King of kings. We scarcely rise above this in our every-day Christian faith. Even apart from an artificial theology which has placed God, as the Mighty Individual, at the head of the universe, whom the humble worshiper approaches only through the grades of a priestly hierarchy, the human heart finds it hard to conceive of the true immanence of God. We realize his fatherhood over us as the limited fatherhood of individual over individual, rather than the perfect, universal fatherhood of the Divine Spirit over the human soul. Our experience of the present, the material, comes ever before us in our attempts to realize the spiritual. It is especially so in our thought of the Divine Being. Says Mr. John Fiske ("The Idea of God"): "If we could cross-question all the men and women we know, and still more, all the children, we should probably find that, even in this enlightened age, the conceptions of deity current throughout the civilized world contain much that is in the crudest sense anthropomorphic." With this idea in mind a God in a visible, imagined form, more or less definite we address our prayers to Him. They cannot fail to be in the nature of direct supplication and petition. Let this idea be banished; think of God with the thought which is at once primitive and catholic in Christianity, and regards the Divine One as the Spirit of love and truth, not distant from the world, but immanent in it, and there must follow a modification in the meaning of prayer as we see it. Prayer to or, more properly, with the Eternal Spirit who is the very life of the world must be a different thought from prayer to a distant being who, though the world's creator, is not its life. 2. But there is yet another correction which we must make, not in our idea of God, but in our spiritual attitude towards Him in prayer, before we reach the entire understanding of the meaning of prayer itself. Self in all forms must be banished from the thought of prayer. This is a larger and more inclusive proposition than may at first appear. To many minds, unconsciously, the thought of prayer is essentially selfish. We pray for what we desire. Our life, or a life dear to us, is in danger, and in the dreadful fear of death or loss, we lift the eye or fall on the knee to pray God to remove the peril. Christian custom, realizing the selfishness of such a thought, bids us insert the saving clause, "If it be thy will, O Lord," — a phrase borrowed from our Master's model prayer, in which, however, there is no self-centring petition. Yet, if we could ask every Christian who thus prays which is prayer, the supplication for help, or the active subjection of self, the great majority would doubtless answer, "The supplication." In popular thought, the yielding to God's will is an accessory, possibly a result, of prayer; prayer itself being the presentation of our needs before Him. Examples on a larger scale of the same misconception of the meaning of prayer are such supplications as may often be offered in time of war, or those prayers touching the season, the weather, the harvest. Two nations at war feel with equal conviction the strength and right of their cause, and in that conviction the devout citizen of each prays for success to the God of battles. Each supplicant feels that God is able to decide the question. "Just and true are thy ways," he declares; and yet his thought of prayer is rather the supplication for the victory of his nation's arms than an utter yielding of the matter to divine judgment. The yielding may come, but it is as the humbling accessory; not, in the thought of the worshiper, prayer itself. Thus it is that self clouds the meaning of prayer. The purpose of prayer is to suppress, not emphasize, self; and though the object which to finite judgment seems the most to be desired may be chosen as the means of expression of prayer, yet it is thus used merely because the human soul needs the help of definite thought, even of words, to interpret its spiritual state. If we are conscious of the individual wish above the personal consecration, the pur pose of prayer is so far diverted. Our own wishes, pet desires, cherished hopes, as such, are to be eliminated from the pure conception of prayer. we can come If, then, we free our idea of prayer from these two false notions, a humanized God and an emphasized Self, close to its true meaning. It is a communion with an ever-present God, a communion from which all consciousness of self is absent. In other words, it is a harmony with God, a spiritual state, in which we regard the world and life from the divine side. The words of prayer, then, are not prayer; neither are thoughts and desires prayer; but they are the expression of prayer. More or less perfectly, these things serve as instruments to give definite expression to a spiritual condition. The genius of the artist is an ever-present condition in him. His sense of the beautiful in form, his passionate appreciation of color, his sensuousness of temperament, are a state of his inner nature which his pencil and palette and brush serve as instruments to express. These instruments may be present and put to work in the hand of an amateur, yet the picture they trace will not be in that case the expression of artistic genius. The words, likewise, of praise or adoration or supplication may easily be spoken without the underlying spirit of prayer; but if prayer be present each one of them may serve equally well as its expression. It will thus appear that prayer, as Christ enjoined it, is this condition of the soul which is deeper than words or thoughts, and independent of them, employing them only when the soul, in the state of prayer, craves for expression. For expression of this state is necessary, oftentimes, to reveal the soul's condition to itself. The child in whom dwells the passion of music may first appreciate his divine endowment when he touches the keys of the instrument; the soul, from which it may be the divine face has been long