THE SPIRIT IN PRAYER

Nothing is more positively inculcated in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and practice, than the duty of prayer. Nor is there any law of nature more universal in its application, than that which impels all men, in times of great danger or emergency, to pray to some superior Being, known or unknown, for aid.

The man Christ Jesus was not only a man of sorrows, but a man of prayer. Not many prayers of His have been transmitted, it is true, and these few are, generally, very short; but we are told, nevertheless, that “He went up into a mountain and prayed”; that “He withdrew from the multitude and prayed”; and that His prayers were sometimes protracted ones, we may infer from at least one instance in which “He continued all night in prayer to God.” Taking upon Him the form of a servant, exhausted by His labors for others, which through the day were so pressing that He sometimes had no leisure even to eat bread, it was indeed true of Him, that

“Cold mountains, and the midnight air,

Witnessed the fervor of His prayer.”

The apostles, prophets, and holy men of old, were all mighty in prayer. As princes they had power with God, and prevailed. And we have not the slightest reason to suppose that they ever doubted for a moment that they received blessings from God, in answer to their prayers; which blessings they would not have received without the prayers. It was reserved for the skepticism of more modern times, to deny the real efficacy of prayer.

And yet, this is a very mysterious subject! God is an unchangeable Being, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” How, then, can the petitions of His feeblest child avail to move that Almighty hand that moves the worlds?

Some persons believe that the only influence of prayer is a subjective one, i.e., that it brings the individual into a humble, receptive state of mind, suitable for the acceptance of the blessings desired; or, that he is stimulated by prayer to increased exertion to secure the things he asks for, and thus to bring about the answer to his own prayers. And very much ingenuity has been expended in trying to prove the hopeless orphanage of our race, and bring discredit upon the simple truth that we have a Heavenly Father, to whom we may and ought to pray with the expectation of receiving definite answers to definite requests.

In the first place, I remark, that there is no real incompatibility between the unchangeableness of God, and His willingness to hear and answer prayer. The very condition upon which He promises to give the things we need, is that we ask Him. When, therefore, we bring ourselves to the point of asking Him for the things we desire, and when we receive them, it is not He that changes His mind, but we who change ours. We come to His terms, we comply with His conditions, and He does precisely what He has promised to do, without the slightest change of purpose.

A father may say to his little boy, “You shall have this orange, if you ask for it in a proper manner.” But the child is obstinate and self-willed; he tries to obtain it without asking. He may say, perhaps, “It is no good to ask;” and by various means he may manage to deprive himself for a long time of the coveted fruit. But, when he comes to the prescribed terms; when he says, “Please, father, give me the orange,” he at once obtains it. It is easy to see in this case that it is the child, and not the father, who changes his mind.

It cannot be denied, however, that prayer—like everything else which God has instituted and prescribed—has its conditions, its laws, and its limitations. I cannot make request, selfishly and indiscriminately, for any blessing, real or supposed, which I may desire, and expect to obtain it. I cannot say to the Lord, “Give me a hundred thousand pounds today;” or ask Him for anything and everything which it might please me to have, and hope to receive it.

This would be making God’s will subject to my own will, and would thus reverse that divine order which His omnipotence has established. To pray, means to offer up petitions; not, to make demands. And the very idea of a petition, recognizes the right, and the power, on the part of the sovereign to whom it is addressed, to grant or deny the things asked for, according to his own will. And so, all true prayer includes, whether by expression or implication, the words, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”

The first condition, then, upon which prayer is answered is, that it is according to God’s will. “If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.” The second condition is, that the prayer be accompanied by faith. “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” The two conditions are intimately connected with each other, and both comport entirely with the unchangeableness of God. We can only utter a believing prayer for things which are according to God’s will. And, to grant what is according to His will, involves, on His part, no change of purpose.

But who are these to whom it is promised that they shall receive the things they ask for believingly and according to God’s will? Doubtless the children of God. There is one necessary thing for the unpardoned sinner to ask for first of all, and that is mercy and acceptance in Christ Jesus. And he may, if sincerely penitent and desirous of salvation, offer up his prayer for forgiveness with entire confidence that he shall be heard and accepted, because “God willeth not the death of a sinner.”

