He could have cured the man where he was; but he took him aside from the multitude, he got him away from the crowd in which he was, to show us, as it seems to me, that we cannot be cured of our spiritual deafness and dumbness, that we shall never be able to hear God or to speak to him as we should, till we, too, come out of the crowd. This living all the time in a crowd is really the most common and most fatal obstacle to prayer, at least with those who are really trying to serve God. It is not always that there are so very many people around us; we may make a crowd, a multitude for ourselves out of a very few. The crowd is not so much one of people as of ideas coming from the people and things which we meet with in our daily life. We talk too much; we look around and notice things too much; we read the papers too much--too much for our profit in any way, but especially for acquiring the spirit of prayer. {373} What wonder is it that it is so hard to pray, and that there are so many distractions? One kneels down at the end of the day and tries to say some evening prayers. There is not a single thought in his or her head like those which are in the prayer-book. And why not? Because there is no room for any. The poor head is packed full of all sorts of other ones coming from the events of the past day or week. All the people one has seen, all the foolish things they have said, the gossip they have retailed, even the clothes they have worn, or perhaps the stories or squibs and the useless and trifling news one has seen in the paper, take up the mind; there is a multitude of reflections and echoes from the sights and sounds of the day, which hide the face of God and drown his voice. It is in vain to say that one cannot help it. Of course one cannot separate one's self from these things altogether. Those who live a life of prayer in the most secluded convent, even the hermits of the desert, have sources of distraction around them and in their past lives. But what is the need of having so many of them? Why not hear less talk and gossip, see fewer people and things, read less useless trash, cultivate silence a little more, and make a little solitude within ourselves, even when we cannot have it outside? If we will not do this, if we will distract ourselves needlessly out of the time of prayer, what wonder if we are distracted in it? {374} Come out of the multitude, then--the multitude of people that surround you, and of unnecessary thoughts, words, and actions, and see if your spiritual deafness and dumbness will not get better. You will hear a good deal from God, and be able to say a good deal to him that seems impossible now, if you will get a little away from this crowd, and from the noise it makes. ------------------------- {375} _Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost._ Epistle. 2 _Corinthians iii._ 4-9.