on of shortcoming and of sin, and, at the same time, a call to
believe that things can be different, and that Christ waits to fit us by
His Spirit to pray as He would have us. This call, of course, brings me
back to what I spoke of in connection with the former volume: that there
is a life in the Spirit, a life of abiding in Christ, within our reach,
in which the power of prayer--both the power to pray and the power to
obtain the answer--can be realised in a measure which we could not have
thought possible before. Any failure in the prayer-life, any desire or
hope really to take the place Christ has prepared for us, brings us to
the very root of the doctrine of grace as manifested in the Christian
life. It is only by a full surrender to the life of abiding, by the
yielding to the fulness of the Spirit's leading and quickening, that the
prayer-life can be restored to a truly healthy state. I feel deeply how
little I have been able to put this in the volume as I could wish. I
have prayed and am trusting that God, who chooses the weak things, will
use it for His own glory.

The second truth which I have sought to enforce is that we have far too
little conception of the place that intercession, as distinguished from
prayer for ourselves, ought to have in the Church and the Christian
life. In intercession our King upon the throne finds His highest glory;
in it we shall find our highest glory too. Through it He continues His
saving work, and can do nothing without it; through it alone we can do
our work, and nothing avails without it. In it He ever receives from the
Father the Holy Spirit and all spiritual blessings to impart; in it we
too are called to receive in ourselves the fulness of God's Spirit, with
the power to impart spiritual blessing to others. The power of the
Church truly to bless rests on intercession--asking and receiving
heavenly gifts to carry to men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that
where, owing to lack of teaching or spiritual insight, we trust in
our own diligence and effort, to the influence of the world and the
flesh, and work more than we pray, the presence and power of God are not
seen in our work as we would wish.

Such thoughts have led me to wonder what could be done to rouse
believers to a sense of their high calling in this, and to help and
train them to take part in it. And so this book differs from the former
one in the attempt to open a practising school, and to invite all who
have ne