Having thus become a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ, he will now find many things, both temporal and spiritual, about which he will need to seek his Heavenly Father’s counsel and aid during the remainder of his earthly pilgrimage.

Believers themselves, however, are often at a loss to know what things are according to God’s will, and what things, therefore, they may believingly ask for. Here, as elsewhere, they should first try to find a solution for their perplexities by searching the Scriptures. It may be laid down as an axiom that whatever our Heavenly Father has promised us in His will we may pray for, as we feel them to represent our own needs.

If Jesus has said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” that is sufficient ground for one who has not found pardon, to ask and receive it. If the inspired Apostle says, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification,” the Christian may, and ought to, pray for sanctification.

If the Saviour says, “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost,” the believer may, and should, pray to be thus baptized. If we are told that Jesus carried our sorrows as well as our sins, we should, in prayer, give Him our sorrows as well as our sins. If we are told to cast all our care upon Him, because He careth for us, we should do that thing. If we are commanded to “Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks,” we should pray for that state of mind and heart, in which God’s grace may enable us to do so.

But I need not particularize further. Whatever we find in the precepts, the promises, or the prophecies of the Bible revealing or indicating God’s will and purposes towards us, will be each, on its fitting occasion, a proper subject of prayer, which we can offer believingly, knowing that He will hear us.

And if He clearly shows, by His outward providences, His plans, purposes, and wishes concerning us, there also is a basis on which we can pray in faith, having confidence that we have the petitions which we desire of Him.

Now the promises of God include all possible good to the believer, “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” They exclude in like manner all possible evil, “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” They take in also the supply of every spiritual and temporal need, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” They recognize further, all events as providences coming from God and tending to the believer’s good, “All things shall work together for good to them that love God.”

Surely no Christian could ask more for himself than that all real good should be given him, all real evil kept away from him, all his real needs of every kind supplied, and all his circumstances and surroundings to be promotive of his highest interest and happiness.

But when we come to particularize and to inquire whether this or that specific thing is a real good, alas, we are brought face to face with our “infirmities!”

That which we esteem good may be in the eyes of Him, who seeth all things as they are, just the reverse. And so of evil. Samuel with all his prophetic wisdom did not see where real merit was, as the tall and goodly sons of Jesse passed before him. But he was told that the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. And it was upon the head of the shepherd stripling that the anointing oil was to be poured.

You stand beside the dying bed of a Christian. Tears fall from mourning friends; lamentations fill the room. The struggle with the last enemy seems dreadful to you, and you can but say that a real evil and calamity are falling upon that family.

But above all these tears and groans and sighs of sorrow, above the clouds that to your eyes seem so black and gloomy, is the eye of God beholding the same scene. And what does He see? A precious thing. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

And flow amid the perplexity arising out of our short-sightedness in reference to real good and evil, how blessed it is to know that it is our privilege to have the intercessory offices of the Spirit Himself. The nature of this intercessory function of the Holy Spirit is described in the eighth of Romans. “Likewise also the Spirit itself helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; and He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

This is praying in the Holy Ghost. This is the true spirit of prayer, and true praying in the Spirit. What we do not know the Holy Spirit does know. He knows what is real good and real evil for us. And He works upon the heart of the believer, begetting an earnest longing and groaning after these things which He knows to be a real good, and those things which He knows to be according to the will of God. Oh, that Christians everywhere knew what it is to have the Spirit within them, helping their infirmities, showing them what to pray for, and begetting within them unutterable groanings and fervent petitions for those things which are according to the mind of the Spirit!

And when the Spirit thus helps us in prayer He produces also a corresponding faith, so that true spiritual prayer is always the prayer of faith, and brings the blessing down upon those that thus pray, because they ask believingly and must receive.

The same Spirit who begets in the believer’s heart the groanings that cannot be uttered, and the faith that takes hold on God with a firm grasp for the thing asked for, also works either in the realm of nature or the realm of grace to bring about the answer to the prayer. And the obtaining or non-obtaining of answers to prayer does not depend at all upon the greatness or wondrousness of the things asked for, but rather upon the question whether or not the prayer and the corresponding faith have been begotten by the Holy Spirit.

