The Marriage of Prayer and Almsgiving

“Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.” — Acts x. 4.

iif I 1 HY prayers and thine alms.” What I a singular combination! Are not

these two contrary things! Is not prayer a desire to get; is not the offer of alms a desire to give! How can a man receive a monument for opposing qualities! My brother, these are not opposing qualities. All prayer must be a giving of something. You are not justified in making it a mere desire to get. When you are about to ask anything of your Father, you ought to pause for a moment. Before making a request to your Father, you should give your sympathy to your fellow-man; you should say — “How would the granting of this to me affect him? Let me remember his wants ere I satisfy my own! “That is what I understand our Lord to mean by the command —” When thou bringest thine offering to the altar and thou rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave thine offering unsurrendered; first be reconciled to thy brother!” When you come to the altar of worship to offer up your prayer, ask yourself first of all whether the granting of your wish would be against the interest of your neighbour; and if your heart says ‘’ Yes,” do not present that prayer to-day. Leave it on the steps of the altar. Go back to secular life again. Seek a meeting with your neighbour. Adjust your respective claims. Try if his interest can be made compatible with yours. If it can, you may go forward to the altar once more. Your prayer will then be unsullied, pure. There will be nothing mean in it, nothing sordid, nothing self-seeking. It will be such a prayer as you can present without shame in the presence of the ministrant angels, in the presence of redeeming Love.

O Thou Divine Love, tune my prayers to the songs of Thy heart! Let my first thought in the hour of prayer be, not a getting, but a giving! Before I say “The Lord will provide for mc “let me seek to provide for my brother! Let me ask nothing in my own name — nothing which does not include my fellow-man! On the threshold to every prayer teach me to say “Our Father!” Let all my petitions be for two — myself and humanity! Let me ask, not “my daily bread,” but ‘’ our daily bread “! If my district is in drought, let me not ask universal rain! Let me pause to consider whether my want is felt by other districts; it may be that elsewhere the soil is crying for the sun! Let my almsgiving precede my prayer! Ere looking at my own parched land, let me remember my brother’s sodden field! Let me hear the voice of his blood crying from the flooded ground! Make my prayer from beginning to end a duet! Let it ever have two voices — my brother’s and mine! Let its first note be “Our Father;” let its last be ‘’Deliver us from evil!” Thy heart will be glad when Thou hearest the harmonious music — when the prayer and the alms go up together.