is not simply individual. 'I beseech you, brethren, that ye STRIVE TOGETHER with me to God in your prayers for me.' Promises are given to individual prayer; but there are large, and special, and prompt blessings to united prayer. The latter, indeed, includes the former. Each strives, while we strive together. Jesus teaches us to come together around Him, and join our prayers with His, saying, 'Our Father.' If you, who are already gathered here, shall find it good to be here, it will be in some proportion to our union in love, in faith, in prayer. I beseech you, therefore, not to stand apart, praying, like the Pharisee, cach by himself. Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, contrariwise, blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called that ye should inherit a blessing. I beseech you, therefore, to strive together for me, husband, and wife, and child, around your table, when you give thanks for the past, and ask grace for the present and the future; and around your hearth, when you are gathering up the fire for the night, and asking the Lord to keep you, ask Him also to keep me. Remember me when, two or three together, you meet in His name. I beseech you, strive together, members of this church, who, whether as hand or foot, are professedly ready to act here as one body, that when I speak, it may be as one mouth glorifying God, that even when I am silent I may feel the electric thrill of the same pulse of prayer and blessing between you and me and God.

"But I do not ask you to any work, or any warfare, in which I shall not accompany you, in which I am not prepared, by God's grace, to lead you; for, I beseech you, brethren, that you strive together with me. My work is yours, and yours mine. You know not how often, in look

ing at the work here, and then at the worker, I may be ready to turn back in despair. Your prayers may come upon me like a soft, cool wind, amid the heat and burden of the day. Your prayers may come upon the hot sky as a cloud laden with showers, when the seed has just been sown. As I enter your houses, my tongue shall grow eloquent if I feel assured you have been asking God to enable me to speak as I ought to speak. As I sit in my study, gathering up some thoughts for you, day and night, the thought of your earnest prayers for blessing will help me to sift the seed, and cast away what might glitter in some lights like gold, but would not taste to your hungry souls as bread. And as I enter this place, on the Sabbath morning, I shall need no thunders of the organ, quivering amid these beams, to stir or still my spirit, or play the voluntary for our after service, if my soul has already heard the music of your earnest hearts greeting my steps and quickening my approach; for, the beating of hearts, loving and beloved, makes magic music to keep us moving, the only monotonous music of which we never weary. Only when it is still, when the silver chords are broken, or harshly struck, do we know the full power their low whispers possess. I shall need no incense to perfume this place, and cling in fragrant fragments about these walls, if your prayers ascend from lips touched with a live coal from the altar of God. If we have been thus earnestly striving together during the week, we shall not spend the Sabbath in listlessness and sloth; we shall rest, indeed, but our rest shall renew our strength."

Again, p. 209, the author of "Work in the Wynds' goes on to say:

But, above all, our central Weekly Prayer-meeting became crowded, and a spirit of earnest prayer seemed to be poured out. The prayer-meeting had, from the first,

been the centre of our work. Here our motive power was largely generated. Every wheel in our machinery was attached to some part of the gearing that was moved here. The great driving belt, however far it travelled, always passed back again here. We had always two or three special prayers, led by some office-bearer, or gifted member, called up at my request. We prayed for places, and persons, and churches, and stations that thus interested us. But about this time we were specially interested, first, for the successive months in the Revival in America, in 1858, and then in Ireland, in 1859. The desire became intense to share in such wide-spread blessing. So much was this the case, that one of my elders and most devoted helpers from the first, came, at the suggestion of others, to ask me to pay a brief visit to America, that I might both see the work and perhaps carry home something of the fire. We talked of this for a little, but soon agreed that there was a shorter route than across the ocean, and so we agreed to go together to the Lord. Half a dozen of.us began then to meet for half an hour, immediately before the congregational meeting. Three of us took part, giving out a verse or two of a Psalm, and then briefly spreading out our petitions. The very first night we felt 'How dreadful is this place'! We sometimes could hardly speak for emotion. We were like men looking out for rain, and, lifting up our faces in the dark, we suddenly felt the first drops on our cheeks. The same deep sense of an invisible presence, and of new power, accompanied our Sabbath service. We were in the banqueting house."

Thus came Revival to the Wynds of Glasgow.

The above extracts illustrate the principle of concerted prayer-what we mean by it—as furnishing example of its power and importance. A Scripture example or two here

may aid in giving force to other historic examples which might be multiplied indefinitely to a volume itself.

The author of Work in the Wynds seems to have taken lessons from some of these when, instead of crossing the Atlantic, he, with his friends, went directly, on the direct route, by concerted prayer, to the Mercy-seat, and there took counsel of the Lord, and caught the heavenly fire from the altar at once.

Ezra, heading a column of returning captives, in perplexity in regard to the way, called together the bewildered travellers, and at the banks of the river observes a fast, and holds a concerted prayer-meeting, for the expressed and single purpose of seeking direction in their journey back to the city of their fathers. (Ezra viii. 21-23): "Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we fasted, and besought our God for this: and he was entreated of us."

In this Ezra and the captives were not disappointed. The Lord was entreated of them, and answered them: "Then we departed from the river of Ahava, on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. And we came to Jerusalem.”

Esther, Mordecai, and the Jews were in straits from the malicious machinations of Haman, the Jews' enemy. All were in mourning, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing,

lying in sack-cloth and ashes. A special prayer-meeting is called, with fasting as the ostensible form of the call; but prayer is inseparable from fasting; and the call, in this case, for fasting without prayer, would have been unmeaning. Its spirit was to plead with God for deliverance from the sweeping ruin prepared for them. This presented a special and pressing case: all would understand and feel the object of the call, and enter earnestly into its spirit. Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer, Go gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night nor day. I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded." What heart, among all the Jews, in all the realm, was not in concert with this call and its object? In answer to this remarkable concerted prayer, remarkable deliverance came:

After the fall of Judas Iscariot, the eleven apostles were called to the very responsible work of filling the vacancy. For this duty they felt themselves utterly unequal. They at once, by previous agreement, go to God together in prayer-hold a special, concerted prayer-meeting. "And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas, by transgression, fell." Their prayer was answered. They had faith in the promise of their Master, who had so recently said in their hearing, and to them," If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

When Herod, with outstretched, persecuting hand, vex