Produced by Free Elf, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) How I Know God Answers Prayer The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time By ROSALIND GOFORTH (Mrs. Jonathan Goforth) Missionary in China since 1888 "They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness."--Psalm 145:7. "Go . . . and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee."--Mark 5:19. HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD IT seems fitting that this little book of personal testimonies to answered prayer should have a brief introductory word as to how they came to be written. The question has been asked by some who read many of these testimonies as they appeared in the pages of The Sunday School Times: "How could you write such personal and sacred incidents in your life?" I could not have written them but for a very clear, God-given leading. The story is as follows: When in Canada on our first furloughs I was frequently amazed at the incredulity expressed when definite testimony was given to an answer to prayer. Sometimes this was shown by an expressive shrug of the shoulders, sometimes by a sudden silence or turning of the topic of conversation, and sometimes more openly by the query: "How do you know that it might not have happened so, anyway?" Gradually the impression deepened: "If they will not believe one, two, or a dozen testimonies, will they believe the combined testimonies of one whole life?" The more I thought of what it would mean to record the sacred incidents connected with answers to prayer the more I shrank from the publicity, and from undertaking the task. There were dozens of answers far too sacred for the public eye, which were known only to a few, others known only to God. But if the record were to carry weight with those who did not believe in the supernatural element in prayer, many personal and scarcely less sacred incidents must of necessity be made public. Again and again I laid the matter aside as impossible. But I know now that the thing was of God. As months, even years, passed, the impelling sense that the record of answers to prayer _must_ be written gave me no rest. It was at the close of the 1908-10 furlough--during which, as a family, we had been blessed with many and, to our weak faith, wonderful answers to prayer--that my oldest son urged me to put down in some definite form the answers to prayer of my life, and extracted from me a solemn promise that I would do so.