I often say my prayers, but do I really pray?
And do the wishes of my heart go with the words I say?
I may as well kneel down and worship gods of stone
As offer to the living God a prayer of words alone.
A prayer uttered without faith, the Lord can never hear,
Nor can He to those lips attend whose prayers are not sincere.
– Author Unknown
Whoever wrote that seems to have been familiar with Hamlet. Those are similar to the words of the King of Denmark.
The author is John Burton.
I learned this poem in 9th grade seminary in 1964. The next to the last line as quoted above doesn’t seem quite right, but that’s the line I can’t quite remember either.