The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-07-27
AT WIlLlsTo ON.
Sunday Morning Sermon by John L. Beck
ley.

Text, Acts, XII, Iii. The text pre-
sents a very concrete pioture-the deliv.
GRANGE of man from prison. 1t opens
three DOORS door into palace, into
prayer meeting and into prison. AS
you mfngle in that upper room they have
no leader, enc is slain, one lies In prison.
shall they plead with Herod, the tender
meroies of the wicked and cruel? They
are forced to look up to power that de-
lies bolts and bars. God can either bend
MS heart or defeat his purpose.
Prayer was made without oeasing unto
God for HING Here are two powers
struggling. The Roman power and that
little company in the upper room. One
has armies and prisons and chains, and
the other has no defence but prayer. Yet
before that little company the great
roman empire went down. 1T was the
fourth and last worldwide empire. There
has been no other except the empire of
Christ represented by this company of
fishermen.
In that greatest production of human
imagination, Les Miserables, Victor
Hugo has no more striking sentence than
this: "We bow to the man who kneels. !"
Ana prayer is a power today as then.
In the name of physical science it is
derided rs an anachronism. Some one
reads the last review article and on that
shallow pool he seems discoyerer on
boundless seas. There is not an argu-
| ment against prayer that is not as old as
the human heart. They of the upper
room had their difficulties as we have,
but the bowed heart is the solution of
difficulties. And IN spite of oil the argu-
ment there are more praying men and
women today than ever in the world IS
history. What is mere argument set
over against the experience of the ages.
Granting, however. all that is claimed
in the name of physical, there is still
room and philosophio ground fol prayer.
1t aTticulateS the cry of weakness for
strength; 1t Is the soul struggling above
the senses what we long to be bearing
under what we are. Every act of prayer
gives emphasis to that which differ
entiates US from the mmDn. and though
the Bible be last years almanac and
the words of our petition die with tho
pulsations of the dir. still / should pray.
!. Again there is room for prayer, because
there Is a world of mind as well as a
| world of matter. We affect each other
not only in our transient moods, but
in our permanent characteristics. Some
times a word will change the current of
life. II We osn so move upon each
other, what must be the touch Of God
upon the soulf And the Eyalue of God
Is here: not that it checks the storm or
stays disease. but that it brings God to
our side in the moral conflict. :. .s
And again Col can effect His will
without destroying law. The dominion
of the human will illustrate the super
natural. II can interpose my will If
I can stop the flight of leaf which
gravitation has hrokon from the bough
ifsuhe force unchanged grapples it rs it
lies upon my palm and my will if SUI
perior to that force; il can reach out
my arms and save my child, letting
gravitation go it's way If God SO en-
tangled in His laws that He cannot hear
and help2 Is He moro helpless than an
earthly father.
The church OF the upper room was the
whole church III prayer. We have never
seen the whole chucrh ON its knees before
God. The church of America is suppl
cation for one object, and that millenial
glory would food the world.