---

"Men ought to pray." Let none misunderstand us when we lay stress on the word "men." Of course, Christ does not mean one sex merely; He immediately afterwards speaks of "a certain widow." His reference is to the human race at large. We are assured by Paul that in Him there is "neither male nor female." Nevertheless, we eagerly take advantage of the word thus used by our Saviour that we may affirm and maintain the manliness of prayer. The assertion is far from unnecessary, and every one who is acquainted with public opinion will, we think, agree with us. Is there not a notion abroad that prayer is a somewhat feeble, sentimental, effeminate pursuit? Are we not often reminded by travellers on the continent of the fact that churches and cathedrals are chiefly filled by women? Sandy Mackaye, in "Alton Locke," describes a certain congregation as made up of "babies and bonnets," and we know what the inference is. Dr. J. Martineau felicitously speaks of those who regard it "a fond superstition and womanly weakness to ask God anything." Don't we all recollect the account given of Tom Brown when, on arriving at school, he was pelted, chaffed, and ridiculed, because he kneeled beside his bed? Perhaps the last-named incident is more significant than any or the whole of the preceding ones, since there is nothing about which boys are so ambitious as to seem manly. The occurrence is, therefore, a feather which, as it flies, shows the way of the wind. The idea that prayer is unworthy of us as men is utterly unreasonable and untrue. Is it not manly to do right? No one disputes it. We get our word virtue from the Latin vir, a man; to be moral is to be manly. By parity of argument, to do right generally must be manly; prayer is right, God would not will it were it not; therefore it is manly.

(T. R. Stevenson.)

---

---

KJV: And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

WEB: He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up,