was spread out some. I go into my room at night to retire. I read a bit
from the Book, and kneel to pray. I pray for a man in Pittsburg or in
Hang-chow, China. Does anything take place in Pittsburg or in Hang-chow
that wouldn't have taken place if I hadn't prayed? Of course, the praying
does <i>me</i> good. The very bending of knee and head before God, the good
wishes in my heart going out to some one else--these influence me. I rise
better for both.
But is that all? Does anything happen <i>at the other end?</i> Does my prayer
do anything in Hang-chow? If I write a business letter to Hang-chow,
enclosing a foreign draft, the letter does something. A vast amount of
business is carried on that way. Would the prayer as really do something
as the letter and the draft?
There was a good bit of talk back and forth, and questions asked. It was
interesting to find these men were ready to admit that they really
believed that something would occur at the other end. They belonged to a
church noted for its sound teaching, and came from the orthodox church
city of Pittsburg. The matter-of-fact power of prayer to do business "at
the other end" seemed to appeal to these business men. Apparently they had
not been looking at prayer that way. But they readily admitted that it
must be so. Then the next question asked itself: How much of this foreign
business are we doing? And so the little crowd talked along while the
train pounded the rails at the rate of forty-odd miles an hour.
Prayer does do things. Something happens at the other end that wouldn't
happen if the prayer were not made. The banker can touch London and Paris
and Shanghai and Calcutta and Tokyo, without moving from the desk where he
is dictating letters, with his correspondence spread out before him. The
praying man can as really touch these cities as he kneels in his room,
with map and Book spread out before him.
Things are changed out there that need changing. That banker does
business, too, in his home city and out in the home-land. But many times,
with many a house, the bulk of foreign business is in excess of that done
at home. Now we want to do a large business abroad in soul-winning and in
world-winning, as well as at home.
<u>A Weekly Journey round the World.</u>
I use that word "business" in this connection thoughtfully and reverently.
I know there is a sacredness, a hallowedness about prayer that never or
rarely enters into business matters. We keep the two things apart in our
thoughts; reckoning the one a common thing, and the other a holy thing.
And I would increase, if I could, that sense of reverence in prayer. But
there is a great advantage in using the familiar language of business in
thinking of the results of our praying.
Prayer is doing business for God. It gives a practicality, a
something-you-can-touch-and-feel feeling to think in that way. Shall we
not make plans at once to increase our foreign correspondence?
You can have a simple schedule or memorandum to guide your praying. I do
not mean a slavish hard-and-fast system, or set of rules, set down to be
followed, with a feeling that you have been untrue if you forget. Nothing
of that sort at all. But merely a simple something to glance at each day,
and so serve as a reminder to guide your thoughts.
A little memorandum can be made running through the days of the week. It
can be so planned as to run around the world during the week. The little
schedule which I use is divided into the days of the week, Sunday to
Saturday. There is a daily page containing notes, catch-words, about
personal affairs, and home, and friends, and church, and appointments, and
such items. Then each day of the week has a page, and on it is marked
home-land items and foreign items.
In marking out the weekly world journey I had to begin somewhere. The
Master told the disciples to begin at Jerusalem and work out. So I
followed that rule, and Sunday is marked Turkey and the lands grouped with
it, Arabia and Persia. The memorandum moves east, following the
compass-line of greatest need. Monday is India day, including Ceylon and
the lands and islands lying adjacent. Tuesday is China day; Wednesday,
Japan, the island kingdom; and the island world of the Pacific.
This brings me across the Pacific, and so Thursday is marked South
America, including Central America and Mexico. The easterly line takes me
across the Atlantic again to Africa on Friday. Saturday takes an upward
turn to the papal lands of Europe, and to Russia, completing the
world-journey for that week. The matters for prayer here in the home-land
are noted through the days of the week in the same way. Each page has
certain home and certain foreign items.
A little prayer-book of that sort grows under constant use. Your reading
of missionary news leads to the making of fresh notes. Names of persons
are added, and dates of coming conferences, and so on, and verses of
Scripture that stand out in the daily reading. So the book becomes to you
a very precious little batch of leaves, lying inside the precious Book of
God.
