swer
to prayer. But what a silence comes over all such questionings when
one notices that this prayer of Jesus uttered thus {157} in this most
solemn hour was not, in the sense of these discussions, answered by his
God. It was the moment of the supreme agony of Christ. The falseness
of friends, the blindness of his people, the malice of their
leaders,--all these things seem more than he can bear. "Let this cup
pass from me," he prays, and, behold, his prayer is not accepted, and
what he asks is denied, and the cup is to be drunk. And yet in a far
deeper sense his, prayer is answered. "Thy will be done," he
prays,--not in spite of me, or over me, but through me. Make me, my
Father, the instrument of thy will; and so praying he rises with
absolute composure and kingly authority, and goes out with his prayer
answered to do that will.

What should we pray for? Why, we should pray for what we most deeply
want. There is no sincerity in praying for things which are fictitious
or abstract or mere theological blessings. Open to God the realities
of your heart and seek the blessings which you sincerely desire. But
in all prayers desire most to know the will of God toward you, and to
do it. Prayer is not offered to deflect God's will to yours, but to
adjust your will to His. When a ship's captain is setting out on a
{158} voyage he first of all adjusts his compasses, corrects their
divergence, and counteracts the influences which draw the needle from
the pole. Well, that is prayer. It is the adjustment of the compass
of the soul, it is its restoration from deflection, it is the pointing
of it to the will of God. And the soul which thus sails forth into the
sea of life finds itself--not indeed freed from all storms of the
spirit, but at least sure of its direction through them all.

{159}

LXIV

AN IMPOSSIBLE NEUTRALITY

_John_ xviii. 28-38.

(PASSION DAY--FRIDAY)

The story of Friday in this last week of Jesus begins with this meeting
with the Roman governor, and certainly few persons in history would be
more surprised than Pilate at the judgment of the world concerning him.
If Pilate felt sure of anything it was that he did not commit himself
in the case of Jesus. He undertook to be absolutely neutral. See how
nicely he poises his judgment. On the one hand he says: "I find no
fault in him," and then on the other hand he says: "Take him away and
crucify him;" First he washes his hands to show tha