Affliction quickens the spirit of prayer; Jonah was asleep in the ship, but at prayer in the whale's belly.
Perhaps in a time of health and prosperity we pray in a cold and formal manner, we put no coals to the incense; we were careless about our own prayers, and how could we expect God to answer them? God sends some trial or other, to make us take hold of Him.
In times of trouble we pray feelingly, and we never pray so fervently as when we pray feelingly.
When God puts His children in the school of affliction, He deals with them tenderly, because He does not leave them without a promise:
He will not lay a giant's burden upon a child's back; nor will He, stretch the strings of the instrument too much, lest they should break. If. God sees it good to strike with one hand, He. will support with the other; either He will make the faith stronger, or render the yoke lighter.