It should be accompanied by a map of the world. For a good while I used
the one which was inserted in one of Dr. A. T. Pierson's mission books.
That copy has long since been replaced by others, larger, giving more
information. It is an immense help to glance at the map daily, and look at
the part marked for the day. The lands get fixed in mind in that way
without special effort. Gradually they stand out more and more clearly,
and come to be very real to you.
That map may become dear to you, for it suggests the field that you are
influencing. It is your prayer sailing-chart. It becomes fragrant with
memories. Experiences you have had alone with God over His Word, and over
this map of His World, come back to refresh and sweeten.
<u>Prayer a Habit.</u>
There's a little sentence of Paul's that used to puzzle and bother me,
"Pray without ceasing." But it has become a great help to me. It puzzled
me because I didn't see any practical way of doing it. It didn't seem to
mean the repetition of prayers, with little mechanical helps, such as some
use. It surely doesn't mean staying on your knees a long time. But, as I
tried to pray my way into its meaning, it came to mean four distinct
things to me. And I would not be surprised to find more yet coming out of
it.
First of all, it means that prayer should be <i>a habit</i>. There should be a
fixed time every day, or times, for going off alone to pray. Into that
time the Book is taken. Quiet time is spent in reading it. For this is
listening to God. And that comes first in praying; listening first, then
speaking. The reading may be rapid and broad, or slower and more
meditative. Whichever it may be, there should be a cultivation of <i>the
habit of meditation</i>.
I do not mean a sleepy trying to imitate what we suppose some holy men do.
But a keen thinking into the meaning of the words, and into their
practical use in one's own life. Then the praying itself. The being still
before God, and the definite prayer for particular things, and persons,
and places. That habit can be fixed until it becomes second nature. It can
be cultivated until it becomes the sweet spot of the day to you.
<u>A Praying Bent of Mind.</u>
Then while the daily habit continues prayer may become an attitude, <i>a
bent of mind</i>. Whatever comes up suggests prayer to you. The bent of your
mind is to pray as things come up in the daily round. You can't stop your
work, but you <i>think</i> prayers. Your heart prays while your hands are busy.
I shall never forget the school in which I learned to pray this way. A
case of protracted illness in my home required my personal attention
constantly for a time. It seemed as if no assistance I could get meant
quite as much as what I could do personally. The life in peril was so
precious that all else dropped out of sight. My habits of life were
completely broken up. I was up night and day. The early morning hour of
reading and prayer was broken into, with everything else of a regular
sort.
But as I went about my round of service I found myself praying constantly.
I was much wearied, and things sometimes seemed desperate. I realized how
everything depended on God's touch. And without any planning a habit of
continual praying formed itself. I could be engaged in conversation,
thinking intently into something needing great care, and yet there was an
undercurrent of prayer constantly. I shall never cease to be grateful for
that trying experience, because in it this new habit of a praying bent of
mind formed itself.
Do you not know how as you go about your ordinary round there is a
constant undercurrent of thought? You may be talking, or reading, or
writing, or doing something more mechanical, and yet this underneath train
of thought is running along apparently of its own accord, regardless of
you. It is broken at times, or you lose consciousness of it, as your work
requires closer attention. When you swing into the habitual things that
you have done over and over again until they almost do themselves, it
reasserts itself.
I remember years ago, in a banking-house where I served for a time, I had
long additions to make. Sometimes the rows of figures to be added up were
a foot in length. And I got so used to adding that often I was surprised
to find that my thoughts had been far away, completely taken up with
something else, while I had been adding the figures. And fearing that I
had been slighting my work, I would go back carefully all over the
figures, only to find the footings correct. The adding habit had become
fixed, and left the undercurrent of my thought free.
That current is apt to reveal the heart's purpose or set of mind. Whatever
you are most set upon, whatever your favorite fads or hobbies or
inclinations or moods are, they are apt to appear in that involuntary
train of thinking. Now this can be cultivated. It can be cultivated
chiefly by the cultivation of the controlling purpose of your life, and
then by trying to give directions to the undercurrent, and holding it to
that direction. If Jesus has gripped your heart the purpose of the life
will be for Him. And if you have come to realize the tremendous power of
prayer, this undercurrent of thought can be made a prayer-current.
