and detached hand never put English pen to paper than was the hand of Sir
Thomas Browne. And, if ever in his greener days he had a doubt about any
truth of natural or of revealed religion, he tells us that he had fought
down every such doubt in his closet and on his knees.

I will not profanely paraphrase, or in any way water down the strong
words in which Sir Thomas Browne writes to himself in his secret papers
about prayer. All that has been said about this very remarkable man only
makes what we are now to read all the more remarkable and memorable. All
Sir Thomas Browne's readers owe an immense debt to Simon Wilkin; and for
nothing more than for rescuing for us these golden words of this man of
God. 'They were not,' says Wilkin, 'intended by Browne for the perusal
of his son, as so many of his private papers were, or of any one else.'
And hence their priceless value.

'To be sure that no day pass without calling upon God in a solemn,
fervent prayer, seven times within the compass thereof. That is, in the
morning, and at night, and five times between. Taken up long ago from
the example of David and Daniel, and a compunction and shame that I had
omitted it so long, when I heedfully read of the custom of the Mahometans
to pray five times in the day.

'To pray and magnify God in the night, and in my dark bed, when I cannot
sleep; to have short ejaculations whenever I awake, and when the four
o'clock bell awakens me; or on my first discovery of the light, to say
this collect of our liturgy, Eternal God, who hast safely brought me to
the beginning of this day. . . .

'To pray in all places where privacy inviteth: in any house, highway, or
street: and to know no street or passage in this city which may not