The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-06-25

some or us In our prayers. we Gun
never get beyond the mere animal petl.
tions of the lower, grosser ideas of
prayer.
Foolish Prayers.
Instead of starting with a great
sweep of holy desires to benefit all
mankind through prayer, instead of fill
ing up six great water pots with petit
tons for Gods honor and glory, we
come to God with little thimble filled
with our selfish desires, and we call
that prayer. Thus some of us go on
year in and year out making lot Of
miserable little selfish petitions and
call those petitions prayer. Not for
years have we broadened the scope Of
our spiritual horizon. Not for years
have we made one prayer big enough
to obiterate self and take In Gods
glory and honor. The way some of us
make poor, puny, silly, selfish prayers
Is enough to make the angels in heav-
en- laugh were 1t not for the fact that
those prayers are SO tragic.
Oh, that you and I could grow big
enough in divine grace to make the
prayer which Paul made when In the
epistle to the Romans he wrote, II
have great heaviness and continual sor-
row In my heart, for l could wish that
myself were accursed from Christ for
my brethren, my kinsmen, according
to the f1esh.' That means I'm plain
English: 80 God, save my people: save
the Jews, the men of my own race. I
would die for them. | would even for
felt my own hope of salvation IL by
that means they might be won for
Christ" Do we ever make such a
prayer as that? Do we make our
prayers 50 big that in their desires
they will girdle the earth round and
round and embrace the salvation of
the whole world? tell you. IL we are
going to make full use of the priv
ilege of prayer, our prayers will have
to be made bigger than the little, puny,
selfish desires of our hearts.
Shall we ever grow bigger than self?
Are we living and praying for our own
personal ends? Thank God. all men are
not living for themselves. There are
thousands and tens of thousands, some
of them far poorer than we. who are
living and praying for others. Listen
to this remarkable history: During the
famous London dock strike of few
years ago young man sitting at his
breakfast table and reading the story
of suffering in the papers suddenly
said II have no right to all this plenty
while SO many are starving" So he
went and drew all his money out of
the bank. Then he bought q lot of food
and started out to find the homes of
the strikers He went.to a street near
the docks and stopped before one Of
the biggest tenements and asked the
iandlady IL there We're any hungry
around She answered, Lots of them.
Then she told the young man upon
find those who were in the worst need
He went from room to room. In some
of those rooms the men and the women
who were starving would not touch his
food because their neighbors were
worse off than they. ut amt that I'm
above being helped" said one gaunt
haggard man, "but I've got enough
ahead to keep me and mine in bread
for one week more. Ii the strike ain't
off by then I'll take help and thank
you. But there's worse off than we
are now, and they must be helped
first" At last the young man returned
to the Iandlady who had directed him
among the starving and bluntly said
when did you eat anything lastT
"Oh. / had something to eat day before
yesterday. You know they cannot pay
their rents now, and I have to keeT
them" "But you never asked me fol
bread. Why not?' Because" said
the brave woman, II know of some oil
them upstairs who have not had 4
morsel of food for three days, and
wanted you to help them first" Wher
ever that young man went during thai
London dock strike he found starving
men and women, thinking not so mucl
for themselves as for others. Thus
may we breathe forth our prayers
May we pray for others. May We
plead for others. Like Paul, may WE
be able to say, 20 God, for thy honor
and glory may I live and may die
| Let us FIJI the six water pots to thu
brim when we lift up our petitions t.
God
AmpIify Your Prayers.
Amplify your prayers. Make then
| big enough to take in the necessities
Of the whole human race. But do more
than that After you have prayed thus
| go forth with the confidence that Goo
will answer your prayers upon big
| scale. The trouble with great many
| Of us Is that we pray big and theI
plan small. We lay out our design.
for a st. Peters or Milan or Sc
vile cathedral. Then we materializ'
| our designs into mortar and brick b,
building a little meeting house or /
village church or roofiess barn or {
hencoop.
/ One of the small cities Of Englant
wished to build large cathedral. Th'
| citizens came to famous Londol
architect and asked him to design ont
which would cost 81, 100000. After tn,