, ^ There is an old legend of two sheildis of the desert. The
; one sheikh had many date palms. He insisted on having his
' own way with the trees. When the boughs seemed dry, he asked
; for rain, and the rain fell. When the boughs seemed too moist, he
asked for sunshine, and the fierce heat came. When the trees
' seemed to bend under the wind, he asked for frost that the
trunks might be strengthened. So what with much asking and
changing the trees died. Fearing starvation the sheikh journeyed
across the desert. One day he came to a grove of date palms,
and found the owner thereof. The owner explained all by saying,
[ "God has blessed my trees abundantly." "But," answered the
> E. C. Trench, Poems, 184.
ST. MARK 287
discouraged sheikh, "I too have date palms. I asked God for rain, and He sent showers. I asked for sunshine, and He sent heat. I asked for frost, and He sent cold. Lo, all my trees are dead." " And I," answered the other, " said unto God, 'For my date palms. Thou knowest what is best,' and lo, the trees have brought forth fruit abundantly, and they live for your hunger."
r 2. Prayer is not the effort of a man to bend or win to 1 himself the will of God. There is in it no effort, no desire, no thought against, or apart from, God. Eather it is man's most deliberate and perpetual effort, through the power of God the Spirit in the Name of God the Son — not against but towards — the realisation of the will and life of God. Make Thy will my will ; and my will into Thy will ! If the voice of prayer in its moment of supreme distraction reaches its simplicity only in tones which are wrung with anguish, " never- theless not my will but Thine be done," remember that the perfectness of prayer, not its cessation, is realised in fruition of perfect communion. In agony, or in victory, the perfectness of praying is the praying of the Son of God.
Do we ask for relief — for ourselves or for our dear ones — from sicknecss, from anxiety, from bereavement ? Do we ask for strength, for livelihood, for guidance, for success ? It is well. Yet we recognise that, if we could learn aright, our greater longing, even in these, would be for the perfectly un- thwarted consummation of God's divinely wise and loving will. In so far as these things, which in detail we ask for, are, or may be, within the divinely beneJQcent will of God ; in so far as any tormenting influence of evil is, or may be, in the withholding of them, thwarting the highest perfectness of Divine benevolence ; so far we entreat Him, by the uniting of our earnest will with His will for all good, to let us taste in these things His perfect love.
^ " Oh, Amma ! Amma ! do not pray ! your prayers are troubling me ! " We all looked up in astonishment. We had just had our Band Prayer Meeting, when a woman came rushing into the room, and began to exclaim like this. She was the mother of one of our girls. . . . Now the mother was all excitement, and poured out a curious story. " When you went away last year I prayed. I prayed and prayed, and prayed again to my god to dispel
288 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
your work. My daughter's heart was impressed with your words. I cried to my god to wash the words out. Has he washed them out? Oh no! And I prayed for a bridegroom and one came, and the cart was ready to take her away, and a hindrance occurred ; the marriage fell through. And I wept till my eyes well-nigh dissolved. And again another bridegroom came, and again an obstacle occurred. And yet again did a bride- groom come, and yet again an obstacle ; and I cannot get my daughter ' tied,' and the neighbours mock, and my Caste is disgraced" — and the poor old mother cried, just sobbed in her shame and confusion of face. "Then I went to my god again, and said, 'What more can I offer you? Have I not given you all I have ? And you reject my prayer ! ' Then in a dream my god appeared, and he said, ' Tell the Christians not to pray. I can do nothing against their prayers. Their prayers are hindering me ! ' And so, I beseech you, stop your prayers for fourteen days — only fourteen days — till I get my daughter tied."^
iii We recognise God's right to answer Prayer in the way He sees to he lest.
Christ's prayer, " Let this cup pass away from me " (Matt. XX vi. 39), and Paul's prayer that the "thorn in the flesh" might depart from him (2 Cor. xii. 7, 8), were not answered in the precise way requested. No more are our prayers always answered in the way we expect. Christ's prayer was not answered by the literal removal of the cup, because the drinking of the cup was really His glory; and Paul's prayer was not answered by the literal removal of the thorn, because the thorn was needful for his own perfecting. In the case of both Jesus and Paul, there were larger interests to be consulted than their own freedom from suffering.