vagrant thoughts, compelling them to turn in a new direction, and fixing them steadily upon God, for the main object of his retirement is not that he may become familiar with himself, but that he may become familiar with God. He leaves the multitude at the tent door, that he may enter into the secret place and learn the mind of his Great Commander, by whose authoritative word his every act is controlled. But while outward seclusion is an advantage for quiet, refreshing converse with God, it is not a necessity. We can find God in the crowded street car as well as in nature's solitudes; we can make a little sanctuary in the heart, where we are much alone with him as in the most peaceful sylvan retreat. As another has said, "Solitude may be found amidst the crowd, and society in the desert." "Everyone," says Jeremy Taylor, "can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on the altar." There is a viewless cloistered room As high as heaven, as fair as day, The closet is the closed place; the place from which the world is closed out, the place where the soul is closed in with God. In this closed place the soul may not only talk to God, but with him. The two are there alone, and hold the holiest communion. Outward separation is often unattainable, inward separation never is. 2. The Almightiness of the Prayer of Faith. "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive" (Matt. 21. 22). "All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11. 24). A more literal rendering of Mark's words would be, "Believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them"; that is, claim the thing asked for as yours; affirm your right to its possession; lay hands upon it, appropriating it to yourself, saying, "It is already mine," and stagger not at the greatness of the difficulties to be overcome or of the work to be done; for "whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it" (Mark II. 23). These words are not to be taken literally. They belong to the language of poetry. They have no reference to the workings of external changes in the realm of nature. All that they can possibly mean is that there are no obstacles, however great, that can permanently impede the conquering prayer of faith. Mountains of difficulty lie in the way obstructing the path of the Christian and obstructing the progress of the Kingdom. These he can neither scale, nor get around. They must be removed; but how? What hand is strong enough to tear them from their socket and hurl them into the sea? Jesus says the hand of the man who believes, and doubts not. Believes in what and in whom? Not he that believes in himself, surely. Faith in ourself does indeed work wonders. "They can because they believe they can," said Virgil of the winning crew in his famous boat race. But this is not the faith referred to here. The faith that removes mountains is not faith in one's own power but faith in the power of God. To remove the apparently insurmountable, Jesus says, "Have faith in God," literally, "Have the faith of God"; not, of course, the faith of which he is the subject, but the faith of which he is the object-the faith which terminates on him and rests in him; namely, faith in his illimitable resources, and in his infinite power. The power of faith is in its object. In the feeblest faith omnipotence is hidden, and through it omnipotence works. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed," says Jesus in another connection, "nothing shall be impossible unto you" (Matt. 17. 20). By faith we are united to the power of God, which, working in us and through us, accomplishes marvelous results. This union being moral, safeguards the use of power, and guarantees that there will be no desire to do anything except what God wants to have done. "When the desire reaches the will of God, and entering into it settles itself there, it has laid hold of omnipotence. No wonder therefore that all things are possible to the faith that goes along with it" (Morison, in loco). No wonder, indeed, when within and behind the believing soul are all the forces of the universe, so that it is not he that acts, but God who acts through him. And since to God belongs the power, to him be the glory forever. It was the usual way with Jesus, in stating truth, to speak without qualification; putting no shading in his picture, and adding no reservation to his promise. By adopting this method he sought to startle men to thought, and to awaken them to a sense of the greatness of spiritual facts and the almightiness of spiritual forces. His "whatsoever ye will," and "whatsoever ye shall ask," represent all limitations as giving way to faith-filled prayer, but his general teaching makes it clear that the prayer of faith is limitless within limits. Reason must always be employed in the interpretation of his teachings, which are to be taken in their entirety, one expression qualifying and explaining another. Due account must also be made of the fact that as an Oriental Jesus uses figures of speech which seem colorless and tame when translated into our cold and prosaic Occidental terms. We must therefore beware of paring down such words as those before us until all their force is lost. After all necessary qualifications have been made they will be found to teach that the prayer of faith has a sphere of its own in which it possesses a kind of "vicarious omnipotence." The history of the church furnishes a long list of saints who through faith achieved the impossible. Among the modern instances perhaps no one is pointed to more frequently than George Muller. His was a faith that could remove mountains. Professor James describes him as "a sturdy beggar," who took the promises of God seriously and literally, and who would not let God off until he gave him what he asked. Grant that his faith was put into a somewhat narrow setting, still it was real and vital, and full of force like a rock-bound stream. Everything had to give way before it. God honored it as he honors the strong faith of every saint, however much it may be mixed up with human frailty or with imperfect vision of his wider plan. To the humble Christian it brings comfort unspeakable to know that the promise does not read "according to your knowledge be it unto you," but "according to your faith." In the prayer-life the kingdom is given to the childlike. To the faithborn prayer of the feeblest saint everything that stands in the way of the fulfillment of God's purpose of grace must ultimately yield. 3. Exceptions. "Pray that your flight be not in the winter” (Mark 13. 18). The people to whom these words were addressed were living on the edge of one of the world's greatest catastrophes. As they beheld the gathering clouds they were forbidden to pray that the storm might not break and were told merely to pray that they might be able to adjust themselves to it, that its severity might be miti |