AN ESSAY ON PRAYER.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1918, 25 February 1875, Page 4

AN ESSAY ON PRAYER.

The present time is marked by a very striking question, too serious in its nature and too sober in the tone of its recent'discussions to merit the term of a mere controversy. If prayer and worship, including thanksgiving and praise, be less than stamped and proved means of attaining useful results, than the spontaneous outpourings of emotions affording increased self-complacency and _pure pleasure to their expectant Object—if the withholding of them, or of either of them, be not to such Object a source of sorrow and of disappointment—then, is prayer folly, and praise impertinence. If, by this time, the first be not established by the experience of its results, hope must die, and reason guide Us to other uses of life. If the second be doubtful it were foolhardiness not to give the beuefit of the doubt to that reverent caution which fears to offend. The devout poet who pronounces prayer to be " the soul's sincere desire, 1' concludes with the wise and cautious words " Lord I teach us how to P ray-" „ . ■ One of the ablest of the sons of science warns us that there exists a class of events demonstrable out of the range of prayer. Who would pray for any change m the laws of gravitation, optics, hydrostatics, .or chemistry? Who would interfere, even if he could, with the general distribution of rain over this our planet? I have, indeed, read that a judicious planting of trees, with due regard to locality and wants, may attract the rain cloud to particular districts. The grounds of this theory I am unworthy either to question or to praise ; but if solid, they would suggest to the reasoning mind ideas of law, of industry, and of nature. Laborare esi of are. He who by planting his grove on the hill, or by tending his forest on the plain, drawa needed moisture for the thirsty soil around him, may claim to rank with the hydraulic engineer who irrigates his land from a distant main, or with the architect of Rome, or of ancient India, Ac., who conveyed through stately aqueducts to the city, to the garden, to the field and the meadow, the welcome treasures of the sparkling mountain streams. The knowledge of Nature's laws is neither the asking nor the receiving of privileges supernatural and exceptive; it seems rather to be,;in the eyes of our All-wise .Ruler, a duty necessary and looked-for; but ignorance of Nature's laws is punished with a persistent and merciless severity from generation to generation. It bears every stamp of an odious sin. What a scourge was the small-pox for many a lifetime till Mary Montagu, and subsequently Jenner, more precisely reduced to practice the theory of which John Hunter had evolved and proved the principle, and in so doing supplied the remedy. Ignorance and neglect must be indeed most abhorred by God, for I see them punished more promptly, if not jiiore fearfully, than dishonesty, than perfidy, even than murder itself. I have said who would interfere, if he could, with the general distribution of rain—meaning, of course, a supernatural and despotic interference. A curiously beautiful illustration of such a question presents itself in Easselas. The Prince meets with an astronomer living in solitude, with whom Imlac becomes intimate and sympathising. His talk is serenely intellectual. At length he imparts to Imlac the secret of his soul. "I have acquired the pbwer of directing rain or sunshine at will among the sons of men. Tell me not of delusion, I have carefully tested and proved." -Imlac hints at the great benefits thus placed in Ms power. "Nay," says the sage, "not so. By careful collation of the state of the earth and its adaptations, I have found that I cannot improve her present condition. I therefore refrain from using a power of which the danger is probable, and the benefit undiscerned." "'"',■

A beautiful instance of a strong mind righting itself (to borrow a nautical term) and neutralising by intellect its own partial insanity. To return to the subjects confessed to be dehorsthe range of prayer. ' . Who would pray that water may of itself run up a hill? Yet the capillary attraction, and the ascent of sap in trees, present an apparent exception, and one, anterior to experience, most unexpected. The discoveries of science outstrip even imagination. Now,>this class of facts, far away from the reach of grayer, is, say the sons of science, daily increasing, daily enlarging its boundaries and deepening its foundations. " WiU the storm," says Keble, " hear the prayer of the mariner ?" No! And elsewnere the same writer beautifully writes—

" Wish not, dear friends, my pain away, r But wish me a wise and a patient heart." - The laws of nature, must be studied, mastered, and obeyed, under pain of fearful penalties. The change or interference from which I would shrink had I the power, I will not ask from the Being whom I reverence and adore. Take, then, O science, the whole material world: her laws are perfect, her forces irresistible. Man only is wrong; foe to himself and to his All-wise Creator whenever he vainly seeks to thwart or to improve Nature's laws; wiseatwben the self-surrendering pupil, the loyal minister, the conscientious interpreter. Prayer must reign (if at all) in an inner world and a deeper. Yet even there -are laws to be observed and mastered—even thither must be carried the modest disciplines of inductive science. Stern executioners hover round the "■•'inmes'df'tliirinnOTKfC'md^wrir-thtf penalty of their desecration. The Pslamist passes from survey of the starry heavens to reflections oh his own inner soul, and his first prayer is to be guarded from the sin of presumption, and from faults unperceived (Ps. xix.) The power of prayer is inward, and her blessings those ot the Tmajl and soul. But no form of moral gflHfcr is so destructive as spiritual

pride. And not every solitary can rectify his own errors, or neutralise his own delusions like the astronomer of Rasselas. The awfl I shadow forth to others descends on myself, and I seem to write in fear, like one exploring through darkness, and with lights but feeble and fitful --the deep and tortuous mazes of an unknown cavern.

