hearing of stately rites, what would prayer be to us? Who would value
it in the comparison of those still moments, that—
"'Sacred silence of the mind,'
"in which we can now find God every day and everywhere? That day would
be more like the day of Judgment to us than like the sweet minutes of
converse with our Father, which we may now have every hour. We should
appreciate this privilege of hourly prayer if it were once taken from
us."
Ps. lxxvii. St. Luke xi. 1-14.
_THIRD FRIDAY IN LENT._
_PRAYER._
WHAT is prayer?
Prayer, in its primary sense, means simply asking. We find the word
constantly used in this sense in Scripture and elsewhere; as when
Elijah says to the widow woman of Zarephath, "Fetch me, I pray thee,
a little water." But prayer, as the word has come to be used in the
whole Church, has a much higher signification. It means speaking to
God. It means pouring out our hearts to Him—telling Him all our wants,
our wishes, our hindrances and temptations, our trials from without and
from within. It means asking not only for ourselves, but for others;
our families, our fellow church-members, our pupils, our country and
its rulers, yea, even our enemies. (S. Matt. v. 44.)
There is no matter too great for it, and none too small. There is no
man so holy as not to need it to keep him good, and none so wicked that
he may not use it to make him better. The way of prayer is open to
every one. It is the open door set before every child of God, which no
man can shut. The Christian may be a slave, or a prisoner watched by
soldiers, beset by spies, loaded with fetters in the deepest dungeon on
earth. In the prisons of the Inquisition, the captive was condemned to
a perpetual silence. Not a word, not a groan, must escape his lips, on
pain of the gag. But his cruel and relentless jailers could not prevent
him from speaking to his God, nor could they prevent the unspoken words
from entering the ear for which they were intended. That was beyond
their power.
The courts of earthly kings are places of resort for great people,
for the noble, the rich and beautiful of their subjects. The poor and
lowly have no room there. But the courts of the King of kings are as
free to the poorest laboring man and woman as to those to whose luxury
they minister; nay, it may well be that the slave will find entrance
and kind entertainment when his master is shut out. Nor is ignorance
or weakness of intellect a bar to acceptance. The broken language of
the poor negro, the lisping accents of the little child, are as musical
to the great Father of all as the hymns of the poet, or the highest
flights of the philosopher. He sees the heart, and it is the heart
which prays.
What is requisite to acceptable prayer?
First of all, faith. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is,
and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (Heb. xi.
6.) A moment's consideration makes this perfectly plain. We shall not
ask of any person a boon, unless we believe that the person exists, and
that we shall gain something by the application. We must ask in faith;
that is, in the belief that we are speaking to a kind Father, whose
heart is warm toward us, and who loves to do us good.
Some good people believe that God will give us just what we ask for.
They will even tell us that, if we do not so receive, it is because we
do not ask in faith. I believe this to be a mischievous mistake. God
knows our necessities before we ask, and He also knows our ignorance
in asking. We do not always know whether the thing we ask is the best
thing. Our Father sees our lives "in the whole of our duration, whether
now or ever so many ages hence," as a distinguished author has it, and—
"The All-wise is the All-loving too!"
All things are in his power, and it costs Him no more to give one than
another. Every prayer reaches His ear and heart, and every one is
answered, but not always in the way we expect. Sometimes He gives us
something else than the thing we desire, as a tender mother gives her
child wholesome food at the same time that she withholds the coveted
but unwholesome dainty. Sometimes, too, like the same wise mother, He
answers, gently but firmly, "No!" But even when He says No, He does not
leave His child uncomforted.
"I have learned by experience," says an aged saint of God, "that when
He refuses me anything, by and by He comforts me in Himself without it."
We must pray with faith, and with resignation to God's will, but we
must also ask with perseverance. Our Lord gives us the warrant for
this in the parables of the importunate friend (St. Luke xi), and of
the unjust judge (St. Luke xviii). We are to "pray always, and not to
faint." (St. Luke xviii. 1.) We are to: "praying always with all prayer
and supplication." (Eph. vi. 18.) We are to "pray without ceasing." (1
Thess. v. 17.) We must not be content with asking once or twice, but we
must keep asking again and again. Some blessing will come in answer to
persevering prayer, though it may not always be the one we seek.
