This chapter leads into the wilderness. Just beyond it is the insane asylum. The most bewildering, confusing, and dangerous region is the morass of conflicting prayers. No human theory concerning them is even helpful. The labyrinth is absolutely trackless to the human mind when once the worshiper becomes entangled therein. So we will not attempt to explain any of the even unthinkable intricacies of its strange region. Nowhere in the Bible does the Lord answer the questions which millions have asked about it. Two persons, equally sincere, pray for success in a matter where the victory of one must be the defeat of the other. Nations at war pray hard and long for victory, and not even God can answer both. Something must be taken from one to give to another, while the one in possession is praying that he may keep it. One's loss is another's gain. The employer prays for a profit on his business, and the laborer prays for higher wages. The white man and the colored man prays for his own tribe. The Samaritan and Jew, worshiping the same God and having the same family inheritance, believe it is a duty to hate each other, and each calls for God's curses on the other. Many an honest investigator has entered this region of doubt and mystery and managed to back out while still in his right mind. But he has returned the worse for the experience. All sorts of foolish speculations have been given creedal expression until men have declared, with strange assurance, that man cannot trust his reason or his conscience in any matter. They have tried to prove that the laws of nature are inflexible and that prayer cannot have any influence whatever in current events. Gifted men and women of culture and high purpose have convinced themselves that there is no evil, that men never sin, that the Bible theories concerning prayer are fanciful and too miraculous to be possible. "Too much study hath made thee mad," said the practical Roman to the Apostle Paul. The old Roman had probably seen so many religions that he had no faith in any. The religious maniacs are those men who have broken down their brains by laborious study over these insoluble problems. Therefore, while no one should discourage reasonable research anywhere, and while it is not sacrilegious or foolish to think on these things, it does seem best to admit that to the most faithful Christian there are unsearchable things of God which he cannot sanely hope to understand in this life. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." We cannot expect to achieve a knowledge as great and extensive as that of the Creator, and must be content with our reasonable limitations. "What I do ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter." Satisfied, then, with the promise of that future full revelation we should study all that