Chapter 20

The skeptic can never accuse little children of the same theories, philosophies, imaginations and beliefs which are characteristic of older heads. The child knows nothing of such books of reason, science or religion. Many a child who could not read has asked of God and his prayer has been answered; and when the whole world witnesses a little child, who in its innocence has been told that God lives, that God loves him, that God can do everything and will surely hear his prayer, and then in its care and grief, kneels before the God it trusts, offers its little prayer, _and the prayer is answered_, let none of maturer minds ever presume to doubt. The faith of little children is typical of the very simplest faith wherewith any human being must approach its Creator. The child never questions, never doubts; but in its simplicity asks, and God honors the trust. The following incident illustrates the point, _that not one thing is ere too small for God to consider, or a soul to bring to him in prayer_.

A CHILD WHOSE LIFE WAS SAVED IN ANSWER TO PRAYER--BY HIS OWN PRAYER THE LIFE OF HIS SISTER IS SAVED.

One of the most beautiful incidents ever known relating to the faith of children, and the reward of their trust, is contained in the following circumstance, personally known to the editor of this book, who was a participant in the facts.

The only child of a young married couple, living in this city, their pride, their hope and joy, and the darling of the whole family, was seized with severe sickness, grew rapidly worse. The grandfather, who was a skilled physician, was constantly present, ministering in every way, by every means, but nothing was of any avail. No medicine could cure, and the child seemed ready to die. No one could think of relief or knew where to find it. The grandfather, at last, proposed to lay the case before God, and ask the prayers of His people in the child's behalf. The mother was only too glad to ask other prayers with her own, to bring relief. The father, who had hitherto never seriously thought of religion, was in intense anxiety and despair. Here was his first, his only child about to be taken away from him, and then came the thought, is it possible his family life was not to be blessed; his child was in distress, no human effort was available. At last, he too joined in the prayer of his wife and father, and bowing before the Great Unknown, unseen God, he poured out his heart in prayer, saying, "_Lord, if thou wilt spare my child, wilt give him life, and thus show to me thy power and will to save, I will never doubt again, and will give thee my heart"_

A request for prayer was written and sent to the pastor, Dr. William Adams, of the Madison Square Church. It arrived after church service had begun; the sexton was unwilling to carry it to the pulpit, as it was against the rule, but when told he _must, as a life was in great danger_, he consented, and delivered it to the pastor.

The messenger waited breathlessly, and when in silence the doctor specifically mentioned the case before him, and asked the Lord to heal and spare the little one, and comfort the hearts of all, and make it a witness of his love and power, the messenger accidentally looked at the clock, and it marked just _quarter to eleven_, A.M.

When prayer was finished he returned home. Arriving at home, he was astonished to find the child better, its whole condition had changed, the medicine had taken hold, and the doctor now said everything was so hopeful the child would surely recover, and it did. But mark the unparalleled singularity of the scene. The father asked the messenger the _time_ when the prayer was offered. He replied, "At a _quarter to eleven."_ The father in astonishment said, "_At that very moment_ the disease changed, and the doctor said he was better."

The father, who had thus been proving the Lord with this test of prayer and its identity of time in his answer, was so overwhelmingly convinced of the real power of prayer, and thereby of the real existence of God, and that a Christian life was one of facts as well as beliefs, now finding that the Lord had indeed kept His own promise, he, too, kept his promise and gave his heart to the Lord, and became henceforth, a professing Christian.

But there were more wonderful things yet to happen--a period of five years passed. Other children were added to the family, and one day, the youngest, a sweet, beautiful girl, was taken suddenly ill with convulsions. The sickness for days tasked the strength of the mother, and the skill of the doctor, but no care, ingenuity, or knowledge could overcome the disease or subdue the pain. The little girl's fits were severe and distressing, and there were but short intervals between, just time to come out of one and with a gasp, pass into another still more terrible. In its occasional moments of reason, it would look piteously as if mutely appealing, and then the next convulsion would take it and seem to leave it just at death's door.

