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their own prayers. Having sown the seed of prayer, they should expect the harvest of profitable service.
^ You may be sure that in my hermitage by the unseen brook Cherith I do not cross my arms in daily and nightly supplication without enfolding you all in them; and may I say again, like John Newton to his friend, " When you are with the King and getting good for yourself, speak a word for me." I must quote more — the words are truly beautiful — " I have reason to think you see Him oftener and have nearer access to Him than myself. Yet I am not wholly without His notice. He supplies all my wants, and I live under His protection. My enemies see His royal arms over my door and dare not enter." ^
^ One of Millais' most powerful pictures is that in the Manchester Art Gallery, entitled " Victory, 0 Lord." It repre- sents the incident related in Ex. xvii. 10-12, of Moses sitting on the top of the hill, while Joshua is leading the Israelites against the Amalekites on the plains below. Moses, the great lawgiver, is represented seated upon a stone, his body bent with age and weariness. Aaron and Hur stand on either side of him supporting his upraised arms, since as long as these were held up Israel prevailed. The faces of the two supporters are ablaze with zeal. They watch the conflict below, and can hardly remain passive through agitation. Yet there they remain holding up the arms of the aged leader. The whole picture is a lesson in the practice of prayer.
II.
The Purpose of this Intercession.
" That the word of the Lord may run and be glorified."
1. " The word of the Lord " is the gospel, of which St. Paul was the principal herald to the nations ; and we see in his choice of the word " run " his sense of its urgency. It was glad tidings to all mankind ; and how sorely needed wherever the Apostle turned his eyes ! The constraint of Christ's love was upon his heart, the constraint of men's sin and misery; and he could not pass swiftly enough from city to city, to proclaim the reconciling grace of God, and call men from darkness to light. His eager heart fretted against barriers and restraints of every description; he
^ "W. B. Robertson, in lAft, by J. Brown, 212.
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saw in them the malice of the great enemy of Christ: "We would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again ; but Satan hindered me." Hence it is that he asks the Thessalonians to pray for their removal, that the word of the Lord may run.
^ The singular metaphor of the running word is probably suggested by Ps. xix. 5, where the course of the sun is pictured in glowing poetic language — " rejoicing as a hero to run a race," while the latter part of the Psalm sets " the law of the Lord " in comparison with his glorious career. St. Paul applies ver. 4 of the Psalm in Rom. x. 18, with striking effect, to the progress of the gospel. Through " running " the word is " glorified," and that is true of it which Virgil writes in his splendid lines on Fama {Aeneid, iv. 175) :
Mobilitate viget, viresque adquirit eundo.^
•jl It is one of the happy omens of our own time that the Apostolic conception of the gospel as an ever-advancing, ever- victorious force, has begun again to take its place in the Christian heart. If it is really to us what it was to St. Paul — a revelation of God's mercy and judgment which dwarfs everything else, a power omnipotent to save, an irresistible pressure of love on heart and will, glad tidings of great joy that the world is dying for — we shall share in this ardent, evangelical spirit, and pray for all preachers that the word of the Lord may run very swiftly. How it passed in apostolic times from land to land and from city to city — from Syria to Asia, from Asia to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Spain — till in one man's lifetime, and largely by one man's labour, it was known throughout the Eoman world ! It is easy, indeed, to over- estimate the number of the early Christians ; but we can hardly over-estimate the fiery speed with which the Cross went forth conquering and to conquer. Missionary zeal is one note of the true Apostolic Church.^
2, St. Paul wishes the Thessalonians to pray that the Word of the Lord may be "glorified," as well as "run" or "have free course" as the Authorized Version puts it. The Word of the Lord is a glorious thing itself. As the Apostle calls it in another place, it is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. All that makes the spiritual glory of God — His holiness, His love. His wisdom — is concentrated and displayed in it. But its glory is acknowledged, and in that sense heightened, when its power is 1 G. G. Findlay. 2 J. Denney.
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seen in the salvation of men. A message from God that did nothing would not be glorified: it would be discredited and shamed. It is the glory of the gospel to lay hold of men, to transfigure them, to lift them out of evil into the company and the likeness of Christ. For anything else it does, it may not fill a great space in the world's eye ; but when it actually brings the power of God to save those who receive it, it is clothed in glory. St. Paul did not wish to preach without seeing the fruits of his labour. He did the work of an evangelist ; and he would have been ashamed of the evangel if it had not wielded a Divine power to overcome sin and bring the sinful to God. Pray that it may always have this power. Pray that when the word of the Lord is spoken it may not be an ineffective, fruitless word, but mighty through God.