They, a little band of unarmed, unlearned men, were to graft the new kingdom of God on the Jewish church; and everything stood in their way, customs, pride, numbers, sacrifices, temple, wealth, the Roman Empire, heathenism, the prejudices of the Jewish nation. Olivet was but a mole hill to this mountain, but by faith and prayer, and God's answers to prayer, the task was accomplished.

A still greater mountain was cast into the sea by continued faith and prayer. The disciples, without wealth, without armies, or weapons, or discipline, were to conquer the Roman Empire to Christ, when," to be a Roman was greater than a king." Rome with wealth and power beyond the dreams of avarice, Rome whose soldiers had conquered every nation that stood in its way, whose Cæsars could have swept the whole community away with a word as easily as a summer breeze sweeps the dust from the road. Tabor and Pisgah were but ripples in the sand compared with this mountain. And yet Rome within three centuries was under the banner of the cross, by the power of faith and prayer.

The second of the two verses is still more remarkable, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received, and ye shall have (Rev.). The statements seem contradictory, but in fact our daily lives have many examples. For instance the President of the United States is elected in November, but he does not take the office till the following March 4, four months later. If he believes that he is elected, he shall receive the office.

If a person pays you your bill by check, if you believe that you have received the money, by going to the bank you shall receive it.

Whatever of character, of help, of victory, of the kingdom of heaven God has promised us, if we believe the promise we shall have the things promised. But we must keep on believing. If we fail to keep on believing, no matter how long we wait, then we cannot receive. The progress of Christianity, in numbers, in larger visions of what righteousness is, and love of our neighbor, has come from a continued and growing faith.

II. THREE KINDS OF ANSWERS TO PRAYER. First. There is an answer in the very prayer itself. Dean Trench, in one of his poems, represents a suppliant as praying all night long, with no sign of an answer. In the morning the tempter stood by him whispering,

"Oh peace! What profit do you gain
From empty words, and babblings vain!
'Come Lord, Oh come' you cry alway,
You pour your heart out night and day,
Yet still no murmur of reply,

No voice that answers, 'Here am I.""

But when the suppliant had ceased praying, an angel came to him, and learning the reason why he prayed no more, replied,

"Oh dull of heart! enclosed doth lie
In each 'Come Lord' a 'Here am I.'
Thy very prayer to thee was given
Itself a messenger from heaven."

Praying is the means of becoming acquainted with God, as friend with friend, father with child. And while we feel like joining in Dr. Chalmers' petition, "Make me sensible of real answers to actual requests, as an evidence of an interchange between myself on earth and my Saviour in heaven," yet there comes an answer in our closer and deeper acquaintance with God, which affects every petition we ask. And if we look carefully over our lives, we will find distinct and definite answers.

Second. God often gives us the exact thing we ask for in faith, especially when we ask for spiritual blessings and the things that belong to the interests of his kingdom. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him, but let him ask in faith" (James 1: 5, 6, 7). God often, when it is best, answers directly prayer for safety, for health, for success, and many other things. There are many examples.

But we must remember that delayed answers are not denials; that some things God bestows, cannot wisely be given immediately. Some things we ask for, are like green fruit which must ripen before it is safe for us to eat it. We pray for reforms, and for the kingdom of heaven, and they are on the way.

Dr. Judson wrote, "I was never deeply interested in any object. I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came, at some time, no matter at how

distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it

came.

Third. God answers prayer sometimes by giving us something far better instead of the exact thing we asked for. We are sometimes like the child who cries for the moon. He does not want the moon, though he thinks he does, but it would kill him if it were given him. And his mother gives him some bright plaything instead, thus answering the request of the child. Paul prayed that "the thorn in his flesh" whatever it was, might be removed; and God gave him “ My grace is sufficient for thee which was far better.

Running for the wrong train. Some years ago I was speaking at a Sunday school convention a few miles from Northfield, Mass., where Dwight L. Moody had founded his first school. I went there in the afternoon to see the beautiful model of the Temple at Jerusalem, which had been sent to him from England. The next day I was to speak at the convention. In the morning as I drew near to the station I saw the train standing on the track, just ready to start, and I prayed in my mind and, like Fred Douglass, I also prayed with my feet, and I got the train.

