{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65115/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65115","id":"gutenberg_65115","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65115","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Prayer -- Christianity"],"text":"Transcriber's Note:\n\nObvious printer errors have been corrected. Hyphenation has been\nrationalised.\n\nSmall capitals have been replaced by full capitals. Italics are\nindicated by _underscores_.\n\nThe quotations that precede each chapter have been moved to follow the\nrelevant chapter number.\n\n\n\n\n POWER THROUGH\n PRAYER\n\n BY\n E. M. BOUNDS\n\n WITH FOREWORDS BY REV. A. C. DIXON, D.D.,\n AND MR. ALBERT A. HEAD.\n\n _TWELFTH EDITION_\n\n MARSHALL BROTHERS, LTD.\n _Publishers_,\n LONDON, EDINBURGH & NEW YORK.\n\n HUNT, BARNARD & CO., LTD.\n PRINTERS,\n LONDON & AYLESBURY.\n\n\nFOREWORDS\n\n\n I\n BY REV. A. C. DIXON, D.D.\n\nThis little book was given me by a friend. I glanced through it and laid\nit aside, thinking that I would read it at some convenient time, though\nI had never heard of the author. But it was forgotten till Christmas,\nwhen I received another copy as a present from another friend. \"Well,\"\nthought I, \"there must be something worth while in the little book, or\nit would not have been selected as a present by two such intelligent\npeople.\" So I read at once the first page till I came to the words: \"Man\nis God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is\nlooking for better men.\" That was enough to whet the appetite for more,\nand I greedily read chapter after chapter with delight and blessing.\nWhen the last sentence was finished I felt that I knew more about prayer\nthan when I began to read, and, better than that, I felt more like\npraying. Every page pulsates with the heart and mind of a man who knows\nhow to pray; knows the men who have known how to pray, and is very\nearnest in desiring that others should know how to pray.\n\nHis desire has been realized to some extent, in the case of at least\none, who would like to have others share the blessing with him.\n\nThe author has kindly consented to a reprint in Great Britain.\n\nA. C. DIXON.\n\n\n II\n BY MR. ALBERT A. HEAD.\n\nIf there is one need felt beyond another by the members of the Church of\nChrist to-day, it is power _in_ prayer\u2014desire _for_ prayer\u2014time to be\ndevoted _to_ prayer. What a number of unions for prayer exist already,\nand yet how few members continue \"instant in prayer\" or \"pray without\nceasing.\" The author of this book makes a clear diagnosis of the case\nwhen he writes as follows:\u2014\"Never did the cause of God need perfect\nillustrations of the possibilities of prayer more than in this age. To\npray is the greatest thing we can do. We must learn anew the work of\nprayer, enter anew the school of prayer.\"\n\nThe contents of this message upon prayer should be read alike by\npreacher and teacher, evangelist and intercessor. Its pages contain an\nappeal to every \"worker together with Christ,\" and stimulate the desire\nfor prayer in the varied relationships of Christian life. The appeal\ndeserves a wide circulation amongst members of Prayer Circles and Prayer\nUnions, and, indeed, amongst all who are looking for a revival of true\nreligion in our land, and an exodus of ambassadors for Christ to heathen\nand Moslem populations.\n\nI most heartily commend the reading of it, feeling persuaded that God\nhas given the author a trumpet call to the Church of Christ to \"arise\nand pray.\"\n\nALBERT A. HEAD.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n _Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower\u2014that\n is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a\n physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is\n necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case\n of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the\n pangs of death, and say: \"God doth not require me to make myself a\n drudge to save them?\" Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian\n compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical\n cruelty?_\u2014RICHARD\u00a0BAXTER.\n\n _Misemployment of time is injurious to the mind. In illness I have\n looked back with self-reproach on days spent in my study: I was wading\n through history and poetry and monthly journals, but I was in my study!\n Another man's trifling is notorious to all observers, but what am I\n doing? Nothing, perhaps, that has a reference to the spiritual good of\n my congregation. Be much in retirement and prayer. Study the honour and\n glory of your Master._\u2014RICHARD\u00a0CECIL.\n\n _Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on\n this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all\n the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise,\n of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself\n to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God.\n Luther spent his best three hours in prayer._\u2014ROBERT\u00a0MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nWe are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new\nmethods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure\nenlargement and efficiency for the Gospel. This trend of the day has a\ntendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or\norganization. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him\nthan of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for\nbetter methods; God is looking for better men. \"There was a man sent\nfrom God whose name was John.\" The dispensation that heralded and\nprepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. \"Unto us a\nChild is born, unto us a Son is given.\" The world's salvation comes out\nof that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the\nmen who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their\nsuccess. The glory and efficiency of the Gospel is staked on the men who\nproclaim it. When God declares that \"the eyes of the Lord run to and fro\nthroughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them\nwhose heart is perfect toward Him,\" He declares the necessity of men and\nhis dependence on them as a channel through which to exert His power\nupon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of\nmachinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the\nwork of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere.\nDarkness, confusion, and death would ensue.\n\nWhat the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new\norganizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can\nuse\u2014men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow\nthrough methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on\nmen. He does not anoint plans, but men\u2014men of prayer.\n\nAn eminent historian has said that the accidents of personal character\nhave more to do with the revolutions of nations than either philosophic\nhistorians or democratic politicians will allow. This truth has its\napplication in full to the gospel of Christ, the character and conduct\nof the followers of Christ\u2014Christianize the world, transfigure nations\nand individuals. Of the preachers of the gospel it is eminently true.\n\nThe character as well as the fortunes of the gospel are committed to the\npreacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is\nthe golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not\nonly be golden, but open and flawless, that the oil may have a full,\nunhindered, unwasted flow.\n\nThe man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if\npossible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon.\nThe preacher makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from the mother's\nbosom is but the mother's life, so all the preacher says is tinctured,\nimpregnated by what the preacher is. The treasure is in earthen vessels,\nand the taste of the vessel impregnates and may discolour. The man, the\nwhole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of\nan hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a\nsermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon\nis a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon\nis forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the\nman is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is\nfull of the divine unction.\n\nPaul termed it \"My gospel;\" not that he had degraded it by his personal\neccentricities or diverted it by selfish appropriation, but the gospel\nwas put into the heart and lifeblood of the man Paul, as a personal\ntrust to be executed by his Pauline traits, to be set aflame and\nempowered by the fiery energy of his fiery soul. Paul's sermons\u2014what\nwere they? Where are they? Skeletons, scattered fragments, afloat on the\nsea of inspiration! But the man Paul, greater than his sermons, lives\nforever, in full form, feature, and stature, with his moulding hand on\nthe Church. The preaching is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the\ntext is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory; the preacher lives.\n\nThe sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men\ngive out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the\nspiritual character of the preacher. Under the Jewish dispensation the\nhigh priest had inscribed in jewelled letters on a golden frontlet:\n\"Holiness to the Lord.\" So every preacher in Christ's ministry must be\nmoulded into and mastered by this same holy motto. It is a crying shame\nfor the Christian ministry to fall lower in holiness of character and\nholiness of aim than the Jewish priesthood. Jonathan Edwards said: \"I\nwent on with my eager pursuit after more holiness and conformity to\nChrist. The heaven I desired was a heaven of holiness.\" The gospel of\nChrist does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power.\nIt moves as the men who have charge of it move. The preacher must\nimpersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be\nembodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the preacher\nas a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The\nenergy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones.\nHe must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in\nmeekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant\nwith the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, independent bearing,\nwith the simplicity and sweetness of a child. The preacher must throw\nhimself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a\nself-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty,\nheroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of\nand shape a generation for God. If they be timid timeservers, place\nseekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a\nweak hold on God or His Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of\nself or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for\nGod.\n\nThe preacher's sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself.\nHis most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with\nhimself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and\nenduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers\nand saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has\nmade himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents or great\nlearning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness,\ngreat in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God\u2014men\nalways preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it.\nThese can mould a generation for God.\n\nAfter this order, the early Christians were formed. Men they were of\nsolid mould, preachers after the heavenly type\u2014heroic, stalwart, soldierly,\nsaintly. Preaching with them meant self-denying, self-crucifying,\nserious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied themselves to it in a\nway that told on their generation, and formed in its womb a generation\nyet unborn for God. The preaching man is to be the praying man. Prayer\nis the preacher's mightiest weapon. An almighty force in itself, it\ngives life and force to all.\n\nThe real sermon is made in the closet. The man\u2014God's man\u2014is made in the\ncloset. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret\ncommunion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his\nweightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer\nmakes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor.\n\nThe pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is\nagainst the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too\noften only official\u2014a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is\nnot to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul's life or\nPaul's ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor\nin his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's work and is\npowerless to advance God's cause in this world.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n _But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of his\n spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and\n the fewness and fullness of his words have often struck even strangers\n with admiration as they used to reach others with consolation. The most\n awful, living, reverend frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was\n his prayer. And truly it was a testimony. He knew and lived nearer to\n the Lord than other men, for they that know Him most will see most\n reason to approach Him with reverence and fear._\u2014WILLIAM\u00a0PENN OF\n GEORGE\u00a0FOX.\n\n\nThe sweetest graces by a slight perversion may bear the bitterest fruit.\nThe sun gives life, but sunstrokes are death. Preaching is to give life;\nit may kill. The preacher holds the keys; he may lock as well as unlock.\nPreaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of\nspiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when\nwrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results. It is an easy\nmatter to destroy the flock if the shepherd be unwary or the pasture be\ndestroyed, easy to capture the citadel if the watchmen be asleep or the\nfood and water be poisoned. Invested with such gracious prerogatives,\nexposed to so great evils, involving so many grave responsibilities, it\nwould be a parody on the shrewdness of the devil and a libel on his\ncharacter and reputation if he did not bring his master influences to\nadulterate the preacher and the preaching. In face of all this, the\nexclamatory interrogatory of Paul, \"Who is sufficient for these things?\"\nis never out of order.\n\nPaul says: \"Our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able\nministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit:\nfor the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.\" The true ministry\nis God-touched, God-enabled, and God-made. The Spirit of God is on the\npreacher in anointing power, the fruit of the Spirit is in his heart,\nthe Spirit of God has vitalized the man and the word; his preaching\ngives life, gives life as the spring gives life; gives life as the\nresurrection gives life; gives ardent life as the summer gives ardent\nlife; gives fruitful life as the autumn gives fruitful life. The\nlife-giving preacher is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for\nGod, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single to\nGod, and in whom by the power of God's Spirit the flesh and the world\nhave been crucified and his ministry is like the generous flood of a\nlife-giving river.