ring of the picture. So I left you in the dark room till the glare
had worn out of your eyes."

The first stage of Moses' prayer-training was wearing the noise of Egypt
out of his ears so he could hear the quiet fine tones of God's voice. He
who would become skilled in prayer must take a silence course in the
University of Arabia. Then came the second stage. Forty years were
followed by forty days, twice over, of listening to God's speaking voice
up in the mount. Such an ear-course as that made a skilled famous
intercessor.

Samuel had an earlier course than Moses. While yet a child before his ears
had been dulled by earth sounds they were tuned to the hearing of God's
voice. The child heart and ear naturally open upward. They hear easily and
believe readily. The roadway of the ear has not been beaten down hard by
much travel. God's rains and dews have made it soft, and impressionable.
This child's ear was quickly trained to recognize God's voice. And the
tented Hebrew nation soon came to know that there was a man in their midst
to whom God was talking. O, to keep the heart and inner ear of a child as
mature years come!

Of the third of these famous intercessors little is known except of the
few striking events in which he figured. Of these, the scene that finds
its climax in the opening on Carmel's top of the rain-windows, occupies by
far the greater space. And it is notable that the beginning of that long
eighteenth chapter of first Kings which tells of the Carmel conflict
begins with a message to Elijah from God: "The word of the Lord came to
Elijah: ... I will send rain upon the earth." That was the foundation of
that persistent praying and sevenfold watching on the mountaintop. First
the ear heard, then the voice persistently claimed, and the eye
expectantly looked. First the voice of God, then the voice of man. That is
the true order. Tremendous results always follow that combination.

<u>Through the Book to God.</u>

With us the training is of the _inner_ ear. And its first training, after
the early childhood stage is passed, must usually be through the eye. What
God has spoken to others has been written down for us. We hear through our
eyes. The eye opens the way to the inner ear. God spoke in His word. He is
still speaking in it and through it. The whole thought here is to get _to
know God._ He reveals Himself in the word that comes from His own lips,
and through His messengers' lips. He reveals Himse