Oh how we miss this ministry of ennoblement! We reap a harvest of insignificance from the seeds of sorrow sown in our hearts. We let our cares dishonour us. The little cares rasp and fret and sting the manliness and the womanliness and the godlikeness out of us. And the great cares crush us earthward till there is scarcely a sweet word left in our lips or a noble thought in our heart. A man cannot save his _soul_ in the day of trouble. He cannot by himself make good the wear and tear of anxieties and griefs. He can hold his head high and hide his secret deep, but he cannot keep his life sweet. Only Christ can teach a man how to find the nameless dignity of the crown of thorns. The kingship of suffering is a secret in the keeping of faith and love. If a man accepts this deliverance of his God folded in flashes of understanding, ministries of explanation, revivals of faith, and gifts of endurance, he shall find the honour that is to be won among life's hard and bitter things. _With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation._ We have seen a grey-headed libertine, and we have missed from among the clean-hearted and the faithful some brave young life that was giving itself vigorously to the holy service. But perhaps we have had the grace not to challenge the utter faithfulness of God. The measure of life is not written on a registrar's certificates of birth and death. There is something here that lies beyond dates and documents. Life here and hereafter is one, and death is but an event in it. Who lives to God lives long, be his years many or few. It is reasonable to expect some relationship between godliness and longevity. But we are nearer the truth when we see how that faith and prayer discover and secure the eternal values of fleeting days. _And show him My salvation._ That is the whole text summed up in one phrase. That is the life of the godly man gathered into the compass of the divine promise. For every one who goes the way of faith and obedience, life in every phase of it, life here and hereafter, means but one thing and holds but one thing, and that is _the salvation of the Lord_. VIII. PETITION AND COMMUNION Hear me speedily, O Lord.... Cause me to hear ... For I lift up my soul unto Thee. Ps. cxliii. 7, 8. You will notice that the first verse begins 'Hear me,' and the second begins 'Cause me to hear'; and the second is greater than the first. Let us look, then, at these two attitudes of a man in his hour of prayer.