an open homage paid to secret prayer. We make such shipwrecks of
devotion in public prayer, that if we have a shred of true religion about
us, we are glad to get home and to shut our door. We preach in our
public prayers. We make speeches on public men and on public events in
our public prayers. We see the reporters all the time in our public
prayers. We do everything but pray in our public prayers. And to get
away alone,--what an escape that is from the temptations and defeats of
public prayer! No; public prayer is no test whatever of a hypocrite. A
hypocrite revels in public prayer. It is secret prayer that finds him
out. And even secret prayer will sometimes deceive us. We are crushed
down on our secret knees sometimes, by sheer shame and the strength of
conscience. Fear of exposure, fear of death and hell, will sometimes
make us shut our door. A flood of passing feeling will sometimes make us
pray for a season in secret. Job had all that before him when he said,
'Will the hypocrite delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call
upon God?' No, he will not. And it is just here that the hypocrite and
the true Christian best discover themselves both to God and to
themselves. The true Christian will, as Job again says, pray in secret
till God slays him. He will pray in his dreams; he will pray till death;
he will pray after he is dead. Are you in earnest, then, not to be any
more a hypocrite and to know the infallible marks of such? Ask the key
of your closet door. Ask the chair at your bedside. Ask the watchman
what you were doing and why your light was in so long. Ask the birds of
the air and the beasts of the field and the crows on the ploughed lands
after your solitary walk.

Almost a better test of true and false religion than even secret prayer,
but a test that is far more difficult to handle, is our opinion of
ourselves. In His last analysis of the truly justified man and the truly
reprobate, our Lord made the deepest test to be their opinion of
themselves. 'God, I thank Thee that I am not as this publican,' said the
hypocrite. 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' said the true penitent. And
then this fine principle comes in here--not only to speed the sure
sanctification of a true Christian, but also, if he has skill and courage
to use it, for his assurance and comfort,--that the saintlier he becomes
and the riper for glory, the more he will beat his breast over what yet
abides within