Learning sleeve _ Pray & Eowin M.Poreat For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend.” —Morte d’Arthur-Tennyson. SO Fete a A 2k A Nl AS Neen ce ee aa “More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. Learning How to Pray N Luke 11:1, when our Lord ceased pray- ing, the disciples said: “Lord, teach us to pray.’ Here are grown men and disciples of Jesus who did not yet know how to pray. In Acts 4: 31, we read, “And when ‘they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spake the Word of God with boldness.” Which is to say, that these men had, in the interval between Luke 11:1 and Acts 4:31, learned how to pray. Prayer is the Christian’s greatest resource, for it gives him the Whole God for his Total Need. ‘The best way to learn the secret of ‘prayer is to study the personal experiences of the first men whom Jesus taught to pray. Undoubtedly these men had been saying prayers from their childhood and they had con- tinued until now. The Pharisee in the parable in Luke 18: 9f said a prayer, but he did not pray. “True prayer waits upon the establish- ment of the personal relationship. Samuel had said prayers before that night when God called him by name, but he did not yet know the Lord, and that night for the first time in his life he spoke directly to God. Carlylé has made LEARNING HOW TO PRAY the memorable comment on, “Oh, Universe, te accept Thee!” ‘Gad, you'd better!” A man once said to me, claiming to have reached higher ground, that his only prayer was: “Oh, Universe, I will what thou willest!”» This is stocism, not Christian prayer which is com- munion of persons. A student once asked Phillips Brooks if in his judgement personal communion with Jesus Christ was essential to Christianity. The great preacher replied, “Personal communion with Jesus Christ is Christianity.” Jesus sought to bring the disciples into this personal relationship and his first lesson was by example. He did not argue the existence of God or the possibility of prayer.. He prayed! ° And here, in the presence of Jesus praying, all objections to. prayer, whether scientific or philosophical or practical, fall to the ground. But in addition to his example he gave them specific instructions and the fullest of these is the Lord’s Prayer. . If now we draw out the suggestions he made here, they are as follows: (a) Be alone. For prayer 1s as solitary as dying, and only after long practice of secret LEARNING HOW TO PRAY prayer does public prayer, which is always dif- ficult, become possible. In Matthew 6: 5f, Jesus urges a certain calm deliberateness in seeking solitude; all the world shut out, and at last only two beings in the universe—your- self and God—shut in together in the august experience of immediate converse. (b) Fill the mind with the thought of God as Father and as Holy. This will beget rever- ence and trust. Is there a God? Yes he is your Father, and you may speak to him and trust him. (c) Come to see that he knows what is best for you and to prefer that above every- thing else. “Thy will be done.” Prayer 1s not making God will what we wish, but sub- mitting our wishes to his will. (d) ‘Then push out of the individual circle and embrace the world, ‘““Thy kingdom come | on earth’—and bleach your thought of the earth in the light of heaven—‘as in heaven.” (ce) Find the motive of prayer for per- sonal benefits—bread, forgiveness, fortitude, in the needs of the world. Hungry, guilty, timid people are never available for the work SY MES PA. SPS RC PI A ~ CTE DAIS ESE TORSO AB PES A iA RR IIE OE ETE LEARNING HOW TO PRAY of the kingdom; food, forgiveness, fortitude, ates for co-operation in the cone of the kingdom. (f) “Live up to your prayers in order that you may pray again.”* “For we also forgive’; “Be at peace with all men.” Our petitions are registered in heaven and held there as a pledge on our conduct among our fellows. You cut the nerve of prayer if you let your relations with people become tan- gled and strained. You may keep up the forms of prayer with unforgivingness in your heart, but the heavens are as brass above you. (g) In his last discourse to the twelve, re- corded in John 14-16, Jesus gave the dis- ciples a new lesson about praying. “They were to pray, “In his name.” ‘This did not mean attaching his name as a talisman to a prayer reeking with selfishness, as Alexander Mac- Laren has somewhere put it. No; he be im the name of Jesus is to be saturated with his senti- ments; to be controlled by his principles; to be at one with his will—in a word, to be within the circle of his being. As long as we stand outside of that circle there is no virtue in merely saying, ‘“And this I ask in Jesus’ name.” V*Z5T. Cody: LEARNING HOW TO PRAY It would be true to say, “And this I ask out of Jesus’ name.” ‘(h) ~ Still another lesson he gave them in the period of the forty days between his resur- rection and ascension. ‘The most striking fea- ture of the intercourse of the risen Lord with his disciples: is his intermittent. appearances. What is the reason for this? He was under- taking to substitute his spiritual for his bodily presence, so that these men might grow accus- tomed to the thought of his being at hand when he could not be seen; and when at last he passed permanently out of their sight, they did not feel that they had lost him, but that they had him in his omnipresence, that wher- ever they might be and whatever their need, they might speak to him there beside them with all his grace and power. Here, then, are the specific suggestions which Jesus made to the men whom he was teaching to pray, and when we open the book of The Acts we find them undertaking the momentous enterprise which the commission (Matt. 28: 18—20) had laid upon them with a great con- fidence. He was near! And even when per- secutions began, still they went forward in the -assurance of victory because they were aware ieee Os LEARNING HOW TO PRAY of the immediate help of their unseen Friend —their enthroned Lord. Here we have sketched in bare outline the experiences of the first men “with Christ in the School of Prayer,” and none of us need be discouraged. James and John were thund- erers according to our Lord’s own estimate of them; and the record shows that they had un- tempered mortar in them. “Shall we call down fire from heaven and consume them?” “Grant that we may sit one on thy right and the other on thy left hand in thy kingdom.” But the story unfolded in The Acts shows that these “sons of Thunder,” these selfish bigots had grown up out of selfishness into the king- dom passion, into the humility and patience of the saints, and so may we all, if only we take their earlier attitude and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” THE GENERAL BOARD OF PROMOTION of the NORTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 200 Fifth Avenue New York City No. 214. Ed. 4. 50M. 1-20.