Stanley, the great African explorer, said: "Have I not joined the scoffers and smiled in contempt at such puerile ideas, and said, 'Prayers were well enough when we were children, but not now when I have lived so long without the sign of a miracle'? Yet prayer saved me, physically and spiritually.
"When my own jungle people have willfully misbehaved, after repeated warnings, I have prayed for that patience which would enable me to regard their crimes with mercy, and that my memory of their gross wickedness should be dulled; and after the prayer it has appeared to me that their crimes had lost the atrocity that I had previously detected in them.
"In all my expeditions prayer made me stronger, morally and mentally, than any of my non-praying companions."
Speaking of a desperate situation he writes: "And thus that night was passed in prayer, until the tired body could pray no more. But the next dawn, a few minutes after the march began, my people were restored to me, with food sufficient to save the perishing souls at the camp.
"I have evidence, satisfactory to myself, that prayers are granted. By prayer, the road sought for has become visible, and the danger immediately lessened, not once or twice or thrice, but repeatedly, until the cold, unbelieving heart was impressed.
"I have repeated the Lord's Prayer a countless number of times; but I must confess my thoughts have often wandered from the purport of the words. But when I have prayed for light to guide my followers wisely through perils which beset them, a ray of light has come upon my perplexed mind, and a clear road to deliverance has been pointed out." He adds: "When I have been earnest, I have received God's answer."
"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16.