{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_66112/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_66112","id":"gutenberg_66112","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66112","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Prayer -- Christianity"],"text":"PURPOSE IN PRAYER\n\n\n                    [Illustration: EDWARD M. BOUNDS]\n\n                           PURPOSE IN PRAYER\n\n\n                                   BY\n                              E. M. BOUNDS\n                   Author of \u201cPower through Prayer.\u201d\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n                   NEW YORK      CHICAGO      TORONTO\n                      Fleming  H.  Revell  Company\n                     LONDON      AND      EDINBURGH\n\n\n                          Copyright, 1920, by\n                       FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n\n\n                   New York:        158 Fifth Avenue\n                   Chicago:     17 North Wabash Ave.\n                   London:     21 Paternoster Square\n                   Edinburgh:      75 Princes Street\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nEDWARD MCKENDREE BOUNDS was born in Shelby County, Mo., August 15, 1835,\nand died August 24, 1913, in Washington, Ga. He received a common school\neducation at Shelbyville and was admitted to the bar soon after his\nmajority. He practiced law until called to preach the Gospel at the age\nof twenty-four. His first pastorate was Monticello, Mo., Circuit. It was\nwhile serving as pastor of Brunswick, Mo., that war was declared and the\nyoung minister was made a prisoner of war because he would not take the\noath of allegiance to the Federal Government. He was sent to St. Louis\nand later transferred to Memphis, Tenn.\n\nFinally securing his release, he traveled on foot nearly one hundred\nmiles to join General Pierce\u2019s command in Mississippi and was soon after\nmade chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment, a position he held until\nnear the close of the war, when he was captured and held as prisoner at\nNashville, Tenn.\n\nAfter the war Rev. E. M. Bounds was pastor of churches in Tennessee and\nAlabama. In 1875 he was assigned to St. Paul Methodist Church in St.\nLouis, and served there for four years. In 1876 he was married to Miss\nEmmie Barnette at Eufaula, Ala., who died ten years later. In 1887 he\nwas married to Miss Hattie Barnette, who, with five children, survives\nhim.\n\nAfter serving several pastorates he was sent to the First Methodist\nChurch in St. Louis, Mo., for one year and to St. Paul Methodist Church\nfor three years. At the end of his pastorate, he became the editor of\nthe St. Louis \u201cChristian Advocate.\u201d\n\nHe was a forceful writer and a very deep thinker. He spent the last\nseventeen years of his life with his family in Washington, Ga. Most of\nthe time he was reading, writing and praying. He rose at 4 a. m. each\nday for many years and was indefatigable in his study of the Bible. His\nwritings were read by thousands of people and were in demand by the\nchurch people of every Protestant denomination.\n\nBounds was the embodiment of humility, with a seraphic devotion to Jesus\nChrist. He reached that high place where self is forgotten and the love\nof God and humanity was the all-absorbing thought and purpose. At\nseventy-six years of age he came to me in Brooklyn, N.Y., and so intense\nwas he that he awoke us at 3 o\u2019clock in the morning praying and weeping\nover the lost of earth. All during the day he would go into the church\nnext door and be found on his knees until called for his meals. This is\nwhat he called the \u201cBusiness of Praying.\u201d Infused with this heavenly\nozone, he wrote \u201cPreacher and Prayer,\u201d a classic in its line, and now\ngone into several foreign languages, read by men and women all over the\nworld. In 1909, while Rev. A. C. Dixon was preaching in Dr. Broughton\u2019s\nTabernacle, Atlanta, Ga., I sent him a copy of \u201cPreacher and Prayer,\u201d by\nBounds. Hear what he says:\n\n\u201cThis little book was given me by a friend. I received another copy at\nChristmas from another friend. \u2018Well,\u2019 thought I, \u2018there must be\nsomething worth while in the little book or two of my friends would not\nhave selected the same present for me.\u2019 So I read the first page until I\ncame to the words: \u2018Man is looking for better methods, God is looking\nfor better men. Man is God\u2019s method.\u2019 That was enough for me and my\nappetite demanded more until the book was finished with pleasure.\u201d\n\nThis present volume is a companion work, and reflects the true spirit of\na man whose business it was to live the gospel that he preached. He was\nnot a luminary but a SUN and takes his place with Brainerd and Bramwell\nas untiring intercessors with God.\n\n\n                                                            H. W. HODGE.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _My Creed leads me to think that prayer is efficacious, and surely\n  a day\u2019s asking God to overrule all events for good is not lost.\n  Still there is a great feeling that when a man is praying he is\n  doing nothing, and this feeling makes us give undue importance to\n  work, sometimes even to the hurrying over or even to the neglect of\n  prayer._\n\n  _Do not we rest in our day too much on the arm of flesh? Cannot the\n  same wonders be done now as of old? Do not the eyes of the Lord run\n  to and fro throughout the whole earth still to show Himself strong\n  on behalf of those who put their trust in Him? Oh that God would\n  give me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of\n  Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to call on Him._\n                                         \u2014JAMES GILMOUR OF MONGOLIA.\n\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\nTHE more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the\nmightier the forces against evil everywhere. Prayer, in one phase of its\noperation, is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the air; it\ndestroys the contagion of evil. Prayer is no fitful, shortlived thing.\nIt is no voice crying unheard and unheeded in the silence. It is a voice\nwhich goes into God\u2019s ear, and it lives as long as God\u2019s ear is open to\nholy pleas, as long as God\u2019s heart is alive to holy things.\n\nGod shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. The lips that\nuttered them may be closed in death, the heart that felt them may have\nceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God\u2019s heart is set\non them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive\na generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.\n\nThat man is the most immortal who has done the most and the best\npraying. They are God\u2019s heroes, God\u2019s saints, God\u2019s servants, God\u2019s\nvicegerents. A man can pray better because of the prayers of the past; a\nman can live holier because of the prayers of the past, the man of many\nand acceptable prayers has done the truest and greatest service to the\nincoming generation. The prayers of God\u2019s saints strengthen the unborn\ngeneration against the desolating waves of sin and evil. Woe to the\ngeneration of sons who find their censers empty of the rich incense of\nprayer; whose fathers have been too busy or too unbelieving to pray, and\nperils inexpressible and consequences untold are their unhappy heritage.\nFortunate are they whose fathers and mothers have left them a wealthy\npatrimony of prayer.\n\nThe prayers of God\u2019s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which\nChrist carries on His great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty\nconvulsions on earth are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed,\nrevolutionised, angels move on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God\u2019s\npolicy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient.\n\nIt is true that the mightiest successes that come to God\u2019s cause are\ncreated and carried on by prayer. God\u2019s day of power; the angelic days\nof activity and power are when God\u2019s Church comes into its mightiest\ninheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer. God\u2019s conquering\ndays are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer. When\nGod\u2019s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God\u2019s house in heaven is\nbusy and all potent in its plans and movements, then His earthly armies\nare clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory and His enemies\ndefeated on every hand.\n\nGod conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer. The\ncondition was put in the very existence of God\u2019s cause in this world.\n_Ask of Me_ is the one condition God puts in the very advance and\ntriumph of His cause.\n\nMen are to pray\u2014to pray for the advance of God\u2019s cause. Prayer puts God\nin full force in the world. To a prayerful man God is present in\nrealised force; to a prayerful Church God is present in glorious power,\nand the Second Psalm is the Divine description of the establishment of\nGod\u2019s cause through Jesus Christ. All inferior dispensations have merged\nin the enthronement of Jesus Christ. God declares the enthronement of\nHis Son. The nations are incensed with bitter hatred against His cause.\nGod is described as laughing at their enfeebled hate. The Lord will\nlaugh; The Lord will have them in derision. \u201cYet have I set My King upon\nMy holy hill of Zion.\u201d The decree has passed immutable and eternal:\n\n  I will tell of the decree:\n  The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;\n  This day have I begotten Thee.\n  _Ask of Me_, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,\n  And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.\n  Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;\n  Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter\u2019s vessel.\n\n_Ask of Me_ is the condition\u2014a praying people willing and obedient.\n\u201cAnd men shall pray for Him continually.\u201d Under this universal and\nsimple promise men and women of old laid themselves out for God. They\nprayed and God answered their prayers, and the cause of God was kept\nalive in the world by the flame of their praying.\n\nPrayer became a settled and only condition to move His Son\u2019s Kingdom.\n\u201cAsk, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall\nbe opened.\u201d The strongest one in Christ\u2019s kingdom is he who is the best\nknocker. The secret of success in Christ\u2019s Kingdom is the ability to\npray. The one who can wield the power of prayer is the strong one, the\nholy one in Christ\u2019s Kingdom. The most important lesson we can learn is\nhow to pray.\n\nPrayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life, of the holiest\nministry. He does the most for God who is the highest skilled in prayer.\nJesus Christ exercised His ministry after this order.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _That we ought to give ourselves to God with regard to things both\n  temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in the\n  fulfilling His will, whether He lead us by suffering, or by\n  consolation, for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.\n  Prayer is nothing else but a sense of God\u2019s presence._\n                                                  \u2014BROTHER LAWRENCE.\n\n\n  _Be sure you look to your secret duty; keep that up whatever you\n  do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy\n  generally begins at the closet door. Be much in secret fellowship\n  with God. It is secret trading that enriches the Christian._\n\n  _Pray alone. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at\n  night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it on our\n  knees._\n                                                      \u2014PHILIP HENRY.\n\n\n  _The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the\n  Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy._\n                                                       \u2014ROBERT HALL.\n\n\n  _An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the\n  conflict with and conquest over a single passion or subtle bosom\n  sin will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the\n  faculty and form the habit of reflection than a year\u2019s study in the\n  schools without them._\n                                                         \u2014COLERIDGE.\n\n\n  _A man may pray night and day and deceive himself, but no man can\n  be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer is faith\n  passing into act. A union of the will and intellect realising in an\n  intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is\n  wishing or lip work, a sham or a mummery._\n\n  _If God should restore me again to health I have determined to\n  study nothing but the Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality\n  if it be not kept under with a firm hand._\n                                                     \u2014RICHARD CECIL.\n\n\n  _Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in\n  doing that for God\u2019s sake which we commonly do for our own. The\n  time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer.\n  Prayer is nothing else but a sense of the presence of God._\n                                                  \u2014BROTHER LAWRENCE.\n\n\n  _Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint,\n  prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man of prayer._\n                                                      \u2014HENRY MARTYN.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nThe possibilities and necessity of prayer, its power and results are\nmanifested in arresting and changing the purposes of God and in\nrelieving the stroke of His power. Abimelech was smitten by God:\n\n  So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife,\n  and his maidservants; and they bare _children_.\n\n  For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of\n  Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham\u2019s wife.\n\nJob\u2019s miserable mistaken comforters had so deported themselves in their\ncontroversy with Job that God\u2019s wrath was kindled against them. \u201cMy\nservant Job shall pray for you,\u201d said God, \u201cfor him will I accept.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his\nfriends.\u201d\n\nJonah was in dire condition when \u201cthe Lord sent out a great wind into\nthe sea, and there was a mighty tempest.\u201d When lots were cast, \u201cthe lot\nfell upon Jonah.\u201d He was cast overboard into the sea, but \u201cthe Lord had\nprepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.... Then Jonah prayed unto the\nLord his God out of the fish\u2019s belly ... and the Lord spake unto the\nfish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.\u201d\n\nWhen the disobedient prophet lifted up his voice in prayer, God heard\nand sent deliverance.\n\nPharaoh was a firm believer in the possibilities of prayer, and its\nability to relieve. When staggering under the woeful curses of God, he\npleaded with Moses to intercede for him. \u201cIntreat the Lord for me,\u201d was\nhis pathetic appeal four times repeated when the plagues were scourging\nEgypt. Four times were these urgent appeals made to Moses, and four\ntimes did prayer lift the dread curse from the hard king and his doomed\nland.\n\nThe blasphemy and idolatry of Israel in making the golden calf and\ndeclaring their devotions to it were a fearful crime. The anger of God\nwaxed hot, and He declared that He would destroy the offending people.\nThe Lord was very wroth with Aaron also, and to Moses He said, \u201cLet Me\nalone that I may destroy them.\u201d But Moses prayed, and kept on praying;\nday and night he prayed forty days. He makes the record of his prayer\nstruggle. \u201cI fell down,\u201d he says, \u201cbefore the Lord at the first forty\ndays and nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water because of your\nsins which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to\nprovoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure\nwherewith the Lord was hot against you to destroy you. But the Lord\nhearkened to me at this time also. And the Lord was very angry with\nAaron to have destroyed him. And I prayed for him also at the same\ntime.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.\u201d It was the purpose of\nGod to destroy that great and wicked city. But Nineveh prayed, covered\nwith sackcloth; sitting in ashes she cried \u201cmightily to God,\u201d and \u201cGod\nrepented of the evil that He had said He would do unto them; and He did\nit not.\u201d\n\nThe message of God to Hezekiah was: \u201cSet thine house in order; for thou\nshalt die and not live.\u201d Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and\nprayed unto the Lord, and said: \u201cRemember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee,\nhow I have walked before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and\nhave done that which is good in Thy sight.\u201d And Hezekiah wept sore. God\nsaid to Isaiah, \u201cGo, say to Hezekiah, I have heard thy prayer, I have\nseen thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.\u201d\n\nThese men knew how to pray and how to prevail in prayer. Their faith in\nprayer was no passing attitude that changed with the wind or with their\nown feelings and circumstances; it was a fact that God heard and\nanswered, that His ear was ever open to the cry of His children, and\nthat the power to do what was asked of Him was commensurate with His\nwillingness. And thus these men, strong in faith and in prayer, \u201csubdued\nkingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths\nof lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,\nfrom weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight\nthe armies of the aliens.\u201d\n\nEverything then, as now, was possible to the men and women who knew how\nto pray. Prayer, indeed, opened a limitless storehouse, and God\u2019s hand\nwithheld nothing. Prayer introduced those who practised it into a world\nof privilege, and brought the strength and wealth of heaven down to the\naid of finite man. What rich and wonderful power was theirs who had\nlearned the secret of victorious approach to God! With Moses it saved a\nnation; with Ezra it saved a church.\n\nAnd yet, strange as it seems when we contemplate the wonders of which\nGod\u2019s people had been witness, there came a slackness in prayer. The\nmighty hold upon God, that had so often struck awe and terror into the\nhearts of their enemies, lost its grip. The people, backslidden and\napostate, had gone off from their praying\u2014if the bulk of them had ever\ntruly prayed. The Pharisee\u2019s cold and lifeless praying was substituted\nfor any genuine approach to God, and because of that formal method of\npraying the whole worship became a parody of its real purpose. A\nglorious dispensation, and gloriously executed, was it by Moses, by\nEzra, by Daniel and Elijah, by Hannah and Samuel; but the circle seems\nlimited and shortlived; the praying ones were few and far between. They\nhad no survivors, none to imitate their devotion to God, none to\npreserve the roll of the elect.\n\nIn vain had the decree established the Divine order, the Divine call.\n_Ask of Me._ From the earnest and fruitful crying to God they turned\ntheir faces to pagan gods, and cried in vain for the answers that could\nnever come. And so they sank into that godless and pitiful state that\nhas lost its object in life when the link with the Eternal has been\nbroken. Their favoured dispensation of prayer was forgotten; they knew\nnot how to pray.\n\nWhat a contrast to the achievements that brighten up other pages of holy\nwrit. The power working through Elijah and Elisha in answer to prayer\nreached down even to the very grave. In each case a child was raised\nfrom the dead, and the powers of famine were broken. \u201cThe supplications\nof a righteous man avail much.\u201d Elijah was a man of like passions with\nus. He prayed fervently that it might not rain, and it rained not on the\nearth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the\nheaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Jonah prayed\nwhile imprisoned in the great fish, and he came to dry land, saved from\nstorm and sea and monsters of the deep by the mighty energy of his\npraying.\n\nHow wide the gracious provision of the grace of praying as administered\nin that marvellous dispensation. They prayed wondrously. Why could not\ntheir praying save the dispensation from decay and death? Was it not\nbecause they lost the fire without which all praying degenerates into a\nlifeless form? It takes effort and toil and care to prepare the incense.\nPrayer is no laggard\u2019s work. When all the rich, spiced graces from the\nbody of prayer have by labour and beating been blended and refined and\nintermixed, the fire is needed to unloose the incense and make its\nfragrance rise to the throne of God. The fire that consumes creates the\nspirit and life of the incense. Without fire prayer has no spirit; it\nis, like dead spices, for corruption and worms.\n\nThe casual, intermittent prayer is never bathed in this Divine fire. For\nthe man who thus prays is lacking in the earnestness that lays hold of\nGod, determined not to let Him go until the blessing comes. \u201cPray\nwithout ceasing,\u201d counselled the great Apostle. That is the habit that\ndrives prayer right into the mortar that holds the building stones\ntogether. \u201cYou can do more than pray after you have prayed,\u201d said the\ngodly Dr. A. J. Gordon, \u201cbut you cannot do more than pray until you have\nprayed.\u201d The story of every great Christian achievement is the history\nof answered prayer.\n\n\u201cThe greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man or woman in\nthis world is the talent of prayer,\u201d writes Principal Alexander Whyte.\n\u201cAnd the best usury that any man or woman brings back to God when He\ncomes to reckon with them at the end of this world is a life of prayer.\nAnd those servants best put their Lord\u2019s money \u2018to the exchangers\u2019 who\nrise early and sit late, as long as they are in this world, ever finding\nout and ever following after better and better methods of prayer, and\never forming more secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful\nhabits of prayer, till they literally \u2018pray without ceasing,\u2019 and till\nthey continually strike out into new enterprises in prayer, and new\nachievements, and new enrichments.\u201d\n\nMartin Luther, when once asked what his plans for the following day\nwere, answered: \u201cWork, work, from early until late. In fact, I have so\nmuch to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.\u201d\nCromwell, too, believed in being much upon his knees. Looking on one\noccasion at the statues of famous men, he turned to a friend and said:\n\u201cMake mine kneeling, for thus I came to glory.\u201d\n\nIt is only when the whole heart is gripped with the passion of prayer\nthat the life-giving fire descends, for none but the earnest man gets\naccess to the ear of God.\n\n\n  _When thou feelest thyself most indisposed to prayer yield not to\n  it, but strive and endeavour to pray even when thou thinkest thou\n  canst not pray._\n                                                         \u2014HILDERSAM.\n\n\n  _It was among the Parthians the custom that none was to give their\n  children any meat in the morning before they saw the sweat on their\n  faces, and you shall find this to be God\u2019s usual course not to give\n  His children the taste of His delights till they begin to sweat in\n  seeking after them._\n                                                    \u2014RICHARD BAXTER.\n\n\n  _Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential\n  and yet more neglected than prayer. Most people consider the\n  exercise a fatiguing ceremony, which they are justified in\n  abridging as much as possible. Even those whose profession or fears\n  lead them to pray, pray with such languor and wanderings of mind\n  that their prayers, far from drawing down blessings, only increase\n  their condemnation._\n                                                           \u2014F\u00c9NELON.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n\nMore praying and better is the secret of the whole matter. More time for\nprayer, more relish and preparation to meet God, to commune with God\nthrough Christ\u2014this has in it the whole of the matter. Our manner and\nmatter of praying ill become us. The attitude and relationship of God\nand the Son are the eternal relationship of Father and Son, of asking\nand giving\u2014the Son always asking, the Father always giving:\n\n _Ask of Me_, and I will give _Thee_ the nations for Thine inheritance,\n And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.\n Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;\n Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter\u2019s vessel.\n\nJesus is to be always praying through His people. \u201cAnd men shall pray\nfor Him continually.\u201d \u201cFor My house shall be called a house of prayer\nfor My peoples.\u201d We must prepare ourselves to pray; to be like Christ,\nto pray like Christ.\n\nMan\u2019s access in prayer to God opens everything, and makes his\nimpoverishment his wealth. All things are his through prayer. The wealth\nand the glory\u2014all things are Christ\u2019s. As the light grows brighter and\nprophets take in the nature of the restoration, the Divine record seems\nto be enlarged.\n\n\u201cThus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and His Maker, ask Me of\nthe things that are to come, concerning My sons, and concerning the work\nof My hands command ye Me. I have made the earth, and created man upon\nit: I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens and all their host\nhave I commanded.\u201d\n\nTo man is given to command God with all this authority and power in the\ndemands of God\u2019s earthly Kingdom. Heaven, with all it has, is under\ntribute to carry out the ultimate, final and glorious purposes of God.\nWhy then is the time so long in carrying out these wise benedictions for\nman? Why then does sin so long reign? Why are the oath-bound covenant\npromises so long in coming to their gracious end? Sin reigns, Satan\nreigns, sighing marks the lives of many; all tears are fresh and full.