If two of You Agree

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1858

“If two of You Agree.”

“According to your faith be it unto you,” is a promise, which has received frequent fulfillment. The American Messenger has some encouraging facts bearing on this point:

A few females who had long been associated as a “praying circle,” were assembled, and one of them read from Matthew xviii. On reading, “If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven;” she paused a moment, and then said, “Is it possible that we have so often met to make known our requests unto God, and have never noticed this promise? I have read it all my life, but it seems now new to me. Why should our prayers be unavailing, when we have such an assurance from the Saviour's lips? Perhaps it is because we have not agreed on some definite object for which to pray.”

She then proposed that some individual should be made the special object of their supplications. The proposition was acceded to, and a merchant of high respectability and worth, who seemed to lack only “the one thing needful,” was the friend mentioned. He was exemplary in his deportment, a man of strict integrity, liberal to charitable objects, and a regular attendant on the public ministrations of the Sabbath, but was never seen at an evening meeting, and had never evinced solicitude in relation to his highest interests. Fervent and repeated supplications were made on his behalf by this little company; and when they dispersed, they agreed not to mention the course they had pursued, but continue to entreat the richest blessing on the individual until they should meet again at the expiration of a fortnight.

Strong as the faith of these ladies had been, they were surprised, at the next weekly prayer-meeting, to see the gentleman for whom they had been so much interested enter the room. In the course of the evening, he rose and said he felt constrained to state that a few days since he became deeply impressed with the thought that he was living “without hope, and without God in the world;” that he had been wretched ever since, and now had come to ask the prayers of those present.

Before the next meeting of the praying-circle, this friend was clothed, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Encouraged by this signal answer to their prayers, these ladies united in another object. There were two brothers in the village, both members of the church, but between whom there was such hostility that years had passed without their speaking to each other. These brothers were next made the subject of fervent prayer. That very night one of them was sleepless, and musing on the unhappy state of feeling between himself and a brother once so dear to him, on the effect such an alienation was calculated to produce on their own character and on the cause of Christ which they both professed to love, he felt the stings of an awakened conscience, and resolved to attempt a reconciliation. Early the following morning he repaired to the dwelling of his brother, who saw him approaching, and went out to meet him. They greeted each other most affectionately, and in tears “confessed their faults one to another.” Each declared himself the aggressor, and the other comparatively blameless. After a melting interview, they separated, forgiving and forgiven, loving brothers in Christ.

“Let us not be weary in well-doing,” said these ladies. “We will ask yet more of a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God.” They knew that one of their brethren in the church was rendered most wretched in consequence of being “yoked to an unbeliever.” His wife was another Xantippe, and openly opposed to everything connected with Christianity. Her conduct was so obviously reprehensible, that she was the object of universal censure, and to her own family she was a terror. Nothing but the power of God could subdue a heart like hers, and this was sought most earnestly. Importunate entreaties for her conversion, and the emancipation of her husband from his miserable thraldom, were reiterated—and wrestling prayer prevailed.

There had been sunrise meetings for some weeks, and on the morning after this meeting of females, the brother who had so long writhed in anguish from this “thorn in the flesh,” and gone in solitude to the place of prayer, was seen walking thither, with his wife leaning on his arm, who seemed bending under the weight of some terrible emotion. During the services, the husband told the audience that he had passed a sleepless, anxious night, and his wife one of indescribable agony; that her sin like a mountain was pressing her in the dust; and he besought all to pray for her relief. Ere many days elapsed, she was, with the spirit of a little child, learning in the school of Christ.

Do not these facts afford powerful encouragement to united, ardent, and believing prayer for particular individuals?—Sab. Rec.