The free press., 1893-12-07
aro,no tho +,+,e But allowed for years OF

than that have put to hlght forever THO Ii
of uncertainty.
A few sabbath nights ago in this church
man passing at the foot of the pulpit said to
me, III am a miner from England, and then
he pushed back his coat sleeve and said, do
you see that scar on my ARM! sald, Yes
you must have had an awful wound there
some time" He said Eyes 1t nearly COST
me my life. was in mine in England GU
feet underground and three miles from the
shaft OF the rnine and a rock fell on me, and
nv fellow laborer pried off the rock, and
was bleeding to death, and he took news
paper from around his luncheon ana pound
il around my wound and then helped me over
the three miles underground to the shalt,
where was lifted to the top, and when the
newspaper was taken off my wound 1 read
on 1t something that saved my soul, and 1t
was one OF your sermons. Good night, ne
said as he passed on. leaving me transhXen
with grateful emotion.
And who knows but the words now speak,
blessed OF God, may reach some wounded
soul deep down In the black mine % OF SIN, ana
that these words may be blessed to the stanch-
ing Of the wound and the eternal life OF the
soul? Settle this matter instantly. positively
and forever. Slay the last ''if." Bury deep
the last '.if." How to do it? Fling body,
mind and souln prayer as earnest as that
OF Moses In the text. Can you doubt the
earnesness of this prayer of the text? 1t Is
80 heavy with emotion that it breaks down
in the middle. 1t was so earnest that the
trans,ators in the modern copies OF the Bible
were obliged to put mark, a straight line,
a dash. for an omission that will never be
filed up. Such an abrupt pause. such sud
den swapping off of the sentence!
You cannot parse my text. 1t is an Oh
fense of grammatical construction. But
that dash put in by the typesetters is nightly
suggestive. 'If thou wilt forgive their sin
Cthen comes the dash )-'and II not, blot
me, 1 pray Thee, out of Thy book Some
of the most earnest prayers ever uttered
could not be parsed and we're poor speci-
mems of language. They halted, they broke
down, they passed into sobs or groans or
silences. God cares nothing for the syntax
of PRAYERS, nothing for the rhetoric OF
Drawers. Oh, the worldless prayers If they
were piled up, they would reach to the rain
bow that arches the throne of God. deep
sigh may mean more than whole liturgy.
Out of the 10000 words of the English
language there may not be word enough
expressive for the soul.
The most effective prayers l have heard
have been prayers that broke down Win
emotion-the young man for the first time
rising in prayer meeting and saying, ION,
Lord Jesus!" and then sitting down, bury
ing his face in the handkerchief, the peni-
tent in the inquiry room kneeling and say
ing, "God help me" and getting no further;
the broken prayer that started great re-
yiyal in my church in Philadelphia. A
prayer may have in style the gracefulDess OF
an Addison. and the sublimity of Milton
and the epigrammatic force OF an Emerson
and yet be a failure, having horizontal
power but no perpendicular power, hori-
zontai power reaching the ear of man, but
no perpendicular power reaching the ear of
God.
Between the first and the last sentences OF
my text there was paroxysm OF earnestness
too mighty for words. 1t will take half of an
eternity to tell of all the answers OF earnest
and faithful prayer. In his last Journal
David Livingstone, in Africa, records the
prayer SO soon to be answered: "19 March
my 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 Llv-
ingstone's tent and found him dead on his
knees, he saw that the prayer had been an
swered But notwithstanding the earnest
ness of the prayer Of Moses in the text, 1t
was q defeated prayer and was not an
swered. think the two ''ifs" in the prayer
defeated it, and one 'ff' is enough to defeat
any prayer, whatever other good character
istics 1t may have. 'If Thou wilt forgive
their sins-and if not, blot me, pray Thee,
out of Thy book" God did neither. AS the
following verses show, He punished their
sins, but am sure did not blot out one let
ter OF the name of Moses from the Book or
Life.
There is only one kind OF prayer in which
you need to put the ''if, and that Is the
prayer for temporal blessings. Pray for
riches, and they may engulf us; or for fame,
and it may bcwitch us or for worldly sue
cess, and it may destroy us. Better say, III
it be best" "If can make proper use OF It,,
"If Thou seest need it," A wife praying for
the recovery of her husband from illness,
stamped her foot and said with frightful
emphasis II will not have him die. God
shall not take him." Her prayer was an
swered, but in a few years after the commu-
nifty was shocked by the fact that he had In
moment of anger slain her.
A mother. praying for u sons recover from
illness told the Lord he had no right to take
him, and the boy recovered, but plunged In
to all denominations and died renegade
Better in all such prayers and all prayers
pertaining to our temporal welfare to put an
'if." saying, "If it be Thy will. But in pray
ing for spiritual good ana the salvation OF
our soul we need never insert an III. Our
spiritual welfare is sure to be for the best,
and away with the 'iis.
Abraham's prayer for the rescue of Sodom
was grand prayer in some respects, but
there were six Ifs" i'll it, or 'peradven-
lures" which mean the same thing. Per
adventure there may be fifty righteous in the
city, peradventure forty-ive, peradventure
forty, peradventure thirty, peradventure
twenty, peradventure ten" Those six per-
adventures, those six ''irs' 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 Hezekiah froni@
sick man to well man, the prayer that
halted sun and moon without shaking the
| universe to pieces.
Oh, rally your soul for a prayer with no
''ifs" in it Say in substance: Lord, Thou
hast promised pardon, and l 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, am fleeing to the City OF Refuge,
and am sure this is the right way. Thanks
| be to God. am free"
Once, by the law, my hopes were slain.
But now, In Christ, i 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 printers dash ofthe
text, and with wordless silence implore
pardon and comfort and life and heaven.
For this assembage, all of whom I shall
meet in the last judgment, dare not offer
| the PRAYER of my text and so / change 1t and