Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, English abolitionist and statesman, on prayer. Buxton was a part of an extended family of missionaries around the world that included C.T. Studd and Norman Grubb. He was a strong advocate against slavery and for the rights and self-determination of indigenous people around the world.

“When I am out of heart, I follow David’s example and fly for refuge to prayer, and He furnishes me with a store of prayer…I am bound to acknowledge that I have always found that my prayers have been heard and answered; in almost every instance I have received what I have asked for. Hence, I feel permitted to offer up my prayers for everything that concerns me…. I am inclined to imagine that there are no little things with God. His hand is as manifest in the feathers of a butterfly’s wing, in the eye of an insect, in the folding and packing of a blossom, in the curious aqueducts by which a leaf is nourished, as in the creation of a world and in the laws by which the planets move. I understand literally the injunction: ‘in everything make your requests known unto God;’ and I cannot but notice how amply these prayers have been met.”

Header image via author, unnamed lake, Wallowa Mountains, Oregon.

Buxton’s image via dacb.org.