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Prayer and Preaching

It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotion, and yet I cannot forbear. To you as the ambassadors of God, the mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate. The more familiar you are with the court of heaven, the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust. Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honored of God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great Potter by which He moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with out closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer.
 C H SPURGEON
(Source: Lectures To My Students)
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