When I was first struggling out into the light? as it seems to me now
from my old theological training, I met another difficulty that I think
will appeal to you. It seemed to me an impertinence for me to be
telling God, as I heard so many people on every hand, all sorts of
things that he knew before. I reconsidered the words of Jesus, You are
not to give yourself to much speaking in your prayers, for your Father
knoweth what you have need of before you ask him. And then there was
another difficulty which troubled me more than any of the others, a
delightful, splendid difficulty it has seemed to me since those days.
It was connected with the thought of God's goodness and love. There are
heathen, they tell us, who have got a glimpse, from their point of
view, of this fact about God. It is said they do not bring any
offerings, except some flowers, to the deities they regard as good,
because, they say, they do not need to be persuaded. They bring all
their costly offerings to the bad gods, the ones they are afraid of;
and they attempt to buy their favor or buy off their anger.
When I waked up to the free and grand conception of the eternal love
and the boundless goodness of the Father, then it seemed to me that
many of my prayers in the past had been so far from reasonable that
they were absurd, and so far from piety that they were wrong. To
illustrate what I mean. When I was minister of an orthodox church in
the West, a lovely, faithful lady came to me to raise some question
touching this matter of prayer.
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