CHAPTER I

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THE

MINISTRY OF INTERCESSION

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

BY THE

REV. ANDREW MURRAY

WELLINGTON, S. AFRICA

AUTHOR OF

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" "ABIDE IN CHRIST"

"WAITING ON GOD" "THE LORD'S TABLE"

ETC. ETC.

"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,

which shall never hold their peace day nor night:

ye that are the Lord's remembrancers, keep not

silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish,

and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."

ISA. lxii. 6, 7.

_THIRD EDITION_

London

JAMES NISBET & CO. LIMITED

21 BERNERS STREET, W.

1898

PRINTED BY

MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED

EDINBURGH

TO

MY BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY

AND

OTHER FELLOW-LABOURERS IN THE GOSPEL

WHOM IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO MEET

IN THE CONVENTIONS AT

LANGLAAGTE, JOHANNESBURG, AND HEILBRON

DURBAN AND PIETERMARITZBURG

KING WILLIAM'S TOWN, PORT ELIZABETH

AND STELLENBOSCH

THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE LACK OF PRAYER 9

II. THE MINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND PRAYER 20

III. A MODEL OF INTERCESSION 31

IV. BECAUSE OF HIS IMPORTUNITY 43

V. THE LIFE THAT CAN PRAY 55

VI. RESTRAINING PRAYER--IS IT SIN? 67

VII. WHO SHALL DELIVER? 78

VIII. WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE? 91

IX. THE SECRET OF EFFECTUAL PRAYER 104

X. THE SPIRIT OF SUPPLICATION 116

XI. IN THE NAME OF CHRIST 129

XII. MY GOD WILL HEAR ME 143

XIII. PAUL A PATTERN OF PRAYER 155

XIV. GOD SEEKS INTERCESSORS 169

XV. THE COMING REVIVAL 180

NOTE A 193

NOTE B 194

NOTE C 195

NOTE D 196

NOTE E 198

NOTE F 199

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING: HELPS TO INTERCESSION 201

THE MINISTRY OF INTERCESSION

There is no holy service

But hath its secret bliss:

Yet, of all blessed ministries,

Is one so dear as this?

The ministry that cannot be

A wondering seraph's dower,

Enduing mortal weakness

With more than angel-power;

The ministry of purest love

Uncrossed by any fear,

That bids us meet At the Master's feet

And keeps us very near.

God's ministers are many,

For this His gracious will,

Remembrancers that day and night

This holy office fill.

While some are hushed in slumber,

Some to fresh service wake,

And thus the saintly number

No change or chance can break.

And thus the sacred courses

Are evermore fulfilled,

The tide of grace By time or place

Is never stayed or stilled.

Oh, if our ears were opened

To hear as angels do

The Intercession-chorus

Arising full and true,

We should hear it soft up-welling

In morning's pearly light;

Through evening's shadows swelling

In grandly gathering might;

The sultry silence filling

Of noontide's thunderous glow,

And the solemn starlight thrilling

With ever-deepening flow.

We should hear it through the rushing

Of the city's restless roar,

And trace its gentle gushing

O'er ocean's crystal floor:

We should hear it far up-floating

Beneath the Orient moon,

And catch the golden noting

From the busy Western noon;

And pine-robed heights would echo

As the mystic chant up-floats,

And the sunny plain Resound again

With the myriad-mingling notes.

Who are the blessed ministers

Of this world-gathering band?

All who have learnt one language,

Through each far-parted land;

All who have learnt the story

Of Jesu's love and grace,

And are longing for His glory

To shine in every face.

All who have known the Father

In Jesus Christ our Lord,

And know the might And love the light

Of the Spirit in the Word.

Yet there are some who see not

Their calling high and grand,

Who seldom pass the portals,

And never boldly stand

Before the golden altar

On the crimson-stained floor,

Who wait afar and falter,

And dare not hope for more.

Will ye not join the blessed ranks

In their beautiful array?

Let intercession blend with thanks

As ye minister to-day!

There are little ones among them

Child-ministers of prayer,

White robes of intercession

Those tiny servants wear.

First for the near and dear ones

Is that fair ministry,

Then for the poor black children,

So far beyond the sea.