\n\nWhy is all this so? We have not prayed to bring the evil to an end; we\nhave not prayed as we must pray. We have not met the conditions of\nprayer.\n\n_Ask of Me._ Ask of God. We have not rested on prayer. We have not made\nprayer the sole condition. There has been violation of the primary\ncondition of prayer. We have not prayed aright. We have not prayed at\nall. God is willing to give, but we are slow to ask. The Son, through\nHis saints, is ever praying and God the Father is ever answering.\n\n_Ask of Me._ In the invitation is conveyed the assurance of answer; the\nshout of victory is there and may be heard by the listening ear. The\nFather holds the authority and power in His hands. How easy is the\ncondition, and yet how long are we in fulfilling the conditions! Nations\nare in bondage; the uttermost parts of the earth are still unpossessed.\nThe earth groans; the world is still in bondage; Satan and evil hold\nsway.\n\nThe Father holds Himself in the attitude of Giver, _Ask of Me_, and that\npetition to God the Father empowers all agencies, inspires all\nmovements. The Gospel is Divinely inspired. Back of all its inspirations\nis prayer. _Ask of Me_ lies back of all movements. Standing as the\nendowment of the enthroned Christ is the oath-bound covenant of the\nFather, \u201c_Ask of Me_, and I will give thee the nations for thine\ninheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.\u201d\n\u201cAnd men shall pray to Him continually.\u201d\n\nEver are the prayers of holy men streaming up to God as fragrant as the\nrichest incense. And God in many ways is speaking to us, declaring His\nwealth and our impoverishment. \u201cI am the Maker of all things; the wealth\nand glory are Mine. _Command ye Me._\u201d\n\nWe can do all things by God\u2019s aid, and can have the whole of His aid by\nasking. The Gospel, in its success and power, depends on our ability to\npray. The dispensations of God depend on man\u2019s ability to pray. We can\nhave all that God has. _Command_ _ye Me._ This is no figment of the\nimagination, no idle dream, no vain fancy. The life of the Church is the\nhighest life. Its office is to pray. Its prayer life is the highest\nlife, the most odorous, the most conspicuous.\n\nThe Book of Revelation says nothing about prayer as a great duty, a\nhallowed service, but much about prayer in its aggregated force and\nenergies. It is the prayer force ever living and ever praying; it is all\nsaints\u2019 prayers going out as a mighty, living energy while the lips that\nuttered the words are stilled and sealed in death, while the living\nchurch has an energy of faith to inherit the forces of all the past\npraying and make it deathless.\n\nThe statement by the Baptist philosopher, John Foster, contains the\npurest philosophy and the simple truth of God, for God has no force and\ndemands no conditions but prayer. \u201cMore and better praying will bring\nthe surest and readiest triumph to God\u2019s cause; feeble, formal, listless\npraying brings decay and death. The Church has its sheet-anchor in the\ncloset; its magazine stores are there.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am convinced,\u201d Foster continues, \u201cthat every man who amidst his\nserious projects is apprized of his dependence upon God as completely as\nthat dependence is a fact, will be impelled to pray and anxious to\ninduce his serious friends to pray almost every hour. He will not\nwithout it promise himself any noble success any more than a mariner\nwould expect to reach a distant coast by having his sails spread in a\nstagnation of air.\n\n\u201cI have intimated my fear that it is visionary to expect an unusual\nsuccess in the human administration of religion unless there are unusual\nomens: now a most emphatical spirit of prayer would be such an omen; and\nthe individual who should determine to try its last possible efficacy\nmight probably find himself becoming a much more prevailing agent in his\nlittle sphere. And if the whole, or the greater number of the disciples\nof Christianity were with an earnest and unalterable resolution of each\nto combine that heaven should not withhold one single influence which\nthe very utmost effort of conspiring and persevering supplication would\nobtain, it would be a sign that a revolution of the world was at hand.\u201d\n\nEdward Payson, one of God\u2019s own, says of this statement of Foster, \u201cVery\nfew missionaries since the apostles, probably have tried the experiment.\nHe who shall make the first trial will, I believe, effect wonders.\nNothing that I could write, nothing that an angel could write, would be\nnecessary to him who should make this trial.\n\n\u201cOne of the principal results of the little experience which I have had\nas a Christian minister is a conviction that religion consists very much\nin giving God that place in our views and feelings which He actually\nfills in the universe. We know that in the universe He is all in all. So\nfar as He is constantly all in all to us, so far as we comply with the\nPsalmist\u2019s charge to his soul, \u2018My soul, wait thou _only_ upon God;\u2019 so\nfar, I apprehend, have we advanced towards perfection. It is\ncomparatively easy to wait upon God; but to wait upon Him _only_\u2014to\nfeel, so far as our strength, happiness, and usefulness are concerned,\nas if all creatures and second causes were annihilated, and we were\nalone in the universe with God, is, I suspect, a difficult and rare\nattainment. At least, I am sure it is one which I am very far from\nhaving made. In proportion as we make this attainment we shall find\neverything easy; for we shall become, emphatically, men of prayer; and\nwe may say of prayer as Solomon says of money, that it answereth all\nthings.\u201d\n\nThis same John Foster said, when approaching death: \u201cI never prayed more\nearnestly nor probably with such faithful frequency. \u2018Pray without\nceasing\u2019 has been the sentence repeating itself in the silent thought,\nand I am sure it must be my practice till the last conscious hour of\nlife. Oh, why not throughout that long, indolent, inanimate half-century\npast?\u201d\n\nAnd yet this is the way in which we all act about prayer. Conscious as\nwe are of its importance, of its vital importance, we yet let the hours\npass away as a blank and can only lament in death the irremediable loss.\n\nWhen we calmly reflect upon the fact that the progress of our Lord\u2019s\nKingdom is dependent upon prayer, it is sad to think that we give so\nlittle time to the holy exercise. Everything depends upon prayer, and\nyet we neglect it not only to our own spiritual hurt but also to the\ndelay and injury of our Lord\u2019s cause upon earth. The forces of good and\nevil are contending for the world. If we would, we could add to the\nconquering power of the army of righteousness, and yet our lips are\nsealed, our hands hang listlessly by our side, and we jeopardise the\nvery cause in which we profess to be deeply interested by holding back\nfrom the prayer chamber.\n\nPrayer is the one prime, eternal condition by which the Father is\npledged to put the Son in possession of the world. Christ prays through\nHis people. Had there been importunate, universal and continuous prayer\nby God\u2019s people, long ere this the earth had been possessed for Christ.\nThe delay is not to be accounted for by the inveterate obstacles, but by\nthe lack of the right asking. We do more of everything else than of\npraying. As poor as our giving is, our contributions of money exceed our\nofferings of prayer. Perhaps in the average congregation fifty aid in\npaying, where one saintly, ardent soul shuts itself up with God and\nwrestles for the deliverance of the heathen world. Official praying on\nset or state occasions counts for nothing in this estimate. We emphasise\nother things more than we do the necessity of prayer.\n\nWe are saying prayers after an orderly way, but we have not the world in\nthe grasp of our faith. We are not praying after the order that moves\nGod and brings all Divine influences to help us. The world needs more\ntrue praying to save it from the reign and ruin of Satan.\n\nWe do not pray as Elijah prayed. John Foster puts the whole matter to a\npractical point. \u201cWhen the Church of God,\u201d he says, \u201cis aroused to its\nobligation and duties and right faith to claim what Christ has\npromised\u2014\u2018all things whatsoever\u2019\u2014a revolution will take place.\u201d\n\nBut not all praying is praying. The driving power, the conquering force\nin God\u2019s cause is God Himself. \u201cCall upon Me and I will answer thee and\nshow thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not,\u201d is God\u2019s\nchallenge to prayer. Prayer puts God in full force into God\u2019s work. \u201cAsk\nof Me things to come, concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My\nhands command ye Me\u201d\u2014God\u2019s _carte blanche_ to prayer. Faith is only\nomnipotent when on its knees, and its outstretched hands take hold of\nGod, then it draws to the utmost of God\u2019s capacity; for only a praying\nfaith can get God\u2019s \u201call things whatsoever.\u201d Wonderful lessons are the\nSyrophenician woman, the importunate widow, and the friend at midnight,\nof what dauntless prayer can do in mastering or defying conditions, in\nchanging defeat into victory and triumphing in the regions of despair.\nOneness with Christ, the acme of spiritual attainment, is glorious in\nall things; most glorious in that we can then \u201cask what we will and it\nshall be done unto us.\u201d Prayer in Jesus\u2019 name puts the crowning crown on\nGod, because it glorifies Him through the Son and pledges the Son to\ngive to men \u201cwhatsoever and anything\u201d they shall ask.\n\nIn the New Testament the marvellous prayer of the Old Testament is put\nto the front that it may provoke and stimulate our praying, and it is\npreceded with a declaration, the dynamic energy of which we can scarcely\ntranslate. \u201cThe supplication of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah\nwas a man of like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that it\nmight not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three\nyears and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and\nthe earth brought forth her fruit.\u201d\n\nOur paucity in results, the cause of all leanness, is solved by the\nApostle James\u2014\u201cYe have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not,\nbecause ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it on your pleasures.\u201d\n\nThat is the whole truth in a nutshell.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire; it had\n  bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished\n  wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of\n  death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled\n  frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its\n  course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an\n  all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is\n  never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by\n  the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand\n  blessings._\n                                                        \u2014CHRYSOSTOM.\n\n\n  _The prayers of holy men appease God\u2019s wrath, drive away\n  temptations, resist and overcome the devil, procure the ministry\n  and service of angels, rescind the decrees of God. Prayer cures\n  sickness and obtains pardon; it arrests the sun in its course and\n  stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon; it rules over all gods\n  and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain, it unlocks the cabinet\n  of the womb and quenches the violence of fire; it stops the mouths\n  of lions and reconciles our suffering and weak faculties with the\n  violence of torment and violence of persecution; it pleases God and\n  supplies all our need._\n                                                     \u2014JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n\n          _More things are wrought by prayer\n          Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice\n          Rise like a fountain for me night and day.\n          For what are men better than sheep or goats,\n          That nourish a blind life within the brain,\n          If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer\n          Both for themselves and those who call them friend?\n          For so the whole round earth is every way\n          Bound by gold chains about the feet of God._\n                                                          \u2014TENNYSON.\n\n\n  _Perfect prayer is only another name for love._\n                                                           \u2014F\u00c9NELON.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n\nIt was said of the late C. H. Spurgeon, that he glided from laughter to\nprayer with the naturalness of one who lived in both elements. With him\nthe habit of prayer was free and unfettered. His life was not divided\ninto compartments, the one shut off from the other with a rigid\nexclusiveness that barred all intercommunication. He lived in constant\nfellowship with his Father in Heaven. He was ever in touch with God, and\nthus it was as natural for him to pray as it was for him to breathe.\n\n\u201cWhat a fine time we have had; let us thank God for it,\u201d he said to a\nfriend on one occasion, when, out under the blue sky and wrapped in\nglorious sunshine, they had enjoyed a holiday with the unfettered\nenthusiasm of schoolboys. Prayer sprang as spontaneously to his lips as\ndid ordinary speech, and never was there the slightest incongruity in\nhis approach to the Divine throne straight from any scene in which he\nmight be taking part.\n\nThat is the attitude with regard to prayer that ought to mark every\nchild of God. There are, and there ought to be, stated seasons of\ncommunion with God when, everything else shut out, we come into His\npresence to talk to Him and to let Him speak to us; and out of such\nseasons springs that beautiful habit of prayer that weaves a golden bond\nbetween earth and heaven. Without such stated seasons the habit of\nprayer can never be formed; without them there is no nourishment for the\nspiritual life. By means of them the soul is lifted into a new\natmosphere\u2014the atmosphere of the heavenly city, in which it is easy to\nopen the heart to God and to speak with Him as friend speaks with\nfriend.\n\nThus, in every circumstance of life, prayer is the most natural\nout-pouring of the soul, the unhindered turning to God for communion and\ndirection. Whether in sorrow or in joy, in defeat or in victory, in\nhealth or in weakness, in calamity or in success, the heart leaps to\nmeet with God just as a child runs to his mother\u2019s arms, ever sure that\nwith her is the sympathy that meets every need.\n\nDr. Adam Clarke, in his autobiography, records that when Mr. Wesley was\nreturning to England by ship, considerable delay was caused by contrary\nwinds. Wesley was reading, when he became aware of some confusion on\nboard, and asking what was the matter, he was informed that the wind was\ncontrary. \u201cThen,\u201d was his reply, \u201clet us go to prayer.\u201d\n\nAfter Dr. Clarke had prayed, Wesley broke out into fervent supplication\nwhich seemed to be more the offering of faith than of mere desire.\n\u201cAlmighty and everlasting God,\u201d he prayed, \u201cThou hast sway everywhere,\nand all things serve the purpose of Thy will, Thou holdest the winds in\nThy fists and sittest upon the water floods, and reignest a King for\never. Command these winds and these waves that they obey Thee, and take\nus speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go.\u201d\n\nThe power of this petition was felt by all. Wesley rose from his knees,\nmade no remark, but took up his book and continued reading. Dr. Clarke\nwent on deck, and to his surprise found the vessel under sail, standing\non her right course. Nor did she change till she was safely at anchor.\nOn the sudden and favourable change of wind, Wesley made no remark; so\nfully did he _expect to be heard_ that he took it for granted that he\n_was heard_.\n\nThat was prayer with a purpose\u2014the definite and direct utterance of one\nwho knew that he had the ear of God, and that God had the willingness as\nwell as the power to grant the petition which he asked of Him.\n\nMajor D. W. Whittle, in an introduction to the wonders of prayer, says\nof George M\u00fcller, of Bristol: \u201cI met Mr. M\u00fcller in the express, the\nmorning of our sailing from Quebec to Liverpool. About half-an-hour\nbefore the tender was to take the passengers to the ship, he asked of\nthe agent if a deck chair had arrived for him from New York. He was\nanswered, \u2018No,\u2019 and told that it could not possibly come in time for the\nsteamer. I had with me a chair I had just purchased, and told Mr. M\u00fcller\nof the place near by, and suggested, as but a few moments remained, that\nhe had better buy one at once. His reply was, \u2018No, my brother. Our\nHeavenly Father will send the chair from New York. It is one used by\nMrs. M\u00fcller. I wrote ten days ago to a brother, who promised to see it\nforwarded here last week. He has not been prompt, as I would have\ndesired, but I am sure our Heavenly Father will send the chair. Mrs.\nM\u00fcller is very sick on the sea, and has particularly desired to have\nthis same chair, and not finding it here yesterday, we have made special\nprayer that our Heavenly Father would be pleased to provide it for us,\nand we will trust Him to do so.\u2019 As this dear man of God went peacefully\non board, running the risk of Mrs. M\u00fcller making the trip without a\nchair, when, for a couple of dollars, she could have been provided for,\nI confess I feared Mr. M\u00fcller was carrying his faith principles too far\nand not acting wisely. I was kept at the express office ten minutes\nafter Mr. M\u00fcller left. Just as I started to hurry to the wharf, a team\ndrove up the street, and on top of a load just arrived from New York was\n_Mr. M\u00fcller\u2019s chair_. It was sent at once to the tender and placed in\n_my hands_ to take to Mr. M\u00fcller, just as the boat was leaving the dock\n(the Lord having a lesson for me). Mr. M\u00fcller took it with the happy,\npleased expression of a child who has just received a kindness deeply\nappreciated, and reverently removing his hat and folding his hands over\nit, he thanked the Heavenly Father for sending the chair.\u201d\n\nOne of Melancthon\u2019s correspondents writes of Luther\u2019s praying: \u201cI cannot\nenough admire the extraordinary, cheerfulness, constancy, faith and hope\nof the man in these trying and vexatious times. He constantly feeds\nthese gracious affections by a very diligent study of the Word of God.\n_Then not a day passes in which he does not employ in prayer at least\nthree of his very best hours._ Once I happened to hear him at prayer.\nGracious God! What spirit and what faith is there in his expressions! He\npetitions God with as much reverence as if he was in the divine\npresence, and yet with as firm a hope and confidence as he would address\na father or a friend. \u2018I know,\u2019 said he, \u2018Thou art our Father and our\nGod; and therefore I am sure Thou wilt bring to naught the persecutors\nof Thy children. For shouldest Thou fail to do this Thine own cause,\nbeing connected with ours, would be endangered. It is entirely thine own\nconcern. We, by Thy providence, have been compelled to take a part. Thou\ntherefore wilt be our defence.\u2019 Whilst I was listening to Luther praying\nin this manner, at a distance, my soul seemed on fire within me, to hear\nthe man address God so like a friend, yet with so much gravity and\nreverence; and also to hear him, in the course of his prayer, insisting\non the promises contained in the Psalms, as if he were sure his\npetitions would be granted.\u201d\n\nOf William Bramwell, a noted Methodist preacher in England, wonderful\nfor his zeal and prayer, the following is related by a sergeant major:\n\u201cIn July, 1811, our regiment was ordered for Spain, then the seat of a\nprotracted and sanguinary war. My mind was painfully exercised with the\nthoughts of leaving my dear wife and four helpless children in a strange\ncountry, unprotected and unprovided for. Mr. Bramwell felt a lively\ninterest in our situation, and his sympathising spirit seemed to drink\nin all the agonised feelings of my tender wife. He supplicated the\nthrone of grace day and night in our behalf. My wife and I spent the\nevening previous to our march at a friend\u2019s house, in company with Mr.\nBramwell, who sat in a very pensive mood, and appeared to be in a\nspiritual struggle all the time. After supper, he suddenly pulled his\nhand out of his bosom, laid it on my knee, and said: \u2018Brother Riley,\nmark what I am about to say! You are not to go to Spain. Remember I tell\nyou, you are not; for I have been wrestling with God on your behalf, and\nwhen my Heavenly Father condescends in mercy to bless me with power to\nlay hold on Himself, I do not easily let Him go; no, not until I am\nfavoured with an answer. Therefore you may depend upon it that the next\ntime I hear from you, you will be settled in quarters.\u2019 This came to\npass exactly as he said. The next day the order for going to Spain was\ncountermanded.\u201d\n\nThese men prayed with a purpose. To them God was not far away, in some\ninaccessible region, but near at hand, ever ready to listen to the call\nof His children. There was no barrier between. They were on terms of\nperfect intimacy, if one may use such a phrase in relation to man and\nhis Maker. No cloud obscured the face of the Father from His trusting\nchild, who could look up into the Divine countenance and pour out the\nlongings of his heart. And that is the type of prayer which God never\nfails to hear. He knows that it comes from a heart at one with His own;\nfrom one who is entirely yielded to the heavenly plan, and so He bends\nHis ear and gives to the pleading child the assurance that his petition\nhas been heard and answered.\n\nHave we not all had some such experience when with set and undeviating\npurpose we have approached the face of our Father? In an agony of soul\nwe have sought refuge from the oppression of the world in the anteroom\nof heaven; the waves of despair seemed to threaten destruction, and as\nno way of escape was visible anywhere, we fell back, like the disciples\nof old, upon the power of our Lord, crying to Him to save us lest we\nperish. And then, in the twinkling of an eye, the thing was done. The\nbillows sank into a calm; the howling wind died down at the Divine\ncommand; the agony of the soul passed into a restful peace as over the\nwhole being there crept the consciousness of the Divine presence,\nbringing with it the assurance of answered prayer and sweet deliverance.\n\n\u201cI tell the Lord my troubles and difficulties, and wait for Him to give\nme the answers to them,\u201d says one man of God. \u201cAnd it is wonderful how a\nmatter that looked very dark will in prayer become clear as crystal by\nthe help of God\u2019s Spirit. I think Christians fail so often to get\nanswers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God.\nThey just drop down and say a few words, and then jump up and forget it\nand expect God to answer them. Such praying always reminds me of the\nsmall boy ringing his neighbour\u2019s door-bell, and then running away as\nfast as he can go.\u201d\n\nWhen we acquire the habit of prayer we enter into a new atmosphere. \u201cDo\nyou expect to go to heaven?\u201d asked some one of a devout Scotsman. \u201cWhy,\nman, I live there,\u201d was the quaint and unexpected reply. It was a pithy\nstatement of a great truth, for all the way to heaven is heaven begun to\nthe Christian who walks near enough to God to hear the secrets He has to\nimpart.\n\nThis attitude is beautifully illustrated in a story of Horace Bushnell,\ntold by Dr. Parkes Cadman. Bushnell was found to be suffering from an\nincurable disease. One evening the Rev. Joseph Twichell visited him,\nand, as they sat together under the starry sky, Bushnell said: \u201cOne of\nus ought to pray.\u201d Twichell asked Bushnell to do so, and Bushnell began\nhis prayer; burying his face in the earth, he poured out his heart\nuntil, said Twichell, in recalling the incident, \u201cI was afraid to\nstretch out my hand in the darkness lest I should touch God.\u201d\n\nTo have God thus near is to enter the holy of holies\u2014to breathe the\nfragrance of the heavenly air, to walk in Eden\u2019s delightful gardens.\nNothing but prayer can bring God and man into this happy communion. That\nwas the experience of Samuel Rutherford, just as it is the experience of\nevery one who passes through the same gateway. When this saint of God\nwas confined in jail at one time for conscience sake, he enjoyed in a\nrare degree the Divine companionship, recording in his diary that Jesus\nentered his cell, and that at His coming \u201cevery stone flashed like a\nruby.\u201d\n\nMany others have borne witness to the same sweet fellowship, when prayer\nhad become the one habit of life that meant more than anything else to\nthem. David Livingstone lived in the realm of prayer and knew its\ngracious influence. It was his habit every birthday to write a prayer,\nand on the next to the last birthday of all, this was his prayer: \u201cO\nDivine one, I have not loved Thee earnestly, deeply, sincerely enough.\nGrant, I pray Thee, that before this year is ended I may have finished\nmy task.\u201d It was just on the threshold of the year that followed that\nhis faithful men, as they looked into the hut of Ilala, while the rain\ndripped from the eaves, saw their master on his knees beside his bed in\nan attitude of prayer. He had died on his knees in prayer.\n\nStonewall Jackson was a man of prayer. Said he: \u201cI have so fixed the\nhabit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without\nasking God\u2019s blessing, never seal a letter without putting a word of\nprayer under the seal, never take a letter from the post without a brief\nsending of my thoughts heavenward, never change my classes in the\nlecture-room without a minute\u2019s petition for the cadets who go out and\nfor those who come in.\u201d\n\nJames Gilmour, the pioneer missionary to Mongolia, was a man of prayer.\nHe had a habit in his writing of never using a blotter. He made a rule\nwhen he got to the bottom of any page to wait until the ink dried and\nspend the time in prayer.