Prayer by A. S. Hutchins

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 17, 1863

Prayer.

By A. S. Hutchins

But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. 1 Pet. iv, 7.

From the above scripture, with many others, we learn that the people of God, should be a watchful and praying people; especially, those who live when the ‐end of all things is at hand.” Watchfulness and prayer must go hand in hand, with those who overcome and go through to the city of the New Jerusalem. Let us then “continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

But there is reason to fear that there are too many prayers, that have no heart or life, in them. There is a form without the power, a shell, without the meat. Those who neglect to watch, especially while in the society of the ungodly, cannot approach the Lord in prayer, with that holy boldness and strong confidence, that the watchful can. Those who with the vain, indulge in their light and trifling conversation must expect to feel the effects of their own folly. Well would it be if the precious cause were wounded none, only the wound in their own breast.

Others do not seem to realize what it is to come before the great Creator of the heavens and earth, in the attitude of prayer. There is not that vivid sense of our entire dependence upon him, that there should be. The following remarks on the nature of prayer, from Hannah More, seem very appropriate.

‒Prayer, is the application of want to Him who alone can relieve it—the confession of sin to him who alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of poverty, the prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust. It is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. It is the ‘Lord, save us, we perish,’ of drowning Peter—the cry of faith to the ear of mercy.”

‒Prayer is desire: it is not a mere conception of the mind, not an effort of the intellect, not an act of the memory, but an elevation of the soul toward its Maker; a pressing sense of our ignorance and infirmity, a consciousness of the perfections of God, of his readiness to hear, of his power to help, of his willingness to save. It is not an emotion produced in the senses, nor an effect wrought by the imagination; but a determination of the will, an effusion of the heart.”

‒Prayer draws all the Christian graces into its focus. It draws Charity followed by her lovely train, her forbearance with faults, her forgiveness of injuries, her pity for errors, her compassion for want. It draws repentance with her holy sorrows, her pious resolutions, her self distrust. It attracts faith, with her elevated eye, hope with her grasped anchor. The mould into which genuine prayer casts the soul is not effaced by the suspension of the act, but retains some touches of the impression, till the act is repeated.”

‒Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away, So will his followers do; Steal from the throng to haunts untried, And hold communion there with God.”

A. S. HUTCHINS.