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The more he thought about it, the more he felt that he could not pray for those boys just then. At last he thought he had found a way out of the difficulty. He said to himself that he was very tired, almost sick; he would just repeat the Lord's Prayer and go to bed. In the morning, very likely, he should feel differently; he almost knew he should. So he knelt down once more.
He had been caught and crushed between forces and passions that were too much for him. He was little and these things were very great. Unconsciously the heart within him, the child heart that somehow lives ever in every man, began to speak, to speak, without knowing it, direct to God. It was not a prayer. It was not a plea. It was not an excuse.
Those whom he led also paused and listened as did the sentinels, though they understood no word of what was said. Poor Grummidge had evidently been brought very low, for his once manly voice was weak and his tones were desponding. Never before, perhaps, was prayer offered in a more familiar or less perfunctory manner. "O Lord," he said, "do get us out o' this here scrape somehow!
The prayer asked that it might be so; here we declare that it is so already, not, of course, in the deepest sense, but that even now and here He rules with authority. 'Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and this conviction is inseparable from our Christianity. How hard it is to believe it at all times, from what we see around us!
I think we may state it as a general duty that he must do whatever he can to keep his faith constantly alive. But beyond that, what a man must do depends almost entirely upon his own intellectual character. Many people of a regular type of mind can refresh themselves by some recurrent duty, by repeating a daily prayer, by daily reading or re-reading some devotional book.
They, saints and friends of Christ as they were, served the Lord in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in labour and weariness, in watchings and fastings, in prayer and holy meditations, in persecutions and much rebuke. O how many and grievous tribulations did the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, endure; and all others who would walk in the footsteps of Christ.
Then Pastor Frommel, in his black robe and simple white muslin bands, took his place before the high altar and bowed in prayer, the two immense candles in tall candlesticks on either side the altar, now lighted, throwing their radiance on his silver hair.
Be not backward in your gatherings-together; let none of you willingly stay till part of the meeting be come, especially such who should be examples to the flock. One or two things are omitted about your comings-together, which I shall here add. I beseech you, forbear sitting in prayer, except parties be any way disabled; 'tis not a posture which suits with the majesty of such an ordinance.
"I love a flutter when I come in and the knowledge that I've turned every head and here we've entered an empty church! Heigho! Nothing to do for half an hour." "Read your prayer book," suggested Jacqueline. "Oh! does it open just there as easily as all that?" "It always did open just there," answered Miss Dandridge. "It's something in the binding. Heigho! 'Love, honour, and obey. Obey!"
And she was led to pray that God would send that man into their church in London. As simple a prayer as that. And the months went by, and a year, and over; still she prayed. Nobody knew of it but herself and God. No change seemed to come. Still she prayed. And of course her prayer wrought its purpose. Every Spirit-suggested prayer does. And that is the touchstone of true prayer.
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