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Reuben Archer Torrey (1856-1928) was both an evangelist and a Bible scholar.
Long associated with D. L. Moody, he became most prominent during world
preaching tours in 1902 and 1921.  His preaching in Wales in 1902 has been
noted as one cause for the Welsh revivals of the early 1900s.  He was the
first superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute and wrote numerous
devotional and theological books.

Spiritual awakening followed R. A. Torrey throughout his career as an
evangelist.  In revivals with the popular gospel singer Charles W. Alexander,
Dr. Torrey filled meeting halls with his magnetic presence, passion, and
earnestness.

To help the reading of this classic work, the original Scripture references
have been replaced by the language of our time--the NIV.  Also, obviously
archaic terminology and passages obscured by expressions not totally familiar
in our day have been revised.  However, neither Torrey's meaning nor intent
have been tampered with.

All Scripture references are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society, used by permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers.

                                                      Tony Capoccia



                             The Power of Prayer
                                     by
                                R. A. Torrey
                                 (1856-1928)


               "You do not have, because you do not ask God."
                                                  James 4:2

I bring you a message from God contained in ten short words.  Nine of the
words are monosyllables, and the remaining word has but two syllables and is
one of the most familiar and most easily understood words in the English
language.  Yet there is so much in these ten short, simple words that they
have transformed many a life and brought many an inefficient worker into a
place of great power.

I spoke on these ten words some years ago at a Bible conference in Central
New York.  Some months after the conference I received a letter from the man
who had presided at the conference, one of the best known ministers of the
Gospel in America.  He wrote me: "I have been unable to get away from the ten
words upon which you spoke at Lake Keuka; they have been with me day and
night.  They have transformed my ideas, transformed my methods, transformed
my life, and, I think I have a right to add, transformed my ministry."  Since
he wrote those words the man has been the pastor of what is probably the most
widely known of any evangelical church in the world.  I trust that the words
may sink into some of your hearts today as they sank into his on that
occasion, and that some of you will be able to say in future months and
years, "I have been unable to get away from those ten words, they have been
with me day and night.  They have transformed my ideas, transformed my
methods, transformed my life, and transformed my service for God."

You will find these ten words in James 4:2, the ten closing words of the
verse, "You do not have, because you do not ask God."

These ten words contain the secret of the poverty and powerlessness of the
average Christian, of the average minister, and of the average church.  "Why
is it," many a Christian is asking, "that I make such poor progress in my
Christian life?  Why do I have so little victory over sin?  Why do I win so
few souls to Christ?  Why do I grow so slowly into the likeness of my Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ?"  And God answers in the words of our text
--"Neglect of prayer.  You do not have, because you do not ask God."

"Why is it," many a minister is asking, "that I see so little fruit from my
ministry?  Why are there so few conversions?  Why does my church grow so
slowly?  Why are the members of my church so little helped by my ministry,
and built up so little in Christian knowledge and life?"  And again God
replies: "Neglect of prayer.  You do not have, because you do not ask God."

"Why is it," both ministers and churches are asking, "that the Church of
Jesus Christ is making such slow progress in the world today?  Why does it
make so little headway against sin, against unbelief, against error in all
its forms?  Why does it have so little victory over the world, the flesh, and
the devil?  Why is the average church member living on such a low plane of
Christian living?  Why does the Lord Jesus Christ get so little honor from
the state of the Church today?"  And, again, God replies: "Neglect of prayer.
You do not have, because you do not ask God."

When we read the only inspired church history that ever was written, the
history of the Church in the days of the Apostles as it is recorded by Luke
(under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) in the Acts of the Apostles, what
do we find?  We find a story of constant victory, a story of perpetual
progress.  We read, for example, such as this in Acts 2:47, "The Lord added to
their number daily those who were being saved," and such statements as this
in Acts 4:4, "But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men
grew to about five thousand," and such statements as this in Acts 5:14,
"Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were
added to their number."  And such statements as this in Acts 6:7, "So the word
of God spread.  The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a
large number of priests became obedient to the faith."

