LONG PRAYERS | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 23, 1868

LONG PRAYERS.

It is a delicate subject upon which to address one personally. You may talk in general terms of the advantage of brevity in public prayers, and every one will assent. The pastor may rise in the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, and kindly lay the subject before his people, and every heart will echo to his remarks, and thank him. But who will profit by them? An amusing instance is told by a writer in the Congregationalist:

“A New England pastor, not long since, made a serious and earnest address on this subject among others, to his church, at their annual meeting. He stated that at a social meeting a brother then present had prayed twenty-five minutes by the clock. After the sermon that brother waited to speak with his minister. The heart of the pastor sank within him. He feared he had greatly offended the good man. ‘I am glad you spoke so plainly about long prayers,’ said the brother. ‘It seems that he is not offended,’ thought the minister; ‘but I am afraid he is greatly grieved.’ ‘The fact is,’ continued the brother, ‘some of the brethren have tried me dreadfully in this matter, and I think it was high time you spoke to them as you did.’”