pirit's
unspoken prayers; and looking into the depths of the human spirit
interprets its longings, discriminating between the mere human and
partial expression and the divinely-inspired desire which may be
unexpressed. If our prayers are weak, they are answered in the
measure in which they embody in them, though perhaps mistaken by us,
a divine longing. Apparent disappointment of our petitions may be
real answers to our real prayer. It was because Jesus loved Mary and
Martha and Lazarus that He abode still in the same place where He
was, to let Lazarus die that He might be raised again. That was the
true answer to the sisters' hope of His immediate coming. God's way
of giving to us is to breathe within us a desire, and then to answer
the desire inbreathed. So, longing is the prophecy of fulfilment when
it is longing according to the will of God. They who 'hunger and
thirst after righteousness' may ever be sure that their bread shall
be given them, and their water will be made sure. The true object of
our desires is often not clear to us, and so we err in translating it
into words. Let us be thankful that we pray to a God who can discern
the prayer within the prayer, and often gives the substance of our
petitions in the very act of refusing their form.

THE GIFT THAT BRINGS ALL GIFTS

'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?'--ROMANS viii. 32.

We have here an allusion to, if not a distinct quotation from, the
narrative in Genesis, of Abraham's offering up of Isaac. The same
word which is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old
Testament, to translate the Hebrew word rendered in our Bible as
'withheld,' is employed here by the Apostle. And there is evidently
floating before his mind the thought that, in some profound and real
sense, there is an analogy between that wondrous and faithful act of
giving up and the transcendent and stupendous gift to the world, from
God, of His Son.

If we take that point of view, the language of my text rises into
singular force, and suggests many very deep thoughts, about which,
perhaps, silence is best. But led by that analogy, let us deal with
these words.

I. Consider this mysterious act of divine surrender.

The analogy seems to suggest to us, strange as it may be, and remote
from the cold and abstract ideas of the divine nature which it is
thought to be philosophical to c