521. Prayer for Rulers

Prayer for Rulers

1Ti_2:1 : ’93I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority.’94

That which London is to England, Paris to France, Berlin to Germany, Rome to Italy, Vienna to Austria, St. Petersburg to Russia, Washington is to the United States Republic. The people who live here see more of the chief men of the nation than any who live anywhere else between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. If a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives or Supreme Court Justice or Secretary of the Cabinet or representative of foreign nation enters a public assembly in any other city, his coming and going are remarked upon and unusual deference is paid to him. In this capital there are so many political chieftains in our churches, our streets, our halls, that their coming and going make no excitement. The Swiss seldom look up to the Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, or Mt. Blanc, because those people are used to the Alps. So we at this capital are so accustomed to walk among mountains of official and political eminence that they are not to us a great novelty. Morning, noon, and night we meet the giants. But there is no place on earth where the importance of the Pauline injunction to prayer for those in eminent place ought to be better appreciated. At this time, when our public men have before them the rescue of our national treasury from appalling deficits, and the Cuban question and the arbitration question, and in many departments men are taking important positions which are to them new and untried. I would like to quote my text with a large tonnage of emphasis’97words written by the scarred missionary to the young theologian Timothy: ’93I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority.’94 I will give you four or five reasons why the people of the United States ought to make earnest and continuous prayer for those in eminent place.

First, because that will put us in proper attitude toward the successful men of the nation. After you have prayed for a man you will do him justice. There is a bad streak in human nature that impels us to assail those that more successful than ourselves. It shows itself in boyhood, when the lads, all running to get their ride on the back of a carriage, and one gets on, those failing to get on shout to the driver, ’93Cut behind!’94 Unsuccessful men seldom like those who in any department are successful. The cry is, ’93He is a political accident’94 or ’93He bought his way up’94 or ’93It just happened so,’94 and there is an impatient waiting for him to come down more rapidly than he went up. The best cure for such cynicism is prayer. After we have risen from our knees we will be wishing the official good instead of evil. We will be hoping for him benediction rather than malediction. If he makes a mistake we will call it a mistake, instead of malfeasance in office. And, oh! how much happier we will be; for wishing one evil is diabolic, but wishing one good is saintly, is angelic, is Godlike. When the Lord drops a man into depths beyond which there is no lower depth, he allows him to be put on an investigating committee with the one hope of finding something wrong. In general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church, in conferences of the Methodist Church, in conventions of the Episcopal Church, in House of Representatives, and in Senate of United States there are men always glad to be appointed on the Committee of Malodors, while there are those who are glad to be put on the Committee of Eulogiums. After you have prayed, in the words of my text, for all that are in authority, you will say, ’93Brethren, Gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, excuse me from serving on the Committee of Malodors, for last night, just before I prayed for those in eminent position, I read that chapter in Corinthians about charity which ’91hopeth all things’92 and ’91thinketh no evil.’92’93 The Committee of Malodors is an important committee, but I here and now declare that those are incompetent for its work who have, not in spirit of conventionality, but in spirit of earnest importunity, prayed for those in high position. I cannot help it, but I do like a St. Bernard better than a bloodhound, and I would rather be a humming-bird among honeysuckles than a crow swooping down upon field carcasses.

Another reason why we should pray for those in eminent place is because they have such multiplied perplexities. This city holds hundreds of men who are expectant of preferment, and United States mail-bags are full of applications. Let me say I have no sympathy with either the uttered or printed sneer at what are called ’93office-seekers.’94 If I had not already received appointment as Minister Plenipotentiary from the High Court of Heaven’97as every minister of the Gospel has’97and I had at my back a family for whom I wished to achieve a livelihood, there is no employer whose service I would sooner seek than city, State, or United States Government. Those governments are the promptest in their payments, paying just as well in hard times as in good times, and during summer vacation as during winter work. Besides that, many of us have been paying taxes to city and State and nation for years, and while we are indebted for the protection of government, the government is indebted to us for the honest support we have rendered it. So I wish success to all earnest and competent men who appeal to city or State or nation for a place to work. On the other hand, officials are at their wits’92 end to know what to do, when for some places there are ten applicants and for others a hundred! Perplexities arise from the fact that citizens sign petitions without reference to the qualifications of the applicant for the places applied for. You sign the application because the applicant is your friend. People sometimes want that for which they have no qualification, as we hear people sing, ’93I want to be an angel,’94 when they offer the poorest material possible for angelhood. Boors waiting to be sent to foreign palaces as ambassadors and men without any business qualifications wanting to be consuls to foreign ports and illiterates, capable in one letter of wrecking all the laws of orthography and syntax, desiring to be put into positions where most of the work is done by correspondence. If divine help is needed in any place in the world it is in those places where patronage is distributed. In years gone by awful mistakes have been made. Only God, who made the world out of chaos, could, out of the crowded pigeon-holes of public men, develop symmetrical results. For this reason pray Almighty God for all those in authority.

