rung on the ladder is prayer for material things; the second rung, prayer for spiritual blessings of a personal nature; the third rung, prayer for others, or intercessory prayer; the fourth rung, prayer for the realization of the will of God in all things. Some remain on the lowest rung; others get a step or two higher; only a few plant their feet on the topmost rung. Souls in which the true spirit of prayer is born have aspirations after the higher things, and their ascent may be measured by the development of their prayer life. Happily, God looks beneath the surface of our prayers, and, distinguishing the things that we most deeply desire from those for which we childishly clamor, he sifts our prayers, separating our needs from our wants, always granting the former, often denying the latter. A foolish parent who has no lofty ideals for his child may give him whatever he asks; a wise parent who considers the highest welfare of his child will often be under the necessity of crossing his will, causing him bitter disappointment; but such disappointment may prove the medicine of his soul, purging it from all selfseeking, and leading him to see and appreciate the higher ends of life. So it is with the heavenly Father. He is always moved by the request of his child for the supply of any want, or the removal of any trial; and it pains him not to be able to grant it; but his disappointed child may live to thank him for denying his request, and may yet come to see that his prayer was not in vain, inasmuch as it brought him into sweet accord with the gracious purpose which the All Wise was seeking to work out in his life. In view, therefore, of the liability to err in judgment, and to ask amiss, it is ever right and meet to pray, "The good unasked, O Father grant; What is looked upon as unanswered prayer may simply be prayer whose answer has been necessarily delayed. Things are still in the making, and it may take a long time for God to work out certain results. Some things ripen slowly; but many, in their haste, would fain pluck the fruit while it is yet green. They grow impatient when the thing asked for does not arrive at once. But it may be on the way; if it is in God's plan, it will surely come; if not in his plan, who would want it? The answer to prayer often comes in a different form, and always in a better form, from that in which it was expected to come. God is always better to us than our prayers. He sometimes denies our prayer in the letter that he may answer it in the spirit. His real answer is often hidden, often misunderstood. In many instances it is not till long afterward that its significance begins to dawn upon us; and then we are glad that the door did not open, that the burden was not removed, that the specific favor sought was not given. With anointed eyes we see that some better thing was reserved for us than that which we insisted upon getting. Professor Drummond well illustrates this point in the story of a little girl, who, when crossing the ocean, dropped her doll over the side of the ship. She went to the captain and begged him to stop the ship that she might recover it. When he refused her request she thought him hard and cruel. Sometime afterward a man fell overboard and the great engine, which had been ceaselessly at work since the voyage began, stopped. A boat was lowered, and a life was saved. When the vessel reached the harbor the first thing the captain did was to buy that little girl the most beautiful doll in all the city—and yet he would not stop the ship for her. So in life's voyage the Captain does not always interfere with the natural order of events; he does not always stop the ship to secure our doll. He knows what every case demands, and if he does not grant our specific request, it is because he has designed to give us something transcendently better. 5. Baffled Prayers. “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee" (Mark 14. 36). "And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it" (Luke 19. 41). We have bracketed these two texts together because they both imply the limitations of prayer. In the one, prayer is limited by divine purpose; in the other it is limited by the opposition of the will of the creature to the will of God. To the Father "all things are possible," but not all things absolutely. He cannot do anything that implies a contradiction; he cannot do anything that is morally wrong; he cannot do anything that conflicts with his ultimate purpose. On the latter ground it was impossible for him to remove the cup of suffering from his praying Son. Here it was impossible to give him the desire of his heart because man could not be coerced into goodness. In the face of his foiled desire and foiled effort, Jesus wept. His heart was broken. The significant thing about his tears was that they were shed over a city in which he had labored and for which he had prayed, a city nearing its doom because his labors for it and his prayers for it had been baffled. Within the physical sphere his power was unlimited and irresistible. Nothing could stand before it. Those who witnessed his power over nature exclaimed, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" Within the moral sphere his power was limited and resistible. He could not force the free nature of man; all he could do was to persuade. The sea obeyed, but man disobeyed; the winds were hushed to rest at his word, 'but the rebellious will of man could not be subdued. He did not leave the world as he wanted to leave it, and he wept at his discomfiture. And if the labors and prayers of the Master were nullified by man's resistance of moral influence, need we wonder when the same thing happens to us? To ignore the relation of human freedom to prayer is to open the way to heart-aching disappointment, and to the possibility of the wreck of faith. The case is frequently cited of Monica praying for years for her son Augustine, and of her going in her despair to Ambrose, who comforted her with the words, "Woman, go in peace; the child of such prayers cannot perish." Was the good archbishop justified in making such an unqualified declaration? Assuredly not. All that he was warranted in saying was, that it was not likely that a child of such prayers would perish. Monica had the great satisfaction of seeing her son converted and consecrating his rare powers to the service of the church; but suppose she had died without this sight, as many godly mothers have done before and since, would nothing have come from her prayers? Would they have been offered up in vain? Is prayer for the conversion of others infallibly answered? In a true sense it is. It is answered to the extent of securing on behalf of those prayed for power sufficient unto conversion; but that it is not always answered to the extent of realizing conversion goes without the saying. To answer such prayers infallibly would mean that God would bear down upon man, forcing him to yield. And, apparently, that is what many expect him to do in answer to their prayers for others. They look upon the issue as a matter of strength between God and the resisting soul; and so they conclude that in the end the less powerful must surrender. Such a view shows a lack of proper respect for the sanctities of the soul which God has made in his own image. To ask him to do violence to man's free nature is |