<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="titlepage">
<h1><span class="smcap">Prevailing Prayer</span>:<br/> <span class="smaller"><i>WHAT HINDERS IT</i>?</span></h1>
<p>BY<br/>
<span class="xlarge">D. L. MOODY.</span></p>
<p>CHICAGO:<br/>
<span class="smcap">F. H. Revell, 148 and 150 Madison Street</span>.<br/>
<i>Publisher of Evangelical Literature.</i></p>
</div>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by<br/>
FLEMING H. REVELL,<br/>
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.<br/>
<br/>
<i>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.</i><br/>
<br/>
Printed and bound by <span class="smcap">J. L. Regan & Co.</span>, Chicago.<br/></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">PREFATORY NOTE.</h2></div>
<p>The two first and essential means of grace are the
Word of God and Prayer. By these comes conversion;
for we are born again by the Word of God, which
liveth and abideth forever; and whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.</p>
<p>By these also we grow; for we are exhorted to
desire the sincere milk of the Word that we may grow
thereby, and we cannot grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ except we also speak to
Him in Prayer.</p>
<p>It is by the Word that the Father sanctifies us; but
we are also bidden to watch and pray, lest we enter into
temptation.</p>
<p>These two means of grace must be used in their
right proportion. If we read the Word and do not
pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span>
without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without
reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind
and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical,
and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.</p>
<p>The following chapters relate especially to Prayer;
but in order that our prayers may be for such things as
are according to the will of God, they must be based
upon the revelation of His own will to us; for of Him,
and through Him, and to Him are all things; and it is
only by hearing His Word, in which we learn His
purposes toward us and towards the world, that we
can pray acceptably, praying in the Holy Ghost, asking
those things which are pleasing in His sight.</p>
<p>These Addresses are not to be regarded as exhaustive,
but suggestive. This great subject has been the
theme of Prophets and Apostles, and of all good men
in all ages of the world; and my desire in sending
forth this little volume is to encourage God’s children
to seek by prayer “to move the Arm that moves the
world.”</p>
<div class="figright"><ANTIMG src="images/i_004.jpg" alt="D. L. Moody." /> <br/><i>D. L. Moody.</i> </div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table">
<tr><td> </td><td class="tdr"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER I.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Prayers of the Bible</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_7"> 7</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER II.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Adoration</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_19"> 19</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER III.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Confession</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_25"> 25</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER IV.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Restitution</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_41"> 41</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER V.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Thanksgiving</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_51"> 51</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER VI.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Forgiveness</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_59"> 59</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER VII.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Unity</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_71"> 71</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Faith</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_79"> 79</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER IX.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Petition</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_90"> 90</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER X.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Submission</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_102"> 102</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">CHAPTER XI.</td></tr>
<tr><td><span class="smcap">Answered Prayers</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_111"> 111</SPAN></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Prayer.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Prayer was appointed to convey</div>
<div class="indent">The blessings God designs to give;</div>
<div class="verse">Long as they live should Christians pray,</div>
<div class="indent">For only while they pray they live.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And shall we in dead silence lie,</div>
<div class="indent">When Christ stands waiting for our prayer?</div>
<div class="verse">My soul, thou hast a Friend on high;</div>
<div class="indent">Arise and try thy interest there.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress;</div>
<div class="indent">If cares distract, or fears dismay;</div>
<div class="verse">If guilt deject, if sin distress;</div>
<div class="indent">The remedy’s before thee—Pray!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Depend on Christ, thou canst not fail;</div>
<div class="indent">Make all thy wants and wishes known.</div>
<div class="verse">Fear not; His merits must prevail;</div>
<div class="indent">Ask what thou wilt; it shall be done!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright">—<i>Joseph Hart.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</SPAN></span>
<p class="ph1">PREVAILING PRAYER.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_007.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.<br/> THE PRAYERS OF THE BIBLE.</h2></div>
<p>Those who have left the deepest impression on this
sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer.
You will find that <span class="smcap">Prayer</span> has been the mighty power
that has moved not only God, but man. Abraham was
a man of prayer, and angels came down from heaven
to converse with him. Jacob’s prayer was answered in
the wonderful interview at Peniel, that resulted in his
having such a mighty blessing, and in softening the
heart of his brother Esau; the child Samuel was given
in answer to Hannah’s prayer; Elijah’s prayer closed
up the heavens for three years and six months, and he
prayed again and the heavens gave rain.</p>
<p>The Apostle James tells us that the prophet Elijah
was a man “subject to like passions as we are.” I am
thankful that those men and women who were so
mighty in prayer were just like ourselves. We are
apt to think that those prophets and mighty men and
women of old time were different from what we are.
To be sure they lived in a much darker age, but they
were of like passions with ourselves.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</SPAN></span>We read that on another occasion Elijah brought
down fire on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal
cried long and loud, but no answer came. The God
of Elijah heard and answered his prayer. Let us
remember that the God of Elijah still lives. The
prophet was translated and went up to heaven, but his
God still lives, and we have the same access to Him
that Elijah had. We have the same warrant to go to
God and ask the fire from heaven to come down and
consume our lusts and passions—to burn up our dross,
and let Christ shine through us.</p>
<p>Elisha prayed, and life came back to a dead child.
Many of our children are dead in trespasses and sins.
Let us do as Elisha did; let us entreat God to raise
them up in answer to our prayers.</p>
<p>Manasseh, the king, was a wicked man, and had done
everything he could against the God of his father; yet
in Babylon, when he cried to God, his cry was heard,
and he was taken out of prison and put on the throne
at Jerusalem. Surely if God gave heed to the prayer
of wicked Manasseh, He will hear ours in the time of
our distress. Is not this a time of distress with a
great number of our fellow-men? Are there not many
among us whose hearts are burdened? As we go to
the throne of grace, let us remember that <span class="smcap">God
answers prayer</span>.</p>
<p>Look, again, at Samson. He prayed; and his
strength came back, so that he slew more at his death
than during his life. He was a restored backslider,
and he had power with God. If those who have been
backsliders will but return to God, they will see how
quickly God will answer prayer.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</SPAN></span>Job prayed, and his captivity was turned. Light
came in the place of darkness, and God lifted him up
above the height of his former prosperity—in answer
to prayer.</p>
<p>Daniel prayed to God, and Gabriel came to tell him
that he was a man greatly beloved of God. Three
times that message came to him from heaven in answer
to prayer. The secrets of heaven were imparted to
him, and he was told that God’s Son was going to be
cut off for the sins of His people. We find also that
Cornelius prayed; and Peter was sent to tell him words
whereby he and his should be saved. In answer to
prayer this great blessing came upon him and his
household. Peter had gone up to the house-top to pray
in the afternoon, when he had that wonderful vision of
the sheet let down from heaven. It was when prayer
was made without ceasing unto God for Peter, that the
angel was sent to deliver him.</p>
<p>So all through the Scriptures you will find that when
believing prayer went up to God, the answer came
down. I think it would be a very interesting study to
go right through the Bible and see what has happened
while God’s people have been on their knees calling
upon him. Certainly the study would greatly strengthen
our faith—showing, as it would, how wonderfully God
has heard and delivered, when the cry has gone up to
Him for help.</p>
<p>Look at Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi.
As they prayed and sang praises, the place was shaken,
and the jailer was converted. Probably that one conversion
has done more than any other recorded in the
Bible to bring people into the Kingdom of God. How<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</SPAN></span>
many have been blessed in seeking to answer the question—“What
must I do to be saved?” It was the
prayer of those two godly men that brought the jailer
to his knees, and that brought blessing to him and his
family.</p>
<p>You remember how Stephen, as he prayed and
looked up, saw the heavens opened, and the Son of
Man at the right hand of God; the light of heaven
fell on his face so that it shone. Remember, too, how
the face of Moses shone as he came down from the
Mount; he had been in communion with God. So
when we get really into communion with God, He lifts
up His countenance upon us; and instead of our having
gloomy looks, our faces will shine, because God has
heard and answered our prayers.</p>
<p>I want to call special attention to Christ as an
example for us in all things; in nothing more than in
prayer. We read that Christ prayed to His Father for
everything. Every great crisis in His life was preceded
by prayer. Let me quote a few passages. I
never noticed till a few years ago that Christ was praying
at His baptism. As He prayed, the heaven was
opened, and the Holy Ghost descended on Him.
Another great event in His life was His Transfiguration.
“As He prayed, the fashion of His countenance
was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering.”</p>
<p>We read again: “It came to pass in those days that
He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all
night in prayer to God.” This is the only place where
it is recorded that the Savior spent a whole night in
prayer. What was about to take place? When He<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</SPAN></span>
came down from the mountain He gathered His disciples
around Him, and preached that great discourse
known as the Sermon on the Mount—the most wonderful
sermon that has ever been preached to mortal men.
Probably no sermon has done so much good, and it
was preceded by a night of prayer. If our sermons
are going to reach the hearts and consciences of the
people, we must be much in prayer to God, that there
may be power with the word.</p>
<p>In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus at the
grave of Lazarus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and
said: “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me;
and I know that Thou hearest Me always; but because
of the people which stand by I said it, that they may
believe that Thou hast sent Me.” Notice, that before
He spoke the dead to life He spoke to His Father. If
our spiritually dead ones are to be raised, we must first
get power with God. The reason we so often fail in
moving our fellow-men is that we try to win them without
first getting power with God. Jesus was in
communion with His Father, and so He could be
assured that His prayers were heard.</p>
<p>We read again, in the twelfth of John, that He prayed
to the Father. I think this is one of the saddest
chapters in the whole Bible. He was about to leave
the Jewish nation and to make atonement for the sin
of the world. Hear what He says: “Now is My soul
troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from
this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.”
He was almost under the shadow of the Cross; the iniquities
of mankind were about to be laid upon Him; one
of His twelve disciples was going to deny Him and swear<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</SPAN></span>
he never knew Him; another was to sell Him for thirty
pieces of silver; all were to forsake Him and flee.
His soul was exceeding sorrowful, and He prays; when
His soul was troubled, God spake to Him. Then in
the Garden of Gethsemane, while He prayed, an angel
appeared to strengthen him. In answer to His cry,
“Father, glorify Thy Name,” He hears a voice coming
down from the glory—“I have both glorified it, and
will glorify it again.”</p>
<p>Another memorable prayer of our Lord was in the
Garden of Gethsemane: “He was withdrawn from them
about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed.” I
would draw your attention to the recorded fact that
four times the answer came right down from heaven
while the Savior prayed to God. The first time was
at His baptism, when the heavens were opened, and the
Spirit descended upon Him in answer to His prayer.
Again, on the Mount of Transfiguration, God appeared
and spoke to Him. Then when the Greeks came
desiring to see Him, the voice of God was heard responding
to His call; and again, when He cried to the Father
in the midst of His agony, a direct response was given.
These things are recorded, I doubt not, that we may be
encouraged to pray.</p>
<p>We read that His disciples came to Him, and said,
“Lord, teach us to pray.” It is not recorded that He
taught them how to preach. I have often said that I
would rather know how to pray like Daniel than to
preach like Gabriel. If you get love into your soul, so
that the grace of God may come down in answer to
prayer, there will be no trouble about reaching the
people. It is not by eloquent sermons that perishing<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</SPAN></span>
souls are going to be reached; we need the power of
God in order that the blessing may come down.</p>
<p>The prayer our Lord taught his disciples is commonly
called the Lord’s Prayer. I think that the Lord’s
prayer, more properly, is that in the seventeenth of John.
That is the longest prayer on record that Jesus made.
You can read it slowly and carefully in about four or five
minutes. I think we may learn a lesson here. Our
Master’s prayers were short when offered in public;
when He was alone with God that was a different thing,
and He could spend the whole night in communion
with His Father. My experience is that those who
pray most in their closets generally make short prayers
in public. Long prayers are too often not prayers at
all, and they weary the people. How short the publican’s
prayer was: “God be merciful to me a sinner!”
The Syrophenician woman’s was shorter still: “Lord
help me!” She went right to the mark, and she got
what she wanted. The prayer of the thief on the cross
was a short one: “Lord, remember me when Thou comest
into Thy Kingdom!” Peter’s prayer was, “Lord,
save me, or I perish!” So, if you go through the
Scriptures, you will find that the prayers that brought
immediate answers were generally brief. Let our prayers
be to the point, just telling God what we want.</p>
<p>In the prayer of our Lord, in John xvii, we
find that He made seven requests—one for Himself,
four for His disciples around Him, and two for the
disciples of succeeding ages. Six times in that one
prayer He repeats that God had sent Him. The world
looked upon Him as an imposter; and He wanted them
to know that He was heaven-sent. He speaks of the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</SPAN></span>
world nine times, and makes mention of His disciples
and those who believe on Him fifty times.</p>
<p>Christ’s last prayer on the Cross was a short one:
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I believe that prayer was answered. We find that right
there in front of the Cross, a Roman centurion was
converted. It was probably in answer to the Savior’s
prayer. The conversion of the thief, I believe, was in
answer to that prayer of our blessed Lord. Saul of
Tarsus may have heard it, and the words may have
followed him as he traveled to Damascus; so that when
the Lord spoke to him on the way, he may have recognized
the voice. One thing we do know; that on the
day of Pentecost some of the enemies of the Lord were
converted. Surely that was in answer to the prayer,
“Father, forgive them!”</p>
<p>Hence we see that prayer holds a high place among
the exercises of a spiritual life. All God’s people have
been praying people. Look, for instance, at Baxter!
He stained his study walls with praying breath; and
after he was anointed with the unction of the Holy
Ghost, sent a river of living water over Kidderminster,
and converted hundreds. Luther and his companions
were men of such mighty pleading with God, that they
broke the spell of ages, and laid nations subdued
at the foot of the Cross. John Knox grasped all Scotland
in his strong arms of faith; his prayers terrified
tyrants. Whitefield, after much holy, faithful closet-pleading,
went to the Devil’s fair, and took more than
a thousand souls out of the paw of the lion in one day.
See a praying Wesley turn more than ten thousand
souls to the Lord! Look at the praying Finney,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</SPAN></span>
whose prayers, faith, sermons and writings, have shaken
this whole country, and sent a wave of blessing through
the churches on both sides of the sea.</p>
<p>Dr. Guthrie thus speaks of prayer and its necessity:
“The first true sign of spiritual life, prayer, is also the
means of maintaining it. Man can as well live physically
without breathing, as spiritually without praying.
There is a class of animals—the cetaceous, neither fish
nor sea-fowl—that inhabit the deep. It is their home,
they never leave it for the shore; yet, though swimming
beneath its waves, and sounding its darkest
depths, they have ever and anon to rise to the surface
that they may breathe the air. Without that, these
monarchs of the deep could not exist in the dense element
in which they live, and move, and have their
being. And something like what is imposed on them
by a physical necessity, the Christian has to do by a
spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending up to
God, by rising through prayer into a loftier, purer
region for supplies of Divine grace, that he maintains
his spiritual life. Prevent these animals from rising
to the surface, and they die for want of breath; prevent
the Christian from rising to God, and he dies for want
of prayer. ‘Give me children,’ cried Rachel, ‘or else
I die.’ ‘Let me breathe,’ says a man gasping, ‘or else
I die.’ ‘Let me pray,’ says the Christian, ‘or else I
die.’”</p>
<p>“Since I began,” said Dr. Payson when a student,
“to beg God’s blessing on my studies, I have done
more in one week than in the whole year before.”
Luther, when most pressed with work, said, “I have so
much to do that I cannot get on without three hours a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</SPAN></span>
day praying.” And not only do theologians think and
speak highly of prayer; men of all ranks and positions
in life have felt the same. General Havelock rose at
four o’clock, if the hour for marching was six, rather
than lose the precious privilege of communion with
God before setting out. Sir Matthew Hale says: “If I
omit praying and reading God’s Word in the morning,
nothing goes well all day.”</p>
<p>“A great part of my time,” said McCheyne, “is spent
in getting my heart in tune for prayer. It is the link
that connects earth with heaven.”</p>
<p>A comprehensive view of the subject will show that
there are nine elements which are essential to true
prayer. The first is Adoration; we cannot meet God
on a level at the start. We must approach Him as
One far beyond our reach or sight. The next is Confession;
sin must be put out of the way. We cannot
have any communion with God while there is any
transgression between us. If there stands some wrong
you have done a man, you cannot expect that man’s
favor until you go to him and confess the fault. Restitution
is another; we have to make good the wrong,
wherever possible. Thanksgiving is the next; we must
be thankful for what God has done for us already.
Then comes Forgiveness, and then Unity; and then for
prayer, such as these things produce, there must be
Faith. Thus influenced, we shall be ready to offer
direct Petition. We hear a good deal of praying that
is just exhorting, and if you did not see the man’s
eyes closed, you would suppose he was preaching.
Then, much that is called prayer is simply finding
fault. There needs to be more <i>petition</i> in our prayers.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</SPAN></span>
After all these, there must come Submission. While
praying, we must be ready to accept the will of God.
We shall consider these nine elements in detail, closing
our inquiries by giving incidents illustrative of the
certainty of our receiving, under such conditions,
Answers to Prayer.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">The Hour of Prayer.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Lord, what a change within us one short hour</div>
<div class="indent2">Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make!</div>
<div class="indent2">What heavy burdens from our bosoms take;</div>
<div class="verse">What parched grounds refresh as with a shower.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“We kneel—and all around us seems to lower;</div>
<div class="indent2">We rise—and all, the distant and the near,</div>
<div class="indent2">Stands forth in sunny outline brave and clear;</div>
<div class="verse">We kneel: how weak!—we rise: how full of power!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,</div>
<div class="verse">Or others—that we are not always strong?</div>
<div class="verse">That we are ever overborne with care;</div>
<div class="indent2">That we should ever weak or heartless be,</div>
<div class="verse">Anxious or troubled, while with us is prayer,</div>
<div class="indent2">And joy, and strength, and courage, are with Thee?”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>Trench.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II.<br/> ADORATION.</h2></div>
<p>This has been defined as the act of rendering Divine
honor, including in it reverence, esteem and love. It
literally signifies to apply the hand to the mouth, “to
kiss the hand;” in Eastern countries this is one of the
great marks of respect and submission. The importance
of coming before God in this spirit is great, therefore
it is so often impressed upon us in the Word of
God.</p>
<p>The Rev. Newman Hall, in his work on the Lord’s
Prayer, says: “Man’s worship, apart from revelation,
has been uniformly characterized by selfishness. We
come to God either to thank Him for benefits already
received, or to implore still further benefits: food, raiment,
health, safety, comfort. Like Jacob at Bethel,
we are disposed to make the worship we render to God
cor-relative with ‘food to eat, and raiment to put on.’
This style of petition, in which self generally precedes
and predominates, if it does not altogether absorb, our
supplications, is not only seen in the votaries of false
systems, but in the majority of the prayers of professed
Christians. Our prayers are like the Parthian horsemen,
who ride one way while they look another; we
seem to go toward God, but, indeed, reflect upon ourselves.
And this may be the reason why many times<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span>
our prayers are sent forth, like the raven out of Noah’s
ark, and never return. But when we make the glory
of God the chief end of our devotion, they go forth
like the dove, and return to us again with an olive
branch.”</p>
<p>Let me refer you to a passage in the prophecies of
Daniel. He was one of the men who knew how to pray;
his prayer brought the blessing of heaven upon himself
and upon his people. He says: “I set my face
unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications,
with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes; and I
prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession,
and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God,
keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love Him,
and to them that keep His commandments!”</p>
<p>The thought I want to call special attention to is conveyed
in the words, “O Lord, the great and dreadful
God!” Daniel took his right place before God—in the
dust; he put God in His right place. It was when
Abraham was on his face, prostrate before God, that
God spoke to him, Holiness belongs to God; sinfulness
belongs to us.</p>
<p>Brooks, that grand old Puritan writer, says: “A
person of real holiness is much affected and taken up
in the admiration of the holiness of God. Unholy
persons may be somewhat affected and taken with the
other excellences of God; it is only holy souls that are
taken and affected with His holiness. The more holy
any are, the more deeply are they affected by this. To
the holy angels, the holiness of God is the sparkling
diamond in the ring of glory. But unholy persons are
affected and taken with anything rather than with this.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</SPAN></span>
Nothing strikes the sinner into such a damp as a discourse
on the holiness of God; it is as the handwriting
on the wall; nothing makes the head and heart of a
sinner to ache like a sermon upon the Holy One; nothing
galls and gripes, nothing stings and terrifies unsanctified
ones, like a lively setting forth of the holiness
of God. But to holy souls there are no discourses
that do more suit and satisfy them, that do more delight
and content them, that do more please and profit
them, than those that do most fully and powerfully discover
God to be glorious in holiness.” So, in coming
before God, we must adore and reverence His name.</p>
<p>The same thing is brought out in Isaiah:</p>
<p>“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the
Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His
train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim;
each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face,
and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he
did fly. And one cried unto another, and said: Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full
of His glory.”</p>
<p>When we see the holiness of God, we shall adore
and magnify Him. Moses had to learn the same lesson.
God told him to take his shoes from off his feet, for the
place whereon he stood was holy ground. When we
hear men trying to make out that they are holy, and
speaking about their holiness, they make light of the
holiness of God. It is His holiness that we need to
think and speak about; when we do that, we shall be
prostrate in the dust. You remember, also, how it was
with Peter. When Christ made Himself known to
him, he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</SPAN></span>
O Lord!” A sight of God is enough to show us how
holy He is, and how unholy we are.</p>
<p>We find that Job too, had to be taught the same
lesson. “Then Job answered the Lord, and said:
Behold I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will
lay my hand upon my mouth.”</p>
<p>As you hear Job discussing with his friends you
would think he was one of the holiest men who ever
lived. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame;
he fed the hungry, and clothed the naked. What a
wonderfully good man he was! It was all I, I, I. At
last God said to him, “Gird up your loins like a man,
and I will put a few questions to you.” The moment
that God revealed Himself, Job changed his language.
