II. They are attentive hearers. They "are such as hear the word." They so "hear" as to "hearken," in the full sense of the call, "Hear, and your soul shall live." Ah! to get the irreligious masses but to hear, were already half the desired result. Even stray words can smite in through the harness to the very "joints and marrow." Cases are recorded in which the deliberate stopping of the ears during a sermon has been suspended for a moment to scare away a buzzing insect, when a Gospel utterance got into the liberated ear that went with fervour to the heart. The Jews first "stopped their ears" against Stephen, and then "rushed upon him with one accord"-apt emblem of the too common connection between wrong hearing and strong commenting. Right hearing is not only attentive, but sympathetic; hearing from the speaker's own centre; hearing not his voice only, not even his mind only, but, as far as may be, his very heart. Were men in this sense more "swift to hear," they would, in the matter of hostile comment, be more slow to speak."

Absent hearing, let the young be warned, is a habit that grows. Indulge it, and soon the law of habit will have you in its coils, and, like Delilah with Samson, weave at will this enchantment around you. We have seen old men, whom the burden of years predisposed to sleep, rise erect, like heroes, a spectacle to the whole congregation, the better to battle down the insidious foe. Beware of that Balaam sort of sleep, "falling into a trance, but having the eyes open." Some fine adventure is mentally enacted; some little novel spins its tissue; some little drama plays out its plot on the ideal stage. Perhaps worse happens, as imagination, impure or profane, takes leave to disport itself on forbidden fields. Rise up in alarm. Never was knight in an enchanted castle more helpless than you are spiritually, if you allow these reveries free. course. It is horrible profanation thus to sport, yea, to wanton in God's Holy of Holies; and it is certain death, if persisted in, to all life of God in the soul.

III. They are intelligent hearers. They "hear the word and understand it." This comes next in the order of nature. What is attention but a summons from the will calling the intellect into action. Hearing is a sensation, but it is also a perception, which already involves the intelligence. Even motives that more especially address our emotions, can only do so by means of the intelligence. Whatever would influence the man must first engage his thinking. As he thinks, he feels; and as he thinks and feels, he freely wills. This is mental philosophy; and it is Bible philosophy; for the Bible with its contained Gospel is a set of soul-saving truths that address themselves to our intelligence and demand our belief. And it tells us that only by belief can salvation enter into

and possess us consistently with our rational nature.

"As a man thinketh in his heart (or mind), so is he." "This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

66

They that know Thy name shall put their trust in Thee."

But the Gospel, simple though it be, is a set or system of truths. Take its very simplest expression. Is it "God is love"? But a whole theology lies in that very first word God. Who is He? What is He! How stands He related to us? and How has this relation become affected by our sin? So with any other Gospel inclosing buds of far-reaching truths.

epitome; its terms are so many These we must study, and that in sequence and system: "Hold fast the form of sound words.”

Many are the spurious varieties to which intelligent hearing stands opposed: for example, sensational hearing, which doats on the maudlin sentiment, the vapid anecdote, the loves of kindred effusively touched, or panoramas of heaven with the colours well laid on: Esthetic hearing, which takes note only of the artistic in manner, gesture, flourish, finish, and in a voice "as the sound of a very pleasant instrument : Negative kearing, a growing variety in these days, which flouts at dogma; crying up the wine, yet staving in the containing cask, belauding the brain, and then smashing in the protecting skull: Athenian hearing, which lightly parts with the true for the sake of the new: Undiscriminating hearing, that has a swallow for whatever the preacher chooses to give, whose motto, instead of "Prove all things" is "Eat all things;" or, as Boston puts it, "There are four different kinds of hearers of the word, -those like a sponge, that suck up good and bad together, and let both run out immediately; those like a sand-glass, that let what enters in at one ear pass out at the other; those like a strainer, letting go the good, and retaining the bad; and those like a sieve, letting go the chaff, and retaining the good grain."

