The Prayer of a Righteous Man

The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.—Jam 5:16.

1. There is one writer in the New Testament who strikes us as being very modern. His great characteristic is robust common-sense. He descends from the mountain of theology to deal with very practical matters on the plain of everyday life. The epithet might be applied to him which was applied to Charles Kingsley. He seems to be an “ordained layman.” And his name is James.

“You are very orthodox,” he says, “and so is the devil.… You have heard of a Pentecostal tongue of fire; I will tell you of another—a tongue of fire lit from the pit. Some praise God in a very pious manner, then lose their temper and scold. Some regard themselves as true Christians, and say to their relatives: ‘Be comfortable, be warmed and filled,’ while they sit down to their dinner alone. Shams, all of them! Let us get to practical matters. You talk of faith. Show me your deeds!”

Speaking of sacred things, he does so in an unconventional manner. He starts congratulating his readers on their difficulties, for although the world has its ups and downs—some poor getting rich, and some rich getting poor—yet with character in view as the ultimate possession of a man, he shows that difficulties call forth endurance, and that the power of bearing up under trials is a grand means towards the attainment of a crowned life.

The whole Epistle is anything but the writing of an unpractical dreamer. James is an intensely practical man who “means business.” And when he says, “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working,” it sounds like an utterance as practical as any of his previous ones.1 [Note: W. A. Cornaby, In Touch with Reality, 265.]

2. The translation of the text is not easy. In the Authorized Version we have it thus: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” This is manifestly tautological, as well as far from literal, for if a prayer is “effectual” of course it “availeth much.” Nor is the rendering of the Revised Version, “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working,” quite satisfactory. “Supplication” is preferred to “prayer” simply because the Greek word in this verse is different from the word translated prayer in Jam 5:15; it introduces no new meaning. The prayer of which St. James speaks is prayer for others, but “supplication” is not specially applicable to intercessory prayer. The words “in its working,” however, are feeble and probably inaccurate. They are feeble, because they stand for one word which, coming at the end of the sentence, is emphatic; and they are probably inaccurate, for it is now accepted by the best scholars (Abbott, Mayor, Armitage Robinson) that the form is passive. A literal translation would be: “Of great force is the praying of a righteous man (when it is) energized,” or “the energized prayer of a righteous man is of great force.”

But what does “energized” mean? Armitage Robinson suggests “set in operation” by Divine agency. “Real prayer,” says Rendel Harris, “is connected in a most intimate manner with the influences of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is what is meant by the word rendered by us ‘energized,’ but ‘effectual and fervent’ in the English Version. Certainly in almost every case where the word occurs it has reference to the operation of God or the devil. And if this be so, the prayer must be a possessed prayer, and the praying man a possessed person, and so again we are brought face to face with the foundations of mighty prayer lying in a holy life. And what else is taught by the Apostle when he says, “The Spirit maketh intercession in the saints according to the will of God”?1 [Note: J. R. Harris, Memoranda Sacra, 119.]

It is interesting to note that in the early Church those who were “acted or worked on by an evil spirit” bore the name of Energumeni.

We have thus three progressive steps—

I.  The Force of Prayer.

  II.  The Force of the Prayer of a Righteous Man.

  III.  The Force of a Righteous Man’s Prayer energized.

I

The Force of Prayer

1. It is strange that we understand so little about prayer; with most people, including the greater part of the professedly religious, it is regarded simply as a sort of spiritual safety-valve, adapted to relieve the soul from strain and over-pressure; is any afflicted, they say, let him pray; and as for us, who are merry, we will sing psalms. Now, if we were looking at a steam-engine, and meditating over the motive power of it, we should scarcely direct our thoughts to the safety-valve, or say of it, “What a mighty power is stored up in this little lever.” On the contrary, our attention would be fixed on the piston and the steam at the back of it, and on the laws which govern its production, expansion, and condensation. And we need scarcely say that there is not much in common between those who regard prayer simply as an emotional safety-valve, and those who look upon it as one of the great moving forces of the spiritual world. It happens often enough that there are forces in the world of which people generally are ignorant, or of which they have an idea that is totally inadequate. For instance, we have known cynical politicians deride the expression of public opinion, as being valuable only as a political safety-valve, and useful to keep the “many-headed monster,” the populace, from more dangerous courses; but not once or twice have they been awakened to find that there is nothing to stand before the rush of a well-formed public sentiment. So that we say rightly public opinion is of great force. And certainly the idea which the majority of folk attach to the word prayer is but very incommensurate to the part which it occupies, not only in the development of the life of the individual soul, but in the life and lot of the world at large.