He saw his own vileness, and God’s purity. He said,
“I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but
now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”</p>
<p>The same thing is seen in the cases of those who
came to our Lord in the days of His flesh; those who
came aright, seeking and obtaining the blessing, manifested
a lively sense of His infinite superiority to themselves.
The centurion, of whom we read in the eighth
of Matthew, said: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou
shouldest come under my roof;” Jairus “worshiped
Him,” as he presented his request; the leper, in the
Gospel of Mark, came “kneeling down to Him;” the
Syrophenician woman “came and fell at His feet;” the
man full of leprosy “seeing Jesus, fell on his face.”
So, too the beloved disciple, speaking of the feeling they
had concerning Him when they were abiding with Him
as their Lord, said: “We beheld His glory, the glory<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span>
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth.” However intimate their companionship, and
tender their love, they reverenced as much as they communed,
and adored as much as they loved.</p>
<p>We may say of every act of prayer as George Herbert
says of public worship:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="first">“When once thy foot enters the church, be bare;</div>
<div class="verse">God is more than thou; for thou art there</div>
<div class="verse">Only by His permission. Then beware,</div>
<div class="verse">And make thyself all reverence and fear.</div>
<div class="verse">Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stocking; quit thy state.</div>
<div class="verse">All equal are within the church’s gate.”</div>
</div></div>
<p>The wise man says: “Keep thy foot when thou goest
to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools; for they consider not that
they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not
thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for
God is in heaven, and thou upon earth—therefore let
thy words be few.”</p>
<p>If we are struggling to live a higher life, and to
know something of God’s holiness and purity, what we
need is to be brought into contact with Him, that He
may reveal Himself. Then we shall take our place
before Him as those men of old were constrained to do.
We shall hallow His Name—as the Master taught His
disciples, when He said, “Hallowed be Thy Name.”
When I think of the irreverence of the present time, it
seems to me that we have fallen on evil days.</p>
<p>Let us, as Christians, when we draw near to God in
prayer, give Him His right place. “Let us have grace
whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence
and Godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_024.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">The Trinity.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Thou dear and great mysterious Three,</div>
<div class="indent2">For ever be adored,</div>
<div class="verse">For all the endless grace we see</div>
<div class="indent2">In our Redeemer stored.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“The Father’s ancient grace we sing,</div>
<div class="indent2">That chose us in our Head;</div>
<div class="verse">Ordaining Christ, our God and King,</div>
<div class="indent2">To suffer in our stead.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“The sacred Son, in equal strains,</div>
<div class="indent2">With reverence we address,</div>
<div class="verse">For all His grace, and dying pains,</div>
<div class="indent2">And splendid righteousness.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“With tuneful tongue the Holy Ghost</div>
<div class="indent2">For His great work we praise,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose power inspires the blood-bought host</div>
<div class="indent2">Their grateful voice to raise.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Thus the Eternal Three in One</div>
<div class="indent2">We join to praise, for grace</div>
<div class="verse">And endless glory through the Son,</div>
<div class="indent2">As shining from His face.”</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III.<br/> CONFESSION.</h2></div>
<p>Another element in true prayer is Confession. I do
not want Christian friends to think that I am talking
to the unsaved. I think we, as Christians, have a good
many sins to confess.</p>
<p>If you go back to the Scripture records, you will
find that the men who lived nearest to God, and had
most power with Him, were those who confessed their
sins and failures. Daniel, as we have seen, confessed
his sins and those of his people. Yet there is nothing
recorded against Daniel. He was one of the best men
then on the face of the earth, yet was his confession of
sin one of the deepest and most humble on record.
Brooks, referring to Daniel’s confession, says: “In
these words you have seven circumstances that Daniel
useth in confessing of his and the people’s sins; and all
to heighten and aggravate them. First, ‘We have
sinned;’ secondly, ‘We have committed iniquity;’
thirdly, ‘We have done wickedly;’ fourthly, ‘We have
rebelled against thee;’ fifthly, ‘We have departed from
Thy precepts;’ sixthly, ‘We have not hearkened unto
Thy servants;’ seventhly, ‘Nor our princes, nor all
the people of the land.’ These seven aggravations
which Daniel reckons up in his confession are worthy
our most serious consideration.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</SPAN></span>Job was no doubt a holy man, a mighty prince, yet
he had to fall in the dust and confess his sins. So you
will find it all through the Scriptures. When Isaiah
saw the purity and holiness of God, he beheld himself
in his true light, and he exclaimed, “Woe is me, for
I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips!”</p>
<p>I firmly believe that the Church of God will have to
confess her own sins, before there can be any great
work of grace. There must be a deeper work among
God’s believing people. I sometimes think it is about
time to give up preaching to the ungodly, and
preach to those who profess to be Christians. If we
had a higher standard of life in the Church of God,
there would be thousands more flocking into the Kingdom.
So it was in the past; when God’s believing
children turned away from their sins and their idols,
the fear of God fell upon the people round about.
Take up the history of Israel, and you will find that
when they put away their strange gods, God visited
the nation, and there came a mighty work of grace.</p>
<p>What we want in these days is a true and deep
revival in the Church of God. I have little sympathy
with the idea that God is going to reach the masses by
a cold and formal church. The judgment of God
must begin with us. You notice that when Daniel
got that wonderful answer to prayer recorded in the
ninth chapter, he was confessing his sin. That is one
of the best chapters on prayer in the whole Bible.</p>
<p>We read: “While I was speaking, and praying,
and confessing my sin, and the sin of my people Israel,
and presenting my supplication before the Lord my
God for the holy mountain of my God; yea, while I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</SPAN></span>
was speaking in my prayer, even the man Gabriel,
whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being
caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the
evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked
with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to
give thee skill and understanding.”</p>
<p>So also when Job was confessing his sin, God turned
his captivity and heard his prayer. God will hear our
prayer and turn our captivity when we take our true
place before Him, and confess and forsake our transgressions.
It was when Isaiah cried out before the
Lord, “I am undone,” that the blessing came; the
live coal was taken from the altar and put upon his
lips; and he went out to write one of the most wonderful
books the world has ever seen. What a blessing
it has been to the church!</p>
<p>It was when David said, “I have sinned!” that
God dealt in mercy with him. “I acknowledge my
sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord;
and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Notice
how David made a very similar confession to that of
the prodigal in the fifteenth of Luke: “I acknowledge
my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me.
Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this
evil in Thy sight!” There is no difference between
the king and the beggar when the Spirit of God comes
into the heart and convicts of sin.</p>
<p>Richard Sibbes quaintly says of confession: “This
is the way to give glory to God: when we have laid
open our souls to God, and laid as much against ourselves
as the devil could do that way, for let us<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</SPAN></span>
think what the devil would lay to our charge at the
hour of death and the day of judgment. He would
lay hard to our charge this and that—let us accuse
ourselves as he would, and as he will ere long. The
more we accuse and judge ourselves, and set up a
tribunal in our hearts, certainly there will follow an
incredible ease. Jonah was cast into the sea, and
there was an ease in the ship; Achan was stoned, and
the plague was stayed. Out with Jonah, out with
Achan; and there will follow ease and quiet in the
soul presently. Conscience will receive wonderful ease.</p>
<p>“It must needs be so; for when God is honored,
conscience is purified. God is honored by confession
of sin every way. It honors His omniscience, that
He is all-seeing; that He sees our sins and searches
our hearts—our secrets are not hid from Him. It
honours His power. What makes us confess our sins,
but that we are afraid of His power, lest He should
execute it? And what makes us confess our sins, but
that we know there is mercy with Him that He may be
feared, and that there is pardon for sin? We would
not confess our sins else. With men it is, Confess,
and have execution; but with God, Confess, and have
mercy. It is His own protestation. We should never
lay open our sins but for mercy. So it honors God;
and when He is honored, He honors the soul with
inward peace and tranquillity.”</p>
<p>Old Thomas Fuller says: “Man’s owning his weakness
is the only stock for God thereon to graft the grace
of His assistance.”</p>
<p>Confession implies humility, and this, in God’s
sight, is of great price.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</SPAN></span>A farmer went with his son into a wheat field, to see
if it was ready for the harvest. “See, father,” exclaimed
the boy, “how straight these stems hold up their heads!
They must be the best ones. Those that hang their
heads down, I am sure cannot be good for much.” The
farmer plucked a stalk of each kind and said: “See
here, foolish child! This stalk that stood so straight
is light-headed, and almost good for nothing; while
this that hung its head so modestly is full of the most
beautiful grain.”</p>
<p>Outspokenness is needful and powerful, both with
God and man. We need to be honest and frank with
ourselves. A soldier said in a revival meeting: “My
fellow-soldiers, I am not excited; I am <i>convinced</i>—that
is all. I feel that I ought to be a Christian; that I
ought to say so, to tell you so, and to ask you to come
with me; and now if there is a call for sinners seeking
Christ to come forward, I for one shall go—not to make
a show, for I have nothing but sin to show. I do not
go because I want to—I would rather keep my seat;
but going will be telling the truth. I ought to be a
Christian, I want to be a Christian; and going forward
for prayers is just telling the truth about it.” More
than a score went with him.</p>
<p>Speaking of Pharaoh’s words, “Entreat the Lord
that He may take away the frogs from me,” Mr. Spurgeon
says: “A fatal flaw is manifest in that prayer.
<i>It contains no confession of sin.</i> He says not, ‘I have
rebelled against the Lord; entreat that I may find forgiveness!’
Nothing of the kind; he loves sin as much
as ever. A prayer without penitence is a prayer without
acceptance. If no tear has fallen upon it, it is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span>
withered. Thou must come to God as a sinner through
a Savior, but by no other way. He who comes to God
like the Pharisee, with, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am
not as other men are,’ never draws near to God at all;
but he who cries, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’
has come to God by the way which God has Himself
appointed. There must be confession of sin before God,
or our prayer is faulty.”</p>
<p>If this confession of sin is deep among believers,
it will be so among the ungodly also. I never knew
it to fail. I am now anxious that God should revive
His work in the hearts of His children, so that we may
see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. There are a great
many fathers and mothers who are anxious for the conversion
of their children. I have had as many as fifty
messages from parents come to me within a single
week, wondering why their children are not saved, and
asking prayer for them. I venture to say that, as a
rule, the fault lies at our own door. There may be
something in our life that stands in the way. It may
be there is some secret sin that keeps back the blessing.
David lived in the awful sin into which he fell
for many months before Nathan made his appearance.
Let us pray God to come into our hearts, and make
His power felt. If it is a right eye, let us pluck it out;
if it is a right hand, let us cut it off; that we may have
power with God and with man.</p>
<p>Why is it that so many of our children are wandering
off into the drinking saloons, and drifting away
into infidelity—going down to a dishonored grave?
There seems to be very little power in the Christianity
of the present time. Many Godly parents find that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span>
their children are going astray. Does it arise from
some secret sin clinging around the heart? There is a
passage of God’s Word that is often quoted, but in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred those who quote it
stop at the wrong place. In the fifty-ninth of Isaiah
we read: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy, that it cannot
hear.” There they stop. Of course God’s hand is
not shortened, and His ear is not heavy; but we ought
to read the next verse: “Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have
hid His face from you, that He will not hear. For your
hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with
iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath
muttered perverseness.” As Mathew Henry says, “It
was owing to themselves—they stood in their own light,
they shut their own door. God was coming toward
them in the way of mercy, and they hindered Him.
‘<i>Your iniquities have kept good things from you.</i>’”</p>
<p>Bear in mind that if we are regarding iniquity in our
hearts, or living on a mere empty profession, we have
no claim to expect that our prayers will be answered.
There is not one solitary promise for us. I sometimes
tremble when I hear people quote promises, and say that
God is bound to fulfil those promises to them, when all
the time there is something in their own lives which
they are not willing to give up. It is well for us to
search our hearts, and find out why it is that our
prayers are not answered.</p>
<p>That is a very solemn passage in Isaiah:</p>
<p>“Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom;
give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span>
Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. I am full of the
burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and
I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or
of he goats. When ye come to speak before Me, who
hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts?
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination
unto Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling
of assemblies, I cannot away with—it is iniquity, even
the solemn meeting.”</p>
<p>“Even the solemn meeting!”—think of that. If
God does not get our heart-services, He will have none
of it; it is an abomination to Him.</p>
<p>“Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul
hateth; they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to
bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your
doings from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to
do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us
reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”</p>
<p>Again we read in Proverbs: “He that turneth
away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer
shall be abomination.” Think of that! It may shock
some of us to think that our prayers are an abomination
to God, yet if any are living in known sin, this is
what God’s Word says about them. If we are not willing
to turn from sin and obey God’s law, we have no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span>
right to expect that He will answer our prayers.
Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin, and unforgiven sin
is the darkest, foulest thing on this sin-cursed earth.
You cannot find a case in the Bible where a man has
been honest in dealing with sin, but God has been
honest with him and blessed him. The prayer of the
humble and the contrite heart is a delight to God.
There is no sound that goes up from this sin-cursed
earth so sweet to His ear as the prayer of the man who
is walking uprightly.</p>
<p>Let me call attention to that prayer of David, in
which he says: “Search me, O, God, and know my heart;
try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
I wish all my readers would commit these verses to
memory. If we should all honestly make this prayer
once every day there would be a good deal of change
in our lives. “<i>Search</i> <small>ME</small>”—not my neighbor. It is
so easy to pray for other people, but so hard to get
home to ourselves. I am afraid that we who are busy
in the Lord’s work, are very often in danger of neglecting
our vineyard. In this Psalm, David got home to
himself. There is a difference between God searching
me and my searching myself. I may search my heart,
and pronounce it all right, but when God searches me
as with a lighted candle, a good many things will come
to light that perhaps I knew nothing about.</p>
<p>“<i>Try me.</i>” David was tried when he fell by taking
his eye off from the God of his father Abraham.
“<i>Know my thoughts.</i>” God looks at the thoughts.
Are our thoughts pure? Have we in our hearts
thoughts against God or against His people—against<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</SPAN></span>
any one in the world? If we have, we are not right
in the sight of God. Oh, may God search us, every
one! I do not know any better prayer that we can
make than this prayer of David. One of the most
solemn things in the Scripture history is that when holy
men—better men than we are—were tested and tried,
they were found to be as weak as water away from God.</p>
<p>Let us be sure that we are right. Isaac Ambrose,
in his work on “Self Trial,” has the following pithy
words: “Now and then propose we to our hearts these
two questions: 1. ‘Heart, how dost thou?’—a few
words, but a very serious question. You know this is
the first question and the first salute that we use to
one another—How do you do? I would to God we
sometimes thus spoke to our hearts: ‘Heart, how dost
thou? How is it with thee, for thy spiritual state?’ 2.
‘Heart, what wilt thou do?’ or, ‘Heart, what dost thou
think will become of thee and me?’—as that dying
Roman once said: ‘Poor, wretched, miserable
soul, whither art thou and I going—and what will
become of thee, when thou and I shall part?’</p>
<p>“This very thing does Moses propose to Israel,
though in other terms, ‘Oh that they would consider their
latter end!’—and oh that we would put this question
constantly to our hearts, to consider and debate upon!
‘Commune with your own hearts,’ said David; that is,
debate the matter betwixt you and your hearts to the
very utmost. Let your hearts be so put to it in communing
with them, as that they may speak their very
bottom. Commune—or hold a serious communication
and clear intelligence and acquaintance—with your own
hearts.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</SPAN></span>It was the confession of a divine, sensible of his
neglect, and especially of the difficulty of this duty:
“I have lived,” said he, “forty years and somewhat
more, and carried my heart in my bosom all this while,
and yet my heart and I are as great strangers, and as
utterly unacquainted, as if we had never come near one
another. Nay, I know not my heart; I have forgotten
my heart. Alas! alas! that I could be grieved at the
very heart, that my poor heart and I have been so
unacquainted! We are fallen into an Athenian age,
spending our time in nothing more than in telling or
hearing news. How go things here? How there?
How in one place? How in another? But who is there
that is inquisitive? How are things with my poor heart?
Weigh but in the balance of a serious consideration,
what time we have spent in this duty, and what time
otherwise; and for many scores and hundreds of hours
or days that we owe to our hearts in this duty, can we
write fifty? Or where there should have been fifty
vessels full of this duty, can we find twenty, or ten?
Oh, the days, months, years, we bestow upon sin, vanity,
the affairs of this world, while we afford not a minute
in converse with our own hearts concerning their
case!”</p>
<p>If there is anything in our lives that is wrong, let us
ask God to show it to us. Have we been selfish? Have
we been more jealous of our own reputation than of
the honor of God? Elijah thought he was very jealous
for the honor of God; but it turned out that it
was his own honor after all—self was really at the
bottom of it. One of the saddest things, I think,
that Christ had to meet with in His disciples<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</SPAN></span>
was this very thing; there was a constant struggle
between them as to who should be the greatest,
instead of each one taking the humblest place and
being least in his own estimation.</p>
<p>We are told in proof of this, that “He came to Capernaum;
and being in the house He asked them, What
was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?
But they held their peace, for by the way they had
disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.
And He sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto
them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be
the last of all, and servant of all. And He took a
child, and set him in the midst of them; and when He
had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever
shall receive one of such children in My name,
receiveth Me; and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth
not Me, but Him that sent Me.”</p>
<p>Soon after “James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
come unto Him, saying, Master, we would that Thou
shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And
He said unto them, What would ye that I should do
for you? They said unto Him, Grant unto us that we
may sit, one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy
left hand, in Thy glory. But Jesus said unto them,
Ye know not what ye ask; can ye drink of the cup that
I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I
am baptized with? And they said unto Him, We can.
And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of
the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am
baptized withal shall ye be baptized; but to sit on My
right hand and on My left hand is not Mine to give;
but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</SPAN></span>
And when the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased
with James and John. But Jesus called them
to Him, and saith unto them: Ye know that they
which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise
lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority
upon them. But so shall it not be among you;
but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your
minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest,
shall be servant of all. For even the Son of Man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to
give His life a ransom for many.”</p>
<p>The latter words were spoken in the third year of
His ministry. Three years the disciples had been with
Him; they had listened to the words that fell from His
lips; yet they had failed to learn this lesson of humility.
The most humiliating thing that happened among the
chosen twelve occurred on the night of our Lord’s
betrayal, when Judas sold Him, and Peter denied Him.
If there was any place where there should have been an
absence of these thoughts, it was at the Supper-table.
Yet we find that when Christ instituted that blessed
memorial there was a debate going on among His disciples
who should be the greatest. Think of that!—right
under the Cross, when the Master was “exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death;” was already tasting the
bitterness of Calvary, and the horrors of that dark hour
were gathering upon His soul.</p>
<p>I think if God searches us, we will find a good many
things in our lives for us to confess. If we are tried
and tested by God’s law, there will be many, many
things that will have to be changed. I ask again: Are
we selfish or jealous? Are we willing to hear of others<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span>
being used of God more than we are? Are our Methodist
friends willing to hear of a great revival of God’s
work among the Baptists? Would it rejoice their
souls to hear of such efforts being blessed? Are Baptists
willing to hear of a reviving of God’s work in the
Methodist, Congregational, or other churches? If we
are full of narrow, party and sectarian feelings, there
will be many things to be laid aside. Let us pray to
God to search us, and try us, and see if there be any
evil way in us. If these holy and good men felt that they
were faulty, should we not tremble, and endeavor to
find out if there is anything in our lives that God would
have us get rid of?</p>
<p>Once again, let me call your attention to the prayer
of David contained in the fifty-first Psalm. A friend
of mine told me some years ago that he repeated this
prayer as his own every week. I think it would be a
good thing if we offered up these petitions frequently;
let them go right up from our hearts. If we have been
proud, or irritable, or lacking in patience, shall we not
at once confess it? Is it not time that we began at
home, and got our lives straightened out? See how
quickly the ungodly will then begin to inquire the way
of life! Let those of us who are parents set our own
houses in order, and be filled with Christ’s Spirit; then
it will not be long before our children will be inquiring
what they must do to get the same Spirit. I believe
that to-day, by its lukewarmness and formality, the
Christian Church is making more infidels than all
the books that infidels ever wrote. I do not fear infidel
lectures half so much as the cold and dead formalism
in the professing church at the present time. One<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span>
prayer-meeting like that the disciples had on the day
of Pentecost, would shake the whole infidel fraternity.</p>
<p>What we want is to get hold of God in prayer. You
are not going to reach the masses by great sermons.
We want to “move the Arm that moves the world.”
To do that, we must be clear and right before God.
“For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our
heart, and knoweth all things, Beloved, if our heart
condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God;
and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we
keep His commandments, and do those things that are
pleasing in His sight.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_040.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Confession.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“No, not despairingly</div>
<div class="indent">Come I to Thee;</div>
<div class="verse">No, not distrustingly</div>
<div class="indent">Bend I the knee;</div>
<div class="verse">Sin hath gone over me,</div>
<div class="verse">Yet is this still my plea,</div>
<div class="indent">Jesus hath died.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Ah, mine iniquity</div>
<div class="indent">Crimson has been;</div>
<div class="verse">Infinite, infinite,</div>
<div class="indent">Sin upon sin;</div>
<div class="verse">Sin of not loving Thee,</div>
<div class="verse">Sin of not trusting Thee.</div>
<div class="indent">Infinite sin.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Lord, I confess to Thee</div>
<div class="indent">Sadly my sin;</div>
<div class="verse">All I am, tell I Thee,</div>
<div class="indent">All I have been.</div>
<div class="verse">Purge Thou my sin away,</div>
<div class="verse">Wash Thou my soul this day;</div>
<div class="indent">Lord, make me clean!”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright">—<i>Dr. H. Bonar.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV.<br/> RESTITUTION.</h2></div>
<p>A third element of successful prayer is <span class="smcap">Restitution</span>.
