we ask in a Christian spirit. So that he only can pray heartily, whose heart is right with God,who is, in the deepest tendency of his hidden life, longing to know and love and serve God, as his main joy. The first preparation for prayer is to have this deep inner life of love. Out of this life, gratitude, supplication, confession, easily flow. The tendency of the soul being upward, the thoughts ascend easily, by their proper motion toward heaven, whenever the events of daily life supply the occasion. But where this tendency does not exist, there is always an effort required for prayer. In the one case the thoughts, like Milton's angels, tend naturally upward, by a specific levity, and descent or fall to them is adverse. In the other case, they tend downward by a specific gravity, toward the earthly end, the personal gratification, the egotistical triumph.

But supposing the main purpose and aim of life to be directed toward truth and right, the main current of the heart to be setting toward God and heaven, still it will happen that there will be eddies here and there running the other way. Often it will happen that we shall find ourselves for the time estranged from God, and then we shall often make the discovery of our estrangement by its effect upon our prayers. We

find it difficult to pray, we have nothing to say,

we pray from our memory of past needs, rather than from a sense of present ones. Our words mount up, our thoughts remain below. This state of mind indicates the estrangement of our heart from God, and warns us to return. Then a special preparation becomes necessary. We pray God to teach us how to pray.

We re

flect on our real needs till the desire for pardon, peace, the restoration of inward life, returns. We examine our past thoughts and actions till we discover what it is which has led us away from the true path. And so out of a genuine humility there springs up once more a sincere desire, and our prayer again becomes an utterance of the heart.

$ 27. Preparation of the Mind.

The mental preparation for prayer is given by the Apostle when he says, that "they who come to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of all those who diligently seek him." To pray, we must not only wish for what we pray, but believe that there is One who will give it in consequence of our asking. The former part of this essay has been intended to produce this conviction. But still special mental preparations

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are often necessary before the act of prayer, collecting of our thoughts, a consideration of our needs, a meditation on our circumstances.

First, consider the importance of preparation. Prayer is the highest act of the human soul, the most sublime moment in human life, the most wonderful privilege of man. It certainly gives a singular dignity to "the awful soul which dwells in clay," it certainly tends to destroy the vain distinctions of our outward life, and to inspire us with a just respect for the meanest of our fellowcreatures, to know that this high privilege belongs to all. That forlorn wretch, who has no human friend, may dwell in intimate friendship with the Sovereign of the world, that ignorant mind, in helpless darkness as regards all earthly knowledge, may possess himself of the highest idea in the universe, that sinner, whom even good men shrink from, may commune intimately with the All-Holy, the All-Glorious. But in proportion to the greatness and blessedness of this privilege, its perversion is the more deplorable. There is nothing in the world more ineffably blessed and sublime than true prayer. But when prayer becomes a form, a ceremony, a cold task, a decency, an external duty, it is the most offen sive of human falsehoods. Mock not God, de

grade not yourselves, by such prayers as these. A prayer which is felt to be merely a form comes over the soul of the sincere man like a freezing blast from a sea of ice. We wish to stop our ears and flee away from it.

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Prayer is approaching voluntarily the Holiest and Loftiest Being. You would not run heedlessly into the presence of an eminent person, would not go to visit a great or good man without some consideration of what you should say to him. You would wish to dress your mind in its best thoughts, to lay before him your choicest and most valued knowledge; you would wish to be in a calm, and true, and gentle mood. Is not equal reverence due to God? Prayer also is a great action. It requires energy to pray. It requires us to concentrate and direct our mind toward the Unseen, the Spiritual, the Infinite; and with earnest effort to carry up our thoughts, our needs, our love. But how often we pray without any such preparation, because the usual time for prayer has arrived ? Such prayers must very often be false and hollow, made up of words of wind. If we were always in a spiritual frame, no preparation would be necessary. But until we attain that spiritual state, until we become perfect men in Christ Jesus, until our whole life becomes

a prayer and a psalm, we should make a preparation, if only for a few moments, before every prayer. We should turn in, and examine our state of mind, and see whether we are ready to perform this high act.

Next consider the nature of this preparation. It should consist, first, in realizing the presence of God. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is," and that not merely in the cold and heartless assent of the intellect to the theological assertion that there is a First Cause. No. But if your mind has been separated from God by low cares, by worldly labors, if you have lost the sense of his great Presence, turn in, realize now where you are, who is near you, whose eye is upon you. That ever open eye, to whose glance the night shineth as the day, that dread Presence which walks unseen on our right hand and our left, that awful and Infinite Being who holds us in the hollow of his hand,realize that He is very nigh thee,— not afar off upon some distant throne, but giving thee the very breath which speaks his praise, moving the very pulse which throbs in warm gratitude to him, the life of thy life! Thus let thy words not be sent forth into a void inane to search for a distant Power, but breathed reverently to Him who knows the unuttered thought.