^ C. D. Lampen, Spiritual Power, 88.
26 THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN
are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it were my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before tlie Lord and resting in His love, on their behalf as well as my own.^
(2) It will he earnest. — Wherever the Holy Ghost works, there is sure to be earnestness. Energy is the certain sign of a heart acted upon by Divine grace. And we must be energetic for this reason. God very seldom gives anything in this world except to effort.
^ There are, not far from Bristol, some huge and solid buildings containing a large number of orphans, which buildings have been erected, and which orphans have been supported for many years, at the cost of (say) £1,400,000, by the prayers of one George Miiller ; a notable instance, which drew forth, at any rate, words of faith from a Chinese ambassador who visited them on a public occasion once. There are also other such solid and tangible instances elsewhere. And I maintain, of course, that real prayer is as great a working force to-day as ever it was.^
(3) It is omnipotent. — For it is the working of God's will. Sir Oliver Lodge says (Contemporary Bevieiv, Dec. 1904): "We must realize that the Whole is a single, undeviating, law-saturated Cosmos. But we must also realize that the Whole consists not of matter and motion alone, or even of spirit and will alone, but of both and all ; we must even yet further, and enormously, enlarge our conception of what the Whole contains. Not mere energy, but constantly directed energy— the energy which is not (mere) energy . . . but is akin to life and mind. Prayer is part of the orderly Cosmos, and may be an efficient portion of the guiding and controlling will ; somewhat as the desire of the inhabitants of a town for civic improvement may be part of the agency which ultimately brings it about, no matter whether the city be repre- sentatively or autocratically governed."
^ Phillips Brooks speaks of "The gracious mercy that binds omnipotence a willing servant to every humble human prayer." ^
^ Dinah Morris, in Adam Bede.
- W. A. Cornaby, In Touch ivith Reality, 273.
3 Phillips Brooks, 80.
JAMES V. i6 27
^ George Benfield, a driver on the Midland Eailway living at Derby, was standing on the footplate oiling his engine, the train being stationary, when he slipped and fell on the space between the lines. He heard the express coming on, and had only just time to lie full length on the " six-foot " when it rushed by, and he escaped unhurt. He returned to his home in the middle of the night, and as he was going up the stairs, he heard one of his children, a girl about eight years old, crying and sobbing. " Oh, father," she said, "I thought somebody came and told me that you were going to be killed, and I got out of bed and prayed that God would not let you die." Was it only a dream, a coincidence ? George Benfield and some others believed that he owed his life to that prayer.^
Of the million or two, more or less, I rule and possess, One man, for some cause undefined, Was least to my mind.
I struck him, he grovelled of course —
For, what was his force ?
I pinned him to earth with my weight
And persistence of hate:
And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
As his lot might be worse.
"Were the object less mean, would he stand
At the swing of my hand !
For obscurity helps him and blots
The hole where he squats."
So, I set my five wits on the stretch
To inveigle the wretch.
All in vain ! Gold and jewels I threw,
Still he couched there perdue;
I tempted his blood and his flesh.
Hid in roses my mesh,
'Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:
Still he kept to his filth.
Had he kith now or kin, were access To his heart, did I press: Just a son or a mother to seize! No such booty as these.
'Dean Hole, Then and Now, 10.
28 THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN
Were it simply a friend to pursue
'Mid my million or two,
Who could pay me in person or pelf
What he owes me himself!
No : I could not but smile through my chafe :
For the fellow lay safe
As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
— Through minuteness, to wit.
Then a humour more great took its place
At the thought of his face.
The droop, the low cares of the mouth,
The trouble uncouth
'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain
To put out of its pain.
And, " no ! " I admonished myself,
"Is one mocked by an elf,
Is one baffled by toad or by rat?
The gravamen's in that!
How the lion, who crouches to suit
His back to my foot.