ask for any temporal blessing without conditions. If his prayer is directed to the securing of some material benefit, it will be for the purpose of working out some spiritual end. If he prays for health, he will desire that it may be given only, provided that it will make for his highest good, by his healed body becoming the servant of a renewed soul; if he asks for wealth, he will ask for it only on the ground that its bestowment will not be hurtful to himself or to others, or stand in the way of a greater blessing. When used for spiritual ends, and only when so used, are material things in their proper place in the divine scheme of life; and only when meant to be so used are they legitimate objects for request in prayer. In spiritual ends material interests are to be swallowed up and lost. Many who shrink from prayer which takes the form of supplication for material advantages would have all their misgivings set to rest if only they recognized the fact that the material is subsidiary to the spiritual; that, while it is true that God's concern for man includes his physical welfare, "it belongs to his essentially moral nature," as Canon Liddon has said, "to give the precedence to the least moral interests over the highest material interests."

There are things which God exalts above our temporal interests; there are things which he desires more than our health or happiness, or worldly prosperity. With him outward things are never supreme or absolute. It is only when we rise into the spiritual realm that we come into a circle of

things where all limitations fall away, and man touches the Infinite and the Eternal. Within that sphere prayer never returns void.

When a poverty-stricken soul prays for the fullness of the Spirit; when a feeble soul prays for greater power for better service; when a caretossed soul prays for rest; when a sorrowing soul prays for comfort; when a darkened soul prays for light; when a restive soul prays for patience, or a beaten soul prays for victory, they all pray for things absolutely in harmony with God's will and desire. He can have no interest whatever in keeping back any of these blessings for a single moment. Being to their advantage, they are always given when sought.

It is in the spiritual rather than in the material world that prayer has its chief sphere of action. The benefits which it brings are generally subjective rather than objective. They are not things which can be seen and handled. They are spiritual treasures, and constitute the white stone, the significance of which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. Answers to prayer are often matters of personal conviction and experience. The praying soul sees God's hand where others do not. Although he has no demonstrable proof to give, he is convinced that God has heard and helped him. When "in the lower sphere, where men ask temporal blessings and where God works by visible agents," there is often bitter disappointment; but when it is sought in the higher sphere in which he

works by direct action upon the soul, disappointment is impossible; for the final ends of prayer being moral, anyone who in praying rises to the spiritual sphere, asking only for spiritual blessings, may be fully assured that his prayer has entered into the divine will, and that holding it there, while faithfully supplying the prescribed conditions, all that he desires shall find abundant fulfillment.

8. A Wrong Conception of Prayer.

"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matt. 11. 12). These words have generally been taken to support the idea that man is to keep "battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer" until God capitulates and gives him what he asks. Nothing could be further from the Lord's thought.

To understand the meaning of these words we must look at them in their contextual setting. The brief and stirring ministry of John had inaugurated a popular movement in favor of Jesus. The people were aflame with enthusiasm, having transferred to him all their Messianic hopes. They expected that any day he might assert his royal prerogatives and set up his kingdom. They stood prepared to flock around his standard, and acclaim him their king. But as the days passed they became impatient. They could see no reason why he should longer refuse to declare himself. Further delay they could not brook, and in the heat of their impatience they wished to bring things to a crisis at once. Failing

to understand the nature of the kingdom which he had come to establish, they thought that it could be taken by violence. Afterward when they caught a glimpse of its real character they sought to destroy it by violence; and instead of seeking to take him by force and make him a king, they cried, "Away with him! Crucify him!”

The violence referred to in our text is not, therefore, something to be commended, but something to be condemned; not something which we are to follow, but something which we are to shun. It is resorted to only by blind and misguided zealots who discard the power of truth. So, instead of exclaiming with Ambrose, "O blessed violence!" we should, rather, exclaim, “O unseemly violence!"

Nor is the kingdom of heaven to be taken by violence in the sense understood by those who cling to the conventional interpretation of the text. is an entire perversion of our Saviour's teaching that leads anyone to think that God is tardy, that he gives grudgingly, that much strenuous conflict with him is needed to wring a reluctant blessing from his hand. It is difficult to see how such a conception of God could have prevailed. Jesus taught the willingness of God, and encouraged men to believe that he is more ready to give than they are to receive; that prayers and tears are not required to move his heart, and turn him to his children, and that they have no need to storm his strong castle, because its gates instead of being barred are forever open. As Archbishop Trench aptly remarks,

"We must not conceive of prayer as an overcoming of God's reluctance, but as a laying hold of his highest willingness." The case of Jacob is often referred to as an illustration of overcoming God by strong insistence, but all that the self-willed Jacob got by his wrestling with God was a shrunken sinew and lifelong lameness. It was only when he ceased to wrestle and clung in weakness that he became the prince of God and prevailed. Not as the conqueror of God, but as the conquered of God; not as a victorious warrior, but as a trustful child, does anyone enter the Kingdom of promise.

But while God does not require our urgent entreaty to exhort favor from his hand, we need the prolonged exercise of prayer to deepen our interest, and to bring us into a condition in which God can bless us and use us. Says William Law, "If God does not give to us at our first asking, if he only gives to those who are importunate, it is not because our prayers make any change in him, but because our importunity has made a change in ourselves, and rendered us proper objects of God's gifts and graces."

Wrestling is indeed needed, but it is to be with ourselves and not with God. We need many a tussle with our wayward hearts to crush the impulses of the flesh, and to put down the rising of selfishness and vainglory. We need much "holy wrestling in the night" with our too reluctant wills to overcome our natural obduracy and deadness, and to bring our motives and deeds into the light