solemn duty-and it is one which easily commends itself to the conscience and the judgment -to throw the spirit of supplication into the most rational forms which our knowledge enables us to create. It is surely a mistake to force ourselves to pray for things which do not impress us as fit objects of deliberate desire. Liberty in this respect should be allowed to individual consciences; and at the same time it might be hoped that tolerance, a reverent tolerance unmixed with contempt, should be shown by more cultivated and philosophical minds towards the humbler prayers of the more ignorant.

For they who recognise in any degree the nature and relation of man as a son of God can scarcely fail to admit, that it is well for a man to bring all his thoughts, whatever they are, into the presence of his unseen Father. It is better, a thousand times better, that he should put the most foolish and irrational desires into prayer, than that he should throw himself into the same desires without remembering God. Not that no praying can be bad. Prayer may be bad, it can hardly be good, when it is addressed to a capricious being, to a tyrant who may be coaxed or soothed or bribed, in order to obtain some

private advantage.

And there is room for

earnest thought and endeavour in the effort to keep the image of the Fatherly will of God pure and clear before the mind. But, if it be remembered who and what God is, then, I think, it may be said without limit, it is good for a man to bring all his desires to God and to turn them into prayers, that God himself may teach him what desires are worthy of a child of his, and from what he needs to be purged.

After all, I may seem to have evaded the question as to the efficacy of prayer. Can we expect that God will do what we ask any the more for our asking? Are we ready to bring this question to the practical test of experiment? I confess to a shrinking from such an inquiry, as from one which it is neither reverent nor useful to prosecute. But that this feeling may not be reasonably attributed to the consciousness of a bad case, we are bound to try to justify it. Let due consideration, then, be given to the fact, that prayer, when it comes to be regarded as efficacious-that is, as a machinery for securing results-is beginning to pass into a hurtful and irreverent superstition. No doubt we here confront a paradox. We are taught to believe in the efficacy of prayer; we may be satisfied that

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prayers have brought down definite blessings from heaven; but the moment we begin to act in a business like manner upon a theory of the efficacy of prayer, we cease to pray acceptably. This, let it be borne in mind, is not a mere makeshift of an argument, introduced to cover a weak point; it is a first principle in the doctrine of prayer. If, therefore, specific fulfilments were fixedly or even abundantly assigned to human prayers, a great evil would almost inevitably be created. Prayer would cease to be, in the deepest and truest sense, the prayer of faith, and would become the prayer of calculation ; and the spirit of it would evaporate. I should be sorry to say that no good is done by appeals to instances of prayers answered by direct gifts; we have some such appeals in Scripture. But I think a reverent mind must experience some shock to its delicacy from a contact with such appeals; I can almost imagine that it would rather hear nothing of such answers. It scarcely raises our idea of the character of God, to be told that he has caused some little thing to come to pass just because So-and-so asked him. What we want to feel assured of is, that God hears our prayers; that if we pour out our hearts before him in childlike hope, he is pleased, and helps

forward the cause into which we have thrown our sympathies. In this way, we may thankfully believe that our prayers are always efficacious. And, inasmuch as very little matters enter into the scheme of God's Providence, and are to be deemed worthy of the Infinite Being because he is infinite, we way also venture to take comfort from any incidents which come to us like signs that God has heard us, and to read answers to our prayers in the most ordinary occurrences of life.

THE CONTINUITY OF CREATION.

We are led not unfrequently in these days to ask ourselves, what our true attitude is towards God as the Creator. In what sense is God, to us, the Maker of all the wonderful things we see around us?'

There used to be a mode of regarding the Creation, a mode which has in some way been made familiar to us all,-which may best be characterised by a comparison which has commonly served to illustrate it. The world was compared to a watch. In the works of a watch we see manifest evidences of design and skill, which warrant us in inferring from the watch a watch-maker. So, it was said, with the world. When we look around us, we see in Nature what we recognise as evidences of design. We see adaptations and harmonies, resulting from an established system of laws, and producing results such as we may most reasonably suppose to have been intended. From the mechanism of the world