e may pray for, or what we may not pray for. "When ye pray, say,
Father;" and for the rest let your own heart teach you. But if we are
left thus free shall we not ask many things which we have no right to
ask, which God cannot grant? Undoubtedly we shall, just as a boy of five
will ask many things that his father, because he loves him, must refuse.
Nevertheless, no wise father would wish to check the childish prattle.
There is nothing that he values more than just these frank,
uncalculating confidences, for he knows that it is by means of them that
the shaping hands of love can do their perfect work. And the remedy for
our mistakes in prayer is not a set of little man-made rules, telling us
what to pray for and what not to pray for, but rather a deeper insight
into, and a fuller understanding of, the glory and blessedness of the
Divine Fatherhood.

III

Passing now from these preliminary counsels concerning prayer, let us
note how great is the importance which, both by His precepts and His
example, Christ attaches to the duty of intercessory prayer. I have been
much struck of late in reading several books on this subject, to note
how one writer after another judges it needful to warn his readers
against the idea that prayer is no more than petition. What they say is,
of course, true; prayer is much more than petition. But, unless I
misread the signs of the times, this is not the warning which just now
we most need to hear. Rather do we need to be told that prayer is more
than communion, that petition, simple asking that we may obtain, is a
part, and a very large part of prayer. "Who rises from prayer a better
man," says George Meredith, "his prayer is answered." This is true, but
it is far from being the whole truth. The duty of intercession, of
prayer for others, is writ large on every page of the New Testament; but
intercession has simply no meaning at all unless we believe that God
will grant our requests as may be most expedient for us and for them for
whom we pray. Let me illustrate the wealth of Christ's teaching on this
matter by two or three examples.

(1) We have all read Tennyson's question--

"What are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friends?"

For themselves and those who call them friends--but Christ will not
suffer us to stop there. "Bless them that