Then that member began a downright, heart-stretching wrestle with the
Angel of God. He spent two successive nights in the Temple in hard and
tearful prayer. He had nothing to give. He must secure the whole from
others. He pleaded with God to let him work with Him in awakening the
hearts of possible givers. But the Lord was not willing to give to man
the major part of the glory of success. The murmuring people must be
made ashamed of their lack of faith in the Lord who had safely led them
thus far. The contract for the organ was made with a company whose agent
said they usually sold their organs on faith, but that churches always
paid the cost and often paid in advance of the date when the notes
matured. The purchaser of the Temple organ did not feel authorized to
put in the organ with no money in hand, at least for the first
installment on the price to be paid. But all the men he approached
refused to give because it was "overdoing it," and was "too improbable"
for credence or assistance. But the purchaser did not waver. The time
set for the payment of the first fifteen hundred dollars came. The note
the purchaser gave was due on Monday. The debtor had asked the
Sunday-morning prayer meeting to remember him especially "on the
morrow." He had until three o'clock Monday to raise the money to save
his note from protest. He had written to a relative to ask for a loan of
fifteen hundred dollars, but the letter had not been sent to the mail
box. When he entered his room just before church services a working girl
who was a member of the church came quietly to his door and handed him a
letter in which, when he opened it, he found a check for fifteen hundred
dollars. The letter and check were signed by a laboring man in Massilon,
Ohio, who wrote that he had not been asked to give anything, but he had
heard that the church "hoped soon to get an organ." He felt impressed to
send this check and to ask the church to accept it on the condition
that, should he ever be reduced to actual need, the church should
endeavor to aid him in some way. The second payment due came as an
unexpected draft from Boston for five hundred dollars, which must be
honored or refused within three days. But in the same mail with the
notice of the draft came two money orders from the executor of an estate
in California, saying that the deceased testator had left the
distribution of certain sums to the discretion of the executor and he
had decided to send five hundred dollars toward "the music in the new
Temple."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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