In one way it yields results, often of an astonishing character. If the makers are sincere, the attitude of prayer harmonizes and strengthens their faculties, and enables them to bear with greater fortitude the vicissitudes of time; to bear, but not avert, impending fate. How many captives chained in dungeons have, in imitation of the apostle, prayed fervently with perfect faith that their chains might fall off, and the bars of their prison door be drawn aside, and met with no response. How many zealous martyrs have been led to the stake, praying to Jesus for deliverance which came not; and Jesus himself, in the hour of his mortal agony, prayed to the Father, to be answered by silence, and to find bitterness and mockery; a cross and a crown of thorns, where he had expected a throne and the glittering scepter of the nations.
The once all-powerful belief in the ability of delegated men to control events and elements by supplication to the Deity, which made the “medicine men,” the priests and jugglers, the tyrants of mankind, has now, in civilized countries, dwindled into the intercessions for moral help, and an occasional prayer for physical changes, as for rain in times of drought, the staying of grasshoppers, or the approach of disease.
It is difficult for the gospel minister to give up entirely the rôle of the “medicine man,” and cease to pray for the sick in the misty hope that God will answer. It is almost as troublesome for the preacher to let go his hold on the weather, and not follow the Indian’s rattling gourd, shaken at the sky, with prayer for the same object.
This is the degradation of prayer, and the preacher clasps hands with the juggler. That this pretense is yet maintained, is made most remarkably apparent in a work on prayer recently published. An incident in the life of President Finney, of Oberlin College, copied from its pages, will amply suffice to illustrate this anachronism, a belief of savage man forced into the highest civilized thought.
There was drought in Oberlin, and the thin, hard clay soil of that region suffered severely from a total failure for three months, of rain. Clouds promised the desired moisture, but hovered over the lake, and poured out their waters there. This they did day after day, raising the hopes of the anxious, and then drifting away.
Finney, who was an enthusiast, was walking in the street one day, when a friend met him and said: “I should like to know what you mean by preaching that God is always wise and always good, when you see him pouring out that great rain on the lake, where it can do no good, and leaving us to suffer so terribly for want of the wasted water?”
Finney said: “His words cut me to the very heart; I turned and ran home to my closet, fell on my knees, and told the Lord what had been said to me, and besought him, for the honor of his great name, to confound this caviler, and show forth the glory of his power, and the greatness of his love. I pleaded with him that he had encouraged his people to pray for rain, and now the time had come for him to show his power, and his faithfulness as a hearer of prayer. Before I rose from my knees there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind. I looked out, and lo, the heavens were black; clouds were rolling up, and rain soon fell in torrents, continuing for two full hours.”
Those who are acquainted with the lake region know the peculiarity of these storms, and will readily understand the rapidity of their coming. They require no prayer to move them, and that the coincidence of the rain and the prayer should be endorsed by leaders in theology, is a strange instance of mental aberration, or, as Darwin would say, atavism. The absurdity of the representation apparently escapes the notice of those who accept it. The zealous Finney telling an Omnipotent God what he ought to do to show his power and keep his promise for his own interest and reputation, as though the rain was not withheld for some good purpose well known by the Omnipotent! And then by his pleading, this little President of a then obscure college, changed the will and purpose of the Almighty, and brought the rain to a narrow section of country, leaving regions beyond equally suffering without a drop of moisture!
Such instances prove too much. They maintain the changefulness of God, and the power of man to persuade Him to alter the course of the elements. Mr. Finney heralds with ostentatious pride this case when the clouds came at his call; he does not tell us of the prayers he and all the praying people of that region had daily offered for weeks and months for the same object, which brought no moisture!
Rain is sure to come at some time, and if the seasons of prayer be continued long enough, the last one will surely be followed by rain.