If I have at any time taken what does not
belong to me, and am not willing to make restitution,
my prayers will not go very far toward heaven. It is
a singular thing, but I have never touched on this subject
in my addresses, without hearing of immediate
results. A man once told me that I would not need to
dwell on this point at a meeting I was about to address,
as probably there would be no one present that would
need to make restitution. But I think if the Spirit of God
searches our hearts, we shall most of us find a good many
things have to be done that we never thought of before.</p>
<p>After Zaccheus met with Christ, things looked altogether
different. I venture to say that the idea of making
restitution never entered into his mind before. He
thought, probably, that morning that he was a perfectly
honest man. But when the Lord came and spoke to
him, he saw himself in an altogether different light.
Notice how short his speech was. The only thing put
on record that he said was this: “Behold, Lord, the
half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have
taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
restore him fourfold.” A short speech; but how the
words have come ringing down through the ages!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span>By making that remark he confessed his sin—that he
had been dishonest. Besides that, he showed that he
knew the requirements of the law of Moses. If a man
had taken what did not belong to him, he was not only
to return it, but to multiply it by four. I think that
men in this dispensation ought to be fully as honest as
men under the Law. I am getting so tired and sick of
your mere sentimentalism, that does not straighten out
a man’s life. We may sing our hymns and psalms, and
offer prayers, but they will be an abomination to God,
unless we are willing to be thoroughly straightforward
in our daily life. Nothing will give Christianity such
a hold upon the world as to have God’s believing people
begin to act in this way. Zaccheus had probably more
influence in Jericho after he made restitution than any
other man in it.</p>
<p>Finney, in his lectures to professing Christians, says:
“One reason for the requirement, ‘Be not conformed
to this world,’ is the immense, salutary, and instantaneous
influence it would have, if everybody would do business
on the principles of the Gospel. Turn the tables
over, and let Christians do business one year on Gospel
principles. It would shake the world! It would ring
louder than thunder. Let the ungodly see professing
Christians in every bargain consulting the good of the
person they are trading with—seeking not their own
wealth, but every man another’s wealth—living above
the world—setting no value on the world any further
than it would be the means of glorifying God; what do
you think would be the effect? It would cover the
world with confusion of face, and overwhelm them with
conviction of sin.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span>Finney makes one grand mark of genuine repentance
to be restitution. “The thief has not repented who
keeps the money he stole. He may have conviction, but
no repentance. If he had repentance, he would go and
give back the money. If you have cheated any one, and
do not restore what you have taken unjustly; or if you
have injured any one, and do not set about to undo the
wrong you have done, as far as in you lies, you have
not truly repented.”</p>
<p>In Exodus we read—“If a man steal an ox, or a
sheep, and kill it, or sell it, he shall restore five oxen
for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.” And again: “If
a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and
shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s
field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of
his own vineyard shall he make restitution. If
fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks
of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed
therewith, he that kindled the fire shall surely make
restitution.”</p>
<p>Or turn to Leviticus, where the law of the trespass-offering
is laid down—the same point is there insisted
on with equal clearness and force.</p>
<p>“If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the
Lord, and lie unto his neighbor in that which was
delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing
taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbor;
or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning
it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man
doeth, sinning therein; then it shall be, because he
hath sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore that
which he took violently away, or the thing which he<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span>
hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him
to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that
about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even
restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part
more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth,
in the day of his trespass offering.”</p>
<p>The same thing is repeated in Numbers, where we
read—“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or
woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a
trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty;
then they shall confess their sin which they have done;
and he shall recompense his trespass with the principal
thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and
give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed.
But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the
trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the
Lord, even to the priest, beside the ram of the atonement,
whereby an atonement shall be made of him.”</p>
<p>These were the laws that God laid down for His
people, and I believe their principle is as binding to-day
as it was then. If we have taken anything from
any man, if we have in any way defrauded a man, let
us not only confess it, but do all we can to make restitution.
If we have misrepresented any one—if we have
started some slander, or some false report about him—let
us do all in our power to undo the wrong.</p>
<p>It is in reference to a practical righteousness such
as this that God says in Isaiah—“Behold, ye fast for
strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness;
ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your
voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span>
have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is
it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread
sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a
fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this
the fast that I have chosen—to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is
it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou
bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that
thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then
shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine
health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness
shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be
thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord
shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I
am.”</p>
<p>Trapp in his comment on Zaccheus, says: “Sultan
Selymus could tell his councillor Pyrrhus, who persuaded
him to bestow the great wealth he had taken
from the Persian merchants upon some notable hospital
for relief of the poor, that God hates robbery for
burnt-offering. The dying Turk commanded it rather
to be restored to the right owners, which was done
accordingly, to the great shame of many Christians,
who mind nothing less than restitution. When Henry
III of England had sent the Friar Minors a load of
frieze to clothe them, they returned the same with this
message, ‘that he ought not to give alms of what he had
rent from the poor; neither would they accept of that
abominable gift.’ Master Latimer saith, ‘If ye make
no restitution of goods detained, ye shall cough in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span>
hell, and the devils shall laugh at you.’ Henry VII,
in his last will and testament, after the disposition of
his soul and body, devised and willed restitution should
be made of all such moneys as had unjustly been
levied by his officers. Queen Mary restored again all
ecclesiastical livings assumed to the crown, saying
that she set more by the salvation of her own soul,
than she did by ten kingdoms. A bull came also from
the Pope, at the same time, that others should do the
like, but none did. Latimer tells us that the first day
he preached about restitution, one came and gave him
£20 to restore; the next day another brought him £30;
another time another gave him £200.</p>
<p>“Mr. Bradford, hearing Latimer on that subject, was
struck in the heart for one dash of the pen which he
had made without the knowledge of his master, and
could never be quiet till, by the advice of Mr. Latimer,
restitution was made, for which he did willingly forego
all the private and certain patrimony which he had on
earth. ‘I, myself,’ saith Mr. Barroughs, ‘knew one
man who had wronged another but of five shillings,
and fifty years after could not be quiet till he had
restored it.’”</p>
<p>If there is true repentance it will bring forth fruit.
If we have done wrong to some one, we should never
ask God to forgive us until we are willing to make restitution.
If I have done any man a great injustice and
can make it good, I need not ask God to forgive me
until I am willing to do so. Suppose I have taken something
that does not belong to me. I cannot expect forgiveness
until I make restitution. I remember preaching
in an Eastern city, and a fine-looking man came up<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span>
to me at the close. He was in great distress of mind.
“The fact is,” he said, “I am a defaulter. I have
taken money that belonged to my employers. How can
I become a Christian without restoring it?” “Have
you got the money?” He told me he had not got it all.
He had taken about 1,500 dollars, and he still had about
900. He said, “Could I not take that money and go
into business, and make enough to pay them back?” I
told him that was a delusion of Satan, that he could
not expect to prosper on stolen money; that he
should restore all he had, and go and ask his
employers to have mercy upon him, and forgive him.
“But they will put me in prison,” he said. “Can you
not give me any help?” “No; you must restore the
money before you can expect to get any help from
God.” “It is pretty hard,” he said. “Yes, it is
hard; but the great mistake was in doing the wrong at
first.” His burden became so heavy that it was, in
fact, unbearable. He handed me the money—950
dollars and some cents—and asked me to take it back
to his employers. I told them the story, and said that
he wanted mercy from them, not justice. The tears
trickled down the cheeks of these two men, and they
said, “Forgive him! Yes, we will be glad to forgive
him.” I went down stairs and brought him up.
After he had confessed his guilt and been forgiven,
we all fell down on our knees and had a blessed prayer-meeting.
God met us and blessed us there.</p>
<p>There was another friend of mine who had come
to Christ and was trying to consecrate himself and his
wealth to God. He had formerly had transactions with
the Government, and had taken advantage of them.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span>
This thing came to memory, and his conscience
troubled him. He had a terrible struggle; his conscience
kept rising up and smiting him. At last he drew a
check for 1500 dollars, and sent it to the Treasury of
the Government. He told me he received such a blessing
after he had done it. That is bringing forth fruits
meet for repentance. I believe a great many men are
crying to God for light; and they are not getting it
because they are not honest.</p>
<p>A man came to one of our meetings, when this subject
was touched upon. The memory of a dishonest
transaction flashed into his mind. He saw at once
how it was that his prayers were not answered, but
“returned into his own bosom,” as the Scripture phrase
puts it. He left the meeting, took the train, and went
to a distant city, where he had defrauded his employer
years before. He went straight to this man, confessed
the wrong, and offered to make restitution. Then he
remembered another transaction, in which he had failed
to meet the just demands upon him; he at once made
arrangements to have a large amount repaid. He came
back to the place where we were holding the meetings,
and God blessed him wonderfully in his own soul. I
have not met a man for a long time who seemed to have
received such a blessing.</p>
<p>Some years ago, in the north of England, a woman
came to one of the meetings, and appeared to be very
anxious about her soul. For some time she did not
seem to be able to get peace. The truth was, she was
covering up one thing that she was not willing to confess.
At last, the burden was too great; and she said to a
worker: “I never go down on my knees to pray, but a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span>
few bottles of wine keep coming up before my mind.”
It appeared that years before, when she was housekeeper,
she had taken some bottles of wine belonging
to her employer. The worker said: “Why do you
not make restitution?” The woman replied that the
man was dead; and besides, she did not know how much
it was worth. “Are there any heirs living to whom
you can make restitution?” She said there was a son
living at some distance; but she thought it would be a
very humiliating thing, so she kept back for some time.
At last she felt as if she must have a clear conscience
at any cost, so she took the train, and went to the place
where the son of her employer resided. She took five
pounds with her, she did not exactly know what the
wine was worth, but that would cover it at any rate.
The man said he did not want the money, but she
replied, “I do not want it; it has burnt my pocket
long enough.” So he agreed to take the half of it,
and give it to some charitable object. Then she came
back; and I think she was one of the happiest mortals I
have ever met with. She said she could not tell whether
she was in the body or out of it—such a blessing had
come to her soul.</p>
<p>It may be that there is something in our lives that
needs straightening out; something that happened perhaps
twenty years ago, and that has been forgotten till
the Spirit of God brought it to our remembrance. If
we are not willing to make restitution, we cannot expect
God to give us great blessing. Perhaps that is the
reason so many of our prayers are not answered.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_050.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Perfect Cleansing.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Who would be cleansed from every sin,</div>
<div class="verse">Must to God’s holy altar bring</div>
<div class="indent2">The whole of life—its joys, its tears,</div>
<div class="indent2">Its hopes, its loves, its powers, its years,</div>
<div class="verse">The will, and every cherished thing!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Must make this sweeping sacrifice—</div>
<div class="indent2">Choose God, and dare reproach and shame,</div>
<div class="indent2">And boldly stand in storm or flame</div>
<div class="verse">For Him who paid redemption’s price;</div>
<div class="verse">Then trust (not struggle to believe),</div>
<div class="indent">And trusting wait, nor doubt, but pray</div>
<div class="indent2">That in His own good time He’ll say,</div>
<div class="first">‘Thy faith hath saved thee; now receive.’</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“His time is when the soul brings all,</div>
<div class="indent2">Is all upon His altar lain;</div>
<div class="indent2">When pride and self-conceit are slain,</div>
<div class="verse">And crucified with Christ, we fall</div>
<div class="verse">Helpless upon His word, and lie;</div>
<div class="indent2">When, faithful to His word, we feel</div>
<div class="indent2">The cleansing touch, the Spirit’s seal,</div>
<div class="verse">And know that He does sanctify.”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>A. T. Allis.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak"> CHAPTER V.<br/> THANKSGIVING.</h2></div>
<p>The next thing I would mention as an element of
prayer is <span class="smcap">Thanksgiving</span>. We ought to be more thankful
for what we get from God. Perhaps some of you
mothers have a child in your family who is constantly
complaining—never thankful. You know that there
is not much pleasure in doing anything for a child
like that. If you meet with a beggar who is always
grumbling, and never seems to be thankful for what
you give, you very soon shut the door in his face altogether.
Ingratitude is about the hardest thing we
have to meet with. The great English poet says:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="first">“Blow, blow, thou winter wind—</div>
<div class="verse">Thou art not so unkind</div>
<div class="indent">As man’s ingratitude;</div>
<div class="verse">Thy tooth is not so keen,</div>
<div class="verse">Because thou art not seen,</div>
<div class="indent">Although thy breath be rude.”</div>
</div></div>
<p>We cannot speak too plainly of this evil, which so
demeans those who are guilty of it. Even in Christians
there is but too much of it to be seen. Here we are,
getting blessings from God day after day; yet how
little praise and thanksgiving there is in the Church of
God!</p>
<p>Gurnall, in his <i>Christian Armor</i>, referring to the
words, “In everything give thanks,” says: “‘Praise is<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span>
comely for the upright.’ ‘An unthankful saint’ carries
a contradiction with it. Evil and Unthankful are twins
that live and die together; as any one ceaseth to be
evil, he begins to be thankful. It is that which God
expects at your hands; He made you for this end.
When the vote passed in heaven for your being—yea,
happy being in Christ!—it was upon this account, that
you should be a name and a praise to Him on earth in
time, and in heaven to eternity. Should God miss
this, He would fail of one main part of His design.
What prompts Him to bestow every mercy, but to afford
you matter to compose a song for His praise? ‘They
are My people, children that will not lie; so He was
their Savior.’</p>
<p>“He looks for fair dealing at your hands. Whom
may a father trust with his reputation, if not his child?
Where can a prince expect honor, if not among his
favorites? Your state is such that the least mercy you
have is more than all the world besides. Thou, Christian,
and thy few brethren, divide heaven and earth
among you! What hath God that He withholds from
you? Sun, moon and stars are set up to give you
light; sea and land have their treasures for your use;
others are encroachers upon them; you are the rightful
heirs to them; they groan that any others should
be served by them. The angels, bad and good, minister
unto you; the evil, against their will, are forced
like scullions when they tempt you, to scour and
brighten your graces, and make way for your greater
comforts; the good angels are servants to your heavenly
Father, and disdain not to carry you in their arms.
Your God withholds not Himself from you; He is your<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span>
portion—Father, Husband, Friend. God is His own
happiness, and admits you to enjoy Him. Oh, what
honor is this, for the subject to drink in his prince’s
cup! ‘Thou shalt make them drink of the river of
Thy pleasures.’ And all this is not the purchase of
your sweat and blood; the feast is paid for by Another,
only He expects your thanks to the Founder. No sin-offering
is imposed under the Gospel; thank-offerings
are all He looks for.”</p>
<p>Charnock, in discoursing on Spiritual Worship, says:
“The praise of God is the choicest sacrifice and worship,
under a dispensation of redeeming grace. This
is the prime and eternal part of worship under the
Gospel. The Psalmist, speaking of the Gospel times,
spurs on to this kind of worship: ‘Sing unto the Lord
a new song; let the children of Zion be joyful in their
King; let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing
aloud upon their beds; let the high praises of God be
in their mouth.’ He begins and ends both Psalms
with <i>Praise ye the Lord!</i> That cannot be a spiritual
and evangelical worship that hath nothing of the praise
of God in the heart. The consideration of God’s
adorable perfections discovered in the Gospel will
make us come to Him with more seriousness, beg blessings
of Him with more confidence, fly to Him with a
winged faith and love, and more spiritually glorify Him
in our attendances upon Him.”</p>
<p>There is a great deal more said in the Bible about
praise than prayer; yet how few praise-meetings there
are! David, in his Psalms, always mixes praise with
prayer. Solomon prevailed much with God in prayer
at the dedication of the temple; but it was the voice of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span>
<i>praise</i> which brought down the glory that filled the
house; for we read: “And it came to pass, when the
priests were come out of the holy place (for all the
priests that were present were sanctified, and did not
then wait by course; also the Levites, which were the
singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun,
with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in
white linen, having cymbals, and psalteries, and harps,
stood at the east end of the altar, and with them a
hundred and twenty priests, sounding with trumpets);
it came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers
were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising
and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their
voice with the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments
of music, and praised the Lord, saying, ‘For He is
good; for His mercy endureth forever;’ that then the
house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the
Lord; so that the priests could not stand to minister
by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had
filled the house of God.”</p>
<p>We read, too, of Jehoshaphat, that he gained the
victory over the hosts of Ammon and Moab through
praise, which was excited by faith and thankfulness to
God.</p>
<p>“And they rose early in the morning, and went forth
into the wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went forth,
Jehoshaphat stood and said, ‘Hear me, O Judah, and
ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; believe in the Lord your
God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets,
so shall ye prosper;’ and when he had consulted with
the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and
that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span>
out before the army, and to say, ‘Praise the Lord; for
His mercy endureth for ever,’ And when they began to
sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against
the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which
were come against Judah; and they were
smitten.”</p>
<p>It is said that in a time of great despondency among
the first settlers in New England, it was proposed in
one of their public assemblies to proclaim a fast. An
old farmer arose; spoke of their provoking heaven
with their complaints, reviewed their measures, showed
that they had much to be thankful for, and moved that
instead of appointing a day of fasting, they should
appoint a day of thanksgiving. This was done; and
the custom has been continued ever since.</p>
<p>However great our difficulties, or deep even our sorrows,
there is room for thankfulness. Thomas Adams
has said: “Lay up in the ark of thy memory not only
the pot of manna, the bread of life; but even Aaron’s
rod, the very scourge of correction, wherewith thou
hast been bettered. Blessed be the Lord, not only
giving, but taking away, saith Job. God who sees
there is no walking upon roses to heaven, puts His
children into the way of discipline; and by the fire of
correction eats out the rust of corruption. God sends
trouble, then bids us call upon Him; promiseth our
deliverance; and lastly, the all He requires of us is to
glorify Him. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I
will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Like the
nightingale, we can sing in the night, and say with
John Newton—</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="first">“Since all that I meet shall work for my good,</div>
<div class="verse">The bitter is sweet, the medicine food;</div>
<div class="verse">Though painful at present, ’twill cease before long,</div>
<div class="verse">And then—oh, how pleasant!—the conqueror’s song.”</div>
</div></div>
<p>Among all the apostles none suffered so much as Paul;
but none of them do we find so often giving thanks as
he. Take his letter to the Philippians. Remember
what he suffered at Philippi; how they laid many stripes
upon him, and cast him into prison. Yet every chapter
in that Epistle speaks of rejoicing and giving thanks.
There is that well-known passage: “Be careful for nothing,
but in everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God.” As some one has said, there are here three
precious ideas: “Careful for nothing; prayerful for
everything; and thankful for anything.” We always
get more by being thankful for what God has done for
us. Paul says again: “We give thanks to God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for
you.” So he was constantly giving thanks. Take up
any one of his Epistles, and you will find them full of
praise to God.</p>
<p>Even if nothing else called for thankfulness, it
would always be an ample cause for it that Jesus Christ
loved us, and gave Himself for us. A farmer was once
found kneeling at a soldier’s grave near Nashville.
Some one came to him and said: “Why do you pay so
much attention to this grave? Was your son buried
here?” “No,” he said. “During the war my family
were all sick, I knew not how to leave them. I was
drafted. One of my neighbors came over and said: ‘I
will go for you; I have no family.’ He went off. He<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span>
was wounded at Chickamauga. He was carried to the
hospital, and there died. And, sir, I have come a great
many miles, that I might write over his grave these
words, ‘<i>He died for me.</i>’”</p>
<p>This the believer can always say of his blessed Savior,
and in the fact may well rejoice. “By Him therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise continually, that is,
the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_058.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">The Praise of God.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Speak, lips of mine!</div>
<div class="indent2">And tell abroad</div>
<div class="indent2">The praises of my God.</div>
<div class="verse">Speak, stammering tongue!</div>
<div class="indent2">In gladdest tone,</div>
<div class="indent2">Make His high praises known.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Speak, sea and earth!</div>
<div class="indent2">Heaven’s utmost star,</div>
<div class="indent2">Speak from your realms afar!</div>
<div class="verse">Take up the note,</div>
<div class="indent2">And send it round</div>
<div class="indent2">Creation’s farthest bound.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Speak, heaven of heavens!</div>
<div class="indent2">Wherein our God</div>
<div class="indent2">Has made His bright abode.</div>
<div class="verse">Speak, angels, speak!</div>
<div class="indent2">In songs proclaim</div>
<div class="indent2">His everlasting name.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Speak, son of dust!</div>
<div class="indent2">Thy flesh He took</div>
<div class="indent2">And heaven for thee forsook.</div>
<div class="verse">Speak, child of death!</div>
<div class="indent2">Thy death He died,</div>
<div class="indent2">Bless thou the Crucified.”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright">—<i>Dr. Bonar.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI.<br/> FORGIVENESS.</h2></div>
<p>The next thing is perhaps the most difficult of all to
deal with—<span class="smcap">Forgiveness</span>. I believe this is keeping
more people from having power with God than any
other thing—they are not willing to cultivate the spirit
of forgiveness. If we allow the root of bitterness to
spring up in our hearts against some one, our prayer
will not be answered. It may not be an easy thing to
live in sweet fellowship with all those with whom we
come in contact; but that is what the grace of God is
given to us for.</p>
<p>The disciples’ prayer is a test of sonship; if we can
pray it all from the heart we have good reason to think
that we have been born of God. No man can call God
Father but by the Spirit. Though this prayer has been
such a blessing to the world, I believe it has been a
great snare; many stumble over it into perdition. They
do not weigh its meaning, nor take its facts right into
their hearts. I have no sympathy with the idea of
universal sonship—that all men are the sons of God.
The Bible teaches very plainly that we are adopted into
the family of God. If all were sons God would not
need to adopt any. We are all God’s by creation; but
when people teach that any man can say, “Our Father
which art in heaven,” whether he is born of God or not,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</SPAN></span>
I think that is contrary to Scripture. “As many as
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
Sonship in the family is the privilege of the believer.
