The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-12-06

.runrrat0r5 ruo uouern copies or rne BIDfe
were obliged TO put mark, q straight line,
dash, for an omission that will never be
filled up. Such IN abrupt pause, such sud-
den swapping of OF the sentence!
You cannot parse my text. It is an Of
fense of grammatical construction. But
that dash put in by the typesetters is nightly
suggestive. ''If thou wilt forgive their sin
(then comes the dash)-,"'and II not, blot
me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book Some
OF the most earnest prayers ever uttered
could not be parsed and were poor speci
down, they passed into sobs or groans or
silences. God cares nothing for the syntax
OF prayers. nothing for the rhetoric of
prayers. Oh, the worldless prayers II they
were piled up, they would reach to the rain
1Tssss th tssens epsS dssp
Out of the 7118,00O words OF the English
language there may not be word enough
expressive for the soul.
The most effective prayers have heard
have been prayers that broke down with
emotion-the young man for the first time
rising in prayer meeting and saying, "Oh,
Lord Jesus p and then sitting down, bury
ing his face In the handkerchief, the peni-
tent in the inquiry room kneeling and say
the broken prayer that started a great re-
vival 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 horizontal
power but no perpendicular power, hori-
sontsl power reaching the ear Of but
God. -. ..... ....
Between the first and the last sentences Of
my text there was paroxysm Of earnestness
100 mighty for words. It 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 30 soon to be answered: '19 March
my birthday. My Jesus, my God, my life,
my all, again dedicate my whole self to-
Father, that ere this year is gone may finish
my task. In Jesus name I ask it. Amen"
When the dusky servant looked into Ltv-
ingstone's tent fand found him dead on his
knees, he saw that the prayer had been an
gwered. But Notwithstanding the earnest
ness of the prayer Of Moses In the text, it
was a defeated prayer and was not an
defeated it, and one "if' Is enough to defeat
any prayer, whatever other good character
istics it may have. ''If Thou wilt forgive
their sins-andif not, blot me, I pray Thee,
cut 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
p.ayer for temporal blessings. Pray for
riches, and they may engulf us; or for fame,'
and 1t may bewitch us or for worldly sue
cess, and 1t may destroy US. Better say, III
it be- best, )" "ItI can make proper use OF it.
sIf Thou seest need it." A wife praying for
the recovery Of her husband from illness,
stamped her foot and said with frightful
emphasis: "I will not have him die. God
shall not take him." Her prayer was an
nifty was shocked BY the fact that he had In
moment Of anger sluin her.
A mother, praying for a sons recover from
illness, told the Lord he had no right to take
him, and the boy recovered, but plunged in
to all abominations and died renegade.
Better in all such prayers and all prayers
pertaining to our temporal welfare to put an
ing for spiritual good and the salvation of
our soul we need never insert an ''ii" Our
spiritual welfare is sure to be for the best,
and away with the "ifs.'
Abraham's prayer for the rescue Of Sodom
was grand prayer In some respects, but
there were six tifs" In 1t, or "peradven-
lures, which mean the same thing. "Per-
adventure there may be fifty righteous in the
city, peradventure forty-hve, peradventure
forty, peradventure thirty peradventure
twenty, peradventure ten" Those six per-
adventures, those 81 IFS" killed the prayer.
.nnTsodom went down and went under.
Nearly all the prayers that were answered
I'D no "lfs" in them-the prayer OF Elijah
hat changed dry weather to wet weather.
he prayer that changed Hezekiah from q
sick'man to a we'll man, the prayer that
halted sun and moon without shaking the
universe to pieces. s''
Oh, rally your soul for a prayer with no
''ifs'' in it! Say In substance: 'Lord, Thou
hast promised pardon, and I take 1t. Here
are my wounds; heal them. Here is my
blindness :; irradiate 1t. Here are my chains
of bondage by the gospel hammer strike
them off, am fleeing to the City OF Refuge,
and I am sure this is the right way Thanks
BIZ to God, am free"
Once by the law, my hopes were slain.
But now. In Christ, live aoNn.
Win rne Mosaic earnestness OF my text
and without its Mosaic :ifs," let US cry out
for God. Aye, II words fail US, let us take
the suggestion of that printers dash ofthe
text, and with a wordless silence implore
pardon and comfort and life and heaven.
For this assemblage, all of whom I shall
meet In the last judgment, dare not offer
the prayer Of ny text, and 80 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"