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which Jesus really teaches. It was the sight of the praying Jesus that made the disciples
long and ask to be taught to pray. It is the faith of the ever-praying Jesus, whose alone
is the power to pray, that teaches us truly to pray. We know why: He who prays is our
Head and our Life. All He has is ours and is given to us when we give ourselves all to
Him. By His blood He leads us into the immediate presence of God. The inner
sanctuary is our home, we dwell there. And He that lives so near God, and knows that
He has been brought near to bless those who are far, cannot but pray. Christ makes us
partakers with Himself of His prayer-power and prayer-life. We understand then that
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our true aim must not be to work much and have prayer enough to keep the work
right, but to pray much and then to work enough for the power and blessing obtained
in prayer to find its way through us to men. It is Christ who ever lives to pray, who
saves and reigns. He communicates His prayer-life to us: He maintains it in us if we
trust Him. He is surety for our praying without ceasing. Yes, Christ teaches to pray by
showing how He does it, by doing it in us, by leading us to do it in Him and like Him.
Christ is all, the life and the strength too for a never-ceasing prayer-life.
It is the sight of this, the sight of the ever-praying Christ as our life, that enables
us to pray without ceasing. Because His priesthood is the power of an endless life, that
resurrection-life that never fades and never fails, and because His life is our life,
praying without ceasing can become to us nothing less than the life-joy of heaven. So
the Apostle says: Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.
Borne up between the never-ceasing joy and the never-ceasing praise, never-ceasing
prayer is the manifestation of the power of the eternal life, where Jesus always prays.
The union between the Vine and the branch is in very deed a prayer-union. The
highest conformity to Christ, the most blessed participation in the glory of His heavenly
life, is that we take part in His work of intercession: He and we live ever to pray. In
the experience of our union with Him, praying without ceasing becomes a possibility, a
reality, the holiest and most blessed part of our holy and blessed fellowship with God.
We have our abode within the veil, in the presence of the Father. What the Father says,
we do; what the Son says, the Father does. Praying without ceasing is the earthly
manifestation of heaven come down to us, the foretaste of the life where they rest not
day or night in the song of worship and adoration.
LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.
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O my Father, with my whole heart do I praise Thee for this wondrous life of
never-ceasing prayer, never-ceasing fellowship, never-ceasing answers, and never-
ceasing experience of my oneness with Him who ever lives to pray. O my God! keep
me ever so dwelling and walking in the presence of Thy glory, that prayer may be the
spontaneous expression of my life with Thee.
Blessed Saviour! with my whole heart I praise Thee that Thou didst come from
heaven to share with me in my needs and cries, that I might share with Thee in Thy all-
prevailing intercession. And I thank Thee that Thou hast taken me into the school of
prayer, to teach the blessedness and the power of a life that is all prayer. And most of
all, that Thou hast taken me up into the fellowship of Thy life of intercession, that
through me too Thy blessings may be dispensed to those around me.
Holy Spirit! with deep reverence I thank Thee for Thy work in me. It is through
Thee I am lifted up into a share in the intercourse between the Son and the Father, and
enter so into the fellowship of the life and love of the Holy Trinity Spirit of God!
perfect Thy work in me; bring me into perfect union with Christ my Intercessor. Let
Thine unceasing indwelling make my life one of unceasing intercession. And let so my
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life become one that is unceasingly to the glory of the Father and to the blessing of
those around me. Amen.
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GEORGE MULLER, AND THE SECRET OF HIS
POWER IN PRAYER
HEN God wishes anew to teach His Church a truth that is not being understood
Wor practised, He mostly does so by raising some man to be in word and deed a
living witness to its blessedness. And so God has raised up in this nineteenth
century, among others, George Muller to be His witness that He is indeed the Hearer of
prayer. I know of no way in which the principal truths of God s word in regard to
prayer can be more effectually illustrated and established than a short review of his life
and of what he tells of his prayer-experiences.
He was born in Prussia on 25th September 1805, and is thus now eighty years of
age. His early life, even after having entered the University of Halle as a theological
student, was wicked in the extreme. Led by a friend one evening, when just twenty
years of age, to a prayer meeting, he was deeply impressed, and soon after brought to
know the Saviour. Not long after he began reading missionary papers, and in course of
time offered himself to the London Society for promoting Christianity to the Jews. He
was accepted as a student, but soon found that he could not in all things submit to the
rules of the Society, as leaving too little liberty for the leading of the Holy Spirit. The
connection was dissolved in 1830 by mutual consent, and he became the pastor of a
small congregation at Teignmouth. In 1832 he was led to Bristol, and it was as pastor of
Bethesda Chapel that he was led to the Orphan Home and other work, in connection
with which God has so remarkably led him to trust His word and to experience how
God fulfils that word.
A few extracts in regard to his spiritual life will prepare the way for what we
specially wish to quote of his experiences in reference to prayer.
In connection with this I would mention, that the Lord very graciously gave me,
from the very commencement of my divine life, a measure of simplicity and of
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