Helps- h (i^Jyife:ofTfayef 
 
 -m 
 
 Rev J. M.- Manning B.B, 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OK Till-; 
 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BV 215 .M3 1875 
 I! Manning, Jacob M. 1824-1882 
 „ Helps to a life of prayer 
 

 r/i-^. 
 
 
HELPS 
 
 A LIFE OF PRAYER 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. J. M. manni:n^g, d. d., 
 
 TASTOK OF THE OLD SOrTH CntTECU, 
 BOSTOK. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 LEE, SHEPARD, AND DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1875. 
 
Entered, accordin-,' to Act of Congress, in the year isr4, 
 
 By lee and shepard, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 19 Spring Lane. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 My own study of the subject of Prayer, some 
 of the results of which are here gathered up, 
 has brought to me a fuller experience of the 
 nearness and love of God than I once had ; 
 and my earnest wish, in offering this volume 
 to the public, is, that others may find the same 
 blessed experience, or have it deepened within 
 them if it be already theirs. 
 
 J. M. M. 
 
 Old South Parsonage, 
 I^ecember, 1874. 
 

 ^^ 
 
 *\ rr% rr r^ r\ r r\ n r n ■'■ T /J 
 '>>^^ JL XI XU U ii U U A L -i-i. -Li^,// 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Nature of Prayer 9 
 
 II. Forms of Prayer 34 
 
 III. The Objects of Prayer 58 
 
 IV. The Fruits of Prayer 84 
 
 V. The Power of Prayer 109 
 
 VI. The Hour of Prayer 134 
 
:f PUKTCETOIT 
 
 \THS0L0GIG 
 PRAYER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE NATURE OF PRAYER. 
 
 The word " prayer " denotes, in its most gen- 
 Generai eral senso, any form of petition ; and 
 
 definition ., i £f i x i • p • 
 
 of the word 1^ ^^y ^^ ottered to equals or mieri- 
 " P'"^y^''-" ors no less than to superiors ; not only 
 to our Maker, but also to our fellow-man. Yet 
 the devout Christian is not pleased to hear the 
 term used in merely human relations; it is a 
 consecrated word, set apart from secular to sa- 
 cred uses. We do, in form at least, admit a 
 kind of sovereignty in those to whom we address 
 our prayer. Ostensibly we bow down before 
 them, and lift up our eyes reverently unto them, 
 as those who hold our destiny in their hand. 
 
 9 
 
10 PRAYER. 
 
 Such deference as this towards any man, or 
 assembly of men, seems to be inconsistent with 
 the doctrine of human equahty ; it strikes the 
 thoughtful mind as bordering on sacrilege, as 
 coming very near to idolatrous worship, and it 
 is tolerated only as a time-honored way of deal- 
 ing with persons in authority, in which not half 
 so much reverence is felt as professed. 
 
 Prayer, then, in its appropriate use, is always 
 a religious exercise. It brin2:s the 
 
 Eestricted, ° " 
 
 in usage, tu creaturo face to face with the Crea- 
 
 religioii. 
 
 tor. While man is speaking it is 
 God who giveth him audience ; the voice of 
 the finite child commands the ear of the infi- 
 nite Father. 
 
 But even in this its highest and most sacred 
 
 use, the word prayer may have either 
 ^etitk!n* a specific or a general meaning. In 
 
 strictness of speech, we pray unto God 
 only as we entreat him to bestow favors on 
 ourselves or others ; the exclamation of the 
 Pubhcan was strictly a prayer. It is said, 
 however, that the Pharisee stood and prayed, 
 though he only thanked God that he was able 
 
ITS NATURE. H 
 
 to have a very good opinion of himself. Here, 
 
 then, the word is used in its broader sense ; 
 
 and in this sense it is used throughout the 
 
 Scriptures, denoting any form of ad- 
 More gen- 
 erally any dress from man to his Maker. Our 
 
 Qod. ^ Lord taught his disciples to pray ; yet 
 the Lord's Prayer embraces much be- 
 sides the asking of favors from God. It begins 
 with an invocation ; we first recognize the 
 relation in which God stands to us, by calling 
 upon him as our Father. We then express hu- 
 mility and reverence by representing him as in 
 heaven, while we remember that we are on the 
 earth. Next our souls pour themselves forth 
 in adoration — ^' hallowed be thy name." From 
 this we rise to a view of the absolute dominion 
 of God, exclaiming, with ardent desire, 
 
 Example ^ t • t i mi i 
 
 of the " thy knigdom come, thy will be done 
 
 priyen ^^ earth as it is in heaven." Following 
 this is the petition — a prayer in the 
 strict and proper sense of the word, included 
 within the general address, which is also called 
 a prayer. And even this specific prayer con- 
 tains a confession of sin, and the claiming of a 
 
12 PRAYER. 
 
 certain worthiness on the part of the suppli- 
 ant, which he urges as a reason for his own 
 forgiveness. After these various utterances, we 
 still pray by submitting ourselves and all things 
 to God, ascribing unto him the kingdom, and 
 the power, and the glory. 
 
 From these examples it appears that any lan- 
 guage through which we address our- 
 
 AU com- /^ 1 1 1 1 
 
 muning selvcs to God — be that language ex- 
 ilprayhig. prcssivo of peniteuce, adoration, vows, 
 or desire — comes within the scrip- 
 tural definition of prayer. Talking or commun- 
 ing with God is the general truth which the 
 inspired writers have always in mind ; and so 
 solemn and overawing is God's presence, that 
 while we are conscious of speaking to him our 
 thoughts naturally take on reverent^ lowly, and 
 prayerful forms. 
 
 The Scriptures also reckon as prayer that 
 spirit of worship which makes us love to draw 
 nigh to God. When we are bidden to pray 
 without ceasing, as in Eph. 6:8, it cannot be 
 the outward act of praj^er which is enjoined, 
 since the command would then be wholly out of 
 
ITS NATURE. 13 
 
 our ability to perform. If faithful to all other 
 
 duties, we can spend but a small part of each 
 
 day in external acts of devotion. It is not to 
 
 an outward exercise, but to an habit- 
 
 An habit- 
 ual state of ual disposition ; not to audible prayer, 
 
 the soul. Pi«-i i-i->M-i 
 
 but to a prayerful spirit, that the Bible 
 refers when it tells us to pray without ceasing. 
 In this devoutness of the renewed soul we find 
 the last and holiest meaning of the term prayer. 
 It is to this inward flame, ever mounting up unto 
 God, that the apostle points when he says, " pray- 
 ing always with all prayer and supplication in 
 the spirit." By praying in the spirit he evi- 
 dently means to say that avc must be under the 
 guidance of the Holy Ghost, in order that we 
 may rightly offer up our requests to God. And 
 since the blessed Comforter comes to us in- 
 wardly, not outwardly, this phrase, ^3ra?/i?i^ in 
 the spirit, also teaches us that true prayei' 
 never consists in the external form, but in the 
 desires and aspirations of the soul. Therefore 
 it is no periodic utterances of articulate or 
 audible prayers, but the hidden life of commu- 
 nion with God, which the Scriptures enjoin. St. 
 
14 PRA YER. 
 
 Paul may properly exhort us to pray always, 
 since by prayer he means a kind of divine 
 friendship and intimacy, a walking and talk- 
 ing in spirit with our God. Such being the 
 nature and essence of everything worthy to 
 be called prayer, we can readily see how it 
 becomes a constant and life-long duty, and why 
 all men should give it their most earnest and 
 sacred heed. 
 
 There is, then, such a thing as secular prayer, 
 but more properly the word conveys a religious 
 idea ; also, as expressive of worship towards 
 God, it may be either specific or general, — 
 denoting simply requests made to him, or, more 
 broadly, an?/ utterance designed for his ear ; 
 and in this divine relation the word may denote 
 either the formal act of prayer, or the un- 
 spoken sjoirit of devotion. Of these five dif- 
 ferent meanings which the word may have, 
 the last seems most important ; not 
 
 This in- . 
 
 Avardiiabit ouly bccauso it alone may be a con- 
 p'orLnT. stant and indwelling habit, but be- 
 cause it is the fountain and inner 
 substance of the others. Prayerfulness is the 
 
ITS NATURE. 15 
 
 root and the life of all forms of prayer. It 
 may be called a divine societj^, for it makes 
 God the daily companion of the praying spirit, 
 — he comes and takes up his abode with it. 
 It is an uninterrupted intercourse and commun- 
 ion of soul. Whoever prays after this manner 
 dwells in God and God in him, so that it may 
 be said of him, in the strong words of Chrys- 
 ostom, that his entire life is an unbroken 
 prayer. 
 
 Let me ask you, therefore, to attend a little 
 ^jjj^tjg further to this apostolic definition of 
 involved. prayer, that we may not be mistaken 
 as to what it is or what it involves. 
 
 1. Prayerfulness, or praying in the spirit, pre- 
 supposes, /?rsf, some degree of likeness to God 
 in character. This inward life of prayer is 
 fellowship with God, and there can be no real 
 fellowship between those whose char- 
 
 Must be 1 11 T • M 
 
 moral like- actcrs and tastes are wholly dissimilar. 
 Q^J^j" ° A thorough metaphysician can have 
 
 but little intellectual sympathy with 
 one who is given up to po&-tiy. The man of 
 retirement and thought is seldom congenial 
 
16 PRA YER. 
 
 to the man of affairs. Their callings in life 
 develop opposite tastes, different social wants. 
 If the pastor of a church is consecrated to liis 
 divine studies, in the midst of a people whom 
 God has called to the varied pursuits of this 
 life, they will often find it a little hard to be 
 entirely at ease and free in each other's 
 
 Opposites 1 • 1 
 
 cannot be compauy, howcvcr great their mutual 
 ship. ^^ \oYQi and esteem may be. Allowance 
 must be made for the effect of differ- 
 ent kinds of earthly discipline, or there can be 
 no Christian brotherhood. Charity, oftentimes, 
 is but another name for this social hospitality. 
 Men are like musical instruments. If two 
 violins have been tuned to a different key, it 
 is in vain that we strive to pla}' them in har- 
 mony; they will give forth only dis- 
 
 Antipa- 
 
 thicsin cords. In the world of matter there 
 are attractions and repulsions ; from 
 which fact some ancient sages inferred that the 
 particles of matter have active and intelligent 
 souls, which prompt them to seek out and be 
 united with homogeneous atoms, and to repel 
 their opposites. Just so is it in things spiritual. 
 
ITS NATURE. . 17 
 
 In morals and religion, more than anywhere else^ 
 sympathies and antipathies show themselves. 
 Souls which have been differently tuned will but 
 clash when we attempt to make them move in 
 unison. What fellowship hath righteousness with 
 unrighteousness ? or what part hath he that be- 
 lieveth with him that is an infidel ? is the 
 argument in Corinthians. There can be no 
 mutual confidence or intimacy between two 
 persons, one of whom is goverfened by 
 
 Moral dif- , 
 
 ferences conscicnce and the other by semshness. 
 
 irrecon- 
 
 cilable. ^^ is those of like character, and that, 
 
 too, a holy and upright character, who 
 become true friends, and are gradually drawn 
 into the bonds of social endearment. Neither 
 with the good nor among themselves can the 
 evil be long at peace. Every unrenewed soul 
 is itself the field of a perpetual war. But 
 Christians would, without any divine command 
 to that effect, be drawn together into perma- 
 nent fellowship. The church rests 
 
 A natural 
 
 law makes upon a law 01 uaturc. ihe renewed 
 soul obeys its own impulse, as well 
 as the word of God, when it seeks member- 
 2 
 
18 PRAYER. 
 
 ship in the church. So far as the spirit of glory 
 and of God rests on them, Christians have a 
 strong propensity to this fellowship one with 
 another, under the covenants. It is a witness 
 that. we have passed from death unto life, that 
 we have this drawing of soul towards all 
 Christians. 
 
 And now, if an immoral person can have no 
 oneness of spirit with a good man, how much 
 more true must it be that he can have no com- 
 munion with God ! Our God is perfect in holi- 
 ness ; he cannot look on sin, save with infinite 
 abhorrence ; he turns away, with immeasurable 
 loathing, from every impure act or desire. We 
 cannot pray in spirit unto such a God, while 
 we have no spiritual likeness to him. What 
 
 fellowship hath light with darkness ? 
 else so op- what coucord is there between Christ 
 as God!' ^'° and Belial? what agreement liath the 
 
 temple of God with idols ? Our God 
 shows great and tender love for us when he 
 says. '^ Be ye holy.'' The argument is, '^ for I 
 am holy." That is to say, communion with me 
 is the crowning blessing of your life ; but I 
 
ITS NATURE. 19 
 
 am holy; therefore you must be holy in order 
 to that communion. Our Saviour expresses the 
 same truth in the sixth beatitude : ^' Blessed 
 are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 God is pure ; therefore we must be pure, or no 
 vision of his radiant person can ever be vouch- 
 safed us. The character he bids us build up 
 in ourselves is indispensable to any sweet in- 
 tercourse with him. That soul whose true 
 life is not a partaking of the life of 
 
 Only the r^ -, n n i • 
 
 holy can God, may utter forms of prayer, but it 
 
 have union . . , t j. i i 
 
 with God. cannot pray ; its suppliant phrases, and 
 the glowing rhapsodies with which it 
 may charm human ears, do not enter into the 
 ear of the Lord of Sabaoth. There is no 
 child's cry in them, and hence they meet no 
 answering throb in the Father's heart. 
 
 But am I not like God ? asks the natural, 
 
 unrenewed man, who thinks that it is 
 
 of nature praying to say prayers. Yes, God 
 
 notenoiigr.. j^^^^ ^g jj^ j^'g \^^^gQ j and uo amouut 
 
 of sinning can quite efface that image from our 
 nature. But it is only a likeness in our nature, 
 not in our character — an. essential, not a moral 
 
20 PR A YER. 
 
 resemblance. It is involuntary ; something, that 
 is, which we cannot help having ; it exists 
 while we are unconscious of it; nor can it be 
 subjected to the dominion of our will. Plainly, 
 then, this likeness to God in our nature is not 
 that agreement with him which is presupposed 
 in the offering of acceptable prayer. It is 
 simply a basis, on which we are to rear 
 
 A godly 
 
 character up a lioly cliaractcr for ourselves ; and 
 this holy character is what brings us 
 into real and blessed intercourse with God. 
 There may l)e a kind of intellectual coming 
 to him, and our natural feelings may gush 
 forth after him, while there is no true holiness 
 of soul ; it does not constitute that free consent 
 by which the pure spirit rests in God. There is 
 no blending of the human will with the divine, no 
 trustfulness, no sweet self-surrender, no giving 
 up to the father by the child. Many persons 
 are awed by the attributes of God ; they love 
 to be bathed in the ocean of his greatness, 
 and to feel his majesty creeping like a charmed 
 shadow upon them. The glory of his creation, 
 and the grandeur of his government, make them 
 
ITS NATURE. 21 
 
 tremble and adore ; and they speak sublimely 
 of his goings forth to work wonders 
 
 Intellect- 
 ual excite- m heaven above and the earth beneath. 
 
 "oTthe^ So strong is this response in our nature 
 
 spirit of ^Q ^Y\Q divine s^lories, that we may mis- 
 prayer. <=' *' 
 
 take it for genuine adoration of God. 
 The poet often thinks that his mental uplifting 
 and wondering are a real communion with God. 
 He writes lofty hymns of praise, which go down 
 through the ages as the outflo wings of a Chris- 
 tian spirit ; yet in it all there may be no loving 
 consent and agreement of his will with the will 
 of the Most High. He can turn away from 
 his raptures about God, to be affected in the 
 
 same manner by his contemplations 
 
 A prayerful 
 
 spirit dif- amid the beauties and sublimities of 
 poetical ° "the material world. It is not the 
 feeling. holiucss of God that charms him^ 
 
 and draws him up into an ecstasy ; he loves 
 that great Being only as he loves the cataract, 
 the Alpine scene, the spangled heavens, or 
 the ocean storm. He takes the poet's pleasure 
 in what is grand, or radiant, or majestic, or 
 awful, in God and his ways ; but he does not 
 
22 PRA YER. 
 
 feel the lowly joy of the Christian, who is drawn 
 to God most of all by his holy and compassion- 
 ate character. It is this moral likeness to God, 
 built up by ourselves under the movings of 
 the Holy Ghost upon that natural likeness in 
 which man was created, that renders us in the 
 truest sense like our God. Nothing else, how- 
 ever pleasing or admirable it may be, can 
 fit us for communion with him ; and 
 
 None but ... i i • n i p 
 
 thegodiy hence it is involved in all the lorms oi 
 true prayer, as it is the substance and 
 soul of a prayerful spirit. We can pour out 
 our souls to God in prayer, and lean upon his 
 goodness with a constant and joyous trust, only 
 as we like him, — breathing his spirit of holi- 
 ness, and filling all our purposes and acts with 
 his own perfect love. 
 
 2. A second element, which enters into the 
 very idea and essence of a prayerful 
 
 God is real .... , . p /n i 
 
 to the soul spirit, is the clear apprehension 01 God 
 
 while it .1 111 
 
 prays. ^^ prcscut and near to the praying 
 
 soul. God is always with us, but we 
 
 are apt to forget this solemn truth. He listens 
 
 to our idle words, he sees our conduct, he knows 
 
ITS NATURE. 23 
 
 our thoughts. But this nearness and oversight 
 are not always kept in mind by us. We go 
 on our several ways as if no divine eye were 
 looking. We hide iniquity in our hearts, seeming 
 not to remember that even they are naked and 
 open to Him with whom we have to do. This 
 delusion we must overcome before we can truly 
 pray. Our souls can commune with God only 
 as their apprehension of him as a God at hand, 
 and not afar off, is clear. That is not a prayer to 
 God which we offer with no faith that it enters 
 into his ear. How absurd it would be in us to 
 call out for help to a person on the other side of 
 the globe ! But we ask God for help every day. 
 We speak to him aloud and in whis- 
 
 Cannot 
 
 address the pcrs, and WO lilt up our hearts to him 
 11^1/^ silently for his blessing; nor do we 
 regard this speaking to him as at all 
 absurd. Do we not, therefore, in form at least, 
 assent to the truth that God is with us, giving 
 us audience when we come before him in 
 prayer ? And what we take for granted in 
 form, is what there must indeed be in our souls, 
 or our utterance is not praying. '^ Give ear. 
 
24 PRA YER. 
 
 Shepherd of Israel," say ^v^e, as we stand 
 in that august presence. But if our hearts 
 feel not what our lips speak, it is only a solemn 
 sound on a thoughtless tongue. ^- We cannot 
 escape from thy presence, nor go from thy 
 Spirit," is the uplifted voice of the congre- 
 gation ; but do we, in our public wor- 
 
 \Yhat our 
 
 prayers be- ship, apprehend tlie truth thus con- 
 
 h.ck the fessed ? If not, there is no seeing 
 Virion of ^f (.^^ ^1^^ g^^j^^g ^^Q^g ^g ^^^ 
 
 God. 
 
 bends down to our cr}^ ; and hence 
 there can be no fellowship Avith him, no min- 
 gling of our spirit with his, nothing which 
 answers to the essential idea of prayer. He 
 that Cometh to God must believe that God is, 
 and that he rewards those who diligently seek 
 him. How many times we utter the words of 
 prayer when there is no such object of faith 
 before us ! We go into our closet and shut 
 the door upon the world, but God is not with 
 us in our room. We try to recall our mercies 
 and our sins, but they appear before us only in 
 a confused and partial manner. Neither grati- 
 tude nor penitence comes at our bidding. If 
 
ITS NATURE. 25 
 
 we take the attitude of petition, still the foun- 
 tains of feeling are not unloosed. It is a heart- 
 less service, an irksome duty. Christ 
 
 Such . 
 
 prayers cometli uot lu through the door to 
 ^„^ '^ feed and refresh our souls. On the 
 contrary, if we hear the voice of Christ 
 as . he stands without and knocks, and admit 
 him to actual communion with our spirit, how 
 we are lifted up, calmed and refreshed by the 
 hour of prayer ! Thus only do we really begin 
 to pray, and to feel in ourselves the water which 
 Christ gives springing up into everlasting life. 
 It is idle in us to spread forth our hands in 
 prayer while we have no sense of a present 
 Father. We may look towards heaven ; but 
 " I will not hear you," saith the Lord ; "• yea, 
 when ye make many prayers, I will not hear." 
 There may be reverence of manner, subdued 
 tones of voice, much appropriate and touching 
 expression. Human feelings may rise uj) to- 
 gether, and all hearts be borne away on one 
 wave of sympathy ; but there is no coming 
 of the soul into God's embrace, where alone 
 the answer of peace can be received. This 
 
26 PJ^A YER. 
 
 flow of the natural feelings subsides, and the 
 
 worshipper grows still and calm in spirit, as 
 
 he really prays. How can our souls be 
 
 Tho calm • i i m i 
 
 joy or" agitated while they are conscious oi 
 
 prayer. leaning on Him who hushes the storm ? 
 
