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THE PULPIT AND PRAYER

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Feb 14, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 7.

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THE PULPIT AND PRAYER.

By Pierson

No PULPIT is effective when it is not closely connected with the closet—the secret chamber of prayer. The oratory is the armory and the observatory. Here the preacher has his visions of truth and puts on his panoply. When Ole Bull stopped practising one day, he saw the difference. Two days' neglect of his violin made it evident to his friends, and a week's to everybody. Nothing sooner reveals itself in a preacher than the neglect of prayer. Even familiarity with God can not counterfeit intimacy. There is the reverent boldness of love and fellowship, but the free fashion in which some men speak to God, or of Him, must grate upon His ear, for they offend the spiritually minded. A man who prays mightily will preach powerfully, altho he may have no genius and but little oratorical power. There is a nameless virtue that goes out from a man whom prayer charges with the current of God's life.—Pierson.