It was said of the late C. H. Spurgeon, that he glided from laughter to
prayer with the naturalness of one who lived in both elements. With him
the habit of prayer was free and unfettered. His life was not divided
into compartments, the one shut off from the other with a rigid
exclusiveness that barred all intercommunication. He lived in constant
fellowship with his Father in Heaven. He was ever in touch with God, and
thus it was as natural for him to pray as it was for him to breathe.
“What a fine time we have had; let us thank God for it,” he said to a
friend on one occasion, when, out under the blue sky and wrapped in
glorious sunshine, they had enjoyed a holiday with the unfettered
enthusiasm of schoolboys. Prayer sprang as spontaneously to his lips as
did ordinary speech, and never was there the slightest incongruity in
his approach to the Divine throne straight from any scene in which he
might be taking part.
That is the attitude with regard to prayer that ought to mark every
child of God. There are, and there ought to be, stated seasons of
communion with God when, everything else shut out, we come into His
presence to talk to Him and to let Him speak to us; and out of such
seasons springs that beautiful habit of prayer that weaves a golden bond
between earth and heaven. Without such stated seasons the habit of
prayer can never be formed; without them there is no nourishment for the
spiritual life. By means of them the soul is lifted into a new
atmosphere—the atmosphere of the heavenly city, in which it is easy to
open the heart to God and to speak with Him as friend speaks with
friend.
Thus, in every circumstance of life, prayer is the most natural
out-pouring of the soul, the unhindered turning to God for communion and
direction. Whether in sorrow or in joy, in defeat or in victory, in
health or in weakness, in calamity or in success, the heart leaps to
meet with God just as a child runs to his mother’s arms, ever sure that
with her is the sympathy that meets every need.
Dr. Adam Clarke, in his autobiography, records that when Mr. Wesley was
returning to England by ship, considerable delay was caused by contrary
winds. Wesley was reading, when he became aware of some confusion on
board, and asking what was the matter, he was informed that the wind was
contrary. “Then,” was his reply, “let us go to prayer.”
After Dr. Clarke had prayed, Wesley broke out into fervent supplication
which seemed to be more the offering of faith than of mere desire.
“Almighty and everlasting God,” he prayed, “Thou hast sway everywhere,
and all things serve the purpose of Thy will, Thou holdest the winds in
Thy fists and sittest upon the water floods, and reignest a King for
ever. Command these winds and these waves that they obey Thee, and take
us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go.”
The power of this petition was felt by all. Wesley rose from his knees,
made no remark, but took up his book and continued reading. Dr. Clarke
went on deck, and to his surprise found the vessel under sail, standing
on her right course. Nor did she change till she was safely at anchor.
On the sudden and favourable change of wind, Wesley made no remark; so
fully did he _expect to be heard_ that he took it for granted that he
_was heard_.
That was prayer with a purpose—the definite and direct utterance of one
who knew that he had the ear of God, and that God had the willingness as
well as the power to grant the petition which he asked of Him.
Major D. W. Whittle, in an introduction to the wonders of prayer, says
of George Müller, of Bristol: “I met Mr. Müller in the express, the
morning of our sailing from Quebec to Liverpool. About half-an-hour
before the tender was to take the passengers to the ship, he asked of
the agent if a deck chair had arrived for him from New York. He was
answered, ‘No,’ and told that it could not possibly come in time for the
steamer. I had with me a chair I had just purchased, and told Mr. Müller
of the place near by, and suggested, as but a few moments remained, that
he had better buy one at once. His reply was, ‘No, my brother. Our
Heavenly Father will send the chair from New York. It is one used by
Mrs. Müller. I wrote ten days ago to a brother, who promised to see it
forwarded here last week. He has not been prompt, as I would have
desired, but I am sure our Heavenly Father will send the chair. Mrs.
Müller is very sick on the sea, and has particularly desired to have
this same chair, and not finding it here yesterday, we have made special
prayer that our Heavenly Father would be pleased to provide it for us,
and we will trust Him to do so.’ As this dear man of God went peacefully
on board, running the risk of Mrs. Müller making the trip without a
chair, when, for a couple of dollars, she could have been provided for,
I confess I feared Mr. Müller was carrying his faith principles too far
and not acting wisely. I was kept at the express office ten minutes
after Mr. Müller left. Just as I started to hurry to the wharf, a team
drove up the street, and on top of a load just arrived from New York was
_Mr. Müller’s chair_. It was sent at once to the tender and placed in
_my hands_ to take to Mr. Müller, just as the boat was leaving the dock
(the Lord having a lesson for me). Mr. Müller took it with the happy,
pleased expression of a child who has just received a kindness deeply
appreciated, and reverently removing his hat and folding his hands over
it, he thanked the Heavenly Father for sending the chair.”