1. We should pray for self-knowledge. So small is our possession of it, and so rare is it to have even any, that most of us are largely indebted to " circumstance, that unspiritual god," for the little success or merit we may have gained. How few, left to themselves, choose wisely either a calling, a wife, or a residence. Ridotta swims up the aisle every Sunday, and sinks gracefully into her cushions. Her costly simplicity of toilet supposes no small deliberation, time, and skill; she is past a mistress in the drawing on tight ly-fitting Jouvins. That calm and creamy cheek, those velvet eyes, and complacent consciousness of a rare mastery of fashionable costume; the pendant gem, the purple volume, the soupgon of fragrant perfume wafted by each rustling undulation—all tell of ease and wealth, governed by taste. Ridotta chants in pure monotone a prayer for " mercy on her a miserable sinner!" Miserable! Oh, Ridotta, thou never Jmewest misery. Call not by such a name even the roughest of thy crumpled rose leaves. A sinner thou art, yet in what respect thou knowest not more than does thy critic. Pray for I self-knowledge, and to be cleansed from faults by thee undiscerned. (Psalm xix.) 2. We should pray fora docile spirit of appreciation in all things and all circumstances. There is seldom, if ever, unmixed evil in life. Even where there appears to be the lessons and warnings are clear gain to me. We are all too prone to sajr " What good can come out of Nazareth ? " How wise the poet—"The man who feels contempt for any living ihing^ hath \ faculties that he has never used." Con- j serving our pride, self-respect and self-j reliance, let us pray for a spirit of ap- j preciation, and a prompt aptitude for j learning and for self-correction, as well as useful changes. 3. Solitude is intimately connected with prayer; not with worship of which we are not, at present treating. "He went forth to pray, himself alone." This was true, not only of the Son of Mary, but of Moses, of Gotama Buddha, of Mahomet, and of others, whose inner souls have ripened in solitude, then shed wondrous influence on man. Learn, O man, to live I alone ; few powers more distinguish one man from another. Woe to him whom solitude subdues. I do not mean that society is not fraught with duties and disciplines, into which man is bound to plunge, but that his mind is not sound to whom solitude can ever come amiss. The young seldom fear solitude, the aged are very impatient of it. As we advance in life, the company of a child, even a dog, is coveted in lonely hours. A prayerful habit of mind can ever people solitude with heart-searchings, and with the meditations that (like honest labour) partake of the nature of prayer. The orisons of the lonely walk are oft as life-giving to the heart as are to the blood the oxygen of the breeze, the balm of the grove, or the joyfraught music of the bounding wave. "Solitude," says Lauder, "is the audience-chamber of God.''

4. There is a meaning in the care of the Psalmist against presumption. Not that prayer in ducesit, but all the heart's latent egotism comes forth. We smile at the kindness of the old Skye meenister who, after praying for the adjacent isles of Bum, Mull, &c, added—-" And, Loord, the whiles my haun's in, I hop yell no forget the bit isles o' Great Britain, Ireland, and sic like." Then, having prayed for the Queen, for every one of the Boyal family, for the Privy Council, <fcc.y the army and navy, for the prisoners in the Tolbooth, for all vagabonds and blackguards, and " hirduin-dirdums," &Cj he nobly wound up with —"And, Loord, justtak pity on the puir auld Deil. Mak' the creature see the error o' his ways. He's been lang at it, puir feckless body: turn him to repent, and be a decent body henceforth." But the good man never thought for a moment that he was saying anything other than the sublime outpourings of an elevated mind. No. Never pray for the absurd or the impracticable, but for blessings within your own reach, and for the spirit and resolution to train your powers to secure them. There are many} very many, things so completely within our power as to depend solely upon ourselves, yet we neglect them, partly from not realising this fact, partly frbm sheer sloth. One of these is health. It rests entirely with a man's own self. No medico, no nostrum can make you healthy. Stand u£, send a current of will through jour frame, and say," I will have health." It is worth more than it can cost, whether of trouble, of money, or of self-denial. Pray for the inner spirit to see this, and freeing, to Practise. The same with peace of mind, t depends solely on ourselves, and is aided by prayer. The sum of my meditation is that prayer, when solitary, introverted, and purely mental, is the nurse of the high deed and the mother of enduring peaceprayer, when directed to outward things, and when misdirected against the sequences of Nature's Laws, is pernicious to the utterer and contemptible to the hearer. " Thy will be done" is the prayer and the culte of the Philosopher.— Australasian. .