and added,

"Doesn't it seem strange that I can't give my money regularly?"

"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Howell, "you have not asked God to help you in
your new enterprise."

"Why, no, I haven't," replied Marty. "I never thought of it."

"My dear child, we are nothing in our own strength. We should always ask
God to help us, in what we attempt, and ask for his blessing. Unless he
blesses our work, it cannot prosper."

"But I don't know how to ask him," said Marty, speaking softly. "The
prayers I say every night are 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' and
there's nothing in them about mission work. I should have to say another
prayer, shouldn't I?"

"If you more fully understood the Lord's Prayer, you would know that
exactly what you want is included in it. But why cannot you ask for what
you desire in your own words? Just go to God as trustingly as you would
to your mother, when you want something you know she will let you have,
if it is good for you to have it. And that would be really praying, for,
Marty, don't you know there's a great difference between saying prayers
and praying? You may say a dozen prayers and not pray at all."

"Don't I pray when I kneel beside the bed and say those two prayers?"

"You do if you make the petitions your own, and really desire what you
ask for, and if you ask in the right spirit. But if you just say the
words over without thinking what you are saying, or whom you are
speaking to, it is not praying at all. It is mocking God."

"I'm sure I wouldn't do that," said Marty, looking frightened.

"I know you would not willfully, my dear, but I just want to show you
that saying over certain words is not praying. We don't realize what a
blessed privilege it is to pray. God's ear is open night and day to any
of us, even the smallest child. He is as ready to hear anything you may
have to say as he is to hear Dr. Edgar when he gets up in his pulpit and
prays."

"Then it wouldn't be wrong to ask God to help me give missionary money
regularly, would it?"

"It would be very right."

That night when Marty knelt beside her bed she really prayed. She felt
that God was listening to her, and when she came to the words, "Now I
lay me down to sleep," she realized that she was committing herself to
his care, and was sure that in that care she was safe. After her usual
prayers she paused a moment and then added, "And, O Lord, please help me
to be steady in giving missionary money."

CHAPT