The Model Prayer-Meeting
It began punctually at the moment. As the clock struck eight the leader rose and sounded the reveille, by giving out the inspiring lines —
“Come, my soul, thy suit prepare;
Jesus loves to answer prayer.”
A sweet symphony was touched on a piano in one of the crowded rooms, and then the words of the hymn were sent heavenward on a full tide of united and enthusiastic song. Every voice chimed in. Each verse was sung with more spirit than ite predecessor, marking the outcome of the rising devotion; and, like a strong “off-shore” breeze, the opening chant of praise carried the whole meeting out of harbor into the larger liberty and deep waters of the open sea. Then the leader invoked the descent of the Holy Ghost, the gift of utterance, and the Pentecostal baptism. It -was a very short prayer, but very full. He prayed for the gift of prayer upon all, for honesty of speech, for deliverance from dead formalities, for sincerity in confession, for child-like familiarity of approach to God, for filial faith; and then closed by inviting Christ to “come in, as through the closed doors of the disciples’ upper room at Jerusalem, and speak. Peace be unto you”
As soon as a fitting passage of the Word had been read, each one present seemed ready to bear his part in giving life and interest to the occasion. Each one felt, “This is not the leader’s meeting, nor the pastor’s, but my meeting with my own spiritual family at the feet of my own Saviour. Here I have a right to speak. Here I have a right to weep, and sing, and melt in spirit, and flow out in social communings with the brotherhood around me. If I am silent, then the meeting may prove dumb; and if I freeze up, then my neighbor may chill through, until the place becomes an ice-house.” So there was no entreaty required on the part of the leader to “draw out” those present. He was obliged to use no turnkey. What is more pitiful than to see a poor embarrassed elder or deacon sit before a petrified company, and after a long, awful pause, in which you can count the clock-ticks, beseechingly implore ‘’some brother present to improve the time?” As if the dreary dribble of dulness that was forced out by such a process was not a downright m ^-improvement and murder of the sweet, sacred hour of devotion. It is no wonder that so many of us grew up with a loathing for the very name, and next to a taste of the birch that grew behind the school-house, we dreaded a sentence to “go to prayer meeting.” Our only solace was a sound nap, until some one shook our eyes open, and with an admonitory thump informed us that “meetin’s out; it is time to go home.”
But even a child of eight years old would have been interested in the enlivening service we are now etching. Not a moment was lost; not a syllable of persuasion was needed. One man rose and gave a touching account of the scene a few evenings before, when he had first set up a family altar in his once prayerless house. That was his first audible prayer, and this was his first speech. “While he is speaking, the tears stream down the cheek of his astonished and overjoyed wife. Then comes a fervid prayer of thanksgiving to Grod from some one present, and a petition that the family altar thus reared may never be desecrated, or thrown down. After this a youth arose, with a blue jacket, and an anchor embroidered on his broad collar. He had been brought there by a tract visitor. The burden of his short, artless speech was, Come to Jesus.” Whosoever will, let him come,” said the sunburnt youth;” that means that everybody on board may come, from the captain to the cabin boy. We are bound for heaven. Christ is our pilot. The anchor is sure and steadfast. Come aboard, friends, before eight bells strike, and your time is up.” No one felt like criticising this earnest lad, or objecting to his simple vernacular of the sea. He spake as the Spirit gave him utterance. So did they all. One young man asked counsel in regard to the rightfulness of his discharging some prescribed duties in a government office on the Sabbath mornings. The leader answered his question briefly, and a brother offered prayer that God would guide aright his perplexed child, would enable him to “do right even if it cost him his daily bread,” and would deliver the land from Sabbath desecration in high places.
When his prayer was ended, a tremulous, stammering voice was heard in the further room for a moment, and then it stopped. There was a breathless pause. Every one felt for the young beginner. Every one wanted to help him out. He began again, hesitated, stammered out a few words brokenly; at last he said, “0 Lord, thou knowest I cannot tell what I want to say, but thou hearest even what I do not say. Have mercy on my poor soul, for Christ’s sake. Amen.” An audible sob broke out throughout the whole apartment. Then outspoke a gray-headed veteran, in tones like old Andrew Peden’s among the Covenanters of the Highlands. The old man went into his prayer like Gideon into the battle with Midian. The sword of faith gleamed in his right hand; the light shot forth as from the shivered pitchers, and the whole hosts of doubts, and sins, and fears were scattered like chaff at the breath of the gale. How he took us all on eagles’
wings heavenward! How he enthroned the glorified Lamb! And the close of his rapturous outbreak was in a “sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs, and harping symphonies.”
When the old man’s prayer was ended, (it was the seventh prayer offered during that one busy, blessed hour,) the time had arrived for closing the service. The leader touched his bell, and read the doxology. We were all in the very frame for that most celestial of strains — glorious Old Hundred — that magnificent battle-hymn to which Luther marched against principalities and powers, and spiritual weakness in high places. Immortal is that strain, like him who gave it birth. There is not a Christian’s tomb in all our land where repose not the silent lips that once sang that matchless tune. If any of earth’s music shall be heard amid the “new songs” of Paradise, be assured that the one surviving piece that shall outlive the judgment will be that “king of sacred airs,” Old Hundred. With this ancient song upon our lips, we closed our service, spent a few moments in hand-shakings, in introducing strangers, in cordial heart-greetings: and so ended a model prayer meeting.
The spirit that pervaded the meeting was too intensely earnest for phraseology as sapless and dry as last year’s corn husks, and at the same time too reverential for affectations and flippancy. We lingered about the hallowed spot, loth to go away. But for the rigid rule that restricted the service to a single hour, we might have tarried until midnight, praying and singing praises to God. And as we turned reluctantly homeward, more than one gratefully said, “Truly the Lord was in this place.” Why may not every church of Christ have one or more just such model prayer meetings?