^ In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual sight of His homely loving. I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us ; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding."
2. The great reason of our lack of faith is our lack of knowledge of God and intercourse with Him. " Have faith in iGod," Jesus said when He spoke of removing mountains. It is as a soul knows God, is occupied with His power, love, and faithfulness, comes away out of self and the world, and allows ^ B. J. Campbell. * Julian the Anchoress.
ST. MARK 285
the light of God to shine on it, that unbelief will become impossible. All the mysteries and difficulties connected with answers to prayer will, however little we may be able to solve them intellectually, be swallowed up in the adoring assurance, this God is our God : He will bless us. He does indeed answer prayer. And the grace to pray which we are asking for He will delight to give.
To know God simply as an absolute Sovereign, bowing to His doings merely because they are His, receiving His commands merely because He commands, this is not to know God as a fountain of life. Unless the character of God, and not merely the fact that there is a God, be apprehended, there is nothing known of God upon which the soul can feed. See then what a fresh well-spring of life it is, that this is the very truth con- cerning God, that " He willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"; that as God is good. He delights in men's deliverance from evil; as He is holy, He delights in men's deliverance from sin ; as He is true. He delights in men's deliverance from unbelief and ignorance and belief of a lie, for all unbelief is the belief of a lie.
^ Why does the man in charge of a Chinese temple bang the drum and pommel the bell morning and evening ? And why do millions of Chinese in their houses tinkle a cast-iron pot when they worship ? It is to call the god to attention. And when they pray for riches, sons, and long life (the " three manys " which sum up all their subjects of prayer, in most cases), it is to coax the god into willingness to help them. For those who thus worship, and call it "prayer," know not of a majestic Mother- Love in the heavens, and around them, which always longs ever 80 much to help and to bless.^
^ One sunny morning, after a spell of dismal weather, a little girl of six came running up to some one I know, exclaim- ing : " Look, father, how bright it is ! I prayed God last night to send us a bright morning sometime " — cautious child I — " and isn't it bright now ? " The reply was : " Yes, indeed, my child, and you know it is bright every morning if we only go high enough. For the sun up yonder is always shining — always." *
Lord, what a change within us one short hour Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make! What heavy burdens from our bosoms take, > W. A. Cornaby. • IHd.
286 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
What parched grounds refresh as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; We rise, and all the distant and the near Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We kneel how weak ! We rise how full of power ! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others — that we are not always strong;
That we are ever overborne with care; That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?*
ii. Our Request must he in Harmony with the Will of God.
1. It is plain that there is a manner in which we can not
apply the words of St. Mark, a sense in which they would not
' be true. So much at least the rebuke of St. James says clearly,
"Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss." Christian
prayer is not a thing wild, capricious, unlimited. Christian
prayer, the genuine uplifting of the heart of a man to his God :
— this cannot be as random or as reckless as all the random
impulses of the mind of a man. It has limits ; it has conditions ;
it has laws. There are things which may be asked in prayer,
and there are things which may not. There are ways of asking
aright, and there are ways of asking amiss. The mind that is
really prayerful is a mind trained and disciplined. And we.
too, if we would grasp the secret and blessing of prayer, must
learn to conform ourselves to its conditions ; we must rightly
learn its spirit, its method, its rules ; we must pray, in one
word, not amiss, but right.