The busy hands are folded,

As the little heart uplifts

In simple love, To God above,

Its prayer for all good gifts.

There are hands too often weary

With the business of the day,

With God-entrusted duties,

Who are toiling while they pray.

They bear the golden vials,

And the golden harps of praise

Through all the daily trials,

Through all the dusty ways,

These hands, so tired, so faithful,

With odours sweet are filled,

And in the ministry of prayer

Are wonderfully skilled.

There are ministers unlettered,

Not of Earth's great and wise,

Yet mighty and unfettered

Their eagle-prayers arise.

Free of the heavenly storehouse!

For they hold the master-key

That opens all the fulness

Of God's great treasury.

They bring the needs of others,

And all things are their own,

For their one grand claim Is Jesu's name

Before their Father's throne.

There are noble Christian workers,

The men of faith and power,

The overcoming wrestlers

Of many a midnight hour;

Prevailing princes with their God,

Who will not be denied,

Who bring down showers of blessing

To swell the rising tide.

The Prince of Darkness quaileth

At their triumphant way,

Their fervent prayer availeth

To sap his subtle sway.

But in this temple service

Are sealed and set apart

Arch-priests of intercession,

Of undivided heart.

The fulness of anointing

On these is doubly shed,

The consecration of their God

Is on each low-bowed head.

They bear the golden vials

With white and trembling hand;

In quiet room Or wakeful gloom

These ministers must stand,--

To the Intercession-Priesthood

Mysteriously ordained,

When the strange dark gift of suffering

This added gift hath gained.

For the holy hands uplifted

In suffering's longest hour

Are truly Spirit-gifted

With intercession-power.

The Lord of Blessing fills them

With His uncounted gold,

An unseen store, Still more and more,

Those trembling hands shall hold.

Not always with rejoicing

This ministry is wrought,

For many a sigh is mingled

With the sweet odours brought.

Yet every tear bedewing

The faith-fed altar fire

May be its bright renewing

To purer flame, and higher.

But when the oil of gladness

God graciously outpours,

The heavenward blaze, With blended praise,

More mightily upsoars.

So the incense-cloud ascendeth

As through calm, crystal air,

A pillar reaching unto heaven

Of wreathed faith and prayer.

For evermore the Angel

Of Intercession stands

In His Divine High Priesthood

With fragrance-filled hands,

To wave the golden censer

Before His Father's throne,

With Spirit-fire intenser,

And incense all His own.

And evermore the Father

Sends radiantly down

All-marvellous responses,

His ministers to crown;

The incense-cloud returning

As golden blessing-showers,

We in each drop discerning

Some feeble prayer of ours,

Transmuted into wealth unpriced,

By Him who giveth thus

The glory all to Jesus Christ,

The gladness all to us!

F. R. HAVERGAL.

_September_ 1877.

INTRODUCTION

I have been asked by a friend, who heard of this book being published,

what the difference would be between it and the previous one on the same

subject, WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. An answer to that question

may be the best introduction I can give to the present volume.

Any acceptance the former work has had must be attributed, as far as the

contents go, to the prominence given to two great truths. The one was,

the certainty that prayer will be answered. There is with some an idea

that to ask and expect an answer is not the highest form of prayer.

Fellowship with God, apart from any request, is more than supplication.

About the petition there is something of selfishness and bargaining--to

worship is more than to beg. With others the thought that prayer is so

often unanswered is so prominent, that they think more of the spiritual

benefit derived from the exercise of prayer than the actual gifts to be

obtained by it. While admitting the measure of truth in these views,

when kept in their true place, THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER points out how our

Lord continually spoke of prayer as a means of obtaining what we desire,

and how He seeks in every possible way to waken in us the confident

expectation of an answer. I was led to show how prayer, in which a man

could enter into the mind of God, could assert the royal power of a

renewed will, and bring down to earth what without prayer would not have

been given, is the highest proof of his having been made in the likeness

of God's Son. He is found worthy of entering into fellowship with Him,

not only in adoration and worship, but in having his will actually taken

up into the rule of the world, and becoming the intelligent channel

through which God can fulfil his eternal purpose. The book sought to

reiterate and enforce the precious truths Christ preaches so

continually: the blessing of prayer is that you can ask and receive what

you will: the highest exercise and the glory of prayer is that

persevering importunity can prevail and obtain what God at first could

not and would not give.

