Invisible Helpers

CHAPTER II.

SOME MODERN INSTANCES.

Even in this incredulous age, and amidst the full whirl of our nineteenth-century civilization, in spite of the dogmatism of our science and the deadly dullness of our Protestantism, instances of intervention inexplicable from the materialistic standpoint may still be found by anyone who will take the trouble to look for them. To demonstrate this to the reader, I will briefly summarize a few of the examples given in recent collections of such stories, adding thereto one or two that have come within my own notice.

One very remarkable feature of these more recent examples is that the intervention seems almost always to have been directed toward the helping or saving of children.

An interesting case which occurred in London only a few years ago was connected with the preservation of a child’s life in the midst of a terrible fire that broke out in a street near Holborn and entirely destroyed two houses. The flames had taken such hold before they were discovered that the firemen were unable to save the buildings, but they succeeded in rescuing all the inmates except two: an old woman who was suffocated by the smoke before they could reach her, and a child about five years old, whose presence in the house had been forgotten in the hurry and excitement of the moment.