 " I have set the Lord on my right hand ; there- 
 fore will I never be moved/' said the Psalmist. 
 This quietness of the praying heart is not 
 stoicism ; it is the peace of God. Like Jacob 
 of old, we may be driven away from our home, 
 knowing that an enemy seeks our life. We may 
 lie down as he did — wanderers, sheltered only 
 by the firmanent, making a stone our pilloAv, the 
 cold earth a bed to us in our weariness ; but 
 when we remember in whose hand we are, 
 and turn over in our mind the truth of 
 
 It makes 
 
 the desert his presoncc, till he stands out to our 
 faith in the glory and blessedness of 
 his person, the bended sky becomes to us 
 the canopy of the great white throne, and its 
 hosts of stars the crowns which are cast at 
 Christ's feet. Joining in the worship of the 
 hundred and forty-four thousand, we breathe 
 our spirit forth with them in prayer to Him 
 
ITS NATURE. 27 
 
 that sitteth on the throne. The answers of 
 God, coming down to us while our requests 
 rise to him, are like the angels on the ancient 
 ladder ascending and descending ; communion 
 with the Father of our spirits makes the des- 
 ert a Bethel, and the place of danger and 
 gloom is the gate of heaven. We may, in 
 public or among our friends, offer prayers 
 when we have no clear recognition of a pres- 
 ent and listening God. We may speak out our 
 wants into vacancy, thinking only of the rhe- 
 torical beauty of our sentences, or the logical 
 arrangement of our thoughts, or whether those 
 who join with us are pleased with what we say ; 
 but our souls will sink down unrefreshed after 
 the exercise : on the other hand, if we come 
 in faith to Him who hears prayer, — if we 
 forget all else in the eagerness of our souls to 
 be poured out into his open heart, — it 
 utterance mattcrs not liow confuscd, or how brief, 
 t^e yearn- ^r liow stammcriug our utterance may 
 ing heart. -j^^ . -^^ ^.'jj ^.-g^ ^^'^j^ acceptaucc iuto 
 
 the ear of the Lord of hosts, and we shall receive 
 of his own joy till our joy is full. It was in vain 
 
28 PI^A yER. 
 
 that the disciples continued toiling and rowing 
 while they forgot Him who lay asleep in the 
 hinder part of the ship. But when they re- 
 membered that he was with them, and called out 
 for help to him with a strong and yearning cry, 
 the Lord of nature arose and rebuked the wind, 
 the majesty of his word hushing the storm 
 and subduing the waves to an unAVonted calm. 
 3. One other element essential to the idea of 
 true prayer is a feeling of dependence on God. 
 It is not enough that our character 
 ofdepen- sliould bc like his, and that we should 
 semhiHo know him as present and listening 
 prayer. while WB pray ; we must also feel that 
 he is immeasurably greater than we, and that 
 the sources of our being are in him. Every one 
 grants that such a feeling is involved in all 
 honest prayer. We never heartily ask another 
 to bestow on us what we believe that our 
 own efforts must secure. Herein is the lack 
 which spoils very many of our prayers ; wc 
 deny in our heart what we say with our 
 tongue. There is a form, but while offering it 
 we distrust its power. The confesson of de- 
 
ITS NATURE. 29 
 
 pendence flows on while inwardly there is no 
 
 real trust. Our reliance is upon second causes, 
 
 rather than the great First Cause. These second 
 
 causes are God's instruments ; through 
 
 God often 
 
 hidden by them he works to bless us. They are 
 causes. visible and tangible, and we are in the 
 
 midst of them every day ; while he 
 himself is impalpable, unseen save by the eye 
 of faith. The spring comes to us fresh and 
 smiling, and we see the working of natural 
 law in the renewing of the earth's face ; but 
 we do not hear the divine voice which recalls 
 the sun from his winter journey. We feel 
 the solar rays, but not Him who gives them 
 their heat — who breathes his own energy into 
 them that they may melt the cheerless covering 
 of nature. Our God, whom we hear not, and 
 whose glory it is to conceal a thing, takes hold 
 of these created agents, and through them un- 
 looses, with his own hand, the ice-bound waters ; 
 he makes soft the earth with showers, 
 and causes the grass to grow on the 
 mountains, and the valleys to be cov- 
 ered over with corn. So is it in all the 
 
 ' # 
 
 "Natural 
 forces noth- 
 ing without 
 God. 
 
30 PRA YER, 
 
 processes of nature ; so is it in the small events 
 which make up the providential allotments of 
 each hour. But we are apt to be absorbed in 
 what appears outwardly, to the exclusion of 
 Him who works within all objects, processes, 
 or events. That omnipotent hand which has 
 hold of the whole system of natural appliances 
 is hidden from our sight : and we stand in the 
 midst of the passive vehicles of God's love, 
 saying one to another, " These be thy gods, 
 Israel." Thus it is that many persons come 
 to worship the creature more than the Creator. 
 The universal frame of nature is their God. 
 They worship that which were a dead and 
 motionless structure but for Him who is won- 
 derful in working ; for as the body without 
 the spirit is dead, so nature without God is 
 lifeless and unmeaning. This naturalism, of 
 which some about us are making their boast, 
 puts a great gulf between man and God ; be- 
 tween the heavens and Him whose 
 worship a glory the heavens declare. It knows 
 terfir"" nothing of a supreme Father; does 
 not deign even to ask whether there 
 
ITS NATURE. 31 
 
 be any God ; locates human wisdom in the 
 study of nature, and all happiness in depen- 
 dence on nature's laws. The friends of this 
 philosophy, as in simple consistency they must, 
 deny that there is any power in prayer. They 
 have reared up their system to an imposing 
 height, and fitly framed it together in all its 
 parts ; but they confess that they know not 
 on what it stands. There is no recognition 
 of the hand which holds the wondrous fabric 
 of nature in its grasp. 
 
 Now, if we fall under the power of this earthly- 
 mindedness, and come to regard all our bless- 
 ings as the fruit of our own sagacious use 
 of natural forces, — if our sweet slumber, and 
 the enlivening air, our daily bread, our friend- 
 ships, the riches of this life, and our spiritual 
 favors, — seem to us not to come from God, but 
 from agents and influences which we may. ^con- 
 trol, we cannot offer up our prayers 
 conscious and thanksgivings to God for all these 
 thich"God mercies. We lack that spirit of a child 
 only can whicli is 2:reat in the kino-dom of heav- 
 
 supply. o o 
 
 en. The humble Christian does not 
 
32 PRAYER. 
 
 despise the means appointed of God for securing 
 blessings to men ; but he does look beyond these 
 means always, not suffering them to obscure his 
 view of the supreme and constant love of his 
 heavenly Father. Nothing can separate between 
 us and him so long as we have in us the essence 
 and substance of a praying spirit. Our soul 
 stands related to God as a beam of light to the 
 sun. Though it warm the earth by its low- 
 descending touch, yet it is ever mounting up 
 into its great fountain. The human and divine 
 meet and mingle. They throb with a single life 
 — the life of holiness and love, whose centre 
 is God. Their intercourse is unobstructed ; and 
 while the spirit of the Father is gushing down- 
 ward in heavenly benedictions, the spirit of the 
 child is ever rising upward into his bosom in 
 trustful and adoring prayer. 
 
 Christian, are you ever dissatisfied with your 
 prayers? 0, let not that regret be for the 
 reason that your prayers have been imperfect 
 in form ; for the reason that you have failed 
 to edify a human auditory, or have used broken 
 words or sentences which can lay no claim to 
 
ITS NATURE. 33 
 
 elegance, comprehensiveness of thought, or a 
 happy interweaving of incidents and inspired 
 texts. Let it be the occasion of your sorrow, 
 rather, if you have lacked the essential elements 
 of a prayerful spirit ; if you have not any moral 
 likeness to Him who is holy, and benevolent, 
 and merciful ; if you fail to apprehend God as 
 near and listening to you while you 
 
 What we 
 
 should most pray ; if you find it hard to look through 
 our pray- ^^^ crcatcd causos to Him who is the 
 ^"' Hope and the Helper of the children of 
 
 men. If you are destitute of this inward spirit 
 of prayer, your most graceful form of devo- 
 tion is but as the marble statue of an angel, 
 cold and motionless ; but if your soul is in 
 fellowship with God after the manner I have 
 here sought to impress, even the rudest 
 spirit will form of speech shall be a living seraph, 
 
 make the i • j r xr 
 
 form. bearmg you away upward irom the 
 
 care and turmoil of this world, to be 
 rested and refreshed in the arms of that love 
 which is from everlasting to everlasting. 
 3 
 
34 PRA YER, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FORMS OF PRAYER. 
 
 We love to give expression to our strong feel- 
 ings and thoughts. Whatever may^the mood or 
 sentiment swelling within our mind, we seek to 
 utter it in words which shall return it to us 
 audibly through the ear, or we strive to embody 
 it in artistic forms and colors, which give it back 
 through the ministry of the eye. This embody- 
 ing of our inward states of soul makes them 
 real and impressive to us. They are thereby 
 made to stand out vividly to our memory and 
 in our consciousness. Our emotions are greatly 
 increased, both in fullness and power, by these 
 outward embodiments ; they speak back to the 
 soul with a marvellous sympathy ; they re-echo 
 to it its deepest and most sacred self-commun- 
 ings. RafFaelle labored to express his dream 
 
ITS FORMS. 35 
 
 of beauty ; his nature demanded it of him ; he 
 
 could not help being the great artist that he was. 
 
 Love of scientific truth was a passion 
 
 Mental ^ 
 
 states seek in Galilco, and it was impossible for 
 
 a body. • i i 
 
 mm not to utter that passion; though 
 the terrors of the Inquisition hung over him, 
 they failed to keep him silent. It is a common 
 remark that, while many men have been able 
 to wute no book, few men have been able to 
 write only one book. The more one publishes 
 his thoughts, the stronger is the impulse to keep 
 on publishing them. The expression given to 
 a single thought reacts on the mind to awaken 
 other thoughts. The longer a preacher of the 
 gospel continues to preach, the harder is it for 
 him to cease from preaching. The more Luther 
 meditated, the more urgent were his thoughts 
 to be spoken ; and therefore he could not keep 
 still before the Imperial Diet, though he took his 
 life in his hand. Paul longed to preach Christ : 
 it was his one burning and soul-filling desire ; 
 and therefore it was not possible for him to be 
 silent. " Necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe 
 is me if I preach not the gospel," he exclaims. 
 
36 PRA YER. 
 
 When Jesus rode in triumph into Jerusalem, the 
 multitude, being full of a grateful joy, praised 
 God, saying, " Blessed is he that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord." It was in vain that the 
 Pharisees rebuked the people. The very stones 
 would have cried out had man kept silent in 
 such an hour. Trying to stay that gush of joy 
 was like commanding a river to flow upward to 
 its source. The authors of the Psalms were men 
 of prayer ; David especially lived a life of com- 
 munion with God, and hence almost all his 
 writings are prayers — external forms 
 forms of and embodiments of this inward habit. 
 
 prayer. 
 
 The spirit of prayer in him did not 
 need to be goaded to an expression of itself; it 
 flowed out spontaneously and irresistibly. If 
 he strove to be silent he was burdened with 
 longing ; his bones wasted away under the re- 
 straint thus laid on him. 
 
 Perhaps no brighter instance of the impulse 
 The story of ^ praycrful spirit to seek expres- 
 ofDaniei. ^-^^^ ^^^ y^^ fouud than is brought to 
 
 our notice in the story of Daniel. By the con- 
 trivance of certain envious courtiers a decree 
 
ITS FORMS. 37 
 
 had been issued, having special reference to 
 this godly captive, ordering that prayer should 
 be made to no being but Darius in his kingdom. 
 Should any one be detected breaking this de- 
 cree, he was to be thrown to the lions — the 
 most frightful and ignominious of punishments. 
 Daniel might have prayed secretly and inaudibly 
 without being found out; but this was not his 
 custom, nor did it agree with his convictions of 
 duty. He could show a nobler trust in God, 
 and more fully unburden his heart by speaking 
 audibly; nor might he hope that his prayer 
 would enter into the divine ear if he allowed 
 himself to be controlled by any fear of man. 
 Therefore, although he knew that the writing 
 was signed, — his death-warrant if he persisted 
 in praying, — he went into his house, boldly 
 opened the windows, kneeled upon his knees 
 three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks 
 to God as aforetime. 
 
 From the case of Daniel, then, and from the 
 other examples and illustrations just given, we 
 infer that forms of prayer are a necessity to the 
 praying soul. That soul must speak forth its 
 
38 PRA YER. 
 
 inward state — an inward state which consists 
 in likeness of character to God, a clear appre- 
 hension of the presence of God, and a sense of 
 loving dependence on God.^- The nature of a 
 prayerful spirit, as thus briefly defined, indi- 
 cates in what ways and forms it may most 
 properly indulge the impulse which 
 
 How to 
 
 determine it fcels to scck outward cxpression. 
 forms of Bearing in mind the universal law of 
 ^^^^^^' speech, that it should correspond to 
 the feeling or thought which it embodies, we 
 are prepared to consider some of the methods 
 by which the praying soul may give utterance 
 to its longings. 
 
 1. The first and most natural way in which a 
 
 prayerful spirit utters itself, especially if its 
 
 burden be very great and urgent, is by ejacu- 
 
 latory prayer. This form of prayer has 
 
 Ejacula- 
 
 tory some peculiar advantages ; it may be 
 
 used in the midst of peril and confu- 
 sion. It is a momentary act. In such utterances 
 the hard-pressed soul gathers itself into a short, 
 sharp cry, and so is hurled, as by an in- 
 
 * See previous chapter. 
 
ITS FORMS. 39 
 
 stantaneous impulse, into the arms of its God. 
 This form of prayer, though so befitting the 
 sudden exigencies of our lives, is susceptible 
 of many perversions and of very great abuse. 
 Those who practise it too freely may fall into 
 the habit of irreverent and profane exclamations 
 before they are aware. These pious ejaculations 
 are suited only to a prayerful spirit ; and if ut- 
 tered when no heavy burden is crushing the soul 
 down, they are too intense to be true. Yet how 
 common are these exclamations, even among 
 ungodly men ! It is a fact worthy of our most 
 serious study that what we call profane language 
 grows out of the same want in human nature as 
 Abuse of "the habit of prayer ; the blasphemies of 
 this form. gi^iniei and the prayers of David have 
 but one natural root. There is a feeling of de- 
 pendence on God planted in all human hearts ; 
 and when that feeling is suddenly aroused in any 
 one, his first impulse is to call on the name of 
 God. With the irreligious person as with the 
 religious, this calling upon God may grow to be a 
 habit ; and so, whatever the passion which moves 
 him, — though a storm of anger, as it is most 
 
40 PRA YER. 
 
 likely to be, — he utters it in words sacred to 
 prayer. Hence the profaneness, the sacrilege 
 which shocks our souls. He acts under the 
 natural impulse of a wicked heart ; there are in 
 him none of the elements of character and feeling 
 which all true prayer involves. He makes the 
 channel of divine communion a vehicle for 
 his earthly passion; it is as though the Sab- 
 bath were changed to a holiday, or the tem- 
 ple of God were used for a playhouse. His 
 language might be prayer if it came from a 
 heart right with God ; but falling as it does 
 from sinful lips, the stain of blasphemy is upon 
 it. Do not fail to mark the fact here brought 
 out, dear reader, if you are ever tempted to 
 the careless use of words and phrases which 
 are sacred. Your evil habit proves 
 
 Debases 
 
 what is best to you that you have an instinctive 
 feeling of dependence on God. It is 
 also your noblest feeling, since by it you come 
 into communion with God : what shame and re- 
 morse therefore should fill you if you have made 
 this high capacity do the work of your worst 
 and lowest impulses ! 
 
ITS FORMS. 41 
 
 No one should be so bold as to use this form 
 of prayer who is not sure that he has the love 
 of God in his heart; nor he even, save when, 
 with a spirit which can say, '^ Thy will be done," 
 he leaps upward, out of the reach of some pur- 
 suing terror, to embrace the knees of the Eter- 
 nal King who alone can deliver him. Whoever 
 hurls forth these emotional phrases without any 
 sense of the divine presence, and of his own 
 utter dependence on God, does not pray ; he 
 simply uses vain repetitions, such as our Sa- 
 viour warns us against. Prayerful ejac- 
 
 When 
 
 ejacuiatory ulations are fit only for the soul which 
 proper.^ ^'^^ somo mighty emotion has heaved up 
 and cast at the very footstool of God. 
 It is they that are hunted for their lives who 
 may venture to cry out with David, " Aioake for 
 me, Lord." There was no blasphemy in the 
 tongue of the publican; for he smote on his 
 breast in guilty grief, and out of a heart torn 
 by remorse, cried, " God be merciful." '*' My 
 God, art thou dead?" was the wild cry of Lu- 
 ther's heart once, as he lost the sense of God's 
 presence in the midst of his enemies. Such 
 
42 PJ^A YER. 
 
 expressions as these are not the vehicles to 
 which the praying soul resorts in its calm and 
 unimpassioned hours ; it chooses gentler wings 
 on which its quiet thoughts may soar. But 
 when these intense words burst like red-hot 
 balls out of hearts rent by the tumult of an- 
 guish and despair, then we may believe that 
 they are true to the inner yearnings of God's 
 struggling child, and that they are not more 
 swift to reach his throne than are his fatherly 
 compassions to fly downward for our relief. 
 
 2. But these sudden bursts of emotion do not 
 realize the idea of communion with God. They 
 are only momentary infoldings of God's love. 
 They do not satisfy the praying soul, which 
 longs for quiet retreats, where it may nestle 
 in the everlasting arms. Hence the habit of 
 Secret secret prayer. A truly devotional 
 
 prayer. frame will take this form as natu- 
 
 rally as a tree sends out its roots by the river. 
 Secret prayer has ever been a delight to holy 
 men. Every day has brought them to its blessed 
 observance, and they have come from it with 
 radiant faces. It is true that many professing 
 
ITS FORMS. 43 
 
 Christians have no closet, but such are not the 
 victorious and rejoicing children of God. It is 
 the unquickened, earth-bound soul to which this 
 frequent retirement is a drudgery and form. He 
 goes into the secret place having no lively fel- 
 lowship with Christ. He does not walk and talk 
 with God, and therefore fails to find him in the 
 cool of the day. There is no breathing upward 
 of his spirit through^the reverent words which 
 he utters into the dear heart of a pres- 
 
 Why neg- 
 lected by ent and loving Father. The prayer is 
 
 man}'. 
 
 empty and worthless because it is not 
 born of a praying spirit. Those affections whioh 
 should be growing up around Christ and taking 
 hold of God, are earth-clinging and prone. No 
 wonder that such an one comes from his closet 
 unrefreshed. He lacks a prayerful spirit — the 
 first prerequisite to all living forms of prayer. 
 Those who refuse to pray save as it suits their 
 feelings, and who therefore have no stated times 
 for praj^er, should remember that it is possible 
 for them to feel at all times like praying. This 
 lack of feeling or impulse never comes in to 
 fret the soaring and prevailing soul. He is 
 
44 PRA YER. 
 
 always ready for his hours of converse with 
 God, and meets them with a deepening thirst 
 for the water of life. They are channels open- 
 ing upward, through which the longings of his 
 heart flow into the love of God. So far are 
 they from putting the least check on his free- 
 dom that they alone are able to make him free 
 indeed. His soul would be cramped and sad 
 but for this opportunity *o open itself to its 
 incoming God. Whoever has true spiritual life 
 dwelling in him and filling him is not 
 make our sorrowful, but morc pleased the oftener 
 
 closets a ]^ j^™ '^^ ^^^ J'^^ ^^ OUtfloW, Or 
 
 delight. '' ° ' 
 
 feel it enlarged by the shedding abroad 
 in him of the divine spirit. Like the thirsty 
 traveller, he does not murmur because drink- 
 ing fountains occur at regular intervals along 
 the road. He is glad to know beforehand at 
 just what places he may rest and be refreshed. 
 Regularity is not wearisome, but welcome, in the 
 doing of what we love to do. The spirit of prayer 
 is the great need. Having that, the more the 
 occasions for uttering it, the greater our joy. It 
 is in his closet, alone with God, that the Chris- 
 
ITS FORMS. 45 
 
 tian burnishes his armor. His spirit is there 
 bathed and warmed in the sunlight of its Fa- 
 ther's love. He pours forth his wants without 
 any reserve. None of them are too trivial for 
 Him without whom not a sparrow falleth on the 
 Freedom of g^ouud. His wholo soul is laid open 
 the closet. ^^ God; and he prays and makes 
 confession with a fullness unsuited to any 
 place less secluded. It was this basking in 
 the radiance of God that made the faces of 
 the prophets shine. Elijah came out of the 
 secret place of the Most High to work won- 
 ders in the sight of Israel. David remembered 
 God in the night watches, and prevented the 
 morning with his supplications. The witnesses 
 to the power of secret prayer to lift up and in- 
 spire men cannot be counted for num- 
 nies to its ber. It is the Christian's vital breath, 
 precious- Q^^ ^g ^^ prays does he live the 
 life which Christ brought to our world. 
 The blessed Son of God himself even was de- 
 pendent on his private devotions. If the peo- 
 ple thronged him through the day, so that he 
 could not be alone, he would go away upon the 
 
46 PRA YER. 
 
 mountains in the night time, and there have his 
 hours of intercourse with God. Our souls re- 
 new their youth in this calm and still fellowship. 
 They are made to leap with a more intense life 
 by the flowing into them of the life of God till 
 their very substance throbs and leaps with a 
 joy which they cannot tell. 
 
