^ Dora Greenwell, Essays, 128.
2 L. A. Banks, The Great Promises of the Bible, 36.
24 THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN
people themselves were ill and could not help us much. But the Korannas, good people, won our hearts by their devotion. They live in huts covered with mats and surrounded by a little wall, and when the Christians want to pray and be alone they go on to the veld under some solitary tree, and there pour out their hearts before God. In their language, " to go under the trees " means to go and pray, and that is what they do generally three times a day. How touching it was to see old Mosheue, the chief, come in weeping to comfort Christina, telling her that God would not fail to raise me up, because, since I had fallen sick, all the Christians had been earnestly frequenting their trees. " We were orphans," he said ; " we were perishing : how should God deprive us of the bosom that feeds us ? " And indeed the Lord did raise me up, and very quickly, thanks and glory to Him.^
(3) It is the prayer of a child to a father. — The prayer of a righteous man is the expression of the desires of the heart to God, as to a father ; whatever may be lawfully desired in His presence may be lawfully prayed for.
^ It is natural for a father to answer a son's letter, and for a father of wealth to enclose a cheque in his letter, if the son be in a state of honourable need — aye, and even when the son is in difficulties from his mistakes, if the father be a man of ideal generosity. It might be a special providence on the part of the father, something beyond his son's stated income ; but those who love delight in specially providing for those they love. And if the son asked for a boon, not for his own sake, but to vindicate the father's honour, how perfectly natural that the father should rejoice to grant it ! The logic of dead mechanical law is nothing to tlie law of living generous love. And that is the one great fixed law of the universe.^
III.
Energized Prayer.
1. Prayer for one another is born of love to one another ; and the love which unites us ascends from the one root of life upon which we all are grafted through grace, upon which by virtue of our creation from Adam we all were set. And thus the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession will appear in clearest
^ Coillard of the Zambesi, 184.
2 W. A. Cornaby, In Touch with Reality, 282.
JAMES V. i6 25
light. For with reference to the fellowship of tlie body of Christ, it is the Father from whom proceeds our redemption, the Son in whom we are united, and the Holy Spirit who imparts to us the conception and consciousness of this unity and holy fellowship. The mere fact of being chosen by the Father and redeemed by the Son does not constrain us to love ; it is the act of the Holy Spirit, who, revealing to our conception and consciousness this wonderful gift of grace, opening our eyes to the beauty of being joined to the body of Christ, kindles in us the spark of love for Christ and for His people. And when this double work of the Holy Spirit effectually operates in us, causing our hearts to be drawn to all that belong to us by virtue of our human kinship, and much more strongly to the people of God by virtue of our kinship in the Son, then there awakens in us the love of which the Apostle says that it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
^ There is an actual spiritual affinity between the soul which prays with all the fulness of believing love and Him who is Love. This is just the point where our prayers constantly break down, and this is also just the point of contact with the Infinite where those who prevail in prayer reveal such wonderful success. The most powerful dynamo will not impel its electric current along the wire in which there is a flaw which severs the connexion, while on the other hand, a tiny piece of wire will complete the contact and give the electric current free passage. We cannot be in touch with the Infinite Spirit without the cable strands of faith, hope, and love, and the last contains the other two.^
2. How will energized prayer be known ?
(1) It will he sympathetic. — For every prayer of intercession presupposes fellowship with them for whom we pray ; a fellowship which casts us into the same distress, and from which we look for deliverance, and that in such a way that the sorrow of one burdens us, and the joy of another causes us to give thanks. Where such vital fellowship does not exist, nor the love which springs from it, or where these are temporarily inactive, there may be a formal intercession of words, but real intercession from the heart there can not be.
^ It's a strange thing — sometimes when I'm quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I've seen and known, if it's only been for a few days,