“In this the children of God are manifest, and the
children of the devil,” says the Apostle. If we are
doing the will of God, that is a very good sign that we
are born of God. If we have no desire to do that will,
how can we call God “Our Father?”</p>
<p>Another thing. We cannot really pray for God’s
kingdom to come until we are in it. If we should
pray for the coming of God’s kingdom while we are
rebelling against Him, we are only seeking for our own
condemnation. No unrenewed man really wants God’s
will to be done on the earth. You might write over
the door of every unsaved man’s house, and over his
place of business, “God’s will is not done here.”</p>
<p>If the nations were really to put up this prayer, all
their armies could be discharged. They tell us there
are some twelve millions of men in the standing armies
of Europe alone. But men do not want God’s will
done on earth as it is in heaven; that is the trouble.</p>
<p>Now let us come to the part I want to dwell upon:
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us.” This is the only part of the
prayer that Christ explained.</p>
<p>“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not
men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses.”</p>
<p>Notice that when you go into the door of God’s kingdom,
you go in through the door of forgiveness. I
never knew of a man getting a blessing in his own soul,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</SPAN></span>
if he was not willing to forgive others. If we are
unwilling to forgive others, God cannot forgive us.
I do not know how language could be more plain than
it is in these words of our Lord. I firmly believe a
great many prayers are not answered because we are
not willing to forgive some one. Let your mind go
back over the past, and through the circle of your
acquaintance; are there any against whom you are
cherishing hard feelings? Is there any root of bitterness
springing up against some one who has perhaps
injured you? It may be that for months or years you
have been nursing this unforgiving spirit; how can <i>you</i>
ask God to forgive you? If I am not willing to forgive
those who may have committed some single offence
against me, what a mean, contemptible thing it would
be for me to ask God to forgive the ten thousand sins
of which I have been guilty!</p>
<p>But Christ goes still further. He says: “If thou
bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that
thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy
gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”
It may be that you are saying: “I do not know that I
have anything against any one.” Has any one anything
against you? Is there some one who thinks you
have done them wrong? Perhaps you have not; but it
may be they think you have. I will tell you what I
would do before I go to sleep to-night; I would go and
see them, and have the question settled. You will
find that you will be greatly blessed in the very
act.</p>
<p>Supposing you are in the right and they are in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</SPAN></span>
the wrong; you may win your brother or sister. May
God root out of all our hearts this unforgiving spirit.</p>
<p>A gentleman came to me some time ago, and wanted
me to talk to his wife about her soul. That woman
seemed as anxious as any person I ever met, and I
thought it would not take long to lead her into the
light; but it seemed that the longer I talked with her, the
more her darkness increased. I went to see her again
the next day, and found her in still greater darkness of
soul. I thought there must be something in the way
that I had not discovered, and I asked her to repeat
with me this disciples’ prayer. I thought if she could
say this prayer from the heart, the Lord would meet
her in peace. I began to repeat it sentence after sentence,
and she repeated it after me until I came to this
petition: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
them that trespass against us.” There she stopped.
I repeated it the second time, and waited for her to say
it after me; she said she could not do it. “What is
the trouble?” She replied, “There is one woman I
never will forgive.” “Oh,” I said, “I have got at
your difficulty; it is no use my going on to pray, for
your prayers will not go higher than my head. God
says He will not forgive you unless you forgive others.
If you do not forgive this woman, God will never forgive
you. That is the decree of heaven.” She said,
“Do you mean to say that I cannot be forgiven until I
have forgiven her?” “No, I do not say it; the Lord
says it, and that is far better authority.” Said she,
“Then I will never be forgiven.” I left the house
without having made any impression on her. A few
years after, I heard that this woman was in an asylum<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</SPAN></span>
for the insane. I believe this spirit of unforgiveness
drove her mad.</p>
<p>If there is some one who has aught against you, go
at once, and be reconciled. If you have aught against
any one, write to them a letter, telling them that you
forgive them, and so have this thing off your conscience.
I remember being in the inquiry-room some
years ago; I was in one corner of the room, talking to
a young lady. There seemed to be something in the
way, but I could not find out what it was. At last I
said, “Is there not some one you do not forgive?”
She looked up at me, and said, “What made you ask
that? Has anyone told you about me?” “No,” I
said; “but I thought perhaps that might be the case,
as you have not received forgiveness yourself.” “Well,”
she said, pointing to another corner of the room,
where there was a young lady sitting, “I have had
trouble with that young lady; we have not spoken to
each other for a long time.” “Oh,” I said, “it is all
plain to me now; you cannot be forgiven until you are
willing to forgive her.” It was a great struggle.
But then you know, the greater the cross the greater
the blessing. It is human to err, but it is Christ-like to
forgive and be forgiven. At last this young lady said:
“I will go and forgive her.” Strange to say, the same
conflict was going on in the mind of the lady in the
other part of the room. They both came to their
right mind about the same time. They met each other
in the middle of the floor. The one tried to say that she
forgave the other, but they could not finish; so they
rushed into each other’s arms. Then the four of us—the
two seekers and the two workers—got down on our<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</SPAN></span>
knees together, and we had a grand meeting. These
two went away rejoicing.</p>
<p>Dear friend, is this the reason why your prayers are
not answered? Is there some friend, some member of
your family, some one in the church, you have not forgiven?
We sometimes hear of members of the same
church who have not spoken to each other for years.
How can we expect God to forgive when this is the
case?</p>
<p>I remember one town that Mr. Sankey and myself
visited. For a week it seemed as if we were beating
the air; there was no power in the meetings. At last I
said one day that perhaps there was some one cultivating
this unforgiving spirit. The Chairman of our
committee, who was sitting next to me, got up and left
the meeting right in view of the audience. The arrow
had hit the mark, and gone home to the heart of the
Chairman of the committee. He had had trouble with
some one for about six months. He at once hunted up
this man and asked him to forgive him. He came to
me with tears in his eyes, and said: “I thank God you
ever came here.” That night the inquiry-room was
thronged. The Chairman became one of the best
workers I have ever known, and he has been active in
Christian service ever since.</p>
<p>Several years ago the Church of England sent a
devoted missionary to New Zealand. After a few years
of toil and success, he was one Sabbath holding a communion
service in a district where the converts had not
long since been savages. As the missionary was conducting
the service, he observed one of the men, just
as he was about to kneel at the rail, suddenly start to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</SPAN></span>
his feet and hastily go the opposite end of the church.
By and by he returned, and calmly took his place.
After service the clergyman took him on one side, and
asked the reason for his strange behavior. He replied:
“As I was about to kneel I recognized in the man next
to me the chief of a neighboring tribe, who had murdered
my father, and drunk his blood; and I had sworn
by all the gods that I would slay that man at the first
opportunity. The impulse to have my revenge, at the
first almost overpowered me, and I rushed away, as
you saw me, to escape the power of it. As I stood at
the other end of the room and considered the object of
our meeting, I thought of Him who prayed for His
own murderers: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.’ And I felt that I could forgive the
murderer of my father, and came and knelt down at
his side.”</p>
<p>As one has said: “There is an ugly kind of forgiveness
in the world—a kind of hedgehog forgiveness,
shot out like quills. Men take one who has offended,
and set him down before the blow-pipe of their indignation,
and scorch him, and burn his fault into him;
and when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their
fists, then they forgive him.”</p>
<p>The father of Frederick the Great, on his death-bed,
was warned by M. Roloff, his spiritual adviser, that he
was bound to forgive his enemies. He was quite
troubled, and after a moment’s pause said to the
Queen: “You, Feekin, may write to your brother (the
King of England) <i>after I am dead</i>, and tell him that
I forgave him, and died at peace with him.” “It
would be better,” M. Roloff mildly suggested, “that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span>
your majesty should write at once.” “No,” was the
stern reply. “Write after I am dead. That will be
safer.”</p>
<p>Another story tells of a man who, supposing he was
about to die, expressed his forgiveness to one who had
injured him, but added: “Now you mind, if I get well,
the old grudge holds good.”</p>
<p>My friends, that is not forgiveness at all. I believe
true forgiveness includes forgetting the offence—putting
it entirely away out of our hearts and
memories.</p>
<p>As Matthew Henry says: “We do not forgive our
offending brother aright nor acceptably, if we do not
forgive him from the heart, for it is that God looks at.
No malice must be harbored there, nor ill-will to any;
no projects of revenge must be hatched there, nor
desires of it, as there are in many who outwardly
appear peaceful and reconciled. We must from the
heart desire and seek the welfare of those who have
offended us.”</p>
<p>If God’s forgiveness were like that often shown by
us, it would not be worth much. Supposing God said:
“I will forgive you, but I will never forget it; all
through eternity I will keep reminding you of it;” we
should not feel that to be forgiveness at all. Notice
what God says: “I will remember their sin no more.”
In a passage in Ezekiel it is said that not one of our
sins shall be mentioned; is not that like God? I do like
to preach this forgiveness—the sweet truth that sin is
blotted out for time and eternity, and shall never once
be mentioned against us. In another Scripture we read:
“Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</SPAN></span>
Then when you turn to the eleventh chapter of the
Hebrews, and read God’s roll of honor, you find that
not one of the sins of any of those men of faith is
mentioned. Abraham is spoken of as the man of faith;
but it is not told how he denied his wife down in Egypt;
all that had been forgiven. Moses was kept out of the
Promised Land because he lost patience; but this is not
mentioned in the New Testament, though his name
appears in the Apostle’s roll of honor. Samson, too,
is named, but his sins are not brought up again. Why,
we even read of “righteous Lot;” he did not look much
like a righteous man in the Old Testament story, but he
has been forgiven, and God has made him “righteous.”
If we are once forgiven by God, our sins will be
remembered against us no more. This is God’s eternal
decree.</p>
<p>Brooks says of God’s pardon granted to His people:
“When God pardons sin, He takes it sheer away; that
if it should be sought for, yet it could not be found; as
the prophet Jeremiah speaks: ‘In those days, and in
that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of
Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon
them whom I reserve.’ As David, when he saw in
Mephibosheth the features of his friend Jonathan, took
no notice of his lameness, or any other defect or
deformity; so God, beholding in His people the glorious
image of His Son, winks at all their faults and deformities,
which made Luther say, ‘Do with me what thou
wilt, since Thou hast pardoned my sin.’ And what is
it to pardon sin, but not to mention sin?”</p>
<p>We read in the Gospel of Matthew: “Moreover, if<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</SPAN></span>
thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him
his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear
thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” Then a little
further on we read that Peter comes to Christ and says:
“How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him? Till seven times?” Jesus replied, “I say not
unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times
seven.” Peter did not seem to think that <i>he</i> was in danger
of falling into sin; his question was, How often should
I forgive my brother? But very soon we hear that
Peter has fallen. I can imagine that when he did fall,
the sweet thought came to him of what the Master had
said about forgiving until seventy times seven. The
voice of sin may be loud, but the voice of forgiveness
is louder.</p>
<p>Let us enter into David’s experience, when he said:
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there
is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old
through my roaring all the day long. For day and
night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is
turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged
my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I
said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord;
and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”</p>
<p>David could look below, above, behind and before;
to the past, present, and future; and know that all was
well. Let us make up our mind, that we will not rest
until this question of sin is for ever settled, so that we
can look up and claim God as our forgiving Father.
Let us be willing to forgive others, that we may be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</SPAN></span>
able to claim forgiveness from God, remembering the
words of the Lord Jesus, how He said: “If ye forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_070.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Pardon.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Now, oh joy! my sins are pardoned!</div>
<div class="indent">Now I can and do believe!</div>
<div class="verse">All I have, and am, and shall be,</div>
<div class="indent">To my precious Lord I give;</div>
<div class="verse">He roused my deathly slumbers,</div>
<div class="indent">He dispersed my soul’s dark night;</div>
<div class="verse">Whispered peace, and drew me to Him</div>
<div class="indent">Made Himself my chief delight.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Let the babe forget its mother,</div>
<div class="indent">Let the bridegroom slight his bride;</div>
<div class="verse">True to him, I’ll love none other,</div>
<div class="indent">Cleaving closely to His side.</div>
<div class="verse">Jesus, hear my soul’s confession;</div>
<div class="indent">Weak am I, but strength is Thine;</div>
<div class="verse">On Thine arms for strength and succor,</div>
<div class="indent">Calmly may my soul recline!”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>Albert Midlane.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII.<br/> UNITY.</h2></div>
<p>The next thing we need to have, if we would get our
prayers answered, is—<span class="smcap">Unity</span>. If we do not love one
another we certainly shall not have much power with
God in Prayer. One of the saddest things in the present
day is the division in God’s Church. You notice that
when the power of God came upon the early church,
it was when they were all of one accord. I believe the
blessing of Pentecost never would have been given but
for that spirit of unity. If they had been divided
and quarreling among themselves, do you think the
Holy Ghost would have come, and those thousands
been converted? I have noticed in our work, that if
we have gone to a town where three churches were
united in it, we have had greater blessing than if only
one church was in sympathy. And if there have been
twelve churches united, the blessing has multiplied
fourfold; it has always been in proportion to the spirit
of unity that has been manifested. Where there are
bickerings and divisions, and where the spirit of
unity is absent, there is very little blessing and praise.</p>
<p>Dr. Guthrie thus illustrates this fact; he says:
“Separate the atoms which make the hammer, and
each would fall on the stone as a snowflake; but welded
into one, and wielded by the firm arm of the quarry<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span>
man, it will break the massive rocks asunder. Divide
the waters of Niagara into distinct and individual drops,
and they would be no more than the falling rain, but in
their united body they would quench the fires of
Vesuvius, and have some to spare for the volcanoes of
other mountains.”</p>
<p>History tells us that it was agreed upon by both
armies of the Romans and the Albans to put the trial
of all to the issue of a battle betwixt six brethren—three
on the one side, the sons of Curatius, and three
on the other, the sons of Horatius. While the Curatii
were united, though all three sorely wounded, they
killed two of the Heratii. The third began to take to
his heels, though not hurt at all; and when he saw them
follow slowly, one after another, because of wounds and
heavy armor, he fell upon them singly, and slew all
three. It is the cunning sleight of the devil to divide
us that he may destroy us.</p>
<p>We ought to endure much and sacrifice much, rather
than permit discord and division to prevail in our
hearts. Martin Luther says: “When two goats meet
upon a narrow bridge over deep water, how do they
behave? Neither of them can turn back again, neither
can pass the other, because the bridge is too narrow; if
they should thrust one another they might both fall
into the water and be drowned. Nature, then, has
taught them that if the one lays himself down and
permits the other to go over him, both remain unhurt.
Even so people should rather endure to be trod upon
than to fall into debate and discord one with another.”</p>
<p>Cawdray says: “As in music, if the harmony of
tones be not complete they are offensive to the cultivated<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span>
ear; so if Christians disagree among themselves they
are unacceptable to God.”</p>
<p>There are diversities of gifts—that is clearly taught—but
there is one Spirit. If we have all been redeemed
with the same blood, we ought to see eye to eye in
spiritual things. Paul writes: “Now there are diversities
of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences
of administrations, but the same Lord.”</p>
<p>Where there is union I do not believe any power,
earthly or infernal, can stand before the work. When
the church, the pulpit, and the pew, get united, and
God’s people are all of one mind, Christianity is like a
red-hot ball rolling over the earth, and all the hosts of
death and hell cannot stand before it. I believe that
men will then come flocking into the Kingdom by
hundreds and thousands. “By this,” says Christ,
“shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have
love one to another.” If only we love one another, and
pray for one another, there will be success. God will
not disappoint us.</p>
<p>There can be no real separation or division in the
true Church of Christ; they are redeemed by one price,
and indwelt by one Spirit. If I belong to the family
of God, I have been bought with the same blood, though
I may not belong to the same sect or party as another.
What we want to do is to get these miserable sectarian
walls taken away. Our weakness has been in our division;
and what we need is that there should be no
schism or division among those who love the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians we read
of the first symptoms of sectarianism coming into the
early church—</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span>“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing,
and that there be no division among you; but that ye be
perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the
same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of
you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of
Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now
this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul;
and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is
Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye
baptized in the name of Paul?”</p>
<p>Notice how one said, “I am of Paul;” and another,
“I am of Apollos;” and another, “I am of Cephas.”
Apollos was a young orator, and the people had been
carried away by his eloquence. Some said Cephas, or
Peter, was of the regular Apostolic line, because he had
been with the Lord, and Paul had not. So they were
divided, and Paul wrote this letter in order to settle
the question.</p>
<p>Jenkyn, in his commentary on the Epistle of Jude,
says: “The partakers of a ‘common salvation,’ who
here agree in one way to heaven, and who expect to be
hereafter in one heaven, should be of one heart. It is
the Apostle’s inference in Ephesians. What an amazing
misery is it, that they who agree in common faith
should disagree like common foes! That Christians
should live as if faith had banished love! This common
faith should allay and temper our spirits in all our
differences. This should moderate our minds, though
there is inequality in earthly relations. What a powerful
motive was that of Joseph’s brethren to him to forgive
their sin, they being both his brethren, and the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span>
servants of the God of his fathers! Though our own
breath cannot blow out the taper of contention, oh, yet
let the blood of Christ extinguish it!”</p>
<p>What a strange state of things Paul, Cephas, and
Apollos would find if they would come to the world
to-day! The little tree that sprang up at Corinth has
grown up into a tree like Nebuchadnezzar’s, with many
of the fowls of heaven gathered into it. Suppose Paul
and Cephas were to come down to us now, they would
hear at once about our Churchmen and Dissenters.
“A Dissenter!” says Paul, “what is that?” “We have
a Church of England, and there are those who dissent
from the Church.” “Oh, indeed! Are there two
classes of Christians here, then?” “I am sorry to say
there are a good many more divisions. The Dissenters
themselves are split up. There are Wesleyans,
Baptists, Presbyterians, Independents, and so on; even
these are all divided up.” “Is it possible,” says Paul,
“that there are so many divisions?” “Yes; the Church
of England is pretty well divided itself. There is the
Broad Church, the High Church, the Low Church, and
the High-Lows. Then there is the Lutheran Church;
and away in Russia they have the Greek Church, and
so on.” I declare I do not know what Paul and Cephas
would think if they came back to the world; they would
find a strange state of things. It is one of the most
humiliating things in the present day to see how God’s
family is divided up. If we love the Lord Jesus Christ
the burden of our hearts will be that God may bring
us closer together, so that we may love one another and
rise above all party feeling.</p>
<p>In repairing a church in one of the Boston wards,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>
the inscription upon the wall behind the pulpit was
covered up. Upon the first Sabbath after repairs,
“little five-year-old” whispered to her mother: “I
know why God told the paint men to cover that pretty
verse up. It was because the people did not love
one another.” The inscription was; “A new
commandment I give unto you, that ye love one
another.”</p>
<p>A Boston minister says he once preached on “The
Recognition of Friends in the Future,” and was told
after service by a hearer, that it would be more to the
point to preach about the recognition of friends here,
as he had been in the church twenty years, and did not
know any of its members.</p>
<p>I was in a little town some time ago, when one night
as I came out of the meeting, I saw another building
where the people were coming out. I said to a friend,
“Have you got two churches here?” “Oh yes.”
“How do you get on?” “Oh, we get on very well.”
“I am glad to hear that. Was your brother minister
at the meeting?” “Oh no, we don’t have anything to
do with each other. We find that is the best way.”
And they called that “getting on very well.” Oh, may
God make us of one heart and of one mind! Let our
hearts be like drops of water flowing together. Unity
among the people of God is a sort of foretaste of heaven.
There we shall not find any Baptists, or Methodists, or
Congregationalists, or Episcopalians; we shall all be
one in Christ. We leave all our party names behind
us when we leave this earth. Oh that the Spirit of God
may speedily sweep away all these miserable walls that
we have been building up!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>Did you ever notice that the last prayer Jesus Christ
made on earth, before they led Him away to Calvary,
was that His disciples might all be one? He could
look down the stream of time, and see that divisions
would come—how Satan would try to divide the flock
of God. Nothing will silence infidels so quickly as
Christians everywhere being united. Then our testimony
will have weight with the ungodly and the
careless. But when they see how Christians are divided,
they will not believe their testimony. The Holy Spirit
is grieved; and there is little power where there is
no unity.</p>
<p>If I thought I had one drop of sectarian blood in my
veins, I would let it out before I went to bed; if I had
one sectarian hair in my head, I would pull it out. Let
us get right to the heart of Jesus Christ; then our
prayers will be acceptable to God, and showers of blessings
will descend.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_078.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Union.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Let party names no more be known</div>
<div class="indent">Among the ransomed throng;</div>
<div class="verse">For Jesus claims them for His own;</div>
<div class="indent">To Him they all belong.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“One in their covenant Head and King,</div>
<div class="indent">They should be one in heart;</div>
<div class="verse">Of one salvation all should sing,</div>
<div class="indent">Each claiming his own part.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“One bread, one family, one rock,</div>
<div class="indent">One building, formed by love,</div>
<div class="verse">One fold, one Shepherd, yea, one flock,</div>
<div class="indent">They shall be one above.”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>Joseph Irons.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VIII.<br/> FAITH.</h2></div>
<p>Another element is <span class="smcap">Faith</span>. It is as important for
us to know how to pray as it is to know how to work.
