2, We do not indeed care to inquire how prayer affects the will of God. It is enough for us to know that our God is a God who, seen under the conditions of human life, answers prayer. It is not for us to prescribe, it is not for us to know, the seasons which answer to the fitting accomplishment of the Father's purpose. We pray according to our most imperfect sight. We trust our prayers to the absolute love of God, sure at least of this that no effort will be lost which is consecrated to Him, sure that the good seed which is watered with tears will hereafter bring gladness to the reaper's heart, sure that, if we pray to Him and as we pray to Him, the Lord of the harvest will send forth His labourers, some, as it must be, for the toil of patient waiting,
* lAfe of Frederick Denison Maurice, ii. 285.
2 THESSALONIANS iii. i 75
and some for the toil of thankful ingathering, but all alike sobered and strengthened by the burden of His cross, all alike crowned with the undying wreath of His victory.
^ It is said that the way-worn labourers of lona found their burdens grow lighter when they reached the most difficult part of their journey because the secret prayers of their aged master Columba met them there. I can well believe the story ; and such comfort of unspoken sympathy the Church at home can give to the isolated missionary. If when he is saddened by the spectacle of evil which has been accumulated and grown hard through countless generations ; if when his words lind no entrance because the very power of understanding them is wanting ; if when he watches his life eljb and his work remain undone and almost unattempted, he can turn homeward with the certain knowledge that in England unnumbered fellow-labourers are striving from day to day to lighten his sorrows and to cheer his loneliness ; I can well believe that he too will find that refreshment and joy in the consciousness of deep human fellowship, in our Lord and Saviour, which will nerve him for new and greater toils : that he will be strong again with the strength of holy companionship and courageous with the solace of hope.^
3. We have to-day — let us in most humble reverence face the fact — a Divine gospel to proclaim and a Divine force to use. No temporary disappointments, no apparent failure, no deferred hope can alter this truth. For the way in which God's counsel is fulfilled must necessarily vary according to the varying circum- stances of the world. It is not given to us to foresee how Christ will show Himself, or by what advances and after what delays this end towards which we aspire will be reached. We cannot even tell of ourselves what is the right fulfilment of our own desire. We all know how St. Paul's prayer was answered. He was opposed, rejected, imprisoned, martyred. The unreasonable and evil men from whom he sought protection finally triumphed over him. He asked for deliverance and he found death. But what then ? His message was not lost. It was for a time hidden ; and few things in the history of the Church are more striking. But after a dark, cold season of waiting the harvest was matured. Where he had sown, others reaped; and through manifold dis- couragements and checks and antagonisms the gospel of the cross * B. F. "Westcott, Lessons from Work, 208.
^(i PRAYER AND PROGRESS
within three centuries conquered the family, the schools, the state. The lesson is written for our learning. Let us do our work. Let the harvest, if G-od so will, be for those that come after us ; there will be joy then for the sower.
\ Perhaps in the modern mission-field the prayer of the text has had no better fulfilment than in the kingdom of Toro, near the Albert Nyanza and adjacent to Uganda, the king of which, David Kasagama, wrote in an interesting letter some years ago : " I want my country to be a strong lantern, that is not put out in this land of darkness." The queen-mother is also a Christian, and in a letter of hers wrote these words : " Friends, I thank God that we are one with you although we are black and you are white, because now we are one in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, my masters, persevere in praying to God to give us strength every day." Such words echo the Apostolic precept to pray for the success of God's Word, while they encourage us, from the triumph of the gospel in Toro, to believe the prophetic word that it shall not return to God void, but shall accomplish that which He pleases, and shall prosper in the thing whereto He hath sent it.^
^ J. Silvester.
A Faithful Sayinq.
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), Paul and his Friends, 327.
Calthrop (G.), The Future Life, 209.
Curuock (N.), The Comfortable Words of the Holy Communion, 93.
Dods (M.), Glirist and Man, 176.
Drury (T. W.), The Prison- Ministry of St. Paul, 193.
Ealand (F.), The Spirit of Life, 26.
Ellicott (C. J.), Sermons at Gloucester, 36.
Ewing (W.), Cedar and Palm, 120.
Flint (R.), Sermons and Addresses, 176.