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Prayers Need Not Be Fine

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1875

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 1, No. 32.

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Prayers Need Not Be Fine

By Charles Haddon Spurgeon

PRAYERS need not be fine. I believe God abhors fine prayers. If a person asks charity of you in elegant sentences, he is not likely to get it. Finery in dress or language is out of place in beggars. I heard a man in the street one day begging aloud by means of a very magnificent oration. He used grand language in very pompous style, and I dare say he thought he was sure of getting piles of coppers by his borrowed speech; but I, for one, gave him nothing, but felt inclined to laugh at his bombast. Is it not likely that many great prayers are as useless? Many prayer-meeting prayers are a great deal too fine. Keep your figures and metaphors and parabolic expressions for your fellow-creatures, use them to those who want to be instructed, but do not parade them before God. When we pray, the simpler our prayers the better; the plainest, humblest language which expresses our meaning is the best.—Spurgeon.