Testimonies Blog

On the 23d of last March our son, thirteen years of age, was taken seriously ill with what proved to be scarlet fever. We used the necessary precautions against others being exposed to the disease but called no physician. We followed out the instructions of the Word of God, and although he was very sick, the dear Lord speedily raised him up.
He was quite well and strong when, at the end of two weeks, he was taken suddenly and critically ill with Bright’s disease of the kidneys. (**see note) We anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord according to Jamen 5:14. He grew rapidly worse. We fasted and
prayed and waited upon God. The symptoms of the last stages of the disease began to appear. The face and limbs became swollen. Sight and hearing failed him, and, finally, he became unconscious. A few hours later he went into convulsions. During the
fifty-four hours he was unconscious for seventeen hours he was racked and worn with the frequently recurring paroxysms, the last one of which lasted fifty minutes.

During this hard, long trial and test of our faith the Holy Ghost gave us this word; “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” We did not have an audible voice, but it could not have been more real if we had. And still the cloud grew yet heavier and blacker. However, we were not even tempted to forsake the Lord for physicians, as did Asa (I Chron. 16:12, 13). God again spoke to us by the Holy Spirit and
impressed our minds with Luke 9:38-42. I had been to Boston to find Ethan 0. Allen, of Springfield, Massachusetts, who was stopping for a few days in the city, but I failed in my attempt. Nevertheless, I left my address with friends, so that if they succeeded in reaching him he might be able to come to us.

Some thirty hours passed before Allen heard of the case. He somehow felt that the child was yet living, and God would have him go out at once, although it was then late at night and he an old man of eighty-two years of age. He boarded a late train from
Boston, reaching our home in Providence a few minutes before midnight. As he stepped into the house entirely unaccompanied and a perfect stranger to us he said, “I am sent as was Peter to the house of Cornelius, your prayers are heard and are to be answered.”
He asked if there was any unbelief in the house, and was assured there was none, the nurse and watchers being in the fullest sympathy. He then laid his hands on the child in the name of Jesus and prayed with wonderful power and faith. The glory of the Lord came down and flooded the room. He rebuked the disease in the name of Jesus and
commanded the devil to depart. While he was yet praying the fever began to abate and the child’s skin became moist, and from that hour the fever left him. He was left very weak, but consciousness soon returned, and he roused and said he was hungry. Today he is well—gloriously healed. He has come up not in a natural way, but in a most
supernatural, miraculous way. All glory to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
While we do believe and always have believed that the conversion of sinners and sanctification of believers is of first importance, we felt that we could not do less than to publish this brief account of our son’s healing that our friends may rejoice with us
and give glory to God.

(**Bright’s disease is inflammation of the structures in the kidney that produce urine)

Excerpt from the 1897 “Christian and Missionary Alliance” magazine.