Milo

JOHN KNOX’S PREVAILING PRAYER FOR SCOTLAND

Among the mighty men of faith and prayer whose names will stand forth until this world’s history is completed, is that of John Knox. The days of turbulence developed their holy zeal and courage. Summoned before the highest of earth’s great ones, true everywhere to God, and a man mighty in prayer, Queen Mary of Scotland once said of Knox that she feared his prayers more than an army of ten thousand men. On England’s throne sat Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII., who had been brought up by her mother, Catharine of Aragon, in the dark faith of Rome, a complete tool in the hands of the priests, whose one design was to destroy the Protestants. Soon the jails were filled, the fires kindled in Smithfield, and the whole land was one scene of desolation, and the Protestants were hunted as partridges on the mountains. The great heart of John Knox was stirred. On his knees, on his face for hours together before God, he pleaded for Scotland. “All Scotland for Christ! ” was his ceaseless cry.

In one of these seasons of mighty taking hold of God, he sprang to his feet with the cry: “Deliverance has come! Deliverance has come!” As soon as the courier could speed his way from London to the city where John Knox lived, he made the proclamation: “Mary, Queen of England, is dead!”

Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest, to raise up such men in our days, when the tide of worldliness threatens the whole church, and Catholicism is spreading her baneful influence over the free institutions of our land; only waiting for the chance to re-enact the scenes of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, or the massacre of ten thousand Protestants in one day as in Ireland, to crush out the religion of our fathers, to burn the Bible, and plunge the whole land into papal darkness — Sarah A. Cooke.

JOHN BYERS’ PREVAILING PRAYER

Maggie, an Irish girl of about twenty years, burned herself by lighting the morning fire with kerosene. Dr. Benjamin, the leader of the infidel club here, was called, who bound her up in cotton and oil.

A neighbor sent for John Byers, an old Scotch shoemaker, to pray with her. As he came into the house, the doctor was coming out, and ordered him away, saying, he didn’t want any praying done about any of his patients. But Brother Byers paid him no heed, and taking the girl’s hand, asked her: “Maggie, are you in great pain?” “Oh! Awful, sir,” was her answer. “Well, we will ask God to take it away,” he said; and falling upon his knees at her bedside paying no more attention to the room full of women that stood about, than if they had been so many flies, he asked the Lord to take all the pain away, so that he could talk to her about her soul; and very soon he got the perfect assurance that his prayer was heard. So he arose and said:”Do you feel any pain now, Maggie?” “No, sir, it has all gone away.”Then he presented a Savior to her mind, as dying for Maggie, so that she, by believing on Him, might live forever; and soon she accepted Him as her Redeemer. After a little while she opened her eyes, and looking around, said to the women: “Don’t you hear it?” “No, we don’t hear anything, Maggie,” they replied. “Oh, I never heard such singing before! And the music! I can’t tell you how fine it is” And then she lay, listening till starting up, she sat up in bed, and pointing upward, said: ” Don’t you see them? Oh, how beautiful they are! What are they?” “They are the angels, coming to take you home, Maggie,” said Brother Byers. Then she laid back again on her pillow perfectly quiet, as if fearing to lose sight of the beautiful vision. Brother Byers turned to go home, but had not got a hundred steps from the house, when one of the women called out to him: ” She’s gone, sir.” But the case of the doctor lay heavily on John Byers’ mind; and that night, he did not go to bed until he had made the case a subject of earnest prayer, and had received the assurance that he should be converted, Seeing the doctor a few days after that, he told him of his answer to prayer for him. But the doctor laughed at the idea of such a fool getting any such a promise from the Maker of the universe.

But the next fall the doctor went to Florida for his health, and within two months, the news came back that Benjamin had knelt at a Methodist mourner’s bench, and was converted.

The next spring he died, rejoicing in the faith. — Dr. H. Durham.

JESSIE FINDING JESUS

A little girl in a wretched tenement in New York stood by her mother’s death-bed, and heard her last words: “Jessie, find Jesus.”

When her mother was buried, her father took to drink, and Jessie was left to such care as a poor neighbor could give her.

One day she wandered off unmissed, with a little basket in her hand, and tugged through one street after another, not knowing where she went. She had started out to find Jesus. At last she stopped, from utter weariness, in front of a saloon. A young man staggered out of the door, and almost stumbled over her. He uttered passionately the name of Him whom she was seeking. ” Where is He?” she inquired eagerly. He looked at her in amazement. “What did you say?” he asked. “Will you please tell me where Jesus Christ is? For I must find Him ” this time with great earnestness.

The young man looked at her curiously for a minute without speaking, and then his face sobered; and he said in a broken, husky voice, hopelessly: “I don’t know, child; I don’t know where he is.” At length the little girl’s wanderings brought her to the park. A woman, evidently a Jewess, was leaning against the railing, looking disconsolately at the green grass and the trees.

