THE POWER OF GOD.
BY D. W. WHITING.
In the year 1851, while
living in the City of Detroit, my only son, a babe a year old, was sick unto
death with brain fever and inflammation of the lungs, and, although the best
medical skill in the city was early called, every effort to divert the disease
or break it s virulence failed. For two or three days medicine was given and
the head bathed in ice water; the crisis came, and while the doctor was making
a new prescription, I saw, by his countenance, that he despaired of saving the
child’s life. I said, “Doctor, you have lost all hope.” He sadly nodded assent.
“What would you think of a warm pack around the chest?” I asked. “It will do no
harm,” he replied. I then asked how long the child would probably live; his
reply was, “Fifteen or twenty minutes,” and the same instant he left the room
(having left his prescription unfinished) and never came back. The child was
evidently dead to him.
I sprang to my feet, and,
without reflection, but with much emphasis, said, “That child shall not die.
God has encourage me to ask anything in the name of Jesus, and the child shall
note die.”
At my request, my wife
hurriedly put the pack on the child’s chest, and I took him on a pillow before
me, and began walking the floor, and praying for his recovery.
This walking and praying was continued
for nearly four days and nights without the least sleep, rest or food, except
as I occasionally took a morsel form the table as I passed, On the second day
of my prayerful watch, my poor wife came hurriedly into the room and said with
great emotion, “W.., you frighten me; you frighten me!” Upon my asking
how? And why? She replied, “Because you seem determined that the child shall
live without the least reference to the will of God, and you do not know but
you are saving him for the gallows, or a life of idiocy.”
I replied, “My desires and
words are spontaneous, and when God wants me to do differently, the Holy Ghost
will teach me,” and on I went, tramp, tramp, “This child shall not die.”
At the end of nearly four
days, oh, what a wonderful revelation came to me. God Almighty met me and spoke
to my spiritual ear, unasked and unexpected, saying, clearly, “Thy child shall
live.”
I looked at my child; disease
and death was in every feature, but, although the massive walls of Jericho
frowned as before, yet the great Captain said, “Shout, for the Lord hath
given you the city.”
I took the babe to his
mother, and said, as I laid him on the bed, “There, you need have no more fear
about the baby, for he is going to get well.”
I wish I could convey the look
of hope and fear, relief and doubt, that I saw in her face and heard in her
voice, as she exclaimed, “What do you mean? D-o-n-‘t you see his eyes dilate
now with the brain disease? And when that takes place, the child is the same as
dead.”
I replied, “What difference
does that make when God speaks? God has spoken, and not only says that
the child will get well, but will have a sound body and mind; and not what you
have feared so much. I am going to sleep.” I slept nearly forty hours, and when
I awoke the child was out of danger.
He developed into an
athletic, healthy young man, and, although he left home and friends, at
seventeen, to serve as an Express employee, his health was perfect till the age
of thirty, when through over-work, his health and strength somewhat gave way.
He has proved a blessing to his family and all his friends.
