p. 9 | The Prisoner's Prayer and the Opened Door by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jun 18, 1914

The Prisoner's Prayer and the Opened Door

By W. A. S.

Of the year 1556, in England, Foxe, the martyrologist, gives a narrative of the deliverance of Agnes Wardell in answer to her prayer to God. She and her husband were Protestants, and had been compelled to flee from their home in Ipswich, leaving their children behind, in the care of a maid. The mother returned secretly to see her children, and somehow the officers learned of her presence and came after her. The maid locked her in a clothespress.

The officers passed and repassed the hiding place, and finally went away, but took the maid with them. Mrs. Wardell was suffocating, and felt her life going. She managed at last to call a tenant woman, and told her where to find the key. A long time the woman worked with the key, and had to give it up. The lock would not open. Then, says Foxe:—

She desired her to break it open; “for,” said she, “I had rather fall into their hands than to kill myself.” Then went she, her mother’s tenant, and sought for her husband’s hammer and chisel to break it open, but could not find them, nor anything else to break it open withal, and came again, and told her she could find nothing to break it open with.

Then said she, “Essay again to open it, for I trust God will give you power to open it.” And being within in much extremity, she heartily prayed unto God, who heard her prayer and helped her; for, at the first essay and turn of the key, it opened easily. When she came out, she looked as pale and bleak as one that were laid out dead.

W. A. S.