representative, as your organ, and to express your mind and will. And
if we pray in Christ's name, that implies, not only our dependence
upon His merit and work, but also the harmony of our wills with His
will, and that our requests are not merely the hot products of our
own selfishness, but are the calm issues of communion with Him.
_Thus_ to pray requires the suppression of self. Heathen prayer, if
there be such a thing, is the violent effort to make God will what I
wish. Christian prayer is the submissive effort to make my wish what
God wills, and that is to pray in Christ's name.

My brother! do we construct our prayers thus? Do we try to bring our
desires into harmony with Him, before we venture to express them? Do
we go to His footstool to pour out petulant, blind, passionate, un-
sanctified wishes after questionable and contingent good, or do we
wait until He fills our spirits with longings after what it must be
His desire to give, and then breathe out those desires caught from
His own heart, and echoing His own will? Ah! The discipline that is
wanted to make men pray in Christ's name is little understood by
multitudes amongst us.

Notice how certain such prayer is of being answered. Of course, if it
is in harmony with the will of God, it is sure not to be offered in
vain. Our Revised Version makes a slight alteration in the order of
the words in the first clause of this promise by reading, 'If ye ask
anything of the Father He will give it you _in My name_.' God's gifts
come down through the same channel through which our prayer goes up.
We ask in the name of Christ, and get our answers in the name of
Christ.

But, whether that be the true collocation of ideas or not, mark the