But that is no reason why, for the purpose of awakening human beings to the vast resources of strength, comfort, and guidance, that Omnipotent Power and Infinite Love are constantly placing at their command, through prayer, the attempt should not be made to marshal the evidence even though the effort may be utterly crude and incomplete.

For the purpose of keeping our thoughts in an orderly condition I propose to assemble my proofs under the following heads:

A. The power of prayer in individual lives.

B. The power of prayer in the affairs of communities and nations.

C.-The power of prayer in the creation and maintenance of institutions.

D. The power of prayer in the life and work of the churches.

CHAPTER III

ANSWERED PRAYER

(a) IN INDIVIDUAL LIVES

Try to imagine an immense fly-wheel at the center of the universe. Make its diameter and speed of revolution the very utmost that your finite mind in its imaginings can grasp. By a vast system of shafting and gearing the power created by the mighty sweep of that great wheel is brought down so that it may be appropriated by the tiniest cog that the deftest fingers can fashion.

That cog represents my infinitesimally small personality, but it is as surely linked to the central wheel as are the larger cogs that typify states and nations.

Christ's word is “EVERY ONE that asketh receiveth." That settles it. If my asking is along the lines of the principles and conditions that Christ laid down, my prayers are certain to be heard and answered.

Again, I say the mass of evidence is so great as to defy analysis and classification. Sometimes it is a man praying for his own salvation, guidance, comfort, healing, or for his own immediate personal, domestic, social, or business needs. Sometimes it is others that are praying, singly or in group, for some particular individual. The law holds good, however it is considered. "EVERY ONE that asketh receiveth."

I do not apologize for the fact that in writing this book it is my purpose to draw largely upon my own

personal experience, and on happenings that have come within my own observation. On the contrary, I feel it to be my delightful duty to do exactly that very thing. I know the facts to be true, and I know they are upto-date.

Little, if any, reference will be made to facts of remote history. The classic stories even of Holy Writ will rarely be appealed to. Every-day occurrences in modern life, capable of easy reference and verification, will be brought before you, and will give vividness and reality to truth that Jesus taught, "Every one that asketh receiveth."

I want you to watch carefully, and you will find that in every case cited some specific principle included in Christ's teachings on prayer is illustrated.

IMPORTUNITY IN PRAYER

"Men ought always to pray, and not to faint" "Because of his importunity."

A widowed mother in Edinburgh, Scotland, prayed three long weary years for the recovery of her only son, a wanderer. He was a gifted boy, a graduate of Cambridge, high-spirited, pleasure-loving, affectionate, and genial. After his father's death these elements in his character speedily led him upon dangerous ground, and when "the portion of goods that fell to him" came into his possession it was soon "wasted in riotous living." It was a wild plunge into a sea of corrupt and loathsome dissipation, then a sudden disappearance.

Not a trace of his whereabouts could be found. Day after day, night after night, week after week, the mother's heart was torn by an agony of anxiety and suspense. But she prayed, and kept on praying. In

the "secret place" of her chamber, and in her public devotions at church, she never failed to plead and wrestle in faith with God. "Save my boy, and let me know that he is living!" was her cry.

Why was the answer delayed so long? We cannot tell. That is a question that frequently cannot be answered. The Great Dispenser, however, knew exactly how much the poor heart could bear, and when the time was ripe for the answer to be given.

One Sabbath she went to church with this prayer in her heart and on her lips, as usual. As she prayed the feeling came over her that something unusual was happening. Things were moving. Probably this would be the last prayer she would be called to offer. What did it mean? Was the boy beyond the reach of prayer? Had death stepped in and made further prayer useless? It could not be, or surely God would have told her so. From the very depths of her soul came the passionate cry, "O God, my boy! Save him, and let me know he is saved!"

Making allowance for the difference in time between Edinburgh and New York, it was at a point very near to that at which this prayer was offered that the prayed-for son, walking down the Bowery of New York City, was impelled by some thought, or influence, to enter the Bowery Mission. "Mother" Bird was conducting one of her meetings. Her watchful eye detected the stranger. She spoke to him, and questioned him kindly. It was not long before her motherly heart grasped the situation, and a cable was being flashed. through the Atlantic giving the mother the glad news that her boy was alive, and sought her forgiveness. With equal rapidity the answer was flashed back,

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Forgiven, come home!" He went. He is there today, a happy and prosperous man.

Now, from whence came that thought to the boy's mind that affected his will, and made him turn into the Bowery Mission at that particular moment?

"Pure coincidence!" the materialistic unbeliever contemptuously cries. But that is no answer to my question. I am asking about the origin of the thought, that created an impulse leading to an actual, visible act. However you may fail to grasp the reality of unseen things, here is something (the boy's coming into the Mission, and the consequent change in his life) that is' seen, traced back to the point where the material nerves, fibers, and convolutions of the brain were impinged upon by something invisible and imponderable. I still ask, where did the thought come from?

Telepathy," says another. Probably. Telepathy is an almost established fact. There is no reason why we should doubt that in that mother's strong crying with tears" certain thought forces were actually created, and conveyed, probably in a moment's flash, to the mind of the boy on the Bowery. But that still does not answer the question, where did the thought (the thought, if you like, that the mother sent) come from?

Listen! There is only one answer. The mother, the spirit of the mother, the real entity of the mother, was in touch with God, geared upon God, "one with " God, her will blended with the Divine Will. That is prayer, and it was through prayer the boy was saved.