Excerpt from Enter Into Thy Closet: Or Secret Prayer and Its Accompanying Exercises But with all their advantages, written forms of prayer are very often productive of injury. They are excellent as helps; but, like every other kind of aid, 'they are in danger of being too much relied upon, and of thus increasing, rather than diminishing, the weakness they are intended to assist. When constantly em ployed, they cannot but prevent the feelings of the heart from having that free and spon taneous exercise, which properly belongs to prayer. The business of devotion is liable to degenerate into mere ceremony, and to be considered as a task, which those engaged in it are glad when they have finished. When prayers have been read, there is a' danger of resting in the mere external performance of the duty, as if the end of devotion were gain ed when the observance is concluded. It is apt to be forgotten that prayer is not properly engaged in, unless the person is made to feel himself transacting immediately with God, and laying bare all his thoughts and feelings, his cares and anxieties, and the most secret movements of his soul, in the presence of the Searcher of hearts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.