and obtain what God at first could
not and would not give.

With this truth there was a second one that came out very strongly as we
studied the Master's words. In answer to the question, But why, if the
answer to prayer is so positively promised, why are there such
numberless unanswered prayers? we found that Christ taught us that the
answer depended upon certain conditions. He spoke of faith, of
perseverance, of praying in His Name, of praying in the will of God. But
all these conditions were summed up in the one central one: "_If ye
abide in Me_, ask whatsoever ye will and it shall be done unto you." It
became clear that the power to pray the effectual prayer of faith
depended _upon the life_. It is only to a man given up to live as
entirely in Christ and for Christ as the branch in the vine and for the
vine, that these promises can come true. "_In that day_," Christ said,
the day of Pentecost, "ye shall ask in My Name." It is only in a life
full of the Holy Spirit that the true power to ask in Christ's Name can
be known. This led to the emphasising the truth that the ordinary
Christian life cannot appropriate these promises. It needs a spiritual
life, altogether sound and vigorous, to pray in power. The teaching
naturally led to press the need of a life of entire consecration. More
than one has told me how it was in the reading of the book that he first
saw what the better life was that could be lived, and must be lived, if
Christ's wonderful promises are to come true to us.

In regard to these two truths there is no change in the present volume.
One only wishes that one could put them with such clearness and force as
to help every beloved fellow-Christian to some right impression of the
reality and the glory of our privilege as God's children: "Ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." The present volume
owes its existence to the desire to enforce two truths, of which
formerly I had no such impression as now.

The one is--that Christ actually meant prayer to be the great power by
which His Church should do its work, and that the neglect of prayer is
the great reason the Church has not greater power over the masses in
Christian and in heathen countries. In the first chapter I have stated
how my convictions in regard to this have been strengthened, and what
gave occasion to the writing of the book. It is meant to be, on behalf
of myself and my brethren in the ministry and all God's people, a
confessi