With this truth there was a second one that came out very strongly as we

studied the Master's words. In answer to the question, But why, if the

answer to prayer is so positively promised, why are there such

numberless unanswered prayers? we found that Christ taught us that the

answer depended upon certain conditions. He spoke of faith, of

perseverance, of praying in His Name, of praying in the will of God. But

all these conditions were summed up in the one central one: "_If ye

abide in Me_, ask whatsoever ye will and it shall be done unto you." It

became clear that the power to pray the effectual prayer of faith

depended _upon the life_. It is only to a man given up to live as

entirely in Christ and for Christ as the branch in the vine and for the

vine, that these promises can come true. "_In that day_," Christ said,

the day of Pentecost, "ye shall ask in My Name." It is only in a life

full of the Holy Spirit that the true power to ask in Christ's Name can

be known. This led to the emphasising the truth that the ordinary

Christian life cannot appropriate these promises. It needs a spiritual

life, altogether sound and vigorous, to pray in power. The teaching

naturally led to press the need of a life of entire consecration. More

than one has told me how it was in the reading of the book that he first

saw what the better life was that could be lived, and must be lived, if

Christ's wonderful promises are to come true to us.

In regard to these two truths there is no change in the present volume.

One only wishes that one could put them with such clearness and force as

to help every beloved fellow-Christian to some right impression of the

reality and the glory of our privilege as God's children: "Ask

whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." The present volume

owes its existence to the desire to enforce two truths, of which

formerly I had no such impression as now.

The one is--that Christ actually meant prayer to be the great power by

which His Church should do its work, and that the neglect of prayer is

the great reason the Church has not greater power over the masses in

Christian and in heathen countries. In the first chapter I have stated

how my convictions in regard to this have been strengthened, and what

gave occasion to the writing of the book. It is meant to be, on behalf

of myself and my brethren in the ministry and all God's people, a

confession of shortcoming and of sin, and, at the same time, a call to

believe that things can be different, and that Christ waits to fit us by

His Spirit to pray as He would have us. This call, of course, brings me

back to what I spoke of in connection with the former volume: that there

is a life in the Spirit, a life of abiding in Christ, within our reach,

in which the power of prayer--both the power to pray and the power to

obtain the answer--can be realised in a measure which we could not have

thought possible before. Any failure in the prayer-life, any desire or

hope really to take the place Christ has prepared for us, brings us to

the very root of the doctrine of grace as manifested in the Christian

life. It is only by a full surrender to the life of abiding, by the

yielding to the fulness of the Spirit's leading and quickening, that the

prayer-life can be restored to a truly healthy state. I feel deeply how

little I have been able to put this in the volume as I could wish. I

have prayed and am trusting that God, who chooses the weak things, will

use it for His own glory.

The second truth which I have sought to enforce is that we have far too

little conception of the place that intercession, as distinguished from

prayer for ourselves, ought to have in the Church and the Christian

life. In intercession our King upon the throne finds His highest glory;

in it we shall find our highest glory too. Through it He continues His

saving work, and can do nothing without it; through it alone we can do

our work, and nothing avails without it. In it He ever receives from the

Father the Holy Spirit and all spiritual blessings to impart; in it we

too are called to receive in ourselves the fulness of God's Spirit, with

the power to impart spiritual blessing to others. The power of the

Church truly to bless rests on intercession--asking and receiving

heavenly gifts to carry to men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that

where, owing to lack of teaching or spiritual insight, we trust in

our own diligence and effort, to the influence of the world and the

flesh, and work more than we pray, the presence and power of God are not

seen in our work as we would wish.