\n\nThe preaching that kills is non-spiritual preaching. The ability of the\npreaching is not from God. Lower sources than God have given to it\nenergy and stimulus. The Spirit is not evident in the preacher nor his\npreaching. Many kinds of forces may be projected and stimulated by\npreaching that kills, but they are not spiritual forces. They may\nresemble spiritual forces, but are only the shadow, the counterfeit;\nlife they may seem to have, but the life is magnetized. The preaching\nthat kills is the letter; shapely and orderly it may be, but it is the\nletter still, the dry, husky letter, the empty, bald shell. The letter\nmay have the germ of life in it, but it has no breath of spring to evoke\nit; winter seeds they are, as hard as the winter's soil, as icy as the\nwinter's air, no thawing nor germinating by them. This letter-preaching\nhas the truth. But even divine truth has no life-giving energy alone; it\nmust be energized by the Spirit, with all God's forces at its back.\nTruth unquickened by God's Spirit deadens as much as, or more than,\nerror. It may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its\nshade and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness. The\nletter-preaching is unctionless, neither mellowed nor oiled by the\nSpirit. There may be tears, but tears cannot run God's machinery; tears\nmay be but summer's breath on a snow-covered iceberg, nothing but\nsurface slush. Feelings and earnestness there may be, but it is the\nemotion of the actor and the earnestness of the attorney. The preacher\nmay feel from the kindling of his own sparks, be eloquent over his own\nexegesis, earnest in delivering the product of his own brain; the\nprofessor may usurp the place and imitate the fire of the apostle;\nbrains and nerves may serve the place and feign the work of God's\nSpirit, and by these forces the letter may glow and sparkle like an\nillumined text, but the glow and sparkle will be as barren of life as\nthe field sown with pearls. The death-dealing element lies behind the\nwords, behind the sermon, behind the occasion, behind the manner, behind\nthe action. The great hindrance is in the preacher himself. He has not\nin himself the mighty life-creating forces. There may be no discount on\nhis orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnestness; but somehow the man,\nthe inner man, in its secret places has never broken down and\nsurrendered to God, his inner life is not a great highway for the\ntransmission of God's message, God's power. Somehow self and not God\nrules in the holy of holies. Somewhere, all unconscious to himself, some\nspiritual non-conductor has touched his inner being, and the divine\ncurrent has been arrested. His inner being has never felt its thorough\nspiritual bankruptcy, its utter powerlessness; he has never learned to\ncry out with an ineffable cry of self-despair and self-helplessness till\nGod's power and God's fire come in and fill, purify and empower.\nSelf-esteem, self-ability in some pernicious shape has defamed and\nviolated the temple which should be held sacred for God. Life-giving\npreaching costs the preacher much\u2014death to self, crucifixion to the\nworld, the travail of his own soul. Crucified preaching only can give\nlife. Crucified preaching can come only from a crucified man.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n _During this affliction I was brought to examine my life in relation to\n eternity closer than I had done when in the enjoyment of health. In\n this examination relative to the discharge of my duties toward my\n fellow-creatures as a man, a Christian minister, and an officer of the\n Church, I stood approved by my own conscience; but in relation to my\n Redeemer and Saviour the result was different. My returns of gratitude\n and loving obedience bear no proportion to my obligations for\n redeeming, preserving, and supporting me through the vicissitudes of\n life from infancy to old age. The coldness of my love to Him who first\n loved me and has done so much for me overwhelmed and confused me; and\n to complete my unworthy character, I had not only neglected to improve\n the grace given to the extent of my duty and privilege, but for want of\n that improvement had, while abounding in perplexing care and labour,\n declined from first zeal and love. I was confounded, humbled myself,\n implored mercy, and renewed my covenant to strive and devote myself\n unreservedly to the Lord._\u2014BISHOP\u00a0MCKENDREE.\n\n\nThe preaching that kills may be, and often is, orthodox\u2014dogmatically,\ninviolably orthodox. We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best. It\nis the clean, clear-cut teaching of God's Word, the trophies won by\ntruth in its conflict with error, the levees which faith has raised\nagainst the desolating floods of honest or reckless misbelief or\nunbelief; but orthodoxy, clear and hard as crystal, suspicious and\nmilitant, may be but the letter well-shaped, well-named, and\nwell-learned, the letter which kills. Nothing is so dead as a dead\northodoxy, too dead to speculate, too dead to think, to study, or to\npray.\n\nThe preaching that kills may have insight and grasp of principles, may\nbe scholarly and critical in taste, may have all the minuti\u00e6 of the\nderivation and grammar of the letter, may be able to trim the letter\ninto its perfect pattern, and illumine it as Plato and Cicero may be\nillumined, may study it as a lawyer studies his text-books to form his\nbrief or to defend his case, and yet be like a frost, a killing frost.\nLetter-preaching may be eloquent, enamelled with poetry and rhetoric,\nsprinkled with prayer, spiced with sensation, illumined by genius, and\nyet these be but the massive or chaste, costly mountings, the rare and\nbeautiful flowers which coffin the corpse. The preaching which kills may\nbe without scholarship, unmarked by any freshness of thought or feeling,\nclothed in tasteless generalities or vapid specialities, with style\nirregular, slovenly, savouring neither of closet nor of study, graced\nneither by thought, expression, or prayer. Under such preaching how wide\nand utter the desolation! how profound the spiritual death!\n\nThis letter-preaching deals with the surface and shadow of things, and\nnot the things themselves. It does not penetrate the inner part. It has\nno deep insight into, no strong grasp of, the hidden life of God's Word.\nIt is true to the outside, but the outside is the hull which must be\nbroken and penetrated for the kernel. The letter may be dressed so as to\nattract and be fashionable, but the attraction is not toward God nor is\nthe fashion for heaven. The failure is in the preacher. God has not made\nhim. He has never been in the hands of God like clay in the hands of the\npotter. He has been busy about the sermon, its thought and finish, its\ndrawing and impressive forces, but the deep things of God have never\nbeen sought, studied, fathomed, experienced by him. He has never stood\nbefore \"the throne high and lifted up,\" never heard the seraphim song,\nnever seen the vision nor felt the rush of that awful holiness, and\ncried out in utter abandon and despair under the sense of weakness and\nguilt, and had his life renewed, his heart touched, purged, inflamed by\nthe live coal from God's altar. His ministry may draw people to him, to\nthe Church, to the form and ceremony; but no true drawings to God, no\nsweet, holy, divine communion induced. The Church has been frescoed but\nnot edified, pleased but not sanctified. Life is suppressed; a chill is\non the summer air; the soil is baked. The city of our God becomes the\ncity of the dead; the Church a graveyard, not an embattled army. Praise\nand prayer are stifled; worship is dead. The preacher and the preaching\nhave helped sin, not holiness; peopled hell, not heaven.\n\nPreaching which kills is prayerless preaching. Without prayer the\npreacher creates death, and not life. The preacher who is feeble in\nprayer is feeble in life-giving forces. The preacher who has retired\nfrom prayer as a conspicuous and largely prevailing element in his own\ncharacter has shorn his preaching of its distinctive life-giving power.\nProfessional praying there is and will be, but professional praying\nhelps the preaching to its deadly work. Professional praying chills and\nkills both preaching and praying. Much of the lax devotion and lazy,\nirreverent attitudes in congregational praying are attributable to\nprofessional praying in the pulpit. Long, discursive, dry, and inane are\nthe prayers in many pulpits. Without unction or heart, they fall like a\nkilling frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they\nare. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The more\ndead they are the longer they grow. A plea for short praying, live\npraying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy Spirit\u2014direct,\nspecific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit\u2014is in order. A school\nto teach preachers how to pray, as God counts praying, would be more\nbeneficial to true piety, true worship, and true preaching than all\ntheological schools.\n\nStop! Pause! Consider! Where are we? What are we doing? Preaching to\nkill? Praying to kill? Praying to God! the great God, the Maker of all\nworlds, the Judge of all men! What reverence! what simplicity! what\nsincerity! what truth in the inward parts is demanded! How real we must\nbe! How hearty! Prayer to God the noblest exercise, the loftiest effort\nof man, the most real thing! Shall we not discard forever accursed\npreaching that kills and prayer that kills, and do the real thing, the\nmightiest thing\u2014prayerful praying, life-creating preaching bring the\nmightiest force to bear on heaven and earth and draw on God's\nexhaustless and open treasure for the need and beggary of man?\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n _Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America pouring out his\n very soul before God for the perishing heathen without whose salvation\n nothing could make him happy. Prayer\u2014secret, fervent, believing\n prayer\u2014lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent\n knowledge of the language where a missionary lives, a mild and winning\n temper, a heart given up to God in closet religion\u2014these, these are the\n attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will\n fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human\n redemption._\u2014CAREY'S\u00a0BROTHERHOOD, SERAMPORE.\n\n\nThere are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut\nitself out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit were\nillustrations of this; they shut themselves out from men to be more with\nGod. They failed, of course. Our being with God is of use only as we\nexpend its priceless benefits on men. This age, neither with preacher\nnor with people, is much intent on God. Our hankering is not that way.\nWe shut ourselves to our study, we become students, bookworms, Bible\nworms, sermon makers, noted for literature, thought, and sermons; but\nthe people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out of mind. Preachers\nwho are great thinkers, great students must be the greatest of prayers,\nor else they will be the greatest of backsliders, heartless professionals,\nrationalistic, less than the least of preachers in God's estimate.\n\nThe other tendency is to thoroughly popularize the ministry. He is no\nlonger God's man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not,\nbecause his mission is to the people. If he can move the people, create\nan interest, a sensation in favour of religion, an interest in Church\nwork\u2014he is satisfied. His personal relation to God is no factor in his\nwork. Prayer has little or no place in his plans. The disaster and ruin\nof such a ministry cannot be computed by earthly arithmetic. What the\npreacher is in prayer to God, for himself, for his people, so is his\npower for real good to men, so is his true fruitfulness, his true\nfidelity to God, to man, for time and for eternity.\n\nIt is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with the\ndivine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the preacher\nby dint of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine of the\nministry can keep himself in trim and fitness is a serious mistake. Even\nsermon-making, incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty, as a work, or\nas a pleasure, will engross and harden, will estrange the heart, by\nneglect of prayer, from God. The scientist loses God in nature. The\npreacher may lose God in his sermon.\n\nPrayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God and\nin sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly air of\na profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the facility\nand power of a divine unction.\n\nMr. Spurgeon says: \"Of course the preacher is above all others\ndistinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian,\nelse he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else\nhe were disqualified for the office he has undertaken. If you as\nministers are not very prayerful, you are to be pitied. If you become\nlax in sacred devotion, not only will you need to be pitied but your\npeople also, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed and\nconfounded. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared\nwith our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle\nhave been high days indeed; never has heaven's gate stood wider; never\nhave our hearts been nearer the central Glory.\"\n\nThe praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put\nin as we put flavour to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must\nbe in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty,\nput into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of\ntime which have been snatched from business and other engagements of\nlife; but it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and\nstrength must be given. It does not mean the closet absorbed in the\nstudy or swallowed up in the activities of ministerial duties; but it\nmeans the closet first, the study and activities second, both study and\nactivities freshened and made efficient by the closet. Prayer that\naffects one's ministry must give tone to one's life. The praying which\ngives colour and bent to character is no pleasant hurried pastime. It\nmust enter as strongly into the heart and life as Christ's \"strong\ncrying and tears\" did; must draw out the soul into an agony of desire as\nPaul's did; must be an inwrought fire and force like the \"effectual,\nfervent prayer\" of James; must be of that quality which when put into\nthe golden censer and incensed before God, works mighty spiritual throes\nand revolutions.\n\nPrayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our\nmother's apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of a\nminute's grace said over an hour's dinner, but it is a most serious work\nof our most serious years. It engages more of time and appetite than our\nlongest dinings or richest feasts. The prayer that makes much of our\npreaching must be made much of. The character of our praying will\ndetermine the character of our preaching. Light praying will make light\npreaching. Prayer makes preaching strong, gives it unction, and makes it\nstick. In every ministry weighty for good, prayer has always been a\nserious business.\n\nThe preacher must be pre-eminently a man of prayer. His heart must\ngraduate in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the\nheart learn to preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray.\nNo earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.\n\nTalking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is\ngreater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for\nGod who has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than this,\nprayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.