amed to speak to Him, that silence is a sign that I ought not to
have it; and if I have a desire that I do not feel I can put into a
prayer, that feeling is a warning to me not to cherish such a desire.

There are many vague and oppressive anxieties that come and cast a
shadow over our hearts, that if we could once define, and put into plain
words, we should find that we vaguely fancied them a great deal larger
than they were, and that the shadow they flung was immensely longer than
the thing that flung it. Put your anxieties into definite speech. It
will reduce their proportions to your own apprehension very often.
Speaking them, even to a man who may be able to do little to help, eases
them wonderfully. Put them into definite speech to God; and there are
very few of them that will survive.

'By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.' That thanksgiving is
always in place. If one only considers what he has from God, and
realises that whatever he has he has received from the hands of divine
love, thanksgiving is appropriate in any circumstances. Do you remember
when Paul was in gaol at the very city to which this letter went, with
his back bloody with the rod, and his feet fast in the stocks, how then
he and Silas 'prayed and sang praises to God.' Therefore the obedient
earthquake came and set them loose. Perhaps it was some reminiscence of
that night which moved him to say to the Church that knew the story--of
which perhaps the gaoler was still a member--'By prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving make your requests known unto God.'

One aching nerve can monopolise our attention and make us unconscious of
the health of all the rest of the body. So, a single sorrow or loss
obscures many mercies. We are like men who live in a narrow alley in
some city, with great buildings on either side, towering high above
their heads, and only a strip of sky visible. If we see up in that strip
a cloud, we complain and behave as if the whole heavens, right away
round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon, were black
with tempest. But we see only a little strip, and there is a great deal
of blue in the sky; however, there may be a cloud in the patch that we
see above our heads, from the alley where we live. Everything, rightly
understood, that God sends to men is a cause of thanksgiving; therefore,
'in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known unto God.'

'Casting all