Such thoughts have led me to wonder what could be done to rouse

believers to a sense of their high calling in this, and to help and

train them to take part in it. And so this book differs from the former

one in the attempt to open a practising school, and to invite all who

have never taken systematic part in the great work of intercession to

begin and give themselves to it. There are tens of thousands of workers

who have known and are proving wonderfully what prayer can do. But there

are tens of thousands who work with but little prayer, and as many more

who do not work because they do not know how or where, who might all be

won to swell the host of intercessors who are to bring down the

blessings of heaven to earth. For their sakes, and the sake of all who

feel the need of help, I have prepared helps and hints for a school of

intercession for a month (see the Appendix). I have asked those who

would join, to begin by giving at least ten minutes a day definitely to

this work. It is in doing that we learn to do; it is as we take hold and

begin that the help of God's Spirit will come. It is as we daily hear

God's call, and at once put it into practice, that the consciousness

will begin to live in us, I too am an intercessor; and that we shall

feel the need of living in Christ and being full of the Spirit if we are

to do this work aright. Nothing will so test and stimulate the Christian

life as the honest attempt to be an intercessor. It is difficult to

conceive how much we ourselves and the Church will be the gainers, if

with our whole heart we accept the post of honour God is offering us.

With regard to the school of intercession, I am confident that the

result of the first month's course will be to awake the feeling of how

little we know how to intercede. And a second and a third month may only

deepen the sense of ignorance and unfitness. This will be an unspeakable

blessing. The confession, "We know not how to pray as we ought," is the

introduction to the experience, "The Spirit maketh intercession for

us"--our sense of ignorance will lead us to depend upon the Spirit

praying in us, to feel the need of living in the Spirit.

We have heard a great deal of systematic Bible study, and we praise God

for thousands on thousands of Bible classes and Bible readings. Let all

the leaders of such classes see whether they could not open prayer

classes--helping their students to pray in secret, and training them to

be, above everything, men of prayer. Let ministers ask what they can do

in this. The faith in God's word can nowhere be so exercised and

perfected as in the intercession that asks and expects and looks out

for the answer. Throughout Scripture, in the life of every saint, of

God's own Son, throughout the history of God's Church, God is, first of

all, a prayer-hearing God. Let us try and help God's children to know

their God, and encourage all God's servants to labour with the

assurance: the chief and most blessed part of my work is to ask and

receive from my Father what I can bring to others.

It will now easily be understood how what this book contains will be

nothing but the confirmation and the call to put into practice the two

great lessons of the former one. "_Ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall

be done to you_"; "_Whatever ye ask, believe that ye have received_":

these great prayer-promises, as part of the Church's enduement of power

for her work, are to be taken as literally and actually true. "_If ye

abide in Me, and My words abide in you_"; "_In that day ye shall ask in

My Name_": these great prayer-conditions are universal and unchangeable.

A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit, a life entirely

given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has the power to claim

these promises and to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much.

Lord, teach us to pray.

ANDREW MURRAY.

WELLINGTON, _1st September 1897_.

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

CHAPTER I

The Lack of Prayer

"Ye have not, because ye ask not."--JAS. iv. 2.

"And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no

intercessor."--ISA. lix. 16.

"There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself

to take hold of Thee."--ISA. lxiv. 7.

At our last Wellington Convention for the Deepening of the Spiritual

Life, in April, the forenoon meetings were devoted to prayer and

intercession. Great blessing was found, both in listening to what the

Word teaches of their need and power, and in joining in continued united

supplication. Many felt that we know too little of persevering

importunate prayer, and that it is indeed one of the greatest needs of

the Church.

During the past two months I have been attending a number of

Conventions. At the first, a Dutch Missionary Conference at Langlaagte,

Prayer had been chosen as the subject of the addresses. At the next, at

Johannesburg, a brother in business gave expression to his deep

conviction that the great want of the Church of our day was, more of the

spirit and practice of intercession. A week later we had a Dutch

Ministerial Conference in the Free State, where three days were spent,

after two days' services in the congregation on the work of the Holy

Spirit, in considering the relation of the Spirit to prayer. At the

ministerial meetings held at most of the succeeding conventions, we were

led to take up the subject, and everywhere there was the confession: We

pray too little! And with this there appeared to be a fear that, with

the pressure of duty and the force of habit, it was almost impossible to

hope for any great change.

I cannot say what a deep impression was made upon me by these

conversations. Most of all, by the thought that there should be anything

like hopelessness on the part of God's servants as to the prospect of an

entire change being effected, and real deliverance found from a failure

which cannot but hinder our own joy in God, and our power in His

service. And I prayed God to give me words that might not only help to

direct attention to the evil, but, specially, that might stir up faith,

and waken the assurance that God by His Spirit will enable us to pray as

we ought.

