Hudson Taylor Converted By Prayer

Do we completely underestimate the power of prayer in converting a soul? Reading the account of Hudson Taylor he seemed to have been converted almost entirely by the earnestness and consistency of prayer by his sister and his mother. In the hours preceding his conversion the prayer was prompted and directed by the Holy Spirit himself. Here's an edited extract, picking out the best bits from the book on pages 16-18:

I turned over a basket of pamphlets and selected from amongst them a Gospel tract that looked interesting, saying to myself, 'There will be a story at the commencement and a sermon or moral at the close. I will take the former and leave the latter for those who like it.'

[...]

Little did I know at the time what was going on in the heart of my mother, seventy or eighty miles away. She rose from the dinner table that afternoon with an intense yearning for the conversion of her boy; and feeling that, absent from home and having more leisure that she could otherwise secure, a special opportunity was afforded her of pleading with God on my behalf. She went to her room and turned the key in the door resolved not to leave the spot until her prayers were answered. Hour after hour that dear mother pleaded, until at length she could pray no longer, but was constrained to praise God for that which His Spirit taught her had already been accomplished, the conversion of her only son.

[...]

I in the meantime had been lead in the way I have mentioned to take up this little tract, and while reading it was struck with the phrase: 'The finished work of Christ'.

[...]

'What was finished?'

And I at once replied, 'A full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin. The debt was paid for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.'

Then came the further thought, 'If the whole work was finished and the whole debt paid, what is there left for me to do?'

And with this dawned the joyful conviction, as light flashed into my soul by the Holy Spirit, that there was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one's knees and, accepting this Saviour and His salvation, praise Him for evermore.

[...]

When mother returned a fortnight later I was the first to meet her at the door and to tell her I had such glad news to give. I can almost feel that dear mother's arms around my neck as she said, 'I know, my boy.'

[...]

My mother assured me that it was not from any human source she had learned the tidings, and went on to tell the incident mentioned above. You will agree with me that it would be strange indeed if I were not a believer in the power of prayer.

Nor this was all. Some time after, I picked up a pocket-book exactly like my own and, thinking it was mine, opened it. The lines that caught my eye were an entry in the little diary belonging to my sister, to the effect that she would give herself daily to prayer until God should answer in the conversion of her brother. One month later the Lord was pleased to turn me from darkness to light.

Brought up in such a circle and saved in such circumstances, it was perhaps natural that from the commencement of my Christian life I was lead to feel that the promises were very real, and that prayer was in sober matter of fact transacting business with God, whether on one's own behalf or on the behalf of those for whom one sought His blessing.

Biography of James Hudson Taylor, pages 16-18.