sorely for some things that we have not found, and the search has
aged and saddened us.

It seems to be perfectly certain that the distinct purpose which our
Lord here has in view, is to assert that the law of His Kingdom is the
direct opposite of the law of earthly life, and that the sad discrepancy
between desire and possession, between wish and fact, is done away with
for His followers. 'Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,' is the charter
of His Kingdom.

Now, dear brethren, it does not want much wisdom to know that that would
be a very questionable blessing indeed, if it were taken to apply to the
outward circumstances of our lives. There are a good many people, in all
ages, and there are some people in this day, who set themselves up for
very lofty and spiritual Christians who have made deep discoveries as
to the power of prayer, and who seem to understand by it just exactly
this, that if a man will only pray for what he wishes instead of working
for it, he will get what he wishes. And I make bold to say that all
forms of so-called higher experience which involve anything like that
thought are, instead of being an exaltation, a degradation, of the very
idea of Christian prayer. For the meaning of prayer is not that I shall
force my will upon God, but that I shall bend my will to His.

There is one region, and one only, in which it is true, absolutely,
unconditionally, without limitation, and always, that what we ask we
get, what we seek we find, and that the door at which we knock shall be
opened unto us; and that is not the region of outward, questionable, and
changeful good.

Why, the very context of these words shows us that. It dwells upon the
discrimination of an earthly father in answering his child's requests;
and says: 'he knows how to give good gifts,' and 'so will your heavenly
Father.' And it takes an illustration which we may extend in that same
direction when it says, 'If a child ask a loaf, will the father give him
a stone? or if he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent?' We may
turn the question and say: If the child ask for a serpent because he
fancies that it is a fish, will his father give him that? Or if he cast
his eye upon a thing which he imagines to be a loaf when it is only a
stone, will his father let him break his teeth upon that? Surely no! He
knows how to give good gifts, and an essential condition of that divine
knowledge of how to give good gifts is the knowledge of how to refu