Not long ago the Principal of a Theological College, who was accustomed to receive University graduates as his students, was asked the question—“What would you most like done for your students while at the Universities? How could they be best prepared while there?” The answer was, “I think the chief thing which they want is to be taught how to pray.”1 [Note: W. Lock, Oxford University Sermons, 383.]

The literature of devotion is amongst the best reading in the world. The study of it brings us in contact with the world’s greatest spirits—with Jesus, with Paul, with Augustine, with Francis, with Luther, with Wesley. It is the meeting-ground of opposing creeds, where they fuse, lose their opposition, become one prevailing force. When you are reading Augustine’s Confessions, or Andrewes’ Devotions, or Bishop Wilson’s Sacra Privata, or Methodist William Bramwell’s mighty supplications, you forget theological differences; you are in contact with one and the same spiritual energy. To keep on the outer circle of mere fussy activities, while neglecting this innermost force, is like turning a hand-loom and forgetting steam or electricity. In the world of the spiritual, as in that of the physical, to reach the true sphere of power we must go down from the circumference to the innermost centre.1 [Note: J. Brierley, Life and the Ideal, 75.]

2. Let it be understood clearly that the prayer of which St. James here speaks is intercessory prayer—prayer for others. What is intercession? It is simply “a coming in between”; we know the word well in Roman political history as the tribune’s veto. The patricians propose some law that seems likely to injure the people; the tribune intercedes; he stands between the people and the threatened danger; and their rights are saved. Again, a great patrician general has become the object of the envy and ill-will of the populace: he is brought to trial: he is in danger of being banished from the country which he has saved. A Tiberius Gracchus intercedes, and Scipio Africanus is saved. In its widest sense it may be applied to every act in which one human being is able to come in between another and some evil that might befall him. We may extend it even more widely still to the whole principle of mediation, by which one man is used to convey blessings to another.

3. In what ways, then, can intercession be a great force for blessing? Lock suggests three ways.

(1) It is a great force because it compels us to keep up a true ideal of what those for whom we pray may be. It makes us, in George MacDonald’s striking phrase, “think of them and God together.” If I pray for any one, that implies that I have faith in him, that I believe he may be better than he is. If I pray thoughtfully for any particular blessings for him, then I have considered what are the right blessings to ask for him; I must know what God means him to be; my imagination must picture to itself what his true self is, what it can develop into.

(2) Intercession is again a great force, because it pledges us to do the best we can for those for whom we pray. We cannot, for very shame, ask God to help those whom we ourselves are refusing to help when that help lies within our power; the very fact of intercession reminds us of the truth of the dependence of man upon man; we ask God to bless those for whom we care, and again and again He reminds us that His blessings are given through men, and the answer to our prayer is that we are sent on His errand of mercy. Even more than this, the prayer returns into our own bosom; we cannot pray for any one, or for anybody for whom we care, without being driven back to look at our own lives. Do we pray for our parents? At once we feel that one of the greatest blessings that can happen to them is that we should be true sons to them. “A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

(3) Intercession is also a great force because it brings into action the power of God; just as the tribune’s veto obtained its force from the fact that it was not spoken by him on his own responsibility. It was strong because armed with the strength of law; it was strong, not with the strength of even a Tiberius Gracchus, but with the power of a sacrosanct authority; so our prayers are strong because they have the promise and the power of Christ behind them. Intercession makes God, God’s purposes, God’s plans, the centre of our thought. This is of the very essence of all prayer; this it is that lifts it above a mere calculated selfishness into an act of faith.

