not be forgotten that there is no human means
of releasing such measureless forces among mankind. We are in the
midst of a spiritual conflict, and prayer is the determining factor
in that conflict. This involves not simply a prayer for ourselves in a
few hurried sentences at night, when too tired to remember what has
been prayed for when the words are said, not a few fragments of time
given to this most important occupation, but prayer, central in life,
having a clear space in which to live and breathe and yet not confined
to times and seasons but mingling with the whole of life. Sadly it
must be confessed that intercession is not yet the passion of our lives.

Prayer gives quiet confidence that things really happen when men pray.
It is as vital as muscular force, as real as electricity. It wrenches
men loose from their limitations and projects personality into distant
lands. It is the lever of God to pry continents and dead civilizations
up into newness of life. It is the power which helps to lift history
out of its bed and puts it down into new channels where it belongs. It
is of this force which John R. Mott speaks when he says: "The supreme
question of missions is how to multiply the number of Christians who,
with truthful lives and with clear unshaken faith in the character and
ability of God, will, individually or collectively, or cooeperatively
as a church, wield the force of intercessory prayer for the conversion
and transformation of men, for the inauguration and energizing of
spiritual movements, and for the breaking down of all that exalts
itself against Christ and his purposes."

J. Campbell White says: "Prayer is the first and chief method of
solving the missionary problem. Among all the methods that have been
devised none is more practical, more fruitful than this. If we could
get a definite group of people at home into the habit of supporting
by prayer each missionary in the thick of the fight, by this simple
method alone the efficiency of the present missionary force could
probably be doubled without adding a single new missionary."

In bringing in a report on the place of prayer in missions, a
committee of men at one of the conferences of the Laymen's Missionary
Movement submitted the following: "Prayer is the only element which
can quicken information into inspiration, transmute interest into
passion, crystallize emotion into consecration, and coin enthusiasm
into dollars and lives. Resolved, that we