Jeremy Taylor says: “Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer. It must be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer; for consider what a huge indecency it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not! Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die, which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea, or the treasures of Indian hills.” Dr. Patton, in his work on “Remarkable Answers to Prayer,” says: “Jesus bids us seek. Imagine a mother seeking a lost child. She looks through the house, and along the streets, then searches the fields and woods, and examines the river-banks. A wise neighbor meets her and says: ‘Seek on, look everywhere; search every accessible place. You will not find, indeed; but then seeking is a good thing. It puts the mind on the stretch; it fixes the attention; it aids observation; it makes the idea of the child very real. And then, after a while, you will cease to want your child.’ The words of Christ are, ‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ Imagine a man knocking at the door of a house, long and loud. After he has done this for an hour, a window opens, and the occupant of the house puts out his head and says: ‘That is right, my friend; I shall not open the door, but keep on knocking--it is excellent exercise, and you will be the healthier for it. Knock away till sundown; and then come again, and knock all to-morrow. After some days thus spent you will attain to a state of mind in which you will no longer care to come in.’ Is this what Jesus intended us to understand, when He said--‘Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you?’ No doubt one would thus soon cease to ask, to seek, and to knock; but would it not be from disgust?” Nothing is more pleasing to our Father in heaven than direct, importunate, and persevering prayer. Two Christian ladies, whose husbands were unconverted, feeling their great danger, agreed to spend one hour each day in united prayer for their salvation. This was continued for seven years, when they debated whether they should pray longer, so useless did their prayers appear. They decided to persevere till death, and, if their husbands went to destruction, it should be laden with prayers. In renewed strength, they prayed three years longer, when one of them was awakened in the night by her husband, who was in great distress for sin. As soon as the day dawned, she hastened, with joy, to tell her praying companion that God was about to answer their prayers. What was her surprise to meet her friend coming to her on the same errand! Thus ten years of united and persevering prayer was crowned with the conversion of both husbands on the same day.