pression that spiritual things are secondary in our thoughts. In intercessory prayer, as in prayer for ourselves, the primacy must always be given to the spiritual.

But does some one ask, "If God is doing all that he wisely and righteously can for the highest good of all his children, what is the use of asking him to do more?" As well ask, "If God is doing all that he wisely and righteously can for the highest good of all his children, why trouble ourselves about their betterment?" The answer is that in both instances we are helping God; and we are helping him because he needs and asks our help. Intercessory prayer finds its explanation and justification in the fact that it is an appointed way of helping God to distribute his richest blessings to the largest number of his children.

II. The Universality of Prayer.

"For all the saints" (Eph. 6. 18). "For all men" (1 Tim. 2. 1). Prayer takes us out of ourselves; it delivers us from our limitations; it lifts us up into the universal; it connects us with the Infinite. True prayer is never provincial; but is as wide in its sweep as the grace of God and the need of

man.

Here are the two great universalities of prayer. They include all who can possibly be made the subjects of prayer.

(1) All saints. Prayer is to be made for all saints, without distinction and without exception;

for unsaintly saints, for unorthodox saints, for all who have in them any trace of sainthood. Paul himself prayed that God's grace might be sent upon "all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place” (1 Cor. 1. 2), and upon all "that love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible" (Eph. 6. 24). He recognized his oneness with the whole body of believers; he looked upon them as constituting a great household of which he was a member, hence he identified their interests with his own. His love for the brethren overleaped all personal preferences and differences of opinion and bound them to him with a tie which nothing could break. It is true that sectarian barriers had not then been erected, and he had not these to surmount; but the human heart is ever the same, and catholicity of spirit is a thing of grace.

With the splitting of the church into so many divisions it has become more difficult for any one saint to pray for all other saints. It is hard for Protestant saints to pray for Roman Catholic saints, or for Roman Catholic saints to pray for Protestant saints. It is hard for the warring sects to include each other in God's covenanted mercies and to pray for each other's successes. It is so easy to substitute prayer for our church, or prayer for the church; so easy to pray that our ecclesiastical fleece may be wet with the dew of heaven, even if all others should be dry. Perhaps there is no more searching test of the spirit of prayer than thisDoes it shut out any whom God receives? All

heaven-born prayer will embrace the whole of God's spiritual children, whatever name or sign they may bear; it will implore the benison of heaven to rest upon them, and will ask that they may speedily be brought together, and "become one flock, one shepherd."

(2) All men. Prayer is to be made for all sorts and conditions of men. "For kings and all that are in high places." In the case to whom these words were originally addressed it was to include that monster Nero, who was at that time reigning in Rome. But not for kings and rulers only is prayer to be made; it is to be made "for all men," from the king on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill. If this world-embracing view of prayer has become a religious commonplace, it is well to remember that the change has come about because of the new social atmosphere which Christianity has produced, and the new sense of humanity which it has awakened. When these words were written it was something entirely new.

Two of the leading festivals of the Roman Catholic Church are "All Saints' Day" and "All Souls' Day." What these days stand for and emphasize should permeate the prayer life of Christendom. Not at set times only, but at all times, is prayer to be made for all saints and for all souls. The praying Christian should rise superior to all religious and racial prejudices; instead of being provincial in his outlook, clannish in his spirit, restricted in his sympathy, he should have regard to Christians

as Christians, and to men as men; he should look upon the whole world of men through God's eyes; feel toward them as God feels. Instead of setting up his little stakes, and saying to the outflowing tide of divine love, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further," he should make his prayer express God's universal good will to the children of men.

(a) He is to pray for all men; "for there is one God" . . . "who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth"; one God who sustains the same relation to all, and who has the same purpose of redemption regarding all; one God who is everybody's God, as the sun is everybody's sun; one God of whose grace no one has a monopoly. Where God makes no distinction in his saving purpose, what ground has anyone to make distinction in his prayers?

(b) He is also to pray for all men, "for there is

one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." The universality of Christ's mediatorship affords a reason as urgent as it is cogent for the universality of prayer. Its implication is this: Pray for all men everywhere; for the despised classes, for the outcast classes, for the most debased and imbruted of men; pray for them because in Christ has been provided the means of their salvation; pray for them because your prayers may be one link in the chain of influences to bring them into the connection with the source of salvation.

To have the lips sealed, for any cause, against prayer for a single soul anywhere in God's universe, is to stand outside of his redeeming purpose. He prayeth best who loveth best the whole of human kind; and he most resembles God who has a wideness in his love like the wideness of the sea.

12. The Anticipatory Element in Prayer.

"In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4. 6). "The beginning of anxiety," says Andrew Murray, "is the end of faith"; and, vice versa, the beginning of faith is the end of anxiety. The prayer of faith is the grave of care. In everything pray, and care will take to itself wings and fly away. "Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer and prayer driveth away trouble and perplexity."

Prayer and supplication are here conjoined, as they often are elsewhere in the Scripture. "Prayer" is the general word, and indicates communion with God in any of its aspects; "supplication" has reference to prayer for the supply of special wants. In everything we are to pray to God and supplicate his aid; praying with a purpose, making definite requests, asking specific blessings, and leaving, with a care-free heart, the disposal of things to his wisdom and love.

The qualifying phrase "with thanksgiving" is full of significance. The common explanation of these words is that thanks is to be given for past mercies,