Great as is the admitted mystery of prayer, there can be little doubt that much of its secret lies wrapped in the co-operation of the Divine and human will. In prayer man is “a labourer together with” his God. We have had enough in our day of the shallow evangel of labour, man’s gospel preached to man; we have been told till we are weary of hearing it, that “he who works prays”; but let us lift up our hearts high enough to meet a fuller, deeper, richer truth; let us learn that “he who prays works,” works even with his God, is humble enough, is bold enough to help Him who upholds all things with the word of His power.1 [Note: Dora Greenwell, Essays, 144.]

Oh, pray for me!

My faith is feeble, and my light is dim,

God will uphold us if we look to Him;

He knows our weakness, yea, our Father cares—

Yet, friend, I need thy prayers.

Wilt pray for me?

Life is so difficult, and ’neath its load

We bend and falter on the weary road.

Our Saviour, say’st thou, every sorrow shares?

Yet, friend, I need thy prayers.

Oh, pray for me!

And if thou dost, I think that I shall know

And feel such blessedness as long ago,

When one I lov’d and lost his child did bear

Upon the wings of prayer.

Oh, pray for me!

Thy lamp has been so bright, and burn’d so long,

That thou canst help another soul along

By intercession; yea, our Father hears!

Sends answer to thy prayers.1 [Note: Una, In Life’s Garden, 80.]

II

The Prayer of a Righteous Man

1. It is the righteous man that understands the force of prayer. The force of prayer has been understood by the really spiritual writers of every school and of all time. They knew that prayer is one of the secrets of life; that he who lives prays, and he who prays lives; that he who prays works, and he who works prays; and so large a part of the spiritual life is comprised in the one word prayer that we find them describing the soul’s advance by the character of the prayer which springs from it.

Madame Guyon, in her precious A B C of the spiritual life, introduces her book with the title, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer; St. Theresa describes the degrees of the soul’s progress as degrees of prayer, styling them Prayer of Quiet, Prayer of Union, and so on; St. John of the Cross names his mystical way as “the Ascent of Mount Carmel,” the meaning of which is evidently similar to the other. And so, no doubt one might give other instances, confining ourselves, of course, to the experimental Christians only, and letting the divines and theologians alone. May we not say that our dear Lord Himself was careful enough both in example and in teaching to lead His scholars along this way, making them aware that a great part of the soul’s education was education in prayer?1 [Note: J. R. Harris, Memoranda Sacra, 113.]

2. What is meant by a righteous man? It means simply a man of right character. Here on earth the influence of one who asks a favour for others depends entirely on his character, and the relationship he bears to him with whom he is interceding. It is what he is that gives weight to what he asks. It is not otherwise with God. Our power in prayer depends upon our life. Where our life is right we shall know how to pray so as to please God, and prayer will secure the answer. The texts quoted above all point in this direction. “If ye abide in me,” our Lord says, “ye shall ask, and it shall be done unto you.” We receive whatsoever we ask, St. John says, because we obey and please God. All lack of power to pray aright and perseveringly, all lack of power in prayer with God, points to some lack in the Christian life. It is as we learn to live the life that pleases God that God will give what we ask.

We speak of Abraham as intercessor. What gave him such boldness? He knew that God had chosen and called him away from his home and people to walk before Him, that all nations might be blessed in Him. He knew that he had obeyed, and forsaken all for God. Implicit obedience, to the very sacrifice of his son, was the law of his life. He did what God asked: he dared trust God to do what he asked. We speak of Moses as intercessor. He too had forsaken all for God, “accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.” He lived at God’s disposal: he “was faithful in all his house, as a servant.” How often it is written of him, “According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did he.” No wonder that he was very bold: his heart was right with God: he knew God would hear him. No less true is this of Elijah, the man who stood up to plead for the Lord God of Israel. The man who is ready to risk all for God can count upon God to do all for him.2 [Note: A. Murray, The Ministry of Intercession, 59.]

I was reading, recently, an account by Bishop Boyd Vincent of a wonderful revival of religion throughout the whole American continent. It began with a humble lay missionary in New York, who started, in one of their central churches, a prayer-meeting for business men. For a time he was all alone; then half a dozen slowly dropped in. Then others came, and the church was full. And other churches in the city were full. Then others in the State of New York. Then right across the American continent this prayer wave rolled. There were no revivalists or revival machinery, no preaching, no attempt to arouse interest and keep it up. And what was the result? The greatest religious upheaval since the days of Whitefield, and an enormous number of converts.1 [Note: G. H. R. Garcia, Memoir, 208.]

