SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1932, Page 12 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

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REV. A. H. COLLINS

THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. ‘What is the Almighty that we should serve Hirn? And what profit should we have if we pray unto Him ?”—Job, xxi., 10. Prayer is a fact of history. All reliction is founded on that fact. All men pray. Men have always prayed. Wherever man has left a record, it supplies the witness that man is a religious animal. Temples and altars, monuments and literature tell us that man is made to find strength and peace in fellowship with the Father of Spirits. Prayer is not a weakness, still less is it a superstition; it is the soul’s natural mode of living. Question the human heart why in its sincere, devout, and adoring hours it lifts itself up to God, and you will get one of several answers. First, the soul is consciously possessed of a faculty for the infinite. “Sink deep enough in the human and you will come to the Divine.” The spirit craves for God as the body craves for food. Next, the impulse proceeds from a sense of dependence. “It is not in man to direct his .steps.” He is not self-contained and self-sufficient. He is possessed of little more than power to use what is given him to use, and in very helplessness he falls at the feet of God, crying: “I am Thine; save me.” A third thing is this: There is so much in life to baffle and perplex. Here, then, in rough outline, are the motives which prompt men to pray: An affinity for God, a sense of need, and a burden of mystery. Jesus did not teach the need of prayer. He assumed that what Christ did was to give prayer its right direction and its true spirit, thus making prayer what it ever should be, the door of entrance to “the Palace Beautiful” of a full and fruitful life. A FATAL POWER. But man has a fatal power of belittlement, and he has used it on the subject of prayer. There are people whose estimate of moral values is determined by the standard of the market place. They regard everything, religion included, in the light of an investment. The question is ‘‘will it pay?” Sentiment, however noble, emotion, however pure, is regarded with impatience, sometimes with scorn, A dewdrop that mirrors the morning is nothing because it cannot be caught and sold! The crimson and gold of the setting sun; the flush of the dawning and the dying day; the scent of sweetbriar, and the boom of the mighty sea, are nothing, and they cut short your raptures with the query: “How-much will it fetch?” They would buy pictures by the yard and sell music by the pound! They remind me of the tourist at Niagara, who, when asked what he thought of the thundering waterfall, replied that “it would be very fine if it were not for the poverty of the material!” That is the spirit which asks: “What should it profit us if we pray to Him?”

A QUESTION OF PROFIT AND LOSS.

Religion is a question of profit and loss. They want a quid pro quo. They will serve God if He helps them. They will send up lovely petitions on the white wings of prayer, provided satisfactory terms can be arranged. Of course, it is a beggarly conception of religion, but I am afraid it still prevails even in some Christian circles. Religion is an insurance policy covering ■future risks, and prayer is part of the premium. In this way highest things are reduced to absolute selfishness, and worship is changed into a form of Mammonism. Beware of making the question of rewards and punishments the chief motive in religion. But the question of the text may be asked in a better spirit." Some years ago a book was published, under the title: “Does God answer prayer?” It was an honest book, which came into being as the result of a challenge issued by a famous scientist, who proposed to test the value of prayer by purely physical results. Tennyson echoed that controversy in his simple ballad, “In the Children’s Hospital,” where the doctor is made to say: “Can prayer set a broken bone?” Bishop Moorhouse raised. the same problem when he refused to call for a day of prayer for rain on the ground that Australia neglected to conserve the water God had given. All of which serves to remind us that there is a good deal of loose and unprofitable talk about answers to prayer. We are not entitled to claim every happy chance as a direct answer to our prayers. ADJUSTING OUR WILL. We need to be on our guard lest we create the impression that the Almighty can be coaxed and teased into giving everything we choose to ask. Our prayers cannot be too earnest, too trusting, too sincere, but our prayers may be too passionate, too imperious, too dictatorial; they may lack calmness, reverence, resignation. We have not to change the will of God, but to adjust our own. We have not to make God willing to give, but ourselves fit to receive and use. Prayer is making request, not applying coercion. We may present our supplications, but we are not to issue an ultimatum to Heaven. We have not to overcome God’s reluctance, but to use His willingness. What should it profit us if we pray to Him? “Nothing,” say some. “It is waste of time and effort. There is no God to hear, or if there is, His hands are tied. The world is under the reign of inflexible law. Prayer is a superstition which modern science has the satisfaction of exploding.” But stop a minute. Not quite so fast. The nian who says God cannot 'answer prayer says too much or too little. If he says prayer is vain lie should say all prayer is vain, prayer to God and prayer to man. But if a man can grant his child's request—and we know he can—is our pitiful Father in Heaven less able? You would not think much of the man who never granted his child’s plaint. “But the laws of the universe are fixed laws.” “Nature does not change.” True, and we should be thankful it is true, but the laws of Nature are the laws of God, Who is not helpless in the world He made. SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL Science does not deny the supernatural; modern science admits the supernatural. Sir Oliver Lodge has answered Huxley: “As to what is scientifically impossible or possible, anything not self-contradictory or inconsistent with any other truth is possible. In spite of anything Professor Tyndall may say, this statement must be accepted as literally true for all we know to the contrary . . . Who are we to dogmatise too positively concerning law?”

