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In Saint John’s vision of heaven the redeemed are represented as having in their hands “golden vials, full of odors, which are the prayers of saints.” The meaning is not that the saints in glory offer up prayers to God. Rather, the thought seems to be that earth’s supplications rise up to heaven as sweet incense – that while humble believers in this world are engaged in offering up prayers and supplications, holy odors are wafted up before God. There is an exquisite beauty in this thought that true prayer is fragrance to God. The pleadings and supplications of his people on the earth rise from lowly homes, from sick rooms, from darkened chambers of grief where loved ones kneel beside their dead, from humble sanctuaries, from stately cathedrals, and are wafted up before God, as the breath of flowers is wafted to us in summer days from sweet fields and fragrant gardens. And God “smells a sweet savor.” Prayer is perfume to him.