PRAYED— and Activity. – Charles Spurgeon

“A secular at boarding school near London was remarked for repeating her lessons well. A school companion, who was idly inclined, said to her one day, ‘ How is it that you always say your lessons so perfectly?’ She replied, ‘I always pray that 1 may say my lessons well.’ ‘Do you?’ replied the other, ‘then III pray too.’ But alas! next morning she could not repeat one word of her lesson. Very much confounded, she ran to her friend. J prayed said she, ‘but I could not repeat a word of my lesson.’ ‘ Perhaps,’ rejoined the other, ‘you took no pains to learn it.’ ‘Claim it lean? it answered the first, ‘ I did not learn it at all. I didn’t know I needed to learn it, when I prayed that I might say it.’ She loved her idleness, poor girl; and her praying was but a mockery.