Let me begin, for the sake of those who have never had their attention

directed to the matter, by stating some of the facts that prove how

universal is the sense of shortcoming in this respect.

Last year there appeared a report of an address to ministers by Dr.

Whyte, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh. In that he said that, as a young

minister, he had thought that, of the time he had over from pastoral

visitation, he ought to spend as much as possible with his books in his

study. He wanted to feed his people with the very best he could prepare

for them. But he had now learned that prayer was of more importance than

study. He reminded his brethren of the election of deacons to take

charge of the collections, that the twelve might "give themselves to

prayer and the ministry of the word," and said that at times, when the

deacons brought him his salary, he had to ask himself whether he had

been as faithful in his engagement as the deacons had been to theirs.

He felt as if it were almost too late to regain what he had lost, and

urged his brethren to pray more. What a solemn confession and warning

from one of the high places: We pray too little!

During the Regent Square Convention two years ago the subject came up in

conversation with a well-known London minister. He urged that if so much

time must be given to prayer, it would involve the neglect of the

imperative calls of duty "There is the morning post, before breakfast,

with ten or twelve letters which _must_ be answered. Then there are

committee meetings waiting, with numberless other engagements, more than

enough to fill up the day. It is difficult to see how it can be done."

My answer was, in substance, that it was simply a question of whether

the call of God for our time and attention was of more importance than

that of man. If God was waiting to meet us, and to give us blessing and

power from heaven for His work, it was a short-sighted policy to put

other work in the place which God and waiting on Him should have.

At one of our ministerial meetings, the superintendent of a large

district put the case thus: "I rise in the morning and have half an

hour with God, in the Word and prayer, in my room before breakfast. I go

out, and am occupied all day with a multiplicity of engagements. I do

not think many minutes elapse without my breathing a prayer for guidance

or help. After my day's work, I return in my evening devotions and speak

to God of the day's work. But of the intense, definite, importunate

prayer of which Scripture speaks one knows little." What, he asked, must

I think of such a life?

We all know the difference between a man whose profits are just enough

to maintain his family and keep up his business, and another whose

income enables him to extend the business and to help others. There may

be an earnest Christian life in which there is prayer enough to keep us

from going back, and just maintain the position we have attained to,

without much of growth in spirituality or Christlikeness. The attitude

is more defensive, seeking to ward off temptation, than aggressive,

reaching out after higher attainment. If there is indeed to be a going

from strength to strength, with some large experience of God's power to

sanctify ourselves and to bring down real blessing on others, there must

be more definite and persevering prayer. The Scripture teaching about

crying day and night, continuing steadfastly in prayer, watching unto

prayer, being heard for his importunity, must in some degree become our

experience if we are really to be intercessors.

At the very next Convention the same question was put in somewhat

different form. "I am at the head of a station, with a large outlying

district to care for. I see the importance of much prayer, and yet my

life hardly leaves room for it. Are we to submit? Or tell us how we can

attain to what we desire?" I admitted that the difficulty was universal.

I recalled the words of one of our most honoured South African

missionaries, now gone to his rest: he had the same complaint. "In the

morning at five the sick people are at the door waiting for medicine. At

six the printers come, and I have to set them to work and teach them. At

nine the school calls me, and till late at night I am kept busy with a

large correspondence." In my answer I quoted a Dutch proverb: 'What _is_

heaviest must _weigh_ heaviest,'--must have the first place. The law of

God is unchangeable: as on earth, so in our traffic with heaven, we only

get as we give. Unless we are willing to pay the price, and sacrifice

time and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties, for

the sake of the heavenly gifts, we need not look for a large experience

of the power of the heavenly world in our work. The whole company

present joined in the sad confession; it had been thought over, and

mourned over, times without number; and yet, somehow, there they were,

all these pressing claims, and all the ineffectual resolves to pray

more, barring the way. I need not now say to what further thoughts our

conversation led; the substance of them will be found in some of the

later chapters in this volume.

