8 Examples of Praying Men
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the
human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the
faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely
incapable of prayer. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
BISHOP WILSON says: In H. Martyn's journal the spirit of prayer, the time he
devoted to the duty, and his fervor in it are the first things which strike me."
Payson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed so
often and so long. His biographer says: "His continuing instant in prayer, be
his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable fact in his history,
and points out the duty of all who would rival his eminency. To his ardent and
persevering prayers must no doubt be ascribed in a great measure his
distinguished and almost uninterrupted success."
The Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his servant to
call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The servant at the time
saw his face through an aperture. It was marked with such holiness that he hated
to arouse him. His lips were moving, but he was perfectly silent. He waited
until three half hours had passed; then he called to him, when he arose from his
knees, saying that the half hour was so short when he was communing with Christ.
Brainerd said: "I love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend much time
in prayer."
William Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness and for
his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvelous answers to his prayers.
For hours at a time he would pray. He almost lived on his knees. He went over
his circuits like a flame of fire. The fire was kindled by the time he spent in
prayer. He often spent as much as four hours in a single season of prayer in
retirement.
Bishop Andrewes spent the greatest part of five hours every day in prayer and
devotion.
Sir Henry Havelock always spent the first two hours of each day alone with
God. If the encampment was struck at 6 A.M., he would rise at four.
Earl Cairns rose daily at six o'clock to secure an hour and a half for the
study of the Bible and for prayer, before conducting family worship at a quarter
to eight.
Dr. Judson's success in prayer is attributable to the fact that he gave much
time to prayer. He says on this point: "Arrange thy affairs, if possible, so
that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every day not merely to
devotional exercises but to the very act of secret prayer and communion with
God. Endeavor seven times a day to withdraw from business and company and lift
up thy soul to God in private retirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight
and devoting some time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred
work. Let the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the hours of
nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same. Be resolute in his
cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it. Consider that thy time is
short, and that business and company must not be allowed to rob thee of thy
God." Impossible, say we, fanatical directions! Dr. Judson impressed an empire
for Christ and laid the foundations of God's kingdom with imperishable granite
in the heart of Burmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily
impressed the world for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and
learning than he have made no such impression; their religious work is like
footsteps in the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant. The secret
of its profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he gave time to
prayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God's skill fashioned it with
enduring power. No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man
of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to
praying.
Is it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull and
mechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till tameness,
shortness, superficiality are its chief elements? "Is it true that prayer is, as
is assumed, little else than the half-passive play of sentiment which flows
languidly on through the minutes or hours of easy reverie?" Canon Liddon
continues: "Let those who have really prayed give the answer. They sometimes
describe prayer with the patriarch Jacob as a wrestling together with an Unseen
Power which may last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the night
hours, or even to the break of day. Sometimes they refer to common intercession
with St. Paul as a concerted struggle. They have, when praying, their eyes fixed
on the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane, upon the drops of blood which fall to
the ground in that agony of resignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of the
essence of successful prayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but sustained
work. It is through prayer especially that the kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence and the violent take it by force. It was a saying of the late Bishop
Hamilton that "No man is likely to do much good in prayer who does not begin by
looking upon it in the light of a work to be prepared for and persevered in with
all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which are in our
opinion at once most interesting and most necessary."
