THE KING’S BUSINESS 5 paralyzed; e. g., in one field under the care of the Foreign Missionary Society o f which the writer is president, we have been unable even to hear from our missionaries for more than a year, except for one short and unsatisfactory let ter. The same thing is true of fields under some other societies. This is simply an illustration o f the conditions that confront them. Our only recourse is to prayer, but that is all-sufficient. Let us make the Week of Prayer a. very real and effective one this year. The exigencies and sorrows of the present war are The War awakening all classes of people everywhere to the need and Prayer. of prayer. In an address delivered from the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral on Declaration Day, August 4, the Bishop of London said: “ No calamity can be pictured more awful than if, at this supreme crisis in the history of the world, England should fail.” He then went on to say, “ But, if we are to rise to our vocation, the first essential thing is that as a nation, not as a few groups of pious individuals, but as a nation, we should turn to God. The only power which can save Europe today is a nation which, while it fights and works and serves and saves without stint, is also a nation on its knees. Do we really believe in God’s strength ? Do we believe in an Almighty God at all ? ,Or is prayer a waste of time ? Do we really . believe in the promise, Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you’ ?” Many things are greatly needed in our day, but the Pray, Brethren, greatest need o f the hour is prayer. There is great Unceasingly Pray. need of more intelligent and thorough study of the Word of God, but there can be no true study of the Word of God without much prayer. There is great need that professing Christians should lead holier lives and should be utterly separated from the world, but there is no possibility of holiness, and there can be no real separation from the world except on the part of those who spend much time alone with God in prayer. There is great need of more generous giving on the part of professed Christians, both for the work at home and abroad, but there will be no sustained, generous giving without much prayer; prayer on the part of those that give for themselves, and prayer on the part of those who have learned to give, for fellow-believers who have never learned the blessedness of systematic and generous giving. There is great need of more and better candidates for the ministry, but the way to get the right kind is by earnest, believing, persistent prayer (Matt. 9 :36-38). There is a crying need for advance in all foreign mis sionary fields; there are such openings as were never offered before in the his tory of the world, but there will come no real and well sustained advance with out much prayer. There is great need o f a deep and thorough-going revival throughout America, and England, and Ireland, and Scotland, and other lands, but real revivals have always been the result of much prayer. There is great need that our ministers preach a simpler and purer gospel, and that they preach it in the power of the Holy Ghost. But they will never preach the gospel they ought to preach, nor with the power that should be theirs, unless they are sus tained by the persistent, earnest, agonizing prayers of God’s people. What every church needs to hear, and what every individual in the church needs to hear, more than all else at the present time, is a call to prayer—a call so loud, so persistent that they must hear. Pray, brethren, pray.
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