OCTOBER 1, 1914 



prayer in reality have any thing to do with 

 the depth of the water when Wesley took 

 one more step ahead, with the surface of 

 the water up to his chin? I confess, my 

 good friend who propounds this question 

 would have me in a tight place were it not 

 for God's promise given in one of my texts 

 —"Before they will call, I will answer." It 

 requires some strength of faith, I admit, 

 to expect that God in his infinite power 

 and wisdom foresaw this event, perhaps at 

 the creation of the world;* therefore the 

 rock that gave Wesley a higher footing is 

 right there where it has been for ages past. 

 At the time I gave up my bee-smoker rather 

 than get into an expensive lawsuit, another 

 smoker came from friend Corey, away off in 

 California, and was placed on my desk, in 

 answer to my prayer. At the time I men- 

 tioned it, a friend reminded me that the 

 smoker was started by mail before my little 

 prayer, " Lord, help !" was uttered. When I 

 presented the matter to my good pastor, the 

 Rev. A. T. Reed, he smilingly turned to the 

 promise I have mentioned, that God would 

 so order events as to get his children and 

 followers out of trouble, even before the 

 trouble came. 



Since this terrible war started, one of 

 the three friends has asked me the question 

 whether God planned for such a terrible 

 and cruel war; and then he added some- 

 thing like this: 



" Yes, I know what you will answer. You 

 will say God permits Satan and evil men to 

 go to certain lengths," etc. Now, friends, 

 I honestly admit the above is indeed a per- 

 plexing question. It is a question that is 

 peri^lexing the whole world just now, and it 

 might be wisdom for us all, while we are 

 doing every thing we can for peace, to wait 

 a little and let future events answer the 

 question by their unanswerable logic. We 

 have already been reminded that some terri- 

 ble wars in the past have brought about 

 peace and good will in a way that perhaps 

 could not have well been accomplished 

 without the war ; or, perhaps, we might add, 



* I shall have to confess that I am constantly 

 tempted with, I think, the rest of humanity, by try- 

 ing to measure God by our own feeble comprehen- 

 sion. We forget, or wc can not believe, or perhaps 

 I should say keep in mind, that we get in our brief 

 span of life only a glimpse of nature and of na- 

 ture's God. We can not realize that he is omnipotent 

 and omnipresent, although he strives to teach us 

 over and over again in his holy word. To assist our 

 faith he says, "But the very hairs of your head are 

 all numbered." Now, that does not apply to any 

 one individual. It must mean all humanity, or at 

 least all humanity who regard him as their heavenly 

 Father. He is past and future all at once, and all 

 in one. We can hardly get even a faint glimpse of 

 the resources at his command to grant that little 

 prayer, "Lord, help!" no matter by whom it is ut- 

 tered. In the 55th chapter of Isaiah we read: 

 " My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are 

 your ways my ways, saith the Lord." 



when humanity was in its infancy, there 

 might not have been any other way to bring 

 about progress in the world. The Revolu- 

 tionary War of 1776 gave birth to our 

 American republic. The late civil war in 

 this country in 1861 put an end to the 

 black-slave traffic, not only here in Amer- 

 ica, but pretty nearly in the whole wide 

 world. The war Avith Spain rescued Cuba 

 from her heathenism. You may recall that 

 I spent one winter in Cuba, and gave a 

 pretty full account of what our own nation 

 accomplished in that direction. A .skillful 

 surgeon cuts and mutilates a human body 

 in a way that seems terrible to an onlooker, 

 but the patient is oftentimes (if not al- 

 ways) delivered, not only from suffering, 

 but from speedy death. Perhaps it is true 

 that in this crisis we hardly know what to 

 pray for; but God's loving children can al- 

 ways come to him with that little prayer, 

 " Lord, help !" and with the assurance that 

 the prayer will be heard and answered m 

 some way in his own good time. If those 

 who reject the Bible would look about them 

 and see what it. has done to benefit mankind 

 in every conceivable way, I think they 

 would be ready, like the poor friend who 

 was going to teach me bee culture, to ac- 

 cept what they can see with their own eyes 

 and understand. I admit there is much in 

 the Bible I do not understand; in fact, it 

 is beyond my feeble and circumscribed in- 

 tellect. But, thanks be to God, much of it 

 is getting to be plainer every day of my 

 life as I grow older; and there is so much 

 good, a sort of good that comes from noth- 

 ing else in the way of literature, that I am 

 astonished almost every day because so few 

 seem to have got hold of it and are ready to 

 say, "Love ye your enemies; do good to 

 them that hate you." Where do you find 

 any other book that takes such ground as 

 that unless they copy it from the Bible"? 

 And this plea for "peace and good will" 

 runs all through it from Genesis to Reve- 

 lation. It is true, it gives a history of sad 

 events and of what bad men have done and 

 said; but these bright texts flash out and 

 sparkle, here and there, from the beginning 

 to the end of the book. 



Let me repeat once more a little incident. 



Shortly after my conversion a neighbor, 

 who was an intemperate man, drove his wife 

 and family out into the cold one winter 

 night. I could not talk with him in that 

 condition ; but I made up my mind I would 

 plead with him at the first opportunity 

 when I found him sober. One stormy day I 

 found him in a little shoe-shop with a few 

 of his old cronies. I tried to talk with him ; 

 but the wliole crowd turned on to me and 



