When the neighbor rose to depart, she said, "You know my little boy died last fall. Just before he died I bought him a fur cap: he only wore it two or three times. After his death I put away all his things and thought I could never part with any of them. But, this morning, as I went to the drawer to look them over, I felt that I should give you this cap for your little boy. Will you take it of me?" As she took the cap and told her neighbor of the morning trial, prayer and blessing, two souls were filled with the sense of the reality of prayer and the love of God for his children. "My little boy," said the widow, "wore that cap for three winters. And often, when sorely tried by my circumstances, has God lifted the burden from my heart, by my just looking at it, and remembering the blessing that came with it." Experiences like this God gives to all his children, not for the purpose of leading them to look to Him for supplying their physical necessities, as an end, but to make Himself known to them, and to secure their confidence and love, for "this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (Jno. xvii, 8.) The use of prayer is to bring us into communion with God, for the growth of the spiritual life, that is ours by faith in Christ Jesus. To leave it upon any lower plane than this, is to rob it of its highest functions and to paralyze it of lasting power for good in any direction. The promises of God are conditioned upon our being in this state of heart toward God. "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (Jno. xv., 7.) Abiding in Christ, our will will be His will, as to desiring that which will most advance the divine life and promote confidence in God, and all our desires for material blessings will be subordinated to this motive. Right here must come in a line of truth that will lead us from the spirit of dictation in our prayers to God in all matters pertaining to our worldly concerns. We cannot tell what is for our highest spiritual good. The saving of our property or the taking it away. The recovery from sickness or the continuance of it; the restoration of the health of our loved one, or his departing to be with Christ; the removing the thorn or the permitting it to remain. "_In everything_" it is indeed our blessed privilege to let _our requests_ be make known unto God, but, praise his name, he has not passed over to us the awful responsibility of the assurance that _in everything_ the requests we make known will be granted. He has reserved the decision, where we should rejoice to leave it, to his infinite wisdom and his infinite love.