INTRODUCTION

PRAYER is the practice of intercourse with God. The root of it is the understanding of our relations with Him. The fruit of it is all that is useful in this life which is, and in the other which is to come.

Substantially it consists in the elevation of the soul within. But it must go beyond that to make itself complete and perfect. So prayer formulates itself in words. Still more pronounced, it performs acts of reverence. Words and acts are an outward expression of the sentiment within, and give a natural enlargement to the spirit of man; "for with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Thus prayer develops into the full system of religion practised outwardly, or of public worship.

A threefold momentum impels us to address God in prayer. There is the rational instinct which prompts it. There is the privilege which allows it. There is the law which enjoins it.

1 Rom. 10. IO.

UNIV. OF

CHAPTER I

THE RATIONAL INSTINCT TO PRAY

THE impulse to pray comes from our rational nature, and, like every other impulse which merits the name of instinct, it rather possesses us than we possess it. In fact it is the impulse to feel for a strong hand held out from above, when our arm falls helpless by our side; to fill the emptiness, of which we are conscious, with a fulness which is not our own. In shipwreck, on the brink of the precipice, in the deafening explosion, they who before thought that they knew not God become suddenly enlightened and find themselves religious. An old proverb in divers tongues has it: "He that would learn how to pray, let him go to sea." It was only in the days of their abundance, and of the foolishness which went with their license, that people had said, there was no God. Now, in fire, in water, in lightning and storm, it comes like a revelation of themselves to find that they had thirsted for Him all the time: "For Thee my soul hath thirsted, for Thee my flesh, O how many ways! in a desert land, and where there is no way and no water." The soul finds itself in feeling for Him, whom it had ever been groping for, even when least anxious to find Him. Let a sagging existence be braced up by the jerk of terror or horror, and forthwith the instinct of intelligent nature vibrates through the frame. The truth latent for years springs out to light in the intensity of the moment. Thus the Sceptic Pyrrho, whose philosophy

1 Ps. 13. 1; 52. I.

Ibid. 62. 2, 3.

had reached the fine point of idealism that fact and fancy were all one, and nothing mattered since all things were alike unreal, happened to find himself once in presence of a mad dog, which made for him. His idealism deserted him on the spot. Common sense rushed to the front. He turned and ran. Afterwards he apologized for the intrusive instinct, saying, "Tis hard to put off nature!"

This contrast, between notions which presume to dispense with realities and the instinct of common sense which so promptly apprehends them, invites us to explain more precisely what it is that comes under the name of Prayer.

Taken in a large sense, it is little less than the whole virtue of religion in exercise; and so it comprises whatever helps the mind to rise towards God. Meditation, contemplation, are exercises of prayer; also conning over sacred things, reading about matters of the spirit, or entering into oneself before God. Whatever goes to foster the devotion which comes of understanding may be reckoned as prayer: "My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire shall kindle. I said with my tongue: O Lord make known to me my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what is wanting to me."

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In a more restricted sense, prayer is only a direct address to God by adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, or petition.

But in the narrowest sense it is the last-named form alone, that of petition or impetration, which has appropriated to itself the title of prayer.

All this, especially public prayer, is otherwise

1 Ps. 38.4, 5.

called Worship; and the virtue of justice or righteousness which animates it is called Religion. This is the great virtue, first of all the moral ones, which makes us refer ourselves and all that concerns us to God, with reverence for His person and deference to His will.

Many virtues concur to the discharge of this divine duty. It is the heart's devotion which prompts religious worship. Faith and hope accompany it: "If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.' Moreover, religious worship is sustained by that spirit of humility or sincerity, which is the truth of our life shining through our conduct-" doing the truth," as Our Lord said to Nicodemus, and "coming to the light."2

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Under whatever form it is made, prayer is so ready to one's hand and near to the heart that it is instinctive; which means, that it proceeds from an obvious principle of the mind, and that it comes natural in the conduct of our moral existence. The practical principle of reason which dictates the duty of prayer is so clear in life that to fail in the observance of it is inexcusable, and withal impossible. It is a default inexcusable, because, as St. Paul says, the invisible things of God are understood by the things that are made; so that even the heathens, who had only the guidance of natural intelligence, were "without excuse," when "knowing God they glorified Him not as God, nor gave thanks." And withal it was a default quite impossible, as they showed by the necessity to which they 1 James I. 5, 6. 2 John 3. 21.