“Now, is there anything inconsistent or unphilosophical in the belief that, at that critical moment, a loving God, answering the mother’s Helpless cry, flashed on the mind of the physician the thought that saved the child?  Is it any objection to that faith to say, the age of miracles is past?  If the mother, may call in a second physician, to suggest the cause and the cure, may she not call on God?  What the doctor can do for a fellow-practitioner, cannot the Great Physician do?  Though the doctor had often tried and thought, yet it was not till the last prayer and call on God, brought the remedy to his mind.”

PRAYER INSTANTANEOUSLY ANSWERED FOR CONVERSION.

On the evening of the fifty-first daily prayer-meeting in Augusta, Ga., a large gathering assembled in the St. John’s M.E.  Church, at which Dr. Irvine presided, and some very touching communications were read.  One was from a widowed mother, asking thanksgiving for the salvation of her youngest daughter, recently from a boarding-school in New York city, where she had finished her education.  Some weeks ago she had sought the prayers of the daily prayer-meeting for the conversion of her precious child, who was spending a few weeks with some friends seventy miles from Augusta.  Prayers were offered accordingly, but without intimation of any change.  The loving mother sent in a second application or prayer to Dr. Irvine, to be read on a recent Monday morning; all this without her daughter’s knowledge.  On Tuesday the mother received a letter from her daughter, dated two o’clock on Sabbath, informing her that on that day, and at that hour, she had resolved to give her heart to Christ, intending to ask admission to the church at the next communion.  Strange to say, at the very moment when the faithful mother was writing her application for prayers for that child, she was announcing her own conversion.

What a verification of the blessed promise:  “Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

HELP FOR THE SHIPWRECKED.

Admiral Sir Thomas Williams, a straight-forward and excellent man, was in command of a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  His course brought him in sight of the Island of Ascension, at that time uninhabited, and never visited by any ship, except for the purpose of collecting turtles, which abound on the coast.  The island was barely descried on the horizon, and was not to be noticed at all; but as Sir Thomas looked at it, he was seized by an unaccountable desire to steer toward it.

He felt how strange such a wish would appear to his crew, and tried to disregard it; but in vain.  His desire became more and more urgent and distressing, and foreseeing that it would soon be more difficult to gratify it, he told his lieutenant to prepare to “put about ship” and steer for Ascension. The officer to whom he spoke ventured to respectfully represent that changing their course would greatly delay them—­that just at that moment the men were going to their dinner—­that at least some delay might be allowed.