There is one blessing, and that the greatest, which we may always ask
in full confidence of receiving, and that is the gift of the Holy
Spirit. Our Lord tells us that earthly parents are not so ready to
give good gifts to their children, as His father and ours is to give
the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. (St. Luke xi. 13.) And this
very gift helps us to pray acceptably, for "the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities," interceding for us with "groanings which cannot be
uttered." "And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of
the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to
the will of God." (Rom. viii. 26, 27.)
Ps. xxv. St. Luke xi. 1-14.
_THIRD SATURDAY IN LENT._
_INTERCESSION._
WE are not to be selfish in our prayers. Our Lord teaches us this
lesson in the very first words of the form of prayer which He Himself
has given us: "When ye pray, say, Our Father."
Of course, if God is "our" Father, He is "your" Father and "mine" as
well. Nay, we must lay hold of this truth of God's individual care and
love for His children, before we can pray as we ought. But our Lord
would bring home to our minds that, as we are members of Christ, so
we are members one of another. We are sons and daughters of the great
King, and so brothers and sisters; and thence it follows that, as
members of one family, we have duties to perform toward each other.
It is the very definition of a member that it is part of an organism
fitted to perform certain offices for the good of the whole. We see, in
the human body, that the hand has one office, the eye another, and so
on. So it is in the body of Christ, which is His Church—each member has
his place and his duties. One of these duties is intercessory prayer.
We have the commands of God in Holy Scripture for this matter, which
should of itself be enough for us: "I exhort therefore, that, first of
all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be
made for all men;... for this is good and acceptable in the sight of
God our Saviour." (1 Tim. ii. 1, 3.) St. Paul again and again asks the
prayers of those to whom his letters are addressed. "Brethren, pray
for us." (1 Thess. v. 25.) "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same
with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us" (Col. iv. 2, 3); and so
in other places. Our Lord Himself, our perfect pattern, sets us the
highest example of this kind of prayer, concluding His last discourse
to the twelve with that most wonderful intercession contained in the
seventeenth chapter of St. John.
Following the example of her Head, the Church teaches us the same
lesson. We are taught to pray for our rulers, for the clergy, for all
sorts and conditions of men. The Litany is in a great measure made up
of intercessions. Also in the most solemn service of all—that of the
Holy Communion—we are taught to pray for the whole estate of Christ's
church militant.
These reasons ought to be enough, if there were no others, to move us
to the duty of intercession. It hardly seems, indeed, as if we ought
to need a "command," however glad we may be of the encouragement. Is
it not a privilege as well as a duty to carry our friends' dangers
and needs and trials to the Mercy Seat? Is it not much to commend to
our Father's care our nearest and dearest, and to join our prayers to
theirs, thus obtaining the benefit of the promise that when two are
agreed on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done
for them? (St. Matt. xviii. 19.)
We may help those by our prayers whom we can help in no other way. The
most obstinate sinner, the most rampant infidel, the most careless and
indifferent person in the world, cannot keep his friends from praying
for him. The son may disregard his mother's tears and counsels, but
her prayers will follow him in spite of himself. Nay, more, the very
consciousness that such prayers were following him has kept more than
one such wanderer from an irretrievable fall, and brought him back
to his mother's arms. Prayer girdles the earth more quickly than the
electric spark, and no one upon that earth is out of its reach.
Those who can help the good works of the Church in no other way can do
so by prayer. The invalid in her room or on her bed, who is too weak
perhaps to hold a pen or a needle, can help the toiler in China or the
far West; can call down blessing from the Divine Treasury, and strength
and grace from the Fountain of all good, for the man or woman she has
never seen. The poor old black woman in the gallery of the church,
without a penny to call her own, can strengthen the hands and cheer the
heart of the eloquent missionary bishop who enters the pulpit to make
known to the people what God has wrought in a distant land. Surely such
a privilege is worth a great deal to the true child of God, who desires
with the whole heart the coming of her Lord and His kingdom, but yet
can do nothing, humanly speaking, to hasten it on.
