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Why is there so little anxiety to get time to pray? Why is there so little forethought in the
laying out of time and employments so as to secure a large portion of each day for prayer?
Why is there so much speaking, yet so little prayer? Why is there so much running to and fro,
yet so little prayer? Why so much bustle and business, yet so little prayer? Why so many
meetings with our fellow men, yet so few meetings with God? Why so little being alone, so
little thirsting of the soul for the calm, sweet hours of unbroken solitude, when God and His
child hold fellowship together as if they could never part? It is the want of these solitary
hours that not only injures our own growth in grace but makes us such unprofitable members
of the church of Christ , and that renders our lives useless. In order to grow in grace, we must
be much alone. It is not in society—even Christian society—that the soul grows most
rapidly and vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress
than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is
purest. So with the soul. It is when none but God is nigh; when His presence alone, like the
desert air in which there is mingled no noxious breath of man, surrounds and pervades the
soul; it is then that the eye gets the clearest, simplest view of eternal certainties; it is then that
the soul gathers in wondrous refreshment and power and energy. And so it is also in this way
that we become truly useful to others. It is when coming out fresh from communion with God
that we go forth to do His work successfully. It is in the closet that we get our vessels so
filled with blessing, that, when we come forth, we can not contain it to ourselves but must, as
by a blessed necessity, pour it out whithersoever we go. "We have not stood continually upon
our watchtower in the daytime, nor have we been set in our ward whole nights." Our life has
not been a lying-in-wait for the voice

of God. "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth," has not been the attitude of our souls, the
guiding principle of our lives. Nearness to God, fellowship with God, waiting upon
God, resting in God, have been too little the characteristic either of our private or our
ministerial walk. Hence our example has been so powerless, our labors so unsuccessful, our
sermons so meager, our whole ministry so fruitless and feeble.

13. We have not honored the Spirit of God. It may be that in words we have recognized His
agency, but we have not kept this continually before our eyes, and the eyes of the people. We
have not given Him the glory that is due unto His name. We have not sought His teaching,
"His anointing"—the "unction from the Holy One, whereby ye know all things."
Neither in the study of the Word nor the preaching of it to others have we duly acknowledged
His office as the Enlightener of the understanding, the Revealer of the truth, the Testifier
and Glorifier of Christ. We have grieved Him by the dishonor done to His person as the
third person of the glorious Trinity; and we have grieved Him by the slight put upon
His office as the teacher, the convincer, the comforter, the sanctifier. Hence He has almost
departed from us, and left us to reap the fruit of our own perversity and unbelief. Besides, we
have grieved Him by our inconsistent walk, by our want of circumspection, by our
worldly- mindedness, by our unholiness, by our prayerlessness, by our unfaithfulness, by our
want of solemnity, by a life and conversation so little in conformity with the character of a
disciple or the office of ambassador.