are always made subordinate. In prayer, as in everything else, he fixes his supreme desires upon spiritual and eternal things. He seeks "first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." In the words of The Agrapa as quoted by Origen, “He asks great things, and little things are added; he asks heavenly things, and earthly things are added.” By reversing this order, and standing on unchristian ground, shipwreck of faith in prayer has often taken place. 6. A New Vision of the Scope of Prayer as Embracing All Sorts and Conditions of Men. This large vision, which Christianity alone gives, frees the praying soul from every vestige of narrowness, raises him above all distinctions of rank and race, and leads him in his supplication to engirdle the globe with a love and sympathy as broad as God's eternal purpose of grace. The man who does not pray in this catholic spirit for all sorts and conditions of men is not praying in a Christian fashion. Much of the praying done within Christian circles is pre-Christian. It has Judaistic or pagan elements clinging to it. It is keyed too low; in its spirit and scope it falls below the Christian standard, and needs to be born again, that it may occupy the high place in the spiritual kingdom which belongs to Christianized prayer. It is surely a great advantage to be living in the Christian dispensation, and to come into possession of the spiritual inheritance which in "the fullness of the times" has come through Christ to the race. There are in Christian prayer heights of privilege and power to which we seldom rise. The place to which it leads us is the inner, and not the outer court of God's temple. It brings God near; it opens heaven; it brings within our reach the glorious riches of the spiritual universe. To unfold the Christian view of prayer, as it is revealed in the New Testament and as it has been slowly developing in Christian consciousness and struggling for expression in Christian life, is the object for which the following pages have been written. And the hope is cherished that many who read them may not only be delivered from error upon this important subject but may be led to pray in a better way, with more winsome views of God; in a filial rather than in a legalistic spirit, with a clearer understanding of the laws which govern the answers to prayer, and with a firmer conviction of the practical value of prayer itself. |