ray glibly and smoothly and readily, I say
that is a mark of the Holy Spirit. When he begins in his prayers to say,
"Oh, God, I want more, I want to be led deeper in. I have prayed for the
heathen, but I want to feel the burden of the heathen in a new way," it is
an indication of the presence of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, beloved, if
you will take time and let God lay the burden of the heathen heavier upon
you until you begin to feel, "I have never prayed," it will be the most
blessed thing in your life. And so with regard to the church: We want to
take up our position as members of the church of Christ in this land; and
as belonging to that great body, to say, "Lord God, is there nothing that
can be done to bless the church of this land and to revive it and bring it
out of its worldliness and out of its feebleness?" We may confer together
and conclude faithlessly, "No, we do not know what is to be done; we have
no influence and power over all these ministers and their churches." But on
the other hand, how blessed to come to God and say, "Lord, we know not what
to ask. Thou knowest what to grant." The Holy Spirit could pray a hundred
fold more in us if we were only conscious of our ignorance, because we
would then feel our dependence upon Him. May God teach us our ignorance in
prayer and our impotence, and may God bring us to say, "Lord, we can not
pray; we do not know what prayer is." Of course some of us do know in a
measure what prayer is, many of us, and we thank God for what he has been
to us in answer to prayer, but oh, it is only a little beginning compared
to what the Holy Spirit of God teaches.

There is the first thought: our ignorance. "We know not what we should pray
for as we ought;" but "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered." We often hear about the work of God the
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost in working out and completing the
great redemption, and we know that when God worked in the creation of the
world, He was not weary, and yet we read that wonderful expression in the
book of Exodus about the Sabbath day, "God rested and was refreshed." He
was refreshed, the Sabbath day was a refreshment to Him. God had to work
and Christ had to work, and now the Holy Spirit works, and His secret
working place, the place where all work must begin, is in the heart where
He comes to teach a man how to pray. When a man begins to get an insight
into that which is need