“I trust the people of every denomination will have occasion to be convinced that I shall always strive to prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine, vital religion.... I take in the kindest part the promise you make of presenting your prayers at the throne of grace for me, and that I likewise implore the divine benediction on yourself and your religious community.”
(2447)
PRAYER, CONVINCING
George W. Coleman, in his book “Searchlights,” says:
One of my ministerial friends, who has resigned his pulpit because of his out-and-out socialistic views, naturally stirred up a good deal of angry opposition in some quarters, altho he has one of the sweetest characters I have ever known. Hateful and contemptuous things were said. There was much damning with faint praise, especially among former friends.
A level-headed friend of mine, a woman of sixty years or thereabouts, heard something of the commotion, and, to satisfy her curiosity, dropt into the church one Sunday to hear for herself what the minister really had to say for his peculiar and unpopular views. When I met her soon afterward, her only comment was, “Well, I have only to say that a man who can pray like that can’t go very far wrong, whether its socialism or anything else.”
(2448)
PRAYER FOR COMMON NEEDS
Mrs. Scranton, a missionary in Korea, writes in the Bible Society’s Reporter of a Korean Christian woman whose reply to a neighbor was a beautiful testimony to her faithfulness in prayer:
The neighbor said she could not pray—she had no time, and furthermore she had no skill with her lips. The Christian replied, “Am I not a busy woman, and yet I pray. When I get up in the morning I say, ‘My Heavenly Father, You have given me these garments with which I clothe my naked body. Without them I should be ashamed. Now please clothe my soul that it may never be ashamed or afraid.’ When I wash my face and hands I pray that I may be made clean inside as well as outside. I make the fire; and if I put on much wood it burns brightly, and I ask that the Holy Spirit may kindle just such a fire in my heart. Then I sweep the room and I say, ‘Please sweep away all the bad there is in and around me.’ When I cook the rice I pray that heavenly food may be given to my soul to keep it from starving to death.” Has not this woman learned the secret of prayer?