'Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
thy Father which is in secret,'--MATT. vi. 6.
An old heathen who had come to a certain extent under the influence of
Christ, called prayer 'the flight of the solitary to the Solitary.'
There is a deep truth in that, though not all the truth.
Prayer is not only the most intensely individual act that a man can
perform, but it is also the highest social act. Christ came not to carry
solitary souls by a solitary pathway to heaven, but to set the solitary
in families and to rear up a church. Of that church the highest function
is united worship.
No one is likely to fall into the mistake of supposing that this passage
before us condemns praying in the synagogues, or even, if need were, at
the street corners. It does not, of course, interdict social public
prayer, though it enjoins solitary secret communion with the solitary,
secret God.