02.04. Chapter 04. Prayer and the Weather
Prayer and the Weather
(3) A third remarkable sphere in which prayer is able to work is that of the weather, as instanced in Elijah stopping and restoring the rainfall. Nor is this the only such instance in Scripture of a suspension of the workings of nature,5 nor is it without examples in later experience. A minister of the gospel upon going to a new sphere of service, conducted the first funeral in a drenching rain, and this in the winter. The conditions were dangerous to health, as well as unpleasant, and were also a hindrance to exhortations being given to the ungodly who often gather at the graveside. From that time, whenever a funeral was in prospect, prayer was publicly made unto God by that church, asking that rain should not fall during the interment. And during a period of nine years of ministry in that place, and for fifty successive funerals, held in every month of the year except the often fine month of July, that preacher never again conducted a funeral in the rain. No other form of effort than prayer can so work.
1 2 Timothy 4:20.