El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-01-07
COMMON SENSE PRAYER.
Pertinent Remarks by Rev. Mr.. Tardy
of Palestine Last Night.

The series of protracted meetings in
the Baptist church this week was given
a new impetus last night by the ap-
pearance of the evangelist whom MIR.
| Millican has brought here from Pales
tine, Texas, to aid him in the work of
conversion, Rev. Mr.. Tardy. This
evangelist is young man with re-
markable powers of address, an excel
lent voice, and a common sense view of
things that will surely win favor for
him and his work among the FL PaSo
public.
He spoke last night in the Baptist
church strongly advising constant ex-
ercise of wisdom and thoughtfulness in
Offering petitions before the throne of
divine grace. 1t was i'll advised to pray
all around the lots, as unfortunately is
often the case. Pray with some spec
iic aim and object in view, and focus
the thinking powers directly on the OBJ
ject and aim of the desire. The speak
er remembered one revival meeting
where there were quite number of
penitentS around the altar seeking
their souls salvation when he asked an
elderly brother to pray. The brother
brayed great long prayer for every
thing in general, including a number
of relatives he. had off in another state,
and made only very brief mention of
the persons VINO were grouped at the
altar looking for the salvation of their
souls. The prayer commonly accepted
as the Lords prayer, was really the
disciples prayer. The real Lord s
prayer was the memorable one the Saw
Tor offered In the Garden of Gethse-
meme, when he poured out his soul in
such marvellous effort.
Mr.. Tardy gave one excellent sug-
gestion as to the true nature of prayer
when he said that prayer was the spirit
of God coming down from the al
mighty, entering into the soul of the
petitioner, catching up the thoughts
contained in the requests, and then
carrying them up before the great
throne for presentation tosthe Father.
1t Is great mistake to be praying for
things indiscriminately. Some people
make it a point to pray for everything
under the sun they can think of. Why,
if the prayers of some people were to
be answered literally, the petitioners
would be scared pretty near to death.
Pray for reasonable things, things you
feel, after mature and revised thought,
you actually stand in need of most, ard
tnen pray for these with all your
might. Pray never doubling, and pray
from the heart, and with the whole
soul and strength. Pray to the Father
as to kind and indulgent parent, one
who knows how to give good gifts unto
men. There Is altogether too much
lip service in prayer. Many men say
prayers, whose forms they memOriZed
when young, and were repeated with
out conscious mental effort, to say
nothing of the entire absence of spri-
tual effort The speaker had heard
prayers that were composed centuries
ago ratified off in church and the
Amens responded to by men and wo
men whose hearts were anything but
right in the sight of God. Such pray
ers are but a mockery, and are any
thing but acceptable at the throne of
grace. Prayer must come from the
heart to find favor with God. 1t must
be the spontaneous pouring of the
spirit. Then we should not merely
pray from stern sense of duty, but
because of a natural desire to commune
with our maker. If you have friend
whom you love dearly, do you not take
pleasure in talking to him? and 10
seeking his society? Then thy should
we not take pleasure and be glad of
the opportunity to commune with our
maker in prayer?
At the close of the meeting, all
present shook hands with the evan
gelist. and the pastor announced that
Mr.. Tardy would speak the following
night: also that on Friday and the e /
after there would be day meetings IN :
the church aud tOrium.