him fully. He never fails to hear the cry of any contrite heart, but even among the disciples John was especially beloved.

Chapter II
Conflicting Prayers

THIS chapter leads into the wilderness. Just beyond it is the insane asylum. The most bewildering, confusing, and dangerous region is the morass of conflicting prayers. No human theory concerning them is even helpful. The labyrinth is absolutely trackless to the human mind when once the worshiper becomes entangled therein. So we will not attempt to explain any of the even unthinkable intricacies of its strange region. Nowhere in the Bible does the Lord answer the questions which millions have asked about it. Two persons, equally sincere, pray for success in a matter where the victory of one must be the defeat of the other. Nations at war pray hard and long for victory, and not even God can answer both. Something must be taken from one to give to another, while the one in possession is praying that he may keep it. One's loss is another's gain. The employer prays for a profit on his business, and the laborer prays for higher wages. The white man and the colored man prays for his own tribe. The Samaritan and Jew, worshiping the same God and having the same family inheritance, believe it is a duty to hate each other, and each calls for God's curses on the other. Many an honest investigator has entered this region of doubt and mystery and managed to back out while still in his right mind. But he has returned the worse for the experience. All sorts of foolish speculations have been given creedal expression until men have declared, with strange assurance, that man cannot trust his reason or his conscience in any matter. They have tried to prove that the laws of nature are inflexible and that prayer cannot have any influence whatever in current events. Gifted men and women of culture and high purpose have convinced themselves that there is no evil, that men never sin, that the Bible theories concerning prayer are fanciful and too miraculous to be possible. "Too much study hath made thee mad," said the practical Roman to the Apostle Paul. The old Roman had probably seen so many religions that he had no faith in any. The religious maniacs are those men who have broken down their brains by laborious study over these insoluble problems. Therefore, while no one should discourage reasonable research anywhere, and while it is not sacrilegious or foolish to think on these things, it does seem best to admit that to the most faithful Christian there are unsearchable things of God which he cannot sanely hope to understand in this life. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." We cannot expect to achieve a knowledge as great and extensive as that of the Creator, and must be content with our reasonable limitations. "What I do ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter." Satisfied, then, with the promise of that future full revelation we should study all that Providence places before us for investigation and never let go of what we are sure we do know. We will distinguish, as clearly as possible, between our imagination and our knowledge, and with a level head and our feet on solid ground we will live by a faith that is reasonable and never become blindly reckless.

The lightning struck a tree near a neighbor's residence last week. He knows that to be a hard fact. He does not know much about the electric currents in the atmosphere, neither does the most experienced scientist; but the neighbor knows that the lightning did splinter that tree. From that fact he entertains a faith in a possible return of that event and by faith he puts up a lightning rod on his barn.

The observer notices that sin brings its own punishment in many cases, and he has faith that such will be the universal experience of the future. So he keeps his soul insured by safe and sane investment in righteousness. Every sane man knows that we must at all times walk largely by faith. Faith is a constituent part of the natural human constitution. The degree of faith determines the character of the individual. Faith, like water, seeks its level. But the greater its safe elevation, the greater its power. Faith must grow reasonably, like a grain of mustard seed. It also develops mysteriously by natural increase until the fowls of the air nest in its branches and its growing root will cleave off the side of the mountain. The patriot, earnestly seeking victory, lets no possible agency pass unused to overcome the enemy. When he has prepared fully and laboriously for the battle he will then pray for the help which God may give him. Even should he strongly doubt that the Great Power moving on events beyond his knowledge can or will hear him, yet he will not fail to pray. Any man who calls on the Christian's God will not ask him to aid an unholy cause. A murderer seeking an opportunity to kill will not call on God for aid. The thief ever fears some providential interference with his plans. The Christian ever hopes for God's aid, and asks for it because his aim is a godly one.

Herein is found the safe position for the believer to take. We can pray for the heathen, although they do pray against their own good. We can pray for victory in some holy war, because the enemy are praying really against their own good. Because their cause is unrighteous, their victory would be a great loss to them. Hence, even the great prayers which sublimely petition for the nations, and which include the whole world in their range of vision, are consistent only when man realizes his weakness and his ignorance, and adds to every prayer the reservation, "nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."

He is the wisest servant of God who can pray from the camp that he may conquer if his cause be really just. The preacher who enters his pulpit with an almost agonizing prayer that God would aid him in his presentation of the Christ to men must ever ask that God will turn aside any arrow which would do harm to the cause. In his ignorance or weakness he may mistake the Gospel message, or may not present the whole truth, and he must ever ask that, whether he gain or lose in the esteem of his congregation, the truth shall always prevail. Christian nations are often wrong in their diplomacy or in their wars, as they discover after a while. The Lord, therefore, gave them that for which they would have asked had their hearts been right with God and their intentions been Christlike toward men.

Sometime we shall understand. But now the seeming inconsistency of asking the Lord to aid his own cause, or praying that Christ may soon come into his own kingdom, is ever a stumbling block to the doubt ful ones. If the Lord has all power and has a sincere desire to make the world good, why does he not do it by one sweep of his hand or by one magic word? What is the reason for his commandment to pray to him and to ask him to do that which he wishes to do and can do himself? All these questions lead into the wilderness. We do not know. We cannot suggest any hypothesis which would make the sovereignty of God and the free will of man reconcilable. Man's mind is so constructed that it is impossible to believe that the Creator controls all things and arranges the details of even our thoughts and yet leaves man free to choose to defeat the Lord by his own thoughts and actions. It is impossible fully to believe that man can voluntarily do evil without in some way interfering with the designs and power of God. If God undertakes to save the world, and "would not that any should perish," but that all should come unto him and live, and yet sinful man can defeat or hinder the accomplishment of his purpose, then the thinker must conclude that God is not