It is well to have a little company of Christian friends with whom you are in real sympathy and with whom you meet regularly every week simply for prayer. There has been nothing of more importance in the development of my own spiritual life of recent years than a little prayer-meeting of less than a dozen friends who have met every Saturday night for years. We met and together we waited upon God. If my life has been of any use to the Master, I attribute it largely to that prayer-meeting. Happy is the young Christian that has a little band of friends like that that meet together regularly for prayer.[2] X WORKING FOR CHRIST One of the important conditions of growth and strength in the Christian life is work. No man can keep up his physical strength without exercise and no man can keep up his spiritual strength without spiritual exercise, _i. e._, without working for his Master. The working Christian is the happy Christian. The working Christian is the strong Christian. Some Christians never backslide because they are too busy about their Master’s business to backslide. Many professed Christians do backslide because they are too idle to do anything but backslide. Jesus said to the first disciples, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4: 19). Any one who is not a fisher of men is not following Christ. Bearing fruit in bringing others to the Saviour is the purpose for which Jesus has chosen us and is one of the most important conditions of power in prayer. Jesus says in John 15: 16, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you _that ye should go and bring forth fruit_, and that your fruit should remain, _that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name He may give it you_.” These words of Jesus are very plain. They tell us that the one who is bearing fruit is the one who can pray in the name of Christ and get what he asks in that name. In the same chapter Jesus tells us that bearing fruit in His strength is the condition of fullness of joy. He says, “These things have I spoken unto you (that is, the things about abiding in Him and bearing fruit in His strength) that My joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full” (John 15: 11). Experience abundantly proves the truth of these words of our Master. Those who are full of activity in winning others to Christ are those who are full of joy in Christ Himself.