All attendants were worn with care, the doctor fairly lived in the house and forsook all his other business. The clergyman came and comforted the anxious hearts with words of sympathy and prayer; but her _little brother Merrill_, (whose own life we have just related,) tender-hearted, a mere child, scarce seven years of age, who had known of the Lord, and who believed that He was everywhere and could do everything, was intensely grieved at "Mamie's" distress, and came at last to his mother and asked if he could go and "_make a prayer to God for Sissy_." The mother said, "Go." The little boy went back into his room, and kneeling humbly by the side of his bed, as he did at his night and morning prayers, uttered this request:

_"O God, please to bless little sister, she is very sick. Please stop her fits so she won't have any more. For Jesus' sake, amen."_

He came back, told his mamma what he said, and added: "_Mamma, I don't think she will have any more_."

Now mark how the Lord honored this simple faith of the little child. _From that very moment the fits left her. They never returned; and the child soon entirely recovered_.

Notice the full beauty and instruction of these two incidents: _Little Merrill's life was saved in answer to prayer; was the means of his father's salvation, and when he in turn had grown to an age when he could learn of God, his own prayer was the means of saving his own sister's life_.

Notice, too, that all earthly available means were used to save each child, but to no effect. Physicians and parents considered the case hopeless, and then committed it to the decision of God.

Notice, too, that when little Merrill was so sick, that the mother and doctor both prayed, yet it was not until his father had also prayed that the answer came. God meant to honor the faith of the first two, but was _waiting for the prayer of the third_ ere he granted the request. That child's sickness was one of the purposes of God. Notice in the second case, that while father, mother, doctor, the clergyman, and others of the house were all trusting in prayer, yet the Lord _was waiting for the prayer of the little brother_, ere he sent the blessing of relief. Such an incident draws its own conclusion. _Never cease in prayer for anything which is to God's honor and glory. Use all the possible means to help God. Where human means are of no avail, commit it to God and wait in humble resignation. Ask others to pray, too, for the same object_, that when the answer comes, God may be glorified before the sight of others as well as your own. When so many are waiting to see if _God_ will honor his promises, depend upon it, _God will be found faithful to all his word_.

TRUSTING IN GOD'S PROMISES.

"It was a fierce, wild night in March, and the blustering wind was blowing, accompanied by the sharp, sleety snow. It was very desolate without, but still more desolate within the home I am going to describe to you. The room was large and almost bare, and the wind whistled through the cracks in the most dismal manner. In one corner of the room stood an old-fashioned bedstead upon which a woman lay, her emaciated form showing her to be in the last stage of consumption. A low fire burned in the large fire-place, and before it a little girl was kneeling. She had a small testament, and was trying by the dim fire-light to read a chapter, as was her custom, before going to bed. A faint voice called to her from the bed, 'Nellie, my daughter, read the 14th chapter of St. John for your Mother.' 'Yes, Mother,' was the reply, and after turning the leaves a few moments, the child began. All that long Winter day that poor mother had been tortured with pain and remorse. She was poor, very poor, and she knew she must die and leave her child to the mercies of the world. Her husband had died several years before. Since then she had struggled on, as best she could, till now she had almost grown to doubt God's promises to the helpless. 'In my Father's house are many mansions.' 'I go to prepare a place for you.' Here the little reader paused, and crept to her mother's side. She lay motionless, with closed eyes, while great hot tears were stealing down her wasted cheeks. 'Mother, He has a place almost ready for you, hasn't He.' 'Yes, my child, and I am going very soon, but _He_ will watch over you, Nellie, when Mother has gone to her last home.'

"The weeks went slowly by to the suffering invalid; but when the violets were blooming, they made a grave upon the hillside, and laid the weary body down to rest, but the spirit had gone to the home which Christ himself had gone to prepare.

"Years passed away. It was sunny May. The little church of Grenville was crowded. I noticed in one of the seats a lady plainly but neatly attired. There was nothing remarkable in the face with its mournful brown eyes, and decided looking mouth and chin. I ransacked my memory to find who the lady was. Suddenly a vision of the poor widow came. This, then, was the little girl, little Nellie Mason. 'We will read a part of the 14th chapter of St. John,' the minister said. 'In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you.' The slow, deliberate tones recalled me from my reverie, and I looked at Nellie. Her head was bowed, but I could see the tears flowing like rain."

THE FAITH OF A LITTLE CHILD.

An incident most beautiful was told in the Fulton Street prayer meeting by a converted Jew.

"Journeying in the cars, I was attracted by two little girls, Jewesses. I asked them if they loved Jesus. To my surprise, they said they did. I found that their mother was in a seat near by. She had attended some of the gospel meetings for Jews, and was interested in them. She said her husband had not been to church or synagogue for eleven years, and she did not know his views on religion. Her two little girls had attended a Methodist Sunday school, and there learned of Jesus. A day or so after, the mother was taken very sick, and remedies failing, the eldest child, a little over eight years old, said: 'O Mamma, if you will let me pray to Jesus for you, He can take away your pains and give you sleep.' She knelt with her sister and prayed in simple words to Jesus to heal her mother, telling Him that He had so promised to hear prayer. Shortly after, the mother, after long hours of restlessness and suffering, fell into a deep sleep and awoke relieved of pain and much refreshed. She heard from her daughter's lips the story of her faith in Jesus and love for Him, and then sent for me, begging me to pray for her. I am glad to tell you that she is now a converted woman, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ."

THE WANDERER FOUND.

A mother sent a request for prayer to the Fulton Street prayer-meeting, that she might hear from him who had long ago left home, and wandered far away. She had been praying very earnestly for him, and soon she wrote that she had just heard from him, and heard too that he had become a Christian and learned to trust in Him.

ARE YOU THERE.

A mother, one morning, gave her two little ones books and toys to amuse them while she went up-stairs to attend to something. A half hour passed quietly away, and then one of the little ones went to the foot of the stairs, and in a timid voice called out, "Mamma, are you there?"

"Yes, darling."

"All right," said the little one, and-went on with her play. By-and-by the question was repeated, "Mamma, are you there?"

"Yes, darling."

"All right," said the child again, and once more went on with her play. And this is just the way we should feel towards Jesus. He has gone up-stairs, to the right hand of God, to attend to some things for us. He has left us down in this lower room of this world to be occupied here for a while. But to keep us from being worried by fear or care, He speaks to us from His word, as that mother spoke to her little ones. He says to us, "Fear not; I am with thee. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." "The Lord will provide."

And so we see how certain it is that God does provide relief in trouble for those who love and serve Him.

GOD KNOWS THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL.

"Mother, I think God always hears when we scrape the bottom of the barrel," said a little boy to his mother one day. His mother was poor. They often used up their last stick of wood and their last bit of bread before they could tell where the next supply was to come from. But they had so often been provided for in unexpected ways, just when they were most in need, that the little boy thought _God always heard when they scraped the bottom of the barrel_. This was only that little fellow's way of saying what Abraham said when he called the name of the place where God had delivered him, "Jehovah-Jireh."

GOD'S CARE FOR LITTLE CHILDREN IN LITTLE WANTS.

"I was early taught that God cares for His children, even to regard their _little_ daily wants. An illustration of my implicit confidence, which I do not remember ever to have been betrayed, occurred when I was about ten years of age. I was accustomed to give five cents each Sabbath at the Sunday School collection for foreign missions. This money was not given me directly by my parents; but I was allowed to go on an errand, or to do some little piece of work for a neighbor and thus earn it, outside of the performance of the duties that naturally fell to my lot at home. At one time, when I was attending school about a mile from home, my time out of school was taken up by my walk to and from it and the chores which necessarily fall to a farmer's boy, so that for some months I had no opportunity of earning anything. One Sabbath morning, I dropped my last silver piece into the collection, with a prayer--which I always offered at such a time--that God would bless it to the heathen, that some one might be led to Him by it.

