SUNDAY READING,

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14453, 20 August 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING,

PREVAILING PRAYER*

TtY KEF. A. W. Ht'TTON", M.A",

Tray without ceasing.—I. Tbess. v., 17. Towards the conclusion of his poem callej " The Passing of Arthur" (which is the lasts of the series known as "The Idylls of the King") Tennyson makes the dying Arthur thus address Sir Bedivere, the knight who alone was in attendance on him at, tha end : — but thou, If thou shoiililst never gee my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. 'Wherefore, let th? voire lUse like a fountain for me night- and dav. For what are men better than sheep or goati" 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 friends? For so the whole round earth is every wav Bound by gold chairs about the feet of God".

The lines form a suitable introduction to our consideration to-day of prayer, the subject of the Seventh Spiritual Work of Mercy. In Jeremy Taylor's list it is given as "Prayer for all estates of men, and for relief to "all their necessities" ; while in the list in the " Penny Catechism" it is given as " To pray for the living and the dead." And chiefly on the- latter part of that clause I will now write a few words because, although the subject is a somewhat controversial one, it should not really be such. It is quite true that in the liible there is next to nothing taught about such prayer. St. Paul, speaking of Oneeiphprus, who was evidently dead at the time that he spoke of him, said": " The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day"—i.e., of course, in the day of judgment ; a kindly benediction pronounced over a departed soul. It is also an illustration cf the fact, known now with more distinctness from other sources! than, it was known some centuries ago, that so soon as the Jews attained to belief in the resurrection of the dead. They began to pray for the dead. The Saddueees used no such prayers, but the Pharisees did. The use of "such prayers seemed to them to bo involved, in thai belief; and since that belief became much stronger among tho primitive Christians than it has been among the Jews, so did the practice become established among them ; and it would never have been questioned, save for abuses in the Middle Ages, which degraded the practice to level of a commercial transaction, the priests being paid so much, almost by tariff, to deliver souls from purgatory.

WHAT FBAYER IS. But- abuses such as these are an accident, The Jews themselves have continued these prayers throughout, and no such abuses have, in their case, degraded their prayers. Let me quote to you softie words that are used bv them. When the coffin is lowered into the grave this prayer is said, " May ho come to his place in peace." And then, in the house of mourning, after certain psalms; " Remember unto him the righteousness which he wrought, and let his reward bo with him. and his recompense before him. 0, shelter his soul under the shadow of Thy wings. Make known to him. the path of life." And, at a later date, at a memorial sen vice on the anniversary of a father's death, the children are taught thus to pray: **May God remember the soul of my revered father, who bas gone to his repose. May his soul be bound up in the bond of life. May his rest be glorious, with fulness of joy in Thy presence, and pleasures for evermore at Thy right hand." And, once more, on behalf of the dead generally: "May their souls repose in the land of the living, beholding Thy glory, and in Thy goodness." Prayers such as those were presumably offered among the Jews at the date of our Lord's life on earth. In regard to death Christians believe, further, in a Master, Who " by His death hath destroyed death, and by His rising to life again hath restored to us everlasting life." Prayer is not a mechanical device for making things different from what they are. Prayer is an act of communion. In prayer we lift up our hearts and minds to God, and associate ourselves with His holy will; and in intercessory prayer we also associate ourselves with our brethern, .sympathising with them in their aspirations after a hoiier and a better life, and strengthening theii spirits in those holy aspirations.

INFORMAL ItKLIGION". All prayer bas in it. the character of a twofold communion, with God and with our brethern ; all prayer, I mean, that is worthy of the name—that is no 'meg© formality, no "vain repetition" of words- that have lost all meaning, but a real lifting up of the soul to God, a meditation on things unseen, an aspiration after that which is pure and honest and of good report; an unselfish assignment to others, so far as our will can secure it, of that which will bo to their advantage, whether material and temporary, or spiritual and eternal. W hen prayer is thus understood and practised, you can be men of prayer still, as you kneel at public worship, perhaps paying but little attention to the vocal prayers that are being offered ; and though you have abandoned the habit of bedside prayers morning and evening—l mean, not in contempt or irreligion, but because you were honestly satistied tiiat they had become an empty formality, on that account not worthy of God to Whom they were professedly addressed, nor beneficial to yourselves or your neighbours, on behalf* of whom they were <jstcnsibly uttered. Tho true man of prayer, such as you may still bo, in spite of having abandoned tlui external observances of conventional prayer, is not a man of formalities, but man in whose soul dwells a spiritual force, that keeps him in touch with God and in trnich with his brethren. In concluding these brief addresses on the seven spiritual works of .Mercy, mv lost word of exhortation to the readers of Lloyd's Pulpit is this: Be thus among tile true men of prayer: practise thus the noblest, of these merciful works; shah your life and conversation bo a blessing to those among whom you live and woik, and oven a blessing, so ;ar as we can p«" ceive and understand it, to those wnom you have known and loved in hie- , a who have now passed behind the veil into the more immediate presence of God.