they have amalgamated with other things, or linked themselves with them, for the production of some result.

There is just one point more which I would notice, and that is, as a result of continuous prayer, we shall have a blessing in special acts. When we are about to do a thing, if we ask a blessing upon it, and if that thing be not evil we shall receive the blessing. We should seek for special as well as general blessings. We often lose the special in the general, and consequently do not receive because we do not ask. Let us have the spirit of continuous prayer, and say, "Lord, help me in this, Lord, avert that," and the special blessing will surely

come.

Thus, dear reader, ever living in supplication, we shall also ever live in giving of thanks; and no matter how varied be our need, we shall ever have a resource; no matter how many our enemies, we shall have a very present help-ours surely, amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life, will be that peace which the world never gave, and which the world can never take away.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE "I WILL" OF EXPECTATION IN PRAYER.

Psalm lv, 16, 17.

Lord shall save me.

"As for me I will call upon God; and the Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice."

APPY is that man who has an expecting heart; who

HAPP

goes upon his knees as a living reality, believing that his words are full of meaning, that God hears them, and that God will certainly answer them; such an one will be great in prayer, and will surely receive signal answers-real answers to real prayers.

The subject of which this chapter proposes to treat, is one of great interest to the believer; it is one to which. in all probability the believing reader could add much out of his own experience. Who is there that prays at all, who cannot bring forward some practical proofs from the diary of his own life, that God is a prayer hearing and a prayer answering God?

FAITHFUL EXPECTATION IN PRAYER is the subject which we are to consider now; and here we shall have an opportunity of bringing forward some examples of

God's faithfulness in answering prayers; and very precious such examples are, for the mind loves to dwell on facts, and to argue from them; and with very many, one fact has more weight than a thousand arguments.

Our first enquiry is, what is it to expect in Prayer? It is to believe that an answer will come, to be looking out for an answer, and to be patient in expecting it.

Vast multitudes of prayers are offered without any positive expectation being connected with them. They are offered up because men think that the proper thing to do under certain circumstances is to say a prayer; or perhaps because men have been used to say prayers, but the living reality of expectation is not found in them.

How differently do we act towards God and man. When we go to our fellow man for anything, we are in expectation of receiving it, or we hope so to do; we have some definite idea connected with our words. But when we pray to God, and that, oftentimes for fixed and definite things, we never think about the coming of the answer, we are not really on the look out for it, expecting it, just as we should be on the look out for the post with a letter to us containing money, from a well tried and wealthy friend to whom we had applied in our distress. I can give the reader no better example of such expectation than one which is to be found in Müller's narrative of the orphan houses at Bristol. The account is given in his own words.

"To suppose that we have difficulty only about money would be a mistake; there occur hundreds of other wants and hundreds of other difficulties. It is a rare thing that a day comes without some difficulty or some want; but often

there are many difficulties and many wants to be met and overcome the same day. All these are met by prayer and faith, our universal remedy for every difficulty and every want; and I have never been confounded. Patient, persevering, and believing prayer, offered up to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, has always, sooner or later, brought the blessing. I do not despair, by God's grace, concerning the obtaining of any blessing, provided I can be sure my obtaining it would be for my real good, and for the glory of God. I relate here for the benefit of the reader one instance, out of many, to show what are our difficulties under which we give ourselves to prayer, and under which we are helped.

"It was towards the end of November, of 1857, when I was most unexpectedly informed that the boiler of our heating apparatus at the New Orphan House, No. 1, leaked very considerably, so that it was impossible to go through the winter with such a leak. Our heating apparatus consists of a large cylinder boiler, inside of which the fire is kept, and with which boiler the waterpipes which warm the rooms are connected. Hot air is also connected with this apparatus. This now was my position. The boiler had been considered suited for the work of the winter; the having had ground to suspect its being worn out, and not to have done anything towards its being replaced by a new one, and to have said I will trust to God regarding it, would be careless presumption, but not faith in God. It would be the counterfeit of faith.

"The boiler is entirely surrounded by brickwork, its state, therefore, could not be known without taking down the brickwork; this, if needless, would be rather

injurious to the boiler than otherwise; and as year after year, for eight winters, we had had no difficulty in this way, we had not anticipated it now. But suddenly, and most unexpectedly, at the commencement of the winter, this difficulty occurred. What then was to be done? For the children, especially the younger infants, I felt deeply concerned, that they might not suffer through want of warmth. But how were we to obtain warmth ? The introduction of a new boiler would, in all probability, take many weeks. The repairing of the boiler was a questionable matter, on account of the greatness of the leak; but, if not, nothing could be said of it, till the brick chamber, in which the boiler with Hazard's patent heating apparatus is enclosed, was at least in part removed; but that would, at least, as far as we could judge, take days, and what was to be done in the meantime to find warm rooms for three hundred children? It naturally occurred to me to introduce temporary gas-stoves, but on further weighing the matter, it was found that we should be unable to heat our very large stoves, which we could not introduce, as we had not a sufficient quantity of gas to spare from our lighting apparatus. Moreover, for each of these stoves we needed a small chimney, to carry off the impure air. This mode of heating, therefore, though applicable to a hall, a staircase, or a shop, would not suit our purposes. I also thought of the temporary introduction of Arnott's stoves; but they would be unsuitable, as we needed chimneys, long chimneys, for them, as they would have been of a temporary kind, and therefore must go out of the windows. On this account, the uncertainty of its answering in our case, the disfigurement of the rooms almost permanently, led me to