There should be freedom
and spontaneity in a Christian's prayers. It is well to have rules,
and to try not to be prevented by mere slackness from keeping them.
But it is important to see to it that the self-imposed rule is so
framed as to prove genuinely conducive to reality in prayer, and
suitably adapted to opportunity and circumstance: and it is very often
a good thing from time to time, in the interests of freedom, quite
deliberately to break one's rules.
With regard to forms and methods of prayer, it is desirable that men
should learn to pray freely in their own words, or even in no words at
all. Provided a man remembers reverence, he need not stand on ceremony
with GOD. But it is advisable also to use books and manuals of prayer
--at any rate in the first instance: to use them, but not to be tied to
them. Many such manuals have been compiled and published within recent
years: the majority of them are unsatisfactory in varying degrees. A
few, however, can confidently be recommended: especially _Prayers
for the City of God_, compiled by G.
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