ng of old; the help that is done upon earth He doeth it Himself.
Sure I am, the Lord will avenge the poor, and maintain the cause of the
helpless. Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted
within me? Oh, put thy trust in God; for I will yet praise Him which is
the help of my countenance and my God!

Are there any prayers like the old psalms in their intense sincerity? In
the times when our heart is wounded within us we turn to these ancient
human cries, and we find what we want in them.

Let us pray for the children of this generation being trained now "to
continue the succession," whom nothing less than a Divine interposition
can save. The hunters on these mountains dig pits to ensnare the poor
wild beasts, and they cover them warily with leaves and grass: this
sentence about the succession is just such a pit, with words for leaves
and grass. Let us pray for miracles to happen where individual children
are concerned, that the little feet in their ignorance may be hindered
from running across those pits, for the fall is into miry clay, and the
sides of the pit are slippery and very steep.

More and more as we go on, and learn our utter inability to move a
single pebble by ourselves, and the mighty power of God to upturn
mountains with a touch, we realise how infinitely important it is to
know how to pray. There is the restful prayer of committal to which the
immediate answer is peace. We could not live without this sort of
prayer; we should be crushed and overborne, and give up broken-hearted
if it were not for that peace. But the Apostle speaks of another prayer
that is wrestle, conflict, "agony." And if these little children are to
be delivered and protected after their deliverance, and trained that if
the Lord tarry and life's fierce battle has to be fought--and for them
it may be very fierce--all that will be attempted against them shall
fall harmless at their feet like arrows turned to feather-down; then
some of us must be strong to meet the powers that will combat every inch
of the field with us, and some of us must learn deeper things than we
know yet about the solemn secret of prevailing prayer.

FOOTNOTE:

[F] To-day (February 16, 1912) as I go through proofs of the second
edition, I hear by post of a young girl in a distant city who lately
escaped to a missionary, and asked for what he could not give
her--protection. She had to return to her own home. In her despair, she
drowned hersel