y. Nothing will do instead. Nothing else will solve
the problem. Reading books and listening to sermons on prayer will not
do instead. The only way to learn to pray is to pray. The people who
get things done are the people who, not having the time or the
inclination often, in spite of these things,--pray.

In a word, we have to treat prayer as work, as part of our definite
work as Christians. We know how it is with our work. We do it every
day. We do it whether we feel like doing it or not. We keep on doing
it day after day, month after month, year after year. Prayer is work.
We must treat it with the respect we give to our work. Again, what a
mistake it is to wait on the mood. What a mistake to say, "I do not
feel like praying to-day--perhaps to-morrow!" Our moods come and go.
They are very fragile things, rooted sometimes in trifling causes. One
of the greatest mistakes in this connection is to think that the
effectiveness of our prayers depends upon the particular state of our
feelings at the time. It often happens to people who pray that they
have found the greatest blessings they have won for themselves or for
others have been in times when "the heavens were brass", and they had
little or no sense of reality or warmth in prayer. It is said that the
difference between the professional and the amateur is that the amateur
depends on the mood, but the professional goes on with his work day
after day, paying no attention to a mood here and there. We must be,
in this sense, professionals. Prayer is part of our work as
Christians. Let moods come or go, the work must go on,--the great work
of Praise, Petition, Intercession, Thanksgiving.

Again, if there is one thing more than another that Our Lord was clear
about in His teaching concerning prayer, it is that we must be
persistent in our prayers. We must pray for an answer. This is not to
say that we are to pray until we receive the answer we wish, but until
we receive some light and leading in relation to the subject of our
prayers. It will not be necessary to do more than remind you of the
two parables on this subject in St. Luke's Gospel. There was once a
man upon whom there came an unexpected traveller one night, and he had
"nothing to set before him". He went to a friend at midnight and said,
"Friend, lend me three loaves," and would not go away until he had
received the loaves, but kept on asking and seeking and knocking. "I
say unto you", s