Help in the Night Prayed For, and 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 clergyman and college officer gave me an incident illustrating such prayer and its answer in his own family, which profoundly impressed me, and which is worthy of men- 137

Ullustrative Answers to Prayertion in this record of experiences. While its first mention to me was many years 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 distance 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

a FAelp in the Might Prayed for, 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 policeman to our rescue.’ The policeman on the beat nearest that residence was accustomed 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 window. 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 before 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

Wllustrative Answers to Prayer

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 suddenly, 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 parlor 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 confirmed the faith of that praying believer and of others. Is it not good to believe, and to know?