Power of Prayer Story: From Preachers Stories A. T. Pierson relates the following story: "Some years ago in the great State of Minnesota, the Granary of the West, there came a scourge of grasshoppers that threatened to destroy the whole wheat crop. The Governor, who was a very devout Christian, called upon the people to observe a day of fasting humiliation and prayer for the removal of the plague. Secular papers laughed this action to scorn, and scouted the idea of an appeal to God. Spring came, the wheat appeared and the grasshopper with it, and then the secular press said, 'What is the result of your day of prayer?' But after a little while as the grasshoppers grew, there came a parasite that not merely made the grasshopper impotent to destroy the wheat, but also impotent to propagate itself. And from that day there has been no scourge of grasshoppers in the State of Minnesota."