for my 
 expenses while absent I attended to vari- 
 ous other matters at different places. Near 
 the close of the day, at my home, I desired 
 to use a portion of the money I had 
 drawn, but, to my surprise, I could not 
 find it. In vain I tried to recall where I 
 had put it. I remembered taking it from 
 the teller, at his window, but all after that 
 was a blank in my mind with reference to 
 it. I had been at various points in the 
 city, and I had been in different parts of 
 my house; but I knew of no one place 
 more than another where I might hope to 
 find the missing money. 
 
 In my extremity I asked, on my knees, 
 for God's help. I told him that this money 
 was his, and that I had not intentionally 
 been careless with reference to it. I could 
 
 not find it, nor did I know where to look. 
 28 
 
tknowinQ (3oD'0 Doicc wben be Speaks 
 
 Would he direct me ? At once the word 
 came: 
 
 " Go down the kitchen stairs, and look 
 on the cellar floor." 
 
 Rising^, and doing as directed, I found 
 the roll of bank-notes on the cellar floor, 
 near the foot of the stairs. I thanked God 
 for his goodness, and determined to be 
 more careful the next time in putting any 
 money I drew from the bank in a safe 
 place at the start. 
 
 How the roll of notes came to be where 
 I found it, I do not know, nor was it for 
 me to explain ; it may be that I put the 
 money loosely in my vest-pocket when I 
 received it from the teller, and that it re- 
 mained there until it slipped out, as I went 
 down the kitchen stairs in my going about 
 the house. All was, I suppose, in the line 
 of natural laws supernaturally controlled 
 for the good of a trustful child of God. 
 This again is but one instance out of many 
 of God's loving dealings with me, for which 
 
 I am profoundly grateful. 
 29 
 
miustrattve Bngwers to ipta^et 
 
 Nor is it in matters of material things 
 only that we can have God's guiding voice 
 in our need. In things spiritual, also, we 
 are privileged to commune with God and 
 be helped. God is as ready to give com- 
 fort or salvation to a trusting soul as he is 
 to give help and direction to one who looks 
 for lost treasure. And with God there is 
 no such measure as with man as to things 
 great or small, easy or difficult. Of this 
 also I have had rich experience, and to 
 this I bear glad testimony. 
 
 For example, at one time I found myself 
 disturbed and worried over a strange temp- 
 tation in my thoughts. It hindered me in 
 my reading, in my writing, and in my 
 thinking. I could not shut it out from my 
 mind, try I never so earnestly. Yet I 
 could not see how I was directly respon- 
 sible for its constant presence with me. I 
 wanted to get away from it, or to get it 
 away from me. 
 
 In my dilemma, after several days of 
 
 struggling, I called on God for special help, 
 30 
 
IknowlnQ OoD's Voice wben be Speahs 
 
 or I communed with him in my perplexity. 
 I asked God why I should have this spe- 
 cial trouble, when I wanted my mind free 
 for his assigned work in my sphere. T 
 asked if he would not interpose and give 
 me relief Could he not take that tempta- 
 tion away ? At once there came this un- 
 expected response : 
 
 " Of course, I can instantly relieve you 
 from this struggle. But which would you 
 prefer, — to keep on with this fight for vic- 
 tory over the temptation in the strength 
 that I will give you, and be the gainer in 
 true manhood through the struggle, or to 
 be wholly relieved at once from the con- 
 flict, and be so much less of a man in 
 consequence ? " 
 
 When that was the issue before me, I 
 called out to God earnestly : " Let me be 
 no less of a man than I am. If that be the 
 choice, let this fight go on, and I be the 
 gainer, in thy strength, through it all." 
 
 Yet, strange to say, from that moment I 
 had no more trouble with that temptation. 
 31 
 
miustrattve Answers to ipcaiger 
 
 Perhaps it was because I had now learned 
 the lesson God would teach me by it, and 
 other lessons were to be taught me in other 
 ways. How good God is, and how tender 
 and considerate with his children in their 
 weakness and their needs, as they come to 
 him in communing prayer ! 
 
 S9 
 
Cbtl^ren 6mDeb on a Scotcb VXloox 
 
 Although in these narrations I naturally 
 emphasize my personal experience of God's 
 loving guidance in answer to prayer, this 
 is not because I feel that I have had such 
 guidance above others of my acquaintance. 
 Indeed, as illustrated by my mother's 
 neighbor, the needy widow of whom I tell, 
 for whom God made such remarkable pro- 
 vision in her extremity, God's ministry to 
 others of his children whom I have person- 
 ally known, or have known of, has, along 
 my life course, strengthened my faith in 
 him as ready to do for me according to my 
 need and faith. And as their testimony 
 has tended to give me cheer, I gladly give 
 my testimony, in the hope that it will give 
 others cheer. If all who have been thus 
 providentially ministered to should bear 
 33 
 
miustratlvc Bnswera to prater 
 
 their testimony, the world would ring anew 
 with the praises of God's goodness. 
 
 On one occasion this subject of explicit 
 answers to specific piayer came up for con- 
 sideration in the Hartford Ministers' Meet- 
 mg, at its weekly session, on Monday 
 morning, when I was present. There were 
 great and grand and good men in that 
 gathering. I wish that the personal testi- 
 monies given that morning could have 
 been preserved for the comfort of the 
 saints. Prominent among these testimo- 
 nies I recall particularly the impressive 
 words of Professor Calvin E. Stowe, Dr. 
 Horace Bushnell, Dr. Robert Turnbull, and 
 Dr. Nathaniel J. Burton, all long since 
 passed to their reward. The incident 
 related out of his boyhood experience by 
 Dr. Turnbull I repeat as more directly in 
 the line of my present thought, that God is 
 ready to give sought-for guidance, by his 
 directing voice or otherwise, according to 
 his trusting child's need. 
 
 Dr. Robert Turnbull, the distinguished 
 34 
 
Cbll&icn GutDeD on a Gcotcb tSloov 
 
 author and preacher, of Pliiiadelphia, Bos- 
 ton, and Hartford, did not remove to 
 America until he was nearly twenty-five 
 years old. It was while he was still a 
 little boy in his Scottish home that the 
 incident occurred of which he told us that 
 memorable Monday morning. 
 
 On a wintry day Robert and his little 
 sister strayed out from their home for a 
 walk on the moor. As it drew toward 
 dark, on the short winter's day, a driving 
 snowstorm came on. Soon the children 
 were blinded and dazed by the chilly 
 storm. With no well-defined road over 
 the moor, and with all landmarks shut out 
 from sight by the falling snow, the children 
 were soon bewildered. As they looked 
 about them, and turned from side to side 
 in search of the way, they quickly lost all 
 knowledge of the points of compass, and 
 were helpless as to the direction they 
 should take. They realized that they had 
 lost their way, and they dared not move in 
 any direction. Yet these were children 
 35 
 
miustrattvc Bnswera to Ipraisec 
 
 who had been taught that their Father in 
 heaven could help them. 
 
 "Robbie, let us pray," said the sister; 
 and they dropped together on their knees 
 on the snowy moor, as if in their home 
 bedroom. 
 
 "We only knew 'the Lord's Prayer,'" 
 said Dr. Turnbull, as he told the story ; 
 " and \ve said that prayer together. But 
 God knew that we really meant, * Please 
 show us the way home ; ' and he answered 
 us accordingly. 
 
 " As we rose from our knees and peered 
 about through the driving snow, my sister, 
 keener-eyed in her faith, called out glee- 
 fully : ' There's Old Maggie, Robbie. She'll 
 show us the way.' And we sprang for- 
 ward toward her, calling out as we pressed 
 on, ' Maggie, Maggie.' " 
 
 "Old Maggie," said the narrator, " was 
 a humble neighbor, and in a sense a 
 dependent of ours, who was often at our 
 house to perform service or to receive sup- 
 plies. There she was just before us now in 
 36 
 
CbUDren (BuiDeD on a Scotcb fnioot 
 
 the driving snow, breasting the storm, with 
 her plaid about her. As we called to her 
 she did not look back, but pressed on, 
 while we with our tired little feet followed 
 after as best we could, glad of her safe 
 lead. But suddenly Old Maggie disap- 
 peared. Bewildered again, we stopped and 
 looked about us in the snow. To our 
 wonder and delight, there just before us 
 was our dear home which we were seek- 
 ing. Maggie was gone. Her mission for 
 now was performed. God had used her 
 lead to answer our prayer that he would 
 show us the way home." 
 
 As we looked into the Christ-lighted 
 face of good Dr. TurnbuU when he bore 
 this testimony, we all felt that it was no 
 mere fancy of the brain that had misled 
 him. It was but an added evidence of 
 God's goodness to his trustful children in 
 their need, and we were glad that we also 
 had such a loving Father. The impression 
 of that recital has been with me ever since 
 in all these years. And now, as the close 
 37 
 
miusttative Bnswets to ipra^et 
 
 of life's wintry day comes on, and the 
 snows of age dim my eyes, I am glad of 
 my confidence that my Father will not 
 leave his child without a guide until I am 
 finally in the place which he has prepared 
 for me and for mine. 
 
 3S 
 
VI 
 
 (Bob 'BccibiixQ m^ {place in 
 Mar trtme 
 
 From the time when I first consciously 
 gave myself to God's service, in my young 
 manhood, I have never had reason to 
 doubt, at any given time, that God wanted 
 me to serve him in the place where I then 
 was. Or, if he wanted me to enter a new 
 field of service, he made that as plain to 
 me as if he had spoken out of the heavens 
 in thunder tones telling me where to go 
 next This has, of course, been a comfort 
 to me in my life work, for which I am pro- 
 foundly grateful. Such rest of faith as to 
 one's sphere of service is, I believe, open to 
 every child of God who seeks it in a sense 
 of dependence and of confident trust. 
 
 Far be it from me to claim or to suggest 
 that I have always felt that I was doing 
 just right, or that I was uniformly even 
 39 
 
miustrative Bnsvvers to ipra^er 
 
 trying to do so. Many, very many, times 
 I have failed, and known that I was faiHng, 
 to do the best I could. I have not always 
 even tried to do my best. This I have to 
 confess ; but, on the other hand, I have not 
 had occasion, at such times, to doubt as to 
 what and where was my sphere of duty in 
 which I ought to be doing my best, or 
 trying to do so. 
 
 The most desirable spot in the universe 
 for a child of God is ever the spot where 
 God wants that child to be. That point 
 made clear to the child, he ought to feel 
 that he would not gain, either in honor or 
 in profit, by a change from where he is to 
 another spot, whether it be to tend a cab- 
 bage field, to open up a diamond mine, or 
 to evangelize a continent. God knows best 
 what he wants, and what zve ought to want. 
 As to this, let us never have any doubt. 
 
 Hardly had I taken the step of formally 
 entering God's service, when an unmis- 
 takable call from God, as I have already 
 
 narrated, summoned me to superintend a 
 40 
 
(5o& 5)eciOin0 ms place in iKIlat Zimc 
 
 city-mission school. From that time to 
 the present every successive change of 
 field for me has been as distinctly pointed 
 out of God as was that first sphere of ser- 
 vice. The indications of my duty and 
 God's wish at the turning-point have been 
 sometimes as remarkable as they were 
 explicit. Some of these are worthy of 
 recall in this recital of illustrative experi- 
 ences of God's special guidance. 
 
 At the opening of the Civil War by the 
 firing on Fort Sumter, in April, i86i, I was 
 in active work in the Sunday-school mis- 
 sionary field in New England, to which I 
 had been clearly called of God. The new 
 emergency, in the summons to defend the 
 government in its peril, seemed to me, as 
 to most of the loyal able-bodied citizens of 
 the North, to be a providential call to 
 enlist in the army. But, unfortunately, I 
 was not supposed to be an able-bodied 
 citizen. I was in frail health, worn down 
 by nervous effort in much traveling and 
 speaking. 
 
 41 
 
Illustrative Bnswera to l^ra^et 
 
 When Governor Buckingham offered me 
 the position of major in one of the earlier 
 three years' regiments, and I referred the 
 question of my physical fitness for the place 
 to my physician, the latter assured me that 
 my accepting it was quite out of the ques- 
 tion. He said I could not Hve six weeks 
 in army service. A younger and stalwart 
 brother of mine, who had already enlisted, 
 said that I could not live a single week in 
 active service. He added that my accept- 
 ing the position would only tend to keep 
 out of it a man who could fill it. Thus I 
 seemed shut out from army service by my 
 physical incapacity. 
 