\n\nIn this way their whole being was saturated with the Divine, and they\nbecame the reflectors of the heavenly fragrance and glory. Walking with\nGod down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and\nunconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.\nProfessor James, in his famous work, \u201cVarieties of Religious\nExperience,\u201d tells of a man of forty-nine who said: \u201cGod is more real to\nme than any thought or thing or person. I feel His presence positively,\nand the more as I live in closer harmony with His laws as written in my\nbody and mind. I feel Him in the sunshine or rain; and all mingled with\na delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to Him\nas to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful.\nHe answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it\nseems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong\nmental impressions. Usually a text of Scripture, unfolding some new view\nof Him and His love for me, and care for my safety.... That He is mine\nand I am His never leaves me; it is an abiding joy. Without it life\nwould be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.\u201d\n\nEqually notable is the testimony of Sir Thomas Browne, the beloved\nphysician who lived at Norwich in 1605, and was the author of a very\nremarkable book of wide circulation, \u201cReligio Medici.\u201d In spite of the\nfact that England was passing through a period of national convulsion\nand political excitement, he found comfort and strength in prayer. \u201cI\nhave resolved,\u201d he wrote in a journal found among his private papers\nafter his death, \u201cto pray more and pray always, to pray in all places\nwhere quietness inviteth, in the house, on the highway and on the\nstreet; and to know no street or passage in this city that may not\nwitness that I have not forgotten God.\u201d And he adds: \u201cI purpose to take\noccasion of praying upon the sight of any church which I may pass, that\nGod may be worshipped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved\nthere; to pray daily for my sick patients and for the patients of other\nphysicians; at my entrance into any home to say, \u2018May the peace of God\nabide here\u2019; after hearing a sermon, to pray for a blessing on God\u2019s\ntruth, and upon the messenger; upon the sight of a beautiful person to\nbless God for His creatures, to pray for the beauty of such an one\u2019s\nsoul, that God may enrich her with inward graces, and that the outward\nand inward may correspond; upon the sight of a deformed person, to pray\nGod to give them wholeness of soul, and by and by to give them the\nbeauty of the resurrection.\u201d\n\nWhat an illustration of the praying spirit! Such an attitude represents\nprayer without ceasing, reveals the habit of prayer in its unceasing\nsupplication, in its uninterrupted communion, in its constant\nintercession. What an illustration, too, of purpose in prayer! Of how\nmany of us can it be said that as we pass people in the street we pray\nfor them, or that as we enter a home or a church we remember the inmates\nor the congregation in prayer to God?\n\nThe explanation of our thoughtlessness or forgetfulness lies in the fact\nthat prayer with so many of us is simply a form of selfishness; it means\nasking for something for ourselves\u2014that and nothing more.\n\nAnd from such an attitude we need to pray to be delivered.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the\n  great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy._\n                                                       \u2014ROBERT HALL.\n\n\n  _The Church, intent on the acquisition of temporal power, had well\n  nigh abandoned its spiritual duties, and its empire, which rested\n  on spiritual foundations, was crumbling with their decay, and\n  threatened to pass away like an unsubstantial vision._\n                                                 \u2014LEA\u2019S INQUISITION.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n\nARE we praying as Christ did? Do we abide in Him? Are our pleas and\nspirit the overflow of His spirit and pleas? Does love rule the\nspirit\u2014perfect love?\n\nThese questions must be considered as proper and apposite at a time like\nthe present. We do fear that we are doing more of other things than\nprayer. This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity, of\ngreat movements, but one in which the tendency is very strong to stress\nthe seen and the material and to neglect and discount the unseen and the\nspiritual. Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honours God\nand brings Him into active aid.\n\nThere can be no substitute, no rival for prayer; it stands alone as the\ngreat spiritual force, and this force must be imminent and acting. It\ncannot be dispensed with during one generation, nor held in abeyance for\nthe advance of any great movement\u2014it must be continuous and particular,\nalways, everywhere, and in everything. We cannot run our spiritual\noperations on the prayers of the past generation. Many persons believe\nin the efficacy of prayer, but not many pray. Prayer is the easiest and\nhardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and\nthe most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human\npossibilities\u2014they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.\n\nFew Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer;\nfewer still have any experience of that power. The Church seems almost\nwholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this spiritual\n_carte blanche_ on the infinite resources of God\u2019s wisdom and power is\nrarely, if ever, used\u2014never used to the full measure of honouring God.\nIt is astounding how poor the use, how little the benefits. Prayer is\nour most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least\nskilled, the most averse to its use. We do everything else for the\nheathen save the thing God wants us to do; the only thing which does any\ngood\u2014makes all else we do efficient.\n\nTo graduate in the school of prayer is to master the whole course of a\nreligious life. The first and last stages of holy living are crowned\nwith praying. It is a life trade. The hindrances of prayer are the\nhindrances in a holy life. The conditions of praying are the conditions\nof righteousness, holiness and salvation. A cobbler in the trade of\npraying is a bungler in the trade of salvation.\n\nPrayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our\ntime at it. Painstaking care, much thought, practice and labour are\nrequired to be a skilful tradesman in praying. Practice in this, as well\nas in all other trades, makes perfect. Toiling hands and hearts only\nmake proficients in this heavenly trade.\n\nIn spite of the benefits and blessings which flow from communion with\nGod, the sad confession must be made that we are not praying much. A\nvery small number comparatively lead in prayer at the meetings. Fewer\nstill pray in their families. Fewer still are in the habit of praying\nregularly in their closets. Meetings specially for prayer are as rare as\nfrost in June. In many churches there is neither the name nor the\nsemblance of a prayer meeting. In the town and city churches the prayer\nmeeting in name is not a prayer meeting in fact. A sermon or a lecture\nis the main feature. Prayer is the nominal attachment.\n\nOur people are not essentially a praying people. That is evident by\ntheir lives.\n\nPrayer and a holy life are one. They mutually act and react. Neither can\nsurvive alone. The absence of the one is the absence of the other. The\nmonk depraved prayer, substituted superstition for praying, mummeries\nand routine for a holy life. We are in danger of substituting churchly\nwork and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy\nliving. A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live\nwithout the closet. If, by any chance, a prayer chamber should be\nestablished without a holy life, it would be a chamber without the\npresence of God in it.\n\nPut the saints everywhere to praying, is the burden of the apostolic\neffort and the key note of apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven\nto do this in the days of His personal ministry. He was moved by\ninfinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth perishing for lack of\nlabourers, and pausing in His own praying, He tries to awaken the\nsleeping sensibilities of His disciples to the duty of prayer, as He\ncharges them: \u201cPray ye the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth\nlabourers into His harvest.\u201d And He spake a parable to them to this end,\nthat _men ought_ always to pray.\n\nOnly glimpses of this great importance of prayer could the apostles get\nbefore Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling on 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\u2019s loudest\nand most exigent call. Sainthood\u2019s 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 Christlike leaders who can teach the modern saints how to\npray and put them at it? Do our leaders know we are raising up a\nprayerless set of saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can put\nGod\u2019s people to praying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and\nit will be the greatest work that can be done. An increase of\neducational facilities and a great increase of money force will be the\ndirest curse to religion if they are not sanctified by more and better\npraying than we are doing.\n\nMore praying will not come as a matter of course. The campaign for the\ntwentieth or thirtieth century will not help our praying, but hinder if\nwe are not careful. Nothing but a specific effort from a praying\nleadership will avail. None but praying leaders can have praying\nfollowers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints. A praying pulpit\nwill beget praying pews. We do greatly need somebody who can set the\nsaints to this business of praying. We are a generation of non-praying\nsaints. Non-praying saints are a beggarly gang of saints, who have\nneither the ardour nor the beauty, nor the power of saints. Who will\nrestore this branch? The greatest will he be of reformers and apostles,\nwho can set the Church to praying.\n\nHoly men have, in the past, changed the whole force of affairs,\nrevolutionised character and country by prayer. And such achievements\nare still possible to us. The power is only wanting to be used. Prayer\nis but the expression of faith.\n\nTime would fail to tell of the mighty things wrought by prayer, for by\nit holy ones have \u201csubdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained\npromises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,\nescaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed\nvaliant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women\nreceived their dead raised to life again.\u201d\n\nPrayer honours God; it dishonours self. It is man\u2019s plea of weakness,\nignorance, want. A plea which heaven cannot disregard. God delights to\nhave us pray.\n\nPrayer is not the foe to work, it does not paralyse activity. It works\nmightily; prayer itself is the greatest work. It springs activity,\nstimulates desire and effort. Prayer is not an opiate but a tonic, it\ndoes not lull to sleep but arouses anew for action. The lazy man does\nnot, will not, cannot pray, for prayer demands energy. Paul calls it a\nstriving, an agony. With Jacob it was a wrestling; with the\nSyrophenician woman it was a struggle which called into play all the\nhigher qualities of the soul, and which demanded great force to meet.\n\nThe closet is not an asylum for the indolent and worthless Christian. It\nis not a nursery where none but babes belong. It is the battlefield of\nthe Church; its citadel; the scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts.\nThe closet is the base of supplies for the Christian and the Church. Cut\noff from it there is nothing left but retreat and disaster. The energy\nfor work, the mastery over self, the deliverance from fear, all\nspiritual results and graces, are much advanced by prayer. The\ndifference between the strength, the experience, the holiness of\nChristians is found in the contrast in their praying.\n\nFew, short, feeble prayers, always betoken a low, spiritual condition.\nMen ought to pray much and apply themselves to it with energy and\nperseverance. Eminent Christians have been eminent in prayer. The deep\nthings of God are learned nowhere else. Great things for God are done by\ngreat prayers. He who prays much, studies much, loves much, works much,\ndoes much for God and humanity. The execution of the Gospel, the vigour\nof faith, the maturity and excellence of spiritual graces wait on\nprayer.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _\u201cNothing is impossible to industry,\u201d said one of the seven sages\n  of Greece. Let us change the word industry for persevering prayer,\n  and the motto will be more Christian and more worthy of universal\n  adoption. I am persuaded that we are all more deficient in a spirit\n  of prayer than in any other grace. God loves importunate prayer so\n  much that He will not give us much blessing without it. And the\n  reason that He loves such prayer is that He loves us and knows that\n  it is a necessary preparation for our receiving the richest\n  blessings which He is waiting and longing to bestow._\n\n  _I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at\n  some time\u2014no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape,\n  probably the last I would have devised, it came._\n                                                   \u2014ADONIRAM JUDSON.\n\n\n  _It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray. If I cannot\n  pray with perseverance or continue long in my addresses to the\n  Divine Being, I have found that the more I do in secret prayer the\n  more I have delight to do, and have enjoyed more of the spirit of\n  prayer; and frequently I have found the contrary, when by\n  journeying or otherwise, I have been deprived of retirement._\n                                                    \u2014DAVID BRAINERD.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n\nCHRIST puts importunity as a distinguishing characteristic of true\npraying. We must not only pray, but we must pray with great urgency,\nwith intentness and with repetition. We must not only pray, but we must\npray again and again. We must not get tired of praying. We must be\nthoroughly in earnest, deeply concerned about the things for which we\nask, for Jesus Christ made it very plain that the secret of prayer and\nits success lie in its urgency. We must press our prayers upon God.\n\nIn a parable of exquisite pathos and simplicity, our Lord taught not\nsimply that men ought to pray, but that men ought to pray with full\nheartiness, and press the matter with vigorous energy and brave hearts.\n\n\u201cAnd He spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to\npray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city, a judge, which\nfeared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in that\ncity; and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.\nAnd he would not for a while: but afterwards he said within himself,\nThough I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth\nme, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming. And\nthe Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God\navenge His elect, which cry to Him day and night, and He is\nlongsuffering over them? I say unto you, that He will avenge them\nspeedily. Howbeit when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the\nearth?\u201d\n\nThis poor woman\u2019s case was a most hopeless one, but importunity brings\nhope from the realms of despair and creates success where neither\nsuccess nor its conditions existed. There could be no stronger case, to\nshow how unwearied and dauntless importunity gains its ends where\neverything else fails. The preface to this parable says: \u201cHe spake a\nparable to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.\u201d He\nknew that men would soon get faint-hearted in praying, so to hearten us\nHe gives this picture of the marvellous power of importunity.\n\nThe widow, weak and helpless, is helplessness personified; bereft of\nevery hope and influence which could move an unjust judge, she yet wins\nher case solely by her tireless and offensive importunity. Could the\nnecessity of importunity, its power and tremendous importance in prayer,\nbe pictured in deeper or more impressive colouring? It surmounts or\nremoves all obstacles, overcomes every resisting force and gains its\nends in the face of invincible hindrances. We can do nothing without\nprayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer.\n\nThat is the teaching of Jesus Christ.\n\nAnother parable spoken by Jesus enforces the same great truth. A man at\nmidnight goes to his friend for a loan of bread. His pleas are strong,\nbased on friendship and the embarrassing and exacting demands of\nnecessity, but these all fail. He gets no bread, but he stays and\npresses, and waits and gains. Sheer importunity succeeds where all other\npleas and influences had failed.\n\nThe case of the Syrophenician woman is a parable in action. She is\narrested in her approaches to Christ by the information that He will not\nsee any one. She is denied His presence, and then in His presence, is\ntreated with seeming indifference, with the chill of silence and\nunconcern: she presses and approaches, the pressure and approach are\nrepulsed by the stern and crushing statement that He is not sent to her\nkith or kind, that she is reprobated from His mission and power. She is\nhumiliated by being called a dog. Yet she accepts all, overcomes all,\nwins all by her humble, dauntless, invincible importunity. The Son of\nGod, pleased, surprised, overpowered by her unconquerable importunity,\nsays to her: \u201cO, woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou\nwilt.\u201d Jesus Christ surrenders Himself to the importunity of a great\nfaith. \u201cAnd shall not God avenge His own elect which cry day and night\nunto Him, though He bear long with them?\u201d\n\nJesus Christ puts ability to importune as one of the elements of prayer,\none of the main conditions of prayer. The prayer of the Syrophenician\nwoman is an exhibition of the matchless power of importunity, of a\nconflict more real and involving more of vital energy, endurance, and\nall the higher elements than was ever illustrated in the conflicts of\nIsthmia or Olympia.\n\nThe first lessons of importunity are taught in the Sermon on the\nMount\u2014\u201cAsk, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and\nit shall be opened.\u201d These are steps of advance\u2014\u201cFor every one that\nasketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that\nknocketh, it shall be opened.\u201d\n\nWithout continuance the prayer may go unanswered. Importunity is made up\nof the ability to hold on, to press on, to wait with unrelaxed and\nunrelaxable grasp, restless desire and restful patience. Importunate\nprayer is not an incident, but the main thing, not a performance but a\npassion, not a need but a necessity.\n\nPrayer in its highest form and grandest success assumes the attitude of\na wrestler with God. It is the contest, trial and victory of faith; a\nvictory not secured from an enemy, but from Him who tries our faith that\nHe may enlarge it: that tests our strength to make us stronger. Few\nthings give such quickened and permanent vigour to the soul as a long\nexhaustive season of importunate prayer. It makes an experience, an\nepoch, a new calendar for the spirit, a new life to religion, a\nsoldierly training. The Bible never wearies in its pressure and\nillustration of the fact that the highest spiritual good is secured as\nthe return of the outgoing of the highest form of spiritual effort.\nThere is neither encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble\ndesires, listless efforts, lazy attitudes; all must be strenuous,\nurgent, ardent. Inflamed desires, impassioned, unwearied insistence\ndelight heaven. God would have His children incorrigibly in earnest and\npersistently bold in their efforts. Heaven is too busy to listen to\nhalf-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls.\n\nOur whole being must be in our praying; like John Knox, we must say and\nfeel, \u201cGive me Scotland, or I die.\u201d Our experience and revelations of\nGod are born of our costly sacrifice, our costly conflicts, our costly\npraying. The wrestling, all night praying, of Jacob made an era never to\nbe forgotten in Jacob\u2019s life, brought God to the rescue, changed Esau\u2019s\nattitude and conduct, changed Jacob\u2019s character, saved and affected his\nlife and entered into the habits of a nation.\n\nOur seasons of importunate prayer cut themselves, like the print of a\ndiamond, into our hardest places, and mark with ineffaceable traces our\ncharacters. They are the salient periods of our lives! the memorial\nstones which endure and to which we turn.\n\nImportunity, it may be repeated, is a condition of prayer. We are to\npress the matter, not with vain repetitions, but with urgent\nrepetitions. We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer.\nWe cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray \u201cwith\nall perseverance.\u201d We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We\npress our pleas because we must have them or die. Christ gives us two\nmost expressive parables to emphasise the necessity of importunity in\npraying. Perhaps Abraham lost Sodom by failing to press to the utmost\nhis privilege of praying. Joash, we know, lost because he stayed his\nsmiting.\n\nPerseverance counts much with God as well as with man. If Elijah had\nceased at his first petition the heavens would have scarcely yielded\ntheir rain to his feeble praying. If Jacob had quit praying at decent\nbedtime he would scarcely have survived the next day\u2019s meeting with\nEsau. If the Syrophenician woman had allowed her faith to faint by\nsilence, humiliation, repulse, or stop mid-way its struggles, her\ngrief-stricken home would never have been brightened by the healing of\nher daughter.\n\nPray and never faint, is the motto Christ gives us for praying. It is\nthe test of our faith, and the severer the trial and the longer the\nwaiting, the more glorious the results.\n\nThe benefits and necessity of importunity are taught by Old Testament\nsaints. Praying men must be strong in hope, and faith, and prayer. They\nmust know how to wait and to press, to wait on God and be in earnest in\nour approaches to Him.\n\nAbraham has left us an example of importunate intercession in his\npassionate pleading with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, and if, as\nalready indicated, he had not ceased in his asking, perhaps God would\nnot have ceased in His giving. \u201cAbraham left off asking before God left\noff granting.\u201d Moses taught the power of importunity when he interceded\nfor Israel forty days and forty nights, by fasting and prayer. And he\nsucceeded in his importunity.\n\nJesus, in His teaching and example, illustrated and perfected this\nprinciple of Old Testament pleading and waiting. How strange that the\nonly Son of God, who came on a mission direct from His Father, whose\nonly heaven on earth, whose only life and law were to do His Father\u2019s\nwill in that mission\u2014what a mystery that He should be under the law of\nprayer, that the blessings which came to Him were impregnated and\npurchased by prayer; stranger still that importunity in prayer was the\nprocess by which His wealthiest supplies from God were gained. Had He\nnot prayed with importunity, no transfiguration would have been in His\nhistory, no mighty works had rendered Divine His career. His all-night\npraying was that which filled with compassion and power His all-day\nwork. The importunate praying of His life crowned His death with its\ntriumph. He learned the high lesson of submission to God\u2019s will in the\nstruggles of importunate prayer before He illustrated that submission so\nsublimely on the cross.\n\n\u201cWhether we like it or not,\u201d said Mr. Spurgeon, \u201c_asking is the rule of\nthe kingdom_. \u2018Ask, and ye shall receive.\u2019 It is a rule that never will\nbe altered in anybody\u2019s case. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the elder brother\nof the family, but God has not relaxed the rule for Him. Remember this\ntext: Jehovah says to His own Son, \u2018Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the\nheathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for\nThy possession.\u2019 If the Royal and Divine Son of God cannot be exempted\nfrom the rule of asking that He may have, you and I cannot expect the\nrule to be relaxed in our favour. Why should it be? What reason can be\npleaded why we should be exempted from prayer? What argument can there\nbe why we should be deprived of the privilege and delivered from the\nnecessity of supplication? I can see none: can you? God will bless\nElijah and send rain on Israel, but Elijah must pray for it. If the\nchosen nation is to prosper, Samuel must plead for it. If the Jews are\nto be delivered, Daniel must intercede. God will bless Paul, and the\nnations shall be converted through him, but Paul must pray. Pray he did\nwithout ceasing; his epistles show that he expected nothing except by\nasking for it. If you may have everything by asking, and nothing without\nasking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is, and I beseech\nyou to abound in it.\u201d\n\nThere is not the least doubt that much of our praying fails for lack of\npersistency. It is without the fire and strength of perseverance.\nPersistence is of the essence of true praying. It may not be always\ncalled into exercise, but it must be there as the reserve force. Jesus\ntaught that perseverance is the essential element of prayer. Men must be\nin earnest when they kneel at God\u2019s footstool.\n\nToo often we get faint-hearted and quit praying at the point where we\nought to begin. We let go at the very point where we should hold on\nstrongest. Our prayers are weak because they are not impassioned by an\nunfailing and resistless will.\n\nGod loves the importunate pleader, and sends him answers that would\nnever have been granted but for the persistency that refuses to let go\nuntil the petition craved for is granted.