J. Campbell White says: "Prayer is the first and chief method of solving the missionary problem. Among all the methods that have been devised none is more practical, more fruitful than this. If we could get a definite group of people at home into the habit of supporting by prayer each missionary in the thick of the fight, by this simple method alone the efficiency of the present missionary force could probably be doubled without adding a single new missionary."
In bringing in a report on the place of prayer in missions, a committee of men at one of the conferences of the Laymen's Missionary Movement submitted the following: "Prayer is the only element which can quicken information into inspiration, transmute interest into passion, crystallize emotion into consecration, and coin enthusiasm into dollars and lives. Resolved, that we seek by every means to convince every man that, whatever may be his contribution of money or service, he has not exercised his highest influence, performed his whole duty, nor enjoyed his highest privilege until he has made definite, believing prayer for missions a part of his daily life."
As we remember Jesus Christ, and recall the kind of tasks he has given his men to do, the kind of men he expects us to be, as we lift up our eyes and look into the upturned faces of the thousand millions of people who know not God and remember that we are the men who must bridge the racial gulf and capture the world for Christ, we may well be moved by a solemn sense of our responsibility. It is our duty not simply to nurse the wounded but to stop the battle. If we are to face our tasks with inflexible courage and a growing devotion we must cultivate the vital processes and bring to Christ the flawless wholeness of unshared hearts.
One of the old Greeks said that every speech must begin with an incontrovertible proposition. Three such propositions are stated here.
1. Prayer has Called Forth and Energized All the Great Spiritual and Missionary Movements of All Times.
The history of the Moravian movement, of the great missionary awakenings in Germany, and the modern missionary uprising in Great Britain shows that they were all born and given power because of prayer.
On this side of the Atlantic it should never be forgotten that the three great interdenominational movements which have had so much to do with the arousing of America to her missionary responsibility were all called forth by prayer, and whatever of vitality and power they have displayed still depends upon the energies of God poured forth in answer to prayer. The Student Volunteer Movement grew out of an unusual volume of intercession on the part, first, of a small group of individuals, and then of a conference assembled at Northfield in 1886. It was from a small group of men meeting for prayer and counsel in New York and later at Silver Bay on Lake George that the Missionary Education Movement came into being. It was in a prayer-meeting in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, on November 15, 1906, that the Laymen's Missionary Movement began its career.
Two principles have been increasingly emphasized in all these movements, and men may well take them to heart and ponder them deeply before deciding that there is any other way in which they can exert so powerful a world influence as in prayer. These principles are:
God has accomplished most by the men who have adventured themselves most upon God.
Men must commune with Christ if they are to communicate Christ.