An Eccentric Prayer

Publishing Committee · BATTLE CREEK, MICH. · May 27, 1858

An Eccentric Prayer.

PROFESSING Christians, of all names, are too negligent of personal duty in laboring for the conversion of others. They devolve responsibility upon ministers and men in official station, and forget the obligation resting on every one to enter the Master's vineyard and work for him. Many unconverted persons awakened to seriousness, have reason to say, "No man careth for my soul." The Morning Star tells the following story in rebuke of this negligence on the part of christians:

Almost a year since, a gentleman of wealth and talent, resident in the State of Rhode Island, was very anxious for several years, but had not consecrated himself to God. His experience, trials and difficulties, were very much like those of other men who desire eternal life more than they desire to obey God, and he continued in darkness. Finally he opened his mind to the minister of the place, and asked him to pray for him, and consented to pray for himself. That first prayer was peculiar, and as other communities may be troubled with the same difficulty that was prominent before the mind of this man, we will put the prayer on record. He might have been expected to pray for himself first, but he did not. His prayer was, "O Lord, cure this people of the lock-jaw. Here I have been anxious for salvation for years, and no man except Mr. B. (the man who was with him,) has ever said a word to me on the subject of religion. O Lord, cure them of the lock-jaw." A very eccentric, yet significant prayer. How many people there are who profess to love God and the souls of men, but they have the "lock-jaw," their mouths are closed, they are dumb upon the subject upon which they should converse the most frequently and most earnestly. The impression which this makes upon the mind of the sinner is that their profession is spurious, that they do not love God, that there is no reality in religion, no necessity of regeneration.