It is certain that we cannot honestly pray for people without wishing
to help them in other ways. The man whose prayers are a mere decent
form, or a sheer pretence and hypocrisy, may pray in general for the
cause of Christ in the world without raising his hand or denying
himself one indulgence for it, but not the man who prays in earnest,
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." To
him, "Thy kingdom come" means also, "Let me help to bring it," and "Thy
will be done" means also, "Let me do it." It is said of St. Chrysostom,
that he kept a box on the stool where he was wont to kneel in prayer,
and with every petition for the poor he deposited a coin in the
treasury.
Finally, praying for others helps us to pray for ourselves. When our
hearts seem dull and cold, and so heavy that we cannot raise them up to
heaven, an intercession will often lend them wings. We shall go back to
our own needs with renewed faith and hope, and find the burden removed
that held us down.
Let us, then, be instant in prayer and supplication, not only for
ourselves, but for our friends and relatives, our pupils or teachers,
for our own parish and all its interests, for the Church at large, for
our country, and for all sorts and conditions of men. And let us not
be weary in so doing, till "they shall teach no more every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all
shall know Him, from the least of them even unto the greatest of them."
(Jer. xxxi. 34.) Yea, "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth
as the waters cover the sea." (Hab. ii. 14.)
Is. lxii. 1 Tim. ii.
_THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT._
_OUR ENEMIES._
IN the collect for the day we ask for defense against our enemies.
"Stretch out Thy right hand to be our defense against our enemies." The
right hand is the symbol both of power and skill. It is especially so
among Orientals, with whom it is reserved for all the nobler offices,
the left hand performing those which are more humble or unclean. We
find in the Psalms and the prophets, that the right hand of God is
usually spoken of as the especial seat of His power, as in Ps. cxviii.
16. "The right hand of the Lord hath the pre-eminence; the right hand
of the Lord bringeth mighty things to pass."
To the Christian the right hand of the Lord means even more than it did
to the Jew, for it is there that his Saviour is enthroned, and ever
remains, to make intercession for him. Saint Stephen was vouchsafed the
vision of his risen Lord, thus placed, no doubt, to strengthen him for
his coming trial, and there shall we all see him who are counted worthy
to attain to the first resurrection.
"To think," said an aged saint to whom I had just been reading the
Bible, "to think that I shall see Jesus at the right hand of God! Oh,
if I might but once touch His hand!"
The very thought lighted up her plain face with a smile which made it
beautiful.
God is our defense. All the Scriptures are full of the thought, but
especially the Psalms. God will help the poor and needy, and will set
him at rest. (Ps. lxii. 6.) "The Lord is my stony rock, and my defense,
my Saviour, my God and my might, in whom I will trust; my buckler, the
horn also of my salvation, and my refuge." (Ps. xviii. 2.) "Though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me." (Ps. xxiii. 4.)
And so again and again we have our Heavenly Father's promise to defend
His children against all their enemies, both spiritual and temporal.
True, we must walk through the wilderness of this world, but we need
not walk alone. True, we walk in the midst of enemies, yet "they that
be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings vi. 16),
and if our eyes were opened, like those of the prophet's servant, we
should, like him, see the angel hosts sent for defense. We may, nay we
must, hunger and thirst, but the Lord will cause waters to break out in
the wilderness, and streams in the desert. (Isa. xxxv. 6.) We need be
afraid of none of its terrors. The light will break forth and the sun
will rise, and show the ground covered with manna for our refreshment.
