God Gr?e Us M en o f Prater! Notes Concerning Men Who Accomplished Much
Because They Prayed Much. May Their Lives Speak to Men Today!
B AMES Gilmour, the pioneer missionary to Mongolia, was a man of prayer. He had a habit in his writing of never using a blotter. He made a rule when he got to thé bottom of any page to wait until the ink dried and spend the time in prayer. Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall Jackson was a man of prayer. Said he: “ 1 have so fixed the habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without ask ing God’s blessing, never seal a letter without putting a word of prayer under the seal, never take a letter from the post without a brief sending of my thoughts heavenward, never change my classes in the lecture-room without a minute’s petition for the cadets who go out and for those who come in.” An Unknown Christian. Professor James, in his famous work, “ Varieties of Religious Experience,” tells of a man of forty-nine who said: “ God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. I feel His presence positively, and the more as I live in closer harmony with His laws as written in my body and mind. I feel Him in the sunshine or rain; and all mingled with a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to Him as to a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is de lightful. He answers me again and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but generally in strong mental impressions. Usually a text of Scripture, unfolding some new view of
Him and His love for me, and care for my safety. . • That He is mine and I am His never leaves me; it is an abiding joy. Without it life would be a. blank, a desert, a shoreless, trackless waste.” Martin Luther. One of Melancthon’s correspondents writes of Luther’s praying, “ I cannot enough admire the extraordinary cheer fulness, constancy, faith and hope o( the man in these trying and vexatious times. He constantly feeds these gra cious affections by a very diligent study of the Word of God. Then not a day passes in which he does not employ in prayer at least three of his very best hours. Once 1 happened to hear him at prayer. Gracious God! What spirit - and what faith is there in his expres sions! He petitions God with as much reverence as if he was in the divine presence, and yet with as firm a hope and confidence as he would address a father or a friend. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘Thou art our Eather and our God; and therefore I am sure Thou wilt bring to naught the persecutors of Thy children. For shouldest Thou fail to do this Thine own cause, being connected with ours, would be endangered. It is entirely Thine own concern. We, by Thy provi dence have been compelled to take a part. Thou therefore wilt be our de fence.’ Whilst I was listening to Luther praying in this manner, at a distance, my soul seemed on fire within me, to hear the man address God so like a friend, yet with so much gravity and reverence; and also to hear him, in the course of his, prayer, insisting on the promises contained in the Psalms, as if
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