Jessie went up to her timidly. “Perhaps she can tell me where he is,” was the child’s thought. In a low, hesitating voice, she asked the woman: “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

The Jewess turned fiercely to face her questioner, and in a tone of suppressed passion, exclaimed: “Jesus Christ is dead!” Poor Jessie trudged on, but soon a rude boy jostled against her, and snatching her basket from her hand, threw it into the street. Crying, she ran to pick it up. The horses of a passing streetcar trampled her under their feet and she knew no more till she found herself stretched on a hospital bed.

When the doctors came that night, they knew she could not live until morning. In the middle of the night, after she had been lying very still for a long time, apparently asleep, she suddenly opened her eyes, and the nurse, bending over her, heard her whisper, while her face lighted up with a smile that had some of heaven’s own gladness in it: “O Jesus, I have found you at last!”

Then the tiny lips were hushed, but the questioning spirit had received an answer. Selected.

I’LL NEVER STEAL AGAIN – IF FATHER KILLS ME FOR IT

A friend of mine, seeking for objects of charity, got into the room of a tenement house. It was vacant. He saw a ladder pushed through the coiling. Thinking that perhaps some poor creature had crept up there, he climbed the ladder, drew himself up through the hole, and found himself under the rafters.

There was no light but that which came through a bull’s-eye in the place of a tile. Soon he saw a heap of chips and shavings, and on top a boy about ten years old.”Boy, what are you doing there?” “Please don’t tell anybody— please, sir.” “What are you doing here?” “Don’t tell anybody, sir; I’m hiding.” “What are you hiding from?” “Don’t tell anybody, if you please, sir.” “Where’s your mother?” “Mother is dead” “Where’s your father?” “Hush don’t tell him don’t tell him! but look here!” He turned himself on his face, and through the rags of his jacket and shirt, my friend saw the boy’s flesh was bruised, and the skin broken. “Why, my boy, who beat you like that?” “Father did, sir.” “What did your father beat you like that for?” “Father got drunk, sir, and beat me ‘cos I wouldn’t steal.” “Did you ever steal?” “Yes, sir. I was a street thief once.” “And why don’t you steal anymore?” “Please, sir, I went to the mission school, and they told me there of God, and of heaven, and of Jesus; and they taught me, ‘Thou shalt not steal; and I’ll never steal again, if father kills me for it. But, please, sir, don’t tell him.” “My boy, you must not stay here; you will die. Now, you wait patiently here for a little time; I’m going away to see a lady.

We will get a better place for you than this.” Thank you, sir; but please, sir, would you like to hear me sing a little hymn? Bruised, battered, forlorn, friendless, motherless, hiding away from an infuriated father, he had a little hymn to sing. “Yes, I will hear you sing your little hymn.” He raised himself on his elbow and then sang:

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Suffer me to come to Thee.
Fain would I to Thee be brought,
Gracious Lord, forbid it not;
In the kingdom of thy grace
Give a little child a place.”

“That’s the little hymn, sir. Good-bye.” The gentleman went away, came back again in less than two hours, and climbed the ladder. There were the chips, and there was the little boy with one hand by his side, and the other tucked in his bosom, underneath the little ragged shirt dead. — John B. Cough.

INSTANTLY HEALED OF RUPTURE

During the fall of 1888 we witnessed the remarkable healing of Brother J.S. Whiting, then a pastor at Hilliards, Mich. The night of his cure we were wonderfully led out in prayer. We give the circumstances in his own words, as published in the Holiness Record a short time afterwards.

He says: “About three weeks after my conversion the Lord told me to go preach His gospel. I obeyed the call the best I could, but have been trying to believe that I could work in the mill through the week and just preach on Sunday; but found that the Lord wanted me to give up all and work for Him. Still I hesitated. About one year ago, while about my work, I fell, and ruptured myself so very badly that I could not stand on my feet without a truss, and sometimes even that was not sufficient, and I had to lie on my back.

“Last Thursday night, while I was preaching, my rupture began to pain me so badly that I had to stop and let Brother Shaw finish. That night we went to stay with one of the members. I suffered a great deal of pain all the next day. When night came, it rained so hard we could not have any meeting, so remained where we were. During the evening I lay on the couch, as I was unable to be on my feet, or even sit up with any comfort. Finally Brother Shaw said: ‘Let us pray’ At first I thought I could not get on my knees, but with the Lord’s help I got down, and began to pray for God to heal my body. Then I thought something said: ‘Get up, and take off your truss.’ So I got up, and took it off, and went to the stove, opened the door, and threw it into the fire, as I felt clearly directed to do. Then God came and made a sound man of me. I can jump and praise Him now, and all is right.”

From what he told us, we think the Lord has done more for him than would be inferred from his words. We were with him one week before his healing, and a few days after, and certainly God wrought a most wonderful cure in his case. When we met him months afterward, we found him still well and sound. May God use this and other similar cases to inspire faith in others.