3. Why is a righteous man’s prayer of much force?

(1) It is in harmony with the will of God.—Is it not a fact that when the strenuous will-forces of a good man coincide with the mighty will-forces of an all-powerful God, much solid achievement must assuredly follow? We have only to be right with God and to pray with all our might, in order to be as well assured that prayer accomplishes much as that some of the unseen gases in the air build up very solid tons of timber in a growing forest. Logic shows that such prayer should accomplish much, and practice proves that it does.

Since God’s will is the ultimate cause of all motion in the material world, we can affect that motion only by co-operating with His will. By our bodily actions we continually thus co-operate with God. And is it a priori absurd to suppose that God may also have ordained that our wills should under certain circumstances so co-operate with His will as to affect the regulation of the material world? We are not asked to believe that by our wills, expressed in prayers, we can reverse or change all the laws of nature and make the universe work at random, but that it is part of the laws of nature, the higher laws of nature, that our prayers should sometimes, like our actions, influence the material world by co-operating with God. Thus, we are not told to pray against God’s laws, but according to God’s laws, and then we are asked to believe that the prayers of our spirits in accordance with God’s laws may be as effectual as the actions of our bodies.

He offers up a true, prevailing prayer, who, while he prays, keeps his eye ever fixed upon the one great Sacrifice, while he offers up that of his own will, submitted, slain, or if not slain, at least bound and captive,—a will which, through submission, has become one with the will of God. Yes, I would say also that there are eminent sacrifices which God is too merciful to demand of all His children, but to which He invites His chosen servants, sacrifices which, but for the strength which God gives, would be impossible, but which, when offered up through His eternal Spirit, even with strong crying and tears, He never fails to bless, to make them fruitful, and to multiply them exceedingly through accepted and answered prayers.1 [Note: Dora Greenwell, Essays, 128.]

Marconi’s discovery of wireless telegraphy has already gone beyond the experimental stage, and while we yet speak of it with wonder, all civilized nations accept it as a certainty. We know that he is able to speak wireless telegraph messages from Great Britain or from America across three thousand miles of ocean. Many are beginning to discuss the possibility that his discovery may yet supersede all cables, telephones, and ordinary telegraph by wire. And yet, though this is the greatest wonder for a hundred years, it is, like most of the other wonders, very simple. His instruments set in motion certain waves in that ether which pervades and surrounds our globe. These waves, like the ripples in a pond when a stone is cast into it, spread in every direction, and when they reach any receiver, far or near, tuned to take them, they give their message to it. A receiver not tuned to the proper pitch, however, is useless; the subtle ether waves pass it by to give their message elsewhere. Thus a hundred messages may reach a tuned receiver with absolute certainty, while one wrongly tuned misses them all.2 [Note: L. A. Banks, The Great Promises of the Bible, 36.]

(2) It is a prayer of faith.—Doubt weakens the force of prayer as naturally as doubt weakens the power of physical action, and far more effectually. Let a man ask in faith, says St. James, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. An availing prayer must come from the very heart of the utterer, wrung by a sense of right and need; the suppliant must feel that in some way, and that the best way, God will answer his prayer.

Coillard, the missionary of the Zambesi, in a letter to his mother, says: It was at Mamusa that I fell ill, in consequence of the extreme heat and fatigue. My poor wife, who had scarcely recovered herself, had a time of terrible anxiety. Our people themselves were ill and could not help us much. But the Korannas, good people, won our hearts by their devotion. They live in huts covered with mats and surrounded by a little wall, and when the Christians want to pray and be alone they go on to the veld under some solitary tree, and there pour out their hearts before God. In their language, “to go under the trees” means to go and pray, and that is what they do generally three times a day. How touching it was to see old Mosheue, the chief, come in weeping to comfort Christina, telling her that God would not fail to raise me up, because, since I had fallen sick, all the Christians had been earnestly frequenting their trees. “We were orphans,” he said; “we were perishing: how should God deprive us of the bosom that feeds us?” And indeed the Lord did raise me up, and very quickly, thanks and glory to Him.1 [Note: Coillard of the Zambesi, 184.]

