God, if the value of prayer were but known, the great advantage
which accrues to the soul from conversing with Thee, and what
consequence it is of to salvation, everyone would be assiduous in it.
It is a stronghold into which the enemy cannot enter. He may attack it,
besiege it, make a noise about its walls; but while we are faithful and
hold our station, he cannot hurt us. It is alike requisite to dictate
to children the necessity of prayer as of their salvation. Alas!
unhappily, it is thought sufficient to tell them that there is a Heaven
and a Hell; that they must endeavor to avoid the latter and attain the
former; yet they are not taught the shortest and easiest way of
arriving at it. The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the
heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are
the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling
the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming
the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. Let the
poor come, let the ignorant and carnal come; let the children without
reason or knowledge come, let the dull or hard hearts which can retain
nothing come to the practice of prayer and they shall become wise.

O ye great, wise and rich, have ye not a heart capable of loving what
is proper for you and of hating what is destructive? Love the sovereign
good, hate all evil, and ye will be truly wise. When ye love anyone, is
it because ye know the reasons of love and its definitions? No,
certainly. Ye love because your heart is formed to love what it finds
amiable. Surely you cannot but know that there is nought lovely in the
universe but God. Know ye not that He has created you, that He has died
for you? But if these reasons are not sufficient, which of you has not
some necessity, some trouble, or some misfortune? Which of you does not
know how to tell his malady, and beg relief? Come, then, to this
Fountain of all good, without complaining to weak and impotent
creatures, who cannot help you; come to prayer; lay before God your
troubles, beg His grace--and above all, that you may love Him. None can
exempt himself from loving; for none can live without a heart, nor the
heart without love.

Why should any amuse themselves, in seeking reasons for loving Love
itself? Let us love without reasoning about it, and we shall find
ourselves filled with love, before the others have learned the reasons
which induced to it. M