The thought of our God as a defense and shield should be a help and
comfort to those Christians who are troubled with fears. There are
those, especially among invalids, whose lives are made a burden to
themselves and others by needless fears. They are afraid of lightning,
of fire, of robbers, of they know not what. They feel as if every
thunderbolt had a special commission for them; as if every blast of
wind were a destroying angel. These fears are often merely nervous
symptoms, but even then they are very much under the control of the
patient. Let me say to such an one, Do but think, do but try to realize
to yourself the fact that the Lord's right hand is stretched out to be
your defense in all dangers—that He will defend thee under His wings,
and thou shalt be safe under His feathers. Consider that the darkness
is no darkness to Him, but the night is as clear as the day. (Ps.
cxxxix. 11.)
"When first before the mercy-seat
Thou didst thine all to Him commit,
He gave thee warrant from that hour
To trust His mercy, love, and power."
Are not these terrors, then, an affront to Him, as implying a distrust
in His plighted word? Dismiss them, then! Send them back to the
darkness where they belong, and let your motto be, "I will lay me down
in peace, and take my rest: for it is Thou, Lord, that makest me dwell
in safety." (Ps. iv. 8.)
Ps. xci. St. John xiv.
_THIRD MONDAY IN LENT._
_OUR ENEMIES._
WE have seen that the collect we are considering has its foundation,
like all the prayers that we learn at the knee of our mother, the
Church, in the promises of God's word, and are therefore sure to be
answered in some way. Observe, however, that it is nowhere said in
the Bible that we are not to meet with adversities. Nay, we are told
the express contrary. All His life long our Master endured hardship
and trouble; and the servant is not above his Master. "In the world
ye shall have tribulation," says our Lord to His apostles, but He
graciously adds: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (St.
John xvi. 33.)
What are those enemies which the Christian has to dread, and against
which he has special need to pray for deliverance?
Here, again, our Lord leaves us in no doubt. "Fear not them which kill
the body, and are not able to kill the soul" (St. Matt. x. 28); and
again, "Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more
that they can do." (St. Luke xii. 4.) This shuts out all that class of
terrors of which I spoke in the last chapter. The cruelest murderer,
the most destructive storm or earthquake, the most noisome pestilence,
can only kill that which must die at any rate—which brought its
death-warrant with it when it came into the world. They cannot destroy
the real man or woman; nay, all their forces combined cannot deprive
him of the very least of those things which God hath prepared for them
that love Him (1 Cor. ii. 9); nor of one moment of that eternal life
which God hath given us in His Son. (1 John v. 11.)
Clearly, then, the enemies we have to fear are those which assault and
hurt the soul, and which, unless steadfastly resisted, are able to make
our way dark and perilous, if not to deprive us of that inheritance
which has been prepared for us. It is they whom we are to combat
with all our force, and against whom we must specially ask our great
Defender to stretch out His right hand. Yet even here we must not show
ourselves coward and craven. We are soldiers of Christ. Let us never
forget that. Every battle is fought for Him, every victory is a victory
over His enemies as well as our own. He will never leave us to struggle
alone, but is always with us, though we cannot always perceive Him. Let
us, then, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, knowing
that His Father, who gave us to Him, is greater than all, and none is
able to pluck us out of His hand. (St. John x. 29.)
Our spiritual enemies may all be classed under three heads—the world,
the flesh, and the devil. Against these we are to fight manfully and to
the death, never laying down our arms, never relaxing our vigilance,
and, even though apparently beaten for the time, never giving up,
till our Great Commander shall see our warfare accomplished, and call
us home. It is the Christian's paradox that there is no peace except
in war. If we give up the contest, we become slaves; and though our
conquerors give us all the goods they have to bestow in this life, they
do but treat us as cannibals treat their prisoners—fattening them, that
they may devour them at last.
Hab. ii. St. Luke xii.
_THIRD TUESDAY IN LENT._
_THE WORLD._
EVERY general strives to know all that he can about his enemy, his
nature and position, his powers and resources, and tries to foresee the
plans of that enemy's attack, that he may be able to meet and frustrate
them. Let us, then, inquire a little into the nature of those foes
which beset our homeward path, and which would, if they could, hinder
us from reaching the rest prepared for us in our Father's house. First
of all, what is meant by the world?
