Some who think themselves of a practical turn of mind say, “The great thing is work: prayer is good, and right, but the great need is to be doing something practical”. The truth is that when a man understands about prayer, and puts prayer in its right place in his life, he finds a new motive power burning in his bones to be doing; and, further, he finds that it is the doing which grows out of praying that is mightiest in touching human hearth. And he finds further, yet with a great joy, that he may be doing something for an entire world. His service becomes as broad as his Master’s thought.
There is a legend of a monk to whom in his chamber the Lord vouchsafed to appear in a vision. The vision of Christ brought great peace and joy to his heart. Scarcely had he been thus favoured for a few moments, when the bell was heard which summoned him to the duty of distributing loaves of bread to the poor. For a moment he hesitated; but he went to his work. Oh, what a sacrifice to leave this glorious vision for the dull routine of duty! But when he returned to his cell, what was his surprise and joy to find the vision of the Lord as before. [Note: Adolph Saphir, The Hidden Life, 214]
1. The close relation between prayer and service discovers two principles: the vanity of prayerless service, and the futility and mistake of merely selfish prayer. Consider the first principle. It is the constant temptation of human pride to think we can dispense with dependence upon God. Prayer is the corrective of fatalism on the one hand and of self-sufficiency on the other. Here we are concerned with the peril of self-sufficiency. It is the constant lesson of the Bible and Church History that such pride goeth before a fall. The collective interests which we represent and which we are called to champion as the Church of Christ, demand of us constant exercise in prayer. The method of progress in the Kingdom of God is by a growing life, and for the creation and sustaining of that life in all its activity prayer is absolutely essential. It is our vital breath.
“Laborare est orare,” says the ancient adage. But “to labour” is not “to pray”—not of necessity. For much work may be done, and done nobly and from pure motives, in the service of God and of men, though there may be no thought or consciousness of God at all in the mind of the man who does it. He is absorbed in his work. He is maturing his plans. He is watching the issue of his experiments. He is wholly intent on that which is passing beneath his eyes. And this is good, and may often be essential to success, but it is not what we mean by prayer. Until the soul of the man is uplifted towards God, he has not begun to pray. The distinction must be preserved between saying and doing. Saying —that is, the speech of the soul, whether the lips move or not—is prayer. Doing is not prayer, unless, indeed, the thing done be done explicitly and consciously, as a sign of love or an act of praise, or is regarded by the man who does it as the distinct and deliberate expression of some other feeling which he has towards God. Prayer does not necessarily involve anything more than the direct, conscious uplifting of the soul towards God, but it always does involve that.
The monks of old were too often content with prayer unaccompanied by any practical effort, and ended by leading idle, useless lives, in which prayer was a mere form. Now, on the other hand, the servants of Christ are tempted to labour only, and neglect to give sufficient time to prayer; yet, if they do, their work is bound to suffer. In the words of the Bishop of Liverpool: By an error of judgment, or perhaps by the subtle force of inclination, which we mistake for necessity, we work when we ought to pray, because to an active mind work is far easier than prayer. Then God cannot bless us, because we have weakened our capacity to receive. We grow feeble and shallow and distracted. Our work is done superficially, and will not stand; the ring goes out of our message, and our life loses its power. The servant whom the Holy Spirit is to use must resist the tyranny of overwork. He must resolve to be alone with God, even if he appear to rob his fellow men of his services. It is said of that mighty spirit of the middle ages, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, that he found on the days when he spent most time in prayer and in study of the Bible his letters were most rapidly written and most persuasive, and his own schemes were widened or lost in the greater purpose of God; anxiety was allayed, and the power of the Holy Spirit, to which he had opened his heart, was felt in every word he spake, and in his very presence and look. Prayer is indeed work; and there are times when it is the only work in which men should engage. For it is calling on God to put forth His mighty power, and to use us as willing and efficient instruments in His hands. [Note: W. H. Dundas, in The Churchman, Jan. 1906, p. 32.]
Westcott read and worked in the very mind with which he prayed; and his prayer was of singular intensity. It might be only the elements of textual criticism with which he was dealing; but still it was all steeped in the atmosphere of awe, and devotion, and mystery, and consecration. He taught us as one who ministered at an Altar; and the details of the Sacred Text were, to him, as the Ritual of some Sacramental action. [Note: Henry Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 130.]
