Prayer

William Henry Westcott

It is not always more praying that is wanted, but more prayer. Praying may be vociferous, it may be long, logical, or oft-repeated, and effect nothing. Prayer may come to little more than the lying down in the hollow of God's hand, in the sense—I had nearly said agony—of utter helplessness and powerlessness; but the quiet confidence flows over the soul that God is, that God knows His ways, that God will fulfil the uttermost thought of His heart of love. But prayer, the soul's holy reverent contact with its God, its grasp of His promises, its confidence in His character, its free access to Him with the pressing need, the urgent request—this is the frame almost invariably connected with deep and widespread blessing.

S.T. 1916, p. 309