to go to heaven, he
said to the disciples--"Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you." Acts i: 8. And what this power was we see in
the case of the apostle Peter; for the first sermon he preached
after the Holy Ghost came upon him, on the day of Pentecost, was the
means of converting three thousand souls. Acts ii: 41.

And the same God who gave the apostles all the help they needed, has
promised to do the same for you, and me, and for all who try to work
for him. There are many promises of this kind in the Bible to which I
might refer. But I will only mention one. This is so sweet and
precious that it deserves to be written in letters of gold. There is
no passage in the Bible that has given me so much comfort and
encouragement in trying to work for God as this I refer here to Is.
xli: 10. "Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I
am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea--I WILL HELP THEE." This
promise was not given for prophets and apostles only, but for all
God's people to the end of time. You and I, if we are trying to serve
God, may take it as ours. God meant it for us. And when we get this
promised help from God, we can do any work he has for us to do, and
be happy in doing it.

"For Thine is the Power." "I can't do it--it's quite impossible. I've
tried five times, and can't get it right"--and Ben Hartley pushed his
book and slate away in despair. Ben was a good scholar. He was at
the head of his class, and was very anxious to stay there. But the
sums he had now to do were very hard. He could not do them, and was
afraid of losing his place in the class. Most of the boys had some
one at home to help them; but Ben had no one. His father was dead,
and his mother, though a good Christian woman, had not been to school
much when a girl, and she could not help Ben.

Mrs. Hartley felt sorry for her son's perplexity, and quietly said,
"Then, Ben, you don't believe in the Lord's prayer?"

"The Lord's prayer, mother! Why, there's nothing there to help a
fellow do his sums."

"O, yes; there is. There is help for every trouble in life in the
Lord's prayer, if we only know how to use it. I was trying a long
time before I found out what the last part of this prayer really
means. I'm no minister, or scholar, Ben, but I'll try and show you.
You know that in this prayer we ask God for our daily bread; we ask
him to keep us from evil; and to forgive us our sins; and then we
say: 'for