And so we go on, chapter after chapter, through the twenty-eight chapters of
the book, and in every one of the twenty-seven chapters after the first we
find the same note of victory.  I once went through the Acts of the Apostles
marking the note of victory in every chapter, and without one single
exception the triumphant shout of victory rang out in every chapter.  How
different the history of the Church as here recorded is from the history of
the Church of Jesus Christ today.  Take, for example, that first statement,
"The Lord added to their number daily [that is, every day, or, as the Revised
Version puts it, "day by day"] those who were being saved."  Why, nowadays if
we have a revival once a year with an accession of fifty or sixty members and
spend all the rest of the year slipping back to where we were before, we
think we are doing pretty well.  But in those days there was a revival all
the time and accessions every day of those who not only "made professions"
but" who were [really] being saved."

Why this difference between the Early Church and the Church of Jesus Christ
today?  Someone will answer, "Because there is so much opposition today."
Ah, but there was opposition in those days: most bitter, most determined,
most relentless opposition, opposition in comparison with which that which
you and I meet today is but child's play.  But the Early Church went right on
beating down all opposition, surmounting every obstacle, conquering every
foe, always victorious, right on without a setback from Jerusalem to Rome, in
the face of the most firmly entrenched and most mighty heathenism and
unbelief.  I repeat the question--"Why was it?" If you will turn to the
chapters from which I have already quoted, you will get your answer.

Turn, for example, to the first chapter from which I quoted, Acts 2, and read
the 42nd verse: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."  That is a picture, very
brief but very suggestive, of the Early Church.  It was a praying church.  It
was a church in which they prayed not merely occasionally, but in which they
all "continued steadfastly . . . in the prayers."  They all prayed, not a
select few, but the whole membership of the church; and all prayed
continuously with steadfast determination.  "They gave themselves to prayer,"
as the same Greek word is translated in Acts 6:4.  Now turn to the last
chapter from which I quoted, the sixth chapter, verse 4, and you will get the
rest of your answer.  "We will give our attention to prayer."  That is a
picture of the Apostolic ministry, it was a praying ministry, and a ministry
that "gave themselves continually to prayer," or, to translate that Greek
word as it is translated in the former passage (Acts 2:42), "They continued
steadfastly in prayer."  A praying church and a praying ministry!  Ah, such a
church and such a ministry can achieve anything that ought to be achieved.
It will go steadily on beating down all opposition, surmounting every
obstacle, conquering every foe, just as much today as it did in the days of
the Apostles.

There is nothing else in which the church of today, and the ministry of
today, or, to be more explicit, in which you and I, have departed more
notably and more lamentably from apostolic precedent than in this matter of
prayer.  We do not live in a praying age.  A very considerable proportion of
the membership of our evangelical churches today do not believe even
theoretically in prayer, that is, they do not believe in prayer as bringing
anything to pass that would not have come to pass even if they had not
prayed.  They believe in prayer as having a beneficial "reflex influence,"
that is, as benefiting the person who prays, a sort of lifting yourself up by
your spiritual boot-straps, but as for prayer bringing anything to pass that
would not have come to pass if we had not prayed, they do not believe in it
and many of them frankly say so, and even some of our "modern ministers" say
so.

And with that part of our church membership that does believe in prayer
theoretically--and, thank God, I believe it is still the vast majority in our
evangelical churches--even they do not make the use of this mighty instrument
that God has put into our hands that one would naturally expect.  As I said,
we do not live in a praying age.  We live in an age of hustle and bustle, of
man's efforts and man's determination, of man's confidence in himself and in
his own power to achieve things, an age of human organization, and human
machinery, and human push, and human scheming, and human achievement, which
in the things of God means no real achievement at all.  I think it would be
perfectly safe to say that the Church of Christ was never in all its history
so fully and so skillfully--and so thoroughly and so perfectly organized as
it is today.  Our machinery is wonderful, it is just perfect, but, alas, it
is machinery without power; and when things do not go right, instead of going
to the real source of our failure, our neglect to depend on God and to look
to God for power, we glance around to see if there is not some new
organization we can get up, some new wheel that we can add to our machinery.
We have altogether too many wheels already.  What we need is not so much some
new organization, some new wheel, but "the Spirit of the living creature in
the wheels" we already possess.

