Watching and Prayer.-By watchfulness we employ and exert our strength, and by prayer we engage God's; and if ever victory and success attend us in these encounters, these two must join forces,-heaven and earth must be confederate. ROBERT SOUTH, D.D., Sermons, published 1737, vol. vi. p. 354. Work and Prayer. Life is a compound of prayer and work. It is not as though these were two separate agencies in merely external combination or mutual alternation; they must ever be united with and in each other. The one does not exclude but requires the other, as the inner and outer man, as soul and body. Prayer requires work, and work requires prayer. Work must be the outward and visible form of prayer; prayer must be the soul of work, the soul of life in general. No isolated and external act added to another isolated and external act, but the everpresent background of every action, that which vitally pervades and supports our every thought and deed, whence all must originate, and toward which all must tend, that our whole conduct may become an embodied prayer. It is by prayer that life on earth is connected with eternity, is sunk in it, grows out of it. The greatness of prayer consists in the fact that it transposes this life of time into the sphere of eternity, fills it with eternal value, and brings it into direct communication with God Himself. Hence there is nothing which more exalts and honours man than prayer. CHR. ERNST LUTHARDT, Apologetic Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, p. 162. Work and Prayer. If prayer without effort would be presumptuous, effort without prayer would be vain. JOHN Ker, D.D., Sermons, 1871, 8th Edition, p. 40. Superfluous Words, and "Much Speaking;" what is meant by the Terms.-May we, in prayer, use "superfluous words," against which many a sage warning is uttered? . . . Superfluous words! Is it not precisely words, liable to be so designated, that contain all the perfume of life? No doubt, where it is a question of ruling and commanding, buying and selling, in the entire sphere of business life, public and private, curt, measured words are in their place. But in the intimacies of friendly converse, in the home, where husband and wife talk together, or parents chat with their children, there is room for "much speaking," "superfluous," yea, overflowing words. To place all these under a ban would be at a stroke to banish all life's cheerfulness and all its unconventional ways. A husband has probably told his wife a thousand times that he loves her, that she is dear to him; it is certainly superfluous to repeat it so often. But would it not be hard for both if he were never allowed to say it many a time again, yea, as long as he lives? And if a mother has often said to son and daughter, “Thou art my dear child," does she weary of saying, or they of hearing it again? And these, forsooth, are "superfluous" words! . . . And if superfluous words fill so significant a place in converse between man and man, it is out of the question for us to banish them from the converse of heart between man and his God. Before our heavenly Father our heart must needs pour out its joy, its grief, and every inner impulse, without reserve. We must needs be free to say again the same thing more than once; that is, to repeat ourselves, as the birds in wood and field sing the same song from year to year. And let the number of superfluous words be ever so great, we have a child's right to speak to our heavenly Father until the longing of our heart to utter itself in words is satisfied, although our Father knows beforehand everything that we need. God will certainly incline His ear to our prayer as long as our soul, our heart is in the words. . . "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." 1 That saying is meant to describe speaking that is empty of thought and soul.... When a man prays, and his soul is not in the prayer, it is barren of significance and result. It then becomes the longdrawn mere mechanical prayer, against which the Saviour warns in the words quoted. Whoever, therefore, would talk of "superfluous" words in prayer, let him say: "Superfluous is every word in which is no soul, no spirit, no beating pulse. Superfluous is no word in which there is soul, which is spoken in 'spirit and in truth.'" Bishop MONRAD, "The World of Prayer," pp. 201–206. Matthew vi. 7. XVII. Times for Prayer. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord.-Psalm v. 3. But unto Thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent Thee.-Psalm lxxxviii. 13. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray.—Psalm lv. 17. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto Thee daily. (Marginal reading, all the day.)—Psalm lxxxvi. 3. Daniel kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed. Daniel vi, 10. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.—Mark i. 35. And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.-Luke vi. 12. And He spake a parable unto them to to pray, and not to faint.-Luke xviii, 1. this end, that men ought always See also chap. xi. 5-8. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.-Luke xxi. 36. Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him.-Acts xii. 5. Continuing instant in prayer (Revised Version, 1881, continuing steadfastly in prayer).—Romans xii. 12. Pray without ceasing.-1 Thessalonians v. 17. O TIMELY happy, timely wise, New, every morning is the love Through sleep and darkness safely brought, New mercies, each returning day, New perils past, new sins forgiven, New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven. If, on our daily course, our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still, of countless price, Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be, The trivial round, the common task, Seek we no more;-content with these, Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love JOHN KEBLE, 1827. TIMES FOR PRAYER. Access to God at all times by Prayer.1-Thy access to Him, all the enemies in the world cannot hinder. The closest prison shuts not out thy God; yea, rather, it shuts out other things and companies, that thou mayest have the more leisure for Him, and the sweeter converse with Him. Oh! acquaint yourselves with this exercise of prayer, and by it with God, that if days of trouble come, you may know whither to go, and what way; and if you know this way, whatever befalls you, you are not much to be bemoaned. ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON, Works, vol. i. p. 703. God always Accessible.-Among all the means of grace-sermons, sacraments, Sabbaths, Providences, God's word, either read or preached—the greatest in some respects is prayer. Nor men nor devils can shut its gates. When every other avenue to God is closed, these stand open-day and night continually. The storm of persecution may drive us from the house of God; the voice of preachers may be silenced in prisons; the Church may excommunicate and debar us from the communion table; the Bible, plucked from our hands, may be burned to ashes in Popish flames ; all this has happened, and may happen again. These are avenues which man may close; not this, the door of prayer. The martyr found it standing open in his dungeon; Daniel in the den of lions; the three children in the fiery furnace; Jonah in the belly of the whale ; Paul and Silas in the prison, where their feet were in the stocks, but their spirits were free; and when his brow is clammy cold, and his eyes are glazed and dim, and his ear has lost its hearing, and his tongue its power of speech, the moving lips and 1 Nempe tenens quod amo, nihil, illum amplexus, timebo. |