We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples
how to preach, but He taught them how to pray. He
wanted them to have power with God; then He knew
they would have power with man. In James we read:
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God ...
and it shall be given him; but let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering.” So faith is the golden key that
unlocks the treasures of heaven. It was the shield
that David took when he met Goliath on the field; he
believed that God was going to deliver the Philistine
into his hands. Some one has said that faith could
lead Christ about anywhere; wherever He found it He
honored it. Unbelief sees something in God’s hand,
and says, “I cannot get it.” Faith sees it, and says,
“I will have it.”</p>
<p>The new life begins with faith; then we have only to
go on building on that foundation. “I say unto you,
what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” But
bear in mind, we must be in earnest when we go to
God.</p>
<p>I do not know of a more vivid illustration of the cry<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span>
of distress for help going up to God, in all the earnestness
of deeply realized need, than the following story
supplies:</p>
<p>Carl Steinman, who visited Mount Hecla, Iceland,
just before the great eruption, in 1845, after a repose
of eighty years, narrowly escaped death by venturing
into the smoking crater against the earnest entreaty of
his guide. On the brink of the yawning gulf he was
prostrated by a convulsion of the summit, and held
there by blocks of lava upon his feet. He graphically
writes:</p>
<p>“Oh, the horrors of that awful realization! There,
over the mouth of a black and heated abyss, I was held
suspended, a helpless and conscious prisoner, to be
hurled downward by the next great throe of trembling
Nature!</p>
<p>“‘Help! help! help!—for the love of God, help!’ I
shrieked, in the very agony of my despair.</p>
<p>“I had nothing to rely upon but the mercy of heaven;
and I prayed to God as I had never prayed before, for
the forgiveness of my sins, that they might not follow
me to judgment.</p>
<p>“All at once I heard a shout, and, looking around,
I beheld, with feelings that cannot be described, my
faithful guide hastening down the sides of the crater to
my relief.</p>
<p>“‘I warned you!’ said he.</p>
<p>“‘You did!’ cried I, ‘but forgive me, and save me,
for I am perishing!’</p>
<p>“‘I will save you, or perish with you!’</p>
<p>“The earth trembled, and the rocks parted—one of
them rolling down the chasm with a dull, booming<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span>
sound. I sprang forward; I seized a hand of the guide,
and the next moment we had both fallen, locked in each
other’s arms, upon the solid earth above. I was free,
but still upon the verge of the pit.”</p>
<p>Bishop Hall, in a well-known extract, thus puts the
point of earnestness in its relation to the prayer of
faith.</p>
<p>“An arrow, if it be drawn up but a little way, goes
not far; but, if it be pulled up to the head, flies swiftly
and pierces deep. Thus prayer, if it be only dribbled
forth from careless lips, falls at our feet. It is the
strength of ejaculation and strong desire which sends
it to heaven, and makes it pierce the clouds. It is not
the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; nor
the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they be; nor
the geometry of our prayers, how long they be; nor
the music of our prayers, how sweet our voice may be;
nor the logic of our prayers, how argumentative they
may be; nor the method of our prayers, how orderly
they may be; nor even the divinity of our prayers, how
good the doctrine may be;—which God cares for. He
looks not for the horny knees which James is said to
have had through the assiduity of prayer. We might
be like Bartholomew, who is said to have had a hundred
prayers for the morning, and as many for the evening,
and all might be of no avail. Fervency of spirit is
that which availeth much.”</p>
<p>Archbishop Leighton says: “It is not the gilded
paper and good writing of a petition that prevails with
a king, but the moving sense of it. And to that King
who discerns the heart, heart-sense is the sense of all,
and that which He only regards. He listens to hear<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span>
what that speaks, and takes all as nothing where that is
silent. All other excellence in prayer is but the outside
and fashion of it. This is the life of it.”</p>
<p>Brooks says: “As a painted fire is no fire, a dead
man no man, so a cold prayer is no prayer. In a
painted fire there is no heat, in a dead man there is no
life; so in a cold prayer there is no omnipotency, no
devotion, no blessing. Cold prayers are as arrows
without heads, as swords without edges, as birds without
wings; they pierce not, they cut not, they fly not up to
heaven. Cold prayers do always freeze before they
get to heaven. Oh that Christians would chide themselves
out of their cold prayers, and chide themselves
into a better and warmer frame of spirit, when they
make their supplications to the Lord!”</p>
<p>Take the case of the Syrophenician woman. When
she called to the Master, it seemed for a time as if He
were deaf to her request. The disciples wanted her to
be sent away. Although they were with Christ for
three years, and sat at His feet, yet they did not know
how full of grace His heart was. Think of Christ
sending away a poor sinner who had come to Him for
mercy! Can you conceive such a thing? Never once
did it occur. This poor woman put herself in the place
of her child. “Lord, help me!” she said. I think
when we get so far as that in the earnest desire to have
our friends blessed—when we put ourselves in their
place—God will soon hear our prayer.</p>
<p>I remember, a number of years ago at a meeting, I
asked all those who wished to be prayed for to come
forward and kneel or take seats in front. Among those
who came was a woman. I thought by her looks that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</SPAN></span>
she must be a Christian, but she knelt down with the
others. I said: “You are a Christian, are you not?”
She said she had been one for so many years. “Did
you understand the invitation? I asked those only
who wanted to become Christians.” I shall never forget
the look on her face as she replied, “I have a
son who has gone far away; I thought I would take his
place to-day, and see if God would not bless him.”
Thank God for such a mother as that!</p>
<p>The Syrophenician woman did the same thing—“Lord
help <i>me</i>!” It was a short prayer, but it went
right to the heart of the Son of God. He tried her
faith, however. He said: “It is not meet to take the
children’s bread and cast it to dogs.” She replied:
“Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which
fall from their masters’ table.” “O woman, great is
thy faith!” What a eulogy He paid to her! Her story
will never be forgotten as long as the church is on the
earth. He honored her faith, and gave her all she asked
for. Every one can say, “Lord, help me!” We all need
help. As Christians, we need more grace, more love,
more purity of life, more righteousness? Then let us
make this prayer to-day. I want God to help me to
preach better and to live better, to be more like the Son
of God. The golden chains of faith link us right to
the throne of God, and the grace of heaven flows down
into our souls.</p>
<p>I do not know but that woman was a great sinner;
still, the Lord heard her cry. It may be that up to
this hour you have been living in sin; but if you will
cry, “Lord help me!” He will answer your prayer, if it
is an honest one. Very often when we cry to God we<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</SPAN></span>
do not really mean anything. You mothers understand
that. Your children have two voices. When they ask
you for anything, you can soon tell if the cry is a make-believe
one or not. If it is, you do not give any heed
to it; but if it is a real cry for help, how quickly you
respond! The cry of distress always brings relief.
Your child is playing around, and it says, “Mamma, I
want some bread;” but it goes on playing. You know
that it is not very hungry; so you let it alone. But, by
and by, the child drops the toys, and comes tugging at
your dress. “Mamma, I am so hungry!” Then you
know that the cry is a real one; you soon go to the
pantry, and get some bread. When we are in earnest
for the bread of heaven, we will get it. This woman
was terribly in earnest; therefore her petition was
answered.</p>
<p>I remember hearing of a boy brought up in an
English almshouse. He had never learned to read or
write, except that he could read the letters of the alphabet.
One day a man of God came there, and told the
children that if they prayed to God in their trouble,
He would send them help. After a time, this boy was
apprenticed to a farmer. One day he was sent out
into the fields to look after some sheep. He was having
rather a hard time; so he remembered what the
preacher had said, and he thought he would pray to
God about it. Some one going by the field heard a
voice behind the hedge. They looked to see whose it
was, and saw the little fellow on his knees, saying, “A,
B, C, D,” and so on. The man said, “My boy, what
are you doing?” He looked up, and said he was praying.
“Why, that is not praying; it is only saying<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</SPAN></span>
the alphabet.” He said he did not know just how to
pray, but a man once came to the poor-house, who told
them that if they called upon God, He would help
them. So he thought that if he named over the letters
of the alphabet, God would take them and put
together into a prayer, and give him what he wanted.
The little fellow was really praying. Sometimes, when
your child talks, your friends cannot understand what
he says; but the mother understands very well. So if
our prayer comes right from the heart, God understands
our language. It is a delusion of the devil to
think we cannot pray; we can, if we really want anything.
It is not the most beautiful or the most eloquent
language that brings down the answer; it is the
cry that goes up from a burdened heart. When this
poor Gentile woman cried out, “Lord, help me!” the cry
flashed over the divine wires and the blessing came.
So you can pray if you will; it is the desire, the wish
of the heart, that God delights to hear and to answer.</p>
<p>Then we must <i>expect</i> to receive a blessing. When
the centurion wanted Christ to heal his servant, he
thought he was not worthy to go and ask the Lord
himself, so he sent his friends to make the petition. He
sent out messengers to meet the Master, and say, “Do
not trouble yourself to come; all you have to do is to
speak the word, and the disease will go.” Jesus said
to the Jews, “I have not found so great faith, no, not
in Israel.” He marvelled at the faith of this centurion;
it pleased Him, so that he healed the servant then and
there. Faith brought the answer.</p>
<p>In John we read of a nobleman whose child was
sick. The father fell on his knees before the Master,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</SPAN></span>
and said, “Come down, ere my child die.” Here you
have both earnestness and faith; and the Lord answered
the prayer at once. The nobleman’s son began to
amend that very hour. Christ honored the man’s faith.</p>
<p>In his case there was nothing to rest upon but the
bare word of Christ, but this was enough. It is well to
bear always in mind, that the object of faith is not the
creature, but the Creator; not the instrument, but the
Hand that wields it.</p>
<p>Richard Sibbes puts it for us thus: “The object in
believing is God, and Christ as Mediator. We must
have both to found our faith upon. We cannot believe
in God, except we believe in Christ. For God must be
satisfied by God; and by Him that is God must that
satisfaction be applied—the Spirit of God—by working
faith in the heart, and for raising it up when it is
dejected. All is supernatural in faith. The things we
believe are above nature; the promises are above nature;
the worker of it, the Holy Ghost, is above nature;
and everything in faith is above nature. There must
be a God in whom we believe, and a God through whom
we may know that Christ is God—not only by that
which Christ hath done, the miracles, which none could
do but God, but also by what is done to Him. And two
things are done to Him, which show that He is God—that
is, faith and prayer. We must believe only in God,
and pray only to God; but Christ is the object of both
these. Here He is set forth as the object of faith, and
of prayer in that of Saint Stephen, ‘Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit.’ And, therefore, He is God; for
that is done unto Him which is proper and peculiar
only to God. Oh, what a strong foundation, what bottom<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</SPAN></span>
and basis our faith hath! There is God the Father, Son
and Holy Ghost, and Christ the Mediator. That our
faith may be supported, we have Him to believe on
who supports heaven and earth.</p>
<p>“There is nothing that can lie in the way of the
accomplishment of any of God’s promises, but it is
conquerable by faith.”</p>
<p>As Samuel Rutherford says, commenting on the case
of the Syrophenician woman: “See the sweet use of
faith under a sad temptation; faith trafficketh with
Christ and heaven in the dark, upon plain trust and
credit, without seeing any surety of dawn: Blessed
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
And the reason is because faith is sinewed and boned
with spiritual courage; so as to keep a barred city
against hell, yea, and to stand under impossibilities;
and here is a weak woman, though not as a woman, yet
as a believer, standing out against Him who is ‘the
Mighty God, the Father of Ages, the Prince of Peace.’
Faith only standeth out, and overcometh the sword, the
world, and all afflictions. This is our victory, whereby
one man overcometh the great and vast world.”</p>
<p>Bishop Ryle has said of Christ’s intercession as the
ground and sureness of our faith: “The bank-note
without a signature at the bottom is nothing but a
worthless piece of paper. The stroke of a pen confers
on it all its value. The prayer of a poor child of Adam
is a feeble thing in itself, but once indorsed by the
hand of the Lord Jesus, it availeth much. There was
an officer in the city of Rome who was appointed to
have his doors always open, in order to receive any
Roman citizen who applied to him for help. Just so<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</SPAN></span>
the ear of the Lord Jesus is ever open to the cry of all
who want mercy and grace. It is His office to help
them. Their prayer is His delight.” Reader, think of
this. Is not this encouragement?</p>
<p>Let us close this chapter by referring to some of our
Lord’s own words concerning faith in its relation to
prayer:</p>
<p>“And when He saw a fig-tree in the way, He came
to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and
said unto it: Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward
for ever. And presently the fig-tree withered away.
And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying,
How soon is the fig-tree withered away! Jesus answered
and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, if ye have
faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is
done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the
sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”</p>
<p>So again our Lord says: “Verily, verily, I say
unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do
shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he
do; because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye
shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything
in My name, I will do it.” And further: “If ye abide
in Me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what
ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” “Verily, verily,
I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in
My name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked
nothing in My name; ask, and ye shall receive, that
your joy may be full.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_089.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">“Have Faith in God.”</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Have faith in God, for He who reigns on high</div>
<div class="verse">Hath borne thy grief, and hears the suppliant’s sigh;</div>
<div class="verse">Still to His arms, thine only refuge, fly,</div>
<div class="indent3">Have faith in God!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Fear not to call on Him, O soul distressed!</div>
<div class="verse">Thy sorrow’s whisper woos thee to His breast;</div>
<div class="verse">He who is oftenest there is oftenest blest.</div>
<div class="indent3">Have faith in God!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Lean not on Egypt’s reeds; slake not thy thirst</div>
<div class="verse">At earthly cisterns. Seek the Kingdom first.</div>
<div class="verse">Though man and Satan fright thee with their worst,</div>
<div class="indent3">Have faith in God!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Go, tell Him all! The sigh thy bosom heaves</div>
<div class="verse">Is heard in heaven. Strength and peace He gives,</div>
<div class="verse">Who gave Himself for thee. Our Jesus lives;</div>
<div class="indent3">Have faith in God!”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>Anna Shipton.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX.<br/> PETITION.</h2></div>
<p>The next element in prayer that I notice is <span class="smcap">Petition</span>.
How often we go to prayer-meetings without really
asking for anything! Our prayers go all round the
world, without anything definite being asked for. We
do not expect anything. Many people would be greatly
surprised if God did answer their prayers. I remember
hearing of a very eloquent man who was leading a
meeting in prayer. There was not a single definite
petition in the whole. A poor, earnest woman shouted
out: “Ask Him summat, man.” How often you hear
what is called prayer without any asking! “Ask, and
ye shall receive.”</p>
<p>I believe if we put all the stumbling-blocks out of
the way, God will answer our petitions. If we put
away sin and come into His presence with pure hands,
as He has commanded us to come, our prayers will
have power with Him. In Luke’s Gospel we have as
a grand supplement to the “Disciples’ Prayer,” “Ask
and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Some people
think God does not like to be troubled with our constant
coming and asking. The only way to trouble God
is not to come at all. He encourages us to come to
Him repeatedly, and press our claims.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</SPAN></span>I believe you will find three kinds of Christians in
the church to-day. The first are those who <i>ask</i>;
the second those who <i>seek</i>; and the third those who
<i>knock</i>.</p>
<p>“Teacher,” said a bright, earnest-faced boy, “why
is it that so many prayers are unanswered? I do not
understand. The Bible says, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you;’ but it seems to me a great many knock and
are not admitted.”</p>
<p>“Did you never sit by your cheerful parlor fire,” said
the teacher, “on some dark evening, and hear a loud
knocking at the door? Going to answer the summons,
have you not sometimes looked out into the darkness,
seeing nothing, but hearing the pattering feet of some
mischievous boy, who knocked but did not wish to enter,
and therefore ran away? Thus is it often with us. We
ask for blessings, but do not really expect them; we
knock, but do not mean to enter; we fear that Jesus will
not hear us, will not fulfil His promises, will not admit
us; and so we go away.”</p>
<p>“Ah, I see,” said the earnest-faced boy, his eyes
shining with the new light dawning in his soul:
“Jesus cannot be expected answer <i>runaway</i> knocks.
He has never promised it. I mean to keep knocking,
knocking, until He <i>cannot help opening the door</i>.”</p>
<p>Too often we knock at mercy’s door, and then run
away, instead of waiting for an entrance and an answer.
Thus we act as if we were afraid of having our prayers
answered.</p>
<p>A great many people pray in that way; they do not
wait for the answer. Our Lord teaches us here that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</SPAN></span>
we are not only to ask, but we are to wait for the
answer; if it does not come, we must seek to find out
the reason. I believe that we get a good many blessings
just by asking; others we do not get, because there may
be something in our life that needs to be brought to
light. When Daniel began to pray in Babylon for the
deliverance of his people, he sought to find out what
the trouble was, and why God had turned away His
face from them. So there may be something in our
life that is keeping back the blessing; if there is, we
want to find it out. Some one, speaking on this subject,
has said: “We are to ask with a beggar’s humility, to
seek with a servant’s carefulness, and to knock with the
confidence of a friend.”</p>
<p>How often people become discouraged, and say they
do not know whether or not God does answer prayer!
In the parable of the importunate widow, Christ teaches
us how we are not only to pray and seek, but to find.
If the unjust judge heard the petition of the poor
woman who pushed her claims, how much more will
our Heavenly Father hear our cry! A good many
years ago an Irishman in the State of New Jersey was
condemned to be hung. Every possible influence was
brought to bear upon the Governor to have the man
reprieved; but he stood firm, and refused to alter the
sentence. One morning the wife of the condemned
man, with her ten children, went to see the Governor.
When he came to his office, they all fell on their
faces before him, and besought him to have mercy on
the husband—the father. The Governor’s heart was
moved; and he at once wrote out a reprieve. The
importunity of the wife and children saved the life of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</SPAN></span>
the man, just as the woman in the parable, who, pressing
her claims, induced the unjust judge to grant her
request.</p>
<p>It was this that brought the answer to the prayer of
blind Bartimeus. The people, and even the disciples,
tried to hush him into silence; but he only cried out
the louder, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!”</p>
<p>Prayer is hardly ever mentioned in the Bible alone;
it is prayer and earnestness; prayer and watchfulness;
prayer and thanksgiving. It is an instructive fact that
throughout Scripture prayer is always linked with
something else. Bartimeus was in earnest, and the
Lord heard his cry.</p>
<p>Then the highest type of Christian is the one who
has got clear beyond asking and seeking, and keeps
knocking till the answer comes. If we knock, God has
promised to open the door and grant our request. It
may be years before the answer comes; He may keep
us knocking; but He has promised that the answer will
come.</p>
<p>I will tell you what I think it means to knock. A
number of years ago, when we were having meetings
in a certain city, it came to a point where there seemed
to be very little power. We called together all the
mothers, and asked them to meet and pray for their
children. About fifteen hundred mothers came together,
and poured out their hearts to God in prayer. One
mother said: “I wish you would pray for my two boys.
They have gone off on a drunken spree; and it seems
as if my heart would break.” She was a widowed
mother. A few mothers gathered together, and said:
“Let us have a prayer-meeting for these boys.” They<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</SPAN></span>
cried to God for these two wandering boys; and now
see how God answered their prayer.</p>
<p>That day these two brothers had planned to meet at
the corner of the street where our meetings were being
held. They were going to spend the night in debauchery
and sin. About seven o’clock the first one came to
the appointed place; he saw the people going into the
meeting. As it was a stormy night, he thought he
would go in for a little while. The word of God
reached him, and he went into the inquiry-room, where
he gave his heart to the Savior.</p>
<p>The other brother waited at the corner until the meeting
broke up, expecting his brother to come; he did not
know that he had been in the meeting. There was a
young men’s meeting in the church near by, and this
brother thought he would like to see what was going
on; so he followed the crowd into the meeting. He
also was impressed with what he heard, and was the
first one to go into the inquiry-room, where he found
peace. While this was happening, the first one had
gone home to cheer his mother’s heart with the good
news. He found her on her knees. She had been
knocking at the mercy-seat. While she was doing so,
her boy came in and told her that her prayers had
been answered; his soul was saved. It was not long
before the other brother came in and told his story—how
he, too, had been blessed.</p>
<p>On the following Monday night, the first to get up
at the young converts’ meeting was one of these brothers,
who told the story of their conversion. No sooner had
he taken his seat, than the other jumped up and said:
“All that my brother has told you is true, for I am<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</SPAN></span>
his brother. The Lord has indeed met us and blessed
us.”</p>
<p>I heard of a wife in England who had an unconverted
husband. She resolved that she would pray every day
for twelve months for his conversion. Every day at
twelve o’clock she went to her room alone and cried to
God. Her husband would not allow her to speak to
him on the subject; but she could speak to God on his
behalf. It may be that you have a friend who does
not wish to be spoken with about his salvation; you can
do as this woman did—go and pray to God about it.
The twelve months passed away, and there was no sign
of his yielding. She resolved to pray for six months
longer; so every day she went alone and prayed for the
conversion of her husband. The six months passed,
and still there was no sign, no answer. The question
arose in her mind, could she give him up? “No,” she
said; “I will pray for him as long as God gives me
breath.” That very day, when he came home to dinner,
instead of going into the dining-room he went
upstairs. She waited, and waited, and waited; but he
did not come down to dinner. Finally she went to his
room, and found him on his knees crying to God to
have mercy upon him. God convicted him of sin; he
not only became a Christian, but the Word of God had
free course, and was glorified in him. God used him
mightily. That was God answering the prayers of this
Christian wife; she knocked, and knocked, till the answer
came.</p>
<p>I heard something the other day that cheered me
greatly. Prayer had been made for a man for about
forty years, but there was no sign of any answer. It<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</SPAN></span>
seemed as though he was going down to his grave one
of the most self-righteous men on the face of the earth.
Conviction came in one night. In the morning he sent
for the members of his family, and said to his daughter:
“I want you to pray for me. Pray that God would forgive
my sins; my whole life has been nothing but sin—sin.”