IV. They are receptive hearers. "They receive the word": so stands it in Mark. For Matthew's word "understand," Mark has "receive,” which is the more comprehensive word of the two. This, however, for want of space, we must leave unillustrated; as we must also do with the other varieties that remain.

V. They are retentive hearers. As we read in Luke, “Having heard the word, they keep it." They contrast, therefore, not only with the wayside hearers who tempt the very devil to pick it off, but also, in their varying degrees, with the rocky and thorny ground hearers. They not only "prove all things," they "hold fast that which is good." They thus "lay up a good store against the time to come;" text after text coming up when needed in the hour of temptation and trial, and reappearing as ministering angels on the bed of death.

VI. They are patient hearers: "With patience," says Luke, yea, and with "perseverance," the word denoting not only the passive, but also this active virtue.

VII. They are useful hearers, overflowing in well-doing to others: "They bring forth fruit." This, indeed, is their crowning characteristic; in varying degrees, but in all some; and in all, that some ought to be much. "Bear much fruit," says Jesus, "so shall ye be My disciples" So shall ye be, and such will ye thereby prove yourselves to be.

:

VIII. And finally, they are hearers that are blessed in their own souls; for all their good-doing returns sevenfold into their own bosom. "Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Blessing he is blessed, and blessed he becomes yet more a blessing; and so the circle of benign reaction divinely runs its ceaseless round. JOHN GUTHRIE.

Prayer is a Force.

ALL change in the universe is the result of force in action. There is in nature a multitude of forces, each one of which produces changes or effects corresponding to the nature and intensity of the force in action. Solidity is due to the force of cohesion. Solution results from the force of adhesion. The tendency of masses of matter toward each other is owing to the force of gravitation. Chemical force is detected in compound bodies. Heat, light,. electricity, and magnetism are natural forces familiar to the scientist. There is vital force likewise in vegetable and animal. A higher grade of force still, is mind force, exhibited in thought, emotion, and will. Atoms and masses, the ponderable and the imponderable, the organic and the inorganic, the living and the dead, are all replete with force. From central core to wide circumference, nature is a teeming magazine of forces. Operating, as they must and do, on every inorganic atom and every fibre of vegetable and animal substance, a rushing tide of never-pausing motion, change, sweeps round in endless revolution, or on and forward to the “final consummation."

All change in the wide universe is the result of force. It is self-evident that no change can by possibility occur but by the exertion of force. The converse of this principle is equally true-that every force in active exertion must and will result in change--must and will produce an effect in kind and measure in accurate correspondence to the nature and intensity or amount of force exerted. This is a principle in natural dynamics, not only universally admitted but universally insisted upon by scientists-quite as strenuously by materialists who denominate prayer a superstitious folly, as by Christian scientists who teach the efficacy of prayer.

If, then, prayer is a force, and if every force produces a result, it neces

sarily and unavoidably follows that prayer is efficacious; that it is not a superstitious folly, and that answer to it is not a scientific impossibility; but that, on the contrary, it harmonises perfectly with the well-established principles and universal teachings of science, and that it is scientifically impossible that it should not be answered.

But prayer is a force. Prayer is as really and truly a force as that which binds the atom to its fellow, or propels the wheeling planet-as truly as that which moves and guides the tool that builds the ship, or that shapes and drives the engine-as truly as that which elaborates the thought and utters the words that sway the multitude, or that mould the character and shape the destiny of nations. Indeed, the force, the power of thought, of emotion, of will, of language, and of prayer, cannot be widely different from each other. "Mind governs matter is a form of expression denoting force, and is a universally accepted truth. So also "knowledge is power." Mind is not only itself a force, but a prolific generator of forces. Thought and emotion are forces. So also are faith and hope, love and hate, fear, desire and will. Every mind-product, indeed, however manifested, is a force. Some mental forces are, it may be, subjective, some objective, nevertheless they are forces. However complex or compound prayer may as a force be, still all its elements are dynamic; and when exerted it is scientifically and philosophically impossible that it should fail to effect its proper and legitimate result-a result in all respects corresponding to the nature and the sum of its conjunct and co-operating elements. The effect must always follow where the force operates freely.

