The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 669

—

XLI. Prayer

in

the Unconverted. "

When Thou

my

heart

face. Lord, xxvii.

The

faculty of prayer

saidst,

said will

Seek ye My face, Thee, Thy

unto I

seek."

Psalm

8.

not an acquisition of later years, but

is

created in us, inherent in the root of our being, inseparable

is

from our

nature.

And

yet consistent with this fact

men do

jority of

mant

in us for a

for studying

In sleep

we

lift

whole

It is

lifetime.

modern languages

is

the fact that the great

ma-

possible to possess a faculty dor-

The Malay

possesses the faculty

as well as we, but he never uses

it.

retain our faculties of seeing and hearing, but then they

Altho possessed of great power, the big fellow did

are inactive.

not

not pray.

a finger against the

may remain

little

scamp who tormented him.

Hence

wholly undeveloped and dormant for a lifetime, or partly developed but suppressed. And the same is a faculty

in us

true of the faculty of prayer. lions of the

who do

million

Among

the fourteen hundred mil-

scarcely two hundred

earth's population, there are

not appear to be acquainted with prayer, altho their

form of prayer is very defective. Of the non-praying masses, who almost exclusively occupy Europe, one half remember the time when, in some way or other, they used to pray. Many of those who have lost even that, still breathe an occasional prayer. And the number of them who wish that they could pray is very large; and among the non-praying people they represent undoubtedly the noblest.

Hence we maintain our of prayer to our creation.

starting-point, that

God

created

man

we owe

the faculty

as a being disposed to

were not so, the faculty of prayer could not be endowments. We are created for prayer, otherwise we could never have tasted of its sweetness. prayer.

among

To

If this

his

the question,

Why

in

our creation

is

this a peculiar

work

of

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