Unbelieving Father Asks Prayer For Dying Son

Chicago, 1907

PLEASE PRAY FOR BOY WHO IS DYING.

A year ago in the city of Chicago, says Dr. Chapman, there came a gentleman into the hotel where I was stopping to tell me that his wife had formerly been a member of my church. When I asked about himself he said he was an infidel. Then he began to speak so blasphemously of God that I insisted on his either ceasing or leaving my presence. Then he told me that his boy was ill, and that he was then on his way to pawn his overcoat to secure the price of the prescription. He refused financial aid and went away.

On Good Friday, when I was preaching to the men in the Young Men's Christian Association, I saw him put a note in the hand of the usher, and when I read the note it said: "Please pray for a boy who is dying. This request is sent by a believing mother, and carried by an unbelieving father." It was laid upon me to pray for the boy. I learned that he had pleuro-pneumonia, that the doctors had given him up, and that the mother had been informed that there was no hope. He was far beyond the danger point, and they were waiting for him to die.

At 12:30 o'clock I called upon Major James H. Cole to pray. It seemed to me as if I had never heard praying before. He prayed that God might save the boy for the sake of his father. And now will you hear the result? At 25 minutes of 1 o'clock, when the doctor had said the boy would be dead, he began to recover. He rose from his bed, he moved about the house a little later; he was soon about the city; and in an incredibly short space of time was at his work once more. God had heard and answered the prayer.

I heard that father stand upon his feet and say: "My friends, God has answered the prayer for my boy, and I want to know him," and I heard him later make as true a confession of Christ as I have ever heard. He is one of my devoted friends today, and I know that God answers prayer and says "Yes," when we speak to him.