It is not more heat that is needed, but more
light; not more force, but a wiser direction to be given to very real
energies already there.
The usual advice when one asks for counsel on these questions is,
"Pray." But this advice is far from adequate. I shall qualify the
statement presently; but let me urge it here, with what you will
perhaps call daring emphasis, that to pray for these things is not the
way to get them. No one will get them without praying; but that men do
not get them by praying is the simple fact. We have all prayed, and
sincerely prayed, for such experiences as I have named; prayed,
believing that that was the way to get them. And yet have we got them?
The test is experience. I dare not limit prayer; still less the grace
of God. If you have got them in this way, it is well. I am speaking to
those, be they few or many, who have not got them; to ordinary men in
ordinary circumstances. But if we have not got them, it by no means
follows that prayer is useless. The correct conclusion is only that it
is useless, or inadequate rather, for this particular purpose.
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