To very many families, Dr. Harry Rainy was indeed “the beloved physician,” and to this day there are in Glasgow persons, now aged, who recall his kindness to them during some illness of their youth with the warmest gratitude. Every patient under his hands was a subject of his prayers—a fact which was revealed only towards the very end of his life, when he mentioned it in counselling a young doctor “never to spare either pains or prayers over his cases”. [Note: P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, 1: 22.]
2. The second principle brought out by the relation between prayer and service is the futility and mistake of selfish prayer. To preserve the balance and sanity of our thought of prayer in relation to service, we must remember that purposeless prayer is vain. If service has its dangers of lacking the salt and strength of devoutness, it is equally true that prayer needs the constant savour of service. Ifprayer is not to degenerate into morbid sentimentality, it must be freed from selfishness and self-satisfaction. The central aspiration of all prayer has been recognized in this: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done”. The active and the passive both find place. All the requests we ever utter for daily bread or forgiveness have in this their ultimate sanction or plea. This is praying in the name of Christ, praying in the Spirit. Religious selfishness seeketh its own, covets pious rapture or glowing vision for its own sake. Consequently its moods may have the luxuriance of a jungle or a fetid swamp. The River of God carries life whithersoever it goeth. The prayer which ends in “God bless me and mine” is after all akin to the spirit of the man who had much goods laid up for many years. The daintiness and nausea of religious appetite arise from such cramped and circumscribed desires, or from unfaithfulness to the behests of prayer. If prayerless service has its perils, serviceless prayer has them no less.
It is said that the Lamas of Tibet scatter paper horses in the air with the idea that they may be transformed to Arab steeds. Prayer is not such futile and silly expressions of desire. It is the incorporation of ourselves with wider interests. It is the identification of ourselves with others’ sorrows, and our own sorrows with theirs, the creation through all our lives of wider social sympathy and striving. All is made to minister to increased fitness to the noblest ends of life. Even self-development is not complete as an end. In the goal of our becoming what God wills is enshrined the possibility and desire of doing His will. “Father, glorify thy name” is the constant refrain both of enduring and of endeavour.
Esteeming sorrow whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy,
we rejoice even in tribulation. Prayer is the school of the heart in this braver view of life’s discipline. It is the act of faith whereby that optimism in the interpretation of life is maintained. Tennyson has well expressed the spirit of such prayer:—
Steel me with patience! soften me with grief!
Let blow the trumpet strongly while I pray,
Till this embattled wall of unbelief,
My prison, not my fortress, fall away!
Then, if Thou willest, let my day, be brief,
So Thou wilt strike Thy glory thro’ the day. [Note: A. E. Balch, Prayer, 89.]
Some commented upon the Cunard Company’s wonderful run of luck”. Others talked about a “special interposition of Providence” on behalf of the Cunarders. Indeed, there was a story current that the sailing of every ship of the Cunard fleet was made the subject of special prayer, and that Mr. Burns was wont to attribute his success to this source. Mr. Burns, however, would never recognize this as the true interpretation of the position. He held that there were certain elements that made for the safety of a vessel, and that these elements were within human control. He was scrupulously careful in providing his ships with all these features even if he sacrificed speed, risked his profits, and invited public censure by doing so. “I believe implicitly,” he would say, “in the power of prayer; but I also believe in doing work well, and in subordinating profit, and speed, and public opinion to safety, comfort, and efficiency.” [Note: F. W. Boreham, Mountains in the Mist, 247.]
How infinite and sweet,
Thou everywhere And all-abounding Love, Thy service is!
Thou liest an ocean round my world of care,
My petty every-day; and fresh and fair
Pour Thy strong tides through all my crevices,
Until the silence ripples into prayer.
That Thy full glory may abound, increase,
And so Thy likeness shall be formed in me,
I pray; the answer is not rest or peace,
But charges, duties, wants, anxieties,
Till there seems room for everything but Thee,
And never time for anything but these.
And I should fear, but lo! amid the press,
The whirl and hum and pressure of my day,
I hear Thy garment’s sweep, Thy seamless dress,
And close beside my work and weariness
Discern Thy gracious form, not far away,
But very near, O Lord, to help and bless.
The busy fingers fly, the eyes may see
Only the glancing needle which they hold,
But all my life is blossoming inwardly,
And every breath is like a litany,
While through each labour, like a thread of gold,
Is woven the sweet consciousness of Thee! [Note: S.. C. Woolsey.]
