The Open Effect of Secret Aspiration

“Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” — Matt. vi. 6.

The doctrine of Jesus differs here from the view of the moderns. The common voice of ozr day is, “Pray in secret, and thy Father will reward thee secretly.” I am told that the only use of prayer is to calm the inind — to breath within me a spirit of peace. And truly, even if that were all, it would be a most valuable boon. But it would not be an open reward.” It would be a thing as latent as my prayer. It would be a little secret of the heart between me and my Father. Its coming would be unknown to the world; its presence would be unseen by the world; its music would be unheard by the world. That may be very sublime, but it is not what Christ promised. What He says is that the prayer is to be secret, but the reward open. The prayer is to be unwitnessed; the answer is to be public. The prayer is to be veiled; the answer is to be read of all men. The prayer

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is to be within closed doors; the answer is to be in the wide wide world.

My brother, do not say that the purpose of your prayer is to calm your mind! That is not an end; it is a beginning. If you have a calm mind you will come out into the open. Your Father’s aim is not that you should enter into rest; it is that you should enter into movement. He offers you His peace, not to make you lie down in green pastures, but to make you walk in the paths of righteousness. It is not the secrecy of our prayer that He values; it is the publicity which the secret hour kindles. Tell me! have not our most public moments come from our most secret hours? When you were a child you built castles in the air. They were rather castles in the heart; they were all inside — within the closed doors of the soul. These castle-buildings were your first prayers. They were the golden wishes of your spirit, and they were only visible to you and your Father. There was no axe or hammer heard when these houses were building; they were prayers to your Father “in secret.” Yet these prayers have had an open reward.; You are richer to-day by reason of the castles you built in your heart. I do not say your life has ever reached the measure of them; I know it has not. But I do say it has reached more than it would have reached without them. Your love’s young dream has kept you from the miry clay. Your vision of the hill has nerved you for the plain. In the secret places of your heart you have heard distant music — the world would say imaginary music. But it is to this secret music that the march of your outward life has been timed. It is this far-off melody that has fired you for the actual battle. It is this song in the night that has made you conqueror in the day. Build, my brother, your castles of prayer — build 6n! They will meet you again in stone and lime. You vill find them in the daylight world — the world of life and action. Your poetry will help your prose; your flight will aid your walking. Stand in the secret place of golden wishes; but know assuredly that there is nothing secret which shall not be revealed I