Children -- India; India -- Social life and customs; Missions -- India
Once it was something Lieut. Shackleton is reported to have said to
Reuter's correspondent concerning his expedition to the South Pole:
"Over and over again there were times when no mortal leadership could
have availed us. It was during those times that we learned that some
Power beyond our own guided our footsteps." And the illustrations which
followed of Divine interposition were such that one at least who read,
took courage; for the God of the great Ice-fields is the God of the
Tropics.
Once it was a passage opened by chance in a friend's book--Pastor
Agnorum. The subject of the paragraph is the schoolboy's attitude
towards games: "Glimpses of his mind are sometimes given us, as on that
day at Risingham when you refused to play in your boys' house-match,
unless the other house excluded from their team a half-back who was
under attainder through a recent row. They declined, and you stood out
of it. The hush in the field when your orphaned team, in defiance of the
odds, scored and again scored! Their supporters, in chaste awe at the
marvel, could hardly shout: it was more like a sob: a judgment had so
manifestly defended the right. The cricket professional, a man naturally
devout, looked at me with eyes that confessed an interposition, and all
came away quiet as a crowd from a cemetery. It was not a game of
football we had looked at, it was a Mystery Play: we had been edified,
and we hid it in our hearts."
And once, on the darkest day of all, it was the brave old family motto,
on a letter which came by post: "Dieu defend le droit." It was something
to be reminded that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the
kingdom is the Lord's, and He is Governor among the people.
"Eyes that confessed an interposition." The phrase was illuminated for
us when God in very truth interposed in such fashion that every one saw
it was His Hand, for no other hand could have done it. Then we, too,
looked at each other with eyes that confessed an interposition. We had
seen that which we should never forget; and until the time comes when it
may be more fully told to the glory of our God, we have hid it in our
hearts.
The reason we have outlined the story is to lead to a word we want to
write very earnestly; it is this: Friends who care for the children, and
believe this work on their behalf is something God intends should be
done, "pray as if on that alone hung the issue of the day." More than we
know depends upon our holding on in prayer.
All through those months there was prayer for that child in India and in
England. The matter was so urgent that we made it widely known, and some
at least of those who heard gave themselves up to prayer; not to the
mere easy prayer which costs little and does less, but to that waiting
upon God which does not rest till it knows it has obtained access,
knows that it has the petition that it desires of Him. This sort of
prayer costs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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