t the history of God's Church, God is, first of
all, a prayer-hearing God. Let us try and help God's children to know
their God, and encourage all God's servants to labour with the
assurance: the chief and most blessed part of my work is to ask and
receive from my Father what I can bring to others.

It will now easily be understood how what this book contains will be
nothing but the confirmation and the call to put into practice the two
great lessons of the former one. "_Ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall
be done to you_"; "_Whatever ye ask, believe that ye have received_":
these great prayer-promises, as part of the Church's enduement of power
for her work, are to be taken as literally and actually true. "_If ye
abide in Me, and My words abide in you_"; "_In that day ye shall ask in
My Name_": these great prayer-conditions are universal and unchangeable.
A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit, a life entirely
given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has the power to claim
these promises and to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much.
Lord, teach us to pray.

ANDREW MURRAY.

WELLINGTON, _1st September 1897_.

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

CHAPTER I

The Lack of Prayer

"Ye have not, because ye ask not."--JAS. iv. 2.

"And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no
intercessor."--ISA. lix. 16.

"There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself
to take hold of Thee."--ISA. lxiv. 7.

At our last Wellington Convention for the Deepening of the Spiritual
Life, in April, the forenoon meetings were devoted to prayer and
intercession. Great blessing was found, both in listening to what the
Word teaches of their need and power, and in joining in continued united
supplication. Many felt that we know too little of persevering
importunate prayer, and that it is indeed one of the greatest needs of
the Church.

During the past two months I have been attending a number of
Conventions. At the first, a Dutch Missionary Conference at Langlaagte,
Prayer had been chosen as the subject of the addresses. At the next, at
Johannesburg, a brother in business gave expression to his deep
conviction that the great want of the Church of our day was, more of the
spirit and practice of intercession. A week later we had a Dutch
Ministerial Conference in the Free State, where three days were spent,
after two days' services in the congregation on the