One of Melancthon’s correspondents writes of Luther’s praying: “I cannot
enough admire the extraordinary, cheerfulness, constancy, faith and hope
of the man in these trying and vexatious times. He constantly feeds
these gracious affections by a very diligent study of the Word of God.
_Then not a day passes in which he does not employ in prayer at least
three of his very best hours._ Once I happened to hear him at prayer.
Gracious God! What spirit and what faith is there in his expressions! He
petitions God with as much reverence as if he was in the divine
presence, and yet with as firm a hope and confidence as he would address
a father or a friend. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘Thou art our Father and our
God; and therefore I am sure Thou wilt bring to naught the persecutors
of Thy children. For shouldest Thou fail to do this Thine own cause,
being connected with ours, would be endangered. It is entirely thine own
concern. We, by Thy providence, have been compelled to take a part. Thou
therefore wilt be our defence.’ Whilst I was listening to Luther praying
in this manner, at a distance, my soul seemed on fire within me, to hear
the man address God so like a friend, yet with so much gravity and
reverence; and also to hear him, in the course of his prayer, insisting
on the promises contained in the Psalms, as if he were sure his
petitions would be granted.”
Of William Bramwell, a noted Methodist preacher in England, wonderful
for his zeal and prayer, the following is related by a sergeant major:
“In July, 1811, our regiment was ordered for Spain, then the seat of a
protracted and sanguinary war. My mind was painfully exercised with the
thoughts of leaving my dear wife and four helpless children in a strange
country, unprotected and unprovided for. Mr. Bramwell felt a lively
interest in our situation, and his sympathising spirit seemed to drink
in all the agonised feelings of my tender wife. He supplicated the
throne of grace day and night in our behalf. My wife and I spent the
evening previous to our march at a friend’s house, in company with Mr.
Bramwell, who sat in a very pensive mood, and appeared to be in a
spiritual struggle all the time. After supper, he suddenly pulled his
hand out of his bosom, laid it on my knee, and said: ‘Brother Riley,
mark what I am about to say! You are not to go to Spain. Remember I tell
you, you are not; for I have been wrestling with God on your behalf, and
when my Heavenly Father condescends in mercy to bless me with power to
lay hold on Himself, I do not easily let Him go; no, not until I am
favoured with an answer. Therefore you may depend upon it that the next
time I hear from you, you will be settled in quarters.’ This came to
pass exactly as he said. The next day the order for going to Spain was
countermanded.”
These men prayed with a purpose. To them God was not far away, in some
inaccessible region, but near at hand, ever ready to listen to the call
of His children. There was no barrier between. They were on terms of
perfect intimacy, if one may use such a phrase in relation to man and
his Maker. No cloud obscured the face of the Father from His trusting
child, who could look up into the Divine countenance and pour out the
longings of his heart. And that is the type of prayer which God never
fails to hear. He knows that it comes from a heart at one with His own;
from one who is entirely yielded to the heavenly plan, and so He bends
His ear and gives to the pleading child the assurance that his petition
has been heard and answered.
Have we not all had some such experience when with set and undeviating
purpose we have approached the face of our Father? In an agony of soul
we have sought refuge from the oppression of the world in the anteroom
of heaven; the waves of despair seemed to threaten destruction, and as
no way of escape was visible anywhere, we fell back, like the disciples
of old, upon the power of our Lord, crying to Him to save us lest we
perish. And then, in the twinkling of an eye, the thing was done. The
billows sank into a calm; the howling wind died down at the Divine
command; the agony of the soul passed into a restful peace as over the
whole being there crept the consciousness of the Divine presence,
bringing with it the assurance of answered prayer and sweet deliverance.
“I tell the Lord my troubles and difficulties, and wait for Him to give
me the answers to them,” says one man of God. “And it is wonderful how a
matter that looked very dark will in prayer become clear as crystal by
the help of God’s Spirit. I think Christians fail so often to get
answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God.
They just drop down and say a few words, and then jump up and forget it
and expect God to answer them. Such praying always reminds me of the
small boy ringing his neighbour’s door-bell, and then running away as
fast as he can go.”
When we acquire the habit of prayer we enter into a new atmosphere. “Do
you expect to go to heaven?” asked some one of a devout Scotsman. “Why,
man, I live there,” was the quaint and unexpected reply. It was a pithy
statement of a great truth, for all the way to heaven is heaven begun to
the Christian who walks near enough to God to hear the secrets He has to
impart.
This attitude is beautifully illustrated in a story of Horace Bushnell,
told by Dr. Parkes Cadman. Bushnell was found to be suffering from an
incurable disease. One evening the Rev. Joseph Twichell visited him,
and, as they sat together under the starry sky, Bushnell said: “One of
us ought to pray.” Twichell asked Bushnell to do so, and Bushnell began
his prayer; burying his face in the earth, he poured out his heart
until, said Twichell, in recalling the incident, “I was afraid to
stretch out my hand in the darkness lest I should touch God.”
To have God thus near is to enter the holy of holies—to breathe the
fragrance of the heavenly air, to walk in Eden’s delightful gardens.
Nothing but prayer can bring God and man into this happy communion. That
was the experience of Samuel Rutherford, just as it is the experience of
every one who passes through the same gateway. When this saint of God
was confined in jail at one time for conscience sake, he enjoyed in a
rare degree the Divine companionship, recording in his diary that Jesus
entered his cell, and that at His coming “every stone flashed like a
ruby.”
Many others have borne witness to the same sweet fellowship, when prayer
had become the one habit of life that meant more than anything else to
them. David Livingstone lived in the realm of prayer and knew its
gracious influence. It was his habit every birthday to write a prayer,
and on the next to the last birthday of all, this was his prayer: “O
Divine one, I have not loved Thee earnestly, deeply, sincerely enough.
Grant, I pray Thee, that before this year is ended I may have finished
my task.” It was just on the threshold of the year that followed that
his faithful men, as they looked into the hut of Ilala, while the rain
dripped from the eaves, saw their master on his knees beside his bed in
an attitude of prayer. He had died on his knees in prayer.
Stonewall Jackson was a man of prayer. Said he: “I have so fixed the
habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without
asking God’s blessing, never seal a letter without putting a word of
prayer under the seal, never take a letter from the post without a brief
sending of my thoughts heavenward, never change my classes in the
lecture-room without a minute’s petition for the cadets who go out and
for those who come in.”
James Gilmour, the pioneer missionary to Mongolia, was a man of prayer.
He had a habit in his writing of never using a blotter. He made a rule
when he got to the bottom of any page to wait until the ink dried and
spend the time in prayer.
In this way their whole being was saturated with the Divine, and they
became the reflectors of the heavenly fragrance and glory. Walking with
God down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and
unconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.
Professor James, in his famous work, “Varieties of Religious
Experience,” tells of a man of forty-nine who said: “God is more real to
me than any thought or thing or person. I feel His presence positively,
and the more as I live in closer harmony with His laws as written in my
body and mind. I feel Him in the sunshine or rain; and all mingled with
a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to Him
as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful.
He answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it
seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong
mental impressions. Usually a text of Scripture, unfolding some new view
of Him and His love for me, and care for my safety.... That He is mine
and I am His never leaves me; it is an abiding joy. Without it life
would be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.”
Equally notable is the testimony of Sir Thomas Browne, the beloved
physician who lived at Norwich in 1605, and was the author of a very
remarkable book of wide circulation, “Religio Medici.” In spite of the
fact that England was passing through a period of national convulsion
and political excitement, he found comfort and strength in prayer. “I
have resolved,” he wrote in a journal found among his private papers
after his death, “to pray more and pray always, to pray in all places
where quietness inviteth, in the house, on the highway and on the
street; and to know no street or passage in this city that may not
witness that I have not forgotten God.” And he adds: “I purpose to take
occasion of praying upon the sight of any church which I may pass, that
God may be worshipped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved
there; to pray daily for my sick patients and for the patients of other
physicians; at my entrance into any home to say, ‘May the peace of God
abide here’; after hearing a sermon, to pray for a blessing on God’s
truth, and upon the messenger; upon the sight of a beautiful person to
bless God for His creatures, to pray for the beauty of such an one’s
soul, that God may enrich her with inward graces, and that the outward
and inward may correspond; upon the sight of a deformed person, to pray
God to give them wholeness of soul, and by and by to give them the
beauty of the resurrection.”
