It is an accredited maxim that “praying will make us leave off sinning, and sinning will make us leave off praying.” The reason is obvious, and the application is plain. If indulging sin in the heart is inconsistent with cherishing there the spirit of prayer, the allowing of any prevalent sin in society, on the ground that it is beyond the power of prayer, is equally inconsistent. For this is to admit that its removal is impossible with God. The alternative is forced upon us,—either slavery must be overcome by prayer, or prayer be foiled by slavery. These two powers now stand opposed to each other. This is providential, and fraught with vital consequences; as when Goliah and David met. Slavery is to test the strength of prayer, the faith of Christians. Which shall prevail? Is the Slave Power too strong for prayer, or have the saints such faith and argument touching this thing, that they may ask what they will, and it shall be done? It is a first principle of evangelical faith, that, “all things are possible to them that believe.” If this principle is yielded, the foundations of prayer are removed. If _any_ thing is impossible, nothing is possible; faith that fears is dead, and prayer that quails is powerless. If the servants of the Lord flee before the formidable front of chattelism, instead of compassing it with mighty prayer, and dragging it before the Lord to be slain, they will betray a fearfulness which must preclude all acceptable prayer. The great God loveth strong intercessors, strong and bold, who “wrestle not against flesh and blood,”—weak foes; but “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,”—“praying always with all prayer in the Spirit.” The only aristocracy in Christ’s kingdom is composed of the princes who have power with God and with man, and all who will believe may wear the title of this order, “Israel.” But they must believe _only_, “lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.” They must believe only, not mixing fear with faith, nor trying with trusting; that trying which first scans the magnitude of a sin, estimates its power, and counts the cost of assailing it. The faith that prevails in prayer has its sphere above the calculations of difficulty and danger, where sense fails, and strength staggers. It is just as easy for believing prayer to take hold of great things as of small. The little English girl, languishing in her mortal sickness, when she was told that Bonaparte was preparing to invade her country, could grasp that national peril in her hourly prayer; and who will say that the threatened invasion which might have changed the fate of Great Britain was not averted in answer to that dying child’s intercessions?