Then there are the vaster perplexities of our relations with foreign governments. For directions in such affairs the God of Nations should be implored. The demand of the people is sometimes so heated, so unwise, that it must not be heeded. Hark to the boom of that gun which sends from the American steamer San Jacinto a shot across the bow of the British merchant steamer Trent, November 8, 1861. Two distinguished Southerners, with their secretaries and families, are on the way to England and France to officially enlist them for the Southern Confederacy. After much protest the Commissioners, who had embarked for England and France, surrendered, and were taken to Fort Warren, near Boston. The capture was a plain violation of the laws of nations and antagonistic to a principle for the establishment of which the United States Government had fought in other days. However, so great was the excitement that the Secretary of the United States Navy wrote an applauditory letter to Captain Wilkes, commander of the San Jacinto, for his ’93prompt and decisive action,’94 and the House of Representatives passed a resolution of thanks for ’93brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct,’94 and the millions of the North went wild with enthusiasm, and all the newspapers and churches joined in the huzza. England and France protested, the former demanding that unless the distinguished prisoners should be surrendered and apology made for insult to the British flag within ten days, Lord Lyons must return to London, taking all the archives of the British Legation. War with England and France seemed inevitable, and war with England and France at that time would have made a restored American nation impossible for a long while, if not forever. Then God came to the rescue and helped the President and his Secretary of State. Against the almost unanimous sentiment of the people of the North the distinguished Confederates were surrendered, the law of nations was kept inviolate, the Lion’92s paw was not lifted to strike the Eagle’92s beak, and perhaps the worst disaster of centuries was avoided.

There came another crisis, when millions of people demanded that American war vessels sail into Turkish waters and stop the atrocities against the Armenians. The people at large have no idea of the pressure brought upon our government to do this rash thing. Missionaries and other prominent Americans in and around Constantinople assembled at the office of the American Legation and demanded that our Minister Plenipotentiary cable to Washington for United States ships of war, and they suggested the words of the cablegram. Had our ships gone into those waters the guns of foreign nations, everlastingly jealous of us, would have been turned against our shipping, and our navy, within a few years become respectable in power, might have crawled backward in disgrace. The proposition to do what could not be done was mercifully withdrawn.

There will never be a year when those who are in authority will not need the guidance of the God of Nations. Only God can tell the right time for nations to do the right thing. To do the right thing at the wrong time is as bad as to do the wrong thing at any time. Cuba will one day be free, but it will be after she has shown herself capable of free government. To acknowledge Cuban independence now would be to acknowledge what does not exist. The time may come when the Hawaiian Islands may be a part of our government, but it will be when they have decidedly expressed the desire for annexation. In all national affairs there is a clock. The hands of that clock are not always seen by human eyes. But God sees them, not only the hour hand, but the minute hand, and when the hands announce that the right hour has come the clock will strike, and we ought to be in listening attitude.

You see, there are always in places of authority impetuous men who want war, because they do not realize what war is, or they are designing men, who want war for the same reason that wreckers like hurricanes and foundering ships, because of what may float ashore from the ruins. You see that men who start wars never themselves get hurt. They make the speeches.

Notice that all those who instigated our Civil War never as a consequence got so much as a splinter under the thumb-nail, and they all died peacefully in their beds. I had two friends’97as thorough friends as old men can be to a young man’97Wendell Phillips and Robert Toombs. They were not among those who expected anything advantageous from the strife, but took their positions conscientiously. They both had as much to do with the starting of the war between the North and the South as any other two men. A million brave Northern and Southern dead were put in the grave trenches, but the two illustrious and honest men I have mentioned were in good health long after the ending of things at Appomattox; and if those who advocated measures recently that would have brought on war between our country and Spain or England or Turkey, had been successful in bringing on the wholesale murder, they themselves would now have been above ground, as I hope they will be, to celebrate the birth of the twentieth century. If God had not interfered we would have had three wars within the last two years’97war with England, war with Spain, and war with Turkey. To preserve the peaceful equipoise which such men are disturbing, we need a divine balancing, for which all good men on both sides the sea ought to be every day praying.

