Another element is FAITH. It is as important for us to know how to pray as it is to know how to work. We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to preach, but He taught them how to pray. He wanted them to have power with God; then He knew they would have power with man. In James we read: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God ... and it shall be given him; but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” So faith is the golden key that unlocks the treasures of heaven. It was the shield that David took when he met Goliath on the field; he believed that God was going to deliver the Philistine into his hands. Some one has said that faith could lead Christ about anywhere; wherever He found it He honored it. Unbelief sees something in God’s hand, and says, “I cannot get it.” Faith sees it, and says, “I will have it.” The new life begins with faith; then we have only to go on building on that foundation. “I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” But bear in mind, we must be in earnest when we go to God. I do not know of a more vivid illustration of the cry of distress for help going up to God, in all the earnestness of deeply realized need, than the following story supplies: Carl Steinman, who visited Mount Hecla, Iceland, just before the great eruption, in 1845, after a repose of eighty years, narrowly escaped death by venturing into the smoking crater against the earnest entreaty of his guide. On the brink of the yawning gulf he was prostrated by a convulsion of the summit, and held there by blocks of lava upon his feet. He graphically writes: “Oh, the horrors of that awful realization! There, over the mouth of a black and heated abyss, I was held suspended, a helpless and conscious prisoner, to be hurled downward by the next great throe of trembling Nature! “‘Help! help! help!--for the love of God, help!’ I shrieked, in the very agony of my despair. “I had nothing to rely upon but the mercy of heaven; and I prayed to God as I had never prayed before, for the forgiveness of my sins, that they might not follow me to judgment. “All at once I heard a shout, and, looking around, I beheld, with feelings that cannot be described, my faithful guide hastening down the sides of the crater to my relief. “‘I warned you!’ said he. “‘You did!’ cried I, ‘but forgive me, and save me, for I am perishing!’ “‘I will save you, or perish with you!’ “The earth trembled, and the rocks parted--one of them rolling down the chasm with a dull, booming sound. I sprang forward; I seized a hand of the guide, and the next moment we had both fallen, locked in each other’s arms, upon the solid earth above. I was free, but still upon the verge of the pit.” Bishop Hall, in a well-known extract, thus puts the point of earnestness in its relation to the prayer of faith.