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PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

FROM THE LIBRARY OF
ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER

BV 210 .B76 1920

Bounds, Edward M. 1835-1913,

Purpose in prayer

PURPOSE IN PRAYER

EDWARD M. BOUNDS

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PURPOSE IN PRAY

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E. M. BOUNDS

Author of "Power through Prayer."

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

AND Edinburgh

r. o x r> o N

Copyright, 1920. by
FLEMING H. REVELL COiMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London : 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh 75 Princes Street

LNTRODUCTION

Edward McKendree Bounds was born in Shelby
County, Mo., August 15, 1835, and died August 24.
1Q13, in Washington, Ga. He received a common
school education at Shelbyville and was admitted
to the bar soon after his majority. He practiced
law until called to preach the Gospel at the age of
twenty-four. His first pastorate was Monticcllo,
Mo., Circuit. It was while serving as pastor of
Brunswick, Mo., that war was declared and the
young minister was made a prisoner of war be-
cause he would not take the oath of allegiance to
the Federal Government. He was sent to .'^t. Louis
and later transferred to Memphis, Tenn.

Finally securing his release, he traveled on foot
nearly one hundred miles to join General Pierce's
command in Mississippi and was soon after made
chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment, a posi-
tion he held until near the close of the war, when
he was captured and held as prisoner at Nashville,
Tenn.

After the war Rev. E. M. Bounds was pastor of
churches in Tennessee and Alabama. In 1875 he
was assigned to St. Paul Methodist Church in St.
Louis, and served there for four years. In 187()
he was married to Miss Emmie Barnette iit Lii-
faula, Ala., who died ten years later. In 1S87 he

was married to Miss Hattie Barnette, who, with
five children, survives him.

After serving several pastorates he was sent to
the First Methodist Church in St. Louis, Mo., for
one year and to St. Paul Methodist Church for
three years. At the end of his pastorate, he be-
came the editor of the St. Louis "Christian Advo-
cate."

He was a forceful writer and a very deep thinker.
He spent the last seventeen years of his life with
his family in Washington, Ga. Most of the time
he was reading, writing and praying. He rose at
4 a. m. each day for many years and was inde-
fatigable in his study of the Bible. His writings
were read by thousands of people and were in de-
mand by the church people of every Protestant
denomination.

Bounds was the embodiment of humility, with a
seraphic devotion to Jesus Christ. He reached that
high place where self is forgotten and the love of
God and humanity was the all-absorbing thought
and purpose. At seventy-six years of age he came
to me in Brooklyn, N. Y., and so intense was he
that he awoke us at 3 o'clock in the morning pray-
ing and weeping over the lost of earth. All during
the day he would go into the church next door and
be found on his knees until called for his meals.
This is what he called the "Business of Praying."
Infused with this heavenly ozone, he wrote
"Preacher and Prayer," a classic in its line, and
now gone into several foreign languages, read by
men and women all over the world. In 1909,
while Rev. A. C. Dixon was preaching in Dr.

Broughton's Tabernacle, Atlanta, Ga., I sent him
a copy of "Preacher and Prayer," by Bounds.
Hear what he says:

"This little book was given me by a friend. I
received another copy at Christmas from another
friend. 'Well/ thought I, 'there must be some-
thing worth while in the little book or two of my
friends would not have selected the same present
for me.* So I read the first page until I came to
the words: 'Man is looking for better methods,
God is looking for better men. Man is God's
method.* That was enough for me and my appe-
tite demanded more until the book was finished
with pleasure."

This present volume is a companion work, and
reflects the true spirit of a man whose business it
was to live the gospel that he preached. He was
not a luminary but a SUN and takes his place with
Brainerd and Bramwell as untiring intercessors
with God.

H. W. HODGE.,

My Creed leads me to think that prayer is efficacious, and
surely a day's asking God to overrule all events for good is
not lost. Still there is a great feeling that when a man is
praying he is doing nothing, and this feeling makes us give
ioidue importance to work, sometimes even to the hurrying
over or even to the neglect of prayer.

Do not we rest in our day too much on the arm of flesh ?
Cannot the same wonders be done now as of old ? Do not the
eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth still
to show Himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust
in Him .^ Oh that God would give me more practical faith
in Him / Where is now the Lord God of Elijah ? He is
waiting for Elijah to call on Him.

— James Gilmour of Mongolia.

I

The more praying there is in the world the better the
world will be, the mightier the forces against evil
everywhere. Prayer, in one phase of its operation,
is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the
air ; it destroys the contagion of evil. Prayer is
no fitful, shortHved thing. It is no voice crying
unheard and unheeded in the silence. It is a voice
which goes into God's ear, and it lives as long as
God's ear is open to holy pl^as, as long as God's
heart is alive to holy things.

God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are
deathless. The lips that uttered them may be
closed in death, the heart that felt them may have
ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and
God's heart is set on them and prayers outlive the
lives of those who uttered them ; outlive a genera-
tion, outhve an age, outlive a world.

That man is the most immortal who has done the
most and the best praying. They are God's heroes,
God's saints, God's servants, God's vicegerents.
A man can pray better because of the prayers of
the past ; a man can live holier because of the
prayers of the past, the man of many and acceptable
prayers has done the truest and greatest service to

9

10 Purpose in Prayer

the incoming generation. The prayers of God's
saints strengthen the unborn generation against the
desolating waves of sin and evil. Woe to the
generation of sons who find their censers empty of
the rich incense of prayer ; whose fathers have
been too busy or too unbelieving to pray, and perils
inexpressible and consequences untold are their
unhappy heritage. Fortunate are they whose
fathers and mothers have left them a wealthy
patrimony of prayer.

The prayers of God's saints are the capital stock
in heaven by which Christ carries on His great
work upon earth. The great throes and mighty
convulsions on earth are the results of these prayers.
Earth is changed, revolutionised, angels move on
more powerful, more rapid wing, and God's policy
is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more
efficient.

It is true that the mightiest successes that come to
God's cause are created and carried on by prayer.
God's day of power ; the angelic days of activity and
power are when God's Church pomes into its mightiest
inheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer.
God's conquering days are when the saints have
given themselves to mightiest prayer. When God's
house on earth is a house of prayer, then God's
house in heaven is busy and all potent in its plans
and movements, then His earthly armies are clothed
with the triumphs and spoils of victory and His
enemies defeated on every hand.

Purpose in Prayer ri

God conditions the very life and prosperity of
His cause on prayer. The condition was put in the
very existence of God's cause in this world. Ask_
of Me is the one condition God puts in the very
advance and triumph of His cause.

Men are to^ray:— to pray for the advance of God's
cause. Prayer puts God in full force in the world.
To a prayerful man God is present in realised force ;
to a pra3^erful Church God is present in glorious
power, and the Second Psalm is the Divine descrip-
tion of the establishment of God's cause through
Jesus Christ. All inferior dispensations have merged
in the enthronement of Jesus Christ. God declares
the enthronement of His Son. The nations are
incensed with bitter hatred against His cause. God
is described as laughing at their enfeebled hate.
The Lord will laugh ; The Lord will have them in
derision. " Yet have I set My King upon My
holy hill of Zion." The decree has passed
immutable and eternal :

I will tell of the decree :

The Lord said unto Me, Thou- art IVIs^ Son ;

This day have I begotten Thee.

Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for

Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Th)'

possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's

vessel.

Ask of Me is the condition — a praying people
willing and obedient. "And men shall pray for

12 Purpose in Prayer

Him continually." Under this universal and simple
promise men and women of old laid themselves
out for God. They prayed and God answered their
prayers, and the cause of God was kept alive in the
world by the flame of their praying.

Prayer became a settled and only condition to
move His Son's Kingdom. " Ask, and ye shall
receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it
shall be opened." The strongest one in Christ's
kingdom is he who is the best knocker. The secret of
success in Christ's Kingdom is the ability to pray.
The one who can wield the power of prayer is the
strong one, the holy one in Christ's Kingdom.
The most important lesson we can learn is how to
pray.

Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life,
of the holiest ministry. He does the most for God
who is the highest skilled in prayer. Jesus Christ
exercised His ministry after this order.

Thai we ought to give ourselves to God with regard to things
both temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction oyily
in the fulfilling His will, whether He lead us by suffering,
or by consolation, for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.
Prayer is nothing else but a sense of God's presence.

— Brother Lawrence.

Be sure you look to your secret duty ; keep that up what-
ever you do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it.
Apostasy generally begins at the closet door. Be much in
secret fellowship with God. It is secret trading that enriches
the Christian.

Pray alone. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the
bolt at night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it
on our knees. — Philip Henry.

The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to
which the Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign
remedy. — Robert Hall.

Ayi hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer,
or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion or
subtle bosom sin will teach us more of thought, will more
effectually awaken the faculty and form the habit of reflection
than a year's study in the schools without them. — Coleridge.

A man may pray night and day and deceive himself, but no
man can be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer
is faith passing into act. A union of the will and intellect
realising in an intellectual act. It is the whole man that
prays. Less than this is wishing or lip work, a sham or a
mummery.

If God should restore me <igain to health I have determined
to study nothing but the Bible. Literature is inimical to
spirituality if it be not kept under with a firm hand.

— Richard Cecil.

Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our
works, hut in doing that for God's sake which we commonly
do for our own. The time of business does not with me differ
from the time of prayer. Prayer is nothing else hut a sense
of the presence of God. — Brother Lawrence.

Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may
appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man
of prayer. — Henry Martyn.

II

The possibilities and necessity of prayer, its power
and results are manifested in arresting and changing
the purposes of God and in relieving the stroke of
His power. Abimelech was smitten by God :

So Abraham pra^'ed unto God : and God healed
Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants ; and
they bare children.

For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the
house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham's wife.

Job's miserable mistaken, comforters had so
deported themselves in their controversy with Job
that God's wrath was kindled against them. " My
servant Job shall pray for you," said God, " for
him will I accept."

" And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when
he prayed for his friends."

Jonah was in dire condition when " the Lord
sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a
mighty tempest." When lots were cast, " the lot
fell upon Jonah." He was cast overboard into the
sea, but " the Lord had prepared a^ great fish to
swallow up Jonah . . . Then Jonah prayed unto the
Lord his God out of the fish's bellv . • . and the Lord
spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon
the dry land."

15

i6 Purpose in Prayer

When the disobedient prophet lifted up his voice
in prayer, God heard and sent dehverance.

Pharaoh was a firm believer in the possibilities
of prayer, and its abihty to relieve. When staggering
under the woeful curses of God, he pleaded with
Moses to intercede for him. " Intreat the Lord
for me," was his pathetic appeal four times repeated
when the plagues were scourging Egypt. Four times
were these urgent appeals made to Moses, and
four times did prayer lift the dread curse from
the hard king and his doomed land.

The blasphemy and idolatry of Israel in making
the golden calf and declaring their devotions to it
were a fearful crime. The anger of God waxed
hot, and He declared that He would destroy the
offending people. The Lord was very wroth with
Aaron also, and to Moses He said, " Let Me alone
that I may destroy them." But Moses prayed,
and kept on praying ; day and night he prayed
forty days. He makes the record of his prayer
struggle. " I fell down," he says, " before the Lord
at the first forty days and nights ; I did neither
eat bread nor drink water because of your sins which
ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord
to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the
anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was
hot against you to destroy you. But the Lord
hearkened to me at this time also. And the Lord
was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed hini,
And I prayed for him also at the same time."

Purpose in Prayer 17

" Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be over-
thrown. It was the purpose of God to destroj'' that
great and wicked city. But Nineveh prayed,
covered with sackcloth ; sitting in ashes she cried
" mightily to God," and " God repented of the
evil that He had said He would do unto them ;
and He did it not."

The message of God to Hezekiah was : " Set
thine house in order ; for thou shalt die and not
live." Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall,
and prayed unto the Lord, and said : " Remember
now, 0 Lord, I beseech Thee, how I have walked
before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and
have done that which is good in Thy sight." And
Hezekiah wept sore. God said to Isaiah, " Go,
say to Hezekiah, I have heard thy prayer, I have
seen thy tears ; behold, I will add unto thy days
fifteen years." *

These men knew how to pray and how to prevail
in prayer. Their faith in prayer was no passing
attitude that changed with the wind or with their
own feelings and circumstances ; it was a fact
that God heard and answered, that His ear was
ever open to the cry of His children, and that the
power to do what was asked of Him was commen-
surate with His willingness. And thus these men,
strong in faith and in pra3'er, " subdued kingdoms,
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped
the mouths of lions, quenched the power of- fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were
2

i8 Purpose in Prayer

made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to
flight the armies of the aUens."

Everything then, as now, was possible to the
men and women who knew how to pray. Prayer,
indeed, opened a Hmitless storehouse, and God's
hand withheld nothing. Prayer introduced those
who practised it into a world of privilege, and
brought the strength and wealth of heaven down
to the aid of finite man. What rich and wonderful
power was theirs who had learned the secret of
victorious approach to God ! With Moses it saved
a nation ; with Ezra it saved a church.

And yet, strange as it seems when we contemplate
the wonders of which God's people had been witness,
there came a slackness in prayer. The mighty
hold upon God, that had so often struck awe and
terror into the hearts of their enemies, lost its
grip. The people, backslidden and apostate, had
gone off from their praying — if the bulk of them
had ever truly prayed. The Pharisee's cold and
lifeless praying was substituted for any genuine
approach to God, and because of that formal method
of praying the whole worship became a parody
of its real purpose. A glorious dispensation, and
gloriously executed, was it by Moses, by Ezra, by
Daniel and Elijah, by Hannah and Samuel ; but
the circle seems limited and shortlived ; the praying
ones were few and far between. Thev had no
survivors, none to imitate their devotion to Uod,
none to preserve the roll of the elect.

Purpose in Prayer 19

In vain had the decree established the Divine
order, the Divine call. Ask of Me. From the
earnest and fruitful crying to God they turned
their faces to pagan gods, and cried in vain for the
answers that could never come. And so they sank
into that godless and pitiful state that has lost
its object in life when the link with the Eternal
has been broken. Their favoured dispensation of
prayer was forgotten ; they knew not how to
pray.

Wiiat a contrast to the achievements that brighten
up other pages of holy writ. The power working
through Elijah and Elisha in answer to prayer
reached down even to the very grave. In each
case a child was raised from the dead, and the
powers of famine were broken. ** The supplications
of a righteous man avail much." Elijah was a
man of like passions with us. He prayed fervently
that it might not rain, and it rained not on
the earth for three years and six months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth her fruit. Jonah
prayed while imprisoned in the great fish, and he
came to dry land, saved from storm and sea and
monsters of the deep by the mighty energy of his
praying.

How wide the gracious provision of the grace of
praying as administered in that marvellous dispen-
sation. They prayed wondrously. Why could not
their praying save the dispensation from decay

20 Purpose in Prayer

and death ? Was it not because they lost the fire
without which all prajing degenerates into a lifeless
form ? It takes effort and toil and care to prepare
the incense. Prater is no laggard's work. When
all the rich, spiced graces from the body of prayer
have by labour and beating been blended and
refined and intermixed, the fire is needed to unloose
the incense and make its fragrance rise to the
throne of God. The fire that consumes creates the
spirit and life of the incense. Without fire prayer
has no spirit ; it is, like dead spices, for corruption
and worms.

The casual, intermittent prayer is never bathed
in this Divine fire. For the man who thus prays is
lacking in the earnestness that lays hold of God,
determined not to let Him go until the blessing
comes. " Pray without ceasing," counselled the
great Apostle. That is the habit that drives prayer
right into the mortar that holds the building stones
together. " You can do more than pray after you
have prayed," said the godly Dr. A. J. Gordon,
" but you cannot do more than pray until you have
prayed." The story of every great Christian
achievement is the history of answered prayer.

" The greatest and the best talent that God
gives to any man or woman in this world is the
talent of prayer," writes Principal Alexander
Whyte. " And the best usury that any man or
woman brings back to God when He comes to
reckon with them at the end of this world is a

Purpose in Prayer 21

life of prayer. And those servants best put their
Lord's money ' to the exchangers ' who rise early
and sit late, as long as they are in this world, ever
finding out and ever following after better and
better methods of prayer, and ever forming more
secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful
habits of prayer, till they Uterally ' pray without
ceasing,' and till they continually strike out into
new enterprises in prayer, and new achievements,
and new enrichments."

Martin Luther, when once asked what his plans
for the following day were, answered : " Work,
work, from early until late. In fact, I have so
much to do that I shall spend the first three hours
in prayer." Cromwell, too, believed in being
much upon his knees. Looking on one occasion
at the statues of famous men, he turned to a friend
and said : " Make mine kneeling, for thus I came
to glory."

It is only when the whole heart is gripped with
the passion of prayer that the life-giving fire
descends, for none but the earnest man gets access
to the ear of God.

When thou feelest thyself most indisposed to prayer yield
not to it, but strive and endeavour to pray even when thou
thinkest thou canst not pray. — Hildersam.

It was among the Parthians the custom that none was to
give their children any meat in the morning before they saw
the sweat on their faces, and you shall find this to be God's
usual course not to give His children the taste of His delights
till they begin to sweat in seeking after them. — Richard Baxter.

Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more
essential and yet more neglected than prayer. Most people
consider the exercise a fatiguing ceremony, which they are
justified in abridging as much as possible. Even those whose
profession or fears lead them to pray, pray with such languor
and wanderings of mind that their prayers, far from drawing
down blessings, only increase their condemnation. — Fsnelon.

Ill

More praying and better is the secret of the whole
matter. More time for prayer, more rehsh and
preparation to meet God, to commune with God
through Christ — this has in it the whole of the
matter. Our manner and matter of praying ill
become us. The attitude and relationship of God
and the Son are the eternal relationship of Father
and Son, of asking and giving — the Son always
asking, the Father always giving ;

A sk of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine

inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Jesus is to be always praying through His people.
" And men shall pray tor Him continually." " For
My house shall be called a house of prayer for My
peoples." We must prepare ourselves to pray ;
to be like Christ, to pray like Christ.

