“Held prayer meeting last night in Kilmaluag in view of the communion. The attendance was most encouraging, 70 being out, but long prayers are ruining prayer meetings in the Highlands today. They are a weariness to the flesh and they tire the people by their unfitness and selfishness.”

– Kenneth MacRae, in 1924 (Diary p.190)

“On Thursday we had a Day of Humiliation and Prayer appointed by the Presbytery at the instance of the Commission of Assembly on account of the deplorable state of the world. At the morning meeting 76 were present. Conducted it purely as a prayer meeting and gave no address. Felt dreary and heavy. One of the prayers was inordinately long, inarticulately uttered, and, so far as I could understand, had not bearing upon the matter which brought us together. A simple, direct little prayer would be far more to the point than a volume of divinity. These long, wordy, wandering prayers one hears so often in these quarters nowadays are squeezing the life out of our prayer meetings”

– MacRae in 1948 (Diary p. 386)

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” – Jesus in Matthew 6:7.