I
steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, thou dost not fall." Here
is the confidence, the strength, that comes from prayer, from communion
with God, from the sense of being in his presence, from a feeling of
fellowship with the Divine.
The truest and finest, the sweetest prayer must come oft of the loving,
the sympathetic, the tender soul. No selfish prayer can expect to enter
into the heart of God. You will note in the words that Jesus teaches
his disciples, it is not "My" Father, it is "Our" Father. And, if we
wish to pray in the divine spirit, we shall broaden that "Our" until it
includes not only our family, our church, our city, our State, our
nation, our humanity, but until it includes all life that swims or
walks or flies, feeling that it is the one life of the Father that is
in us all. For, as Coleridge has finely put it, He prayeth best who
loveth best All things, both great and small; For the dear God who
loveth us, He made and loveth all.
THE WORSHIP OF GOD
THERE are those who in religious matters, as well as in all other
departments of life, are content to walk unquestioningly the path which
the footsteps of previous generations have made easy and familiar. But
there are others and these among the more thoughtful and earnest minds
to whom it is not enough to utter earnest words concerning enthusiasm
and devotion, consecration and worship. These spiritual attitudes and
exercises must first be made to appear reasonable to them, fitting,
fitting to their conception of God, fitting to their ideas of that
which is highest and finest in man.
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