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The Fundamentals darkness where God was, and in that thick darkness he found a light such as never shone elsewhere, and in that light he read God’s secret plans and purposes and interpreted His wondrous ways of working. All practical power over sin and over men depends on maintaining this secret communion. Elijah was bidden, first, “go, hide thyself,” and then, “go shew thyself.” Those who abide in the secret plàce with God come forth to show them selves mighty to conquer evil, and strong to work and to wa for God. They are permitted to read the secrets of His covenant; they know His will; they áre the meek whom He guides in judgment and teaches His way. They are His prophets, who speak for Him to others; because they watch the signs of the times, discern His tokens, and read His sig nals. We sometimes count as mystics those who, like Savon arola and Catherine of Siena, claim to have communications from God ; to have revelations of a definite plan of God for His Church, or for themselves as individuals, like the re former of Erfurt, the founder of the Bristol Orphanages, or the leader of the China Inland Mission. But may it not be that if we stumble at these experiences it is because we do not have them ourselves? Have not many of these men and women afterward proved by their lives that they were not mistaken, and that God has led them by a way that no other eye could trace? PRAYER IMPARTS GOD’S POWER In favor of close contact with the living God in prayer, there is another reason that rises perhaps to a still higher level. Prayer not only puts us in touch with God, and gives knowledge of Him and His ways, but it imparts to us His power. I t is the touch which brings virtue out of Him. It is the hand upon the pole of a celestial battery, which charges us with His secret life, energy, efficiency. Things which
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