\n\n\n\nV\n\n _You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never,\n never neglect it._\u2014SIR\u00a0THOMAS\u00a0BUXTON.\n\n _Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary\n to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother; pray, pray,\n pray._\u2014EDWARD\u00a0PAYSON.\n\n\nPrayer, in the preacher's life, in the preacher's study, in the\npreacher's pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force\nand an all-colouring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no\nmere coating. To him it is given to be with his Lord \"all night in\nprayer.\" The preacher, to train himself in self-denying prayer, is\ncharged to look to his Master, who, \"rising up a great while before day,\nwent out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.\" The\npreacher's study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a vision, and\na ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it went\nmanward; that every part of the sermon might be scented by the air of\nheaven and made serious, because God was in the study.\n\nAs the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with\nall its machinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as\nfar as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and\ncreated the steam. The texture, fineness, and strength of the sermon is\nas so much rubbish unless the mighty impulse of prayer is in it, through\nit, and behind it. The preacher must, by prayer, put God in the sermon.\nThe preacher must, by prayer, move God toward the people before he can\nmove the people to God by his words. The preacher must have had audience\nand ready access to God before he can have access to the people. An open\nway to God for the preacher is the surest pledge of an open way to the\npeople.\n\nIt is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit,\nas a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a\ndead and rotten thing. Such praying has no connection with the praying\nfor which we plead. We lay stress on true praying, which engages and\nsets on fire every high element of the preacher's being\u2014prayer which is\nborn of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost,\nwhich springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of tender compassion,\ndeathless solicitude for man's eternal good; a consuming zeal for the\nglory of God; a thorough conviction of the preacher's difficult and\ndelicate work and of the imperative need of God's mightiest help.\nPraying grounded on these solemn and profound convictions is the only\ntrue praying. Preaching backed by such praying is the only preaching\nwhich sows the seeds of eternal life in human hearts and builds men up\nfor heaven.\n\nIt is true that there may be popular preaching, pleasant preaching,\ntaking preaching, preaching of much intellectual, literary, and brainy\nforce, with its measure and form of good, with little or no praying; but\nthe preaching which secures God's end in preaching must be born of\nprayer from text to exordium, delivered with the energy and spirit of\nprayer, followed and made to germinate, and kept in vital force in the\nhearts of the hearers by the preacher's prayers, long after the occasion\nhas passed.\n\nWe may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but\nthe true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's\npresence in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are preachers\ninnumerable who can deliver masterful sermons after their order; but the\neffects are shortlived and do not enter as a factor at all into the\nregions of the spirit where the fearful war between God and Satan,\nheaven and hell, is being waged because they are not made powerfully\nmilitant and spiritually victorious by prayer.\n\nThe preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have\nprevailed in their pleadings with God ere venturing to plead with men.\nThe preachers who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the\nmightiest in their pulpits with men.\n\nPreachers are human folks, and are exposed to and often caught by the\nstrong driftings of human currents. Praying is spiritual work; and human\nnature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail\nto heaven under a favouring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is\nhumbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and\nsigns our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and\nblood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. So we come to\none of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times\u2014little or no\npraying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no\npraying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salve for the\nconscience, a farce and a delusion.\n\nThe little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we\ngive to it. The time given to prayer by the average preacher scarcely\ncounts in the sum of the daily aggregate. Not infrequently the\npreacher's only praying is by his bedside in his nightdress, ready for\nbed and soon in it, with, perchance, the addition of a few hasty\nsnatches of prayer ere he is dressed in the morning. How feeble, vain,\nand little is such praying compared with the time and energy devoted to\npraying by holy men in and out of the Bible! How poor and mean our\npetty, childish praying is beside the habits of the true men of God in\nall ages! To men who think praying their main business and devote time\nto it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit\nthe keys of His kingdom, and by them does He work His spiritual wonders\nin this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God's great leaders\nand the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will crown their\nlabours.\n\nThe preacher is commissioned to pray as well as to preach. His mission\nis incomplete if he does not do both well. The preacher may speak with\nall the eloquence of men and of angels; but unless he can pray with a\nfaith which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be \"as\nsounding brass or a tinkling cymbal\" for permanent God-honouring,\nsoul-saving uses.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n _The principal cause of my leanness and unfruitfulness is owing to an\n unaccountable backwardness to pray. I can write or read or converse or\n hear with a ready heart; but prayer is more spiritual and inward than\n any of these, and the more spiritual any duty is the more my carnal\n heart is apt to start from it. Prayer and patience and faith are never\n disappointed. I have long since learned that if ever I was to be a\n minister, faith and prayer must make me one. When I can find my heart\n in frame and liberty for prayer, everything else is comparatively\n easy._\u2014RICHARD\u00a0NEWTON.\n\n\nIt may be put down as a spiritual axiom that in every truly successful\nministry prayer is an evident and controlling force\u2014evident and\ncontrolling in the life of the preacher, evident and controlling in the\ndeep spirituality of his work. A ministry may be a very thoughtful\nministry without prayer; the preacher may secure fame and popularity\nwithout prayer; the whole machinery of the preacher's life and work may\nbe run without the oil of prayer or with scarcely enough to grease one\ncog; but no ministry can be a spiritual one, securing holiness in the\npreacher and in his people, without prayer being made an evident and\ncontrolling force.\n\nThe preacher that prays indeed puts God into the work. God does not come\ninto the preacher's work as a matter of course or on general principles,\nbut He comes by prayer and special urgency. That God will be found of us\nin the day that we seek Him with the whole heart is as true of the\npreacher as of the penitent. A prayerful ministry is the only ministry\nthat brings the preacher into sympathy with the people. Prayer as\nessentially unites to the human as it does to the divine. A prayerful\nministry is the only ministry qualified for the high offices and\nresponsibilities of the preacher. Colleges, learning, books, theology,\npreaching cannot make a preacher, but praying does. The apostles'\ncommission to preach was a blank till filled up by the Pentecost which\npraying brought. A prayerful minister has passed beyond the regions of\nthe popular, beyond the man of mere affairs, of secularities, of pulpit\nattractiveness; passed beyond the ecclesiastical organizer or general\ninto a sublimer and mightier region, the region of the spiritual.\nHoliness is the product of his work; transfigured hearts and lives\nemblazon the reality of his work, its trueness and substantial nature.\nGod is with him. His ministry is not projected on worldly or surface\nprinciples. He is deeply stored with and deeply schooled in the things\nof God. His long, deep communings with God about his people and the\nagony of his wrestling spirit have crowned him as a prince in the things\nof God. The iciness of the mere professional has long since melted under\nthe intensity of his praying.\n\nThe superficial results of many a ministry, the deadness of others, are\nto be found in the lack of praying. No ministry can succeed without\nmuch praying, and this praying must be fundamental, ever-abiding,\never-increasing. The text, the sermon, should be the result of prayer.\nThe study should be bathed in prayer, all its duties impregnated with\nprayer, its whole spirit the spirit of prayer. \"I am sorry that I have\nprayed so little,\" was the deathbed regret of one of God's chosen ones,\na sad and remorseful regret for a preacher. \"I want a life of greater,\ndeeper, truer prayer,\" said the late Archbishop Tait. So may we all say,\nand this may we all secure.\n\nGod's true preachers have been distinguished by one great feature: they\nwere men of prayer. Differing often in many things, they have always had\na common centre. They may have started from different points, and\ntravelled by different roads, but they converged to one point: they were\none in prayer. God to them was the centre of attraction, and prayer was\nthe path that led to God. These men prayed not occasionally, not a\nlittle at regular or at odd times; but they so prayed that their prayers\nentered into and shaped their characters; they so prayed as to affect\ntheir own lives and the lives of others; they so prayed as to make the\nhistory of the Church and influence the current of the times. They spent\nmuch time in prayer, not because they marked the shadow on the dial or\nthe hands on the clock, but because it was to them so momentous and\nengaging a business that they could scarcely give over.\n\nPrayer was to them what it was to Paul, a striving with earnest effort\nof soul; what it was to Jacob, a wrestling and prevailing; what it was\nto Christ, \"strong crying and tears.\" They \"prayed always with all\nprayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all\nperseverance.\" \"The effectual, fervent prayer\" has been the mightiest\nweapon of God's mightiest soldiers. The statement in regard to\nElijah\u2014that he \"was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he\nprayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth\nby the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the\nheaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit\"\u2014comprehends all\nprophets and preachers who have moved their generation for God, and\nshows the instrument by which they worked their wonders.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n _The great masters and teachers in Christian doctrine have always found\n in prayer their highest source of illumination. Not to go beyond the\n limits of the English Church, it is recorded of Bishop Andrewes that he\n spent five hours daily on his knees. The greatest practical resolves\n that have enriched and beautified human life in Christian times have\n been arrived at in prayer._\u2014CANON\u00a0LIDDON.\n\n\nWhile many private prayers, in the nature of things, must be short;\nwhile public prayers, as a rule, ought to be short and condensed; while\nthere is ample room for and value put on ejaculatory prayer\u2014yet in our\nprivate communions with God time is a feature essential to its value.\nMuch time spent with God is the secret of all successful praying. Prayer\nwhich is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate product of\nmuch time spent with God. Our short prayers owe their point and\nefficiency to the long ones that have preceded them. The short\nprevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God\nin a mightier struggle of long continuance. Jacob's victory of faith\ncould not have been gained without that all-night wrestling. God's\nacquaintance is not made hurriedly. He does not bestow His gifts on the\ncasual or hasty comer and goer. To be much alone with God is the secret\nof knowing Him and of influence with Him. He yields to the persistency\nof a faith that knows Him. He bestows His richest gifts upon those who\ndeclare their desire for and appreciation of those gifts by the\nconstancy as well as earnestness of their importunity. Christ, who in\nthis as well as other things is our Example, spent many whole nights in\nprayer. His custom was to pray much. He had His habitual place to pray.\nMany long seasons of praying make up His history and character. Paul\nprayed day and night. It took time from very important interests for\nDaniel to pray three times a day. David's morning, noon, and night\npraying were doubtless on many occasions very protracted. While we have\nno specific account of the time these Bible saints spent in prayer, yet\nthe indications are that they consumed much time in prayer, and on some\noccasions long seasons of praying was their custom.\n\nWe would not have any think that the value of their prayers is to be\nmeasured by the clock, but our purpose is to impress on our minds the\nnecessity of being much alone with God; and that if this feature has not\nbeen produced by our faith, then our faith is of a feeble and surface\ntype.\n\nThe men who have most fully illustrated Christ in their character, and\nhave most powerfully affected the world for Him, have been men who spent\nso much time with God as to make it a notable feature of their lives.\nCharles Simeon devoted the hours from four till eight in the morning to\nGod. Mr. Wesley spent two hours daily in prayer. He began at four in the\nmorning. Of him, one who knew him well wrote: \"He thought prayer to be\nmore his business than anything else, and I have seen him come out of\nhis closet with a serenity of face next to shining.\" John Fletcher\nstained the walls of his room by the breath of his prayers. Sometimes he\nwould pray all night; always, frequently, and with great earnestness.\nHis whole life was a life of prayer. \"I would not rise from my seat,\" he\nsaid, \"without lifting my heart to God.\" His greeting to a friend was\nalways: \"Do I meet you praying?\" Luther said: \"If I fail to spend two\nhours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the\nday. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three\nhours daily in prayer.\" He had a motto: \"He that has prayed well has\nstudied well.\"\n\nArchbishop Leighton was so much alone with God that he seemed to be in a\nperpetual meditation. \"Prayer and praise were his business and his\npleasure,\" says his biographer. Bishop Ken was so much with God that his\nsoul was said to be God-enamoured. He was with God before the clock\nstruck three every morning. Bishop Asbury said: \"I propose to rise at\nfour o'clock as often as I can and spend two hours in prayer and\nmeditation.