 In view of my prominence as a Sunday- 
 school worker and lay preacher, the officers 
 of the Tenth Connecticut Regiment, when 
 it was making ready for the field, proposed 
 to me to go as their chaplain ; but, on 
 taking- counsel, I felt that that also was 
 beyond my strength. In view of all the 
 difficulties, therefore, I had to content my- 
 self with urging others to enlist, as I could 
 42 
 
(3oD DeciOtng ms IPlace in Mar ^ime 
 
 not, and to this work I devoted myself en- 
 thusiastically. Of course, I was available 
 in tills line, at such a time, as an able-bodied 
 speaker would not be. If any one whom I 
 urged to enlist asked me why I did not 
 myself volunteer, I was ready to reply that 
 I would go at once if the government 
 would accept me. Therefore my appeal 
 came with greater force to others to do 
 likewise. In this sphere, as a consequence, 
 I had, for the time, plenty to do. Yet I 
 regretted all the time that I was unfitted 
 for more active service when such pressure 
 was on all, and this feeling grew on me 
 constantly. I was renewedly asking myself 
 whether indeed it would not be possible for 
 me to have some other share in the para- 
 mount duty of the loyal citizen in that 
 crisis. This was not in the way of chafing 
 under God's ordering, but it was in the way 
 of dutifully inquiring just what God would 
 have me to do with my limits as they were. 
 In the summer of 1862, after the terrible 
 fighting in the seven da}'s' battles before 
 43 
 
1lllU6tratlv>e Bnswcrs to lpra\jet 
 
 Richmond, and the new call was made for 
 volunteers to replace losses in McClellan's 
 army, the pressure on me was greater than 
 before. One Saturday evening I returned 
 to my home exhausted after a vigorous 
 campaign through the towns of Hartford 
 and Tolland counties, where I had accom- 
 panied Colonel Dwight Morris, of Bridge- 
 port, commander of the new Fourteenth 
 Regiment, appealing for volunteers. 
 
 Although it was near midnight when I 
 reached home, instead of retiring to my 
 room for sleep, I stopped in my parlor 
 below stairs, and sat before the Lord for a 
 season of communing with him. My own 
 earnest appeals that evening to others to 
 count their country's imperative call for 
 help in its life struggle to be limited in 
 their case only by their possibility of ser- 
 vice, came back on my mind at this hour 
 with tremendous force. I asked God 
 earnestly if there was not something more 
 that I could do in view of that summons. 
 
 In response the Lord seemed to ask me 
 44 
 
(5oD BeclOing ms iplace (n Mar Zimc 
 
 whether it did not seem decided that I 
 lacked the physical ability to serve in 
 either the field or line in the army. I said 
 it did, but I had come to question more 
 and more whether I might not do some- 
 thing as a chaplain or as a lay Chris- 
 tian worker in camp or hospital, even if 
 I might not in more active service. 
 
 At this the Lord pointed me to the re- 
 mark made by Colonel Morris that very 
 evening as to the surplus of applicants for 
 a chaplain's commission at the present time. 
 He had told me that some thirty clergy- 
 men had applied to him for an appoint- 
 ment as chaplain. Therefore there was no 
 special call on me to proffer my service 
 in that line just now. But, I suggested, an 
 unsolicited call had come to me a year ago 
 from the officers of the Tenth Connecticut 
 Regiment to be their chaplain. " Yes, but 
 that regiment now has a chaplain. If the 
 place proffered you a year ago were again 
 before you, you might indeed count its 
 acceptance a duty, but in the lack of such 
 45 
 
Illustrative Bnswers to lPra)?ec 
 
 a call you must be contented as you are." 
 And with this conclusion I had to rest the 
 case at issue, and retire for the night. 
 
 Sunday, with its duties, followed that 
 night. On Monday morning the first mail 
 delivery brought me a letter from New 
 Berne, North Carolina. It was from the 
 colonel of the Tenth Connecticut Regi- 
 ment, saying that their chaplain had re- 
 signed, and he now again proffered the 
 position to me. He spoke of the needs of 
 his regiment and of the military post where 
 it was now stationed, and he suggested 
 reasons why I should accept the call. The 
 providence was too marked to leave me in 
 any doubt as to God's purpose for me. 
 From my library chair I called to my wife 
 in the room above : 
 
 " Alice, God has called me to the war." 
 
 " Then I suppose you'll go " was the 
 quiet response of the brave and patriotic 
 and self-denying little woman. 
 
 And this was the way that God pointed 
 
 out my place in army service. 
 46 
 
VII 
 
 %c^ 'dnmtBtaftabl^ to tbe BDitor'0 
 Cbair 
 
 When I entered army service I was, and 
 for four years I had been, in the service of 
 the American Sunday School Union as the 
 Sunday-school missionary for Connecticut. 
 During my three years' absence in the 
 army I was still counted as a representa- 
 tive of that society among the soldiers at 
 the front. On my return I was appointed 
 to the oversight of its missionary work in 
 the New England field. Later I was ap- 
 pointed its Normal Secretary, in charge of 
 its teacher-training work throughout the 
 entire country. 
 
 The work of traveling from Maine to 
 California, and from Minnesota to Florida, 
 holding institutes and conventions and con- 
 ferences, with an almost limitless amount 
 of public speaking, became severely tax- 
 47 
 
miustrative Bnswers to iDrager 
 
 ing to me. Naturally I began to question 
 in my mind whether I could continue work 
 of this kind as the years passed on, or 
 whether I could do better work of another 
 sort for a longer time by my undertaking 
 labors like those of a writer or an editor at 
 some center of influence. But, as to this, 
 God knew better than I did, and I must 
 leave it to him to indicate his will. More- 
 over, I was not by any means sure that I 
 had the qualifications for such a place as 
 that which I thought of. That also I must 
 leave to God's decision and guidance. 
 
 In the early spring of 1875, just as I was 
 leaving; home to conduct an extended Sun- 
 day-school institute in Toronto, Canada, I 
 heard that Mr. John Wanamaker, of Phila- 
 delphia, had purchased The Sunday School 
 Times, and was seeking some well-known 
 Sunday-school worker to secure as its 
 editor. At once I questioned in my mind 
 whether that were not a place that I should 
 be fitted for, and in which I might hope to 
 do my better life service. As I had known 
 48 
 
%ct> *Glnmt6tahabls to tbc JEDitor's Cbait 
 
 Mr. VVanamaker for years, it occurred to 
 me that, if he knew that I would be willing 
 to leave Hartford, he might invite me to 
 come to Philadelphia and edit his paper. 
 But for me to suggest such a thought to 
 him would be like telling the Lord where 
 I would hke to be before he had indicated 
 his purpose, and that would be contrary 
 to my life principles of service ; therefore I 
 left for Canada in the line of my legiti- 
 mate service, having prayerfully committed 
 all my interests to the Lord trustfully. 
 
 Returning to Hartford after an absence 
 of two weeks, I found awaiting me a letter 
 from Mr. Wanamaker asking if I would 
 consider a proposition to remove to Phila- 
 delphia and become editor of The Sunday 
 School Times. Mr. Wanamaker said that, 
 if I would do this, he would like to have 
 me visit Philadelphia at his expense for a 
 conference on the subject. I accepted this 
 letter, not as an indication that I was to be 
 in this new field of labor, but that I was to 
 consider the proposal carefully. Accord- 
 49 
 
miusttattve Bnswers to ipraieec 
 
 ingly I so wrote to Mr. Wanamaker, and 
 afterwards visited him. 
 
 Before I could listen to any formal 
 proposition to assume a new charge, I 
 must be sure that I could discharge all 
 obligations already assumed or under con- 
 sideration between myself and other parties. 
 As Mr. Wanamaker was soon to leave for 
 Europe for an absence of several months, 
 he wanted me to undertake the editorial 
 work at once. That, I told him, was im- 
 possible, as we were arranging for an Inter- 
 national Sunday-school Convention, and I 
 was chairman of the Executive Committee, 
 and could not abandon that work while it 
 was incomplete. 
 
 He was then ready to waive the question 
 of time. Several other questions were sub- 
 sequently, one by one, disposed of This 
 required repeated visits to Philadelphia. 
 Everything thus far seemed to indicate 
 God's purpose of leading me into the new 
 field ; but until I was sure that there was 
 no existing duty as a barrier to my enter- 
 50 
 
ILcD tllnmistaRablg to tbe JEOttoc's Ctbait 
 
 ing the field, I declined even to consider 
 the question of pecuniary or other com- 
 pensation involved, lest I should be unduly 
 influenced in my mind by the thought of 
 this. And now comes the story of the 
 most striking interposition of Providence 
 as furthering the settlement of the pre- 
 liminaries in the case. 
 
 As I was one morning leaving Phila- 
 delphia for New York, in the course of 
 these prayerful conferences, Mr. Wanamaker 
 asked me: 
 
 ** What now stands in the way of your 
 decision ? " 
 
 " I must see two other persons, — one of 
 them in New York, the other in Boston." 
 
 *' Why not go at once and see them ? " 
 
 " Because I have an important commit- 
 tee meeting in Hartiord the day after to- 
 morrow," I replied ; " and I must be at that 
 meeting." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Wanamaker, " then we 
 
 must wait, and hope for things to work 
 
 out" 
 
 51 
 
miustrative Bnswera to ipraiscr 
 
 On my way to Hartford, as I entered 
 a car at the Grand Central Station in 
 New York, to my surprise I saw the New 
 York man whom I said I could not stop 
 to meet. He represented a prominent 
 national religious society that wished me 
 to superintend a department of its evan- 
 gelistic work. I had promised to consider 
 this carefully, and I wanted to learn from 
 him the details that would enable me to 
 know what was my duty. He was in the 
 next seat to mine on the way to New 
 Haven. Sitting down by him, I entered 
 into conversation, and obtained the desired 
 information without telling him of my pur- 
 pose, and was convinced that my duty was 
 not in that direction. Before we reached 
 New Haven the first barrier of which I 
 spoke to Mr. Wanamaker was removed. 
 
 When I rose the next morning, I prayed 
 earnestly over my important duties of the 
 day in Hartford, and asked that the Lord 
 would give me further light as to The 
 Sunday School Times matter. My next 
 52 
 
XeD lIlnmistaRabl^ to tbe BDitor's Gbair 
 
 desire as to this was to see my Boston 
 friend, Mr. Thomas C. Evans. Yet there 
 were two points in connection with my 
 committee meeting, and another interest for 
 the day, that burdened my mind as I prayed. 
 It seemed as though the Lord counseled 
 me, " Go down town, and do the best you 
 can there, and leave the rest to me." 
 
 All went well at the committee meeting. 
 The points of difference which I had feared 
 would cause trouble were settled satisfac- 
 torily to all, and soon after noon I returned 
 to my house grateful for the day's results 
 so far. 
 
 As I entered the door of my house, to 
 my great surprise I saw through the open 
 parlor door my friend Evans of Boston 
 sitting inside. He had never before en- 
 tered my house, nor had he now any 
 reason to suspect my special desire for 
 an interview with him. In my amaze- 
 ment I called out to him, as I entered the 
 room : 
 
 "Tom Evans, what brought you here 
 53 
 
miugtratlve Bnswccs to iprai^et 
 
 to-day ? — or, rather, what do you think 
 brought you ? I know, but I would like 
 to know what you thinky 
 
 "Well, that's the queer thing about it. 
 Clay," he responded. " Last night I was 
 at my brother's home in Shelburne Falls, 
 above Greenfield, Massachusetts. This 
 morning I started for my home by the way 
 of Springfield. Just as I was starting [that 
 was about the time I was praying over the 
 case] a strong impression was borne in 
 upon my mind, * Go down to Hartford and 
 see Clay Trumbull.' I said to myself, ' I've 
 nothing to see him for, and it will take me 
 out of my way and delay my return home.' 
 Again the impression came, ' Go down to 
 Hartford and see Clay Trumbull' So I 
 came, and here I am." 
 
 "That is right," I said; "and now I'll 
 tell you what you came for." 
 
 Evans was a friend and old army com- 
 rade. He knew much about newspapers 
 and their business side, and I wanted to 
 have his counsel on several points before I 
 54 
 
%c^ 'Ulnmistaftabl^ to tbe JEOitor's Gbair 
 
 could decide on such a change in my life 
 occupation as I was now considering. 
 Therefore it was that I was so anxious to 
 see him. With that afternoon's talk with 
 Evans the last preliminary obstacle to my 
 considering Mr. Wanamaker's proposition 
 was removed, and I wrote him accordingly. 
 Soon an arrangement was made by which 
 I became sole editor and part owner of 
 The Sunday School Times, and my son-in- 
 law, John D. Wattles, became the business 
 manager and a part owner of the paper. 
 Two years later we two purchased Mr. 
 Wanamaker's interest in the business, and 
 we had entire control. And this was the 
 way in which I was led of God, step by 
 step, to the editor's chair, for my work in 
 the last third of a busy life. 
 
 When, in July, 1875, I, with my family, 
 left Hartford for Philadelphia, I said con- 
 fidently to my wife : 
 
 " Alice, if future events should seem to 
 show that I have wrecked my business 
 prospects, and even my reputation, by going 
 55 
 
miustrative Bnswera to praiger 
 
 to Philadelphia, I want you to know that 
 I was sure, when I left Hartford, that God 
 wanted me to go there. Whether I per- 
 sonally am to gain or lose by the move, 
 God knows. That God clearly indicated 
 his wish for me to make the move, / know. 
 The result I am glad to leave with God." 
 
