The Bible and the Prayer-Meeting.
Dr. James Alexander in one of his published letters expresses regret that the noonday meetings in New York during the great revival of 1858 gave so little prominence to Scriptural instruction. Their great aim seemed to be to kindle or deepen religious emotion, while little effort was made to expound or enforce the peculiar truths of the Bible. This deficiency still presses itself at times upon thoughtful Christians. We have attended meetings not a few, especially in seasons of religious interest, when the word of God was not read in the opening service, and no direct allusion was made to it any time as the source of authority and the only guide to inquirers. The leader and brethren seemed to rely more on exciting tunes and earnest exhortations than on the inspired word for the salvation of souls. Too often the result of such a work is a notable fulfillment of the prophet's words, "Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy;" and if we mistake not, there is in too many of our ordinary devotional meetings a painful deficiency of Biblical instruction. The formal discourse of the pulpit, it is true, is out of place. Long, rambling, and wearisome talks, which edify none and exhaust the time at the expense of prayer and praise, are even worse. But surely there is a happy mean. Those meetings are most interesting and profitable which give a deeper insight into God's truth, and increase its vital power over the heart. All can recall such seasons in their own experience, when, by a simple paraphrase of the verses read, or a few striking comments on them, an important Bible truth was presented in a new light or connection never to be forgotten. Or when some experienced Christian, whose soul was daily fed on the Bible as the Israelites in the wilderness on manna, as he compared things spiritual with spiritual, taught that the word of God was a treasury filled with things new and old. Christians talk much about the importance of warm and spirited meetings, and well. But sometimes they mistake forced emotion for genuine feeling. There can be no heat without fire, and the fire of grace in the heart can be kept up only by a constant feeding with the fuel of truth. Those church members who love the Bible most, study it most intelligently, and drink in its quickening spirit, are the best supporters of the prayer-meeting. When the love of others waxes cold, theirs appears the warmer by contrast; when few come to the solemn feasts of Zion, their fidelity is the more unwavering; when others are dumb or despondent, God's statutes are still their song in the house of their pilgrimage. But to give the Bible more power in the prayer-meeting, it must have a larger place in the closet. Christians cannot talk beyond their experience. They cannot expound what they do not understand, nor speak of truth whose power they have not felt in the heart. The Bible is not read and pondered in our day as it was by our fathers, and we are not nurtured into spiritual strength by its truths as the Puritans of the age of Baxter and Bunyan. Business men find little time for closet reading, and the old-fashioned hour of quiet musing over the page of Scripture is by-gone—the newspaper, with its telegraphic dispatches and its commercial reports, absorbs more time and earnest thought than the word of God. Young people seem to have little taste for an intimate acquaintance with the Bible. The last novel, or volume of poems, or the exciting periodical tale, or, on the Sabbath, the book from the Sabbath-school library, has a more powerful attraction for them than the revealed message from Heaven. Copies of the Bible have been multiplied beyond precedent; they are found in almost every home, and each member of a Christian family must have his own. Popular commentaries and lesson helps are numerous and cheap; and illustrated works, shedding a flood of light on the geography, and customs, and history of Bible lands, are within the reach of all; but we fear there is less true knowledge of the Scriptures than when the helps to study were fewer. The Bible is less talked of at the fireside and in social circles; it exerts less power in meetings for devotion. One sufficient reason alone can be assigned for all this—it is not meditated upon in hours of rest and quiet. When Christians feel its quickening influence in their private devotion they will carry it with them to the market-place and prayer-meeting alike, as the face of Moses shone when coming from the mount where he had communed with God.—Illustrated Christian Weekly.