God in His Word calls our churches "houses of prayer." It is a significant title. Not only preaching ought to employ us in the holy place, for what profit is there in preaching, the best of preaching, if there is no outgoing of the heart to God? No singing, no music that has not in it the element of devotion can make melody in His ear. Prayer is an essential part of our service, at the altar and in the pulpit; and it ought to be in the pew. It is here at least, in God's temple, that the Christian soul ought to find a spot, and regularly, where, amid the distressing scenes of earth, it can come to itself, where it can feel and commune in the ear of God, where, lifting itself above the sordidness and the perversity of this earth, it can bathe in the invigorating atmosphere of a nobler world, and draw inspiration for the affairs of life, in a few moments of communion with a Higher Power. Let, I beseech you, this house be to you a house of prayer, and have a similar place in your own home. There's wisdom and great help in that.
Having answered the _when_ and _where_, let us now note the _how_. By this we do not mean the posture in prayer, whether we ought to pray standing or kneeling; neither do we mean whether we ought to use a fixed prayer, committed to memory, or pray extempore, out of the heart, finding our own words. I do not think it is wise to use no form as a rule. Extempore prayers are apt to lack both orderly arrangement and fullness, and when weary or dull, or our thoughts are wandering, we cannot make prayers for ourselves,--we want to have a form of devout words put into our mouths. Those simple, yet stately prayers of our Catechism and hymn-book have been, and are still, the inspiration of thousands of the most devout of God's children. And yet, there is one danger. Using a regular form of prayer statedly may lead to listlessness and lifelessness. It is not only the Romanist who, counting his beads and making his crossings and prostrations, nor the Mohammedan, who at the priest's call from the mosque falls upon his knees, who does not pray, but the Protestant may say or read his addresses to God, and yet not pray. There is a difference between saying prayer and praying. Prayer, to be right, must be offered up in the spirit of prayer, and by the spirit of prayer is meant a devotional tone and temper of the mind and the heart. Reads our text: "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." It is the heart that prays, not the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. To hasten over the words heedlessly, anxious to be done as quickly as possible, to do it because it's a custom, and perhaps with a superstitious fear that if we do not do it, something might befall us, is making a mockery of prayer. We ought to pray, but we must pray in earnest, with faith, reverence, sincerity, as if we meant it. As it has been expressed: God does not look at the arithmetic of our prayers, how many there may be; nor does He look at the logic of our prayers, how methodical and nicely arranged they may be; nor at the rhetoric, how beautiful they may be. What He looks at is the sincerity of our prayers, how earnest they are. And lose not the Spirit in your prayers; that is the one direction of to-day's text. And the other is, "Praying always with all perseverance," _i. e._, prayer must be constant, unceasing. The Apostle knew the defects of earth-born man, and, knowing, bids them to beware of being tardy in their prayer. There is a good reason why. Prayer is spiritual breath, we said. If a man's breathing is bad, if it is hurried, fitful, some mortal mischief is at work. Even so spiritually. If our prayers are hurried, if they are irregular, if we regard them as disagreeable duties, if they are not the natural and necessary consequences of our spiritual life, natural and necessary as breathing is to every living man, then that life is sadly weak and diseased. Why are we so weak in Christian faith? why so wayward and sluggish in our Christian life? Why have sinful habits such power over us? It is because we breathe, _i. e._, pray, so badly. How is it possible to work for God, or fight for Him, if we are tardy in holding communion with Him?