Christ makes a second condition. The prayer must be believing. Until recently, science was inclined to scoff at faith as an easy method of self deceit, but of late years an enormous change is perceptible. The modern sciences of psycho-analysis and psycho-therapy have taught us that faith in our power to accomplish an act, or in the power of some one else to accomplish it for, or through, us, is a necessary condition in all success. Our Lord is not inventing a new condition applicable only to religion, but drawing attention to a condition which is of universal applicability.

We may now turn to a question which at times we have probably all of us to face. Why is it that so often God does not, or at any rate seems not to, answer prayer?

Some cases are easily answered. God is a Living Person, not a penny-in-the-slot machine. His promises are conditioned by His own nature, and by the conditions which He has Himself imposed. Prayers for what is wrong, such as for the gratification of our passions or hatreds, obviously will not be answered. Prayers that are experimental, designed to see whether God will or will not do a certain thing, will not be answered for they are not "believing." Prayers which are merely futile and foolish will not be answered. God is not to be played with, but there remain a large number of cases in which prayer is honestly and faithfully made for things which seem to us clearly right, and in the granting of which our happiness seems absolutely involved, and no answer seems to come. What are we to say to such cases ?

Firstly, it may well be that what we ask is really to our hurt. A man gets a telegram telling him to catch the first train home as his wife is dying. He may well pray earnestly to God that he may catch it, and when he misses it, he may be tempted to blaspheme. Afterwards, he finds that the carriage in which he would have travelled is destroyed in an accident, that his wife does not die, but would have died if he had been killed. A baby playing on the floor picks up a knife and screams despairingly when you take it away and refuse to return it. How little do we know of the conditions

of our lives. How foolish to blame God when He refuses to give us what would grievously hurt us.

Or again, we pray for what would really be for the harm of those we love. How often does a mother accuse God of cruelty, because in spite of her prayers her child has died. She assumes that it would have been for her own and for the child's happiness for it to live, else why does she mourn? But how does she know that this is so? Some children grow up to face a burden of lifelong pain and suffering, compared with which an early death is a blessed gift of God; some children grow up to fall into selfishness and sin, which make their own lives far fuller of misery than any pain, and are an hourly torment to those that love them. Can any mother know that neither of these fates will befall her child? If she does not know why blame God for what may be the deepest love?

Or again, we may well pray for what it is not wise for us to have, as when St. Paul prayed that he might be rid of the thorn in the flesh which not only gave him so much suffering, but seemed to hinder his work, and the answer came definitely that in that form his prayer could not be granted; though it was granted in a better way, he was given grace to bear it, sufficient and abounding.

Here is the true answer. God does always hear, and does always answer, prayers that are faithfully offered, but He does not always answer them in the way, or at the time we expect, but even better and more fully. No prayer is ever wasted, but happily it is God, not we, Who has the answering. What frightful blunders we should make if it depended on us.

Yet for all that the number of prayers that God does answer at once and as we pray is perfectly amazing. It is a good thing to keep a little book, and from time to time to note down in it the things for which you pray. If you read over the list, immediately you will probably say: "I do not know how these things are going to come about. I need them most desperately, but there seems no human probability of their being accomplished." A few weeks or months later, read over the list and mark off those which

have been granted, and you will be amazed, perhaps terrified, by the smallness of the number that have not, so far as you can see, been answered. You will be inclined to say: Why have I used this great power so little? Why has God been so good to me beyond all my hopes and my deserving ? "

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Lastly, remember that, as the promise is Christ's, so every prayer must be in the name of Him, Who is the revelation of the love of God the Father for us His unworthy but much loved children.

II.-HOLY COMMUNION

And He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying. This is My body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of Me.-ST. LUKE XXII. 19.

THE

HE Holy Communion, the great mark of Christ's loving care for us, has too often been made the subject of bitterness and dispute. Let us try to-day to find out what it really is, and what it means for us.

First of all, it is simply a command. When one who has every claim on our loyal obedience gives an order, it is surely our plain duty, not to argue, but to obey. There is no doubt whatever that Christ gave the command to "do this." The very fact that the Christian Church has from the very first made its chief service a commemoration, not of the triumphant resurrection, but of the tragic death of its beloved Master, is sufficient proof of the fact. If Christ told us to do this, why do we question or debate? We may not fully understand, but surely He does. He knows much better than we can know. He would not have given the command unless He had meant it to be obeyed. To excuse ourselves on this or that ground, is to act like the

careless guests in our Lord's parable of the Great Supper, and to incur a like condemnation. There is more virtue than we think in a quiet simple obedience. "He said it, He means it, He calls me, therefore I come. I know well how unworthy I am, but He knew that when He called me. It is His will and my joy is to obey."

Next, the Holy Communion was instituted for a special purpose. "Do this in remembrance of Me." "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come." The great central fact of Christianity is the death of the Son of God upon the Cross for us men, and for our salvation. Yet how easily do we forget even the most vital facts. How easily is the whole point and meaning of a religion perverted. The Holy Communion was instituted to keep ever before us the central fact of the Atonement made for us on the Cross. The Holy Communion is the most evangelical of all services. "Come and see the Saviour Who was done to death for us,' it cries; "Come and behold His Body broken and His Blood outpoured." That supreme act of self-surrender, that one perfect sacrifice is the centre of the whole service. Come, it cries, come and remember. Lay aside for the moment all other thoughts. Remember only how the Son of God loved you, how He died for you, how His death pleads for you. Remember the sins which brought Him to the Cross. Remember the infinite love which humbled Him into the dust of death for you. Bewail your own coldness and forgetfulness. Go forth a humbler yet a gladder man, for you have been pardoned and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb."

In the third place, the Holy Communion is the great time of oblation or offering. It is a poor idea of religion which regards it as all getting, as all receiving from God. All true religion is full of the thought of giving, of offering to God of the very best that we are able to give. The Holy Communion is the great opportunity for offering to God. The service in our Prayer Book is full of this thought. We present to God and ask Him to receive graciously our alms and oblations, we ask Him to accept our sacrifice of

praise and thanksgiving, and "we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and living sacrifice unto Thee." This thought of giving and offering to God has been too much lost sight of in these days. It is of the very essence of true religion. A religion which thinks only of receiving is no true religion at all. "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.”

Fourthly, the Holy Communion is the greatest act of Christian worship. It is the only act of worship which is definitely enjoined by Christ Himself. It always has been the great act of Christian worship. Its old name was the Eucharist or Thanksgiving. Justin Martyr, writing not much more than one hundred years after the Crucifixion, gives this account of Christian worship. On the so-called day of the sun, there is a meeting of us all who dwell in the city or the country, and the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the apostles are read so long as time allows. Then the president gives by word of mouth his admonition to follow these excellent things. Afterwards we all rise together and offer prayer and when we have ceased, bread is brought, and wine and water, and the president offers up both prayers and thanksgivings, according to his power, and the people respond with Amen. Then follows the distribution to each and the partaking of those things for which thanks were given, and to those not present a portion is sent by the hand of the deacons." It is very strange that the Holy Communion should among many professing Christians have ceased in these days to be the central act of Christian worship. It would have been very hard to make an early Christian understand that a man who was always absent from the Holy Communion had any claim to be considered a Christian at all. He would probably have asked for what crime he had been excommunicated. That he should excommunicate himself would have passed his comprehension.

Fifthly, the Holy Communion is a divinely appointed means of grace. A sacrament is defined by the Prayer Book as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual