The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1899-07-13

i wise and allgOod Creator Zoo ~ Ill
powerful to help us and loving to grant
our requests, Il.
Prayer has in all ages gone upward
from the nations of the earth; incense
from, the alters of Importation has
never lost its fragrance, Nor are we
allowed to suppose, writes the Roman
philosopher Seneca 'sthat all man
kind should have been so mistaken as
to invoke everywhere the Deity, if
they had not the certainty that those
who pray receive in opportune times
great benefits of heaven" Whenever
in his revelation, God deigned to speak
to men, He proclaimed the duty, and
the need and the reward of prayer,
The Gospel of Jesus speaks to US,
ASK and you shall receive, seek and
you shall find, knock and it. shall be
opened unto you. Amen, amen, say
to you, whatsoever you ask the Father
in my name, he shall grant it unto
you Prayer is the highest act of
intellect of man. The body feels, the
heart desires, the will resolves, the
mind thinks; but prayer scars beyond
all corporal sensations, all the affec-
tions of the heart, all desires of the
WILL all thoughts of the mind, embrace
ing as it does the whole man. In
prayer all powers of the soul unite, all
fountains of the inner life we'll forth
and overflow. Thus religion is the
most universal and efficient means of
civilization and by equally developing
mind, heart and will, religion alone
educates the whole man. Without
prayer, a man cannot be said to live,
he simply vegetables. HE who prays
i'll, lives ILL.," The soul may be
adorned with the richest gifts, yet
without'prayer, it is like face bereft
of the organs of sight. The stone
which has no power of self movement
ranks lower than the plant; the plant
which has no sensation is inferior to
the animal; the animal which does not
think is lower in the scale of creation
than man; so the man who does not
pray, is of lower order than he who
does; for prayer is the highest grade
to- which, in it's upward flight, the
created mind can attain. This act
alone raises man towards God, and
launches him on the current of the
eternal stream; indeed it is true to say,
that man only feels, thinks, and ex-
lists, in order to pray, to serve God by
religion.
Gods love rules His creation. Sim
gular respect for the divine tributes,
which makes the world, once created,
practically independent of its Creator.
And singular the respect for the physi-
cal order of the universe which blots
out, or does not permit to exist, the
moral or spiritual order. Strange uni
verse would irreligion give US, miser-
les and suffering upon the earth, our
souls in spite of themselves pouring
upward their laments and their petit
lions, over them a sky of brass, impen-
etrable to sight or love, and above all
God, deaf to the voice of His chill
dren, powerless by His own DEGREES to
send one throb of Joy to a broken heart,
one ray of light to a darkened spirit,
to ipe off one tear from the eyelid of
suffering. This is, assuredly, not the
God, which His world reveals to US, in
which it is the law that beings forever
help one another, and in which prayers
and answers to prayers forever occur
ring, never break but ever make
sweeter the order through which life
for his creatures is possible. This is,
assuredly, not the world which the
Divine Teacher Jesus, the Son of God,
opened unto our souls. God is love,
and no world is His which is not SUI
fused and penetrated to the very core
with love, and world of divine love
is world of prayer and religion.
God grants exceptional mercy, when
gifts already accorded in His ordinary
providence have been fully and prop
erly used. Help thyself and God will
help thee,'' is the just and wise law of
prayer. Undoubtedly, too, when men
pray ignorantly or pray without due
piety, they will not be heard. St..
James reminds us that if our petitions
are not rewarded it is because they are
not rightly offered, and the Lord Him.
self tells us that no father presents a
stone to the child who clamors for
bread, meaning that we often imagine
to be profitable to US what would in
deed be hurtful, and that therefore our
prayers could not be answered by a
merciful God as we in our blindness
demand. The true power unlocks the
treasury OF divine love and divine
favor, and humanity which has never
been without prayer, has never been
without the sunshine of Gods smile
resting upon the souls that do prav.