fore. When he came into the meeting and asked us to pray, there were a great many who lifted their hearts in prayer for the only boy, who was then in front of Richmond; and during the day, a dispatch came that at that very hour while we were praying for him he was mortally wounded and dying-an only son. What comfort that father has had since, that prayer went up for him at that hour. God undoubtedly burdened his heart to pray for him.

If God burdens your heart, don't be ashamed to pray yourself and ask friends to pray your for you. If you have a son or daughter that you are anxious about, go and make your requests known unto God; that is what he tells us here, "Let your requests be made known unto God." Don't be ashamed to present them for prayer; it shows our love for them. What better could we do for our children and our friends than to pray God to bless them; and any one that would get angry because we prayed for them must show they are under the power of the devil; they must have their hearts hardened, and be very blind. To me it is very encouraging, day after day, to see so many people coming out here to pray, and these requests coming in, not only from Boston, but from all New England. It shows that God is laying upon the hearts of his people this burden of prayer. And shall not we all pray that this blessed work, that has so gloriously commenced, shall deepen; and that there may be hundreds and thousands of scoffers, and men that are making light of these requests and jeering at our prayers, may become convicted and converted? Our God is able to break the hardest hearts. Let us make our requests known unto God; and let us expect he will give us an answer. He is constantly answering prayer for the sons and daughters that have been presented here; and in other places, sons and daughters who have been presented for prayers have been saved. I have just heard from Chicago; one church took in 162 members while we were there, and the next communion they took in 500 members. God is answering prayer. My dear friends, let us keep on praying. God is able to save these people, and there is none but God who does answer prayer. Don't let infidelity come in and make us believe that God has got a deaf ear and cannot answer: or that his arm is shortened and he cannot deliver. Our God is a prayer-answering God. How many mothers have had their sons and daughters saved, not through some sermon, but by the mighty power of God converting them.

There is just one thought, in that passage I have read, which I think you are ready to hear. It was suggested to me by an Englishman some time ago, and I am anxious to call your attention to it. It occurs in the 6th verse: "Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." He says there are three things enjoined upon us in this passage. First, that we should be careful

for nothing; second, that we should be prayerful for everything; and third, that we should be thankful for anything. Careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything. We should not be troubled about anything that may happen to us, but should always go to God in prayer for all our wants, and should be thankful for any answer we may get to our petitions.

A great many people get discouraged because they pray for temporal blessings; for what is not good for them. God does not answer such prayers; and they ought to thank him for it. Now the men who are taken up the most prominently in Scripture, perhaps the most eminent men who ever lived, don't get their prayers answered. It is no sign that God does not love us, because we don't get our prayers answered, as we want them answered. There is Moses, whom God takes up more than any man in the Old Testament. He prayed as no one else prays. He was a man of prayer, and we can hear him praying God to take him over the sea to the goodly land. But God did not answer his prayer-not because he did not love him, but because he had something else in store for him. We can imagine him talking to Moses as a mother to a child, who is asking for something she does not wish him to have. God says: "That will do, Moses! I hear I know you you; want to go over there pretty bad; but I am not going to let you go. It's no use." But God did for him that which was much greater than any answer to his prayer could have been. He did for him what he never did for any other man. He conferred upon him the greatest, the most sublime distinction he could give to any mortal. God buried him. He could not see the promised land, and as some one has beautifully expressed it, "God kissed his soul away." God did not answer his prayer. Yes, he did answer it, if that which happened later could be called an answer. He did answer it fifteen hundred years afterwards, when he appeared with Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration. It appeared that his prayer was not answered. But it was answered at last. So it was with Elijah. There he was praying under the juniper tree; he was praying that he might die. But God did not answer his prayer. But it was by the power of prayer that he was rendered fearless, when he was set before Ahab. Look at him calling down fire on Mount Carmel. All the prophets could not call the fire down; he prayed, and the fire came. He prayed under the juniper tree that he might die; but God did not answer his prayer. Why not? Because it would have been a disgrace to God-the man's dying then under the juniper tree. God loved him too well to answer his prayer. God does not answer our prayers, sometimes, because we ask for things that would be harmful to us. We would get a good many things we ask for, if God did not love us too well to answer our prayers.

A man was shaving himself once, and his little boy came up to him

and said, "Father, let me have the razor.' And his father said, "Why, my boy, what do you want it for?" "Oh, I just want to whittle a little with it; I just want to play with it." The father said: "No, I cannot let you have it, my boy. You will cut yourself." "No, I won't! I want it; it shines so!" The father said, "You cannot have it." Do you say the father did not love the boy? he loved him too well. Now there are a great many of God's people who are just like this little boy: They are praying for razors. God knows what we want better than we do, in temporal things. God loves us too well. There was Paul. He prayed and prayed earnestly that God would take the thorn out of his flesh. But God said: "That will do, Paul; I cannot do it. The thorn must remain; it will give you more grace.' Then Paul thanked God for the thorn. He wouldn't have it out if he could, because he got more grace by it. These things bring us closer to Christ. All prayers are not answered just as we want them answered. He loves us just the same, if we don't get them answered just as we want them answered. We may then rely upon it, God has got something better in store for us. We can pray for the conversion of friends, because God likes that, Let us go boldly, and call God to convert our friends; and God will hear and answer our prayers.

THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, aud shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death into life." JOHN 5: 24.

We have for our lesson to-day the 5th chapter of this gospel according to John. Of course, we have not time to read the whole chapter; but most of you, perhaps, have been familiar with it. This man had been lame eight and thirty years; and he had been lying at the pool; and when the waters were troubled, others that were better able than he, stepped in and were cured. He could not reach the healing waters, and had given up all hope of ever reaching them. The thought I want to call your attention to is this-that Christ helped the man that could not help himself. I remember that, dur ing the war, when a doctor came into the ward of a hospital, he always went for the worst cases first, those that were most severely wounded; and I have an idea that that is the way the Great Physi

cian works. Some wonder why such abandoned characters are saved first, in meetings like this; but it seems to be the Great Physician's way. Here is a man that has been eight and thirty years lame; and Christ came to him and said, "Wilt thou be made whole?" And the man told his pitiful story, that he had no one to help him and could not get to the pool; and Christ, with a word, commanded him to arise, take up his bed and walk, and he did so. It was instantaneous; the man did not have to wait six months, or six years, and go to the apothecary for a lot of herbs to swallow. It was done at

once.

The keynote of this chapter of John is the power of the word of the Son of God. After healing this man, he tells the people precious truths, and you will find always that he did so after performing a miracle. These miracles were, perhaps, designed to wake them up, to arouse their attention. Let me read the 24th verse, which I think is one of the most precious verses in the whole Bible. If every other one were blotted out, there would be truth enough in that verse to save every soul in this building. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death into life."

I suppose a great many of those Jews wondered and marveled at this wonderful miracle, that this lame man had been made well; but Christ tells them that the hour is coming when the very dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and come forth. We find, in the fourth chapter, the Centurion coming and speaking about his son being sick, and Christ sent back word, "Thy son liveth;" and he returned and he found that at that very hour the son was made well. The Jews are marveling at these wonderful things; but he says, "The hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice and come forth." soon after, Jairus' daughter was raised from the dead. He had unbelievers and skeptics around him then, as we have now. The philosophers, doubtless, said: "This child was not dead; they made a mistake; she was gone into a sort of faint." A little while after, he met the son of the widow of Nain; and he spoke the word, and brought him back to life. Doubtless, a good many said that the young man was not dead; and so now men try to explain away the miracles by natural causes. So, he took Lazarus after he had been dead four days, and his body was turned black and was putrefying, and brought him to life.

When Christ told these men that the dead would hear his voice and come to life, he did not leave them without some evidence that what he said was true. He gave them a specimen of his power. You have merchants here who put specimens of goods in their windows; and so Christ gave us a specimen of what he was going to do on the resurrection morning. So we have no ground to doubt that

all the dead will be brought to life. Therefore, let us write over all our cemeteries: "The dead shall rise again; they shall come forth and shall live." Now that was pretty strong meat for those Jews. The idea that they should hear the voice of this carpenter, or the son of a carpenter, of Nazareth; the idea that his voice should raise all the dead, is pretty strong meat. But now he just brings in the witness. It you turn over to the 33d verse-and he speaks now of the witnesses that testify of him: "Ye sent unto John and he bare witness unto the truth." Turn back to the 19th verse of the 1st chapter of John, and you will find that the priests and Levites were sent down from Jerusalem to ask John who he was. They came and said "Who art thou?" And he confessed he was not the Christ, and said, "I am not the Christ;" and they asked him, "What then? Art thou Elias?" He said, "I am not." "Art thou that prophet?" and he answered, "No." "Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the Prophet Esaias." Or, in other words, "I am just nobody. Take word back to those men in Jerusalem I am nothing but just a voice in the wilderness." John was all the time crying down himself, and crying up Christ. "I must decrease, but he must increase." And that is really the very height of preaching, when men make themselves out nothing and Christ everything. When they preach down self and preach up Christ, then the Holy Ghost can work. He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as saith the Prophet Esaias." "And they asked him and said unto him, Why baptized thou then if thou be not that Christ nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is, who coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and he saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Now he said to those very men, who wer sent to John to inquire who he was, "And he testified of me, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." He said, I have got another witness. "I receive not testimony from man; but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light; and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." But I have greater witness than that of John; "for the works which the Father hath given to me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me."

Now, I have not only got John for a witness, but these works I am doing. How are you going to account for that man, who was lame