Produced by Karina Aleksandrova, Juliet Sutherland and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Praying for Money
Spiritual Telepathy
Day of Pentecost
Axioms
Praying for Money
Unanswered Prayers
Prayer for Others
Forms of Prayer
_By_
RUSSELL H. CONWELL
VOLUME 9
NATIONAL
EXTENSION UNIVERSITY
597 Fifth Avenue, New York
EFFECTIVE PRAYER
Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Chapter I
Spiritual Telepathy
It would be no more surprising for the discovery of a means of direct
spirit communication with the spiritual life than it was to be convinced
that Marconi had discovered a sure method of telegraphing and
telephoning without wires. The discovery of the laws which made
electricity a servant of mankind was an astonishing revelation which was
as unbelievable as is the law of spiritual telepathy. Human telepathy,
which is a mysterious means of communication between persons without the
use of known material agency, is in the initial and experimental stage.
But the possibility of such thought transference is generally admitted.
The psychical researchers into that science should be encouraged in
every way. On the eve of every such advance in human achievement there
always appear a host of superstitious dreamers and wild prophets, even
in the study of science, who hinder the sane searcher and often becloud
the mind of the student who is on the direct road to the needed
discovery.
Spiritualism, which is here used as a comprehensive term, frequently
confuses the deliberations of honest truth-seekers with the advertised
works of deceivers, but it includes much in its curriculum that is worth
careful study. Among the host of disordered or weak minds who claim so
much that is foolish in connection with spiritual revelations there are
a respectable number of thoughtful, conservative searchers who cannot be
easily deceived. In all the successful "isms" in a Christian
civilization, and in all the popular religious sects, there is ever some
basic truth. Some one idea is so true and so strongly emphasized that it
often carries along a back-breaking load of absurd theories. The
thoughtless throng hears of several well-authenticated cases of fraud,
or of absurd teaching, in connection with spiritual meetings, or
messages, and leaps to the conviction that all claims of so-called
spiritualists are not worthy of consideration. So many thousands have
tried so sincerely to recall their dead without the least sign of an
answer that they refuse to examine the testimony of great men, like Sir
Oliver Lodge, whose belief differs from their belief. They will not read
what great minds have expressed on the subject. But the great
discoveries recently made in materialistic sciences have led thoughtful
men to hope for great discoveries in the relation of this existence to
another life. This expectation, or strong hope, made the study of the
spiritual revelations and conditions at the Temple a most thrilling
occupation.
The reports of the answers to prayer so often use the words "happened to
think" that the observer cannot escape the conviction that either the
living human mind does send spirit messages or that some mysterious
power acts for it in forwarding messages. The great list of mysterious
impulses and intuitions which were noticed in those interesting seasons
of prayer could not have been all accidental nor could they be classed
under the natural laws of cause and effect. The connection between the
cause as seen in the prayer and the effect as related in the
"happened-to-think" result is often wholly hidden.
A mother in Philadelphia prayed for her prodigal son and at that exact
time the son, alone in a Chicago hotel, felt an uncontrollable influence
to turn back to his home. A father prayed that his son might decide to
be a missionary, and the son, a sailor off the coast of South America,
at that same moment made the decision. A wife prayed that her husband
might be sent home sober. At the time she was kneeling by the kitchen
table he was waiting at the saloon to be served with brandy, but he
"happened to think" that his mother had prayed for him on her deathbed
and he could not take the liquor.
A doctor, sadly defeated in his fight for the life of his patient, went
to his bedroom and prayed for light, and he "happened to think" that the
patient might have swallowed some piece of metal. There was no report of
the like symptoms in any case he could find in the medical books. But so
deep was the impression that he secured a powerful magnet and drew forth
the death-dealing needle. A merchant had an offer for his entire stock
which seemed favorable, and, as he was in need, the offer seemed
providential. But while the suggestion from the pulpit that each
worshiper pray for success in his occupation was being adopted he prayed
for his business. At that hour his son in Denver was also praying in
church. When he there thought of his father he decided fully to go home
and enter business with him. So completely did he decide that the next
morning he telegraphed to his surprised and delighted father that he
would come home if his father needed his assistance. The joy of having
his son at home again overcame his determination to complete a
favorable bargain, and he declined the offer promptly. Before the son
reached Philadelphia a sudden change in the paper market doubled the
sale value of the father's stock.
