are really engaging in the hottest part of Hie struggle.
"Consider Our Lord's words: 'The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth laborers into His harvest ' (Matt. ix. 37, 38). He tells us that there is an abundant harvest, and that the workers are few. One might fancy that He would go on to bid His apostles hasten to gather in the harvest. As the harvest is abundant and the workers are too few, the natural conclusion at which we should arrive would be: 'Hasten, therefore, and busy yourselves about the harvest.' But God's conclusion is: 'Pray, therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest.'
"There is much work to be done, and for that reason there is great need of prayer — such is the divine argument. And for what are we to pray? That the Lord may send forth laborers. Our Lord does not tell us to have recourse to prayer in order to find peace in it, to fold our arms quietly and not trouble about the harvest, to secure our personal salvation comfortably, being sheltered from sun and rain. No indeed. He means prayer to be a work of apostolic devotion, the first and foremost of such works inasmuch as it precedes and procures the sending forth of the laborers. Two things are needful, prayer and laborers; prayer comes first and the laborers follow, and they will not come at all if there has been no prayer; and, in the same way, if prayer does not call forth laborers, it has failed in its object.
"Here, then, we have an indication of the union of the two ministries and of their co-operation in the great task of gathering in a harvest of souls. They ought never to be separated, as, when deprived of mutual support, one loses its life and the other its object. If those leading the contemplative life do not pray for men of action, they are in
