The Penn's Grove record., 1893-11-24

SOUL tttD ltNh III az Dthch nh va oir HAN
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
md forever. Stay the last ''if." Bury deep
The last 'if." How TO do 1t? Fling body,
mind and SOUL in a prayer as earnest as that
Of Moses in the text. Can you doubt the
rarnestness OF this prayer of the text? 1t is
10 heavy with emotion that ii breaks down
In the middle. II was so earnest that the
translators in the modern copies of the Bible
were Obliged 10 pat . mark, a straight line,
tdash, for an omission that will never be
filed up. Such an abrupt pause, such a sud-
len swapping OF OF the sentence!
You cannot parse my text. 1t is an off
tonss of grammatical construction. But
ilat dash put in bythetypesetters Is nightly
El-gestive. ''If thou wilt forgive their sin
| then comes tn dash)-''and If not, blot
me, I pray Thee, out OF Thy book. Some
bf the most earnest prayers ever uttered
touid not be parsed and were poor speci-
pens OF language. They halted, they broke
TOWN, they passed into sobs or groans or
t~ilences. God cares nothing for the syntax
bt prayers, nothing for the rhetoric OF
! prayers. Oh, the worldlcss prayers II They
were piled up, they would reach to the rain
ow that arches the throne of Col. Adeep
Ugh may mean more than a whole liturgy.
but Of the 116, 900 words OF the English
language there ma not be u word enough
Expressive for the soul.
The most effective prayers l have heard
lave been prayers that broke down with
tmotion-the young man for the first time
Using in a prayer meeting and saying, ooh,
lord Jesus /" and then sitting down, bury.
Ing his face in the handkerchief, tho peni-
lent in the inquiry room kneeliIg and say
ing, 'God help me" and getting no further I
.he broken prayer that started q great re-
Tival in my church in Philadelphia. A
! prayer may have in style the gracefuiness OF
IN Addison. and the sublimify Of a Milton
and the epiSrammatic force OF an Emerson,
md yet be q failure, having a horizontal
power but no perpendicular power, hori-
Lontal 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 q paroxysm of earnestness
90 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 Livingstone, in Africa, recor,!s the
| PRAYER so soon to be answered "l9 March
ny birthday. Ny Jesus, my God, my life,
ny all, l again dedicate my whole self to
Thee. Accept me, and grant. o gracious
Father, that ere this wear is goneI may finish
ny task. In Jesus name l ask it. Amen"
When the dusky servant looked into Liv-
ngstone's tent and found him dead on his
knees, he saw that the prayer had been an
ywered. But notwithstanding the earnest
ness OF the prayer of Moses in the text, il
was a defeated prayer and was not an
swerei. think the two "ifs" in the prayer
defeated it, and one 'if' is enough to defeat
any prayer, whatever other good character
istics it may have. "If Thou wilt forgive
| heir sins-and II 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 of
Life.
There is only one kind of prayer In which
you need to put the "if,' and that Ia the
prayer for temporal blessings. Pray for
riches, and they may engulf us or for fame,
and it may bewitch us or fer worldly sucA
.ess, and II may destroy us. Better say, 'If
It be best" '1fI can make proper use Of It,"
"If Thou seest l need It," A vile praying for
the recovery Of her husband from illness,
stamped her foot and said with frightful
emphasis ~ will NOS have him die. God
shall not take him. Her prayer WAS an
swered, but in a few years after the conmu-
nifty was shocked by the fact that he had in u
moment Of anger slain her.
A mother, praying for q 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 q renegade.
Better in all such prayers AMI all prayers
pertaining to our temporal welfare to put an
III" saying, ''If it be Thy will. But in pray
ing for spiritual good and the salvation OF
our soul we need never insert an ri" odr
spiritual welfare ts sure to be for the best,
and away with the '1is.'
Abraham's prayer for the rescue OF Sodom
was a grand prayer in some respects, but
there were six 'ifs" In IL, or ''peradven-
lures, u which mean the anne thing. "Per-
adventure there may be fifty righteous In the
city, peradventure forty-1ve, persdveutnre
forty, peradventure thirty, pe~radventure
twenty, peradventure ten" These six per-
adventures, those six ''ifs' killed the prayer.
and sodom went down and went under.
Nearly ell 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 Hesekiah from a
sick mar to q well man, the prayer that
halted sun and moon without shaking the
universe to pieces.
oh, rally your soul for a prayer with no
offs" in it Say In substance, Lord, Thou
hast promised pardon, and ] take 1t. Here
are my wounds heal them. Here is my
OF bondage by the gospel hammer s:r.ke
them OF. I am fleeing tothe Cityof Refuge,
and I nm sure this is the right way. Thanks
be to God, / Am ireeI'
Once. by the law, my hopes were slain,
But now, in Christ l live again.
With the Mosaic earnestness OF nay text
and without its Mosaic sis," let US cry ont
for God. Aye, If words fail us, let us take
the suggestion of that printers dash ofthe
text, and with q wordless silence implore
pardon and comfort and lie and heaven.
For this asssmblage, all of whom l shall
meet In the last judgment, / dare not offer
the prayer of my text, aAd so l change 1t and
say, "Lord God, forgive our sins and write
our names in the book OF Thy loving remem-
brance, from which they shall never be blot
ted out"