24. IV. Prayer is powerful

An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the battlements of heaven, caught sight of Satan as he flew on broad wing from hell to this world of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a sunbeam to the earth, and communicated the alarm to the guard at the gates of paradise. Search was made for the enemy, but for a time without success. Ithuriel entered the bower, whose flowery roof "showered roses which the morn repaired," and where our first parents, "lulled by nightingales, embracing, slept." There he saw a toad sitting, squat by the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand was a spear that had the celestial power of revealing truth, unmasking falsehood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colors. He touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad—which was breathing horrid dreams into the ear of Eve—changed its shape, and there, confronting him face to face, stood the proud, malignant, haughty form of the Prince of Darkness.

With such a spear as that with which Milton, in this flight of fancy, arms Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Are we in doubt whether a thing is right or wrong? Are we indulging in pleasures, or engaged in pursuits, with which we are not altogether satisfied, and yet are not ready decidedly to condemn, and promptly to abandon? In any matter of Christian morals, are we halting between two opinions? The simplest and shortest way of determining the doubt is to apply the test of prayer. Take the subject to God. Look at your pleasures and your practices in the light of his countenance. Examine the matter on your knees. Can you make it a subject of prayer? Ah! be sure you are not safe in the place to which you can not ask God to accompany you. Be sure that that good (as the world may call it) is bad—that pursuit or enjoyment, however gainful or pleasant, is an evil—upon which you can not implore God's blessing, and for which you dare not go to a throne of grace, and give God thanks.

Is this test of universal application? is every thing, then, to be made a subject of prayer? Certainly. So thought Fowell Buxton, even of those amusements with which, in holiday times, he was wont to brace up mind and body for noble labors in the cause of God and his country. So thought that Corsican patriot, who never went down to battle till he had gone down to his knees, nor ever leveled a rifle that never missed, without praying for the soul he was about to send into eternity. And so speaks Paul, when, linking peace and prayer together, he writes—"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your heart and minds, through Jesus Christ."

Such is one of the indirect uses, and not unimportant effects of prayer. Its direct power is, in a sense, omnipotent. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world. It secures for the believer the resources of Divinity. What battles has it not fought! what victories has it not won! what burdens has it not carried! what wounds has it not healed! what griefs has it not assuaged! It is the wealth of poverty; the refuge of affliction; the strength of weakness; the light of darkness. It is the oratory that gives power to the pulpit; it is the hand that strikes down Satan, and breaks the fetters of sin; it turns the scales of fate more than the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the weight of scepters; it has arrested the wing of time, turned aside the very scythe of death, and discharged heaven's frowning and darkest cloud in a shower of blessings.

Prayer changes impotence into omnipotence; for, commanding the resources of Divinity, there is nothing it can not do, and there is nothing it need want. It has just two limits. The first is, that its range is confined to the promises; but, within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings! The second is, that God will grant or deny our requests as is best for his glory and our good. And who that knows how we are, in a sense, but children, would wish it otherwise? My little child is angry when I pluck a knife from his hands; he doubts his father's love because he does not always kiss, but sometimes corrects him; and, turning away his head from the nauseous drug, he must be coaxed—sometimes compelled to drink the cup which, although bitter to the taste, is the restorative of health. Who that sees the child seek meat when he needs medicine, eagerly clutch at tempting but unripe fruit, prefer play, and go weeping to school, reject simple but healthful fare for some luscious, but noxious luxury, who, I say, does not feel thankful that God reserves the right of refusal, and makes his answers correspond to our wants rather than to our wishes? This limit to prayer may make poverty our lot; may bind us to a sick bed; may leave us to suffer and bleed under the stroke of an impending calamity; but—while we will get as much of earth as we need on earth—for the pardon of sin, for peace of con science, for purity of heart, for growth in grace, for all that we need to make us meet for heaven, and at length, for insuring heaven itself, prayer secures to us the help and hand of Omnipotence.

By prayer, besides, God's children can reckon on immediate assistance. Prayer flies where the eagle never flew; and rises on wings broader and stronger than an angel's. It travels further and faster than light. Rising from the heart of a believer, it shoots away beyond that starry sky, and, reaching the throne, enters into the ear of God. So soon as the heart begins to work on earth, it moves the hand of God in heaven; and, ere the prayer has left the lips of faith, Jesus has presented it to his Father, and secured its answer. It is a telegraph stretched not between shore and shore—the mother country and her distant colonies, the seat of government and the far-off scene of battle—but its extended lines connect heaven and earth, man and God, the sinner and the Saviour, the humblest home of piety and a throne of grace.

That high invention of human genius, which, by its wires of iron connects distant countries together, and has, in a sense, abolished both time and space—offers but an imperfect image of a power which piety has been working before science was born—nay, ever since the world began. From remote regions the electric telegraph may convey to a father the tidings that his child is ill; but it carries not the physician to his side, nor the drug of potent virtue which could cure his malady. It leaves him to die. It may bring to-night a detail of the fortunes of the war. Along it our army may send a cry for help—for more men and more munitions; but days and weeks must elapse, and many miles of ocean be traveled, ere ever our ships can pour their bayonets on the hostile shore; and then it may be too late; the tide may have ebbed that, taken at the full, had led on to fortune.

But does God never make his people wait? He does. Faith and patience are put upon their trial; there is no answer, nor reply, nor relief. God is silent, and the church is left to cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" All true. Jesus addresses to his Bride the language he of old used to his mother, "Woman, my hour is not yet come." But let us need present help, and you shall see that he is "a very present help in time of trouble." Let the disciple be sinking amid the waves of Galilee, crying, "I perish"—let the prophet be on his knees in the depths of the sea and the dark belly of the whale—let the widow's last mite, and the barrel's last handful have come—let the confessor be descending into the lions' roaring den—let the queen have her brave hand upon the door, with these words of high resolve upon her lips, "If I perish, I perish"—let the trembling host have the waters of the Red Sea roaring in their front, and the chariots of Egypt pressing on their rear—let God's people have reached such a crisis—let them stand in any such predicament—and his answer anticipates their prayer. The supply is on the road before the want is expressed; the door opens before the hand has struck it; while prayer is traveling up the one line, the answer is speeding down the other. Hear the voice of the Lord, "It shall come to pass; before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."