REMARKABLE PRAYERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE PRAYERS.

HiGir-HEAKTKi) Robert Louis Stevenson has bequeathed to his fellows some marvellous prayers, notably the morning aspiration in which lie begs. "Give us to play the man!" and the evening devotion beginning. " Lord support us all day long of this troublous life!" but lie wrote nothing finer than the brave, sweet verse in which the sinking sufferer testified to his abiding acknowledgment of the beauty— and dutyof. joy: —

If I have moved among my race. And shown no glorious .morning face, If .beams from happy human eyes Have moved mo not, if morning ski*"*. Hooks, and my. fowl.-and summer rain, . Beat, on' my. sullen heart in vain— Mrd, thy most pointed pleasure take, And • stab my • spirit broad Quake! A wonderful prayer., truly (writes Ethel Colson in the New York Sunday Magazine), though perhaps not all of us would dare to pray it.

• Dr. Henry Van Dyke is another spiritu-ally-minded humanitarian whose pure thoughts have blossomed'forth into impressive prayers. His "God of the Open Air," once read, will seldom be forgotten. •'A -Writer's Request .of His Master." less widely known, should, touch the heart, of j all who claim remotest kinship with the writing craft ' "Let me never tag a moral to a story, nor tell. a story without a meaning. Make me respect my material so much that I dare not slight- my work. ■ Help me to | deal very honestly with words and with j people, because they are both alive. Show Ime that, as in a river, so'in a writing, i clearness is the best quality, and a little ! that is pure is worth much that is mixed. i Teach me to see the local colour without j being blind to the inner light. Give me j an idea that will stand the strain of weav- ■ ing into human stuff 'on the loom,of the [ real. Keep me from caring more for books j than for folks, for art than lor life." Steady [ me to do my lull stint of work as well as j lean. And when this is done, stop me, I pay me what wages Thou wilt, and help me to say," from a quiet heart, a grateful Amen." ... ''Bless me in this life with but the ' peace of my conscience, command of my* ! affection, the love of Thyself and my dear- | est friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar!" Thus good old Sir Thomas Browne, who revolutionised the practice of medicine, concluded his remarkable " Religio Medici.'' To the beloved and ever sympathetic " R.L.S." is attributed this affectionate prayer "For Friends" : "For our absent loved ones we implore Thy loving kindness. Keep them in life, keep them in growing honour, and for us, grant that wc may remain worthy of their love. For Christ's sake, let not our beloved blush for us. nor us for them. Grant, us but that, and grant us courage to endure lesser ills unshaken, and to accept death, loss, and disappointment as it were straws upon the tide of life."