[16] Gore on Ephesians, p. 189.
[17] Works: Vol. vii. 624.
[18] Canon Gore.
Chapter IX
The Church in Prayer
Thus far little has been said of the more corporate aspect of the spiritual life—of army movements, so to speak. Our minds have been chiefly on the duties of men in their individual capacity. Not that any one can ever behave so that he alone is affected by his output of energy. Whether consciously or unconsciously every human being that breathes, according as he moves his will upwards or downwards, elevates or hinders his fellows. The most secret passages of life should be traversed with reference to others, in order that we may be ruled by that beautiful consistency which will enable us to act formally in public without readjusting our whole inner temper. There will be no wrench, no unnatural straining to become what we cannot be at a moment's notice, but on the contrary merely an exhibition under altered conditions of the spirit which has all along actuated us. For instance, one who has not learned to pray hard for others and to ponder over their welfare, cannot hope to speak to men with any force on spiritual topics. He has not cultivated the frame of mind that will give him power to do it. If he tries, his words will most likely be irreverent cant or an empty echo. It is only out of the fulness of the heart that the mouth can speak effective words.
In no department of life is this more true than in corporate worship. The power of public worship is dependent upon and the outcome of healthy and faithful private worship, to say nothing of the rest of the personal life. Those who have true personal religion will feel their life of devotion incomplete without common prayer; a growing desire for public worship is an index of a man's deepening spirituality. On the other hand, when we hear men saying that they do not care for church services, that they can pray just as well at home, and so on, it is safe to conclude that whatever fine-spun theories they may hold, as a matter of fact they are suffering from spiritual atrophy, praying neither at home nor anywhere else. Private devotion whets the appetite for public worship. And those who are in intention true to fundamental Christian principles will not mistake the end of the Church's corporate worship.
The assembling of the congregation is something far larger than the creation of a public occasion for saying private prayers. There are numbers of persons who go through the whole service without a thought for any one but themselves, sucking the liturgy dry of whatever touches their own immediate concerns, but oblivious to those who kneel around; and perhaps private manuals supply the place of the Prayer Book. Such persons squeeze into their own cup all the inspiration that a harmonious concourse of men carries with it, and make no return. Like the horse-leach's daughters their cry is, "Give, give." Could anything be more selfish or more anomalous? There is no effort of imagination, no kindling of sympathy, no struggle to enter under the shadow of the prayer of the congregation, so that they are as completely alone as though they were in a desert place.