Power of prayer.

The boy asking for a knife.

the practice, without, however, having any very cordial belief that they are really listened to and granted as requests, by the great Jehovah. Many persons imagine that prayer has an efficacy in some such way as this: a man asks God to protect and bless him in his business; by offering the prayer every day, he is reminded of his dependence, he thinks of the necessity of his own industry and patient effort, and thus, through the influence of his prayer, the causes of prosperity are brought to operate more fully in his case, and prosperity

come.

This is indeed often one of the happy results of believing prayer; but it by no means embraces the whole import of the promise, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, he shall do it." The Father shall do it. This is a promise that God shall do something that we ask him to do,—not simply that the natural effect of our asking will be favorable in its influence upon us.

A

There is another way in which it seems to me there is a great deal of want of faith in God in regard to the effiсасу of It is often said that requests may not be prayer. granted in the precise form in which they were offered, but that they are always answered in some way or other. mother, for instance, who has a son at sea, prays morning and evening for his safe return. Letter after letter comes, assuring her of his continued safety, until at last the sad news arrives that his ship has been dashed upon a rock or sunk in the waves. Now can it be said that the mother's prayer was granted? Suppose that she was, by this afflicting providence, weaned from the world and prepared for heaven, and thus inconceivably benefited by the event. Was this, in any common or correct use of language, granting the request in another form, or was it denying it because it was inconsistent with her greatest good? Suppose a child asks his father to let him keep a knife that he

The sick man unexpectedly cured.

has found, and the father takes it away, knowing that he will probably injure himself with it. Is this granting the request in another form? No. We ought, whenever the particular request we make is not granted, to consider it a denial, and to suppose that it comes under one of the cases of exceptions I have already specified.

There is, indeed, such a thing as granting a request in another form from that in which it was made. A family, one of whose members is in feeble health, prays for that member, that God would restore him. They come sincerely and earnestly to the throne of grace, and ask God to spare his life and make him well. Instead however of growing better, he grows suddenly worse. He is attacked with violent sickness, and his friends think that their prayers can not be heard, and suppose that they must follow him to the grave. The sickness however soon passes away, and instead of carrying him to the tomb, it produces by means of some mysterious influence which is in such cases often exerted upon the constitution, such effects that the patient rises from his sick-bed with renewed bodily powers, and as his strength gradually returns, he finds that his constitution is renewed and health entirely restored. Now this is granting the request, because the thing requested, that is, the restoration of health, is obtained, though the manner was unexpected; but if the man should die, no matter what great benefits resulted from his death, it is certainly not right to say that the request was granted in any way. It was denied, because God saw it was best that it should be denied.

Let us then keep constantly in view the fact, that our petitions are and must be often denied,-positively and absolutely refused. The language which our Savior uses, though without any specified exceptions, contains the exceptions that in all human language are in all such cases

Submissive spirit.

Prayers of the young.

Deliverance from danger.

implied. The feelings however which, in this view of the subject, we ought to cherish, may properly be presented under the following head.

II. The duty of a submissive spirit in prayer. We ought unquestionably to bring a great many requests to God, relating to our daily pursuits. We ought to express to him our common desires, ask success in our common enterprises and plans. Young persons, it seems to me, ought to do this more than they do. They ought to bring all their little interests and concerns, morning and evening, to their Friend above. Whatever interests you, as I have already once or twice remarked, will interest him. Bring to him freely your troubles and cares, whatever they may be, and express all your wants. If the young can not come to God with their own appropriate and peculiar concerns, they are in reality without a protector. If however we are in the habit of bringing all our wants to God, we shall often ask for something which it is far better for us not to have. We can not always judge correctly; but unless we know that what we wish for is dangerous, or that it will be injurious, it is proper to ask for it. If we do or might know, to request it would be obviously wrong. David prayed very earnestly that his child might live, but God thought it not best to grant the petition. David did right to pray, for he probably did not know but that the request might be safely granted. Let us feel therefore when we come with our petitions, that perhaps God will think it best for us that they should be denied.

This is peculiarly the case in praying for deliverance from danger. Our hearts may be relieved and lightened by committing ourselves to God's care, but we can never feel on that account sure that we are safe. God very often makes. sickness, or a storm at sea, or the lightning, or any other source of common danger and alarm, the means of

C*

The packet.

You do not know

The next time

removing a Christian from the world. but that he will remove you in this way. a thunder storm arises in the west, it may be God's design to bring one of its terrific bolts upon your head, and you can not of course avert it by simply asking God to spare you. He will listen to your prayer, take it into kind consideration, and if you ask in a proper spirit, he will probably give you a calm and happy heart, even in the most imminent danger. But you can not be sure you will escape the lightning. The ground of your peace must be, that God will do what is best, not that he will certainly do what you wish.

From one of the small seaport towns of New England, a packet once set sail for Boston.* These packets, which are intended to carry passengers, have one large cabin. The berths (which perhaps I ought to inform some of my young readers, are a species of shelves, upon which passengers at sea sleep, one above another) are arranged around this cabin, and a movable partition which can be thrown open by day, divides the room at night into two parts. On board one of these packets then, a few years ago, a number of persons, ladies and gentlemen, previously entire strangers to each other, found themselves slowly sailing out of an eastern harbor, on a coasting voyage of about two hundred miles. They did not know how long they were to be together, what adventures might befall them, or what dangers they might share. They were however to spend their time in the same room, and as they were tossing upon the waves in the same vessel, a sense of common interest and of common danger brought them at once to terms of intimacy.

*These packets have long since been superseded by steamboats, and trains of cars. The passage is, however, allowed to stand as originally written.

The calm.

The Christian traveler.

The next morning there was scarcely a breath of air. The vessel heaved gently on the water, whose surface was polished like glass, though it swelled and sunk with the undulations of distant storms. In the tedium of waiting for wind, each one of the passengers and crew amused himself in his own way. Here you might see a cluster talking, and there two or three passengers gathering around a sailor who was letting down his line for fish. Others in various places, had their books.

A Christian traveler who was present, sat down upon the quarter-deck, and opened a little bundle of books and newspapers, and tracts, which he had provided for the