and not that merely, but to an infinitely wiser and more intelligent will than you own.

If, by any chance, you do not need this Divine help and guidance, then do not ask it. Prayer is for you, not for God. The father does not so much need his children as they need him; his care, protection, and help. Doubtless your parents are happy if they possess your love and confidence; but they are so mainly because that enables them to instruct and benefit you.

But you will be unfortunate if you attain to years of discretion without such experiences of life, and such knowledge of your own weakness and inadequacy to any true living, as will make you desire and need constantly to ask our Father in Heaven for help.

All men who have risen above the intellectual condition of a pig in a sty have felt this need of some outward help in their lives to what they knew to be right living. When we look into our hearts and examine ourselves, we see that we are "prone to evil, as the sparks fly upwards," and that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." "Allowing everything to be an instinct [in man] which anybody has ever asserted to be one," says John Stuart Mill, "it remains true that nearly every respectable attribute of humanity

is the result, not of instinct, but of a victory over instinct. *** It is only in a highly artificial condition of human nature that the notion grew up, or I believe ever could have grown up, that goodness was natural." And again: "Of the social virtues it is almost superfluous to speak, so completely is it the verdict of all experience that selfishness is natural. By this I do not, in anywise, mean to deny that sympathy is natural also. *** But sympathetic characters, left uncontrolled and given up to their sympathetic instincts, are as selfish as others. The difference is in the kind of selfishness—theirs is not solitary, but sympathetic selfishness."

Scripture and one of the greatest of modern philosophers thus agree as to the natural character of man. But you need no other evidence than your own conscience. Examine your conduct, your motives, your thoughts, and you discover that you are far more easily and constantly moved to evil than to good. It requires a constant effort to keep even a tolerable control over our evil passions and propensities. "For the good that I would, I do not," says St. Paul; "but the evil which I would not, that I do;" and this is the experience of all men. Against the evil which thus asserts itself in us, and wars with our right and reasonable living, we are forced continually to strive. In this strife you may pray for

the help of God-that He may give you, at least, the desire for good. Here it is profitable to you to cultivate intimate relations with the Heavenly Father. Here you may ask, in the certainty that your earnest prayer will have answer.

It may be that you do not feel the need of this assistance. In that case you are free to do without it. Jesus not only taught us how to pray - He urged frequent, constant prayer; but as something needed for our own uses, our own protection, and not as the abject homage of a subject to a tyrant.

XVI.

CONDUCT OF LIFE.

DOES the fact of a future life lessen for us the importance or interest of the affairs of the present?

On the contrary, I think you will see that this consideration is needed to give to the present stage of our existence its real value and interest. To hold otherwise would be to assert that the blind drifting of a wreck at the mercy of wind and current is more important than the fixed course of a ship bound for a port, and making a voyage of design and purpose. The master of such a ship has many cares and anxieties; he needs skill, foresight, prudence, watchfulness. He meets head-winds and treacherous currents, storms and baffling calms. He cannot always lie on his course, and he may be beaten off for a time by adverse gales; but he has always his port in mind, and his whole voyage is full of life, of interest and importance, because, and only because, to him, it has this definite purpose.

We are free, here, to choose moral good or evil for our lives, though evil is easier to us than good,

as it requires less effort of the crew of a ship to let her drift than to hold her to her course. Our physical lives, also, are largely under our own control. We inherit much, and we are subject, more or less, to our surroundings; but it is easy and mischievous to over-estimate the power of these influences. None of them, nor all of them, suffice to prevent man from maintaining true relations to God and to his fellow

men.

On the whole, the possession of wealth and power is, perhaps, the influence most strongly adverse to his right living who has them. Hence that deep saying of Jesus to the rich man: "One thing thou lackest; go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and follow thou me!" Yet, as He added to his disciples, "with God all things are possible;" and so the world has seen beneficent rulers, and rich men who, though not without great and constant care and labor, so managed that their wealth did not become directly or indirectly their curse.

As to poverty and distress, as to want and affliction, as to friendlessness and misfortune-these do not harden their hearts who suffer them; on the contrary, it is among the very poor that we see the most ready and uncomplaining self-sacrifice; it is when men are desolate and afflicted that they are moved to seek God.