_The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human
mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of
the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are
absolutely incapable of prayer._--COLERIDGE.
Bishop Wilson says: “In H. Martyn’s journal the spirit of prayer, the
time he devoted to the duty, and his fervor in it are the first things
which strike me.”
Payson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed
so often and so long. His biographer says: “His continuing instant in
prayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable
fact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival
his eminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be
ascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted
success.”
The Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his
servant to call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The
servant at the time saw his face through an aperture. It was marked
with such holiness that he hated to arouse him. His lips were moving,
but he was perfectly silent. He waited until three half hours had
passed; then he called to him, when he arose from his knees, saying
that the half hour was so short when he was communing with Christ.
Brainerd said: “I love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend
much time in prayer.”
William Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness
and for his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvelous
answers to his prayers. For hours at a time he would pray. He almost
lived on his knees. He went over his circuits like a flame of fire. The
fire was kindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often spent as much
as four hours in a single season of prayer in retirement.
Bishop Andrewes spent the greatest part of five hours every day in
prayer and devotion.
Sir Henry Havelock always spent the first two hours of each day alone
with God. If the encampment was struck at 6 A.M., he would rise at four.
Earl Cairns rose daily at six o’clock to secure an hour and a half for
the study of the Bible and for prayer, before conducting family worship
at a quarter to eight.
Dr. Judson’s success in prayer is attributable to the fact that he gave
much time to prayer. He says on this point: “Arrange thy affairs, if
possible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every
day not merely to devotional exercises but to the very act of secret
prayer and communion with God. Endeavor seven times a day to withdraw
from business and company and lift up thy soul to God in private
retirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight and devoting some
time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred work.
Let the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the hours
of nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same. Be
resolute in his cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it.
Consider that thy time is short, and that business and company must
not be allowed to rob thee of thy God.” Impossible, say we, fanatical
directions! Dr. Judson impressed an empire for Christ and laid the
foundations of God’s kingdom with imperishable granite in the heart of
Burmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily impressed
the world for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and learning
than he have made no such impression; their religious work is like
footsteps in the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant.
The secret of its profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he
gave time to prayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God’s
skill fashioned it with enduring power. No man can do a great and
enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a
man of prayer who does not give much time to praying.
Is it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull
and mechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till
tameness, shortness, superficiality are its chief elements? “Is it
true that prayer is, as is assumed, little else than the half-passive
play of sentiment which flows languidly on through the minutes or
hours of easy reverie?” Canon Liddon continues: “Let those who have
really prayed give the answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the
patriarch Jacob as a wrestling together with an Unseen Power which
may last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the night
hours, or even to the break of day. Sometimes they refer to common
intercession with St. Paul as a concerted struggle. They have, when
praying, their eyes fixed on the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane,
upon the drops of blood which fall to the ground in that agony of
resignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of the essence of successful
prayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but sustained work. It is
through prayer especially that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence
and the violent take it by force. It was a saying of the late Bishop
Hamilton that ‘No man is likely to do much good in prayer who does not
begin by looking upon it in the light of a work to be prepared for and
persevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon
subjects which are in our opinion at once most interesting and most
necessary.’”