 3. Another form in which the spirit of prayer 
 
 tends to utter itself is public and social prayer. 
 
 A new element here comes into the 
 
 Public and 
 
 social exercise. It is not for him who prays, 
 
 alone, but for those also whom he asks 
 to pray with him. At first thought it seems 
 almost presumptuous to attempt to give voice 
 to the wants of a large company of worshippers. 
 But the true Christian often finds more comfort 
 in the prayers of another than in his own. This 
 fact should encourage us, though we may be 
 able to ofi'er only what seem to us very imper- 
 fect public pravers. The youn^ dis- 
 
 A difficulty ^ . . . 
 
 to be over- ciplc wlio sits dowu aftcr this exercise 
 
 almost mortified by the thought that 
 
 no one has been edified, is often mistaken. He 
 
 does not know how the maturest and most in- 
 
 A 
 
ITS FORMS. 47 
 
 telligent Christians love his simple and child- 
 like prayers. We should take care, however, 
 in overcoming this hinderance to public prayer, 
 not to fall into its peculiar temptation. That 
 temptation is to forget the God in whose pres- 
 ence we stand, and make our prayer solely for 
 human ears. Thus our utterance ceases to be 
 prayer, and is changed into a mere harangue, 
 whose solemn tone is an offence to God. He 
 who leads in the service of public prayer should 
 bear in mind that many hearts are sending up 
 Ambitious requests to God through his utterance, 
 prayers. -g-^ should usc that plain and simple 
 language which is becoming in them. They all 
 speak to God in his words, and it is the prayer 
 of the humble that God does not despise. We 
 honor the greatness of God by speaking to him 
 as little children, since our sublimest speech 
 can never agree with his infinite majesty. I 
 am disposed to favor the wise use of written 
 or printed forms in public prayer. Though the 
 pulpit should use them only sparingly, as may 
 tend most to edification in any case, I should 
 be glad to hear them used often in the social 
 
48 PRA YER. 
 
 meeting, especially by those who distrust their 
 own powers. The young Christian often finds 
 it a sore trial to rise up before us and pray. 
 Let him, therefore, procure a volume of printed 
 prayers. In these we can join with him till 
 he srets used to the sound of his own 
 
 The foi-m " 
 
 need not be voicc ; till lic acquircs confidence and 
 
 extempora- . 
 
 neousai- scli-possession, and IS so at home m 
 ^^'^** the service as to be able to trust his 
 
 unaided efforts. If our young brethren, whom 
 we love all the more for being easily abashed, 
 would follow out this suggestion, I am per- 
 suaded that it would give us a much larger 
 number of praying men in the church than we 
 now have. Familiarity with the Scriptures is 
 a great help in public to those who would clothe 
 their prayers in reverent and appealing forms. 
 I say " familiarity with the Scriptures," for this 
 Bible imagery should come to the praying soul 
 unsought. We cease to pray as we 
 
 Use of bib- 
 lical Ian- struggle for it, and fall into the intellec- 
 
 ^^^'^' tual effort of trying to remember what 
 
 we have half forgotten. It is better that we 
 
 should not quote God's words to him when we 
 
ITS FORMS. 49 
 
 go before him in prayer, than that our souls should 
 fail to come sweetly and lovingly into his em- 
 brace. An uttered form of words to which we 
 apply the term '• eloquent '' can hardly be a true 
 prayer. Its fault is in calling attention to itself, 
 and to the person who makes it. The fact that 
 there is a mercy-seat, before which we have 
 bowed together, is the one grand impression 
 which a public prayer should leave. As the 
 disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration lifted 
 up their eyes and saw no man save Jesus only, 
 so should it be with us after the devotions of 
 the house of God ; we should meet our divine 
 Father in them, and forget both our- 
 be^exTited^ sclvcs and him who leads in our 
 in public prayers. It is a wronp: to us, and 
 
 prayer. r j o ; 
 
 a sin against God, when the minister 
 or other person tries, under the pretence of 
 praying for us, to see how much he can work 
 upon our feelings, or how much admiration he 
 may beget in us for himself The worst abuse 
 of public prayer is that which makes it a means 
 of giving rebuke or advice to a fellow-man. 
 Yet some of the most eminent and godly men 
 4 
 
50 PRAYER. 
 
 have been guilty of this sin, and owe their fame 
 largely to the skill with which they have lashed 
 other men in their prayers. Many a prayer, 
 so called, has been purely a homily, 
 prayers ^"^ ^ cloak of malicc and cowardice, 
 should not j^ j^^g served as the covering of an 
 
 preach. ° 
 
 invidious thrust ; things were hinted 
 which the speaker dared not say in honest 
 fashion ; he gave advice, he criticised, he found 
 fault, he flattered or condemned, in the name 
 of prayer to God. I am at loss whether most 
 to despise the meanness or abhor the impiety 
 of this abuse ; it is sacrilege towards God and 
 pusillanimity towards our fellow-men. The wor- 
 shipper in the public or social meeting has a 
 
 right to demand that whoever speaks 
 
 What each 
 
 worshipper for him bofore God should speak as 
 
 may claim. , 
 
 it becomes his own heart to pray; 
 that his words come forth from a loving and 
 lowly heart, and that they be addressed to Him 
 who pities our frailty and our sin. This, and 
 nothing else, though it be neither elegant nor 
 flowing in language, is true public prayer. 
 Thus standing and speaking, no one need fear 
 
ITS FORMS. 51 
 
 about the form of his petitions. He who can- 
 not join with such a leader, however faulty his 
 utterance, shows that he has not the spirit of 
 prayer in him. It is a blessed relief and re- 
 freshment to the devout soul to turn from the 
 rolling diction of the self-conscious pedant and 
 be borne upward on the outpourings of unlet- 
 tered faith. Better were it for all Christians that 
 they should never learn to reason like the sage 
 than that they should forget to pray like the child. 
 4. There is one other form of prayer most 
 grateful to the human heart, arising out of that 
 mysterious sympathy which there is between 
 our feelings and certain musical sounds. 
 
 Music may 
 
 be a form of Any swcct uotc, if it bc prolonged, 
 will cause some chord within us to 
 vibrate responsively ; and when several such 
 melodies are combined into a harmony, their 
 subtile power is still more subduing. Not all 
 musical sounds are devotional. Some of them 
 excite ludicrous rather than reverent emotions. 
 They all have their examples in nature. The 
 babbling of the brook and noisy chirping of 
 the birds dispose one to cheerfulness and gayety; 
 
52 PRA YER. 
 
 it is their tendency to drive away from us any 
 solemn thought. All complicated, curious sounds 
 affect us in like manner. They do not leave the 
 
 mind to its own musings, but draw off 
 diffteren*t i^® attention to themselves. A praying 
 nrture*" Spirit is most pleased with the simple, 
 
 low, and deep-toned voices of nature. 
 The soft moaning of the mountain pine, the 
 whispering of the leafy elms, the solemn voice 
 which comes in from the sea, agree with it, and 
 lend it wings. Philosophy cannot tell how it is 
 that one class of sounds fills us with laughter, 
 while another class makes us sober even to 
 tears. It is a mystery. We know only the 
 fact, and from it we may learn valuable lessons. 
 The power of different kinds of music to awaken 
 diverse feelings teaches us what to do if we 
 would stir any given feeling in our hearts. A 
 skilful choir of singers can sway an audience 
 
 to any mood. It is in their power, by 
 
 A power 
 
 for good or a fcw well-aimcd measures, to deepen, 
 
 change, destroy, or utterly reverse a 
 
 present emotion. This susceptibility of men to 
 
 music is what makes it a power, either for good 
 
ITS FORMS. 53 
 
 or evil, in public worship. Especially may it 
 help in giving utterance to the spirit of prayer. 
 We know that our thoughts become clearer to 
 us as we write them out, yet more impressive 
 if that writing be given back to us by a human 
 voice, more impressive still if the writing thus 
 spoken be in the poetic form ; but the deep 
 thoughts of our hearts are never fully uttered, 
 nor do they reach the climax of their power, 
 till they are taken up on the wings of holy 
 song. Every assembly of worshippers proves 
 this. From the earliest ages of the world music 
 has found its noblest home in God's temples. 
 Yet all music is not sacred. The ser- 
 
 Secular 
 
 and sacred vico of song iu the Lord's courts, like 
 
 music. 
 
 that of speaking and teaching, has its 
 limits. The preacher cannot treat all subjects. 
 Many thoughts occur to him which he values 
 very highly ; but if true to his office, he will 
 leave them out of his sermons. They would 
 not deepen those religious convictions which 
 it is his business to make ; therefore they do 
 not belong to the sphere of the pulpit, but to 
 the secular assembly, the platform, the hall of 
 
54 PRA YER, 
 
 common debate. In this respect the preacher 
 has occasion to die daily, as he ought to, for 
 he is sent to preach Christ, not his own wisdom. 
 His displays of smartness and startling origi- 
 nality, being out of place in God's house, must 
 occur elsewhere. But preaching is no more 
 limited than sacred music. That word " sacred '*' 
 should stand out in large letters, as applied to 
 all the services of the sanctuary. Music is a 
 language. It may be the language of mirth. 
 Sometimes it expresses nothing but the inge- 
 nuity of the musician. Often it embodies only 
 natural emotions. But in the sanctuary it is 
 sacred; it is set apart from all other uses to the 
 purposes of religious worship ; there, 
 StTof before God, it should ever be the lan- 
 church o-uae-e of devotion, the vehicle of divine 
 
 choirs. '-' *-" ' 
 
 communion, the voice of prayer. Bear 
 in mind that I use the word '' prayer " in its 
 broadest sense, to denote any form of utterance 
 through which the soul addresses itself to God. 
 It includes praise, adoration, confession, or any- 
 thing else entering into this essential idea. 
 Now, what I insist upon in regard to sacred 
 
ITS FORMS. 65 
 
 music is, that the praying soul shall find in it 
 a voice suited to become the voice of prayer. 
 The limits of sacred music have not been guard- 
 ed more than those of sacred eloq^uence. There 
 are hymns in some of our collections which 
 ought never to be read in the temple of 
 prayer. As of hymns so also of tunes. We 
 cannot so sing all of them as to be thereby 
 drawn upward from ourselves and the world 
 into God's embrace ; they are not a proper 
 vehicle for either our prayers or our praises. 
 Other tunes, very faulty it may be, 
 
 The voice 
 
 of a devout if judgcd solcly by artistic standards, 
 being full of a devotional spirit, are 
 sung on from age to age, growing dearer and 
 dearer to the heart of the church, despite all 
 the criticisms of connoisseurs. No one should 
 be regarded who complains that his taste as an 
 artist is not met in the songs of the sanctuary. 
 Those songs are prayers. It is enough if they 
 touch the springs of faith, and if our souls may 
 rise upon them to the down-coming love of our 
 God. Art may do its utmost, but this element 
 should not be left out or obscured. 
 
56 PRA YER. 
 
 How wonderful this sensitiveness of the soul 
 to music ! Its holiest emotions, its repentances, 
 its adoration, its prayers, its trust, its praises 
 may rise up to God through inarticulate har- 
 monies. We have it in our power to be always 
 furnished with this voice for the inner wants 
 of the spirit. The music of the ocean is not 
 always low and solemn; the storm lashes it to 
 fury, and its voice is lifted up wrathfully on 
 high. The winds do not always whisper gently 
 among the trees, but often rush madly forth 
 from their prison, and fill the sky with angry 
 screams. But we can subject this spirit and 
 breath of nature to our control. We 
 
 Art may 
 
 control na- cau shut up the soul of hamiony in our 
 
 ture. ... 1 • 1 
 
 musical mstruments, and ni the powers 
 of the human voice, and attune it to the deep 
 and tender feelings with which we should come 
 before God. Thus it is when articulate words 
 fail us that we shall not lack the means of pour- 
 ing out our hearts in prayer. The longing of 
 the human soul for God, being touched by the 
 subtile wand of harmony, may rise to our refuge 
 and our rest. 
 
ITS FORMS. 57 
 
 It is sweet to talk with God in silent prayer ; 
 a relief to cry out to him for help in sudden 
 peril ; blessed to go away and find him alone in 
 our closet when we have shut the door, strength- 
 ening to stand up and speak forth the yearnings 
 of many hearts in audible tones. But when a 
 perfect organ stirs the sleeping echoes 
 fo^oT C)f some ancient tune set to words which 
 public Christians of remote a2:es chanted alone; 
 
 prayer. *-' c 
 
 its royal notes, and an according choir 
 swells and articulates the full tide of sound, 
 while the voices of a vast congregation, i-ising 
 up like mighty waters, lift the soul heavenward, 
 then it is inspiring and enrapturing to pray. 
 The good of many generations stand about us 
 and join their voice to ours. Every Christian 
 heart is melted, and every individual will wafted 
 forth upon the gush of holy desire. Nor do the 
 strains seem to die as they fade away upward 
 one after another, but are still audible to our 
 listening faith, blending in the song which goeth 
 up forever before the throne. 
 
58 PRA YER. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OBJECTS OF PRAYER. 
 
 Those of us who are trying to live a life of 
 prayer are often thrown into doubt, as St. Paul 
 intimates "that he sometimes was, concerning the 
 specific objects for which it is proper that we 
 should pray. This doubt is so great at times 
 as to be a hinderance to prayer. We fear to 
 go before God and give our longings a 
 
 Doubtful- . 1 1 1 1 p 1 i 
 
 nessof free voice, lest we should ask lor what 
 ""'" ' God cannot wisely give. He knows, 
 
 better than ourselves, what we need, and what 
 any others, for whom we are burdened, may 
 need. It seems to us like doubting the omnis- 
 cience of God and his infinite love, to be par- 
 ticular and definite in our requests. Do we 
 not sometimes come from the mercy-seat fear- 
 ing that we have prayed for objects which might 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 59 
 
 harm us, or be contrary to the counsels of 
 eternal widom, if bestowed? Shall we keep 
 on crying to God for the things which, we 
 are half persuaded, ought to be withheld ? Here 
 is a constantly recurring perplexity in the life 
 of prayer. " We know not what to pray for as 
 we ought ; " and we should be tempted to cease 
 praying, in any specfic way, were we not as- 
 sured that '^the Spirit maketh intercession for 
 us." 
 
 The trial of many Christians is not that they 
 have no communion with God : their intercourse 
 with him is such that they are all the time 
 in a calm and heavenly frame ; not that they 
 are unconscious of inner wants Avhich his full- 
 ness alone can supply ; not that they are averse 
 to the practice of private, social, or public 
 prayer : it is their trial that, in their manifold 
 
 relations to God and one another, and 
 wlr"'"' ^^^^ *^^® complex interests of life, they 
 
 know not what blessings would be ac- 
 cording 'to God's will, and in the end for their 
 own best good. The befitting forms of prayer 
 we learn from the occasions on which we 
 
60 PRA yER. 
 
 make them. A sudden impulse of fear or 
 hope, a shock of grief or joy, is the occasion 
 for ejaculatory prayer. The daily wants of the 
 Christian call him into the secret place where 
 he is alone with God. Public prayer is the 
 natural result of our fellowship as churches, 
 and of our working together under Christ for 
 the good of the world. 
 
 But though full of a praying spirit, and trying 
 to pray always as the occasion requires, the voice 
 of prayer yet falters on the lips of many Chris- 
 tians, for the reason given by St. Paul : ^' We 
 know not what w^e should pray for." The form 
 is well enough, but are the particular requests 
 such as we ought to make ? We doubt our 
 ability to judge what would be best in the 
 exigency; and this doubt deepens till we pray 
 but hesitatingly, and without assurance, or re- 
 solve to cease praying altogether. The grand 
 remedy, to which we should ever hasten when 
 this perplexity is upon us, is the truth that the 
 The grand blcsscd Comfortcr prays for us. He 
 relief. jg -j^ ^|-jQ groanings which we cannot 
 
 utter. He breathes our sense of want into 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 61 
 
 • 
 
 the heart of the Father. We need not hesi- 
 tate, but may speak freely whatever longings 
 crowd to our lips ; for he prays through our 
 prayers, graciously dropping out of them what- 
 ever is faulty, and presenting, in his golden 
 censer, only so much as accords with the good 
 will of God concerning us. 
 
 The assurance that the Spirit helpeth our 
 infirmities is, then, the blessed argument with 
 which we may ever quiet our misgiving hearts. 
 Still, we should be glad to lessen those in- 
 firmities, or be rid of them, as much 
 
 The wish to . 
 
 beridot as possible. It IS proper m us to 
 desire that we may be perfect in our 
 supplications. We would know what we ought 
 to pray for, as well as that the Spirit helps 
 us when we pray for what we ought not. How 
 can we obtain this knowledge ? Are there 
 any metes and bounds by which we may keep 
 our steps ? Have any marks or tests been 
 given us by which we may know what things 
 we ought to pray for? How can we keep 
 ourselves from asking of God what he cannot 
 wisely grant? 
 
62 PRA YER. 
 
 I venture a few remarks on these questions, 
 not in the hope of answering them, but of re- 
 lieving the Christian hearts which so often are 
 burdened with them. The trial of knowing 
 but in part what to pray for, must be ours till 
 we know as we are known. Yet will 
 
 May gratify . . . p , 
 
 this wish in it minister freedom to us m praymg, to 
 ^\ ' know as much as we can of the proper 
 
 objects and bounds of this holy exercise. 
 
 1. We are warranted in praying, I think, 
 for anything which God has declared 
 
 Proper to 
 
 pray for that hc will bring to pass. I know 
 
 what God . . . . ^ , ^ , • 
 
 has prom- that lu saymg this i meet what is 
 *^*'^' perhaps the most common objection to 
 
 all our prayers. '' Why," it is urged, '^ should 
 we pray for that which is sure to take place 
 in virtue of the declared will of God ? " For 
 me it is a sufficient answer to this, that God 
 A common ^scs our praycrs among the means by 
 Objection. ^j^.^^ ^^ .g pleased to fulfil his coun- 
 sels. Such indeed is the scriptural reply. In 
 speaking of the return of his ancient people 
 from captivity, God says, " I the Lord have 
 spoken it and will do it, yet will I be inquired 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 63 
 
 of by the house of Israel to do it for them." 
 Daniel, we find, did not remit prayer, but 
 prayed more earnestly for the escape of the 
 Jews from Babylon, when he knew the fact 
 and the exact time of their release. As soon 
 as he knew that God had willed the rebuilding 
 of Jerusalem, he set his face unto the Lord 
 God with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes ; 
 and he prayed, saying, " I beseech thee, let 
 thine anger be turned away from thy 
 
 The scrip- 
 tural an- city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, and 
 
 cause thy face to shine upon thy sanc- 
 tuary that is desolate." This is but one of 
 a gieat many examples, partly in the Old Tes- 
 tament and partly in the New, where inspired 
 men cried earnestly to God for blessings which 
 they knew he would bestow. 
 