One writer for a daily newspaper was meditating on some object of prayer
in the silence of the praying congregation when the idea of a textbook
on journalism for college use came to his mind for the first time. It
led directly to a series of syndicate articles which enabled him to
purchase the home for which he had been praying. A mechanic who had been
out of work, owing to a fire, prayed for a job. At the same time a
builder who was a stranger in the church was praying for a competent
partner. When the prayers were finished they "happened" to look at each
other across the church and each wondered why the other looked at him so
intently. The pews in which they sat were at right angles and it was a
natural thing for the occupant of one pew to glance at the inmate of
the other pew. After church each approached the other with the
simultaneous expression, "It seems to me that we have met before." But
that was their first meeting. Their firm is now engaged in large
construction work in concrete houses and factories. A servant girl in a
small home prayed for a dress suitable for church and at that hour her
mistress was visiting a friend who remarked that the photograph of a
deceased daughter greatly resembled the visitor's servant girl. A few
minutes later the friend of the mistress said: "I wonder if my
daughter's dresses would fit your servant? If they will fit her, there
are here two new gowns that the dressmaker sent home after my daughter's
death."
So a young man, without advanced education, prayed hard for an
opportunity to get mental training to fit him for the ministry. At the
same moment a principal of a New Jersey academy was in the gallery far
removed from the young man and he prayed for direction in finding a
suitable janitor. The academy principal mentioned his need to one of the
church members who "happened" to know the young man. It was arranged
that the young man should work for his board and tuition and have five
hours a day for study. The worshiper described himself in his sketch of
the answer to his prayers as one whom "God has led into the fulfillment
of all his highest ambitions." He is pastor of a strong church in
Cleveland. A little tot prayed for a "singing doll," and her mother told
her that a doll was too small a matter to pray for. But the father
overheard the conversation, and, after purchasing the most costly one he
could find at his noon hour, he left it on the little one's bed in the
night when everyone else was supposed to be asleep.
A widow prayed for some leadership in the sale of some wild land in
Louisiana. Her relatives urged her to let it go, as the "taxes will soon
eat it all." But the unexpected payment of a debt due her led her to
feel that, as she had been temporarily provided for, she would wait. In
about seven weeks she read in a paper that a company had struck oil on
the next section to her estate. She consequently leased the mineral
privileges of her land at a high price.
A minister prayed for a sermon text and found that the Sunday-school
superintendent had thoughtlessly left in the Bible the Sabbath before a
slip of paper on which was written the title which Mary Magdalene used
when addressing Jesus in the Garden near his tomb: "Rabboni." The
minister now remembers that sermon when nearly all others are forgotten.
A student whose mental faculties were unusually dull for his age prayed
that he might pass his examination in mathematics. That night in his
dreams his subconscious self worked out plainly on a blackboard the two
hardest problems. A farmer prayed for some deciding hint in his choice
of seed for his land. On his way home he held a bundle in his lap which
was in a newspaper wrapper. In one column on the wrapper directly under
his eyes was an article on the soils and products of his country which
opened his vision and made his farming safe and profitable. An Alsatian
girl prayed that her father and mother might come to America. They knew
nothing of her petition, but on that same day and hour, allowing for the
difference in the reckoning of time, the parents resolved to come to
America, and financial aid was promised them. A lawyer was asking the
Lord for some clew to lost evidence, so necessary to his case to be
tried the next day, when the name of a witness whose relation to the
case he had not before thought of, and whose name had been long
forgotten, was suggested to him. While doubtful of the value of the
witness, he sought his name in the directory and found that the lost
witness was all-sufficient for the case. A dealer in real estate asked
the Lord to prosper a proposed transaction, if it were for the best, and
to hinder it if it would be injurious. He unintentionally omitted the
word "not" from the draft of a contract which he drew the next day and
the "accidental" omission brought him to unexpected possession of a
profitable block of houses.
To the unbeliever all these testimonials prove but little. But to the
experienced observer of repeated answers to prayer they are conclusive
proofs of God's disposition to answer the "effectual, fervent prayer of
the righteous man." As a woman may feel when she puts her weary life
into the care of a strong and affectionate husband, the trusting
believer in prayer rests in God in a peaceful condition of soul, which
passeth all understanding.