 That's a good way to feel about any and 
 every move in God's service. In fact, it is 
 the only right way for a child of God to 
 feel. 
 
 S6 
 
VITI 
 
 (3ob'5 iprotection of ®ne's ©ooD 
 Ulame 
 
 My friend, Hon. E. A. Rollins, who was 
 Commissioner of Internal Revenue in " Re- 
 construction Days," after the Civil War, 
 told me of an incident in his experience 
 that emphasized the truth which I now con- 
 firm by a recital of an experience of mine. 
 It was during the bitter struggle for su- 
 premacy between President Johnson and 
 Congress, while the attempted impeach- 
 ment of the former by the latter was in 
 progress with all its excitements. 
 
 One evening Mr. Rollins and Hon. 
 Roscoe Conkling had occasion to be in 
 conference with a friend near the outskirts 
 of Washington. It was after midnight 
 when they started to return to their homes. 
 On their way they met unexpectedly a man 
 who was commonly suspected of being an 
 57 
 
Illustrative Bnswers to prater 
 
 agent of the more zealous and determined 
 friends of the President in the effort to 
 prevent his impeachment. It was even 
 said that he was offering bribes of money 
 or of official favor in order to win votes 
 from the opposition. As the two friends, 
 who were acquaintances of this man, met 
 him, they said a word of ordinary saluta- 
 tion, and passed on. After going a few 
 yards, Mr. Rollins said : 
 
 " Conkling, suppose we were seen as we 
 were speaking to that man just now. If it 
 were told in Washington to-morrow that 
 we two were seen out here in conference 
 with that man after midnight, what unjust 
 suspicion it might throw on us. 
 
 ** We couldn't deny the fact that we were 
 out here speaking with him after midnight, 
 and we shouldn't have the opportunity of 
 explaining to all how it happened, or, if we 
 did, we might not be believed. I tell you, 
 Conkling, we are always in danger of be- 
 ing misunderstood or misrepresented, even 
 when we are doing the best we can." 
 58 
 
(3oD's {protection ot ©ne's (3oo& Ulame 
 
 To Mr. Rollins's surprise, Mr. Conkling 
 responded : 
 
 " Well, Rollins, we ought to believe that 
 God will take care of our good name while 
 we are honestly doing our duty in his ser- 
 vice." 
 
 Mr. Rollins suggested, as he told me 
 this incident, that this truth impressed him 
 more as uttered by Mr. Conkling than if 
 a clergyman had said it. Yet it is a truth 
 to be held precious, whoever utters it. If 
 God can be trusted to guard our homes 
 and health and life, we can surely trust him 
 to guard the greater treasure of our good 
 name and reputation, where his super- 
 natural control of the natural is even more 
 needed here than in those other spheres. 
 My conviction on this subject has strength- 
 ened with the passing years, and I have 
 had added reason to be grateful that this 
 truth is a truth. 
 
 On one occasion, not long after the Civil 
 War, I was sent for in my Hartford home 
 to come to the relief of a Christian mother 
 59 
 
Illustrative Bnswcrs to ipraset 
 
 in another New England city, who desired 
 my counsel and assistance. Her wayward 
 son, in whose welfare I had been interested 
 for years, had run away from home, and 
 she had heard of him as in trouble in a cer- 
 tain district of Brooklyn, New York. Her 
 husband was ill, and was in such a con- 
 dition that she could not even tell him of 
 her trouble, hence she was all the more 
 anxious and distressed. When I learned 
 the facts I determined to attempt her relief 
 
 Telling my wife, who alone knew of my 
 plans, I started for Brooklyn to find the 
 young man. As the visit involved some 
 personal peril, and my wife was anxious 
 for me, I took, to encourage her, a pistol 
 that I had carried in my army service. In 
 this I made a mistake that I have never 
 since repeated. God can protect his child 
 without a revolver. 
 
 While attempting to board a crowded 
 
 car at a street corner near the outskirts of 
 
 Brooklyn, my buttoned overcoat lapel 
 
 caught on the hand-rail and was torn open 
 60 
 
(5oD'0 {protection ot ©ne'e ©ooD Ulame 
 
 as I stepped up. My pistol fell out ; it 
 struck on the hammer as it fell, and a flash 
 and explosion followed. Cries and con- 
 fusion resulted, and all was excitement. 
 As I stepped back on the ground I picked 
 up my pistol unobserved and replaced it 
 in my pocket, and I found myself in the 
 rapidly increasing crowd, quite unsuspected 
 of a part in the cause of this excitement. 
 
 As I stood on the sidewalk looking at 
 the crowd, I saw that I could easily walk 
 off unhindered ; yet that would be unmanly. 
 Seeing a policeman near, I stepped up to 
 him, and said : 
 
 " I am the cause of all this scene. A 
 pistol accidentally fell from my pocket and 
 was discharged. It may have wounded 
 some one. I want to put myself in your 
 care." 
 
 It proved that the car conductor had re- 
 ceived a slight flesh wound in the calf of 
 his leg. I went with my protector to the 
 police station office, and there the whole 
 
 case was considered. The policeman to 
 6i 
 
Illustrative Answers to iprager 
 
 whom I first spoke reported tha-t I had 
 come to him voluntarily when I was un- 
 suspected, and it was manifestly an acci- 
 dent. I saw the conductor, and told him I 
 would gladly meet all expense to which 
 he might be subjected. Then I was per- 
 mitted to leave unmolested, on the givinfj 
 of my personal address. I inquired par- 
 ticularly if it was essential that my name be 
 made public. Being told that the police 
 office had no power to refuse to give it 
 to the press if requested, I had to accept 
 the state of things as it was, and I returned 
 to my home. 
 
 My position was now most unfortunate. 
 I was prevented, by the nature of my spe- 
 cial mission at that time, from explaining 
 to the public why I was in that particular 
 region at that time, with a loaded pistol. 
 A newspaper report of the occurrence 
 would be likely to throw suspicion on me, 
 without my having the power even to at- 
 tempt the clearing of myself. I faced an 
 
 unpleasant dilemma. When I reached my 
 62 
 
(3oD'0 protection of ©ne'e (3oo& Ulame 
 
 home in the evening, I prostrated myself 
 before the Lord, and stated the case as it 
 was. 
 
 I told him that, while I saw my error in 
 having the pistol with me, I was seeking to 
 do his work, and this trouble had come 
 upon me in this effort. I realized that, if 
 my good name was smirched in the opinion 
 of the public, I ought to retire from his 
 public service, for God's servants should 
 have a good report among those who are 
 without. Hence I would leave it to him 
 to say, by the issue of this affair, whether I 
 was to continue in my special work for him, 
 or to retire from it ; and there I rested it. 
 
 It was with no ordinary interest that I 
 looked into the New York papers as thev- 
 came to Hartford the next forenoon. In 
 at least three of the principal metropolitan 
 dailies the report of the affair in Brooklyn 
 was given in full ; but in each case a differ- 
 ent name was given as mine, and in no in- 
 stance had it any resemblance to the real 
 one. 
 
 63 
 
HUustrattve Answers to IPrasct 
 
 As I read these reports I dropped on my 
 knees before God, and thanked him that he 
 had thus indicated his wish that I should 
 still continue in his work under his guard 
 and guidance. 
 
 How good it is for a child of God to 
 feel that in every peril in his sphere of 
 God's service he " shall abide under the 
 shadow of the Almighty"! 
 
 64 
 
IX 
 
 etven a treasure in jfdent) 
 anb IHelper 
 
 God's best gifts to us are ordinarily not 
 in our finding some missing material treas- 
 ure, or in enabling us to discharge some 
 particular duty, but in his bringing to our 
 side some friend or helper who is more to 
 our mental and spiritual life than we dared 
 to think of, or to desire, before the gift 
 came from God. In this line I have had 
 very much to be grateful for ; and it is of 
 such a gift, as peculiarly pointed out of 
 God, that I now wish to bear my hearty 
 testimony. 
 
 In the spring of 1870 I was living at 
 Hartford, with a business office in Boston, in 
 charge of the general missionary operations 
 of The American Sunday-school Union fur 
 the New England field. For several years 
 I had had a valued assistant in that work, 
 65 
 
miustrattve Bn^wers to IPra^et 
 
 in Hartford, aiding me in my official corres- 
 pondence and in the details of S'Juday- 
 school movements in Connecticut. Sud- 
 denly that assistant was called to another 
 sphere of labor, with opportunities pecu- 
 liarly suited to his talents and tastes, and 
 he said he would leave it with me to say 
 whether he should accept the proffer, to my 
 serious inconvenience, or should continue 
 as my helper. I saw that it was my duty 
 to advise him, for his own sake, to accept 
 the position, even though I did not see how 
 I could replace him in the position he was 
 occupying. And it was thus that I found 
 myself needing an assistant in a sphere of 
 the Lord's service, without knowing which 
 way to turn for him. I laid the matter 
 before the Lord, and was on the watch for 
 his indications of help to me. 
 
 On the third Sunday in May, I was a 
 visitor in the Sunday-school of the Second 
 Conc^reirational Church of Norwich, Con- 
 necticut. I had, in advance, no reason to 
 
 suppose that I might there have any indi- 
 66 
 
(Btven a Zxcaenxe In ^clenD anD IHelper 
 
 cation as to the supply of my special need, 
 nor was this need peculiarly in my mind at 
 the time. During the opening exercises I 
 was seated between the superintendent and 
 the singing-leader. Just as I was bending 
 my head in prayer, my eyes caught a 
 glimpse of a young man passing through 
 the door of the library-room at my right 
 hand. I did not see the full face even for 
 the moment, but as it passed from sight 
 the message was borne in upon my mind 
 from above, " T/iat is the young man who 
 is to be your helper." 
 
 When the prayer was concluded, I turned 
 my eyes to the library-room, and I saw the 
 }'oung man there. Pointing him out to the 
 singing-leader by my side, I asked, " Who 
 is he ? " The answer came, " That's John- 
 nie Wattles." I said, "I'll ask you about 
 him by and by ; " and then I gave myself 
 again to the exercises of the hour. 
 
 Later I was told that "Johnnie Wattles" 
 
 was assistant in a well-known apothecary's 
 
 store in the city, where, with a younger 
 67 
 
Illustrative Bnawers to prager 
 
 brother, he was learning the business, in 
 order that the two might start out for them- 
 selves in that business. It seemed most un- 
 likely that he would be willing to turn aside 
 from his life work to assist me in what was 
 little more than a temporary clerical posi- 
 tion; but I felt justified in following up the 
 matter in the line of the mental suggestion 
 that I had received as from the Lord. I 
 sought an interview with him, and, without 
 telling him of this mental suggestion, I 
 spoke of the position which I desired to 
 have filled, and asked him if he would 
 think of taking it I spoke of the inci- 
 dental advantages of the place in the kind 
 of work with which it was associated and 
 the sort of people with whom it would 
 bring him into pleasant relations. He ex- 
 pressed surprise at my interest in him as a 
 stranger, and promised to look carefully 
 into the question, and let me know his 
 conclusions. 
 
 I did not, of course, propose to ignore 
 
 reason and prudence in such a matter, be- 
 68 
 
<5iK'cn a Ztcaevitc in friend ano ji^clpcr 
 
 cause of the providential prompting which 
 had started me in this Hne. I consulted 
 the pastor of the young man as to his 
 character and capacity. He spoke of him 
 with warmth as of a lovely spirit, of fine 
 natural capabilities, and of firm Christian 
 principles. Others whom I consulted 
 agreed with his pastor as to his winning 
 ways and his sterling worth, and I had no 
 doubt on these points. 
 
 He also looked into the matter cau- 
 tiously, and consulted various advisers. 
 Most of these thought he would be unwise 
 to make the proposed change, but his pas- 
 tor and a few others approved his inclina- 
 tion to accept the proffered position. In 
 talking it over with me, he said that he had 
 felt that the business of a druggist was his 
 life work, and he should not wish to turn 
 permanently aside from that pathway with- 
 out clearer indications than he had yet re- 
 ceived of the Lord's wish for him to change. 
 I told him that he would be entirely free to 
 
 try it for only a year as an experiment. 
 69 
 
HUustrative 'Bmwae to ipra^r 
 
 I was all the while careful not to attempt 
 to influence him in the slightest degree in 
 favor of accepting my proposition by any 
 suggestion that in my opinion it would be 
 wise for him to do so. I wanted him left 
 free to act as he thought God would have 
 him. I wanted him to come only if God 
 wanted him to. And I knew that if God 
 wanted him to come he would come. 
 
