“We have begun backwards,” said Mr. Roberts; “I was reading to-day that a mistake the missionaries made for years in trying to civilize the Greenlanders; and what a perfect failure they made of it until one day almost by accident, a man began to tell them about Christ on the cross, and the story melted them. I don't think I have thought enough about Him in this matter.”
“I stand convicted,” Dr. Everett said; “I've made the same mistake, I believe, in all my efforts for people. I have been praying for them, it is true; but, after all, I feel now as though there had been too much relying on human means, and not enough on God. It is a case of 'these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone.'”
“Well,” said Mr. Roberts, looking at his watch, “we are in the same condemnation; it is, I believe, the most common, and one of the most fatal, mistakes that Christian workers make. But there is a way out. We expected to spend until ten o'clock with those boys. It is nearly nine now; suppose we spend the next hour with Christ, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit on any and every effort that we may make for them in the future? Our ultimate aim is to bring every one of them to Jesus and He knows it; now if we have gone about in the wrong way, we have only to ask Him forgiveness and look to Him steadily for guidance. What do you say, friends, shall we spend the hour in taking them to the only One who really can afford them lasting help?”
I suppose that He who “maketh the wrath of man to praise Him” is equally able to manage the folly of man. Could the injudicious philanthropist have looked into that room that evening, and heard the prayers that went up to God for those boys, and understood something of the power of prayer, he would have had one illustration of how God manages the foolishness of men.
It was a very earnest prayer-meeting. These workers had each one bowed in secret, and with more or less earnestness, asked for God's blessing on their efforts; but it occurred to them that evening, as a very strange thing, that they had never unitedly prayed for this before. Therefore there was an element of confession in all the prayers that moved Gracie Dennis strangely. Especially was this the case when she heard her old acquaintance, Flossy, pour out her soul's longings. It happened, so strange are the customs of Christians, that though this was the daughter of a minister of the gospel, herself a Christian, she had never before heard a lady pray in the presence of gentlemen. She had heard of their doing so; heard them criticised with sharp sarcasm. Some of the criticisms which had sounded full of keenness and wit when she heard them, recurred to her at this time, and some way, with Flossy's low, earnest voice filling her heart, they dwindled into shallowness and coarseness. All the same, their baneful influence was on her, and helped to hold her back from opening her lips, for the critic had been Professor Ellis.
When the hostess and her young guest were left alone together that evening, the latter had a question to ask:—
“Flossy Shipley!”—the name you will remember which she always went back to when excited—“I didn't know you believed in praying in public! Have you changed in everything?”
“In public, my dear!” with a quiet smile; “why, I am in my own house!”
“Oh, yes; but you know what I mean—before gentlemen. Do you really think it is necessary?”
“As to that, Gracie, I don't believe I thought anything about it. I wanted to pray for those boys, and so I prayed.”