plainly see, all the conditions mentioned in the list below may be
included in the one word "Abide."

Conditions of Prevailing Prayer

1. Contrite humility before God and forsaking of sin.--2 Chron. 7:14.

2. Seeking God with the whole heart.--Jer. 29:12, 13.

3. Faith in God.--Mark 11:23, 24.

4. Obedience.--1 John 3:22.

5. Dependence on the Holy Spirit.--Rom. 8:26.

6. Importunity.--Mark 7:24-30; Luke 11:5-10.

7. Must ask in accordance with God's will.--1 John 5:14.

8. In Christ's Name.--John 14:13, 14, and many other passages.

9. Must be willing to make amends for wrongs to others.--Matt.
5:23, 24.

Causes of Failure in Prayer

1. Sin in the heart and life.--Psa. 66:18; Isa. 59:1, 2.

2. Persistent refusal to obey God.--Prov. 1:24-28; Zech. 7:11, 13.

3. Formalism and hypocrisy.--Isa. 1:2-15.

4. Unwillingness to forgive others.--Mark 11:25, 26.

5. Wrong motives.--James 4:2, 3.

6. Despising God's law.--Amos 2:4.

7. Lack of love and mercy.--Prov. 21:13.

X

VICTORY FOUND

AT THE close of this little volume it seems fitting to recount again a
wonderful personal experience, narrated in The Sunday School Times of
December 7, 1918.

I do not remember the time when I did not have in some degree a love for
the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. When not quite twelve years of age,
at a revival meeting, I publicly accepted and confessed Christ as my
Lord and Master.

From that time there grew up in my heart a deep yearning to know Christ
in a more real way, for he seemed so unreal, so far away and visionary.
One night when still quite young I remember going out under the trees in
my parents' garden and, looking up into the starlit heavens, I longed
with intense longing to feel Christ near me. As I knelt down there on
the grass, alone with God, Job's cry became mine, "Oh, that I knew where
I might find him!" Could I have borne it had I known then that almost
forty years would pass before that yearning would be satisfied?

With the longing to know Christ, literally to "find" him, came a
passionate desire to _serve_ him. But, oh, what a terrible nature I had!
Passionate, proud, self-willed, indeed just full was I of those things
that I knew were unlike Christ.

The following years of half-hearted conflict with sinful self must be
passed over till about the fifth year of our missionary work in China. I
grieve to