ssibilities of speech? God can do more than
we can pray either in words or thoughts.

Our truest praying is that which we cannot express in any words, our
heart's unutterable longings, when we sit at God's feet and look up
into his face and do not speak at all, but let our hearts talk.

"Rather as friends sit sometimes hand in hand,
Nor mar with words the sweet speech of their eyes;
So in soft silence let us oftener bow,
Nor try with words to make God understand.
Longing is prayer; upon its wings we rise
To where the breath of heaven beats upon our brow."

Our best, truest prayers are not for earthly things, but for spiritual
blessings. When the objects are temporal, we do not know what we
should pray for--what would be really a blessing to us. You are a
loving parent, and your child is very ill. It seems that it must die.
You fall upon your knees before God to pray, but you do not know what
to ask. Your breaking heart would quickly plead, "Lord, spare my
precious child"; but you do not know that that is best. Perhaps to
live would not be God's sweetest gift to your child, or to you. So,
not daring to choose, you can only say, "Lord God, I cannot speak more;
but thou knowest thy child; thou understandest what is best."

Or, some plan of yours, which you have long cherished, seems about to
be thwarted. You go to God, and begin to pray; but you do not know
what to ask. You can only say, "Lord, I cannot tell what is best; but
thou knowest." What a comfort it is that God does indeed know, and
that we may safely leave our heart's burden in his hand, without any
request whatever!

"Lord, I had chosen another lot,
But then I had not chosen well;
Thy choice, and truly thine, was good;
No different lot, search heaven or hell,
Had blessed me, fully understood,
None other which thou orderest not."

We can do little more than this in any request for temporal things.
Says Archdeacon Farrar: "There are two things to remember about prayers
for earthly things: One, that to ask mainly for earthly blessings is a
dreadful dwarfing and vulgarization of the grandeur of prayer, as
though you asked for a handful of grass, when you might ask for a
handful of emeralds; the other that you must always ask for earthly
desires with absolute submission of your own will to God's." So
silence is oft-times the best and truest praying--bowing before God in
life's great crises; but saying nothing, leav