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to\n  religious exercises as private devotion, religious meditation,\n  Scripture reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard. God\n  would perhaps prosper me more in spiritual things if I were to be\n  more diligent in using the means of grace. I had better allot more\n  time, say two hours or an hour and a half, to religious exercises\n  daily, and try whether by so doing I cannot preserve a frame of\n  spirit more habitually devotional, a more lively sense of unseen\n  things, a warmer love to God, and a greater degree of hunger and\n  thirst after righteousness, a heart less prone to be soiled with\n  worldly cares, designs, passions, and apprehension and a real\n  undissembled longing for heaven, its pleasures and its purity._\n                                               \u2014WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n\n\u201cMEN ought _always_ to pray, and not to faint.\u201d The words are the words\nof our Lord, who not only ever sought to impress upon His followers the\nurgency and the importance of prayer, but set them an example which they\nalas! have been far too slow to copy.\n\nThe _always_ speaks for itself. Prayer is not a meaningless function or\nduty to be crowded into the busy or the weary ends of the day, and we\nare not obeying our Lord\u2019s command when we content ourselves with a few\nminutes upon our knees in the morning rush or late at night when the\nfaculties, tired with the tasks of the day, call out for rest. God is\nalways within call, it is true; His ear is ever attentive to the cry of\nHis child, but we can never get to know Him if we use the vehicle of\nprayer as we use the telephone\u2014for a few words of hurried conversation.\nIntimacy requires development. We can never know God as it is our\nprivilege to know Him, by brief and fragmentary and unconsidered\nrepetitions of intercessions that are requests for personal favours and\nnothing more. That is not the way in which we can come into\ncommunication with heaven\u2019s King. \u201cThe goal of prayer is the ear of\nGod,\u201d a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and\ncontinuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting\nHim to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him, and as\nwe come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and\nfind that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.\n\n_Always_ does not mean that we are to neglect the ordinary duties of\nlife; what it means is that the soul which has come into intimate\ncontact with God in the silence of the prayer-chamber is never out of\nconscious touch with the Father, that the heart is always going out to\nHim in loving communion, and that the moment the mind is released from\nthe task upon which it is engaged it returns as naturally to God as the\nbird does to its nest. What a beautiful conception of prayer we get if\nwe regard it in this light, if we view it as a constant fellowship, an\nunbroken audience with the King. Prayer then loses every vestige of\ndread which it may once have possessed; we regard it no longer as a duty\nwhich must be performed, but rather as a privilege which is to be\nenjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.\n\nThus, when we open our eyes in the morning, our thought instantly mounts\nheavenward. To many Christians the morning hours are the most precious\nportion of the day, because they provide the opportunity for the\nhallowed fellowship that gives the keynote to the day\u2019s programme. And\nwhat better introduction can there be to the never-ceasing glory and\nwonder of a new day than to spend it alone with God? It is said that Mr.\nMoody, at a time when no other place was available, kept his morning\nwatch in the coal-shed, pouring out his heart to God, and finding in his\nprecious Bible a true \u201cfeast of fat things.\u201d\n\nGeorge M\u00fcller also combined Bible study with prayer in the quiet morning\nhours. At one time his practice was to give himself to prayer, after\nhaving dressed, in the morning. Then his plan underwent a change. As he\nhimself put it: \u201cI saw the most important thing I had to do was to give\nmyself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that\nthus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved,\ninstructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst\nmeditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion\nwith the Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament\nearly in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few\nwords for the Lord\u2019s blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to\nmeditate on the Word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse to\nget blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the\nWord, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated on, but for\nthe sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to\nbe almost invariably thus, that after a very few minutes my soul has\nbeen led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to\nsupplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to\nprayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less\ninto prayer.\u201d\n\nThe study of the Word and prayer go together, and where we find the one\ntruly practised, the other is sure to be seen in close alliance.\n\nBut we do not pray _always_. That is the trouble with so many of us. We\nneed to pray much more than we do and much longer than we do.\n\nRobert Murray McCheyne, gifted and saintly, of whom it was said, that\n\u201cWhether viewed as a son, a brother, a friend, or a pastor, he was the\nmost faultless and attractive exhibition of the true Christian they had\never seen embodied in a living form,\u201d knew what it was to spend much\ntime upon his knees, and he never wearied in urging upon others the joy\nand the value of holy intercession. \u201cGod\u2019s children should pray,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cThey should cry day and night unto Him, God hears every one of\nyour cries in the busy hour of the daytime and in the lonely watches of\nthe night.\u201d In every way, by preaching, by exhortation when present and\nby letters when absent, McCheyne emphasised the vital duty of prayer,\nimportunate and unceasing prayer.\n\nIn his diary we find this: \u201cIn the morning was engaged in preparing the\nhead, then the heart. This has been frequently my error, and I have\nalways felt the evil of it, especially in prayer. Reform it then, O\nLord.\u201d While on his trip to the Holy Land he wrote: \u201cFor much of our\nsafety I feel indebted to the prayers of my people. If the veil of the\nworld\u2019s machinery were lifted off how much we would find done in answer\nto the prayers of God\u2019s children.\u201d In an ordination sermon he said to the\npreacher: \u201cGive yourself to prayers and the ministry of the Word. If you\ndo not pray, God will probably lay you aside from your ministry, as He\ndid me, to teach you to pray. Remember Luther\u2019s maxim, \u2018To have prayed\nwell is to have studied well.\u2019 Get your texts from God, your thoughts,\nyour words. Carry the names of the little flock upon your breast like\nthe High Priest. Wrestle for the unconverted. Luther spent his last\nthree hours in prayer; John Welch prayed seven or eight hours a day. He\nused to keep a plaid on his bed that he might wrap himself in when he\nrose during the night. Sometimes his wife found him on the ground lying\nweeping. When she complained, he would say, \u2018O, woman, I have the souls\nof three thousand to answer for, and I know not how it is with many of\nthem.\u2019\u201d The people he exhorted and charged: \u201cPray for your pastor. Pray\nfor his body, that he may be kept strong and spared many years. Pray for\nhis soul, that he may be kept humble and holy, a burning and shining\nlight. Pray for his ministry, that it may be abundantly blessed, that he\nmay be anointed to preach good tidings. Let there be no secret prayer\nwithout naming him before your God, no family prayer without carrying\nyour pastor in your hearts to God.\u201d\n\n\u201cTwo things,\u201d says his biographer, \u201che seems never to have ceased\nfrom\u2014the cultivation of personal holiness and the most anxious efforts\nto win souls.\u201d The two are the inseparable attendants on the ministry of\nprayer. Prayer fails when the desire and effort for personal holiness\nfail. No person is a soul-winner who is not an adept in the ministry of\nprayer. \u201cIt is the duty of ministers,\u201d says this holy man, \u201cto begin the\nreformation of religion and manner with themselves, families, etc., with\nconfession of past sin, earnest prayer for direction, grace and full\npurpose of heart.\u201d He begins with himself under the head of \u201cReformation\nin Secret Prayer,\u201d and he resolves:\n\n\u201cI ought not to omit any of the parts of prayer\u2014confession, adoration,\nthanksgiving, petition and intercession. There is a fearful tendency to\nomit _confession_ proceeding from low views of God and His law, slight\nviews of my heart, and the sin of my past life. This must be resisted.\nThere is a constant tendency to omit _adoration_ when I forget to Whom I\nam speaking, when I rush heedlessly into the presence of Jehovah without\nthought of His awful name and character. When I have little eyesight for\nhis glory, and little admiration of His wonders, I have the native\ntendency of the heart to omit giving _thanks_, and yet it is specially\ncommanded. Often when the heart is dead to the salvation of others I\nomit _intercession_, and yet it especially is the spirit of the great\nAdvocate Who has the name of Israel on His heart. I ought to pray before\nseeing anyone. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, and\nthen have family prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it is eleven\nor twelve o\u2019clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched\nsystem; it is unscriptural. Christ rose before day and went into a\nsolitary place. David says, \u2018Early will I seek Thee; Thou shalt early\nhear my voice.\u2019 Mary Magdalene came to the sepulchre while it was yet\ndark. Family prayer loses much of its power and sweetness; and I can do\nno good to those who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty,\nthe soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. I feel it is far better to begin\nwith God, to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is\nnear another. \u2018When I awake I am still with Thee.\u2019 If I have slept too\nlong, or I am going an early journey, or my time is in any way\nshortened, it is best to dress hurriedly and have a few minutes alone\nwith God than to give up all for lost. But in general it is best to have\nat least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else. I\nought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. When I\nawake in the night, I ought to rise and pray as David and John Welch.\u201d\n\nMcCheyne believed in being _always_ in prayer, and his fruitful life,\nshort though that life was, affords an illustration of the power that\ncomes from long and frequent visits to the secret place where we keep\ntryst with our Lord.\n\nMen of McCheyne\u2019s stamp are needed to-day\u2014praying men, who know how to\ngive themselves to the greatest task demanding their time and their\nattention; men who can give their whole heart to the holy task of\nintercession, men who can pray through. God\u2019s cause is committed to men;\nGod commits Himself to men. Praying men are the vicegerents of God; they\ndo His work and carry out His plans.\n\nWe are obliged to pray if we be citizens of God\u2019s Kingdom.\nPrayerlessness is expatriation, or worse, from God\u2019s Kingdom. It is\noutlawry, a high crime, a constitutional breach. The Christian who\nrelegates prayer to a subordinate place in his life soon loses whatever\nspiritual zeal he may have once possessed, and the Church that makes\nlittle of prayer cannot maintain vital piety, and is powerless to\nadvance the Gospel. The Gospel cannot live, fight, conquer without\nprayer\u2014prayer unceasing, instant and ardent.\n\nLittle prayer is the characteristic of a backslidden age and of a\nbackslidden Church. Whenever there is little praying in the pulpit or in\nthe pew, spiritual bankruptcy is imminent and inevitable.\n\nThe cause of God has no commercial age, no cultured age, no age of\neducation, no age of money. But it has one golden age, and that is the\nage of prayer. When its leaders are men of prayer, when prayer is the\nprevailing element of worship, like the incense giving continual\nfragrance to its service, then the cause of God will be triumphant.\n\nBetter praying and more of it, that is what we need. We need holier men,\nand more of them, holier women, and more of them to pray\u2014women like\nHannah, who, out of their greatest griefs and temptations brewed their\ngreatest prayers. Through prayer Hannah found her relief. Everywhere the\nChurch was backslidden and apostate, her foes were victorious. Hannah\ngave herself to prayer, and in sorrow she multiplied her praying. She\nsaw a great revival born of her praying. When the whole nation was\noppressed, prophet and priest, Samuel was born to establish a new line\nof priesthood, and her praying warmed into life a new life for God.\nEverywhere religion revived and flourished. God, true to His promise,\n\u201c_Ask of Me_,\u201d though the praying came from a woman\u2019s broken heart,\nheard and answered, sending a new day of holy gladness to revive His\npeople.\n\nSo once more, let us apply the emphasis and repeat that the great need\nof the Church in this and all ages is men of such commanding faith, of\nsuch unsullied holiness, of such marked spiritual vigour and consuming\nzeal, that they will work spiritual revolutions through their mighty\npraying. \u201cNatural ability and educational advantages do not figure as\nfactors in this matter; but a capacity for faith, the ability to pray,\nthe power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an\nabsolute losing of one\u2019s self in God\u2019s glory and an ever present and\ninsatiable yearning and seeking after all the fulness of God. Men who\ncan set the Church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way, but with\nan intense and quiet heat that melts and moves every thing for God.\u201d\n\nAnd, to return to the vital point, secret praying is the test, the\ngauge, the conserver of man\u2019s relation to God. The prayer-chamber, while\nit is the test of the sincerity of our devotion to God, becomes also the\nmeasure of the devotion. The self-denial, the sacrifices which we make\nfor our prayer-chambers, the frequency of our visits to that hallowed\nplace of meeting with the Lord, the lingering to stay, the loathness to\nleave, are values which we put on communion alone with God, the price we\npay for the Spirit\u2019s trysting hours of heavenly love.\n\nThe prayer-chamber conserves our relation to God. It hems every raw\nedge; it tucks up every flowing and entangling garment; girds up every\nfainting loin. The sheet-anchor holds not the ship more surely and\nsafely than the prayer-chamber holds to God. Satan has to break our hold\non, and close up our way to the prayer-chambers, ere he can break our\nhold on God or close up our way to heaven.\n\n             \u201cBe not afraid to pray; to pray is right;\n               Pray if thou canst with hope, but ever pray,\n             Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;\n               Pray in the darkness if there be no light;\n             And if for any wish thou dare not pray\n               Then pray to God to cast that wish away.\u201d\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _In God\u2019s name I beseech you let prayer nourish your soul as your\n  meals nourish your body. Let your fixed seasons of prayer keep you\n  in God\u2019s presence through the day, and His presence frequently\n  remembered through it be an ever-fresh spring of prayer. Such a\n  brief, loving recollection of God renews a man\u2019s whole being,\n  quiets his passions, supplies light and counsel in difficulty,\n  gradually subdues the temper, and causes him to possess his soul in\n  patience, or rather gives it up to the possession of God._\n                                                           \u2014F\u00c9NELON.\n\n\n  _Devoted too much time and attention to outward and public duties\n  of the ministry. But this has a mistaken conduct, for I have\n  learned that neglect of much and fervent communion with God in\n  meditation and prayer is not the way to redeem the time nor to fit\n  me for public ministrations._\n\n  _I rightly attribute my present deadness to want of sufficient time\n  and tranquillity for private devotion. Want of more reading,\n  retirement and private devotion, I have little mastery over my own\n  tempers. An unhappy day to me for want of more solitude and prayer.\n  If there be anything I do, if there be anything I leave undone, let\n  me be perfect in prayer._\n\n  _After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh\n  that I may be a man of prayer!_\n                                                      \u2014HENRY MARTYN.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\n\nTHAT the men had quit praying in Paul\u2019s time we cannot certainly affirm.\nThey have, in the main, quit praying now. They are too busy to pray.\nTime and strength and every faculty are laid under tribute to money, to\nbusiness, to the affairs of the world. Few men lay themselves out in\ngreat praying. The great business of praying is a hurried, petty,\nstarved, beggarly business with most men.\n\nSt. Paul calls a halt, and lays a levy on men for prayer. Put the men to\npraying is Paul\u2019s unfailing remedy for great evils in Church, in State,\nin politics, in business, in home. Put the men to praying, then politics\nwill be cleansed, business will be thriftier, the Church will be holier,\nthe home will be sweeter.\n\n\u201cI exhort, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers,\nintercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all\nthat are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in\nall godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of\nGod our Saviour.... I desire, therefore, that the men pray in every\nplace, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and disputing\u201d (1 Timothy ii.\n1-3, 8).\n\nPraying women and children are invaluable to God, but if their praying\nis not supplemented by praying men, there will be a great loss in the\npower of prayer\u2014a great breach and depreciation in the value of prayer,\ngreat paralysis in the energy of the Gospel. Jesus Christ spake a\nparable unto the people, telling them that men ought always to pray and\nnot faint. Men who are strong in everything else ought to be strong in\nprayer, and never yield to discouragement, weakness or depression. Men\nwho are brave, persistent, redoubtable in other pursuits ought to be\nfull of courage, unfainting, strong-hearted in prayer.\n\n_Men_ are to pray; _all men_ are to pray. Men, as distinguished from\nwomen, men in their strength in their wisdom. There is an absolute,\nspecific command that the men pray; there is an absolute imperative\nnecessity that men pray. The first of beings, man, should also be first\nin prayer.\n\n_The men_ are to pray for men. The direction is specific and classified.\nJust underneath we have a specific direction with regard to women. About\nprayer, its importance, wideness and practice the Bible here deals with\nthe men in contrast to, and distinct from, the women. The men are\ndefinitely commanded, seriously charged, and warmly exhorted to pray.\nPerhaps it was that men were averse to prayer, or indifferent to it; it\nmay be that they deemed it a small thing, and gave to it neither time\nnor value nor significance. But God would have all men pray, and so the\ngreat Apostle lifts the subject into prominence and emphasises its\nimportance.\n\nFor prayer is of transcendent importance. Prayer is the mightiest agent\nto advance God\u2019s work. Praying hearts and hands only can do God\u2019s work.\nPrayer succeeds when all else fails. Prayer has won great victories, and\nrescued, with notable triumph, God\u2019s saints when every other hope was\ngone. Men who know how to pray are the greatest boon God can give to\nearth\u2014they are the richest gift earth can offer heaven. Men who know\nhow to use this weapon of prayer are God\u2019s best soldiers, His mightiest\nleaders.\n\nPraying men are God\u2019s chosen leaders. The distinction between the\nleaders that God brings to the front to lead and bless His people, and\nthose leaders who owe their position of leadership to a worldly,\nselfish, unsanctified selection, is this, God\u2019s leaders are\npre-eminently men of prayer. This distinguishes them as the simple,\nDivine attestation of their call, the seal of their separation by God.\nWhatever of other graces or gifts they may have, the gift and grace of\nprayer towers above them all. In whatever else they may share or differ,\nin the gift of prayer they are one.\n\nWhat would God\u2019s leaders be without prayer? Strip Moses of his power in\nprayer, a gift that made him eminent in pagan estimate, and the crown is\ntaken from his head, the food and fire of his faith are gone. Elijah,\nwithout his praying, would have neither record nor place in the Divine\nlegation, his life insipid, cowardly, its energy, defiance and fire\ngone. Without Elijah\u2019s praying the Jordan would never have yielded to\nthe stroke of his mantle, nor would the stern angel of death have\nhonoured him with the chariot and horses of fire. The argument that God\nused to quiet the fears and convince Ananias of Paul\u2019s condition and\nsincerity is the epitome of his history, the solution of his life and\nwork\u2014\u201cBehold he prayeth.\u201d\n\nPaul, Luther, Wesley\u2014what would these chosen ones of God be without the\ndistinguishing and controlling element of prayer? They were leaders for\nGod because mighty in prayer. They were not leaders because of\nbrilliancy in thought, because exhaustless in resources, because of\ntheir magnificent culture or native endowment, but leaders because by\nthe power of prayer they could command the power of God. Praying men\nmeans much more than men who say prayers; much more than men who pray by\nhabit. It means men with whom prayer is a mighty force, an energy that\nmoves heaven and pours untold treasures of good on earth.\n\nPraying men are the safety of the Church from the materialism that is\naffecting all its plans and polity, and which is hardening its\nlife-blood. The insinuation circulates as a secret, deadly poison that\nthe Church is not so dependent on purely spiritual forces as it used to\nbe\u2014that changed times and changed conditions have brought it out of its\nspiritual straits and dependencies and put it where other forces can\nbear it to its climax. A fatal snare of this kind has allured the Church\ninto worldly embraces, dazzled her leaders, weakened her foundations,\nand shorn her of much of her beauty and strength. Praying men are the\nsaviours of the Church from this material tendency. They pour into it\nthe original spiritual forces, lift it off the sand-bars of materialism,\nand press it out into the ocean depths of spiritual power. Praying men\nkeep God in the Church in full force; keep His hand on the helm, and\ntrain the Church in its lessons of strength and trust.\n\nThe number and efficiency of the labourers in God\u2019s vineyard in all\nlands is dependent on the men of prayer. The mightiness of these men of\nprayer increases, by the divinely arranged process, the number and\nsuccess of the consecrated labours. Prayer opens wide their doors of\naccess, gives holy aptness to enter, and holy boldness, firmness, and\nfruitage. Praying men are needed in all fields of spiritual labour.\nThere is no position in the Church of God, high or low, which can be\nwell filled without instant prayer. No position where Christians are\nfound that does not demand the full play of a faith that always prays\nand never faints. Praying men are needed in the house of business, as\nwell as in the house of God, that they may order and direct trade, not\naccording to the maxims of this world, but according to Bible precepts\nand the maxims of the heavenly life.\n\nMen of prayer are needed especially in the positions of Church\ninfluence, honour, and power. These leaders of Church thought, of Church\nwork, and of Church life should be men of signal power in prayer. It is\nthe praying heart that sanctifies the toil and skill of the hands, and\nthe toil and wisdom of the head. Prayer keeps work in the line of God\u2019s\nwill, and keeps thought in the line of God\u2019s Word. The solemn\nresponsibilities of leadership, in a large or limited sphere, in God\u2019s\nChurch should be so hedged about with prayer that between it and the\nworld there should be an impassable gulf, so elevated and purified by\nprayer that neither cloud nor night should stain the radiance nor dim\nthe sight of a constant meridian view of God. Many Church leaders seem\nto think if they can be prominent as men of business, of money,\ninfluence, of thought, of plans, of scholarly attainments, of eloquent\ngifts, of taking, conspicuous activities, that these are enough, and\nwill atone for the absence of the higher spiritual power which much\npraying only can give. But how vain and paltry are these in the serious\nwork of bringing glory to God, controlling the Church for Him, and\nbringing it into full accord with its Divine mission.\n\nPraying men are the men that have done so much for God in the past. They\nare the ones who have won the victories for God, and spoiled His foes.\nThey are the ones who have set up His Kingdom in the very camps of His\nenemies. There are no other conditions of success in this day. The\ntwentieth century has no relief statute to suspend the necessity or\nforce of prayer\u2014no substitute by which its gracious ends can be\nsecured. We are shut up to this, praying hands only can build for God.\nThey are God\u2019s mighty ones on earth, His master-builders. They may be\ndestitute of all else, but with the wrestlings and prevailings of a\nsimple-hearted faith they are mighty, the mightiest for God. Church\nleaders may be gifted in all else, but without this greatest of gifts\nthey are as Samson shorn of his locks, or as the Temple without the\nDivine presence or the Divine glory, and on whose altars the heavenly\nflame has died.