salvation. Woe to the man who ceases to pray — he is lost!
4. The necessity of prayer for every Christian may be deduced from the very essence of Christianity. Through Christ we become children of God: and on this account the Saviour taught us to pray: "Our Father, Who art in heaven." How could we say that we had the spirit of a child of God, if we were not to pray?
Through Christ we are made living temples of God. "The house of God." says the Lord, "is a house of prayer." A church which is no longer used for prayer becomes a nonentity; it is no more than a ruin. This is an image of a soul which has ceased to pray; it is a crumbling temple. Unhappy soul, to whom prayer has become strange and difficult!
5. Through Christ we ought also to become His followers; we ought, as the apostle says, to "put on Christ." But if we have "put on Christ," if His Spirit lives and rules in our hearts, we can not but pray. For Christ prayed frequently and for lengthened seasons on the occasion of all weighty affairs, and He prayed whole nights at a time.
It is through Christ that we shall finally attain to the eternal vision of God, to eternal communion with Him. How shall we attain to the Beatific Vision and everlasting contemplation of God, if we have not, while still sojourning on earth, learned how to pray, and made it our constant practice to keep our-