 If any turn from Scripture to our weak 
 human reason, and say that we need not be 
 careful to pray, since God decrees the prayers 
 as well as the objects for which they are made, 
 then he has left the particular question of 
 prayer, and opened the whole subject of man's 
 agency as related to God's sovereign control. 
 
64 PRA YER. 
 
 He takes the ground that man is altogether 
 
 irresponsible for the working out of the divine 
 
 plans. All events are purposed of God, — 
 
 those for which we labor, no less than 
 
 Agreement i • i xxn 
 
 of reason thoso lor which WO pray. What we 
 tire. ''^^^' shall eat, and drink, and wherewithal 
 
 we shall be clothed ; every success 
 or failure in life ; the angry and the kind words 
 which we speak ; the blows and the charities 
 dealt out to our fellow-men; the overthrow of 
 kingdoms and the falling of the hunted spar- 
 row, are events which enter into the eternal 
 counsels: yet we know that none of these 
 things come to pass without the free action 
 of the human will. If he is beside himself 
 who refuses to plant since God has said that 
 the harvest shall not fail, then is he beside 
 himself who says that prayer is useless since 
 
 the things for which we pray are a 
 tion^pelu- part of God's plan. This objection, 
 '**'^*' we are to notice, is not practical, but 
 
 purely theoretical. It does not grow out of 
 our common sense, or way of dealing with 
 affairs of present moment to us, but out of 
 
ITS OBJECTS. ' 65 
 
 our metaphysics ; it is a child of the specula- 
 tive faculty in us. That all events are from 
 eternity certain we know from the nature of 
 God, from the teachings of his w^ord^ from 
 the convictions of our own minds ; and we 
 also know, from the same sources, that many 
 of these events will not take place without 
 the intervention of our own free choices and 
 agency. Practically there is no conflict in 
 the case, though we may puzzle ourselves with 
 the theory of it till we lose all heart either 
 for prayer or labor. We are between the two 
 sides of an archway, whose summit is wrapped 
 ^. __ in darkness. That the sides meet and 
 
 Disappears 
 
 in practice, support cacli othor somewhere above 
 us we know, for they both stand firm ; and while 
 the theorist sits still, complaining that he cannot 
 see where they come together, the earnest 
 soul moves on under their strong protection 
 to the triumph and crown before him. 
 
 It is certain that all forms of error, wrong, 
 
 and sin shall come to an end in the world ; 
 
 God has purposed and foretold the universal 
 
 triumph of good over evil ; yet the devout 
 
 5 
 
GG PRA YER. 
 
 heart is not thereby kept from praying for 
 the blessed reign of love. We pray for what 
 we know is sure to come, and our prayers ani- 
 mate us to strue-o-le against the many 
 
 Examples. &0 & J 
 
 evils about us, and so we become a 
 part of the means by which God gradually 
 works out his own holy counsels. We ask God 
 to overrule all great movements among men 
 and nations for the bulding-up of his kingdom, 
 though he has assured us that he will thus 
 use them. We lift up our cry to God, beseech- 
 ing that the wrath of man may praise him ; nor 
 does the voice of our prayer falter, but rise 
 with a stronger faith, when we remember that 
 he has purposed what we pray for. Our 
 prayers are not out of place because the thing 
 prayed for is sure to come : they are natural ; 
 we cannot repress them, and our souls live by 
 them. 
 
 Many prayers are offered which I am sure 
 no one would dare to offer but for the certainty 
 that the things prayed for will come to pass. 
 Some of the prayers recorded in the Bible 
 are of this class. Look especially at the im- 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 67 
 
 precatory Psalms. Why did David dare to pray, 
 as he did, for the destruction of his enemies? 
 If he had not known the purpose of God con- 
 cerning them, his language might show a vin- 
 dictive, revengeful, and even cruel 
 
 Impre- 
 catory spirit. But he was a man after God's 
 
 Psalms. . . , ^ 
 
 own heart. He was inspired to fore- 
 see how God would deal with the wicked. It 
 was his devotion to the will of God, and eager- 
 ness to see that will done^ as he knew it would 
 be sooner or later, which caused him to speak 
 so terribly against the impious. He was not 
 inhuman or merciless in his desires, so long 
 as he but acquiesced in the declared purposes 
 of God. 
 
 If we ought not to pray for events which 
 are sure to take place, we ought not to pray 
 for the conversion of the world to Christ. 
 The kingdom of our Lord is destined to fill 
 the earth ; all other kingdoms shall be absorbed 
 into it. It shall spread like leaven in human 
 society, till the whole is leavened. Christ shall 
 have the heathen for his inheritance ; his ban- 
 ner shall float over all lands ; every knee shall 
 
68 PRA YER. 
 
 bow to him ; the glory of the millennial morn- 
 ing is on its way to us. It is fixed by the 
 decree of God that swords shall be 
 lows if Ave beaten into ploughshares, that the lion 
 Tray for ^^ eat grass as the ox, that the leop- 
 thingsde- g^j,^ gi^^ji Y\Q down with the kid and 
 
 creed. 
 
 the wolf with the lamb, and that a 
 little child shall lead them. The blessed state 
 to which this beautiful imagery points us is 
 predetermined of God. He will bring it to 
 pass after his own eternal purpose. We know 
 that this promise of God is sure. Yet we do 
 not pray falteringly, but more freely and ear- 
 nestly, on account of our knowledge. Our faith 
 already sees the heavenly ages which are com- 
 ing ; and this " substance of things hoped for " 
 only makes us the more instant in prayer, 
 and all labors of love, and long-suffering, and 
 patience. 
 
 Christ declares that the souls which have 
 believed on his name dwell in perpetual safety. 
 This we know. The Father has given them to 
 him, and he is engaged to keep the least and 
 feeblest of them all ; they are his, and nothing 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 69 
 
 shall be able to pluck them out of his hand. 
 Yet where were our comfort, under the daily 
 sense of want and weakness, if we were not 
 free to ask God to keep us, to uphold our 
 goings, to pardon and cleanse us, to save us 
 from wandering, to bring our unsteady 
 persever- feet iuto the citj built of gold ? It is 
 the will of Christ that all whom the 
 Father has given him should be with him where 
 he is, that they may behold the glory which 
 he had before the world was. But this will 
 of his does not hush the cry of our yearning 
 spirits. It makes us bold to utter forth our 
 longings ; to venture near in strong supplica- 
 tion, and plead that the will of Christ may be 
 perfected in us. We should languish, and 
 consume away in soul, if forbidden to ask God 
 for the glory he has promised us. The vic- 
 tories of the church and the joys of 
 Jrace^°^ hcavcn, although made sure to us by 
 the word of God, are not objects in 
 which we have no present concern. Our 
 prayers and good works enter into the provi- 
 dential means by which they are to be secured. 
 
70 PRA YER, 
 
 Not without us, entering into his own mind and 
 will by the appointed way, which is prayer, Avill 
 God bring them to pass. He declares unto 
 us what shall be in the end of the world, not 
 to repress our zeal and longings, but that the 
 life of prayer in us may unfold more vig- 
 orously, in hope of the glory of God. 
 
 2. Another class of objects, which it seems 
 to me that we may prope-rly pray for, is all 
 those which we feel would be agreeable to 
 the divine will, but which God has not fore- 
 told as certain. This remark brings us upon 
 the plane of our most usual prayers. It would 
 be asrreeable to the will of God that 
 
 What ^ 
 
 would hon- evcry soul which hears the gospel, 
 
 or God, 
 
 though un- on any given Sabbath, should believe 
 objecro/" in Christ ; and therefore we may pray 
 prayer. ^^^ ^^^ rcsult, thougli by uo mcaus 
 sure of it, but the rather of its opposite. In 
 the cases just considered, the objects to be 
 prayed for were both desirable in themselves 
 and sure to be reached ; in the cases to which 
 we now come, the element of future certainty 
 is taken away. Only the desirableness remains. 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 71 
 
 In themselves the objects would be for the 
 glory of God ; and therefore we may pray 
 for them, though God, for the sake of some 
 higher glory which they would prevent, may 
 withhold them. No preacher of the gospel is 
 sure that all who hear him will repent and 
 believe ; yet he knows that the honor of Christ 
 would be promoted by their so doing, and 
 hence he is all the time beseeching God that 
 this great blessing may come upon them. When 
 a measure of national policy is about to be 
 taken up, in manifest opposition to the king- 
 dom of Christ, no soul of godly citizens can 
 fail to be lifted in prayer against it. The 
 more likely any great public wrong is to be 
 done, the sweeter the incense of our prayers 
 for its prevention, while they go up from true 
 and earnest hearts. The world is full of this 
 class of occasions for prayer. We cannot look 
 
 on any side of us without seeing much 
 iiiustra- which we know that God abhors, 3''et 
 
 which he may suffer to continue on, 
 despite all our prayers and efforts to the con- 
 trary. Suppose the case of a man in power, — 
 
72 PRA YER. 
 
 president, king, emperor. He is not an earnest 
 follower of Christ. If he were, he might 
 be a great helper in our Lord's work. Will 
 the Holy Spirit change his worldly heart ? 
 This seems very doubtful to us when we look 
 at him. But it is a thing to be longed for, 
 both for the honor of God and the good of 
 men. We may therefore pray for it, pray- 
 ing more earnestly the more appearances are 
 against it. Human society, also, is full of evils : 
 the powerful are haughty, the masses are en- 
 vious, God is forgotten in the general worship 
 of mammon. There is no sign that these evils 
 are about to be done away. All that we see 
 indicates not the near, but only the very re- 
 mote triumph of the gospel. But shall our faith 
 fail, or our strong prayers cease to go up, be- 
 cause the victory of right ov^r wrong, which 
 we know would be for the glory of Christ, 
 is so wrapped about with clouds and dark- 
 ness? He to whom that victory belongs 
 has taught us, in the story of the importu- 
 nate widow, that we may pray for a good 
 object even when it is to us wholly uncer- 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 73 
 
 tain — when our wish that it may be granted 
 
 involves the duty of hoping against hope. 
 
 If our svmpathy with Christ be more 
 
 Uncertain- v t. ^ 
 
 ty may in- passive than active, and we dwell on his 
 
 tensify the 
 
 spirit of final reign instead of the hard battles 
 which lead to it, our prayers in the 
 face of present opposition may falter. But if 
 we deeply feel how great a thing any victory 
 over evil ic^, and how able God is to give it 
 even while we are speaking, we shall pray 
 for it as earnestly as though we saw it within 
 our certain grasp. When the heart of Jacob 
 was set on a special favor, which he desired 
 of God, he prayed more eagerly as his case 
 seemed less hopeful. In his despair he laid 
 hold of the angel, and wrestled Avith him. 
 The love of God in us takes many forms. At 
 one time we exult before him over the coming 
 glories which he has promised ,* at another 
 time we plead with him for blessings Avith- 
 out which souls must perish, but of which 
 prophecy has not spoken. 
 
 The Christian who ceases to pray for his 
 Master's cause, as the progress of that cause 
 
74 PRA YER. 
 
 grows doubtful, sets himself against the bidding 
 of God. He does violence to the spirit of God, 
 which has been given unto him. Yielding him- 
 self to that spirit, his prayers will not become 
 vague and cold. Outward difficulties will not 
 daunt him, or raise any fear in his heart. Be- 
 lieving that with God nothing is impossible, 
 and that no true prayer is ever in vain, 
 
 The soul ^ *^ ' 
 
 forced back hc wiU couie boldly to the mercy-seat, 
 
 upon God. . 1.11 
 
 and besiege it for blessings w^iich have 
 not been promised. The answer may not come 
 in the exact form he desires, but he is sure 
 that it comes. That his prayer is heard he 
 may not know now, but he shall know here- 
 after. It may then be revealed to him that 
 his quiet waiting on God was itself the very 
 substance of the things he prayed for. We 
 must pray for objects which are uncertain, 
 feeling that in themselves they would be for 
 God's glory. We can have a faith in the ex- 
 ercise of which we shall believe that which 
 appeals to our unbelief. A strong zeal for 
 Christ may cause the greatest hinderance to 
 depart and be carried into the sea. This look- 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 75 
 
 ing for victories of which there is no sign, solely 
 
 because we would see God glorified in them, 
 
 will gird us for instant labor. We shall forget 
 
 our weakness : nothine: will seem too 
 
 Prayer ' ° 
 
 stiumiates hard for us ; through Christ strength- 
 
 to labor. 
 
 ening us we can do what the exigency 
 calls for; and so gradually we shall ourselves 
 put obstacles out of the way, and secure, by 
 our labor and patience, the things we asked 
 God to grant us. It is one of our most joy- 
 ous experiences when, after earnest prayer 
 and toil amid great discouragements, we see 
 the clouds that had settled upon us rolling off; 
 when we may gird ourselves for new battles, 
 in the strength of past triumphs, having learned 
 that the darkest uncertainties which lower about 
 our holy cause, are nothing to Him who gives 
 us the victory and the dominion. 
 
 3. There remains but one other class of 
 objects for me to speak of; those, namely, 
 which are neither sure nor in their nature 
 seem to be for the glory of God, but which 
 would not conflict with the divine character, 
 while they would be a blessed relief or com- 
 
76 PRA YER. 
 
 fort to us. For all such objects I think it 
 right that we should pray, on the simple 
 ground that they are very dear to us. We 
 Whatever ought uot to fccl that WO are treading 
 theciiris- ^^ forbidden around, when we carry 
 
 tian heart o i J 
 
 craves may ^j^y experience or allotment, any trial 
 
 be prayed 
 
 for. or hope or fear entering into our 
 
 present life, before God. It is not only the 
 last, but the best and sweetest resource of the 
 Christian, when other comforts fail, to be allowed 
 to pray. Whether God will interpose or not 
 we cannot tell ; but how blessed to ask of him 
 what we yearn for, when the very asking fills 
 us with his inflowing life ! Some good men, 
 mostly in the Romish church, have thought it 
 not wrong to pray for the dead who died in 
 their sins. This custom I cannot rudely con- 
 demn, though the Bible seems to me to be 
 against it. It is, no doubt, a profanation, es- 
 pecially as many practise it ; it weakens the 
 proper emphasis of this life, as the only time 
 for coming into peace with God of which we 
 have knowledge ; yet I sometimes think that 
 God may bear with us, not angry, but pleased 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 77 
 
 with our strong crying and tears, when our 
 
 natural yearnings, which go out after loved 
 
 and lost ones, are poured forth into 
 
 One or two 
 
 possible his ear. Also, when our friends are 
 
 exceptions. 
 
 sick unto death, and we see no hope 
 for them but to die, the strong impulse is 
 to plead for their lives ; and we must thus 
 plead, or we trample on our own hearts as 
 well as the divine mercy. I believe that many 
 such prayers are heard, and that our dead are 
 given back to us alive by the healing power 
 of God. The promise that the prayer of faith 
 shall save the sick should, perhaps, not be 
 
 understood now as it was in the days 
 terposition of tho apostlcs. God docs not mani- 
 ^tritlfai. f®s* himself to us within the domain 
 
 of nature, as he did to his people 
 of old. His miracles are in these days inward 
 and spiritual, rather. In thi*s higher and nobler 
 sense only he may choose to grant our desire ; 
 yet even the temporal mercy may be sought at 
 his feet, and to lie before him as waiting sup- 
 pliants prepares us for whatever issue he shail 
 send. 
 
78 PRA YER. 
 
 These sharp trials, which seem at first to 
 preclude hope, do not kill the impulse to pray, 
 but often make it burn with an intenser flame. 
 The Christian may live on for months, and 
 forget to lift his soul mightily unto God, while 
 at peace in his worldly affairs. But when 
 troubles fall thick, and the hand of God is 
 heavy on him, his tongue is unloosed. 
 
 Trouble a -r-» n 
 
 spur to Prayer becomes him more, the more 
 pray«'- ]^-g p^^|-^ grows dark. While the sea 
 
 was smooth he let his Master sleep undisturbed 
 on the pillow ; but now that the storm is burst- 
 ing in fury about him, and the great waves are 
 going over his head, he springs to the almighty 
 Helper, saying, '' Save me, or I perish." 
 
 It is a question often raised, how far our 
 prayers which are for personal and private 
 blessings shall be made in public. Some per- 
 sons, having a natural dread of pub- 
 pubiic licity, say that they belong wholly to 
 
 Individ- the closet and family. With this feel- 
 
 uals. 
 
 ing I cannot agree. Our modesty 
 should not carry us too far. The fellowship 
 which we have one with another in Christ has 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 79 
 
 its privileges and claims. Why should we 
 shrink from telling it to the f^hurch, and ask- 
 ing them to help us bring our burden before 
 God, if there be on our hearts some heavy 
 load which God only can remove ? '' Brethren, 
 pray for us," is the cry of the Christian's heart 
 while he yearns after a wayward child, or longs 
 for the enlargement of his own soul, or feels 
 some dear object slipping daily out of his grasp. 
 No doubt this privilege is often abused. Worldly 
 men have heard themselves named in large 
 assemblies, and made the subject of frantic 
 appeals to God, in a way that has repelled 
 them from the house of prayer. In all such 
 cases some knowledge of men is needed, as 
 well as the meekness and gentleness of Christ, 
 that our prayers may be the voice of other 
 hearts than our own, and not offend the finer 
 feelings of any sensitive worshipper. But this 
 sensitiveness may go too far. It, rather than 
 the other extreme, is the danger of many 
 Christians. We need to cultivate frankness. 
 It does us good to tell men what God is 
 doing for our souls. We ought to speak to 
 
80 PRA YER. 
 
 one another in hymns and spiritual songs. How 
 are Ave to obey the command to pray 
 
 An undue 
 
 sensitive- for ono another, if personal petitions 
 are for the closet alone ? if we never 
 bring our private burdens to the public as- 
 sembly ? This whole matter will regulate itself, 
 I believe, so that we need take no thought for 
 it, but let the spirit of prayer in us flow out 
 just as it will, in all places, while we are full 
 of the mind of Christ, and of that childlikeness 
 which makes us great in his kingdom. I have 
 known prayers of this class to be made the 
 occasion of denouncing enemies, or of eulo- 
 gizing and courting friends ; but they cease 
 to be prayers just so far as thus abused ; nor is 
 this abuse any reason why we should cut our- 
 selves off from the dearest refuge to whicli 
 we may fly in our distress. 
 
 It cannot be wrong for us to do, in a spirit 
 of brotherly love, what Christ did so often 
 for his troubled friends. Since he wept and 
 prayed at the grave of Lazarus, we may call 
 on God for our afflicted brethren. St. Paul 
 repeatedly asked the churches to pray for 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 81 
 
 Lim, assuring them that they, were always 
 mentioned in his prayers. A pastor cannot 
 preach the gospel with much hope, if the 
 Spirit of Heaven be not all the time breathed 
 Scriptural about him in the supplications of his 
 '^^^^' people. I think we should carry all 
 
 these interests, so dear to one or another of 
 us, yet often so uncertain, before God — the 
 conversion of our families, the safety of absent 
 friends, the cause of the needy, the infirm, the 
 bereaved. He has encouraged us to do this, 
 — not by revealing to us his own will in the 
 case, but by assuring us that he is a God of 
 compassions. We come to him not knowing 
 just what he will do, or whether our request 
 be in the highest sense right and proper ; yet 
 yearning for the particular blessing, and sure 
 that he pitieth us as a father his children. 
 We lay our case at his feet, while he bends 
 in loving-kindness over us ; and the witness 
 of his Spirit with ours fills us, in that very 
 moment, with a peace which needs not to be 
 increased, and which no denial of our special 
 requests can take away. 
 6 
 
82 PRAYER. 
 
 The triumph of prayer is the submissive 
 spirit in which it culminates. Oh, what a vic- 
 tory it is for the Christian when he can say, 
 "My soul is as a weaned child"! Let us 
 strive for this faith, — that in their noblest 
 meaning all our prayers are indeed answered. 
 If we lack this conviction we shall go on 
 mourning in our pilgrimage. What deeper 
 sorrow can we reach than the belief that God 
 does not hear our prayers ? How painful our 
 Asnbmis- bliuduess if we fail to see the answer 
 sive spirit. l3ecause it comes not in such form as 
 our poor hearts chose for it ! If all things 
 are for the sake of the life of Christ which is 
 in us, whatever God sends is his Amen to 
 our supreme desire. The Good Shepherd is 
 surely leading us to just the place we would 
 find ; therefore let him lead us by the way 
 which is hardest, even though it be the valley 
 of the shadow of death, if his own wisdom so 
 appoint. We may not see the blesssing, so 
 as to find in it what we most sought, till after 
 many days ; perhaps never, while we see 
 through a glass darkly, but only when we 
 
ITS OBJECTS. 83 
 
 see as we are seen. The treasure is veiled 
 to our present sight, but it is laid up for us 
 where no thief approacheth. It is 
 know, at safe in that radiant land to which 
 Infrue^ ^^ shadows and disappointments never 
 prayers are ^ome. Will it uot be an occasiou of 
 
 heard. 
 
 immeasurable joy, when the veil is 
 lifted, to find that all the true prayers which 
 we offered on earth are indeed answered? 
 that the desires of our hearts have ripened 
 into immortal fruits, and that we shall feed 
 upon them in the house not made with hands, 
 while the Lamb, which is in the midst of the 
 throne, leads us unto living fountains of water ? 
 
