The sermon was about prayer, very simple and interesting. Cornelia did not remember having listened to many sermons in her life. Somehow this one seemed unique, and struck right home to her need and experience. The preacher said that many people prayed and did not receive because they had failed to meet the conditions of answered prayer. Even Louise sat up and listened with earnest eyes and flushed cheeks. Here was something she felt would help the Copley family if they could only get hold of the secret of it. Mother prayed, and Mother had great faith in prayer; but none of the rest of them had ever specialized along those lines. Unless perhaps father did, quiet father with all his burdens and disappointments. These thoughts flitted through the minds of the two daughters as they sat listening intently, reaching out for the help they needed. The preacher said that there were many promises in the Bible concerning prayer, but always with a condition. The first was faith. One must believe that God hears and will answer. The second was will-surrender. One must be ready to let God answer the prayer in _His_ way, and to leave that way to Him, believing that He will do what is best. Then one must pray with a free heart, out of which hate and sin have been cast; and he quoted the verse: “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Louise cast a fleeting, questioning glance toward her sister. Did that mean that she must forgive that hateful, bold Dodd girl? But the speaker went on. There were gifts for which one may ask with a definite assurance of receiving if one comes asking with all the heart, namely, the forgiveness of sin, the strength to resist temptation, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And one may always be sure that it is God’s will that other souls should be saved, and so we can pray always for others’ salvation, knowing that we are not asking amiss. But there is a condition in which it is the privilege of every child of God to live, in which one may be sure of receiving what one asks, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The two sisters listened most carefully to the simple, clear description of the life that is hid with Christ in God, the life that lets Christ live instead of trying to please self, and that studies daily the Word of God and keeps the word constantly in mind. And the preacher spoke with confidence about answers to prayer for daily needs, as if he had known great experience in receiving. On their way home Louise, walking along with her eyes on the sidewalk, asked shyly. “Nellie, do you s’pose that’s all true, what he preached about?”