GENEROUS PRAYER.

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sorrows, through his zeal in the work of Foreign Missions. We may often be sensible, that the teachings of the Spirit' in our hearts are of just this character. They prompt away from ourselves. Look up,

look abroad,' is the interpretation of them. 'Come away from thyself; pray for something out of thine own soul; be generous in thine intercession; so shall thy peace be as a river.'

Have you never observed, how entirely devoid is the Lord's Prayer of any material which can tempt to this subtle self-inspection, in the act of devotion? It is full of an outflowing of thought, and of emotion, towards great objects of desire, great necessities, and great perils. After this manner, therefore, pray ye.'

XIII.

WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER.

1 JOHN 2: 1.

ers.

CHRISTIANS Sometimes offer heathen pray

The lifelessness of devotion may often be attributable to the want of a cordial recognition of Christ, as the medium of access to the throne of Grace. Prayer, in the Divine plan of things, has but one avenue. man cometh unto the Father but by me.' Whoever slights Christ in devotion, 'climbeth up some other way.'

'No

The central idea in the Christian theory of prayer, is that of privilege gained by mediation. The language of Christian faith is, 'I am permitted to pray because of the merits of another; I do not deserve to pray, I can

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TEACHINGS OF NATURE.

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not claim to pray, I have no right to pray, but by Christ's permission.' The doctrine of prayer, as a doctrine of Nature, is but a fragmentary truth. In its fulness, it is a Christian peculiarity. The fact of an atonement is its foundation. The person of a Redeemer is the nucleus of its history.

One of the grounds on which the necessity of a Revelation rests, is that, by the teachings of Nature, we have no clear right to pray no right which satisfies a guilty conscience. Philosophy has often taught men that prayer is impiety. To an awakened conscience, Nature seems to shut man in to the solitude of his own forebodings. In its dim light, prayer and sacrifice grope hand in hand, as the blind leading the blind. The right of either to existence is only a presumed right. Faith in the efficacy of either staggers, whenever the soul is shaken by remorse, or philosophy approaches the Christian conception of sin.

Not till Christ is revealed, does prayer settle itself as an undoubted fact; and then it is as a privilege only, and as a device of mediatorial government. We may pray, 'for Christ's sake.' This is the Christian theory of prayer, and this is the whole of it.

Now, it is not difficult to see that one may pray, with no adequate appreciation of this mediatorial element in the groundwork of devotion. A man may habitually pray, with no such cordiality of soul towards Christ, as is becoming to a suppliant whose only right of prayer is a right purchased by atoning blood.

Is it unusual for a Christian mind to be thus heedless of Christ in devotion? Practical heresy of this kind may nestle side by side with irreproachable orthodoxy. A creed and a faith, even upon a truth so vital, are, by no means, of necessity one. The very soundness of the creed may shelter the decay of the faith. We may

HEATHEN PRAYER.

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'profess and call ourselves Christians,' and yet may every day approach God, as a converted heathen would, who had never heard of Christ. The general mercy of God may be the foundation of all the hopefulness, all the trust, all the fervor we really feel in prayer, while not a thought occurs to us of Christ as the ground of that mercy. We may pray then, as, perhaps, Socrates and Plato prayed.

We may rejoice to believe that even such prayer would have power with God, from one who should be ignorant of Redemption. The northern Aurora lights up our midnight skies with scintillations, emanating from magnetic vortices, whose locality and causes are otherwise unknown to us. So, we can conceive of faith in mercy without a known atonement, and in prayer without a revealed Saviour, as looming up in radiant twilight, and suffusing the heavens with beauty, to the eye of a heathen seer, because of the