This is one of MacDonald’s childrens stories, of which his most well known are The Princes and the Goblin, and The Princess and Curdie. I don’t think this was quite as good as the others, but it did have one quote that I liked a fair bit. A child is speaking to his father:

“But aren’t we to read the Bible, father?

Yes, if it’s in order to obey it. To read the Bible thinking to please God by the mere reading of it, is to think like a heathen.

And aren’t we to say our prayers, father?

We are to ask God for what we want. If we don’t want a thing, we are only acting like pagans to speak as if we did, and call it prayer, and think we are pleasing him.” (p. 230)

I think this fact is part of why I don’t read the Bible as much as I should. To read it just to try and please God is silly, while to read it in order to obey it is quite a scary thing. I might find God asking me to do something I might not like to do!