The world means all that outside of ourselves which is alienated from
and opposed to God, which is governed by and devoted to the things
which are temporal, and ignores, if it does not hate, the things which
are eternal. It is very wise in its own eyes; yea, according to its own
canons, and from its own standpoint, wiser than the children of light.
It is dreadfully in earnest in the things which it pursues, though
those things may be of the most frivolous description. It gets into all
sorts of places, alas even into the Church itself, running here and
there for meat, and grudging if it be not satisfied, which, indeed, it
never is. It is a severe master to its votaries, exacting the hardest
and the most exclusive services and the most cruel sacrifices, and
rewarding them at last with husks and rags.
The world puts on many disguises. To one it comes under the name of
business, demanding of its slave that he shall give up everything else
for the pursuit of money. It does not make this demand of every man
at the beginning, and in so many words. No, it is more cunning than
that. It tells him that it is his duty to provide for his family, not
only needful food and clothes and the means of education, but a fine
house in a fashionable quarter, and as many luxuries as his neighbor
possesses. It makes him press hard on those who labor for him, and
exact much work for little pay. It makes him rent tenements to men and
women which are not fit for pigs to live in, and grudge the smallest
outlay for the health and comfort of his tenants. It makes him plan and
scheme to add a few thousands more to his useless millions, by raising
the price of fuel and food to the poor man. By and by, the world has
done with him. He speculates a little too rashly, and his wealth goes
as it came. Or God says to him, "Thou fool! This night thy soul shall
be required of thee!" and he goes forth from the visible and unreal to
the invisible and real, a shivering, hungry, naked soul, homeless to
all eternity. And that world for which he has toiled and sacrificed
misses him as much as he missed the consumptive girl who breathed the
foul air of his factory till her young life was poisoned, and she
dropped at her machine, and went home to die.
The world comes to a woman with a family of little ones, and bids her
leave these immortal pledges of God's love to servants, to learn their
very prayers from alien lips, and spend her nights in amusements,
and her days in planning for the nights. It exacts of her that she
shall risk her health and blunt her sense of delicacy by immodest and
insufficient clothing. It tell her that these things are necessary, a
debt that she owes to society, and whispers that she can make up for
all that needs an atonement, by putting on a sober dress and going to
church regularly in Lent, or by giving about the fiftieth part of what
her dress costs in charity.
To another woman, the world comes in sober attire, with a housewifely
apron and a bunch of keys. It has another bait for this one, who
would not attend a ballet for the world, and looks with horror on a
game of cards. This woman's world is her house-keeping, and she can
see nothing else. She would feel herself disgraced forever, if her
neighbor put up more cans of fruit or gave more kinds of cake to her
company than herself. Talk to her of the sewing-school or the district
visiting society, and she will tell you of her anxieties about the
doing up of her lace curtains. Tell her of the needs of the heathen,
at home or abroad, she may listen politely, but her duty, she says,
is to her own family, and she cannot do anything to help you because
her dining-room chairs are quite out of fashion, and she must have new
ones. Ask her to see that her little daughter has her catechism learned
for Sunday-school, and she will tell you, as she sews the elaborate and
costly trimming on the child's dress, that she has no time.
We are in bondage to the world so soon as we let the seen and temporal,
no matter in what shape it comes, blind us to the unseen and eternal.
We are in cruel bondage when we let the fear of what the world may
say about us lead us to do what we know to be inconsistent with our
baptismal vows and our loyalty to our Lord. We are slaves to the world
when we allow any of the things which live in time and perish with time
to possess our hearts to the exclusion of those things which belong to
eternity. It is true, that as long as we are on the earth, the things
of earth must claim much of our attention. Thank God! all these things
may be made holy by an honest intention. But we cannot serve God and
mammon, and he who tries to do so will in the end find himself deserted
of both, and left to himself, that worst of all fates, from which may
God in His mercy keep us all!
Psalm lxxiii. St. Luke xvi.
_FOURTH WEDNESDAY IN LENT._
_THE FLESH._
WHO and what are the enemies that come to us under this name?