God is Almighty, and can do great things just as easily as small things. And the Church of Christ, with its individual membership, needs to learn to trust Him more implicitly, for great things as well as small, and for small things as well as great. He not only “setteth up kings, and putteth down kings, and turneth the hearts of kings as a man turneth the water-course in his field,” but He orders the momentary events in the daily life of His lowliest child, as well. Oh, that we might all learn “what is that exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe.”

Sometimes the Holy Spirit secures the answer to a prayer, which Himself has inspired, by human agency. And, for this purpose, He may use either converted or unconverted men. Instances are not very rare in which one Christian man or woman has been impressed by feelings, not to be put aside, that it was right to visit some other Christian person; and on so doing, has found the family in distress, and praying to God for relief; which has, in this manner, been sent them.

In the following case, a man who was not a Christian, was used in a similar way: A carter, in the employ of a farmer in the south of England (both of them being ungodly men), had a praying, Christian wife. One day he was carried home to her, with his leg broken by an accident. After the surgeon had adjusted the fractured limb, and she had done all she could for his comfort, she said to him: “Well, John, I have long prayed for your conversion, and that—if in no other way—even by suffering, your soul might be brought to God.”

He was very angry, and accused her of praying that his leg might be broken. After a few days, their means were exhausted. Saturday night came, and there was neither bread nor money in the house. “Now,” said the man, reproachfully, “you have been praying that I might have to suffer; you had better pray that we may get some food.” She kneeled down by the table, and continued half-an-hour in earnest prayer to God. The door opened. The employer of the carter appeared; made some short remark, to the effect that “he could not get Jack out of his mind this evening,” and, laying on the table the full amount of what the man’s wages would have been, if he had been able to work, he disappeared. And, not only that prayer of the poor woman, but the former one, was answered; for her husband gave his heart to God, and accepted Christ as his Saviour.

Sometimes the answer to the prayer is through the invisible operation of the Spirit who dictates it—upon the human body, or upon the external world. Both Scripture and experience testify to the truth, that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick,” and if the true relation of the Spirit to our conditions and needs were understood, there would be no reason for discrediting the facts of “prayer-cure” on the one hand, nor of perplexity as to why it is not always, or more generally available, on the other.

“It is appointed unto men once to die”; and it is certain that we cannot in our own will keep our friends from the fatal results of illness or accident. The point of limitation is precisely here. The Spirit knows when it is in accordance with the will of God that the sick should be restored in answer to the prayer of faith. He begets the earnest longings, the unutterable groanings, the fervent petitions, the living faith, in the heart and on the lips of some Christian believer, and then, by His own divine energy, He invisibly operates upon the body of the diseased person and restores him to health. It is the prayers, and these only, which are inspired by Himself, that are also answered by Himself.

It does not follow that the recovery would have taken place, without the prayer, any more than, in other cases, recovery would take place without the medicine; which, the physician justly assures us, saved the patient’s life. Nor does it follow that God’s will or purpose has been changed in the least? He makes the prayer of faith the condition of recovery in one case. He makes medicinal remedies the condition of recovery in another case. The condition is fulfilled. His will is accomplished, and no law is violated in one case, any more than the other.

Nor is there any inconsistency in asserting that the two methods of cure may be combined. Christian physicians, as I know by my own experience, are sometimes led earnestly to pray that God’s blessing may rest upon the means they employ for the recovery of their patients. And I quite deny that there is any absurdity in supposing that He who gives to the animal, vegetable, and mineral productions of nature their medicinal qualities, may impart to them a special efficacy in particular cases, in answer to believing prayer. The Spirit that produces the prayer, confers also peculiar potentiality upon the means employed.