What an illustration of the praying spirit! Such an attitude represents
prayer without ceasing, reveals the habit of prayer in its unceasing
supplication, in its uninterrupted communion, in its constant
intercession. What an illustration, too, of purpose in prayer! Of how
many of us can it be said that as we pass people in the street we pray
for them, or that as we enter a home or a church we remember the inmates
or the congregation in prayer to God?
The explanation of our thoughtlessness or forgetfulness lies in the fact
that prayer with so many of us is simply a form of selfishness; it means
asking for something for ourselves—that and nothing more.
And from such an attitude we need to pray to be delivered.
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_The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the
great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy._
—ROBERT HALL.
_The Church, intent on the acquisition of temporal power, had well
nigh abandoned its spiritual duties, and its empire, which rested
on spiritual foundations, was crumbling with their decay, and
threatened to pass away like an unsubstantial vision._
—LEA’S INQUISITION.
V
ARE we praying as Christ did? Do we abide in Him? Are our pleas and
spirit the overflow of His spirit and pleas? Does love rule the
spirit—perfect love?
These questions must be considered as proper and apposite at a time like
the present. We do fear that we are doing more of other things than
prayer. This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity, of
great movements, but one in which the tendency is very strong to stress
the seen and the material and to neglect and discount the unseen and the
spiritual. Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honours God
and brings Him into active aid.
There can be no substitute, no rival for prayer; it stands alone as the
great spiritual force, and this force must be imminent and acting. It
cannot be dispensed with during one generation, nor held in abeyance for
the advance of any great movement—it must be continuous and particular,
always, everywhere, and in everything. We cannot run our spiritual
operations on the prayers of the past generation. Many persons believe
in the efficacy of prayer, but not many pray. Prayer is the easiest and
hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and
the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human
possibilities—they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.
Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer;
fewer still have any experience of that power. The Church seems almost
wholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this spiritual
_carte blanche_ on the infinite resources of God’s wisdom and power is
rarely, if ever, used—never used to the full measure of honouring God.
It is astounding how poor the use, how little the benefits. Prayer is
our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least
skilled, the most averse to its use. We do everything else for the
heathen save the thing God wants us to do; the only thing which does any
good—makes all else we do efficient.
To graduate in the school of prayer is to master the whole course of a
religious life. The first and last stages of holy living are crowned
with praying. It is a life trade. The hindrances of prayer are the
hindrances in a holy life. The conditions of praying are the conditions
of righteousness, holiness and salvation. A cobbler in the trade of
praying is a bungler in the trade of salvation.
Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our
time at it. Painstaking care, much thought, practice and labour are
required to be a skilful tradesman in praying. Practice in this, as well
as in all other trades, makes perfect. Toiling hands and hearts only
make proficients in this heavenly trade.
In spite of the benefits and blessings which flow from communion with
God, the sad confession must be made that we are not praying much. A
very small number comparatively lead in prayer at the meetings. Fewer
still pray in their families. Fewer still are in the habit of praying
regularly in their closets. Meetings specially for prayer are as rare as
frost in June. In many churches there is neither the name nor the
semblance of a prayer meeting. In the town and city churches the prayer
meeting in name is not a prayer meeting in fact. A sermon or a lecture
is the main feature. Prayer is the nominal attachment.
Our people are not essentially a praying people. That is evident by
their lives.
Prayer and a holy life are one. They mutually act and react. Neither can
survive alone. The absence of the one is the absence of the other. The
monk depraved prayer, substituted superstition for praying, mummeries
and routine for a holy life. We are in danger of substituting churchly
work and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy
living. A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live
without the closet. If, by any chance, a prayer chamber should be
established without a holy life, it would be a chamber without the
presence of God in it.