But I had prayed for the wrong train. It was the express, and rushed through the town where I was due.

Do we not sometimes pray for the wrong train, while following close after it is the right train, that we really want if we only knew it?

One Example. Jack the son of John Brooks was lying sick unto death. The great specialist had practically given up hope. John Brooks was watching his first born son, whom he had watched through babyhood and boyhood, and through love of whom he had been brought to a new sense of God's goodness; Jack, who had been his pride all these twenty years, and in whom were centered his dearest hopes for the future. Jack had been sick before, but he had always thrown off sickness in the same easy, masterful way in which he had conquered everything else that he had had to face.

Dazed, John Brooks turned away, and entered his library. He closed and locked the door. "He can't die!" he said, doggedly. "I can't let him die! " "All that medical skill can do has been done," he said to himself. "Is there anything else?"

Of course there was! Had he not known all his life that there is a God in Israel? A God to Whom nothing is impossible?

He fell upon his knees. But before he could frame the words, he seemed to hear a Voice speaking. He listened.

"Your prayer is granted. Your son's life will be spared. But I had a different future for him. There is work elsewhere that he can do. There are dangers threatening here that he can never avoid. There are heights elsewhere that he would have reached. I had my plan. You may now have yours."

John Brooks rose trembling from his knees.

"Not my will," he sobbed," dear God, not mine!" Out in the hall the physician came from the sick-room to meet him.

"It's all right," the doctor whispered, as he grasped the father's hand.

"It's always all right!" said John Brooks from his heart. — Condensed from the Youth's Companion.

Keeping in

III. THE ANSWERS TO NEHEMIAH'S PRAYER, 2: I-II. mind the principles we have been considering concerning the way God answers Prayer, let us apply them to the various ways in which God answered Nehemiah's Prayer for his country, and for himself as the means of saving his nation.

The First Answer: The Long four Months before Nehemiah asked Permission of the King, v. 1.

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It came to pass in the month Nisan April, the time of the Jewish Passover, the most solemn festival of the Jewish year. Nehemiah learned of the need of help in Jerusalem in the month Chisleu December, four months before the time came for asking permission of Artaxerxes; four months of "praying without ceasing the cause at his heart.

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But this long delay was the first answer to Nehemiah's prayer. must first be wrought in the character and nature of Nehemiah himself.

"for

The answer

The answer was coming during all this time of delay. The answers are often long preparing. As one prays for fruit, and the answer is begun by the planting of a seed, followed by the nurture of sun and rain. But the fruit must grow and ripen before it

AND it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.

2. Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very

sore afraid,

can be eaten. The whole life and career of Nehemiah was a part of the answer, an example of the promise. "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear " (Isa. 65: 24). Nehemiah was coming into fuller harmony with the divine will and spirit, a more perfect instrument for his work.

"Prayer is the culture of the soul
That turns to wheat our tares.
Prayer is a begging angel, whom
We shelter unawares."

"He prayeth best who loveth best

All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

· Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

We have in Nehemiah an illustration of the Faith which is the condition of receiving an answer, the faith that feels, that is intense, that leads to personal consecration, that dares danger, and is willing to do hard work, the faith that is undaunted by difficulties, undismayed amid enemies. This consecration must be so wrought in him and in his character, that when he came from a luxurious home like the palace in Shushan into hard work, opposed by bitter enemies, among cold friends, and faced oppressions of the few rich, and all the hindrances of every kind, his faith would endure the strain, and he would not "take up a permanent residence in the Slough of Despond." But all his virtues, and wisdom and courage would have grown larger and stronger by these four months of prayer.

And he needed all the culture and growth of his attractive virtues, wisdom, courtesy, skill, love, forbearance, in order to gain the permission he desired from the autocratic king.

Moreover there may well have been a need that there should be wrought some change in the king himself.

