l that we should be filled with the Spirit. That means, from
our side, that our whole being ought to be entirely yielded up to the
Holy Spirit, to be possessed and controlled by Him alone. And, from
God's side, that we may count upon and expect the Holy Spirit to take
possession and fill us. Has not our failure in prayer evidently been
owing to our not having accepted the Spirit of prayer to be our life; to
our not having yielded wholly to Him, whom the Father gave as the Spirit
of His Son, to work the life of the Son in us? Let us, to say the very
least, be willing to receive Him, to yield ourselves to God and trust
Him for it. Let us not again wilfully grieve the Holy Spirit by
declining, by neglecting, by hesitating to seek to have Him as fully as
He is willing to give Himself to us. If we have at all seen that prayer
is the great need of our work and of the Church, if we have at all
desired or resolved to pray more, let us turn to the very source of all
power and blessing--let us believe that the Spirit of prayer, even in
His fulness, is for us.

We all admit the place the Father and the Son have in our prayer. It is
to the Father we pray, and from whom we expect the answer. It is in the
merit, and name, and life of the Son, abiding in Him and He in us, that
we trust to be heard. But have we understood that in the Holy Trinity
all the Three Persons have an equal place in prayer, and that the faith
in the Holy Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable
as the faith in the Father and the Son? How clearly we have this in the
words, "Through Christ we have access by one Spirit to the Father." As
much as prayer must be _to_ the Father, and _through_ the Son, it must
be _by_ the Spirit. And the Spirit can pray in no other way in us, than
as He lives in us. It is only as we give ourselves to the Spirit living
and praying in us, that the glory of the prayer-hearing God, and the
ever-blessed and most effectual mediation of the Son, can be known by us
in their power. (Note D.)

Our last lesson: _Pray in the Spirit for all saints_ (Eph. vi. 18). The
Spirit, who is called "the Spirit of supplication," is also and very
specially the Spirit of intercession. It is said of Him, "the Spirit
Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be
uttered." "He maketh intercession for the saints." It is the same word
as is used of Christ, "who also maketh intercession for us." The thought
is essentially that