The following account is quoted from the Memoirs of Stephen Grellet; Vol. I., p. 275: “After one of these opportunities, Lavater, a physician, brother to the late Lavater—told me, ‘I have great reason for being fully convinced of these great and important truths that you have delivered. Once, I did not believe in them, and even ridiculed them; but the Lord was pleased to convince me of their reality in the following manner: My son, my only son, was very ill; I had exerted all my medical skill upon him in vain, when, in my distress, I wandered out into the street, and seeing the people going to the church, where my brother Lavater was to preach, I went also. He began with that very text that you have mentioned, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, believing, it shall be done unto you.’ He dwelt very particularly on the nature of prayer, in whose name, and to whom, it is to be offered. He described, also, the efficacy of that faith which is to be the clothing of the poor supplicants. I attended very closely to what my brother said, and I thought I would now try if it was indeed so; for my solicitude for the recovery of my son was great. My prayer for it was earnest. I thought, also, that I believed the Lord Jesus had all power to heal him, if He would.

“Now,” said he, “in my folly I dared to limit the Almighty to three days, concluding that by this I should know that He was indeed a God hearing prayer, if my son was restored within that time. After such a daring act, all my skill as a physician seemed to be taken away from me. I went about, looking at my watch to see how the time passed, then at my son, whom I saw growing worse, but not a thought to minister anything to him arose. The three days had nearly passed away, when, with an increase of anguish and also a sense of the Lord’s power, I cried out, ‘I believe, O Lord, that Thou canst do all this for me. Help Thou my unbelief’; on which, some of the most simple things presented to me to administer to my son—so simple that at any other time I should have scorned them. Yet, believing it was of the Lord, I administered them, and my son immediately recovered. ‘Now,’ said the doctor, ‘I felt fully convinced that the Lord heareth prayer and that there is an influence of the Spirit of God on the mind of man, for I have felt it.’ He added, ‘To this day I feel ashamed of myself, that I, a poor worm, should have dared to prescribe limits to the Lord, and wonder how, in His boundless mercy, He should have condescended, notwithstanding my darkness, to hear me.’ These are very nearly the words of the doctor. They were accompanied with brokenness of spirit.”

Nothing is more clearly revealed in Scripture than that the Lord controls the operations of nature in such a way as to promote or to prevent the production of such crops as are necessary for human sustenance. It is He that sendeth the rain and He that withholdeth it, if the plain declarations of the Bible are of any value.

He may, and does, employ second causes, but He is not dependent on them, nor subject to them. They are His servants, not His masters. The prophet calls upon Israel to pray to the Lord about the weather—a thing which is now regarded by many Christians as absurd. “Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain, so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain.” Let the meteorologist explain the rains and the droughts as he may, it is the Lord that does it.

Now, as a rule, no doubt it is very well to leave the weather in the Lord’s hands, with full confidence that He will still “cause His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and send rain upon the just and upon the unjust.” But if the Holy Spirit begets in Christian hearts the true spirit of prayer in reference to the weather, whether it be in times of drought and famine, of storms and floods, or on more ordinary occasions, then the Holy Spirit also is ready to exert His divine power in bringing about the answer to the prayer. There also “He maketh intercession for us according to the will of God,” and the result is sure.

Now it is very plain that this kind of prayer is not in our own wills.

Most certainly, in reference to the healing of the sick, and in reference to rain and sunshine, “we know not what to pray for as we ought.” And the thing for the believer to do is to leave his heart in God’s hands, to watch carefully the gentlest intimations of His Spirit, and when, and only when, He worketh in him the prayer and the faith, then give place to it, then utter it, and then realize that according to his faith it is unto him.

Sometimes, again, the prayer is for deliverance from some besetting sin or some enslaving habit. Here the Holy Spirit begets an earnest longing for deliverance and the prayer of faith, which is also as availing in these instances as in those already mentioned, and the answer may come just as suddenly. “Jesus came to save His people from their sins,” “to redeem them from all iniquity, and to purify them unto Himself.” Why should any Christian hesitate to accept Him as a present Saviour from all sin?

A little boy of five or six years, residing in the city of London, was possessed of a most irascible and ungovernable temper. In his fits of rage he would kick, scratch, bite, and in every way resist the efforts of his governess to secure his obedience. One day, having left him to sit alone in a room after one of his ebullitions of anger, she observed that he was quite silent for a time. Then coming to her with tears, he besought her forgiveness for his naughtiness, and observed, very firmly, “I shall not get angry again.”

