HOW TO PRAY FOR MISSIONS.
By Mrs. J. Fuller
At the present hour the most urgent need of foreign missions is not so much of men and money, altho these are indispensable, but of those instant prayers, without the aid of which the most favorable external circumstances remain sterile. O, could we be impelled to pray more!—not to repeat incessantly the phrase, more or less empty, “O God! bless the heathen and the missionaries,” but to pray like those “violent,” who, so to speak, wrestle with God, and to whom it pleases him to give the victory. Let us humble ourselves, let us confess our failures in this respect, and ask of God to pour upon us the spirit of intercession. One day, returning from an evangelizing tour, I had the feeling that I had failed completely, and I said so with tears to an old friend who was a praying woman. “It is a little my fault,” she instantly replied; “I ought to have prayed much for you.” At the beginning of my missionary life, I received into my house six little orphans, bereaved in a famine. Some months after their arrival, I experienced a great spiritual refreshing, and five of these children were converted. A month later I had a letter from a blacksmith in Ohio, who said that he had been irresistibly impelled to ask God to restore my soul and to convert those children. What could not our missionaries accomplish if our people labored in concert with them by fervent prayers? When you pray thus for us, dear friends, what shall you ask? O, ask above all that God would himself inspire our plan of work, and that we may have no will but his! Ask also that we may live in the unity of the Spirit; for the lack of union among the Lord’s workers is often the secret cause of their want of success. It is by our union in Christ, as members of his body, that the world will believe that he was sent of God. Pray for the health of our missionaries; ask strength of body and refreshment of spirit for those who have been long at the breach. Ask for the young, that they may face with courage, and at the same time with prudence, the difficulties of a life absolutely new to them. Ask facility in learning the languages and in adapting themselves to the climate and the food. Ask especially that Christ may reign over their whole being; for God can not serve himself mightily for the conversion of souls except with instruments consecrated to him without reserve. Ask God to prepare native laborers; ask him that our publications in European or in native languages may advance his kingdom. Could you not, in some sort, adopt a missionary as your own representative in pagan lands, and pray for him and his work as if they were really your own? Could you not take possession of a country, of a district, of a missionary station, and give yourself no rest until God has shed his Spirit upon this object of your best prayers? An old lady said to me one day, “When you speak at your meetings could you not indicate to us also, old people who love missions but who, alas! have almost nothing to give, some way of being useful?” Very well, we address ourselves in a special manner to these aged friends who sigh because they have no power to do anything for our work, and we say to them: “To you above all belongs the great and beautiful task of supporting us by your prayers. We will count upon them henceforth, and we thank you in advance.”—Mrs. J. Fuller, missionary in India.