 Four weeks after the subject \yas first 
 broached to him, he wrote me as follows: 
 " I believe I have looked carefully at both 
 sides of the question which you have so 
 kindly left entirely v/ith me, and am 
 thoroughly prepared to-night to decide. I 
 most gladly and heartily offer myself to 
 you, hoping, as I do so, that it may prove 
 for our mutual good. Ever since I had 
 the first interview with you, I have been 
 delighted with the idea of making the 
 change, and have not now the least doubt 
 in my mind but that it is the very best 
 thing I can do. It seems almost a miracle 
 to me that you should have noticed me as 
 70 
 
(5iven a treasure in jfrienD and IHelper 
 
 you did, and much more that you should 
 have once thought of asking me to take 
 the place; and I can only hope and pray 
 that I may be such an assistant to you as 
 you have anticipated. I am afraid that I 
 shall not come up to your expectations, 
 but shall try, and do the best I can.'" 
 
 At the time he first came to me, Mr. 
 Wattles was a little more than twenty years 
 old, but his fair face and youthful appear- 
 ance made him seem hardly more than 
 eighteen. Yet he was of most engaging 
 manners, and he commanded confidence 
 without limitation. He won every heart at 
 the start by his looks and ways, and he 
 held every heart to the last by his sterling 
 worth. Outside of his office work, his first 
 experience in the Sunday-school field was 
 as superintendent of a mission school in 
 Hartford, where the roughest boys and the 
 most cultivated teachers were alike under 
 the spell of his winsome presence. Then 
 he was for a while the leader of the 
 teachers'-meeting of the Asylum Hill Con- 
 71 
 
HUuetrative Bnswcrs to ©raser 
 
 gregational Church, in its weekly study of 
 the Sunday-school lesson. Among those 
 teachers were men and women of rich ex- 
 perience and disciplined minds, including a 
 distinguished judge of the Supreme Court 
 of the state ; and all were alike charmed 
 and helped by his leadership. While not 
 having the advantages of a liberal educa- 
 tion, Mr. Wattles had clearness of mind in 
 the perception of truth, and sound good 
 sense in the use of all his powers. More- 
 over, he worked diligently in preparation 
 for any service he was called to attempt, 
 and he never assumed to know what he 
 did not know positively. 
 
 Before six months had passed, Mr. Wat- 
 tles said that he would never go back to 
 his former position, even at ten thousand 
 dollars a year. He felt that God was lead- 
 ing him to better service. He soon had 
 his younger brother in another branch of 
 the work which now had his heart, and he 
 himself was pressing onward and upward. 
 
 He became the general secretary of the 
 72 
 
6it>en a treasure (n 3frieno ano IKelper 
 
 Connecticut Sunday-school Association, 
 and he developed special power in or- 
 ganizing and directing movements for the 
 improvement of the Sunday-schools of the 
 state. He showed himself also an effec- 
 tive speaker in conventions and institutes 
 throughout New England. Moreover, he 
 was showing power and gaining influence 
 and winning friends more and more widely 
 all the time. 
 
 And in this way my life came to be 
 linked with the God-led life of John D. 
 Wattles, who was later my loved friend, 
 my dear son-in-law, my business partner, 
 and a helper, an example, and an inspira- 
 tion to me, while proving himself a helper 
 and an inspiration to many thousands of 
 those who never saw his face or heard his 
 voice, and an example to every one who 
 ever knew him as he was. And when, at 
 his life's close, after my twenty-three years 
 of loving companionship with him, I came 
 to look back over the way he was led of 
 God so willingly, so trustfully, so loyally, 
 73 
 
Tlllustrative Bnswcrs to ipra^ser 
 
 even to the hour when he was led beyond 
 our human sight, I rejoiced that I was per- 
 mitted to be so near him in his constant 
 walk with God, and to have seen so clearly 
 the loveliness of such a God-led life. 
 
 74 
 
X 
 
 Ueacbtng Xessons of Zvnst to m^ 
 Helper 
 
 Because John Wattles, my God-given 
 friend and helper, was younger than my- 
 self in years and Christian experience, I 
 felt it to be my duty and privilege to give 
 him the benefit of any lesson I had learned 
 in God's service, and he was ever ready to 
 heed and to profit by such suggestions. 
 These lessons were in various Hnes, as 
 from time to time I thought he had special 
 need. 
 
 One afternoon, as he came into my Hart- 
 ford home after several hours' absence in 
 the city, he mentioned to me that he had, 
 since he went out, lost a gold sleeve-button 
 which he greatly prized as a souvenir. I 
 asked him what efTort he had made to 
 recover it. He answered, " None," for he 
 had been in so many places, since he left 
 7' 
 
illustrative Answers to ipra^er 
 
 home, that he had no reason for looking in 
 any one place more than another. 
 
 A lesson that I then desired to teach 
 him was the importance of persistent thor- 
 oughness in whatever he had to do, so I 
 said to him : 
 
 " Well, I think you had better not say 
 that you can't find it in any place till at 
 least you have looked in all places where 
 you may have left it. Why not carefully 
 retrace your steps to the ten places or the 
 twenty that you have been in since you 
 last saw it, and see what comes of that ? " 
 
 Promptly he started out to do as I sug- 
 gested, while I remained at my study 
 table. 
 
 As I sat writing, the thought came to 
 me that I had started my young friend on 
 this mission in his own strength, without 
 suggesting to him that it was only by 
 God's guidance that he could hope to be 
 successful, and for that guidance he should 
 pray at the start. For this omission I re- 
 proached myself, and was heartily ashamed. 
 7(> 
 
tieacbinfl %ce6one of ^rust to ih« IHelper 
 
 Dropping on my knees by my study chair, 
 I prayed to God : 
 
 " Father, forgive me ! Here have I 
 started out this loved child of thine on a 
 search where he needs tliy special help, 
 without suggesting that he should seek 
 that help trustfully. Moreover, I have not 
 myself prayed for thy help to him. Grant 
 now that he suffers no loss through my 
 failure toward thee." 
 
 As I rose from my knees, John Wattles 
 entered the outside door, saying, " I've 
 found the sleeve-button." At this the 
 thought came to me, " Your prayer then 
 had nothing to do with this ; for he must 
 have found the button before you prayed." 
 "Tell me where you found it," I said. 
 
 "Well, that's strangest of all," he re- 
 sponded. " I had retraced my steps so far 
 as I could recall them, looking about me 
 all the way, but I reached the house again 
 without finding anything. Just as my hand 
 was on the door-knob to enter here, I was 
 prompted to stop and look back, and there 
 77 
 
miustrativc Answers to iprasct 
 
 on the very door-step, where it must have 
 been all the while, was the missing sleeve- 
 button." 
 
 There was not much room to doubt 
 God's part in all this. I told Wattles of 
 my conscious failure and my penitent 
 prayer, and then we kneeled together 
 before God, and gave him thanks for our 
 newly learned lesson, and we tried thence- 
 forward to profit by it. 
 
 After some three years in the work to 
 which I had originally invited him, Mr. 
 Wattles came to feel that at the best there 
 was no immediate prospect there of promo- 
 tion into any such service as would seem 
 to be worthy of the best endeavors of his 
 life, and he began to look about him for a 
 more promising sphere. The life-insurance 
 field was at that time offering special 
 inducements to energetic . canvassers, and 
 he had reason to think he might be pecu- 
 liarly successful in it. He came to me 
 seeking counsel in the matter. I asked 
 him whether he thought that God had 
 78 
 
tleacbitiQ ILessons ot Crust to ms Helper 
 
 called him to the place he was now in. 
 He said he did. I asked him whether this 
 place still demanded all the powers he now 
 had. He said it did. I asked him whether 
 God had given him any special indication 
 that he ought to go elsewhere. He said 
 he had not. I asked him whether, in case 
 God really wanted him to stay where he 
 was all his life, with no other gain than the 
 gain of serving God there, he would be 
 willing to yield all his personal ambitions 
 and desires for other service, and to live 
 and die just there. 
 
 He thought over this question for a few 
 minutes, and then he said heartily that he 
 was ready to be led of God as to his life 
 work, and that he would trust God to show 
 him just where he could best serve and 
 honor God. Here was another turning- 
 point in his life path, or, rather, another 
 point at which he refused to turn from that 
 path. Within a year of that time the great 
 financial crash of 1873 came, with its shat- 
 tering, for the time, of the best possibilities 
 79 
 
HUusttatlve Busvvets to IPcaset 
 
 of the field that had seemed so tempting 
 to him ; and within a little more than two 
 years there came to him an opening to 
 remove to Philadelphia with me, and be- 
 come a part owner, and the business man- 
 ager, of The Sunday School Times, where 
 he continued to life's close. Thus again 
 he saw that God was ready to lead one 
 who wanted to be led of God. 
 
 80 
 
XI 
 
 Uauabt Xessons ot ffaitb b)? mp 
 Helper 
 
 Although from my greater experience, 
 when I first came to know John Wattles, it 
 was my privilege to teach some lessons in 
 trustful service to that new friend and 
 helper, he soon passed on before me in the 
 path of such service. It was not long 
 before I realized gratefully, as did all who 
 knew us, that he was in advance of me in 
 restful faith, as he was in love and zeal and 
 practical efficiency, and, in consequence, I 
 came to lean on and to look up to my 
 young and admirable strong-souled friend 
 and partner. 
 
 When he and I assumed entire and joint 
 control of The Sunday School Times its 
 circulation was less than twenty-five thou- 
 sand. Largely through his ability and 
 
 energy that circulation rose to more than 
 8i 
 
Illustrative 2lnswers to ipra^er 
 
 one hundred and fifty thousand, at which 
 point it continued up to the time of his 
 death. In all my editorial work, I was 
 helped by his wise counsel and aided by 
 his hearty co-operation. I could have done 
 little without him ; and he deserved the 
 credit for much of the best that was secured 
 in every department of the paper, in all the 
 years after he joined me in its manage- 
 ment. 
 
 Clearness of head, quickness of percep- 
 tion, grasp of principles of action, unswerv- 
 ing integrity, firmness of purpose, coupled 
 with remarkable winsomeness of manner, 
 were marked characteristics in the business 
 dealings of Mr. Wattles. All who were 
 brought in contact with him felt that he 
 was a man whom they could trust utterly, 
 while he was not to be easily imposed 
 upon, nor turned from his convictions or 
 judgments. 
 
 A good illustration of his uniform 
 method of dealing v/ith others in important 
 
 business transactions was given, in a letter 
 82 
 
tlaugbt Xessons of 3Faitb bs mis Melpct 
 
 written, during the last few months of his 
 life, to one who was acting as his repre- 
 sentative in the negotiation of a large con- 
 tract, which he would be very glad to 
 secure. Speaking of the interviews of his 
 representative with the other party to the 
 contract, he said : " Don't shozv any anxiet}' 
 over the matter. Don't have any anxiety. 
 Be awfully courteous and accommodating, 
 but quietly determined ; and smile sweetly 
 if the whole thing falls through." 
 
 But in all and above all it was the 
 beautiful rest of his faith that was the 
 source of his power, and that was felt to be 
 so by all who were with him or who came 
 under his personal influence. That was 
 indeed a cause of gratification and an in- 
 citement to me. 
 
 Although having the appearance of 
 health, Mr. Wattles was in his later years 
 courageously resisting for a long time a 
 tendency to acute diseases of the lungs. 
 For eight years he was compelled to pass 
 a portion of every winter in Florida ; and 
 83 
 
miusttatlve Bnsvvers to IP tagger 
 
 soon after his return from the South, in 
 April, 1 89 1, he was brought very low with 
 a complication of lung troubles. Before 
 his physician had observed any fresh cause 
 of illness, Mr. Wattles was impressed with 
 the thought that God was about to lead 
 him into a deeper flood than he had yet 
 passed; and, in his quiet faith, his only 
 anxiety in view of it was for his dear ones, 
 not for himself As he sat alone in his 
 room, on the evening before his outburst 
 of disease, he penciled these lines on a 
 newspaper wrapper, in expression of his 
 feelings of the hour. 
 
 THROUGH THE WATERS 
 
 Indeed I know 
 That thou wilt be with me ; 
 
 For here below 
 Thy touch has won my confidence. 
 
 But may I know 
 That thou wilt be with them 
 
 Whom I love so ? 
 Then with joy could I go hence. 
 Whether the waters should be deep and wide, 
 Or what ma^- be upon the other side, 
 84 
 
Cauabt TLceeone ot jfaltb bs ms JHelper 
 
 It matters not ; 
 For I indeed do know 
 That thou wilt be with me, 
 
 Since here below 
 Thy touch has won my confidence. 
 
 But may I know 
 That thou wilt be with them 
 
 Whom I love so ? 
 Then with joy can I go hence. 
 
 The attack of disease was a violent one, 
 and its precise nature somewhat obscure, 
 and he sank under it steadily, despite the 
 skill of the ablest physicians, and the cur- 
 rent of loving prayers that went up for him 
 continually. Finally the physicians them- 
 selves felt that the end was very near, and 
 they permitted me to speak freely with him 
 of matters that called for consideration, in 
 view of his approaching death, as I had 
 told them I must before he should be 
 finally unable to respond to me. So, one 
 Sunday afternoon, I kneeled by his bedside, 
 and spoke lovingly of our long-time rela- 
 tions and of the possibilities of the future, 
 asking him how I might act for him and 
 85 
 
miustrative Answers to IPraiger 
 
 his, and for our common interests, in his 
 absence. 
 
