Tárogató, 1950 (13. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1950-07-01 / 1-3. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 WITNESSING A GOOD CONFESSION If you were put on trial how would you prove that you were a genuine Christian? Here is how a North China farmer went about it. The Communists arrested him for interrogation. He had professed to be a Christian. The local people were called together for the examination. They asked, “How can you prove that you are a Christian?” He answered by three points: First, “I was an opium eater but when I learned about the message of Jesus I gave it up. Ask these people.” They all gave shouts of approval. Second, “I had a bad habit of beating my wife and neglecting my children. When I became a Christian I was good to my wife and cared for my children.” Third, “My farm was neglected and I was lazy in my work so that we barely got enough out of the farm for a living. Now I work my farm and have good crops and have a much better time in every way.” The people of the area agreed that this was the truth; so he was permitted to return to his home without any further interference. —J.H.A. SAYING YOUR PRAYERS Little Edith Ann had been sleeping in a room with a night light, but her parents decided that she must learn to sleep in the dark. “Do I have to sleep in the dark?” she asked when her mother turned off the light for the last time. “Yes, Edith Ann, you are a big girl now and like all big people you can sleep in the dark just as well as not.” Edith Ann was silent for a few minutes as she contemplated the darkness and then came forth with the question: “Mother, may I get up and say my prayers over again—more carefully?” Prayers easily become a routine matter. When they do they lose their effectiveness, both as a means of centring attention and hope on the ultimate source from whence our blessings flow, and as a means of conditioning our own spirits so that we are awake to Spiritual inspirations. Prayers also have a tendency to become selfish, narrow and hasty. This is pitiful, for we are living in a time when the world desperately needs the wholesome, calm, refreshing influence of hundreds of thousands of earnest praying Christians. Prayer is likely to be undervalued because its benefits are so silent and so secret. More like the benefits of the gentle rain and the warm sunshine than the benefits of noisy machinery and pounding hammers. Nobody but God knows how often prayers have changed the course of history, but earnest praying Christians testify again and again to remarkable things that have come to pass in a manner which convinces them beyond a shadow of doubt that God has answered their prayers. Steinmetz, the electrical wizard, predicted that the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century would be in the realm of the spirit. He is right and those who pray will make the discoveries! Professor Rhine, of Duke University, has been studying the interesting field of mental telepathy and thought transference. He has convinced himself not only that there is much to mental telepathy but also that prayer is closely interwoven with it. He believes the brain somehow broadcasts faint radio-like waves with every thought. Not only does the brain broadcast these little-understood waves: it also receives them. The professor started out to pray experimentally, moved simply by scientific curiosity, and the result was that he found his whole understanding of and feeling toward God transformed. He writes exultantly: “It is surprising how God can be a reality in one’s life and how it is possible to have him in the background of one’s thinking and acting all the time.” Prayer is an art, a creative, helpful, fascinating art. Practice it seriously and persistently, and before long you will find it making each day more meaningful and each puzzling question simpler. Put your heart and soul into it, OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