I do not mean by any forced or artificial holding of one's self to such a
current by dint of main force, and then mentally whipping yourself if you
have forgotten. The power of all action lies in its being perfectly free
and natural. You can cultivate the Jesus-passion, and the life-purpose,
and the prayer-habit, and all of this will be a training of that
undercurrent of thought toward prayer.
The shipping clerk, as he heads up his barrels and boxes, can be sending
out and up his current of prayer. At intervals he is thinking closely
about something connected with his work. Then his thoughts free
themselves. As he hammers in the nails, his thought says, "This is China
day." Each ringing blow of the hammer rings out "This is China day:--Thy
blessing, Master, to-day upon the missionaries in Hang-chow;--upon Mr.
Blank out there;--victory in Jesus' name to-day;--the physician
missionaries, the nurses;--Thy power upon them;--help the native workers."
The picture of his little prayer memorandum comes up before his mind's
eye. The map of China stands out more or less distinctly, according to how
long he may have been practising looking at it in his prayer-hour. His
mind runs of itself from one point to another. And so, all the while, his
undercurrent of praying goes on. It is broken into by newer or more
exacting duties; then free again, and swinging more or less to the thing
his heart is set upon. It becomes a perfectly free, natural thing with
him. This is part of the meaning of "Pray without ceasing."
<u>The Man is the Prayer.</u>
Then prayer is <i>a life</i>. The life is what you are in yourself. It is not
the mere span of years you live through. Your thoughts and loves, your
heart's ambitions and gripping purposes, the things you will to do, and to
be--that is your life. That exerts an enormous influence upon the circle
in which you live, and upon the world.
If underneath all else that driving purpose, that warm, intense
love-power, that yearning desire, is Godward, and manward, and world-ward,
that becomes a prayer, a continual prayer. You are not thinking of it that
way. But that is your life, and that life is a prayer. Its influence
against the evil one and for God is enormous.
That is a prayer unceasing, as long and as strong as your life itself.
Satan fears it. It hinders him and thwarts him every day. The fragrant
incense from the censer of your life rises up before the throne of God
continually, and affects the events on the earth.[28]
And then prayer is <i>a person</i>. That is to say, you yourself may be a
prayer, a walking prayer offered up in Jesus' name. Your presence will
affect the evil one, and change events, and help God in His plans. You may
be so allied with Jesus in the simple gripping purpose of your heart that
you yourself, where you are, by your mere presence, will be recognized by
evil spirits, and by the Master Himself as a mighty power for God.
Your presence disturbs the evil one's plan. It has an influence upon those
you meet. It is helping God. The whole effect of your presence is
precisely the same as a prayer. You are a prayer yourself, though
unconsciously. The whole trend of your life says, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy
will be done on earth as in heaven."
A few years ago President Roosevelt's daughter was a member of the Taft
party that visited parts of the Orient. She did not go as the President's
daughter, of course. There could be no official significance attached to
her presence. We Americans can understand better than some others that she
went simply as a young woman eager to see Japan and China, not as the
President's daughter.
But everywhere she went in the Orient she was treated not merely as a
member of the party, but as the daughter of the President of the United
States. Presents were made to her, receptions tendered, and deference
shown, because of her personal relation to her father. To the Orientals
her presence stood for the head of our Government. They treated her in
relation to him.
Even so it is with us Christians. The evil one doesn't think of you and
me for ourselves simply. He thinks of us in relation to the Jesus, who is
his Victor. We stand to him down here for Jesus. He fears us as he fears
Jesus. That is, he can be made to fear us, by our being true to our Lord.
The final purpose of prayer is to defeat Satan and to bring about God's
will. And we do just that in our persons, by our presence; or we may.
Prayer is a person. You are a prayer. The man himself becomes a tremendous
prayer, off-setting evil influences, changing men and events, and helping
God in His plans.