(3) It is the prayer of a child to a father.—The prayer of a righteous man is the expression of the desires of the heart to God, as to a father; whatever may be lawfully desired in His presence may be lawfully prayed for.

It is natural for a father to answer a son’s letter, and for a father of wealth to enclose a cheque in his letter, if the son be in a state of honourable need—aye, and even when the son is in difficulties from his mistakes, if the father be a man of ideal generosity. It might be a special providence on the part of the father, something beyond his son’s stated income; but those who love delight in specially providing for those they love. And if the son asked for a boon, not for his own sake, but to vindicate the father’s honour, how perfectly natural that the father should rejoice to grant it! The logic of dead mechanical law is nothing to the law of living generous love. And that is the one great fixed law of the universe.2 [Note: W. A. Cornaby, In Touch with Reality, 282.]

III

Energized Prayer

1. Prayer for one another is born of love to one another; and the love which unites us ascends from the one root of life upon which we all are grafted through grace, upon which by virtue of our creation from Adam we all were set. And thus the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession will appear in clearest light. For with reference to the fellowship of the body of Christ, it is the Father from whom proceeds our redemption, the Son in whom we are united, and the Holy Spirit who imparts to us the conception and consciousness of this unity and holy fellowship. The mere fact of being chosen by the Father and redeemed by the Son does not constrain us to love; it is the act of the Holy Spirit, who, revealing to our conception and consciousness this wonderful gift of grace, opening our eyes to the beauty of being joined to the body of Christ, kindles in us the spark of love for Christ and for His people. And when this double work of the Holy Spirit effectually operates in us, causing our hearts to be drawn to all that belong to us by virtue of our human kinship, and much more strongly to the people of God by virtue of our kinship in the Son, then there awakens in us the love of which the Apostle says that it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

There is an actual spiritual affinity between the soul which prays with all the fulness of believing love and Him who is Love. This is just the point where our prayers constantly break down, and this is also just the point of contact with the Infinite where those who prevail in prayer reveal such wonderful success. The most powerful dynamo will not impel its electric current along the wire in which there is a flaw which severs the connexion, while on the other hand, a tiny piece of wire will complete the contact and give the electric current free passage. We cannot be in touch with the Infinite Spirit without the cable strands of faith, hope, and love, and the last contains the other two.1 [Note: C. D. Lampen, Spiritual Power, 88.]

2. How will energized prayer be known?

(1) It will be sympathetic.—For every prayer of intercession presupposes fellowship with them for whom we pray; a fellowship which casts us into the same distress, and from which we look for deliverance, and that in such a way that the sorrow of one burdens us, and the joy of another causes us to give thanks. Where such vital fellowship does not exist, nor the love which springs from it, or where these are temporarily inactive, there may be a formal intercession of words, but real intercession from the heart there can not be.

It’s a strange thing—sometimes when I’m quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I’ve seen and known, if it’s only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it were my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and resting in His love, on their behalf as well as my own.1 [Note: Dinah Morris, in Adam Bede.]

(2) It will be earnest.—Wherever the Holy Ghost works, there is sure to be earnestness. Energy is the certain sign of a heart acted upon by Divine grace. And we must be energetic for this reason. God very seldom gives anything in this world except to effort.

There are, not far from Bristol, some huge and solid buildings containing a large number of orphans, which buildings have been erected, and which orphans have been supported for many years, at the cost of (say) £1,400,000, by the prayers of one George Müller; a notable instance, which drew forth, at any rate, words of faith from a Chinese ambassador who visited them on a public occasion once. There are also other such solid and tangible instances elsewhere. And I maintain, of course, that real prayer is as great a working force to-day as ever it was.2 [Note: W. A. Cornaby, In Touch with Reality, 273.]

(3) It is omnipotent.—For it is the working of God’s will. Sir Oliver Lodge says (Contemporary Review, Dec. 1904): “We must realize that the Whole is a single, undeviating, law-saturated Cosmos. But we must also realize that the Whole consists not of matter and motion alone, or even of spirit and will alone, but of both and all; we must even yet further, and enormously, enlarge our conception of what the Whole contains. Not mere energy, but constantly directed energy—the energy which is not (mere) energy … but is akin to life and mind. Prayer is part of the orderly Cosmos, and may be an efficient portion of the guiding and controlling will; somewhat as the desire of the inhabitants of a town for civic improvement may be part of the agency which ultimately brings it about, no matter whether the city be representatively or autocratically governed.”