 I had for years so leaned upon him in 
 uie business management of our affairs, 
 that I felt quite incompetent to take up the 
 entire burden of them at that time ; and I 
 feared I should utterly break down, if I were 
 left alone. In my weakness I burst out with 
 the agonizing cry, "Dear John, I don't see 
 how I can live on and do my work without 
 you ! " 
 
 That cry of mine was an appeal to his 
 unselfish soul that he could not resist. As 
 he told me afterwards, he then saw with 
 surprise and anxiety what my condition 
 was, and that I really felt I could not at 
 that time do what needed to be done with- 
 out him. And although, as he said, he had 
 not before prayed for his recovery, he at 
 once asked God to allow him to get up and 
 help me. " And as soon as I asked this of 
 God," he said, " I was assured that it would 
 be so. I knew I should get up." In his 
 
 trustfulness he had not prayed for pro- 
 86 
 
Caugbt %C36onB of f aitb bv> m^ IHelper 
 
 loncred life on his own account ; but if 
 he was really needed here for the sake 
 of others he would ask prolonged life for 
 their sake, and if he asked it he knew it 
 would be given. 
 
 As showing how God works through 
 human means for the accomplishing of his 
 divine purposes, that very afternoon, when 
 things looked so dark for John Wattles's 
 recovery, his two physicians were prompted 
 to attempt an experimental operation that 
 offered small prospect of success, and that 
 might, indeed, hasten the end. That opera- 
 tion was successful beyond their most san- 
 guine anticipations. And so my friend and 
 helper was raised from that bed of death ; 
 and he set himself without delay to the 
 arranging of our business affairs, and to 
 the training of his successor, so as to en- 
 able me to bear the responsibility that 
 would be on me when he should finally be 
 taken away. He w^as sure that God was 
 leading him in all his life work, and that God 
 would sustain him until it was completed. 
 87 
 
HUustrative Bnswers to iDra^er 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if God had 
 been ready to release him earlier from all 
 struggle and suffering, and that he him- 
 self was ready to go. But my call to him 
 for help made him ask God that he might 
 get up again, and live on awhile, at what- 
 ever cost to himself, in order to render me 
 assistance in God's service. 
 
 And for two years after that he suffered 
 and toiled lovingly and uncomplainingly, 
 doing for others, and teaching us all lessons 
 of love and trust. In his last letter to me 
 from his Florida home, where he entered 
 into his rest, he wrote of his Saviour's 
 sustaining presence, " I think that nothing 
 but constant suffering could have brought 
 me to realize as I do that I may have 
 some of his own strength every day, as 
 well as be a sharer of his life forever. It is 
 indeed a wonderful thing, but it is true, 
 that we can live in him." 
 
 Neither death nor life was able to sepa- 
 rate him from the love of God, which is in 
 
 Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 88 
 
XII 
 
 (3o^*5 ZcnbcxncBS witb a Boubttna 
 truster 
 
 It does not follow that one who has had 
 most reason to trust God trusts him most 
 confidently. This has been true from the 
 beginning, and man's hesitancy in trusting 
 God's promised love and loving care is 
 still manifest on every side among the 
 children of men. 
 
 Abraham, father of the faithful, when 
 pleading for Sodom, seemed to tire of inter- 
 ceding with God before God tired of grant- 
 ing his requests. Gideon, ^' mighty man 
 of valor " that he was, when specially called 
 of God to the deliverance of hfs people 
 from the Midianites, and assured that he 
 should have success, asked sign after sign 
 from God in testimony that God meant 
 what he said. He asked, as he left over- 
 night a fleece of wool on the threshing- 
 89 
 
miustrative Bnavvcrs to ipra^er 
 
 floor, that God would send dew on the 
 fleece, while there should be no dew on the 
 ground about it. When this was done, Gideon 
 was not quite satisfied. He asked that God 
 would try it the other way, and send dew 
 on the ground around the fleece, while the 
 fleece was kept dry. This was like God in 
 his loving tenderness with one who had 
 doubt even while he trusted. And Gideon 
 evidently had a good deal of human nature 
 in him, in his hesitancy in his faith, even 
 while he was a man of uncommon faith and 
 of uncommon valor. It is easier to doubt 
 when one has no reason to doubt, than to 
 have faith where one has every reason to 
 have faith. 
 
 A young Christian worker, whose ex- 
 periences of God's loving tenderness I had 
 occasion to know not a little about, was a 
 striking illustration of this truth in God's 
 dealings with his children, even with those 
 for whom he seems to be doing most, year 
 by year. He began his Christian life while 
 
 a poor boy near the border hne between 
 90 
 
(5oD*6 tTcnDemess witb a IDoubtina tTrustet 
 
 Massachusetts and New Hampshire. When 
 brought to consecrate his Hfe to Christ's 
 service, he gave himself unreservedly to 
 that service. He had neither education 
 nor the means to secure it, nor had he 
 friends to help him along in his studies; 
 but with all that he was, and with all his 
 lack, he put himself at God's disposal, to 
 be used as God should direct. 
 
 He had the idea that serving God wholly 
 meant being in the work of the Christian 
 ministry, at home or abroad. Yet how he 
 could prepare himself for the ministry he 
 had no idea. In his uncertainty, therefore, 
 he went on his knees before God, and 
 asked for guidance. He told God that he 
 would start out at once on a course of 
 preparation for the ministry. If this was 
 right, God would continue to help him. 
 If he had erred in judgment in counting 
 this his proper course, God would cease to 
 open the way for a farther advance, and he 
 would, when thus stopped, know that he 
 must seek some other line of service. 
 91 
 
HUustrattve Bnswers to prater 
 
 When I first met him he was near the 
 close of his course in the theological semi- 
 nary. He told me how God had led him 
 along step by step, giving him repeated 
 evidences of his approval when he had 
 special need of help. Yet, he said, he 
 had found himself doubting, or question- 
 ing, at each temporary obstacle or hin- 
 drance, as if God had not yet fully proved 
 himself as his guide and helper. 
 
 For instance, after he had worked his 
 
 way along through his preparatory studies, 
 
 he came to a point where he could not 
 
 pass beyond the Greek Reader without a 
 
 Greek lexicon ; and yet he had no money 
 
 for the purchase of such a work. He 
 
 seemed at a standstill. It looked as if 
 
 God's hindrance had come. He laid the 
 
 matter before the Lord, and then waited. 
 
 For a day or two he studied out his lessons 
 
 by the aid of the glossary at the back of 
 
 the Reader, but he knew that he could 
 
 not go on in that way much longer. 
 
 One day he was sent for to the hotel to 
 92 
 
(5oD'0 ^cnDetncsa witb a H)oubtlna Cruetet 
 
 see a stranger who had inquired for him. 
 Going there, he was told that the stranger 
 was closing up the estate of a clergyman 
 who had died in another town. Some of 
 that clergyman's books were to be given by 
 his executor where they could do good 
 to others. The stranger having heard of 
 this student as working his way along to 
 the ministry, had brought these books for 
 him to choose from. As the student was 
 shown the books on the stranger's table, he 
 saw there the Greek lexicon of which he 
 was in need. He took it, and thanked the 
 stranger. Then he thanked God, and took 
 courage. 
 
 He confessed, as he told me his experi- 
 ences, that he was frequently troubled with 
 doubts as to whether he was really being- 
 led of God; yet God was evidently dealing 
 tenderly with the doubting truster. On 
 one occasion, after he reached the theo- 
 logical seminary in his course, he was so 
 distressed on this point that he prayed 
 earnestly about it one forenoon. He even 
 93 
 
tllastrattvc Hnswcrs to ipra^et 
 
 a^ked the Lord to give him a more posi- 
 tive sign than before in order to encourage 
 his faith. He had need just now of five 
 dollars, to enable him to take his next step 
 in this path of duty, and he knew not 
 where to turn for it. If, indeed, he were to 
 receive five dollars in a letter by mail just 
 at this time, he would know that the Lord 
 had sent it to encourage his faith. He had 
 never had a gift of money sent him in this 
 way. So, Gideon-like, he asked this new 
 sign from the Lord. 
 
 After this season of prayer he lay down 
 on the outside of his bed and slept a tired 
 sleep. He awaked refreshed at noon, and 
 went to his dinner without a thought of his 
 doubt or his prayer. After dinner he went 
 with some of his fellow-students to the 
 city post-office at the hour of the principal 
 mail distribution. To his surprise, a letter 
 addressed to him was handed out with the 
 seminary mail. On opening it, he found it 
 was from an uncle of his in New York 
 State, who had never before given him any 
 94 
 
6oD'0 XIenDernc33 witb a 2)oubttng Crustet 
 
 assistance, but who now enclosed five dol- 
 lars, having heard that he was working his 
 way to the ministry, and might be glad of 
 a little help. It would seem as if such a 
 child of God ought to be ready to trust 
 such a Father in heaven. He might have 
 been, if he had not had so much human 
 nature in him, Gideon-like. 
 
 It was quite a number of years, from the 
 time when he determined to enter upon a 
 course of study with a view to the Chris- 
 tian ministry, before he completed that 
 course in his graduation from the theologi- 
 cal seminary. He had only a few dollars 
 when he began his studies in the village 
 academy. He had toiled hard to secure 
 his support in working his way up by slow 
 degrees. During his last year in the semi- 
 nary he had occasionally supplied a pulpit 
 in the country, and received compensation 
 for that service. On receiving his pay for 
 such a ministry on the Sunday before his 
 graduation, as he told me soon afterwards, he 
 found that he had a few dollars more than 
 95 
 
lUu6tratlve Bnswers to ipraieet 
 
 he started out with on his consecrated 
 course. As he then looked back to that 
 beginning, he realized how good God had 
 been to him in all these years, and he won- 
 dered that he could have ever doubted 
 God. 
 
 I had the privilege of helping that child 
 of God into his needy home-missionary 
 field in California, and to hear from him 
 after he was there ; and I was privileged to 
 be used of God in answering, as it were, 
 another of his prayers in an hour of his 
 need in his mission field. My friend, Hon. 
 Henry P. Haven of New London, in writing 
 to me one day, asked, in a way that was 
 his frequent method, at the close of his 
 letter on some business matter: 
 
 " Do you know of any one of God's chil- 
 dren to whom I ought to send twenty 
 dollars? If you do, I'll send that sum to 
 you." I replied that I knew such a man, 
 and I told him of this home missionary, 
 who, as I was well aware, had difficulty in 
 
 getting along in his new field. 
 96 
 
(5oD'0 ^euDernesa wttb a Wonbtim tTrustec 
 
 Learning- that the young man was in 
 California, Mr. Haven sent a check, payable 
 in gold, as that was the standard there, 
 while specie payments were suspended 
 throughout the country. In acknowledg- 
 ing the gift, my home-missionary friend 
 told me that I could not know how timely 
 its receipt was. He had found his scat- 
 tered parish, or local field, more than 
 twenty miles long, and he had to do all his 
 visiting on foot. One day, one of his 
 parishioners told the new pastor that he 
 must get a horse, and that a man who was 
 interested in the work, and with whom he 
 had been talking on the subject, would let 
 him have a little pony suitable for his pur- 
 pose for twenty dollars in gold, which was 
 much less than its worth. 
 
 My friend said that his parishioner little 
 thought that, with his starvation pittance 
 of support, twenty dollars was as hope- 
 lessly beyond his means as two hundred ; 
 so he merely thanked him, and told him 
 that he would think it over. And, just 
 97 
 
miuetrattvc Bnswcrs to Ipra^er 
 
 after this conversation, my letter with Mr. 
 Haven's gold check came in, and the mis- 
 sionary pony was secured. 
 
 With the frequent repetition of such 
 evidences of God's guidance given to us, or 
 to those whom we know or know of, it is 
 indeed strange that we are not readier in 
 our need to pray and to trust, nothing 
 doubting. Yet God does not get dis- 
 couraged with us, nor lack in his loving 
 tenderness. This is because He is what he 
 is, and because he knows that we are what 
 we are. 
 
 98 
 
XIII 
 
 trrusttng (3o^ ratber tban a Cbtl& 
 of (Bob 
 
 It is hard for us to learn that our faith 
 must rest on God, rather than on God's 
 promises, or on God's word, or on our 
 prayers to God in our need, or on our best 
 work in his service according to his com- 
 mandment and the indications of his provi- 
 dences. It is because God is God that we 
 should trust him utterly, and have confi- 
 dence in his promises, and prize his word, 
 and pray as he invites, and work as he 
 directs. Back of all that represents God is 
 God himself, and he is to be trusted above 
 all. An occasion when I had reason to 
 emphasize the duty of trusting God rather 
 than a child of God brought out this truth 
 more clearly to my own mind. 
 