These last two, the life and the person, may be called unconscious prayer.
The influence is constantly going out, though we are not aware of it. But
it is great encouragement to recall that this prayer-power is going out of
us constantly. And these two are not limited to the place where we are.
They act as a momentum to every wish we breathe, and every spoken prayer
we utter, sending these with renewed force out to the place involved.
Spirit influence does not know anything about the limitations of distance.
<u>Unseen Changes Going On.</u>
All this praying makes a difference at the other end, the place toward
which it is directed. Things in Tokyo are made different. The copy of a
Gospel that some native in India is reading becomes a plainer book to him
because of this praying. Your prayer is a spirit-force travelling
instantly through the distance between you and the place you are praying
for. And things occur that otherwise would not.
Opposition lessens. Difficulties give way. The road some man is travelling
clears and brightens. The truth on the printed page stands out in bigger
letters. The health renews. The sickness or weakness gives way to a new
health and strength. The judgment steers a straight course. The purpose
holds its anchor steady. The man rides the rough seas of temptation
safely.
Things are happening. And they are happening because some scarcely noticed
young fellow hammering a barrel-head and marking the shipping directions,
and some typewriter chopping her machine, are praying in the quiet time,
and are praying softly in the undercurrent of their scarcely thought-out
thoughts.
"Oh, if our ears were opened
To hear as angels do
The Intercession-chorus
Arising full and true,
We should hear it soft up-welling
In morning's pearly light;
Through evening's shadows swelling
In grandly gathering might;
The sultry silence filling
Of noontide's thunderous blow,
And the solemn starlight thrilling
With ever-deepening flow.
"We should hear it through the rushing
Of the city's restless roar,
And trace its gentle gushing
O'er ocean's crystal floor;
We should hear it far up-floating
Beneath the Orient moon,
And catch the golden noting
From the busy Western noon;
And pine-robed heights would echo
As the mystic chant up-floats,
And the sunny plain resounds again
With the myriad mingling notes.
"There are hands too often weary
With the business of the day,
With God-entrusted duties,
Who are <i>toiling while they pray</i>.
They bear the golden vials,
And the golden harps of praise,
Through all the daily trials,
Through all the dusty ways.
<i>These hands, so tired, so faithful,
With odors sweet are filled,</i>
And in the ministry of prayer
Are wonderfully skilled.
"There are noble Christian workers,
The men of faith and power,
The overcoming wrestlers
Of many a midnight hour;
Prevailing princes with their God,
Who will not be denied,
Who bring down showers of blessing
To swell the rising tide.
The Prince of Darkness quaileth
At their triumphant way,
<i>Their fervent prayer availeth</i>
<i>To sap his subtle sway.</i>
"And evermore the Father
Sends radiantly down
All-marvellous responses,
His ministers to crown;
The incense cloud returning
As golden blessing-showers,
We in each drop discerning
Some feeble prayer of ours,
Transmuted into wealth unpriced,
By Him who giveth thus
The glory all to Jesus Christ,
The gladness all to us!"[29]
Money
Limitations.
The Best Partnership.
Jesus' Teaching.
Be Your Own Executor.
Missing the Master's Meaning.
Money Talks.
Debts.
Rusty Money.
Are We True to Our Friend's Trust?
Money
<u>Limitations.</u>
Money seems almost almighty in its power to do things, and make changes.
It can make a desert blossom as a rose. It can even defy death. Medical
skill holds the life here that otherwise would have been snuffed out.
Great buildings go up. Colleges begin their life with apparatus and books,
skilled instructors, and eager students. Mammoth enterprises spring into
being. Hospitals and churches rise up with skilled attendants and talented
preachers.
We have come, in our day, and perhaps peculiarly in our country, to think
that there is no limit to the power of money. Our ideas of its value are
really greatly exaggerated. That first sentence I used would be revised by
many to read, "Money is almighty." The cautious words "seems" and "almost"
would be promptly cut out.