\" Samuel Rutherford, the fragrance of whose piety is still\nrich, rose at three in the morning to meet God in prayer. Joseph Alleine\narose at four o'clock for his business of praying till eight. If he\nheard other tradesmen plying their business before he was up, he would\nexclaim: \"O how this shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more than\ntheirs?\" He who has learned this trade well draws at will, on sight, and\nwith the acceptance of heaven's unfailing bank.\n\nOne of the holiest and most gifted of Scottish preachers says: \"I ought\nto spend the best hours in communion with God. It is my noblest and most\nfruitful employment, and is not to be thrust into a corner. The morning\nhours, from six to eight, are the most uninterrupted and should be thus\nemployed. After tea is my best hour, and that should be solemnly\ndedicated to God. I ought not to give up the good old habit of prayer\nbefore going to bed; but guard must be kept against sleep. When I awake\nin the night, I ought to rise and pray. A little time after breakfast\nmight be given to intercession.\" This was the praying plan of Robert\nMcCheyne. The memorable Methodist band in their praying shame us. \"From\nfour or five in the morning, private prayer; from five to six in the\nevening, private prayer.\"\n\nJohn Welch, the holy and wonderful Scotch preacher, thought the day ill\nspent if he did not spend eight or ten hours in prayer. He kept a plaid\nthat he might wrap himself when he arose to pray at night. His wife\nwould complain when she found him lying on the ground weeping. He would\nreply: \"O woman I have the souls of three thousand to answer for, and I\nknow not how it is with many of them!\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n _The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind\n is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the\n faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are\n absolutely incapable of prayer._\u2014COLERIDGE.\n\n\nBishop Wilson says: \"In H. Martyn's journal the spirit of prayer, the\ntime he devoted to the duty, and his fervour in it are the first things\nwhich strike me.\"\n\nPayson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed so\noften and so long. His biographer says: \"His continuing instant in\nprayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable\nfact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival his\neminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be\nascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted\nsuccess.\"\n\nThe Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his\nservant to call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The\nservant at the time saw his face through an aperture. It was marked with\nsuch holiness that he hated to arouse him. His lips were moving, but he\nwas perfectly silent. He waited until three half hours had passed; then\nhe called to him, when he arose from his knees, saying that the half\nhour was so short when he was communing with Christ.\n\nBrainerd said: \"I love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend much\ntime in prayer.\"\n\nWilliam Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness and\nfor his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvellous answers to\nhis prayers. For hours at a time he would pray. He almost lived on his\nknees. He went over his circuits like a flame of fire. The fire was\nkindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often spent as much as four\nhours in a single season of prayer in retirement.\n\nBishop Andrewes spent the greatest part of five hours every day in\nprayer and devotion.\n\nSir Henry Havelock always spent the first two hours of each day alone\nwith God. If the encampment was struck at 6 a.m., he would rise at four.\n\nEarl Cairns rose daily at six o'clock to secure an hour and a half for\nthe study of the Bible and for prayer, before conducting family worship\nat a quarter to eight.\n\nDr. Judson's success in God's work is attributable to the fact that he\ngave much time to prayer. He says on this point: \"Arrange thy affairs,\nif possible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours\nevery day not merely to devotional exercises but to the very act of\nsecret prayer and communion with God. Endeavour seven times a day to\nwithdraw from business and company and lift up thy soul to God in\nprivate retirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight and devoting\nsome time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred\nwork. Let the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the\nhours of nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same.\nBe resolute in His cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain\nit. Consider that thy time is short, and that business and company must\nnot be allowed to rob thee of thy God.\" Impossible, say we, fanatical\ndirections! Dr. Judson impressed an empire for Christ and laid the\nfoundations of God's kingdom with imperishable granite in the heart of\nBurmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily impressed the\nworld for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and learning than\nhe have made no such impression; their religious work is like footsteps\nin the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant. The secret of\nits profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he gave time to\nprayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God's skill fashioned\nit with enduring power. No man can do a great and enduring work for God\nwho is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does\nnot give much time to praying.\n\nIs it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull and\nmechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till tameness,\nshortness, superficiality are its chief elements? \"Is it true that\nprayer is, as is assumed, little else than the half-passive play of\nsentiment which flows languidly on through the minutes or hours of easy\nreverie?\" Canon Liddon continues: \"Let those who have really prayed give\nthe answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the patriarch Jacob as a\nwrestling together with an Unseen Power which may last, not unfrequently\nin an earnest life, late into the night hours, or even to the break of\nday. Sometimes they refer to common intercession with St.\u00a0Paul as a\nconcerted struggle. They have, when praying, their eyes fixed on the\nGreat Intercessor in Gethsemane, upon the drops of blood which fall to\nthe ground in that agony of resignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of\nthe essence of successful prayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but\nsustained work. It is through prayer especially that the kingdom of\nheaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. It was a\nsaying of the late Bishop Hamilton that \"No man is likely to do much\ngood in prayer who does not begin by looking upon it in the light of a\nwork to be prepared for and persevered in with all the earnestness which\nwe bring to bear upon subjects which are in our opinion at once most\ninteresting and most necessary.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n _I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long, or\n meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin\n secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural. Christ\n arose before day and went into a solitary place. David says: \"Early\n will I seek Thee;\" \"Thou shalt early hear my voice.\" Family prayer\n loses much of its power and sweetness, and I can do no good to those\n who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed,\n the lamp not trimmed. Then when in secret prayer the soul is often out\n of tune. I feel it is far better to begin with God\u2014to see His face\n first, to get my soul near Him before it is near\n another._\u2014ROBERT\u00a0MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nThe men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on\ntheir knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and\nfreshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway\nseeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and\nefforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of\nthe day.\n\nBehind this early rising and early praying is the ardent desire which\npresses us into this pursuit after God. Morning listlessness is the\nindex to a listless heart. The heart which is behindhand in seeking God\nin the morning has lost its relish for God. David's heart was ardent\nafter God. He hungered and thirsted after God, and so he sought God\nearly, before daylight. The bed and sleep could not chain his soul in\nits eagerness after God. Christ longed for communion with God; and so,\nrising a great while before day, He would go out into the mountain to\npray. The disciples, when fully awake and ashamed of their indulgence,\nwould know where to find Him. We might go through the list of men who\nhave mightily impressed the world for God, and we would find them early\nafter God.\n\nA desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing\nand will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully.\nThe desire for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at\nthe beginning of the day will never catch up.\n\nIt is not simply the getting up that puts men to the front and makes\nthem captain generals in God's hosts, but it is the ardent desire which\nstirs and breaks all self-indulgent chains. But the getting up gives\nvent, increase, and strength to the desire. If they had lain in bed and\nindulged themselves, the desire would have been quenched. The desire\naroused them and put them on the stretch for God, and this heeding and\nacting on the call gave their faith its grasp on God and gave to their\nhearts the sweetest and fullest revelation of God, and this strength of\nfaith and fulness of revelation made them saints by eminence, and the\nhalo of their sainthood has come down to us, and we have entered on the\nenjoyment of their conquests. But we take our fill in enjoyment, and not\nin productions. We build their tombs and write their epitaphs, but are\ncareful not to follow their examples.\n\nWe need a generation of preachers who seek God and seek Him early, who\ngive the freshness and dew of effort to God, and secure in return the\nfreshness and fulness of His power that He may be as the dew to them,\nfull of gladness and strength, through all the heat and labour of the\nday. Our laziness after God is our crying sin. The children of this\nworld are far wiser than we. They are at it early and late. We do not\nseek God with ardour and diligence. No man gets God who does not follow\nhard after Him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after Him\nin early morn.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n _There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the\n present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of others. I\n am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, man\u0153uvering\n temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more than is\n expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's prejudices. The\n ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should find in us a simple\n habit of spirit and a holy but humble indifference to all consequences.\n The leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a devotional\n habit._\u2014RICHARD\u00a0CECIL.\n\n\nNever was there greater need for saintly men and women; more imperative\nstill is the call for saintly, God-devoted preachers. The world moves\nwith gigantic strides. Satan has his hold and rule on the world, and\nlabours to make all its movements subserve his ends. Religion must do\nits best work, present its most attractive and perfect models. By every\nmeans, modern sainthood must be inspired by the loftiest ideals and by\nthe largest possibilities through the Spirit. Paul lived on his knees,\nthat the Ephesian Church might measure the heights, breadths, and depths\nof an unmeasurable saintliness, and \"be filled with all the fulness of\nGod.\" Epaphras laid himself out with the exhaustive toil and strenuous\nconflict of fervent prayer that the Colossian Church might \"stand\nperfect and complete in all the will of God.\" Everywhere, everything in\napostolic times was on the stretch that the people of God might each and\n\"all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of\nGod, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness\nof Christ.\" No premium was given to dwarfs; no encouragement to an old\nbabyhood. The babies were to grow; the old, instead of feebleness and\ninfirmities, were to bear fruit in old age, and be fat and flourishing.\nThe divinest thing in religion is holy men and holy women.\n\nNo amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God. Holiness\nenergizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with desire for\nmore faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration\u2014this is the secret\nof power. These we need and must have, and men must be the incarnation\nof this God-inflamed devotedness. God's advance has been stayed, His\ncause crippled, His name dishonoured for their lack. Genius (though the\nloftiest and most gifted), education (though the most learned and\nrefined), position, dignity, place, honoured names, high ecclesiastics\ncannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery one, and fiery forces\nonly can move it. The genius of a Milton fails. The imperial strength of\na Leo fails. Brainerd's spirit can move it. Brainerd's spirit was on\nfire for God, on fire for souls. Nothing earthly, worldly, selfish came\nin to abate in the least the intensity of this all-impelling and\nall-consuming force and flame.\n\nPrayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of\ndevotion is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united as soul\nand body are united, as life and heart are united. There is no real\nprayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer. The preacher must\nbe surrendered to God in the holiest devotion. He is not a professional\nman, his ministry is not a profession; it is a divine institution, a\ndivine devotion. He is devoted to God. His aim, aspirations, ambition\nare for God and to God, and to such prayer is as essential as food is to\nlife.\n\nThe preacher, above everything else, must be devoted to God. The\npreacher's relations to God are the insignia and credentials of his\nministry. These must be clear, conclusive, unmistakable. No common,\nsurface type of piety must be his. If he does not excel in grace, he\ndoes not excel at all. If he does not preach by life, character,\nconduct, he does not preach at all. If his piety be light, his preaching\nmay be as soft and as sweet as music, as gifted as Apollo, yet its\nweight will be a feather's weight, visionary, fleeting as the morning\ncloud or the early dew. Devotion to God\u2014there is no substitute for this\nin the preacher's character and conduct. Devotion to a Church, to\nopinions, to an organization, to orthodoxy\u2014these are paltry, misleading,\nand vain when they become the source of inspiration, the animus of a\ncall. God must be the mainspring of the preacher's effort, the fountain\nand crown of all his toil. The name and honour of Jesus Christ, the\nadvance of His cause, must be all in all. The preacher must have no\ninspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no ambition but to have Him\nglorified, no toil but for Him. Then prayer will be a source of his\nilluminations, the means of perpetual advance, the gauge of his success.\nThe perpetual aim, the only ambition, the preacher can cherish is to\nhave God with him.