cked, and unnoticed, in the innermost
channels of our hearts, little sins that mat themselves together and
keep increasing until the grace of God is utterly kept from permeating
the parched recesses of our spirits. 'I will that men pray, lifting up
holy hands,' and unless we do, alas! for us.

If these are the requirements, you will say, 'How can I pray at all?'
Well, do you remember what the Psalmist says? 'If I regard iniquity in
my heart, the Lord will not hear me,' but then he goes on, 'Blessed be
God, who hath not turned away my prayer nor His mercy from me.' It is
always true that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, if in our inmost
nature we love the sin, that stops the prayer from being answered. But,
blessed be God, it is not true that our having done the sin prevents our
petitions being granted. For the sin that is not regarded in the heart,
but is turned away from with loathing hath no intercepting power. So,
though the uplifted hands art stained, He will cleanse them if, as we
lift them to Him, we say, 'Lord, they are foul, if thou wilt Thou canst
make them clean.'

But the final requirement is: 'Without wrath or doubting.' I do not
think that Christian people generally recognise with sufficient
clearness the close and inseparable connection which subsists between
their right feelings towards their fellow-men and the acceptance of
their prayers with God. It is very instructive that here, alongside of
requirements which apply to our relations to God, the Apostle should put
so emphatically and plainly one which refers to our relations to our
fellows. An angry man is a very unfit man to pray, and a man who
cherishes in his heart any feelings of that nature towards anybody may
be quite sure that he is thereby shutting himself out from blessings
which otherwise might be his. We do not sufficiently realise, or act on
the importance, in regard to our relations with God, of our living in
charity with all men. 'First, go and be reconciled to thy brother,' is
as needful to-day as when the word was spoken.

'Without . . . doubting.' Have I the right to be perfectly sure that my
prayer will be answered? Yes and no. If my prayer is, as all true prayer
ought to be, the submission of my will to God's and not the forcing of
my will upon God, then I have the right to be perfectly sure. But if I
am only asking in self-will, for things that my own heart craves, that
is not prayer; that is dictation. That is sending instruct