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have been replaced by the language of our time--the NIV.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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