A Sensible Prayer

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 15, 1862

A Sensible Prayer

A Sensible Prayer.—The time has long gone by when polemical disputants can put each other down by calling hard names. Luther and Calvin could indulge in that sort of controversy without reproach, and, perhaps, with effect—for it was the fashion of the age. But the world is wiser now, and Dr. Smith and Rev. Mr. Brown must have something better than epithets to do any serious damage to the feeblest sect of the most unpopular creed. Nathaniel Howe, of Hopkinton, an eccentric clergyman of the Calvinistic school, once made an ordination prayer which contained the following valuable hint as to the best mode of dealing with theological opponents: "O Lord! may thy young servant put down the Methodists, and Baptists, and Episcopalians, and Universalists, by preaching better, and praying better, and living better than they! Amen."