Yet money has great limitations. It will help greatly to remember what
they are. And many of us need the brain-clearing of that help. Of itself
money is utterly useless, so much dead-weight stuff lying useless and
helpless. It must have human hands to make it valuable. It gets its value
from our conception of its value and from our use of it. It must have a
human partner to be of any service at all.
In bad hands it becomes devilish in its badness. And I needn't put an
"almost" in that sentence. It may be as a very demon, or as the arch-devil
himself, as really as it may seem to be divine in its creative and
changing power.
Then it is valuable only in this world, on the earth. At the line of death
its value wholly ceases. Over that line it takes its place as a pauper. It
is represented as being used for cobble stones in the streets of the new
Jerusalem. Yet it would need to go through some hardening process to make
it of any account at all as paving material.
We ought to remind ourselves of something else, too, that the crowd
constantly forgets, and that we are tempted to forget when touched by the
contagion of the crowd. And that is, that money is always less in its
power than a strong, sweet, pure life. Maybe you think that comparison
can't properly be made. You say that things so unlike can't be compared.
But, whether consciously or intentionally or otherwise, that comparison is
being made constantly in practical life, and most times to the advantage
of money. Commonly the crowd reckons money more than character.
We do well to remind ourselves that its influence for good is always
distinctly less than that of a life. To live a life pure and strong and
wholesome in its ideals out among men is more than to be able to give
money in any amount. To keep one's life up to such ideals in the heartless
drive and competition of modern life means more than to extract large
quantities of gold out of the mine of barter and trade, and to give some
of it away.
And money is less than personal service. Great deference is paid to checks
and subscriptions. The man who can draw a large check for some good
object, and who may by dint of much dexterous handling be induced to write
his name under some large figure, is treated with awe. But there's another
man who stands higher up in the scale, and to whom hats should go farther
off and more quickly. That is the strong man who gives personal service.
There may be a blessed partnership between the man of money and the man of
service. There often is. But he is an unfortunate man, to be pitied, who
lets anything else crowd out of his life the privilege of giving some of
his self out in personal service for others. These are some of gold's
limitations.
<u>The Best Partnership.</u>
Give money good partners, and there is no end to what it can do. Let
prayer and sacrifice and money form a life-partnership, and that first
sentence can be revised, and greatly strengthened by the revision: Money
<i>is</i> almost almighty. It gets all the good qualities of its partners as
long as it stays in the partnership, on good working terms.
It isn't the head of the firm, however. Prayer belongs in that place. It
must direct. It is the prayer's touch with God that hallows the gold and
gives to it some of God's omnipotence. Money is the working partner, best
when hard at work, and famous for the amount of work it can do in obeying
orders from the head of the house.
It gives a strange sense of awe to realize that the bit of money you hold
in your hand can be used to <i>change a life,</i> aye, more, to change many
lives. That money is yours to control. It came to you in exchange for your
labor or your skill. It is yours, for the sweat of your brow or your brain
is upon it. And now it can be sent out, and the result will be a life
utterly changed, purified, and redeemed.
Through your partnership the money produces something greater than itself.
And that changed life becomes the centre of a new power, changing other
lives out to the far rim of an ever-widening circle. It may have cost you
much. Some of your very life has gone out in the work that brought into
your hands that bit of gold. It is red with your blood. And now, if you
choose, it can be sent out and made to bring new life in to some one else.
Life has gone from you in getting it, and life will come to another in
your giving it out, under the blessed Master's transmuting touch.
<u>Jesus' Teaching.</u>
Jesus' teaching about money is startling. I mean that it stands in such
utter contrast to the commonly accepted standards out in the world, and
inside in the Church, that the contrast startles one sharply.
There are four passages in which His money teachings group, largely.
There's the "Lay-not-up-for-yourselves-treasure-upon-the-earth" bit in the
sermon on the Mount;[30] with the still stronger phrase in the Luke
parallel, "Sell that ye have, and give."[31] There is the incident of the
earnest young man who was rich;[32] the parable of the wealthy farmer in
Luke, twelfth chapter;[33] and the whole sixteenth chapter of Luke, with
that great ninth verse, whose full meaning has been so little grasped. The
truth taught in each of these is practically the same thing.