Lettie Cowman
1870 - 1960

      Lettie Cowman was a Wesleyan missionary to Japan who, with her husband Charles E. Cowman, co-founded the Oriental Missionary Society in 1901 for church planting in most of the world outside North America.

      Her books are devotionals she compiled from sermons, readings, writings, and poetry that she had encountered.

Showing 1 to 20 of 376 items.

A Bar of Steel
      "I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument" (Isa. 41:15). A bar of steel worth five dollars, when wrought into horseshoes, is worth ten dollars. If made into needles, it is worth three hundred and fifty dollars; if into penknife blades, it is worth thirty-two thousand dollars; if into springs for watches it is worth two hundred and fi ...read

A Door Opened in Heaven
      "A door opened in heaven" (Rev. 4:1). You must remember that John was in the Isle of Patmos, a lone, rocky, inhospitable prison, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And yet to him, under such circumstances, separated from all the loved ones of Ephesus; debarred from the worship of the Church; condemned to the companionship of uncon ...read

A Simple Prayer
      "I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me" (Acts 27:25). I went to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, "The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We ha ...read

A Very Present Help
      "Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?" (Psalm 10:1.) God is "a very present help in trouble." But He permits trouble to pursue us, as though He were indifferent to its overwhelming pressure, that we may be brought to the end of ourselves, and led to discover the treasure of darkness, the unmeasurable gains of tribulation. We may be sure that ...read

Above the Clouds
      "Men see not the bright light which is in the clouds" (Job 37:21). The world owes much of its beauty to cloudland. The unchanging blue of the Italian sky hardly compensates for the changefulness and glory of the clouds. Earth would become a wilderness apart from their ministry. There are clouds in human life, shadowing, refreshing, and sometim ...read

Abundantly Able
      "And being absolutely certain that whatever promise He is bound by, He is able to make good" (Rom. 4:20). We are told that Abraham could look at his own body and consider it as good as dead without being discouraged, because he was not looking at himself but at the Almighty One. He did not stagger at the promise, but stood straight up unben ...read

According to Our Faith
      "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matt. 9:29). "Praying through" might be defined as praying one's way into full faith, emerging while yet praying into the assurance that one has been accepted and heard, so that one becomes actually aware of receiving, by firmest anticipation and in advance of the event, the thing for which he asks. ...read

Achieving the Victory
      "For this our light and transitory burden of suffering is achieving for us a weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17). (Weymouth) "Is achieving for us," mark. The question is repeatedly asked--Why is the life of man drenched with so much blood, and blistered with so many tears? The answer is to be found in the word "achieving"; these things are ac ...read

Active Faith
      "If thou canst believe, all things are possible. to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). Seldom have we heard a better definition of faith than was given once in one of our meetings, by a dear old colored woman, as she answered the question of a young man how to take the Lord for needed help. In her characteristic way, pointing her finger towar ...read

After The Frost
      "Why go I mourning?" (Psalm 42:9). Canst thou answer this, believer? Canst thou find any reason why thou art so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told thee that the night would never end in day? Who told thee that the winter of thy discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow and ice, and h ...read

Alone
      "Alone" (Deut. 32:12). "The hill was steep, but cheered along the way By converse sweet, I mounted on the thought That so it might be till the height was reached; But suddenly a narrow winding path Appeared, and then the Master said, 'My child, Here thou wilt safest walk with Me alone.' "I trembled, yet my heart's deep trus ...read

Alone In The Desert
      "And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place" (Luke 9:10). In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and t ...read

Alone With God
      "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day" (Gen. 32:24). Left alone! What different sensations those words conjure up to each of us. To some they spell loneliness and desolation, to others rest and quiet. To be left alone without God, would be too awful for words, but to be left alone with Him i ...read

An Hour In The Garden
      "He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when evening was come, he was there alone" (Matt. 14:23). The man Christ Jesus felt the need of perfect solitude--Himself alone, entirely by Himself, alone with Himself. We know how much intercourse with men draws us away from ourselves and exhausts our powers. The man Christ Jesus knew this, too ...read

Appropriating Faith
      "Arise . . . for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good; and are ye still? Be not slothful to go, and enter to possess the land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth" (Judges 18:9, 10). Arise! Then there is something definite for us to do. Nothing is ours unless we t ...read

At Wit's End
      "At their wit's end, they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out" (Ps. 107:27, 28). Are you standing at "Wit's End Corner," Christian, with troubled brow? Are you thinking of what is before you, And all you are bearing now? Does all the world seem against you, And you in the battle alone? Remember--at "Wit's E ...read

Attitude of Trust
      "And it came to pass, before he had done speaking...and he said, Blessed be Jehovah...who hath not forsaken his lovingkindness and his truth" (Gen. 24:15, 27). Every right prayer is answered before the prayer itself is finished--before we have "done speaking." This is because God has pledged His Word to us that whatsoever we ask in Christ's n ...read

Badge of Christ
      "...bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments...and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue...that ye may took upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord" (Num. 15:38-39). God would have all His people wear a badge. They were to make them fringes in the borders of their garments, a ...read

Be Definite in Prayer
      "And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: Deliver me, I pray thee" (Gen. 32:9, 11). There are many healthy symptoms in that prayer. In some respects it may serve as a mould into which our own spirits may po ...read