"I went home that day with a child's anxiety, feeling that I could not bear the thought of giving nothing for the heathen on next Sabbath, and yet not seeing how I could possibly obtain it. That night I asked my Heavenly Father to provide the money for me. The anxiety was all gone; for I felt that God would answer. Next morning, when almost at the school-house, I found a handkerchief in the road, in the corner of which was securely tied a silver quarter and a silver dime. Instantly my thoughts flew to the next Sabbath, and to the prayer I had offered. O, yes! I thought, God has more than answered my prayer; instead of giving me just enough for next Sabbath, He has given me enough, for seven Sabbaths.

Then the thought came, somebody lost it; yes, it was my duty to find the owner, which I did not expect would be difficult, although it was in town. So I cheerfully gave it up, thinking that 'the Lord will provide' in some other way. I took it directly to my teacher, and asked her to find the owner. She made faithful inquiry, but no one was found to claim it. Who can question this being an answer to prayer, when we think of the numerous _chances_ against its occurring just as it did."

A CHILD'S PRAYER FOR PAPA.

A drunkard, who had run through his property, returned one night to his unfurnished house. He entered his empty hall. Anguish was gnawing at his heart-strings, and language was inadequate to express his agony as he entered his wife's apartment, and there beheld the victims of his appetite, his loving wife and a darling child. Morose and sullen, he seated himself without saying a word; he could not speak; he could not look up then. The mother said to the little angel at her side, "Come, my child, it is time to go to bed;" and that little baby, as she was wont, knelt by her mother's lap and gazing wistfully into the face of her suffering parent, like a piece of chiseled statuary, slowly repeated her nightly orison. When she had finished, the child (but four years of age) said to her mother, "Dear Mother, may I not offer up one more prayer?" "Yes, yes, my sweet pet, pray;" and she lifted up her tiny hands, closed her eyes, and prayed: "O God! spare, oh! spare my dear papa!" That prayer was lifted with electric rapidity to the throne of God. It was heard on high--it was heard on earth. The responsive "Amen!" burst from the father's lips, and his heart of stone became a heart of flesh. Wife and child were both clasped to his bosom, and in penitence he said: "My child, you have saved your father from the grave of a drunkard. I'll sign the pledge!"

A LITTLE QUAKER BOY'S PRAYER RIGHT OUT IN MEETING.

A little Quaker boy, about six years old, after sitting, like the rest of the congregation, in silence, all being afraid to speak first, as he thought, got up on the seat, and, folding his arms over his breast, murmured in a clear, sweet voice, just loud enough to be distinctly heard on the front seat, "I do wish the Lord would make us all gooder, and gooder, and gooder, till there is no bad left."

WHAT THE LITTLE CHILDREN MAY DO.

At family prayer, little Mary, one evening when all was silent, looked anxiously in the face of her back-sliding father, who had ceased to pray in his family, and said to him with quivering lips, "Pa, is God dead?"

"No, my child--why do you ask that?"

"Why, Pa, you never talk to him now as you used to do," she replied.

These words haunted the father until he was mercifully reclaimed.

THE UNBELIEVING FATHER LED TO GO TO CHURCH.

An unbelieving father came home one evening and asked where his little girl was. "She has gone to bed," said his wife. "I'll just go and give her one kiss," said the father, for he loved his little daughter dearly. As he stood at the door of her bedroom, he heard some one praying. It was his little Jane, and he heard her say, "Do, God Almighty, please lead daddy to hear Mr. Stowell preach."

She had often asked him to go, and he had always said, "No, no, my child." After listening to her prayer, he determined, the next time she asked him, to accompany her, which he did, and heard a sermon which took his attention and pricked his conscience. On leaving the church, he clasped the hand of his little girl in his, and said, "Jane, thy God shall be my God, and thy minister shall be my minister." And the man became a true follower of the Lord.

