tention when I am walking about or sitting down. And
I tell God what I know about a man, and how I want him to live a better
life. Sometimes I seem to struggle for him as though for very life. I
go on and on and on--sometimes repeating the same request. I try to
copy the poor widow who wearied out the dishonest judge. I am not
distressed when my thoughts wander, I know that they will always wander
without God's help. The distress occasioned by wandering thoughts, and
the attempt to trace the stages by which they wandered, I regard as
temptations of the devil. . . . I go back as calmly as possible to the
matter in hand.

Excuse my 'egoism.' I put it in the first person, {131} because I
believe my own experience will help you more than rules derived from
the experience of others.

Suppose you spend half an hour in this way, and only really pray for
three or four minutes, your efforts will be more than rewarded. You
will have done more than you know for the person for whom you have
prayed. And the next half-hour you will find that you can concentrate
your attention for a minute or two longer. Don't think too much about
yourself when you pray. You must lose your soul if you would save it.

There is probably some one thing or some one person easier than others
for you to pray for. Begin with that.

I never try, as some people do, to classify and enter into details
about my sins. I bring the whole contradictory, weary, and
unintelligible mass of them to God, and leave them with Him. I am
quite sure I shall never do better without Him. But I know that He
believes in me, and will help me in spite of myself. He believes in
you too, dear old fellow! May God bless you for your kindness to me!
Write me just a short note to tell me that you don't despise me in
spite of what must seem to you rather unintelligible and ridiculous
confessions.

I can't help it. And if you can bring yourself to do it, call me too
by my Christian name.

_To the same._

Christ's College, Cambridge: September 28, 1900.

I feel more and more the necessity of being alone occasionally for some
time--to get time enough to {132} pray. I think my supreme desire is
to be a man of prayer. You must help me to accomplish the desire:
'Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo.'

So it is with prayer. As the stone gets worn away, not by the force of
the drop of water but by its constant trickling, so prayer often
renewed must a