to pray for us and help us, but always defeat our
object when we look too much to them and lean upon them. The true secret
of union is for both to look upon God, and in the act of looking past
themselves to Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when
he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged
to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had
waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he
would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and
then I was able to help him when he did not grasp me too strongly."

When people grasp us too strongly, either with their love or with their
dependence, we are intuitively conscious that they are not looking to God,
and we become paralyzed in our efforts to help them. United prayer,
therefore, requires that the one for whom we pray be looking away from us
to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we together look to Him alone.

APRIL 23.

"An high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. iv.
15).

Some time ago we were talking with a greatly suffering sister about
healing, who was much burdened physically and desirous of being able to
trust the Lord for deliverance. After a little conversation we prayed with
her, committing her case to the Lord for absolute trust and deliverance as
she was prepared to claim. As soon as we closed our prayer she grasped our
hand, and asked us to unite with her in the burden that was most upon her
heart, and then, without a word of reference to her own healing, or the
burden under which she was being crushed to death, she burst into such a
prayer for a poor orphan boy, of whom she had just heard that day, as we
have never heard surpassed for sympathy and love, imploring God to help
him and save him, and sobbing in spasmodic agony of love many times during
her prayer, and then she ceased without even referring to her own need. We
were deeply touched by the spectacle of love, and we thought how the
Father's heart must be touched for her own need.

APRIL 24.

"Fret not thyself in any wise" (Ps. xxxvii. 8).

A life was lost in Israel because a pair of human hands were laid unbidden
upon the ark of God. They were placed upon it with the best intent to
steady it when trembling and shaking as the oxen drew it along the rough
way, but they touched God's work presumptuously, and they fell paralyzed
and lifeless. M