If ordinary people ought to pray without giving up, how much more should we who belong to Christ! Jesus sent his church into the world on the same mission he came to fulfill, and that mission demands intercession.

What if I say that the church is the world's priest? Creation is dumb, but the church is to find a mouth for it. What a high privilege we have been given—to pray with the confidence of being heard! The door of grace stands wide open for our prayers, and they never return empty-handed. The veil was torn for us! The blood was sprinkled on the altar for us! God constantly invites us to ask for whatever we need. Will we refuse a privilege that angels themselves might envy? Are we not the bride of Christ? Can we not approach our King at any hour? Shall we allow this precious privilege to lie unused?

The church always has need for prayer. There are always some among us who are declining, or falling into open sin. There are lambs to pray for, that they might be carried in Christ's bosom—the strong, lest they grow presumptuous; the weak, lest they become despairing. If we kept up prayer meetings twenty-four hours a day, all the days of the year, we would never be without a special subject for supplication.

Are we ever without the sick and the poor, the afflicted and the wavering? Are we ever without those who seek the conversion of relatives, the reclaiming of backsliders, or the salvation of the depraved? No! With congregations constantly gathering, with ministers always preaching, with millions of sinners lying dead in trespasses and sins, in a world full of idols, cruelties, devilries—if the church does not pray, how shall she excuse her base neglect of the commission of her loving Lord?

Let the church be constant in supplication! Let every private believer cast his mite of prayer into the treasury!