that you may prove the truth of the energy and efficacy of prayer. You have abundant encouragements. The promises are clear, great, and precious: "Ask, and it shall be given to you." You may come boldly to the throne of grace for help in every time of need. "He will be very gracious to thee at the voice of thy cry. When He shall hear it, He will answer thee."

"Were half the breath oft vainly spent,
To heaven in supplication sent,—
Our cheerful song would oftener be,

Hear what the Lord has done for me!"

VI.

Ananswered Prayer.

"We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so we find profit

By losing of our prayers."

SHAKESPEARE

GOD, whose never-failing providence ordereth all

things both in heaven and earth; We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

JUNANSWERED PRAYER.

200D prayers never come weeping home." The good man who wrote

these words might well feel con

fidence in doing so, when he recalled the many and abundant encouragements to prayer. The promises of God are boundless in extent, and given with the unfailing guarantee of His covenant in Christ :"Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name." "This is the confidence that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name; ask and receive, that your joy may be full." "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" With exceeding great and pre

cious promises, and with such rich proofs of His love, anything like doubt sounds like a dishonour done to Him. But prayers, even good prayers, may yet come unanswered, though perhaps not weeping, home; for there is such a thing as unanswered prayer.

The petitions (I will not call them prayers) of openly godless men are unanswered. When the hands are defiled with blood, when the heart regards iniquity, God will not hear. There is a mercy in such denials. The awakening of a spirit of inquiry may result from the experience of unanswered prayer; just as an untoward accident has sometimes been the means of leading to a great discovery or beneficent invention. The interruption in the expected order and working of an engine, arresting attention, leads to the ingenious contrivance which simplifies and gives smoothness to its action.

So unanswered prayer, the interruption of at least the expectation which the promises of God seem to warrant, serves to call our