\n\nThe only protection and rescue from worldliness lie in our intense and\nradical spirituality; and our only hope for the existence and\nmaintenance of this high, saving spirituality, under God, is in the\npurest and most aggressive leadership\u2014a leadership that knows the\nsecret power of prayer, the sign by which the Church has conquered, and\nthat has conscience, conviction, and courage to hold her true to her\nsymbols, true to her traditions, and true to the hidings of her power.\nWe need this prayerful leadership; we must have it, that by the\nperfection and beauty of its holiness, by the strength and elevation of\nits faith, by the potency and pressure of its prayers, by the authority\nand spotlessness of its example, by the fire and contagion of its zeal,\nby the singularity, sublimity, and unworldliness of its piety, it may\ninfluence God, and hold and mould the Church to its heavenly pattern.\n\nSuch leaders, how mightily they are felt. How their flame arouses the\nChurch! How they stir it by the force of their Pentecostal presence! How\nthey embattle and give victory by the conflicts and triumphs of their\nown faith! How they fashion it by the impress and importunity of their\nprayers! How they inoculate it by the contagion and fire of their\nholiness! How they lead the march in great spiritual revolutions! How\nthe Church is raised from the dead by the resurrection call of their\nsermons! Holiness springs up in their wake as flowers at the voice of\nspring, and where they tread the desert blooms as the garden of the\nLord. God\u2019s cause demands such leaders along the whole line of official\nposition from subaltern to superior. How feeble, aimless, or worldly are\nour efforts, how demoralised and vain for God\u2019s work without them!\n\nThe gift of these leaders is not in the range of ecclesiastical power.\nThey are God\u2019s gifts. Their being, their presence, their number, and\ntheir ability are the tokens of His favour; their lack the sure sign of\nHis disfavour, the presage of His withdrawal. Let the Church of God be\non her knees before the Lord of hosts, that He may more mightily endow\nthe leaders we already have, and put others in rank, and lead all along\nthe line of our embattled front.\n\nThe world is coming into the Church at many points and in many ways. It\noozes in; it pours in; it comes in with brazen front or soft,\ninsinuating disguise; it comes in at the top and comes in at the bottom;\nand percolates through many a hidden way.\n\nFor praying men and holy men we are looking\u2014men whose presence in the\nChurch will make it like a censer of holiest incense flaming up to God.\nWith God the man counts for everything. Rites, forms, organisations are\nof small moment; unless they are backed by the holiness of the man they\nare offensive in His sight. \u201cIncense is an abomination unto Me; the new\nmoons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies I cannot away with; it is\niniquity, even the solemn meeting.\u201d\n\nWhy does God speak so strongly against His own ordinances? Personal\npurity had failed. The impure man tainted all the sacred institutions of\nGod and defiled them. God regards the man in so important a way as to\nput a kind of discount on all else. Men have built Him glorious temples\nand have striven and exhausted themselves to please God by all manner of\ngifts; but in lofty strains He has rebuked these proud worshippers and\nrejected their princely gifts.\n\n\u201cHeaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool: where is the house\nthat ye build unto Me? and where is the place of My rest? For all those\nthings hath Mine hand made, and all those things hath been, saith the\nLord. He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth\na lamb, as if he cut off a dog\u2019s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as\nif he offered swine\u2019s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed\nan idol.\u201d Turning away in disgust from these costly and profane\nofferings, He declares: \u201cBut to this man will I look, even to him that\nis poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.\u201d\n\nThis truth that God regards the personal purity of the man is\nfundamental. This truth suffers when ordinances are made much of and\nforms of worship multiply. The man and his spiritual character\ndepreciate as Church ceremonials increase. The simplicity of worship is\nlost in religious \u00e6sthetics, or in the gaudiness of religious forms.\n\nThis truth that the personal purity of the individual is the only thing\nGod cares for is lost sight of when the Church begins to estimate men\nfor what they have. When the Church eyes a man\u2019s money, social standing,\nhis belongings in any way, then spiritual values are at a fearful\ndiscount, and the tear of penitence, the heaviness of guilt are never\nseen at her portals. Worldly bribes have opened and stained its pearly\ngates by the entrance of the impure.\n\nThis truth that God is looking after personal purity is swallowed up\nwhen the Church has a greed for numbers. \u201cNot numbers, but personal\npurity is our aim,\u201d said the fathers of Methodism. The parading of\nChurch statistics is mightily against the grain of spiritual religion.\nEyeing numbers greatly hinders the looking after personal purity. The\nincrease of quantity is generally at a loss of quality. Bulk abates\npreciousness.\n\nThe age of Church organisation and Church machinery is not an age noted\nfor elevated and strong personal piety. Machinery looks for engineers\nand organisations for generals, and not for saints, to run them. The\nsimplest organisation may aid purity as well as strength; but beyond\nthat narrow limit organisation swallows up the individual, and is\ncareless of personal purity; push, activity, enthusiasm, zeal for an\norganisation, come in as the vicious substitutes for spiritual\ncharacter. Holiness and all the spiritual graces of hardy culture and\nslow growth are discarded as too slow and too costly for the progress\nand rush of the age. By dint of machinery, new organisations, and\nspiritual weakness, results are vainly expected to be secured which can\nonly be secured by faith, prayer, and waiting on God.\n\nThe man and his spiritual character is what God is looking after. If\nmen, holy men, can be turned out by the easy processes of Church\nmachinery readier and better than by the old-time processes, we would\ngladly invest in every new and improved patent; but we do not believe\nit. We adhere to the old way\u2014the way the holy prophets went, the king\u2019s\nhighway of holiness.\n\nAn example of this is afforded by the case of William Wilberforce. High\nin social position, a member of Parliament, the friend of Pitt the\nfamous statesman, he was not called of God to forsake his high social\nposition nor to quit Parliament, but he was called to order his life\naccording to the pattern set by Jesus Christ and to give himself to\nprayer. To read the story of his life is to be impressed with its\nholiness and its devotion to the claims of the quiet hours alone with\nGod. His conversion was announced to his friends\u2014to Pitt and others\u2014by\nletter.\n\nIn the beginning of his religious career he records: \u201cMy chief reasons\nfor a day of secret prayer are, (1) That the state of public affairs is\nvery critical and calls for earnest deprecation of the Divine\ndispleasure. (2) My station in life is a very difficult one, wherein I\nam at a loss to know how to act. Direction, therefore, should be\nspecially sought from time to time. (3) I have been graciously supported\nin difficult situations of a public nature. I have gone out and returned\nhome in safety, and found a kind reception has attended me. I would\nhumbly hope, too, that what I am now doing is a proof that God has not\nwithdrawn His Holy Spirit from me. I am covered with mercies.\u201d\n\nThe recurrence of his birthday led him again to review his situation and\nemployment. \u201cI find,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthat books alienate my heart from God\nas much as anything. I have been framing a plan of study for myself, but\nlet me remember but one thing is needful, that if my heart cannot be\nkept in a spiritual state without so much prayer, meditation, Scripture\nreading, etc., as are incompatible with study, I must _seek first_ the\nrighteousness of God.\u201d All were to be surrendered for spiritual advance.\n\u201cI fear,\u201d we find him saying, \u201cthat I have not studied the Scriptures\nenough. Surely in the summer recess I ought to read the Scriptures an\nhour or two every day, besides prayer, devotional reading and\nmeditation. God will prosper me better if I wait on Him. The experience\nof all good men shows that without constant prayer and watchfulness the\nlife of God in the soul stagnates. Doddridge\u2019s morning and evening\ndevotions were serious matters. Colonel Gardiner always spent hours in\nprayer in the morning before he went forth. Bonnell practised private\ndevotions largely morning and evening, and repeated Psalms dressing and\nundressing to raise his mind to heavenly things. I would look up to God\nto make the means effectual. I fear that my devotions are too much\nhurried, that I do not read Scripture enough. I must grow in grace; I\nmust love God more; I must feel the power of Divine things more. Whether\nI am more or less learned signifies not. Whether even I execute the work\nwhich I deem useful is comparatively unimportant. But beware my soul of\nluke-warmness.\u201d\n\nThe New Year began with the Holy Communion and new vows. \u201cI will press\nforward,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand labour to know God better and love Him more.\nAssuredly I may, because God will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask\nHim, and the Holy Spirit will shed abroad the love of God in the heart.\nO, then, pray, pray; be earnest, press forward and follow on to know the\nLord. Without watchfulness, humiliation and prayer, the sense of Divine\nthings must languish.\u201d To prepare for the future he said he found\nnothing more effectual than private prayer and the serious perusal of\nthe New Testament.\n\nAnd again: \u201cI must put down that I have lately too little time for\nprivate devotions. I can sadly confirm Doddridge\u2019s remark that when we\ngo on ill in the closet we commonly do so everywhere else. I must mend\nhere. I am afraid of getting into what Owen calls the trade of sinning\nand repenting ... Lord help me, the shortening of private devotions\nstarves the soul; it grows lean and faint. This must not be. I must\nredeem more time. I see how lean in spirit I become without full\nallowance of time for private devotions; I must be careful to be\nwatching unto prayer.\u201d\n\nAt another time he puts on record: \u201cI must try what I long ago heard was\nthe rule of E\u2014\u2014 the great upholsterer, who, when he came from Bond\nStreet to his little villa, always first retired to his closet. I have\nbeen keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour\nto myself. Surely the experience of all good men confirms the\nproposition, that without due measure of private devotions, the soul\nwill grow lean.\u201d\n\nTo his son he wrote: \u201cLet me conjure you not to be seduced into\nneglecting, curtailing or hurrying over your morning prayers. Of all\nthings, guard against neglecting God in the closet. There is nothing\nmore fatal to the life and power of religion. More solitude and earlier\nhours\u2014prayer three times a day at least. How much better might I serve\nif I cultivated a closer communion with God.\u201d\n\nWilberforce knew the secret of a holy life. Is that not where most of us\nfail? We are so busy with other things, so immersed even in doing good\nand in carrying on the Lord\u2019s work, that we neglect the quiet seasons of\nprayer with God, and before we are aware of it our soul is lean and\nimpoverished.\n\n\u201cOne night alone in prayer,\u201d says Spurgeon, \u201cmight make us new men,\nchanged from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to\ntriumphing. We have an example of it in the life of Jacob. Aforetime the\ncrafty shuffler, always bargaining and calculating, unlovely in almost\nevery respect, yet one night in prayer turned the supplanter into a\nprevailing prince, and robed him with celestial grandeur. From that\nnight he lives on the sacred page as one of the nobility of heaven.\nCould not we, at least now and then, in these weary earthbound years,\nhedge about a single night for such enriching traffic with the skies?\nWhat, have we no sacred ambition? Are we deaf to the yearnings of Divine\nlove? Yet, my brethren, for wealth and for science men will cheerfully\nquit their warm couches, and cannot we do it now and again for the love\nof God and the good of souls? Where is our zeal, our gratitude, our\nsincerity? I am ashamed while I thus upbraid both myself and you. May we\noften tarry at Jabbok, and cry with Jacob, as he grasped the angel\u2014\n\n                  \u2018With thee all night I mean to stay,\n                 And wrestle till the break of day.\u2019\n\nSurely, brethren, if we have given whole days to folly, we can afford a\nspace for heavenly wisdom. Time was when we gave whole nights to\nchambering and wantonness, to dancing and the world\u2019s revelry; we did\nnot tire then; we were chiding the sun that he rose so soon, and wishing\nthe hours would lag awhile that we might delight in wilder merriment and\nperhaps deeper sin. Oh, wherefore, should we weary in heavenly\nemployments? Why grow we weary when asked to watch with our Lord? Up,\nsluggish heart, Jesus calls thee! Rise and go forth to meet the Heavenly\nFriend in the place where He manifests Himself.\u201d\n\nWe can never expect to grow in the likeness of our Lord unless we follow\nHis example and give more time to communion with the Father. A revival\nof real praying would produce a spiritual revolution.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the\n  tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the\n  throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down._\n                                                       \u2014JOHN WESLEY.\n\n\n  _We must remember that the goal of prayer is the ear of God. Unless\n  that is gained the prayer has utterly failed. The uttering of it\n  may have kindled devotional feeling in our minds, the hearing of it\n  may have comforted and strengthened the hearts of those with whom\n  we have prayed, but if the prayer has not gained the heart of God,\n  it has failed in its essential purpose._\n\n  _A mere formalist can always pray so as to please himself. What has\n  he to do but to open his book and read the prescribed words, or bow\n  his knee and repeat such phrases as suggest themselves to his\n  memory or his fancy? Like the Tartarian Praying Machine, give but\n  the wind and the wheel, and the business is fully arranged. So much\n  knee-bending and talking, and the prayer is done. The formalist\u2019s\n  prayers are always good, or, rather, always bad, alike. But the\n  living child of God never offers a prayer which pleases himself;\n  his standard is above his attainments; he wonders that God listens\n  to him, and though he knows he will be heard for Christ\u2019s sake, yet\n  he accounts it a wonderful instance of condescending mercy that\n  such poor prayers as his should ever reach the ears of the Lord God\n  of Sabaoth._\n                                                    \u2014C. H. SPURGEON.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   IX\n\n\nIT may be said with emphasis that no lazy saint prays. Can there be a\nlazy saint? Can there be a prayerless saint? Does not slack praying cut\nshort sainthood\u2019s crown and kingdom? Can there be a cowardly soldier?\nCan there be a saintly hypocrite? Can there be virtuous vice? It is only\nwhen these impossibilities are brought into being that we then can find\na prayerless saint.\n\nTo go through the motion of praying is a dull business, though not a\nhard one. To say prayers in a decent, delicate way is not heavy work.\nBut to pray really, to pray till hell feels the ponderous stroke, to\npray till the iron gates of difficulty are opened, till the mountains of\nobstacles are removed, till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are\nlifted, and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens\u2014this is hard\nwork, but it is God\u2019s work and man\u2019s best labour. Never was the toil of\nhand, head and heart less spent in vain than when praying. It is hard to\nwait and press and pray, and hear no voice, but stay till God answers.\nThe joy of answered prayer is the joy of a travailing mother when a man\nchild is born into the world, the joy of a slave whose chains have been\nburst asunder and to whom new life and liberty have just come.\n\nA bird\u2019s-eye view of what has been accomplished by prayer shows what we\nlost when the dispensation of real prayer was substituted by Pharisaical\npretence and sham; it shows, too, how imperative is the need for holy\nmen and women who will give themselves to earnest, Christlike praying.\n\nIt is not an easy thing to pray. Back of the praying there must lie all\nthe conditions of prayer. These conditions are possible, but they are\nnot to be seized on in a moment by the prayerless. Present they always\nmay be to the faithful and holy, but cannot exist in nor be met by a\nfrivolous, negligent, laggard spirit. Prayer does not stand alone. It is\nnot an isolated performance. Prayer stands in closest connection with\nall the duties of an ardent piety. It is the issuance of a character\nwhich is made up of the elements of a vigorous and commanding faith.\nPrayer honours God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His\nprovidence, secures His aid. A sneering half-rationalism cries out\nagainst devotion, that it does nothing but pray. But to pray well is to\ndo all things well. If it be true that devotion does nothing but pray,\nthen it does nothing at all. To do nothing but pray fails to do the\npraying, for the antecedent, coincident, and subsequent conditions of\nprayer are but the sum of all the energised forces of a practical,\nworking piety.\n\nThe possibilities of prayer run parallel with the promises of God.\nPrayer opens an outlet for the promises, removes the hindrances in the\nway of their execution, puts them into working order, and secures their\ngracious ends. More than this, prayer like faith, obtains promises,\nenlarges their operation, and adds to the measure of their results.\nGod\u2019s promises were to Abraham and to his seed, but many a barren womb,\nand many a minor obstacle stood in the way of the fulfilment of these\npromises; but prayer removed them all, made a highway for the promises,\nadded to the facility and speediness of their realisation, and by prayer\nthe promise shone bright and perfect in its execution.\n\nThe possibilities of prayer are found in its allying itself with the\npurposes of God, for God\u2019s purposes and man\u2019s praying are the\ncombination of all potent and omnipotent forces. More than this, the\npossibilities of prayer are seen in the fact that it changes the\npurposes of God. It is in the very nature of prayer to plead and give\ndirections. Prayer is not a negation. It is a positive force. It never\nrebels against the will of God, never comes into conflict with that\nwill, but that it does seek to change God\u2019s purpose is evident. Christ\nsaid, \u201cThe cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it?\u201d and\nyet He had prayed that very night, \u201cIf it be possible let this cup pass\nfrom Me.\u201d Paul sought to change the purposes of God about the thorn in\nhis flesh. God\u2019s purposes were fixed to destroy Israel, and the prayer\nof Moses changed the purposes of God and saved Israel. In the time of\nthe Judges Israel were apostate and greatly oppressed. They repented and\ncried unto God and He said: \u201cYe have forsaken Me and served other gods,\nwherefore I will deliver you no more:\u201d but they humbled themselves, put\naway their strange gods, and God\u2019s \u201csoul was grieved for the misery of\nIsrael,\u201d and he sent them deliverance by Jephthah.\n\nGod sent Isaiah to say to Hezekiah, \u201cSet thine house in order: for thou\nshalt die, and not live;\u201d and Hezekiah prayed, and God sent Isaiah back\nto say, \u201cI have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold I will\nadd unto thy days fifteen years.\u201d \u201cYet forty days and Nineveh shall be\noverthrown,\u201d was God\u2019s message by Jonah. But Nineveh cried mightily to\nGod, and \u201cGod repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto\nthem; and He did it not.\u201d\n\nThe possibilities of prayer are seen from the divers conditions it\nreaches and the diverse ends it secures. Elijah prayed over a dead\nchild, and it came to life; Elisha did the same thing; Christ prayed at\nLazarus\u2019s grave, and Lazarus came forth. Peter kneeled down and prayed\nbeside dead Dorcas, and she opened her eyes and sat up, and Peter\npresented her alive to the distressed company. Paul prayed for Publius,\nand healed him. Jacob\u2019s praying changed Esau\u2019s murderous hate into the\nkisses of the tenderest brotherly embrace. God gave to Rebecca Jacob and\nEsau because Isaac prayed for her. Joseph was the child of Rachel\u2019s\nprayers. Hannah\u2019s praying gave Samuel to Israel. John the Baptist was\ngiven to Elizabeth, barren and past age as she was, in answer to the\nprayer of Zacharias. Elisha\u2019s praying brought famine or harvest to\nIsrael; as he prayed so it was. Ezra\u2019s praying carried the Spirit of God\nin heart-breaking conviction to the entire city of Jerusalem, and\nbrought them in tears of repentance back to God. Isaiah\u2019s praying\ncarried the shadow of the sun back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.\n\nIn answer to Hezekiah\u2019s praying an angel slew one hundred and\neighty-five thousand of Sennacherib\u2019s army in one night. Daniel\u2019s\npraying opened to him the vision of prophecy, helped him to administer\nthe affairs of a mighty kingdom, and sent an angel to shut the lions\u2019\nmouths. The angel was sent to Cornelius, and the Gospel opened through\nhim to the Gentile world, because his \u201cprayers and alms had come up as a\nmemorial before God.\u201d \u201cAnd what shall I more say? for the time would\nfail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah;\nof David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets;\u201d of Paul and Peter, and\nJohn and the Apostles, and the holy company of saints, reformers, and\nmartyrs, who, through praying, \u201csubdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,\nobtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of\nfire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong,\nwaxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.\u201d\n\nPrayer puts God in the matter with commanding force: \u201cAsk of Me things\nto come concerning My sons,\u201d says God, \u201cand concerning the work of My\nhands command ye Me.\u201d We are charged in God\u2019s Word \u201calways to pray,\u201d \u201cin\neverything by prayer,\u201d \u201ccontinuing instant in prayer,\u201d to \u201cpray\neverywhere,\u201d \u201cpraying always.\u201d The promise is as illimitable as the\ncommand is comprehensive. \u201cAll things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,\nbelieving, ye shall receive,\u201d \u201cwhatever ye shall ask,\u201d \u201cif ye shall ask\nanything.\u201d \u201cYe shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.\u201d\n\u201cWhatsoever ye ask the Father He will give it to you.\u201d If there is\nanything not involved in \u201cAll things whatsoever,\u201d or not found in the\nphrase \u201cAsk anything,\u201d then these things may be left out of prayer.\nLanguage could not cover a wider range, nor involve more fully all\n_minutia_. These statements are but samples of the all-comprehending\npossibilities of prayer under the promises of God to those who meet the\nconditions of right praying.\n\nThese passages, though, give but a general outline of the immense\nregions over which prayer extends its sway. Beyond these the effects of\nprayer reaches and secures good from regions which cannot be traversed\nby language or thought. Paul exhausted language and thought in praying,\nbut conscious of necessities not covered and realms of good not reached\nhe covers these impenetrable and undiscovered regions by this general\nplea, \u201cunto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that\nwe ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.\u201d The promise\nis, \u201cCall upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and\nmighty things, which thou knowest not.\u201d\n\nJames declares that \u201cthe effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man\navaileth much.\u201d How much he could not tell, but illustrates it by the\npower of Old Testament praying to stir up New Testament saints to\nimitate by the fervour and influence of their praying the holy men of\nold, and duplicate and surpass the power of their praying. Elijah, he\nsays, was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed\nearnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the\nspace of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven\ngave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.\n\nIn the Revelation of John the whole lower order of God\u2019s creation and\nHis providential government, the Church and the angelic world, are in\nthe attitude of waiting on the efficiency of the prayers of the saintly\nones on earth to carry on the various interests of earth and heaven. The\nangel takes the fire kindled by prayer and casts it earthward, \u201cand\nthere were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.\u201d\nPrayer is the force which creates all these alarms, stirs, and throes.\n\u201cAsk of Me,\u201d says God to His Son, and to the Church of His Son, \u201cand I\nshall give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the uttermost\nparts of the earth for Thy possessions.\u201d\n\nThe men who have done mighty things for God have always been mighty in\nprayer, have well understood the possibilities of prayer, and made most\nof these possibilities. The Son of God, the first of all and the\nmightiest of all, has shown us the all-potent and far-reaching\npossibilities of prayer. Paul was mighty for God because he knew how to\nuse, and how to get others to use, the mighty spiritual forces of\nprayer.