How I Know God Answers Prayer: The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time

Rosalind Goforth (1864-1942) and her husband Jonathan (1859-1936) were Canadian Presbyterian missionaries to China and Manchuria (1888-1934). Rosalind lost five of her ten children during her missionary service. Surviving the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Rosalind and Jonathan were also greatly affected by the Revival Lectures of Charles G. Finney in 1904, and went on to experience a Chinese extension of the Korean revivals after Jonathan visited Korea in 1907. Those Chinese revivals were documented in Jonathan Goforth's book, By My Spirit. Both took part in the Keswick meetings (1910), following their participation at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Troubled by the liberal tendencies of the Presbytery, i.e., the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the Goforths left the Home Board (1917). Free to evangelize where they chose, the Chinese Christian warlord, General Feng Yu-hsiang, invited Jonathan to minister to his troops (1919). Jonathan became totally blind in 1933, and when Rosalind became ill in 1934, they decided to return to Canada for good. Rosalind authored a biography of her husband, Goforth of China (1937), and an autobographical sketch of her own experiences, Climbing -- Memories of a Missionary's Wife (1940). Though Chapter 5 ("Our Deliverance from the Boxers" [1900]) would be considered one of the most riveting narrations of this book, it is the last two chapters ("To His Praise" and "Victory Found") that Mrs. Goforth details the Scriptural foundation for prayer and joyful Christian living: (1) a Bible study on prayer (Chapter 9), and (2) the realization of victory in Christ through resting in His indwelling presence (Chapter 10).