The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
All his mind is bent to holiness,
To number Ave-Maries on his beads.
Henry VI. Pt.II. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 58.
Rather let my head
Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any
Save to the God of heaven and to my king.
Henry VI. Pt.II. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 124.
Go with me, like good angels, to my end;
And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven.
Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 75.
My prayers
Are not words duly hallow'd nor my wishes
More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers
and wishes
Are all I can return .
Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 67.
"Amen"
Stuck in my throat.
Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 32.
When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects; Heaven hath my empty words.
His worst fault is, that he is given to prayer;
he is something peevish that way; but nobody
but has his fault; but let that pass.
Well, if my wind were but long enough to say
my prayers, I would repent.
Merry Wines of Windsor. Act IV. Sc.S. L. 104.
If you bethink yourself of any crime
UnreconciPd as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 26.
Earth bears no balsams for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will: but thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool.
Edward Rowland Sill—The Fool's Prayer.
Four things which are not in thy treasury,
I lay before thee, Lord, with this petition:—
My nothingness, my wants,
My sins, and my contrition.
Prayers are heard in heaven very much in
proportion to our faith. Little faith will get
very great mercies, but great faith still greater.
Spubgeon—Gleanings Among the Sheaves.
Believing Prayer.
To pray together, in whatever tongue or
ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope
and sympathy that men can contract in this life.
Madame de Staël—Corinne. Bk. X. Ch. V.
Holy Father, in thy mercy,
Hear our anxious prayer.
Keep our loved ones, now far absent,
'Neath Thy care.
Isabella S. Stephenson—Hymn. Sung
universally among the British troops in the
Great War.
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart turn them in.
Stevenson—Celestial Surgeon.
My debts are large, my failures great, my
shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask
for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be
granted.
Rabindranath Tagoee—Oitanjali. 28.
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and spirit with
spirit can meet—•
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than
hands and feet.
| author = Tennyson
| work = Higher Pantheism.
M More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy
voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them
friend?
| author = Tennyson
| work = Morte d' Arthur. L. 247.
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer.
'"Twas then belike," Honorious cried,
"When you the public fast defied,
Refused to heav'n to raise a prayer,
Because you'd no connections there."
John Trumbull—McFingal. Canto I. L. 541.
From compromise and things half done,
Keep me with stern and stubborn pride;
And when at last the fight is won,
God, keep me still unsatisfied.
Louis Untermeyer—Prayer.
God, though this life is but a wraith,
Although we know not what we use,