And all this conviction came in one night. What
we want is to press our case right up to the throne of
God. I have often known cases of men who came to
our meetings, and although they could not hear a word
that was said, it seemed as though some unseen power
laid hold of them, so that they were convicted and converted
then and there.</p>
<p>I remember at one place where we were holding
meetings, a wife came to the first meeting and asked
me to talk with her husband. “He is not interested,”
she said, “but I am in hopes he will become so.” I
talked with him, and I think I hardly ever spoke to a
man who seemed to be so self-righteous. It looked as
though I might as well have talked to an iron post, he
seemed to be so encased in self-righteousness. I said
to his wife that he was not at all interested. She said,
“I told you that, but I am interested for him.” All
the thirty days we were there that wife never gave him
up. I must confess she had ten times more faith for
him than I had. I had spoken to him several times,
but I could see no ray of hope. The last night but
two the man came to me and said: “Would you see me
in another room?” I went, aside with him, and asked
him what was the trouble. He said, “I am the greatest
sinner in the State of Vermont.” “How is that?” I
said, “Is there any particular sin you have been guilty<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</SPAN></span>
of?” I must confess I thought he had committed
some awful crime, which he was covering up, and that
he now wanted to make confession. “My whole life,”
he said, “has been nothing but sin. God has shown it
to me to-day.” He asked the Lord to have mercy on
him, and he went home rejoicing in the assurance of
sins forgiven. There was a man convicted and converted
in answer to prayer. So if you are anxious
about the conversion of some relative, or some friend,
make up your mind that you will give God no rest, day
or night, till He grants your petition. He can reach
them, wherever they are—at their places of business,
in their homes, or anywhere—and bring them to His
feet.</p>
<p>Dr. Austin Phelps, in his “Still Hour,” says: “The
prospect of gaining an object will always affect thus the
expression of intense desire. The feeling which will
become spontaneous with a Christian under the
influence of such a trust is this: ‘I come to my devotions
this morning on an errand of real life. This is
no romance, and no farce. I do not come here to go
through a form of words; I have no hopeless desires to
express. I have an object to gain; I have an end to
accomplish. This is a business in which I am about to
engage. An astronomer does not turn his telescope to
the skies with a more reasonable hope of penetrating
those distant heavens, than I have of reaching the mind
of God by lifting up my heart at the throne of grace.
This is the privilege of my calling of God in Christ
Jesus. Even my faltering voice is now to be heard in
heaven; and it is to put forth a new power there, the
results of which only God can know, and only eternity<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</SPAN></span>
can develop. Therefore, O Lord, Thy servant findeth
it in his heart to pray this prayer unto Thee!’”</p>
<p>Jeremy Taylor says: “Easiness of desire is a great
enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer. It must
be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer; for consider
what a huge indecency it is that a man should
speak to God for a thing that he values not! Our
prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for
those things for which we ought to die, which are more
precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils
of the sea, or the treasures of Indian hills.”</p>
<p>Dr. Patton, in his work on “Remarkable Answers to
Prayer,” says: “Jesus bids us seek. Imagine a mother
seeking a lost child. She looks through the house, and
along the streets, then searches the fields and woods,
and examines the river-banks. A wise neighbor meets
her and says: ‘Seek on, look everywhere; search every
accessible place. You will not find, indeed; but then
seeking is a good thing. It puts the mind on the
stretch; it fixes the attention; it aids observation; it
makes the idea of the child very real. And then, after
a while, you will cease to want your child.’ The
words of Christ are, ‘Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you.’ Imagine a man knocking at the door of a
house, long and loud. After he has done this for an
hour, a window opens, and the occupant of the house
puts out his head and says: ‘That is right, my friend;
I shall not open the door, but keep on knocking—it is
excellent exercise, and you will be the healthier for
it. Knock away till sundown; and then come again,
and knock all to-morrow. After some days thus spent
you will attain to a state of mind in which you will no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</SPAN></span>
longer care to come in.’ Is this what Jesus intended
us to understand, when He said—‘Ask, and ye shall
receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you?’ No doubt one would thus soon cease
to ask, to seek, and to knock; but would it not be from
disgust?”</p>
<p>Nothing is more pleasing to our Father in heaven
than direct, importunate, and persevering prayer. Two
Christian ladies, whose husbands were unconverted,
feeling their great danger, agreed to spend one hour
each day in united prayer for their salvation. This was
continued for seven years, when they debated whether
they should pray longer, so useless did their prayers
appear. They decided to persevere till death, and, if their
husbands went to destruction, it should be laden with
prayers. In renewed strength, they prayed three years
longer, when one of them was awakened in the night
by her husband, who was in great distress for sin. As
soon as the day dawned, she hastened, with joy, to tell
her praying companion that God was about to answer
their prayers. What was her surprise to meet her
friend coming to her on the same errand! Thus ten
years of united and persevering prayer was crowned
with the conversion of both husbands on the same day.</p>
<p>We cannot be too frequent in our requests; God
will not weary of His children’s prayers. Sir Walter
Raleigh asked a favor of Queen Elizabeth, to which she
replied, “Raleigh, when will you leave off begging?”
“When your Majesty leaves off giving,” he replied. So
long must we continue praying.</p>
<p>Mr. George Muller, in a recent address given by him
in Calcutta, said that in 1844 five individuals were laid<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</SPAN></span>
on his heart, and he began to pray for them. Eighteen
months passed away before one of them was converted.
He prayed on for five years more, and another was converted.
At the end of twelve years and a half, a third
was converted. And now for forty years he had been
praying for the other two, without missing one single
day on any account whatever; but they were not yet
converted. He felt encouraged, however, to continue in
prayer; and he was sure of receiving an answer in
relation to the two who were still resisting the Spirit.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_101.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">“To See His Face.”</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Sweet is the precious gift of prayer,</div>
<div class="indent">To bow before a throne of grace;</div>
<div class="verse">To leave our every burden there,</div>
<div class="indent">And gain new strength to run our race;</div>
<div class="verse">To gird our heavenly armor on,</div>
<div class="verse">Depending on the Lord alone.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“And sweet the whisper of His love,</div>
<div class="indent">When conscience sinks beneath its load,</div>
<div class="verse">That bids our guilty fears remove,</div>
<div class="indent">And points to Christ’s atoning blood;</div>
<div class="verse">Oh, then ’tis sweet indeed to know</div>
<div class="verse">God can be just and gracious too.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“But oh, to see our Savior’s face!</div>
<div class="indent">From sin and sorrow to be freed!</div>
<div class="verse">To dwell in His divine embrace—</div>
<div class="indent">This will be sweeter far indeed!</div>
<div class="verse">The fairest form of earthly bliss</div>
<div class="verse">Is less than nought, compared with this.”</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X.<br/> SUBMISSION.</h2></div>
<p>Another essential element in prayer is <span class="smcap">Submission</span>.
All true prayer must be offered in full submission to
God. After we have made our requests known to Him,
our language should be, “Thy will be done.” I would
a thousand times rather that God’s will should be done
than my own. I cannot see into the future as God can;
therefore, it is a good deal better to let Him choose for
me than to choose for myself. I know His mind about
spiritual things. His will is that I should be sanctified;
so I can with confidence pray to God for that, and
expect an answer to my prayers. But when it comes
to temporal matters, it is different; what I ask for may
not be God’s purpose concerning me.</p>
<p>As one has well put it: “Depend upon it, prayer
does not mean that I am to bring God down to my
thoughts and my purposes, and bend His government
according to my foolish, silly, and sometimes sinful
notions. Prayer means that I am to be raised up into
feeling, into union and design with Him; that I am to
enter into His counsel, and carry out His purpose
fully. I am afraid sometimes we think of prayer as
altogether of an opposite character, as if thereby we
persuaded or influenced our Father in heaven to do
whatever comes into our own minds, and whatever<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</SPAN></span>
would accomplish our foolish, weak-sighted purposes.
I am quite convinced of this, that God knows better
what is best for me and for the world than I can possibly
know; and even though it were in my power to say,
‘<i>My</i> will be done,’ I would rather say to Him, ‘<i>Thy</i>
will be done.’”</p>
<p>It is reported of a woman, who, being sick, was asked
whether she was willing to live or die, that she answered,
“Which God pleases.” “But,” said one, “if God should
refer it to you, which would you choose?” “Truly,”
replied she, “I would refer it to Him again.” Thus
that man obtains his will of God, whose will is subjected
to God.</p>
<p>Mr. Spurgeon remarks on this subject, “The believing
man resorts to God at all times, that he may keep
up his fellowship with the Divine mind. Prayer is not
a soliloquy, but a dialogue; not an introspection, but a
looking toward the hills, whence cometh our help.
There is a relief in unburdening the mind to a sympathetic
friend, and faith feels this abundantly; but
there is more than this in prayer. When an obedient
activity has gone to the full length of its line, and yet
the needful thing is not reached, then the hand of God
is trusted in to go beyond us, just as before it was relied
upon to go with us. Faith has no desire to have its own
will, when that will is not in accordance with the mind
of God; for such a desire would at bottom be the
impulse of an unbelief which did not rely upon God’s
judgment as our best guide. Faith knows that God’s
will is the highest good, and that anything which is
beneficial to us will be granted to our petitions.”</p>
<p>History informs us that the Tusculani, a people of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</SPAN></span>
Italy, having offended the Romans, whose power was
infinitely superior to theirs, Camillus, at the head of a
considerable army, was on his march to subdue them.
Conscious of their inability to cope with such an enemy,
they took the following method to appease him: They
declined all thoughts of resistance, set open their gates,
and every man applied himself to his proper business,
resolving to submit where they knew it was in vain to
contend. Camillus, entering their city, was struck with
the wisdom and candor of their conduct, and addressed
himself to them in these words: “You only, of all
people, have found out the true method of abating the
Roman fury; and your submission has proved your best
defense. Upon these terms, we can no more find in our
heart to injure you than upon other terms you could
have found power to oppose us.” The chief magistrate
replied: “We have so sincerely repented of our former
folly, that in confidence of that satisfaction to a generous
enemy, we are not afraid to acknowledge our fault.”</p>
<p>In view of the difficulty of bringing our hearts to this
complete submission to the Divine will, we may well
adopt Fenelon’s prayer: “O God, take my heart, for I
cannot give it; and when Thou hast it, keep it; for I
cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself.”</p>
<p>Some of the best men the world has ever seen have
made great mistakes on this point. Moses could pray
for Israel, and could prevail with God; but God did
not answer his petition for himself. He asked that
God would take him over Jordan, that he might see
Lebanon; and after the forty years’ wandering in the
wilderness, he desired to go into the Promised Land;
but the Lord did not grant his desire. Was that a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</SPAN></span>
sign that God did not love him? By no means. He
was a man greatly beloved of God, like Daniel; and yet
God did not answer this prayer of his. Your child says,
“I want this or that,” but you do not grant the request,
because you know that it will be the ruin of the child
to give him everything he wants. Moses wished to
enter the Promised Land; but the Lord had something
else in store for him. As some one has said, God kissed
away his soul, and took him home to Himself. “God
buried him”—the greatest honor ever paid to mortal man.</p>
<p>Fifteen hundred years afterward God answered the
prayer of Moses; He allowed him to go into the Promised
Land, and to get a glimpse of the coming glory.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, with Elijah, the
great prophet, and with Peter, James, and John, he
heard the voice come from the throne of God, “This
is My beloved Son; hear ye Him.” That was better
than to have gone over Jordan, as Joshua did, and to
sojourn for thirty years in the land of Canaan. So
when our prayers for earthly things are not answered,
let us submit to the will of God, and know that it is
all right.</p>
<p>When one inquired of a deaf and dumb boy why he
thought he was born deaf and dumb, taking the chalk
he wrote upon the board, “Even so, Father; for so it
seemed good in Thy sight.”</p>
<p>John Brown, of Haddington, once said. “No doubt
I have met with trials like others; but yet so kind has
God been to me, that I think if He were to give me as
many years as I have lived in the world, I would not
desire one single circumstance in my lot changed,
except that I wish there had been less sin. It might<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</SPAN></span>
be written on my coffin, ‘Here lies one of the cares of
Providence, who early lost both father and mother,
and yet never wanted for the care of either.’”</p>
<p>Elijah was mighty in prayer; he brought fire down
from heaven on his sacrifice, and his petitions brought
rain on the thirsty land. He stood fearlessly before
King Ahab in the power of prayer. Yet we find him
sitting under a juniper-tree like a coward, asking God
that He would let him die. The Lord loved him too
well for that; He was going to take him up to heaven
in a chariot of fire. So we must not allow the devil to
take advantage of us, and make us believe that God
does not love us because He does not grant all our
petitions in the time and way we would have Him do.</p>
<p>As Moses takes up more room in the Old Testament
than any other character, so it is with Paul in the New
Testament, except, perhaps, the Lord Himself. Yet
Paul did not know how to pray for himself. He
besought the Lord to take away “the thorn in the
flesh.” His request was not granted; but the Lord
bestowed upon him a greater blessing. He gave him
more grace. It may be we have some trial—some
thorn in the flesh. If it is not God’s will to take it
away, let us ask Him to give us more grace, in order to
bear it. We find that Paul gloried in his reverses
and his infirmities, because all the more the power of
God rested upon him. It may be there are some of us
who feel as if everything is against us. May God give
us grace to take Paul’s platform and say: “All things
work together for good to them that love God.” So
when we pray to God we must be submissive, and say,
“Thy will be done.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</SPAN></span>In the Gospel of John we read: “If ye” (that “if”
is a mountain to begin with), “If ye abide in Me, and
My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and
it shall be done unto you.” The latter part is often
quoted, but not the first. Why, there is very little abiding
in Christ now-a-days! You go and visit Him once
in a while; but that is all. If Christ is in my heart, of
course I will not ask anything that is against His will.
And how many of us have God’s Word abiding in us?
We must have a warrant for our prayers. If we have
some great desire, we must search the Scriptures to
find if it be right to ask it. There are many things
we want that are not good for us; and many other
things we desire to avoid are really our best blessings.
A friend of mine was shaving one morning, and his
little boy, not four years old, asked him for his razor,
and said he wanted to whittle with it. When he found
he could not get it, he began to cry as if his heart
would break. I am afraid that there are a great many
of us who are praying for razors. John Bunyan blessed
God for that Bedford jail more than for anything else
that happened to him in this life. We never pray for
affliction; and yet it is often the best thing we could ask.</p>
<p>Dyer says: “Afflictions are blessings to us when we
can bless God for afflictions. Suffering has kept many
from sinning. God had one Son without sin; but He
never had any without sorrow. Fiery trials make
golden Christians; sanctified afflictions are spiritual
promotions.”</p>
<p>Rutherford beautifully writes, in reference to the
value of sanctified trial, and the wisdom of submitting
in it to God’s will: “Oh, what owe I to the file, to the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</SPAN></span>
hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus, who hath
now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is that
goeth through His mill and His oven, to be made bread
for His own table! Grace tried is better than grace;
and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy. I
now see that Godliness is more than the outside, and
this world’s passments and their bushings. Who knoweth
the truth of grace without a trial? Oh, how little
getteth Christ of us, but that which He winneth (to
speak so) with much toil and pains! And how soon
would faith freeze without a cross! How many dumb
crosses have been laid upon my back, that had never a
tongue to speak the sweetness of Christ, as this hath!
When Christ blesseth His own crosses with a tongue,
they breathe out Christ’s love, wisdom, kindness, and
care for us. Why should I start at the plough of my
Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know
that He is no idle husbandman; He purposeth a crop.
Oh that this white, withered lea-ground were made fertile
to bear a crop for Him, by whom it is so painfully
drest, and that this fallow ground were broken up!
Why was I (a fool!) grieved that He put His garland
and His rose upon my head—the glory and honor of
His faithful witnesses? I desire now to make no more
pleas with Christ. Verily He hath not put me to a loss
by what I suffer; He oweth me nothing; for in my
bonds how sweet and comfortable have the thoughts of
Him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense
of reward! How blind are my adversaries who sent me
to a banqueting house, to a house of wine, to the lovely
feasts of my lovely Lord Jesus, and not to a prison, or
place of exile!”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</SPAN></span>We may close our remarks on this subject by a reference
to the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, in Lamentations,
where he says: “The Lord is good unto them
that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is
good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for
the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that
he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and
keepeth silence; because he hath borne it upon him.
He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be
hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him;
he is filled full with reproach. For the Lord will not
cast off forever; but though He cause grief, yet will
He have compassion according to the multitude of
His mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly, nor
grieve the children of men.... Who is he that
saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth
it not? Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth
not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living
man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the
Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto
God in the heavens.”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_110.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">Submission.</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“Hear me, my God, and if my lip hath dared</div>
<div class="indent">To murmur ’neath Thy Hand, oh, teach me now</div>
<div class="verse">To feel each inmost thought before Thee bared,</div>
<div class="indent">And this rebellious will in faith to bow.</div>
<div class="verse">Though I wept wildly o’er the ruined shrine,</div>
<div class="indent">Where earthly idols held Thy place alone,</div>
<div class="verse">Now purify and make this temple Thine,</div>
<div class="indent">And teach me, Lord, to say, ‘Thy will be done!’</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“What can I bring to offer that is mine?</div>
<div class="indent">A youth of sorrow, and a life of sin.</div>
<div class="verse">What can I lay upon Thy hallowed shrine,</div>
<div class="indent">One hope of pardon for the past to win?</div>
<div class="verse">While thus a suppliant at Thy feet I bow,</div>
<div class="indent">Still dare I lift to Thee my tearful eyes,</div>
<div class="verse">I plead the promise of Thy word, that Thou</div>
<div class="indent">A broken, contrite heart will not despise.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“What shall I bring? A bruised spirit, Lord,</div>
<div class="indent">Worn with the contest, pining now for rest,</div>
<div class="verse">And yearning for Thy peace, as some poor bird,</div>
<div class="indent">’Mid the wild tempest, seeks its mother’s breast,</div>
<div class="verse">My sacrifice, the Lamb who died for me;</div>
<div class="indent">I plead the merits of Thy sinless Son;</div>
<div class="verse">I bring Thy promises; I trust in Thee;</div>
<div class="indent">In love Thou smitest; Lord, ‘Thy will be done!’”</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI.<br/> ANSWERED PRAYERS.</h2></div>
<p>In the fifteenth chapter of John and the seventh verse,
we find who have their prayers answered—“If ye abide
in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what
ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Now in the
fourth chapter of James, in the third verse, we find
some spoken of whose prayers were not answered:
“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” There
are a great many prayers not answered because there
is not the right motive; we have not complied with the
Word of God; we ask amiss. It is a good thing that
our prayers are not answered when we ask amiss.</p>
<p>If our prayers are not answered, it may be that we
have prayed without the right motive; or that we have
not prayed according to the Scriptures. So let us not
be discouraged, or give up praying, although our
prayers are not answered in the way we want them.</p>
<p>A man once went to George Muller and said he
wanted him to pray for a certain thing. The man stated
that he had asked God a great many times to grant him
his request, but He had not seen fit to do it. Mr.
Muller took out his note-book, and showed the man the
name of a person for whom, he said, he had prayed for
twenty-four years. The prayer, Mr. Muller added, was
not answered yet; but the Lord had given him assurance<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</SPAN></span>
that that person was going to be converted, and his
faith rested there.</p>
<p>We sometimes find that our prayers are answered
right away while we are praying; at other times the
answer is delayed. But especially when men pray for
mercy, how quickly the answer comes! Look at Paul,
when he cried, “O Lord, what wilt Thou have me to
do?” The answer came at once. Then the publican
who went up to the temple to pray—he got an immediate
answer. The thief on the cross prayed, “Lord,
remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom!”
and the answer came immediately—then and there.
There are many cases of a similar kind in the Bible,
but there are also others who prayed long and often.
The Lord delights in hearing His children make their
requests known unto Him—telling their troubles all
out to Him; and then we should wait for His time. We
do not know when that is.</p>
<p>There was a mother in Connecticut who had a son
in the army, and it almost broke her heart when he
left, because he was not a Christian. Day after day
she lifted up her voice in prayer for her boy. She
afterward learned that he had been taken to the
hospital, and there died, but she could not find out anything
about how he had died. Years passed, and one
day a friend came to see some member of the family
on business. There was a picture of the soldier boy
upon the wall. He looked at it, and said, “Did you
know that young man?” The mother said, “That young
man was my son. He died in the late war.” The man
replied, “I knew him very well; he was in my company.”
The mother then asked, “Do you know anything<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</SPAN></span>
about his end?” The man said, “I was in the
hospital, and he died a most peaceful death, triumphant
in the faith.” The mother had given up hope of
ever hearing of her boy; but before she went hence
she had the satisfaction of knowing that her prayers
had prevailed with God.</p>
<p>I think we shall find a great many of our prayers
that we thought unanswered answered when we get to
heaven. If it is the true prayer of faith, God will not
disappoint us. Let us not doubt God. On one occasion,
at a meeting I attended, a gentleman pointed out
an individual and said, “Do you see that man over
there? That is one of the leaders of an infidel club.”
I sat down beside him, when the infidel said, “I am
not a Christian. You have been humbugging these
people long enough, and making some of these old
women believe that you get answers to prayer. Try
it on me.” I prayed, and when I got up, the infidel
said with a good deal of sarcasm, “I am not converted;
God has not answered your prayer!” I said, “But you
may be converted yet.” Some time afterwards I
received a letter from a friend, stating that he had
been converted and was at work in the meetings.</p>
<p>Jeremiah prayed, and said: “Ah, Lord God! Behold
Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great
power and stretched-out Arm, and there is nothing too
hard for Thee.” Nothing is too hard for God; that is
a good thing to take for a motto. I believe this is a
time of great blessing in the world, and we may expect
great things. While the blessing is falling all around,
let us arise and share in it. God has said, “Call unto
Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</SPAN></span>
mighty things which thou knowest not.” Now let us
call on the Lord; and let us pray that it may be done
for Christ’s sake—not our own.</p>
<p>At a Christian convention a number of years ago, a
leading man got up and spoke—his subject being “For
Christ’s Sake”—and he threw new light upon that
passage. I had never seen it in that way before.
When the war broke out the gentleman’s only son had
enlisted, and he never saw a company of soldiers but
his heart went right out after them. They started a
Soldiers’ Home in the city where that gentleman lived,
and he gladly went on the committee, and acted as
President. Some time afterward he said to his wife,
“I have given so much time to these soldiers that I
have neglected my business,” and he went down to his
office with the fixed determination that he would not be
disturbed by any soldiers that day. The door opened
soon after, and he saw a soldier entering. He never
minded him, but kept on writing; and the poor fellow
stood for some time. At last the soldier put down an
old soiled piece of paper on which there was writing.
