Page:The Lord's Prayer (Saphir).djvu/257

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SCOPE OF THE THREE PETITIONS.
243

tion of his works, his prayer is the secret of his character. From him we can learn what is the royal spirit in prayer and life.


II. The grandeur of Christian prayer for others.

A very touching illustration is given by a German writer, who thus speaks of his mother:[1] "She took such a deep interest in the kingdom of God, that she spent every alternate night in prayer; and when asked to consider her health, she replied, 'I will rest in eternity, at present I have no time. I have to pray so much for the king and his ministers and counsellors, for the universities and schools, for the mission to the Jews and to the heathen, and for my children, relations, and friends.' Her habit was to sit in a corner behind the stove. Sometimes on her knees, sometimes stretched on the floor, she spent numberless nights of her life in prayer. In her last illness she said before her children, pointing with her trembling hand to that little spot behind the stove, 'Lord, Thou knowest how many things I have begun there, have not yet been finished.'"

Prayer in the name of Christ must needs be prayer for the manifestation of God's glory in the good of man. For this is the mind which was and is in

  1. A daughter of the well-known P. M. Hahn, a friend of Bengel and Ötinger, a great student of Scripture and nature. His attainments in astronomy were high, his expositions of Scripture remarkable for their simplicity and depth.—Paulus, Reden Jesu von Hahn.