atonement of Christ. There is something in prayer which impresses all these truths upon the mind, if indeed prayer does not implicitly involve and presuppose them.

Prayer is detachment from the world and attachment to Christ. It is the love of Christ that constrains us; not our love to Christ nor Christ's love to us, but Christ's love in us, the great fountain overflowing and filling the little pipes and tanks constructed to receive it. But prayer lifts the gates, removes hindrances, and lets the tide flow in. Abiding in Christ is abiding in his love, and that abiding is impossible without prayer. I do not believe that loveless and selfish living is ever found in connection with earnest and habitual prayer. I am not speaking of the vain repetitions of heathenism or of Romanism, but of the real daily communion with God which we call believing prayer. The great lovers of their kind like Livingstone and Paton have been men who devoted hours at a time to prayer. Prayer was the laying of the head on Jesus' breast, the drawing near to the heart of Christ, the making of his sympathies and affections to be ours.

Prayer is an exercise of will. Coleridge called it the intensest exercise of the human understanding. It is that, but it is more. The will embraces the understanding, and prayer requires will. We dislike to think, but we still more dislike to pray. Only as the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities do we ever pray aright. But here more than anywhere else do we find that, in our working out of our own salvation, it is God who works in us, both to will and to work

of his good pleasure. And the result is that our strength is the strength of ten, because our heart is pure. I do not believe that men of prayer are ever left to impotence and uselessness. Even when they are thrust into dungeons, they are prisoners of Jesus Christ; and, though the foundations of the prison may not be shaken nor the jailers converted, yet their bonds are made to further the interests of the gospel and to manifest the power of Christ.

I am persuaded that all decline in doctrine or polity, in conscientiousness or liberality, in evangelistic activity or missionary zeal in our churches, is due to neglect of prayer. I am persuaded also that the only remedy for these ills is in new supplication, and that the ministers of the churches must, above all things else, be instructors and examples of perseverance and power in prayer. Does it seem strange to you that one who represents an institution for theological education should so emphasize one of the means of success? Ah, let us not mistake! Prayer is primary, education secondary. With prayer the world can be converted, education or no education. But all the education in the world will not convert the world without prayer. You have had the education. Now the one question of your lives is: Will you be men of prayer?

Prayer requires will. You never will be men of prayer unless from the beginning of your ministry you determine that prayer shall have the first place, and not the second place, in your plan of life. And this must be no mere closet resolve, it must be organized into habit, and made your regular business. We

smile at the formal and mechanical worship of the Roman Church. But let us give credit to its priests. They do give time to devotion. And we must give time, and the best time, to prayer, if we would make it a living power in our lives. The most searching question that can be put to the ministers of our day is this one: Do you daily set apart the first and the best hour of your day for private prayer and meditation upon Scripture? How much of spiritual barrenness and despondency, how much of ill success in preaching and pastoral work, can be accounted for, by the mere fact that ministry was not preceded by prayer!

All great revivals of religion, all great leaderships in the kingdom of God, have been born in prayer. All the great crises in Jesus' life, his baptism, his choice of his disciples, his transfiguration, his agony in Gethsemane, were preceded or accompanied by prayer, prayer often long continued, and accentuated by strong crying and tears. Are we better than the Son of God, that we can dispense with prayer? If he upon whom the Spirit rested without measure needed refreshment and reenforcement for his work, shall we say that we can do without them? My brethren, our praying will be the measure of our personal religious progress and of our success in winning men to Christ.

With prayer all other things will go that pertain unto life and godliness. The soul that abides in Christ and in which Christ abides will never be left desolate. There is no spiritual orphanage for those who use the Lord's appointed means. He has promised to

manifest himself to them and through them. They shall bring forth fruit, and the world shall see in the stately edifice of Christian character and in the growing conquests of the kingdom the evidence that prayer is not in vain. Prayer is simply the lining up of the human will to meet the divine will, the ratifying of God's decree by our decree. God accomplishes his purposes through the prayers of his people, so that where there is no prayer there is no ministry.

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I have argued this matter as if it were a mere question of privilege. But it is a question of duty. When Jesus says, "Ask, and ye shall receive," the word ask" is not a subjunctive, meaning, "If ye ask, ye shall receive." It is an imperative. Prayer is the duty and the business of the minister's life. And so, as my last word to this Class of 1906, of which I have such happy memories and such exalted hopes, I urge the duty of unremitting and earnest supplication. May wisdom and love and power be yours, because you detach yourselves from secular concerns, and give yourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word!

1907

SINGLENESS OF MIND

BRETHREN OF THE GRADUATING CLASS: When our Lord came to his baptism, he consecrated himself to the work before him. In the waters of the Jordan he was buried in the likeness of his coming death, and was raised again in the likeness of his coming

resurrection. In this symbolic act he defined the purpose of his life; he put all other aims aside; he surrendered himself absolutely to the will of God. He could say, with the prophet: "Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame."

You have come to a similar crisis in your own lives. Your preparatory work is over. The future, with its promise of labor and struggle and reward, beckons you onward. With you, as with Jesus, all depends upon the attitude of your souls. Have you an undivided heart? Can you say with Paul: “I determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and him crucified"? It is SINGLENESS OF MIND to which I would exhort you, singleness of mind in your pursuit of truth, in your building up of character, and in your doing of good to others.

Just one preliminary word as to the meaning of the phrase "singleness of mind." It implies that a unified life is the only normal, happy, or successful life. We are complex beings, with many diverse impulses and powers. Sin has wrought disharmony and disorganization. Intellect and affection often work against each other; conscience and will are at crosspurposes. Only the fear and love of God can reduce our faculties to order and can give us peace, purity, and power. "Unite my heart to fear thy name,' should be our constant prayer. A double life is at best a weak life. When it is kept up consciously and intentionally, as is so well illustrated in Stevenson's story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it becomes hypocrisy and wickedness.