Los Angeles herald., 1906-03-26
ADVISES SHORT BUT
EARNEST PRAYERS
"HOW TO PRAY" TAKEN AS TEXT
BY ARTHUR S. PHELPS
Acknowledge the Last InstalIment of
Your Blessings Before Asking God
for More-Lazy Petitioners Go
Unanswered"

Arthur S. Phelps of the Central Bap-
tist church supplied the pulpit of the
Temple Baptist church yesterday.
He preached in the morning on "How
to Pray" taking as his text, Phil. iv;
6, Z: I'm nothing be anxious; but in
everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known unto God. And the peace
of God which passeth all understand
ing, shall guard your hearts and your
thoughts in Christ Jesus" He said
"The chief regret of many of Gods
greatest saints, as they draw near the
close of the life, is that they have spent
so little time in prayer 1t is not enough
to say that good deeds are a prayer.
In sense every good deed is COM
munion with God; but deeds are deeds
and a prayer is a prayer. The writer
bids us pray about everything, and
says that prayer is an antidote for
anxiety.
Fear the Strongest Passion
Fear is probably the strongest pas
sion of the human breast, except love.
Tolstoy remarks that when fear has
once taken possession of the soul, it
does not readily yield to any other
sentiment In this day of competition,
how real our financial worries are. The
establishment Of business, the education
of the children, the lifting of that
mortgage-these are the things that
we cannot tell our friends about; and
it has never occurred to us that God
is more interested in our real worries
than he is in our conventional ones.
I'VE are to take the future to God
We are like the man whose life had
been full of troubles, and most of them
never happened We are to pray for
the people we love and to pray for the
people that are odious to us. Pray the
meanness out of your soul.
Get Acquainted With God
"The best use of prayer is to get ac-
quainted with God. General Arm
strong, who nodded the life of Booker
T. Washington, said My own prayer
has been weak, wavering and incon-
stant, but it has been the best thing
ever did,
"Beecher we'll said that prayer is not
a mere question and answer going to
market with a basket; it is a soul bath.
1t is also pleading with God. True
prayer is hard work. Lazy petitions go
unanswered. Do you know the agony
of prayer? 'Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against SIM
Long Prayers Not Necessary
Long prayers pray the petitioner out
of sight of the answer. Mr.. Moody said
that If Peter, when struggling in the
water, had offered prayer as long as
some good deacons do in the prayer
meeting he would have been forty feet
under water before the Lord had
reached him. The longest prayer in the
bible took just four minutes. Let your
prayers be full of thanksgiving.
Acknowledge the last instalment of
your blessings before you apply for
more. The result of such prayer as
we have described will be that the
peace of God will guard your
thoughts, a peace like that of the vast
ocean under the smile of a cloudless
sky; a peace like that of the deep
forest, whose great shade shuts out the
blazing rays Of a torrid sun, and whose
tops may be ruffled by passing breeze,
but whose strength is unshaken by the
tempest"