Some people insist that it is impractical moonshine to speak of making a
companion of God, that folks who talk about such things are dreamers,
far removed from touch with the cold reality of daily life.
Then how about the nephew of whom Dr. Alexander MacColl told at
Northfield? He was surely a practical man. For four years he had been in
the thick of the fighting in France. Yet at the close of one of his
letters to his uncle he said: "I hope when the war is over that I may
be able to spend a month somewhere among the hills. I often think that
if more people in the world had lived among such hills as we have in
Scotland there would have been no world war."
"When I came yesterday afternoon, and saw again the glory of these
hills," was Dr. MacColl's comment, "I found myself sharing very deeply
in that feeling of my good nephew, and wishing that more people in the
world had known what it is to commune with God in the silences."
That fine young Scotchman would have known how to take a college student
who, while having a country walk with a friend, was explaining the
reason for his belief in God and his trust in Him. As he concluded his
message he pointed to a large tree which they were passing, saying as he
did so, "God is as real to me as that tree."
He had a right to say such a thing, for he not only believed, but he was
conscious that God was with him, his Companion wherever he went. This
being the case, prayer became for him the simplest and most natural
thing in the world. God was by his side; then why should not he talk to
God, by ejaculation as well as by more formal utterance? Yet his talks
with God never became formal. They were always intimate and
confidential--like the approaches of Principal John Cairns, the famous
Scotch minister. His biographer tells of a time when he was at the manse
of a country minister in whose church he was to preach next day. The
minister's wife withdrew to get a cup of tea for the old man, leaving
her little boy there. By and by she heard a strange, unaccustomed sound,
as it seemed to her under such conditions. And as she listened and
looked, she saw that the old man was kneeling with the boy. It had
seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to speak to his Great
Friend about his little friend.
Dr. Arthur Smith was like that with God, and his son Henry took after
him. One January day in 1905 the father reached New York from China and
sought his son. They went to a hotel room to bridge the time of absence
by "a tremendous lot of back conversation," as the son wrote to the
mother. But before they had any chance to talk of other matters the
father said, "Come, boy, let's have a prayer." "Wasn't that just like
him?" Henry asked his mother.
A minister who was spending his vacation in the northern woods was
called in to see a dying lumberman. Before leaving the visitor prayed
with the sick man, and suggested that he pray for himself. The objection
was made that it was useless to pray--God understood a man's trials, and
He knew what was wanted before a request was made. The minister asked
him if he didn't know what his children needed before they asked him, if
he didn't know they were disappointed or troubled; yet didn't he wish to
have them talk over these things with him?
The man thought a moment. Then he said, "Do you think that would be
prayer--just for me to lie here and tell God what He knows already--how
it hurts, and all my disappointment, and my anxiety for the future of my
children and my wife--and everything--just to tell Him?"
"I think it would," said the minister. "I think it would be prayer of a
very real kind."
One who had learned that prayer is not a mere formal exercise, to be
dreaded and postponed, has said:
"Pray often--in bits, with a persistency of habit that betrays a
childlike eagerness and absorption. Rise up to question God as children
do their earthly parents--at morning, noon and night and between times.
Ask Him about everything. Be with Him more than with all other persons.
Acquire the home habit with Him. Be a child in His hands. Do not fear
lest He be too busy to listen, or too grown up to care or to understand.
Just talk to Him, in broken sentences, half-formed with crude wishes; in
foolish chatter, if need be. Make the Heavenly Father the center of your
life, the source and judge of all your satisfactions. Be sure to let Him
put you to bed, waken you in the morning, wait on you at table, order
your day's doings, protect you from harm, soothe your disquiet, supply
all your daily needs."
Such a prayer is good, not only when one is sick, but when one is well
and busy with the affairs of daily life. A clergyman has told of a visit
to London during which he called on a merchant whom he had met in
America. At the business house he was told that he could not see the
merchant, as it was steamer day, and orders had been given not to
disturb him. But when the card was taken up, the merchant appeared, his
face beaming with pleasure. After a moment's greeting the visitor
offered to go away, but the merchant took him into his office, and said:
"I am very glad you have called. I would not have had you fail. I am
very busy, but I always have a moment for my Lord. I have a little
place for private prayer. You must come in with me, and we shall have a
season of prayer together."
Busy, but not too busy for prayer, longing to see his friend, but eager
to spend the ten minutes of the call in prayer with that other Friend
who made the brief visit worth while!
In telling this incident, one writer on the subject of prayer has said:
"Several, perhaps many merchants in one of our large cities have fitted
up for themselves dark, narrow, boxlike closets, whither, each by
himself, they are wont to retire for a few minutes at times, during the
pressure of the day's business, for the refreshment of soul, which they
find they really need in communion with God. One of these men is
reported to have said: 'On some days, if I had not that resort, I
believe I should go mad, so great is the pressure.'"
Dr. Purves once told an incident of the distinguished scientist,
Professor Joseph Henry, as given him by one of Dr. Henry's students. "I
well remember the wonderful care with which he arranged all his
principal experiments. Then often, when the testing moment came, that
holy as well as great philosopher would raise his hand in adoring
reverence and call upon me to uncover my head and worship in silence,
'because,' he said, 'God is here. I am about to ask God a question.'"
To Mary Slessor of Calabar, whom the Africans learned to love devotedly,
prayer was as simple and easy as talking to a friend in the room. "Her
religion was a religion of the heart," her biographer says. "Her
communion with her Father was of the most natural, most childlike
character. No rule or habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child
to its father when she needed help and strength, or when her heart was
filled with joy and gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real
to her, so near, that her words were almost of the nature of
conversation. There was no formality, no self-consciousness, no
stereotyped diction, only the simplest language from a quiet and humble
heart. It is told of her that once, when she was in Scotland, after a
tiresome journey, she sat down at the tea table alone, and, lifting up
her eyes, said, 'Thank you, Father--ye ken I'm tired,' in the most
ordinary way as if she had been addressing her friend. On another
occasion in the country, she lost her spectacles while coming from a
meeting in the dark. She could not do without them, and she prayed
simply and directly, 'O Father, give me back my spectacles!' A lady
asked her how she obtained such intimacy with God. 'Ah, woman,' she
said, 'when I am out there in the bush, I have often no other one to
speak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him....'"
"I just talk to Him!" There is the secret of getting and keeping close
to the Father, the most worth-while Companion we can possibly have with
us on country walk, on vacation excursion, amid business perplexities,
in the desert or in the thronged city street, when the days are crowded
with burdens, or when the time of rest after work has come.
Try Him and see if it is not so.