Again, prayer to God for those in authority is our only way of being of any practical service to them. Our personal advice would be to them, for the most part, an impertinence. They have all the facts as we cannot have them, and they see the subject in all its bearings, and we can be of no help to them except through the supplication that our text advises. In that way we may be infinite reenforcement. The mightiest thing you can do for a man is to pray for him. If the old Bible be true, and if it is not true it has been the only imposition that ever blessed the world, turning barbarism into civilization and tyrannies into republics’97I say if the old Bible be true, God answers prayer. You may get a letter, and through forgetfulness or lack of time not answer it, but God never gets a genuine letter that he does not make reply. Every genuine prayer is a child’92s letter to his Heavenly Father, and he will answer it; and though you may get many letters from your child before you respond, but some day you say: ’93There! I have received ten letters from my daughter, and I will answer them all now, and though not in just the way that she hopes for, I will do it in the best way, and though she asked me for a sheet of music, I will not give it to her, for I do not like the music spoken of; but I will send her a deed to a house and lot, to be hers forever.’94 So God does not in all cases answer in the way those who sent the prayer hoped for, but he in all cases gives what is asked for or something better. So prayers went up from the North and the South at the time of our Civil War, and they were all answered at Gettysburg. You cannot make me believe that God answered only the Northern prayers, for there were just as devout prayers answered south of Mason and Dixon’92s line as north of it, and God gave what was asked for, or something as much more valuable as a house and lot are worth more than a sheet of music. There is not a good and intelligent man between the Gulf of Mexico and the St. Lawrence river who does not believe that God did the best thing possible when he restored to this nation in 1865 a glorious unity, never to be rent until the waters of the Ohio and the Savannah, the Hudson and the Alabama, are licked up by the long, red tongues of a world on fire. Yea! God sometimes answers prayers on a large scale. In worse predicament nation never was than the Israelitish nation on the banks of the Red Sea, the rattling shields and the clattering hoofs of an overwhelming host close after them. An army could just as easily wade through the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Liverpool as the Israelites could have waded through the Red Sea. You need to sail on its waters to realize how big it is. How was the crossing affected? By prayer. Exo_14:15 : ’93And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.’94 That is, ’93Stop praying and take the answer.’94 And then the water began to be agitated and swung this way and that way, and the ripple became a billow, and the billow climbed other billows, and now they rise into walls of sapphire, and invisible trowels mason them into firmness, and the walls become like mountains, topped and turreted and domed with crags of crystal, and God throws an invisible chain around the feet of those mountains, so that they are obliged to stand still, and there, right before the Israelitish army, is a turnpike road, with all the emerald gates swung wide open. The passing host did not even get their feet wet. They passed dry-shod, the bottom of the sea as hard as the pavement of our Pennsylvania Avenue or New York’92s Broadway or London’92s Strand. Oh! what a God they had! I think I will change that, and say: ’93What a God we have!’94 What power put hands upon astronomy in Joshua’92s time and made the sun and moon stand still? Prayer. Read Jos_10:12 : ’93Then spake Joshua unto the Lord.’94 As a giant will take two or four great globes and in an astounding way swing them this way or that, or hold two of them at arm’92s length, so the Omnipotent does as he will with the great orbs of worlds, with wheeling constellations and circling galaxies, swinging easily star around star, star tossed after star, or sun and moon held out at arm’92s length, and perfectly still as in answer to Joshua’92s prayer. To God the largest world is a pebble.

There is another reason why we should obey the Pauline injunction of the text and pray for all that are in authority is, that so very much of our own prosperity and happiness are involved in their doings. A selfish reason, you say. Yes; but a righteous selfishness like that which leads you to take care of your own health, and preserve your own life. Prosperous government means a prosperous people. Damaged government means a damaged people. We all go up together or we all go down together. When we pray for our rulers we pray for ourselves, for our homes, for the easier gaining of a livelihood, for better prospects for our children, for the hurling of hard times so far down the embankment they can never climb up again. Do not look at anything that pertains to public interest as having no relation to yourself. We are touched by all the events in our national history, by the signing of the compact in the cabin of the Mayflower, by the small ship, the Half-Moon, sailing up the Hudson, by the treaty of William Penn, by the hand that made the ’93liberty bell’94 sound its first stroke, by Old Ironsides plowing the high seas. And if touched by all the events of past America, certainly by all the events of the present day. Every prayer you make for our rulers, if the prayer be of the right stamp and worth anything, has a rebound of benediction for your own body, mind, and soul.

