Chap. Xxix.—Of The Power Of Prayer.
CHAP. XXIX.—OF THE POWER OF PRAYER.
For what has God, who exacts it ever denied[21] to prayer coming
from "spirit and truth?" How mighty specimens of its efficacy do we
read, and hear, and believe! Old-world prayer, indeed, used to free
from fires,[22] and from beasts,[23] and from famine;[24] and yet it
had not (then) received its form from Christ. But how far more amply
operative is Christian prayer ! It does not station the angel of dew in
mid-fires,[1] nor muzzle lions, nor transfer to the hungry the rustics'
bread;[2] it has no delegated grace to avert any sense of suffering;[3]
but it supplies the suffering, and the feeling, and the grieving, with
endurance: it amplifies grace by virtue, that faith may know what she
obtains from the Lord, understanding what—for God's name's sake—she
suffers. But in days gone by, withal prayer used to call down[4]
plagues, scatter the armies of foes, withhold the wholesome influences
of the showers. Now, however, the prayer of righteousness avers all
God's anger, keeps bivouac on behalf of personal enemies, makes
supplication on behalf of persecutors. Is it wonder if it knows how to
extort the rains of heaven[5]—(prayer) which was ante able to procure
its fires?[6] Prayer is alone that which vanquishes[7] God. But Christ
has willed that it be operative for no evil: He had conferred on it all
its virtue in the cause of good. And so it knows nothing save how to
recall the souls of the departed from the very path of death, to
transform the weak, to restore the sick, to purge the possessed, to
open prison-bars, to loose the bonds of the innocent. Likewise it
washes away faults, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions,
consoles the faint-spirited, cheers the high-spirited, escorts
travellers, appeases waves, makes robbers stand aghast, nourishes the
poor, governs the rich, upraises the fallen, arrests the falling,
confirms the standing. Prayer is the wall of faith: her arms and
missiles[8] against the foe who keeps watch over us on all sides. And,
so never walk we unarmed. By day, be we mindful of Station; by night,
of vigil. Under the arms of prayer guard we the standard of our
General; await we in prayer the angel's trump.[9] The angels, likewise,
all pray; every creature prays; cattle and wild beasts pray and bend
their knees; and when they issue from their layers and lairs,[10] they
look up heavenward with no idle mouth, making their breath vibrate[11]
after their own manner. Nay, the birds too, rising out of the nest,
upraise themselves heavenward, and, instead of hands, expand the cross
of their wings, and say somewhat to seem like prayer.[12] What more
then, touching the office of prayer? Even the Lord Himself prayed; to
whom be honour and virtue unto the ages of the ages !