Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/78

70 learned the necessity and value of prayer from the Bible, and thence, too, he had at first drawn the finest thoughts and language with which to approach the mercy-seat.

It was not only in social prayer that he manifested his communion with God and his deep interest in the cause of religion. His habits of secret prayer were well known to the family with whom he lived, and probably few Christians were ever more constant and punctual in the duties of the closet. No labours of the day found him too weary or unfitted for prayer at night. He could say with the psalmist of Israel, "As for me, I will call upon God and the Lord shall save me: evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud; and he shall hear my voice."

Those who often overheard the earnest pleadings of his heart in his closet, were assured, that it was not alone his own "poor soul" of which he so often spoke but the salvation of others; the state of the family and the church, and the glory