The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1881-08-31
OUR RELIGIOUS COLUMN.
OLD CHURCH CALENDAR.
August 2S. Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.
Sept. a. Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.


We have spoken of the Lords Day, and the
Lords Word as badges of His profession and
service and their proper use) marks of His
people.
To these, Third should be added, tho
Lord 5 Prayer 1t will be remembered that
the Disciples came to Jesus with the request
" Lord, teach US to pray, as John also taught
his disciples {" whereupon He gave them, and
for the second time, that Incompatible form,
i" Our Father Commentators on the
passage tell us that it was customary, among
the jews for the teacher at the head Of a
Rabbinical school to give to his pupils par
ticular form of prayer by the constant use of
which they should be known as his scholars /;
it was their religious badge. John the Bap-
tist appears to have done the same and the
Apostles request was that their Divine Mas
ter would likewise " teach " them to pray,
by giving them a distinctive formula Of de-
votion, the use of which would mark them as
His followers, and help bind them together in
the fellowship of His religious family and
school. That it was set form they asked
for, aud not general directions and principles
of prayer, is evident from the way in which
He answered them. He did not, as in the
Sermon on the Mount, bid them enter into
their closets, or charge them to forgive their
enemies, or caution them against vain repeti-
tons. His only exhortation, here, is to per-
severing earnestness but he tells them,
again, to use what has ever since been the
Christians pattern prayer, Our Father.
And His injunction is not for secret devotion,
only, with shut doors. He speaks as to them
aH collectively not Thou, when thou
pIayest" but, "When ye pray, say, Our
Father" He makes it, as 1t were, the prayer
of the whole church. And the occasions for
its use are not limited When We pray, !"
or phenSoooer ye pray. The infant is to lisp
1t, at his mothers knee the saint In his
closet to pour forth his souls desire in its
Christ-taught phrases the assembled family
are to give utterance to their common wants
in it's comprehensive terms and the great
congregation, met together In His name, are
to ask through His all prevailing merits and
intercessions in the obedient, united repet-
ton of those blessed words, respecting Which
the Master hath said, unto all His disciples,
When ye pray, say, Our Father" How,
better, can the church say, We ask these things,
and all ace need, for Jssus' sake, than by
bringing all their common needs and wishes
into the compass of those very petitions,
framed for them by Him who is the only Adj
vocate with the Father, to present their sup
plications at the Throne of Grace?
What seems thus reasonable has, indeed,
been the general practice of the Christian
Church. Only in the religious movements of
the Reformation, when the shaking off of
Romish novelties involved, sometimes, the
loss of things that were neither novel nor
Romsh, the public and audible use of the
Lords Prayer came to be discontinued among
some Protestants.
In these days of greater intelligence, when
the narrowness of prejudice may be safely
discarded, it becomes Bible Christians to con-
slider whether it Is not to the true honor OF
7 an their public and social worship as we'll as
in their private Observation-Disclosures they
pray,-to take into their hearts and upon
their lips this best of all prayers, pleading
thereby His gracious promise, Whatsoever
we shall ask the Father in My Name He will
give it you'