Prayer involves a great deal more than the mere question whether God can or cannot, will or will not, hear us and grant us the petitions we have desired of Him. We come to Him as creatures to the Creator, as needy to Him who is able to succor, as children to a Father. But we come also as those whose needs are too often the result of their own sin, as creatures who have rebelled, as children who have not, as they ought, either loved, or desired, or done the Father's will. In a word, all our days have been and (alas, that it need be said) will be tainted by sins of defect and commission, and this taint of sin comes into our prayers and our holiest occupations. Hence

deep moral questions of state of soul and of spiritual discipline are involved. We pray for relief in circumstances into which we have been brought by our own sin, or by the sin of others. The consequences of our own folly make us cry out for deliverance, yet if the relief and deliverance were granted at once, we might miss the spiritual discipline that underlies all God's ways with us. The results of the past cannot be ignored:the future must ever be kept in view. He might be a fond, but he certainly would be a very foolish, parent who, at the first tear of his child, removed the thing that distressed the little heart. It is with tears that our children learn to read; infinite drudgery and real pains are incurred in the training of eye and voice, ear and hand, in fitting them for life and its labors and delights. Harder still are the lessons by which they learn self-denial, self-sacrifice, thoughtfulness for others, sympathy, tenderness. Yet a wise discipline remembers the past and keeps the future in view; from a wider experience and a larger outlook than our children possess, we know that culture of mind and of character can be carried on only by what to them appears to be unnecessary pains, and for their sake we seem to shut our hearts to their sighs and their tears. We seem, I say; for their sorrows are a burden to us, and at times we are weakly tempted to ease matters for them, but that we know it would be to their loss. Do we wish to think of God as an easy-going parent, who at our clamor removes us from the school to which He sees fit to send us?

And so many a petition, that seems to have been asked in vain, has a reason for the refusal. Not that we always know the reason; if we did, there would be little demand upon our faith-and let us remember that faith in God rather than sight is the characteristic of the Christian life (2 Cor. 5:7). We know God, but we do not always know the reason of His actions. At times, it may be, we suspect a reason, though we refuse to recognize it even to our own hearts. At others we are in the dark, and can only fall back upon our trust in God and say, "He doeth all things well." Thrice did St. Paul pray that his "stake in the flesh" might be removed, but the only answer was, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness"(2 Cor. 12:9). That a petition should be answered in our sense is no proof that it is asked according to the Divine will, or that the Divine blessing rests upon our scheme. "Thou saidst, 'Give me a king and princes.' I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath" (Hos. 13:10,11). "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls" (Ps. 106:15). On the other hand, what gracious lessons have come to the soul through what has seemed the most crushing refusal. Many a man looks back to nights of watching beside his dying child, when he almost hoped the little one would be taken to end its torturing pain. For prayer seemed unavailing; God was "silent" to him (Ps. 28:1), and faith and unfaith made his soul their battle-field. And when the little life ebbed out in the cold, grey dawn, and Death was in the home as he had never been before, and Sorrow became a closer companion than in days past, the riddle of it all seemed so insolvable, that the only refuge for the heart was a dumb acceptance of an unintelligible will. "I was dumb.. .because Thou didst it" (Ps. 39:9). Others there are whose lot is grinding poverty, or perpetual pain, or the recurring disappointments that crush all hope out of life. Prayer is in vain:or the answer that seems on the point of being given is snatched away; hope revives only to be quenched, while the hands fall listless and the heart well-nigh breaks. Does God mock? Is His arm shortened? Has He blundered? For some do not hesitate to say that He has, and to our physical and mental sorrow is added the torturing suggestions of unbelief. For we see no purpose, no plan, no evidence of power, no token of love, in the ills that assail. And the chilled heart recalls, though it may not concur in, the words of the so-called sceptic of the Old Testament, "All things come alike to all:there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked" (Eccles. 9:2). Happy the man who in such circumstances still retains the trust of the Psalmist:"O my God, my soul is cast down within me… all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the day time, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life" (Ps. 42:6-8). We remember the words of the Lord Jesus, though it may be we divert them from their primary meaning, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter" (John 13:7). The "hereafter" may be soon; it may come after many years; we may have to wait for the unfoldings of eternity. But seeing that God is training us for this life and not only for eternity, I think we may say that He usually lifts the veil from His mysterious ways, even in this land of shadows, for "the meek will He teach His way." And in the "hereafter" of Christ's promise, come it soon or late, the soul discerns some of the lessons of God's schooling, and sees that though some particular prayer has not been answered, desires have been awakened that otherwise would have slept; sympathies have been quickened, perils have been avoided, and deep longings of the soul have had their answer even by that refusal. W. J.