Man's access in prayer to God opens everything,
and makes his impoverishment his wealth. All
things are his through prayer. The wealth and the
glory — all things are Christ's. As the light grows
brighter and prophets take in the nature of the
restoration, the Divine record seems to be enlarged.

23

24 Purpose in Prayer

" Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and
His Maker, ask Me of the things that are to come,
concerning My sons, and concerning the work
of My hands command ye j\Ie. I have made the
earth, and created man upon it : I, even My hands,
have stretched out the heavens and all their host
have I commanded."

To man is given to command God with all this
authority and power in the demands of God's earthly
Kingdom. Heaven, with all it has, is under tribute
to carry out the ultimate, final and glorious purposes
of God. Why then is the time so long in carrying
out these wise benedictions for man ? Why then
does sin so long reign ? Why are the oath-bound
covenant promises so long in coming to their
gracious end ? Sin reigns, Satan reigns, sighing
marks the lives of many ; all tears are fresh and
full.

Why is all this so ? We have not prayed to bring
the evil to an end ; we have not prayed as we
must pray. We have not met the conditions of
prayer.

Ask of Me. Ask of God. We have not rested
on prayer. We have not made prayer the sole
condition. There has been, violation of the primary
condition of prayer. We have not prayed aright.
We have not prayed at all. God is willing to give,
but we are slow to ask. The Son, through His saints,
is ever praying and God the Father is ever answering.

Ask of Me. In the invitation is conveyed the

Purpose in Prayer 25

assurance of answer ; the shout of victory is there
and may be heard by the hstening ear. The Father
holds the authority and power in His hands. How
easy is the condition, and yet how long are we in
fulfilling the conditions ! Nations are in bondage ;
the uttermost parts of the earth are still unpossessed.
The earth groans ; the world is still in bondage ;
Satan and evil hold sway.

The Father holds Himself in the attitude of
Giver, Ask of Me, and that petition to God the
Father empowers all agencies, inspires all move-
ments. The Gospel is Divinely inspired. Back
of all its inspirations is prayer. Ask of Me lies
back of all movements. Standing as the endowment
of the enthroned Christ is the oath-bound covenant
of the Father, " Ask of Me, and I will give thee the
nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession." " And men
shall pray to Him continually."

Ever are the prayers of holy men streaming up
to God as fragrant as the richest incense. And God
in many ways is speaking to us, declaring His
wealth and our impoverishment. "I am the
Maker of all things ; the wealth and glory are
Mine. Command ye Me."

We can do all things by God's aid, and can have
the whole of His aid by asking. The Gospel, in its
success and power, depends on our ability to pray.
The dispensations of God depend on man's abihty
to pray. We can have all that God has. Command

26 Purpose in Prayer

ye Me. This is no figment of the imagination, no
idle dream, no vain fancy. The hfe of the Church
is the highest hfe. Its office is to pray. Its prayer
life is the highest hfe, the most odorous, the most
conspicuous.

The Book of Revelation says nothing about
prayer as a great duty, a hallowed service, but
much about prayer in its aggregated force and
energies. It is the prayer force ever living and
ever praying ; it is all saints' prayers going out as a
mighty, living energy while the lips that uttered the
words are stilled and sealed in death, while the
living church has an energy of faith to inherit
the forces of all the past praying and make it
deathless.

The statement by the Baptist philosopher, John
Foster, contains the purest philosophy and the
simple truth of God, for God has no force and
demands no conditions but prayer. '* More and
better praying will bring the surest and readiest
triumph to God's cause ; feeble, formal, listless
praying brings decay and death. The Church
has its sheet-anchor in the closet ; its magazine
stores are there."

"I am convinced," Foster continues, " that
every man who amidst his serious projects is apprized
of his dependence upon God as completely as
that dependence is a fact, will be impelled to pray
and anxious to induce his serious friends to pray
almost every hour. He will not without it promise

Purpose in Prayer 27

himself any noble success any more than a mariner
would expect to reach a distant coast by having
his sails spread in a stagnation of air.

" I have intimated my fear that it is visionary
to expect an unusual success in the human adminis-
stration of religion unless there are unusual omens :
now a most emphatical spirit of prayer would be
such an omen ; and the individual who should
determine to try its last possible efficacy might
probably find himself becoming a much more
prevaihng agent in his little sphere. And if the
whole, or the greater number of the disciples of
Christianity were with an earnest and unalterable
resolution of each to combine that heaven shovdd
not withhold one single influence which the very
utmost effort of conspiring and persevering suppli-
cation w^ould obtain, it would be a sign that a
revolution of the world was at hand."

Edward Payson, one of God's own, says of this
statement of Foster, " Very few missionaries since
the apostles, probably have tried the experiment.
He who shall make the first trial will, I believe,
effect wonders. Nothing that I could write, nothing
that an angel could write, would be necessary to
him who should make this trial.

** One of the principal results of the Httle
experience which I have had as a Christian minister
is a conviction that religion consists very much in
giving God that place in our views and feelings
which He actually fills in the universe. We know

28 Purpose in Prayer

that in the universe He is all in all. So far as He
is constantly all in all to us, so far as we comply
with the Psalmist's charge to his soul, ' My soul,
wait thou only upon God ; ' so far, I apprehend,
have we advanced towards perfection. It is com-
parati\'ely easy to wait upon God ; but to wait upon
Him only — to feel, so far as our strength, happiness,
and usefulness are concerned, as if all creatures
and second causes were annihilated, and we were
alone in the universe with God, is, I suspect, a
difficult and rare attainnient. At least, I am sure
it is one which I am very far from having made. In
proportion as we make this attainment we shall find
everything easy ; for we shall become, emphatically,
men of pra3'er ; and we maj^ say of prayer as
Solomon says ot money, that it answereth all
things."

This same John Foster said, when approaching
death : "I never prayed more earnestly nor
probably with such faithful frequency. ' Pray with-
out ceasing ' has been the sentence repeating itself
in the silent thought, and I am sure it must be my
practice till the last conscious hour of life. Oh,
why not throughout that long, indolent, inanimate
half-century past ? "

And yet this is the way in which we all act about
prayer. Conscious as we are of its importance, of
its vital importance, we yet let the hours pass away
as a blank and can only lament in death the
irremediable loss.

Purpose in Prayer 29

When we calmly reflect upon the fact that the
progress of our Lord's Kingdom is dependent
upon prayer, it is sad to think that we give so
httle time to the holy exercise. Everything depends
upon prayer, and yet we neglect it not only to our
own spiritual hurt but also to the delay and injury
of our Lord's cause upon earth. The forces of
good and evil are contending for the world. If we
would, we could add to the conquering power of
the army of righteousness, and yet our hps are
sealed, our hands hang listlessly by our side, and
we jeopardise the very cause in which we profess
to be deeply interested by holding back from the
prayer chamber.

Prayer is the one prime, eternal condition by
which the Father is pledged to put the Son in
possession of the world. Christ prays through His
people. Had there been importunate, universal
and continuous prayer by God's people, long ere
this the earth had been possessed for Christ. The
delay is not to be accounted for by the inveterate
obstacles, but by the lack of the right asking.
We do more of everything else than of praying.
As poor as our giving is, our contributions of money
exceed our offerings of prayer. Perhaps in the
average congregation fifty aid in paying, where
one saintly, ardent soul shuts itself up with God
and wrestles for the deliverance of the heathen
world. Official praying on set or state occasions
counts for nothing in this estimate. We emphasise

30 Purpose in Prayer

other things more than we do the necessity of
prayer.

We are saying prayers after an orderly way, but
we have not the world in the grasp of our faith.
We are not praying after the order that moves
God and brings all Divine influences to help us.
The world needs more true praying to save it from
the reign aiid ruin of Satan.

We do not pray as Elijah prayed. John Foster
puts the whole matter to a practical point. ** When
the Church of God," he says, " is aroused to its
obligation and duties and right faith to claim what
Christ has promised — ' all things whatsoever ' —
a revolution will take place."

But not all praying is praying. The driving
power, the conquering force in God's cause is God
Himself. "Call upon Me and I will answer thee
and show, thee great and mighty things which thou
knowest not," is God's challenge to prayer. Prayer
puts God in full force into God's work. " Ask of Me
things to come, concerning My sons, and concerning
the work of My hands command ye Me " — God's
carte blanche to prayer. Faith is only omnipotent
when on its knees, and its outstretched hands take
hold of God, then it draws to the utmost of God's
capacity ; for only a praying faith can get God's
" all things whatsoever." Wonderful lessons are
the Syrophenician woman, the importunate widow,
and the friend at midnight, of what dauntless
prayer can do in mastering or defying conditions,

Purpose in Prayer 3T

in changing defeat into victory and 4:riumphing in
the regions of despair. Oneness with Christ, the
acme of spiritual attainment, is glorious in all things ;
most glorious in that we can then " ask what we
will and it shall be done unto us." Prayer in Jesus'
name puts the crowning crown on God, because it
glorifies Him through the Son and pledges the Son
to give to men " whatsoever and anything " they
shall ask.

In the New Testament the marvellous prayer
of the Old Testament is put to the front that it
may provoke and stimulate our praying, and it is
preceded with a declaration, the dynamic energy
of which we can scarcely translate. " The supplica-
tion of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah
was a man of like passions with us, and he
prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it
rained not on the earth by the space of three years
and six months. And he prayed again, and the
heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth
her fruit."

Our paucity in results, the cause of all leanness, ) C
is solved by the Apostle James — " Ye have not,
because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because
ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it on your
pleasures."

That is the whole truth in a nutshell.

\

The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire ;
it had bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, ex-
tinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons,
burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven,
assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruc-
tion, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of
the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure
undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky un-
obscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is
the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.

— Chrysostom.

The prayers of holy men appease God's wrath, drive away
temptations, resist and overcome the devil, procure the ministry
and service of angels, rescind the decrees of God. Prayer
cures sickness and obtains pardon ; it arrests the sun in its
course and stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon ; it
rules over all gods and opens and shuts the storehouses of
rain, it unlocks the cabinet of the womb and quenches the
violence of fire ; it stops the mouths of lions and reconciles
our suffering and weak faculties with the violence of torment
and violence of persecution ; it pleases God and supplies all
our need. — Jeremy Taylor.

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreayns of. Wherefore, let thy ioicc
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For tvhat are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain.
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

— Tennyson.

Perfect prayer is only another name for Jove. — Fenelon.

IV

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 Uved in constant fellow-
ship 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 shghtest 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
3 33

34 Purpose in Prayer

speak to us ; and out oi 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 hfe. 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 hfe, 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 af mere desire. " Almighty
and everlasting God," he prayed, " Thou hast sway

Purpose in Prayer 35

ever5rwhere, 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 he 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 Miiller, of Bristol :
" I met Mr. Miiller 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. Miiller of

36 Purpose in Prayer

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. Miiller. 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. Miiller 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. Miiller making the trip without a
chair, when, for a couple of dollars, she could have
been provided for, I confess I feared Mr. Miiller was
carrying his faith principles toe lar and not acting
wisely. I was kept at the express office ten minutes
after Mr. Miiller 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.
Mailer's, chair. It was sent at once to the tender
and placed in my hands to take to Mr. Miiller,
just as the boat was leaving the dock (the Lord
having a lesson for me). Mr. Miiller 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

Purpose in Prayer 37

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, cheerfuhiess, 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 oui Father and our
God ; and therefore I am sure 1 hou wilt bring to
naught the persecutors of Thy children. For
shouldcst Thou fail to do this Ihine 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.' W'hilst I
was listening to Lutlier praying in this manner, at
a distance, my soul seemed on lire 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."

38 Purpose in Prayer

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 ; lor 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 counter-
manded,"

Purpose in Prayer 39

These men prayed with a purpose. To them God
was not far away, in some inaccessible region, but
near at hand, ever ready to hsten 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, hke the
disciples of old, upon the power of our Lord, crying
to Him to save us lest we perish. And then, in
the twinkhng 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

40 Purpose ix Prayer

presence, bringing with it the assurance of answered
prayer and sweet deUverance.

" 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

Purpose in Prayer 41

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 hke 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 Lhis 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

42 Purpose in Prayer

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 imder the seal, never
take a letter from the post without a brief sending
of my thoughts heavenw^ard, 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

Purpose in Prayer 43

body and mind. I feel Him in the sunshine or
rain ; and all mingled with a deUcious restfulness
most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to Him
as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our
communion is dehghtful. 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 Ufe 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 excite-
ment, 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 invdteth, 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

44 Purpose in Prayer

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 whole-
ness of soul, and by and by to give them the beauty
of the resurrection."

What an illustration of the praying spirit ! Such
an attiude 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 forgetful-
ness 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.

The prayer of faith is the oyily 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,
ever3rvvhere, and in everything. We cannot run our
spiritual operations on the prayers of the past
generation. Many persons believe in the efhcacy
of prayer, but not many pray. Prayer is the easiest

47

48 Purpose in Prayer

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 Httle 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 w^hich 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 Hving 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.

Purpose in Prayer 49

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 hve 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.
4

50 Purpose in Prayer

Put the saints everywhere to praying, is the
burden of the apostoHc effort and the key note of
apostoHc 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 prating, 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 ghmpses 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 saiht 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 w^ork that can be done.

Purpose in Prayer 51

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 " sub-
dued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,

52 Purpose in Prayer

out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant
in fight, turned to flight the armies of the
ahens, women received their dead raised to Hfe
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 wa^ 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 dehverance from fear, all spiritual results
and graces, are much advanced by prayer. The
difference between the strength, the experience, the

Purpose in Prayer 53

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, ^ \y
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.

" Nothing is impossible to industry y*' said one of the seven
sages of Greece. Let us change the word industry for per-
severing prayer, and the motto will he 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.

VI

Christ puts importunity as a distinguishing
characteristic of true praying. We must not only
pray, but we must pray with great urgency, with
intentness and with repetition. We must not only
pray, but we must pray again and again. We must
not get tired of praying. We must be thoroughly
in earnest, deeply concerned about the things for
which we ask, for Jesus Christ made it very plain
that the secret of prayer and its success lie in its
urgency. We must press our prayers upon God.

In a parable of exquisite pathos and simplicity,
our Lord taught not simply that men ought to
pray, but that men ought to pray with full hearti-
ness, and press the matter with vigorous energy and
brave hearts.

" And He spake a parable unto them to the
end that they ought always to pray, and not to
faint ; saying. There was in a city, a judge, which
feared not God, and regarded not man : and there
was a widow in that city ; and she came oft unto
him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
And he would not for a while : but afterwards he
said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor

55

56 Purpose in Prayer

regard man ; yet because this widow troubleth me,
I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her
continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what
the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God
avenge His elect, which cry to Him day and night,
and He is longsuffering over them ? I say unto
you, that He will avenge them speedily. Howbeit
when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith
on the earth ? "

This poor woman's case was a most hopeless
one, but importunity brings hope from the realms
of despair and creates success where neither success
nor its conditions existed. There could be no
stronger case, to show how unwearied and dauntless
importunity gains its ends where everything else
fails. The preface to this parable says : "He
spake a parable to this end, that men ought always
to pray and not to faint." He knew that men
would soon get faint-hearted in praying, so to
hearten us He gives this picture of the marvellous
power of importunity.

The widow, weak and helpless, is helplessness
personified ; bereft of every hope and influence
which c^uld move an unjust judge, she yet wins
her case solely by her tireless and offensive impor-
tunity. Could the necessity of importunity, its
power and tremendous importance in prayer,
be pictured in deeper or more impressive colouring ?
It surmounts or removes all obstacles, overcomes
every resisting force and gains its ends in the face of

Purpose in Prayer 57

invincible hindrances. We can do nothing without
prayer. All things can be done by importunate
prayer.

That is the teaching of Jesus Christ.
Another parable spoken by Jesus enforces the
same great truth. A man at midnight goes to his
friend for a loan of bread. His pleas are strong,
based on friendship and the embarrassing and
exacting demands of necessity, but these all fail.
He gets no bread, but he stays and presses, and
waits and gains. Sheer importunity succeeds where
all other pleas and influences had failed.

The case of the Syrophenician woman is a parable
in action. She is arrested in her approaches to
Christ by the information that He will not see
any one. She is denied His presence, and then in
His presence is treated with seeming indifference,
with the chill of silence and unconcern : she presses
and approaches, the pressure and approach are
repulsed by the stern and crushing statement
that He is not sent to her kith or kind, that she
is reprobated from His mission and power. She is
humiliated by being called a dog. Yet she accepts
all, overcomes all, wins all by her humble, daunt-
less, invincible importunity. The Son of God,
pleased, surprised, overpowered by her uncon-
querable importunity, says to her : " O, woman,
great is thy faith ; be it unto thee even as thou
wilt." Jesus Christ siuTcnders Himself to the
importunity of a great faith. " And shall not God

58 Purpose in Prayer

avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto
Him, though He bear long with them ? "

Jesus Christ puts abihty to importune as one of
the elements of prayer, one of the main conditions
of prayer. The prayer of the Syrophenician
woman is an exhibition of the matchless power of
importunity, of a conflict more real and involving
more of vital energy, endurance, and all the higher
elements than was ever illustrated in the conflicts
of Isthmia or Olympia.

The first lessons of importunity are taught in
the Sermon on the Mount — " Ask, and it shall
be given ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it
shall be opened." These are steps of advance —
*' For every one that asketh, receiveth ; and he
that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh,
it shall be opened."

Without continuance the prayer may go un-
answered. Importunity is made up of the ability
to hold on, to press on, to wait with unrelaxed
and unrelaxable grasp, restless desire and restful
patience. Importunate prayer is not an incident,
but the main thing, not a performance but a passion,
not a need but a necessity.

Prayer in its highest form and grandest success
assumes the attitude of a wrestler with God. It
is the contest, trial and victory of faith ; a victory
not secured from an enemy, but from Him who
tries our faith that He may enlarge it : that tests
our strength to make us stronger. Few things give

Purpose in Prayer 59

such quickened and permanent vigour to the soul
as a long exhaustive season of importunate prayer.
It makes an experience, an epoch, a new calendar
for the spirit, a new life to religion, a soldierly
training. The Bible never wearies in its pressure and
illustration of the fact that the highest spiritual
good is secured as the iretum of the outgoing of the
highest form of spiritual effort. There is neither
encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble
desires, listless efforts, lazy attitudes; all must
be strenuous, urgent, ardent. Inflamed desires,
impassioned, unwearied insistence delight heaven.
God would have His children incorrigibly in earnest
and persistently bold in their efforts. Heaven is
too busy to hsten to half-hearted prayers or to
respond to pop-calls.

