famous
Scotch minister. His biographer tells of a time when he was at the manse
of a country minister in whose church he was to preach next day. The
minister's wife withdrew to get a cup of tea for the old man, leaving
her little boy there. By and by she heard a strange, unaccustomed sound,
as it seemed to her under such conditions. And as she listened and
looked, she saw that the old man was kneeling with the boy. It had
seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to speak to his Great
Friend about his little friend.

Dr. Arthur Smith was like that with God, and his son Henry took after
him. One January day in 1905 the father reached New York from China and
sought his son. They went to a hotel room to bridge the time of absence
by "a tremendous lot of back conversation," as the son wrote to the
mother. But before they had any chance to talk of other matters the
father said, "Come, boy, let's have a prayer." "Wasn't that just like
him?" Henry asked his mother.

A minister who was spending his vacation in the northern woods was
called in to see a dying lumberman. Before leaving the visitor prayed
with the sick man, and suggested that he pray for himself. The objection
was made that it was useless to pray--God understood a man's trials, and
He knew what was wanted before a request was made. The minister asked
him if he didn't know what his children needed before they asked him, if
he didn't know they were disappointed or troubled; yet didn't he wish to
have them talk over these things with him?

The man thought a moment. Then he said, "Do you think that would be
prayer--just for me to lie here and tell God what He knows already--how
it hurts, and all my disappointment, and my anxiety for the future of my
children and my wife--and everything--just to tell Him?"

"I think it would," said the minister. "I think it would be prayer of a
very real kind."

One who had learned that prayer is not a mere formal exercise, to be
dreaded and postponed, has said:

"Pray often--in bits, with a persistency of habit that betrays a
childlike eagerness and absorption. Rise up to question God as children
do their earthly parents--at morning, noon and night and between times.
Ask Him about everything. Be with Him more than with all other persons.
Acquire the home habit with Him. Be a child in His hands. Do not fear
lest He be too busy to listen, or too grown up to care or to understand.
Just talk to Him, in broken sentences, half