An earlier source is Beecher’s Lecture-Room Talks (1870), p. 133 [https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015035815888?urlappend=%3Bseq=144]. Here it is in context: “I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent somewhere. I pray because it is easier to pray than not to pray. It is the soul that prays first: the tongue wags afterwards. It is no small privilege that we have of talking with God, and of laying our troubles upon him so as to feel relieved of them.”