Must it be given up, or set aside for something better? Shall we transform it into a social meeting, or into a meeting for Bible study, or into a meeting for the discussion of practical social questions? It is usually assumed that there is no use trying to continue the prayer meeting in its present form, and that it must be changed so as to be adapted to present-day conditions. Whether or not that be true, the mere change of methods will not go down to the root of the trouble. The fundamental need is a revival of the spirit of prayer. The church has too largely ceased to believe in prayer as necessary to the development of spiritual power. She has come to trust in outside things. She has been told that within the sphere of political action ballots are more effectual than prayers, and that the primary ought to be put before prayer meeting-with the result that the prayer meeting has been neglected.

To regain its place of power the prayer meeting must not only be brought into adjustment to new conditions-it must be reborn. When the breath of the Divine Spirit is breathed into the church it will be once more upon its knees. On foreign fields, where new chapters are added to the Acts of the Apostles, the prayer meeting reappears. And in the home churches it springs into new life in times of revival. When Spirit-led its atmosphere is changed, and however much its methods may be modified, it continues to be a prayer meeting. With the quickening of the life of the church the problem of the prayer meeting is solved.

CHAPTER IV

PUBLIC PRAYER

THAT is, prayer as connected with public worship; or what has been called "common and open prayer," to distinguish it from private prayer.

In the religion of the Jews common and open prayer had a prominent place. The three sanctuaries in which Jewish worship was held, namely, the proseuche, the synagogue, and the temple, were all intimately associated with prayer. The proseuche, which was to be found in communities where the number of Jews was too small to support a regular synagogue, is described in Acts 16. 13, as "a place of prayer." It was in a humble proseucha, by a river's side, at the outskirts of the city of Philippi, where a few devout women had come together for prayer, that Gentile Christianity was born.

The synagogue was somewhat similar to the proseuche; indeed, some regard the two as identical. The most satisfactory explanation of the difference between them is that where the latter means a place of prayer the former means a house of prayer; that is to say, something of the same nature but larger and more highly developed.

In a still more emphatic sense, the expression "a house of prayer" is used as descriptive of the temple. Jesus said, "My house shall be called a house of

prayer for all nations." It was God's design that under its golden dome the representatives of all the nations should gather for prayer. In two other instances where the temple is mentioned it is connected with prayer. The first of these is when Peter and John went "up into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour" (Acts 3. 1)-the time of the morning sacrifice. The other instance is where it is said that "the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense" as Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course" (Luke 1. 10). In connection with these two times of public worship prayer is especially mentioned as the prominent feature, and it is not without significance that on both occasions the exercise of prayer was connected with the offering of sacrifice, signifying that through sacrifice man makes his approach to God in prayer.

As was to be expected, the religion of Jesus, which grew out of the soil of Judaism, gives to prayer a place of preeminence in its worship. Calvin does not hesitate to affirm that "God declares that prayer is the chief part of his service." The church no less than the temple is to be known as the house of prayer. At first its services were very simple, and were impressive in their simplicity. They consisted of song and prayer, of words of testimony and exhortation. Justin Martyr, describing the worship of the early Christians, says, "They assembled on the Lord's Day, read memoirs of

Jesus, exhorted one another, and prayed." Speaking of the presiding minister, he says that he offered up prayer "as he was able," that is, according to the best of his ability; and the people responded by saying, "Amen."

In that day we find no trace whatever of a ritual or liturgy. The prayers were free and spontaneous, as became the prayers of those who had been anointed priests unto God, and who in the exercise of their priestly prerogatives had liberty of access unto God. Generally, they arose out of the occasions on which they were offered, and were strictly extemporaneous. Augustine reminds us that our Lord “did not teach his disciples what words they should use in prayer, but what things they should pray for." Instead of giving a ritual he created the impulse to pray, and then left each one free to express himself in the way most natural to him. Tertullian says of the early Christians that "they prayed without a monitor, because from the heart."

It was not until the close of the second century that the use of brief written prayers came to be adopted in connection with baptism. The Teaching of the Twelve gives some of these prayers, and says of them, "to which the prophet is not bound.” Evidently, their use was optional. But a change gradually crept in, and the primitive condition in which the disciples came together to worship God in the freedom of the spirit was at length superseded by the use of prescribed forms. The adoption of these forms was "a sign of spiritual stagnation,"

and indicated a lapse into legalism. And ever since new forms have generally been added in times of religious decline; and many revivals of religion— notably those under George Fox, and John Wesley in England-have been attempts to break through the fetters of form and recover greater simplicity of worship. Not unfrequently has ritualism been twin sister to "rut-ualism."

It is not, however, the use of outward forms in religion that is condemned in the New Testament, but the making of religion a thing of mere form. External forms of some kind are necessary to religious expression. They are to religion what the body is to the soul. They hold up inward experience as the trellis holds up the vine. For the use of prescribed forms, within certain limits, there is much to be said, especially for the use of the noble liturgies in which the devotional life of great saints of the past are enshrined. That they have helped to nourish the spiritual life of the saintliest souls goes without the saying. That they have given dignity to the worship of the church is equally true. The prime objection to them is that they are the expression of the thoughts and feelings of other men. They are not our own, except in a secondary sense. Why our praying should be confined to the forms of other ages it is difficult to see. Has the church of to-day become so sterile that she cannot produce her own prayers? Has all creative power gone clean from her? If she needs to remint her doctrinal formulas, so as to adapt them to the ever