as meaning that to labor is to pray, provided that whatever we do in word or in work, we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the context calls for a more literal interpretation. It was her importunity that secured the widow justice, and incessant knocking opened the baker's door, and these and such like parables Christ uses to illustrate what holy insistence must characterize our prayers. Not that we must be ever on our knees; but as we always find sufficient time for meals, so we must learn to always snatch from business cares sufficient time for prayer. " On the law of the Lord," says Holy Writ, " the just man meditates by night and day," that is, at uniform and stated intervals. In fact, if we consider upon the one hand God, and ourselves upon the other, it would seem we are bound to pray much oftener than is generally thought possible or consistent with our duties. God's earthly abode, be it in a temple or a human soul, should be a house of prayer. The heart is where its treasure is, and if we loved God as we should, ours would be prayerful lives. Could the young man feel for God the love he feels for his sweetheart, how assiduously he would meditate the law of the Lord, how often his thoughts and dreams would wander heavenward, what a great saint he would become! Our wretched destitution, too, should teach us the need of prayer. Directly they fell, our first parents realized their nakedness. They had lost their robe of innocence, and humanity since then has continued to clothe itself in the rags of sin. Nay, sin has soaked in like water through the
