John Baillie

His most popular work of writing is A Diary of Private Prayer, but he was known in his native Scotland as a professor in Edinburgh and Toronto, and moderator of the General Assembly of Church of Scotland in 1943. His Diary contains morning and evening prayers beautifully composed as if hymns of creation, echoing, "and it evening and it was morning, the first day." In his prayers, like Psalms, I find words to name the unruly feelings of my own heart and turn them out in the round pen for roping and branding.