Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1877 — The Story of a Miraculous Cure in Chicago. [ARTICLE]

The Story of a Miraculous Cure in Chicago.

The Ruv. Arthur Mitchell startled the audience at the noonday prayer meeting last Tuesday by citing a marvelous case of answer to prayer. That gentleman’s story was to the effect that a lady in this citv. who was afflicted with a most severe stroke of paralysis, had. In direct answer to her prayers, been made whole. Some natural doubt, of course, arose In many minds—not as to the sentlemau’s veracity, but rather as to the idea that a miracle should happen in this nineteenth century', when neariy everybody supposes, or did suppose until then, that the age of miracles was past and gone. Mr. Mitchell also stated to a reporter for the Tritans that he would in due time tell him when to find the subject of this most marvelous cure, and that he would then get the story from her own lips. The only reason Mr. Mitchell had for not disclosing the lady’s name and residence at that time was that she was at present suf* faring from the effects of a faU on the ice received about two months ago, and she was fearful that she would be made worse by the rush of curiosity-seekers who would probably flock in to hear her story. The reporter heard yesterday, however, all he desired to know, and last evening he called upon the ladv shortly after tea, and submits to the readers of the Tritans the statement she had to make as it came from her own lips. Out of respect to her expressed wish not to publish the number of her residence on State street, the re porter simply states that her name la Mrs. Jeannette M. Robinson, and that she lives on State Street not very far from Van Buren, with her son, a gentleman in the employ of one of the railroads in this city. Mrs. Robinson was feeling quite well for an invalid last evening, although she is compelled to keep her bed. As she progressed in the following narrative, and gradually came to the crisis of her story, her face lit up with an expression of the most fervid religious zeal, and any one could see that her thanks to God came deep from her heart. “ I had a fall.” said she, “in August, 1867, while getting off of a street-car. The result of thia fall was a severe stroke of paralysis, from which I suffered for seven long years. My whole leftside was paralyzed, and my friends and physicians advised me to make a trip to the country to see if that would have any influence on me. The doctors had all given me up, and told me there was no hope for me. Everything had been done that med acai aid and advice could suggest. Dr. D. A. Colton was my attending physician, and he had for his counsel Dre. Shipman, Luddle and others. My Jaws were set so tight that they had to be pried open with a cork about an eighth of an inch thick, and all the food I took I had to Cake in liquid form through a tube. Well, as my physicians said they could do nothing for me, I went East, as they advised me to do. I went to stay with some relatives at Riga, N. ¥., a small town near Rochester. My general health gained, but my paralysis did not gain any. I kept about the same, being obliged to get around with a crutch and cane. I got no better, and no worse, and I didn’t doctor any, as the physicians said there was no use in it. But shortly after my arrival there. I saw a physician, Dr. Craig, thinking it was barely possible he might do something for me, but he told me he could not, and he wouldn’t take my case in his hands. He had examined my jaws and said “ they never could be opened, since they had become callous from long disuse. He declared that there was no physician who could help me, and I was as one without hope. The extent of the paralysis was such that when they stuck needles in my flesh it had no effect on me whatever, and I wouldn’t have known they wore doing it if I hadn’t seen them. Well, it was getting on toward the end of the seventh year of my paralysis, when one day, the 24th of July, 1874—how well I remember ft!—l was feeling quite badly. I knew I wasn’t getting any better, and I began to think that I was just entering upon the eighth year, and I was just as I

