The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-12-01


"Yes, it nearly cost me my life. l was
in mine in England 900 feet under
ground and three miles from the shaft
of the mine, and rock fell on me, and
nv fellow-laborer pried off the rock
and l was bleeding to death, and he
took a newspaper from around his
luncheon and bound it around my
wound and helped me over the three
miles under ground to the shaft, where
l was lifted to the top, and when that
| newspaper was taken off my wound l
read on it something that saved my
soul, and it was one of your sermons.
Goodnight" he said, leaving me trans
fixed with grateful emotion.
Who knows but the words / now
speak, blessed of God, may reach some
wounded soul deep down in the black
mine of sin, and that these words may
be blessed to the staunching of the
wound and the eternal life of the soul?
Settle this matter instantly, positively
and forever. Stay the last IF Bury
deep the last ''if" How to do it? Fling
body, mind and soul in prayer as
| that of Moses in the text. Can you
doubt earnestness of this prayer of the
text? 1t is so heavy with emotion that
| it breaks down in the middle. 1t was
so earnest that the translators in the
modern copies of the Bible were obliged
to put mark, straight line, dash,
| for an omission that will never be filled
up. Such an abrupt pause, such a
sudden swapping off of the sentence.
You cannot parse my text. 1t is an
| offense to grammatical construction.
But that dash put in by the type-setten
is mighty suggestive. '1f thou wilt
forgive their sin then comes the dash
out of Thy book
Some of the most earnest prayers
ever uttered could not be parsed and
were poor specimens of language.
They halted, they broke down, they
passed into sobs or groans or silences.
God cares nothing for the svntaX of
prayers, nothing for the rhetoric OF
prayers. oh. the wordless prayers! II
they were piled up they would reach
to the rainbow that arches the throne
of God. A deep sigh may mean more
than a whole liturgy. The most eff
fective prayers l have ever heard
have been prayers that broke
down with emotion; the young
man for the first time arising in a
prayer meeting and saying: so, Lord
Jesusr' and then sitting down, burying
the face in the handkerchief; the pa
tient in the inquiry room kneeling and
saying: "God help me-" and getting
no further; the broken prayer that
started a great revival in my church in
Philadelphia. A prayer may have in
style the gracefulness of an Addison,
and the sublimity of Milton, and the
epigrammatic force of an Emerson, and
yet be failure, having a horizontal
power, but no perpendicular power,
horizontal power reaching the ear OF
man, but no perpendicular power
reaching the ear of God.
Between the first and last sentences
of my text there was a paroxysm of
earnestness too mighty for words. II
will take half of an eternity to tell of
all the answers of earnest and faithful
prayer. In his last journal, David Liv-
|
so soon to be answered: ''19 March
Birthday. My Jesus, my God, my Life,
| my All, again dedicate my whole self
to thee. Accept me, and grant @
gracious Father that ere this year is
gone, | may finish my task. In Jesus
| name, | ask it. Amen" When the
dusky servant looked into hivings-
tones 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. l think the two
Ifs" in the prayer defeated it, and one
eff is enough to defeat any prayer,
whatever good characteristics it may
have. eff Thou wilt forgive their sin;
and if not, blot me, pray Thee, out OF
| Thy book" God did neither. As the fol-
| lowing verses show, he punished their
sins, but l am 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 If" and
that is the prayer for temporal bless
ings. Pray for riches and they may en-
gulf us, or for fame and it may bewitch
us, or for worldly success of any sort
and it may destroy us. Better say: al
it be best" IF l can make proper use
of it." eff thou seest / need it."
A wifi praying for the recovery of
her husband from illness, stamped her
foot and said, with frightful emphasis:
Il will not have him die; God shall not
take him. Her prayer was answered,
but few years after, the commune
| ty was shocked by tie fact that
he in a moment of anger mad slain her.
A mother, praying for sons recovery
from illness, told the Lord he had nc
right to take him. and the boy recov'
cred, but plunged into all abomina-
tions and died a renegade. Better in
all such prayers pertaining to our tenn
poral welfare, put an IF, saying: III
it be thy will!' But praying for spirit
ual good and the salvation of our soul
we need never insert an IF" Our
spiritual welfare is sure to be for the
best, and away with the Ifs"
| Abraham's prayer for the rescue oi
1 oOuOul was d = idhA ~ CT Al SoiiC ~
spects. but there We're six Ifs" in it,
or 'peradventures." which mean tina
same thing. "Peradventure there may
be fifty righteous in the city, perad.
venture forty-five, peradventure forty,
peradventure thirty, peradventure
twenty, peradventure ten" Those six
peradventures, those six 'ifs" killed
the prayer and Sodom went down and
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 Hezekiah from a
| e;oly ,paD 10 n wall man Tho r1ra var