made by others, especially the Lord’s prayer.  We should remember, however, that the Lord’s prayer was given for this very purpose, to teach us how to pray for ourselves.  But it does not do this, if we use it alone, and still more, if we use it without understanding it.  If we do understand it, and study it, it will indeed teach us to pray; it will show us what we most need in prayer, and what are our greatest evils; but surely it may be said, that no man ever learnt this lesson well without wishing to practise it; no man ever used the Lord’s prayer with understanding and with earnestness, without adding to it others of his own.  And this is not a trifling matter.  We know the difficulty of attending in prayer; and if we use the words of others only, which we must, therefore, repeat from memory, it is perfectly possible to say them over without really joining with them in our minds:  we may say them over to ourselves, and be actually thinking of other things the while.  And the same thing holds good, of course, even with prayers that we have made ourselves, if we accustom ourselves to repeat them without alteration; they then become, in fact, the work of another than our actual mind, and may be repeated by memory alone.  Therefore, it seems to be of consequence to vary the words, and even the matter of our private prayers, that so we may not deceive ourselves, by repeating merely, when we fancy that we are praying.  Ten words actually made by ourselves at the moment, and not remembered, are a real prayer; for it is not hypocrisy that is the most common danger; our temper, when we are on our knees, is apt indeed to be careless, but not, I hope and believe, deceitful.  This, of course, must be well known to a very large proportion of us; but, perhaps, there are some to whom it may be useful; some to whom the advice may not yet have suggested itself, that they should make their own prayers, in part, at least, whenever they kneel down to their private devotions.

And this sort of prayer, with God’s blessing, is likely to make us watchful.  We rise in the morning:  we say some prayers of our own; we hear others read to us; and yet it is possible that we may not have really prayed ourselves in either case; we may not have brought ourselves truly into the presence of God.  Hence our true condition, with all its dangers, has not been brought before our minds; the need of watchfulness has not been shown to us.  But with real prayer of our own hearts’ making it is different; God is then present to us, and sin and righteousness:  our dream of carelessness is, for a moment at least, broken.  No doubt it is but too easy to dream again; yet still an opportunity of exerting ourselves to keep awake is given us; we are roused to consciousness of our situation; and that, at any rate, renders exertion possible.  There is no doubt that souls are most commonly lost by this continued dreaming, till at length, when seemingly awake (they are not so really), they are like men