before asking for more. This interpretation does not, however, exhaust the meaning of these words. The apostle clearly teaches that not for past mercies alone are we to give thanks, but also for mercies. to come. He says, "with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." The contention that thanksgiving relates to what God has done, prayer to what we hope he will do, does not always hold. Thanks may be given for things asked for and hoped for. If God's word is sure, it will be quite as appropriate to thank him for what is promised, as for what is already in hand. The prudential proverb, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," expresses a half truth at best. There are times when a thing asked for is as really ours as if in actual possession. To ask in faith is to bring into the enjoyment of the present all the anticipated wealth and glory of the future. In the proportion to the strength of faith will be the disposition to praise God before we have outward evidence that our requests have been granted. In his pledged word faith finds "the confident expectation of things hoped for."

The exhortation of the apostle is to unite prayer and supplication with thanksgiving “in everything." Nothing can be sought in prayer which God cannot supply. His treasures are inexhaustible, and they are ours in the measure in which we can receive and use them. Raised above all fear of want or failure we are therefore warranted in turning our every prayer into a hymn of praise.

To do this is simply to anticipate God. It is to thank him in advance, as we often do in our letters to those of whom we ask some personal favor. Anticipating God, we will rejoice in the coming shower before it falls; we will sing our pæan of victory before the battle is on; we will give thanks before the Red Sea of difficulty has been crossed; we will look confidently for a door of deliverance in the valley of Achor; yea, we will wait for the ultimate issue of every event with unfaltering faith, and while waiting to enter upon our reserved inheritance we will receive earnests of it. Our present experiences will be more than prophetic. The hope of complete fulfillment will sustain our fainting hearts as we tread the heavenward way. By forestalling the future we will glorify the present.

13. Unceasing Prayer.

"Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5. 17). "Praying always" (Col. 1. 3). "Praying at all seasons" (Eph. 6. 18). These words must not be watered down to mean, Be always in the spirit of prayer. Their obvious meaning is, Offer unceasing supplication to God; let prayer flow upward to him in a constant stream; live in such unbroken connection with him that the most widely scattered prayers shall be as one.

In interpreting these words the mistake has been made of supposing that to pray without ceasing must always mean the conscious uplifting of the

heart to God in direct petition. We know that this is impossible. The soul cannot be always on the wing; its heavenward flight cannot be steadily maintained. It must sometimes touch the earth. "Prayer," says the poet Longfellow, "flieth incessant 'twixt the earth and the sky, the carrier pigeon of heaven" ; but the strongest wing will grow weary. The uplifted hands which are long uplifted will hang down. As a specific act of devotion prayer will sooner or later come to an end; as a state of mind and heart it may continue without ceasing. Beneath the strata of the worldly thoughts and interests and activities may run the ever-flowing stream of holy desire. When the lips are mute the heart may speak; when the praying soul has spoken himself out and words refuse to flow, his prayer may continue.

(1) The whole life may be in itself an unceasing prayer. As Victor Hugo has said, "Whatever the attitude of the body, the soul may be upon its knees." And when the soul is upon its knees the life will be one living, breathing prayer. Along with a life of prayer there will be the prayer of a life. "When we have learned to offer up any duty connected with our situation in life as a sacrifice to God," says Thomas Erskine, "a settled employment just becomes a settled habit of prayer." In such a case prayer is as unceasing as life; it continues as long as life continues, and ends only when life itself ends.

Prayer being rooted in life, its formal expression

is simply the upthrusting of the subconscious self, the breaking of a bubble which rises from the soul's unfathomable depths; it may go on in the subconscious region when it has run out in conscious experience, just as love goes on in our sleeping and in our waking. This Mrs. Browning affirms in the lines,

In a mother undefiled,

Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true

And pauseless, as the pulses do.

(2) We may also pray without ceasing in the sense of cherishing a feeling of unbroken dependence upon God. Prayer springs from the consciousness of creature insufficiency, coupled with a belief in Divine all-sufficiency. It is the turning of man in his emptiness to the source of his supply. Man prays because he finds himself inadequate to the things of life. Life's burdens are too heavy to be carried alone, life's problems are too hard to be solved alone, life's sorrows are too great to be borne alone, life's duties are too difficult to be performed alone.

In nothing is man sufficient unto himself; in no condition can he dispense with God. God is a felt necessity. Dependence is as real as existence. And what is prayer but his acknowledgment of his need of God? And what is unceasing prayer but his unceasing dependence on God's unceasing love, as he quietly rests in him as the underlying support of his life?

(3) Above all, we are to pray without ceasing

in the sense that we are to pray without ceasing to trust. One prayer is to be linked to another in a continuous chain of faith. There is to be no let-up to faith and hope, but a confident expectation that the things asked for will be granted. This is the vital thing in unceasing prayer. If faith fail not, prayer will be unceasing, however infrequently it is offered up; for, no matter how many interruptions come in to break up our devotions, we will always take up our prayer where we left it off. Our most fragmentary prayers will thus be united by a common faith into one continuous whole.

When a man plunges into business God is necessarily out of his immediate thought, and formal prayer is out of the question. The more absorbed he is in the matter in hand the less he will carry the deeper interests of life in mind; yet underneath all business strain and worry there may be a firm and unshakable faith in God touching the things which have been desired of him; and the faith which underlies life may join together its separate parts as a cable under the ocean connects widely separated continents. Or, to change the figure, what seemed a break in the symphony of life may in reality be a mere interlude between its parts.

No one ceases to pray who continues to trust. Parents pray for the conversion of a wayward child and see no results. Months change into years, and still the answer is delayed; yet if they continue. to trust their covenant God, they are praying without ceasing. Assured that he has heard them, they