Long discursive dry and inane are the prayers in many pulpits. Without unction or heart they fall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The deader they are the longer they grow.

A prayerless age will have but scant models of divine power. The age may be a better age than the past but there is an infinite distance between the betterment of an age by the force of an advancing civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness and Christlikeness by the energy of prayer.

Public prayers of are of little value unless they are founded on or followed up by private praying.

Our devotions are not measured by the clock but time is of the essence. The ability to wait and stay and press belongs essentially to our intercourse with God.

The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack but the praying must be in the body and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty put into a corner no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life but it means that the best of our time the heart of our time and strength must be given.

Preaching never edifies a prayerless soul.

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better not new organizations or more and novel methods but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans but men -- men of prayer.

The little estimate we put on prayer is evidence from the little time we give to it.

What a study in importunity in earnestness in persistence promoted and propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but a heroic constant soul. Jesus teaches that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this He delays the answer. the superficial pray-er subsides into silence when thteanswer is delayed. But eh man of prayer hangs on and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith and gives him a rich and abundant answer to His faith evidencing importunate prayer.

Spiritual work is taxing work and men are loath to do it. Praying true praying costs an outlay of serious attention and of time which flesh and blood do not relish.