cidentally looked at the
clock, and it marked just _quarter to eleven_, A.M.

When prayer was finished he returned home. Arriving at home, he was
astonished to find the child better, its whole condition had changed,
the medicine had taken hold, and the doctor now said everything was so
hopeful the child would surely recover, and it did. But mark the
unparalleled singularity of the scene. The father asked the messenger
the _time_ when the prayer was offered. He replied, "At a _quarter to
eleven."_ The father in astonishment said, "_At that very moment_ the
disease changed, and the doctor said he was better."

The father, who had thus been proving the Lord with this test of prayer
and its identity of time in his answer, was so overwhelmingly convinced
of the real power of prayer, and thereby of the real existence of God,
and that a Christian life was one of facts as well as beliefs, now
finding that the Lord had indeed kept His own promise, he, too, kept his
promise and gave his heart to the Lord, and became henceforth, a
professing Christian.

But there were more wonderful things yet to happen--a period of five
years passed. Other children were added to the family, and one day, the
youngest, a sweet, beautiful girl, was taken suddenly ill with
convulsions. The sickness for days tasked the strength of the mother,
and the skill of the doctor, but no care, ingenuity, or knowledge could
overcome the disease or subdue the pain. The little girl's fits were
severe and distressing, and there were but short intervals between, just
time to come out of one and with a gasp, pass into another still more
terrible. In its occasional moments of reason, it would look piteously
as if mutely appealing, and then the next convulsion would take it and
seem to leave it just at death's door.

All attendants were worn with care, the doctor fairly lived in the house
and forsook all his other business. The clergyman came and comforted the
anxious hearts with words of sympathy and prayer; but her _little
brother Merrill_, (whose own life we have just related,) tender-hearted,
a mere child, scarce seven years of age, who had known of the Lord, and
who believed that He was everywhere and could do everything, was
intensely grieved at "Mamie's" distress, and came at last to his mother
and asked if he could go and "_make a prayer to God for Sissy_." The
mother said, "Go." The little boy went back into his room, and kneeling
humbly by the side of his