CALMLY and quietly the evening had set in, not a cloud was to be seen, and all nature breathed rest and peace.
Rest and peace dwelt also in the small house, built on a hill on the slope of the Kloet, a volcanic mountain in India, where Mr. W. lived with his wife and four children. The youngest was not yet two years old, and the oldest a girl nearly nine.
The children had early learned to bend their knees before the Father who is in heaven, and every evening the family was gathered around the Word of God, and the father remembered them all in prayer.
So it was on the evening of the 19th of May 1919; the family were assembled together and the father had read about Noah; how God had destroyed the world by the deluge, but had preserved Noah and his family in the ark. He pointed out to the children how that the Lord Jesus is also an Ark for all those who put their trust in Him, and how He saves His own from the coming judgment. In fervent prayer, he commended himself and his family to the care of the Almighty during the coming night; after which they all retired to rest.
Suddenly....what was that? In terror father and mother woke up. A heavy shock had caused the house to vibrate and rock. A noise like mighty thunder was heard.
The three oldest children, sleeping in the next room, were also awakened and came crying into their parents’ bedroom, asking tremblingly what the matter was.
Anxiously they all listened... Between the peals of thunder they could plainly hear a dull noise like distant thunder, coming nearer and nearer. The mother pressed the youngest child in her arms, as if to protect it from the threatening danger.
The father opened the window to see what was happening, but started back in terror. In the pale moonlight he saw a black object descending the mountain with incredible speed. An object many yards in height, and of endless length. Hurriedly they all got into the large bedstead.
Only a few seconds later the black object struck with a tremendous blow against the walls of the house. With a crackling noise the door gave way and a flood of mud poured into the house.
From the plantation, a little distance off, came cries of distress and; anguish. They heard the crackling of the bamboo-houses, and it was not long before the outside wall of their house gave way with a loud report pulling down with it a part of the roof. All their faces showed excessive fear, and in despair the parents looked around. What must they do? Flee? Where? Suddenly the oldest girl asked: “Father, have you not yourself taught us that the Lord Jesus is our refuge in time of need, a strong and high tower when danger threatens; did you not tell us yesterday evening that the Lord Jesus will be an Ark for those who trust in Him, when God’s judgments are in the world? Why don’t you pray then?”
Confused the father hung his head, then knelt down beside his wife, the children following his example. Earnestly and fervently sounded their prayer in the midst of the storm and the screams of fear round about them. But it seemed as if their prayer would not be heard a second wave of the flood of mud knocked down the wall of the children’s room.
The father redoubled his prayers. The mother wrung her hands; in another moment she will see her children that she had raised with all the loving care of a mother’s heart, destroyed in that flood, which nothing can resist.
The oldest girl prays and insists on her little brother doing likewise. Fervently and earnestly arose the faithful lisping of childhood. A third wave is the only answer to all their sighs and prayers. It made the house tremble and shake, and knocked down the wall between the children’s room and that of the parents.
The anxiety of death is to be seen on each countenance, but not the anxiety of those who have no hope.
Full of confidence the father, resigns himself and his family to the will of the Lord and says: “Father, if Thou wilt, Thou canst help us and save us from this death, but not as I will but as Thou wilt. In Thy hands we commit our spirits. May Thy name be glorified, by our living, or by our dying.”
He embraced for the last time his wife and children. The mother was also re-signed to the will of God; she took leave of her husband and children, and taking the youngest in her arms so that if possible to protect it with her own body, from harm, she quietly waited for death.
With a dull thud the large linen-closet was thrown down and dragged along by the boiling stream. It bounced against the bed as if it would tear it away with it.
A second closet from the children’s room was thrown against the first. With strength and a roar like a thunderstorm the glowing stream of mud bent around this obstacle in front of the bed as if threatening all with death and destruction.
In the afternoon of the day following this fearful night, a sergeant and some soldiers were busy clearing up the havoc that had been wrought. They came to the spot where Mr. W’s. house had once stood. Coming quite near, the rough men stood as if rooted to the spot and reverently bared their heads. And who could have beheld this spectacle with an unmoved heart?
Of the whole house nothing remained but two pieces of wall, leaning against each other, and pressed quite into the corner a bedstead stood and in front of it like a breakwater, against which the mud was heaped up, two closets. In the bedstead the family W. knelt, thanking God from the bottom of their hearts for His wonderful preservation of their lives.
Yes, God had worked a miracle! Where hundreds of people perished, houses, bridges, trees, everything swept away and destroyed, God found a way of preserving those who trusted in Him. He had listened to their prayer, and also to those of the children, and He had answered their request.
Yes, dear readers, God answers prayer, also the prayers of children. Think always of that; for with our God, nothing is too great and nothing is too small, and it is His great desire that children too should trust Him in everything.
ML-05/30/1920