CHILDREN'S APPREHENSION OF THE POWER OF PRAYER.
While visiting in the family of Rev. Mr. F——, one morning as we were quietly seated at the breakfast table, his two little boys, Willie and Georgie were seated between their father and mother. All at once Georgie, the youngest, a child of five years, reached his head forward, and in a half-whisper said to his brother, "Willie, Willie, if you were going a journey, which would you give up, your breakfast or your prayers?"
Willie replied, "I should want both."
"But," said the little fellow, still more earnestly, "What if you couldn't have both, then which would you give up?"
"I would give up my breakfast," said Willie.
The little urchin said in an undertone, "I think mother would take something along in her bag." There was certainly a good "look out" for two worlds.
A mother who resides near me, and has a large family of small children, related to me the following circumstance of her eldest boy, when quite young. From the time her children began to talk, she accustomed them, each in their turn, to kneel by her side, on rising and retiring each morning and evening, and repeat to her their little prayers.
One day when her eldest boy, as she thought, was old enough to comprehend her, she said to him rather seriously, "My son, there is one kind of prayer to God to which I have not directed your attention. It is called 'secret prayer.' The direction and encouragement for this kind of prayer is found in the passage, 'Enter into thy closet and shut to thy door, and pray to thy Father which is in heaven, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.' Now do you not desire to obtain this open reward. If you would like a closet of your own, there is a little retired place near my bed-room—you can go there each day by yourself, and shut your door as directed."
One day, not long after, the child was gone some time; his mother did not like to accuse him of having trifled on so serious an occasion, for he was a remarkably conscientious and honest boy—and she said to him, "Frank, you have been gone so long I fear you may have been using 'vain repetitions.'"
The color mantled at once in the little fellow's cheeks, and almost ready to cry, he said, "Mother, when aunt Mary left us yesterday, she said that she and the children would be exposed to many dangers during the voyage, and she asked me to pray for them, and it took me a good while."
I was told by a friend, of a group of little boys when visiting a little companion, all seated on the floor near each other, looking at some pictures. They came to one representing Daniel in the den of lions. It was noticed that the lions were not chained, and yet they were in a reposing posture. None seemed to understand how this was. One little boy said to another, "Ah, wouldn't you be afraid to be put into a den of lions?" "Oh, yes," was the reply. And so the question went all round, eliciting the same answer. At last the youngest of the party reached himself forward and pulled his brother by the sleeve, saying, "Johnny, Johnny, if lions are afraid of praying people, they'd be afraid of mother—wouldn't they? And she wouldn't be afraid of them, for she says we needn't fear anything but sin."
I was acquainted with a family where the following circumstance occurred. The two youngest boys in the family were often trusted to take long walks, and sometimes they were permitted to go over, by themselves, to N——, a distance of nearly four miles, and make a call on their aunt and cousins, who resided there.
One day they came and asked their mother if they might take a long walk. She told them not a very long walk, for that day they had not been as studious and dutiful as usual. They took hold of hands, and without designing to do so at first, it was believed, they ran on very fast till they reached the village of N——, where their aunt lived.
On going to the house, their aunt thought, from their heated appearance, and hurried and disconcerted manner, that they were two "runaways." She, however, welcomed them as usual—invited them to partake of some fine baked apples and new bread and milk—quite a new treat to city boys—but N——, the eldest, declined the invitation. She then proposed to them to go to the school-house, which was near by, and see their cousins. This, too, N—— declined. He said to his brother, "Charley, we must go home." And they took hold of hands and ran all the way as fast as possible, and immediately on entering the house, their faces as red as scarlet, N—— confessed to his mother where they had been, and asked her forgiveness. This being granted, N—— could not be happy. He said, weeping, "Mother, will you go up stairs with us and pray with us?" She did so, with a grateful heart, and sought pardon for them. N—— did the same. When it came Charley's turn to pray, he made an ordinary prayer—when his brother repeatedly touched him, and in a low whisper he said, "Charley, why don't you repent—why don't you repent?"
A very little child, not two years old, always seemed delighted to hold her little book at prayer time, and when her father said Amen, she always repeated it after him aloud. One day she seemed very uneasy during prayer time, and though she made great resistance, she was taken out of the room. She insisted on going back to the drawing-room, and the chairs being still in the order in which the family had been seated during prayer time, the little creature went by the side of each, and folding her little hands, she repeated "Amen," "Amen," until she had been to each one. Thus we see it is not so much for want of knowledge, as for a right state of heart, right teachings, right examples, that children do not live and act, speak and think and pray aright.