Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1907-06-27

have we made one prayer big enough
TO obitcrate self and take in God.
glory and honor The way some of II,
make poor, puny, silly, selfish prayer,
Is enough to make the angels in heav
en- laugh were it not for the fact that
those prayers are so tragic.
Oh, that You and | could grow big
er ough In divine grace to make the
prayer which Paul made when in the
epstle to the Romans he wrote. 81
have great heaviness and continual sor
row in my heart, for could wish that
myself were accurScd from Christ for
my brethren, my klnsmen, according
to the flesh" That means in plain
English: 20 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 if by
that means they might be won for
Christ" Do we ever make such a
prayer as that? DO we make our
prayers so big that in their desires
they will girdle the earth round and
round and embrace the salvation of
the whole world? I tell You, if we are
going to make a full use of the priv
ilege of prayer, our prayers will have
to be made bigger than tho little, puny,
Selfish desires of our hearts
Shall We ever grow bigger than self?
Are we living and praying for Our own
personal ends? Thaul; God. all mon 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 a 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 a lot of food
and started out to find the homes Of
the strikers He went to street near
the docks and stopped before one OF
the biggest tenements and asked the
landlady If there werc any hungry
around. She answered. lots Of them"
Then she told the young man upon
find those who were I'm the worst need
He went from room to room. In some
Of those rooms the mon and the women
who were starving would not touch his
food because their neighbors wore
worse off than they. at amt that I'm
above being helped" said one garnt.
baggard man, but I've got enough
ahead TO keep me and mine in bread
for one week more. IF the strike amt
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 landlady who had directed him
among the starving and bluntly said.
when did You cat anything last?"
"Oh, had something TO eat day before
yesterday. You know they cannot pay
their rents now, and l have to keep
them But you never asked me for
bread. Why not:" because" said
the brave woman, 81 know of some of
them upstairs who have not had
morsel of food for three days, and
wanted you to help them first" Wher-
ever that young man went during that
London dock strike he found starvino
men and women, thinking not 50 much
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, 80 God, for thy honor
and glory may live and may die"
Let us fill the six water pots to the
brim when we lift up our petitions to
God.
AmpIify Your Prayers.
Amplify your prayers. Make them
big enough TO take in the necessities
of the whole human race But do more
than that. After you have prayed thus
60 forth with the confidence that God
will answer your prayers upon big
scale, The trouble with a great many
of us is that We pray big and then
plan small. We lay out our designs
for st. Peters or Milan or Sc
vile cathedral. Then we materialize
our designs into mortar and brick by
building little meeting house or a
village church or a roohess barn or q
hencoop
One of the small cities Of England
wished to build a large cathedral The
citizens came to famous London
architect and asked him to design one
which would cost 81 100000. After the
elaborate design had been completed
the committee came back and asked
the architect if he would cut down his
design and build instead church
worth $4,000. With that the sarcas-
tic architect said, "Gentlemen, cannot
You make it so shillings more so we
can throw in fine spire?" Thus some
of us in our prayers have been neti-
tioning God for ST. Peters cathedral
We have laid out our prayers upon the
most elaborate scale. We have asked
Tor the conversion of the world We
have pleaded for the emancipation of
the human race from the tyranny of
Sn. We have asked for everything
we ought TO have asked for. But |
when II comes TO filling up the water |
pots to the brim we say: "Wlat is the !
uSeE If NG can get God to answer
our prayers thinbleful, that is all we |
nave right to expect" We ask for a |
fne cathedral: then we are satisfied to |
pan for village meeting house or n !
III la aud