Phillips Brooks speaks of “The gracious mercy that binds omnipotence a willing servant to every humble human prayer.”3 [Note: Phillips Brooks, 80.]

George Benfield, a driver on the Midland Railway living at Derby, was standing on the footplate oiling his engine, the train being stationary, when he slipped and fell on the space between the lines. He heard the express coming on, and had only just time to lie full length on the “six-foot” when it rushed by, and he escaped unhurt. He returned to his home in the middle of the night, and as he was going up the stairs, he heard one of his children, a girl about eight years old, crying and sobbing. “Oh, father,” she said, “I thought somebody came and told me that you were going to be killed, and I got out of bed and prayed that God would not let you die.” Was it only a dream, a coincidence? George Benfield and some others believed that he owed his life to that prayer.1 [Note: Dean Hole, Then and Now, 10.]

Of the million or two, more or less,

I rule and possess,

One man, for some cause undefined,

Was least to my mind.

I struck him, he grovelled of course—

For, what was his force?

I pinned him to earth with my weight

And persistence of hate:

And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,

As his lot might be worse.

“Were the object less mean, would he stand

At the swing of my hand!

For obscurity helps him and blots

The hole where he squats.”

So, I set my five wits on the stretch

To inveigle the wretch.

All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,

Still he couched there perdue;

I tempted his blood and his flesh,

Hid in roses my mesh,

Choicest cates and the flagon’s best spilth:

Still he kept to his filth.

Had he kith now or kin, were access

To his heart, did I press:

Just a son or a mother to seize!

No such booty as these.

Were it simply a friend to pursue

’Mid my million or two,

Who could pay me in person or pelf

What he owes me himself!

No: I could not but smile through my chafe:

For the fellow lay safe

As his mates do, the midge and the nit,

—Through minuteness, to wit.

Then a humour more great took its place

At the thought of his face,

The droop, the low cares of the mouth,

The trouble uncouth

’Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain

To put out of its pain.

And, “no!” I admonished myself,

“Is one mocked by an elf,

Is one baffled by toad or by rat?

The gravamen’s in that!

How the lion, who crouches to suit

His back to my foot,

Would admire that I stand in debate!

But the small turns the great

If it vexes you,—that is the thing!

Toad or rat vex the king?

Though I waste half my realm to unearth

Toad or rat, ’tis well worth!”

So, I soberly laid my last plan

To extinguish the man.

Round his creep-hole with never a break

Ran my fires for his sake;

Over-head, did my thunder combine

With my underground mine:

Till I looked from my labour content

To enjoy the event.

When sudden … how think ye, the end?

Did I say “without friend”?

Say rather, from marge to blue marge

The whole sky grew his targe

With the sun’s self for visible boss,

While an Arm ran across

Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast

Where the wretch was safe prest!

Do you see? Just my vengeance complete,

The man sprang to his feet,

Stood erect, caught at God’s skirts, and prayed!

—So, I was afraid!1 [Note: Browning, Instans Tyrannus.]

The Prayer of a Righteous Man

Literature

Abbott (E. A.), Cambridge Sermons, 95.

Banks (L. A.), The Great Promises of the Bible, 34.

Boyd (A. K. H.), The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 162.

Cook (F. C.), Church Doctrine and Spiritual Life, 89.

Cornaby (W. A.), In Touch with Reality, 265.

Garcia (G. H. R.), Memoir and Sermons, 201.

Harris (J. R.), Memoranda Sacra, 111.

Kuyper (A.), The Work of the Holy Spirit, 643.

Lock (W.), in Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 383.

McGarvey (J. W.), Sermons in Louisville, 315.

Murray (A.), The Ministry of Intercession, 55.

Swann (N. E. E.), New Lights on the Old Faith, 125.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), ix. No. 785.

Church Pulpit Year Book, i. (1904) 127.