Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 043. Energy

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Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 043. Energy



TOPIC: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 043. Energy

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V.

Energy.

The call to prayer means a call to work, not a summons to set a-going a machine which needs neither brain nor heart: It is a call to gather up all the forces of the soul, and to summon them to the intensest activity. It is indeed the highest exercise to which a man can be called. Remark the expressions used in Scripture to describe prayer. When Jacob prayed it is said that he wrestled—“and he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me”. In the Psalms the suppliant cries—“cries with a loud voice”. “I am weary with my crying; my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.” Elijah, though a man of like passions with us, “prayed fervently”. The prayer which availeth much in its working is the supplication of the righteous man. Such is the expressive language in which prayer is spoken of in Scripture, certainly teaching us the greatness of the work to which we are called when we are summoned to pray. Of Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury it is told how, with all his deep insight into spiritual things, he was accustomed to say that no man was likely to do much good in prayer who did not begin by looking upon it in the light of a work, to be prepared for and persevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which are, in our opinion, at once most interesting and most necessary.

Be certain that it is the pure mind we set to perceive. The God discerned in thought is another than he of the senses. And let the prayer be as a little fountain. Rising on a spout, from dread of the hollow below, the prayer may be prolonged in words begetting words, and have a pulse of fervour; the spirit of it has fallen after the first jet. That is the delirious energy of our craving, which has no life in our souls. We do not get to any heaven by renouncing the Mother we spring from; and when there is an eternal secret for us, it is best to believe that Earth knows, to keep near her, even in our utmost aspirations. [Note: George Meredith.]

It is productive of much mischief to try to make people believe that the life of prayer is easy. In reality there is nothing quite so difficult as strong prayer, nothing so worthy of the attention and the exercise of all the fine parts of a great manhood. On the other hand, there is no man who is not equal to the task. So splendid has this human nature of ours become through the Incarnation that it can bear any strain and meet any demand that God sees fit to put upon it. Some duties are individual and special, and there is exemption from them for the many, but there is never any absolution from a duty for which a man has a capacity. There is one universal society, the Church, for which all are eligible, and with which all are bound to unite; there is one universal book, the Bible, which all can understand, and which it is the duty of all to read; there is one universal art, prayer, in which all may become well skilled and to the acquirement of which all must bend their energies. [Note: Bishop Brent, With God in the World.]

I remember once, in the early summer of 1884, seeing a sight in India which made a permanent impression on my mind. In the modern busy street in Calcutta, called Bow Bazaar, in which the Oxford Mission House used to stand, I saw by the side of the tram-line a man, stark naked, with chains round feet and hands. He was lying flat in the dust, measuring his length on the ground. He rose as I was looking, advanced a few paces, and, standing upright, with his feet where his nose had marked the dust, he prostrated himself again, and proceeded to go through the same motions. He was a fakir or devotee of some sort, and I was assured that he was going to travel in this manner all the hundreds of weary miles which intervene between Calcutta and the sacred city of Benares. My first feeling was, I fear, one of disgust and contempt at the superstitious folly of the man. But I hope it was soon overtaken and checked by a consideration both worthier and with more of humility in it—the consideration, I mean, that he, in his belated ignorance of the character of God and of the way to serve Him, was taking a great deal more pains about his devotions than I was in the habit of doing with my better knowledge. [Note: Bishop Gore, Prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer, 3.]

Livingstone reports of Robert Bruce that in prayer “every sentence was like a strong bolt shot up to heaven”. The biographer of Richard Baxter tells us that when he gathered his spirit together to pray, it “took wing for heaven”. And it is related in similar terms of Archbishop Leighton that “his manner of praying was so earnest and importunate as proved that his soul mounted up to God in the flame of his own aspirations”. Henry Martyn notes in his diary that, having set apart a day for fasting and humiliation, he began to pray for the establishment of the Divine Kingdom upon earth, with particular mention of India. He received so great enlargement, and had such energy and delight in prayer as he had never before experienced. He adds, “My whole soul wrestled with God. I knew not how to leave off crying to Him to fulfil His promises, chiefly pleading His own glorious power.” [Note: D. M. McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Prayer, 129.]