The Wonders of Prayer Part 2

She went home and sat down that evening alone, in the dining-room, depressed. The enfeebled family--the aged crippled mother, the sick sister and her own young son--had retired. As she thought the subject through, she became convinced that it was not good to spend time and money in the way proposed. Instantly the words THE SAVIOUR filled her soul with indescribable hope, and as she thought of His miracles, and how _the same Jesus_, on earth, healed paralyzed ones, the hope grew that He would heal her.

With the well hand she stretched out her paralyzed hand on the table and said: "Dear Lord, will you heal me?" Like an electric shock the life began to move in her arm, and the continued sensation was as though something that, previously, had not moved was set in motion. The feeling pa.s.sed up to the head, and down the body to the foot. _She was healed!

and she was grateful!_ She did not speak of her experience to the family, but retired. She rose early the next morning, and awoke her son,--a prayerful, dutiful young man,--and said to him, "I'm going to church, to-day." He replied, "Then I'll get up and go with you,"

expecting that she must ride.

Her soul was solemnly full that day of the felt presence of the Holy Spirit, and she did not like to talk. Her son watched her movements, astonished.

She went to the church, took a cla.s.s again in Sunday School, and; in going back and forth to church that day and evening, walked about sixty blocks without weariness.

We are not permitted, here, to draw aside the curtain, to dwell upon the surprises and the grateful joy of that ever-to-be-remembered, sacred day.

A few days after this healing, she, with a consciousness that she was running a risk, lifted a heavy weight, and a numbness returned. She confessed the sin to the Lord, and asked Him that, when she had been sufficiently chastened, He would take the trouble away. Gradually, within two days, it disappeared, and has never returned.

At the time when Mrs. Furlong was healed, in answer to prayer, Miss.

Jordan's case was considered hopeless. Her lungs had been diseased since 1876. In November, 1879, her physician had decided that tubercles had formed in the left lung, and that the right lung was much congested and hardened.

In 1882 she had many hemorrhages, and gradually grew worse, so that she could not use her left arm or shoulder without producing hemorrhage.

Mrs. Furlong, soon after her own healing, received a comforting a.s.surance from the Lord that her sister would be healed; but Miss Jordan, herself, had not that a.s.surance. At this time she took little or no medicines, the physicians and the family having no confidence in their curative effect; but, on the 1st of January, 1884, she had so many chills and hemorrhages, that they sent for the family physician to aid in checking, if possible, the severe attack.

During this apparently rapid descent deathward, Mrs. Furlong continued to repeat to the family and to the physicians that the Lord would heal her sister.

Miss Jordan was one day so low that she could just be aroused to take her medicine. As Mrs. Furlong went to give it, Miss Jordan said to her, "Do you want to throw that medicine away?" Mrs. Furlong said "Yes," and threw it away. Six hours of united waiting upon the Lord followed. They were hours of pain. From nine in the morning till three in the afternoon she suffered indescribable pain. A few minutes after three, the pain left her, and with a bright look she said, "I believe I'm better." She wanted to rise and dress, but Mrs. Furlong advised her to rest through the night. She said she had not, in five years, been so free from weariness and pain.

The aged mother was sick in bed with that broken wrist, and Mrs. Furlong feared that her sister's improved condition would shock and perplex her.

Miss Jordan lay on the lounge the most of the time for two days. One of her expressions was, "It's perfect bliss to lie here free from pain."

Her breathing became perfectly natural, and very soon the great hollow place in the upper part of the chest, over the left lung, filled out.

Shortly before her healing she only weighed eighty pounds; but a few months after her weight had increased to one hundred and twenty pounds.

She progressed in health rapidly, and on the second Sunday after the healing came she attended church. The feeble mother was most sensitively anxious lest her daughter should pursue some unwarrantable course which should lead to relapse.

Miss Jordan's health steadily improved, but it was several months before a cough entirely left her. You may be sure that doubters made the most of that cough! _But it left her!_ At one time she brought on a slight relapse by giving lessons in crayon drawing. She came to the conclusion that the Lord had other work for her to do: and at this writing, September, 1885, having prayerfully and watchfully followed the leadings of the Lord, is a missionary among the freedmen of the South, and is strong in health and in faith, "giving glory to G.o.d."

One of the aged mother's perplexities was that the Lord should want her to live on in such a helpless and useless condition, while her daughters, who might be so useful, must die; but oh, how successful she had by precept and example taught those daughters that "He hath done all things well!" How patiently she suffered whatever she thought was the Lord's will! How sweet was her constant thanksgiving! Said a pious Christian neighbor, whose poor health restricted her attendance at church, "When I'm hungry for a blessing I go down to see old lady Jordan."

After eight painful weeks, she so far recovered from the sickness consequent on the broken and dislocated wrist as to move around feebly, but sight and hearing were almost gone. Her leg was stiff, her hand stiff, her wrist deformed, and her mind greatly impaired.

Miss Jordan became very hopeful, and received strong a.s.surance, in answer to prayer, that her mother might be healed. Mrs. Furlong received no a.s.surance whatever in her mother's case. There was a great deal of talking and praying about it, in the family, and finally Mrs. Jordan humbly claimed the Lord's help, beseeching Him that since He had recorded that He would make the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the deaf to hear, if it was His will He would heal her. This was the night of June 16th, 1884.

