the
villagers to worship, the workers in the field lay aside the implements
of their toil, and with folded hands and bowed heads, stand for a moment
in silent prayer. It is a picture of what every life should be, of what
every life must be, which has taken as its pattern the Perfect Life in
which work and prayer are blent like bells of sweet accord.

II

Another saying of Christ's concerning prayer, not less fundamental is
this: "When ye pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven." How
essential to prayer is a right thought of God it can hardly be necessary
to point out. "When ye pray say----" what? All depends on how we fill
in the blank. Our thought of God determines the character of all our
intercourse with Him. If "God" is only the name which we give to the
vast, unknown Power which lies behind the visible phenomena of the
universe, if He is only a dim shadow projected by our own minds, or a
collection of attributes whose names we have learned from the Catechism,
our prayers will soon come to an end. When Jesus prayed He said always
"Father"; and the Father to whom He prayed, and whom He revealed, He it
is to whom our prayers should be offered.

This is a matter the practical importance of which it would be hard to
exaggerate. Think, _e.g._, of the questions concerning prayer which
would be answered straightway, had we but made our own Christ's thought
of God. We are all familiar with the little problems about prayer with
which some good people are wont to tease themselves and their friends
and their ministers: Is it right to pray for rain, for fine weather for
the recovery of health, for the success of some temporal enterprize, and
so forth? How shall we meet questions of this sort? Shall we draw a line
and say, all things on this side of the line we may pray about, all
things on that side of the line we may not pray about? This will not
help us. Rather we must keep Christ's great word before us: "When ye
pray, say, Father." There or nowhere is the answer to be found. Just as
every wise father seeks to train his child to make of him his confidant,
to have no secrets from him, to trust him utterly, and in everything, so
would God have us feel towards Him; as free, as frank, as unfettered,
should our fellowship with Him be. To put it under constraint, to fence
it about with rules, would be to rob it of all that gives it worth, And,
therefore, I cannot tell any man, and I do not want any man to tell me,
what w