January 14, 2021 (Thursday)
In the year 1818 — 202 years ago — James Montgomery was caught up by the Holy Spirit in an ecstasy of poetic thoughts on prayer. His expressions of praise for the grandeur of prayer are too marvelous to be relegated to a collection of ideas about prayer — they invite the reader or singer to join with the author in peeking over the gates of Heaven into the celestial Holy of Holies where the author receives words and thoughts from Almighty God to place within a reverent song praising God for the gift of prayer.
PRAYER IS THE SOUL’S SINCERE DESIRE
Author: James Montgomery
1818
1 Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
uttered or unexpressed;
the motion of a hidden fire
that trembles in the breast.
2 Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear;
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
3 Prayer is the simplest form of speech
that infant lips can try,
prayer the sublimest strains that reach
the Majesty on high.
4 Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
the Christian’s native air,
his watchword at the gates of death:
he enters heaven with prayer.
5 Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice,
returning from his ways;
while angels in their songs rejoice,
and cry, ‘Behold, he prays!
6 The saints in prayer appear as one,
in word and deed and mind;
while with the Father and the Son
sweet fellowship they find.
7 Nor prayer is made on earth alone:
the Holy Spirit pleads,
and Jesus on the eternal throne
for sinners intercedes.
8 O Thou by whom we come to God,
the Life, the Truth, the Way,
the path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!
When the reverend Edward Bickersteth had written his “Treatise on Prayer”, he turned to newspaper editor James Montgomery to write a hymn about prayer that he could use in his book. Today, Rev. Bickersteth’s volume has been forgotten, but the newspaperman’s hymn is still being sung.This hymn is a theological definition in poetic form. What is prayer? Bickersteth may have said it more completely, but Montgomery defined it simply. (Montgomery later said he received more praise for this hymn than anything else he had written.)
Many years after he retired, Montgomery continued to conduct family prayer meetings in his home. After he closed one such meeting of prayer, he walked quietly to his room. The next day he was found unconscious on the floor and later died. As he had written in this hymn, prayer is the Christian’s “watchword at the gates of death; he enters heaven with prayer.”
– Great Songs of Faith by Brown & Norton