In the morning Miss Jordan was so hopeful that she rose early, and attentively listened to the movements in her mother's room. She called the little family's attention to them, saying, "Just listen to her;" and as, holding on by the banister, the aged mother came with her accustomed slow movements down to the dining room, Miss Jordan said, to them, "Now, watch her."

According to the long habit of eight years, she began to reach out for her cane, unconscious that she had been walking around her room with new freedom. Miss Jordan went toward her and said, "Mother, do you want your cane?" and, wondering, the old lady walked freely into the dining room.

They gathered around her, and said, "Are you not healed, mother?" and she began to think _she was_, and sat down in her chair by the table.

Could she move her hand? The doubled-up thumb, and straight, stiff finger, were _perfectly free_ and as _limber as ever_, and the stiff wrist joint _moved with perfect freedom!_ She _heard as well as anybody!_ Could she see? She went up-stairs to her Bible, whose blurred, dim pages she had thought closed to her forever, and _she could read as well as ever_, and without gla.s.ses! She could thread the finest needle.

Could she kneel and thank the Lord? She had not knelt for eight years.

Yes, she could kneel as well as when she served the Lord in her youth!

Christian reader, stop here and think what a joyful family that was that June morning. That aged saint, of a little more than 85 years, was in good health again! And her two daughters had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death! What a triumph of blessed memories to leave in legacy to that young, hopeful, Christian son, who, in childhood, had himself repeatedly proved that the Lord hears and answers prayer!

Mrs. Jordan has never used cane or crutch since that morning. She has frequently walked five blocks, to go to her church; and, a few weeks after her healing, she one day walked the distance of about fifteen blocks. She has walked for hours in Lincoln Park, among the plants and flowers, and she goes up and down stairs, and wherever she likes, as well as anyone.

She has the use of her faculties, and an altogether comfortable use of her sight, though that is not so acute as at first. Her earliest joy was that she was permitted to see that the Lord had some purpose in sparing her so long.

Dear Christian reader, shall the wonderful manifestation of that "purpose" strengthen your faith? It helps me.

"Is anything too hard for the Lord?" "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him." "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit."

In the hopes of the Gospel,

Miss E. Dryer.

150 Madison St., Chicago.

ALMOST A BANKRUPT.

A prominent Christian had just entered a merchant's counting-room, when the head man of the place said to him, "Let us kneel and ask G.o.d to help me through, for without his help, I shall be a bankrupt before the setting of the sun." So they knelt and prayed. That man went through the pressure, and did not become a bankrupt.

"HE COULD NOT FLEE FROM THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT."

A clergyman of distinction gives this instance of the worthlessness of all attempts to flee from the Power of the Spirit.

"I looked out of my window one morning, while it was yet dark, and saw a lady standing at my gate, leaning against a post, and evidently weeping bitterly. I knew her. She was a member of the church, and was an earnest, consistent Christian. She was married to one of the most bitter Universalists I ever knew. I stepped down the steps to her, and asked, 'What is the matter?' She replied, 'Oh, my poor husband! I had so hoped and prayed that he might be converted in this revival! and now he has rode away, and says that _he will not come back till this religious flurry is over_. What shall I do to bear up under this?'

"I said, 'It is near the time for prayer. We will go and lay his case before the Lord, and make _special request_ that G.o.d will bring him back again under the power of the Spirit. The Lord can bring him home, and I believe He will do it. We must pray for him.'

"She dried her tears in a moment, and seemed to seize hold of this 'strong hope,' as we walked to the place of prayer. We found the room crowded. It fell to my lot to lead the meeting.

"At the opening, I stated the case of this Universalist husband, who had undertaken to run away from the influence of the Spirit, by fleeing into the country. I said that we must all pray _that the Holy Spirit may follow him, overtake him, and bring him back again_, show him his sins, and lead him to Jesus.

"The meeting took up the case with great earnestness, and I could not but feel that prayer would in some way be answered.

"_But can you imagine our surprise when, at our evening prayer meeting, this same Universalist came in_?

"After standing a few minutes, till the opportunity offered, he said:

"'I went away on horseback this morning, and told my wife I was going into the country to stay till this flurry was over. I rode right over the hills, back from the river, into the country, till I had got eighteen miles away. _There, on the top of a hill, I was stopped as Paul was, and just as suddenly_, and made to feel what a horrible sinner I am. I am one of the worst sinners that ever lived. _I have lost my Universalism_, and I know I must be born again, or I can never see the kingdom of Heaven. Oh, pray for me that I may be converted; nothing else will do for me.'

"He took his seat amid the tears and sobs of the whole a.s.sembly. The hour was full of prayer for that man's conversion.

"This strong and intelligent man, once one of the bitterest Universalists I ever knew, is now an elder in a Presbyterian church, and one of the most joyous, happy, energetic men of G.o.d you will meet in many a day. He believes he was 'converted on the spot in that prayer meeting.'"

LIFE BROUGHT BACK AGAIN IN THE MIDST OF DEATH.