PRAYER.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob.—Psalm lxxxiv. 8.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.—Matthew, vi. 6.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.—Philippians, iv. 6.
Is any among you afflicted? let him pray.—James, v. 13.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.—James, v. 16.
Even as Elias, mounting to the sky,
Did cast his mantle to the earth behind,
So, when the heart presents the prayer on high,
Exclude the world from traffic with the mind:
Lips near to God, and ranging heart within,
Is but vain babbling, and converts to sin.
Robert Southwell.
Temporal blessings Heaven oft doth share
Unto the wicked, at the good man’s prayer.
Quarles.
When we of helps or hopes are quite bereaven,
Our humble prayers have entrance into Heaven.
Ford.
Petitions yet remain
Which Heaven may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measures and the choice.
Safe in His power whose eyes discern afar,
The secret ambush of a specious prayer;
Implore His aid, in His decisions rest,
Secure whate’er He gives, He gives the best.
Dr. Johnson.
O may my prayers before Thy throne arise,
An humble but accepted sacrifice!
And when Thou shalt my weary eyelids close,
And to my body grant a sweet repose,
May my ethereal guardian kindly spread
His wings, and from the tempter shield my bead!
May of Thy heavenly light some piercing beams
Illume my sleep, and sanctify my dreams.
Watts.
What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy-seat!
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer
But wishes to be often there?
Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above.
Restraining prayer, we cease to fight;
Prayer makes the Christian’s armour bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Cowper.
Enthroned amidst the worlds of light,
Jehovah rules the realms of bliss;
Yet bends to scenes of earthly night,
To such a house of pain as this!
The glories of the heavenly plains
Hide not one mourner from his eye,
Nor can the seraphs’ loudest strains
Drown, by their sound, the faintest sigh.
Oh Prayer! thou mine of things unknown,
Who can be poor possessing thee?
Thou wert a fount of joy alone,
Better than worlds of gold could be.
Were I bereft of all beside,
That bears the form or name of bliss,
I yet were rich, what will betide,
If God, in mercy, leave me this.
Edmeston.
Prayer, surpassing human might;
Prayer, heaven’s holy portress;
Prayer, the saint’s supreme delight,
Prayer, the sinner’s fortress.
Prayer and faith can joy impart,
Joy beyond expressing,
And call down upon the heart
Israel’s choicest blessing.
Bernard Barton.
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The majesty on high.
Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
The Christian’s native air;
His watchword in the hour of death,
He enters Heaven with prayer.
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,
Returning from his ways,
While angels in their hymns rejoice,
And cry, “Behold he prays!”
O Thou by whom we come to God,
The life, the truth, the way,
The path of prayer Thyself hath trod,—
Lord, teach us how to pray.
J. Montgomery.
Arrested suns and tranquill’d seas declare
To heav’n and earth th’ omnipotence of prayer,
That gives the hopeless hope, the feeble might,
Outruns the swift, and puts the strong to flight,
The noontide arrow foils, and plague that stalks by night;
Unmatch’d in power, unbounded in extent,
As omnipresent as omnipotent,
To no meridian nor clime confined,
Man with his fellow-man, and mind to mind,
’Tis hers, in links of love and charity to bind.
But farther still extends her awful reign:
To her indeed belongs that golden chain
From fabled God and their Olympus riven;
But, since to truth and her adorers given,
E’en with his Maker man to join, and earth with heaven.
Then let those lips that never pray’d, begin:
We must or cease to pray, or cease to sin;
Each earth-born want and wish, a grov’ling brood,
Are oft mistaken, or misunderstood;
But who would dare to pray for aught that is not good?
Nor that our prayers make Heav’n more prompt to give,
But they make us more worthy to receive:
There is in that celestial treasury
Wealth inexhaustible, admission free;
But he that never prays, rejects the golden key.
Colton.
Prayer is a creature’s strength, his very breath and being;
Prayer is the golden key that can open the wicket of mercy;
Prayer is the magic sound that saith to fate, so be it;
Prayer is the slender nerve that moveth the muscles of Omnipotence.
Wherefore, pray, O creature, for many and great are thy wants;
Thy mind, thy conscience, and thy being, thy rights commend thee unto prayer,
The cure of all cares, the grand panacea for all pains,
Doubt’s destroyer, ruin’s remedy, the antidote to all anxieties.
Martin F. Tupper.
But holiest rite or longest prayer
That soul can yield, or wisdom frame,
What better import can it bear
Than “Father, hallowed be Thy name!”
Eliza Cook.
Give me, O Lord, the spirit of prayer,
Thy grace, thy mercy to implore;
Let not my wilful spirit dare
To count secure her present store.
The richer falls Thy dew of grace,
The humbler let my head descend,
Till mercy’s sun in boundless space
Shall shed its bliss, time without end.
John Jay Adams.