The gentleman observed that it was the handwriting of
his son, and he seized the letter at once and read it. It
was something to this effect: “Dear father, this young
man belongs to my company. He has lost his health
in defense of his country, and he is on his way home
to his mother to die. Treat him kindly for Charlie’s
sake.” The gentleman at once dropped his work and
took the soldier to his house, where he was kindly cared
for until he was able to be sent home to his mother;
then he took him to the station, and sent him home
with a “God bless you, for Charlie’s sake!”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</SPAN></span>Let our prayers, then, be for Christ’s sake. If we
want our sons and daughters converted, let us pray that
it be done for Christ’s sake. If that is the motive, our
prayers will be answered. If God gave up Christ for
the world, what will He not give us? If He gave
Christ to the murderers and blasphemers, and the
rebels of a world lying in wickedness and sin, what
would He not give to those who go to Him for Christ’s
sake? Let our prayer be that God may advance His
work, not for our glory—not for our sake—but for the
sake of His beloved Son whom He hath sent.</p>
<p>So let us remember that when we pray we ought to
expect an answer. Let us be looking for it. I remember
at the close of a meeting in one of our Southern
cities near the close of the war, a man came up to me
weeping and trembling. I thought something I had
said had aroused him, and I began to question him as to
what it was. I found, however, that he could not tell a
word of what I had said. “My friend,” said I, “what is
the trouble?” He put his hand into his pocket, and
brought out a letter, all soiled, as if his tears had fallen
on it. “I got that letter,” he said, “from my sister last
night. She tells me that every night she goes on her
knees and prays to God for me. I think I am the worst
man in all the Army of the Cumberland. I have been
perfectly wretched to-day.” That sister was six hundred
miles away, but she had brought her brother to his
knees in answer to her earnest, believing prayer. It
was a hard case, but God heard and answered the prayer
of this Godly sister, so that the man was as clay in the
hands of the potter. He was soon brought into the
Kingdom of God—all through his sister’s prayers.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</SPAN></span>I went off some thirty miles to another place, where
I told this story. A young man, a lieutenant in the
army, sprang to his feet and said, “That reminds me of
the last letter I got from my mother. She told me
that every night as the sun went down she prayed for
me. She begged of me, when I got her letter, to go
away alone, and yield myself to God. I put the letter
in my pocket, thinking there would be plenty of time.”
He went on to say that the next news that came from
home was that that mother was gone. He went out
into the woods alone, and cried to his mother’s God to
have mercy upon him. As he stood in the meeting with
his face shining, that lieutenant said: “My mother’s
prayers are answered; and my only regret is that she
did not live to know it; but I will meet her by-and-by.”
So, though we may not live to see the answer to our
prayers, if we cry mightily to God, the answer will
come.</p>
<p>In Scotland, a good many years ago, there lived a
man with his wife and three children—two girls and a
boy. He was in the habit of getting drunk, and thus
losing his situation. At last, he said he would take
Johnnie, and go off to America, where he would be away
from his old associates, and where he could commence
life over again. He took the little fellow, seven years
old, and went away. Soon after he arrived in America,
he went into a saloon and got drunk. He got
separated from his boy in the streets, and he has never
been seen by his friends since. The little fellow was
placed in an institution, and afterward apprenticed in
Massachusetts. After he had been there some time,
he became discontented, and went off to sea; finally, he<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</SPAN></span>
came to Chicago to work on the lakes. He had been
a roving spirit, had gone over sea and land, and now he
was in Chicago. When the vessel came into port, one
time, he was invited to a Gospel meeting. The joyful
sound of the Gospel reached him, and he became a
Christian.</p>
<p>After he had been a Christian a little while, he
became very anxious to find his mother. He wrote to
different places in Scotland, but could not find out
where she was. One day he read in the Psalms—“No
good thing will He withhold from them that walk
uprightly.” He closed his Bible, got down on his
knees, and said: “O God, I have been trying to walk
uprightly for months past; help me to find my mother.”
It came into his mind to write back to the place in
Massachusetts from which he had run away years
before. It turned out that a letter from Scotland had
been waiting for him there for seven years. He wrote
at once to the place in Scotland, and found that his
mother was still living; the answer came back immediately.
I would like you to have seen him when he
got that letter. He brought it to me; and the tears
flowed so that he could scarcely read it. His sister
had written on behalf of the mother; she had been
so overcome by the tidings of her long-lost boy that
she could not write.</p>
<p>The sister said that all the nineteen years he had
been away, his mother had prayed to God day and night
that he might be saved, and that she might live to know
what had become of him, and see him once more. Now,
said the sister, she was so overjoyed, not only that he
was alive, but that he had become a Christian. It was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</SPAN></span>
not long before the mother and sisters came out to
Chicago to meet him.</p>
<p>I mention this incident to show how God answers
prayer. This mother cried to God for nineteen long
years. It must have seemed to her sometimes as
though God did not mean to give her the desire of her
heart; but she kept praying, and at last the answer
came.</p>
<p>The following personal testimony was publicly given
at one of our meetings lately held in London, and may
serve to help and encourage readers of these pages.</p>
<p class="center">A PRAYER-MEETING TESTIMONY.</p>
<p>“I want you to understand, my friends, that what I
state is not what I did, but what God did. <i>God only
could have done it!</i> I had given it up as a bad job,
long before. But it is of God’s great mercy that I am
standing here to-night, to tell you that Christ is able
to save <i>to the uttermost</i> all that come to God through
Him.</p>
<p>“The reading of those ‘requests’ [for the salvation of
inebriates] touched me very deeply indeed. They
seemed to be an echo of many a request for prayer
which has been made for me. And, from my knowledge
of society generally, and of human nature, I
know that in a very great number of families there is
need of some such request.</p>
<p>“Therefore if what I may tell you will cheer any
Christian heart, encourage any Godly father and mother
to go on praying for their sons, or assist any man or
woman who has felt himself or herself beyond the
reach of hope, I shall thank God for it.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</SPAN></span>“I had very good opportunities. My parents loved
the Lord Jesus, and did their best to train me up in the
right path; and for some time I thought myself that I
should be a Christian. But I got away from Christ,
and turned further and further away from God and all
good influences.</p>
<p>“It was at a public school where I first learned to
drink. Many a time at seventeen I drank to excess,
but I had an amount of self-respect that kept me from
going thoroughly to the bad till I was about twenty-three;
but from then till I was twenty-six, I went
steadily down hill. At Cambridge I went on further
and further in drinking, until I lost all self-respect, and
voluntarily chose the worst of companions.</p>
<p>“I strayed further and further from God, until my
friends, those who were Christians and those who were
not, considered, and told me that there was very little
hope for me. I had been pleaded with by all sorts of
people, but I ‘hated reproof.’ I hated everything that
savored of religion, and I sneered at every bit of good
advice, or any kind word offered me in that way.</p>
<p>“My father and mother both died without seeing me
brought to the Lord. They prayed for me all the time
they lived, and at the very last my mother asked me
if I would not follow her to be with her in heaven. To
quiet and soothe her, I said I would. But I did not
mean it; and I thought, when she had passed away, that
she knew now my real feelings. After her death I went
from bad to worse, and plunged deeper and deeper into
vice. Drink got a stronger hold of me, and I went
lower and lower down. I was never ‘in the gutter,’
in the acceptation in which that term is generally<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</SPAN></span>
understood; but I was as low in my soul as any man
who lives in one of the common lodging-houses.</p>
<p>“I went from Cambridge first to a town in the north,
where I was articled to a solicitor; and then to London.
While I was in the north, Messrs. Moody and Sankey
came to the town I lived in; and an aunt of mine, who
was still praying for me after my mother’s death, came
and said to me, ‘I have a favor to ask of you.’ She
had been very kind to me, and I knew what she wanted.
She said, ‘It is to go and hear Messrs. Moody and
Sankey.’ ‘Very good,’ I said; ‘it is a bargain. I
will go and hear the men; but you are never to ask me
again. You will promise that?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I
do.’ I went, and kept, as I thought, most religiously
my share of the bargain.</p>
<p>“I waited until the sermon was over, and I saw Mr.
Moody coming down from the pulpit. Earnest prayer
had been offered for me, and there had been an understanding
between my aunt and him that the sermon
should apply to me, and that he would come and speak
to me immediately afterward. We met Mr. Moody in
the aisle, and I thought that I had done a very clever
thing when I walked round my aunt, before Mr. Moody
could address me, and out of the building.</p>
<p>“I wandered further from God after that; and I do
not think that I bent my knees in prayer for between
two and three years. I went to London, and things
grew worse and worse. At times I tried to pull up. I
made any number of resolutions. I promised myself
and my friends not to touch the drink. I kept my
resolutions for some days, and, on one occasion, for six
months; but the temptation came with stronger force<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</SPAN></span>
than ever, and swept me further and further from the
pathway of virtue. When in London I neglected my
business and everything I ought to have done, and
sank deeper into sin.</p>
<p>“One of my boon companions said to me, ‘If you
don’t pull up, you will kill yourself.’ ‘How is that?’ I
asked. ‘You are killing yourself, for you can’t drink
so much as you used to.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I can’t
help it, then.’ I got to such a state that I did not
think there was any possible help for me.</p>
<p>“The recital of these things pains me; and as I
relate them, God forbid that I should feel anything but
shame. I am telling you these things because we have
a Savior; and if the Lord Jesus Christ saved even me,
He is able also to save you.</p>
<p>“Affairs went on in this manner until, at last, I lost
all control over myself.</p>
<p>“I had been drinking and playing billiards one day,
and in the evening I returned to my lodgings. I
thought that I would sit there awhile, and then go out
again, as usual. Before going out, I began to think,
and the thought struck me, ‘How will all this end?’
‘Oh,’ I thought to myself, ‘what is the use of that? I
know how it will end—in my eternal destruction, body
and soul!’ I felt I was killing myself—my body;
and I knew too well what would be the result
to my soul. I thought it impossible for me to be
saved. But the thought came to me very strongly, ‘Is
there any way of escape?’ ‘No,’ I said; ‘I have
made any number of resolutions. I have done all I
could to keep clear of drink, but I can’t. It is impossible.’</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</SPAN></span>“Just at that moment the words came into my mind,
from God’s own Word—words that I had not remembered
since I was a boy: ‘With men this is impossible;
but with God all things are possible.’ And then I saw,
in a flash, that what I had just admitted, as I had done
hundreds of times before, to be an impossibility, was
the one thing that God had pledged Himself to do, if
I would go to Him. All the difficulties came up in my
way—my companions, my surroundings of all sorts,
and my temptations; but I just looked up and thought,
‘It is possible with God.’</p>
<p>“I went down on my knees there and then, in my
room, and began to ask God to do the impossible. As
soon as I prayed to Him, with very stammering utterance—I
had not prayed for nearly three years—I
thought, ‘Now, then, God will help me.’ I took hold
of His truth, I don’t know how. It was nine days
before I knew how, and before I had any assurance, or
peace and rest, to my soul. I got up, there and then,
with the hope that God would save me. I took it to be
the truth, and I ultimately proved it; for which I
praise God.</p>
<p>“I thought the best thing I could do would be to go
and get somebody to talk to me about my soul, and
tell me how to be saved; for I was a perfect heathen,
though I had been brought up so well. I went out
and hunted about London; and it shows how little I
knew of religious people and places of worship, that I
could not find a Wesleyan chapel. My mother and
father were Wesleyans, and I thought I would find a
place belonging to their denomination; but I could
not. I searched an hour and a half; and that night I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</SPAN></span>
was in the most utter, abject misery of body and soul
any man can think of or conceive.</p>
<p>“I came home to my lodgings and went upstairs, and
thought to myself, ‘I will not go to bed till I am
saved.’ But I was so ill from drinking—I had not had
my usual amount of food in the evening; and the reaction
was so tremendous, that I felt I must go to bed
(although I dared not), or I should be in a very serious
condition in the morning.</p>
<p>“I knew how I should be in the morning, thinking,
‘what a fool I was last night!’ when I would wake up
moderately fresh, and go off to drink again, as I had
often done. But again I thought, ‘God can do the
impossible. He will do that which I cannot do myself.’
And I prayed to the Lord to let me wake up in much
the same condition as that in which I went to bed, feeling
the weight of my sins and my misery. Then I went
to sleep. The first thing in the morning, as soon as I
remembered where I was, I thought, ‘Has the conviction
left me?’ No; I was more miserable than before,
and—it seemed strange, though it was natural—I got
up, and thanked the Lord because He had kept me
anxious about my soul.</p>
<p>“Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps after some
meeting or conversation with some Christian, or reading
the Word of God, you have gone to your room
miserable and ‘almost persuaded.’</p>
<p>“I went on for eight or nine days seeking the Lord.
On the Saturday morning I had to go and tell the
clerks. That was hard. I did it with the tears running
down my cheeks. A man does not like to cry
before other men. Anyway, I told them I wanted to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</SPAN></span>
become, and meant to become, a Christian. The Lord
helped me with that promise, ‘With God all things
are possible.’</p>
<p>“A sceptic dropped his head, and said nothing.
Another fellow, with whom I played billiards, said, ‘I
wish I had the pluck to say so myself!’ My words
were received in a different way from what I thought
they would be. But the very man who had told me
that I was killing myself with drink, spent an hour and
a half trying to get me to drink, saying, that I ‘had the
blues, and was out of sorts; and that a glass of brandy
or whisky would do me good.’ He tried to get me to
drink; and I turned upon him at last, and said, ‘You
remember what you said to me; I am trying to get
away from drink, and not to touch it again.’ When I
think of that I am reminded of the words of God Himself:
‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’</p>
<p>“And now the Lord drew me on until the little thread
became a cable, by which my soul could swing. He
drew me nearer; until I found that He was my Savior.
Truly He is ‘able to save to the uttermost all that
come unto God by Him.’</p>
<p>“I must not forget to tell you that I went down
before God in my misery, my helplessness, and my sin,
and owned to Him that it was impossible that I should
be saved; that it was impossible for me to keep clear of
drink; but from that night to this moment, I have
never had the slightest desire for drink.</p>
<p>“It was a hard struggle indeed to give up smoking.
But God in His great wisdom, knew that I must have
come to grief if I had to fight single-handed against
the overwhelming desire I had for drink; and He took<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</SPAN></span>
that desire, too, clean away. From that day to this the
Lord has kept me away from drink, and made me hate
it most bitterly. I simply said that I had not any
strength; nor have I now; but it is the Lord Jesus who
‘is able also to save them to the uttermost that come
unto God by Him.’</p>
<p>“If there is any one hearing me who has given up
all hope, come to the Savior! That is His name, for
‘He shall save His people from their sins.’ Wherever
I have gone, since then, I have found Him to be
my Savior. God forbid that I should glory! It would
be glorying in my shame. It is to my shame that I
speak thus of myself; but oh, the Savior is able to save,
and He will save!</p>
<p>“Christian friends, continue to pray. You may go
to heaven before your sons are brought home. My
parents did; and my sisters prayed for me for years
and years. But now I can help others on their way to
Zion. Praise the Lord for all His mercy to me!</p>
<p>“Remember, ‘with God all things are possible.’
And then you may say like St. Paul, ‘I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’”</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</SPAN></span>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_126.jpg" alt="" /></div>
<h2 class="nobreak">“Look Up.”</h2></div>
<hr class="tiny" />
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="first">“O soul most desolate, look up! For thee</div>
<div class="verse">One faithful voice doth promise sure relief.</div>
<div class="verse">Whate’er thy sin, whate’er thy sorrow be,</div>
<div class="verse">Tell all to Jesus. He looketh where</div>
<div class="verse">The weary-hearted weep, and draweth near</div>
<div class="verse">To listen fondly to the half-formed prayer,</div>
<div class="verse">Or read the silent pleading of a tear.</div>
<div class="verse">Lose not thy privilege, O silent soul;</div>
<div class="verse">Pour out thy sorrow at thy Savior’s feet.</div>
<div class="verse">What outcast spurns the hand that gives the dole?</div>
<div class="verse">Oh, let Him hear thy voice; to Him thy voice is sweet.”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verseright"><i>A. S.</i></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<p class="center">
<b>NOTICE.</b>—All former books (before this series), issued in<br/>
Mr. Moody’s name, have been mere compilations<br/>
from newspaper reports of his sermons,<br/>
issued without his consent and<br/>
notwithstanding his protest.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center">
<span class="large">WORKS BY</span><br/>
<br/>
<span class="xxlarge">MR. D. L. MOODY,</span><br/>
<br/>
PUBLISHED BY<br/>
<br/>
<span class="large">F. H. REVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON ST.,</span><br/>
<span class="large">CHICAGO.</span></p>
<p class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/i_127.jpg" alt="" height-obs="15" width-obs="25" /><i>The following Books sent postpaid on receipt of price.</i><ANTIMG src="images/i_127a.jpg" alt="" height-obs="15" width-obs="25" /></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center">Over 350,000 copies of these works have already been sold,<br/>
the greater portion within the last three years.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>To the Work! To the Work!</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Exhortations to
Christians.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Tinted covers, 30c.; cloth boards, gilt dies, 60c.<br/>
Just published.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>This new work by Mr. Moody is in the line of his most successful
efforts, that of stirring Christians to active, personal, aggressive work
for the Master. Mr. Moody has frequently been heard to say that
it was much better to set 100 men to work than to do the work
of 100 men. This little volume will we confidently believe be a
means of inspiring not hundreds, but <i>thousands</i> to more efficient
effort in Christian life.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Secret Power</b>, or The Secret of Success in Christian Life and Christian
Work. By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Fifty-fifth Thousand.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This work, so full of inspiration and suggestion, has been reprinted
in England, and has also been translated into French and
Italian. Through the kindness of a consecrated lady, a copy of the
book has been presented to every Protestant minister in Italy,
while another friend sends the English edition to every Presbyterian
minister in Ireland.</p>
<p>Every page is full of stimulating thought for Christian workers.—<i>Christian
Commonwealth.</i></p>
<p>It is a good statement of the secret of success in Christian Life,
by one who has some claim to speak on such a theme.—<i>The Outlook.</i></p>
<p>This series of earnest and solemn Addresses bear throughout that
stamp of honest, eager earnestness, which is so striking a characteristic
of the writer’s labors as a preacher.—<i>Clerical World.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Prevailing Prayer, What Hinders it?</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>.<br/>
Cloth, uniform with “To the Work,” “Heaven,” &c., 60c.<br/>
Paper covers, 30c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>An earnest and solemn work, full of helpful hints on the aids and
hindrances to prevailing prayer.</p>
<p>“This great subject has been the theme of apostles and prophets,
and of all good men in all ages of the world; and my desire in sending
forth this little volume is to encourage God’s children to seek
by prayer ‘to move the arm that moves the world.’”—<i>Extract from
Preface.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Heaven</b>; Where It Is; Its Inhabitants, and How to Get There. By <span class="smcap">D.
L. Moody</span>. 88th Thousand.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>While adapted to the humble capacity, it will command the attention
of the mature and thoughtful.—<i>National Presbyterian.</i></p>
<p>Mr. Moody is sure of an audience, and well deserves a large one
for this book.—<i>Presbyterian Witness.</i></p>
<p>Mr. Moody’s unfaltering faith and rugged enthusiasm are manifested
on every page.—<i>Christian Advocate.</i></p>
<p>Eminently scriptural, earnest and impressive, will be welcomed
by thousands.—<i>Zion’s Herald.</i></p>
<p>Characterized by his apt, homely illustrations and not a few pithy
anecdotes, such as few can equal.—<i>The Advance.</i></p>
<p>A most acceptable monogram in its author’s own short, pointed,
monosyllabic, Anglo-saxon style.—<i>Herald of Truth, California.</i></p>
<p>Abounds in apt and telling illustrations.—<i>The Standard, Chicago.</i></p>
<p>Anything from the pen of this renowned evangelist will be read
with interest.—<i>Index, Atlanta, Ga.</i></p>
<p>The clear, Scriptural, common sense treatment of this subject by
Mr. Moody has been commended in the highest terms by leading
theologians in Europe and America, while the common people have
heard them everywhere with gladness.—<i>Central Baptist.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Twelve Select Sermons.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. 110th Thousand.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This volume contains those special sermons, which have appeared
to be most useful, and under which there have been the greatest
results.</p>
<p>Carefully revised by Mr. Moody, they present a volume of choice
and striking addresses, sure to command a large sale.</p>
<p>With the effect of these addresses when <i>spoken</i>, the whole land is
acquainted, and now that they are <i>written</i>, they will tend to keep
in force the impressions they have already made.—<i>Methodist.</i></p>
<p>Mr. Moody’s happy style, abounding in striking anecdote and
illustration, make it a most readable and convincing volume.—<i>The
Watchman.</i></p>
<p>Full of earnest enthusiasm which characterizes everything Mr.
