Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-11-25

IN ~ 4E-4-A<1ALV M ~ -
rainbow that arches the throne Of God.
a deeps sigh may mean more than whole
liturgy. Out of the lie, 900 words Of the
English language there may not be q
word enough expressive for the soul.
The most effective prayers / have ever
heard have been prayers that broke
down with emotion-the young man for
the first time rising in a prayer meeting
and saying, 80 Lord Jesusl' and then
sitting down, burying the face in the
handkerchief; the penitent in the In
quiry room kneeling and saying, "God
help me" and getting no further; the
broken prayer that started great re-
yival in my church in Philadelphia. A
prayer may have in style the graceful
ness Of an Addison, and the sublimity Of
Milton, and the epigrammatic force Of
an Emerson, and yet be a failure, hav-3
ing a horizontal power, but no perpen-
dicular power; horizontal power reach
ing the ear of man, but no perpendicular
power reaching the ear of God
USE OF sE" IN PRAYER.
Between the first and the last sem
fences of my text there was paroxysm
of earnestness too mighty for words. It
will take half of an eternity, to tell Of all
the answers Of earnest and faithful pray
er. In his last journal David Living
stone, in Africa, records the prayer so
soon to be answered: e.19 March-Birth
day. My Jesus, my God, my Life, my
Ali, again dedicate my whole self to
thee. Accept me and grant, o gracious
Father, that ere this year is gone I may
finish my task. In Jesus name ask it.
Amen"
When the dusl1y servant looked into
Livingston's tent and found him dead on
his knees, he saw that the prayer had
been answered. But Notwithstanding
the earnestness of the prayer Of Moses in
the text it was defeated prayer and
was not answered. think the two offs"
in the prayer defeated it, and one 'if' is
enough to defeat any prayer, whatever
other good characteristics it may have.
"If thou wilt forgive their sins-and if
not, blot me, pray thee, out Of thy
book God did neither. AS the follow
ing verses show, he punished their sins,
but I ana sure did not blot out one letter
Of the name of Moses from the book OF
life.
There is only one kind of prayer in
which you need to put the eff, and that
is the prayer for temporal blessings.
Pray for riches and they may engulf us,
or for fame and it may bewitch US, or for
worldly success Of any sort and it may
destroy us. Better say, IF it be BEST"
''if can make proper use of il" "if Thou
seest 1 need it." A wife, praying for the
recovery of her. husband from Illness,
stamped her foot and said with frightful
emphasis: 81 will not have him die. God
shall not take him." Her prayer was
answered, but few years after the COM
muuity was shocked by the fact that he
had in moment Of anger slain her.
A mother, praying for q sons recov-
ery from illness, told the Lord he had no
right to take him, and the boy recovered,
but plunged into all denominations and
died renegade. Better in all such
prayers and. all prayers pertaining to our
temporal welfare put an ''if," saying,
..If it be thy will" But praying for
spiritual good and the salvation of our
Soul we need never insert an eff !" OUR
spiritual welfare is. sure to be for;the
sbest, and sawaya the 81 81
Abrahan's prayer for the rescue OF
Sodom was grand prayer in some re-
spects, but there were six '1ifs" in it, or
"peradventures," which mean the same
thing. ''Peradyenture there may be 30
righteous in the city, peradventure As,
peradventure 40, peradventure 80, per-
adventure co.. peradventure TO-" Those
six peradventures, those six "ifs," killed
the prayer, and Sodom went down and
went under. Nearly all the prayers
that were answered had no 'ifs" in them
the prayer of Elijah that changed dry
weather to wet weather, the prayer
that changed Hezel1iah from sick man
to well man, the prayer that halted
sun and moon without shaking the uni.
verse to pieces.
Oh, rally your soul for prayer with
no offs" in it. Say in substance, Lord,
thou hast promised pardon, and I take it.
Here are my wounds; heal them. Here
is my blindness; irradiate it. Here are
my chains of bondage; by the gospel
hammer strike them off. l am fleeing
to the city of refuge, and am sure this
is The right way. Thanks be to God, I
am free"
Once, by the law, my hopes were slain,
But now, in Christ, ] live again.
With the Mosaic earnestness Of my
text and without its Mosaic "ifs," let us
cry out for God Aye, if words fail us,
let us take the suggestion of that print
er's dash of the text. and with word
less silence implore pardon and comfort
and life and heaven. For this assem-
blage, all of whom I shall meet in the
last Judgment, darenot offer the prayer
of my text, and SO change it and say,
"Lord God, forgive our sins and write
our names in the book of thy loving re-
membrance, from which they shall neyer
be blotted out"
MacJIahon ut the DIalakoff
We have received from Lieutenant
General Donat MacMahon Bedford),
who saw the attack on the Malakof, the
following interesting letter: ~ see by