Put the saints everywhere to praying, is the burden of the apostolic
effort and the key note of apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven
to do this in the days of His personal ministry. He was moved by
infinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth perishing for lack of
labourers, and pausing in His own praying, He tries to awaken the
sleeping sensibilities of His disciples to the duty of prayer, as He
charges them: “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth
labourers into His harvest.” And He spake a parable to them to this end,
that _men ought_ always to pray.
Only glimpses of this great importance of prayer could the apostles get
before Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling on Pentecost
elevated prayer to its vital and all-commanding position in the Gospel
of Christ. The call now of prayer to every saint is the Spirit’s loudest
and most exigent call. Sainthood’s piety is made, refined, perfected, by
prayer. The Gospel moves with slow and timid pace when the saints are
not at their prayers early and late and long.
Where are the Christlike leaders who can teach the modern saints how to
pray and put them at it? Do our leaders know we are raising up a
prayerless set of saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can put
God’s people to praying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and
it will be the greatest work that can be done. An increase of
educational facilities and a great increase of money force will be the
direst curse to religion if they are not sanctified by more and better
praying than we are doing.
More praying will not come as a matter of course. The campaign for the
twentieth or thirtieth century will not help our praying, but hinder if
we are not careful. Nothing but a specific effort from a praying
leadership will avail. None but praying leaders can have praying
followers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints. A praying pulpit
will beget praying pews. We do greatly need somebody who can set the
saints to this business of praying. We are a generation of non-praying
saints. Non-praying saints are a beggarly gang of saints, who have
neither the ardour nor the beauty, nor the power of saints. Who will
restore this branch? The greatest will he be of reformers and apostles,
who can set the Church to praying.
Holy men have, in the past, changed the whole force of affairs,
revolutionised character and country by prayer. And such achievements
are still possible to us. The power is only wanting to be used. Prayer
is but the expression of faith.
Time would fail to tell of the mighty things wrought by prayer, for by
it holy ones have “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed
valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women
received their dead raised to life again.”
Prayer honours God; it dishonours self. It is man’s plea of weakness,
ignorance, want. A plea which heaven cannot disregard. God delights to
have us pray.
Prayer is not the foe to work, it does not paralyse activity. It works
mightily; prayer itself is the greatest work. It springs activity,
stimulates desire and effort. Prayer is not an opiate but a tonic, it
does not lull to sleep but arouses anew for action. The lazy man does
not, will not, cannot pray, for prayer demands energy. Paul calls it a
striving, an agony. With Jacob it was a wrestling; with the
Syrophenician woman it was a struggle which called into play all the
higher qualities of the soul, and which demanded great force to meet.
The closet is not an asylum for the indolent and worthless Christian. It
is not a nursery where none but babes belong. It is the battlefield of
the Church; its citadel; the scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts.
The closet is the base of supplies for the Christian and the Church. Cut
off from it there is nothing left but retreat and disaster. The energy
for work, the mastery over self, the deliverance from fear, all
spiritual results and graces, are much advanced by prayer. The
difference between the strength, the experience, the holiness of
Christians is found in the contrast in their praying.
Few, short, feeble prayers, always betoken a low, spiritual condition.
Men ought to pray much and apply themselves to it with energy and
perseverance. Eminent Christians have been eminent in prayer. The deep
things of God are learned nowhere else. Great things for God are done by
great prayers. He who prays much, studies much, loves much, works much,
does much for God and humanity. The execution of the Gospel, the vigour
of faith, the maturity and excellence of spiritual graces wait on
prayer.
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_“Nothing is impossible to industry,” said one of the seven sages
of Greece. Let us change the word industry for persevering prayer,
and the motto will be more Christian and more worthy of universal
adoption. I am persuaded that we are all more deficient in a spirit
of prayer than in any other grace. God loves importunate prayer so
much that He will not give us much blessing without it. And the
reason that He loves such prayer is that He loves us and knows that
it is a necessary preparation for our receiving the richest
blessings which He is waiting and longing to bestow._
_I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at
some time—no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape,
probably the last I would have devised, it came._
—ADONIRAM JUDSON.
_It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray. If I cannot
pray with perseverance or continue long in my addresses to the
Divine Being, I have found that the more I do in secret prayer the
more I have delight to do, and have enjoyed more of the spirit of
prayer; and frequently I have found the contrary, when by
journeying or otherwise, I have been deprived of retirement._
—DAVID BRAINERD.