hidden, first knows that it has the power to come into harmony with God when in some moment of utter trial it sends a thought or a wish Godward. The unuttered desire, the whispered petition, the loudspoken praise, have alike for their purpose the expression of prayer. It is the confusion of the expression with the reality which forces the question between extempore and liturgical prayer. In the discussion of this question men fail to go back of the mere expression, the desire, the supplication. The pastor who has made an extempore prayer is commended because he has evidently phrased some deep feeling of his own heart, or by sympathy has touched some hidden desire of one of his hearers. Or, on the other hand, the Collects in the Prayer Book are commended because of their beauty and dignity of language. But the real point at issue is, Which sort best expresses the spirit of prayer in a congregation of worshipers? Call to mind the Sunday gathering in God's house. The faithful are met there together in the spirit of prayer. One and another of them, doubtless, has uttered a word or sent a thought to God, some consecrated desire, or penitence, or unselfish petition, which, because it touches him individually, is a stimulus to rise to the condition of closer harmony with God. But each has now gathered with the others in God's house in common prayer. And the value of common prayer is that, by the fellowship of worship, we are not tempted to emphasize the self-centred thoughts and desires which may surround us in the closet. The individual is forgotten, and prayer dwells in the assembly. Of what sort shall be the spoken words which can best express the spirit of common prayer? Manifestly they should be words phrasing, it may be, adoration or petition, but from which the individual is eliminated. The worshiper should have his thoughts turned neither towards himself nor the speaker. The worshiper is but one of the whole congregation; the minister, but the mouthpiece of the whole. Here, evidently, the extempore prayer fails in fulfillment of its purpose. If it is entirely impromptu, it attracts attention to the speaker himself, in the mental effort to follow the words of it; if it is noticeable or startling in its phraseology, it diverts the attention to its own form and manner; if it descends to detail, it fixes the mind on trifling things: in all these cases it falls short of being the expression of true prayer. Or there is great danger lest in its manner of address to the Deity it bear to those who listen the false conception of God as a distant and individualized being, and thus misses the thought of the constant communion with Him which is the chief blessing of all, especially common prayer. - There are, no doubt, those souls in the ministry—it is to be feared they are rare who are able in extempore prayer to sink their own personality, and place themselves merely as spokesmen to express the common spirit of devotion. And yet the prayers of these, helpful and uplifting though they may be, must always fail in one important feature familiarity. The words of the Common Prayer, touching only the common needs of mankind, used again and again in the holy place, become to the worshiper the very alphabet of devotion. He associates them always with the purpose for which they are uttered, and when they are spoken in public worship there is no distracting effort of the mind to follow unfamiliar or unexpected phrases. They become to him simply the channel for the spirit of prayer to utter itself. This familiarity, also, is the safeguard of liturgical prayer; for if the manner of expression is faulty, it is corrected by the mind, which forgets the words in the association, breathing only the spirit of the hour. It is often urged in favor of extempore prayer in public worship that the minister is free to adapt his utterance to occasions which may arise to call for special intercession. A moment's recalling of the meaning of prayer as we have studied it will convince us of the danger of such liberty. It is apt to be sentiment rather than prayer which craves expression at such times, and the novelty of the utterance can easily become a means of distraction from the true purpose for which prayer is made. The occasion is rare indeed on which familiar forms, with such adaptations as may be provided, do not serve the purpose of common worship better than impromptu words can do. When Jesus instituted the sacrament of his blood, his definite injunction was, "Do this, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." The devout follower of the Master, in full harmony with the spirit of this command, will consecrate each morsel of daily food and drink, and make a sacrament of every meal, in the remembrance of his Lord. And yet the church, for the greater edification of her children, observes as a special institution the sacrament, in which the thought of eating and drinking is forgotten, and the bread and wine, simplest and most familiar of elements, serve but to express to us the Christ's blessing and presence. Prayer is only a degree less sacramental. The word, the thought of supplication, are the outward sign of an inward, spiritual grace. Each time the word or thought of outward prayer is framed or uttered, it can be, in whatever turn or corner in life, our hourly sacrament; and yet the church has ordered public prayer where the word of prayer is to be nought but the outward sign of the common spirit of prayer. And like the bread and wine of the eucharist, the outward sign of common prayer fulfills best its office when it is familiar and simple, and when it savors not of the individual personality of priest or people. Of such nature is liturgical prayer, and because it thus seems better than other manner of spoken prayer to express the spirit of prayer in the congregation of Christ's flock, we may believe that the reunited church will offer its worship to God in the liturgies of the ages. BANGOR, ME. John McGaw Foster. |