rpetual
indrawal of this energy, and the vigor of that indrawal is perpetually
changing, much as the vigor of our absorption of material nutriment
changes from hour to hour.

"I call these 'facts' because I think that some scheme of this kind is
the only one consistent with our actual evidence; too complex to
summarize here. How, then, should we ACT on these facts? Plainly we
must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we
must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be
favorable to such indrawal. PRAYER is the general name for that
attitude of open and earnest expectancy. If we then ask to whom to
pray, the answer (strangely enough) must be that THAT does not much
matter. The prayer is not indeed a purely subjective thing;--it means
a real increase in intensity of absorption of spiritual power or
grace;--but we do not know enough of what takes place in the spiritual
world to know how the prayer operates;--WHO is cognizant of it, or
through what channel the grace is given. Better let children pray to
Christ, who is at any rate the highest individual spirit of whom we
have any knowledge. But it would be rash to say that Christ himself
HEARS US; while to say that GOD hears us is merely to restate the first
principle--that grace flows in from the infinite spiritual world."

Let us reserve the question of the truth or falsehood of the belief
that power is absorbed until the next lecture, when our dogmatic
conclusions, if we have any, must be reached. Let this lecture still
confine itself to the description of phenomena; and as a concrete
example of an extreme sort, of the way in which the prayerful life may
still be led, let me take a case with which most of you must be
acquainted, that of George Muller of Bristol, who died in 1898.
Muller's prayers were of the crassest petitional order. Early in life
he resolved on taking certain Bible promises in literal sincerity, and
on letting himself be fed, not by his own worldly foresight, but by the
Lord's hand. He had an extraordinarily active and successful career,
among the fruits of which were the distribution of over two million
copies of the Scripture text, in different languages; the equipment of
several hundred missionaries; the circulation of more than a hundred
and eleven million of scriptural books, pamphlets, and tracts; the
building of five large orphanages, and the keeping and educating of
thousands of orphans; finally,