Character and Conduct Part 46

"Every true prayer has its background and its foreground. The foreground of prayer is the intense, immediate desire for a certain blessing which seems to be absolutely necessary for the soul to have; the background of prayer is the quiet earnest desire that the will of G.o.d, whatever it may be, should be done. What a picture is the perfect prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane! In front burns the strong desire to escape death and to live; but, behind, there stands, calm and strong, the craving of the whole life for the doing of the will of G.o.d.... Leave out the foreground--let there be no expression of the wish of him who prays--and there is left a pure submission which is almost fatalism. Leave out the background--let there be no acceptance of the will of G.o.d--and the prayer is only an expression of self-will, a petulant claiming of the uncorrected choice of him who prays. Only when the two, foreground and background, are there together,--the special desire resting on the universal submission, the universal submission opening into the special desire,--only then is the picture perfect and the prayer complete!"

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Prayer

OCTOBER 9

"About prayer he said: 'The reason why men find it hard to regard prayer in the same light in which it was formerly regarded is that _we_ seem to know more of the unchangeableness of Law. But I believe that G.o.d reveals Himself in each individual soul. Prayer is, to take a mundane simile, like opening a sluice between the great ocean and our little channels when the great sea gathers itself together and flows in at full tide.'

'Prayer on our part is the highest aspiration of the soul.'"

"A Breath that fleets beyond this iron world And touches Him who made it."

"Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-- Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."

And

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of."

_Tennyson--a Memoir_, by his Son.

Prayer

OCTOBER 10

"There can be no objection to praying for certain special things. G.o.d forbid! I cannot help doing it, any more than a child in the dark can help calling for its mother. Only it seems to me that when we pray, 'Grant this day that we run into no kind of danger,' we ought to lay our stress on the 'run' rather than on the 'danger,' to ask G.o.d not to take away the danger by altering the course of nature, but to give us light and guidance whereby to avoid it."

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

"Special prayer is based upon a fundamental instinct of our nature. And in the fellows.h.i.+p which is established in prayer between man and G.o.d, we are brought into personal union with Him in Whom all things have their being.

"In this lies the possibility of boundless power; for when the connection is once formed, who can lay down the limits of what man can do in virtue of the communion of his spirit with the Infinite Spirit?"

Bishop WESTCOTT.

Prayer

October 11

"It is abundantly clear that answered prayer encourages faith and personal relations in a way which broad principles only cannot effect.

As the _Spectator_ put it many years ago, much that would be positively bad for us if given without prayer, is good if sent in answer. We feel (do we not?) that all the evil of the world springs from mistrust of G.o.d. Nothing can recover us from this state of alienated unrest like answered prayer."

_Life of F. W. Crossley_, RENDEL HARRIS.

"Prayer will in time make the human countenance its own divinest altar; years upon years of true thoughts, like ceaseless music shut up within, will vibrate along the nerves of expression until the lines of the living instrument are drawn into correspondence, and the harmony of visible form matches the unheard harmonies of the mind."

_The Choir Invisible_, JAMES LANE ALLEN.

Prayer

OCTOBER 12

"Pray, till prayer makes you forget your own wish, and leave it or merge it in G.o.d's will. The divine wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means by which we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it. 'There appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.' This was the true reply to the prayer of Christ."

F. W. ROBERTSON.

"Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief--resignation; of asking, and then because we have not faith to believe, putting in a 'Thy will be done' at the end. Let us make G.o.d's Will our will, and so say 'Thy will be done.'"

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Prayer

OCTOBER 13

"Accustom yourself gradually to let your mental prayer spread over all your daily external occupations. Speak, act, work quietly, as though you were praying, as indeed you ought to be.

"Do everything without excitement, simply in the spirit of grace. So soon as you perceive natural activity gliding in, recall yourself quietly into the Presence of G.o.d. Hearken to what the leadings of grace prompt, and say and do nothing but what G.o.d's Holy Spirit teaches. You will find yourself infinitely more quiet, your words will be fewer and more effectual, and while doing less, what you do will be more profitable. It is not a question of a hopeless mental activity, but a question of acquiring a quietude and peace in which you readily advise with your Beloved as to all you have to do."

FeNeLON.

"A blessing such as this our hearts might reap, The freshness of the garden they might share, Through the long day an heavenly freshness keep, If, knowing how the day and the day's glare Must beat upon them, we would largely steep And water them betimes with dews of Prayer."

TRENCH.

Self-examination

OCTOBER 14

"It is my custom every night to run all over the words and actions of the past day; for why should I fear the sight of my errors when I can admonish and forgive myself? I was a little too hot in such a dispute: my opinion might have been as well spared, for it gave offence, and did no good at all. The thing was true; but all truths are not to be spoken at all times."

SENECA.

RESOLVES.

"To try to be thoroughly poor in spirit, meek, and to be ready to be silent when others speak.

"To learn from every one.