Praying has become a business, a profession, a trade. A
minister is never happier than when praying in public. Most of them
are exceedingly familiar with their God. Knowing that he knows
everything, they tell him the needs of the nation and the desires
of the people, they advise him what to do and when to do it. They
appeal to his pride, asking him to do certain things for his own
glory. They often pray for the impossible. In the House of
Representatives in Washington I once heard a chaplain pray for what
he must have known was impossible. Without a change of countenance,
without a smile, with a face solemn as a sepulchre, he said: “I
pray thee, O God, to give Congress wisdom.” It may be that
ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be
that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.Robert Green Ingersoll – “Which Way” (1884)
