self and accomplish nothing. Can you not be mindful of
your environment--that you are still in the world where vice and
ingratitude hold sway? that you are, as the phrase goes, with "those
who return evil for good"? He who would escape this fact must flee
the boundaries of the world. It requires no great wisdom to live only
among the godly and do good, but the keenest judgment is necessary to
live with the wicked and not do evil.

21. Christianity should be begun in youth, to give practice in the
endurance that will enable one to do good to all men while expecting
evil in return. Not that the Christian is to commend and approve evil
conduct; he is to censure and restrain wickedness to the limit of the
authority his position in life affords. It is the best testimony to
the real merit of a work when its beneficiaries are not only
ungrateful but return evil. For its results tend to restrain the doer
from a too high opinion of himself, and the character of the work is
too precious in God's sight for the world to be worthy of rewarding
it.

II. THE DUTY OF PRAYER.

22. The other Christian duty named by Paul in this passage is that of
prayer. The two obligations--gratitude for benefits received, and
prayer for the preservation and growth of God's work begun in us--are
properly related. Prayer is of supreme importance, for the devil and
the world assail us and delight in turning us aside; we have
continually to resist wickedness. So the conflict is a sore one for
our feeble flesh and blood, and we cannot stand unvanquished unless
there be constant, earnest invocation of divine aid. Gratitude and
prayer are essential and must accompany each other, according to the
requirements of the daily sacrifice of the Old Testament: the
offering of praise, or thank-offering, thanks to God for blessings
received; and the sacrifice of prayer, or the Lord's Prayer--the
petition against the wickedness and evil from which we would be
released.

23. Our life has not yet reached the heights it is destined to
attain. We know here only its incipient first-fruits. Desire is not
satisfied; we have but a foretaste. As yet we only realize by faith
what is bestowed upon us; full and tangible occupancy is to come.
Therefore, we need to pray because of the limitations that bind our
earthly life, until we go yonder where prayer is unnecessary, and all
is happiness, purity of life and one eternal song of thanks and
praise to God.

But heavenly pra