October, 1940
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
368
A Burden of Prayer for Dr. Chow By JAMES R. GRAHAM, Jr. .
I WAS preaching at some special services in the city of Wuchang, one of the twin cities of central China. I noticed a well-dressed man sit ting in the rear of the church. He looked rather bored. Seated in a pew all by himself, he put his foot up on the bench, braced his back in the comer of the pew, and tried to settle down for a comfortable nap. Presently I began to read from the Mandarin Bible. The passage was Matthew 24. The man in the rear of the hall began to prick up his ears just a wee bit and to evince some interest that a foreigner could read the Man darin with a rather unusual degree of facility. Having read a portion of the great Olivet discourse recording the signs of the age as given by the Saviour Himself, I proceeded to give a message on the signs of thé second advent of Christ," citing recent world conditions and international relationships, the gen eral breakdown of morals, the depar ture from revealed truth as fulfillments of the. sign. Arrested by Facts The man on the back seat was unable to go through with his nap. In spite of himself, he became deeply interested, straightened up his back, put both feet [Delivered at the conclusion of a day of prayer held in the Church of the Open Door, Los Angeles, this message was used of God to stimulate the faith of 3,000 or more believers who heard it at that time. The author is a mission ary, evangelist, and Bible teacher whose ministry in China and in America has been very extensive. Having spent much of his youth in a missionary home in ■China, he early secured a grasp of the Chinese language that in the Lord’s hands has been a powerful aid in en abling him to contact Chinese of the educated classes. The story published on these pages is taken from Not by Bread Alone, a collection of Wheaton College chapel talks edited by Carl F. H . Henry and published by the Zon- dervan Publishing House. I t is used by permission; copyright 194-0. — E ditor .]
River from Wuchang], but as I started out the door, it seemed as if some un seen force literally thrust me down upon the floor in a passion of prayer for the salvation of Dr. Chow [the mathematics professor of whom he had spoken the day before], I had hardly been able to sleep all of Saturday nignt, thinking of my friend’s near approach to eternity without Christ. So when this overpower ing burden of prayer came upon me, I knelt there on the floor of my room and cried aloud to God, literally weeping a puddle of tears on the floor. The paroxysm of agony continued for about an horn:. Then as suddenly as it came, it departed, and I rose from my knees with absolute peace of heart and mind. Looking at the clock, I saw that it was 11:30 and realized that it was too late for me now to arrive at the morning service. So I decided simply to stay at home until time to leave for the after noon service. “Now, Brother Graham, what I want to see you 'fibout is to exact a promise from you that as soon as you are able to return down the river, you will go to Shanghai and will call on this friend of mine whose life hangs in the balance and minister Christ-' to him before he goes hence.” I promised him that I would do this at my earliest convenience, and that if I were delayed, I would communicate with some other Christian in Shanghai to go to perform this ministry. That night at the conclusion of the meetings, I took a boat down the river to my home near Nanking, and after a few days of Bible conference in my own town of Chinkiang, I boarded a train and went to Shanghai. Dr. Cheng had told me the name of the hospital in which his friend was lyinjfl I knew a wonderful Christian missionary doctor who worked there, the beloved Dr. Thornton Stearns. Upon my arrival in Shanghai, I telephoned to Dr. Steams and made an appointment with him to go to the bedside of the mathematics professor the next morn ing. Promptly at nine o’clock the follow ing morning, my friend met me on the steps of the hospital. We went into the office of the hospital registrar to seek information as to the room.in which Dr.
on the floor, and then leaned over on the seat in front, with arms folded and chin on the back of his hands. His eyes burned into me as I set forth the truth of the near return in judgment of the Son of God. After the service was over, he came down to the front to speak to me. I have rarely seen such agitation. Sputtering in alternate English and Chinese, he began to shout, “It’s true. It’s true. Every word that you say is true. I never knew that these things were revealed in the Bible. May I go with you to your house to talk with you further concerning these matters?” I readily agreed and as we walked along to the house, I made the discovery that he was the dean of the science de partment of a great university there in Wuchang, a Doctor of Philosophy from one of our American universities. We had a long and earnest conversation, and my friend, Dr. Cheng, really met the Lord Jesus. A fire was kindled with in him the like o f which I had never encountered before in a spiritual babe. At the next few meetings he was present, each time with his Bible open, listening with avid interest. On Satur day evening, he told me about a certain friend whom he had brought in as a pro fessor of mathematics in his depart ment. He told me that his friend was in Shanghai in a hospital and probably would die shortly ■from a serious malady. As he told me about it, he showed the greatest agitation, and shouted, “He is going to hell!” Detained to Pray The next day I looked ioi Dr. Cheng in the morning service. I scanned the audience in vain for his shining coun tenance. He did not appear that fore noon, but attended the afternoon serv ice, seemingly more eager than ever. Following the afternoon service, ne again came to have a conversation with me. “You may have noticed,” he said, “that I was absent from the morning service.” I assured him that I had taken note of it. He said, “I had my Bible in hand and was going out the door of my house in Hankow [Hankow is across the Yangtze
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