84 PRA YER, 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE FRUITS OF PRAYER. 
 
 All true prayers are answered, as we shall 
 find in heaven, if not on earth. Yet the delays 
 to answer, either seeming or real, with which 
 God often tries us, may be taken as positive 
 denials. The praying heart which thus takes 
 Atempta- them is tempted to grow weary of 
 **^"' prayer, and to say that it is a profit- 
 
 less service. Yet, even granting that the things 
 for which the Christian prays are withheld, it 
 does not follow that he prays in vain ; for we 
 are to consider the reflex influence of prayer. 
 The life of prayer is a school to the believing 
 soul ; in it one finds a discipline which should 
 ever keep him from feeling that he prays to 
 no profit. It is of these inner fruits of prayer, 
 variously named its philosophical or subjective 
 
ITS FRUITS. 85 
 
 influence, its discipline, its reflex power, that 
 I will now speak. The Christian has 
 
 The life of ^ 
 
 prayer a a rich answcr to all his prayers in the 
 
 school. . , I'll I 1 • 
 
 noble training which they are to his 
 own soul, though the special things asked of God 
 should never come. 
 
 Faithfulness to any religious duty makes the 
 soul better. " Thereby shall good come unto 
 thee," is the dear assurance with which God 
 calls us into his service. This is the certain re- 
 ward of all well-doing. If we give to the needy, 
 we know that to give is more blessed than to 
 receive. The benefactor is always the chief 
 beneficiary. He that watereth is watered also 
 himself. He shall reap bountifully who sows 
 bountifully. We save our lives by losing them. 
 Whoever labors most in the Redeemer's name 
 Spiritual l^^s the largest measure of blessed- 
 ^^^^' ness. In the accumulation of this in- 
 
 ward and spiritual wealth, if in no other sense, 
 the words of St. James are true : " The eff'ect- 
 ual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
 much." 
 
 But, leaving these general statements, let me 
 
86 PRA YER. 
 
 specify some of the fruits which grow in the 
 soul under the influence of a life of prayer. 
 1. One of these blessed inner fruits or re- 
 wards is the knowledge of God which 
 
 Knowledge j. ja ^ tc 
 
 of God comes to us through our prayers, it 
 
 comes by ^^ \\Q2.x of auv uoblc or marvcllous 
 
 prayer. '' 
 
 thing, yet strange to us, we do well 
 to seek it out and to enter so far as we can into 
 its meaning and life. It may claim this of us 
 for its own sake, and our souls are blessed and 
 enlarged in paying it their homage. The struc- 
 ture and history of our planet are to 
 
 All study 
 
 of truth en- tlic gcologist a fasciuatiug study. The 
 heavens show a vast field of inquiry to 
 the watchful eye ; their grandeur and mystery 
 are a challenge to us to search their depths. 
 The science of mind also, more than any mate- 
 rial science, has a claim on our regard. What 
 are the most wonderful adjustments, motions, 
 and subtile forces in the outer world by the side 
 of that human spirit which can trace them out 
 and make them work together for its own pleas- 
 ure ! And if our minds be so worthy of study, 
 how much more the mind of an angel or archan- 
 
ITS FRUITS. 87 
 
 gel ! And if we are lost in wonder over the 
 
 powers of the spirits before the throne, what 
 
 shall we say of the Kins: himself, in 
 
 God the *^ ° ' 
 
 greatest of whoso prosence they veil their faces? 
 
 truths. 
 
 It must be an infinitely greater thing 
 to know God and enter into his blessed life than 
 to study out the creatures of his power. 
 
 But every science has its instruments and 
 methods, without which it could make no prog- 
 ress. The geologist could do nothing but for 
 the earthquake, the volcano, the action of water 
 and of ice, leaving behind them a record of by- 
 gone millenniums, and bringing the central parts 
 of our globe within reach. The astronomer has 
 his glass and his calculus, by which the heavens 
 are made to give up their secrets. 
 fnThaliti Mental science grows by reflection 
 instru- upon our own inner life, Avhose vary- 
 
 ments. ^ ' '^ 
 
 ing phenomena the wonderful organ 
 of consciousness enables us to note and record. 
 And so there is a means, an indispensable 
 method and instrument, to be used in gaining 
 a knowledge of God. It is by prayer alone 
 that the soul of man may come near to God, 
 
88 PRA YER. 
 
 and behold and study his attributes. The stu- 
 dent of nature may learn something of God. 
 Self-study brings one where God's voice is 
 heard. But no man, however observing or 
 thoughtful and acute, is able to know God 
 save in the way of prayer. This is the sweet 
 ministration for which he that would find out 
 God must wait. Prayer opens the heavens, and 
 makes them shine. By it we climb 
 
 Prayer the ^^ j^^ ^^^ ^ -^ ^.^j^-^ ^j^^ 
 
 instrument ^ 
 
 of divine yg{j^ Drawing near to God, we find 
 
 science. 
 
 him drawing near to us ; his life comes 
 into us as the ocean-tide into the river, and we 
 flow into him as the river into the sea. It is 
 prayer which brings us to the point where 
 the human life mingles with the divine. In no 
 way save by its blessed ministrations can we 
 rise to God ; his ways are higher than our ways, 
 and his thoughts than our thoughts, till the spirit 
 within us cries, ^' Abba, Father." When we have 
 learned what we can about him by searching 
 in nature, and have scanned his glories as holy 
 men tell them to us, and have questioned our 
 own understanding and reason, we are yet with* 
 
ITS FRUITS. 89 
 
 out that true knowledge of him for which our 
 spirits thirst. We are like one who would 
 search the heavens with unaided eye, or ex- 
 pound the story of the earth without going 
 down into its depths, or tell us what is in 
 man while regardless of self-study. Whatever 
 we have found out in other ways, new words 
 of glory, wisdom, and love will open to us in 
 God as we grow into the habit of prayer. While 
 we tread this path with willing feet, God reveals 
 to us what he hides from the wise and prudent ; 
 divine truths never known to the mere sage 
 are clear to the pray ins; child. Hence 
 
 No true r J & ^ 
 
 knowledge the woudcr ofton seen in actual life : 
 
 of God by . . , p ^ 
 
 other the philosopher sitting at the feet of 
 
 the peasant and listening with awe to 
 his unlettered master, who tells him of a world 
 he has failed to find. The weak things are 
 stronger than the mighty ; the foolish things 
 confound the wise. Prayer has never brought 
 the great man who thus wonders into fellowship 
 with God. He beholds the mighty Ruler of 
 worlds, but not the Father of his own spirit. 
 He sees justice, skill, and power, but not the 
 
90 PRA YER. 
 
 depths of long-suffering, forgiveness, and pity- 
 ing love in our God. When_ his feet can go 
 no farther, the praying soul spreads its wings 
 and flies away to be at rest in loving arms. 
 Where his eye sees but a speck of nebulous 
 matter, prayer reveals to his lowly brother 
 bright regions of divine goodness, radiant at- 
 tributes clustered in perfect harmony. To the 
 prayerless heart God is only a remote force. 
 There is in him no nearness, no fatherly ten- 
 derness, no beauty of patience and compassion, 
 that it should desire him. 
 
 How sadly this view of God, beyond which 
 we never get, save in prayer, belittles him to 
 our minds ! He is a Father full of all those 
 thoughts and feelings which become a father's 
 heart. Though he is unchanging in his essence 
 and character, no tongue can tell in how many 
 sweet ways he shows that he is love. His 
 tender emotions are as various as the ex- 
 perience of his children; and each feeling 
 that moves his heart is the answer of love to 
 some want, or fear, or trouble, or hope in us. 
 It is by prayer that we open our souls to this 
 
ITS FRUITS. 91 
 
 fatherliness, receiving not only the knowledge of 
 it, but the supreme blessedness which it gives. 
 When we have sinned, and our hearts condemn 
 us, if the penitence we feel be uttered in the 
 form of a prayer for pardon, we shall find that 
 God is merciful and gracious. Our going to him 
 and casting the load of guilt down at his feet 
 is met by the assurance in our hearts that he 
 forgives sin. By praying amid calamities we 
 learn his compassion. Telling him our grief, we 
 find that he is a sympathizing Father. If we 
 go to him in our perplexity, his infinite wisdom 
 is the answer to our need. When we 
 in God faint by the way, prayer brings him be- 
 
 Il-ers IT f*^^® ^s ^s "t^® ^0^ who gives strength 
 eachiiu- ^Q ^^^ weary. Amid our changes and 
 
 man want. *' ® 
 
 tossings to and fro, we turn to him as 
 without shadow of turning. In our weakness 
 prayer reveals to us his almighty power. If 
 we cry to him in our trouble, we find him a God 
 of comfort. Flying to him in our ignorance, he 
 meets us as the omniscient One. Speaking to 
 him out of our prosperity, we learn his loving 
 kindness ; and in the day of adversity he reveals 
 
92 PRA YER, 
 
 himself to our praying hearts as a chastening 
 Father. His eternity is the response to our 
 brief mortal life : the strength which is in him 
 stands over against the weakness in us ; our 
 humble and obscure lot carries us up to the 
 glory in which he dwells ; the sentence of death 
 which we receive in our bodies is met by the 
 eternal life abiding in him. Thus it is that our 
 souls, communing daily with God, are always 
 finding out some new proof of his infinite love. 
 He places us in all kinds of allotments 
 
 A check- 
 ered lot de- and experiences here — successes and 
 
 sirablc. 
 
 reverses, joys and sorrows, pleasures 
 and pains ; and then, as we let the spirit of prayer 
 in us take form according to this mingled and 
 various life, one glory after another in his char- 
 acter is turned out to our view. The soul's 
 observatory is its place of prayer. Divine ex- 
 cellences, revolving like the stars in the sky, are 
 there manifested to it. It sees the King in his 
 beauty. It looks on the things which are un- 
 seen and eternal. The confusion of the world 
 dies far below it, and God comes into the still 
 retreat to sup with it and it with him. 
 
ITS FRUITS. 93 
 
 2. Another of these fruits of prayer is the 
 strength it brings for the labors to which God 
 calls us. The most honored servants of God 
 in all ages have spent much time in 
 ^vir prayer. The early patriarchs loved to 
 
 ZZn.T ^^ ^lo^® ^i^l^ ^od. That pastoral life 
 which they lived was favorable to di- 
 vine companionship. They led their flocks in 
 the grassy wildernesSj beside the soft-flowing 
 streams, along the shady slopes of the moun- 
 tains. Amid these scenes of nature 
 
 The disci- 
 
 puneofthe they pitched their tents, and mused, 
 
 patriarchs. 
 
 and slept, sweetly conversing with the 
 
 Father of their spirits. It was this discipline 
 
 of prayer which fitted them to be the founders 
 
 of the chosen nation, the receivers and keepers 
 
 of the covenants of promise, the seed from which 
 
 the Saviour of the world should spring. 
 
 This loving walk with God empowered Moses 
 
 for his arduous mission. He was put- 
 Moses. . 1 p 1 • 
 tmg on the needed strength lor his 
 
 work all the time that he kept the flocks of Jethro 
 
 in Midian. In the judgment of some critics, he 
 
 wrote the story of the upright man of Uz dur- 
 
94 PR A YER. 
 
 ing that long retirement. It was the divine 
 life coming down into his human life which 
 prepared him to be the leader of Israel. In 
 all his wanderings God gave him audience, re- 
 freshed and enlarged his soul, made him strong 
 to meet Pharaoh, to deliver his enslaved people, 
 and to bear with their slow-heartedness and mur- 
 raurings. Elijah passed much of his time with 
 God in the caves and by the brooks of 
 the desert ; and the fruit of that holy 
 fellowship is seen in his bold reproofs of Ahab, 
 in his challenge to the priests of Baal, in his 
 brave witnessing against the corruptions of his 
 time. He grew weak, and sank down into hope- 
 lessness, as he missed the inspiration which came 
 to him through his prayers. Intercourse with 
 God gave to all the saints of other days power 
 for those deeds at which we now marvel. 
 Through this blessed channel came their faith, by 
 which they subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 
 All saints. . i • i • j. 
 
 righteousness, obtained promises, stop- 
 ped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence 
 of fire, out of weakness were made strong, waxed 
 valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
 
ITS FRUITS. 95 
 
 the aliens. Even our blessed Lord was in this 
 way made stroner for his toils and suf- 
 
 Christre- _ ^ ^ 
 
 freshed by ferings. A night of prayer, rather than 
 a night of slumber, was his chosen re- 
 freshment. The mind unbends itself in this 
 holy exercise. It is a sweet relaxation. It re- 
 news the youth of the soul. Our continuance 
 in well-doing depends on these refreshings from 
 the presence of God. The heart of the Chris- 
 tian grows weary amid his outward duties. No 
 care for the body seems to help him ; the source 
 of his discouragement is not in the weakness of 
 the flesh, but in the unwilling spirit. He has 
 lost the deep sense of God's presence : 
 
 The refuge 
 
 of the and it is only as he raises his soul to 
 
 weary. 
 
 God in prayer, till God comes down 
 and meets him anew, that the darkness gathers 
 up its folds, and his light and peace return 
 to him. The snare in which he was caught 
 lets go its hold ; his feet are taken out of the 
 miry clay, and set upon a rock ; the duties which 
 had grown irksome are his joy again, and he 
 sees before him a plain path. No prayerless 
 persons were ever full of good works. The 
 
96 PRAYER. 
 
 commands of God are a weariness to all such, 
 hard sayings which they cannot hear. The Con- 
 fessions of Augustine show that prayer was his 
 Augustine ^^^^i ^'^^ ^^^^ ^^'^ vital brcatli failed as 
 and Luther, j^^ ccascd to pray J Luther was sure 
 to study well only as he had prayed well ; and 
 the feeling of every believing heart is an amen 
 to these testimonies. 
 
 But there are duties for the church no less 
 than for the individual. These, requiring our 
 united action, will be properly done only as 
 we are together fitted for them by union in 
 prayer. There would not be much faltering 
 in the work of the church if its members were 
 all the time praying with one heart and mind. 
 This is the royal way to unity of action, such 
 action as God never lets fail. The 
 
 The power 
 
 of a pray- lincs of our influence are apt to cross 
 
 ing church. i i t i i 
 
 one another, and do little more than 
 make us all weak against the common foe, while 
 we are not drawn together to the mercy-seat. 
 That is not only the point of view, but of in- 
 spiration also, where we are to make ready for 
 the battle. As we join in the same prayers, 
 
ITS FRUITS. 97 
 
 the same life comes down into all our souls. 
 That life, the gift of our overliving Head, heals 
 all divisions. The many members are made one 
 body by it. In the consciousness of this unity 
 we can bring our efforts to bear on a common 
 object; and no Christian work is too hard for 
 us, since God works in us to will and to do. 
 We are not merely praying individuals, but a 
 praying church, and hence a progressive and 
 victorious church. Not merely one by one, but 
 all together, we must often climb the heights 
 of prayer; thus alone shall we bend our eyes 
 forward as the eye of one man along the way 
 of our covenant in Christ. On these heights we 
 are above evil desires, and breathe that air of 
 heaven which begets in us a common zeal. We 
 cannot too often look thus away over the field 
 on which we are to struggle for a common 
 triumph. It is the united prayers of the church 
 in which separate interests are forgotten, and 
 Prevents ^ siuglc lovo fills all souls, which bring 
 alienation. ^^ ghoulder to shouldcr in the good 
 fight of faith, which keep the blood-bought rai- 
 ment of our spirits clean and white, which save 
 7 
 
98 PRA YER. 
 
 us from doubt or weakness when the battle is 
 hard against us. Whatever the work to which 
 the members of a church are set, praying to- 
 gether often as dear brethren and friends makes 
 them conscious of the silken cord which 
 
 Makes the 
 
 members biuds them all to Christ. The burden 
 
 one in feel- 
 ing and upon them is light, however heavy in 
 
 itself; for it rests on many shoulders, 
 which prayer is making strong to bear it. They 
 have God dwelling in them; hence their hands 
 are not feeble, neither do they fight as one that 
 beateth the air. Every step they take is forward 
 and determined, and each blow struck for the 
 truth goes to its mark with a sure aim and a 
 resistless energy. 
 
 3. One other fruit of prayer, which would 
 make it our greatest blessing though it did 
 only this for us, is its ennobling power in the 
 soul. It is a divine education, the school of 
 
 our spiritual nature. It unfolds, en- 
 
 rrayer en- 
 nobles the larges, and refines, that in us which 
 
 makes us the children of God. The 
 
 prayers which we ofier come back into our 
 
 souls bringing God with them. Thus we are 
 
ITS FRUITS. 99 
 
 partakers of his holiness, and he changes us 
 into his own image by his indwelling. 
 
 It is not true that we must needs be like 
 the worldly influences about us. Man was made 
 to have dominion over the world. But how 
 is one to be saved from sinking to the level of 
 his earthly lot? How may he become noble 
 Our proper 1^ ^ho midst of mcau surroundings, 
 
 dominion. g^j^^j^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^-j ^j^^ 
 
 corrupt? Whence the possibility of a Joseph 
 in Egypt, and a Daniel in Babylon ? Let us 
 look a little at this. By a well-known law, to 
 which the human soul is subject, it grows to 
 be like that with which it is in daily and lov- 
 ing companionship. If it be wholly occupied 
 with trivial things, it will itself grow to be 
 meagre and trifling. So wonderful are its ap- 
 titudes that it can shape itself to any pursuit 
 which it persistently follows. It can learn to 
 delight itself in studying the most in- 
 
 Two oppo- 
 
 sitetenden- tricato problcms of philosophy ^ or to 
 
 be content with the simple rounds of 
 
 manual toil. There are tendencies in it to which 
 
 it may yield till drawn to the lowest level of 
 
100 PR^ yER. 
 
 vice ; other tendencies, which, if cherished and 
 followed, will bring it to the summits of virtue. 
 Now it so happens in this present life that we 
 are exposed to many influences which help the 
 tendency downward. Much time must be given 
 to duties which do not nourish what is noblest 
 in the soul. Hence it has ever been the habit 
 of the wisest men to be interested in 
 
 Our sui*- 
 
 roundings somo cnnoblmg object, thus savmg 
 J^^down- themselves from the influence of the 
 ward ten- earthlv work which they are set to 
 
 dency. '' '' 
 
 do. The wise merchant, or mechanic, 
 or farmer has his books of history and poetry. 
 He surrounds himself with statues, paintings, 
 A common ^^ othor thiugs withiu his reach, which 
 escape. minister to his love of the beautiful; 
 and thus he unfolds in himself those finer powers 
 which his worldly business might enfeeble or 
 
 destroy. Certain ancient sages taught 
 pagan sages that God placed the starry heavens 
 
 where we may behold them, to save 
 us from the belittling influence of our earthly 
 life. We all have felt, many times, the won- 
 derful contrast between a clear sky spangled 
 
ITS FRUITS. 101 
 
 with glittering worlds above us, and the scenes 
 amid which we are forced to do our common 
 work. We know from experience that study- 
 ing the stellar universe keeps one from the 
 narrowing tendency of his secular affairs. He 
 who loves to trace out the laws of any province 
 in nature, who delights in the creations of artis- 
 tic genius, who cultivates his better qualities 
 of heart by Avise readins: and thou2:ht. 
 
 All noble *^ ^ * ^ 
 
 study saves who muscs much upon the beauty and 
 
 from earth- 
 ly influ- order of God's works, has a safeguard 
 
 against lower attractions. His daily 
 toils may be unfriendly to the wants of the soul, 
 but he is bound to higher joys by a golden 
 chain ; he dwells in a serene life, to which the 
 lowering influence of his employments cannot 
 rise. He is among them, but not of them. 
 While trivial things keep his hands busy, great 
 thoughts are filling his soul. 
 
 But studies of this class take time if intelli- 
 gently carried on. They are often incompati- 
 ble with other claims upon us, or they draw 
 the mind away into empty dreams which it 
 mistakes for truth. We cannot get the needed 
 
102 PRA YER. 
 
 discipline in scientific studies, save by giving 
 
 to them long and painful labor. Nor 
 
 en"cTn"r' ^^ ^^® intellect which they mainly 
 
 open to strenorthen our noblest part. Even 
 
 many. *-" ■*• 
 
 aesthetic studies may leave what is 
 best in us meagre and torpid. It is our spir- 
 itual nature, the capacity for holiness, which 
 makes us like God. This is our crowning glory, 
 
 placing: us over all the works which 
 
 Dses not ^ 
 
 appeal to God lias made ; by virtue of it we 
 
 what is , . . p 
 
 highest in are his children. For the trainmg of 
 this supreme faculty he furnishes the 
 same blessed means to us all. The laborer need 
 not turn aside from his toil to find it. He whose 
 thoughts soar to the stars is no nearer to it 
 than the farmer in his garden. The gift is im- 
 partial. For our spiritual education 
 education ^^^ ^^^^^ "^ liimself And he gives 
 possible to hiinself equally to all. We need not 
 ascend on high to bring him down, 
 nor search for him in the depths. He is near 
 to us ; and we enter into union with him, and 
 grow divine in our souls, by partaking of his 
 life as we find him in our prayers. The life 
 
ITS FRUITS. 103 
 
 of prayer is an education which shames the 
 discipline of the schools. 
 
 If you would make a weak and vicious man 
 pure, keep him under the sway of a strong right- 
 eous man, and the work is done. The new at- 
 mosphere saves him ; the greater draws after 
 it the less. It is the weakness of our philan- 
 thropy that we do not lift up the fall- 
 
 "Why much 
 
 phiianthro- cu, scattor them one from another, 
 and join them in constant society with 
 ourselves. We are afraid to do this even if we 
 would, or if we could. The corrupt shrink down- 
 ward from us as much as we recoil upward from 
 them. We do not meet each other heart to heart. 
 If we could make them feel that we are indeed 
 their friends, and show ourselves such, an inti- 
 macy between them and us might spring up, 
 whose power would lift them out of the pit. But 
 where our love fails, that of God is most shown. 
 He draws us unto himself He is not a 
 
 God would 
 
 bind us to stranger to us, but our Father. He be- 
 
 himself. 
 
 comes such as we are, and even takes on 
 him the load of our guilt in the person of the Son. 
 The more sinful we feel, the readier are we to fly 
 
104 PRA YER. 
 
 to his waiting arms when we see him as he 
 is. Thus it is that he lifts up, cleanses and 
 blesses, all his children who dwell with him in 
 the life of prayer. He makes them his own 
 companions. His life, flowing down into them 
 throusrh this union, deepens that spirit 
 
 Prayer the ° ^ /■ ^ 
 
 golden of prayer in them which they are al- 
 
 chain. 
 
 ways breathing upward to him. Their 
 hearts grow around him as the vine around the 
 oak, and so he lifts them away from grovelling 
 things into the sweet and pure air of heaven. 
 Nothing else which we can do is so important 
 to us as our prayers. They lay open to us 
 that Mind in which are all the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge. They are a high com- 
 munion with the Lord of lords. They attach 
 the tendrils of our better self to a ladder whose 
 top is lost in light. The more we mount up in 
 our yearnings, the more are the riches of the 
 divine nature disclosed to us. We may be 
 chained down to the drudgeries of this world, 
 but in spirit we partake of angels' food. We 
 know what the sage meant when he said, 
 " The soul grows beautiful as it draws near to 
 
ITS FRUITS. 105 
 
 God." Though dark in ourselves, we become 
 radiant in God's presence, even as clouds turn 
 to gold in the sunbeams. 
 
 If such be the fruits of prayer in the soul, 
 
 what must I say in reply to those who complain 
 
 that they have been praying all their 
 
 Why many '' l J ^ 
 
 are not livcs, and have found no such blessed 
 
 blessed in 
 
 their fruits? But do those who return 
 
 prajers. empty in soul from the mercy- seat 
 remember that that may not be prayer which 
 they so name ? The mouth may be full of be- 
 seeching words, and the spirit have no indwell- 
 ing of God. It is when the tongue answers to 
 the heart that we truly pray. If we make many 
 prayers only because God claims them, they will 
 be a weariness to us ; it is while they are the 
 voice of an inward longing that they refresh the 
 soul. If we speak to God from our lips, and not 
 from the depths of our hearts, or if we fail to 
 find him, and merely pray into the air, the re- 
 Thesoui coil upon us will be spiritual death, 
 must pray, ^^^^^q^ than life. It is the open soul 
 that God fills. What are all his visits to the 
 man who has not eyes to see or ears to hear ? 
 
106 PRA YER. 
 
 Let such an one stand under the canopy of 
 night when all her hosts are shining, and the 
 still depths almost whisper their secret, yet to 
 him it is no more than ^' a foul and pestilent 
 congregation of vapors." What is it to him 
 though all knowledge and all mystery be un- 
 folded before him ? That which makes the per- 
 ceiving soul wiser only confirms him in his 
 ignorance. It does him no good to walk through 
 2;alleries of art, to be told of classic 
 
 No truth ^ 
 
 blesses the agcs, to sit dowu whcro prophets and 
 lawgivers once sat. The blessed feet 
 of Christ have left no aroma for him on Judea's 
 plains. He is not made better, but worse, by 
 contact with noble and sacred things. Great 
 influences seem to dwarf him, as the Alpine 
 peasant is dwarfed in soul amid the sublime 
 glories of his mountains. If we do not love what 
 is above us, and long for union with it, beholding 
 it will but sink us to a lower depth. Just here, 
 I think, we come upon the secret of the evil 
 sometimes charged against our prayers. We 
 are not lifted, and enlarged, and glorified by 
 them for the roason that we do not really pray. 
 
ITS FRUITS. 107 
 
 Our souls are not open to God. Is it a lack of 
 charity to say that many prayers are an idle 
 pretence, a form of speech only, in which the 
 soul comes not near to God? The glories and 
 wonders of the divine character, so far from 
 blessing, do but palsy the unwilling minds on 
 which they are forced. We may pay a lip- 
 service gathered from the speech of angels, 
 fragrant as flowers of paradise, glowing with 
 God's own breath ; but if we pray not in spirit, 
 it is a vain oblation. It is not prayer. 
 Our pray- ^^ ^^ ^^^ spcak out of a hune'ering: 
 
 ers profit- ■■■ tot) 
 
 less be- and thirsting soul. Our hearts do not 
 
 cause we 
 
 do not yearn to dwell in God, and that he 
 
 thirst for t n • i t • 
 
 God. niay dwell m them. It is not a form 
 
 of words from which the heart is left 
 out, but the rising of an open soul into an infi- 
 nite Father's arms, which brings the fullness 
 of God into it, and makes it holy as he is 
 holy. 
 
 Astronomers say that our planet and its fel- 
 low globes, and all other systems of worlds, 
 together with the solar system, seem to revolve 
 about a single vast sphere, which is the centre 
 
108 PRAYER. 
 
 of the universe of matter. Whether such in- 
 deed be the truth or not. we may never find out 
 in this life ; but we know surely that all the 
 countless host of minds does revolve about one 
 infinite and all- sustaining Father. From him an 
 energy goes out which is able to hold and for- 
 ever guide in safety each individual 
 
 The source 
 
 of all spirit- of that host. Tliis mighty influence, 
 if we but open our hearts to it, will 
 touch a sympathetic chord in us, and bring us 
 into fellowship with God. If that divine beam 
 has already touched our souls, let us keep them 
 open to its larger incoming. Let us cherish 
 every yearning we feel for the radiant centre 
 from which it springs. Yielding to the blessed 
 One who so sweetly draws us, let us live in his 
 light, and receive of his life into ours, till he 
 renews in us his own likeness. Thus shall we 
 secure a safe orbit to our souls for all the future. 
 They shall not perish or fall away into darkness 
 when they pass out of the horizon of time, but 
 be as stars in another firmament, where they 
 shall shine forever. 
 
ITS POWER. 109 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE POWER OF PRAYER. 
 
 No thoughtful person will deny the ennobling 
 influence of a life of prayer. Even atheists 
 have said that praying is the highest act .of 
 the soul. But when we speak of prayer as a 
 procuring power, operating outside of ourselves 
 Aprocur- ^o obtaiu blcssings which otherwise 
 mg force. ^ould not comc, many are inclined to 
 doubt. Do our prayers reach beyond the fixed 
 course of nature, and move the arm of God to 
 interpose for us ? 
 
 This is the question, which we answer with 
 a hearty ^' yes," while those who look at it from 
 grounds of science alone are tempted to say " no.'' 
 The following is a specimen of the tests they have 
 offered to settle the dispute : Let part of the 
 patients in a hospital where all are treated alike 
 
110 PRAYER. 
 
 have the prayers of Christians for their return 
 to health, and if those prayed for get well while 
 many of the others do not, the power of prayer 
 A worth- ^'^ ^® shown. Our sceptical friends 
 less test. ^^-ji ^i^gn admit, they say, that prayer 
 may bring a supernatural force to bear which 
 is effectual where natural means fail. We may 
 doubt, however, whether they would keep their 
 promise to believe, even if the experiment they 
 propose were made. Denying the eflScacy of 
 prayer in the outset, they would say, in view 
 of its effects, that the result was due to some 
 subtile cause or agency of nature which had 
 been overlooked. As an umpire between nat- 
 uralism and supernaturalism, the test is therefore 
 worthless. The man of science and the man 
 of faith will each view the case from his own 
 position, and hence each will be confirmed in 
 what he already believes. It is because the ex- 
 periment would be futile that the proposal of 
 it seems to us disingenuous. Our faith in the 
 power of prayer is too sacred a thing to be 
 thus rudely mocked. 
 
 This offensive challenge is often invited, I 
 
ITS POWER. Ill 
 
 admit, by the unwise utterances of a class of 
 Christians. A proposal to test the value of 
 our prayers by scientific methods is hardly more 
 irreverent than what we sometimes hear on the 
 other side. To affirm that God will give us any- 
 thing we ask him for, as is sometimes hastily and 
 thoughtlessly done by ignorant exhorters, car- 
 ries a painful shock to the intelligent and devout 
 soul. Only those who know nothing 
 
 Thechal- *^ _ ^ 
 
 lenge pro- yet as they ought to know will ven- 
 ture to speak of God as if they under- 
 stood him altogether. They have yet to learn 
 what it is to say from the heart, " Thy will be 
 done." The man who says that when he wants 
 money Ike kneels down and prays, and then goes 
 to the post office and finds it enclosed to him 
 in a letter, must be a very godly man not to 
 seem irreverent ; we must know him to be in- 
 capable of anything which is not the exact truth, 
 or we shall suspect him of some effort before- 
 hand, some very strong appeal made in some 
 way to persons of known charity, which is really 
 the procuring cause of the answer to his prayer. 
 Do the good men who profess to believe that 
 
112 PRAYER. 
 
 God supplies their daily needs because of their 
 prayers alone acknowledge as frankly as they 
 should what pains they take to acquaint the 
 Christian public with their wants? If any are 
 tempted thus to belittle the doctrine of the 
 efficacy of prayer, and to mingle artifice with 
 their faith in order to bear themselves out, it 
 may be well for their sake that some gauge 
 or test out of that realm of natural agencies 
 to which they affect indifference should from 
 time to time be proposed. But if scientific tests 
 of prayer attempt a higher range, if they imply 
 doubts as to its full and complete power with 
 God when offered in a proper spirit, they are 
 wholly out of place. The question is one which 
 they cannot touch; for the world of prayer is 
 wholly above the world of science, nor can the 
 methods of one ever be inferred from those of 
 the other. 
 
 The Bible teaches us to regard as impious 
 those who would apply a test from the realm 
 of nature to a purely spiritual force. Who ever 
 doubted the propriety of what Christ said when 
 he was tempted in the wilderness ? Yet his 
 
ITS POWER. 113 
 
 replies there given to his adversary put this 
 whole subject in its true light. He would not 
 command the stones to be made bread. He 
 would not cast himself down from a pinnacle 
 of the temple. His power to work miracles 
 was given to him for high spiritual ends^ and 
 he would not idly subject it to the trial of natural 
 rmpietyof ^^^' He would uot degrade and pro- 
 naturaiism. £^^^ -^ ^^j usiug it to plcaso au cuomy 
 who was seeking to destroy him. Do those 
 doubters who ask for scientific proofs of the 
 power of prayer consider who their chief fore- 
 runner was? As Christ met him we must meet 
 them. They^ no less than he, pervert the doc- 
 trine of the supernatural which the efficacy of 
 prayer involves. Let them read the story of 
 the temptation. It most remarkably anticipates 
 their proposal. They wish us, who believe that 
 prayer moves the divine arm, to do essentially 
 what the tempter asked Christ to do. They 
 seek in our case, as he did in our Lord's, to 
 gauge the power which we have with God. 
 The control of God over nature, which he exerts 
 in response to the prayers of his people, is for 
 8 
 
114 PRAYER. 
 
 high and spiritual ends. We do not wish him 
 to show it, at the demand of his enemies, to 
 gratify a mere scientific spirit or please ob- 
 stinate doubters. This mighty power is sacred. 
 God uses it only for his own glory and the good 
 of his children. They have no part in it who 
 would make it bow to the idols of science. To 
 pra}^ for the recovery of the sick, with a view to 
 putting God's power to the test, is to be utterly 
 without the spirit of prayer. Prayer is no form 
 of words used for experiment. Whoever comes 
 to God must believe that he is the rewarder of 
 them that seek him. We are asked to pray for 
 a given object in that doubting spirit which 
 makes prayer impossible. 
 
 The temptation of Christ in the wilderness 
 is not the only case in point. We read of cer- 
 tain Scribes and Pharisees who came to Christ 
 and said, "Master, we would seek a sign of 
 Doubt re- tliec." They had no faith in our Lord's 
 peiied. Messiahship, or in his divine power, but 
 
 doubted, and wished to put him to the test. 
 They were not open to conviction. If he should 
 cast out devils, they would say that he did it 
 
ITS POWER. 115 
 
 through the prince of devils. Hence he declined 
 their proposal ; did not give that which is holy 
 unto dogs, or cast his pearls before swine. His 
 answer to them was essentially the same as to 
 his great adversary — "An evil and adulterous 
 generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall 
 no sign be given it." The power of prayer 
 being supernatural, we can never prove it by 
 scientific tests, or to those who admit only 
 natural causes. 
 
 There is, then, a spirit in those who would 
 move God by their prayers which is indispensa- 
 ble to success. If we have not that spirit we 
 cannot pray as God requires ; and it is only as 
 we thus pray that he has promised to hear us. 
 He has not promised to hear doubters, or those 
 who try him with the methods of unbe- 
 
 The spirit , 
 
 which God lief. How can we meet the challenge 
 to pray if the terms of the challenge do 
 not permit us to have the spirit of prayer ? Look 
 as carefully as we will through the Scriptures, 
 and we shall find no promise of divine aid in 
 answer to our prayers which is not conditioned 
 upon a right spirit in us. Where has God en- 
 
116 PRAYER. 
 
 couraged the doubting heart to put him to the 
 proof? Though he sometimes pleads with his 
 people as if he were a man, he has not said that 
 the soul which tempts him shall be heard. " All 
 things whatsoever ye ask helieving, ye shall 
 receive/' are Christ's words. Here is no prom- 
 ise that God will answer our prayers just to 
 prove to us that he can; that he will hear us 
 irrespective of the feeling in which we come 
 to him. True discipleship on our part is as- 
 sumed. It was to his own friends and followers 
 that Christ spoke. Nor did he make the great 
 promise indiscriminately even to these. Only as 
 their souls were in a believing frame, knit to 
 God in a perfect oneness of will and desire, 
 could they offer the eflfectual prayer of the 
 righteous man. This was the grand feature 
 in our Lord's own prayers. He and his Fa- 
 ther were one, and he came to do that Father's 
 will. It was from this point of view that he 
 looked at his sufferings; and his prayer was 
 heard in its true intent, though the cup from 
 which his sensitive nature shrunk did not pass 
 from him. No true child of God, no one whom 
 
ITS POWER, 117 
 
 God has promised to hear, prays for what is 
 contrary to the will of God ; those objects which 
 seem to him desirable, but concerning which the 
 divine purpose is not clear, he prays for only 
 as Christ prayed for deliverance in the garden. 
 "When our wills are in perfect accord with the 
 will of God, and we walk by faith, not by sight, — 
 when we long for only those things which are in 
 the purpose of God, and are toiling for them as 
 our supreme object in life, — we have that state 
 of mind which alone can pray in the truest sense, 
 and all that we pray for will be granted us. 
 
 If any say that the objects of such praying are 
 sure to be granted whether we pray for them 
 or not, since God will surely do all that he has 
 purposed, the objection is valid so far as it goes. 
 But it does not prove that our prayers are need- 
 less ; it is no cause for omitting to pray. Things 
 
 which are the same in themselves, or 
 thingsTif- ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^0^ is concerned, are differ- 
 ferentto ^^^ Iq ^g accordiug to the frame of 
 
 spirit in which we receive them. If 
 we have brought ourselves into union with God 
 by praying for them, they will come to us as 
 
118 PRAYER. 
 
 blessings ; but if a prayerless life has separated 
 between us and him, so that our deepest yearn- 
 ing is not for what he may please to send us, 
 none of his dealings with us will have in them 
 the blessed savor of answers to prayer: be they 
 according to our natural wishes or against them, 
 in either case our hearts w^ill be left empty and 
 wretched. Whoever offers the prayer which 
 God always hears, can put his whole heart into 
 this brief sentence : '' Thy will be done." There 
 All prayers ^^ ^^ form of praycr possible to him 
 but one. which docs not grow out of this one 
 petition. When our souls are renewed, cleansed, 
 and sanctified, — when the great work for which 
 Christ came absorbs our time and energies, and 
 is the source of our fondest hopes — it can be no 
 small or temporal thing which we shall long for 
 in our prayers. All the things which we most 
 desire will be a part of the unfolding counsels 
 of God ; and the same events which are a curs- 
 ing to such as lack this desire, will crown our 
 lives with blessing. Only those who pray for 
 the reign of Christ will have eyes to see him 
 when he comes in his kingdom. Their souls 
 
ITS POWER. 119 
 
 shall be awake, and they shall rejoice as those 
 who never pray cannot, knowing what is meant 
 when the floods clap their hands. 
 
 In arguing that prayer has power with God, I 
 make no use of what are to my own mind, and 
 I doubt not to all Christians, the sweetest proofs 
 of such power. We could fill volumes out of our 
 experience — all kinds of exigencies and trials, 
 some temporal, others spiritual — in which we had 
 blessed witness that our prayers were heard. 
 No Christian who has passed througli times of 
 religious awakening, who has seen the various 
 enterprises of the church saved out of great 
 perils, who has longed for the souls of wicked 
 companions, who has had dear friends given back 
 Christian ^^ ^^^ ^^^ of tlic sidcs of the gravc, 
 experience. ^^^13^3 ^hat praycr movcs the arm of 
 God. He is sure that God has respect unto the 
 humble, and does not despise their prayer. The 
 history of the church and Christian biography 
 are a great treasure-house of proofs that prayer 
 has this blessed power. But they are proofs 
 whose force many do not feel. They are the 
 paradise of the praying soul whose flowery 
 
120 PRAYER. 
 
 walks the foot of doubt will trample, if admitted 
 too freely among them. We go out of the 
 enclosure, where we see the victories of prayer 
 blossoming all about us, and seek some common 
 ground, if any be not able to enter into our 
 faith. 
 
 Consider what men do when they deny that 
 God is moved by our prayers. They imply that 
 God is not sincere in many of his sweetest 
 promises and assurances. On what page of the 
 Bible do we not find some intimation 
 lows if*'' ^^^^ ^® is ^ prayer-answering God? 
 prayer has rpj^^ expHcit declarations that he is 
 
 no force. ^ 
 
 such a God are almost without num- 
 ber. Not only are they thus numerous; they 
 are the sweetest words in all Scripture. Our 
 souls feel the benediction when we hear Christ 
 say, ^' Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast 
 shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in 
 secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret 
 shall reward thee openly.*' No gainsayings or 
 criticisms of unbelief can ever spoil the aroma 
 of the words, " If ye, then, being evil, know how 
 to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 
ITS POWER. 121 
 
 more shall your Father which is in heaven give 
 Promises of g^od tilings to them that ask him!" 
 ^°'^' Take out of the Bible all those words 
 
 which teach that prayer obtains blessings from 
 God, and what remains would be a firmament 
 without its stars. And while we see them all 
 clustered there, shining in beauty on every 
 page, what follows if they have no meaning ? 
 Who is this that makes God a deceiver? Far 
 from us be such a thought. God is true, and 
 therefore he hears prayer. The Strength of 
 Israel cannot lie ; and hence are they indeed 
 stars, and not empty meteors, which make lu- 
 minous his holy book. It is impossible that he 
 should ever say, •' Seek ye my face in vain." 
 
