stand why he prayed in anticipation of them, "Let this cup pass from me," or why, at last, when they had all culminated in his last death agony, he should have cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" S. Crane.

ARTICLE VIII.

Prayer.

A spirit of prayer has always and everywhere existed, and with almost infinite variety of expression men have obeyed the inner impulse, and sought communion with an invisible presence, and help from an unseen power. While standing upon tho earth surrounded by its beauty and joy, and bound to it by innumerable and endearing ties, we are irresistibly impelled to turn our gaze away from the earth heavenward and Godward. With this natural and universal impulse there has come a deep conviction that every prayer will be heard and answered, that a willing ear listens, and a willing hand sends a blessing back. We feel that if over the universe there rules a controlling and intelligent power, in some way' it will exercise care and watchfulness over human life. We are prompted to tell in confiding whispers the story of our daily needs because we are sure that God is not insensible to our experience, but that His presence fills the common walks of life, and His power deals with our slightest interests.

Jesus taught men to pray both by his word and action. Often he withdrew from the multitude to commune with God alone. At every point of crisis or doubt he learned his way, and was strengthed to walk therein through prayer. That pure and perfect life that has caused whatever is divine in the earth to spring up and blossom into beauty was nourished by prayer. O, that we could have known what words were uttered in his midnight orisons, what sentiments throbbed in his heart what deep trust and strong conviction laid hold on him and

carried him through trial and conflict to final victory! One thing we learn from the prayers of Jesus, that every man has need of prayer, and may receive needed help therefrom.

It has been taught and believed that prayer touches and moves the omnipotent will, and if fervent enough will cause God to change the order of nature at the request of the person who prays. But our worthiest view of God, and the view which accords best with the teachings of Jesus, is that God not only sees and knows every real need of the soul, but with a father's anticipating love provides fully for its wants, already accomplishing the best for it and for the world. To make special outcry against the circumstances of life, or to seek to change the eternal order that weaves the varied threads of existence into God's perfect pattern, would be manifestly untrustful and unwise. It would be seeking a change for the worse and not for the better.

Again, it is thought that God will be ple .sed with adoration and praise, and on account of it his attitute towards men will be changed from indifference or sternness to affection and solicitude. But God's love is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. He does not wait until men praise him before he endows them with the wealth of His beneficence. "We love Him because He first loved us." Before praise ever rose to human lips, God's smile lighted up the morning and caused the earth to glow with beauty. His rain and sunshine fall impartially upon the just and the unjust. He, before whom the morning stars sang together, and to whom goes up continually the adoration of angels and archangels, and the music of the winds and the sea, and to glorify whom the heavens and the earth put on their richest robes and chant their grandest psalms hath no need of the feeble praise of human lips. It is quite safe to say that God's love will go out to a man, in all its wealth and bounty, whether he prays to Him or not.

Then the question comes, "If prayer is not necessary to persuade God or to add to His glory, why should I pray?" This question is as superficial as it is popular. Though God knows your wants, you also need to know them, and to understand

what you ought to do and to be. If God doesn't need you to hallow and adore His name, you need in your heart to hallow it and to meditate upon its glory. If God's love doesn't need persuasion by prayer, you need above all else to unlock your soul by prayer that His love may enter in. And then your inward life struggles to flower into prayer as the seed strives to unfold itself into the blossom it was meant to bear. Though God may not require your prayer, it is a most precious privilege that you may come to Him in prayer.

In the feebleness of our wisdom, it must be presumption to ask the infinite wisdom to change the procedure of universal laws to accommodate our individual desire. Who would dare assume the responsibility for the universal disturbance caused by the alteration or hesitation of any law? It is probably true that all the prayers in christendom will not cause the ship to sail the faster, nor the wind and storm to rage less violently, nor the tide of battle to turn from the side of courage, skill and strength, nor the fever to abate in the city whose filth and neglect invited it. God's laws are wise, working out their own high purpose, not easy to be disturbed by human intervention, for which we ought to be thankful. If the thing longed for is withheld, it is not because God is deaf, but because He answers the longing with a still higher good. The most important prayer is that His will may be done, because His will is wise and loving, and His way in spite of seeming severity leads to true blessing and glory. Did not Jesus in the garden, with blood drops on his brow-pray? And was not the most beautiful trust the world has ever witnessed, uttered in those words of his, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done?"

