Use not vain repetitions] Our Lord reproves not repetitions, but vain repetitions. In the agony in the garden He Himself prayed three times in the same words. Vain repetition reaches its culminating point in Thibet, where there are mechanical prayer-wheels worked by the wind to spread out written petitions before the Almighty. Good examples of heathen repetitions are found in 1 Kings 18:26 and in Acts 19:34. The idea that prayers prevail by their number rather than by their earnestness is pagan, and whenever it appears in Christianity is a corruption.

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