Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

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“In the evening I preached on Faith, and from notes. I labored to be very original and succeeded. I recall maintaining that we could not exercise any more faith than God allotted to us, that since he was ‘the author and finisher of our faith,’ we might reasonably hold him responsible for our lack of faith provided we had prayed most earnestly for the proper faith—for sufficient faith. I also maintained that it were possible for one to have faith sufficient to secure an answer to a prayer that, while it benefited one might be harmful to many others. That God often denied a petitioner even when he had exercised the required faith because God saw that to answer the prayer—to bestow what was prayed for, would work harm instead of good to the supplicant. That it was more the nature of what we prayed for than the faith we evinced that influenced the Almighty to a decision. I spoke of the assassination of President Garfield, reminding the congregation that prayers were ascending to God from all parts of the world, and that many of the petitioners believed that God would spare his life. Yet he died. What conclusion must those who prayed for Garfield’s recovery reach in order to be consistent? Could it be other than that the Almighty deemed it best to remove James A. Garfield from this sphere of action? Therefore faith does not induce God to answer an unwise prayer.