\n\nNever did the cause of God need perfect illustrations of the possibilities\nof prayer more than in this age. No age, no person, will be ensamples of\nthe gospel power except the ages or persons of deep and earnest prayer.\nA prayerless age will have but scant models of divine power. Prayerless\nhearts will never rise to these Alpine heights. The age may be a better\nage than the past, but there is an infinite distance between the\nbetterment of an age by the force of an advancing civilization and its\nbetterment by the increase of holiness and Christ-likeness by the energy\nof prayer. The Jews were much better when Christ came than in the ages\nbefore. It was the golden age of their Pharisaic religion. Their golden\nreligious age crucified Christ. Never more praying, never less praying;\nnever more sacrifices, never less sacrifice; never less idolatry, never\nmore idolatry; never more of temple worship, never less of God worship;\nnever more of lip service, never less of heart service (God worshiped by\nlips whose hearts and hands crucified God's Son!); never more of\nchurch-goers, never less of saints.\n\nIt is a prayer-force which makes saints. Holy characters are formed by\nthe power of real praying. The more of true saints, the more of praying;\nthe more of praying, the more of true saints.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n _I urge upon you communion with Christ, a growing communion. There are\n curtains to be drawn aside in Christ that we never saw, and new\n foldings of love in Him. I despair that I shall ever win to the far end\n of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore dig deep, and\n sweat and labour and take pains for Him, and set by as much time in the\n day for Him as you can. He will be won in the labour._\u2014RUTHERFORD.\n\n\nGod has now, and has had, many of these devoted, prayerful preachers\u2014men\nin whose lives prayer has been a mighty, controlling, conspicuous force.\nThe world has felt their power, God has felt and honoured their power,\nGod's cause has moved mightily and swiftly by their prayers, holiness\nhas shone out in their characters with a divine effulgence.\n\nGod found one of the men he was looking for in David Brainerd, whose\nwork and name have gone into history. He was no ordinary man, but was\ncapable of shining in any company, the peer of the wise and gifted ones,\neminently suited to fill the most attractive pulpits and to labour among\nthe most refined and the cultured, who were so anxious to secure him for\ntheir pastor. President Edwards bears testimony that he was \"a young man\nof distinguished talents, had extraordinary knowledge of men and things,\nhad rare conversational powers, excelled in his knowledge of theology,\nand was truly, for one so young, an extraordinary divine, and especially\nin all matters relating to experimental religion. I never knew his equal\nof his age and standing for clear and accurate notions of the nature and\nessence of true religion. His manner in prayer was almost inimitable,\nsuch as I have very rarely known equalled. His learning was very\nconsiderable, and he had extraordinary gifts for the pulpit.\"\n\nNo sublimer story has been recorded in earthly annals than that of David\nBrainerd; no miracle attests with diviner force the truth of Christianity\nthan the life and work of such a man. Alone in the savage wilds of\nAmerica, struggling day and night with a mortal disease, unschooled in\nthe care of souls, having access to the Indians for a large portion of\ntime only through the bungling medium of a pagan interpreter, with the\nWord of God in his heart and in his hand, his soul fired with the divine\nflame, a place and time to pour out his soul to God in prayer, he fully\nestablished the worship of God and secured all its gracious results. The\nIndians were changed with a great change from the lowest besotments of\nan ignorant and debased heathenism, to pure, devout, intelligent\nChristians; all vice reformed, the external duties of Christianity at\nonce embraced and acted on; family prayer set up; the Sabbath instituted\nand religiously observed; the internal graces of religion exhibited with\ngrowing sweetness and strength. The solution of these results is found\nin David Brainerd himself, not in the conditions or accidents but in the\nman Brainerd. He was God's man, for God first and last and all the time.\nGod could flow unhindered through him. The omnipotence of grace was\nneither arrested nor straitened by the conditions of his heart; the\nwhole channel was broadened and cleaned out for God's fullest and most\npowerful passage, so that God with all His mighty forces could come down\non the hopeless, savage wilderness, and transform it into His blooming\nand fruitful garden; for nothing is too hard for God to do if He can get\nthe right kind of a man to do it with.\n\nBrainerd lived the life of holiness and prayer. His diary is full and\nmonotonous with the record of his seasons of fasting, meditation, and\nretirement. The time he spent in private prayer amounted to many hours\ndaily. \"When I return home,\" he said, \"and give myself to meditation,\nprayer, and fasting, my soul longs for mortification, self-denial,\nhumility and divorcement from all things of the world.\" \"I have nothing\nto do,\" he said, \"with earth, but only to labour in it honestly for God.\nI do not desire to live one minute for anything which earth can afford.\"\nAfter this high order did he pray: \"Feeling somewhat of the sweetness of\ncommunion with God and the constraining force of His love, and how\nadmirably it captivates the soul and makes all the desires and\naffections to centre in God, I set apart this day for secret fasting and\nprayer, to entreat God to direct and bless me with regard to the great\nwork which I have in view of preaching the gospel and that the Lord\nwould return to me and show me the light of His countenance. I had\nlittle life and power in the forenoon. Near the middle of the afternoon\nGod enabled me to wrestle ardently in intercession for my absent\nfriends, but just at night the Lord visited me marvellously in prayer. I\nthink my soul was never in such agony before. I felt no restraint, for\nthe treasures of divine grace were opened to me. I wrestled for absent\nfriends, for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, and\nfor many that I thought were the children of God, personally, in many\ndistant places. I was in such agony from sun half an hour high till near\ndark that I was all over wet with sweat, but yet it seemed to me I had\ndone nothing. O, my dear Saviour did sweat blood for poor souls! I\nlonged for more compassion toward them. I felt still in a sweet frame,\nunder a sense of divine love and grace, and went to bed in such a frame,\nwith my heart set on God.\" It was prayer which gave to his life and\nministry their marvellous power.\n\nThe men of mighty prayer are men of spiritual might. Prayers never die.\nBrainerd's whole life was a life of prayer. By day and by night he\nprayed. Before preaching and after preaching he prayed. Riding through\nthe interminable solitudes of the forests he prayed. On his bed of straw\nhe prayed. Retiring to the dense and lonely forests he prayed. Hour by\nhour, day after day, early morn and late at night, he was praying and\nfasting, pouring out his soul, interceding, communing with God. He was\nwith God mightily in prayer, and God was with him mightily, and by it he\nbeing dead yet speaketh and worketh, and will speak and work till the\nend comes, and among the glorious ones of that glorious day he will be\nwith the first.\n\nJonathan Edwards says of him: \"His life shows the right way to success\nin the works of the ministry. He sought it as the soldier seeks victory\nin a siege or battle; or as a man that runs a race for a great prize.\nAnimated with love to Christ and souls, how did he labour? Always\nfervently. Not only in word and doctrine, in public and in private, but\nin prayers by day and night, wrestling with God in secret and travailing\nin birth with unutterable groans, and agonies, until Christ was formed\nin the hearts of the people to whom he was sent. Like a true son of\nJacob, he persevered in wrestling through all the darkness of the night,\nuntil the breaking of the day!\"\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n _For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces\n the conscience but what comes from a living conscience._\u2014WILLIAM\u00a0PENN.\n\n _In the morning was more engaged in preparing the head than the heart.\n This has been frequently my error, and I have always felt the evil of\n it, especially in prayer. Reform it, then, O Lord! Enlarge my heart,\n and I shall preach._\u2014ROBERT\u00a0MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n _A sermon that has more head infused into it than heart will not come\n home with efficacy to the hearers._\u2014RICHARD\u00a0CECIL.\n\n\nPrayer, with its manifold and many-sided forces, helps the mouth to\nutter the truth in its fulness and freedom. The preacher is to be prayed\nfor, the preacher is made by prayer. The preacher's mouth is to be\nprayed for; his mouth is to be opened and filled by prayer. A holy mouth\nis made by praying, by much praying; a brave mouth is made by praying,\nby much praying. The Church and the world, God and heaven, owe much to\nPaul's mouth; Paul's mouth owed its power to prayer.\n\nHow manifold, illimitable, valuable, and helpful prayer is to the\npreacher in so many ways, at so many points, in every way! One great\nvalue is, it helps his heart.\n\nPraying makes the preacher a heart preacher. Prayer puts the preacher's\nheart into the preacher's sermon; prayer puts the preacher's sermon into\nthe preacher's heart.\n\nThe heart makes the preacher. Men of great hearts are great preachers.\nMen of bad hearts may do a measure of good, but this is rare. The\nhireling and the stranger may help the sheep at some points but it is\nthe good shepherd with the good shepherd's heart who will bless the\nsheep and answer the full measure of the shepherd's place.\n\nWe have emphasized sermon-preparation until we have lost sight of the\nimportant thing to be prepared\u2014the heart. A prepared heart is much\nbetter than a prepared sermon. A prepared heart will make a prepared\nsermon.\n\nVolumes have been written laying down the mechanics and taste of\nsermon-making, until we have become possessed with the idea that this\nscaffolding is the building. The young preacher has been taught to lay\nout all his strength on the form, taste, and beauty of his sermon as a\nmechanical and intellectual product. We have thereby cultivated a\nvicious taste among the people and raise the clamour for talent instead\nof grace, eloquence instead of piety, rhetoric instead of revelation,\nreputation and brilliancy instead of holiness. By it we have lost the\ntrue idea of preaching, lost preaching power, lost pungent conviction\nfor sin, lost the rich experience and elevated Christian character, lost\nthe authority over consciences and lives which always result from\ngenuine preaching.\n\nIt would not do to say that preachers study too much. Some of them do\nnot study at all; others do not study enough. Numbers do not study the\nright way to show themselves workmen approved of God. But our great lack\nis not in head culture, but in heart culture; not lack of knowledge but\nlack of holiness is our sad and telling defect\u2014not that we know too\nmuch, but that we do not meditate on God and His word and watch and fast\nand pray enough. The heart is the great hindrance to our preaching.\nWords pregnant with divine truth find in our hearts non-conductors;\narrested, they fall flat and powerless.\n\nCan ambition, that lusts after praise and place, preach the gospel of\nHim who made Himself of no reputation and took on Him the form of a\nservant? Can the proud, the vain, the egotistical preach the gospel of\nHim who was meek and lowly? Can the bad-tempered, passionate, selfish,\nhard, worldly man preach the system which teems with long-suffering,\nself-denial, tenderness, which imperatively demands separation from\nenmity and crucifixion to the world? Can the hireling official,\nheartless, perfunctory, preach the gospel which demands that the\nShepherd give His life for the sheep? Can the covetous man, who counts\nsalary and money, preach the gospel till he has gleaned his heart and\ncan say in the Spirit of Christ and Paul in the words of Wesley: \"I\ncount it dung and dross; I trample it under my feet; I (yet not I, but\nthe grace of God in me) esteem it just as the mire of the streets, I\ndesire it not, I seek it not?\" God's revelation does not need the light\nof human genius, the polish and strength of human culture, the\nbrilliancy of human thought, the force of human brains to adorn or\nenforce it; but it does demand the simplicity, the docility, humility,\nand faith of a child's heart.\n\nIt was this surrender and subordination of intellect and genius to the\ndivine and spiritual forces which made Paul peerless among the apostles.\nIt was this which gave Wesley his power and radicated his labours in the\nhistory of humanity.\n\nOur great need is heart-preparation. Luther held it as an axiom: \"He who\nhas prayed well has studied well.\" We do not say that men are not to\nthink and use their intellects; but he will use his intellect best who\ncultivates his heart most. We do not say that preachers should not be\nstudents; but we do say that their great study should be the Bible, and\nhe studies the Bible best who has kept his heart with diligence. We do\nnot say that the preacher should not know men, but he will be the\ngreater adept in human nature who has fathomed the depths and\nintricacies of his own heart. We do say that while the channel of\npreaching is the mind, its fountain is the heart; you may broaden and\ndeepen the channel, but if you do not look well to the purity and depth\nof the fountain, you will have a dry or polluted channel. We do say that\nalmost any man of common intelligence has sense enough to preach the\ngospel, but very few have grace enough to do so. We do say that he who\nhas struggled with his own heart and conquered it; who has taught it\nhumility, faith, love, truth, mercy, sympathy, courage; who can pour the\nrich treasures of the heart thus trained, through a manly intellect, all\nsurcharged with the power of the gospel on the consciences of his\nhearers\u2014such an one will be the truest, most successful preacher in the\nesteem of his Lord.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n _Study not to be a fine preacher. Jerichos are blown down with rams'\n horns. Look simply unto Jesus for preaching food; and what is wanted\n will be given, and what is given will be blessed, whether it be a\n barley grain or a wheaten loaf, a crust or a crumb. Your mouth will be\n a flowing stream or a fountain sealed, according as your heart is.\n Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, or writing; preach nothing\n down but the devil, and nothing up but Jesus Christ._\u2014BERRIDGE.\n\n\nThe heart is the saviour of the world. Heads do not save. Genius,\nbrains, brilliancy, strength, natural gifts do not save. The gospel\nflows through hearts. All the mightiest forces are heart forces. All the\nsweetest and loveliest graces are heart graces. Great hearts make great\ncharacters; great hearts make divine characters. God is love. There is\nnothing greater than love, nothing greater than God. Hearts make heaven;\nheaven is love. There is nothing higher, nothing sweeter, than heaven.\nIt is the heart and not the head which makes God's great preachers. The\nheart counts much every way in religion. The heart must speak from the\npulpit. The heart must hear in the pew. In fact, we serve God with our\nhearts. Head homage does not pass current in heaven.