 But the impulse to pray, which is in all men, 
 witnesses, no less than the Bible, to God's re- 
 gard for our prayers. If our prayers were never 
 heard, yet all men are so made that they will and 
 must pray. 'By a necessitv of his na- 
 
 Xatural l j j . 
 
 impulse to ture ovcry one has the praying instinct. 
 
 Not only is prayer the vital breath of 
 
 the Christian ; it is the spontaneous cry of all 
 
 human hearts. That is a good definition of man 
 
122 PRAYER. 
 
 which describes him as the creature who prays. 
 Even the profane oaths which we hear from 
 angry men on the streets are degenerate prayers. 
 They show how far the praying instinct in us 
 rrofane ^^J ^^-U if Suffered to come under the 
 prayers. power of siu. Mcu are never so lost 
 as not to cry unto God, and beseech his help, 
 though only in this blind and shocking way. 
 Let that impulse be delivered from the bondage 
 of sin; let Christ be formed within it, and 
 breathe his holy life through it, and those same 
 men, instead of degrading it as they now do, 
 would pray the prayers of an Elijah, a Stephen, 
 or a Paul. We need have no fear that any 
 doubts of science, or cavil and ridicule of what- 
 ever kind, will drive prayer out of the world. 
 Men will continue to pray as long as their hu- 
 manity is in them. Nature triumphs over those 
 who make a show of disdain ; for she forces even 
 them, in times of great distress or sudden an- 
 guish, to cry out for the living God. 
 
 But what follows if there be no dear Father 
 who hears and answers prayer? All must see 
 what the inference is, — the same as from the 
 
ITS POWER. 123 
 
 promises of the Bible. It follows that our God 
 God not a ^^^^ played us false, that he breaks to 
 a deceiver. ^^^ hopo the loviiig words he compels 
 our hearts to speak. Our whole life is thus 
 made a poor mockery, the vainest of delusions, 
 the most utter and pitiless deception that was 
 ever contrived. Our nature is all the time 
 forcing us to do what is at bottom a lie. God 
 has so made us that we are ever asking him for 
 what he never grants. Such is the theory, and 
 we see that it represents God as deceiving us at 
 the centre of the soul. The same faith which 
 makes good to us what is most sacred in our 
 own hearts confirms to us the scriptural doctrine 
 of the power of prayer. If we would have any 
 consolation, if we would trust our own instincts, 
 or lay any basis of trust one towards another, we 
 must believe that God is moved by prayer. He 
 does not mock us with a stone, but gives us the 
 bread we ask when our spirits cry out of their 
 hunger to him. 
 
 We are also to remember that our prayers 
 avail with God, or the noblest culture of our 
 lives is the fruit of a deception. Not only are 
 
124 PRAYER. 
 
 we forced to pray, but we acquaint ourselves 
 with God, and are lifted up and enno- 
 cu"2rnot bled in all our faculties by a life of 
 fraud"* prayer. Can it be that the offering 
 which does so much for us is a vain 
 oblation? Is it rational to hold that we must 
 put ourselves under the shadow of a religious 
 fraud, and pray all our days as if God heard us, 
 though our words are only beating the air, in 
 order that we may reach the highest manhood or 
 womanhood possible to us ? If prayer be indis- 
 pensable to our best training, if no one can af- 
 ford to neglect it, then must it have power with 
 God ; for men will not practise it while per- 
 suaded that it lacks this power; or if they do, 
 it is a kind of self-imposition, abhorrent to rea- 
 son, the tendency of which must be to make 
 them, not better, but worse. 
 
 The conclusion to which reason drives us, 
 then, is, that all true prayers do move the will 
 of God. He answers them, though not always 
 in such ways as our partial wisdom might prefer. 
 God chooses the form of the answer, and so far 
 as it differs from our present wish it is some- 
 
ITS POWER, 125 
 
 thing higher and better. His thoughts are 
 
 above our thoughts while bestowing his favors 
 
 upon us. He withholds the imperfect 
 
 answer that he may give the perfect. It does 
 
 often better 
 
 than the not cutcr iuto our hearts how great 
 things he prepares for us. If w-e dwelt 
 in him and he in us, and our souls were fully 
 conscious of such indwelling, we should see that 
 he more than grants all our petitions ; that which 
 we in our blindness deem a withholding of bless- 
 ing would be to our opened eyes what we ask 
 for, not stinted in measure, but shaken together 
 and running over. In the Lord's prayer is the 
 petition, " Give us this day our daily bread." 
 Many of God's poor have offered that prayer in 
 the morning, and laid their aching heads down at 
 night with no morsel to relieve bodily hunger. 
 But was the prayer unanswered ? Far 
 from it. Tell them it was not, and they 
 will not believe you. They will keep on offering 
 that prayer, soothed by it in some wonderful man- 
 ner, having answer to it all the time in their souls, 
 even while common food is denied them. We 
 forget, in our doubts upon this subject, that man 
 
 A common 
 case. 
 
126 PRA YER. 
 
 liveth not by bread alone. We too often choose 
 the lower form ; it is well for us sometimes that 
 God chooses only the higher form in which to 
 answer our prayers. David said, ^^ The Lord is 
 my shepherd; I shall not want." But 
 
 David. 
 
 if his comfort depended wholly on tem- 
 poral things, he did not speak the truth ; for he 
 was afterwards brought down more than once 
 into great straits of worldly misfortune. Only 
 so far as he was a man after God's own heart, 
 longing for spiritual blessings, keeping his will 
 in accord with the divine will, did his cup over- 
 flow, and none of his hope perish. The prayer 
 of St. Paul for the removal of the thorn 
 in his flesh was answered, beyond his 
 thought, in the words, ^' My grace is sufficient 
 for thee." Our blessed Lord was once faint, and 
 sat thus by the well while his disciples were 
 gone away to buy meat. Yet when they re- 
 turned with food, he gave them to understand 
 that he had already eaten. But no one 
 had supplied him with physical suste- 
 nance. Then he announced to his wondering 
 friends the great truth that there are spiritual 
 
 Christ at 
 the well. 
 
ITS POWER. 127 
 
 supplies for our wants with which no temporal 
 supplies are worthy to he compared : " I have 
 meat to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to 
 do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his 
 work." 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that all true prayers 
 are answered ; that they are answered as to the 
 substance of their meaning, and in ways which 
 would more than meet our largest expectation 
 were we able to see just what is involved in the 
 fulfilment of that divine will to which we have 
 resigned ourselves. The agreement of desire 
 between God and the believer who truly prays 
 is such that God is said to pray in the believer. 
 The fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous 
 man is an '' inwrought prayer.'* The prepara- 
 tion of the heart is from him who grants 
 ^^^ugM *^^® heart's petition. The Spirit help- 
 fecTa^^' ^^^ ^^^^' infirmities; they are his groan- 
 ings which we cannot utter when we 
 find our souls burdened with a longing for some 
 spiritual good. God worketh in us to will and 
 to do ; and hence in hearing our prayers he ful- 
 fils his own pleasure. Christ formed within our 
 
128 PRAYER. 
 
 hearts by faith, is, in the prayer we offer, inter- 
 ceding for us before the throne. Him the Fa- 
 ther heareth always. He presents the golden 
 vials from which the sweet incense is ever ris- 
 ing. He in whom we live is one with the Fa- 
 ther ; and his prayer must be heard, since God 
 cannot deny himself 
 
 Not only are the prayers we thus offer all 
 answered, but many of them are so answered 
 as to compel men, even in this life, to see the 
 interposition of God. Far be it from me to 
 preach the cold doctrine that we are not to 
 expect answers to our prayers in the forms we 
 now choose for them. The divine agency is 
 still concerned in carrying forward the work of 
 redemption. The renewal of a soul by the in- 
 fluences of the Holy Spirit is a supernatural 
 event ; and the keeping of that soul all along 
 the hard and steep path of sanctification is a 
 process which calls for the divine co-working. 
 No one has lived long in the world without be- 
 ing forced to see some of those special provi- 
 dences which he cannot but regard as forth- 
 puttings of the finger of God. In this same 
 
ITS POWER. 129 
 
 catalogue of gracious wonders belong all those 
 
 answers to our prayers which are in 
 
 S'^ur^thlt ^^ precise form of our present wish. 
 
 he hears Thcv make luminous the experience of 
 
 prayer. '' ^ 
 
 every Christian. They encourage us 
 to ask for specific objects — the conversion of 
 particular persons^ the turning aside from us of 
 impending evils, the sparing of lives which we 
 hold dear, and on which Death seems to be fixing 
 his grasp. How many such prayers have been 
 answered, thus strengthening the natural im- 
 pulse to offer them ! And they will continue to 
 be offered, whether answered or not, in the form 
 
 of our first wish, so long as men are 
 
 Our exact 
 
 wish some- men, and we find ourselves crushed 
 down by sudden sorrows, or in the 
 presence of unforeseen dangers. We are sure 
 that there must be One who careth for us when 
 we cease to be able to care for ourselves. There 
 is comfort, there is hope ; our foreboding hearts 
 may take courage, for we are not alone, but He 
 who heareth and answereth prayer is with us. 
 Take this consolation away from us, and who 
 would have any strength left to struggle longer ? 
 9 
 
130 PRA YER. 
 
 Who would not fall by the way, and lie prostrate 
 in hopelessness, saying, like the disheartened 
 prophet, "It is enough, Lord; and now, if it 
 please thee, I beseech thee take away my life "? 
 God has given his people no occasion to pray 
 this mournful prayer. Oftentimes has he heard 
 them in the precise manner of their wish, some- 
 times bearing long with them, at other times 
 appearing with his aid while they were yet 
 speaking, or even preventing them with the 
 blessings of his goodness. The last weapon we 
 The last '^^ ever yield is the power to pray. 
 resort. When all other hope fails, we may cry 
 
 out to God for help. There is that in us which 
 declares that it can brighten the clouds of adver- 
 sity. No cavils of unbelief, no delays of divine 
 succor, will ever make us doubt that in the 
 spirit of prayer we may encounter every evil. 
 It is able to disarm Death of his terrors. It 
 causes the gates of the city of gold to open 
 before our weary feet. 
 
 Not only, then, is it impossible that we should 
 not keep on praying, but all our right requests 
 are granted, either in the form we wish or in 
 
ITS POWER. 131 
 
 some way divinely chosen for us, which is far 
 higher and better. Since God is love, and has 
 made us praying creatures, we resign to his 
 wisdom all those interests concerning which he 
 does not as yet seem to hear us. We know 
 that he does hear us, so far as we have 
 
 Our hope 
 
 often ex- a praycrful spirit in our praying. He 
 has given us many proofs that we seek 
 not his face in vain, and the proofs which are up 
 to this time withholden shall be given us hereaf- 
 ter. Not only do the past and present belong 
 to us under God, but the future is ours also. 
 
 Bereaved one, the little life which was so 
 
 precious to you, and for which you prayed so 
 
 earnestly that it might still gladden and fill your 
 
 mother's heart, has not been taken from 
 
 The be- 
 reaved you in rude mockery of your trust. He 
 
 who fulfilled the great wish of his Son, 
 making him victorious over sin, though not hear- 
 ing his prayer to be delivered from the cross, 
 will sustain your sinking spirit. Walking with 
 God in quietness, your will resigned to his, and 
 your eye open to see the unfolding of his fatherly 
 counsels, you shall have songs in the night. 
 
132 PRAYER. 
 
 Yea, it sliall come to pass in your evening time 
 that it sliall be light. And when you clasp your 
 treasure once more, in the place where it is laid 
 up for you, you will wonder that you were ever 
 tempted to think your prayers unheard of God, 
 while you are pouring forth the notes of praise 
 to his goodness, who planned your life with all 
 its changes precisely as was needed, that your 
 joy and blessedness in his presence might be 
 complete. When the elders of the church are 
 called, and pray over the sick, the prayer of faith 
 does save the sufferers. It may not save them 
 in the poor sense of prolonging this earthly life 
 in the flesh ; such miraculous interpo- 
 sitions, needed in the infancy of the 
 church, may be withheld in our day : the world 
 is older now, and should not require to be per- 
 suaded of the divine mission of Christianity by 
 such means ; but that pra3^er, even though un- 
 answered to our sight, does nevertheless accom- 
 plish all that our faith can wish. We shall see, 
 when we no longer see through a glass darkly, 
 that God has answered our prayers in ways in- 
 finitely better for us than our slow hearts prefer- 
 
ITS POWER. 133 
 
 red. We shall know, knowing as we are known, 
 that the life of unanswered prayers for us would 
 Our lot in have been the life which we in our 
 ^'^^' weakness chose, but which God, with a 
 
 view to fulfilling all our desire, did not deal out 
 to us — mercifully granting us, instead thereof, 
 such temporal allotments as he foresaw would be 
 sure to work out for us a far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory. 
 
134 PRA YER. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE HOUR OF PRAYER. 
 
 The Bible has no more tender words than 
 those which invite us to meet God in prayer ; 
 and there is, in our heart of hearts, a voice 
 ever responding to those words. The fact, 
 therefore, that we do not easily learn to de- 
 light in prayer, but shrink from it as an irk- 
 some duty, witnesses to the bondage of the 
 divine nature within us. Our spirits are not 
 free, but sold under sin. That to 
 shrinking wliich our hoHcst impulse moves us 
 
 fromprayer -^ ^^^^^^A Q^ino- tO the laW in OUr 
 
 proves. 
 
 ,, V^.TXXX^ 
 
 members to which Ave are in captivity. 
 Our higher nature fears to do what it would, 
 by reason of the lower nature, which has do- 
 minion over it. This explanation of our re- 
 luctance to pray, when the duty first begins 
 
ITS HOUR. 135 
 
 to be urged upon us, is pictured in the story 
 of Adam. Before his disobedience it was a 
 joy to him to have God near, but he drew 
 back from that pure presence as soon as he 
 had sinned ; the child's yearning in him came 
 into bondage to the feeling of guilt. God 
 called to him as aforetime, in the cool of the 
 day, saying, " Where art thou ? " but he was 
 afraid, and hid himself among the trees of 
 the garden. 
 
 But a time comes, in the life of every soul 
 which has been made a new creature in Christ 
 Jesus, when that long-lost pleasure returns to 
 it. The words, ^' Enter into thy closet," are not 
 a stern command, as in the days of its estrange- 
 ment from God, but the sweetest of all invi- 
 tations. That soul has been disin- 
 
 Thefree . . , • . 
 
 soul loves thralled, it is no longer m subjection 
 ''^^^^' to the body of death, but has been 
 delivered into the liberty of the sons of God. 
 Its best loved spot is the place where God 
 daily meets it, and it goes to that meeting 
 hungering and thirsting for divine communion.* 
 The moments set apart for our secret de- 
 
136 PRAYER. 
 
 votions are " the children's hour " in God's 
 
 family. All know how it is wont to be in the 
 
 household Avhere love reigns. The 
 
 Scene from 
 
 domestic child grows weary of playing, and 
 
 life. 
 
 steals away to the room where the 
 father is. It finds the door ajar, and hears 
 from within a voice of welcome. Entering 
 freely in, it climbs upon the father's knees, 
 and is folded in his arms. There it hangs 
 about his neck, and interchanges with him 
 the words and kisses of affection. It hears 
 tender replies to any story of wants or troubles 
 which it brings, and thus its heart is made to 
 overflow with comfort and gladness. 
 
 Now, it is just in this way, though with 
 unspeakably more joy, that the children of 
 God learn to turn towards him, and say, 
 " Abba, Father." The new-born spirit is forced 
 to be, much of its time, in that temporal world 
 which is full of wearying disturbances. It is 
 driven hither and thither by the impulses of 
 the fleshly nature. It is tossed up and down 
 upon a sea of temptations. It is deceived, 
 misled, betrayed, disappointed, until it cries 
 
ITS HOUR. 137 
 
 out, as did the poor Prodigal, for its Father. 
 
 And that Father, ^^ who seeth in secret," hears 
 
 the cry of the distressed child. He 
 
 How it is in 
 
 the divine is near it, in the calm retirement 
 
 familj'. . .... 
 
 where it seeks refuge, mvitnig it, 
 bewildered and helpless as it is, to come and 
 rest itself by communing with him. There, in 
 the closet, is its haven of peaceful waters. 
 Have the archers shot at it, and is it sorely 
 wounded? There is the balm of Gilead and 
 the Physician. That child hungers for food 
 which the world cannot give ; and there it 
 is, the bread of heaven, of which if a man 
 eat he shall not hunger. It is the immortal 
 spirit in him which thirsts ; and there, in his 
 closet, he finds the water of life, which is a 
 well of water, in those who drink it, spring- 
 ing up into everlasting life. " Come, thou 
 weary child, born of mine own Spirit," is the 
 invitation ; " come and refresh thee in thy 
 Father's love. Enter into thy closet, and be 
 alone with me in secret, till thou shalt learn 
 how much readier than any earthly parent I 
 am to give good things to my children.'* 
 
138 PRA YER. 
 
 After this manner does God speak of the hour 
 of prayer. Thus do all the pure-hearted yearn 
 for it, and welcome its coming. It is the cool 
 arbor, fragrant and beautiful, out of which God 
 calls to us daily, inviting us to turn aside from 
 our flinty pathway, that we may be rested and 
 refreshed in his presence. 
 
 This meeting with the Father in secret, in 
 order to fulfil its blessed ministry, must be 
 distinguished by three things : reading the 
 A threefold ^i^^®? sclf-scrutiuy, prayer. These 
 cord. j^g^y ]3Q considered as three separate 
 
 duties or exercises, but in our Christian life 
 each of them will be found to involve the 
 other two. No one can examine himself in 
 the light of God, and not be constrained to 
 pray, '^ Create in me a clean heart, and renew 
 a right spirit within me." Whoever reads the 
 Bible understanding what he reads, finds that 
 his own thoughts, brought to that perfect rule, 
 are in the mean time accusing, or else excusing, 
 one another. And while one prays, uttering 
 the weakness and longings of which he is con- 
 scious, he finds no words but those of the Bible 
 
ITS HOUR. 139 
 
 adequate to his groaniiigs. As a ship escapes 
 from the storm into its quiet harbor by means 
 of three things, — ballast to keep it low in the 
 water, sails to catch the wind, and a helm to 
 guide its course, — so the Christian returns into 
 his rest in the closet by examining himself, read- 
 ing the Bible, and praying to his Father. These 
 three work together. It is the Bible, read with 
 a docile mind, which holds him to his course ; 
 it is beholding himself in the light of God that 
 keeps him low in his own thoughts ; it is the 
 life of the Father, breathed forth in answer to 
 prayer, which bears him onward into his rest. 
 Each of these exercises so involves the other 
 two, that whoever is faithful in either of them 
 will be faithful in them all ; and if any 
 
 Reading ' "^ 
 
 the Bible, man be negligent of either he will 
 
 self-exami- 
 nation, and slight them all. As soon as we begin 
 
 wT3^s^go to examine ourselves, we look for the 
 
 hand'" perfect standard by which to try our 
 
 character and life ; and as soon as we 
 
 know that standard, we begin to cry, " God 
 
 be merciful to me a sinner." If you tell me 
 
 that you never pray, then I know that you 
 
140 PRA YER. 
 
 are not an earnest student of the Bible and 
 your own heart. If I could persuade you to 
 attend to either of these duties as you should, 
 I might be sure that you would soon be faith- 
 ful to them all. 
 