Our whole being must be in our praying ; like
John Knox, we must say and feel, " Give me
Scotland, or I die." Our experience and revelations
of God are bom of our costly sacrifice, our costly
conflicts, our costly praying. The wrestling, all
night praying, of Jacob made an era never to be
forgotten in Jacob's Hfe, brought God to the rescue,
changed Esau's attitude and conduct, changed
Jacob's character, saved and affected his life and
entered into the habits of a nation.

Our seasons of importunate prayer cut themselves,
like the print of a diamond, into our hardest places,
and mark with ineffaceable traces our characters.
They are the salient periods of our Hves ! the

6o Purpose in Prayer

memorial stones which endure and to which we
turn.

Importunity, it may be repeated, is a condition
of prayer. Wc are to press the matter, not with
vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions.
We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain
the prayer. We cannot quit praying because
heart and soul are in it. We pray " with all perse-
verance." We hang to our prayers because by
them we live. We press our pleas because we
must have them or die. Christ gives us two most
expressive parables to emphasise the necessity of
importunity in praying. Perhaps Abraham lost
Sodom by failing to press to the utmost his privilege
of praying. Joash, we know, lost because he
stayed his smiting.

Perseverance counts much with God as well as
with man. If Ehjah had ceased at his first petition
the heavens would have scarcely yielded their rain
to his feeble praying. If Jacob had quit praying
at decent bedtime he would scarcely have sur-
vived the next day's meeting with Esau. If the
Syrophenician woman had allowed her faith to
faint by silence, humiliation, repulse, or stop mid-way
its struggles, her grief-stricken home would never
have been brightened by the healing of her daughter.

Pray and never faint, is the motto Christ gives
us for praying. It is the test of our faith, and the
severer the trial and the longer the waiting, the
more glorious the results.

Purpose in Prayer 6i

The benefits and necessity of importunity are
taught by Old Testament saints. Praying men
must be strong in hope, and faith, and prayer.
They must know how to wait and to press, to
wait on God and be in earnest in our approaches
to Him.

Abraham has left us an example of importunate
intercession in his passionate pleading with God
on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, and if, as already
indicated, he had not ceased in his asking, per-
haps God would not have ceased in His giving.
" Abraham left off asking before God left off
granting." Moses taught the power of importunity
when he interceded for Israel forty days and forty
nights, by fasting and prayer. And he succeeded
in his importunity.

Jesus, in His teaching and example, illustrated
and perfected this principle of Old Testament
pleading and waiting. How strange that the
only Son of God, who came on a mission direct
from His Father, whose only heaven on earth,
whose only hfe and law were to do His Father's
will in that mission-— what a mystery that He
should be under the law of prayer, that the blessings
which came to Him were impregnated and purchased
by prayer ; stranger still that importunity in
prayer was the process by which His wealthiest
supplies from God were gained. Had He not
prayed with importunity, no transfiguration would
have been in His history, no mighty works had

6i Purpose in Prayer

rendered Divine His career. His all-night praying
was that which filled with compassion and power
His all-day work. The importunate praying of
His life crowned His death with its triumph. He
learned the high lesson of submission to God's
will in the struggles of importunate prayer before
He illustrated that submission so sublimely on
the cross.

" Whether we like it or not," said Mr. Spurgeon,
" asking is the rule of the kingdom. * Ask, and ye
shall receive.' It is a rule that never will be altered
in anybody's case. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
elder brother of the family, but God has not relaxed
the rule for Him. Remember this text : Jehovah
says to His own Son, ' Ask of Me, and I will give
Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.'
If the Royal and Divine Son of God cannot be
exempted from the rule of asking that He may
have, you and I cannot expect the rule to be relaxed
in our favour. Why should it be ? What reason
can be pleaded why we should be exempted from
prayer ? What argument can there be why we
should be deprived of the privilege and delivered
from the necessity of supplication ? I can see none :
can you ? God will bless Elijah and send rain on
Israel, but Elijah must pray for it. If the chosen
nation is to prosper, Samuel must plead for it. If
the Jews are to be delivered, Daniel must intercede.
God will bless Paul, and the nations shall be con-

Purpose in Prayer 63

verted through him, but Paul must pray. Pray
he did without ceasing ; his epistles show that he
expected nothing except by asking for it. If you
may have everything by asking, and nothing
without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely
vital prayer is, and I beseech you to abound in it."

There is not the least doubt that much of our
praying fails for lack of persistency. It is without
the fire and strength of perseverance. Persistence
is of the essence of true praying. It may not be
alwa3^s called into exercise, but it must be there as
the reserve force. Jesus taught that perseverance is
the essential element of prayer. Men must be in
earnest when they kneel at God's footstool.

Too often we get faint-hearted and quit praying
at the point where we ought to begin. We let go
at the very point where we should hold on strongest.
Our prayers are weak because they are not
impassioned by an unfailing and resistless will.

God loves the importunate pleader, and sends
him answers that would never have been granted
but for the persistency that refuses to let go until
the petition craved for is granted.

/ suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to
religious exercises as private devotion, religious meditation.
Scripture reading, etc. Hence I am lean and cold and hard.
God would perhaps prosper me more in spiritual things if I
were to be more diligent in using the means of grace. I had
better allot more time, say two hours or an hour and a half,
to religious exercises daily, and try w}^ether by so doing I cannot
preserve a frame of spirit more habitually devotional, a more
lively sense of unseen things, a liavmer love to God, and a
greater degree of hunger and ihirst after righteousness, a
heart less prone to be soiled with worldly cares, designs, passions,
and apprehension and a real undissembled longing for heaven,
its pleasures and its purity. — William Wilberforce.

VII

" Men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
The words are the words of our Lord, who not only
ever sought to impress upon His followers the urgency
and the importance of prayer, but set them an
example which they alas ! have been far too slow
to copy.

The always speaks for itself. Prayer is not a
meaningless function or duty to be crowded into
the busy or the weary ends of the day, and we are
not obeying our Lord's command when we content
ourselves with a few minutes upon our knees in
the morning rush or late at night when the faculties,
tired with the tasks of the day, call out for rest.
God is always within call, it is true ; His ear is ever
attentive to the cry of His child, but we can never
get to know Him if we use the vehicle of prayer
as we use the telephone — for a few words of hurried
conversation. Intimacy requires development.
We can never know God as it is our privilege to
know Him, by brief and fragmentary and
unconsidered repetitions of intercessions that are
requests for personal favours and nothing more.
5 65

66 Purpose in Prayer

That is not the way in which we can come into
communication with heaven's King. '* The goal of
prayer is the ear of God," a goal that can only be
reached by patient and continued and continuous
waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him
and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so
doing can we expect to know Him, and as we come
to know Him better we shall spend more time in
His presence and find that presence a constant and
ever-increasing delight.

Always does not mean that we are to neglect
the ordinary duties of life ; what it means is that
the soul which has come into intimate contact with
God in the silence of the prayer-chamber is never
out of conscious touch with the Father, that the
heart is always going out to Him in loving com-
munion, and that the moment the mind is released
from the task upon which it is engaged it returns
as naturally to God as the bird does to its nest.
What a beautiful conception of prayer we get if
we regard it in this light, if we view it as a constant
fellowship, an unbroken audience with the King.
Prayer then loses every vestige of dread which it
may once have possessed ; we regard it no longer
as a duty which must be performed, but rather as
a privilege which is to be enjoyed, a rare delight
that is always revealing some new beauty.

Thus, when we open our eyes in the morning, our
thought instantly moimts heavenward. To many
Christians the morning hours are the most precious

Purpose in Prayer 67

portion of the day, because they provide the oppor-
tunity for the hallowed fellowship that gives the
keynote to the day's programme. And what better
introduction can there be to the never-ceasing
glory and wonder of a new day than to spend it
alone with God ? It is said that Mr. Moody, at a
time when no other place was available, kept his
morning watch in the coal-shed, pouring out his
heart to God, and finding in his precious Bible a
true " feast of fat things."

George Miiller also combined Bible study with
prayer in the quiet morning hours. At one time
his practice was to give himself to prayer, after
having dressed, in the morning. Then his plan
underwent a change. As he himself put it : "I
saw the most important thing I had to do was to
give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and
to meditation on it, that thus my heart might
be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved,
instructed ; and that thus, by means of the Word of
God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be
brought into experimental communion with the
Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New
Testament early in the morning. The first thing I
did, after having asked in a few words for the Lord's
blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to
meditate on the Word of God, searching, as it were,
into every verse to get blessing out of it ; not for the
sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the
sake of preaching on what I had meditated on, but

68 Purpose in Prayer

for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.
The result I have found to be almost invariably
thus, that after a very few minutes my soul has
been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to
intercession, or to supplication ; so that, though I
did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to
meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more
or less into prayer."

The study of the Word and prayer go together,
and where we find the one truly practised, the other
is sure to be seen in close alliance.

But we do not pray always. That is the trouble
with so many of us. We need to pray much more
than we do and much longer than we do.

Robert Murray McCheyne, gifted and saintly,
of whom it was said, that " Whether viewed as a
son, a brother, a friend, or a pastor, he was the
most faultless and attractive exhibition of the true
Christian they had ever seen embodied in a living
form," knew what it was to spend much time upon
his knees, and he never wearied in urging upon
others the joy and the value of holy intercession.
" God's children should pray," he said. *' They
should crj'' day and night unto Him, God hears
every one of your cries in the busy hour of the
daytime and in the lonely watches of the night."
In every way, by preaching, by exhortation when
present and by letters when absent, McCheyne
emphasised the vital duty of prayer, importunate
and unceasing prayer.

Purpose in Prayer 69

In his diary we find this : "In the morning was
engaged in preparing the head, then the heart.
This has been frequently my error, and I have
always felt the evil of it, especially in prayer.
Reform it then, O Lord." While on his trip to the
Holy Land he wrote : '* For much of our safety
I feel indebted to the prayers of my people. If the
veil of the world's machinery were Hfted off how
much we would find done in answer to the prayers
of God's children. In an ordination sermon he
said to the preacher : " Give yourself to prayers
and the ministry of the Word. If you do not pray,
God will probably lay you aside from your ministry,
as He did me, to teach you to pray. Remember
Luther's maxim, ' To have prayed well is to have
studied well.' Get your texts from God, your
thoughts, your words. Carry the names of the
little flock upon your breast Hke the High Priest.
Wrestle for the unconverted. Luther spent his
last three hours in prayer ; John Welch prayed seven
or eight hours a day. He used to keep a plaid on
his bed that he might wrap himself in when he
rose during the night. Sometimes his wife found
him on the ground lying weeping. When she
complained, he would say, * 0, woman, I have the
souls of three thousand to answer for, and I know not
how it is with many of them.' " The people he
exhorted and charged : " Pray for your pastor.
Pray for his body, that he may be kept strong and
spared many years. Pray for his soul, that he may

70 Purpose in Prayer

be kept humble and holy, a burning and shining
light. Pray for his ministry, that it may be
abundantly blessed, that he may be anointed to
preach good tidings, Let there be no secret prayer
without naming him before your God, no family
prayer without carrying your pastor in your hearts
to God."

"Two things," says his biographer, " he seems
never to have ceased from — the cultivation of
personal holiness and the most anxious efforts to
win souls." The two are the inseparable attendants
on the ministry of prayer. Prayer fails when the
desire and effort for personal holiness fail. No
person is a soul-winner who is not an adept in the
ministry of prayer. " It is the duty of ministers,"
says this holy man, " to begin the reformation of
religion and manner with themselves, families, etc.,
with confession of past sin, earnest prayer for
direction, grace and full purpose of heart." He
begins with himself under the head of " Reformation
in Secret Prayer," and he resolves :

" I ought not to omit any of the parts of prayer —
confession, adoration, thanksgiving, petition and
intercession. There is a fearful tendency to omit
confession proceeding from low views of God and
His law, slight views of my heart, and the sin of
my past life. This must be resisted. There is a
constant tendency to omit adoration when I forget
to Whom I am speaking, when I rush heedlessly into
the presence of Jehovah without thought of His

Purpose in Prayer 71

awful name and character. When I have Httle
eyesight for his glory, and little admiration of His
wonders, I have the native tendency of the heart
to omit giving thanks, and yet it is specially
commanded. Often when the heart is dead to the
salvation of others I omit intercession, and yet it
especially is the spirit of the great Advocate Who
has the name of Israel on His heart. I ought to
pray before seeing anyone. Often when I sleep long,
or meet with others early, and then have family
prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it is
eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin secret prayer.
This is a wretched system ; it is unscriptural.
Christ rose before day and went into a solitary
place. David says, * Early will I seek Thee ; Thou
shalt early hear my voice.' Mary Magdalene came
to the sepulchre while it was yet dark. Family
prayer loses much of its power and sweetness ;
and I can do no good to those who come to seek
from me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul
unfed, the lamp not trimmed. I feel it is far better
to begin with God, to see His face first, to get my
soul near Him before it is near another. ' When
I awake I am still with Thee.' If I have slept too
long, or I am going an early journey, or my time
is in any way shortened, it is best to dress hurriedly
and have a few minutes alone with God than to
give up all for lost. But in general it is best to
have at least one hour alone with God before engaging
in anything else. I ought to spend the best hours

72 Purpose in Prayer

of the day in communion with God. When I
awake in the night, I ought to rise and pray as
David and John Welch."

McCheyne beheved in being always in prayer, and
his fruitful life, short though that life was, affords
an illustration of the power that comes from long
and frequent visits to the secret place where we
keep tryst with our Lord.

Men of McCheyne's stamp are needed to-day —
praying men, who know how to give themselves to
the greatest task demanding their time and their
attention ; men who can give their whole heart to
the holy task of intercession, men who can pray
through. God's cause is committed to men ; God
commits Himself to men. Praying men are the
vicegerents of God ; they do His work and carry
out His plans.

We are obliged to pray if we be citizens of
God's Kingdom. Prayerlessness is expatriation, or
worse, from God's Kingdom. It is outlawry, a
high crime, a constitutional breach. The Christian
who relegates prayer to a subordinate place in his
life soon loses whatever spiritual zeal he may have
once possessed, and the Church that makes little of
prayer cannot maintain vital piety, and is powerless
to advance the Gosp)el. The Gospel cannot live,
fight, conquer without prayer — prayer unceasing,
instant and ardent.

Little prayer is the characteristic of a backslidden
age and of a backslidden Church. Whenever there

Purpose in Prayer 73

is little praying in the pulpit or in the pew, spiritual
bankruptcy is imminent and inevitable.

The cause of God has no commercial age, no
cultiured age, no age of education, no age of money.
But it has one golden age, and that is the age of
prayer. When its leaders are men of prayer, when
prayer is the prevaiUng element of worship, Uke the
incense giving continual fragrance to its service,
then the cause of God will be triumphant.

Better praying and more of it, that is what we need.
We need holier men, and more of them, holier
women, and more of them to pray — women like
Hannah, who, out of their greatest griefs and
temptations brewed their greatest prayers. Through
prayer Hannah found her relief. Everywhere the
Church was backslidden and apostate, her foes were
victorious. Hannah gave herself to prayer, and in
sorrow she multiplied her praying. She saw a
great revival bom of her praying. When the whole
nation was oppressed, prophet and priest, Samuel
was bom to establish a new line of priesthood, and
her praying warmed into life a new life for God.
Everywhere rehgion revived and flourished. God,
true to His promise, "Ask of Me," though the
pra5dng came from a woman's broken heart, heard
and answered, sending a new day of holy gladness to
revive His people.

So once more, let us apply the emphasis and
repeat that the great need of the Church in this and
all ages is men of such commanding faith, of such

74 Purpose in Prayer

unsullied holiness, of such marKed spiritual vigour
and consuming zeal, that they will work spiritual
revolutions through their mighty praying.
'* Natural ability and educational advantages do
not figure as factors in this matter ; but a capacity
for faith, the ability to pray, the power of a
thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness,
an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory and
an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking
after all the fulness of God. Men who can set the
Church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way,
but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and
moves every thing for God."

And, to return to the vital point, secret praying
is the test, the gauge, the conserver of man's relation
to God. The prayer-chamber, while it is the test
of the sincerity of our devotion to God, becomes
also the measure of the devotion. The self-denial,
the sacrifices which we make for our prayer-chambers,
the frequency of our visits to that hallowed place
of meeting with the Lord, the lingering to stay, the
loathness to leave, are values which we put on
communion alone with God, the price we pay for
the Spirit's trysting hours of heavenly love.

The prayer-chamber conserves our relation to God.
It hems every raw edge ; it tucks up every flowing
and entangling garment ; girds up every fainting
loin. The sheet-anchor holds not the ship more
surely and safely than the prayer-chamber holds to
God. Satan has to break our hold on, and close

Purpose in Prayer 75

up our way to the prayer-chambers, ere he can break
our hold on God or close up our way to heaven.

" Be not afraid to pray ; to pray is right ;

Pray if thou canst with hope, but ever pray,
Though hope be weak or sick with long delay ;

Pray in the darkness if there be no light ;
And if for any wish thou dare not pray

Then pray to God to cast that wish away."

In God's name I beseech you let prayer nourish your soul
as your meals nourish your body. Let your fixed seasons of
prayer keep you in God's presence through the day, and His
presence frequently remembered through it be an ever-fresh
spring of prayer. Such a brief, loving recollection of God
renews a man's whole being, quiets his passions, supplies light
and counsel in difficulty, gradually subdues the temper, and
causes him to possess his soul in patience, or rather gives it
up to the possession of God. — F^nelon.

Devoted too much time and attention to outward and public
duties of the ministry. But this has a mistaken conduct,
for I have learned that neglect of much and fervent communion
with God in meditation and prayer is not the way to redeem
the time nor to fit me for public ministrations.