 A troubled Christian mother sent for me 
 in an hour of dire distress. Her only son 
 99 
 
miustrattve Bnswers to Si>raser 
 
 had been for a while wayward and dissi- 
 pated. She had prayed for him earnestly 
 and constantly. After a while he had been 
 brought into the church, and had become 
 an active Christian worker. This gave her 
 joy unspeakable. But now he had fallen 
 back again. He had seemingly lost his 
 faith. He had left his home, and enlisted 
 in the navy, and had sailed to the far East. 
 His mother was broken-hearted and well- 
 nigh in despair. 
 
 I asked her if she had less reason to 
 have faith in God, as she now prayed for 
 her boy, than before. She said that, of 
 course, she couldn't have as much ground 
 of faith while her son was a reprobate as 
 when he was active in Christian work. 
 
 " Is the difference in God or in your 
 boy ? " I asked. 
 
 " The difference is in my boy," she said, 
 '' and that is what's troubling me." 
 
 " On whom did your faith rest when 
 your boy was doing best ? " 
 
 '•' On God, of course." 
 
 lOO 
 
Crusting GoO ratber tban a CbUD ot 0oJ) 
 
 " And has God changed ? " 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " Then why is your faith lessened ? " 
 
 " Because of my poor boy's failure." 
 
 " Then you are looking at your boy as 
 if he were the ground of your faith, instead 
 of at God." 
 
 " Do you mean to suggest," said the 
 anxious mother, " that even now, while my 
 poor boy is in his present state, I can look 
 up to God, and pray for my boy as trust- 
 fully as I prayed while he was active in 
 Christian work ? Do you mean to suggest 
 that?" 
 
 " If 3'our faith rests on God, you can 
 pray to him just as confidently now as ever 
 for whatever he can do for you or your 
 boy. But you must look at God, and not 
 at your boy, while you pray," I said. 
 
 " Then I'll do that," said the anxious 
 mother; and she turned again to God in 
 need and in trust. 
 
 Two months or so after that, that mother 
 sent for me again. She had received a 
 
 lOI 
 
miustrattve Bnswers to ipra^er 
 
 letter from her son that gladdened her 
 heart. It was from the vessel he was on in 
 the Chinese seas. It was a letter full of 
 penitence and of good purposes, and of 
 hope and trust ; and it told a touching 
 story. 
 
 About the time when the mother turned 
 anew to God in her New England home 
 with a pra)-er of fresh faith for her wander- 
 ing boy, — before, of course, he could have 
 had any word from her about it, — as he 
 was on the deck, one sunny afternoon, in 
 those far-off Chinese waters, a call seemed 
 to come to him from God summoning him 
 to turn from his evil courses to his better 
 self, and to God and to his old faith in 
 God ; and a sense of his sin and his need 
 came over him. Overpowered by his feel- 
 ings, he went down into the forecastle and 
 prostrated himself before God, confessing 
 his sins, and asking for pardon and help to 
 do differently. And now he wrote to his 
 mother as a penitent child, asking her to 
 pray for him, and telling her of his sorrow 
 
 J02 
 
trusting (5oD ratbec tban a CbilD ot (3oD 
 
 and his new purpose of living a new life by- 
 God's help. 
 
 That glad-hearted mother was ready now 
 to perceive and to say that it is ever better 
 to trust in God than to trust in any child 
 of God, even her own child. That's a 
 lesson for all of us to learn and to value. 
 
 A clergyman in Eastern Massachusetts, 
 whom I knew well about that time, told 
 me of a good Scotch mother in his parish 
 who had learned this precious lesson, and 
 who found comfort in it. She had given her 
 boy to God at his birth, and she felt that 
 she and hers were in the everlasting cove- 
 nant with God. Faithfully she trained her 
 boy, but he went astray. While sad-hearted 
 over this, she did not despair ; for her faith 
 rested on God, not on her boy. 
 
 Going to God with her loving, trustful 
 heart, she said in confident assurance, — an 
 assurance that God honors in a child of 
 his, — " Lord, I am thine, and Johnnie's 
 mine, and we are thine. Lord, thy John- 
 nie's going astray. Bring him back, Lord ; 
 103 
 
HUuatrative Answers to ipra^jer 
 
 bring him back. Lord, if Johnnie's lost, 
 in the Great Day his blood will I require 
 at thine hand." 
 
 Such holy boldness, in a child of God, 
 will never fail of its purpose. When a 
 troubled father came to Jesus with his 
 demon-possessed child, and asked for his 
 help, Jesus said, " If thou canst [believe] ! 
 All things are possible to him that be- 
 lieveth [for his as well as for himself] " 
 (Mark 9 : 17-25). Then that father cried 
 out, " I beHeve [for my child and for 
 myself] ; help thou mine unbelief" And 
 the needed help was given. That is God's 
 way with his children. 
 
 104 
 
XIV 
 
 Stmllar Biperiences bp personal 
 
 When a child of God has any personal 
 experience of joy or of sorrow, of trial or 
 of encouragement, that seems peculiar and 
 exceptional, he is likely to find that others 
 — more, perhaps, than he has imagined — 
 have had similar, if not the same, experi- 
 ences, and that he is by no means solitary 
 in his opportunity of learning the lessons 
 which God would thus teach him. What- 
 ever encouragement God gives to any child 
 of his to call upon him in his need, accord- 
 ing to God's invitation and promise, every 
 other child of God in like need can have 
 from God if he will rightly claim it. 
 
 This, indeed, is the chief reason for my 
 recording these illustrative answers to 
 prayer that have come witliin my range of 
 
 personal experience, or the experience of 
 
 105 
 
1lllU6trati)?e 2lnswcrs to ipraijer 
 
 those personally known to me. I have by 
 no means recorded all of the remarkable 
 answers to prayer that have been accorded 
 to me in the years of my Christian life, — 
 nor yet, indeed, even the most remarkable 
 of them, — but I have selected a few of those 
 most likely to be of help to God's children 
 who read this record. 
 
 I have often given to younger disciples 
 illustrations of my way of praying to God 
 for special help, and of God's way of giving 
 help to me in answer to the prayer of need 
 and of trust. This I have done to encour- 
 age or strengthen their faith ; and at times 
 they have come back to tell me, joyfully, 
 of God's dealings with them, in response to 
 their prayers, as tenderly and lovingly as I 
 had urged them to expect. 
 
 An illustration of this was in the case of 
 
 an earnest young Christian disciple whom 
 
 I had been privileged to lead to the Master 
 
 when we were first together in a health 
 
 resort in East Florida, soon after the Civil 
 
 War. The special duties and privileges of 
 1 06 
 
Similar Siperienccs b^ {personal ^rtenDs 
 
 the child of God were quite new to him 
 when he entered that service, and he was 
 g^lad to hear everv word of sup-p;estion or 
 counsel that I gave him in that line. This 
 matter of special answer to particular 
 prayers in things of our ordinary life 
 seemed to him at first almost too won 
 derful and too good to be true. Yet he 
 listened to and pondered all that I said on 
 that subject, and wished that he could 
 verify it in his own experience. 
 
 One summer, he was in the White 
 Mountains. In his wandering among the 
 hills, one day, he lost a valuable diamond 
 stud. Missing it when he returned to the 
 hotel, he regretted its loss, but its finding 
 seem.ed out of the question. At this junc- 
 ture, m.y teachings on the subject of special 
 prayer came to him with fresh force. He 
 realized that he could not by himself hope 
 to find the missing stud among the loose 
 stones on the rough mountain side, where 
 he had been wandering that afternoon, as 
 
 he might have hoped to had he lost it on 
 107 
 
miustrattve Answers to iPra^cr 
 
 an ordinary highway. Yet God could 
 direct him to it wherever it was, if that, 
 indeed, were God's way. 
 
 Kneehng before God, he stated the case 
 as a young disciple. He told God that he 
 realized that, of himself, he was helpless in 
 such a search, but that he was going to 
 attempt it, and he asked God's guidance in 
 it. If, indeed, he found the stud, he would 
 accept this as indicating that God approved 
 his faith in such a matter. It was not 
 merely the diamond stud that he sought to 
 recover, it was encouragement to his faith 
 through God's help. In that spirit he 
 clambered again the mountain side. 
 
 His eye of sense, quickened by the light 
 of faith, was alert and watchful as he went 
 again over the rough path in the direction 
 of his former wanderings. Soon the glis- 
 tening of the diamond among the stones of 
 the mountain path attracted his attention, 
 and he came back to his hotel to thank 
 God for his guidance, and with renewed 
 
 and increased faith as more precious than 
 io8 
 
Similar JBxpcxicnccs bs {Personal jfrienOs 
 
 a thousand diamonds. As I watched him 
 in the subsequent years, I could bear wit- 
 ness to this, as he encouraged others to a 
 like faith in God. 
 
 Another illustration of willingness to 
 trust God utterly was given to me by a 
 friend and co-worker in Boston, when I 
 was in charge of the New England Sun- 
 day-school missionary field. In his boy- 
 hood his godly mother, with two children 
 dependent on hei", had small means of sup- 
 port, and at times she did not know where 
 her next day's sustenance was to be found. 
 Yet her faith in God never failed or fal- 
 tered. She trusted him fully for herself 
 and hers, whatever her circumstances were. 
 
 One evening, there cam.e a call on her 
 
 for help to a needy neighbor. She was 
 
 sure that that appeal was one to which 
 
 God would have her respond. She had, at 
 
 that time, only fifty cents in the world, with 
 
 two children to care for ; but she had that, 
 
 and God knew it, and yet this appeal as 
 
 from him had come to her for what she 
 109 
 
HUustratire Bnswers to Ipraiser 
 
 had, and she would not refuse it. Her 
 children had been already fed for the day. 
 They needed nothing more till to-morrow. 
 Like the widow of Zarephath, when Elijah, 
 God's prophet, asked from her bread that 
 seemed needed for her hungr)^ child, this 
 widow gave at God's call. 
 
 She gave her last fifty cents to the poor 
 neighbor, who was to her as a messenger 
 of God. Then she committed herself and 
 hers trustfully to God, nothing doubting. 
 As if to honor and approve her faith, that 
 same evening a ring was heard at her door- 
 bell. Going to the door, she found no one 
 there, but an unaddressed envelope was 
 found under the door, containing five dol- 
 lars, which she took as a fresh gift from 
 God, and thanked him for it most grate- 
 fully. That was the only like experience 
 in her Christian life ; yet this was enough 
 to strengthen her faith, and the faith of her 
 two sons, who were reared in God's ser- 
 vice. 
 
 no 
 
XV 
 
 ©raider ot a SolMer prisoner 
 Hnsvvereb 
 
 It has often been the case that one who, 
 in the face of impending death, promised 
 that his Hfe, if spared, should be devoted to 
 God's service, has forgotten that promise 
 when God has given him safety. But, on 
 the other hand, there have been those who 
 made such a promise in the hour of peril, 
 and afterwards redeemed it faithfully. Such 
 an instance, in the case of a young army 
 comrade of mine, stands out as memorable 
 in my life recollections. 
 
 During all my three years of army ser- 
 vice, my regiment was brigaded with the 
 Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. 
 During portions of the time that regiment 
 had no chaplain, and I was pri\'ileged to be 
 on terms of kindly intimacy with both its 
 
 officers and its enlisted men. Among those 
 III 
 
miustrative Slnswers to iprascr 
 
 men who, on Seabrook Island, in the 
 spring of 1863, kept up a praying circle in 
 order to promote their Christian life and 
 growth, there was a young corporal who 
 interested me by his intelligence, his frank 
 and hearty ways, and his Christian de- 
 votedness. On the Sunday before he left 
 for the war, he had stood up alone in his 
 country home church and made a public 
 profession of his Christian faith, and from 
 that hour he had been faithful to his pro- 
 fession. He also had a good name for 
 bravery and fidelity, and readiness to per- 
 form every soldier service to which he was 
 summoned. 
 
 When, in the early summer of 1864, we 
 were in Virginia as a part of the Army of 
 the James, co-operating with the Army 
 of the Potomac, General Butler called for 
 a volunteer scout to venture through the 
 enemy's lines, at Bermuda Hundred, and 
 obtain information as to the position and 
 movements of the enemy. In response to 
 
 this call, this young corporal of the Twenty- 
 112 
 
IPraisct of a SolDier {prisoner SlnswereO 
 
 fourth volunteered, although it involved the 
 peril of being taken and treated as a spy. 
 
 Having scouted successfully within the 
 enemy's lines for two or three nights, and 
 obtained important information that would 
 have been invaluable to his commander, he 
 was captured just as he was about attempt- 
 ing a return to his command. When cap- 
 tured and brought before a Confederate 
 commander, the first proposition was to 
 hang him at once as a spy, without a 
 formal trial. But it was decided to confine 
 him in the jail in Petersburg until he should 
 be formally tried and condemned by a court- 
 martial. In this emergency his chief prayer 
 to God was not that his young life should 
 be spared, but that he might be faithful even 
 unto death ; and God heard his prayer, and 
 gave him strength. 
 
