er. "We know
not what we should pray for as we ought"--neither what nor how to pray.
But here is the Spirit's own inspired utterance, and, if the praying be
moulded on the model of His teaching, how can we go astray? Here is our
God-given liturgy and litany--a divine prayer-book. We have here God's
promises, precepts, warnings, and counsels, not to speak of all the
Spirit-inspired literal prayers therein contained; and, as we reflect
upon these, our prayers take their cast in this matrix. We turn precept
and promise, warning and counsel into supplication, with the assurance
that we cannot be asking anything that is not according to His will,*
for are we not turning His own word into prayer?

* 1 John v. 13.

So Mr. Muller found it to be. In meditating over Hebrews xiii. 8: "Jesus
Christ the same yesterday and to-day and for ever," translating it into
prayer, he besought God, with the confidence that the prayer was already
granted, that, as Jesus had already in His love and power supplied all
that was needful, in the same unchangeable love and power He would so
continue to provide. And so a promise was not only turned into a prayer,
but into a prophecy--an assurance of blessing--and a river of joy at
once poured into and flowed through his soul.

The prayer habit, on the knees, with the Word open before the disciple,
has thus an advantage which it is difficult to put into words: It
provides a sacred channel of approach to God. The inspired Scriptures
form the vehicle of the Spirit in communicating to us the knowledge of
the will of God. If we think of God on the one side and man on the
other, the word of God is the mode of conveyance from God to man, of His
own mind and heart. It therefore becomes a channel of God's approach to
us, a channel prepared by the Spirit for the purpose, and unspeakably
sacred as such. When therefore the believer uses the word of God as the
guide to determine both the spirit and the dialect of his prayer, he is
inverting the process of divine revelation and using the channel of
God's approach to him as the channel of his approach to God. How can
such use of God's word fail to help and strengthen spiritual life? What
medium or channel of approach could so insure in the praying soul both
an acceptable frame and language taught of the Holy Spirit? If the first
thing is not to pray but to hearken, this surely is hearkening for God
to speak to us that we may know how to speak to Him.

It was hab