THEY WHO TRUST THE LORD SHALL NOT WANT
Mrs. Mary Grant Cramer, whose husband is a member of the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who was for many years U. S. Minister to Denmark, and afterwards to Switzerland, and has also filled the chair of Systematic Theology in Boston University, has related for us, by letter, several accounts of answers to prayer, among which are the following; “When Dr. George E. Shipman and wife, of Chicago, came to see us in Copenhagen, I was much impressed with the striking and interesting incidents Mrs. S. told us, in connection with their faith-work in the Foundlings’ Home. For instance, when they had put all they had in the Home, and there was a payment of six hundred dollars to be made, and it could no longer be postponed, for the man to whom it was owed said: ‘Business is business, and I must have my money, and I will send my son for it in the morning;’ they betook themselves to prayer, hoping the postman would bring them a letter containing the required amount; but he did not. Soon after he passed, a man rang the bell, and left an envelope containing a check for six hundred dollars, as a present from the mayor of the city, who was not a religious man; but his wife, who was then in Europe, was interested in the Home, and he sent the money on her account.
Directly after it came they handed the check for the amount to the man who was expected to call for it. In a similar way, Dr. Shipman on another occasion received four hundred dollars a little while before it was needed, and often got smaller sums in answer to prayer. “Mrs. Shipman told me of Mrs. Pithey, an invalid saint she knew in Chicago, who was supported by voluntary gifts in answer to prayer.
This made the closing years of her life a marvelous proof of God’s care for His helpless children who trust Him. “I might add another incident: Recently a saintly woman, who has consecrated all she has to the Lord, and who lives by faith, giving her services gratuitously to His cause, felt that after the fatiguing labors of the summer, a change would be beneficial to her; she kept this to herself. Soon after a lady sent for her to call upon her, her object being to inform Miss M. that she felt impressed that she ought to go away from home for awhile, and gave her fifty dollars. One day a co-worker of this good sister, told me that she asked a token of the Lord in money, and the same day she found it in an envelope in the table, directed to her, from one who had never before made her a present, and who at first intended this sum for some one else.
“I am acquainted with a minister in New York city, who gave up his church and a salary of five thousand a year, to establish a church where he could reach the masses, he met with much opposition, but has met also with great success in his work. He said that on various occasions he felt it his duty to give all he had away, and before he could reach his home it would be replaced fourfold. His wife was greatly opposed to his giving up a certainty for what she thought an uncertainty, especially as they had five children; but he told me that since they depend upon the Lord for their support, his wife has less solicitude about how they will be provided for, than she had when his salary was five thousand dollars a year. “Truly they who trust the Lord shall not want.”
Milo 