"Prayer is a religious exercise which is necessary to accompany all others. 'In every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.' Solemn approaches to God are adapted to impress the mind with a sense of sin, and to inspire us with self-abhorrence on account of it. It was by a view of the holiness of God that Isaiah felt himself to be a 'man of unclean lips;' and it was by conversing with the Lord that Job was brought to abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. The very exercise of prayer carries in it an implication that 'our help must come from above;' a truth which in all cases it is absolutely necessary for us to know, and with which, in this case especially, we cannot be too deeply impressed. We easily get out of the way; but if ever we return to it, it must be by His influence, who restoreth our souls and leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. "To tell a person who is out of the way, that he has no help in himself, and that if ever he get in again it must be by the restoring grace of God, may seem to some people paradoxical and disheartening; but it is a truth, and a truth which, if properly understood and felt, would go farther towards our recovery than we at first may apprehend. Paul found that 'when he was weak then was he strong,' and many others have found the same. The more we are emptied of self-sufficiency, the more sensibly shall we feel our weakness, and the more importunately implore that the Lord would save us, and restore us. "This was the way in which we at first found rest for our souls, and this must be the way in which we recover it. An awakened sinner frequently labours hard after peace, without being able to obtain it. Wherefore? 'Because he seeks it not by faith, but by the works of the law.' In all his labours there is a large portion of self-righteous hope, or an idea that God will pity him on account of his endeavours to please him. But if ever he obtain peace, it must be by utterly despairing of all help from himself; and falling, as a sinner entirely lost, into the arms of sovereign mercy. This is walking in the good old way, which brings rest to the soul; and the same sense of our insufficiency which is necessary to find rest in the first instance, is equally necessary to find it on all future occasions.