A TRUE STORY OF ANSWER TO PRAYER.
By Mrs. S. L. Stout
HOPING it will inspire faith among us in God's promises, I write a remarkable answer to prayer as it was told me by a friend who heard it related by an aged minister at Wayne Chapel, near Dayton, Ohio. The minister still lives to vouch for its truthfulness. In an early day Father Miller and his worthy wife were converted to primitive Methodism, and were known far and wide for their pious manner of living. Owning large springs and prosperous milling interests for those simple times, it occurred to the man, then in his early prime, to erect a still-house as a means of faster increasing his worldly wealth, such things not being looked upon with the disfavor in those days that they are now. His devoted wife, in her closer communion with God, was strongly impressed with the evil of such a course, and set her heart to change her husband's mind by her arguments and entreaties. But all in vain. He remained firm to his resolve, and the lumber was sawed, and the work of preparation went on. But, relying upon the promise of Him she had learned to trust, Grandmother Miller, the busiest of housewives of those very busy days, has since said that she "passed almost the fourth of every day in prayer-wrestling with God that in some way her husband's eyes might be opened to the magnitude of this terrible evil." And just a few days before the building proper was begun, Father Miller dreamed that he died, and made admission for entrance at heaven's beautiful gate. The angel in charge looked on the book for his name, and he saw it registered there all right; but just then with one brush of his great white wing the angel erased his name forever from the record. With a feeling of horror he awoke, and his mind was so impressed with his dream that his proposed still-house was abandoned and the lumber laid long upon the pile as a reminder of his great temptation. MRS. S. L. STOUT.