I rightly attribute my present deadness to want of sufficient
time and tranquillity for private devotion. Want of more
reading, retirement and private devotion, I have little mastery
over my own tempers. An unhappy day to me for want of
more solitude and prayer. If there be anything I do, if there
be anything I leave undone, let me be perfect in prayer.

After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great
thing. Oh thai I may be a man of prayer ! — Henry Martyn.

VIII

That the men had quit praying in Paul's time we
cannot certainly affirm. They have, in the main,
quit praying now. They are too busy to pray.
Time and strength and every faculty are laid under
tribute to money, to business, to the affairs of the
world. Few men lay themselves out in great
praying. The great business of praying is a
hurried, petty, starved, beggarly business with
most men.

St. Paul calls a halt, and lays a levy on men for
prayer. Put the men to praying is Paul's unfaiHng
remedy for great evils in Church, in State, in politics,
in business, in home. Put the men to praying,
then pohtics will be cleansed, business will be
thriftier, the Church will be holier, the home will
be sweeter.

" I exhort, therefore, first of all, that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for
all men ; for kings and all that are in high place ;
that we may lead a tranquil and quiet Ufe in all
godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Saviour. ... I desire, therefore,
that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy

77

78 Purpose in Prayer

hands, without wrath and disputing (i Timothy

ii. 1-3, 8).

Praying women and children are invaluable to
God, but if their praying is not supplemented by
praying men, there will be a great loss in the power
of prayer — a great breach and depreciation in the
value of prayer, great paralysis in the energy of the
Gospel. Jesus Christ spake a parable unto the
people, telling them that men ought always to
pray and not faint. Men who are strong in every-
thing else ought to be strong in prayer, and never
yield to discouragement, weakness or depression.
Men who are brave, persistent, redoubtable in
other pursuits ought to be full of courage, unfainting,
strong-hearted in prayer.

Men are to pray ; all men are to pray. Men, as
distinguished from women, men in their strength
in their wisdom. There is an absolute, specific
command that the men pray ; there is an absolute
imperative necessity that men pray. The first of
beings, man, should also be first in prayer.

The men are to pray for men. The direction is
specific and classified. Just underneath we have
a specific direction with regard to women. About
prayer, its importance, wideness and practice
the Bible here deals with the men in contrast to,
and distinct from, the women. The men are
definitely commanded, seriously charged, and
warmly exhorted to pray. Perhaps it was that
men were averse to prayer, or indifferent to it ;

Purpose in Prayer 79

it may be that they deemed it a small thing, and
gave to it neither time nor value nor significance.
But God would have all men pray, and so the great
Apostle lifts the subject into prominence and
emphasises its importance.

For prayer is of transcendent importance.
Prayer is the mightiest agent to advance God's
work. Praying hearts and hands only can do
God's work. Prayer succeeds when all else fails.
Prayer has won great victories, and rescued, with
notable triumph, God's saints when every other
hope was gone. Men who know how to pray
are the greatest boon God can give to earth —
they are the richest gift earth can offer heaven.
Men who know how to use this weapon of prayer
are God's best soldiers, His mightiest leaders.

Praying men are God's chosen leaders. The
distinction between the leaders that God brings
to the front to lead and bless His people, and those
leaders who owe their position of leadership to a
worldly, selfish, unsanctified selection, is this, God's
leaders are pre-eminently men of prayer. This
distinguishes them as the simple. Divine attestation
of their call, the seal of their separation by God.
Whatever of other graces or gifts they may have, the
gift and grace of prayer towers above them all.
In whatever else they may share or differ, in the
gift of prayer they are one.

What would God's leaders be without prayer ?
Strip Moses of his power in prayer, a gift that

So Purpose in Prayer

made him eminent in pagan estimate, and the
crown is taken from his head, the food and fire of
his faith are gone. EHjah, without his praying-,
would have neither record nor place in the Divine
legation, his life insipid, cowardly, its energy,
defiance and fire gone. Without Elijah's praying
the Jordan would never have yielded to the stroke
of his mantle, nor would the stern angel of death
have honoured him with the chariot and horses
of fire. The argument that God used to quiet
the fears and convince Ananias of Paul's condition
and sincerity is the epitome of his history, the
solution of his hfe and work — " Behold he prayeth.''

Paul, Luther, Wesley — what would these chosen
ones of God be without the distinguishing and
controlling element of prayer ? They were leaders
for God because mighty in prayer. They were
not leaders because of brilliancy in thought, because
exhaustless in resources, because of their magnificent
culture or native endowment, but leaders because
by the power of prayer they could command the
power of God. Praying men means much more
than men who say prayers ; much more than
men who pray by habit. It means men with
whom prayer is a mighty force, an energy that
moves heaven and pours untold treasures of good
on earth.

Praying men are the safety of the Church from
the materiahsm that is affecting all its plans and
polity, and which is hardening its life-blood. The

Purpose in Prayer 8i

insinuation circulates as a secret, deadly poison
that the Church is not so dependent on purely
spiritual forces as it used to be — that changed
times and changed conditions have brought it
out of its spiritual straits and dependencies and
put it where other forces can bear it to its climax.
A fatal snare of this kind has allured the Church
into worldly embraces, dazzled her leaders, weakened
her foundations, and shorn her of much of her
beauty and strength. Praying men are the saviours
of the Church from this material tendency. They
pour into it the original spiritual forces, Uft it off
the sand-bars of materialism, and press it out into
the ocean depths of spiritual power. Praying
men keep God in the Church in full force ; keep His
hand on the helm, and train the Church in its
lessons of strength and trust.

The number and efficiency of the labourers in
God's vineyard in all lands is dependent on the
men of prayer. The mightiness of these men of
prayer increases, by the divinely arranged process,
the number and success of the consecrated labours.
Prayer opens wide their doors of access, gives
holy aptness to enter, and holy boldness, hrmness,
and fruitage. Praying men are needed in all
fields of spiritual labour. There is no position in
the Church of God, high or low, which can be well
filled without instant prayer. No position where
Christians are found that does not demand the
full play of a faith that always prays and never
6

82 Purpose in Prayer

faints. Praying men are needed in the house of
business, as well as in the house of God, that they
may order and direct trade, not according to the
maxims of this world, but according to Bible
precepts and the maxims of the heavenly life.

Men of prayer are needed especially in the
positions of Church influence, honour, and power.
These leaders of Church thought, of Church work,
and of Chmrch life should be men of signal power
in prayer. It is the praying heart that sanctifies
the toil and skill of the hands, and the toil and
wisdom of the head. Prayer keeps work in the
Une of God's will, and keeps thought in the line of
God's Word. The solemn responsibihties of
leadership, in a large or limited sphere, in God's
Church should be so hedged about with prayer
that between it and the world there should be
an impassable gulf, so elevated and purified by
prayer that neither cloud nor night should stain
the radiance nor dim the sight of a constant meridian
view of God. Many Church leaders seem to think
if they can be prominent as men of business, of
money, influence, of thought, of plans, of scholarly
attainments, of eloquent gifts, of taking, conspicuous
activities, that these are enough, and will atone
for the absence of the higher spiritual power which
much praying only can give. But how vain and
paltry are these in the serious work of bringing
glory to God, controlling the Church for Him, and
bringing it into full accord with its Divine mission.

Purpose in Prayer 83

Pra5^ng men are the men that have done so
much for God in the past. They are the ones who
have won the victories for God, and spoiled His
foes. They are the ones who have set up His
Kingdom in the very camps of His enemies. There
are no other conditions of success in this day.
The twentieth century has no reUef statute to
suspend the necessity or force of prayer — no
substitute by which its gracious ends can be secured.
We are shut up to this, praying hands only can
build for God. They are God's mighty ones on
earth, His master-builders. They may be destitute
of all else, but with the wrestlings and prevaiHngs
of a simple-hearted faith they are mighty, the
mightiest for God. Church leaders may be gifted
in all else, but without this greatest of gifts they
are as Samson shorn of his locks, or as the Temple
without the Divine presence or the Divine glory,
and on whose altars the heavenly flame has died.

The only protection and rescue from worldliness
lie in our intense and radical spirituality ; and our
only hope for the existence and maintenance of
this high, saving spirituaUty, under God, is in the
purest and most aggressive leadership — a leader-
ship that knows the secret power of prayer, the
sign by which the Church has conquered, and
that has conscience, conviction, and courage to
hold her true to her symbols, true to her traditions,
and true to the hidings of her power. We need this
prayerful leadership; we must have it, that by

84 Purpose in Prayer

the perfection and beauty of its holiness, by the
strength and elevation of its taith, by the potency
and pressure of its prayers, by the authority and
spotlessness of its example, by the fire and contagion
of its zeal, by the singularity, sublimity, and
unworldliness of its piety, it may influence God,
and hold and mould the Church to its heavenly
pattern.

Such leaders, how mightily they are felt. How
their flame arouses the Church ! How they stir
it by the force of their Pentecostal presence \ How
they embattle and give victory by the conflicts and
triumphs of their own faith ! How they fashion it
by the impress and importunity of their prayers !
How they inoculate it by the contagion and fire
of their holiness ! How they lead the march in
great spiritual revolutions ! How the Church is
raised from the dead by the resurrection call of
their sermons ! Holiness springs up in their wake
as flowers at the voice of spring, and where they
tread the desert blooms as the garden of the Lord.
God's cause demands such leaders along the whole
line of official position from subaltern to superior.
How feeble, aimless, or worldly are our efforts,
how demoralised and vain for God's work without
them !

The gift of these leaders is not in the range of
ecclesiastical power. They are God's gifts. Their
being, their presence, their number, and their
ability are the tokens of His favour ; their lack

Purpose in Prayer 85

the sure sign of His disfavour, the presage of His
withdrawal. Let the Church of God be on her
knees before the Lord of hosts, that He may more
mightily endow the leaders we already have, and
put others in rank, and lead all along the line of
our embattled front.

The world is coming into the Church at many
points and in many ways. It oozes in ; it pours
in ; it comes in with brazen front or soft, insinuating
disguise ; it comes in at the top and comes in at
the bottom ; and percolates through many a
hidden way.

For praying men and holy men we are looking —
men whose presence in the Church will make it
like a censer of holiest incense flaming up to God.
With God the man counts for everything. Rites,
forms, organisations are of small moment ; unless
they are backed by the holiness of the man they
are offensive in His sight. " Incense is an abomi-
nation unto Me ; the new moons and sabbaths,
the calling of assembhes I cannot away with ;
it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting."

Why does God speak so strongly against His
own ordinances ? Personal purity had failed. The
impure man tainted all the sacred institutions of
God and defiled them. God regards the man
in so important a way as to put a kind of discount
on all else. Men have built Him glorious temples
and have striven and exhausted themslves to please
God by all manner of gifts ; but in lofty strains He

86 Purpose in Prayer

has rebuked these proud worshippers and rejected
their princely gifts.

" Heaven is My throne and the earth is My
footstool : where is the house that ye build unto
Me ? and where is the place of My rest ? For all
those things hath Mine hand made, and all those
things hath been, saith the Lord. He that killeth
an ox is as if he slew a man ; he that sacrificeth
a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck ; he that offereth
an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood ; he
that bumeth incense, as if he blessed an idol."
Turning away in disgust from these costly and
profane offerings. He declares : " But to this
man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a
contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word."

This truth that God regards the personal purity
of the man is fundamental. This truth suffers
when ordinances are made much of and forms of
worship multiply. The man and his spiritual
character depreciate as Church ceremonials increase.
The simplicity of worship is lost in religious aesthetics,
or in the gaudiness of religious forms.

This truth that the personal purity of the
individual is the only thing God cares for is lost sight
of when the Church begins to estimate men for what
they have. When the Church eyes a man's money,
Social standing, his belongings in any way, then
spiritual values are at a fearful discount, and the
tear of penitence, the heaviness of guilt are never
seen at her portals. Worldly bribes have opened

Purpose in Prayer ^y

and stained its pearly gates by the entrance of the
impure.

This truth that God is looking after personal
purity is swallowed up when the Church has a greed
for numbers. " Not numbers, but personal purity
is our aim," said the fathers of Methodism. The
parading of Church statistics is mightily against the
grain of spiritual rehgion. Eyeing numbers greatly
hinders the looking after personal purity. The
increase of quantity is generally at a loss of quality.
Bulk abates preciousness. \

The age of Church organisation and Church
machinery is not an age noted for elevated and
strong personal piety. Machinery looks for engineers
and organisations for generals, and not for saints,
to run them. The simplest organisation may aid
purity as well as strength ; but beyond that narrow '
limit organisation swallows up the individual, and
is careless of personal purity ; push, activity,
enthusiasm, zeal for an organisation, come in as the
vicious substitutes for spiritual character. Holiness
and all the spiritual graces of hardy culture and
slow growth are discarded as too slow and too
costly for the progress and rush of the age. By
dint of machinery, new organisations, and spiritual |
weakness, results are vainly expected to be secured !
which can only be secured by faith, prayer, and J
waiting on God.

The man and his spiritual character is what God
is looking after. If men, holy men, can be turned

88 Purpose in Prayer

out by the easy processes of Church machinery
readier and better than by the old-time processes,
we would gladly invest in every new and improved
patent ; but we do not believe it. We adhere to
the old way — the way the holy prophets went, the
king's highway of holiness.

An example of this is afforded by the case of
William Wilber force. High in social position, a
member of Parliament, the friend of Pitt the
famous statesman, he was not called of God to
forsake his high social position nor to quit Parlia-
ment, but he was called to order his life according
to the pattern set by Jesus Christ and to give himself
to prayer. To read the story of his life is to be
impressed with its holiness and its devotion to the
claims of the quiet hours alone with God. His
conversion was announced to his friends — to Pitt and
others — by letter.

In the beginning of his rehgious career he records :
*' My chief reasons for a day of secret prayer are,
(i) That the state of public affairs is very critical
and calls for earnest deprecation of the Divine
displeasure. (2) My station in hfe is a very difficult
one, wherein I am at a loss to know how to act.
Direction, therefore, should be specially sought from
time to time. (3) I have been graciously supported
in difficult situations of a pubhc nature. I have
gone out and returned home in safety, and found a
kind reception has attended me. I would humbly
hope, too, that what I am now doing is a proof that

Purpose in Prayer 89

God has not withdrawn His Holy Spirit from me.
I am covered with mercies."

The recurrence of his birthday led him again to
review his situation and employment. " I find,"
he wrote, " that books alienate my heart from
God as much as anything. I have been framing a
plan of study for myself, but let me remember but
one thing is needful, that if my heart cannot be
kept in a spiritual state without so much prayer,
meditation. Scripture reading, etc., as are incom-
patible with study, I must seek first the righteousness
of God." All were to be surrendered for spiritual
advance. " I fear," we find him saying, " that I
have not studied the Scriptures enough. Surely in
the summer recess I ought to read the Scriptures
an hour or two every day, besides prayer, devotional
reading and meditation. God will prosper me
better if I wait on Him. The experience of all
good men shows that without constant prayer and
watchfulness the Hfe of God in the soul stagnates.
Doddridge's morning and evening devotions were
serious matters. Colonel Gardiner always spent
hours in prayer in the morning before he went forth.
Bonnell practised private devotions largely morning
and evening, and repeated Psalms dressing and
undressing to raise his mind to heavenly things.
I would look up to God to make the means effectual.
I f^ar that my devotions are too much hurried,
that I do not read Scripture enough. I must grow
in grace ; I must love God more ; I must feel the

90 Purpose in Prayer

power of Divine things more. Whether I am more
or less learned signifies not. Whether even I execute
the work which I deem useful is comparatively
imimportant. But beware my soul of luke-
warmness."

The New Year began with the Holy Communion
and new vows. " I will press forward," he wrote,
" and labour to know God better and love Him
more. Assuredly I may, because God will give His
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, and the Holy
Spirit will shed abroad the love of God in the heart.
O, then, pray, pray ; be earnest, press forward and
follow on to know the Lord. Without watchfulness,
humiliation and prayer, the sense of Divine things
must languish." To prepare for the future he
said he found nothing more effectual than private
prayer and the serious perusal of the New Testament.

And again : "I must put down that I have
lately too little time for private devotions. I can
sadly confirm Doddridge's remark that when we go
on ill in the closet we commonly do so everywhere
else. I must mend here. I am afraid of getting
into what Owen calls the trade of sinning and
repenting . . . Lord help me, the shortening of
private devotions starves the soul ; it grows lean
and faint. This must not be. I must redeem more
time. I see how lean in spirit I become without
full allowance of time for private devotions ; I
must be careful to be watching unto prayer."

At another time he puts on record : "I must try

Purpose in Prayer 91

what I long ago heard was the rule of E the great

upholsterer, who, when he came from Bond Street
to his little villa, always first retired to his closet.
I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have
had but a hurried half hour to myself. Surely the
experience of all good men confirms the proposition,
that without due measure of private devotions,
the soul will grow lean.'*

To his son he wrote : " Let me conjure you not to
be seduced into neglecting, curtailing or hurrying
over your morning prayers. Of all things, guard
against neglecting God in "the closet. There is
nothing more fatal to the life and power of rehgion.
More solitude and earlier hours — prayer three times
a day at least. How much better might I serve
if I cultivated a closer communion with God."

Wilberforce knew the secret of a holy Hfe. Is
that not where most of us fail ? We are so busy
with other things, so immersed even in doing good
and in carrying on the Lord's work, that we neglect
the quiet seasons of prayer with God, and before we
are aware of it our soul is lean and impoverished.

*' One night alone in prayer," says Spurgeon,
" might make us new men, changed from poverty
of soul to spiritual wealth, from trembling to
triumphing. We have an example of it in the life
of Jacob. Aforetime the crafty shuffler, always
bargaining and calculating, unlovely in almost
every respect, yet one night in prayer turned the
supplanter into a prevailing prince, and robed

92

Purpose in Prayer

him with celestial grandeur. From that night he
lives on the sacred page as one of the nobility of
heaven. Could not we, at least now and then, in
these weary earthbound years, hedge about a single
night for such enriching traffic with the skies ?
What, have we no sacred ambition ? Are we deaf to
the yearnings of Divine love ? Yet, my brethren,
for wealth and for science men will cheerfully quit
their warm couches, and cannot we do it now and
again for the love of God and the good of souls ?
WTiere is our zeal, our gratitude, our sincerity ? I
am ashamed while I thus upbraid both myself and
you. May we often tarry at Jabbok, and cry with
Jacob, as he grasped the angel —

' With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.'

