To be near unto God - pagina 441

strongly in prayer with others. Then the voice is the instrument which brings the prayer of him who prays to the soul of those who pray with him. He who leads in prayer must be like him that plays the keys of the organ. His soul plays. The soul of the others must sound with his. And thus there is common prayer; a special grace imparted to us by God. Then comes the distance. When we want to ask some one across a stream or lake for something, we naturally raise our voice, and it helps us when he on the other side turns his ear toward us, and by his hand back of it shows that he listens, and tries to understand our call. And what broad waters flow between us and God, when we want to call on him. The whole world lies between and all the absorbing interests of life, and the immeasurable distance to the heaven of heavens, where the Lord is enthroned in everlasting light.

Our Savior commanded us not to begin prayer by addressing the Holy Spirit within us, not with calling upon the Omnipresent One, who compasses our going and our lying down and whose hand is upon us, but with a reverent invocation of "Our Father who art in heaven," and the Heidelberg Catechism says so beautifully, that we should do order not to think of the great God in an earthly way. Of course, this is not all. By continuance prayer becomes more intimate. This means that in prayer God gradually reveals his holy presence to us and comes close to us. And at length even enters our heart, when the Holy Spirit prays with us and for us, and teaches us how to pray. But to begin with this is sickly

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