THE native Christians in a small West African village had no privacy for prayer in their huts, so every Christian used to make off into the bush, away behind his hut, to have a time of prayer with God. Behind every Christian’s hut a little track became plainly visible where they went to and fro from their places of prayer. If it ever happened that the track was rather overgrown for want of use, another Christian would come and say, “Brother, there is something the matter with your track.”
We fear that many a Christian today has something the matter with his track. Why is it that prayer-meetings are so often deserted, or at best but poorly attended in comparison with other meetings? Because in the strain and rush of modern life private prayer is so largely neglected. Depend upon it, here lies the secret of powerless preaching’s, and of general lack of success in the service of the Lord. We should each be profited if some observant and kindly fellow-christian laid his hand upon our shoulder saying, “Brother, there is something the matter with your track!”