\n\nThe seraphim, burning, sleepless, adoring, is the figure of prayer. It\nis resistless in its ardour, devoted and tireless. There are hindrances\nto prayer that nothing but pure, intense flame can surmount. There are\ntoils and outlays and endurance which nothing but the strongest, most\nardent flame can abide. Prayer may be low-tongued, but it cannot be\ncold-tongued. Its words may be few, but they must be on fire. Its\nfeelings may not be impetuous, but they must be white with heat. It is\nthe effectual, fervent prayer that influences God.\n\nGod\u2019s house is the house of prayer; God\u2019s work is the work of prayer. It\nis the zeal for God\u2019s house and the zeal for God\u2019s work that makes God\u2019s\nhouse glorious and His work abide.\n\nWhen the prayer-chambers of saints are closed or are entered casually or\ncoldly, then Church rulers are secular, fleshly, materialised; spiritual\ncharacter sinks to a low level, and the ministry becomes restrained and\nenfeebled.\n\nWhen prayer fails, the world prevails. When prayer fails the Church\nloses its Divine characteristics, its Divine power; the Church is\nswallowed up by a proud ecclesiasticism, and the world scoffs at its\nobvious impotence.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _I look upon all the four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there\n  is in them the reflection of a greatness which emanated from the\n  person of Jesus and which was of as Divine a kind as ever was seen\n  on earth._\n                                                            \u2014GOETHE.\n\n\n  _There are no possibilities, no necessity for prayerless praying, a\n  heartless performance, a senseless routine, a dead habit, a hasty,\n  careless performance\u2014it justifies nothing. Prayerless praying has\n  no life, gives no life, is dead, breathes out death. Not a\n  battle-axe but a child\u2019s toy, for play not for service. Prayerless\n  praying does not come up to the importance and aims of a\n  recreation. Prayerless praying is only a weight, an impediment in\n  the hour of struggle, of intense conflict, a call to retreat in the\n  moment of battle and victory._\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n\n\nWHY do we not pray? What are the hindrances to prayer? This is not a\ncurious nor trivial question. It goes not only to the whole matter of\nour praying, but to the whole matter of our religion. Religion is bound\nto decline when praying is hindered. That which hinders praying, hinders\nreligion. He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy\nlife.\n\nOther duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd out prayer. Choked\nto death, would be the coroner\u2019s verdict in many cases of dead praying,\nif an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual calamity. This\nway of hindering prayer becomes so natural, so easy, so innocent that it\ncomes on us all unawares. If we will allow our praying to be crowded\nout, it will always be done. Satan had rather we let the grass grow on\nthe path to our prayer-chamber than anything else. A closed chamber of\nprayer means gone out of business religiously, or what is worse, made an\nassignment and carrying on our religion in some other name than God\u2019s\nand to somebody else\u2019s glory. God\u2019s glory is only secured in the\nbusiness of religion by carrying that religion on with a large capital\nof prayer. The apostles understood this when they declared that their\ntime must not be employed in even the sacred duties of alms-giving; they\nmust give themselves, they said, \u201ccontinually to prayer and to the\nministry of the Word,\u201d prayer being put first with them and the ministry\nof the Word having its efficiency and life from prayer.\n\nThe process of hindering prayer by crowding out is simple and goes by\nadvancing stages. First, prayer is hurried through. Unrest and\nagitation, fatal to all devout exercises, come in. Then the time is\nshortened, relish for the exercise palls. Then it is crowded into a\ncorner and depends on the fragments of time for its exercise. Its value\ndepreciates. The duty has lost its importance. It no longer commands\nrespect nor brings benefit. It has fallen out of estimate, out of the\nheart, out of the habits, out of the life. We cease to pray and cease to\nlive spiritually.\n\nThere is no stay to the desolating floods of worldliness and business\nand cares, but prayer. Christ meant this when He charged us to watch and\npray. There is no pioneering corps for the Gospel but prayer. Paul knew\nthat when he declared that \u201cnight and day he prayed exceedingly that we\nmight see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your\nfaith.\u201d There is no arriving at a high state of grace without much\npraying and no staying in those high altitudes without great praying.\nEpaphras knew this when he \u201claboured fervently in prayers\u201d for the\nColossian Church, \u201cthat they might stand perfect and complete in all the\nwill of God.\u201d\n\nThe only way to preserve our praying from being hindered is to estimate\nprayer at its true and great value. Estimate it as Daniel did, who, when\nhe \u201cknew that the writing was signed he went into his house, and his\nwindows being opened to Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times\na day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime.\u201d\nPut praying into the high values as Daniel did, above place, honour,\nease, wealth, life. Put praying into the habits as Daniel did. \u201cAs he\ndid aforetime\u201d has much in it to give firmness and fidelity in the hour\nof trial; much in it to remove hindrances and master opposing\ncircumstances.\n\nOne of Satan\u2019s wiliest tricks is to destroy the best by the good.\nBusiness and other duties are good, but we are so filled with these that\nthey crowd out and destroy the best. Prayer holds the citadel for God,\nand if Satan can by any means weaken prayer he is a gainer so far, and\nwhen prayer is dead the citadel is taken. We must keep prayer as the\nfaithful sentinel keeps guard, with sleepless vigilance. We must not\nkeep it half-starved and feeble as a baby, but we must keep it in giant\nstrength. Our prayer-chamber should have our freshest strength, our\ncalmest time, its hours unfettered, without obtrusion, without haste.\nPrivate place and plenty of time are the life of prayer. \u201cTo kneel upon\nour knees three times a day and pray and give thanks before God as we\ndid aforetime,\u201d is the very heart and soul of religion, and makes men,\nlike Daniel, of \u201can excellent spirit,\u201d \u201cgreatly beloved in heaven.\u201d\n\nThe greatness of prayer, involving as it does the whole man, in the\nintensest form, is not realised without spiritual discipline. This makes\nit hard work, and before this exacting and consuming effort our\nspiritual sloth or feebleness stands abashed.\n\nThe simplicity of prayer, its child-like elements form a great obstacle\nto true praying. Intellect gets in the way of the heart. The child\nspirit only is the spirit of prayer. It is no holiday occupation to make\nthe man a child again. In song, in poetry, in memory he may wish himself\na child again, but in prayer he must be a child again in reality. At his\nmother\u2019s knee, artless, sweet, intense, direct, trustful. With no shade\nof doubt, no temper to be denied. A desire which burns and consumes\nwhich can only be voiced by a cry. It is no easy work to have this\nchild-like spirit of prayer.\n\nIf praying were but an hour in the closet, difficulties would face and\nhinder even that hour, but praying is the whole life preparing for the\ncloset. How difficult it is to cover home and business, all the sweets\nand all the bitters of life, with the holy atmosphere of the closet! A\nholy life is the only preparation for prayer. It is just as difficult to\npray, as it is to live a holy life. In this we find a wall of exclusion\nbuilt around our closets; men do not love holy praying, because they do\nnot love and will not do holy living. Montgomery sets forth the\ndifficulties of true praying when he declares the sublimity and\nsimplicity of prayer.\n\n               Prayer is the simplest form of speech\n                 That infant lips can try.\n               Prayer is the sublimest strains that reach\n                 The Majesty on high.\n\nThis is not only good poetry, but a profound truth as to the loftiness\nand simplicity of prayer. There are great difficulties in reaching the\nexalted, angelic strains of prayer. The difficulty of coming down to the\nsimplicity of infant lips is not much less.\n\nPrayer in the Old Testament is called wrestling. Conflict and skill,\nstrenuous, exhaustive effort are involved. In the New Testament we have\nthe terms striving, labouring fervently, fervent, effectual, agony, all\nindicating intense effort put forth, difficulties overcome. We, in our\npraises sing out\u2014\n\n                    \u201cWhat various hindrances we meet\n                     In coming to a mercy seat.\u201d\n\nWe also have learned that the gracious results secured by prayer are\ngenerally proportioned to the outlay in removing the hindrances which\nobstruct our soul\u2019s high communion with God.\n\nChrist spake a parable to this end, that men ought always to pray and\nnot to faint. The parable of the importunate widow teaches the\ndifficulties in praying, how they are to be surmounted, and the happy\nresults which follow from valorous praying. Difficulties will always\nobstruct the way to the closet as long as it remains true,\n\n                  \u201cThat Satan trembles when he sees\n                   The weakest saint upon his knees.\u201d\n\nCourageous faith is made stronger and purer by mastering difficulties.\nThese difficulties but couch the eye of faith to the glorious prize\nwhich is to be won by the successful wrestler in prayer. Men must not\nfaint in the contest of prayer, but to this high and holy work they must\ngive themselves, defying the difficulties in the way, and experience\nmore than an angel\u2019s happiness in the results. Luther said: \u201cTo have\nprayed well is to have studied well.\u201d More than that, to have prayed\nwell is to have fought well. To have prayed well is to have lived well.\nTo pray well is to die well.\n\nPrayer is a rare gift, not a popular, ready gift. Prayer is not the\nfruit of natural talents; it is the product of faith, of holiness, of\ndeeply spiritual character. Men learn to pray as they learn to love.\nPerfection in simplicity, in humility in faith\u2014these form its chief\ningredients. Novices in these graces are not adepts in prayer. It cannot\nbe seized upon by untrained hands; graduates in heaven\u2019s highest school\nof art can alone touch its finest keys, raise its sweetest, highest\nnotes. Fine material, fine finish are requisite. Master workmen are\nrequired, for mere journeymen cannot execute the work of prayer.\n\nThe spirit of prayer should rule our spirits and our conduct. The spirit\nof the prayer-chamber must control our lives or the closest hour will be\ndull and sapless. Always praying in spirit; always acting in the spirit\nof praying; these make our praying strong. The spirit of every moment is\nthat which imparts strength to the closet communion. It is what we are\nout of the closet which gives victory or brings defeat to the closet. If\nthe spirit of the world prevails in our non-closet hours, the spirit of\nthe world will prevail in our closet hours, and that will be a vain and\nidle farce.\n\nWe must live for God out of the closet if we would meet God in the\ncloset. We must bless God by praying lives if we would have God\u2019s\nblessing in the closet. We must do God\u2019s will in our lives if we would\nhave God\u2019s ear in the closet. We must listen to God\u2019s voice in public if\nwe would have God listen to our voice in private. God must have our\nhearts out of the closet, if we would have God\u2019s presence in the closet.\nIf we would have God in the closet, God must have us out of the closet.\nThere is no way of praying to God, but by living to God. The closet is\nnot a confessional, simply, but the hour of holy communion and high and\nsweet intercourse and of intense intercession.\n\nMen would pray better if they lived better. They would get more from God\nif they lived more obedient and well pleasing to God. We would have more\nstrength and time for the Divine work of intercession if we did not have\nto expend so much strength and time settling up old scores and paying\nour delinquent taxes. Our spiritual liabilities are so greatly in excess\nof our spiritual assets that our closet time is spent in taking out a\ndecree of bankruptcy instead of being the time of great spiritual wealth\nfor us and for others. Our closets are too much like the sign, \u201cClosed\nfor Repairs.\u201d\n\nJohn said of primitive Christian praying, \u201cWhatsoever we ask we receive\nof Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things which are\npleasing in His sight.\u201d We should note what illimitable grounds were\ncovered, what illimitable gifts were received by their strong praying:\n\u201cWhatsoever\u201d\u2014how comprehensive the range and reception of mighty\npraying; how suggestive the reasons for the ability to pray and to have\nprayers answered. Obedience, but more than mere obedience, doing the\nthings which please God well. They went to their closets made strong by\ntheir strict obedience and loving fidelity to God in their conduct.\nTheir lives were not only true and obedient, but they were thinking\nabout things above obedience, searching for and doing things to make God\nglad. These can come with eager step and radiant countenance to meet\ntheir Father in the closet, not simply to be forgiven, but to be\napproved and to receive.\n\nIt makes much difference whether we come to God as a criminal or a\nchild; to be pardoned or to be approved; to settle scores or to be\nembraced; for punishment or for favour. Our praying to be strong must be\nbuttressed by holy living. The name of Christ must be honoured by our\nlives before it will honour our intercessions. The life of faith\nperfects the prayer of faith.\n\nOur lives not only give colour to our praying, but they give body to it\nas well. Bad living makes bad praying. We pray feebly because we live\nfeebly. The stream of praying cannot rise higher than the fountain of\nliving. The closet force is made up of the energy which flows from the\nconfluent streams of living. The feebleness of living throws its\nfaintness into closet homes. We cannot talk to God strongly when we have\nnot lived for God strongly. The closet cannot be made holy to God when\nthe life has not been holy to God. The Word of God emphasises our\nconduct as giving value to our praying. \u201cThen shalt thou call and the\nLord shalt answer, Thou shalt cry and He shall say, Here I am. If thou\ntake away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth the finger,\nand speaking vanity.\u201d\n\nMen are to pray \u201clifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.\u201d We\nare to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear if we would call on\nthe Father. We cannot divorce praying from conduct. \u201cWhatsoever we ask\nwe receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things\nthat are pleasing in His sight.\u201d \u201cYe ask and receive not because ye ask\namiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts.\u201d The injunction of Christ,\n\u201cWatch and pray,\u201d is to cover and guard conduct that we may come to our\nclosets with all the force secured by a vigilant guard over our lives.\n\nOur religion breaks down oftenest and most sadly in our conduct.\nBeautiful theories are marred by ugly lives. The most difficult as well\nas the most impressive point in piety is to live it. Our praying suffers\nas much as our religion from bad living. Preachers were charged in\nprimitive times to preach by their lives or preach not at all. So\nChristians everywhere ought to be charged to pray by their lives or pray\nnot at all. Of course, the prayer of repentance is acceptable. But\nrepentance means to quit doing wrong and learn to do well. A repentance\nwhich does not produce a change in conduct is a sham. Praying which does\nnot result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole\noffice and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in\nthe very nature of things that we must quit praying or quit bad conduct.\nCold, dead praying may exist with bad conduct, but cold, dead praying is\nno praying in God\u2019s esteem. Our praying advances in power as it\nrectifies the life. A life growing in its purity and devotion will be a\nmore prayerful life.\n\nThe pity is that so much of our praying is without object or aim. It is\nwithout purpose. How much praying there is by men and women who never\nabide in Christ\u2014hasty praying, sweet praying full of sentiment,\npleasing praying, but not backed by a life wedded to Christ. Popular\npraying! How much of this praying is from unsanctified hearts and\nunhallowed lips! Prayers spring into life under the influence of some\ngreat excitement, by some pressing emergency, through some popular\nclamour, some great peril. But the conditions of prayer are not there.\nWe rush into God\u2019s presence and try to link Him to our cause, inflame\nHim with our passions, move Him by our peril. All things are to be\nprayed for\u2014but with clean hands, with absolute deference to God\u2019s will\nand abiding in Christ. Prayerless praying by lips and hearts untrained\nto prayer, by lives out of harmony with Jesus Christ; prayerless\npraying, which has the form and motion of prayer but is without the true\nheart of prayer, never moves God to an answer. It is of such praying\nthat James says: \u201cYe have not because ye ask not; ye ask and receive\nnot, because ye ask amiss.\u201d\n\nThe two great evils\u2014not asking, and asking in a wrong way. Perhaps the\ngreater evil is wrong asking, for it has in it the show of duty done, of\npraying when there has been no praying\u2014a deceit, a fraud, a sham. The\ntimes of the most praying are not really the times of the best praying.\nThe Pharisees prayed much, but they were actuated by vanity; their\npraying was the symbol of their hypocrisy by which they made God\u2019s house\nof prayer a den of robbers. Theirs was praying on state\noccasions\u2014mechanical, perfunctory, professional, beautiful in words,\nfragrant in sentiment, well ordered, well received by the ears that\nheard, but utterly devoid of every element of real prayer.\n\nThe conditions of prayer are well ordered and clear\u2014abiding in Christ;\nin His name. One of the first necessities, if we are to grasp the\ninfinite possibilities of prayer, is to get rid of prayerless praying.\nIt is often beautiful in words and in execution; it has the drapery of\nprayer in rich and costly form, but it lacks the soul of praying. We\nfall so easily into the habit of prayerless service, of merely filling a\nprogramme.\n\nIf men only prayed on all occasions and in every place where they go\nthrough the motion! If there were only holy inflamed hearts back of all\nthese beautiful words and gracious forms! If there were always uplifted\nhearts in these erect men who are uttering flawless but vain words\nbefore God! If there were always reverent bended hearts when bended\nknees are uttering words before God to please men\u2019s ears!\n\nThere is nothing that will preserve the life of prayer; its vigour,\nsweetness, obligations, seriousness and value, so much as a deep\nconviction that prayer is an approach to God, a pleading with God, an\nasking of God. Reality will then be in it; reverence will then be in the\nattitude, in the place, and in the air. Faith will draw, kindle and\nopen. Formality and deadness cannot live in this high and all-serious\nhome of the soul.\n\nPrayerless praying lacks the essential element of true praying; it is\nnot based on desire, and is devoid of earnestness and faith. Desire\nburdens the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels. Prayerless\npraying has no burden, because no sense of need; no ardency, because\nnone of the vision, strength, or glow of faith. No mighty pressure to\nprayer, no holding on to God with the deathless, despairing grasp, \u201cI\nwill not let Thee go except Thou bless me.\u201d No utter self-abandon, lost\nin the throes of a desperate, pertinacious, and consuming plea: \u201cYet now\nif Thou wilt forgive their sin\u2014if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy\nbook;\u201d or, \u201cGive me Scotland, or I die.\u201d Prayerless praying stakes\nnothing on the issue, for it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty\nhands, indeed, but they are listless hands as well as empty. They have\nnever learned the lesson of empty hands clinging to the cross; this\nlesson to them has no form nor comeliness.\n\nPrayerless praying has no heart in its praying. The lack of heart\ndeprives praying of its reality, and makes it an empty and unfit vessel.\nHeart, soul, life must be in our praying; the heavens must feel the\nforce of our crying, and must be brought into oppressed sympathy for our\nbitter and needy state. A need that oppresses us, and has no relief but\nin our crying to God, must voice our praying.\n\nPrayerless praying is insincere. It has no honesty at heart. We name in\nwords what we do not want in heart. Our prayers give formal utterance to\nthe things for which our hearts are not only not hungry, but for which\nthey really have no taste. We once heard an eminent and saintly\npreacher, now in heaven, come abruptly and sharply on a congregation\nthat had just risen from prayer, with the question and statement, \u201cWhat\ndid you pray for? If God should take hold of you and shake you, and\ndemand what you prayed for, you could not tell Him to save your life\nwhat the prayer was that has just died from your lips.\u201d So it always is,\nprayerless praying has neither memory nor heart. A mere form, a\nheterogeneous mass, an insipid compound, a mixture thrown together for\nsound and to fill up, but with neither heart nor aim, is prayerless\npraying. A dry routine, a dreary drudge, a dull and heavy task is this\nprayerless praying.\n\nBut prayerless praying is much worse than either task or drudge, it\ndivorces praying from living; it utters its words against the world, but\nwith heart and life runs into the world; it prays for humility, but\nnurtures pride; prays for self-denial, while indulging the flesh.\nNothing exceeds in gracious results true praying, but better not to pray\nat all than to pray prayerless prayers, for they are but sinning, and\nthe worst of sinning is to sin on our knees.\n\nThe prayer habit is a good habit, but praying by dint of habit only is a\nvery bad habit. This kind of praying is not conditioned after God\u2019s\norder, nor generated by God\u2019s power. It is not only a waste, a\nperversion, and a delusion, but it is a prolific source of unbelief.\nPrayerless praying gets no results. God is not reached, self is not\nhelped. It is better not to pray at all than to secure no results from\npraying. Better for the one who prays, better for others. Men hear of\nthe prodigious results which are to be secured by prayer: the matchless\ngood promised in God\u2019s Word to prayer. These keen-eyed worldlings or\ntimid little faith ones mark the great discrepancy between the results\npromised and results realised, and are led necessarily to doubt the\ntruth and worth of that which is so big in promise and so beggarly in\nresults. Religion and God are dishonoured, doubt and unbelief are\nstrengthened by much asking and no getting.\n\nIn contrast with this, what a mighty force prayerful praying is. Real\nprayer helps God and man. God\u2019s Kingdom is advanced by it. The greatest\ngood comes to man by it. Prayer can do anything that God can do. The\npity is that we do not believe this as we ought, and we do not put it to\nthe test.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _The deepest need of the Church to-day is not for any material or\n  external thing, but the deepest need is spiritual. Prayerless work\n  will never bring in the kingdom. We neglect to pray in the\n  prescribed way. We seldom enter the closet and shut the door for a\n  season of prayer. Kingdom interests are pressing on us thick and\n  fast and we must pray. Prayerless giving will never evangelise the\n  world._\n                                                  \u2014DR. A. J. GORDON.\n\n\n  _The great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need of the\n  Christian\u2019s life, is intimately bound up in the personal fulness of\n  the Holy Spirit. It is \u201cby the One Spirit we have access unto the\n  Father\u201d (Eph. ii. 18), and by the same Spirit, having entered the\n  audience chamber through the \u201cnew and living way,\u201d we are enabled\n  to pray in the will of God (Rom. viii. 15, 26-27; Gal. iv. 6; Eph.\n  vi. 18; Jude 20-21)._\n\n  _Here is the secret of prevailing prayer, to pray under a direct\n  inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us and through\n  us are always according to the Divine purpose, and hence certain of\n  answer. \u201cPraying in the Holy Ghost\u201d is but co-operating with the\n  will of God, and such prayer is always victorious. How many\n  Christians there are who cannot pray, and who seek by effort,\n  resolve, joining prayer circles, etc., to cultivate in themselves\n  the \u201choly art of intercession,\u201d and all to no purpose. Here for\n  them and for all is the only secret of a real prayer life\u2014\u201cBe\n  filled with the Spirit,\u201d who is \u201cthe Spirit of grace and\n  supplication.\u201d_\n                                        \u2014REV. J. STUART HOLDEN, M.A.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   XI\n\n\nTHE preceding chapter closed with the statement that prayer can do\nanything that God can do. It is a tremendous statement to make, but it\nis a statement borne out by history and experience. If we are abiding in\nChrist\u2014and if we abide in Him we are living in obedience to His holy\nwill\u2014and approach God in His name, then there lie open before us the\ninfinite resources of the Divine treasure-house.\n\nThe man who truly prays gets from God many things denied to the\nprayerless man. The aim of all real praying is to get the thing prayed\nfor, as the child\u2019s cry for bread has for its end the getting of bread.\nThis view removes prayer clean out of the sphere of religious\nperformances. Prayer is not acting a part or going through religious\nmotions. Prayer is neither official nor formal nor ceremonial, but\ndirect, hearty, intense. Prayer is not religious work which must be gone\nthrough, and avails because well done. Prayer is the helpless and needy\nchild crying to the compassion of the Father\u2019s heart and the bounty and\npower of a Father\u2019s hand. The answer is as sure to come as the Father\u2019s\nheart can be touched and the Father\u2019s hand moved.\n\nThe object of asking is to receive. The aim of seeking is to find. The\npurpose of knocking is to arouse attention and get in, and this is\nChrist\u2019s iterated and re-iterated asseveration that the prayer without\ndoubt will be answered, its end without doubt secured. Not by some\nround-about way, but by getting the very thing asked for.\n\nThe value of prayer does not lie in the number of prayers, or the length\nof prayers, but its value is found in the great truth that we are\nprivileged by our relations to God to unburden our desires and make our\nrequests known to God, and He will relieve by granting our petitions.\nThe child asks because the parent is in the habit of granting the\nchild\u2019s requests. As the children of God we need something and we need\nit badly, and we go to God for it. Neither the Bible nor the child of\nGod knows anything of that half-infidel declaration, that we are to\nanswer our own prayers. God answers prayer. The true Christian does not\npray to stir himself up, but his prayer is the stirring up of himself to\ntake hold of God. The heart of faith knows nothing of that specious\nscepticism which stays the steps of prayer and chills its ardour by\nwhispering that prayer does not affect God.\n\nD. L. Moody used to tell a story of a little child whose father and\nmother had died, and who was taken into another family. The first night\nshe asked whether she could pray as she used to do. They said: \u201cOh,\nyes!\u201d So she knelt down and prayed as her mother had taught her; and\nwhen that was ended, she added a little prayer of her own: \u201cO God, make\nthese people as kind to me as father and mother were.\u201d Then she paused\nand looked up, as if expecting the answer, and then added: \u201cOf course\nyou will.\u201d How sweetly simple was that little one\u2019s faith! She expected\nGod to answer and \u201cdo,\u201d and \u201cof course\u201d she got her request, and that is\nthe spirit in which God invites us to approach Him.\n\nIn contrast to that incident is the story told of the quaint Yorkshire\nclass leader, Daniel Quorm, who was visiting a friend. One forenoon he\ncame to the friend and said, \u201cI am sorry you have met with such a great\ndisappointment.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, no,\u201d said the man, \u201cI have not met with any disappointment.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Daniel, \u201cyou were expecting something remarkable to-day.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d said the friend.\n\n\u201cWhy you prayed that you might be kept sweet and gentle all day long.\nAnd, by the way things have been going, I see you have been greatly\ndisappointed.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d said the man, \u201cI thought you meant something particular.\u201d\n\nPrayer is mighty in its operations, and God never disappoints those who\nput their trust and confidence in Him. They may have to wait long for\nthe answer, and they may not live to see it, but the prayer of faith\nnever misses its object.\n\n\u201cA friend of mine in Cincinnati had preached his sermon and sank back in\nhis chair, when he felt impelled to make another appeal,\u201d says Dr. J.\nWilbur Chapman. \u201cA boy at the back of the church lifted his hand. My\nfriend left the pulpit and went down to him, and said, \u2018Tell me about\nyourself.\u2019 The boy said, \u2018I live in New York. I am a prodigal. I have\ndisgraced my father\u2019s name and broken my mother\u2019s heart. I ran away and\ntold them I would never come back until I became a Christian or they\nbrought me home dead.\u2019 That night there went from Cincinnati a letter\ntelling his father and mother that their boy had turned to God.\n\n\u201cSeven days later, in a black-bordered envelope, a reply came which\nread: \u2018My dear boy, when I got the news that you had received Jesus\nChrist the sky was overcast; your father was dead.\u2019 Then the letter went\non to tell how the father had prayed for his prodigal boy with his last\nbreath, and concluded, \u2018You are a Christian to-night because your old\nfather would not let you go.\u2019\u201d\n\nA fourteen-year-old boy was given a task by his father. It so happened\nthat a group of boys came along just then and wiled the boy away with\nthem, and so the work went undone. But the father came home that evening\nand said, \u201cFrank, did you do the work that I gave you?\u201d \u201cYes, sir,\u201d said\nFrank. He told an untruth, and his father knew it, but said nothing. It\ntroubled the boy, but he went to bed as usual. Next morning his mother\nsaid to him, \u201cYour father did not sleep all last night.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t he sleep?\u201d asked Frank.\n\nHis mother said, \u201cHe spent the whole night praying for you.\u201d\n\nThis sent the arrow into his heart. He was deeply convicted of his sin,\nand knew no rest until he had got right with God. Long afterward, when\nthe boy became Bishop Warne, he said that his decision for Christ came\nfrom his father\u2019s prayer that night. He saw his father keeping his\nlonely and sorrowful vigil praying for his boy, and it broke his heart.\nSaid he, \u201cI can never be sufficiently grateful to him for that prayer.\u201d\n\nAn evangelist, much used of God, has put on record that he commenced a\nseries of meetings in a little church of about twenty members who were\nvery cold and dead, and much divided. A little prayer-meeting was kept\nup by two or three women. \u201cI preached, and closed at eight o\u2019clock,\u201d he\nsays. \u201cThere was no one to speak or pray. The next evening one man\nspoke.\n\n\u201cThe next morning I rode six miles to a minister\u2019s study, and kneeled in\nprayer. I went back, and said to the little church:\n\n\u201c\u2018If you can make out enough to board me, I will stay until God opens\nthe windows of heaven. God has promised to bless these means, and I\nbelieve He will.\u2019\n\n\u201cWithin ten days there were so many anxious souls that I met one hundred\nand fifty of them at a time in an inquiry meeting, while Christians were\npraying in another house of worship. Several hundred, I think, were\nconverted. It is safe to believe God.\u201d\n\nA mother asked the late John B. Gough to visit her son to win him to\nChrist. Gough found the young man\u2019s mind full of sceptical notions, and\nimpervious to argument. Finally, the young man was asked to pray, just\nonce, for light. He replied: \u201cI do not know anything perfect to whom or\nto which I could pray.\u201d \u201cHow about your mother\u2019s love?\u201d said the orator.\n\u201cIsn\u2019t that perfect? Hasn\u2019t she always stood by you, and been ready to\ntake you in, and care for you, when even your father had really kicked\nyou out?\u201d The young man chocked with emotion, and said, \u201cY-e-s, sir;\nthat is so.\u201d \u201cThen pray to Love\u2014it will help you. Will you promise?\u201d He\npromised. That night the young man prayed in the privacy of his room. He\nkneeled down, closed his eyes, and struggling a moment uttered the\nwords: \u201cO Love.\u201d Instantly as by a flash of lightning, the old Bible\ntext came to him: \u201cGod is love,\u201d and he said, brokenly, \u201cO God!\u201d Then\nanother flash of Divine truth, and a voice said, \u201cGod so loved the\nworld, that He gave His only begotten Son,\u201d\u2014and there, instantly, he\nexclaimed, \u201cO Christ, Thou incarnation of Divinest love, show me light\nand truth.\u201d It was all over. He was in the light of the most perfect\npeace. He ran downstairs, adds the narrator of this incident, and told\nhis mother that he was saved. That young man is to-day an eloquent\nminister of Jesus Christ.\n\nA water famine was threatened in Hakodate, Japan. Miss Dickerson, of the\nMethodist Episcopal Girls\u2019 School, saw the water supply growing less\ndaily, and in one of the fall months appealed to the Board in New York\nfor help. There was no money on hand, and nothing was done. Miss\nDickerson inquired the cost of putting down an artesian well, but found\nthe expense too great to be undertaken. On the evening of December 31st,\nwhen the water was almost exhausted, the teachers and the older pupils\nmet to pray for water, though they had no idea how their prayer was to\nbe answered. A couple of days later a letter was received in the New\nYork office which ran something like this: \u201cPhiladelphia, January 1st.\nIt is six o\u2019clock in the morning of New Year\u2019s Day. All the other\nmembers of the family are asleep, but I was awakened with a strange\nimpression that some one, somewhere, is in need of money which the Lord\nwants me to supply.\u201d Enclosed was a cheque for an amount which just\ncovered the cost of the artesian well and the piping of the water into\nthe school buildings.\n\n\u201cI have seen God\u2019s hand stretched out to heal among the heathen in as\nmighty wonder-working power as in apostolic times,\u201d once said a\nwell-known minister to the writer. \u201cI was preaching to two thousand\nfamine orphan girls, at Kedgaum, India, at Ramabai\u2019s Mukti (salvation)\nMission. A swarm of serpents as venomous and deadly as the reptile that\nsmote Paul, suddenly raided the walled grounds, \u2018sent of Satan,\u2019 Ramabai\nsaid, and several of her most beautiful and faithful Christian girls\nwere smitten by them, two of them bitten twice. I saw four of the very\nflower of her flock in convulsions at once, unconscious and apparently\nin the agonies of death.\n\n\u201cRamabai believes the Bible with an implicit and obedient faith. There\nwere three of us missionaries there. She said: \u2018We will do just what the\nBible says, I want you to minister for their healing according to James\nv. 14-18.\u2019 She led the way into the dormitory where her girls were lying\nin spasms, and we laid our hands upon their heads and prayed, and\nanointed them with oil in the name of the Lord. Each of them was healed\nas soon as anointed and sat up and sang with faces shining. That miracle\nand marvel among the heathen mightily confirmed the word of the Lord,\nand was a profound and overpowering proclamation of God.\u201d\n\nSome years ago, the record of a wonderful work of grace in connection\nwith one of the stations of the China Inland Mission attracted a good\ndeal of attention. Both the number and spiritual character of the\nconverts had been far greater than at other stations where the\nconsecration of the missionaries had been just as great as at the more\nfruitful place.\n\nThis rich harvest of souls remained a mystery until Hudson Taylor on a\nvisit to England discovered the secret. At the close of one of his\naddresses a gentleman came forward to make his acquaintance. In the\nconversation which followed, Mr. Taylor was surprised at the accurate\nknowledge the man possessed concerning this inland China station. \u201cBut\nhow is it,\u201d Mr. Taylor asked, \u201cthat you are so conversant with the\nconditions of that work?\u201d \u201cOh!\u201d he replied, \u201cthe missionary there and I\nare old college-mates; for years we have regularly corresponded; he has\nsent me names of enquirers and converts, and these I have daily taken to\nGod in prayer.\u201d\n\nAt last the secret was found! A praying man at home, praying definitely,\npraying daily, for specific cases among the heathen. That is the real\nintercessory missionary.\n\nHudson Taylor himself, as all the world knows, was a man who knew how to\npray and whose praying was blessed with fruitful answers. In the story\nof his life, told by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, we find page after page\naglow with answered prayer. On his way out to China for the first time,\nin 1853, when he was only twenty-one years of age, he had a definite\nanswer to prayer that was a great encouragement to his faith. \u201cThey had\njust come through the Dampier Strait, but were not yet out of sight of\nthe islands. Usually a breeze would spring up after sunset and last\nuntil about dawn. The utmost use was made of it, but during the day they\nlay still with flapping sails, often drifting back and losing a good\ndeal of the advantage gained at night.\u201d The story continues in Hudson\nTaylor\u2019s own words:\n\n\u201cThis happened notably on one occasion when we were in dangerous\nproximity to the north of New Guinea. Saturday night had brought us to a\npoint some thirty miles off the land, and during the Sunday morning\nservice, which was held on deck, I could not fail to see that the\nCaptain looked troubled and frequently went over to the side of the\nship. When the service was ended I learnt from him the cause. A\nfour-knot current was carrying us toward some sunken reefs, and we were\nalready so near that it seemed improbable that we should get through the\nafternoon in safety. After dinner, the long boat was put out and all\nhands endeavoured, without success, to turn the ship\u2019s head from the\nshore.\n\n\u201cAfter standing together on the deck for some time in silence, the\nCaptain said to me:\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, we have done everything that can be done. We can only await the\nresult.\u2019\n\n\u201cA thought occurred to me, and I replied: \u2018No, there is one thing we\nhave not done yet.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018What is that?\u2019 he queried.\n\n\u201c\u2018Four of us on board are Christians. Let us each retire to his own\ncabin, and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us immediately a\nbreeze. He can as easily send it now as at sunset.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe Captain complied with this proposal. I went and spoke to the other\ntwo men, and after prayer with the carpenter, we all four retired to\nwait upon God. I had a good but very brief season in prayer, and then\nfelt so satisfied that our request was granted that I could not continue\nasking, and very soon went up again on deck. The first officer, a\ngodless man, was in charge. I went over and asked him to let down the\nclews or corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to\nlessen the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging.\n\n\u201c\u2018What would be the good of that?\u2019 he answered roughly.\n\n\u201cI told him we had been asking a wind from God; that it was coming\nimmediately; and we were so near the reef by this time that there was\nnot a minute to lose.\n\n\u201cWith an oath and a look of contempt, he said he would rather see a wind\nthan hear of it.\n\n\u201cBut while he was speaking I watched his eye, following it up to the\nroyal, and there, sure enough, the corner of the topmost sail was\nbeginning to tremble in the breeze.\n\n\u201c\u2018Don\u2019t you see the wind is coming? Look at the royal!\u2019 I exclaimed.\n\n\u201c\u2018No, it is only a cat\u2019s paw,\u2019 he rejoined (a mere puff of wind).\n\n\u201c\u2018Cat\u2019s paw or not,\u2019 I cried, \u2018pray let down the mainsail and give us\nthe benefit.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis he was not slow to do. In another minute the heavy tread of the\nmen on deck brought up the Captain from his cabin to see what was the\nmatter. The breeze had indeed come! In a few minutes we were ploughing\nour way at six or seven knots an hour through the water ... and though\nthe wind was sometimes unsteady, we did not altogether lose it until\nafter passing the Pelew Islands.\n\n\u201cThus God encouraged me,\u201d adds this praying saint, \u201cere landing on\nChina\u2019s shores to bring every variety of need to Him in prayer, and to\nexpect that He would honour the name of the Lord Jesus and give the help\neach emergency required.\u201d\n\nIn an address at Cambridge some time ago (reported in \u201cThe Life of\nFaith,\u201d April 3rd, 1912), Mr. S. D. Gordon told in his own inimitable\nway the story of a man in his own country, to illustrate from real life\nthe fact of the reality of prayer, and that it is not mere talking.\n\n\u201cThis man,\u201d said Mr. Gordon, \u201ccame of an old New England family, a bit\nfarther back an English family. He was a giant in size, and a keen man\nmentally, and a university-trained man. He had gone out West to live,\nand represented a prominent district in our House of Congress, answering\nto your House of Commons. He was a prominent leader there. He was reared\nin a Christian family, but he was a sceptic, and used to lecture against\nChristianity. He told me he was fond, in his lectures, of proving, as he\nthought, conclusively, that there was no God. That was the type of his\ninfidelity.\n\n\u201cOne day he told me he was sitting in the Lower House of Congress. It\nwas at the time of a Presidential Election, and when party feeling ran\nhigh. One would have thought that was the last place where a man would\nbe likely to think about spiritual things. He said: \u2018I was sitting in my\nseat in that crowded House and that heated atmosphere, when a feeling\ncame to me that the God, whose existence I thought I could successfully\ndisprove, was just there above me, looking down on me, and that He was\ndispleased with me, and with the way I was doing. I said to myself,\n\u2018This is ridiculous, I guess I\u2019ve been working too hard. I\u2019ll go and get\na good meal and take a long walk and shake myself, and see if that will\ntake this feeling away.\u2019 He got his extra meal, took a walk, and came\nback to his seat, but the impression would not be shaken off that God\nwas there and was displeased with him. He went for a walk, day after\nday, but could never shake the feeling off. Then he went back to his\nconstituency in his State, he said, to arrange matters there. He had the\nambition to be the Governor of his State, and his party was the dominant\nparty in the State, and, as far as such things could be judged, he was\nin the line to become Governor there, in one of the most dominant States\nof our Central West. He said: \u2018I went home to fix that thing up as far\nas I could, and to get ready for it. But I had hardly reached home and\nexchanged greetings, when my wife, who was an earnest Christian woman,\nsaid to me that a few of them had made a little covenant of prayer that\nI might become a Christian.\u2019 He did not want her to know the experience\nthat he had just been going through, and so he said as carelessly as he\ncould, \u2018When did this thing begin, this praying of yours?\u2019 She named the\ndate. Then he did some very quick thinking, and he knew, as he thought\nback, that it was the day on the calendar when that strange impression\ncame to him for the first time.\n\n\u201cHe said to me: \u2018I was tremendously shaken. I wanted to be honest. I was\nperfectly honest in not believing in God, and I thought I was right. But\nif what she said was true, then merely as a lawyer sifting his evidence\nin a case, it would be good evidence that there was really something in\ntheir prayer. I was terrifically shaken, and wanted to be honest, and\ndid not know what to do. That same night I went to a little Methodist\nchapel, and if somebody had known how to talk with me, I think I should\nhave accepted Christ that night.\u2019 Then he said that the next night he\nwent back again to that chapel, where meetings were being held each\nnight, and there he kneeled at the altar, and yielded his great strong\nwill to the will of God. Then he said, \u2018I knew I was to preach,\u2019 and he\nis preaching still in a Western State. That is half of the story. I also\ntalked with his wife\u2014I wanted to put the two halves together, so as to\nget the bit of teaching in it all\u2014and she told me this. She had been a\nChristian\u2014what you call a nominal Christian\u2014a strange confusion of\nterms. Then there came a time when she was led into a full surrender of\nher life to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then she said, \u2018At once there came a\ngreat intensifying of desire that my husband might be a Christian, and\nwe made that little compact to pray for him each day until he became a\nChristian. That night I was kneeling at my bedside before going to rest,\npraying for my husband, praying very earnestly and then a voice said to\nme, \u2018Are you willing for the results that will come if your husband is\nconverted?\u2019 The little message was so very distinct that she said she\nwas frightened; she had never had such an experience. But she went on\npraying still more earnestly, and again there came the quiet voice, \u2018Are\nyou willing for the consequences?\u2019 And again there was a sense of being\nstartled, frightened. But she still went on praying, and wondering what\nthis meant, and a third time the quiet voice came more quietly than ever\nas she described it, \u2018Are you willing for the consequences?\u2019\n\n\u201cThen she told me she said with great earnestness, \u2018O God, I am willing\nfor anything Thou dost think good, if only my husband may know Thee, and\nbecome a true Christian man.\u2019 She said that instantly, when that prayer\ncame from her lips, there came into her heart a wonderful sense of\npeace, a great peace that she could not explain, a \u2018peace that passeth\nunderstanding,\u2019 and from that moment\u2014it was the very night of the\ncovenant, the night when her husband had that first strange\nexperience\u2014the assurance never left her that he would accept Christ.\nBut all those weeks she prayed with the firm assurance that the result\nwas coming. What were the consequences? They were of a kind that I think\nno one would think small. She was the wife of a man in a very prominent\npolitical position; she was the wife of a man who was in the line of\nbecoming the first official of his State, and she officially the first\nlady socially of that State, with all the honour that that social\nstanding would imply. Now she is the wife of a Methodist preacher, with\nher home changed every two or three years, she going from this place to\nthat, a very different social position, and having a very different\nincome than she would otherwise have had. Yet I never met a woman who\nhad more of the wonderful peace of God in her heart, and of the light of\nGod in her face, than that woman.\u201d\n\nAnd Mr. Gordon\u2019s comment on that incident is this: \u201cNow, you can see at\nonce that there was no change in the purpose of God through that prayer.\nThe prayer worked out His purpose; it did not change it. But the woman\u2019s\nsurrender gave the opportunity of working out the will that God wanted\nto work out. If we might give ourselves to Him and learn His will, and\nuse all our strength in learning His will and bending to His will, then\nwe would begin to pray, and there is simply nothing that could resist\nthe tremendous power of the prayer. Oh for more men who will be simple\nenough to get in touch with God, and give Him the mastery of the whole\nlife, and learn His will, and then give themselves, as Jesus gave\nHimself, to the sacred service of intercession!\u201d\n\nTo the man or woman who is acquainted with God and who knows how to\npray, there is nothing remarkable in the answers that come. They are\nsure of being heard, since they ask in accordance with what they know to\nbe the mind and the will of God. Dr. William Burt, Bishop of Europe in\nthe Methodist Episcopal Church, tells that a few years ago, when he\nvisited their Boys\u2019 School in Vienna, he found that although the year\nwas not up, all available funds had been spent. He hesitated to make a\nspecial appeal to his friends in America. He counselled with the\nteachers. They took the matter to God in earnest and continued prayer,\nbelieving that He would grant their request. Ten days later Bishop Burt\nwas in Rome, and there came to him a letter from a friend in New York,\nwhich read substantially thus: \u201cAs I went to my office on Broadway one\nmorning [and the date was the very one on which the teachers were\npraying], a voice seemed to tell me that you were in need of funds for\nthe Boys\u2019 School in Vienna. I very gladly enclose a cheque for the\nwork.\u201d The cheque was for the amount needed. There had been no human\ncommunication between Vienna and New York. But while they were yet\nspeaking God answered them.\n\nSome time ago there appeared in an English religious weekly the report\nof an incident narrated by a well-known preacher in the course of an\naddress to children. For the truth of the story he was able to vouch. A\nchild lay sick in a country cottage, and her younger sister heard the\ndoctor say, as he left the house, \u201cNothing but a miracle can save her.\u201d\nThe little girl went to her money-box, took out the few coins it\ncontained, and in perfect simplicity of heart went to shop after shop in\nthe village street, asking, \u201cPlease, I want to buy a miracle.\u201d From each\nshe came away disappointed. Even the local chemist had to say, \u201cMy dear,\nwe don\u2019t sell miracles here.\u201d But outside his door two men were talking,\nand had overheard the child\u2019s request. One was a great doctor from a\nLondon hospital, and he asked her to explain what she wanted. When he\nunderstood the need, he hurried with her to the cottage, examined the\nsick girl, and said to the mother: \u201cIt is true\u2014only a miracle can save\nher, and it must be performed at once.\u201d He got his instruments,\nperformed the operation, and the patient\u2019s life was saved.\n\nD. L. Moody gives this illustration of the power of prayer: \u201cWhile in\nEdinburgh, a man was pointed out to me by a friend, who said: \u2018That man\nis chairman of the Edinburgh Infidel Club.\u2019 I went and sat beside him\nand said, \u2018My friend, I am glad to see you in our meeting. Are you\nconcerned about your welfare?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I do not believe in any hereafter.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, just get down on your knees and let me pray for you.