First of all, it means that prayer should be <i>a habit</i>. There should be a fixed time every day, or times, for going off alone to pray. Into that time the Book is taken. Quiet time is spent in reading it. For this is listening to God. And that comes first in praying; listening first, then speaking. The reading may be rapid and broad, or slower and more meditative. Whichever it may be, there should be a cultivation of <i>the habit of meditation</i>. I do not mean a sleepy trying to imitate what we suppose some holy men do. But a keen thinking into the meaning of the words, and into their practical use in one's own life. Then the praying itself. The being still before God, and the definite prayer for particular things, and persons, and places. That habit can be fixed until it becomes second nature. It can be cultivated until it becomes the sweet spot of the day to you. <u>A Praying Bent of Mind.</u> Then while the daily habit continues prayer may become an attitude, <i>a bent of mind</i>. Whatever comes up suggests prayer to you. The bent of your mind is to pray as things come up in the daily round. You can't stop your work, but you <i>think</i> prayers. Your heart prays while your hands are busy. I shall never forget the school in which I learned to pray this way. A case of protracted illness in my home required my personal attention constantly for a time. It seemed as if no assistance I could get meant quite as much as what I could do personally. The life in peril was so precious that all else dropped out of sight. My habits of life were completely broken up. I was up night and day. The early morning hour of reading and prayer was broken into, with everything else of a regular sort. But as I went about my round of service I found myself praying constantly. I was much wearied, and things sometimes seemed desperate. I realized how everything depended on God's touch. And without any planning a habit of continual praying formed itself. I could be engaged in conversation, thinking intently into something needing great care, and yet there was an undercurrent of prayer constantly. I shall never cease to be grateful for that trying experience, because in it this new habit of a praying bent of mind formed itself. Do you not know how as you go about your ordinary round there is a constant undercurrent of thought? You may be talking, or reading, or writing, or doing something more mechanical, and yet this underneath train of thought is running along apparently of its own accord, regardless of you. It is broken at times, or you lose consciousness of it, as your work requires closer attention. When you swing into the habitual things that you have done over and over again until they almost do themselves, it reasserts itself.