 Rapid movements of troops from Vir- 
 ginia to Georgia were frequent just then 
 within the Confederate lines, in consequence 
 of Sherman's march to the sea. The young 
 captured scout was sent, with those having 
 113 
 
miustrative Bnswcrs to ipra^er 
 
 him in charge and with the evidence in his 
 case, to Georgia, and he found himself 
 facing death in the jail in Macon. It was 
 then and there that the young soldier's 
 new consecration to God occurred. 
 
 On his knees, behind the grated door of 
 his hope-barred cell, he pleaded that he 
 might have prolonged life and restored 
 liberty. In no mere selfish love of life and 
 liberty, he promised that, if his life be 
 spared, it should be given wholly and 
 heartily to the service of Christ. In speak- 
 ing to me long afterward of this longing 
 prayer, he said sincerely : " I told God that, 
 if my life were spared, I should know he 
 did it ; for there was no other hope for me 
 then ; " vain was the help of man. 
 
 At the very time that the officer having 
 
 in charge his case, as an alleged spy, was 
 
 preparing to come to the jail to take him 
 
 out for trial, there was an alarm outside of 
 
 the city. A portion of Sherman's army 
 
 had made a circuitous movement in that 
 
 direction. This officer, among others, was 
 114 
 
IPcagct ot a SolOiec iDrisoner BnswereO 
 
 hurried to the front, and in the changes 
 that followed he was removed elsewhere, 
 and the papers in the case of the captured 
 scout were not to be found in Macon ; and 
 he was thenceforward held as an ordinary- 
 prisoner of war. 
 
 He could never have any doubt, from 
 that hour onward, that, in response to his 
 faith-filled prayer, God had given him pro- 
 longed life when, except to the eye of 
 faith, such a thing seemed impossible. 
 Although afterwards he had weary months 
 of imprisonment and varied vicissitudes of 
 soldier service, he was ever confident that 
 he was living to serve God as he had 
 promised to, and he longed still to be true 
 and faithful unto death. 
 
 After the war I knew him, as, for years, 
 he was striving to make good his vow of 
 consecration ; and I have rarely met a 
 young soldier of Christ who was more 
 zealously true to the blood-stained banner 
 under which he was enrolled. Having se- 
 cured a hundred dollars through lecturing 
 115 
 
HUustratifc Bnswcrs to praiger 
 
 o.n his army and prison experiences, he 
 started with that sum to work his way 
 through PhilHps Academy at Andover. 
 As he pursued his studies, he swept out 
 the schoolroom, and performed other tasks, 
 at fifteen cents an hour. In the early 
 morning, and at other odd times, he did 
 farm work outside of the village to eke out 
 his support. At times he found difficulty, 
 even with all his hard work, to support 
 himself in the Academy. 
 
 On rising one morning he found himself 
 without a cent of money in the world. 
 Going to God, he prayed earnestly for help, 
 and, a few minutes later, he found fif- 
 teen dollars between the pages of a book 
 which he took up for study. Some fiiend, 
 knowing his need, had taken that delicate 
 way of aiding him. As the young student 
 told of this fresh experience of God's good- 
 ness, he said gratefully, and in faith : " God 
 will do so again, if it is best. If God 
 wants me to stay at school, I have no fear 
 
 but that he will find a way for me to get 
 it6 
 
IPra^er ot a SolDler prisoner Hnswere^ 
 
 along there." Why should any child of 
 God feel any other way about his Father's 
 care of him ? 
 
 Counting his life as spared in order that 
 he might devote it wholly to his Saviour's 
 service, there was nothing that he enjoyed 
 more than special work for his Master 
 during the years when he was studying 
 hardest to fit himself for future work. At 
 Andover he taught in a mission school, 
 took active part in prayer-meetings, and 
 conversed on the subject of personal re- 
 ligion with his schoolmates. Two even- 
 ings in every week he spent with the pupils 
 of his mission school, in order to promote 
 their spiritual welfare. All this was not 
 from a mere sense of duty, it was a 
 delight to him. " How much real enjoy- 
 ment it gives me to work for Jesus ! " he 
 said. " All other pleasures fade away, and 
 are lost, by the side of it." 
 
 Again he wrote, " I don't see how any 
 
 one can help doing all the good he can 
 
 I have an insatiable thirst after perishing 
 117 
 
miustrative Bnswers to jPra^ct 
 
 souls, and hope and pray that God will 
 lead me to do good wherever I am. ... I 
 am thankful for the hope that perhaps, ere- 
 long, I can throw aside all other things, 
 and enter with my whole heart upon the 
 work of saving souls. . . . My heart pants 
 to be wholly engaged in my Master's 
 service." 
 
 There was no room for doubt that he 
 was faithful to the promise which he made 
 when he prayed for prolonged life on his 
 knees in Macon jail, as he faced the gal- 
 lows. It was this way to the last. 
 
 At one time he told me of his dis- 
 appointment, through failing health, in Iiis 
 plans for Christian effort. He had gone to 
 a place in Vermont where there was great 
 lack of such endeavor. He thought, as 
 he said, that even he could do something 
 there. But the day he reached the place 
 he was taken ill, and had no power to do 
 any work there. As he expressed it, 
 "Jesus didn't need me in Vermont. He 
 
 has never needed me anywhere, but he 
 ii8 
 
Ipra^er of a SolDtcr {prisoner BnswereD 
 
 has let me work for him sometimes. Oh, 
 if I ever get well enough to work for him 
 again, sha'nt I be thankful for it ! " 
 
 But his health was hopelessly broken 
 down by his long imprisonment in jail and 
 stockade, his privations and endurances in 
 swamp and dungeon, and his severe army 
 service, and he had to give up his endeavor 
 to enter the ministry or to engage in any 
 active Christian labors. After a season in 
 the Massachusetts General Hospital he re- 
 turned to his old home in the country, and 
 lay down to die. 
 
 To the last he had no thought of com- 
 plaining, but he found constant cause of 
 thanksgiving. When, in his humble home 
 in Northern Massachusetts, he was simply 
 waiting his summons for muster-out from 
 earthly service, he told gratefully of God's 
 goodness in sending to him, unexpectedly, 
 relatives and friends whom he had desired 
 to see once more. 
 
 Again, when he was pressed for means 
 
 to supply his daily necessities, a sister came 
 119 
 
tlUuetrattpe Answers to IPra^er 
 
 to him one morning to say that a letter had 
 been received, covering a gift of thirty dol- 
 lars for his use. A pleasant smile came 
 over his face as he responded, ** I prayed 
 for money last night. It was the first time 
 I had asked for that in a good while." 
 
 At the young soldier-scout's request 
 I visited him in his home, and, as I 
 sat by his dying-bed, he asked me if I 
 would conduct his funeral service, and tell 
 his old friends and neighbors of God's 
 wonderful goodness to him. It was that 
 truth which he wanted me to impress on 
 those who had known him, and who were 
 now to know of his experience. I did as 
 he desired, and I never tire of repeating 
 that story as an illustration of God's loving 
 readiness to do for his children according 
 to their needs and their faith. 
 
 I20 
 
XVI 
 
 Mow Gob %ct> the Xeabers m tbe 
 Centennial Bxbibitton 
 
 It is not merely help and guidance to an 
 individual child of God that God gives in 
 response to faith-filled prayer. If two or 
 more are agreed as to what together they 
 need in God's service, they may have con- 
 fidence that he will hear and respond to 
 them according to their need and their 
 faith. And if God's children unitedly pray 
 to him in behalf of a cause which in any 
 true sense represents his interests or his 
 honor, they may be sure that God is more 
 interested in the object of their prayer 
 than they are. An illustration of such a 
 struggle as this, where I was privileged to 
 know much of it, and, indeed, in which I 
 had a certain part, is worthy of mention in 
 this series of testimonies. 
 
 When the " United States Centennial 
 
 121 
 
miuBtrattvc IHnswers to ipcai^cr 
 
 Celebration and Exhibition of 1876," in 
 Philadelphia, was arranged for, it was the 
 first exhibition of leally an international 
 character that had been undertaken by this 
 new nation of ours, and many an important 
 practical question had necessarily to be 
 met for the first time by those responsible 
 for its management. One of these ques- 
 tions was the Sunday question. This grew 
 to unexpected importance as the months 
 progressed, and it finally became a center 
 of moral and spiritual conflict. 
 
 Until that time, six days had, in this 
 country, been counted an ordinary week's 
 work. Places of amusement or of exhibi- 
 tion were " open every day in the week, 
 Sundays excepted!' This was taken as a 
 matter of course. The first regulations de- 
 cided on by the Centennial Commission, of 
 representative men from every state and 
 territory, appointed by Congress, were 
 framed, two years before the exhibition, 
 with the usual exception. But as the time 
 
 for the opening drew near, there was a 
 122 
 
Bow <5oD XcD tbe XcaDers 
 
 movement to secure the letting down of the 
 bars that would close the great exhibition 
 one day in seven. 
 
 Money-making was the main thing at 
 the bottom of the Sunday-opening ad- 
 vocacy, whatever nominal plea was put 
 forth by its representatives. Railroad com- 
 panies coming into Philadelphia had mil- 
 lions at stake in the question at issue. 
 Various other parties, whose larger or 
 lesser gains were involved, were ready to 
 aid any organized movement to induce the 
 Centennial Commission to reverse its an- 
 nounced decision. 
 
 Of course, it would never do for these 
 workers to say that it was a mere matter 
 of dollars and cents that prompted their 
 zeal. It sounded much better to talk of 
 the interests of the working classes, who 
 could come into Philadelphia on Sunday as 
 on no other day in the week to receive 
 good impressions in that great international 
 educating agency now available only for a 
 season. Thus in one way and another, a 
 123 
 
TlUustrative Answers to ipra^er 
 
 powerful, unscrupulous, and determined 
 organization to effect the change was se- 
 cured, and its work began to be felt. 
 
 There are always some in the community 
 who are ready to work on the wrong side 
 because it is wrong. Then there are men 
 who will join with the evil-disposed, or will 
 wish them success, because tJiey can make 
 money through the triumph of evil. More- 
 over, there are more or less social cranks, 
 and weak-minded ministers, and other pro- 
 fessed Christians, who can be drawn into 
 the support of almost any measure — good 
 or bad — to which a determined man urges 
 them. Hence it is not to be wondered at 
 that, at this time, petitions in favor of the 
 Sunday opening of the exhibition were 
 presented to the Centennial Commission 
 signed by a great many bad men who 
 would do wrong for its own sake; by a 
 great many others who would do wrong 
 when they were paid for it; by many 
 flabby-minded men who had no positive 
 
 opinions to adhere to with or without pay; 
 124 
 
Mow (3oD XeO tbc XeaOers 
 
 and also, doubtless, by some conscientious 
 but misguided men. As to the other side 
 of the question, there was little need of 
 petitions. Public sentiment on the in- 
 volved issue was well understood. The 
 better portion of the community was 
 largely in favor of Sunday closing. 
 
 It was shrewdly planned, by the friends 
 of Sunday opening, to secure by various 
 means a majority of the Centennial Com- 
 mission to favor rescinding the earlier vote 
 for Sunday closing, and then to bring the 
 matter up for decision, and press for an 
 immediate vote, just before the open- 
 ing day of the great exhibition. Once 
 opened on Sundays with the approval of 
 the Commission, it would be practically 
 impossible to close it again. When the 
 members came together just before the 
 first of May, they found, on mutually con- 
 ferring, that apparently a decided majority/ 
 would vote for reversing the previous 
 action. Then came a time of anxiet)- for 
 
 the friends of Sabbath observance. 
 125 
 
miuetrative Bnswers to ©raiser 
 
 I was so circumstanced at this time as 
 to know much of the movements of both 
 sides. On the day before the vote was to 
 be taken, my old commander and friend, 
 the President of the Commission, told me 
 of the situation as he saw it. He said 
 modestly : " I know, Chaplain, that you 
 have more faith than I have that God 
 gives special help in an emergency in 
 answer to special prayer. So I want you 
 to pray to-night for God's help in this con- 
 test." That very utterance showed this 
 leader's faith. It was in itself the prayer, 
 " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbe- 
 lief." 
 
 As we two were talking together at that 
 time, an earnest and hard-working advo- 
 cate of Sunday opening, a member of the 
 Commission, came up, and said exultingly : 
 " It's no use. We've got you. You'll find 
 that out to-morrow." And, on the face of 
 it, it looked so. 
 