Moody does, and will be read with interest.—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p>
<p>There are few who heard any one of these sermons who will fail
to be delighted with this opportunity of making a calm acquaintance
with it again.—<i>Daily Review.</i></p>
<p>This book is one of pre-eminent interest, as containing an authorized
record of the teaching under which, along with other means,
such great and extensive religious impressions have been recently
produced in this country.—<i>The Messenger.</i></p>
<p>Will be read by thousands with memorable interest.—<i>Record.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Way to God, and How to Find it.</b> Fifty-fifth Thousand.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>It consists of nine chapters of the kind only D. L. Moody can
write. The little volume contains the most convincing argument
ever framed for the use of common people. It is a good book to
drop into the sachel of your boy or girl; good to send to some friend
at a distance in whom you have an interest, and good upon your own
study table.—<i>Inter Ocean.</i></p>
<p>“The Way to God” is a theme upon which the Evangelist has
been wont to dwell. Here in nine chapters he grasps together words
of advice regarding that path which it is the happy privilege of the
minister to continually make plain.—<i>Chicago Standard.</i></p>
<p>They are characterized by his usual simplicity, directness, fervor
and exceptional power of vivid illustration.—<i>Christian Herald.</i></p>
<p>They are sharply to the point, plainly practical, and orthodox in a
good, simple and true sense.—<i>Christian Advocate.</i></p>
<p>It will lead sinners to trust in God, and fire the hearts of layman
and minister to noble works for the Master.—<i>Baptist Reflector.</i></p>
<p>It puts the way so plain that he who runs may read.—<i>Religious
Telescope.</i></p>
<p>It is an excellent manual for the soul winners, and for the awakened
seeker, and we trust will be the means of leading thousands to
Christian hope and heaven.—<i>Zion’s Herald.</i></p>
<p>Very earnest and powerful, abounding in apt illustrations, striking
thoughts, and helpful, encouraging words. This book is written in
the same plain, simple and pointed style that lends such force to his
spoken words. The volume should find many readers. Those that
buy it will not be disappointed.—<i>National Baptist.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Daniel, the Prophet.</b> An Amplification and Extension of Mr. Moody’s
various Lectures on the Life of Daniel.<br/>
Tinted covers, 20c.; cloth, 40c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>A small book; but big as regards the truth it contains. Every
worker in the Lord’s vineyard would be helped by reading it.—<i>Railway
Signal.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Way and The Word.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Forty-fifth Thousand.<br/>
Paper, 15c.; cloth, 25c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This little work contains a very clear statement on the important
subject, <i>Regeneration</i>, to which is added Mr. Moody’s valuable hints
on Bible Reading.</p>
<p>Mr. Moody has used this book by the thousand, placing them in
the hands of young converts at the close of his meetings.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Second Coming of Christ.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Fortieth Thousand.
Tinted covers, 10c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>“The moment a man takes hold of the truth that Jesus is coming
back again to receive His followers to Himself, this world loses its
hold upon him. Gas stocks and water stocks, and stocks in banks
and railroads, are of very much less consequence to him then. His
heart is free, and he looks for the blessed appearing of the Lord,
who at His coming, will take him into His blessed Kingdom.”—<i>Extract.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>How to Conduct Inquiry Meetings.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>, and <b>The
Use of the Bible in Inquiry Meetings</b>. By <span class="smcap">D. W. Whittle</span>.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>40 pages and cover. Price 15c.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="chap" />
<p class="center"><span class="large">A SELECTION FROM THE CATALOGUE</span><br/>
OF<br/>
<span class="xxlarge">FLEMING H. REVELL,</span><br/>
<br/>
<i>Publisher of Evangelical Literature</i><br/>
<br/>
<span class="large">148 & 150 MADISON STREET, CHICAGO.</span><br/>
<br/>
<i>The Following Books sent Post-paid on Receipt of Price.</i></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center"><b>HELPS IN BIBLE STUDY.</b></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Notes and Suggestions for Bible Readings.</b> <i>Seventeenth thousand.</i>
Compiled by <span class="smcap">S. R. Briggs</span> and <span class="smcap">J. H. Elliott.</span> Acknowledged to
be the very best help for Bible readings in print. Containing, in
addition to twelve introductory chapters on plans and methods of
Bible study and Bible readings, over six hundred outlines of Bible
readings by many of the most eminent Bible students of the day.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Large 12mo, 262 pages, with complete index, cloth, fine library
style, $1.00; Flexible cloth, travelers’ edition, 75c; Cheap edition,
paper covers, 50c.</p>
<p>This is a book which every Bible student should possess. Those
who conduct Bible readings will find it most suggestive.—<i>Christian
Progress.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Symbols and Systems in Bible Readings.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">W. F. Crafts</span>.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Giving a plan of Bible reading, with fifty verses definitely assigned
for each day, the Bible being arranged with much labor in the order
of its events. The entire symbolism of the Bible also explained
concisely and clearly. 100 hints upon Bible markings and Bible
readings are added.</p>
<p>A year of work upon such a system would yield rich harvests of
Bible knowledge and spiritual experience.—<i>S. S. World.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The True Tabernacle.</b> A series of lectures on the Jewish Tabernacle
and its typical signification. By <span class="smcap">George C. Needham</span>. Illustrated,
cloth, neat, 75c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>“C. H. M.’s” Notes.</b> By <span class="smcap">C. H. McIntosh</span>. Genesis, 75c; Exodus, 75c;
Leviticus, 75c; Numbers, 75c; Deuteronomy, 2 vols., each, 75c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>The notes breathe a very sweet and reverential spirit, and the
author shows wonderful insight into the heart of truths.—<i>Evangelist.</i></p>
<p>Mr. D. L. Moody says of these books: “They have been to me
a very key to the Scriptures.”</p>
<p>Major D. W. Whittle says: “Under God they have blessed me
more than any books, outside of the Bible itself, that I have ever
read, and have led me to a love of the Bible that is proving an
unfailing source of profit.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Life and Times of David, King of Israel</b>; or, The Life of Faith
Exemplified. By “C. H. M.” Third edition, revised. 12mo, 200
pp. Cloth, 60c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Gospel According to Moses</b>, as seen in the Tabernacle and its
Various Services. By <span class="smcap">George Rogers</span>. New edition, enlarged
16mo, 124 pp. Paper, 50c; Cloth, 75c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>No preacher or teacher should be ignorant of the truth which
this small volume very simply but forcibly enunciates.—<i>The Record.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Outline of the Books of the Bible.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Brookes</span>, D. D.
Invaluable to the young student of the Bible as a “First Lessons”
in the study of the Bible. 180 pp., cloth, 50c; Paper covers, 25c.</p>
<p><b>Ruth, the Moabitess</b>; or, Gleanings in the Book of Ruth. By <span class="smcap">Henry
Moorehouse</span>. A characteristic series of Bible readings, full of
suggestions and instruction.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Neat 16mo, paper covers, 20c; cloth, gilt stamped, 40c.</p>
<p>Contains many fresh and original remarks, all tending to practical
usefulness; a capital bit of commenting on a favorite book.—<i>Spurgeon’s
Sword and Trowel.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Bible Readings.</b> By <span class="smcap">Henry Moorehouse</span>. A series of eleven sermons
of comment and exposition, by one pre-eminently the man of
one book—an incessant, intense, prayerful student of the Bible.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Neat, 16mo, paper covers, 30c; cloth, gilt stamped, 60c.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Current Discussions in Theology.</b> By the Professors of Chicago
Theological Seminary. Vol. I, cloth, 12mo, 248 pp., $1.00; paper
covers, 50c. Vol. II, 328 pp., cloth, $1.50.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>There is nothing in our language of this kind. The American
student has had to choose between the exhaustive and unremitting
labors which are the price of first-hand knowledge, and reviews
which rarely fail of being colored with partiality or prejudice. The
volume before us is a helpful, fair and trustworthy statement of the
present position and recent movements of theology.—<i>The Independent.</i></p>
<p>It may be safely said that from no one book in the English
language can ministers gather so much recent information concerning
the topics treated.—<i>Presbyterian Witness.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Date of Our Gospels.</b> A critical argument and examination of
evidences, particularly regarding their authenticity and authorship.
By <span class="smcap">Samuel Ives Curtiss</span>, D. D., Union Park Theological Seminary,
Chicago.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Sq. 16mo, neat, flexible cloth, 50c; paper edition, 25c.</p>
<p>The argument is winnowed of superfluous words, and presents a
luminous and brief case.—<i>New York Independent.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>A New Catechism.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. T Hyde</span>. A manual of instruction
for students and other thoughtful inquirers.<br/>
Cloth, 12mo, $1.00.</p>
</div>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center"><b>AIDS IN CHRISTIAN WORK.</b></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Children’s Meetings and How to Conduct Them.</b> By <span class="smcap">Lucy J. Rider</span>
and <span class="smcap">Nellie M. Carman</span>. Introduction by Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Vincent</span>,
D. D. Contains contributions from over forty well-known workers
among children, and gives the cream of their experience. The outline
lessons (over sixty in number), diagrams, and music will
especially commend it to the thoughtful teacher. Pp. 208, cloth,
net $1.00.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a good book, that suggests something in addition to that
which it conveys.—<i>Journal and Messenger.</i></p>
<p>The volume will be heartily welcomed by many having this most
important part of the religious instruction of the young in hand.—<i>Zion’s
Herald.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Secret Power</b>; or, the Secret of Success in Christian Life and Christian
Work. By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. <i>Fifty-fifth thousand.</i> 12mo volume,
116 pp., rich gilt and black stamp, cloth, 60c; cheap edition, paper
cover, 30c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Every page is full of stimulating thought for Christian workers.—<i>Christian
Commonwealth.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Work of Preaching Christ.</b> By Bishop <span class="smcap">Charles Pettitt McIlvaine</span>.
A revised edition of an important little work. Paper
covers, 15c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Prayer Meeting and Its Improvement.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">Lewis O.
Thompson</span>, with introduction by Rev. <span class="smcap">A. E. Kittredge</span>, D. D.
Sixth edition. Revised. An attractive volume. 12mo, pp. 256, $1.25.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>A valuable, because a very suggestive book.—<i>S. S. Times.</i></p>
<p>* * * “This is so good a book that we wish we could afford to
give a copy of it to every young minister. Revive your prayer meetings
and the churches will be revived. Mr. Thompson says some
capital things in a telling manner, and, as his pages are full of fire
and gunpowder, we hope certain old, worn-out things among us
will be exploded, and good things set on fire. A brother who has
this book handy will be helped to lead lively meetings, conducting
them in varied ways, and expatiating on different topics, so as to
keep up freshness, and avoid monotony and dullness.”—<i>C. H. Spurgeon.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Revivals</b>; Their Place and Power. By Rev. <span class="smcap">Herrick Johnson</span>, D.
D. Cloth, flexible, 25c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>An admirable discussion of the subject.—<i>Interior.</i></p>
<p>We know of no publication that covers the ground so briefly and
satisfactorily.—<i>Baltimore Presbyterian.</i></p>
<p>Dr. Johnson’s experience has qualified him to speak upon this
subject.—<i>Independent.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>To the Work! To the Work!</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Exhortations to
Christians. Paper covers, 30c; Cloth boards, gilt dies, 60c. Just
published.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This new work by Mr. Moody, is in the line of his most successful
efforts, that of stirring Christians to active, personal, aggressive
work for the Master. Mr. Moody has frequently been heard to say
that it was much better to set 100 men to work than to do the work
of 100 men. This little volume will, we confidently believe, be a
means of inspiring not hundreds but <i>thousands</i> to more efficient
effort in Christian life.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center"><b>PRE-MILLENNIAL LITERATURE.</b></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Pre-Millennial Essays.</b> A series of papers on prophetical subjects by
eminent writers. Edited by <span class="smcap">Nathaniel West</span>, D. D. Issued in
one large 12mo volume of 500 pages, $1.50.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Those who desire to have, within the compass of a single volume,
all that is necessary to an intelligent consideration of the subject,
will find it here in a very readable form. It is certainly the ablest
work that has appeared on the pre-millennial side.—<i>Canada Presbyterian.</i></p>
<p>The best treatment of this subject from the pre-millennial side that
has ever been published.—<i>The Standard.</i></p>
<p>It is pious, elaborate and fraternal. We are pleased with the
forcible, yet candid style of argumentation.—<i>Zion’s Herald.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Maranatha</b>; or, the Lord Cometh. By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Brookes</span>, D. D.
Pp. 445, cloth, $1.25; paper, 50c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Present Truth</b>; being the Testimony of the Holy Ghost on the Second
Coming of the Lord, the Divinity of Christ, and the Personality of
the Holy Ghost. By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Brookes</span>, D. D. 250 pp., fine
cloth, 75c. Cheap edition, paper cover, 25c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Second Coming of Christ.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. H. Brookes</span>, D. D. Price, 15c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Blessed Hope</b>; or, The Glorious Coming of the Lord. By
<span class="smcap">Willis Lord</span>, D. D. New and cheaper edition. A practical treatise;
a volume well adapted to lead to a more joyous Christian life.
250 pp., cloth, $1.00. Cheap edition, for circulation, paper covers
only, 25c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Second Coming of Christ.</b> By <span class="smcap">George Muller</span>, of Bristol, Eng.
A neat little tract of 32 pages, suitable for circulation. Per dozen,
40c; 100 copies, $2.50.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Jesus Is Coming.</b> By W. E. B. A most popular hand book. <i>Sixteenth
thousand.</i> Giving seven arguments in favor of the pre-millennial
coming—stating the distinction between the Rapture and
the Revelation, and between the Church and the Kingdom—and
containing a diagram, with explanations. New, enlarged edition,
160 pp., cloth, 50c; paper covers, 15c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Twenty Reasons for Believing</b> that the Second Coming of the Lord
is Near. 34 pages and cover, neat, 15c. Per dozen, $1.00.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Epiphainia.</b> A study in Prophecy. By <span class="smcap">E. J. Edgren</span>, Professor of
Biblical Interpretation in the Morgan Park Theological Seminary.
16mo, 112 pp., cloth, neat, 75c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Dr. Edgren writes as one who both loves and reveres the Sacred
Word. He has altogether made a book creditable in a literary not
less than in an evangelical point of view.—<i>Chicago Standard.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Waiting for the Morning</b>, and Other Poems. By the author of
“Twenty Reasons for Believing the Coming of the Lord is Near.”
Sq. 16mo, pp. 54, red line, cloth, elegant, 50c. Cheap edition, paper
covers, neat, 25c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Second Coming of Christ.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody.</span> Revised.
<i>Forty-second thousand.</i> 32 pp. and cover, 10c. Per dozen, $1.00.</p>
</div>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center"><b>HELPS FOR INQUIRERS.</b></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Grace and Truth</b> Under Twelve Different Aspects. By <span class="smcap">W. P. Mackay</span>,
M. A. <i>Forty-eighth thousand</i> of American edition. The English
edition has reached a sale of over two hundred thousand, besides
being translated into German, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, Italian,
Dutch, Gaelic and Welsh. 12mo, pp. 282, paper, 35c; cloth, fine, 75c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Mr. Moody says of this work: “I know of no book in print better
adapted to aid in the work of him who would be a winner of souls,
or to place in the hands of the unconverted.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>My Inquiry Meeting</b>; or Plain Truths for Anxious Souls. By <span class="smcap">Robert
Boyd</span>, D. D. Being the experience of a pastor during many years
of personal dealing with anxious and careless souls. Pp. 64, 15c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>For simplicity, clearness, and force of statement we have met with
nothing that equals this little volume. We can think of no better
service a pastor could render to Sunday-school teachers, and other
guides of souls, than to secure their reading of these pages. Nor
could inquirers have any better help in their search for truth.—<i>The
Interior.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Glad Tidings.</b> By <span class="smcap">Robert Boyd</span>, D. D. A book for inquirers.
12mo, pp. 100, cloth, neat, 50c. Cheap edition, for circulation, 25c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This book has been used largely in connection with the great revival
meetings both in Great Britain and this land.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Soul and Its Difficulties.</b> By <span class="smcap">H. W. Soltau</span>. Paper, pp.
108, 8c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>How to Be Saved</b>; or, the Sinner Directed to the Saviour. By <span class="smcap">J. H.
Brookes</span>, D. D. Pp. 120, paper cover, 25c; cloth, 50c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Way to God and How to Find It.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>.
<i>Fifty-fifth thousand.</i> A book for the inquirer and Christian
worker. Cloth, rich black and gold stamp, 60c; paper, tinted
covers, 30c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>The way of salvation is made as clear as simple language and forcible,
pertinent illustration can make it. In two features it is equal to
anything that Mr. Moody has produced—in close adherence to the
Word of God, and in profound earnestness—while in simplicity,
directness of appeal and originality it is superior. It is a great
matter to send such a work, so full of Christ, all over the churches,
where it may, by the work of the Spirit, arrest the careless and
move the ungodly.—<i>Lutheran Observer.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>God’s Way of Salvation.</b> By <span class="smcap">Alexander Marshall</span>. A brief
statement of the Way of Life, with answers to popular objections.
Each brief page complete in itself, and containing a sermon
in a nutshell. 48 pages and covers, 5c. Per hundred. $2.50.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Doubts Removed.</b> By <span class="smcap">Cæsar Malan</span>, D. D. Paper covers, 5c; per
dozen, 50c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>“It contains the clearest statements and illustrations on the subject
treated we have ever read.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Welcome to Jesus.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">C. H. Spurgeon</span>. A series of 4 page
tracts, with first page in attractive, illuminated designs, etc. Four
different series, each containing 32 assortments. Price, per package,
25c.</p>
</div>
<hr class="tb" />
<p class="center"><b>POPULAR DEVOTIONAL BOOKS.</b></p>
<hr class="tb" />
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Prevailing Prayer: What Hinders It?</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Moody</span>. Cloth,
uniform with To the Work! Heaven, etc., 60c; paper covers, 30c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>An earnest and solemn work, full of helpful hints on the aids and
hindrances to prevailing prayer.</p>
<p>“This great subject has been the theme of apostles and prophets,
and of all good men in all ages of the world; and my desire in sending
forth this little volume is to encourage God’s children to seek
by prayer ‘to move the arm that moves the world.’”—<i>Extract from
Preface.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.</b> By <span class="smcap">Hannah Whitall
Smith</span>; author of “A Happy Life.” Revised edition, from entirely
new plates. 12mo, 240 pp., cloth, black and gold stamp, $1.00;
paper cover, 50c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>A book we unhesitatingly recommend. We have not for years
read a book with more delight and profit.—<i>Southwestern Christian
Advocate.</i></p>
<p>We are delighted with the book. It reaches the very core of
Christian experience.—<i>Baptist Weekly.</i></p>
<p>Worthy of universal circulation.—<i>Christian Union.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Life Warfare and Victory.</b> By Maj. <span class="smcap">D. W. Whittle</span>. Cloth, neat,
124 pp., 60c; paper, 30c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>This book has been prepared in the midst of evangelistic work,
to meet the wish often expressed to the writer—that instruction
given in Bible readings to young converts might be made available
for their more careful study and permanent use.—<i>Extract from
Preface.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Christ and the Scriptures.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">Adolph Saphir.</span> Cloth, 16mo,
neat, 75c.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>To all disciples of Jesus this work commends itself at once by its
grasp of truth, its insight, the life in it, and its spiritual force.—<i>Christian
Work.</i></p>
<p>“In these days of doubt and hypercriticism such a volume, breathing
a spirit of earnest devotion, lifting the mind to a better conception
of the immeasureable worth of the Person and the Word, and
written, too, by a son of Israel, cannot but be welcome and helpful.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Holy Life.</b> A book for Christians seeking the “Rest of Faith.”
By Rev. <span class="smcap">Evan H. Hopkins</span>. <i>Fifth thousand</i>, 18mo, 115 pages,
cloth, beveled edge, 60c.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Walking Worthy of God.</b> A reprint from the works of Rev. <span class="smcap">John
Flavell</span>, with an introduction by (and published at the request
of) Maj. D. W. Whittle. A valuable book for circulation—an
incentive to Christian living.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Sq. 16mo, pp. 43, 15c.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Gems from Northfield.</b> A Record of the Best Thoughts exchanged
at the Conference for Bible Study, convened at Northfield, by <span class="smcap">D.
L. Moody</span>.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>12mo, pp. 116. Price $1.00.</p>
<p>The thoughts and expositions of Scripture which are presented in
this volume are of rare practical value.—<i>Herald and Presbyter.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>My Morning Word.</b> A book of texts for every day in the year.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Cloth, plain, 75c; Cloth, gilt edges, $1.00; Calf, flexible, gilt, $1.75.</p>
<p>The several texts for every day each contain the “Morning Word,”
this single word being the key-word by means of which the texts
are called to mind.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Birth-Day Memorial Text-Book.</b></p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>A handsome little volume with a short text for every day in the
year, with blank space opposite for autographs. Especially
attractive for children.</p>
<p>32mo, cloth, black and gold stamp, 25c; per dozen, $2.50.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Practice of the Presence of God.</b> By “Brother <span class="smcap">Lawrence</span>.”</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a small collection of remarkable letters and “conversations”
of a monk.</p>
<p>Pp. 64, 24mo, paper cover, 10c; per dozen, 75c.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Grace Sufficient.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">Henry Roissy</span>. An extremely helpful work
for the closet, with counsel and comfort for the Way of Life. Pp.
265, cloth, $1.25.</p>
</div>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Clifton Springs Bible Readings.</b> Containing the Bible Readings and
Addresses given at the Conference of Believers at Clifton Springs,
N. Y., by Messrs. Brookes, Erdman, Whittle, Needham, Parsons,
Clark, Marvin and others.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>Sq. 16mo, 144 pp., cloth, fine, 50c; paper covers, 25c.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>The Scarlet Line.</b> A most suggestive tract upon Joshua II and VI,
showing the close connection between the type of the Old Testament
and the Antitype of the New.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>36 pages and cover, 5c; per hundred, $3.00.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Envelope Series of Tracts.</b> By H. W. S., from “The Christian’s
Secret of a Happy Life,” comprising the following:</p>
</div>
<blockquote><blockquote>
<p>How to Enter into the Life.<br/>
Difficulties Concerning Consecration.<br/>
Difficulties Concerning Guidance.<br/>
Difficulties Concerning Faith.<br/>
Faith: What it is.<br/>
Is God in Everything?<br/>
The Joy of Obedience.<br/>
Practical Results.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sold only in packets of one dozen copies. May be had either
assorted or all of the same kind. Price, per packet, 20c.</p>
<p>“They will form an excellent collection of tracts for distribution
by those who wish their friends to share the ‘Life that is hid with
Christ.’”</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="hangingindent">
<p><b>Words of Worth</b>, from the Chicago Christian Convention. A verbatim
report of the addresses before the Convention of October, 1882.</p>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>12mo, pp. 134, paper, 25c.</p>
<p>The addresses by such men as Rev. Marcus Rainsford, Rev. Chas.
Spurgeon, Dr. W. P. Mackay, Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D., and
others, will be welcomed by many.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="center"><i>CHICAGO: F. H. REVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON ST.</i></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div class="transnote">
<p class="ph2">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</p>
<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.