$8 THE BRUISED REED availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it' rained not for the space of three years. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit." Some might object, if I were as holy as Elias, then my prayers might be regarded: but ' ' Elias was a man of like passions with us;' ' he had his passions as well as we; for do we think that God heard him because he was without fault? No surely. But let us look to the promises. " Call upon me in the day of . trouble, and I will hear thee,' ' Psa. 1. 15. " Ask and ye shall receive," Matt. vii. 7. and such like. ,God accepteth our prayers, though weak, because we are his own children; and they come from his own Spirit, because they are according to his own will; because they are offered in Christ's mediation, and he takes them, and mingleth them with his own odours. There is never a holy sigh or a tear we shed lost. And as every grace increaseth by exercise, so does the grace of prayer. By·prayer we learn to pray. Let us pray
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