LECTURE IX.

CONCLUSION.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." EPHESIANS vi. 18.

THEN what is prayer? Is it penance? Is it a part of that various punishment which God has inflicted on our sinful family? Is it so much holy drudgery to which every soul must force himself, under pain of incurring a severer penalty, or sinking at last into a deeper woe? Is it the irksome ordeal through which you are doomed to enter each successive day, and the moping and mournful finale with which you must close it up and leave it off? Is prayer the sackcloth which you must wear beneath the silk attire of daily joys, the pebble which you must put into the sandals of daily business, the preliminary thorn which you must break across or pluck away before you reach the downy pillow of this weary night's new slumber? Is prayer the cold fog which you must scatter over this world's bright landscape,—the memento mori with which you must sober down its merry melodies,-the Egyptian coffin at the banquet's close to lengthen every visage, and with quashed delight and bitter fancies to send each rueful guest away?

-an

And yet, I am sure that it is in this sombre aspect that many look on prayer. Are you sure that this is not the aspect in which you yourself regard it? Is it not a task,-an exercise,endurance? Instead of engaging in it with that alacrity, or resorting to it with that avidity which would bespeak the privilege, do you not betake yourself to secret prayer with coldness and selfconstraint, and feel, when the devotions of the family or sanctuary are ended, that it is a great comfort to have this other "duty" done?

What then is prayer?

1. It is communion with God. Oh! brethren, prayer is not an apostrophe to woods and wilds and waters. It is not a moan let fly upon the viewless winds, nor a bootless behest expended on a passing cloud. It is not a plaintive cry, directed to an empty echo, that can send back nothing but another cry. Prayer is a living heart that speaks in a living ear,—the ear of the living God. It matters not where the worshipper is,-on a dreary shore; in a noisome dungeon; amidst the filth and ferocity of brutal savages, or the frivolity and atheism of hollowhearted worldlings; surrounded by the whirr and clash and roaring dissonance of the heaving factory, or toiling in the depths of the lamp-lit mine, the man of prayer need never feel the withering pangs of loneliness. Wherever you are the Lord is there, and it only needs prayer to bring Himself and you together. Recollect him, and he is beside your path; resort to him, and he lays his hand upon you. And who is this everpresent Help,-this never-distant Friend? Words

cannot tell. 'The Incarnate "Word" did tell, but few could comprehend, and as few could credit.* If you imagine the tenderest affection of your most anxious Friend; the mildest condescension and readiest sympathy of your most appreciating and considerate Friend; and if you add to this a goodness and a wisdom, such as you never saw in the best and wisest of your friends; and if you do not merge but multiply all this wisdom, all this goodness, and all this kindness towards you by infinity, so as to give this tender and constant Friend infinite knowledge to watch over you, infinite forethought to provide for you, and infinite resources to relieve or enrich you; if you did not fully realize who the hearer and answerer of prayer is, you would, at least, be a step beyond that unknown God, whom many ignorantly and joylessly worship. In prayer you do not address a general law or a first principle, but you address a living person. You do not commune with eternity, or with infinite space, but you commune with the Father of eternity,with Him "who fills the highest heavens, and who also dwells in the lowliest hearts." You do not hold converse with abstract goodness, but with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; with God in Christ; with Him whose express image Jesus is; with Jesus himself; with your Friend within the veil; with your Father who is in heaven.

And is there in this aught that should prove repulsive or heart-chilling? Is Christ so altered from what he was, that you needs must depreJohn i. 5, 18.

cate his presence; or are you so earthly, sual, so sin-saturated, that though he were talking with you by the way your bosom could not burn? The Saviour and yourself; is there so little friendship between you? is he so little a reality that days pass without adverting to him? or is he so little loved that you rather deprecate than desire his coming? Have you found so little that is engaging in him that you wonder how people who loved one another dearly, loved this Saviour more? Or is the whole such a phantom, to your feelings such a nonentity,— that you cannot comprehend how any one should have such delight in God as to cry out in desire of his more conscious presence, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-watches."

Yes, brethren, whatever you may fancy-or rather, whatever you may forget-the Lord liveth. There may be objects which fascinate all your soul, and bind in welcome fetters all your faculties; but hidden from your view there is an object, did you catch one glimpse of him, fit to deaden the deliciousness of every lesser joy, and darken the glare of every lesser glory. There may be friends deep-seated in your soul, but there is yet one friend, whom could you but discover, he would make you another man-he would give your life a new nobility, your character a new sanctity. He would give yourself a

new existence in giving himself to you, and would give society a new manner of person in giving you to it. And with this glorious personage, and withal most gracious friend, it is possible to keep up an intercourse to which the most rapid communication and the closest converse of earth supply not the equivalent. The twinkling thought the uplifted eye-the secret groanwill bring him in an instant-will bring him in all the brightness of his countenance through the midnight gloom-in all the promptitude of his interposition through the thickest dangers-in all the abundance of his strength into the fading flesh-and in all the sweetness of his sympathy and assurance of his death-destroying might into the failing heart. And this communion, closer and more complete than that of any creature with another for dearest friend can only give his thoughts, and desires, and feelings he cannot impart himself; but in regard to the praying soul and this divine communion, we read of its being "filled with all the fulness of God."

2. Prayer is peace and joy. Two things constitute the believer's peculiarity and make him differ from the rest of men-just as two things constitute the sinner's peculiarity, and make him differ from the rest of God's creatures. The two things which form the Christless sinner's peculiar misery, are guilt and vacancy a gloom above him and a void within him. A gloom above him-for he has no confidence in God--he has no hopeful and confiding feeling heavenwards -no firm reliance on a reconciled God, and no smiling vista through a pierced and heaven-open