We have noticed in the text that both John and Jesus taught their disciples to pray; we may now call attention to the idea which the latter had of "prayer." In a parable, which was evidently intended to represent what was common enough in his day, he says, "Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican; the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself--God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are," &c (Luke xviii. 10-13). Surely one cannot call a boastful enumeration of one's virtues either "supplication," "prayer," or "entreaty;" but we understand readily that what we should call "meditation" was once included under the name "prayer." This anecdote unquestionably seems to prove that there was nothing like public prayer in the temple ritual. The idea of the Ancients was to obtain what they wanted by costly sacrifice; the idea of the Moderns is to obtain their desires by the expenditure of words only. We know that Pagans used long litanies, and that Christians do so too. In Jezebel's time "0 Baal, hear us" resounded on Mount Carmel in sonorous monotony. We have replaced that heathen chant by another, and our cathedrals reverberate constantly with the musical rogation, "We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord," uttered more than a score of times. Our orthodoxy consists in our using English instead Phoenician words, and in calling Baal by a word more familiar to us; and as the highest commendation which we can give to others is to imitate them, so we praise the Ancient heathen highly, who thought that they would be heard from their "much speaking." It is ever easier to change our words than our practice. Like the Pharisee, Christians boast that they are not as other men are; but by their proceedings they show that they are like the Jews, of whose paternity Jesus had not an exalted opinion. (See John viii. 44). In further illustration of the absence of a set form of prayer in the temple worship in Jerusalem, and of the independence of all devout solicitors of priestly aid, I may point to Matthew vi. 5 to 8, wherein we find that hypocrites offered their supplications, not only in the temple, but at the corners of the streets. It is just possible that in the former locality there might have been some public worship going on, in which the saintly could join, but certainly there was no such ritual at street corners. But if there had really been divine service in the temple, it follows that those who joined in it would not have been conspicuous, or deserving the name of hypocrites. The fault of these which is mentioned by Jesus is ostentatious public prayer, i.e.9 the doing of that which had not been prescribed by Moses.