you see, is a very composite thing, not a
simple thing, not merely made up of the element of pleading with God to
give us certain things that we cannot come into possession of by
ordinary means.

Right here let me stop long enough to ask you to attend a little
carefully to the teaching of Jesus on the subject of prayer. You will
see he chimes in almost perfectly with the things I have been saying.
If we followed his directions literally, we should never pray in public
at all. He says, Enter into your chamber, and shut to the door, and
commune with the Father in secret. He does not advocate long prayers,
nor this kind of pleading, begging prayers that I have referred to. Do
you remember the story of the unjust judge? Jesus tells this parable on
purpose to enforce the point I have been speaking of. He says: Here is
an unjust judge: a widow brings her case before him. She pleads with
him until she tires him out; and at last he says, although I am an
unjust judge, and fear neither God nor men, because with her continual
praying she wearies me, I will grant her petition. Jesus does not say
you are to weary God out in order to get your petitions granted, but
just the opposite. How much more shall God give good gifts unto those
that ask him Read once more that other story of the man who rises at
night and goes to a neighbor for assistance. The neighbor, for the sake
of being gracious and kind, will rise, although it gives him trouble
and he does not wish to, and grant his request. But God is not like
that neighbor: he does not need to be wearied or roused to make him
care for our interests. This is the teaching, you will notice, of
Jesus. If there is anything that appears like contrary teaching, you
will find it in the supposed Gospel of John, written by an anonymous
author, in which quite different doctrines are taught in regard to a
good many things from those that are reported of Jesus in the other
gospels.

Now I wish to come to my own personal position concerning the subject
of prayer. It is fitting is it not that we should open our hearts with
gratitude to God, no matter what has come to us of good or bright, of
beautiful, sweet and true things, no matter through what channel, by
the ministry of what friend, as the result of the working of no matter
how many natural forces. Trace it to its source, and that source is
always of necessity the one fountain, the one eternal Giver. And, if
there be no more than courtesy in o