Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
Far is the time, remote from human sight, 1 When war and discord on the earth shall cease; 'Yet every prayer for universal peace
Avails the blessed time to expedite.
* Amy Wilson-Carmichael, Things as they are, 267.
ST. MARK 289
Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, Though it be what thou canst not hope to see; Pray to be perfect, though material leaven Forbid the spirit so on earth to be: But if for any wish thou darest not pray, Then pray to God to cast that wish away.i
III.
We shall know that we have obtained what we asked — first, when we act on the belief that we have obtained it ; and next, when we see that we have obtained it.
i. We act on the lelief that we have obtained what we asked.
So did the ten lepers. When Jesus said, "Go and shew yourselves to the priests," they turned and went. They did not wait to feel that they were cleansed ; they did not wait to see the signs of it in their hands and faces. They simply took Him at His word and went.
1. Faith is very far from being a mere conviction of the truth of God's word, or a conclusion drawn from certain premises. It is the ear which has heard God say what He will do, the eye which has seen Him doing it, and, therefore, where there is true faith, it is impossible that the answer should not come. If we only see to it that we do the one thing that He asks of us as we pray : Believe that ye have received. He will see to it that He does the thing He has promised : " Ye shall have them." The key-note of Solomon's prayer (2 Chron. vi. 4), " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who hath with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth to my father David," is the key-note of all true prayer : the joyful adoration of a God whose hand always secures the fulfilment of what His mouth has spoken.
^ Signer Prochet, of the Waldensian Church, tells a story of a long-continued drought in the valleys of North Italy, which threatened to ruin the harvest. The pastor of one of the little congregations arranged to hold a special prayer-meeting to pray for rain to save the crops, and on the day of the meeting groups of people were seen wending their way along the valley, or ^ Hartley Coleridge, Poems, "Prayer." ST. MARK — 19
290 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
clambering down the steep hillsides, to join the devotions. As the minister was nearing the church a little girl passed him. He was much struck by the size of the umbrella she was carrying, and laughingly called out : " I fear you will not have much need of your umbrella this weather." " Oh, sir," replied the child, " I brought it because we were going to ask God for rain to-day, and I will be sure to need it before 1 get home." The minister pondered the words, and rebuked himself for his lack of faith. He had been going to pray for rain, but without any expectation that his prayer would be answered. The faith of the child put new life and power into the prayer-meeting. Before the close there was a sound of abundance of rain, and the minister was glad to share the shelter of the big umbrella on his way home.
2. Faith has to accept the answer, as given by God in heaven, before it is found or felt upon earth. — This point causes difficulty, and yet it is of the very essence of believing prayer, its real secret. Spiritual things can only be spiritually apprehended or appropriated. The spiritual heavenly blessing of God's answer to your prayer must be spiritually recognised and accepted before you feel anything of it. It is faith that does this. A soul that not only seeks an answer, but seeks first the God who gives the answer, receives the power to know that it has what it has asked of Him. If it knows that it has asked according to His wUl and promises, and that it has come to and found Himself to give it, it does believe that it has received. *' We know that he heareth us."
There are cases in which the blessing is ready to break through at once, if we but hold fast our confidence, and prove our faith by praising for what we have received, in the face of our not yet having it in experience. There are other cases in which the faith that has received needs to be still further tried and strengthened in persevering prayer. God alone knows when everything in and around us is fully ripe for the manifestation of the blessing that has been given to faith. Elijah knew for certain that rain would come ; God had promised it ; and yet he had to pray seven times. And that prayer was no show or play ; there was an intense spiritual reality in the heart of him who lay pleading there, and in the heaven above where it had its effectual work to do. It is " through faith and patience we inherit the promises." Faith says most confidently, I have