 But do I not become a judge of my fellow- 
 disciples, if it be they whom I would persuade 
 to love the hour of prayer? If any are still 
 waiting for arguments to draw them on to 
 this blessed meeting with God, it can hardly 
 be that they are his children. Can the new 
 life be in them, and never leap upward after 
 its source ? It should startle us, and cause 
 us to look sharply into the foundations of our 
 hope in Christ, if we do not anticipate with 
 pleasure the hours of communion with God. 
 Should we esteem that an anchor to the soul 
 which does not hold us lovingly to him who 
 is the Father of our spirits? Prayer 
 
 The Chris- ^ *^ 
 
 tian life not \^ \}^q. earlicst cry of the new-born 
 
 possible 
 
 without child of God. The Christian life 
 
 prayer. . . , . i r» i • 
 
 begms with it, and nnds in it ever- 
 more the light of life. It is only as we are 
 estranged from God, unconscious of his divine 
 
ITS HOUR. 141 
 
 nature dwelling in us, that meeting with him 
 ceases to be our delight. The soul which 
 never prays is dead. It begins to pray as 
 soon as it begins to live. This is shown us 
 in the case of St. Paul. The proof that he 
 had been renewed by the divine Spirit was 
 the fact that he prayed. The Lord said to 
 his servant Ananias, " Arise, and go into the 
 street which is called Straight, and inquire 
 in the house of Judas for one called Saul 
 of Tarsus, for behold he prayeth.'^ 
 
 St. Paul. ^ . . 
 
 Ananias need not be afraid of him 
 any longer. He had been born into God's 
 family : God had begotten him, through the 
 Spirit, to be his dear child ; and the voice 
 of that sonship in him was a prayer, feebly 
 lisped in the dawn of the truth that God was 
 his Father, and to be spoken more articulately, 
 and with a richer fullness, as he grew towards 
 the stature of a man in Christ Jesus. His 
 praying showed that he had ceased to be a 
 persecutor of the Christians, that he now was 
 of the number of those who fled from him to 
 Damascus. 
 
142 PRA YER. 
 
 A prayerless Christian is an impossibility: 
 it is as though a living man should not breathe, 
 as though the sun should still be the sun while 
 giving out neither heat nor light. To be a 
 Christian is to partake of the life of Christ. 
 But the life of Christ was a divine sonship in 
 The voice humauitj. By virtue of this sonship 
 of sonship. j^g ^^^g -^ ^j^g Father, and the Father 
 
 in him. This tender fellowship and indwelling 
 was on the one side a constant prayer, and 
 on the other side a constant hearing of that 
 prayer. Therefore, if any pray not as Christ 
 did, what can we say but that they have no 
 part in him? Can you be God's child if you 
 have no impulse to call on him as your Father ? 
 if, when you hear him say, " Seek my face," 
 you do not answer, " Thy face. Lord, will I 
 seek " ? If you have been born of the free 
 woman, how is it that you speak not the lan- 
 guage of the free woman ? Should not the 
 children of Canaan use the speech of Canaan? 
 Whoever has entered into the life of God 
 will breathe the breath of that life, which is 
 prayer. 
 
ITS HOUR. 143 
 
 We cannot understand, while looking only 
 at the nature of the Christian life, how there 
 should ever be occasion to complain of the 
 prayerlessness of Christians. But in speaking 
 to this point, great charity becomes us. He 
 that thinketh he standeth, may be the first 
 to fall. Even where the spirit is willing, the 
 flesh is sometimes weak. There are Sloughs 
 of Despond, no less than Delectable Mountains, 
 in the life of prayer. Our infirmities may 
 choke the flame of devotion even after that 
 flame has burned clearly. The earthly nature 
 in us struggles against the heavenly. 
 growwcary Scasous of dcpressiou will come, in 
 prajer. ^i-^fcj-^ ^^q gj-^aH find it hard to pray; 
 
 nor is there any escape for us, save as we are 
 clothed upon with our house from heaven. 
 It is our old life of sin, rising up in us, and 
 striving to regain its lost dominion, which 
 causes us to grow weary of prayer. The new 
 life, though burning low and almost quenched, 
 still yearns, with such strength as it has, for 
 the mercy-seat. It welcomes the divine visits 
 with' the whole power of its feeble voice. 
 
144 PRAYER. 
 
 The new man in Christ Jesus, finding the im- 
 pulse to pray weakened and sorely burdened 
 in him, can exclaim, " It is no more I, but 
 sin that dwelleth in me." He, renewed after 
 the image of God, still prays; and the meas- 
 ure of his life in Christ is the delight he finds 
 in prayer. The bruised reed is not broken. 
 The smothered flame burns on. So far as he 
 is a Christian, conscious of the divine life 
 dweUing in him, he loves his hours 
 
 A test of , • 1 /-^( 1 1 i_' • 
 
 the new 01 commuuion with God: he antici- 
 pates them, he welcomes them, he 
 enters with joy into their holy duties. That 
 joy may be faint at the outset, but it becomes 
 full, and he triumphs over his infirmities, as 
 he opens his soul more and more. He finds 
 a blessed refreshment in being alone with God ; 
 and this refreshment is great according to the 
 greatness of the life of Christ in him. 
 
 That the hour of prayer is ever joyfully 
 welcomed by the true children of God was 
 wonderfully manifest in the experience of our 
 blessed Lord. He seemed almost to have no 
 other hour; prayed so much in spirit, and 
 
ITS HOUR. 145 
 
 entered so fully into the mind of the Father 
 
 as to carry the atmosphere of the closet about 
 
 with him wherever he went. Though 
 
 A constant 
 
 joy to appearing outwardly to men in tem- 
 
 Christ. 
 
 poral form and vesture, he yet m- 
 habited eternity ; he dwelt in the bosom of 
 the Father. This spiritual indwelling was that 
 which most filled his consciousness, so that 
 even in the midst of earthly disturbances he 
 could be alone with God. We read of him 
 as absorbed in works of love, yet, even while 
 doing those works, rejoicing in spirit, and say- 
 ing, " I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven 
 and earth ; " saying these As^ords in such a way 
 as to show that the eternal, more than the 
 He dwelt temporal, was present to his thoughts 
 in eternity. — whoUy and diviucly blessed in know- 
 ing that he was in the Father and the Father 
 in him. At the grave of Lazarus also, while 
 affected to tears by the grief of Mary and 
 Martha, and while the company of Jews present 
 were angrily watching him, this whole earthly 
 scene was in a moment shut out from his mind. 
 He was alone with God, in the sanctuary of 
 10 
 
146 PR A YER. 
 
 the soul ; and he lifted up his eyes, not to a 
 distant power, but to an infolding presence, 
 saying, '■^ Father, I thank thee that thou hast 
 heard me, and I know that thou hearest me 
 always." He spoke these words in the secrecy 
 of his divine Sonship, and his prayer was an- 
 swered openly in the coming forth of his friend 
 from the grave. In like manner, when he 
 prayed for his disciples at the Last Supper, 
 all his words came out of eternity — words 
 which we can fathom only as we partake of 
 the life eternal in him. Nothing earthly or 
 temporal entered into the holy of holies where 
 he prayed the Father for us. He was con- 
 scious of being in the high sphere and region 
 of his own divinity, a beloved Son communing 
 with the infinite Father, praying for those 
 whom he loved out of that Father's bosom. 
 Yet even Christ, though always praying in 
 
 spirit, was not content without special 
 lolcdth'e hours, in which he went away by him- 
 praycn sclf to moot the Father. When we 
 
 read of him that " he was alone pray- 
 ing," we feel that something habitual in his 
 
ITS HOUR, 147 
 
 life is indicated. His whole career on earth 
 seems to be summed up in that striking sen- 
 tence which says, " In the daytime he was 
 teaching in the temple, and at night he went 
 out and abode in the mount that is called 
 the Mount of Olives." When he came to his 
 disciples in the fourth watch of the night, 
 walking to their drowning ship on the stormy 
 sea, he had just left the dear spot where he 
 was wont to be refreshed in spirit. "It came 
 to pass in those days," says St. Luke, " that 
 he went out into a mountain to pray, and con- 
 tinued all night in prayer to God." After his 
 baptism, having been sealed to his solemn of- 
 fice by the coming of the Spirit upon him, he 
 went away into the wilderness, and was there 
 j^jjjg forty days alone with the beasts of 
 
 ^viiderness. ^^iQ earth. No doubt that solitude was 
 full of heavenly sweetness to him. He Avas 
 so long in an ecstasy of devotion that his 
 mortal powers gave out. But the blessed 
 hours of prayer made him fresh in soul to 
 meet the tempter, to hold fast his faith that 
 he was the Son of God. Communion with 
 
148 PRA YER. 
 
 God strengthened him to undertake for lost 
 men, who, as he foresaw, would lay on him 
 the burden of their wrath and scorn, and 
 madly nail him to the cross. As he sought 
 the sweet influence of prayer in beginning 
 his ministry, so was it a refuge to him when 
 that ministry drew to its tragic close. When 
 he saw the cross ready, waiting for him to 
 be lifted up upon it, he went over the brook 
 into a place where was a garden ; and there, 
 curtained by the night and the shadows of the 
 olive trees, he girded himself for the sacri- 
 Gethsem- ^^^' " Bciug in an agony, he prayed." 
 ^"*^- And then he came to his disciples, and 
 
 found them sleeping, whereupon he went away 
 again and prayed ; and then again the third 
 time, in the very same words. Thus did he 
 overcome the wild fear which had seized hold 
 of him. His darkness was turned to light, 
 his anguish to peace. He could take the 
 cup, which might not pass from him, with a 
 firm hand ; could submit himself, in a solemn 
 calm, to the judgment of the Father against 
 sin, saying, " Thy will, not mine, be done." 
 
ITS HOUR, 149 
 
 It is true that Christ, who found so much 
 comfort and joy in the hour of prayer, felt 
 none of those inward hinderances which often 
 trouble us. He was the holy Son of God, 
 without sin or sinful taint, dwelling in the 
 bosom of the Father. The sources of his spir- 
 itual life were always open. He was not 
 averse to the set time of meeting with God, 
 but looked forward eagerly to it. But we 
 are naturally strangers to God, con- 
 christs scions of being his children only as 
 pmyerex- ^^ ^^® hoY'^i again, the new life feeble 
 
 ceeded -j^ ^g ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^.^^ ^^A^ -^ folloWS 
 
 ours. 
 
 that our joy in prayer cannot be the 
 unmixed and infinite joy of Christ. Yet it 
 is of the same nature as his — a real entering 
 into the life of God, though neither so pure 
 nor so great. The fact that our joy is less 
 than his, shows that we have the more need ; 
 it is by our praying that we shall make the 
 flesh weaker and the spirit stronger in us ; 
 thus rising to the measure of his stature until 
 our joy is full. Did he need that strengthen- 
 ing which comes by abiding in the Father? 
 
150 PRA YER. 
 
 then we should not dare trust ourselves a 
 
 moment without it. He is not ashamed to 
 
 call us his brethren ; yet how little 
 
 The less r i • • r i • ^ 
 
 our joy, the ^^ ^^^ consciousuess ot sousliip WO have 
 greater our -j^ ^g j rpj_^g^|. consciousness was SO vivid 
 
 need. 
 
 in him as to enable him, amid the great- 
 est outward confusion, to pray and rejoice in 
 spirit. But we, even in the stillness of the 
 closet, must struggle to call God Father. 0, 
 then, if we would have such brotherliness as 
 was in Christ, and call God our Father with 
 his full and rejoicing voice, so as to find our 
 sweetest solace in the hour of prayer, let us 
 be continually entering into our closet, and 
 praying to Him who seeth in secret. Thus 
 alone can our troubled spirits be at rest, and 
 the divine joy, which has begun to warm them, 
 make them radiant in all their depths. 
 
 But we have other witness to the precious- 
 ness of the hour of prayer. In all ages the 
 servants of God, to the degree that they have 
 had the spirit of the Son, have delighted in 
 the holy duties of the closet. Enoch walked 
 with God : and this life of prayer, which he 
 
ITS HOUR. 151 
 
 lived in a wicked age, lifted him out of the 
 common lot till he was translated. Living, and 
 believing, he never died. He saw not the face 
 of the king of terrors. He laid aside the 
 earthlv house without a pang or fear. It 
 caused no wrench in his feelings, but sent a 
 thrill of pleasure through them, to be called 
 away into the more open vision. Abraham 
 had so much of this spirit, and communed with 
 God so often in secret places, that he was 
 called "the friend of God." Jacob was named 
 ,, . Israel because he wrestled in prayer 
 
 Various in- -r J 
 
 stances of m\ j^g prevailed. When Moses came 
 
 love for the 
 
 hour of down out of the mount, his face shone 
 
 praver. 
 
 with the joy of meeting God, so that 
 the people were afraid to look on him. That 
 shining, so dreadful to consciences defiled by 
 idolatry, was the glow of a soul overflowing with 
 life. Companionship with God had made the 
 spirit of Moses full of light ; he felt the 
 strength and peace of a divine indwelling. 
 In like manner were all the prophets of Israel 
 clothed upon. God feasted them in spirit 
 while they prayed before him. By this means 
 
152 PRA YER. 
 
 came their inspiration ; this was the live coai, 
 from off the altar, which touched their lips. 
 Take out of the record of those holy men of 
 old the accounts we have of their secret 
 prayers and longings unto God, and the charm 
 of that record would be gone. The little 
 remnant of outward fact would be dull and 
 stale. We can no more think of those men 
 without tracing their wondrous works and words 
 to the blessed fountain of prayer, than we can 
 think of a river as possible without a source, 
 or of the light of day as shining without a 
 sun. 
 
 Whom did God make ruler over his people, 
 and cause the kings of the earth to fear? It 
 was the youngest of the sons of Jesse, one 
 who from childhood delighted to be alone with 
 God. This divine yearning made him a man 
 after God's own heart, notwithstandincr 
 
 David re- ° 
 
 markabie his great wickedncss. Though he was 
 
 for this. . 
 
 full of evil mipulses, yet he loved to 
 feel that God was near him. His sweet Psalms, 
 which have been the comfort of so many bur- 
 dened hearts, are but the voice of his own 
 
ITS HOUR. 153 
 
 heart praying in secret. He called upon the 
 Lord in the morning, at evening, and during 
 the night-watches. The bird that had her nest 
 in the wall of the house of prayer, seemed to 
 him to be blessed. His heart panted after God. 
 He was continually saying, *' When shall I 
 come, and appear before God ? " '^ The pray- 
 ers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended," 
 we read in the seventy-second Psalm. That 
 Psalm ma}^ be the last of his recorded pray- 
 ers, but we cannot think that he ceased pray- 
 ing while on earth, or that he now fails to do 
 so in heaven. The true Christian never bids 
 farewell to his sweet hour of prayer. His 
 closet, which is so dear to him here below, 
 is but the type of a nearer and sweeter com- 
 munion on high. 
 
 Now and always, prayer is the voice of the 
 child longing unto its Father ; conscious of a 
 divine life coming into it, even as the branch 
 lives b}^ abiding in the vine. There is noth- 
 ing which men desire more than the conscious- 
 ness of power. Hence their haste to be rich, 
 their liking to be in places of authority, their 
 
154 PRA YER. 
 
 eagerness to make themselves a great name. 
 But no such consciousness of power comes 
 by these means, as the Christian feels while 
 joying in God. In the divine might which 
 comes to him through prayer, he is strong 
 either to suffer or to do. Nothing is too hard 
 for him. He can subdue his evil nature, 
 
 Prayer 
 
 gives the can ovcrcomo the world; he beareth 
 
 conscious- 
 ness of all things, hopeth all things, believe th 
 
 all things, endureth all things. This 
 blessed inworking is that secret of the Lord 
 which is with them that fear him. Great 
 peace have they with whom this secret abides. 
 Here, no doubt, is laid open to us the source 
 of what is greatest, purest, and best in men. 
 Out of this dwelling in God as a dear child 
 came the Confessions of Augustine, the Ser-. 
 mons of Massillon, the Thoughts of Pascal, the 
 sustained fervor of Whitefield. The singing 
 men and women, whose hymns make melody 
 in our churches all round the world, have 
 caught their inspiration in that secret fellow- 
 ship with God into which prayer is the ap- 
 pointed way. We understand the patriotism 
 
ITS HOUR. 155 
 
 of Washington, the missionary zeal of Brain- 
 erd, the courage of Luther, and the patience 
 of the great company of whom the world 
 was not worthy, by knowing that they loved 
 the hour of prayer. They went often into 
 its secret places, where the spirit of dear 
 children in them uttered itself; and they felt 
 there the life of the Father raising them up 
 to newness of life, clothing their spirits with 
 the bright garment of joy, witnessing that they 
 had been born of God. 
 
 These rejoicing souls have never felt any 
 hinderance in coming to God, as though their 
 entreaties implied a doubt of his readiness to 
 bless, or as though they were putting a private 
 wish in the way of changeless decrees. If 
 God were a law of nature, a cosmic force, or 
 a fate, we might feel an impropriety in prayer. 
 But he is our Father, and he is ready to do for 
 us above all that we are able to ask, or even 
 to think. When we are brought into perfect 
 accord with him by the exercise of prayer, 
 we grasp the truth of this exceeding readi- 
 ness in him, and in our knowing of God as 
 
156 PRAYER. 
 
 the un withholding Father, is that eternal life 
 which meets our want, so that we need no 
 other answer. •' Do you," says an 
 prayer its eminent writer, ^' pray as a child of 
 g^^gj!^"" God, whose first and nearest relation- 
 ship is to God, your Father? whose 
 most deeply-felt interests are bound up in that 
 relation, in what lies within the circle of that 
 relation contemplated in itself? Do you pray 
 as one to whom the mind of God towards 
 you and your mind towards him are the most 
 important elements of existence, and whose 
 other interests in existence are outer circles 
 around this central interest ; so that you see 
 yourself, and your family, and your friends, 
 and your country, and your race, with the 
 eyes, because with the heart of one who loves 
 the Lord his God with all his heart, and mind, 
 and soul, and strength ? Is this, at least, your 
 ideal for yourself; what you are seeking to 
 realize, — to realize for its own sake, not for 
 the sake of any consequences of it in time 
 or eternity? Then, whatever the blessed con- 
 sequences of its realization will be, they shall 
 
ITS HOUR. 157 
 
 be far and forever inferior and secondary to 
 itself." 
 
 Is the hour of prayer distasteful to you? 
 Do you not, as God's child, daily experience 
 your weakness, so as to bo driven to him for 
 help? Consider if this blessed duty has not 
 been put in such a light that you should 
 never again neglect it, but, on the contrary, 
 esteem it the one pleasure of your 
 liked by life, with which you allow no stress 
 
 some. 
 
 of worldly cares to interfere ? If you 
 find in your closet no upliftings of soul, no 
 enlargement of your joy and strength, it must 
 be for the reason that you know not how weak 
 you are. Your new life in Christ is not in con- 
 flict with the forces of evil, with which no 
 human power is able to cope, so as to teach 
 you how sorely you need the strength of God. 
 It is when you find this battle against 
 sin too hard for you, that you will love 
 to take refuge in prayer. blessed 
 danger, which makes us fly to our Fortress, 
 where we find the peace that passeth under- 
 standing ! If you, compassed about by infirmi- 
 
 How to 
 
 correct this 
 feelinff. 
 
158 PRA YER, 
 
 ties, are daily striving to live the life of the 
 holy Son of God, then are you in a conflict 
 to which your human power is sadly unequal ; 
 forced to say, continually, ^' Father, save me 
 from this hour," — save me from the hour and 
 power of darkness by the influence of the hour 
 of prayer. He who is not every day forced 
 thus to cry out for help cannot be struggling 
 to put down all his evil thoughts, to overcome 
 the world, to convert sinners to God, to bear 
 about the dying and the life of Christ in his 
 mortal body. The new-born sons of God are 
 all the time finding tJiemselves weak, power- 
 less to be in perfect accord with the mind 
 and wiU of the Father. Billows go over their 
 head, and they are ready to perish. Not 
 drifting along in the currents of worldliness, 
 but following their great purpose to be con- 
 formed to God, thev have such ex- 
 
 Our love of ' "^ 
 
 prayer the perieucc of wcakucss as to be ever 
 
 measure of , i i i -ni i i 
 
 our faith crymg, '' Abba, Father, keep us, calm 
 us, lead us, give us the victory over 
 foes too mighty for our strength?" In pro- 
 portion to the sharpness of this conflict is 
 
ITS HOUR. 159 
 
 the love of the Christian for his devotional 
 hours. He can never cease to love, and long 
 for, the sweet time in which his prayer for 
 help is answered. It is in his closet, visited 
 with the outgoings of the morning and even- 
 ing, that he is conscious of deliverance. There 
 it is that peace, and joy, and glorious strength 
 come into his soul. He turns to the hour of 
 prayer as imprisoned plants turn to the sun. 
 It is not irksome to him, but full of bene- 
 dictions. The bitterest trial of his life would 
 be, not to be allowed to pray ; for it is in 
 praying that he meets the God of all com- 
 fort, and receives a thousandfold for his daily 
 conflicts and troubles. 
 
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