\n\nWe believe that one of the serious and most popular errors of the modern\npulpit is the putting of more thought than prayer, of more head than of\nheart in its sermons. Big hearts make big preachers; good hearts make\ngood preachers. A theological school to enlarge and cultivate the heart\nis the golden desideratum of the gospel. The pastor binds his people to\nhim and rules his people by his heart. They may admire his gifts, they\nmay be proud of his ability, they may be affected for the time by his\nsermons; but the stronghold of his power is his heart. His sceptre is\nlove. The throne of his power is his heart.\n\nThe good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. Heads never make\nmartyrs. It is the heart which surrenders the life to love and fidelity.\nIt takes great courage to be a faithful pastor, but the heart alone can\nsupply this courage. Gifts and genius may be brave, but it is the gifts\nand genius of the heart and not of the head.\n\nIt is easier to fill the head than it is to prepare the heart. It is\neasier to make a brain sermon than a heart sermon. It was heart that\ndrew the Son of God from heaven. It is heart that will draw men to\nheaven. Men of heart is what the world needs to sympathize with its woe,\nto kiss away its sorrows, to compassionate its misery, and to alleviate\nits pain. Christ was eminently the man of sorrows, because He was\npre-eminently the man of heart.\n\n\"Give Me thy heart,\" is God's requisition of men. \"Give me thy heart!\"\nis man's demand of man.\n\nA professional ministry is a heartless ministry. When salary plays a\ngreat part in the ministry, the heart plays little part. We may make\npreaching our business, and not put our hearts in the business. He who\nputs self to the front in his preaching puts heart to the rear. He who\ndoes not sow with his heart in his study will never reap a harvest for\nGod. The closet is the heart's study. We will learn more about how to\npreach and what to preach there than we can learn in our libraries.\n\"Jesus wept\" is the shortest and biggest verse in the Bible. It is he\nwho goes forth _weeping_ (not preaching great sermons), bearing precious\nseed, who shall come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.\n\nPraying gives sense, brings wisdom, broadens and strengthens the mind.\nThe closet is a perfect school-teacher and school-house for the\npreacher. Thought is not only brightened and clarified in prayer, but\nthought is born in prayer. We can learn more in an hour praying, when\npraying indeed, than from many hours in the study. Books are in the\ncloset which can be found and read nowhere else. Revelations are made in\nthe closet which are made nowhere else.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n _One bright benison which private prayer brings down upon the ministry\n is an indescribable and inimitable something\u2014an unction from the Holy\n One.... If the anointing which we bear come not from the Lord of hosts,\n we are deceivers, since only in prayer can we obtain it. Let us\n continue instant, constant, fervent in supplication. Let your fleece\n lie on the thrashing-floor of supplication till it is wet with the dew\n of heaven._\u2014SPURGEON.\n\n\nAlexander Knox, a Christian philosopher of the days of Wesley, not an\nadherent but a strong personal friend of Wesley, and with much spiritual\nsympathy with the Wesleyan movement, writes: \"It is strange and\nlamentable, but I verily believe the fact to be that except among\nMethodists and Methodistical clergymen, there is not much interesting\npreaching in England. The clergy, too generally, have absolutely lost\nthe art. There is, I conceive, in the great laws of the moral world a\nkind of secret understanding like the affinities in chemistry, between\nrightly promulgated religious truth and the deepest feelings of the\nhuman mind. Where the one is duly exhibited, the other will respond.\n\"Did not our hearts burn within us\"?\u2014but this devout feeling is\nindispensable in the speaker. Now, I am obliged to state from my own\nobservation that this _onction_, as the French not unfitly term it, is\nbeyond all comparison more likely to be found in England in a Methodist\nconventicle than in a parish Church. This, and this alone, seems really\nto be that which fills the Methodist houses and thins the Churches. I\nam, I verily think, no enthusiast; I am a most sincere and cordial\nChurchman, a humble disciple of the School of Hale and Boyle, of Burnet\nand Leighton. Now I must aver that when I was in this country, two years\nago, I did not hear a single preacher who taught me like my own great\nmasters but such as are deemed Methodistical. And I now despair of\ngetting an atom of heart-instruction from any other quarter. The\nMethodist preachers (however I may not always approve of all their\nexpressions) do most assuredly diffuse this true religion and undefiled.\nI felt real pleasure last Sunday. I can bear witness that the preacher\ndid at once speak the words of truth and soberness. There was no\neloquence\u2014the honest man never dreamed of such a thing\u2014but there was far\nbetter: a cordial communication of vitalized truth. I say vitalized\nbecause what he declared to others it was impossible not to feel he\nlived on himself.\"\n\nThis unction is the art of preaching. The preacher who never had this\nunction never had the art of preaching. The preacher who has lost this\nunction has lost the art of preaching. Whatever other arts he may have\nand retain\u2014the art of sermon-making, the art of eloquence, the art of\ngreat, clear thinking, the art of pleasing an audience\u2014he has lost the\ndivine art of preaching. This unction makes God's truth powerful and\ninteresting, draws and attracts, edifies, convicts, saves.\n\nThis unction vitalizes God's revealed truth, makes it living and\nlife-giving. Even God's truth spoken without this unction is light,\ndead, and deadening. Though abounding in truth, though weighty with\nthought, though sparkling with rhetoric, though pointed by logic, though\npowerful by earnestness, without this divine unction it issues in death\nand not in life. Mr. Spurgeon says: \"I wonder how long we might beat our\nbrains before we could plainly put into word what is meant by preaching\nwith unction. Yet he who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears\nsoon detects its absence. Samaria, in famine, typifies a discourse\nwithout it. Jerusalem, with her feast of fat things, full of marrow, may\nrepresent a sermon enriched with it. Every one knows what the freshness\nof the morning is when orient pearls abound on every blade of grass, but\nwho can describe it, much less produce it of itself? Such is the mystery\nof spiritual anointing. We know, but we cannot tell to others what it\nis. It is as easy as it is foolish, to counterfeit it. Unction is a\nthing which you cannot manufacture, and its counterfeits are worse than\nworthless. Yet it is, in itself, priceless, and beyond measure needful\nif you would edify believers and bring sinners to Christ.\"\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\n _Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A\n word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of\n God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin.\n Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory. If the veil of the\n world's machinery were lifted off, how much we would find is done in\n answer to the prayers of God's children._\u2014ROBERT\u00a0MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nUnction is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old,\nrenowned Scotch preacher describes thus: \"There is sometimes somewhat in\npreaching that cannot be described either to matter or expression, and\ncannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with a\nsweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes\nimmediately from the Lord; but if there be any way to obtain such a\nthing it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker.\"\n\nWe call it unction. It is this unction which makes the Word of God\n\"quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even\nto the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and\nmarrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.\" It is\nthis unction which gives the words of the preacher such point,\nsharpness, and power, and which creates such friction and stir in many a\ndead congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness of\nthe letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but no signs of life,\nnot a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grave and as dead. The same\npreacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the divine\ninflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished and\nfired by this mysterious power, and the throbbings of life begin\u2014life\nwhich receives or life which resists. The unction pervades and convicts\nthe conscience and breaks the heart.\n\nThis divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes\ntrue gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth,\nand which creates a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has it\nand the one who has it not. It supports and impregnates revealed truth\nwith all the energy of God. Unction is simply putting God in His own\nWord and on His own preacher. By mighty and great prayerfulness and by\ncontinual prayerfulness, it is all potential and personal to the\npreacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight and\ngrasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which\nis greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the\nheart by it. Enlargement, freedom, fulness of thought, directness and\nsimplicity of utterance are the fruits of this unction.\n\nOften earnestness is mistaken for this unction. He who has the divine\nunction will be earnest in the very spiritual nature of things, but\nthere may be a vast deal of earnestness without the least mixture of\nunction.\n\nEarnestness and unction look alike from some points of view. Earnestness\nmay be readily and without detection substituted or mistaken for\nunction. It requires a spiritual eye and a spiritual taste to\ndiscriminate.\n\nEarnestness may be sincere, serious, ardent, and persevering. It goes at\na thing with a good will, pursues it with perseverance, and urges it\nwith ardour; puts force in it. But all these forces do not rise higher\nthan the mere human. The _man_ is in it\u2014the whole man, with all that he\nhas of will and heart, of brain and genius, of planning and working and\ntalking. He has set himself to some purpose which has mastered him, and\nhe pursues to master it. There may be none of God in it. There may be\nlittle of God in it, because there is so much of the man in it. He may\npresent pleas in advocacy of his earnest purpose which please or touch\nand move or overwhelm with conviction of their importance; and in all\nthis earnestness may move along earthly ways, being propelled by human\nforces only, its altar made by earthly hands and its fire kindled by\nearthly flames. It is said of a rather famous preacher of gifts, whose\nconstruction of Scripture was to his fancy or purpose, that he \"grew\nvery eloquent over his own exegesis.\" So men grow exceeding earnest over\ntheir own plans or movements. Earnestness may be selfishness simulated.\n\nWhat of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it\npreaching. It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from\nall mere human addresses. It is the divine in preaching. It makes the\npreaching sharp to those who need sharpness. It distils as the dew to\nthose who need to be refreshed. It is well described as:\n\n  \"... a two-edged sword\n    Of heavenly temper keen,\n  And double were the wounds it made\n    Where'er it glanced between.\n  'Twas death to sin; 'twas life\n    To all who mourned for sin.\n  It kindled and it silenced strife,\n    Made war and peace within.\"\n\nThis unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet.\nIt is heaven's distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest\nexhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses, softens,\npercolates, cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like\nsalt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a\nsearcher; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a\nchild and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently,\nyet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves. This unction is not the\ngift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence\ncan woo it. No industry can win it. No prelatical hands can confer it.\nIt is the gift of God\u2014the signet set to His own messengers. It is\nheaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have\nsought this anointed honour through many an hour of tearful, wrestling\nprayer.\n\nEarnestness is good and impressive; genius is gifted and great. Thought\nkindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful\nenergy than earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains of sin,\nto win estranged and depraved hearts to God, to repair the breaches and\nrestore the Church to her old ways of purity and power. Nothing but this\nholy unction can do this.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\n _All the minister's efforts will be vanity or worse than vanity if he\n have not unction. Unction must come down from heaven and spread a\n savour and feeling and relish over his ministry; and among the other\n means of qualifying himself for his office, the Bible must hold the\n first place, and the last also must be given to the Word of God and\n prayer._\u2014RICHARD\u00a0CECIL.\n\n\nIn the Christian system unction is the anointing of the Holy Ghost,\nseparating unto God's work and qualifying for it. This unction is the\none divine enablement by which the preacher accomplishes the peculiar\nand saving ends of preaching. Without this unction there are no true\nspiritual results accomplished; the results and forces in preaching do\nnot rise above the results of unsanctified speech. Without unction the\nlatter is as potent as the pulpit.\n\nThis divine unction on the preacher generates through the Word of God\nthe spiritual results that flow from the gospel; and without this\nunction, these results are not secured. Many pleasant impressions may be\nmade, but these all fall far below the ends of gospel preaching. This\nunction may be simulated. There are many things that look like it, there\nare many results that resemble its effects; but they are foreign to its\nresults and to its nature. The fervour or softness excited by a pathetic\nor emotional sermon may look like the movements of the divine unction,\nbut they have no pungent, penetrating, heart-breaking force. No\nheart-healing balm is there in these surface, sympathetic, emotional\nmovements; they are not radical, neither sin-searching nor sin-curing.\n\nThis divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates\ntrue gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It\nbacks and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of God.\nIt illumines the Word and broadens and enrichens the intellect and\nempowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the preacher's\nheart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of purity, of\nforce and light that are necessary to secure the highest results. This\nunction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and\nsoul\u2014a freedom, fulness, and directness of utterance that can be secured\nby no other process.