C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Devout
To worship rightly is to love each other, each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
Some persons are so devotional they have not one bit of true religion in them.
There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone.
“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” Keep near to the fountain-head and “with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
The inward sighs of humble penitence rise to the ear of heaven, when pealèd hymns are scattered with the sounds of common air.
This is the spirit of prayer—sincere, humble, believing, submissive. Other prayer than this the Bible does not require—God will not accept.
The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts towards that eternal goodness which we desire upon earth.
It is not he who knows most, nor he who hears most, nor yet he who talks most, but he who exercises grace most, who has most communion with God.
The Christian is not always praying; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love—fires of desire, fervent longings—which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer.
Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.
He who receives a sacrament does not perform a good work; he receives a benefit. In the mass we give Christ nothing; we only receive from Him.
Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door pray to thy Father, which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
That holy, humble, meek, modest, retiring Form, sometimes called the Spirit of Prayer, has been dragged from the closet, and so rudely handled by some of her professed friends that she has not only lost all her wonted loveliness, but is now stalking the street, in some places, stark mad.
Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone.
The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts toward that eternal goodness which we desire on earth. All our happiness consists in thirsting for it. Now this thirst is prayer. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray. Do not think it necessary to pronounce many words.
There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.