joy and sorrow, peace and care, wealth and poverty, as wise men welcome nature's order, when the rain comes down to swell the seed for the harvest, and the sunshine glows down upon earth to burnish the golden grain. But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be not defensible as homage from the creature to the Creator, in that it lowers our idea of God, it must surely yet be natural as the instinctive cry from the child to the Father in heaven; and then follow arguments drawn from the family and the home, and the need of communion between parent and child. As a matter of fact,--taking the analogy, imperfect as it is--do we find much Prayer, as from child to parent, in the best and the happiest homes; _is not the amount of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the relationship?_ The wiser and the kinder the parent, the less will the child ask for; rather, it learns from experience to trust the older wisdom, and to be contented with the love which is ever giving, unsolicited, all good things. At the most, the simple expression of the child's wish is all that is needed, if the child desire anything of which the parent have not thought; and even this mere statement of a wish is still the result of _imperfection, i e._, the want of knowledge on the parent's part of the child's mind and heart In this case there is no pleading, no urging; the single request and single answer suffice; there is nothing which corresponds with the idea of the prophet to pray to God and to "give him no rest" until he grant the petition. In a well-ordered home, the child who persisted in pressing his request would receive a rebuke for his want of trust, and for his conceited self-sufficiency; and yet _this_ is the analogy on which Prayer to God is built up, and in this fashion "natural instincts" are dragged in, in order to support supernatural and artificial cravings.