hope that kept him upon his knees, by giving him the assurance that his outbreathed desire was in harmony with the mind and purpose of God.

4. Working in Prayer.

"Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers" (Col. 4. 12). The Revised Version reads, "always striving for you"; that is, striving earnestly like a combatant in the public games. The most strenuous forthputting of effort is indicated.

Epaphras was one of the minor characters among the disciples. We think of him as modest and shy, destitute of the gift of oratory, and occupying an inconspicuous place in the councils of the church. In all probability it was said of him that he was not much of a worker. If Paul ever heard a whisper of such a complaint he here corrects it by saying, "Epaphras is a worker, a great worker; he works mightily in prayer; while others pray in working he works in praying." The Latin proverb, Labore est orare, is often used to cover or excuse shortcomings in the prayer-life. It contains a great truth; but its converse "to pray is to work," is equally true. They also work who only kneel and pray.

Work shall be prayer if all is wrought
As thou wouldst have it done,

And prayer by Thee inspired and taught
Itself with work is one.

"Prayer," says Liddon, "is religion in action." It is "a distinct, unique, elemental power in the

spiritual universe, as pervasive and constant as the great occult powers of nature" (Austen Phelps). "When I pray for a man," says J. H. Jowett, "I am liberating a power in his behalf as real as the electric energy that glows in the carbon filament above us. You never do a finer work than when you finely pray." Prayer is "the combustion of a soul," by which is produced kenetic force, which, entering into the spiritual order, works out certain definite results. As a means to any and all of the important ends which we seek to reach, it has a place all its own.

But prayer is something more than the soul in action, the outthrusting of the spiritual self, the setting free and making operative of a hidden fountain of dynamical energy; it is the practical operation of a power which God himself has set in motion, the carrying out of a work which he is behind. When a Christian energizes in prayer for others it is God who energizes through him. His prayer is a connecting wire along which God transmits his power and flashes his message. It is a channel for the water of life to flow through into other souls; it is a cooperating force which God can use in bringing certain things to pass in the lives of others and in the life of the world which otherwise would not happen. "Through prayer God fulfills himself, having made the prayer of faith a potent energy in the universe; so that, if we would have the influence of the universe work together for good to one to whom we are

linked in visible and invisible ties, we owe it to that loved one and to ourselves and to God to pray in faith for his protection and guidance" (Dr. H. C. Trumbull).

Prayer thus enables a man to get above and beyond himself. It enlarges his personality. It redeems his life from spiritual impotence, by connecting it with the power and riches of the Infinite; it gives him the consciousness that he is not an unsupported unit, but that he has a whole infinity added to his value. However weak he may be himself, when he prays divine power is conveyed to him, and for the time being he becomes the agent through which it acts. It is therefore no overstatement of the case to say that "a man's power in the spiritual world is to be measured by his prayers" (Forbes Robinson).

Some idea of this kind must have been in Paul's mind when he spoke of Epaphras as energizing in prayer that his brethren at Colossæ "might stand perfect, and fully assured in all the will of God." He must have believed that the outflowing energy of this humble, praying saint flowed into the stream of the divine purpose; that the forthputting of his will gave direction to the will of God; that his prayer "moved the hand that moves the universe."

Such is the dignity and glory which the possession of this power puts upon a puny mortal. It makes him a medium of connection between the power-center of the universe and the souls of

men.

5. Prayer a Form of Service.

"Brethren, pray for us" (1 Thess. 5. 25). "Strive together with me in your prayers to God for me" (Rom. 15. 30). "Helping together on our behalf by your supplication" (2 Cor. I. II). The request for prayer is founded upon the conviction that in the network of influences by which souls are connected, and by which they are enabled to act upon one another, prayer has a place. Paul had no doubt whatever that prayer sets in motion influences by which other lives are affected. He believed that he could be helped by having others pray for him; he believed that in some way he did not understand others could labor together with him in prayer for success in the work, and that the two streams of prayer could meet and mingle. In this very way they could all join forces in helping on the work of human redemption.

In the list of "the distributions of the Spirit" given in 1 Cor. 12. 28 there is one gift which has been greatly overlooked, namely, the gift of "helps" or "services of help." This is a common gift, and is attained by those who do not possess such spectacular gifts as those of tongues or of healing. One form of that gift consists in helping by prayer. No form of help is more valuable than this, and it has the advantage of being open to all. In it the humblest may excel. To the shut-in ones it affords an illimitable field of action. It makes it possible for the most repressed and secluded life to exert the

most powerful influence. When shut out of what has been called active service we can pray. When age creeps on, and some forms of outward activity come to an end, we can pray,

"O power to do! O baffled will!

O prayer and action, ye are one!
Who may not strive may yet fulfill
The harder task of standing still,

And good but wished with God is done.”

Never can it be ever guessed how much the tempted, the sorrowful, and the sinful are helped by the prayers of God's saints. When Robert Murray McCheyne died some one remarked, “Perhaps the heaviest blow to his brethren, his people, and the land, is the loss of his intercessions." "I wonder," inquires Dr. J. H. Jowett, "which of the two was in the thick of the fight-Dr. Paton living out among the savage tribes of the New Hebrides, or his old mother praying for him in the town of Dumfries." Just as likely the latter. Perhaps the proper way to look at it is that taken by Hartman Von Aue in the lines,

He with the sword of battle, she at home in prayer, Both win a victory, and both the glory share.

It is not possible for anyone to measure the help that has come to him from the sincere prayers of Christian friends. Often when faint and weary he has received a strange accession of strength, and, like Luther, under similar circumstances, he has been led to exclaim, "I feel as if I were being prayed for." Some unseen Aaron and Hur may at the