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No, I do not believe in prayer.\u2019\n\n\u201cI knelt beside him as he sat, and prayed. He made a great deal of sport\nof it. A year after I met him again. I took him by the hand and said:\n\u2018Hasn\u2019t God answered my prayer yet?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018There is no God. If you believe in one who answers prayer, try your\nhand on me.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, a great many are now praying for you, and God\u2019s time will come,\nand I believe you will be saved yet.\u2019\n\n\u201cSome time afterwards I got a letter from a leading barrister in\nEdinburgh telling me that my infidel friend had come to Christ, and that\nseventeen of his club men had followed his example.\n\n\u201cI did not know _how_ God would answer prayer, but I knew He would\nanswer. Let us come boldly to God.\u201d\n\nRobert Louis Stevenson tells a vivid story of a storm at sea. The\npassengers below were greatly alarmed, as the waves dashed over the\nvessel. At last one of them, against orders, crept to the deck, and came\nto the pilot, who was lashed to the wheel which he was turning without\nflinching. The pilot caught sight of the terror-stricken man, and gave\nhim a reassuring smile. Below went the passenger, and comforted the\nothers by saying, \u201cI have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All\nis well.\u201d\n\nThat is how we feel when through the gateway of prayer we find our way\ninto the Father\u2019s presence. We see His face, and we know that all is\nwell, since His hand is on the helm of events, and \u201ceven the winds and\nthe waves obey Him.\u201d When we live in fellowship with Him, we come with\nconfidence into His presence, asking in the full confidence of receiving\nand meeting with the justification of our faith.\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _Let your hearts be much set on revivals of religion. Never forget\n  that the churches have hitherto existed and prospered by revivals;\n  and that if they are to exist and prosper in time to come, it must\n  be by the same cause which has from the first been their glory and\n  defence._\n                                                        \u2014JOEL HAWES.\n\n\n  _If any minister can be satisfied without conversions, he shall\n  have no conversions._\n                                                    \u2014C. H. SPURGEON.\n\n\n  _I do not believe that my desires for a revival were ever half so\n  strong as they ought to be; nor do I see how a minister can help\n  being in a \u201cconstant fever\u201d when his Master is dishonoured and\n  souls are destroyed in so many ways._\n                                                     \u2014EDWARD PAYSON.\n\n\n  _An aged saint once came to the pastor at night and said: \u201cWe are\n  about to have a revival.\u201d He was asked why he knew so. His answer\n  was, \u201cI went into the stable to take care of my cattle two hours\n  ago, and there the Lord has kept me in prayer until just now. And I\n  feel that we are going to be revived.\u201d It was the commencement of a\n  revival._\n                                                        \u2014H. C. FISH.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  XII\n\n\nIT has been said that the history of revivals is the history of\nreligion, and no one can study their history without being impressed\nwith their mighty influence upon the destiny of the race. To look back\nover the progress of the Divine Kingdom upon earth is to review revival\nperiods which have come like refreshing showers upon dry and thirsty\nground, making the desert to blossom as the rose, and bringing new eras\nof spiritual life and activity just when the Church had fallen under the\ninfluence of the apathy of the times, and needed to be aroused to a new\nsense of her duty and responsibility. \u201cFrom one point of view, and that\nnot the least important,\u201d writes Principal Lindsay, in \u201cThe Church and\nthe Ministry in the Early Centuries,\u201d \u201cthe history of the Church flows\non from one time of revival to another, and whether we take the\nawakenings in the old Catholic, the medi\u00e6val, or the modern Church,\nthese have always been the work of men specially gifted with the power\nof seeing and declaring the secrets of the deepest Christian life, and\nthe effect of their work has always been proportionate to the spiritual\nreceptivity of the generation they have spoken to.\u201d\n\nAs God, from the beginning, has wrought prominently through revivals,\nthere can be no denial of the fact that revivals are a part of the\nDivine plan. The Kingdom of our Lord has been advanced in large measure\nby special seasons of gracious and rapid accomplishment of the work of\nconversion, and it may be inferred, therefore, that the means through\nwhich God has worked in other times will be employed in our time to\nproduce similar results. \u201cThe quiet conversion of one sinner after\nanother, under the ordinary ministry of the Gospel,\u201d says one writer on\nthe subject, \u201cmust always be regarded with feelings of satisfaction and\ngratitude by the ministers and disciples of Christ; but a periodical\nmanifestation of the simultaneous conversion of thousands is also to be\ndesired, because of its adaptation to afford a visible and impressive\ndemonstration that God has made that same Jesus, Who was rejected and\ncrucified, both Lord and Christ; and that, in virtue of His Divine\nMediatorship, He has assumed the royal sceptre of universal supremacy,\nand \u2018must reign till all His enemies be made His footstool.\u2019 It is,\ntherefore, reasonable to expect that, from time to time, He will repeat\nthat which on the day of Pentecost formed the conclusive and crowning\nevidence of His Messiahship and Sovereignty; and, by so doing, startle\nthe slumbering souls of careless worldlings, gain the attentive ear of\nthe unconverted, and, in a remarkable way, break in upon those brilliant\ndreams of earthly glory, grandeur, wealth, power and happiness, which\nthe rebellious and God-forgetting multitude so fondly cherish. Such an\noutpouring of the Holy Spirit forms at once a demonstrative proof of the\ncompleteness and acceptance of His once offering of Himself as a\nsacrifice for sin, and a prophetic \u2018earnest\u2019 of the certainty that He\n\u2018shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation,\u2019 to judge the\nworld in righteousness.\u201d\n\nAnd that revivals are to be expected, proceeding, as they do, from the\nright use of the appropriate means, is a fact which needs not a little\nemphasis in these days, when the material is exalted at the expense of\nthe spiritual, and when ethical standards are supposed to be supreme.\nThat a revival is not a miracle was powerfully taught by Charles G.\nFinney. There might, he said, be a miracle among its antecedent causes,\nor there might not. The Apostles employed miracles simply as a means by\nwhich they arrested attention to their message, and established its\nDivine authority. \u201cBut the miracle was not the revival. The miracle was\none thing; the revival that followed it was quite another thing. The\nrevivals in the Apostles\u2019 days were connected with miracles, but they\nwere not miracles.\u201d All revivals are dependent upon God, but in\nrevivals, as in other things, He invites and requires the assistance of\nman, and the full result is obtained when there is co-operation between\nthe Divine and the human. In other words, to employ a familiar phrase,\nGod alone can save the world, but God cannot save the world alone. God\nand man unite for the task, the response of the Divine being invariably\nin proportion to the desire and the effort of the human.\n\nThis co-operation, then, being necessary, what is the duty which we, as\nco-workers with God, require to undertake? First of all, and most\nimportant of all\u2014the point which we desire particularly to\nemphasise\u2014we must give ourselves to prayer. \u201cRevivals,\u201d as Dr. J.\nWilbur Chapman reminds us, \u201care born in prayer. When Wesley prayed\nEngland was revived; when Knox prayed, Scotland was refreshed; when the\nSunday School teachers of Tannybrook prayed, 11,000 young people were\nadded to the Church in a year. Whole nights of prayer have always been\nsucceeded by whole days of soul-winning.\u201d\n\nWhen D. L. Moody\u2019s Church in Chicago lay in ashes, he went over to\nEngland, in 1872, not to preach, but to listen to others preach while\nhis new church was being built. One Sunday morning he was prevailed upon\nto preach in a London pulpit. But somehow the spiritual atmosphere was\nlacking. He confessed afterwards that he never had such a hard time\npreaching in his life. Everything was perfectly dead, and, as he vainly\ntried to preach, he said to himself, \u201cWhat a fool I was to consent to\npreach! I came here to listen, and here I am preaching.\u201d Then the awful\nthought came to him that he had to preach again at night, and only the\nfact that he had given the promise to do so kept him faithful to the\nengagement. But when Mr. Moody entered the pulpit at night, and faced\nthe crowded congregation, he was conscious of a new atmosphere. \u201cThe\npowers of an unseen world seemed to have fallen upon the audience.\u201d As\nhe drew towards the close of his sermon he became emboldened to give out\nan invitation, and as he concluded he said, \u201cIf there is a man or woman\nhere who will to-night accept Jesus Christ, please stand up.\u201d At once\nabout 500 people rose to their feet. Thinking that there must be some\nmistake, he asked the people to be seated, and then, in order that there\nmight be no possible misunderstanding, he repeated the invitation,\ncouching it in even more definite and difficult terms. Again the same\nnumber rose. Still thinking that something must be wrong, Mr. Moody, for\nthe second time, asked the standing men and women to be seated, and then\nhe invited all who really meant to accept Christ to pass into the\nvestry. Fully 500 people did as requested, and that was the beginning of\na revival in that church and neighbourhood, which brought Mr. Moody back\nfrom Dublin, a few days later, that he might assist the wonderful work\nof God.\n\nThe sequel, however, must be given, or our purpose in relating the\nincident will be defeated. When Mr. Moody preached at the morning\nservice there was a woman in the congregation who had an invalid sister.\nOn her return home she told the invalid that the preacher had been a Mr.\nMoody from Chicago, and on hearing this she turned pale. \u201cWhat,\u201d she\nsaid, \u201cMr. Moody from Chicago! I read about him some time ago in an\nAmerican paper, and I have been praying God to send him to London, and\nto our church. If I had known he was going to preach this morning I\nwould have eaten no breakfast. I would have spent the whole time in\nprayer. Now, sister, go out of the room, lock the door, send me no\ndinner; no matter who comes, don\u2019t let them see me. I am going to spend\nthe whole afternoon and evening in prayer.\u201d And so while Mr. Moody stood\nin the pulpit that had been like an ice-chamber in the morning, the\nbed-ridden saint was holding him up before God, and God, who ever\ndelights to answer prayer, poured out His Spirit in mighty power.\n\nThe God of revivals who answered the prayer of His child for Mr. Moody,\nis willing to hear and to answer the faithful, believing prayers of His\npeople to-day. Wherever God\u2019s conditions are met there the revival is\nsure to fall. Professor Thos. Nicholson, of Cornell College, U.S.A.,\nrelates an experience on his first circuit that impresses anew the old\nlesson of the place of prayer in the work of God.\n\nThere had not been a revival on that circuit in years, and things were\nnot spiritually hopeful. During more than four weeks the pastor had\npreached faithfully, visited from house to house, in stores, shops, and\nout-of-the-way places, and had done everything he could. The fifth\nMonday night saw _many of the official members at lodges_, but only a\ncorporal\u2019s guard at the church.\n\nFrom that meeting the pastor went home, cast down, but not in despair.\nHe resolved to spend that night in prayer. \u201cLocking the door, he took\nBible and hymn book and began to inquire more diligently of the Lord,\nthough the meetings had been the subject of hours of earnest prayer.\nOnly God knows the anxiety and the faithful, prayerful study of that\nnight. Near the dawn a great peace and a full assurance came that God\nwould surely bless the plan which had been decided upon, and a text was\nchosen which he felt sure was of the Lord. Dropping upon the bed, the\npastor slept about two hours, then rose, hastily breakfasted, and went\nnine miles to the far side of the circuit to visit some sick people. All\nday the assurance increased.\n\n\u201cToward night a pouring rain set in, the roads were heavy and we reached\nhome, wet, supperless, and a little late, only to find no fire in the\nchurch, the lights unlit, and no signs of service. The janitor had\nconcluded that the rain would prevent the service. We changed the order,\nrang the bell, and prepared for war. Three young men formed the\ncongregation, but in that \u2018full assurance\u2019 the pastor delivered the\nmessage which had been prayed out on the preceding night, as earnestly\nand as fully as if the house had been crowded, then made a personal\nappeal to each young man in turn. Two yielded, and testified before the\nmeeting closed.\n\n\u201cThe tired pastor went to a sweet rest, and next morning, rising a\nlittle later than usual, learned that one of the young men was going\nfrom store to store throughout the town telling of his wonderful\ndeliverance, and exhorting the people to salvation. Night after night\nconversions occurred, until in two weeks we heard 144 people testify in\nforty-five minutes. All three points of that circuit saw a blaze of\nrevival that winter, and family after family came into the church, until\nthe membership was more than trebled.\n\n\u201cOut of that meeting one convert is a successful pastor in the Michigan\nConference, another is the wife of one of the choicest of our pastors,\nand a third was in the ministry for a number of years, and then went to\nanother denomination, where he is faithful unto this day. Probably none\nof the members ever knew of the pastor\u2019s night of prayer, but he verily\nbelieves that God somehow does for the man who thus prays, what He does\nnot do for the man who does not pray, and he is certain that \u2018more\nthings are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.\u2019\u201d\n\nAll the true revivals have been born in prayer. When God\u2019s people become\nso concerned about the state of religion that they lie on their faces\nday and night in earnest supplication, the blessing will be sure to\nfall.\n\nIt is the same all down the ages. Every revival of which we have any\nrecord has been bathed in prayer. Take, for example, the wonderful\nrevival in Shotts (Scotland) in 1630. The fact that several of the then\npersecuted ministers would take a part in solemn convocation having\nbecome generally known, a vast concourse of godly persons assembled on\nthis occasion from all quarters of the country, and _several days were\nspent in social prayer_, preparatory to the service. In the evening,\ninstead of retiring to rest, the multitude divided themselves into\nlittle bands, and _spent the whole night in supplication and praise_.\nThe Monday was consecrated to thanksgiving, a practice not then common,\nand proved the great days of the feast. After much entreaty, John\nLivingston, chaplain to the Countess of Wigtown, a young man and not\nordained, agreed to preach. He _had spent the night in prayer_ and\nconference\u2014but as the hour of assembling approached his heart quailed\nat the thought of addressing so many aged and experienced saints, and he\nactually fled from the duty he had undertaken. But just as the kirk of\nShotts was vanishing from his view, those words, \u201cWas I ever a barren\nwilderness or a land of darkness?\u201d were borne in upon his mind with such\nforce as compelled him to return to the work. He took for his text\nEzekiel xxxvi. 25, 26, and discoursed with great power for about two\nhours. _Five hundred conversions_ were believed to have occurred under\nthat one sermon, thus prefaced by prayer. \u201cIt was the sowing of a seed\nthrough Clydesdale, so that many of the most eminent Christians of that\ncountry could date their conversion, or some remarkable confirmation of\ntheir case, from that day.\u201d\n\nOf Richard Baxter it has been said that \u201che stained his study walls with\npraying breath; and after becoming thus anointed with the unction of the\nHoly Ghost he sent a river of living water over Kidderminster.\u201d\nWhitfield once thus prayed, \u201cO Lord, give me souls or take my soul.\u201d\nAfter much closet pleading, \u201che once went to the Devil\u2019s fair and took\nmore than a thousand souls out of the paw of the lion in a single day.\u201d\n\nMr. Finney says: \u201cI once knew a minister who had a revival fourteen\nwinters in succession. I did not know how to account for it till I saw\none of his members get up in a prayer meeting and make a confession.\n\u2018Brethren,\u2019 he said, \u2018I have been long in the habit of praying every\nSaturday night till after midnight for the descent of the Holy Ghost\namong us. And now, brethren (and he began to weep), I confess that I\nhave neglected it for two or three weeks.\u2019 The secret was out. That\nminister had a praying church.\u201d\n\nAnd so we might go on multiplying illustration upon illustration to show\nthe place of prayer in revival and to demonstrate that every mighty\nmovement of the Spirit of God has had its source in the prayer-chamber.\nThe lesson of it all is this, that as workers together with God we must\nregard ourselves as in not a little measure responsible for the\nconditions which prevail around us to-day. Are we concerned about the\ncoldness of the Church? Do we grieve over the lack of conversions? Does\nour soul go out to God in midnight cries for the outpouring of His\nSpirit?\n\nIf not, part of the blame lies at our door. If we do our part, God will\ndo His. Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and\nable to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and\nearth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.\n\nAnd so the old cry comes to us with insistent voice, \u201cPray, brethren,\npray.\u201d\n\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\n\n  _Lord Jesus, cause me to know in my daily experience the glory and\n  sweetness of Thy name, and then teach me how to use it in my\n  prayer, so that I may be even like Israel, a prince prevailing with\n  God. Thy name is my passport, and secures me access; Thy name is my\n  plea, and secures me answer; Thy name is my honour and secures me\n  glory. Blessed Name, Thou art honey in my mouth, music in my ear,\n  heaven in my heart, and all in all to all my being!_\n                                                    \u2014C. H. SPURGEON.\n\n\n  _I do not mean that every prayer we offer is answered exactly as we\n  desire it to be. Were this the case, it would mean that we would be\n  dictating to God, and prayer would degenerate into a mere system of\n  begging. Just as an earthly father knows what is best for his\n  children\u2019s welfare, so does God take into consideration the\n  particular needs of His human family, and meets them out of His\n  wonderful storehouse. If our petitions are in accordance with His\n  will, and if we seek His glory in the asking, the answers will come\n  in ways that will astonish us and fill our hearts with songs of\n  thanksgiving. God is a rich and bountiful Father, and He does not\n  forget His children, nor withhold from them anything which it would\n  be to their advantage to receive._\n                                                \u2014J. KENNEDY MACLEAN.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIII\n\n\nTHE example of our Lord in the matter of prayer is one which His\nfollowers might well copy. Christ prayed much and He taught much about\nprayer. His life and His works, as well as His teaching, are\nillustrations of the nature and necessity of prayer. He lived and\nlaboured to answer prayer. But the necessity of importunity in prayer\nwas the emphasised point in His teaching about prayer. He taught not\nonly that men must pray, but that they must persevere in prayer.\n\nHe taught in command and precept the idea of energy and earnestness in\npraying. He gives to our efforts gradation and climax. We are to ask,\nbut to the asking we must add seeking, and seeking must pass into the\nfull force of effort in knocking. The pleading soul must be aroused to\neffort by God\u2019s silence. Denial, instead of abating or abashing, must\narouse its latent energies and kindle anew its highest ardour.\n\nIn the Sermon on the Mount, in which He lays down the cardinal duties of\nHis religion, He not only gives prominence to prayer in general and\nsecret prayer in particular, but He sets apart a distinct and different\nsection to give weight to importunate prayer. To prevent any\ndiscouragement in praying He lays as a basic principle the fact of God\u2019s\ngreat fatherly willingness\u2014that God\u2019s willingness to answer our prayers\nexceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our\nchildren, just as far as God\u2019s ability, goodness and perfection exceed\nour infirmities and evil. As a further assurance and stimulant to prayer\nChrist gives the most positive and iterated assurance of answer to\nprayers. He declares: \u201cAsk and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall\nfind; knock and it shall be opened unto you.\u201d And to make assurance\ndoubly sure, He adds: \u201cFor every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that\nseeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.\u201d\n\nWhy does He unfold to us the Father\u2019s loving readiness to answer the\nprayer of His children? Why does He asseverate so strongly that prayer\nwill be answered? Why does He repeat that positive asseveration six\ntimes? Why does Christ on two distinct occasions go over the same strong\npromises, iterations, and reiterations in regard to the certainty of\nprayer being answered? Because He knew that there would be delay in many\nan answer which would call for importunate pressing, and that if our\nfaith did not have the strongest assurance of God\u2019s willingness to\nanswer, delay would break it down. And that our spiritual sloth would\ncome in, under the guise of submission, and say it is not God\u2019s will to\ngive what we ask, and so cease praying and lose our case. After Christ\nhad put God\u2019s willingness to answer prayer in a very clear and strong\nlight, He then urges to importunity, and that every unanswered prayer,\ninstead of abating our pressure should only increase intensity and\nenergy. If asking does not get, let asking pass into the settled\nattitude and spirit of seeking. If seeking does not secure the answer,\nlet seeking pass on to the more energetic and clamorous plea of\nknocking. We must persevere till we get it. No failure here if our faith\ndoes not break down.\n\nAs our great example in prayer, our Lord puts love as a primary\ncondition\u2014a love that has purified the heart from all the elements of\nhate, revenge, and ill will. Love is the supreme condition of prayer, a\nlife inspired by love. The 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians is the law of\nprayer as well as the law of love. The law of love is the law of prayer,\nand to master this chapter from the epistle of St. Paul is to learn the\nfirst and fullest condition of prayer.\n\nChrist taught us also to approach the Father in His name. That is our\npassport. It is in His name that we are to make our petitions known.\n\u201cVerily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that\nI do shall he do also; and greater _works_ than these shall he do;\nbecause I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name,\nthat will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall\nask Me anything in My name, that will I do.\u201d\n\nHow wide and comprehensive is that \u201cwhatsoever.\u201d There is no limit to\nthe power of that name. \u201cWhatsoever ye shall ask.\u201d That is the Divine\ndeclaration, and it opens up to every praying child a vista of infinite\nresource and possibility.\n\nAnd that is our heritage. All that Christ has may become ours if we obey\nthe conditions. The one secret is prayer. The place of revealing and of\nequipment, of grace and of power, is the prayer-chamber, and as we meet\nthere with God we shall not only win our triumphs but we shall also grow\nin the likeness of our Lord and become His living witnesses to men.\n\nWithout prayer the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and its\nbeauty, becomes cold and formal and dead; but rooted in the secret place\nwhere God meets and walks and talks with His own, it grows into such a\ntestimony of Divine power that all men will feel its influence and be\ntouched by the warmth of its love. Thus, resembling our Lord and Master,\nwe shall be used for the glory of God and the salvation of our fellow\nmen.\n\nAnd that, surely, is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all\ntrue service.\n\n\n\n\n                             Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\n    Retained publication information from the printed edition: this\n          eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.\n    Added original cover and spine images for free and unlimited use\n          with this eBook.\n    In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by\n          _underscores_.\n    Corrected these typos:\n\n\n                              ERRATA\n  LINE       Printed Text                             Correction\n  580        success in the human adminisstration     administration\n  1002       Such an attiude                          attitude\n  1932       exhausted themslves                      themselves\n  2396       floods of wordliness                     worldliness\n  2876       six miles to a minster\u2019s                 minister\u2019s\n  3220       Let us come boldy                        boldly","title":"Purpose in Prayer","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36028}