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Supernatural Answers to Prayer
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By R ev . A rthur T. P ierson , D. D.
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( N ote .— Dr. Arthur T. Pierson was one of the ablest defenders of ‘the faith once for all delivered to the saints” that his generation produced. He combined in an unusual way a very broad scholarship with the ability to make himself understood by the common people. While he was a man of unusual literary gifts, his abilities in this direction "were always held in check by the desire to"be understood. Though he was the author of many published works, it was found after he had left his “earthly house of this tabernacle” and de parted to be with Christ that he had left many valuable unpublished manu scripts behind him. Some of the most useful of these were turned over ,by his son to the Executive Secretary of the Fundamentals for use in those publications. Several of them were used but quite a number remain still un published. Mr. Delavan Pierson has consented to the publication of some of these in The King’s Business. We give one for our leading article this month. It is upon one of the most vital issues ® PRAYER a positive a t th e p re se n t h o u r.—E ditor .)
natural, which convinces and over whelms my own mind. To others, my experience may not bring convic tion, but it satisfies me; and as ‘every praying soul may have the same es sential testimony, there can be no ex cuse for abiding in the darkness, The most dangerous doctrine, con cerning prayer, is that current philos ophy of the matter, which presents a half truth only; allowing the subject ive value, but denying all objective efficacy to prayer, i. e., admitting a benefit, as attached to a devout habit, but limiting the benefit to the work ing of natural results, entirely within the suppliant. For example, here is a man who becomes conscious of vicious tenden cies through his bodily appetites, to ward intemperance and gluttony; through his carnal lusts, greed of gain or ambition; through his temper and disposition, being naturally impatient or irascible, mean or malicious. Feel ing the true dignity of his manhood, conceiving a high idea of character and self-control, he sets that idea up before him, in an ideal which he aims to reach. He believes in the positive
I n /JÊJ /A power in man’s relation w A Jw ith God? This question NQRSÉ f s,of e resPec.ts’ the most vital, practical ques tion, touching the religious life of our day. The age of miracles may be past; supernatural signs may be no longer wrought, in the forms in which they once astonished mankind ; there may be no more need of public and popular attestation and authen tication of Christianity, such as was demanded at the outset for the per petual establishment of its august claims. But if a human soul may have personal communion and contact with an unseen and spiritual God ; if blessings and benefits may be ob tained, directly from our Heavenly Father, which no effort of our own can secure, ànd no mediation of our fellow men can procure ; if I may, un mistakably, discern divine interposi tion in the affairs of my own life, and recognize the invisible hand by unerring tokens of God’s guarding, guiding, governing presence—then I have a perpetual miracle in my own life—a permanent proof of the super-
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