Another reason for obedience to my text is that the prosperity of this country is coming, and we want a hand in helping on its coming; at any rate I do. It is a matter of honest satisfaction to a soldier, after some great battle has been fought, and some great victory won, to be able to say: ’93Yes! I was there. I was in the brigade that stormed those heights. I was in that bayonet charge that put the enemy into flight!’94 Well, the day will come when all the financial, political, and moral foes of this Republic will be driven back and driven down by the prosperities that are now on their way, but which come with slow tread and in ’93fatigue dress’94 when we want them to take ’93the double-quick.’94 By our prayers we may stand on the mountain top, and beckon them on and show them a shorter cut. Yea, in answer to our prayers the Lord God of Hosts may from the high heavens command them forward swifter than mounted troops ever took the field at Eylau or Austerlitz.

In the year 1672, Holland was assailed. Her people prayed mightily. The ships of her enemies waited for the high tides on which to come in. In answer to the prayers the tide, as never before, was detained twelve hours, and before that twelve hours had passed a hurricane swooped upon the enemies’92 ships and destroyed them, and Holland was saved. If God detained the high tide in answer to prayer, will he not hasten it in answer to prayer? Surely it has been low tide long enough. May the Lord hasten the high tide of national welfare. American citizens! our best hold is on God. We have all seen families in prayer, and churches in prayer. What we want yet to see is this whole nation on its knees.

Most of those who in 1851 moved in that procession that marched from the City Hall of Washington to the north gate of yonder Capitol, to lay the corner-stone of the extension of that Capitol, are now dead. The President who that day presided, and solemnly struck the stone three times in dedication, long ago quitted earthly scenes, and the lips of the great orator of that hour are dust, and the Grand Master of that occasion long ago put down the square and the level and the plumb with which, for the last time, he pronounced a corner-stone well laid. But what most interests me now is that inside that corner-stone, in a glass jar, hermetically sealed, is a document of national import, though in poor penmanship. It is the penmanship of Daniel Webster, which almost ruined the penmanship of this country for many years, because many thought if they had Daniel Webster’92s poor penmanship, it might indicate they had Webster’92s genius. The document reads as follows:

If it shall hereafter be the will of God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, and this deposit be brought to the eyes of men, be it then known that on this day, the nation of the United States of America stands firm; that their Constitution still exists unimpaired and with all its original usefulness and glory, growing every day stronger and stronger in the affection of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the admiration of the world; and all here assembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty and the happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayers that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures now to be erected over it may endure forever. God save the United States of America. Daniel Webster, Secretary of State of the United States.

That was beautiful and appropriate at the laying of the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol, fifty-eight years after the corner-stone of the old Capitol had been laid. Yet the corner-stone of our Republic was first laid in 1776, and at the re-establishment of our national Government was laid again in 1865. But are we not ready for the laying of the corner-stone of a broader and higher national life? We have as a nation received so much from God. Do we not owe new consecration? Are we not ready to become a better Sabbath-keeping, peace-loving, virtue-honoring, God-worshiping nation? Are we not ready for such a corner-stone laying? Why not now let it take place? With long procession of prayers, moving from the North and the South, the East and the West, let the scene be made august beyond comparison. The God of Nations, who hath dealt with us as with no other people, will preside at the solemnization. By the square and the level and the plumb of the Everlasting Right let the corner-stone be adjusted. Let that corner-stone be the masoning together of the two granite tables on which the law was written when Sinai shook with the earthquake, and inside that corner-stone put the Sermon on the Mount and a scroll containing the names of all the men and women who have fought and prayed and toiled for the good of this nation, from the first martyr of the American Revolution down to the last woman who bound up a soldier’92s wounds in the field hospital. And let some one, worthy to do so, strike the stone three times with the Gospel hammer, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Then let the building rise until its capstone be laid amid the shouting of all nations, by that time as free as our own divinely founded, divinely constructed, and divinely protected Republic, the last throne of oppression having fallen flat into the dust, and the last shackle of tyranny been hung up in museum as a relic of barbaric ages.

The prayer that the great expounder wrote to be put in the corner-stone at the extension of the Capitol, I ejaculate as our own supplication: ’93God save the United States of America!’94 only adding the words with which Robert South was apt to close his sermons, whether delivered before the court at Christ Church Chapel, or in Westminster Abbey, at anniversary of restoration of Charles II, or on the death of Oliver Cromwell amid the worst tempest that ever swept over England: ’93To God be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty and dominion, both now and forever. Amen.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage