The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-02-14
THE EoorIsrIcAL PRAYER.
[Bnl Nye, ,in New York Mercury.l

sincere desire uttered or unoKpgeeeed." l have heard prayer, however. that sounded more like an introduction of the suppliant to the throne ef grace. There used to be an old gentleman in Maine, years ego, whose prayers were mostly an autobiography. His custom generally was to stand up while wrestling ia prayer, close bis eyes tight, hang on to the pew in front of him, and then begin to tell the Lord his family affairs. 1 do net know whether he still lives OF whether he has gone to ais reward. snf ns hnsy usual piazza to bis prayer and then open out with this sentence: "We would not wish to dictate, Lord, but we would hmm bly, suggest" sI4.a
 He wanted to be courteous, but at the same time he wished to show that he was . man oi influence in his own locality.
 In Wyoming, there was a lady who used to have . large amount of responsi- bitisy on her shoulders. She considered herself kind of assistant general super intendent of the universe and rather con- graduated herself on her Auency in prayer. She never addressed the throne of grace without doing SO grammatically, and her gestures and meditation were correct Whether she ever got any, thing she prayed for or not, do not now remember but she was known far and wide as one of the most ready and fluent extemporaneous suppliants in the west.
 She had a pretty tough family but that was neither here nor there. She used to say over and over again that with sin.sick world in wickedness and dark ness of soul, she often felt that she could not do full justice to her own family. So it happened frequently that while she was at some noble gathering, on her knees explaining the plan of salvation to the Lord in her lucid and normal school lam guage, her husband with his sleeves rolled up to his shoulder-blades was won. dering profanely why his bread would not "raise."
 One evening she had been called upon to open a kind of mufie scuffie with prayer, and after she had petitioned the throne for about quarter of an hour and had not heard murmur of applause, she turned her head and in a low stage aside said:
 "Ladies, can you hear ?"
 would like to be near when she pre-. sents her credentials on the judgment day, just to note the look of surprise that will overcome her features like summer cloud. She will be greatly annoyed when she goes through the archives of heaven, ! wot to find that her beautiful seven and one-third octave prayers are not on file there.
 Please do not regard these remarks as sacrilegious. They are just simply per- sonal "reminiscences. l remember an old gentleman whe vas known as the weeper. can weep like him yet when l feel like it. It is no great trick, either. He never regarded prayer as perfect success unless he broke down in the middle of it and Heated away on the tide of ready-made tears. Once there wasa cry of fire while he was in the midst of a sob. When we got to the fire he was there and he had fully overcome his emotions and was bravely rescuing the ice-cream freezer by the back stairs.
 He vas highly emotional and could weep all day without feed or water. He had wife in Iowa and another in York State-somewhere in Cattaraugus county, ] think. This was a blessing to them, for they only had to endure him half of the time each.
 One day he was standing in front of the congregation engaged in prayer, and had just begun to shed the scalding tear over mans lost and undone condition. II remember how he looked, with his eyes shut and his nose rcd and his bogus crocodile team chasing each other down his cast iron cheek. A good many of the congregation seemed to be watching him over the tops of the pews. He reached in his coat-tail pocket for his handker. chief and brought it forth, folded as he had taken 1t from the bureau drawer Still weeping and sobbing over his fallen race. and with his eyes tightly closed, he slowly unfolded his white handkerchief to its full extent and plunged his long red nose into it, but not before he had shown the congregation that the hand kerchief was, in fact, the very smallest size of child's shirt. Some one then smiled in low tone of voice and he opened his eyss. Oh, how mad he vas From that on never knew him to weep ovsr mans lost and undone condition.
 Probably It gave him just as much pain as ever, but he seemed to have learned to control his eynosions