Prayer in the Minister’s Work

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 21, 1907

Prayer in the Minister’s Work

PRAYER makes effective the work of the minister. He may be a “silver-tongued orator,” may possess a “striking personality,” may be able to “move audiences,” but if he would effectually move souls out of the world and into true fellowship with Christ to abide there, he must have what can come to him only through secret and earnest prayer. In setting forth before the British Congregational Union some of the weaknesses of the ministry of to-day, Dr. R. F. Horton said the ministers were “neglecting secret prayer, they needed to hide themselves with God a great deal more. Reading made a learned ministry, and poetry and learning and rhetoric made an interesting and popular ministry; but the only ministry that converted and sanctified the world was that maintained by the life of secret prayer.” The men who have drawn their hearers nearest to their Lord have been the men who have learned to find satisfying communion with the Head of the church in secret prayer.