February 15

"And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive." Matthew 21:22.

DEVOTION forms a principal part of experimental religion. The believer can no more live without prayer, than he can exist without breath. It is the soul's converse with her God; it is a ladder fixed on earth, whose top reaches to heaven, on which petitions and blessings are continually ascending and descending; it is sweet incense offered on the altar of the heart, burnt with the fire of the Spirit, and presented before the throne above in the censer of the intercession of our Great High Priest; it is the native air, the favorite atmosphere, the very element and home of the believer.

"What an asylum has the soul in prayer!"

Let us observe two things concerning this duty.

THE MATTER OF PRAYER. For what are we to pray? We are allowed to seek temporal favors, but our principal solicitude should be for those that are spiritual: such as

A sight of our own depravity. Without this, prayer cannot be rightly performed or enjoyed. Unless we see the deformity of sin, we shall not breathe after holiness.

A sense of pardoning mercy. After the wound is opened, we must seek to have it healed. When we have seen what we are, we must pray that God would make us what he would have us to be.

Increase in spiritual attainments. Ambition in spiritual things is allowable, and covetousness is enjoined: — "Covet earnestly the best gifts." We must pray that we may, in every gift and grace, abound more and more.

THE MANNER OF PRAYER. It is to be "believing." Prayer suffers shipwreck for want of faith, because it dashes on the rock of unbelief. We must believe that we need the blessings of salvation for our happiness, that we cannot obtain them by our merits, that God is willing to confer them, and that the mediation of Christ is the only channel through which they can be received. May ours be the prayer of faith! What encouragement have we to pray! As often as we draw near to the throne of grace, we find ourselves beside an overflowing fountain of good — touching the very springs of eternal mercy — in the midst of the very treasures of heaven.