The governess inquired why he said so. “Why,” said he, “I have been talking to Jesus about it, and He has promised to keep me from sinning again, and He will do it.” The child had, probably, often prayed before that he might not get angry; but now he had uttered, under the influence of the Spirit, the true prayer of faith. He believed that Jesus would save him. The testimony of the governess, six years after these occurrences, was that she had never seen him angry since. I had this story from a prominent minister of Christ, now in London.

A Nonconformist[1] minister of the city of London, having attended some meetings on the subject of holiness, was at first unable to accept the teaching, but afterwards light dawned upon him, and he accepted it, so far as he then understood it. The results in his experience were good. He was a smoker of tobacco to a large extent. After a time, he became dissatisfied with this habit. He enjoyed it, but he thought God’s will was against it. He continued the indulgence, though mentally uneasy, and he found that it lessened the sense of God’s presence and smile. He hesitated as to his course, not wishing to make too much of what might seem to many a harmless habit. On one occasion, however, when a friend had presented him with some excellent tobacco of special qualities, he pushed aside his qualms and shut himself in his own room for the enjoyment of his favorite indulgence. He was, then and there, while smoking, clearly impressed with the conviction that the habit for him was wrong in the sight of God. He put his pipe aside, knelt in prayer, and gave himself, in a definite act of consecration, to God. He asked that, if smoking were wrong for him, his taste for tobacco might be taken away. He rose; and his testimony was, and is, that the taste, once so very strong, was taken away, and has not returned—the period being from May, 1875, to January, 1878.

Not scores only, but hundreds of well authenticated cases could be collected, if pains were taken for the purpose, in which the appetite for strong drink has been at once and permanently removed, in answer to believing prayer. Comment is needless.

Finally, the prayer of faith, begotten by the Holy Spirit with groanings that cannot be uttered, is available for the conversion of sinners, and for bringing varied blessings upon believers. The Spirit works upon one Christian’s heart, producing an earnest longing and sincere petition that some soul may be saved, or that some neighborhood may be visited by a revival of religion, begetting a corresponding faith also, so that the prayer is uttered believingly. He next directs His omnipotent energy towards the hearts of those who are prayed for, and, convincing them of sin, turns them effectually to Christ, thus securing the answer to the prayer which Himself has originated.

And in these instances, as well as others, there is especial power in united prayer. “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven.”

The following was related to me by the gentleman who was the subject of it. He was, and still is, a physician in active practice, in one of the interior towns of America. He was an ungodly man. At the time of a revival of religion in the town, a number of ladies met, by agreement, at a certain time, to pray specially for the conversion of this individual. He of course knew nothing of it. But on the afternoon, and at the very hour while they were praying, he told me that while engaged in his professional visits, a strange unaccountable feeling of panic came over him. The feeling was indescribable, but consisted in part of fear mixed with deep distress of mind.

This mental trouble, which was to him astonishing, grew and increased. He went home, examined himself as to his physical health, felt his pulse, looked at his tongue in a mirror, but could not find anything amiss with his bodily functions. The anxiety and uneasiness of mind continued, however, until he found peace, where only it is to be found in its fulness, by accepting free mercy and pardon in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When revivals of religion have occurred in different communities, which revivals are by no means to be contemned nor underrated, for it is in times of religious awakening like these that the majority of Christians have been converted, it will perhaps always be found on inquiry, that some one or two or more Christian believers, men or women, or even children, have been praying especially that the Lord would revive His work among them. And the Spirit who moves upon their hearts thus to pray, moves also upon the hearts of the people, bringing them to Christ, and fulfilling the petitions.

