“Be helpful in prayer to our work, and above all your gatherings [of silver and gold], gather prayers.”
John Eliot (1604-1690) was the Apostle to the Indians of North America. Quote taken from his journal in The Life of John Eliot (Edinburgh: William Oliphant, 1828) 102.
The full journal entry reads as follows: Great as is the zeal for the propagation of the Gospel which is displayed in the present day, a proposal for Christians to engage in the exercise of fasting, on behalf of any missionary undertaking would probably excite the sneer of thousands who contribute their silver and gold without reluctance, and who can talk and write about dependance on the divine blessing, and the manner in which it ought to be sought, with utmost fluency. The fact is, that with many professing Christians, there is even some reluctance to engage in supplication for the spread of the Gospel. Missionary prayer meetings, indeed, have been established in most of our large cities, but the attendance at them is extremely partial, a circumstance which to the minds of the missionaries alive to the moral difficulties of their office ought to be more appalling than the prospect of spending their days in a sickly clime, and among a people of strange countenance, and of a strange tongue. “Be helpful in prayer to our work,” said Mr. Eliot to Mr. Henry Whitfield, “and above all your gatherings [of silver and gold], gather prayers. I mean put the saints in mind that they pray much about it.”