A CHILD'S PRAYER FOR RELIEF

An interesting little daughter of a professor in Danville, Kentucky, in the Summer of 1876, in eating a watermelon, got one of the seeds lodged in her windpipe. The effort was made to remove it, but proved ineffectual, and it was thought that the child would have to be taken to one of the large cities to have an operation performed by a skillful surgeon. To this she was decidedly opposed, and pleaded with her mamma to tell her if there was no other way of relief. Finally, in order to quiet her childish fears, her Christian mother told her to ask God to help her.

The little one went into an adjoining room and offered her prayer to God to help her. Shortly thereafter she came running to her mamma with the seed in her hand, and her beautiful and intelligent face lighted up with joy. In response to the eager inquiry of the mother, the little one said that she had asked God to help her, and while she was praying she was taken with a severe cough, in which she threw up the seed.

GOD'S CARE OVER HIS PEOPLE--THE PRAYING WIDOW

A young widow with two children was living in the city of Berlin. She was a Christian woman, and trusted in Jehovah-Jireh to take care of her. One evening she had to be away for a while. During her absence a man entered her house for the purpose of robbing her. But "the Lord who provides" protected her from this danger in a very singular way. On returning to her home she found a note lying on her table, which read as follows:

"Madam, I came here with the intention of robbing you, but the sight of this little room, with the religious pictures hanging around in it, and those two sweet-looking children quietly sleeping in their little bed, have touched my heart. I cannot take anything of yours. The small amount of money lying on your desk I leave untouched, and I take the liberty of adding fifty dollars besides." The Bible tells us that "the hearts of men are in the hands of God. and he turneth them as the rivers of waters are turned." He turned the heart of this robber from his wicked purpose, and in this way he protected the widow who trusted in him.

GOD SAVED A FAMILY MERCIFULLY.

One morning a Christian farmer, in Rhode Island, put two bushels of rye in his wagon and started to the mill to get it ground. On his way to the mill he had to drive over a bridge that had no railings to the sides of it. When he reached the middle of this bridge his horse, a quiet, gentle creature, began all at once to back. In spite of all the farmer could do, he kept on backing till the hinder wheels went over the side of the bridge, and the bag of grain was tipped out and fell into the stream. Then the horse stood still. Some men came to help the farmer. The wagon was lifted back and the bag of grain was fished up from the water. Of course it could not be taken to the mill in that state. So the farmer had to take it home and dry it. He had prayed that morning that God would protect and help him through the day, and he wondered what this accident had happened for. He found out, however, before long. On spreading out the grain to dry he noticed a great many small pieces of glass mixed up with it. If this had been ground up with the grain into the flour it would have caused the death of himself and his family. But Jehovah-Jireh was on that bridge. He made the horse back and throw the grain into the water to save the family from the danger that threatened them.

A CHILD'S FAITH IN THE LORD'S PRAYER.

About the 30th of July, 1864, the beautiful village of Chambersburgh was invaded and pillaged by the Confederate army. A superintendent of a Sabbath school, formerly resident in the South, but who had been obliged to flee to the North because of his known faithfulness to the national government, was residing there, knowing that if discovered by the Confederate soldiers, he would be in great peril of life, property and every indignity,--in the gray dawn of that memorable day, with his wife and two little girls, again on foot, he fled to the chain of mountains lying north-west of the doomed village.

After remaining out for some days and nights, with no shelter but such as was afforded by the friendly boughs of large forest trees, and without food, they became nearly famished. At last, the head of the family, unable to endure the agony of beholding his wife and children starving to death before his face, and he not able to render the needed relief, withdrew to a place by himself, that he might not witness the sad death of his loved ones. With his back against a large oak, he had been seated only a short time, when his eldest little daughter, not quite ten years old, came to him and exclaimed: