Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-11-16

until you can DO 1t as easily ana as
well as did Job pray for his exas-
perators. You ought to pity them, for
defamers and detractors and the en-
vious and jealous are not happy. They
hurt themselves more than they hurt
you. Better be the pursued than the
pursuer. Better be the infant Christ
than Herod, the robber of the Beth
lehem cradles. You want to be a bet
ter man. You want to be better
woman. Then scale this height of tri-
umphant prayer, and you will be ten
times more OF a Christian than you
ever have been. 1t will prolong your
life, as it prolonged Jobs life. You
will feel a glorious reaction that will
last through all time and all eternity.
1t will steady your nerves. 1t viii re-
duce your spleen. 1t will regulate the
pulsation of your heart.
Prayer is what some one has called
''the slender nerve that moveth the
muscles of omnipotence." Prayer is the
healthful respiration of the soul. It is
the whisper of helplessness into the ear
of help. It is laying hold of almighti-
ness, omniscience and omnipresence at
one and the same time. Prayer enlists
all Divine and angelic reinforcement.
Prayer is laying hold of pulley fas-
tened to the Heavenly throne. Prayer
is the first breath of a newborn soul,
and it is heard in the last gasp OF
earthly Christian experiences. Prayer!
In an instant it mounts the highest
heavens. Neither seraph nor arch
angel ever few swifter or higher than
the infants petition at her mothers
knee. What an opportunity is prayer!
Why not oftener use it praying for
ourselves? What better work would
we do, what better lives would we
live, what better hopes would we en-
terrain, if we multiplied and intensi-
fed our prayers!
Some one asked soldier of Stone
wall Jackson the secret of the great
generals influence over his men. 'Does
your general abuse you, swear at you,
to make you march?" "Swear!" re-
Piled the soldier. 'No!" Ewell does
the swearing. Stonewan does the
praying. When Stonewan wants US
to march, he looks at us soberly, just
as if he were sorry for us, and says:
Men, we have got to make a long
march, We always know when there
is going to be long march and right
erful on prayer just before a big
fight
In all the tossing of this life lay hold
of the rope of prayer mentioned by
John Newton, who was converted on
shipboard from being a blasphemous
sailor to become great preacher of
ghteousness, and who said: "When I
first amused myself with going to sea,
lxy1 4, Ie Il
came rough, tumbled and tossed
about like a porpoise in the water. At
last I caught hold Of rope that was
| floating about, and then I was enabled
to stand upright. So when in prayer a
multitude of troublous thoughts in
| wade your peace, or when the winds and
waves of temptation arise, look out
for the rope and stay yourselves on the
faithfulness of God keeping His prom
ises"
My hearer, I will tell you the time
| when you can afford to cease praying.
1t will be when you have no sins to be
pardoned, no sorrows to be comforted,
no more friends or foes who need your
| intercessions. Queen Elizabeth said to
Walter Raleigh: Raleigh, when will
you stop begging?" Raleigh replied:
when your majesty leaves off giving
| And your time, my nearer, to stop
prayer will be when God has no more
pardon and mercy and strength to be-
stow and the resources of the Infinite
| are exhausted. Havelock knew the
value of prayer when he arose at four
O'Clock in the morning for his devo-
tons. The soldiers of the Fourteenth
Massachusetts, regiment showed that
| they knew the JOY of worship when
they took delegate of the Christian
| commission to see what they called
| their praying place."
| Now, if God has during these re-
| marks shown US the uses, the i'm
portance, the blessedness of prayer,
| suppose we try to do what Job did
| when he prayed for his exasperators.
| Many of us at the beginning of this
| subject felt that, while we could pray
| for ourselves and pray for those who
| were kind to us, we never could reach
the high point of religious experience
| in which we could pray for those who
annoy and make us feel worse instead
of feeling better. That was a Matter
| horn, that was an Alp, to the top of
| which we feared we could never climb,
| but we thank God that by his omnipo-
| tent grace we have reached that height
at last. Let us pray! o Christ, who
didst pray for thine assassins, we now
pray for those who despitefully use us
and say all manner of evil against us.
| For their eternal salvation we suppli-
cate. When time is no more, may they
| reign on thrones and wear coronets
and sway scepters of Heavenly domin-
ion. Meanwhile take the bitterness
| from their soul and make them soon
think as well of us as now they think
evil. Spare their bodies from pain and
| their households from bereavement.