\n\nWithout this unction on the preacher the gospel has no more power to\npropagate itself than any other system of truth. This is the seal of its\ndivinity. Unction in the preacher puts God in the gospel. Without the\nunction, God is absent, and the gospel is left to the low and\nunsatisfactory forces that the ingenuity, interest, or talents of men\ncan devise to enforce and project its doctrines.\n\nIt is in this element that the pulpit oftener fails than in any other\nelement. Just at this all-important point it lapses. Learning it may\nhave, brilliancy and eloquence may delight and charm, sensation or less\noffensive methods may bring the populace in crowds, mental power may\nimpress and enforce truth with all its resources; but without this\nunction, each and all these will be but as the fretful assault of the\nwaters on a Gibraltar. Spray and foam may cover and spangle; but the\nrocks are there still, unimpressed and unimpressible. The human heart\ncan no more be swept of its hardness and sin by these human forces than\nthese rocks can be swept away by the ocean's ceaseless flow.\n\nThis unction is the consecration force, and its presence the continuous\ntest of that consecration. It is this divine anointing on the preacher\nthat secures his consecration to God and his work. Other forces and\nmotives may call him to the work, but this only is consecration. A\nseparation to God's work by the power of the Holy Spirit is the only\nconsecration recognized by God as legitimate.\n\nThe unction, the divine unction, this heavenly anointing, is what the\npulpit needs and must have. This divine and heavenly oil put on it by\nthe imposition of God's hand must soften and lubricate the whole\nman\u2014heart, head, spirit\u2014until it separates him with a mighty separation\nfrom all earthly, secular, worldly, selfish motives and aims, separating\nhim to everything that is pure and Godlike.\n\nIt is the presence of this unction on the preacher that creates the stir\nand friction in many a congregation. The same truths have been told in\nthe strictness of the letter, but no ruffle has been seen, no pain or\npulsation felt. All is quiet as a graveyard. Another preacher comes, and\nthis mysterious influence is on him; the letter of the Word has been\nfired by the Spirit, the throes of a mighty movement are felt, it is the\nunction that pervades and stirs the conscience and breaks the heart.\nUnctionless preaching makes everything hard, dry, acrid, dead.\n\nThis unction is not a memory or an era of the past only; it is a\npresent, realized, conscious fact. It belongs to the experience of the\nman as well as to his preaching. It is that which transforms him into\nthe image of his divine Master, as well as that by which he declares the\ntruths of Christ with power. It is so much the power in the ministry as\nto make all else seem feeble and vain without it, and by its presence to\natone for the absence of all other and feebler forces.\n\nThis unction is not an inalienable gift. It is a conditional gift, and\nits presence is perpetuated and increased by the same process by which\nit was at first secured; by unceasing prayer to God, by impassioned\ndesires after God, by estimating it, by seeking it with tireless ardour,\nby deeming all else loss and failure without it.\n\nHow and whence comes this unction? Direct from God in answer to prayer.\nPraying hearts only are the hearts filled with this holy oil; praying\nlips only are anointed with this divine unction.\n\nPrayer, much prayer, is the price of preaching unction; prayer, much\nprayer, is the one, sole condition of keeping this unction. Without\nunceasing prayer the unction never comes to the preacher. Without\nperseverance in prayer, the unction, like the manna overkept, breeds\nworms.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\n _Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire\n nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or\n laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom\n of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to\n prayer_.\u2014JOHN\u00a0WESLEY.\n\n\nThe apostles knew the necessity and worth of prayer to their ministry.\nThey knew that their high commission as apostles, instead of relieving\nthem from the necessity of prayer, committed them to it by a more urgent\nneed; so that they were exceedingly jealous else some other important\nwork should exhaust their time and prevent their praying as they ought;\nso they appointed laymen to look after the delicate and engrossing\nduties of ministering to the poor, that they (the apostles) might,\nunhindered, \"give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry\nof the word.\" Prayer is put first, and their relation to prayer is put\nmost strongly\u2014\"give themselves to it,\" making a business of it,\nsurrendering themselves to praying, putting fervour, urgency,\nperseverance, and time in it.\n\nHow holy, apostolic men devoted themselves to this divine work of\nprayer! \"Night and day praying exceedingly,\" says Paul. \"We will give\nourselves continually to prayer\" is the consensus of apostolic\ndevotement. How these New Testament preachers laid themselves out in\nprayer for God's people! How they put God in full force into their\nChurches by their praying! These holy apostles did not vainly fancy that\nthey had met their high and solemn duties by delivering faithfully God's\nWord, but their preaching was made to stick and tell by the ardour and\ninsistence of their praying. Apostolic praying was as taxing, toilsome,\nand imperative as apostolic preaching. They prayed mightily day and\nnight to bring their people to the highest regions of faith and\nholiness. They prayed mightier still to hold them to this high spiritual\naltitude. The preacher who has never learned in the School of Christ the\nhigh and divine art of intercession for his people will never learn the\nart of preaching, though homiletics be poured into him by the ton, and\nthough he be the most gifted genius in sermon-making and sermon-delivery.\n\nThe prayers of apostolic, saintly leaders do much in making saints of\nthose who are not apostles. If the Church leaders in after years had\nbeen as particular and fervent in praying for their people as the\napostles were, the sad, dark times of worldliness and apostasy had not\nmarred the history and eclipsed the glory and arrested the advance of\nthe Church. Apostolic praying makes apostolic saints and keeps apostolic\ntimes of purity and power in the Church.\n\nWhat loftiness of soul, what purity and elevation of motive, what\nunselfishness, what self-sacrifice, what exhaustive toil, what ardour of\nspirit, what divine tact are requisite to be an intercessor for men!\n\nThe preacher is to lay himself out in prayer for his people; not that\nthey might be saved, simply, but that they be mightily saved. The\napostles laid themselves out in prayer that their saints might be\nperfect; not that they should have a little relish for the things of\nGod, but that they \"might be filled with all the fulness of God.\" Paul\ndid not rely on his apostolic preaching to secure this end, but \"for\nthis cause he bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.\"\nPaul's praying carried Paul's converts farther along the highway of\nsainthood than Paul's preaching did. Epaphras did as much or more by\nprayer for the Colossian saints than by his preaching. He laboured\nfervently always in prayer for them that \"they might stand perfect and\ncomplete in all the Will of God.\"\n\nPreachers are pre-eminently God's leaders. They are primarily\nresponsible for the condition of the Church. They shape its character,\ngive tone and direction to its life.\n\nMuch every way depends on these leaders. They shape the times and the\ninstitutions. The Church is divine, the treasure it incases is heavenly,\nbut it bears the imprint of the human. The treasure is in earthen\nvessels, and it smacks of the vessel. The Church of God makes, or is\nmade by, its leaders. Whether it makes them or is made by them, it will\nbe what its leaders are; spiritual if they are so, secular if they are,\nconglomerate if its leaders are. Israel's kings gave character to\nIsrael's piety. A Church rarely revolts against or rises above the\nreligion of its leaders. Strongly spiritual leaders; men of holy might,\nat the lead, are tokens of God's favour; disaster and weakness follow\nthe wake of feeble or worldly leaders. Israel had fallen low when God\ngave children to be their princes and babes to rule over them. No happy\nstate is predicted by the prophets when children oppress God's Israel\nand women rule over them. Times of spiritual leadership are times of\ngreat spiritual prosperity to the Church.\n\nPrayer is one of the eminent characteristics of strong spiritual\nleadership. Men of mighty prayer are men of might and mould things.\nTheir power with God has the conquering tread.\n\nHow can a man preach who does not get his message fresh from God in the\ncloset? How can he preach without having his faith quickened, his vision\ncleared, and his heart warmed by his closeting with God? Alas, for the\npulpit lips which are untouched by this closet flame. Dry and\nunctionless they will ever be, and truths divine will never come with\npower from such lips. As far as the real interests of religion are\nconcerned, a pulpit without a closet will always be a barren thing.\n\nA preacher may preach in an official, entertaining, or learned way\nwithout prayer, but between this kind of preaching and sowing God's\nprecious seed with holy hands and prayerful, weeping hearts there is an\nimmeasurable distance.\n\nA prayerless ministry is the undertaker for all God's truth and for\nGod's Church. He may have the most costly casket and the most beautiful\nflowers, but it is a funeral, notwithstanding the charmful array. A\nprayerless Christian will never learn God's truth; a prayerless ministry\nwill never be able to teach God's truth. Ages of millennial glory have\nbeen lost by a prayerless Church. The coming of our Lord has been\npostponed indefinitely by a prayerless Church. Hell has enlarged herself\nand filled her dire caves in the presence of the dead service of a\nprayerless Church.\n\nThe best, the greatest offering is an offering of prayer. If the\npreachers of the twentieth century will learn well the lesson of prayer,\nand use fully the power of prayer, the millennium will come to its noon\nere the century closes. \"Prayer without ceasing\" is the trumpet call to\nthe preachers of the twentieth century. If the twentieth century will\nget their texts, their thoughts, their words, their sermons in their\nclosets, the next century will find a new heaven and a new earth. The\nold sin-stained and sin-eclipsed heaven and earth will pass away under\nthe power of a praying ministry.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\n _If some Christians that have been complaining of their ministers had\n said and acted less before men and had applied themselves with all\n their might to cry to God for their ministers\u2014had, as it were, risen\n and stormed heaven with their humble, fervent, and incessant prayers\n for them\u2014they would have been much more in the way of\n success._\u2014JONATHAN EDWARDS.\n\n\nSomehow the practice of praying in particular for the preacher has\nfallen into disuse or become discounted. Occasionally have we heard the\npractice arraigned as a disparagement of the ministry, being a public\ndeclaration by those who do it of the inefficiency of the ministry. It\noffends the pride of learning and self-sufficiency, perhaps, and these\nought to be offended and rebuked in a ministry that is so derelict as to\nallow them to exist.\n\nPrayer, to the preacher, is not simply the duty of his profession, a\nprivilege, but it is a necessity. Air is not more necessary to the lungs\nthan prayer is to the preacher. It is absolutely necessary for the\npreacher to pray. It is an absolute necessity that the preacher be\nprayed for. These two propositions are wedded into a union which ought\nnever to know any divorce: _the preacher must pray; the preacher must be\nprayed for_. It will take all the praying he can do, and all the praying\nhe can get done, to meet the fearful responsibilities and gain the\nlargest, truest success in his great work. The true preacher, next to\nthe cultivation of the spirit and fact of prayer in himself, in their\nintensest form, covets with a great covetousness the prayers of God's\npeople.\n\nThe holier a man is, the more does he estimate prayer; the clearer does\nhe see that God gives Himself to the praying ones, and that the measure\nof God's revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul's longing,\nimportunate prayer for God. Salvation never finds its way to a\nprayerless heart. The Holy Spirit never abides in a prayerless spirit.\nPreaching never edifies a prayerless soul. Christ knows nothing of\nprayerless Christians. The gospel cannot be extended by a prayerless\npreacher. Gifts, talents, education, eloquence, God's call, cannot abate\nthe demand of prayer, but only intensify the necessity for the preacher\nto pray and to be prayed for. The more the preacher's eyes are opened to\nthe nature, responsibility, and difficulties in his work, the more will\nhe see, and if he be a true preacher the more will he feel, the\nnecessity of prayer; not only the increasing demand to pray himself, but\nto call on others to help him by their prayers.\n\nPaul is an illustration of this. If any man could extend or advance the\ngospel by dint of personal force, by brain power, by culture, by\npersonal grace, by God's apostolic commission, God's extraordinary call,\nthat man was Paul. That the preacher must be a man given to prayer, Paul\nis an eminent example. That the true apostolic preacher must have the\nprayers of other good people to give to his ministry its full quota of\nsuccess, Paul is a pre-eminent example. He asks, he covets, he pleads in\nan impassioned way for the help of all God's saints. He knew that in the\nspiritual realm, as elsewhere, in union there is strength; that the\nconcentration and aggregation of faith, desire, and prayer increased the\nvolume of spiritual force until it became overwhelming and irresistible\nin its power. Units of prayer combined, like drops of water, make an\nocean which defies resistance. So Paul, with his clear and full\napprehension of spiritual dynamics, determined to make his ministry as\nimpressive, as eternal, as irresistible as the ocean, by gathering all\nthe scattered units of prayer and precipitating them on his ministry.\nMay not the solution of Paul's pre-eminence in labours and results, and\nimpress on the Church and the world, be found in this fact that he was\nable to centre on himself and his ministry more of prayer than others?\nTo his brethren at Rome he wrote: \"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the\nLord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive\ntogether with me in prayers to God for me.\" To the Ephesians he says:\n\"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and\nwatching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all\nsaints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open\nmy mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel.\" To the\nColossians he emphasizes: \"Withal praying also for us, that God would\nopen unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for\nwhich I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest as I ought to\nspeak.\" To the Thessalonians he says sharply, strongly: \"Brethren, pray\nfor us.\" Paul calls on the Corinthian Church to help him: \"Ye also\nhelping together by prayer for us.\" This was to be part of their work.