DR.KELMAN ON PRAYER.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14889, 31 January 1914, Page 16

DR.KELMAN ON PRAYER.

Dr. John Kelman, of Edinburgh, addressed a meeting of .'niversity sturients and others in Woodhmw-moor JWeslevan Cliurch, Leeds, last iiionth, on -The Problem of Prayer." lie said the problem was as wide sis human life itself, and as deep us human experience. "Whatever else prayer might or might not be, it wa_ at least a quite .wentifll part of a complete human life- Tho difficulty of the problem really centred in the small point o whether and to what extent they could i_et the things they asked from God. People who felt this difficulty most ..pro those who made tlio mistake ol proving i"'" what they should have worked for. Prayer must stand in the Kchome of life as one of many agencies. It could never take the place or the icasonablo ways in which life led up to its best results, and some of the most <:onipli«ite.l arguments were founded upon tho forgetting of this - fact. Whether answered or not, they mutt pray., for prayer was part of their jiiaiihoorl. As civilisation advanced, all sorts of subtleties and expediencies pre.sed upon them—m busiiess and in society—hut prayer lifted tho spirit- nbove all circumstances which made sincerity difficult. Throughout human history tho man who had gone to God in prayer was the strong and irresistible human force. ' THE PRIVOLITV OF THE AGE. Canon Newbolt, preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral last month, said that St. John tho Baptist stood at the thres- , hold of tho Gospel as a figure "of warning and a figure of protest. The ' Saint's life was a stern one; his mestsago a ficrrcro one— "Repent, prepare, amend." And accordingly it had been reserved for the frivolity ot our tunes to drag his death into the travesties of a music-hall and as the setting lor it dance. It was an easy matter mcrelv to protest. There . had never been wanting cynics who had croaked -fith n satrngo. pleasure over the frivolous vanities of national cecadence. It was but little use to pour contempt on evils which they were neither competent nor willing to cure. There were few of them who had not taken up the •newspapers in recent times, and said, ""What are-wo coming to?" All things seemed moving, tossing around them in a vast chaos. What we. needed more •than anything else was a public recognition of God. From time to time the question was debated—Do men and women co to church as they used to do? Where people used to go to * church onco a Sunday as a concession to--propriety, did they not now seldom -_ goat all? Where they used to go. to church twice did they now go once?Although there was room for improvement, it. was ridiculously untrue, if they took the length and breadth of England, to say that- people had given ■■ . up going to church.