 Before going home, I went to my office, 
 
 and stated the case to my associate in 
 126 
 
!How 6oD %ctf tbe XeaDecs 
 
 editorial work, the Rev. Dr. George A. 
 Peltz, a man of faith and prayer, and asked 
 him to pray earnestly that night that God 
 would help in this crisis. And there were 
 godly members of the Commission who 
 were praying the same prayer that night. 
 When, on my knees that evening, I essayed 
 to pray for God's help, my words strangely 
 seemed to come back to me. It was as 
 though God said, " There is no necessity 
 for your prayers. I need not to be en- 
 treated of you. Stand still, and see the 
 salvation of the Lord ! " It was a peculiar 
 experience. I have never had anything 
 just like it. Yet with it came the convic- 
 tion that all was right. I realized that 
 God was working. 
 
 Going to my office in the morning, I 
 found my associate there, and, without 
 speaking of what had happened to me, I 
 asked him if he had remembered his 
 promise of prayer. " Yes, indeed," he 
 said, " and there was a singular occurrence 
 as I attempted to pray." Then he told of 
 127 
 
miuatrative Bnswers to ipra^er 
 
 his experience as almost identical with 
 mine. He was confident, he said, that the 
 Lord had taken this matter in hand. 
 
 The Commission met in Parlor C of the 
 Continental Hotel. When I met its presi- 
 dent there that day, he said to me : " Chap- 
 lain, there is a remarkable change here 
 since last night. They are not so sure as 
 they were of carrying their point. I doubt 
 if they will." 
 
 Then I met Mr. George H. Corliss, 
 of Rhode Island, whose mammoth engine 
 was one of the wonders of the exhibition, 
 and the motive-power of all its machinery. 
 He, himself a devout and earnest Christian, 
 was to present the majority report in re- 
 newed favor of Sunday closing. We had 
 already talked this matter over together, 
 and had, only the day before, spoken to 
 each other of the evident majority in favor 
 of the proposed change. He now spoke of 
 the remarkable change that had come over 
 several of the members since the day before, 
 
 and he said he believed that the vote would 
 128 
 
IHow 0ot) XeO tbe XeaOccs 
 
 be different from what had seemed probable 
 twenty-four hours earlier. 
 
 After the other business of the day was 
 completed, the two reports on Sunday 
 opening were presented, and discussion 
 began. Mr. Corliss declared that, while 
 he had enjoyed his work for the exhibi- 
 tion, and had fondly hoped for the success 
 of the undertaking, if the exhibition was 
 not to be closed on Sunday nothing was 
 left of his best hopes but ashes, and he 
 could only wish that all he had done for 
 the Centennial was utterly blotted out. 
 
 Professor Campbell of Indiana, secretaiy 
 of the Commission, reminded the Commis- 
 sioners that state fairs throughout the 
 country were uniformly closed on Sunday. 
 He was sure, moreover, that if the Centen- 
 nial Exhibition were open on Sunday, the 
 slums of New York and Baltimore, and 
 other cities, would be emptied into Phila- 
 delphia on that day, so that this city would 
 be overrun with the viler classes in those 
 communities. 
 
 129 
 
Illustrative Bnewers to fprapcr 
 
 In favor of the minority report, claiming 
 that the exhibition should be opened on 
 Sundays, it was said that the laboring 
 classes needed and desired it; that the 
 exhibition itself was not like a place of 
 amusement, but rather like a public library 
 or art gallery, and that its influence would 
 be ennobling on all who attended it ; more- 
 over, that anyhow it would pay. In favor 
 of this report there were earnest words 
 from at least one member of the Commis- 
 sion, who was honestly a believer in the 
 Sunday opening on its merits. There was 
 also more or less talk about "bigotry," 
 and "intolerance," and " Puritanism," with 
 the ordinary measure of sentimentalism 
 concerning "the true and the beautiful." 
 Of course, there was no such earnestness 
 in favor of the Sunday opening as there 
 was against it; for there was a lack, on 
 that side, of the moral conviction which 
 gives a man power in advocacy of the 
 right. 
 
 General Hawley, of Connecticut, left the 
 130 
 
How (5oD %ct> tbe XeaDers 
 
 chair — as President of the Commission — 
 to speak in favor of an observance of the 
 American Sabbath. He insisted that the 
 Commission was already pledged to that 
 course by its previous action and utter- 
 ances, and that it could not with honor, at 
 this late day, reverse its decision. He 
 believed that no American Congress was 
 ever freighted with weightier responsibili- 
 ties for the welfare of the American people 
 than was this Commission in now consider- 
 ing the Sunday question. If the doors of 
 the Centennial Exhibition were thrown 
 open on Sunday, one of the safeguards of 
 our nation would be thereby practically 
 broken down. That step would prove the 
 beginning of the end of our American Sab- 
 bath observance, and for a century to come 
 men would point to this day's work in 
 justification of a disregard of the traditions 
 and customs of the nation in honoring the 
 Christian Sabbath. Such a responsibility he 
 was not willing to assume. He asked who 
 of the Commission would dare to do so. 
 131 
 
HUustratlve answers to prater 
 
 General Hawley spoke with earnestness 
 in favor of the observance of one day in 
 seven, not merely as a religious duty, but 
 as a necessity of man's physical and moral 
 welfare. He said that if any people were 
 to start in this world all by themselves, 
 without any written or traditional law for 
 their guidance, he believed that they would 
 find, by experiment, that in the long run 
 they could do more work and better in six 
 days of a week than in seven. For the 
 sake of the workingmen inside of the ex- 
 hibition and outside, he wanted it closed on 
 Sundays. 
 
 Colonel Holliday, afterwards Governor 
 
 Holliday, of Virginia, a gallant Confederate 
 
 officer, who had lost his right arm in the 
 
 war, spoke eloquently in support of the 
 
 views expressed by General Hawley. He 
 
 asked if those men who talked of " the true 
 
 and the beautiful " were unwilling to give 
 
 one day to the contemplation of the true 
 
 after giving six days to the study of the 
 
 beautiful. Turning to Mr. Corliss, he said: 
 132 
 
Mow (505 %ct> tbe aLeaDeta 
 
 " That magnificent engine of yours, sir, is 
 indeed a thing of beauty. Each mighty 
 revolution made by it as it puts and keeps 
 in motion for six days in the week the 
 varied machinery which covers more than 
 fifteen acres of space, is beautiful beyond 
 a question. But is there any truth in it? 
 No, sir ! Not unless, on the seventh day, 
 that mighty engine stands silent before 
 Almighty God." 
 
 Then came earnest words from Governor 
 McCormick of Arizona. Those who re- 
 membered his activity twenty years before 
 in Young Men's Christian Association 
 work in New York City, or who recalled 
 his brilliant address before the Third Na- 
 tional Sunday-school Convention at Jayne's 
 Hall, in Philadelphia, in 1859, were not 
 surprised that he also pleaded eloquently 
 for the wise and sacred observance of the 
 Christian Sabbath. 
 
 When a friend of Sunday opening 
 sneered at the others as " narrow-minded 
 Puritans," a member of the Commission, 
 133 
 
miustratlve Bnswers to IPra^cr 
 
 whose position had not been known, called 
 out, " I'm on that side, but don't call me 
 a Puritan. In politics, I'm an old line 
 Democrat; in religion, I'm a Universalist. 
 There's not much Puritanism in me." 
 
 "Then you don't believe in any hell," 
 said one. 
 
 " I believe you'll have a hell here in 
 Philadelphia, if you open those exhibition 
 gates Sundays," was the earnest and start- 
 ling response. 
 
 The feeling had by this time reached a 
 rare degree of intensity for any deliberative 
 body. Members of the Commission who 
 had thought lightly of the whole matter at 
 first, or had been positively in favor of the 
 Sunday opening, realized that a momentous 
 issue was presented, and that they must 
 accept the responsibility of acting for or 
 against the right. There were loud calls 
 of " Question ! Question ! " by those who 
 were ready to finally record themselves. 
 
 At this moment an impressive incident 
 occurred. Mr. Haynes, of Nevada, rose, 
 134 
 
Mow (300 %ct> tbc XeaOets 
 
 and said : " Mr. President, before the ques- 
 tion is taken, I wish to say a word. I feel 
 like a returned prodigal, and I want to 
 make a confession. More than twenty 
 years ago, I went out from an Eastern 
 home to the Far West. I have lived since 
 then beyond the Rocky Mountains, where 
 we hardly have a Sabbath, and where other 
 than the best moral influences are all about 
 us. But, as I have listened here this after- 
 noon, old memories have come back to 
 me." Here the speaker struggled with 
 strong emotion, and he continued with 
 choking voice: "All these truths were 
 familiar to me long ago, and it seems to 
 me again to-day that I hear them repeated 
 as I used to listen to them from the lips of 
 my sainted mother, as, every evening, I 
 kneeled by her side in prayer. I want to 
 give my vote in favor of observing the 
 Christian Sabbath." 
 
 The effect of this remarkable speech was 
 overpowering. It seemed to represent the 
 uplifting of the whole Commission in moral 
 135 
 
lUustrattvc Bnswers to IPraiger 
 
 character and tone, and men who would an 
 hour before have voted to open the exhibi- 
 tion for seven days in the week recorded 
 their names heartily in favor of Sunday 
 closing when the vote was called. Even 
 the member of the Commission, who had 
 been counted a representative of the largest 
 monied interests pressing for the change, 
 voted in favor of the report of Mr. Corliss. 
 The vote stood twenty -seven for closing 
 to nine for opening ; and so the question 
 was settled — and settled right. God had 
 led the leaders. God be praised for this 
 result ! 
 
 136 
 
XVII 
 
 IHelp In tbe Ult^bt !Prai?e& for, 
 an^ Sent 
 
 It matters not what is the need of a child 
 of God, or when or where he experiences 
 that need. He is privileged to make it 
 known to his Father, and to trust that it 
 will be supplied according to that Father's 
 love and wisdom. Of course, the supply 
 will be through natural means, but ever as 
 the natural is supernaturally controlled. 
 Illustrations of this truth are many and 
 varied, but they all are alike consistent 
 with the principles on which every faith- 
 filled prayer must rest. 
 
 Many years ago a distinguished clergy- 
 man and college officer gave me an inci- 
 dent illustrating such prayer and its answer 
 in his own family, which profoundly im- 
 pressed me, and which is worthy of men- 
 137 
 
miustrattve Answers to ipraiset 
 
 tion in this record of experiences. While 
 its first mention to me was many }^ears 
 ago, I have, on the very day that I write 
 this chapter, verified my recollection of 
 the incident by hearing it anew from the 
 person who offered the prayer and received 
 the answer. 
 
 My friend's residence was at a little dis- 
 tance from the college, in a somewhat 
 secluded spot, quite apart from the traveled 
 highway. He was temporarily away from 
 his home. His wife and children, with an 
 invalid friend of the wife, were, in a sense, 
 alone in the house. In the dead of night, 
 the wife was started from her sleep by 
 hearing, on the floor below, the iron bolt 
 of the parlor window-shutters thrown back. 
 At once she realized that a burglar, or 
 other intruder, was forcing an entrance. 
 What should she do? How could she 
 secure help? 
 
 This was about the time when Professor 
 Huxley had been lecturing and writing on 
 the unwisdom of expecting direct answers 
 138 
 
tHclp in tbc miabt praiseD tot, anD Sent 
 
 to specific prayers. The thought of this 
 flashed on the mind of this startled believer, 
 awakened out of her sleep. And the other 
 thought quickly followed : " God can help 
 me now, and I will pray to him." Then 
 the prayer went up : " Lord, send a police- 
 man to our rescue." The policeman on 
 the beat nearest that residence was accus- 
 tomed to visit the grounds at certain hours 
 of the night, and therefore the desire was 
 a natural one, on her part, that he should 
 appear just at this juncture. 
 
 Just then there was heard the report of 
 a pistol in front of the house. Other shots 
 followed. The startled believer sprang 
 from her bed to look out of her front win- 
 dow. By the bright moonlight she could 
 see signs of confusion in the shrubbery 
 near the house ; and then a little boat 
 pushing out on the stream beyond the 
 grounds. Soon a policeman appeared be- 
 fore the house, and called out, saying that 
 burglars had been discovered in the house. 
 
 He asked to be admitted, so as to see what 
 139 
 
miusttattve Answers to iPtaiset 
 
 harm had been done. On being admitted, 
 he told his story. 
 
 He had visited the house and grounds 
 on his usual rounds. Finding all right he 
 was returning to the highway when sud- 
 denly, as he said, something told him to 
 go back and look again. This must have 
 been about the time that the believer was 
 asking God to send a policeman for her 
 protection. As he neared the house again, 
 he saw a man entering the opened par- 
 lor window. The pistol-shots were fired 
 on both sides. The burglar fled to the 
 river, and attempted to escape, but, being 
 wounded, he was disabled, and drowned. 
 He left burglars' tools behind him. On his 
 person were found treasures taken from 
 neighboring houses, as others would have 
 been from this one but for this interruption. 
 
 Such an incident might have had no 
 weight with Professor Huxley ; but it con- 
 firmed the faith of that praying believer 
 and of others. Is it not good to believe, 
 
 and to know ? 
 
 140 
 
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