EASY PRAYER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3070, 29 April 1881, Page 3

EASY PRAYER.

"Civis," in the Otago Witness, says: —

.Labor-saving devices are -bo common, in, America that it ought not surprise us to re-" ceive from the land of ingenious "notions " a suggestion for economising human effort in its application to religion. The author of the suggestion is the Rev. Joseph. Cook, commonly known among his admirers as tho " American Butler." (The allusion, I hasten to explain, is not to Butler of Cumberlandstreet notoriety, but to him of the " Analogy," altogether another sort of a person.) The Rev. Joseph Cook is believed to combine the profundity and orthodoxy of Bishop Butler with the sparkle of an American humorist, and his " Boston Lectures " have enjoyed a popularity only exceeded by that of Spurgeon's sermons and Sankey's hymns. Speaking recently on the importance of prayer, Mr Cook delivered himself of the following revolutionary sentiment: —" Men made the excuse that they had no time for pi'ayer. He simply asked them to be practical as the present times were. If they simply hung a Bible on their chamber door, and each time they passed • under it gave i themselves up in total surrender to its; authority, such an act of supplication would occupy no longer ■ time ' than the crossing the threshold of the door." The idea of suspending a Bible over yourchamber door and limiting your devotions; to a mental assent to its authority as you '■ cross the threshold is striking, but not altogether new. A story is told of; a man ; who, wishing, as Mr Cook says, to be: " practical as the present times are," hung a written prayer at the head of his bed, indicated it by a movement of his thumb when settling upon his pillow, and thus was able to get through the whole of his private devotions in the simple formula, " 0 Lord,, them's my sentiments." In some Eastern countries prayer-mills, impelled by waterpower, relieve the devout of all personal trouble, except that of keeping them running. In the interior of China., again, prayer-papers are hung on strings in the open air, and a recent traveller'reports that valleys may bo seen crossed from sido to side by prayer-lines, on which, like linen hung out to dry, the devotions of the people flutter in the breeze. As long as the papers flutter the prayers hold good, to the manifest saving of much time and labor. It will be seen that Mr Cook's proposal is only another illustration of the truth that there is nothing new nndor the sun. If the idea takes, as, considering its authorship, it very well may, a total revolution in all our habits of devotion may bo looked for. A man who hangs a Bible over his chamber door will soon discover that he may send his card to church, and the porches of our sacred edifices wili need to be fitted with receptacles for the " pasteboards" of the faithful —accompanied in each case, let lis hope, by tho votive threepenny for the offertory. When by any chance worshippers attend in person, tho clergyman will put it to them whether tho prayers and sermon should not be " taken as read," and upon their assent tho service will be shortened down to the collection and the benediction. Further developments of Mr Cook's principle suggest themselves, but I needn't indicate them. Obviously we are. trembling on the verge of a great religious * revolution. Qui vivra verm.