(9) In very many cases prayer is a definite petition to God, that God will Himself act directly on our friend by bestowing a definite blessing on him, e.g. recovery from a specific ailment. But that is not quite the highest or the best kind of prayer. God loves to act through us; Christ sends out his disciples, that through them He may continue to do His gracious works. We can combine a humble reliance on God with the offer of ourselves as His instruments, if our prayer conforms to that Prayer of Quiet or Silence of which mystical writers tell us. Then, instead of ourselves acting directly on our friend, and instead of asking God to act directly upon him, we shall just concentrate our attention upon God with special intention for our friend. We shall hope that a Divine response from God will, during our sleep perhaps, enter our own subconscious self (which we have, through the concentration of our attention, made receptive of such responses) and through us work upon that of our friend. In such a case the diagram will be as follows: [Illustration] We may add that this Prayer of Silence not only renders us receptive of Divine influences, which may then through us be transmitted to our friend; also it embodies the true attitude of humility in relation to God. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. We are not to dictate to God what blessing He is to send. We simply bring our friend’s evil case before Him in the very act of our own loving concentration upon Him, and offer ourselves as the agents for the transmission of that blessing, whatever it may be, which He in His wisdom may will to send. By a strong act of sympathy we identify ourselves with our friend, and trust God to provide the right remedy. ‘Have mercy upon _me_,’ said the woman in the Gospel, ‘my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.’ If we can combine this living sympathy for our friend with a humble trust in God’s power and wisdom, and further offer ourselves as the instrument through which God may act, we shall be practising the highest and purest form of intercession within our reach. And this form of intercession may be offered in a silent act of Contemplation, in which distracting thoughts are set aside, the favourable attitude of receptivity is attained, and a loving and concentrated appeal is made to the love of God. It may, perhaps, encourage us to engage in this highest form of prayer, if we recognise that it has this intercessory side. An objection is sometimes brought against the practice of Contemplation as described by spiritual writers, on the ground that it is self-centred and selfish. There is never much force in such an objection, since the contemplative who is concentrating his soul on God is thereby making himself a ladder down which Angels of Grace descend on others as well as himself; he is diffusing an atmosphere of God’s presence, with the blessings that flow from it.