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PRAYER, THE SPIRITUAL PULSE.

is

Prayer is the pulse of the spiritual life. According to its free and healthful action, so is our religious life healthful and free. The restraining of prayer the first step in any fearful moral deterioration. Any one who has realised to himself the constant danger of aberrations in heart, intellect, and conscience, will seek to be ever nigh at hand to the throne of grace, to the alone source of wisdom and strength. For the most part, prayer is the heavenly side of our earthly life. As we pray, the things of heaven loom more and more in their real proportions on our vision; and as we grow remiss in prayer, the things of earth more and more confuse and darken our spiritual insight. It is in prayer that we obtain the clearest views of our Saviour's work, and the chief irradiations of the meanings of the Word of Life. Prayer raises men up from the horrible pit and the miry clay, and sets the feet upon a rock, and puts a new song in the mouth, even praise to His name. In the lives of good men—and I have already spoken of the very high value of religious biography-we see how uniformly they speak of the blessedness of prayer, and of the emptiness and misery of their prayerless days. Enabled to cry, Abba, Father, they come as grateful, loving children into the heavenly presence, and there find full scope for love, joy, trust, hope, reverence, and dependence. They have risen to such holy joy in prayer, that they have felt themselves lost in the shoreless ocean of divine love.

WE ARE ALWAYS TO PRAY.

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Remember, also, that there is nothing which we may not bring before God. We are told to pour out our hearts before God. This is a very full and significant expression. It doubtless means, that we may come before God with every thing that in any measure rests upon our minds. It is hard to take to our minds the full measure of comfort which such an assurance supplies. We can easily understand how we may bring our great things before God, but we can hardly understand how we may bring our little things. But great and little are only relative terms; the great things of one person are the little things of another, and the opposite; and, indeed, looking to the tendencies of matters or occurrences, it is hard at all times to predicate that this is little or that great.

Still, I can very well imagine that, from feelings of solemnity, or awe, or reverence, we might be very slow to bring our personal wants before God,—the passing needs of the day, the physical suffering, the shadow of unhappiness and restlessness upon the spirit. Therefore it is that, to remove this not unworthy hesitation, we have the fullest assurances on this subject vouchsafed to us in Holy Writ. We are told that we ought always to pray; that we should cast our burden upon the Lord; that in every thing we should make request by prayer, with thanksgiving. How happy would it be for us if we could realise this-if we could only feel that, like princes with God, we might pray, and might prevail! Perhaps, at the last, not those

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THE MIGHT OF PRAYER.

who have worked most, but those who have prayed most, are the men and women who have most truly served the Church and the world. The great cause for which our hearts beat high, but to which we can lend no material assistance; the burning wrong, to which it seems we can only offer a helpless indignation; the afflicted and distressed, whom we can only pity, and long to relieve;-all these are cases in which we can at least pray. And who can estimate aright the might of the petition, or the might of the answer which it may draw down from heaven? The weary, sickly man, stretched on the couch of languor or suffering; the lonely, uncomprehended man, left in solitude and contempt; the prisoner of the Lord, whom chains and bolts debar from an active participation in the Master's work ;—all these exert a mighty power, compared with which diplomacy and war are little things, before which kings and their armies do flee. For such have entered into the secret of the Almighty. They have the charm which wins Omnipotence to their service. Prayer is the lever which moves Him who moves the universe.

Oh, the might and the majesty of prayer! The manna of the soul, the dew of the heart; heaven gathered into earth, and eternity into time; the purest air, the subtlest flame; sword in all attack, shield in all defence. Prayer shuts and unshuts the heavens. Prayer stands between the destroying angel and the people. Prayer lends a purer freshness to

THE ISSUES OF PRAYER.

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the breath of morning, and a deeper calm to the shades of evening. Prayer enters the council-hall of our rulers, and senators are guided into decrees of justice and greatness. Prayer enters our halls of judgment, and, aspiring above the trembling scales, directs the hesitating mind to the right conclusion. Prayer is present in the student's solitary chamber, and dispels the mists of prejudice and ignorance, and pours an enlightening glory on the soul. Prayer haunts the abodes of poverty, and the widow's cruse of oil is filled, and her bread doth not fail. Prayer, with uplifted hand, stills the pain and restlessness and fever of the chamber of sickness and decay. Prayer tracks the vessel of the voyager, even as its own luminous wake, over the waste of waters, and keeps the wanderers in safety and tranquillity. Prayer wings its instantaneous flight beyond the sun and the sun's sun, and beyond all farthest worlds, and the thronging ranks of the celestial hierarchies, to the throne of God; and there is a deeper joy in the courts of heaven when the sinner prays; and the last faint accents of dying prayer are doubtless completed amid the pealing alleluias of rejoicing angels.

I CANNOT but feel, in speaking of the work of the Spirit of God, that the subject is indeed a very awful one, and that only through the aid of that Spirit can we be saved from presumption and attain to truth. May the Spirit first forgive and then quicken our slowness of heart, inform the dry bones with life and energy as in the Valley of Vision, and breathe upon our poor human spirits some measure of sweet and gracious effluence! Let us humbly pray for such a visitation, humbly welcome such. Not ours be the cry, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?" but the children's cry, "Abba, Father;"

"What in me is dark,

Illumine; what is low, raise and support."

In speaking of this subject, we shall do best if we keep as close as may be to those words which the Holy Ghost has Himself inspired. It is no question of mere metaphysical speculation. The facts of our spiritual history-we all know it-are as real and deep, and far more awful, than any events of our out