r heavenly Father
is more ready to give the things which you need than you are to give
good gifts to your children?

And so I came to have a difficulty with the kind of prayer- meetings in
which I was brought up as a boy, and which I used to lead as a young
and earnest minister. I have heard kinds of prayers which have seemed
to me reflections on the goodness and the kindness of our Father in
heaven. I remember one man I used to hear him over and over again, week
by week who would pray, It is time for thee, O God, to work! And, as I
came to think of it, it hurt my sense of reverence. I shrank from it.
And I could not believe that God was going to let thousands of souls in
China or Africa perish merely because Christians in America did not
pray hard enough and long enough for their salvation. Why should they
meet with eternal doom on account of the lack of enthusiasm or devotion
of people of whom they have never heard?

So I used to find myself troubled about this question of praying so
hard for the salvation of other people's souls. If, as the old creeds
tell us, it is settled from all eternity as to just who is to be saved
and who is to be lost, there would hardly seem place for a vital
prayer; and if, as a friend of mine, a minister, and a very liberal and
broad one, though in one of the older churches, said to me, "I believe
that God will save every single soul that he can save," then do you not
see again that it touches this kind of prayer? If he cannot save them,
then why should I beg him to do it? If he can, and loves them better
than I do, again, why should I plead with him after that fashion to do
it?

These, frankly and freely spoken, are some of the difficulties
connected with a certain theory of prayer.

I gladly put all that now behind my back, and come to the grand and
positive side of my theme. I wish to tell you what I myself believe in
regard to this matter of prayer. And, in the first place, let me
suggest to you that prayers, even the prayers of the past, any of them,
the most objectionable types, are not made up only of petition; they
are not all begging, teasing for things. There enter into their
composition gratitude, adoration, reverence, aspiration, a sense of
communion with the spiritual Being, a longing for higher and finer
things; a sense of refuge in time of trouble, a sense of strength in
time of need, a sense of hope, uplift, and outlook as we glance towards
the future. A prayer, then,