Surely, brethren, if we have given whole days to
folly, we can afford a space for heavenly wisdom.
Time was when we gave whole nights to chambering
and wantonness, to dancing and the world's revelry ;
we did not tire then ; we were chiding the sun that
he rose so soon, and wishing the hours would lag
awhile that we might delight in wilder merriment
and perhaps deeper sin. Oh, wherefore, should we
weary in heavenly employments ? Why grow we
weary when asked to watch with our Lord ? Up,
sluggish heart, Jesus calls thee I Rise and go
forth to meet the Heavenly Friend in the place
where He manifests Himself."

Purpose in Prayer 93

We can never expect to grow in the likeness of
our Lord unless we follow His example and give
more time to communion with the Father. A
revival of real praying would produce a spiritual
revolution.

Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer ;
support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting
and prayer ? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein,
and mercy will come down. — John Wesley.

We must remember that the goal of prayer is the ear of
God. Unless that is gained the prayer has utterly failed.
The uttering of it may have kindled devotional feeling in
our minds, the hearing of it may have comforted and strengthened
the hearts of those with whom we have prayed, but if the prayer
has not gained the heart of God, it has failed in its essential
purpose.

A mere formalist can always pray so as to please himself.
What has he to do but to open his bock and read the pre-
scribed words, or bow his knee and repeat such phrases as
suggest themselves to his memory or his, fancy ? Like the
Tartarian Praying Machine, give but the wind and the wheel,
and the business is fully arranged. So much knee-bending
and talking, and the prayer is done. The formalist's prayers
are always good, or, rather, always bad, alike. Bui the living
child of God never offers a prayer ivhich pleases himself ; his
standard is above his attainments ; he wonders that God
listens to him, and though he knows he will be heard for Christ's
sake, yet he accounts it a wonderful instance of condescending
mercy that such poor prayers as his should ever reach the
ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth. — C. H. Spurgeon.

IX

It may be said with emphasis that no lazy saint
prays. Can there be a lazy saint ? Can there be a
prayerless saint ? Does not slack pra5dng cut
short sainthood's crown and kingdom ? Can there
be a cowardly soldier ? Can there be a saintly
hypocrite ? Can there be virtuous vice ? It is
only when these impossibilities are brought into
being that we then can find a prayerless saint.

To go through the motion of praying is a dull
business, though not a hard one. To say prayers
in a decent, delicate way is not heavy work. But
to pray really, to pray till hell feels the ponderous
stroke, to pray till the iron gates of difficulty are
opened, tiU the mountains of obstacles are removed,
till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are lifted,
and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens —
this is hard work, but it is God's work and man's
best labour. Never was the toil of hand, head
and heart less spent in vain than when praying.
It is bard to wait and press and pray, and hear
no voice, but stay till God answers. The joy of
answered prayer is the joy of a travailing mother
when a man child is bom into the world, the joy

95

96 Purpose in Prayer

of a slave whose chains have been burst asunder
and to whom new life and liberty have just come.

A bird's-eye view of w^hat has been accomplished
by prayer shows what we lost when the dispensation
of real prayer was substituted by Pharisaical
pretence and sham ; it shows, too, how imperative
is the need for holy men and women who will give
themselves to earnest, Christlike praying.

It is not an easy thing to pray. Back of the
praying there must lie all the conditions of prayer.
These conditions are possible, but they are not to
be seized on in a moment by the prayerless. Present
they always may be to the faithful and holy, but
cannot exist in nor be met b}^ a frivolous, negligent,
laggard spirit. Prayer does not stand alone. It
is not an isolated performance. Prayer stands in
closest connection with all the duties of an ardent
piety. It is the issuance of a character which is
made up of the elements of a vigorous and
commanding faith. Prayer honours God, acknow-
ledges His being, exalts His power, adores His
providence, secures His aid. A sneering half-
rationalism cries out against devotion, that it does
nothing but pray. But to pray well is to do all
things well. If it be true that devotion does nothing
but pray, then it does nothing at all. To do nothing
but pray fails to do the praying, for the antecedent,
coincident, and subsequent conditions of prayer
are but the sum of all the energised forces of a
practical, working piety.

Purpose in Prayer 97

The possibilities of prayer run parallel with the
promises of God. Prayer opens an outlet for the
promises, removes the hindrances in the way of
their execution, puts them into working order, and
secures their gracious ends. More than this, prayer
like faith, obtains promises, enlarges their opera-
tion, and adds to the measure of their results.
God's promises were to Abraham and to his seed,
but many a barren womb, and many a minor
obstacle stood in the way of the fulfilment of these
promises ; but prayer removed them all, made a
highway for the promises, added to the facility and
speediness of their reahsation, and by prayer the
promise shone bright and perfect in its execution.

The possibilities of prayer are found in its allying
itself with the purposes of God, for God's purposes
and man's praying are the combination of all potent
and omnipotent forces. More than this, the
possibilities of prayer are seen in the fact that it
changes the purposes of God. It is in the very
nature of prayer to plead and give directions. >/■
Prayer is not a negation. It is a positive force. It
never rebels against the will of God, never comes
into conflict with that will, but that it does seek to
change God's purpose is evident. Christ said,
" The cup which My Father hath given Me shall I
not drink it ? " and yet He had prayed that very
night, " If it be possible let this cup pass from Me."
Paul sought to change the purposes of God about the
thorn in his flesh. God's purposes were fixed to
7

98 Purpose in Prayer

destroy Israel, and the prayer of Moses changed the
purposes of God and saved Israel. In the time of the
Judges Israel were apostate and greatly oppressed.
They repented and cried unto God and He said :
" Ye have forsaken Me and served other gods,
wherefore I will deliver you no more : " but they
humbled themselves, put away their strange gods,
and God's " soul was grieved for the misery of
Israel,*' and he sent them dehverance by Jephthah.

God sent Isaiah to say to Hezekiah, " Set thine
house in order : for thou shalt die, and not Uve ; "
and Hezekiah prayed, and God sent Isaiah back
to say, " I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy
tears ; behold I will add unto thy days fifteen
years." " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown," was God's message by Jonah. But
Nineveh cried mightily to God, and *' God repented
of the evil that He had said He would do unto
them ; and He did it not."

The possibilities of prayer are seen from the
divers conditions it reaches and the diverse ends it
secures. Elijah prayed over a dead child, and it
came to Hfe ; EHsha did the same thing ; Christ
prayed at Lazarus's grave, and Lazarus came forth.
Peter kneeled down and prayed beside dead Dorcas,
and she opened her eyes and sat up, and Peter
presented her alive to the distressed company.
Paul prayed for PubUus, and healed him. Jacob's
praying changed Esau's murderous hate into the
kisses of the tenderest brotherly embrace. God

Purpose in Prayer 99

gave to Rebecca Jacob and Esau because Isaac
prayed for her. Joseph was the child of Rachel's
prayers. Hannah's praying gave Samuel to Israel.
John the Baptist was given to Elizabeth, barren
and past age as she was, in answer to the prayer of
Zacharias. Ehsha's praying brought famine or
harvest to Israel ; as he prayed so it was. Ezra's
pra3dng carried the Spirit of God in heart-breaking
conviction to the entire city of Jerusalem, and
brought them in tears of repentance back to God.
Isaiah's praying carried the shadow of the sun
back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.

In answer to Hezekiah's praying an angel slew
one himdred and eighty-five thousand of Senna-
cherib's army in one night. Daniel's praying opened
to him the vision of prophecy, helped him to
administer the affairs of a mighty kingdom, and
sent an angel to shut the lions' niouths. The
angel was sent to Cornelius, and the Gospel opened
through him to the Gentile world, because his
" prayers and alms had come up as a memorial
before God." " And what shall I more say ? for
th^ time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of
Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah ; of David
also, and Samuel, and of the prophets ; " of Paul
and Peter, and John and the Apostles, and the
holy company of saints, reformers, and mart5n:s,
who, through praying, *' subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of Hons, quenched the violence of j&re.

100 Purpose in Prayer

escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned
to flight the armies of the aliens."

Prayer puts God in the matter with commanding
force : " Ask of Me things to come concerning
My sons," says God, " and concerning the work
of My hands command ye Me." We are charged
in God's Word " always to pray," '* in everything
by prayer," " continuing instant in prayer," to
*' pray everj^where," " praying always." The
promise is as illimitable as the command is compre-
hensive. ** All things whatsoever ye shall ask in
prayer, believing, ye shall receive," " whatever
ye shall ask," " if ye shall ask anything." " Ye
shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto
you." " Whatsoever ye ask the Father He will
give it to you." If there is anything not involved
in "All things whatsoever," or not found in the
phrase " Ask anything," then these things may
be left out of prayer. Language could not cover a
wider range, nor involve more fully all minutia.
These statements are but samples of the all-
comprehending possibilities of prayer under the
promises of God to those who meet the conditions
of right praying.

These passages, though, give but a general
outline of the immense regions over which prayer
extends its sway. Beyond these the effects of
prayer reaches and secures good from regions
which cannot be traversed by language or thought.

Purpose in Prayer ioi

Paul exhausted language and thought in prajdng,
but conscious of necessities not covered and realms
of good not reached he covers these impenetrable
and undiscovered regions by this general plea,
" unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh in us." The promise is, " Call
upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee
great and mighty things, which thou knowest
not."

James declares that " the effectual, fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much." How
much he could not tell, but illustrates it by the
power of Old Testament praying to stir up New
Testament saints to imitate by the fervour and
influence of their praying the holy men of old,
and duplicate and surpass the power of their
praying. Elijah, he says, was a man subject to
like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly
that it might not rain : and it rained not en the
earth by the space of three years and six months.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth her fruit.

In the Revelation of John the whole lower order
of God's creation and His providential government,
the Church and the angeUc world, are in the attitude
of waiting on the efficiency of the prayers of the
saintly ones on earth to carry on the various interests
of earth and heaven. The angel takes the fire
kindled by prayer and casts it earthward, " and

102 Purpose -IN Prayer

there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings,
and an earthquake." Prayer is the force which
creates all these alarms, stirs, and throes. " Ask
of Me,*' says God to His Son, and to the Church
of His Son, " and I shall give thee the heathen
for Thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of
the earth for Thy possessions."

The men who have done mighty things for God
have always been mighty in prayer, have well under-
stood the possibilities of prayer, and made most
of these possibilities. The Son of God, the first
of all and the mightiest of all, has shown us the
all-potent and far-reaching possibilities of prayer.
Paul was mighty for God because he knew how
to use, and how to get others to use, the mighty
spiritual forces of prayer.

The seraphim, burning, sleepless, adoring, is the
figure of prayer. It is resistless in its ardour,
devoted and tireless. There are hindrances- to
prayer that nothing but pure, intense flame can
surmount. There are toils and outlays and
endurance which nothing but the strongest, most
ardent flame can abide. Prayer may be low-
tongued, but it cannot be cold-tongued. Its words
may be few, but they must be on fire. Its feelings
may not be impetuous, but they must be white
with heat. It is the effectual, fervent prayer that
influences God.

God's house is the house of prayer ; God's work
is the work of prayer. It is the zeal for God's

Purpose in Prayer 103

house and the zeal for God's work that makes
God's house glorious and His work abide.

When the prayer-chambers -^f saints are closed
or are entered casually or coldly, then Church
rulers are secular, fleshly, materiahsed ; spiritual
character sinks to a low level, and the ministry
becomes restrained and enfeebled.

When prayer fails, the world prevails. When
prayer fails the Church loses its Divine character-
istics, its Divine power; the Church is swallowed
up by a proud ecclesiasticism, and the world scoffs
at its obvious impotence.

7 look upon all the four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for
there is in them the reflection of a greatness which emanated
from the person of Jesus and which uas of as Divine a kind
as ever was seen on earth. — Goethe.

There are no possibilities, no necessity for prayerless praying,
a heartless performance, a senseless routine, a dead habit,
a hasty, careless performance — it justifies nothing. Prayer-
less praying has no life, gives no life, is dead, breathes out
death. Not a battle-axe but a child's toy, for play not for
service. Prayerless praying docs not come up to the importance
and aims of a recreation. J'raytrless praying is only a
weight, an impediment m the hour of struggle, of intense
conflict, a call to retreat in the moment of battle arid victory.

Why do we not pray ? What arc the hindrances
to prayer ? This is not a curious nor trivial
question. It goes not only to the whole matter of
our praying, but to the whole matter of our religion.
Religion is bound to decline when praying is
hindered. That which hinders praying, hinders
religion. He who is too busy to pray will be too
busy to live a holy life.

Other duties become pressing and absorbing and
crowd out prayer. Choked to death, would be
the coroner's verdict in many cases of dead praying,
if an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual
calamity. This way of hindering prayer becomes
so natural, so easy, so innocent that it comes on us
all unawares. If we will allow our praying to be
crowded out, it will always be done. Satan had
rather we let the grass grow on the path to our
prayer - chamber than anything else. A closed
chamber of prayer means gone out of business
religiously, or what is worse, made an assignment
and carr3dng on our religion in some other name than
God's and to somebody else's glory. God's glory is
only secured in the business of religion by carrying
that religion on with a large capital of prayer. The

105

io6 Purpose in Prayer

apostles understood this when they declared that
their time must not be employed in even the sacred
duties of alms-giving ; they must give themselves,
they said, '* continually to prayer and to the ministry
of the Word," prayer being put first with them
and the ministry of the Word having its efficiency
and life from prayer.

The process of hindering prayer by crowding
out is simple and goes by advancing stages. First,
prayer is hurried through. Unrest and agitation,
fatal to all devout exercises, come in. Then the
time is shortened, relish for the exercise palls. Then
it is crowded into a comer and depends on the
fragments of time for its exercise. Its value
depreciates. The duty has lost its importance. It
no longer commands respect nor brings benefit.
It has fallen out of estimate, out of the heart, out
of the habits, out of the life. We cease to pray and
cease to live spiritually.

There is no stay to the desolating floods of
wordliness and business and cares, but prayer.
Christ meant this when He charged us to watch
and pray. There is no pioneering corps for the
Gospel but prayer. Paul knew that when he
declared that " night and day he prayed exceedingly
that we might see your face and might perfect
that which is lacking in your faith." There is no
arriving at a high state of grace without much
praying and no staying in those high altitudes
without great praying. Epaphras knew this when

Purpose in Prayer 107

he " laboured fervently in prayers " for the Colossian
Church, " that they might stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God/'

The only way to preserve our praying from
being hindered is to estimate prayer at its true and
great value. Estimate it as Daniel did, who, when
he " knew that the writing was signed he went
into his house, and his windows being opened to
Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times
a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God
as he did aforetime." Put praying into the high
values as Daniel did, above place, honour, ease,
wealth, life. Put praying into the habits as
Daniel did. "As he did aforetime " has much
in it to give firmness and fidelity in the hour of
trial ; much in it to remove hindrances and master
opposing circumstances.

One of Satan's wihest tricks is to destroy the
best by the good. Business and other duties are
good, but we are so filled \vith these that they
crowd out and destroy the best. Prayer holds the
citadel for God, and if Satan can by any means
weaken prayer he is a gainer so far, and when
prayer is dead the citadel is taken. We must keep
prayer as the faithful sentinel keeps guard, with
sleepless vigilance. We must not keep it half-
starved and feeble as a baby, but we must keep it
in giant strength. Our prayer-chamber should
have our freshest strength, our calmest time, its
hours unfettered, without obtrusion, without haste.

io8 Purpose in Prayer

Private place and plenty of time are the life of
prayer, " To kneel upon our knees three times a
day and pray and give thanks before God as we
did aforetime/' is the very heart and soul of religion,
and makes men, like Daniel, of " an excellent spirit,"
" greatly beloved in heaven."

The greatness of prayer, involving as it does
the whole man, in the intensest form, is not realised
without spiritual discipline. This makes it hard
work, and before this exacting and consuming
effort our spiritual sloth or feebleness stands abashed.

The simplicity of prayer, its child-like elements
form a great obstacle to true praying. Intellect
gets in the way of the heart. The child spirit only
is the spirit of prayer. It is no holiday occupation
to make the man a child again. In song, in poetry,
in memory he may wish himself a child again, but
in prayer he must be a child again in reality. At
his mother's knee, artless, sweet, intense, direct,
trustful. With no shade of doubt, no temper to be
denied. A desire which burns and consumes which
can only be voiced by a cry. It is no easy work to
have this child-hke spirit of prayer.

If praying were but an hour in the closet, diffi-
culties would face and hinder even that hour, but
praying is the whole life preparing for the closet.
How difficult it is to cover home and business, all
the sweets and all the bitters of life, with the holy
atmosphere of the closet ! A holy life is the only
preparation for prayer. It is just as difficult to

Purpose in Prayer 109

pray, as it is to live a holy life. In this we find a
wall of exclusion built around our closets ; men
do not love holy praying, because they do not love
and will not do holy living. Montgomery sets
forth the difficulties of true praying when he declares
the sublimity and simplicity of prayer.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try.
Prayer is the sublimest strains that reach

The Majesty on high.

This is not only good poetry, but a profound
truth as to the loftiness and simphcity of prayer.
There are great difficulties in reaching the exalted,
angelic strains of prayer. The difficulty of coming
down to the simplicity of infant lips is not much
less.

Prayer in the Old Testament is called wrestling.
Conflict and skill, strenuous, exhaustive effort are
involved. In the New Testament we have the
terms striving, labouring fervently, fervent, effectual,
agony, all indicating intense effort put forth,
difficulties overcome. We, in our praises sing out —

" What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy seat."

We also have learned that the gracious results
secured by prayer are generally proportioned to
the outlay in removing the hindrances which obstruct
our soul's high communion with God.

