ABSTRACT
The finest expression of our feelings towards God is action. Our reverence for Him is best proved by obedience to His will, our trust in Him by patient acceptance of sorrow as His wise ordinance, our love for Him by self-surrender. Of all the various kinds of prayer those are the highest that ask for nothing—nothing, at least, for ourselves. The Rabbins long ago saw that Prayer has its limits, that there are requests that ought never to be uttered. The Jewish Prayer Book seems to have been framed under the sway of such ideas. It contains fewer petitions than praises ; but, besides this, the sombre sense of sin, however acute, is never suffered to intervene between the worshipper and glad adoration of his Divine Master. Prayer need be neither long nor short—its length should depend upon the frame of mind of the worshipper—it must be sincere.
