Live as You Pray by Sel.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 30, 1872

Live as You Pray.

By Sel.

I HAD been taking tea at the house of a highly intelligent Christian lady, in an interior city, and talking, among other things, about her beautiful and commodious mansion, and the builder, by whom it had been most skillfully and economically rearranged, and almost rebuilt, since its purchase. We soon went to the weekly prayer-meeting; and that, by the way, in a storm of wind and rain which might have furnished an excuse, if not a good reason, for the lady’s staying at home.

I had seen the builder referred to, and was quite struck at finding him in the desk, to take his turn, according to the custom in that church, in conducting the meeting. “Your friend, Mr. ——,” I ventured to whisper to the lady. “Yes,” she replied; “and I am as willing to hear him pray now as before our business transactions together.”

The topic of the evening favoring, I reproduced the remark as one I had “once heard.” Whether its origin was understood beyond Mrs. —— and myself, I do not know; but I told, her at the close, that, judging by the visible effect of the remark on the little assembly, she had made the speech of the evening.

When shall the time come that the prayers and exhortations of all church members shall be no less acceptable to their brethren and sisters who have had intimate business and social relations with them, than to others?—Sel.