was before. I was reading, I remember, dn the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, aud I stopped at this verse: ‘All things whatsoever ye ask and pray, believing, ye shall receive.' That is just as its reads. I stopped right there. It struck me so forcibly—that passage did—that I couldn't read any more. I thought God just said tnese words, and I laid hold on them. I thought God could help me. After I read that passage and studied on dt, I then thought I should pray to God for help, because He says He will give it; and l thought that I would wrestle till morning in prayer, in imitation of Jacob, to see what the Lord would do for me. I prayed mentally, that He might restore my'health, and I made up my mind that I would pray all night, as Jacob did, and I would get the blessing before monrng. After 1 had decided on that point, as I was sitting in the chair, I felt such a strong impression to knell and pray. I was still praying in my mind, tor I could not talk, but I didn’t obey the Jirst call. The impression, however, became so strong the second time—much stronger than the first—to kneel and pray that I thought it was a call from God, just as Samuel was called. I felt that God called me. I never felt such an impression before. I went to the foreside of the bed, took my crutch, and pulled the pillows on the floor, and kneeled down on them. I said, just as Samuel said, ‘Lord, here am I. What wilt Thou have me do?’ Then I prayed that the Lord might remove my affliction and restore me to health. All this time I prayed in my mind, but all at once the bleutng came. My jaws gave such a E. and my tongue gave a leap. My snapped as though they had been en, and so loud that you could hear it in the next room. Thei strange thrills went all through me, right down to mv toes. The first thing I heard was the sound of a voice in the room. I knew there was no one in it but myself, but still I heard a voice. I opened my eyes to see who was in the room, and i found I was all alone. I still heard the voice, and 1 put my hand up and put it right in be- . tween my teeth, and I found that it was indeed my own voice, and that 1 was repeating file Lord’s Prayei. When I felt that my prayer was answered, I remembered that I was asking for the blessing and it had come. I felt that all the contracted muscles and the iaws and tongue gave way, so that I could talk and praise God for his goodness to me. Every nerve and muscle seemed to feel touched with the divine power that imparted strength and activity to every organ in my whole system. Il continued so, and I found I could laikas well ap' ever. When I felt that the Lord had heard me, that my message had reached His heavenly mind, ,-wid had brought down the blessing, 1 laid my head on the bed and wept for joy as 1 thought of what He had done for me. H»en I arose from my knees and went across the room, almost to the door of the

next room, before I felt that I had no crutch or cane tosupport me. Finding that I was alone, I stopped, and I saw that my hand, which had before this been turned in by the paralysis, as well as my limb was straight, and I could open my ham freely, and I walked right along into the other room to see the woman that used to come in and see me. She had been in a little while before, but I had felt so badly that I couldn't talk to her. I now walked in and called her by name, and as soon as she saw me she couldn’t walk a step; she was so perfectly overcome with wonder that she couldn’t mave or speak. She said to me, * What has happened to you r and I told her to come and see what the Lord had done for me. She came in, and I showed her my limb, my arm, my teeth, my tongue, and I could talk just as well as she could. I frightened the woman so much that she was just as still as a ghost. I then walked across the street to my neighbors and told them what had happened, repeating to them the Lord’s Prayer. They were as much overcome at hearing me speak as the woman had been. And they all wept, just as I did, for joy. I told my relative that if he would get his buggy, and take me to his father and mother, I should like to have them hear me talk before anybody told them of it. Within an hour from the time I talked I was two miles and a half away, bearing the news, and the next day I was able to clean my room. I went to church Bunday, and on Monday I did my washing. I felt as if I was perfectly wall—that I was a new woman. My health continued to grow better until the present injury, vAich I received about seven weeks ago, on returning, one night, from the Tabernacle, where I had attended many of' the meetings. lam just as smart now on my feet as I ever was, and would be up if I Hadn’t sprained* my hip in that fall on the ice.” “ To what church do you belong, Mrs. Robinson!" “To the First Presbyterian, and I hope I have been a Christian now for thirtyfive years." “Had you been undergoing any unusual excitement just before this cure occurred !"

.“ Not at all. I was doing nothing for myself at all, because I was told that it would do no good. I expected to live on all my lifetime as a paralytic, just as I was. The only resort I had, when all other physicians gave me up, was to Him who can prescribe for ills that no other doctor can understand, and I applied to Him, and He heard me." “ Was this the first impression of this kind you had ever had !’> “Yes, sir. When I read this passage, although I had read it hundreds of times before. I was impressed at once to pray God to heal me. I believe God directed me to that passage, and He heard my petitions. I thought that when Christ performed His cures He almost always used some means at hand, and I regarded my prayer and the Word of God as the means." “ You regard your cure, then, as a direct answer to prayer?” “ I have told you it just as it happened, and there was no other means usea.” “What does Dr. Colton say about it?" “ He thinks itisamost wonderful cure, and a direct answer to pray er. Dr. Cofton is a good Christian man, and believes in prayer. Oh, I feel this moment as I felt then, but if I should take my pen and use my mind and my best language, they would all be infinitely too poor to describe the joy 1 felt I seem to feel this moment that hallowed influence, but I never ceuld tell you, if I was to speak from one week to the other, I never could praise God enough for it and thank Him for it. It is beyond the power of tongue and pen to describe. 1 felt, as I read that passage, that God was indeed made manifest in the flesh —as if the refreshing nower of grace had come from Heaven. Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus. He who gives us that privilege, that He will carry all our soirows, and will hear and answer our prayers! And yet people are so slow to believe, and, when we pray —I suppose I have done it a hundred times myself—we hardly believe what we are praying, and right there’s where we don’t get the blessing."— Chicago Tribure, Jan. 28.