If God's laws are wise and good and unalterable by prayer, shall you sit beneath their everlasting movement and receive the showers of their beneficence like the unfeeling clod or senseless stone, without the sentiment of gratitute or the throb of answering love? Because you have your daily wants supplied, shall there be no inspiring communion and no return of thanks? Though prayer may not avert danger or trial, it may give you strength to endure or conquer it. If it cause

not the cup to pass it may restore the trust that shall make

its bitterness sweet.

Prayer is a condition through which blessings come that come in no other way. There is a law of prayer as unfailing as the law of gravitation, and its results are clearly marked in human life. The sunshine is present and waiting everywhere, but in order to obtain the glory of the sunshine, I must lift the curtains of my window that it may flow in. The music waits at the instrument, but first a master must press the keys. The magnet has all the possibilities of attraction, but must touch the electric current and become charged with power. So there are gifts and powers of human life that wait upon the conditions of prayer. Through it will come to men light and peace and strength. The true use of prayer is not to change God's outward law, but to comply with His inward law.

The definition of prayer is difficult. It is a spiritual process and does not admit of a material analysis. Description halts, and experience alone leads the enquirer to a perfect knowledge. It is the attitude of conscious dependence upon, and submission to an Infinite love. It is an aspiration to conceive more truly the nature and presence of God, and to place the soul in perfect obedience to His will. It is the confession of weakness and wrong, the effort to dethrone pride that forgiveness may come, and that holiness may reign supreme. It is the acknowledgement of a divine ideal towards which a man turns with earnest purpose. There are many false prayers. Men pray for that of which they have no deep and conscious need, or for that in which they do not believe. There are careless, heartless, dictatorial prayers. There are prayers that are "said," as a charm to ward off evil, and prayers hollow and perfunctory that the requirements of a form may be satisfied. But a great abyss separates these from the prayer for help that comes from a soul tempest-tossed with grief, or agonized with sin, or from the sweet and trustful prayer of one who turns from things of time and sense that his daily life may be nourished from above.

When a man prays, there unfolds before him a true vision

of the meaning, the duty and the glory of his life. It is the highest altitude upon which he can stand, and in that moment the powers and resolutions wakened within him assume their worthiest and most beautiful form. If any man could live the life he beholds and aims for in his prayers, holiness and love would crown it with true splendor. The prayer, however, dies

away from heart and lip, the vision fades, and we forget the Only he who prays without ceasing can

voices that we heard. achieve the perfect life.

Prayer as a mere wholesome review of one's conduct and needs is a good and helpful exercise. Or, if it be regarded as having simply spiritual reaction, giving finer tone to an inward life and aiding the purposes of the outward life, it is of inestimable value. But prayer as an alliance with God, the opening of communion with the divine and the consequent inflowing of strength and blessing and peace is a transfiguring power for which words are quite inadequate. Saintly lives have borne witness to it, and dying lips have told of its sweetness and worth. It becomes the pathway along which swift angelic ministries come to us, and our pathway up from gloom to light.

Prayer enriches the spiritual life and is transmuted into moral worth, nobility of character, courage, purity, heavenly minedness and faith. It illuminates experience. If we had the keys of nature, when the world seemed lost in night we would unlock the dawn, and let it dispel the shadows and send its glow over field and forest, that we might once more have courage and joy. Prayer always holds the keys of the dawn, and in the deepest darkness or across the gloom of life it throws a holy light and brings return of peace. In moments of prayer new meanings attach themselves to the old familiar scenes, and even adversity glows with the revelations of its divine use. To the man who prays, the narrow walls of poverty stretch away to the breadth of paradise, the lonely place is filled with divine companionship, and all life is touched with new beauty.

Prayer affords help to the troubled. Out of the depths of