e mountains that grow on us as we gaze, like a fair scene that we
must be alone in, rightly to feel. They must be allowed to saturate the
soul. The eye must be slowly accustomed to the light.

2. The pressure of the world can only be resisted by such an exercise.

Our business as Christians is to keep ourselves free from it.

3. The tone and balance of our own minds can only be preserved and
restored thus. Solitude is the mother-country of the strong. 'I was left
alone, and I saw this great vision.' We get hot and fevered, interested
and absorbed, and we need solitude as a counterpoise.

4. What is the connection of this with other kinds of worship and with
our life's work? It has a function of its own.

These cannot be substituted for it--public worship, reading Christian
books, bring a different class of feelings altogether into play.

They are not to be excluded by it. They find their true foundation in
it. A tree's branches stretch to the same circumference as its roots.

5. What is the special need of this precept for this age?

It is neglected in our modern life. The evils of our modern
Christianity, the low tone of religion, the small grasp of Christian
truth, the irreligious cast of religious work.

The thought of being alone with God will be a joy--or a terror.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER

'After this manner therefore pray ye.'--MATT. vi. 9.

'After this manner' may or may not imply that Christ meant this prayer
to be a form, but He certainly meant it for a model. And they who drink
in its spirit, and pray, seeking God's glory before their own
satisfaction, and, while trustfully asking from His hand their daily
bread, rise quickly to implore the supply of their spiritual hunger, do
pray after this manner,' whether they use these words or no.

All begins with the recognition of the Fatherhood of God. The clear and
fixed contemplation of God is the beginning of all true prayer, and that
contemplation does not fasten on His remote and partially intelligible
attributes, nor strive to climb to behold Him as in Himself, but grasps
Him as related to us. The Fatherhood of God implies His communication of
life, His tenderness, and our kindred. This is the prayer of the
children of the kingdom, and can only be truly offered by those who, by
faith in the Son, have received the adoption of sons. It gathers all
such into a family, so delivering their prayer from selfish absorption
in their own jo