Assuming, then, as established, that prayer is a force, the chief, if not the entire, difficulty of those who insist that answer to prayer is a scientific imossibility at once disappears. In fact, if prayer is admitted to be a force, Scientists are compelled either to insist that it is efficacious, or to abandon the undamental principle of causation.

But perhaps a fertile source of difficulty in the minds of scientists and others is the neglect or failure on the part of the advocates of the power of prayer, to define satisfactorily its legitimate scope and sphere-its limits. All forces have limits to their operation. Cohesion operates upon the particles of matter of the same kind. This is its limit. It cannot change the weight nor affect the temperature of a body. Gravitation causes bodies to approach each other. This is its limit-its scope and sphere of operation. It does not render bodies luminous, nor does it elevate their temperature. Neither does it cause elementary substances to combine into chemical compounds. As a force it exhausts itself upon bodies in the mass, and in the single direction indicated. Thus far it can go, and no farther. The same is true of every force. Each has its function in the economy of nature; each is assigned a sphere in which it may operate, and each has its appointed bounds beyond which it cannot go. All forces are special, having their functions respectively assigned them; and all are partial, having their limits fixed.

The same is unquestionably true of prayer. It is not a force of unbounded scope and universal operation. The advocates of its efficacy have

never so insisted. Like other forces which operate in the wide empire of Jehovah, it is special and partial. Its function is assigned, its limit fixed. What is its function, and what its scope and limits, may be learned from nature, reason, and revelation.

Again, all forces are co-active, consistent, and essentially harmonious. One force does not antagonise another. They cannot clash. They are all harmoniously co-operative. Forces may be related and correlated. They may combine and co-act. They may modify each other. But they never confront and antagonise each other. They all move, so to speak, in the same direction. There is no dynamic war in the universe. There can be no conflict between natural forces in the sense of hostile disorder or destructive antagonism. Legitimate prayer affords no exception to the principle enunciated. It has full and unobstructed operation in its appointed sphere. Outside of its appointed limits, scientifically speaking, it is either inoperative, or is neutralised by incompatible forces. It may, however, operate in conjunction with other forces, as heat co-operates with chemical affinity. It may, in some sense, oppose other forces, as heat opposes cohesion. It may modify other forces, as light modifies the action of vital forces in plants and animals. Yet it harmonises essentially and substantially with all other forces. Prayer does not antagonise gravitation. It cannot overturn the pyramid, nor pluck the moon from its orbit. Prayer does not antagonise cohesion. It cannot dissolve the granite rock, nor reduce the earth to molten chaos. Yet prayer is a force, and never fails to produce its legitimate result when exerted.

This law of prayer, as well as its scope and limit, is distinctly enunciated in the Holy Scriptures. "Ask, and ye shall receive." This is the law. It is identical with the law of causation. Cause and effect, force and result, are distinctly set forth. Yet no conflict of force with force, or law with law, is either expressed, intimated, or implied. The contrary rather. Prayer does not call upon God to alter the established order of His administration, but to act conformably to it. Prayer, and the answer to prayer, have been provided for in the constitution of things, and the Divine government of man, and of things that in any way affect man, as fully as has been done for any other force and its effect. Prayer seeks to excite no new inclination, nor to engender any new purpose in the Divine mind. God is not like man, whose judgment may be convinced by arguments, and whose affection and favour may be won by persuasion. Yet men pray expecting that He will do for them, in consequence of their prayers, what He would not have done had they not prayed. And yet this does not imply that He is a changeable Being, nor does it involve any interference with the established order of things. The connection between prayer and its object is strikingly analogous, if not identical, with the connection between means and ends in the economy of nature. God bestows blessings because men ask. He gives the harvest because men labour. Man's need would not procure the blessing. Neither would man's need produce the harvest. Man's desire would not obtain the blessing. Neither would man's desire procure the harvest. (od does not promise to those who want that they shall have, but to those who