f a prayer every practice in which you allow yourself.
For instance, let the prayer in the morning be a sort of preparation
for the deeds of the day, and the prayer at night a sort of
retrospection of those deeds. You, Mr. Bragwell, I suspect, are a
little inclined to covetousness; excuse me, sir. Now, suppose after
you have been during a whole day a little too eager to get rich;
suppose, I say, you were to try how it would sound to beg of God at
night on your knees, to give you still more money, though you have
already so much that you know not what to do with it. Suppose you
were to pray in the morning, "O Lord, give me more riches, though
those I have are a snare and a temptation to me;" and ask him in the
same solemn manner to bless all the grasping means you intend to
make use of in the day, to add to your substance?

_Bragwell._ Mr. Worthy, I have no patience with you for thinking I
could be so wicked.

_Worthy._ Yet to make such a covetous prayer as this is hardly more
wicked, or more absurd, than to lead the life of the covetous, by
sinning up to the spirit of that very prayer which you would not
have the courage to put into words. Still further observe how it
would sound to confess your sins, and pray against them all, except
one favorite sin. "Lord, do thou enable me to forsake all my sins,
except the love of money;" "in this one thing pardon thy servant."
Or, "Do thou enable me to forgive all who have injured me, except
old Giles." This you will object against as a wicked prayer, it must
be wicked in practice. It is even the more shocking to make it the
language of the heart, or of the life, than of the lips. And yet,
because you have been used to see people act thus, and have not been
used to hear them pray thus, you are shocked at the one, and not
shocked at the other.

_Bragwell._ Shocked, indeed! Why, at this rate, you would teach one
to hate one's self.

_Worthy._ Hear me out, Mr. Bragwell; you turned your good nephew,
Tom Broad, out of doors, you know; you owned to me it was an act of
injustice. Now, suppose on the morning of your doing so you had
begged of God, in a solemn act of prayer, to prosper the deed of
cruelty and oppression, which you intended to commit that day. I see
you are shocked at the thought of such a prayer. Well, then, would
not hearty prayer have kept you from committing that wicked action?
In short, what a life must that be, no act of which you dare beg God
to prosper and ble