ver taken systematic part in the great work of intercession to
begin and give themselves to it. There are tens of thousands of workers
who have known and are proving wonderfully what prayer can do. But there
are tens of thousands who work with but little prayer, and as many more
who do not work because they do not know how or where, who might all be
won to swell the host of intercessors who are to bring down the
blessings of heaven to earth. For their sakes, and the sake of all who
feel the need of help, I have prepared helps and hints for a school of
intercession for a month (see the Appendix). I have asked those who
would join, to begin by giving at least ten minutes a day definitely to
this work. It is in doing that we learn to do; it is as we take hold and
begin that the help of God's Spirit will come. It is as we daily hear
God's call, and at once put it into practice, that the consciousness
will begin to live in us, I too am an intercessor; and that we shall
feel the need of living in Christ and being full of the Spirit if we are
to do this work aright. Nothing will so test and stimulate the Christian
life as the honest attempt to be an intercessor. It is difficult to
conceive how much we ourselves and the Church will be the gainers, if
with our whole heart we accept the post of honour God is offering us.
With regard to the school of intercession, I am confident that the
result of the first month's course will be to awake the feeling of how
little we know how to intercede. And a second and a third month may only
deepen the sense of ignorance and unfitness. This will be an unspeakable
blessing. The confession, "We know not how to pray as we ought," is the
introduction to the experience, "The Spirit maketh intercession for
us"--our sense of ignorance will lead us to depend upon the Spirit
praying in us, to feel the need of living in the Spirit.

We have heard a great deal of systematic Bible study, and we praise God
for thousands on thousands of Bible classes and Bible readings. Let all
the leaders of such classes see whether they could not open prayer
classes--helping their students to pray in secret, and training them to
be, above everything, men of prayer. Let ministers ask what they can do
in this. The faith in God's word can nowhere be so exercised and
perfected as in the intercession that asks and expects and looks out
for the answer. Throughout Scripture, in the life of every saint, of
God's own Son, throughou