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Prayer (Talmage)

It is well to know that prayer is not compound of words, words that may fail to express what one desires to say, words that so often cloak inconsistencies, words that may have no deeper source that the physical organs of speech, words that may be spoken to impress mortal ears.  The dumb may pray, and that too with the eloquence that prevails in Heaven.  Prayer is made up of heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the soul, of supplication based on the realization of need, of contrition and pure desire.  If there lives a man who has never really prayed, that man is a being apart from the order of divine human nature, a stranger in the family of God's children.  Prayer is for the uplifting of the suppliant.  God without our prayers would be God; but we without prayer cannot be admitted to the Kingdom of God.

James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 238
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