him a
place among the noblest orators of antiquity, delighted to spend his
life in persuading men to be reconciled to God. He was a man whose
confidence in God was as unshaken as any whose history has been recorded
by the pen of inspiration. It doubtless was to the disciples of that
age, as well as to himself, a most unaccountable dispensation that he
should have been impeded in his great work by the necessity of composing
dissensions and rectifying errors which were constantly arising in the
churches which he had planted, and, most of all, that so many years of
his life should have been spent in prison. Yet it is to these, at the
time untoward circumstances, that we owe the writing of those epistles
which occupy so large a portion of the volume of inspiration, and
without which the message of God to man would not have been completed.
In no other way could his prayer to be useful to the cause of Christ
have been so fully answered.

With this understanding of the promise granted to the prayer of faith, I
do not see why we should not take the case of Mr. Mueller as an example
for our imitation. Whoever attains to this same simple desire in all
things to do the will of God, and to the same childlike trust in his
promises, may, I think, hope for a similar blessing. God is no respecter
of persons. "If _any_ man _do his will_, him he heareth." And all the
teaching of the Scriptures confirms us in this belief. The passages
which we have quoted at the commencement of this paper, with hundreds of
others, all lead to the same conclusion. In the Scriptures every form of
illustration is used to impress upon us the conviction that God is
indeed our Father, and that he delights to grant our requests for
anything that is for our benefit, and specially that he pledges himself
to direct by his counsel, and aid by his providence, every one who
honestly labors to promote the cause of true benevolence and real
religion.

If this be so, how important is this subject in its bearing on
individual effort. No Christian, though the poorest and humblest, ever
need despair of doing a noble work for God. He need never wait until he
can obtain the co-operation of the multitude or the wealthy. Let him
undertake what he believes to be his duty, on ever so small a scale, and
look directly to God for aid and direction. If it be a seed which God
has planted, it will take root, grow, and bear fruit, "_having seed
within itself_." "It is better to trust