Dr. Nehemiah Boynton writes thus of the man after whom he was named: "Our ideals find us where we are; they carry us where we ought to be; Nehemiah's ideal of a man of God found him as cup-bearer to a king, a position of great influence and power politically and of great ease and luxury personally; it carried him from the king's palace to the home of humble people, and transferred him from the gentle services of a cup-bearer to the rough work of a bricklayer; but it took him from artificial life into real life, and from services which perish with the using to those whose influence has endured throughout the ages. Blessed is the man,' says Carlyle, 'who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness.' It was a great day for Nehemiah when it was determined that he had stuff enough in him to exchange the position of gentleman in waiting for the king to that of a man of all work for the people."

The Second Answer. Artaxerxes Grants Nehemiah's Request vs. 1-8. Nehemiah received not only what he asked for, but very much more.

It came to pass . . that (Am. R., when) wine was before him, when the king was at his repast, and the cup-bearer was present to attend upon him, that I took up the wine and gave it unto the king.

"The cup-bearer's duties were to pour out the wine, to taste it in his presence so as to prevent any scheme of poisoning, and to present it to the king." Cambridge Bible.

Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. He had been able hitherto to be cheerful in the king's presence, as etiquette required. Apparently Nehemiah bided his time, waiting until the Lord should make for him a favorable opportunity," or some specially bad news had affected him more deeply than usual. But the Lord's time had come.

2. The king noticed the change, and said, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Sad in a king's palace! and in the presence of the king! Then I was very sore afraid. And well he might be, for he was about to ask to leave the immediate personal service of the king.

3. And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

4. Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.

5. And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.

"It was a petition of no common kind. To request permission to leave the court might be misconstrued unfavorably. Herodotus says that people had been put to death both by Darius and by Xerxes for showing reluctance to accompany their king. Is it wonderful then that Nehemiah hesitated to speak, or that he was sore afraid. Superficial signs of emotion may be reined in by a person who is trained to control his features, indications of the permanent conditions of the inner life are so deeply cut in the lines and curves of the countenance that the most consummate art of the actor cannot disguise them."

Expositor's Bible

3. Why should not my countenance be sad? Then he told the king of the report he had received from Jerusalem.

4. The king: For what dost thou make request?

Nehemiah so I prayed to the God of heaven.

"The second type of prayer, the ejaculative, in chapter 2: 4 is very remarkable. Nehemiah was standing before the king. The king's question, In what dost thou make request? brought to a crisis the anxieties of months' duration. The king must not be kept waiting for his reply. There is but a moment for self-recollection, and then answer must be made. 'So I prayed to the God of heaven; and I said unto the king.' Here there is an instantaneous laying of a case of need before God. There is no time for audible articulation; a sigh, a momentary movement of the mind, is all that is possible. But how thorough must have been the faith in the immanence of God on the part of Nehemiah! How completely he had grasped the truth that God is spirit, and that our spirits, the contents of our hopes and desires, may be by a single intention of the will laid open before him who is nearer to us than breathing, closer than hands and feet.

6

Rev. G. A. Johnston Ross in S. S. Times.

The Request. 5. That thou wouldst send me unto Judah unto the city of my father's sepulchres; that I may build it. He would become the governor of this province of the kingdom of Artaxerxes.

It is quite probable that Artaxerxes realized that this plan was wise for himself and his kingdom, through the same political policy that led Cyrus 90 years before to permit the Jews to return from their exile to Judah and Jerusalem. Between Babylon and Egypt in the route through the narrow valley over which the armies of both Babylonia and Egypt had often marched, and where they had fought many a battle, lay the land of Palestine and its fortress city which had never been captured save when its inhabitants had disagreed among themselves. "It lay in the logic of facts and

6. And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when will thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

7. Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah;

8. And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.

circumstances that sooner or later hostilities between the two neighboring powers should break out." Professor Cornill. Hence Artaxerxes, like Cyrus, would naturally wish to build up in Palestine the ancient fortress, which he could make a centre of offensive or defensive campaigns against Egypt. Even though the little nation of the returned exiles could give small help to a Babylonian army, they at least made a rendezvous for them, and pre

The Third answer to Nehemiah's Prayer was that the Jewish Nation be Forgiven,

Quite as important for the success of the returned exiles at Jerusalem.

see I 7-9.

of the enterprise was a change in the character They needed a new heart and life, repentance