• S. Matt. xiv. 23; S. Mark vL 46 ; a Luke vi. 12;ix. 28; S. John
xvii 1.
V.] Religion as such has its specific work. 1 7 1

the Christian life, as its very breath and instinctive move-
ment. The Christian must be "continuing instant in
prayer ;" he must "pray without ceasing." 1



Each faculty, or endowment, or form of activity that
belongs to man has, over and above a number of more
indirect effects, its appropriate and characteristic action, in
which its whole strength is embarked, and in which it finds
its full play and impetus. To this law religion is no excep-
tion. While its influence upon human life is strong and
various in proportion to its high aim and object ; while it
is felt, when it wields real empire, in every department of
human activity and interest, as an invigorating, purifying,
chastening, restraining, guiding influence, it too has a work
peculiarly its own. In this work it is wont, it we may
so sppak, to embark its collective forces, and to become
peculiarly conscious of its direction and intensity. This
work is prayer. Prayer is emphatically religion in action.
It is the soul of man engaging in that particular form of
activity which presupposes the existence of a great bond
between itself and God. Prayer is, therefore, nothing else
or less than the noblest kind of human exertion. It

1 Rom. zii. 12 ; 1 Then. v. 17.