Christ spake a parable to this end, that men

no Purpose in Prayer

ought always to pray and not to faint. The parable
of the importunate widow teaches the difficulties
in praying, how they are to be surmounted, and
the happy results which follow from valorous
praying. Difficulties will always obstruct the way
to the closet as long as it remains true,

" That Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees."

Courageous faith is made stronger and purer by
mastering difficulties. These difficulties but couch
the eye of faith to the glorious prize which is to be
won by the successful wrestler in prayer. Men
must not faint in the contest of prayer, but to this
high and holy work they must give themselves,
defying the difficulties in the way, and experience
more than an angel's happiness in the results.
Luther said : "To have prayed well is to have
studied well." More than that, to have prayed
well is to have fought well. To have prayed
well is to have Uved well. To pray well is to die
well.

Prayer is a rare gift, not a popular, ready gift.
Prayer is not the fruit of natural talents ; it is the
product of faith, of holiness, of deeply spiritual
character. Men learn to pray as they learn to
love. Perfection in simplicity, in humility in
faith — these form its chief ingredients. Novices
in these graces are not adepts in prayer. It cannot
be seized upon by untrained hands ; graduates in

Purpose in Prayer hi

heaven's highest school of art can alone touch its
finest keys, raise its sweetest, highest notes. Fine
material, fine finish are requisite. Master workmen
are required, for mere journeymen cannot execute
the work of prayer.

The spirit of prayer should rule our spirits and
our conduct. The spirit of the prayer-chamber
must control our lives or the closest hour will be
dull and sapless. Always praying in spirit ; always
acting in the spirit of praying; these make our
praying strong. The spirit of every moment is
that which imparts strength to the closet com-
munion. It is what we are out of the closet which
gives victory or brings defeat to the closet. If
the spirit of the world prevails in our non-doset
hours, the spirit of the world will prevail in our
closet hours, and that will be a vain and idle
farce.

We must live for God out of the closet if we
would meet God in the clgset^ We must bless God
by praying lives if we would have God's blessing
in the closet. We must do God's will in our fives
if we would have God's ear in the closet. We
must listen to God's voice in public if we would
have God listen to our voice in private. God
must have our hearts out of the closet, if we would
have God's presence in the closet. If we would
have God in the closet, God must have us out of the
closet. There is no way of praying to God, but
by living to God. The closet is not a confessional,

112 Purpose in Prayer

simply, but the hour of holy communion and high
and sweet intercourse anu of intense intercession.

Men would pray better if they lived better.
They would get more from God if they lived more
obedient and well pleasing to God. We would
have more strength and time for the Divine work
of intercession if we did not have to expend so
much strength and time settling up old scores
and paying our delinquent taxes. Our spiritual
liabilities are so greatly in excess of our spiritual
assets that our closet time is spent in talcing out a
decree of bankruptcy instead of being the time of
great spiritual wealth for us and for others. Our
closets are too much like the sign, " Closed for
Repairs."

John said of primitive Christian praying, " What-
soever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep
His commandments and do those things which are
pleasing in His sight." We should note what
illimitable grounds were covered, what illimitable
gifts were received by their strong praying :
" Whatsoever " — how comprehensive the range and
reception of mighty praying ; how suggestive the
reasons for the ability to pray and to have prayers
answered. Obedience, but more than mere
obedience, doing the things which please God well.
They went to their closets made strong by their
strict obedience and loving fidelity to God in their
conduct. Their lives were not only true and
obedient, but they were thinking . about things

Purpose in Prayer 113

above obedience, searching for and doing things
to make God glad. These can come with eager
step and radiant countenance to meet their Father
in the closet, not simply to be forgiven, but to be
approved and to receive.

It makes much difference whether we come to
God as a criminal or a child ; to be pardoned or to
be approved ; to settle scores or to be embraced ;
for punishment or for favour. Our praying to be
strong must be buttressed by holy living. The
name of Christ must be honoured by our lives
before it will honour our intercessions. The life
of faith perfects the prayer of faith.

Our lives not only give colour to our praying, but
they give body to it as well. Bad living makes
bad praying. We pray feebly because we live
feebly. The stream of praying cannot rise higher
than the fountain of living. The closet force is
made up of the energy which flows from the
confluent streams of living. The feebleness of
living throws its faintness into closet homes. We
cannot talk to God strongly when we have not
lived for God strongly. The closet cannot be
made holy to God when the life has not been holy
to God. The Word of God emphasises our conduct
as giving value to our praying. " Then shalt thou
call and the Lord shalt answer, Thou shalt cry
and He shall say. Here I am. If thou take away
from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth
the finger, and speaking vanity."
8

114 Purpose in Prayer

Men are to pray " lifting up holy hands without
wrath and doubting." We are to pass the time
of our sojourning here in fear if we would call on
the Father. We cannot divorce praying from
conduct. " WTiat soever we ask we receive of Him
because we keep His commandments and do those
things that are pleasing in His sight." " Ye ask
and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may
consume it upon your lusts." The injunction of
Christ, " Watch and pray," is to cover and guard
conduct that we may come to our closets with
all the force secured by a vigilant guard over our
lives.

Our religion breaks down oftenest and most
sadly in our conduct. Beautiful theories are marred
by ugly lives. The most difficult as well as the
most impressive point in piety is to Uve it. Our
praying suffers as much as our religion from bad
living. Preachers were charged in primitive times
to preach by their lives or preach not at all. So
Christians everywhere ought to be charged to pray
by their lives or pray not at all. Of course, the
prayer of repentance is acceptable. But repentance
means to quit doing wrong and learn to do. well.
A repentance which does not produce a change in
conduct is a sham. Praying which does not result
in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed
the whole office and virtue of praying if it does
not rectify conduct. It is in the very nature of
things that we must quit praying or quit bad conduct.

Purpose in Prayer 115

Cold, dead praying may exist with bad conduct,
but cold, dead praying is no praying in God's esteem.
Our praying advances in power as it rectifies the
life. A life growing in its purity and devotion
will be a more prayerful life.

The pity is that so much of our praying is without
object or aim. It is without purpose. How much
praying there is by men and women who never
abide in Christ— hasty praying, sweet praying
full of sentiment, pleasing praying, but not backed
by a life wedded to Christ. Popular pra^dng I
How much of this praying is from unsanctified
hearts and unhallowed lips ! Prayers spring into
Hfe under -the influence of some great excitement,
by some pressing emergency, through some popular
clamour, some great peril. But the conditions of
prayer are not there. We rush into God's presence
and try to link Him to our cause, inflame Him with
our passions, move Him by our peril. All things
are to be prayed for — but with clean hands, with
absolute deference to God's will and abiding in
Christ. Prayerless praying by lips and hearts
untrained to prayer, by lives out of harmony with
Jesus Christ ; prayerless praying, which has the
form and motion of prayer but is without the true
heart of prayer, never moves God to an answer.
It is of such praying- that James says : " Ye have
not because ye ask not ; ye ask and receive not,
because ye ask amiss."

The two great evils — not asking, and asking in

tt6 Purpose in Prayer

a wrong way. Perhaps the greater evil is wrong
asking, for it has in it the show of duty done, of
praying when there has been no praying — a deceit,
a fraud, a sham. The times of the most praying
are not really the times of the best praying. The
Pharisees prayed much, but they were actuated by
vanity ; their praying was the s5anbol of their
hypocrisy by which they made God's house of
prayer a den of robbers. Theirs was praying
on state occasions — mechanical, perfunctory,
professional, beautiful in words, fragrant in senti-
ment, well ordered, well received by the ears that
heard, but utterly devoid of every element of
real prayer.

The conditions of prayer are well ordered and
clear — abiding in Christ ; in His name. One of
the first necessities, if we are to grasp the infinite
possibilities of prayer, is to get rid of prayerless
praying. It is often beautiful in words and in
execution ; it has the drapery of prayer in rich
and costly form, but it lacks the soul of praying.
We fall so easily into the habit of prayerless service,
of merely filling a programme.

If men only prayed on all occasions and in every
place where they go through the motion ! If there
were only holy inflamed hearts back of all these
beautiful words and gracious forms ! If there were
always uplifted hearts in these erect men who are
uttering flawless but vain words before God ! If
there were always reverent bended hearts when

Purpose in Prayer 117

bended knees are uttering words before God to
please men's ears ! •

There is nothing that will preserve the life of
prayer ; its vigour, sweetness, obligations, serious-
ness and value, so much as a deep conviction that
prayer is an approach to God, a pleading with
God, an asking of God. Reality will then be
in it ; reverence will then be in the attitude,
in the place, and in the air. Faith will draw,
kindle and open. Formality and deadness cannot
live in this high and all-serious home of the
soul.

Prayerless praying lacks the essential element of
true praying ; it is not based on desire, and is
devoid of earnestness and faith. Desire burdens
the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels.
Prayerless praying has no burden, because no sense of
need ; no ardency, because none of the vision,
strength, or glow of faith. No mighty pressure to
prayer, no holding on to God with the deathless,
despairing grasp, " I will not let Thee go except
Thou bless me." No utter self-abandon, lost in
the throes of a desperate, pertinacious, and
consuming plea : " Yet now if Thou wilt forgive
their sin — if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy
book ; ." or, " Give me Scotland, or I die." Prayerless
praying stakes nothing on the issue, for it has nothing
to stake. It comes with empty hands, indeed, but
they are listless hands as well as empty. They
have never learned the lesson of empty hands

1x8 Purpose in Prayer

clinging to the cross; this lesson to them has
no form nor comeliness.

Prayerless praying has no heart in its praying.
The lack of heart deprives praying of its reality,
and makes it an empty and unfit vessel. Heart,
soul, life must be in our praying ; the heavens
must feel the force of our crying, and must be
brought into oppressed sympathy for our bitter and
needy state. A need that oppresses us, and has no re-
hef but in our crjdng to God, must voice our praying.

Prayerless praying is insincere. It has no
honesty at heart. We name in words what we
do not want in heart. Our prayers give formal
utterance to the things for which our hearts are
not only not hungry, but for which they really
have no taste. We once heard an eminent and
saintly preacher, now in heaven, come abruptly and
sharply on a congregation that had just risen from
prayer, with the question and statement, " What
did you pray for ? If God should take hold of
you and shake you, and demand what you prayed
for, you could not tell Him to save your life what
the prayer was that has just died from your lips."
So it always is, prayerless praying has neither
memory nor heart. A mere form, a heterogeneous
mass, an insipid compound, a mixture thrown
together for sound and to fill up, but with neither
heart nor aim, is prayerless praying. A dry routine,
a dreary drudge, a dull and heavy task is this
prayerless praying.

Purpose in Prayer 119

But prayerless praying is much worse than either
task or drudge, it divorces praying from Hving ;
it utters its words against the world, but with heart
and Hfe runs into the world ; it prays for humility,
but nurtures pride ; prays for self-denial, while
indulging the fiesh. Nothing exceeds in gracious
results true praying, but better not to pray at all
than to pray prayerless prayers, for they are but
sinning, and the worst of sinning is to sin on our
knees.

The prayer habit is a good habit, but praying
by dint of habit only is a very bad habit. This
kind of praying is not conditioned after God's
order, nor generated by God's power. It is not
only a waste, a perversion, and a delusion, but it
is a prolific source of unbelief. Prayerless praying
gets no results. God is not reached, self is not
helped. It is better not to pray at all than to
secure no results from praying. Better for the
one who prays, better for others. Men hear of
the prodigious results which are to be secured by
prayer : the matchless good promised in God's
Word to prayer. These keen-eyed worldlings or
timid Httle faith ones mark the great discrepancy
between the results promised and results realised,
and are led necessarily to doubt the truth and
worth of that which is so big in promise and so
beggarly in results. Religion and God are dis-
honoured, doubt and unbelief are strengthened by
much asking and no getting.

120 Purpose in Prayer

In contrast with this, what a mighty force
prayerful praying is. Real prayer helps God and
man. God's Kingdom is advanced by it. The
greatest good comes to man by it. Prayer can
do anything that God can do. The pity is that we
do not believe this as we ought, and we do not put
it to the test.

The deepest need of the Church to-day is not for any material
or external thing, hut the deepest need is spiritual. Prayerless
work will never bring in the kingdom. We neglect to pray
in the prescribed way. We seldom enter the closet and shut
the door for a season of prayer. Kingdom interests are
pressing on us thick and fast and we must pray. Prayerless
giving will never evangelise the world. — Dr. A. J. Gordon.

The great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need of
the Christian's life, is intimately hound up in the personal
fulness of the Holy Spirit. It is " by the One Spirit we have
access unto the Father " [Eph. ii. i8), and by the same Spirit,
having entered the audience chamber through the "new and
living way,'* we are enabled to pray in the will of God [Rom.
via. 15, 26-27 / ^^^- »^- 6 ; Eph. vi. 18 ; Jude 20-21).

Here is the secret of prevailing prayer, to pray under a
direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us
and through us are always according to the Divine purpose,
and hence certain of answer. " Praying in the Holy Ghost "
is but co-operating with the will of God, and such prayer is
always victorious. How many Christians there are who
cannot pray, and who seek by effort, resolve, joining prayer
circles, etc., to cultivate in themselves the " holy art of inter-
cession," and all to no purpose. Here for them and for all
is the only secret of a real .prayer life — "Be filled with the
Spirit" who is " the Spirit of grace and supplication."
— Rev. J. Stuart Holden, M.A.

XI

The preceding chapter closed with the statement
that prayer can do anything that God can do.
It is a tremendous statement to make, but it is a
statement borne out by history and experience.
If we are abiding in Christ — and if we abide in Him
we are Uving in obedience to His holy will — and
approach God in His name, then there lie open
before us the infinite resources of the Divine treasure-
house.

The man who truly prays gets from God many
things denied to the prayerless man. The aim of
all real pra5dng is to get the thing prayed for, as
the child's cry for bread has for its end the getting
of bread. This view removes prayer clean out of
the sphere of religious performances. Prayer is
not acting a part or going through reHgious
motions. Prayer is neither ofi&cial nor formal nor
ceremonial, but direct, hearty, intense. Prayer is ^
not religious work which must be gone through,
and avails because well done. Prayer is the helpless
and needy child crying to the compassion of the
Father's heart and the bounty and power of a
Father's hand. The answer is as sure to come as j^

123

124 Purpose in Prayer

the Father's heart can be touched and the Father's
hand moved.

The object of asking is to receive. The aim of
seeking is to find. The pm-pose of knocking is to
arouse attention and get in, and this is Christ's
iterated and re-iterated asseveration that the prayer
without doubt will be answered, its end without
doubt secured. Not by some round-about way,
but by getting the very thing asked for.

The value of prayer does not lie in the number
of prayers, or the length of prayers, but its value
is found in the great truth that we are privileged
by our relations to God to unburden our desires
and make our requests known to God, and He will
relieve by granting our petitions. The child asks
because the parent is in the habit of granting the
child's requests. As the children of God we need
something and we need it badly, and we go to God
for it. Neither the Bible nor the child of God
knows anything of that half-infidel declaration, that
we are to answer our own prayers. God answers
prayer. The true Christian does not pray to stir
himself up, but his prayer is the stirring up of himself
to take hold of God. The heart of faith knows
nothing of that specious scepticism which stays the
steps of prayer and chills its ardour by whispering
that prayer does not affect God.

D. L. Moody used to tell a story of a little child
whose father and mother had died, and who was
taken into another family. The first night she

Purpose in Prayer 125

asked whether she could pray as she used to do.
They said : " Oh, yes 1 " So she knelt down and
prayed as her mother had taught her ; and when
that was ended, she added a little prayer of her
own : " O God, make these people as kind to me
as father and mother were." Then she paused and
looked up, as if expecting the answer, and then
added : "Of course you will." How sweetly simple
was that little one's faith ! She expected God to
answer and "do," and " of course " she got her
request, and that is the spirit in which God invites
us to approach Him.

In contrast to that incident is the story told of the
quaint Yorkshire class leader, Daniel Quorm, who
was visiting a friend. One forenoon he came to
the friend and said, " I am sorry you have met
with such a great disappointment,"

" Why, no," said the man, " I have not met with
any disappointment."

" Yes," said Daniel, " you were expecting some-
thing remarkable to-day."

" What do you mean ? " said the friend.

" Why you prayed that you might be kept sweet
and gentle all day long. And, by the way things
have been going, I see you have been greatly
disappointed."

" Oh," said the man, " I thought you meant
something particular."

Prayer is mighty in its operations, and God
never disappoints those who put their trust and

126 Purpose in Prayer

confidence in Him. They may have to wait long
for the answer, and they may not live to see it, but
the prayer of faith never misses its object.

" A friend of mine in Cincinnati had preached
his sermon and sank back in his chair, when he
felt impelled to make another appeal," says Dr. J.
Wilbur Chapman. " A boy at the back of the church
lifted his hand. My friend left the pulpit and went
down to him, and said, ' Tell me about yourself.'
The boy said, ' I hve in New York. I am a prodigal.
Lhave disgraced my father's name and broken my
mother's heart. I ran away and told them I would
never come back until I became a Christian or they
brought me home dead.' That night there went
from Cincinnati a letter telling his father and mother
that their boy had turned to God.

" Seven days later, in a black-bordered envelope,
a reply came which read : ' My dear boy, when I got
the news that you had received Jesus Christ the
sky was overcast ; your father was dead.' Then the
letter went on to tell how the father had prayed
for his prodigal boy with his last breath, and
concluded, ' You are a Christian to-night because
your old father would not let you go.' "

A fourteen-year-old boy was given a task by
his father. It so happened that a group of boys
came along just then and wiled the boy away with
them, and so the work went undone. But the
father came home that evening and said, " Frank,
did you do the work that I gave you ? " " Yes,

PUKPOSE IN Prayer 127

sir/' said Frank. He told an untruth, and his
father knew it, but said nothing. It troubled the
boy, but he went to bed as usual. Next morning
his mother said to him, " Your father did not sleep
all last night."

" Why didn't he sleep ? " asked Frank.

His mother said, " He spent the whole night
praying for you."

