CHAPTER XXII
Be Prayerful
A noble characteristic of any boy is love for prayer. Too many consider common amusements more important than going to some chamber or church to commune with the loving Saviour. They are not. The former bring transient happiness and with it a weary frame, the latter an unexplained peace, rest of body and soul. The former gratifies for a time without changing selfish desires or promoting lofty aspirations, the latter moulds into the image of the Christ-character.
Prayer is not simply a petition or mere forms of a vain repetition. It is a turning of the life toward God, an opening of the soul toward heaven, a reaching out of one’s being with desire to appropriate the Divine. It was a shoemaker’s shop, with bench, half-worn shoes and not a few boxes. The proprietor was an old friend of the writer, so deaf that few could converse with him. Visiting the village in which he lived, I called upon him. After a chat by means of the lips, signs and paper, he asked if I would like to hear his son play the harp. Assenting, he called the lad, who brought a beautiful instrument. Placing his feet on the pedals, he ran his fingers over the wires and melodious music resounded. When it stopped, I turned to the old man, and asked by signs: “Did you hear it?” Shaking his head, he answered, “Not a note.” Then stepping to the stove, he picked up a long black poker, and putting one end between his teeth and the other on the harp, he motioned the boy to play. The lad’s fingers moved as if by magic. The room was flooded with music and passing pedestrians stopped to listen. Suddenly the musician stopped. I propounded the same question: “Did you hear anything?” He laughed and answered: “All that you heard, I heard.” How? That dirty poker was changed into a conductor of sound. It brought harp and listener in contact with each other. In like manner prayer brings God and petitioner into near relation. What one pleads, the other hears, and answering, God makes music in the soul.
GREAT MEN GREAT IN PRAYING.
Many great men have been great in praying. Men of the Bible, men of science, history and influence have been firm believers in it. Charles Simeon and Joseph Alleine spent from four to eight o’clock in the morning waiting upon God. Wesley gave two hours a day, Luther the first three hours. Samuel Rutherford was up at three in the morning to give God praise. Archbishop Leighton was so much alone with God that he seemed to be in a perpetual meditation. Bishop Ken was so much alone with God, that his soul was said to be God-enamored. David Brainerd prayed hour after hour. John Fletcher spent whole nights in prayer, John Welsh often seven to eight hours a day. When the hour for devotion arrived, General Gordon displayed a white handkerchief outside his tent, and as long as it remained, no one was allowed to disturb him. General Stonewall Jackson’s servant used to say that when his master got up several times during the night to pray there was to be a battle next day. Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that he had been driven to his knees “by the overwhelming conviction that he had nowhere else to go.” Gathering his pupils about him at the opening of his school, Agassiz said, “It is becoming that we first of all bow in the presence of the Infinite One.” Well might these exclaim with thousands of others: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 3:14).
PRAYER MAKES A BOY BRAVE.
During the Civil War a dozen soldiers were playing cards one night when one exclaimed: “What on earth was that?” Listening attentively a moment, he heard a low, solemn voice, coming from the next tent, occupied by several recruits, who had that day arrived in camp. Accompanied by the others he approached the tent on tip-toe. “Boys, he’s praying, or I’m a sinner!” he roared out. “Three cheers for the parson!” shouted another man of the group as the prayer ended. “You watch things for three weeks. I’ll show you how to take the religion out of him,” said the first speaker, laughing. He was a large burly fellow, prominent in mischief. The recruit was a slight, pale-faced boy. During the next three weeks the latter was the butt of the camp. Then several of the boys, conquered by the lad’s gentle patience and uniform kindness, begged the others to stop annoying him. “Oh, the little ranter is no better than the rest of us!” answered the ringleader. “When we get under fire, you’ll see him run. These pious folk don’t like the smell of gunpowder. I’ve no faith in their religion.”
In a few weeks, the regiment broke camp, marched toward Richmond, entered the Wilderness and engaged in that fearful battle. The company to which the young recruit belonged had a desperate struggle. The brigade was driven back, and when the line was formed behind the breastworks they had built in the morning, he was missing. When last seen, he was surrounded by enemies, fighting desperately. At his side was the brave fellow who had made the poor lad a constant object of ridicule. Both were given up as lost. Suddenly the big man was seen tramping through the underbrush, bearing the dead body of the boy. Reverently he laid the corpse down, saying as he wiped the blood from his own face: “Boys, I couldn’t leave him behind, he fought so. I thought he deserved a decent burial.”
During a lull in the battle the men dug a shallow grave and tenderly laid him to rest. Then, as one was cutting the name and regiment upon a board, the big man said, with a husky voice, “I guess you’d better put the words ‘Praying soldier’ in somewhere. He deserves the title, and maybe it’ll console him for our abuse.”