\nThey were to lay to the helping hand of prayer. He in an additional and\nclosing charge to the Thessalonian Church about the importance and\nnecessity of their prayers says: \"Finally, brethren, pray for us, that\nthe Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it\nis with you: and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked\nmen.\" He impresses the Philippians that all his trials and opposition\ncan be made subservient to the spread of the gospel by the efficiency of\ntheir prayers for him. Philemon was to prepare a lodging for him, for\nthrough Philemon's prayer Paul was to be his guest.\n\nPaul's attitude on this question illustrates his humility and his deep\ninsight into the spiritual forces which project the gospel. More than\nthis, it teaches a lesson for all times, that if Paul was so dependent\non the prayers of God's saints to give his ministry success, how much\ngreater the necessity that the prayers of God's saints be centred on the\nministry of to-day!\n\nPaul did not feel that this urgent plea for prayer was to lower his\ndignity, lessen his influence, or depreciate his piety. What if it did?\nLet dignity go, let influence be destroyed, let his reputation be\nmarred\u2014he must have their prayers. Called, commissioned, chief of the\nApostles as he was, all his equipment was imperfect without the prayers\nof his people. He wrote letters everywhere, urging them to pray for him.\nDo you pray for your preacher? Do you pray for him in secret? Public\nprayers are of little worth unless they are founded on or followed up by\nprivate praying. The praying ones are to the preacher as Aaron and Hur\nwere to Moses. They hold up his hands and decide the issue that is so\nfiercely raging around them.\n\nThe plea and purpose of the apostles were to put the Church to praying.\nThey did not ignore the grace of cheerful giving. They were not ignorant\nof the place which religious activity and work occupied in the spiritual\nlife; but not one or all of these, in apostolic estimate or urgency,\ncould at all compare in necessity and importance with prayer. The most\nsacred and urgent pleas were used, the most fervid exhortations, the\nmost comprehensive and arousing words were uttered to enforce the\nall-important obligation and necessity of prayer.\n\n\"Put the saints everywhere to praying\" is the burden of the apostolic\neffort and the keynote of apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven to\ndo this in the days of His personal ministry. As He was moved by\ninfinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth perishing for lack of\nlabourers\u2014and pausing in His own praying\u2014He tries to awaken the stupid\nsensibilities of His disciples to the duty of prayer as He charges them,\n\"Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into\nHis harvest.\" \"And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men\nought always to pray and not to faint.\"\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\n _This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not\n in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been\n allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private\n devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc. Hence I am\n lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an hour and a\n half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but\n a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the experience of\n all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of\n private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may be done through\n prayer\u2014almighty prayer I am ready to say\u2014and why not? For that it is\n almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and\n truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!_\u2014WILLIAM\u00a0WILBERFORCE.\n\n\nOur devotions are not measured by the clock, but time is of their\nessence. The ability to wait and stay and press belongs essentially to\nour intercourse with God. Hurry, everywhere unseeming and damaging, is\nso to an alarming extent in the great business of communion with God.\nShort devotions are the bane of deep piety. Calmness, grasp, strength,\nare never the companions of hurry. Short devotions deplete spiritual\nvigour, arrest spiritual progress, sap spiritual foundations, blight the\nroot and bloom of spiritual life. They are the prolific source of\nbacksliding, the sure indication of a superficial piety; they deceive,\nblight, rot the seed, and impoverish the soil.\n\nIt is true that Bible prayers in word and print are short, but the\npraying men of the Bible were with God through many a sweet and holy\nwrestling hour. They won by few words but long waiting. The prayers\nMoses records may be short, but Moses prayed to God with fastings and\nmighty cryings forty days and nights.\n\nThe statement of Elijah's praying may be condensed to a few brief\nparagraphs but doubtless Elijah, who when \"praying he prayed,\" spent\nmany hours of fiery struggle and lofty intercourse with God before he\ncould, with assured boldness, say to Ahab, \"There shall not be dew nor\nrain these years, but according to my word.\" The Bible record of Paul's\nprayers is short, but Paul \"prayed night and day exceedingly.\" The\n\"Lord's Prayer\" is a divine epitome for infant lips, but the man Christ\nJesus prayed many an all-night ere His work was done; and His all-night\nand long-sustained devotions gave to His work its finish and perfection,\nand to His character the fulness and glory of its divinity.\n\nSpiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying, true\npraying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh\nand blood do not relish. Few persons are made of such strong fibre that\nthey will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in\nthe market. We can habituate ourselves to our beggarly praying until it\nlooks well to us, at least it keeps up a decent form and quiets\nconscience\u2014the deadliest of opiates! We can curtail our praying, and not\nrealize the peril till the foundations are gone. Hurried devotions make\nweak faith, feeble convictions, questionable piety. To be little with\nGod is to be little for God. To cut short the praying makes the whole\nreligious character short, scrimp, niggardly, and slovenly.\n\nIt takes good time for the full flow of God into the spirit. Short\ndevotions cut the pipe of God's full flow. It takes time in the secret\nplaces to get the full revelation of God. Little time and hurry mar the\npicture.\n\nHenry Martyn laments that \"want of private devotional reading and\nshortness of prayer through incessant sermon-making had produced much\nstrangeness between God and his soul.\" He judged that he had dedicated\ntoo much time to _public_ ministrations and too little to _private_\ncommunion with God. He was much impressed with the need of setting apart\ntimes for fasting and to devote times for solemn prayer. Resulting from\nthis he records: \"Was assisted this morning to pray for two hours.\" Said\nWilliam Wilberforce the peer of kings: \"I must secure more time for\nprivate devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The\nshortening of private devotions starves the soul; it grows lean and\nfaint. I have been keeping too late hours.\" Of a failure in Parliament\nhe says: \"Let me record my grief and shame, and all, probably, from\nprivate devotions having been contracted, and so God let me stumble.\"\nMore solitude and earlier hours were his remedy.\n\nMore time and early hours for prayer would act like magic to revive and\ninvigorate many a decayed spiritual life. More time and early hours for\nprayer would be manifest in holy living. A holy life would not be so\nrare or so difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short and\nhurried. A Christly temper in its sweet and passionless fragrance would\nnot be so alien and hopeless a heritage if our closet stay were\nlengthened and intensified. We live shabbily because we pray meanly.\nPlenty of time to feast in our closets will bring marrow and fatness to\nour lives. Our ability to stay with God in our closet measures our\nability to stay with God out of the closet. Hasty closet visits are\ndeceptive, defaulting. We are not only deluded by them, but we are\nlosers by them in many ways and in many rich legacies. Tarrying in the\ncloset instructs and wins. We are taught by it, and the greatest\nvictories are often the results of great waiting\u2014waiting till words and\nplans are exhausted, and silent and patient waiting gains the crown.\nJesus Christ asks with an affronted emphasis, \"Shall not God avenge His\nown elect which cry day and night unto Him?\"\n\nTo pray is the greatest thing we can do: and to do it well there must be\ncalmness, time, and deliberation; otherwise it is degraded into the\nsmallest and meanest of things. True praying has the largest results for\ngood; and poor praying, the least. We cannot do too much of real\npraying; we cannot do too little of the sham. We must learn anew the\nworth of prayer, enter anew the school of prayer. There is nothing which\nit takes more time to learn. And if we would learn the wondrous art we\nmust not give a fragment here and there\u2014\"A little talk with Jesus,\" as\nthe tiny saintlets sing\u2014but we must demand and hold with iron grasp the\nbest hours of the day for God and prayer, or there will be no praying\nworth the name.\n\nThis, however, is not a day of prayer. Few men there are who pray.\nPrayer is defamed by preacher and priest. In these days of hurry and\nbustle, of electricity and steam, men will not take time to pray.\nPreachers there are who \"say prayers\" as a part of their programme, on\nregular or state occasions; but who \"stirs himself up to take hold upon\nGod?\" Who prays as Jacob prayed\u2014till he is crowned as a prevailing\nprincely intercessor? Who prays as Elijah prayed\u2014till all the locked-up\nforces of nature were unsealed and a famine-stricken land bloomed as the\ngarden of God? Who prayed as Jesus Christ prayed as out upon the\nmountain he \"continued all night in prayer to God?\" The apostles \"gave\nthemselves to prayer\"\u2014the most difficult thing to get men or even the\npreachers to do. Laymen there are who will give their money\u2014some of them\nin rich abundance\u2014but they will not \"give themselves\" to prayer, without\nwhich their money is but a curse. There are plenty of preachers who will\npreach and deliver great and eloquent addresses on the need of revival\nand the spread of the kingdom of God, but not many there are who will do\nthat without which all preaching and organizing are worse than\nvain\u2014pray. It is out of date, almost a lost art, and the greatest\nbenefactor this age could have is the man who will bring the preachers\nand the church back to prayer.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\n _I judge that my prayer is more than the devil himself; if it were\n otherwise, Luther would have fared differently long before this. Yet\n men will not see and acknowledge the great wonders or miracles God\n works in my behalf. If I should neglect prayer but a single day, I\n should lose a great deal of the fire of faith._\u2014MARTIN\u00a0LUTHER.\n\n\nOnly glimpses of the great importance of prayer could the apostles get\nbefore Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling at Pentecost\nelevated prayer to its vital and all commanding position in the gospel\nof Christ. The call now of prayer to every saint is the Spirit's loudest\nand most exigent call. Sainthood's piety is made, refined, perfected, by\nprayer. The gospel moves with slow and timid pace when the saints are\nnot at their prayers early and late and long.\n\nWhere are the Christly leaders who can teach the modern saints how to\npray and put them at it? Do we know we are raising up a prayerless set\nof saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can put God's people to\npraying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and it will be the\ngreatest work which can be done. An increase of educational facilities\nand a great increase of money force will be the direst curse to religion\nif they are not sanctified by more and better praying than we are doing.\nMore praying will not come as a matter of course. The campaign for the\ntwentieth or thirtieth century fund will not help our praying but hinder\nif we are not careful. Nothing but a specific effort from a praying\nleadership will avail. The chief ones must lead in the apostolic effort\nto radicate the vital importance and _fact_ of prayer in the heart and\nlife of the Church. None but praying leaders can have praying followers.\nPraying apostles will beget praying saints. A praying pulpit will beget\npraying pews. We do greatly need somebody who can set the saints to this\nbusiness of praying. We are not a generation of praying saints.\nNon-praying saints are a beggarly gang of saints who have neither the\nardour nor the beauty nor the power of saints. Who will restore this\nbreach? The greatest will he be of reformers and apostles, who can set\nthe Church to praying.\n\nWe put it as our most sober judgment that the great need of the Church\nin this and all ages is men of such commanding faith, of such unsullied\nholiness, of such marked spiritual vigour and consuming zeal, that their\nprayers, faith, lives, and ministry will be of such a radical and\naggressive form as to work spiritual revolutions which will form eras in\nindividual and Church life.\n\nWe do not mean men who get up sensational stirs by novel devices, nor\nthose who attract by a pleasing entertainment; but men who can stir\nthings, and work revolutions by the preaching of God's Word and by the\npower of the Holy Ghost, revolutions which change the whole current of\nthings.\n\nNatural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in\nthis matter; but capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of\nthorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute\nlosing of one's self in God's glory and an ever-present and insatiable\nyearning and seeking after all the fulness of God\u2014men who can set the\nChurch ablaze for God; not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense\nand quiet heat that melts and moves everything for God.\n\nGod can work wonders if He can get a suitable man. Men can work wonders\nif they can get God to lead them. The full endowment of the spirit that\nturned the world upside down would be eminently useful in these latter\ndays. Men who can stir things mightily for God, whose spiritual\nrevolutions change the whole aspect of things, are the universal need of\nthe Church.\n\nThe Church has never been without these men; they adorn its history;\nthey are the standing miracles of the divinity of the Church; their\nexample and history are an unfailing inspiration and blessing. An\nincrease in their number and power should be our prayer.\n\nThat which has been done in spiritual matters can be done again, and be\nbetter done. This was Christ's view. He said: \"Verily, verily, I say\nunto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also;\nand greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father.\"\nThe past has not exhausted the possibilities nor the demands for doing\ngreat things for God. The Church that is dependent on its past history\nfor its miracles of power and grace is a fallen Church.\n\nGod wants elect men\u2014men out of whom self and the world have gone by a\nsevere crucifixion, by a bankruptcy which has so totally ruined self and\nthe world that there is neither hope nor desire of recovery; men who by\nthis insolvency and crucifixion have turned toward God perfect hearts.\n\nLet us pray ardently that God's promise to prayer may be more than\nrealized.","title":"Power Through Prayer","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":21745}