'cogency' than that of any based upon results thus obtainable, need either of the two experimentalists expect to persuade praying people that prayer is, 'in the natural course of events,' doomed to become 'obsolete, just as the Waters of Jealousy and the Urim and Thummin of the Mosaic Law did in the times of the later Jewish Kings.' Not quite so easily will they cause it to be 'abandoned to the domain of recognised superstition,' just as belief in witches and in the Sovereign's touch as a cure for scrofula, and 'many other items of ancient faith have already successively been.' Both of them have, it seems, yet to learn that the only prayer which is believed by people of some little enlightenment to be of any avail, is the 'fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man,' prayer that cometh from 'a pure heart fervently,' prayer that is made 'with the spirit and with the understanding also.' Prayer of this sort is not to be discredited by any abundance of statistical testimony to the futility of cold lip-worship, or by any number of fresh examples of the generally recognised fact that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. The recovery from the very jaws of death of King Hezekiah, of Louis XV. of France, while as yet undetected and _bien-aime_, and of the present Prince of Wales, may, none the less probably, have been in part due to the prayers offered up for the first by himself, for the second, according to President Henault and Mr. Carlyle, by all Paris, and, for the third, by the whole British empire, because _lessons_ appointed to be regularly said or _sung_ in churches for the prolongation of the Sovereign's life, and said and sung by the congregations to whom they are set, with equal regularity, whether the Sovereign be well or ill, detested or beloved, are to all appearance disregarded. Modern believers in prayer are well aware that, although they ask, they may not receive if they ask amiss, and would accept this as fully adequate explanation of the disappointment of anyone, who had the face to pray that he might grow as rich as the late Mr. Brassey, or be created a duke, or appointed Lord Chancellor, or supplant Mr. Gladstone in the premiership, or Mr. D'Israeli in the leadership of Her Majesty's Opposition. Moreover, the spirit, duly seasoned with understanding, in which alone true prayer can be made, is one, not of presumptuous dictation to a Heavenly Father, but of sincere and grateful recognition that 'He knoweth better than ourselves what is for our good.' Far from praying for selfish aggrandisement, we cannot, if we pray aright, pray that, whether from ourselves or others, the cup of affliction may pass away, without adding, 'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' The only gifts that can with propriety be prayed for unconditionally are gifts spiritual--cleansing of the thoughts of the heart, strength to resist temptation, strength to endure