Let me call just one more witness. In the course of my journey I met

with one of the Cowley Fathers, who had just been holding Retreats for

clergy of the English Church. I was interested to hear from him the line

of teaching he follows. In the course of conversation he used the

expression--"the distraction of business," and it came out that he found

it one of the great difficulties he had to deal with in himself and

others. Of himself, he said that by the vows of his Order he was bound

to give himself specially to prayer. But he found it exceedingly

difficult. Every day he had to be at four different points of the town

he lived in; his predecessor had left him the charge of a number of

committees where he was expected to do all the work; it was as if

everything conspired to keep him from prayer.

All this testimony surely suffices to make clear that prayer has not the

place it ought to have in our ministerial and Christian life; that the

shortcoming is one of which all are willing to make confession; and that

the difficulties in the way of deliverance are such as to make a return

to a true and full prayer-life almost impossible. Blessed be God--"The

things that are impossible with men are possible with God"! "God is able

to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all

sufficiency in all things, may abound to all good work." Do let us

believe that God's call to much prayer need not be a burden and cause of

continual self-condemnation. He means it to be a joy. He can make it an

inspiration, giving us strength for all our work, and bringing down His

power to work through us in our fellowmen. Let us not fear to admit to

the full the sin that shames us, and then to face it in the name of our

Mighty Redeemer. _The light that shows us our sin and condemns us for

it, will show us the way out of it, into the life of liberty that is

well-pleasing to God._ If we allow this one matter, unfaithfulness in

prayer, to convict us of the lack in our Christian life which lies at

the root of it, God will use the discovery to bring us not only the

power to pray that we long for, but the joy of a new and healthy life,

of which prayer is the spontaneous expression.

And what is now the way by which our sense of the lack of prayer can be

made the means of blessing, the entrance on a path in which the evil may

be conquered? How can our intercourse with the Father, in continual

prayer and intercession, become what it ought to be, if we and the world

around us are to be blessed? As it appears to me, we must begin by going

back to God's Word, to study what _the place is God means prayer to

have_ in the life of His child and His Church. A fresh sight of what

prayer is _according to the will of God_, of what our prayers can be,

_through the grace of God_, will free us from those feeble defective

views, in regard to the absolute necessity of continual prayer, which

lie at the root of our failure. As we get an insight into the

reasonableness and rightness of this divine appointment, and come under

the full conviction of how wonderfully it fits in with God's love and

our own happiness, we shall be freed from the false impression of its

being an arbitrary demand. We shall with our whole heart and soul

consent to it and rejoice in it, as the one only possible way for the

blessing of heaven to come to earth. All thought of task and burden, of

self-effort and strain, will pass away in the blessed faith that as

simple as breathing is in the healthy natural life, will praying be in

the Christian life that is led and filled by the Spirit of God.

As we occupy ourselves with and accept this teaching of God's Word on

prayer, we shall be led to see how our failure in the prayer-life was

owing to failure in the Spirit-life. Prayer is one of the most heavenly

and spiritual of the functions of the Spirit-life. How could we try or

expect to fulfil it so as to please God, except as our soul is in

perfect health, and our life truly possessed and moved by God's Spirit?

The insight into the place God means prayer to take, and which it only

can take, in a full Christian life, will show us that we have not been

living the true, the abundant life, and that any thought of praying more

and effectually will be vain, except as we are brought into a closer

relation to our Blessed Lord Jesus. Christ is our life, Christ liveth in

us, in such reality that His life of prayer on earth, and of

intercession in heaven, is breathed into us in just such measure as our

surrender and our faith allow and accept it. Jesus Christ is the Healer

of all diseases, the Conqueror of all enemies, the Deliverer from all

sin; if our failure teaches us to turn afresh to Him, and find in Him

the grace He gives to pray as we ought, this humiliation may become our

greatest blessing. Let us all unite in praying God that He would visit

our souls and fit us for that work of intercession, which is at this

moment the greatest need of the Church and the world. It is only by

intercession that that power can be brought down from Heaven which will

enable the Church to conquer the world. Let us stir up the slumbering

gift that is lying unused, and seek to gather and train and band

together as many as we can, to be God's remembrancers, and to give Him

no rest till He makes His Church a joy in the earth. Nothing but intense

believing prayer can meet the intense spirit of worldliness, of which

complaint is everywhere made.

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER