society, and above all, the enginery of our souls in our behalf. Men say, "God is not going to stop the universe to answer prayer". No; but he is going to work the universe in order to answer prayer. I cannot stand in my wheat field and say, "O, wheat, come up", and have an immediate answer to my prayer; but if I want wheat, I know how I can get it. There are certain laws of Nature, I know, and I know that the operation of these laws is inevitable and sure, and I can call up blessings by using them upon myself, upon my family and upon my neighbors; for to-day, for the year to come and for a whole generation.

Any trouble that a man would go to his earthly father about, he may go to God about. People say: "Do you believe that, contrary to all the great laws of Nature, and political economy, God will provide a sum of money for a man in answer to his prayer? Do you believe that God controvenes natural laws to assist a man in paying his debts?" I do not. But when a man has used his means to the uttermost, and trusts in God, then God uses his means to control natural laws for that man's benefit. God helps men not by stopping natural laws, but by using them better for us than we can use them for ourselves. And when a man is in trouble, and goes to God and says, "I have done all I can, I do not know what to do more, I am willing to suffer or to be relieved-'Thy will be done'." I believe that then God hears and answers prayer, even though of a secular nature.

Prayer is not simply a desire that we may have that which in the present hour we may need. It is a sense of our alliance with our heavenly Father. It is an endeavor to be in such converse with Him as a child is during the hour of its joy, or its sorrow, or of its burden, in the presence of its earthly parent. It is lifting up the soul out of matter, and out of its poor surroundings, into the presence and sympathy of the Spirit of God, the great Love and Lover.

Prayer is not the voice of a beggar. It is not simply the expression of want. It is the expression in our best hours, and in our best moods, of the best thoughts, the best sentiments, the best emotions, the best aspirations, the best of everything. If the soul be a mighty estate; if it hath everything of flower and fruit in it, we bring something of everything and the best, and offer it to God.

Prayer chiefly, is the soul's communion with God. It is chiefly translation. It is chiefly transfiguration. It was worth more to Peter and James and John, to stand for an hour and see the spirits dawn through the heaven, and talk with Christ, Whose face shone as the sun, and Whose raiment was white as light, than if

the three tabernacles which they craved had been built of diamonds and rubies on the mountain-top. It is what we get by the soul that makes us rich.

As birds that are low down in dusky forests, and are chased by owls, escape in the broad sunlight, so our souls, when they are in low, dark places, flying away from these up toward God, find release, and sing for joy.

Prayer is not so much an office, as it is the soul's whole attitude toward God, so that everything which one does, he does in conscious communion with God.

I think the answer to prayer is that which gives inspiration to the souls of men; and he who walks in the presence of God, and lives under the inspiration of His down-brooding touch, has in himself the great causes which will work out the answers of prayerand that in the higher spheres, as well as in the lower.

You can draw a stop of an organ, and it will give the sound which belongs to that stop; but you cannot do the same thing with the soul. If you would enjoy

the richest fruits of prayer, you must abound in prayer; you must live in the conscious presence of God; you must be in constant and intimate communion with Him. Then there can be no doubt, no skepticism in your mind as to the efficacy of prayer.

Where men begin their prayers by piling up old, long, familiar, worn, empty titles; where they commence their prayers by saying, “O, Thou omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-seeing, ever-living, blessed Potentate, Lord God Jehovah!" I should think they would take breath. "Why," it is asked, "are not such titles as these right?" Yes; but what should be the state of a man's mind when he can fill up such big words as these with the reality of their meaning? That there are extreme moods, that there are great and critical times, when God has, by the breaths of heaven and the currents of earth, moved men in the higher elements; that there are periods when these words are as majestic as God Himself in the souls of men, there is no doubt; but think of a man in his family, hurried for his breakfast or to get away to his business, praying in such a strain ! He has a note coming due, and it is going to be paid to-day; and he feels buoyant, and goes down on his knees like a cricket on the hearth, and piles up these majestically moving phrases about God. Then he goes on to say, with hasty formality, that he is a sinner. Yes, he is proud to say that he is a sinner. He goes with the multitude in this respect. Then he asks that he may be

forgiven, and that his heart may be changed. And then he asks for his daily bread. He has it; and he can always ask for it when he has it. After running on thus briefly in the old stereotyped way, he winds up with, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and forever, Amen". Then he jumps up, and goes over to the city, and attends to his business affairs. At night he comes back, and if he is not disturbed by sleepiness, by company or something else, he has evening prayers; but he never thinks of approaching his Father in heaven in any other than this hard, formal, matter-of-fact way. And he is called a "praying man!" I should sooner call myself an ornithologist because I ate a chicken once in a while for my dinner. In outside affairs, does occasionally having something to do with them constitute an acquaintance with them? Does any man really pray who does not know the inner man that belongs to his nature? Does any man pray in reality who has not a consciousness of God present with him? He that goes to God "must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him". How large is the interpretation of that saying! He that goes to God, goes to One whom the heavens cannot contain, nor the earth, which is His footstool. How lordly is the soul that mounts up into some sort of conception of the amplitude, the grandeur, the glory and the desirableness of the Father in heaven!

Prayer works not on narrow lines.

It consists not