This sent the arrow into his heart. He was
deeply convicted of his sin, and knew no rest until
he had got right with God. Long afterward, when
the boy became Bishop Wame, he said that his
decision for Christ came from his father's prayer
that night. He saw his father keeping his lonely
and sorrowful vigil praying for his boy, and it
broke his heart. Said he, " I can never be
sufficiently grateful to him for that prayer."

An evangelist, much used of God, has put on
record that he commenced a series of meetings in a
little church of about twenty members who were
very cold and dead, and much divided. A little
prayer-meeting was kept up by two or three women.
" I preached, and closed at eight o'clock," he
says. " There was no one to speak or pray. The
next evening one man spoke.

" The next morning I rode six miles to a minster's
study, and kneeled in prayer. I went back, and said
to the little church :

'* ' If you can make out enough to board me, I
will stay until God opens the windows of heaven.

128 Purpose in Prayer

God has promised to bless these means, and I
believe He will.'

" Within ten days there were so many anxious
souls that I met one hundred and fifty of them
at a time in an inquiry meeting, while Christians
were praying in another house of worship. Several
hundred, I think, were converted. It is safe to
believe God."

A mother asked the late John B. Gough to visit
her son to win him to Christ. Gough found the
young man's mind full of sceptical notions, and
impervious to argument. Finally, the young man
was asked to pray, just once, for light. He replied :
" I do not know anything perfect to whom or to
which I could pray." " How about your mother's
love ? " said the orator. " Isn't that perfect ?
Hasn't she always stood by you, and been ready to
take you in, and care for you, when even your father
had really kicked you out ? " The young man
chocked with emotion, and said, " Y-e-s, sir ; that
is so." " Then pray to Love — it will help you.
Will you promise ? " He promised. That night the
young man prayed in the privacy of his room. He
kneeled down, closed his eyes, and struggling a
moment uttered the words : " O Love." Instantly
as by a flash of lightning, the old Bible text came to
him : " God is love," and he said, brokenly, " O
God ! " Then another flash of Divine truth, and a
voice said, " God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son," — and there, instantly, he

Purpose in Prayer

129

exclaimed, " O Christ, Thou incarnation of Divinest
love, show me light and truth." It was all over.
He was in the light of the most perfect peace. He
ran downstairs, adds the narrator of this incident,
and told his mother that he was saved. That
young man is to-day an eloquent minister of Jesus
Christ.

A water famine was threatened in Hakodate,
Japan. Miss Dickerson, of the Methodist Episcopal
Girls' School, saw the water supply growing less
daily, and in one of the fall months appealed to
the Board in New York for help. There was no
money on hand, and nothing was done. Miss
Dickerson inquired the cost of putting down an
artesian well, but found the expense too great to
be undertaken. On the evening of December 31st,
when the water was almost exhausted, the teachers
and the older pupils met to pray for water, though
they had no idea how their prayer was to be
answered. A couple of days later a letter was
received in the New York office which ran something
like this : " Philadelphia, January ist. It is six
o'clock in the morning of New Year's Day. All the
other members of the family are asleep, but I was
awakened with a strange impression that some one,
somewhere, is in need of money which the Lord
wants me to supply." Enclosed was a cheque for an
amount which just covered the cost of the artesian
well and the piping of the water into the school
buildings.
9

130 Purpose in Prayer

" I have seen God's hand stretched out to heal
among the heathen in as mighty wonder-working
power as in apostohc times/' once said a well-
known minister to the writer. " I was preaching
to two thousand famine orphan girls, at Kedgaum,
India, at Ramabai's Mukti (salvation) Mission. A
swarm of serpents as venomous and deadly as the
reptile that smote Paul, suddenly raided the walled
grounds, * sent of Satan,' Ramabai said, and
several of her most beautiful and faithful Christian
girls were smitten by them, two of them bitten
twice. I saw four of the very flower of her flock
in convulsions at once, unconscious and apparently
in the agonies of death.

" Ramabai believes the Bible with an implicit and
obedient faith. There were three of us missionaries
there. She said : ' We will do just what the Bible
says, I want you to minister for their heaUng
according to James v. 14-18.' She led the way
into the dormitory where her girls were lying in
spasms, and we laid our hands upon their heads
and prayed, and anointed then^ with oil in the
name of the Lord. Each of them was healed as
soon as anointed and sat up and sang with faces
shining. That miracle and marvel among the
heathen mightily confirmed the word of the Lord,
and was a profound and overpowering proclamation
of God."

Some years ago, the record of a wonderful work
of grace in connection with one of the stations of

Purpose in Prayer 131

the China Inland Mission attracted a good deal of
attention. Both the number and spiniual character
of the converts had been far greater than at other
stations where the consecration of the missionaries
had been just as great as at the more fruitful place.

This rich harvest of souls remained a mystery
until Hudson Taylor on a visit to England discovered
the secret. At the close of one of his addresses a
gentleman came forward to make his acquaintance.
In the conversation which followed, Mr. Taylor was
surprised at the accurate knowledge the man
possessed concerning this inland China station.
" But how is it," Mr. Taylor asked, " that you are so
conversant with the conditions of that work ? "
" Oh ! " he replied, " the missionary there and I are
old college-mates ; for years we have regularly
corresponded ; he has sent me names of enquirers
and converts, and these I have daily taken to God
in prayer."

At last the secret was found 1 A praying man
at home, praying definitely, praying daily, for specific
cases among the heathen. That is the real inter-
cessory missionary.

Hudson Taylor himself, as all the world knows,
was a man who knew how to pray and whose praying
was blessed with fruitful answers. In the story of
his life, told by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, we
find page after page aglow with answered prayer.
On his way out to China for the first time, in 1853,
when he was only twenty-one years of age, he had a

132 Purpose in Prayer

definite answer to prayer that was a great encourage-
ment to his faith. " They had just come through
the Dam pier Strait, but were not yet out of sight
of the islands, Usually a breeze would spring up
after sunset and last until about dawn. The utmost
use was made of it, but during the day they lay
still with flapping sails, often drifting back and
losing a good deal of the advantage gained at night."
The story continues in Hudson Taylor's own words :

" This happened notabl}^ on one occasion when
we were in dangerous proximity to the north of
New Guinea. Saturday night had brought us to
a point some thirty miles off the land, and during
the Sunday morning service, which was held on
deck, I could not fail to see that the Captain looked
troubled and frequently went over to the side of
the ship. When the service was ended I learnt
from him the cause. A four-knot current was
carr5dng us toward some sunken reefs, and we were
already so near that it seemed improbable that we
should get through the afternoon in safety. After
dinner, the long boat was put out and all hands
endeavoured, without success, to turn the ship's
head from the shore.

" After standing together on the deck for some
time in silence, the Captain said to me :

" ' Well, we have done everything that can be
done. We can only await the result.'

" A thought occurred to me, and I replied : ' No,
there is one thing we have not done yet.'

Purpose in Prayer 133

" ' What is that ? ' he queried.

" ' Four of us on board are Christians. Let us
each retire to his own cabin, and in agreed prayer
ask the Lord to give us immediately a breeze. He
can as easily send it now as at sunset.'

" The Captain complied with this proposal. I
went and spoke to the other two men, and after
prayer with the carpenter, we all four retired to
wait upon God. I had a good but very brief season
in prayer, and then felt so satisfied that our request
was granted that I could not continue asking, and
very soon went up again on deck. The first officer,
a godless man, was in charge. I went over and
asked him to let down the clews or corners of the
mainsail, which had been drawn up in order to lessen
the useless flapping of the sail against the rigging.

" * What would be the good of that ? ' he
answered roughly.

" I told him we had been asking a wind from
God ; that it was coming immediately ; and we
were so near the reef by this time that there was
not a minute to lose.

" With an oath and a look of contempt, he said
he would rather see a wind than hear of it.

" But while he was speaking I watched his eye,
following it up to the royal, and there, sure enough,
the corner of the topmost sail was beginning to
tremble in the breeze.

" ' Don't you see the wind is coming ? Look at
the royal ! ' I exclaimed.

134 Purpose in Prayer

" * No, it is only a cat's paw/ he rejoined (a mere
puff of wind).

" * Cat's paw or not,' I cried, * pray let down the
mainsail and give us the benefit.'

" This he was not slow to do. In another minute
the heavy tread of the men on deck brought up
the Captain from his cabin to see what was the
matter. The breeze had indeed come ! In a few
minutes we were ploughing our way at six or seven
knots an hour through the water . . . and though
the wind was sometimes unsteady, we did not
altogether lose it until after passing the Pelew
Islands.

" Thus God encouraged me," adds this praying
saint, " ere landing on China's shores to bring
every variety of need to Him in prayer, and to
expect that He would honour the name of the
Lord Jesus and give the help each emergency
required."

In an address at Cambridge some time ago
(reported in " The Life of Faith," April 3rd, 1912),
Mr. S. D. Gordon told in his own inimitable way
the story of a man in his own country, to illustrate
from real life the fact of the reality of prayer, and
that it is not mere talking.

*' This man," said Mr. Gordon, " came of an old
New England family, a bit farther back an English
family. He was a giant in size, and a keen man
mentally, and a university-trained man. He had
gone out West to Hve, and represented a prominent

Purpose in Prayer 135

district in our House of Congress, answering to
your House of Commons. He was a prominent
leader there. He was reared in a Christian family,
but he was a sceptic, and used to lecture against
Christianity. He told me he was fond, in his
lectures, of proving, as he thought, conclusively,
that there was no God. That was the type of his
infidehty.

" One day he told me he was sitting in the Lower
House of Congress. It was at the time of a
Presidential Election, and when^ party feeling ran
high. One would have thought that was the last
place where a man would be likely to think about
spiritual things. He said : * I was sitting in my
seat in that crowded House and that heated atmos-
phere, when a feeling came to me that the God,
whose existence I thought I could successfully
disprove, was just there above me, looking down
on me, and that He was displeased with me, and
with the way I was doing. I said to myself, ' This
is ridiculous, I guess I've been working too hard.
I'll go and get a good meal and take a long walk
and shake myself, and see if that will take this
feeling away.' He got his extra meal, took a
walk, and came back to his seat, but the impression
would not be shaken off that God was there and
was displeased with him. He went for a walk,
day after day, but could never shake the feeling
off. Then he went back to his constituency in
his State, he said, to arrange matters there. He

136 Purpose in Prayer

had the ambition to be the Governor of his State,
and his party was the dominant party in the State,
and, as far as such things could be judged, he
was in the hne to become Governor there, in one
of the most dominant States of our Central West.
He said : ' I went home to fix that thing up as
far as I could, and to get ready for it. But I had
hardly reached home and exchanged greetings,
when my wife, who was an earnest Christian woman,
said to me that a few of them had made a little
covenant of prayer that I might become a Christian.'
He did not want her to know the experience that he
had just been going through, and so he said as
carelessly as he could, ' When did this thing begin,
this praying of yours ? ' She named the date.
Then he did some very quick thinking, and he
knew, as he thought back, that it was the day on
the calendar when that strange impression came
to him for the first time.

" He said to me : 'I was tremendously shaken.
I wanted to be honest. I was perfectly honest
in not believing in God, and I thought I was right.
But if what she said was true, then merely as a
lawyer sifting his evidence in a case, it would be
good evidence that there was really something in
their prayer. I was terrifically shaken, and wanted
to be honest, and did not know what to do. That
same night I went to a little Methodist chapel,
and if somebody had knowTi how to talk with me,
I think I should have accepted Christ that niglit.'

Purpose in Prayer 137

Then he said that the next night he went back
again to that chapel, where meetings were being
held each night, and there he kneeled at the altar,
and yielded his great strong will to the will of God.
Then he said, * I knew I was to preach,' and he
is preaching still in a Western State. That is
half of the story. I also talked with his wife —
I wanted to put the two halves together, so as
to get the bit of teaching in it ail — and she told
me this. She had been a Christian — ^what you call
a nominal Christian — a strange confusion of terms.
Then there came a time when she was led into a
full surrender of her life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then she said, ' At once there came a great intensi-
fying of desire that my husband might be a Christian,
and we made that little compact to pray for him
each day until he became a Christian. That night
I Was kneehng at my bedside before going to rest,
praying for my husband, praying very earnestly
and then a voice said to me, ' Are you willing
for the results that will come if your husband is
converted ? * The little message was so very
distinct that she said she was frightened ; she
had never had such an experience. But she went
on praying still more earnestly, and again there
came the quiet voice, ' Are you willing for the
consequences ? ' And again there was a sense of
being startled, frightened. But she still went on
praying, and wondering what this meant, and a
third time the quiet voice came more quietly than

138 Purpose in Prayer

ever as she described it, * Are you willing for the
consequences ? '

" Then she told me she said with great earnestness,
' O God, I am willing for anything Thou dost think
good, if only my husband may know Thee, and
become a true Christian man.' She said that
instantly, when that prayer came from her lips,
there came into her heart a wonderful sense of
peace, a great peace that she could not explain,
a ' peace that passeth understanding,' and from
that moment — it was the very night of the covenant,
the night when her husband had that first strange
experience — the assurance never left her that he
would accept Christ. But all those weeks she
prayed with the firm assurance that the result
was coming. What were the consequences ? They
were of a kind that I think no one would think
small. She was the wife of a man in a very
prominent political position ; she was the wife of
a man who was in the line of becoming the first
official of his State, and she officially the first lady
socially of that State, with all the honour that
that social standing would imply. 'Now she is the
wife of a Methodist preacher, with her home changed
every two or three years, she going from this place
to that, a very different social position, and having
a very different income than she would otherwise
have had. Yet I never met a woman who had
more of the wonderful peace of God in her heart,
and of the light of God in her face, than that woman."

^ Purpose in Prayer 139

And Mr. Gordon's comment on that incident is
this : " Now, you can see at once that there was
no change in the purpose of God through that
prayer. The prayer worked out His purpose ;
it did not change it. But the woman's surrender
gave the opportunity of working out the will that
God wanted to work out. If we might give our-
selves to Him and learn His wall, and use all our
strength in learning His will and bending to His
will, then we would begin to pray, and there is
simply nothing that could resist the tremendous
power of the prayer. Oh for more men who will
be simple enough to get in touch with God, and
give Him the mastery of the whole life, and learn
His will, and then give themselves, as Jesus gave
Himself, to the sacred service of intercession ! "

To the man or woman who is acquainted with
God and who knows how to pray, there is nothing
remarkable in the answers that come. They are
sure of being heard, since they ask in accordance
with what they know to be the mind and the
will of God. Dr. WiUiam Burt, Bishop of Europe
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, tells that a
few years ago, when he visited their Boys' School
in Vienna, he found that although the year was not
up, all available funds had been spent. He hesitated
to make a special appeal to his friends in America.
He counselled with the teachers. They took the
matter to God in earnest and continued prayer,
believing that He would grant their request. Ten

T40 Purpose in Prayer

days later Bishop Burt was in Rome, and there
came to him a letter from a friend in New York,
which read substantially thus : " As I went to my
office on Broadway one morning [and the date was
the very one on which the teachers were praying],
a voice seemed to tell me that you were in need of
funds for the Boys' School in Vienna. I very
gladly enclose a cheque for the work." The cheque
was for the amount needed. There had been no
human communication between Vienna and New
York. But while they were yet speaking God
answered them.

Some time ago there appeared in an English
Religious weekly the report of an incident narrated
by a well-known preacher in the course of an address
to children. For the truth of the story he was
able to vouch. A child lay sick in a country cottage,
and her younger sister heard the doctor say, as he
left the house, " Nothing but a miracle can save
her." The little girl went to her monej^-box, took
out the few coins it contained, and in perfect
simplicity of heart went to shop after shop in the
village street, asking, " Please, I want to buy a
miracle." From each she came away disappointed.
Even the local chemist had to say, " My dear, we
don't sell miracles here." But outside his door
two men were talking, and had overheard the
child's request. One was a great doctor from a
London hospital, and he asked her to explain what
she wanted. When he understood the need, he

Purpose in Prayer 141

hurried with her to the cottage, examined the sick
giri, and said to the mother : "It is true — only a
miracle can save her, and it must be performed
at once." He got his instruments, performed the
operation, and the patient's life was saved.

D. L. Moody gives this illustration of the power
of prayer : " While in Edinburgh, a man was
pointed out to me by a friend, who said : ' That
man is chairman of the Edinburgh Infidel Club '
I went and sat beside him and said, * My friend,
I am glad to' see you in our meeting. Are you
concerned about your welfare ? '

" ' I do not beheve in any hereafter.'

" ' Well, just get down on your knees and let me
pray for you.'

" ' No, I do not believe in prayer.'

" I knelt beside him as he sat, and prayed. He
made a great deal of sport of it. A year after
I met him again. I took him by the hand and
said : ' Hasn't God answered my prayer yet ? '

" ' There is no God. If you beheve in one who
answers prayer, try your hand on me.'

" ' Well, a great many are now praying for you,
and God's time will come, and I beheve you will
be saved yet.*

*' Some time afterwards I got a letter from a
leading barrister in Edinburgh telling me that my
infidel friend had come to Christ, and that seventeen
of his club men had followed his example.

" I did not know how God would answer prayer,

142 Purpose in Prayer

but I knew He would answer. Let us come boldy
to God."

Robert Louis Stevenson tells a vivid story of a
storm at sea. The passengers below were greatly
alarmed, as the waves dashed over the vessel.
At last one of them, against orders, crept to the
deck, and came to the pilot, who was lashed to the
wheel which he was turning without flinching. The
pilot caught sight of the terror-stricken man, and
gave him a reassuring smile. Below went the
passenger, and comforted the others by saying,
" I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled.
All is well."

That is how we feel when through the gateway of
prayer we find our way into the Father's presence.
We see His face, and we know that all is well,
since His hand is on the helm of events, and " even
the winds and the waves obey Him." When we
live in fellowship with Him, we come with confidence
into His presence, asking in the full confidence of
receiving and meeting with the justification of our
faith.

Let your hearts be much set on revivals of religion. Never
forget that the churches have hitherto existed and prospered
by revivals ; and thai if they are to exist and prosper in time
to come, it must be by the same cause which has from the first been
their glory and defence. — Joel Hawes.

// any minister can be satisfied without conversions^ he
shall have no conversions. — C. H. Spurgeon.

