The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-07-10
PRAYERS.
Some Petit Ons Well Calculated to As
tOnish the Natives.

Some Petit Ons Well Calculated TO As
tonish the Natives.
brooklyn Eagle.J
Professor Tyndall's prayer gauge PROPOSE
ton OF a few years ago very properly and
very considerably shocked great many high
minded persons who preserved the antique
privacy of communion with the Almighty.
They preferred TO think of the act of prayer
as the most sacred of acts as the barring of
the soul of man before the eye of God. and
to find its proper definition in Montgomery's
lines:
Prayer is the souls sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed;
to remember with the wicked Claudius that
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
This was the old style form of prayer 1t
was with this thought that the cOmpilers of
those most perfect poems in the English Ian
guage, which as collects and prayers render
the Episcopal prayer book second only in
beauty of diction and feeling TO one book in
the world, culled their petitions from every
available human source. These prayers
serve as models, and will, in spirit if not in
words, survive so long as man remains a
religious being, with the inevitable sense Of
dependence upon a power higher than his
own. To such men as still regard the Office
and privilege of prayer in this sense, the
proposition TO put its efficacy to a practical,
material test must be shocking, and we do
not wonder that the world recoiled from
Professor Tyndall's invitation with horror
and disgust
But even these must acknowledge that
forms of prayer have undergone a very re-
markable change in few years. Could some
of the public utierances of our own most
distinguished divines be recorded, classified
and compared with those of the old churches,
we fear that our most religiously inclined
readers would laugh. Objection is made
Sf a Of fha oil ocf .7-+1
tie words by constant repitition lose their
significance, and are uttered by rote and
without thought. We do not propose to
challenge this belief, but to point out what
has been said on the other side, namely, that
extempore prayers are likely to lack
concentration, proper forms of expression,
and even to partake of the personal quail
tiles of the public petitioner. Now no
steady church goer who has listened to lit
anies and collects, and worshIped in the sim
pie, dignifed ard humble language chosen
by greater men than he, can fell at times to
think that the minister appears to be, at
least on very familiar terms with the Al
mjghty. All sorts of shades of feeling are
expressed. At one moment he is humble
at the next resentful, then patr0nizing, now
dogmatic, now complaining. The political
prayer which some pet preacher has been
called upon TO denver Is cha plain OF q legis-
latlve body, has filled one with alternate
feelings OF shame and hilarity, and within
the past few weeks the country has been
treated to a still more extraordinary phase
of communion with Omnipotence. In the
political conventions of two great states
We learned that the petitioner caught
the spirit of the convention" and passed ii
up to his Creator with instructions, or at
least recomme ndatlons, how to receive it
We were assured, moreover, that the con-
vention, fully appreciating the ingenuity of
lain, thereby intimating to Omnipotence
that the petitioner presented its sentiments,
ard it would be very much Obliged by an
answer to correspond. Nay, in one prayer
the convention burst into the preachers ut
terances with applause and expressed its en-
tire satisfaction with him. In Other words,
the e precious priests prayed to their politi
Cal hearers, and were answered as they de-
sired, with applause.
1t was probably in this spirit that in the
dedicatory prayer at the opening ceremonies
of new hotet at Coney Island last evening
a distinguished Baptist deacon threw in an
injunction 10 the petitioner to be louder"
indicating thereby either that his Maker was
a trife deaf, or, in the language of Elijah,
asleep or On journey-or that the prayer,
so-called. was addressed to the diners instead
of the Deity.
Astonishing as these specimens of extern
pore prayer making may appear, the prayer
of the Rev. DR.. Wilson, of Baltimore, strikes
us as among the most comlcal things in i'm
predatory literature. AT the commencement
exercises of the Western female high school,
in his city, he included in an address to
heaven, the bulk of which, we fear, is lost
to the world, this amazing clause: 'Oh,
God, grant that not one of these young Ia
dies may be the victim of unrequited love-"
Whether he added, And may none of them
marry red haired beaux or have to wash
dishes" is not stated, but We are prepared TO
hear that he included among the blessings
desired of Heaven twelve button kid gloves
and the best seats at the opera whenever the
ladies wanted these essentials. The combi-
nation of religion and romance is at least
novel. Mr.. Wilson has reached one extreme
of prayer of which the Chinese praying ma
chine furnishes the other We may next
anticipate from some of our highest priced
priests and in our most heavily mortgaged
temples special prayers for protection
against freckles, warts and bunions," or ex
ira services twice week to petition for a
new style of bonnet which other people
haven't got.