lifting up holy hands without wrath and
doubting.'--1 TIM. ii. 8.

The context shows that this is part of the Apostle's directory for
public worship, and that, therefore, the terms of the first clause are
to be taken somewhat restrictedly. They teach the duty of the male
members of the Church to take public, audible part in its worship.

Everywhere, therefore, must here properly be taken in the restricted
signification of 'every place of Christian assembly.' And from the whole
passage there comes a picture of what sort of thing a meeting of the
primitive Church for worship was, very different from anything that we
see nowadays. 'Every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath an
exhortation.' I fancy that some of the eminently respectable and utterly
dead congregations which call themselves Christian Churches would be
very much astonished if they could see what used to be the manner of
Christian worship nineteen hundred years ago, and would get a new notion
of what was meant by 'decently, and in order.'

But we may fairly, I suppose, if once we confess that this is so, widen
somewhat the scope of these words, and take them rather as expressive of
the Apostle's desire and injunction, for the word that he used here, 'I
will,' is a very strong one, to all Christian people, be they men or
women, that they pray 'everywhere,' in the widest sense of that
expression, 'lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.'

I do not attempt anything more than just to go, step by step, through
the Apostle's words and gather up the duties which each enjoins.

'I will that men pray everywhere.' That is the same in spirit as the
Apostle's other command: 'Pray without ceasing; in everything give
thanks.' A very high ideal, but a very reasonable one, for unless we can
find some place where God is not, and where the telegraph between heaven
and earth is beyond our reach, there is no place where we should not
pray. And unless we can find a place where we do not want God, nor need
Him, there is no place where we should not pray. Because, then,
'everywhere' is equally near Him, and the straight road to His throne is
of the same length from every hole and corner of the world; therefore,
wherever men are, they ought to be clinging to His skirts, and reaching
out their open hands for His benefits; and because, wherever a man is,
there he utterly depends upon God, and needs the actual intervention of
His love, and the energi