But you may say, "Prayer is not always answered. What became of the tens of thousands of prayers offered for the life of Garfield? What became of the prayer of Christ himself, in his agony, praying that the cup might pass from him if it were possible, and if God so willed? How can we say that all prayer is answered?"

I reply that when we pray for bodily life or any outward good, as for example for the recovery of a sick child, there is the same condition to the prayer that Jesus put into his own: "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." Prayer, even then, may avail, and greatly avail, but not always in the way we expect. The best answer we may receive to a prayer for any outward blessing may be an apparent refusal.

When Augustine, a youth, was proposing to go to Rome, his mother, the pious Monica, prayed that he might be kept from going there, because she dreaded the temptations of the capital for her son. But he went, and was converted to Christianity by Ambrose. So, in his Confessions, he says, Thou, Lord, didst refuse to my mother the outward form and body of her prayer, but didst grant to her the inward heart of her prayer. For that which she really asked was that my spiritual life might be made safe; and it was saved by my going to Rome."

But when Jesus says, without limitation or condition, “Ask, and ye shall receive," he is speaking

of prayer for spiritual help. For he uses the illustration of a father, who will not refuse bread to a starving child, and says, "How much more will your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

If, then, we have these opportunities to meet every day; if we are so apt to pass them by; if it is so hard to be in the right spirit; if, without such a right spirit, we are sure to do what we ought not, and to omit to do what we ought, then we are like the hungry child, who needs food and cannot get it for himself. Will not God certainly feed our soul with inward strength if we have enough faith to go to him? I believe that this is a universal law. I do think that any one, wishing to do right and finding it hard to do so,- one who tries and tries again, resolves and resolves again,— will certainly find himself lifted to a higher plane by simply looking up and saying, "Oh, my Father! feed my soul. with thy light and thy love." He will find that somehow or other he is able to say the right thing at the right time; to do the right thing; to be in the right tone and temper. Whereas before he was apt to be irritable, now he is patient; before he was thoughtless, now he is considerate; before he was forgetful of others, now he remembers them. There has come into the depths of his soul, without his knowing how, a power which directs his thoughts and words and actions aright. And this is what is meant by the influence of the Spirit.

It is felt in its results and fruits-love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

If, then, we do not wish to have a life filled with lost opportunities, we must be every day prepared to meet them. And as we cannot prepare ourselves sufficiently by any amount of discipline or any strength of determination, we have a right to believe that by looking up and opening our soul to God he will give us the power of meeting each opportunity aright.

Without this faith, how apt we are to postpone and put off any difficult work; to say, "I will do it at a more convenient season, when I feel more like doing it, when I can think what I had better say and do." But with this confidence in an everpresent help, we can meet every occasion, and we shall be able to understand the meaning of the Christian paradox, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" or that other saying of the Apostle, "The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God."

For here in truth, to my mind, lies the emphasis and essence of Christ's teaching. He leads us, through the law to the gospel; through duty to trust; through work to prayer; through the sense of responsibility to the sense of dependence. Christian faith is neither doctrine nor ritual; not a system of ethics nor an emotion of piety; not profession or form. It is the law of God, fulfilled by

faith in the love of God. It is inflowing strength with which to do our daily work. It is the happy consciousness that God is around us with his perpetual care; beneath us with his supreme power; above us with his providential blessing; within us by his constant inspiration.

This faith is saving faith; it saves us from doubt and despair. It fills the heart with hope. It causes each day to dawn serene and peaceful, each night to close quiet and full of content. Trials may come, will come; lonely hours; the loss of those we love; disappointed hopes. But with these trials strength also will come with which to bear them. More than this, we may go wrong; we may neglect and forget opportunities; we may forget to pray; and then we shall find ourselves relapsing into the old and dreary routine of weakness and sin. But with this difference, that we

know how to

overcome the difficulty; we know the way back. We know that we have only to turn round and begin again, with a greater humility and distrust of ourselves; with a greater trust in God, and that the sense of his forgiving love will descend once more into our hearts. For forgiveness, too, comes, not by caprice, but by law. "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Observe, it is not said, "he is merciful," but "he is faithful and just." It is, then, a law that when we are willing to look our sins in the face, and see ourselves as we are, with that

sight and confession of evil we are again helped out of the evil into good.

This is the sum and substance of personal religion. This is the "life hid with Christ in God." It is the steady purpose of doing what we can in the direction of duty, and the steady trust in God for power with which to do it. Either of the two, alone, is not enough. But joined together they are sufficient to lift us above the danger of lost opportunities.