Vibration of Power

Hoffman Rockness:

 

Prayer was always Lilias’ refuge and recourse in “celestial combat,” as she perceived this on-going battle to be. An incident several years before had provided her with an object lesson of the power of persistent, coordinated prayers. One of the pillars that supported the gallery at Rue du Croissant fell into the court, carrying with it a block of masonry and a shower of bricks and tiles from the arch above. The architect who came to check the house for safety offered a probable cause of the collapse. Six or seven years previous, a native baker had installed himself in the house alongside them. Every night, for hours, year after year, two men swung on a huge seesaw that kneaded their bread, every blow vibrating through the house, resulting finally in the collapse of the pillar.

 Lilias then remembered an article she had read in Invention, a weekly periodical, in which this same phenomenon had been observed in several similar situations—soldiers walking in step over a bridge, the beating of looms, even the sustained sound of a violin on the note that chanced to be a bridge’s keynote—each resulting in the bringing down of a structure. 

She wrote: 

The words came with a flood of heavenly light.—If that is the power of unison in nature, what must be within its reach when it is translated into the Kingdom of Grace?—Now if we hold together—hold on long enough in the Name which is the keynote of Heaven, a vibration of power will be set up that will end in shaking to pieces the seemingly immoveable mass of opposition round us.

 (30 January 1896)

 Lilias was convinced that now, as never before, they were engaged in spiritual warfare that needed sustained, coordinated prayers, not knowing which prayer would liberate the answer, but knowing that each one would do its work.