availeth much. It enters into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. He receives it as the prayer of a chosen one, and He opens the windows of heaven and showers down copious blessings upon the longing, praying soul.

The arguments by which Jesus urges upon all believers to avoid the foolish practices and imaginations of the heathen in the matter of prayer, is very remarkable. "Be not ye, therefore, like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him." It is interesting to notice that the Redeemer uses the very argument to encourage us in secret prayer, which the unbelieving world employs to do away with the necessity of prayer altogether. Why spend time in prayer, the infidel sometimes asks, when God knows our circumstances better than we do ourselves? An objection such as this is evidently founded on a total misconception of the real nature and design of prayer. It is not intended to impart information to the All-Wise, as if He were ignorant, but it has been enjoined by Him, who knows what we have need of before we ask Him; and He hath graciously promised to bestow blessings upon those who ask them in faith. No encouragement is given us to expect anything from Him if prayer is withheld. When He promises blessings He says, "For these things will I be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Such is the arrangement

which God hath made; and how beautifully in accordance with the whole constitution of His providential government, whereby He hath connected means with their corresponding ends! What better fitted to bring the soul to a proper sense of its dependence upon God, and to prepare it for the humble and thankful reception of blessings than the institution of the holy ordinance of prayer?

One of the most refreshing and encouraging aspects in which the Hearer of prayer is represented is that which this passage contains. He is our Father, and will He not listen to the prayers of His own child, feeble and erring though that child may be? He is our Father, and will He not pity us in our distress, and stretch out His hand to relieve us? He is our Father, and will He not readily bestow all that His child requires? And what additional encouragement may be derived from the thought that He knows minutely what we have need of before we ask Him! Well may the child of God ask in faith, nothing doubting. We cannot reveal to God a single circumstance in our condition which He does not know, and for which He has not provided. Come, then, believer, enter into thy closet, and spread out before thy Father all thy wants, all thy sorrows, all thy tempta

tions.

But how melancholy the condition of the man who is a stranger to secret prayer! Let him not profane

the honourable name of Christian by assuming it. A prayerless Christian is an anomaly which exists not in the creation of God. Thou art not a Christian, but a Christless one; thou art without God and without Christ, and therefore without hope in the world. Ah! ye poor, prayerless ones, ye know not what ye do. You are setting at nought one of the sweetest enjoyments, one of the most precious blessings which fall to the lot of sinful man. If a father's presence and society be so delightful to the loving and affectionate child, O how much more refreshing is the presence of our Father in heaven! And yet this is a joy to which multitudes are strangers. What prevents you from the enjoyment of fellowship with a reconciled Father? Are you afraid that such has been your waywardness and rebellion He is unwilling to receive you? Are you anxious to return? Behold that loving Father running to meet you. He is waiting to be gracious; O that you were waiting to receive this grace.

SECTION III.-PRAYER-LORD'S PRAYER.

MAT. VI. 9, 10.

Our blessed Lord in pointing out to His hearers the true nature of the life of God in the soul, sets forth one grand peculiarity of it, that it is a secret walk

with God; and this essential characteristic He contrasts with the religious life of the Pharisees, open, public and ostentatious, adopting as illustrations the very duties, alms-giving, prayer, and fasting, to which that sect of the Jews were most scrupulously attentive. In regard to the solemn and important duty of prayer, the Redeemer shows, that though public or social prayer is undoubtedly incumbent upon Christians, still, from the very nature of the exercise, prayer is a secret dealing with God; and, therefore, closet devotion will ever form a most blessed and delightful employment of the true child of God. He will feel it to be a privilege and a pleasure, a duty and a delight to be often alone with God. Jesus takes occasion also to warn His disciples against some false conceptions and foolish practices which have in all ages been too extensively prevalent on the subject of prayer. And, in order fully to explain and enforce the views which He was engaged in impressing upon His followers, He presents them with a model of prayer, short, beautiful and comprehensive, which is commonly known by the name of the Lord's Prayer, introducing it in these words :

V. 9. "After this manner therefore pray ye."

It has been much disputed whether this prayer is to be regarded as a form which the Redeemer meant that His people should regularly use in their devotions,

both public and private; or if it is only to be understood as a model or pattern which might serve to guide believers in regard both to the matter and the manner of their prayers. The words here used, "After this manner pray ye," might at first sight be thought to indicate that it was simply a pattern for our imitation, but the corresponding word in the original implies no more than "thus," a rendering which might plainly be considered as supporting either the one side or the other of this disputed question. When, on another occasion, as recorded by the evangelist Luke, Jesus, in answer to the entreaty of his disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray," repeated the substance, not the precise words of the prayer before us, he introduced it thus, "When ye pray, say," which seems to be an injunction to use the very words of the prayer. But it is surely no slight objection against the opinion that the Lord's Prayer was designed to be a form of perpetual use in the Church, that, when we compare the two Evangelists who have recorded it, we find several variations in the words; and in Luke, the doxology, or conclusion, is omitted altogether. Had the disciples recognised as incumbent upon them the use of this prayer in its precise words, is it not strange, that although we find in the New Testament several prayers which were offered up by them after our Lord's ascension, this particular prayer seems on not a single occasion to have been employed by them;