The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-08-21


A new and neither night
Have found fame where thunder fills
Loud caverns. trelnuicus; and these
Atone me for my reverend hills
And moonIit silences.
A Pigment in the crowded dark,
Where men sit nnted by the roar.
I ride upon the whirring spark
Beneath the city's floor.
In this dim armament the stars
WhirI by in blazing files and tiers;
Kin meteors Craze our flying bars,
Amid the spinning spheres.
Speed. speed, until the quivering rails
Flash silver where the headlight
CLEANS.
AS when on lakes the moon impales
The waves upon it's beams.
Life throbs about me, yet stand
Outgazing on majestic Power;
Death rides with me, on either hand,
In my communion hour.
You that meath country skies can
Scott not at me-the city clod;
My only respite of the day
Is this wild ride-with God.
"John Woolman,s Journal" designa-
ted as one OF the few books essential
to culture, has set men to wondering
who John Woolman YVES. Wherein Is
his greatness2 Simply in his contact
with God. John WooInan was a
Quaker tailor who lived his life with
respect to the eternaI verities. His
sense OF God was SO real and vital that
he may be said to have lived ever in
an attitude of prayer Because he sat
always at the feet of God, the men of
this hurried age are now called to sit
at his feet.
Withheld nv one old sin resinned that
Conscience at night forbade his lips
to pray,
Ashamed that he his earth-stained
voice should raise
In pardon's urgence or in guilty praise.
All through the night he grieved in sad
unrest,
For sake of those his silence left I'M
blessed
Those who in sin or death, alone
might stray,
Bereft his customed prayers for such
as they.
When in the darks of dawn the first
bird hymned
Its waking joy with hopeful note I'M
That prayerless night had blessed
him meath its ban
And on his knees he fell. a better
man.
Then mid the choiring that louder rang
One humble human prayer to Heaven
sprang-
Teach US before we bless we must
obeyi
Save us from sin that makes us fear
to prayi"
Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi.
Everybody prays in extremity. But
not everybody has the courage to make
pubic acknowledgment of his deliver |
ance afterward. The young British ex-
plorer, Lieutenant Shackleton, whose |
him nearer to that goal than man had !
ever gone before, has publicly declar- |
ed his gratitude for deliverance- from |
many perils by the interposition of a |
special Providence. He writes: cit was |
during those periods that some Power |
beyond our own guided our footsteps.
If we acknowledged this, as we did, |
down among the ice floes, 1T is only fit |
when the same Power has brought us
safe home through all these troubles
and perks"
The first lesson of prayer is ability |
to say, "Our Father" and the last /
lesson of prayer is ability to say. 'eThy
will be DONE
We are learning more thar a little |
about the pseudo-philoSoph- |
ica1 theory of prayer which exto1s GER |
tain psychological principles and in |
dulges in many big words, as 'tele-
pathy'' and '.subconscious ego" Strip |
ped of its verbiage. this notion is that |
God does ont answer prayer, but that |
you answer your own prayers by start
ing certain mysterious thought-cur-
rents which react upon your own per-
That is to say, you really pray
to yourself, and then answer your own
prayers. Why not kneel down before |
q mirror and make your prayers, with
out all this esoterif paiaver? If men
want TO worship themselves-and
some people come dangerously near to
that-why not do so boldly and simply
without any pretence? As for those of
Us who are content with a more old
faith, it is enough to remem-
Der that the first great law of prayer
IS to say, "Our Father" Prayer is not
merely an occult force; it is the work.
ng out of the will of a Personal Faith
or in heaven, who loves to hear and
answer his children.