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