We live in a cosmos and not in chaos. Of course, we are not justified in expecting the Almighty will suspend the law of gravitation, and cause water to run uphill to our back door, to save us

the trouble of sinking a, well or laying down a service pipe. That would put a premium on laziness. If you act recklessly and ruin health, or foolishly and ruin’business, or sinfully and ruin character, you should not expect God to work a miracle to stave off the consequences; you should pray for wisdom to understand God's law better, and you should humbly seek grace to endure the penalty of your transgression. There is another answer which does not deny that prayer has some value. It helps somewhat. It has a reflex action on the suppliant. It is a relief to our over-charged feelings. It supplies a mental and spiritual tonic. Professor Huxley, who proposed a scientific test of prayer, confessed that prayer has some value. He compared it to the anguished cry of the hunted hare, when the hounds are close up. She abandons hope and screams. The doom is not averted, but the heart is relieved. PHYSICAL RELIEF. Prayer is physical relief. By it the mind is rested, judgment is cleansed, the will is reinforced. Now that is an aspect of prayer we do not sufficiently consider. If our requests were never answered it would be good to pray.

Lord! what a change within us one short hour Spent in Thy presence, will avail to make; What heavy burdens from the bosom take; What parched ground • refreshed as with a shower! We kneel and all around us seems to lower; We rise, and all the distant and the near Stands forth in sunny outline, 'brave and dear! We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power! Why, therefore, should w® do ourselves this wrong, Or others, that we are not always strong, That we are ever overborne with care: That we should ever weak or helpless be, Anxious and troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee? But the subjective value of prayer is not the whole value, and to suppose that it is, is as though a man should stand at a telephone when the wire is cut and invent replies which have no existence outside his own imagination. The Christian doctrine of prayer is more than that. The pages of history bristle with authentic answers to prayer. What battles it has won! What burdens it has carried! It has turned the scales of fate more than the warrior’s sword, or the statesman’s craft. It has been the wealth of poverty, the illumination of darkness, and the refuge of affliction. Jesus, tlie soul of truth and honor, said; “Men ought always to pray and not to faint,” and Ho gave to His words the endorsement of His own example. He prayed. Still it is true: More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. 'Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain night and day. For what are men better than sheep and goats 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 friend. For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by golden chains about the feet of God. UNANSWERED PRAYERS. Butosome will say: “What about our unanswered prayers?” I am not unmindful of that problem, though it does not seriously trouble me. The Bible is not only the record of answered prayers. The Book is no monotonous, unreal story of petitions always granted. God says “No” as well as “Yes.” The Bible tells of prayers that ruined men. Lot wanted Sodom, and he got it. Ahab craved Naboth’s vineyard, and seized it. Judas coveted the 30 pieces of silver, and obtained them. “He gave them their desires, but sent leanness into their soul.” On the other hand, Paul prayed for the removal of his “thorn in the flesh,” and it was not removed. Jesus faced the denial of His petition, “Let this cup pass from Me.” In each case something better was granted. Someone has said: “I have lived long enough to thank God He has not answered all my prayers.” The great dramatist puts it this way: “We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers.” The greatest good of prayer is not getting what we ask. Prayer is not only or chiefly asking for something; it is holding fellowship with Someone. It is not supplication alone; it is communion with God, such communion as leads us to say with Augustine: “0 Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will.” That is a mere sketch. If you would have fuller answer, let me surest you should read the chapter on "Unanswered Prayer,” by Fosdick, where he says that prayer must not be rega'rdcd as a substitute for intelligence and work. We could answer many of our own prayers. So Cromwell prayed, but when he faced a weak and flacid pietism that prayed and did nothing, he put his feelings into words as hard as his bullets “Trust in God and keep your powder dry.” “Watch, as if on that alone Hung the issues of the day; Pray that help may be sent down, Watch and pray.” Kipling puts it another way. “A man went down to Panama Where many a man had died, To slit’ the sliding mountain And lift the eternal tide, A man stood up in Panama And the mountain stood aside.” j Our prayers may fail, but God never fails.