s. The years are only
a collection of seconds. Every man's life is an aggregate of trifles.
'In _everything_ make your requests known.'

'By prayer'--that does not mean, as a superficial experience of religion
is apt to suppose it to mean, actual petition that follows. For a great
many of us, the only notion that we have of prayer is asking God to give
us something that we want. But there is a far higher region of communion
than that, in which the soul seeks and finds, and sits and gazes, and
aspiring possesses, and possessing aspires. Where there is no spoken
petition for anything affecting outward life, there may be the prayer of
contemplation such as the burning seraphs before the Throne do ever glow
with. The prayer of silent submission, in which the will bows itself
before God; the prayer of quiet trust, in which we do not so much seek
as cleave; the prayer of still fruition--these, in Paul's conception of
the true order, precede 'supplication.' And if we have such union with
God, by realising His presence, by aspiration after Himself, by trusting
Him and submission to Him, then we have the victorious antagonist of all
our anxieties, and the 'cares that infest the day shall fold their
tents' and 'silently steal away.' For if a man has that union with God
which is effected by such prayer as I have been speaking about, it gives
him a fixed point on which to rest amidst all perturbations. It is like
bringing a light into a chamber when thunder is growling outside, which
prevents the flashing of the lightning from being seen.

Years ago an ingenious inventor tried to build a vessel in such a
fashion as that the saloon for passengers should remain upon one level,
howsoever the hull might be tossed by waves. It was a failure, if I
remember rightly. But if we are thus joined to God, He will do for our
inmost hearts what the inventor tried to do with the chamber within his
ship. The hull may be buffeted, but the inmost chamber where the true
self sits will be kept level and unmoved. Brethren! prayer in the
highest sense, by which I mean the exercise of aspiration, trust,
submission--prayer will fight against and overcome all anxieties.

'By prayer and supplication.' Actual petition for the supply of present
wants is meant by 'supplication.' To ask for that supply will very often
be to get it. To tell God what I think I need goes a long way always to
bringing me the gift that I do need. If I have an anxiety which I am
ash