HOPE IN PRAYER.

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spiritual universe, as pervasive and as constant as the great occult powers of Nature.

The want of trust in this scriptural ideal of prayer, often neutralizes it, even in the experience of a Christian. The result cannot be otherwise. It lies in the nature of mind.

Observe, for a moment, the philosophy of this. Mind is so made, that it needs the hope of gaining an object, as an inducement to effort. Even so simple an effort as that involved in the utterance of desire, no man will make persistently, with no hope of gaining an object. Despair of an object is speechless. So, if you wish to enjoy prayer, you must first form to yourself such a theory of prayer, — or, if you do not consciously form it, you must have it, and then you must cherish such trust in it, as a reality, that you shall feel the force of an object in prayer. No mind can feel that it has an object in praying, except in such

degree as it appreciates the scriptural view of prayer as a genuine thing.

Our conviction on this point must be as definite and as fixed as our trust in the evidence of our senses. It must become as natural to us to obey one as the other. If we suffer our faith to drop down from the lofty conception of prayer as having a lodgment in the very counsels of God, by which the universe is swayed, the plain practicalness of prayer as the Scriptures teach it, and as prophets and apostles and our Lord himself performed it, drops proportionately; and in that proportion, our motive to prayer dwindles. Of necessity, then, our devotions become spiritless. We cannot obey such faith in prayer, with any more heart than a man who is afflicted with double vision can feel in obeying the evidence of his eyes. Our supplications cannot, under the impulse of such a faith, go, as one has expressed it, 'in a right line

THE STILL HOUR.

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to God.' They become circuitous, timid, heartless. They may so degenerate as to be offensive, 'like the reekings of the Dead Sea.'

V.

AS A PRINCE HAST THOU POWER WITH GOD.

GEN. 32:28.

AN intrepid faith in prayer will always give it unction. Let the faith of apostles in the reality of prayer as a power with God take possession of a regenerate heart, and it is inconceivable that prayer should be to that heart a lifeless duty. The joy of hope, at least, will vitalize the duty. The prospect of gaining an object, will always affect thus the expression of intense desire.

The feeling which will become spontaneous with a Christian, under the influence of such a trust, is this: 'I come to my devotions this morning, on an errand of real life. This is no romance and no farce.

PRAYER A BUSINESS.

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I do not come here to go through a form of words. I have no hopeless desires to express. I have an object to gain. I have an end to accomplish. This is a business in which I am about to engage. An astronomer does not turn his telescope to the skies with a more reasonable hope of penetrating those distant heavens, than I have of reaching the mind of God, by lifting up my heart at the throne of Grace. This is the privilege of my calling of God in Christ Jesus. Even my faltering voice is now to be heard in heaven, and it is to put forth a power there, the results of which only God can know, and only eternity can develop. Therefore, O Lord! thy servant findeth it in his heart to pray this prayer unto Thee.'

'Good prayers,' says an old English divine, 'never come weeping home. I am sure I shall receive either what I ask or what I should ask.' Such a habit of feeling as this will give to prayer that quality