"Every sober reader will easily perceive that I do not intend to lessen the true and great value of prayers, either public or private, but only to show him that they are certainly but a very slender part of devotion when compared with a devout life. Bended knees while you are clothed with pride; heavenly petitions while you are hoarding up treasures upon the earth; holy devotions while you live in the follies of the world; prayers of meekness and charity while your heart is the seat of pride and resentment; hours of prayer, while you give up days and years to idle diversions, are as absurd and unacceptable services to God as forms of thanksgiving from a person who lives in repining and discontent. Unless the common course of our lives be according to the common spirit of our prayers, our prayers are so far from being a real or sufficient devotion that they become empty lip labor or, what is worse, a notorious hypocrisy." William Law.