It is to be feared that this half-heartedness is the true reason why so many prayers are unanswered, and why so many professed disciples of our Lord have so little comfort in their religion, and do so little credit to their profession. They are half-hearted. They have no earnestness in the matter, and would even think such earnestness out of place, and fanatical. They can show and feel enough of enthusiasm on the subject of a business enterprise, a game of baseball, a new fashion, a new opera-singer; but speak to such an one of enthusiasm in religious matters, and he will look at you in amazement, and think you a little cracked. He professes to believe all the articles of the Christian faith, and bows his head in the creed with all propriety—in church; but talk to him of Heaven and Hell, of the love of God, and the judgments of God as present realities, and you make him uncomfortable. He becomes conscious of his own deficiencies, and the feeling is not agreeable. He will get away as soon he can, and probably call you a Methodist behind your back, if he does not do so to your face. This half-heartedness is a fatal hindrance to growth in grace. I fear many pray for holy hearts, who would, after all, be sorry to have them. A man prays for grace to cast away the works of darkness, but there are, perhaps, certain works of darkness which are profitable in a business point of view, and he has no desire to cast them away. A woman asks that she may perceive and know what things she ought to do, but she is conscious of certain duties half hidden in the background of her mind and conscience, on which she does not care to be enlightened, because the fulfilling of them would be inconvenient. She prays for grace to withstand the world, but she does not really wish to withstand it, because she loves some of its gifts, and does not mean to throw them away. So people go on, trying to serve two masters, to please God and themselves, and getting no real satisfaction from either. They wonder what those mean who talk of the blessedness of service, of communion with God, of comfort in affliction, and the like, and are tempted to regard all such utterances either as fanaticism or pretence, because there is nothing in their own experience to correspond with them. Is it any wonder that such prayers are not answered, and that such service is not blessed? Would you like it yourself in a child or servant? Surely not.