A Christian lady has sent me the following anecdote, which occurred in her own experience: “On one occasion, while engaged in ordinary duties, my mind was arrested by a feeling of intense sympathy with one of my dear suffering friends; as if she was then passing through extraordinary trial. So strong did it become, that I was constrained to retire to my own room, and pour out my heart more freely in prayer for her, accompanied by ‘strong crying and tears,’ under a sense of her condition. While thus pleading, the thought struck me, ‘Could I not send her a telegram by way of Heaven?’ and, in full faith, I asked the Lord to bring this passage to her mind, ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,’ with the power of the Holy Spirit. In a few days I received a letter from her, in which she told me that she had been passing through extreme trial, but that, about 7 o’clock, on such a day—the very day and hour in which the telegram was sent—that passage was so brought home to her, that her soul was sweetly calmed, and her mourning was ended, ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.’”

It is always to be gratefully remembered, that the Saviour, who prayed for His people when He was on earth, still ever liveth to make intercession for them in Heaven. It is only as He presents our petitions, with His own, before the throne of God, that they can find acceptance with the Father. All prayer, therefore, should be offered in the name of Jesus, and for His sake.

And, I believe it is both in accordance with Scripture, and, in some cases, eminently proper to address prayer directly to Christ Himself. It was continually done, when He was personally on earth, by those who had need of healing. It was done by the dying thief, with acceptance. It was done by the martyr, Stephen, as he sealed his testimony with his blood.

And those who are under conviction for sin, need oftentimes to get rid of a certain prejudice they may have had, against recognizing Jesus Christ as God. This they effectually do, when they pray to Him directly, as One who still has power on earth to forgive sins. Little children, also, may often—now as of old—be brought directly to Christ, and taught to pray to Him, we cannot doubt, with entire acceptance.

And, as the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son—and therefore, God—it cannot be regarded as wrong, or always inappropriate, as it seems to me, to address prayer to Him. We may pray to the Father to give us the Holy Spirit; we may pray to the Son to baptize us with the Holy Spirit; we may pray to the Holy Spirit Himself, to come and abide in our hearts. But, for Christian believers, the general rule, I think, should be to make our requests to the Father, in the name of the Son.

Remarks

1. It may be regarded as an universal instinct of mankind, to pray to some superior power in times of distress and danger.

2. It is the imperative duty of every Christian to pray to God.

3. The teachings of the Bible, and of experience, agree in establishing the fact that blessings, both temporal and spiritual, may be, and are, obtained in answer to the prayer of faith; which would not be received without the prayer. This is entirely consistent with the unchangeableness of God.

4. The condition on which blessings are promised, is that they be asked for. Ask, and ye shall receive.

5. Anything contained in the precepts, promises, or prophecies of the Bible—so far as it indicates God’s will towards us—may be a proper subject of prayer.

6. To pray aright, we must ask according to God’s will, and we must ask in faith.

7. When we know not what to pray for as we ought, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, and maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God.

8. Under the Spirit’s leadings, Christians may pray for the supply of their wants, and obtain them; for the cure of the sick, and they shall be raised up; for rain, or for sunshine—as these are needed—and have them; for the conversion of sinners, and blessings upon believers, which shall follow accordingly.

9. All these results follow unfailingly, because the Holy Spirit, who inspires the prayer, operates Himself, in nature or in grace, to bring about the answer. But, except when prompted by the Spirit, these prayers will be of no avail.

10. If we remain constantly surrendered to God, and looking to Jesus, He will show us, by the Holy Spirit, when and how to pray the true prayer of faith. And this is praying in the Holy Ghost.

11. Prayer should be addressed to the Father, in the name of the Son. On some occasions, however, we may properly pray directly to Jesus Himself; or even to the Holy Spirit.

12.

“Lord, what a change within us one short hour

Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make,

What heavy burdens from our bosoms take,

What parched grounds refresh, as with a shower!

We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;

We rise, and all, the distant and the near,

Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear;

We kneel, how weak, we rise, how full of power.

Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,

Or others—that we are not always strong,

That we are ever overborne with care,

That we should ever weak or heartless be,

Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?”

(Trench)

[1] Nonconformist is a term that was used to refer to all Christians in England that did not adhere to the Church of England and, at one time, included groups such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, and the Salvation Army. At the time Mr. Clark was writing, these churches were accepted as legitimate churches, so his use of the term probably refers to a newer, evangelical church that had not yet been recognized.