The Prayer Closet

Perhaps you have lost your evidence this morning; you do not know whether you are a child of God or not, I will tell you where you lost your confidence-you lost it in your closet. Whenever a Christian backslides, his wandering commences in his closet. I speak what I have felt. I have often gone back from God - never so as to fall finally, I know, but I have often lost that sweet savor of his love which I once enjoyed. I have had to cry,

“Those peaceful hours I once enjoyed.
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void!
The world can never fill.”

I have gone up to God’s house to preach, without either fire or energy; I have read the Bible, and there has been no light upon it, I have tried to have communion with God, but all has been a failure. Shall I tell where that commenced? It commenced in my closet. I had ceased, in a measure, to pray. Here I stand, and do confess my faults; I do acknowledge that whene’er I depart from God it is there it doth begin. Oh Christians, would you be happy? Be much in prayer. Would you be victorious? Be much in prayer.

From a sermon entitled "Paul's First prayer," delivered March 25, 1855.

Photo by Lida Rose; some rights reserved.