Persevere! Ah! that word suggests what may be the real difficulty, the true reason for the seeming uselessness of so many good prayers. They are good as far as they go, but there are not enough of them. The effect that is to come of them is to come all at once; it is like the fall of a tree in the woods under the blows of the axe: the tree will come down, but not at the first, the second, the tenth, or perhaps even the hundredth stroke.
Yes, my brethren, our Lord could no doubt grant our prayers as soon as we made them, but he does not wish to do so. And I think we can see at least two reasons why he does not. First, if he grants what we ask at once we will go off with what he has given us, and hare no more to say to him. And, strange to say, he enjoys our society; he has himself said his delight is to be with the children of men. So he keeps us around him, though it be only to tease, as a father would the children he loved, if he could not keep them any other way. And, secondly, he knows that it is good for us to be with him; and that every time we pray in earnest we come nearer to him, and our souls become stronger. So it is that, both for his own sake and for our good, he sometimes will not grant our prayers unless we persevere in them for a very long while.
Our Lord has given us to understand this importance of persevering in prayer very plainly in the Gospel read on these days, called Rogation Days, between to-day and the Feast of the Ascension. He represents to us in the parable of this Gospel a man who has gone to bed, and is roused at midnight by a friend who wants to borrow some bread to set before an unexpected guest. He at first tells the disturber to leave him alone; he says that he cannot be bothered to get up at such an inconvenient time; he pretends to drop off asleep, and keeps his friend outside knocking and pounding for so long a time that he almost gives it up as useless. "Yet," says our Lord, "if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth."
This is the lesson, then, it may be, for those who have had no success at their prayers. They did well to begin, but they did not keep at it long enough. Let them go at it once again, and keep on. Let them ask, and keep asking, and they shall receive; let them seek long enough, and they shall find; let them keep knocking and making a disturbance, and at last the door shall be opened, and they shall obtain what they desire.
Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension.
Epistle.
1 St. Peter iv. 7-11.
Dearly beloved:
Be prudent, and watch in prayers. But before all things have a mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins. Using hospitality one towards another without murmuring. As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the words of God. If any man minister, let it be as from the power which God administereth: that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Gospel.
St. John xv. 26-xvi. 4.
At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples:
When the Paraclete shall come whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning. These things have I spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth a service to God. And these things will they do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things I have told you, that when the hour of them shall come, you may remember that I told you.