THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL;

OR, TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND REQUESTS FOR PRAYER.

THEY have never been counted, but taking the average number that reach the prayer-meeting in Fulton Street every week, it is far within bounds to say that a quarter of a million requests have been received.

When reading the songs of the soul gathered into books, out of all ages and lands, we are impressed by the fact that the universal heart of man sings itself out in the same thoughts and words: the old Latin hymns and the Greek, the psalms of David, the songs of Zion in every period of her story, breathe the same aspirations after God, with the same confessions of sin and of penitent sorrow, and again of faith, hope, and joy. It is this kinship in Christ of all his people. One in him.

But the unity of desire as shown in prayer is still wider than in praise

"Let those refuse to sing

Who never knew our God,

But children of the Heavenly King

Should speak their joys abroad."

There are in this wide world of ours millions who have not yet found the Saviour to be theirs, and yet have longings after him longings inspired of him whose gracious influences were bought by the blood of that Saviour. On how many human souls the Spirit works to will and do of God's good pleasure, He who worketh only knows. The number is not restricted to those who hear the gospel. There is a light for every man who cometh into the world. David Brainerd found such a man among the Indians at the forks of the Delaware, a man who had never heard of the Christian's God, but he had felt the evil and burden of sin, had been comforted, and thought there must be some persons somewhere who felt as he did, and he longed to go and find

them. Among these 250,000 petitioners are many sin-sick souls, who have not yet found peace in believing. They have heard of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, as having a favorite resort in Fulton Street, in the city of New York. And they write their wants. The hunger of their souls for the bread of life, their thirst for the waters, finds intense expression in these letters. Two thousand miles away in the West, or five thousand miles off across the sea in the East, to them has gone the report of what great things God has done for others, and they cry out in these letters that he would have compassion on them and come to save. As the pool of Siloam had its multitude waiting to be healed, so thousands surround this gospel Bethesda, knowing full well that the God of salvation is as near to the suppliant in Oregon or India as he was to Bartimeus by the wayside in the Holy Land. And he writes, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me."

But these cries are few compared with the appeals for divine assistance that come from those who themselves have tasted that God is good. The infinite variety of wants is known only to Him unto whom all hearts are known. It is truthfully said of each heart that it knows its own bitterness. And there are thousands who do not share their bitter with their dearest human friend. Many of these letters enjoin the most sacred secrecy, and the injunction is religiously observed. Mr. Lanphier, who has been with the meeting from the begining, and has opened all these censers filled with prayers of saints, buries in his own breast the names and addresses of those who shrink from being known as suppliants in behalf of themselves, or a wife, a husband, child, or friend. But their names are all written in God's book of remembrance. He counts their tears. He hears their prayers. And from the fulness of his mercy and wisdom he sends them answers of peace. The secret sorrow of one mourning the intemperance of a beloved friend, dear as life, a son or husband, is as frequent a cause of writing as any other. At this present time intoxicating drinks produce more misery than all other second causes in the civilized world. Sin is

the father of all sorrow, and intemperance being the most hideous monster of sin begotten, is the progenitor of more woe than any other of the race. Families made unspeakably wretched by this awful vice cry out from all lands for the help of God. All human aid has failed. And the arm of the Lord is not shortened, but it will not always be stretched out to save men who destroy themselves. They deserve everlasting destruction from his presence, and if in the day of their calamity he should laugh, and send them away into outer darkness, where is eternal gnashing of teeth, the universal verdict of good men and angels would be, "Served them right."

It is beautiful to observe the sweet simplicity of faith with which many earnest believers ask for temporal blessings. They know it is quite as well-pleasing to God to give bread, as the Holy Spirit. And they ask for daily bread, as Christ taught his disciples to pray. They want to be prospered in a secular undertaking, and they pray for it. They do not look for a special interposition, a miracle of feeding or clothing but they believe that he will work in his own good way. Sometimes the answer has reached the suppliant through an instrumentality they never knew. A father wanted help for a daughter who was earnestly seeking without success to find a situation where she might be usefully supported as a teacher. All avenues were apparently closed. Private and family prayer had been made long and in vain. He sent his request hitherward; and when it was read it fell on the ear of one who instantly bethought him of the very place the young lady was seeking. The inquiry was easily made, with the result desired. Unbelief says it was a cheap advertisement. Christian faith sees the goodness of divine Providence suggesting this cheap advertisement, to reach the eye and ear of the man whom the Lord had provided to give the answer. All that has been written on the subject of prayer does not throw one ray of light on the problem of its influence on the mind and will of a Being Infinite and Unchangeable. Sufficient is it for the little creature man, a mote in the sun of boundless benevolence, to know that

the great All Father has said by his Son, "Ask and you shall receive." Millions testify that they have received, and often when they did not get what they asked for, there came something better that satisfied the hunger of the soul. It is sweet to rest on his promises: to know that all things will work out his glory, and the good of his children. These are his witnesses. Here is the faith and patience of the saints. They believe and wait. Even a lifetime is only a moment in the roll of eternal ages, and what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter. The years of God are past our reckoning. Mr. Webster said "We do not understand the arithmetic of heaven." But we may be very certain that when these 250,000 requests for prayer are counted and registered in the ledger of heaven, it will be found that not the least of them all, sent up to the throne in faith, was returned unanswered.

SHORT, SHARP, AND DECISIVE.

THE man who said if he had never done a great thing, he was sure he never did a long thing, is my ideal of a man of words and action. Life is so short and time so precious, that every man who uses the time of others ought to bear in mind that he lives for them as well as for himself, and must not rob them of what he can never return.

This hint is always in order, but never more timely than at this season of the year, when so much public speaking is to be done and endured.

It was extravagant in the great preacher who said to his brethren "Let your sermons be short; no conversions after the first half-hour." There are occasions when an hour is too short a time for a sermon, and there are men who, on such occasions, hold the attention of an audience and make the impression deeper in the last half-hour than the first. We are often told of those good old times when the preacher held forth continuously two, three, and four hours in a ser

mon. Less than a hundred years ago preachers of Scotch descent had the physical vigor and the gift of continuance to such a degree that they would keep up the discourse nearly all the day through. It is told of one who held on until the people could not stand it any longer, having evening duties on their farms to be performed before dark; their going out did not stop the flow of his discourse: but he was finally arrested by the sexton's boy, who came up into the pulpit with the keys and said, "Father wants you to lock up the church when you get through."

Dr. Mairs was wont to preach until he was so much exhausted that it was well for him and his people that he gave out a psalm for them to sing, while he took to the open air, walked a few times around the church, and then resumed the desk, being greatly refreshed and ready for another hour's discourse.

Better judgment obtains in the pulpit of our day. It is not, as many pretend, the decline of interest in the preaching of the word that has shortened the average discourse. The tone of piety and the love of Christians for the word of God and the ordinances of his house are quite as worthy of the church now as they were when the preacher boasted that he had preached three hours last Sabbath-day on a stretch.

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But were you not worn out?" asked his friend.

No, not at all; but it would have done you good to see how worried the people were."

What the present age demands is not the result of dislike for the truth or distaste of God's word. It is an age of action rather than words; an age when reading is so universal and the principles of religious instruction so well understood, that ministers are not called on to put a ten-volume commentary into every sermon. Mr. John Crosby Brown said to the students of the Union Theological Seminary, "Take it for granted that your hearers know something." And then he besought them not to be spending time and strength in drilling the congregation as if they were children in those elementary principles which they might fairly be supposed to understand. An old divine asked a