/ do not believe that my desires for a revival were ever
half so strong as they ought to be ; nor do I see how a
minister can help being in a " constant fever " when his
Master is dishonoured and souls are destroyed in so many
ways. — Edward Payson,

An aged saint once came to the pastor at night and said :
" We are about to have a revival." He was asked why he
knew so. His answer was, " / went into the stable to take
care of my cattle two hours ago, and there the Lord has kept
me in prayer until just now. And I feel that we are going
to be revived.'' It was the commencement of a revival.

— H. C. Fish.

XII

It has been said that the history of revivals is
the history of rehgion, and no one can study their
history without being impressed with their mighty
influence upon the destiny of the race. To look
back over the progress of the Divine Kingdom
upon earth is to review revival periods which
have come like refreshing showers upon dry and
thirsty ground, making the desert to blossom
as the rose, and bringing new eras of spiritual hfe
and activity just when the Church had fallen under
the influence of the apathy of the times, and needed
to be aroused to a new sense of her duty and responsi-
bility. " From one point of view, and that not
the least important," writes Principal Lindsay, in
" The Church and the Ministry in the Early
Centuries," " the history of the Church flows on
from one time of revival to another, and whether
we take the awakenings in the old Catholic, the
mediaeval, or the modern Church, these have always
been the work of men specially gifted with the
power of seeing and declaring the secrets of the
deepest Christian life, and the effect of their work
has always been proportionate to the spiritual
receptivity of the generation they have spoken to."
10 145

146 Purpose in Prayer

As God, from the beginning, has wrought
prominently through revivals, there can be no
denial of the fact that revivals are a part of the
Divine plan. The Kingdom of our Lord has been
advanced in large measure by special seasons of
gracious and rapid accomplishment of the work of
conversion, and it may be inferred, therefore,
that the means through which God has worked in
other times will be employed in our time to produce
similar results. " The quiet conversion of one
sinner after another, under the ordinary ministry
of the Gospel," says one writer on the subject,
" must always be regarded with feelings of satis-
faction and gratitude by the ministers and disciples
of Christ ; but a periodical manifestation of the
simultaneous conversion of thousands is also to
be desired, because of its adaptation to afford a
visible and impressive demonstration that God
has made that same Jesus, Who was rejected and
crucified, both Lord and Christ ; and that, in
virtue of His Divine Mediatorship, He has
assumed the royal sceptre of universal supremacy,
and ' must reign till all His enemies be made His
footstool.' It is, therefore, reasonable to expect
that, from time to time, He will repeat that which
on the day of Pentecost formed the conclusive
and crowning evidence of His Messiahship and
Sovereignty ; and, by so doing, startle the
slumbering souls of careless worldlings, gain the
attentive ear of the unconverted, and, in a remark-

Purpose in Prayer 147

able way, break in upon those brilliant dreams
of earthly glory, grandeur, wealth, power and
happiness, which the rebellious and God-forgetting
multitude so fondly cherish. Such an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit forms at once a demonstrative
proof of the completeness and acceptance of His
once offering of Himself as a sacrifice for sin, and a
prophetic ' earnest ' of the certainty that He ' shall
appear the second time without sin unto salvation,'
to judge the w^orld in righteousness."

And that revivals are to be expected, proceeding,
as they do, from the right use of the appropriate
means, is a fact which needs not a little emphasis
in these days, when the material is exalted at the
expense of the spiritual, and when ethical standards
are supposed to be supreme. That a revival is
not a miracle was powerfully taught by Charles G.
Finney. There might, he said, be a miracle among
its antecedent causes, or there might not. The
Apostles employed miracles simply as a means by
which they arrested attention to their message,
and established its Divine authority. " But the
miracle was not the revival. The miracle was one
thing ; the revival that followed it was quite
another thing. The revivals in the Apostles' days
were connected with miracles, but they were not
miracles." All revivals are dependent upon God,
but in revivals, as in other things, He invites and
requires the assistance of man, and the full result
is obtained when there is co-operation between

148 Purpose in Prayer

the Divine and the human. In other words, to
employ a famiUar phrase, God alone can save the
world, but God cannot save the world alone. God
and man unite for the task, the response of the
Divine being invariably in proportion to the desire
and the effort of the human.

This co-operation, then, being necessary, what is
the duty which we, as co-workers with God, require
to undertake ? First of all, and most important
of all — the point which we desire particularly to
emphasise — we must give ourselves to prayer.
" Revivals," as Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman reminds us,
" are born in prayer. When Wesley prayed
England was revived ; when Knox prayed, Scotland
was refreshed ; when the Sunday School teachers
of Tannybrook prayed, 11,000 young people were
added to the Church in a year. Whole nights of
prayer have always been succeeded by whole days
of soul-winning."

When D. L. Moody's Church in Chicago lay in
ashes, he went over to England, in 1872, not to
preach, but to listen to others preach while his
new church was being built. One Sunday morning
he was prevailed upon to preach in a London
pulpit. But somehow the spiritual atmosphere
was lacking. He confessed afterwards that he
never had such a hard time preaching in his life.
Everything was perfectly dead, and, as he vainly
tried to preach, he said to himself, " What a fool
I was to consent to preach ! I came here to hsten,

Purpose in Prayer 149

and here I am preaching." Then the awful thought
came to him that he had to preach again at night,
and only the fact that he had given the promise to
do so kept him faithful to the engagement. But
when Mr. Moody entered the pulpit at night, ahd
faced the crowded congregation, he was conscious
of a new atmosphere. " The powers of an unseen
world seemed to have fallen upon the audience/'
As he drew towards the close of his sermon he
became emboldened to give out an invitation, and
as he concluded he said, " If there is a man or
woman here who will to-night accept Jesus Christ,
please stand up." At once about 500 people rose
to their feet. Thinking that there must be some
mistake, he asked the people to be seated, and then, in
order that there might be no possible misunderstand-
ing, he repeated the invitation, couching it in even
more definite and difficult terms. Again the same
number rose. Still thinking that something must
be wrong, Mr. Moody, for the second time, asked
the standing men and women to be seated, and
then he invited all who really meant to accept
Christ to pass into the vestry. Fully 500 people
did as requested, and that was the beginning of a
revival in that church and neighbourhood, which
brought Mr. Moody back from Dubhn, a few days
later, that he might assist the wonderful work of
God.

The sequel, however, must be given, or our
purpose in relating the incident will be defeated.

i5<> Pfrpose in Prayer

When Mr. Moody preached at the morning service
there was a woman in the congregation who had an
invahd sister. On her return home she told the
invahd that the preacher had been a Mr. Moody
from Chicago, and on hearing this she turned pale.
" What," she said, " Mr. Moody from Chicago !
I read about him some time ago in an American
paper, and I have been praying God to send him
to London, and to our church. If I had known
he was going to preach this morning I would have
eaten no breakfast. I would have spent the whole
time in prayer. Now, sister, go out of the room,
lock the door, send me no dinner ; no matter who
comes, don't let them see me. I am going to
spend the whole afternoon and evening in prayer."
And so while Mr. Moody stood in the pulpit that had
been like an ice-chamber in the morning, the bed-
ridden saint was holding him up before God, and
God, who ever delights to answer prayer, poured
out His Spirit in mighty power.

The God of revivals who answered the prayer of
His child for Mr. Moody, is willing to hear and to
answer the faithful, believing prayers of His people
to-day. Wherever God's conditions are met there
the revival is sure to fall. Professor Thos. Nicholson,
of Cornell College, U.S.A., relates an experience
on his first circuit that impresses anew the old
lesson of the place of prayer in the work of God.

There had not been a revival on that circuit in
years, and things were not spiritually hopeful.

Purpose in Prayer 151

During more than four weeks the pastor had preached
faithfully, visited from house to house, in stores,
shops, and out-of-the-way places, and had done
everything he could. The fifth Monday night saw
many of the official members at lodges, but only a
corporal's guard at the church.

From that meeting the pastor went home, cast
down, but not in despair. He resolved to spend
that night in prayer. " Locking the door, he
took Bible and hymn book and began to inquire
more diligently of the Lord, though the meetings
had been the subject of hours of earnest prayer.
Only God knows the anxiety and the faithful,
prayerful study of that night. Near the dawn a
great peace and a full assurance came that God
would surely bless the plan which had been decided
upon, and a text was chosen which he felt sure was
of the Lord. Dropping upon the bed, the pastor
slept about two hours, then rose, hastily break-
fasted, and went nine miles to the far side of the
circuit to visit some sick people. All day the
assurance mcreased.

" Toward night a pouring rain set in, the roads
were heavy and we reached home, wet, supperless,
and a little late, only to find no fire in the church,
the lights unlit, and no signs of service. The
janitor had concluded that the rain would prevent
the service. We changed the order, rang the
bell, and prepared for war. Three young men
formed the congregation, but in that * full assurance '

152 Purpose in Prayer

the pastor, delivered the message which had been
prayed out on the preceding night, as earnestly
and as fully as if the house had been crowded,
then made a personal appeal to each young man
in turn. Two yielded, and testified before the
meeting closed.

" The tired pastor went to a sweet rest, and next
morning, rising a little later than usual, learned
that one of the young men was going from store
to store throughout the town telling of his wonderful
deliverance, and exhorting the people to salvation.
Night after night conversions occurred, until in two
weeks we heard 144 people testify in forty-five
minutes. All three points of that circuit saw a blaze
of revival that winter, and family after family came
into the church, until the membership was more
than trebled.

" Out of that meeting one convert is a successful
pastor in the Michigan Conference, another is the
wife of one of the choicest of our pastors, and a
third was in the ministry for a number of years,
and then went to another denomination, where he
is faithful unto this day. Probably none of the
members ever knew of the pastor's night of prayer,
but he verily believes that God somehow does for
the man who thus prays, what He does not do for
the man who does not pray, and he is certain that
' more things are ^^TOught by prayer than this
world dreams of.' "

All the true revivals have been born in prayer.

Purpose in Prayer 153

When God's people become so concerned about
the state of religion that they lie on their faces
day and night in earnest supplication, the blessing
will be sure to fall.

It is the same all down the ages. Every revival
of which we have any record has been bathed in
prayer. Take, for example, the wonderful revival
in Shotts (Scotland) in 1630. The fact that several
of the then persecuted ministers would take a
part in solemn convocation having become generally
known, a vast concourse of godly persons assembled
on this occasion from all quarters of the country,
and several days were spent in social prayer,
preparatory to the service. In the evening, instead
of retiring to rest, the multitude divided themselves
into little bands, and spent the whole night in suppli-
cation and praise. The Monday was consecrated
to thanksgiving, a practice not then common,
and proved the great days of the feast. After
much entreaty, John Livingston, chaplain to the
Countess of Wigtown, a young man and not ordained,
agreed to preach. He had spent the night in prayer
and conference — but as the hour of assembling
approached his heart quailed at the thought of
addressing so many aged and experienced saints,
and he actually fled from the duty he had under-
taken. But just as the kirk of Shotts was vanishing
from his view, those words, " Was I ever a barren
wilderness or a land of darkness ? " were borne
in upon his mind with such force as compelled him

154 Purpose in Prayer

to return to the work. He took for his text Ezekiel
xxxvi. 25, 26, and discoursed with great power for
about two hours. Five hundred conversions were
believed to have occurred under that one sermon,
thus prefaced by prayer. " It was the sowing of a
seed through Clydesdale, so that many of the most
eminent Christians of that country could date
their conversion, or some remarkable confirmation
of their case, from that day."

Of Richard Baxter it has been said that " he
stained his study walls with praying breath ; and
after becoming thus anointed with the unction
of the Holy Ghost he sent a river of living water over
Kidderminster." Whitfield once thus prayed, '* O
Lord, give me souls or take my souL" After much
closet pleading, " he once went to the Devil's fair
and took more than a thousand souls out of the paw
of the lion in a single day."

Mr. Finney says : "I once knew a minister who
had a revival fourteen winters in succession. I did
not know how to account for it till I saw one of his
members get up in a prayer meeting and make a
confession. ' Brethren,' he said, ' I have been
long in the habit of praying every Saturday night
till after midnight for the descent of the Holy
Ghost among us. And now, brethren (and he
began to weep), I confess that I have neglected it
for two or three weeks.' The secret was out. That
minister had a praying church."

And so we might go on multiplying illustration

Purpose in Prayer 155

upon illustration to show the place of prayer in
revival and to demonstrate that every mighty
movement of the Spirit of God has had its source
in the prayer-chamber. The lesson of it all is this,
that as workers together with God we must regard
ourselves as in not a httle measure responsible for
the conditions which prevail around us to-day.
Are we concerned about the coldness of the Church ?
Do we grieve over the lack of conversions ? Does
our soul go out to God in midnight cries for the
outpouring of His Spirit ?

If not, part of the blame lies at our door. If we
do our part, God will do His. Around us is a
world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and able
to save ; it is ours to build the bridge that links
heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instru-
ment that does the work.

And so the old cry comes to us with insistent
voice, " Pray, brethren, pray."

Lord Jesus, cause me to know in my daily experience the
glory and sweetness of Thy name, and then teach me how to
use it in my prayer, so that I may be even like Israel, a prince
prevailing with God. Thy name is my passport, and secures
me access ; Thy name is my plea, and secures me answer ;
Thy name is my honour and secures me glory. Blessed Name,
Thou art honey in my mouth, music in my ear, heaven in my
heart, and all in all to all my being ! — C. H. Spurgeon.

/ do not mean that every prayer we offer is answered
exactly as we desire it to be. Were this the case, it would mean
that we would be dictating to God, and prayer would degenerate
into a mere system of begging. Just as an earthly father knows
what is best for his children's welfare, so does God take iiito
consideration the particular needs of His human family,
and meets them out of His wonderful storehouse. If our
petitions are in accordance with His will, and if we seek His
glory in the asking, the answers will come in ways that will
astonish us and fill our hearts with songs of thanksgiving.
God is a rich and bountiful Father, and He does not forget His
children, nor withhold from them anything which it would
be to their advantage to receive. — J. Kennedy Maclean.

XIII

The example of our Lord in the matter of prayer
is one which His followers might weU copy. Christ
prayed much and He taught much about prayer.
His life and His works, as well as His teaching, are
illustrations of the nature and necessity of prayer.
He lived and laboured to answer prayer. But the
necessity of importunity in prayer was the
emphasised point in His teaching about prayer.
He taught not only that men must pray, but that
they must persevere in prayer.

He taught in command and precept the idea of
energy and earnestness in praying. He gives to
our efforts gradation and climax. We are to ask,
but to the asking we must add seeking, and seeking
must pass into the full force of effort in knocking.
The pleading soul must be aroused to effort by
God's silence. Denial, instead of abating or
abashing, must arouse its latent energies and kindle
anew its highest ardour.

In the Sermon on the Mount, in which He lays
down the cardinal duties of His religion, He not
only gives prominence to prayer in general and
secret prayer in particular, but He sets apart a
distinct and different section to give weight to
importunate prayer. To prevent any discourage-
rs?

158 Purpose in Prayer

ment in pra5dng He lays as a basic principle the
fact of God's great fatherly willingness — that
God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds
our willingness to give good and necessary things
to our children, just as far as God's abiHty, goodness
and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
As a further assurance and stimulant to prayer
Christ gives the most positive and iterated assurance
of answer to prayers. He declares : " Ask and
it shall be given you ; seek and ye shall find ; knock
and it shall be opened unto you." And to make
assurance doubly sure, He adds : " For every
one that asketh, receive th ; and he that seeketh,
findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened."

Why does He unfold to us the Father's loving
readiness to answer the prayer of His children ?
Why does He asseverate so strongly that prayer
will be answered ? Why does He repeat that
positive asseveration six times ? Why does Christ
on two distinct occasions go over. the same strong
promises, iterations, and reiterations in regard
to the certainty of prayer being answered ? Because
He knew that there would be delay in many an
answer which would call for importunate pressing,
and that if our faith did not have the stronges
assurance of God's willingness to answer, dela-
would break it down. And that our spiritur
sloth would come in, under the guise of submissioi
and say it is not God's will to give what we ask, an

Purpose in Prayer 159

so cease praying and lose our case. After Christ
had put God's wilhngness to answer prayer in a
very clear and strong light, He then urges to
importunity, and that every unanswered prayer,
instead of abating our pressure should only increase
intensity and energy. If asking does not get, let
asking pass into the settled attitude and spirit of
seeking. If seeking does not secure the answer,
let seeking pass on to the more energetic and
clamorous plea of knocking. We must persevere
till we get it. No failure here if our faith does not
break down.

As our great example in prayer, our Lord puts
love as a primary condition — a love that has purified
the heart from all the elements of hate, revenge,
and ill will. Love is the supreme condition of
prayer, a Ufe inspired by love. The 13th chapter
of 1st Corinthians is the law of prayer as well as
the law of love. The law of love is the law of
prayer, and to master this chapter from the epistle
of St. Paul is to learn the first and fullest condition
of prayer.

Christ taught us also to approach the Father in
His name. That is our passport. It is in His name
that we are to make our petitions known. " Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me,
the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater
works than these shall he do ; because I go unto the
Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified

i6o Purpose in Prayer

in the Son. If ye shall ask Me anything in My
name, that will I do."

How wide and comprehensive is that " whatso-
ever." There is no limit to the power of that
name. " Whatsoever ye shall ask." That is the
Divine declaration, and it opens up to every praying
child a vista of infinite resource and possibility.

And that is our heritage. All that Christ has
may become ours if we obey the conditions. The
one secret is prayer. The place of revealing and of
equipment, of grace and of power, is the prayer-
chamber, and as we meet there with God we shall
not only win our triumphs but we shall also grow
in the likeness of our Lord and become His livhig
witnesses to men.

Without prayer the Christian life, robbed of its
sweetness and its beauty, becomes cold and formal
and dead ; but rooted in the secret place where
God meets and walks and talks with His own, it
grows into such a testimony of Divine power that
all men will feel its influence and be touched by
the warmth of its love. Thus, resembUng our Lord
and Master, we shall be used for the glory of God
and the salvation of our fellow men.

And that, surely, is the purpose of all real prayer
and the end of all true service.

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