I believe that the devil stands and looks at the church today and laughs in
his sleeve as he sees how its members depend on their own scheming and powers
of organization and skillfully devised machinery.  "Ha, ha," he laughs, "you
may have your Y.M.C.A.'s, and Y.W.C.A.'s, and your W.C.T.U.'s, and
Y.P.S.C.E.'s, and B.Y.P.U.'s, and your Boy Scouts, and your costly church
edifices, and your fifty-thousand-dollar church organs, and your brilliant
university-bred preachers, and your high-priced choirs, and your gifted
sopranos, and altos, and tenors, and basses, and your wonderful quartets;
your immense Men's Bible Classes, yes, and your Bible Conferences, and your
Bible Institutes, and your special evangelistic services, all you please of
them, but it does not in the least trouble me if only you will leave out of
them the power of the Lord God Almighty sought and obtained by the earnest,
persistent, believing prayer that will not take 'no' for an answer."  But when
the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to
pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church
on its face before God in prayer, "he trembles" as much as he ever did, for
he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.

Prayer has as much power today, when men and women are themselves on praying
ground and meeting the conditions of prevailing prayer, as it ever has had.
God has not changed, and His ear is just as quick to hear the voice of real
prayer and His hand is just as long and strong to save as they ever were.
"Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to
hear.  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have
hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1, 2).  Prayer
is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God's infinite grace and
power.  All that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer.
But we must use the key.  Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God
can do anything, prayer is omnipotent.  No one can stand against the man who
knows how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing prayer and
who really prays.  "The Lord God omnipotent" works for him and works through
him.

I.  Prayer Will Promote Our Personal Holiness as Nothing Else, Except the
Study of the Word of God

But what, specifically, will prayer do?  We have been dealing in
generalities; let us come down to the definite and specific.  The Word of God
very plainly answers the question.

In the first place, prayer will promote our personal piety, our individual
holiness, our individual growth into the likeness of Our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ as almost nothing else, as nothing else but the study of the
Word of God; and these two things, prayer and study of the Word of God,
always go hand in hand, for there is not true prayer without study of the
Word of God, and there is no true study of the Word of God without prayer.

Other things being equal, your growth and mine into the likeness of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ will be in exact proportion to the time and to the
heart we put into prayer.  Please note exactly what I say: "Your growth and
mine into the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be in exact
proportion to the time and to the heart we put into prayer."  I put it in
that way because there are many who put a great deal of time into praying but
they put so little heart into their praying that they do very little praying
in the long time they spend at it; while there are others who perhaps may not
put so much time into praying but who put so much heart into their praying
that they accomplish vastly more by their praying in a short time than the
others accomplish by their praying a long time.  God Himself has told us in
Jeremiah 29:13, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your
heart."

We are told in the Word of God in Ephesians 1:3 that God has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.  That is to say,
that Jesus Christ, by His atoning death and by His resurrection and ascension
to the right hand of the Father, has obtained for every believer in Jesus
Christ every possible spiritual blessing.

There is no spiritual blessing that any believer enjoys that may not be
yours.  It belongs to you now, Christ purchased it by His atoning death, and
God has provided it in Him.  It is there for you; but it is your part to
claim it, to put out your hand and take it, and God's appointed way of claim
ing blessings, or putting out your hand and appropriating to yourself the
blessings that are procured for you by the atoning death of Jesus Christ, is
by prayer.  Prayer is the hand that takes to ourselves the blessings that God
has already provided in His Son.

Go through your Bible and you will find it definitely stated that every
conceivable spiritual blessing is obtained by prayer.  For example, it is in
answer to prayer, as we learn from Psalm 139:23, 24, that God searches us and
knows our hearts, tries us and knows our thoughts, brings to light the sin
that there is in us, and delivers us from it.  It is in answer to prayer, as
we learn from Psalm 19:12, 13, that we are cleansed from secret faults and
God keeps us back from presumptuous sins.  It is in answer to prayer, as we
learn from the 14th verse of the same Psalm, that "May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and
my Redeemer."  It is in answer to prayer, as we learn from the 25th Psalm,
verses 4 and 5, that God shows us His ways and teaches us His path, and
guides us in His truth.  It is in answer to prayer, as we learn from the
prayer our Lord Himself taught us, that we are kept from temptation and
delivered from the power of the wicked one (Matthew 6:13). It is in answer to
prayer, as we learn from Luke 11:13, that God gives us His Holy Spirit.  And
so we might go on through the whole catalog of spiritual blessings, and we
would find that every one is obtained by asking for it.  Indeed, our Lord
Himself said in Matthew 7:11, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven
give good gifts to those who ask him!"

