October 2

Let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before

God. — ECCL. v. 2.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. — MATT. vi. 6, 7, 8.

PRAYER enters into the very idea of religion. Genuine prayer is at once most simple and most difficult. To have ease and joy in it is a mark of spiritual soundness and growth: to neglect it is a sure symptom of decline. Prayer has two aspects, worship and petition. In the one it terminates on God, in the other on man. In this passage our Lord treats of it in relation to God. Among the religionists of that day the prevailing motive was the love of man's applause rather than the desire of God's approval. Alms must be done where men can see, fasting paraded before the public gaze, and prayer offered loud and long in the synagogues and at the crossings of the streets, where men "most do congregate." Against this vice in prayer Jesus warns us. Have a place where you may be alone with God, a time when you have an engagement to meet him, and in this privacy, "where none but God can hear," let the soul pour itself out in praise and penitence and petition.

C. R. Hemphill.

O thou by whom we come to God,

The life, the truth, the way,

The path of prayer thyself hast trod!

Lord, teach us how to pray!

J. MONTGOMERY.