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The Need of Prayer

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 18, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 20.

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The Need of Prayer

By Frederick W. Robertson

Go not, my friend, into the dangerous world without prayer. You kneel down at night to pray, and drowsiness weighs down your eyelids; a hard day's work is a kind of excuse, and you shorten your prayer, and resign yourself softly to repose. The morning breaks, and it may be you rise late, and so your early devotions are not done, or are done with irregular haste. No watching unto prayer! wakefulness once more omitted; and now is that reparable?—We solemnly believe not. There has been that done which can not be undone. You have given up your prayer, and you will suffer for it. Temptation is before you, and you are not ready to meet it. There is a guilty feeling on the soul, and you linger at a distance from God. It is no marvel if that day in which you suffer drowsiness to interfere with prayer, be a day in which you shrink from duty. Moments of prayer intruded on by sloth can not be made up. We may get experience, but we can not get back the rich freshness and strength which were wrapped up in those moments.—Frederick W. Robertson, D. D.