One of the most instructive and suggestive passages in the entire Bible as
showing the mighty power of prayer to transform us into the likeness of our
Lord Jesus Himself, is found in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we, who with
unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his
likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the
Spirit."  The thought is this, that the Lord is the sun, you and I mirrors,
and just as a mischievous boy on a bright sunshiny day will catch the rays of
the sun in a piece of broken looking-glass and reflect them into your eyes
and mine with almost blinding power, so we as mirrors, when we commune with
God, catch the rays of His moral glory and reflect them out on the world
"from glory to glory," that is, each new time we commune with Him we catch
something new of His glory and reflect it out on the world.

Do You remember the story of Moses, not "folklore" as some would have us be
lieve, but actual history, how he went up to the mountain and tarried alone
for forty days with God, gazing on that ineffable glory, and caught so much
of the glory in his own face that when he came down from the mountain, though
he did not know it, his face shone so much that he had to put a veil over it
to hide the blinding glory of it from his fellow Israelites.  Even so we,
going up to the mountain of prayer, away from the world, alone with God, and
remaining long alone with God, catch the rays of His glory so that when we
come down to our fellow men, it is not so much our faces that shine (though I
do believe that sometimes even our faces shine), as our characters, with the
glory that we have been beholding, and we reflect out on the world the moral
glory of God from "glory to glory," each new time of communion with Him
catching something new of His glory to reflect out on the world.  Oh, here is
the secret of becoming much like God--remaining long alone with God.  If you
won't stay long with Him you won't be much like Him.

One of the most remarkable men in Scotland's history was John Welch, son-in-
law of John Knox, the great Scotch reformer, not so well known as his famous
father-in-law but in some respects a far more remarkable man than John Knox
himself.  Most people have the idea that it was John Knox who prayed: "Give
me Scotland or I die."  It was not, it was John Welch, his son-in-law.  John
Welch put it on record before he died that he counted that day ill spent that
he did not put seven or eight hours into secret prayer; and when John Welch
came to die, an old Scotchman who had known him from his boyhood said of him,
"John Welch was a type of Christ."  Of course, that was an inaccurate use of
language, but what the old Scotchman meant was that Jesus Christ had stamped
the impress of His character on John Welch.  When had Jesus Christ done it?
In those seven or eight hours of daily communion with Himself.  I do not
suppose that God has called many of us, if any of us, to put seven or eight
hours a day into prayer, but I am confident God has called most of us, if not
every one of us, to put more time into prayer than we now do.  That is one of
the great secrets of holiness; indeed, the only way in which we can become
really holy and continue holy.

Some years ago we often sang a hymn, "Take Time to be Holy."  I wish we sang
it more in these days.  It takes time to be holy; one cannot be holy in a
hurry, and much of the time that it takes to be holy must go into secret
prayer.  Some people express surprise that professing Christians today are so
little like their Lord, but when I stop to think how little time the average
Christian today puts into secret prayer the thing that astonishes me is, not
that we are so little like the Lord, but that we are as much like the Lord as
we are, when we take so little time for secret prayer.

II.  Prayer Will Bring the Power of God into Our Work

But not only will prayer promote as almost nothing else our personal
holiness, but prayer will also bring the power of God into our work.  We read
in Isaiah 40:31, "Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They
will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will
walk (plod along day after day, which is far harder than running or flying),
and not be faint."

It is the privilege of every child of God to have the power of God in his
service.  And the verse just quoted tells us how to obtain it, and that is by
"hoping in the Lord."  Sometimes you will hear people stand up in a meeting,
not so frequently perhaps in these days as in former days, and say, "I am
trying to serve God in my poor, weak way."  Well, if you are trying to serve
God in your poor, weak way, quit it: your duty is to serve God in His strong,
triumphant way.  But you say, "I have no natural ability"; then get
supernatural ability.  The religion of Jesus Christ is a supernatural
religion from start to finish, and we should live our lives in supernatural
power, the power of God through Jesus Christ, and we should perform our
service with supernatural power, the power of God ministered by the Holy
Spirit through Jesus Christ.  You say, "I have no natural gifts."  Then get
supernatural gifts.  The Holy Spirit is promised to every believer in order
that he may obtain the supernatural gifts which qualify him for the
particular service to which God calls him.  "He (the Holy Spirit) gives to
each one [that is, to each and every believer] just as He determines"
(1 Corinthians 12:11).  It is ours to have the power of God if only we will
seek it by prayer, in any and every line of service to which God calls us.

Are you a mother or a father? Do you wish power from God to bring your own
children up in the "training and instruction of the Lord"?  God commands you
to do it, and especially commands the father to do it.  God says in Ephesians
6:4, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the
training and instruction of the Lord."

Now, God never commands the impossible, and as He commands us fathers, and
the mothers also, to bring our children up in the training and instruction of
the Lord it is possible for us to do it.  If any one of your children is not
saved, the first blame lies at your own door.  Paul said to the jailer in
Philippi, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your
household" (Acts 16:31).

Yes, it is the solemn duty of every father and mother to have every one of
their children saved.  But we can never accomplish it unless we are much in
prayer to God for power to do it.  In my first pastorate I had as a member of
my church a most excellent Christian woman, but she had a little boy of six
who was one of the most incorrigible youngsters I ever knew in my life.  He
was the terror of the community, the most difficult boy, I think, I ever
knew.  One Sunday, at the close of the morning service, his mother came to me
and said: "You know--" calling her boy by his first name.  "Yes," I replied,
"I know him."  Everybody in town knew him.  Then she said, "You know he is
not a very good boy."  "Yes," I replied, "I know he is not a very good boy."
Indeed, that was a rather simple way of putting it; in point of fact, he was
the terror of the neighborhood.  Then this heavy-hearted mother said, "What
shall I do?" I replied, "Have you ever tried prayer?"  "Why," she said, "of
course I pray."  "Oh," I said, "that is not what I mean.  Have you ever asked
God definitely to regenerate your boy and expected Him to do it?"  "I do not
think I have ever been as definite as that."  "Well," I said, "you go right
home and be just as definite as that."  She went home, she was just as
definite as that; and I think it was from that very day, certainly from that
week, that the boy was a transformed boy and so began to grow up into fine
young manhood.

Oh, mothers and fathers, it is your privilege to have every one of your
children saved.  But it costs something to have them saved.  It costs your
spending much time alone with God, to be much in prayer, and it costs also
your making those sacrifices, and straightening out those things in your life
that are wrong; it costs the fulfilling of the conditions of prevailing
prayer.  And if any of you have unsaved children, when you go home today get
alone with God and ask God to show you what it is in your own life that is
responsible for the present condition of your children, and straighten it out
at once, and then get down alone before God and hold on to Him in earnest
prayer for the definite conversion of each one of your children, and do not
rest until, by prayer and by putting forth every effort, you know beyond
question that every one of your children is definitely and positively
converted and born again.

Are you a Sunday-school teacher?  Do you wish to see every one of your
Sunday-school pupils converted?  That is primarily what you are a Sunday-
school teacher for, not merely to teach Bible geography and Bible history, or
even Bible doctrine, but to get the pupils in your class, one and all, saved.
Do you want power from on high to enable you to save them? Ask God for it.

When Mr. Alexander and I were holding meetings in Sydney, Australia, the
meetings were held in the Town Hall, which seated about five thousand people.
But the crowds were so great that some days we had to divide the crowds and
have women only in the afternoon, and men only at night.  One Sunday
afternoon the Sydney Town Hall was packed with women.  When I gave out the
invitation for all who would accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior,
and surrender to Him as their Lord and Master, and begin to confess Him as
such before the world, and so strive to live from this time on as to please
Him in every way from day to day, over on my left a whole row of young women
of, I should say, about twenty years of age, rose to their feet, eighteen in
all.  As I saw them stand side by side, I said to myself, "That is someone's
Bible class."  Afterward they made a public confession of their acceptance of
Jesus Christ.  When the meeting was over, a young lady came to me, her face
wreathed in smiles, and said, "That is my Bible class; I have been praying
for their conversion, and every one of them has accepted Jesus Christ today."

When we were holding meetings in Bristol, England, a prominent manufacturer
in Exeter had a Bible class of twenty-two men in that city.  He invited all
of them to go to Bristol with him and hear me preach.  Twenty-one of them
consented to go.  At that meeting twenty of them accepted Christ.  The
twenty-first accepted Christ in the train on the way home, and then they all,
on their return, gathered around the remaining one who would not go, and he
also accepted Christ.  That manufacturer was praying for the conversion of
the members of his class and was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to
get his prayers answered.  What a revival we would have here in this city if
all the Sunday-school teachers would go to praying the way they ought for the
conversion of every pupil in his or her class!

Are you in more public work, a preacher perhaps, or speaking from the public
platform?  Do you long for power in that work?  Ask for it.  I shall never
forget a scene I witnessed many years ago in Boston.  It was at the Inter
national Christian Workers' Convention, held in the old Tremont Temple,
seating thirty-five hundred people.  It was my privilege to preside at the
convention.  On a Saturday morning at eleven o'clock the Tremont Temple was
packed to its utmost capacity; every seat was taken, every inch of standing
room where men and women were allowed to stand was taken, and multitudes
outside were still clamoring for admission.  The audience was as fine in its
quality as it was large in its numbers.  As I looked back of me on the
platform, it seemed as if every leading minister and clergyman, not only of
Boston, but of New England, was on that platform.  Looking down in front of
me, I saw seated there the leaders, not only in the church life, but in the
social and commercial and political life of Boston and the surrounding
country.

I rose to announce the next speaker on the program, and my heart sank, for
the next speaker was a woman.  In those days I had a prejudice against any
woman speaking in public under any circumstances.  But this particular woman
was a professing Christian, and a Presbyterian at that (and I suppose that is
orthodox enough for most of us), but she had been what we call a "worldly
Christian," a dancing, card-playing, theater-going, low-necked-dress
Christian.  She had had, however, an experience of which I had not heard.
One night, sitting in their beautiful home in New York City, for she was a
woman of wealth, she turned to her husband as he sat reading the evening
paper, and said: "Dear, I hear they are doing a good work down at Jerry
McAuley's Mission at 316 Water Street.  Let's go down and help them."  He was
a man of very much the same type as she was a woman, kind-hearted, generous,
but very much of a worldling.  He laid aside his paper and said, "Well, let's
go."  They put on their wraps and started for 316 Water Street.

When they got there they found the Mission Hall very full and took seats down
by the door.  As they sat there and listened to one after another of those
rescued men, they were filled with new interest, a new world seemed opening
to them; and, at last, the woman turned to her husband and whispered, "I
guess they will have to help us instead of our helping them.  They've got
something we haven't."  And when this finely dressed, cultured gentleman and
his wife knelt down in the sawdust along with the drunken "bums" and other
outcasts of Water Street, and they got real salvation.

But of this I knew nothing.  I knew only the type of woman she had been, and
when I saw her name on the Program, as I said, my heart sank and I thought,
"What a waste of a magnificent opportunity, Here is this wonderful audience
and only this woman to speak to them."  But I had no authority to change the
program; my business was simply to announce it.  And summoning all the
courtesy I could command under the circumstances, I introduced this lady, and
then sank into the chairman's seat and buried my face in my hands and began
to pray to God to save us from disaster.  Some years afterward I was in
Atlanta, and one of the leading Christian workers of that city, who had been
at the Boston Convention, came to me, laughing, and said, "I shall never
forget how you introduced Mrs.-- at the Boston Convention, and then dropped
into your chair and covered your face with your hands as if you had done
something you were ashamed of."

Well, I had.  But as I said, I began to pray.  In a little while I took my
face out of my hands and began to watch as well as pray.  Every one of those
thirty-five hundred pairs of eyes were riveted on that little woman as she
stood there and spoke.  Soon I saw tears come into eyes that were
unaccustomed to weeping, and I saw men and women taking out their
handkerchiefs and at first trying to pretend they were not weeping, and then,
throwing all disguise to the winds, I saw them bow their heads on the backs
of the seats in front of them and sob as if their hearts would break.  And
before that wonderful address was over that whole audience was swept by the
power of that woman's words as the trees of our Western forests sometimes are
swept by the cyclone.

This was Saturday morning.  The following Monday morning Dr. Broadbeck, at
that time pastor of the leading Methodist church in Boston, came to me and
said with a choking voice, "Brother Torrey, I could not open my mouth to
speak to my own people in my own church yesterday morning without bursting
into tears as I thought of that wonderful scene we witnessed here on Saturday
morning."  When that wonderful address was over, some of us went to this
woman and said to her, "God has wonderfully used you this morning."  "Oh,"
she replied, "would you like to know the secret of it?  Last night as I
thought of the great throng that would fill the Tremont Temple this morning,
and of my own inexperience in public address, I spent the whole night on my
face before God in prayer."  Oh, men and women, if we would spend more nights
before God on our faces in prayer there would be more days of power when we
faced our congregations!

Transcribed by Tony Capoccia of

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