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KING PELLINORE’S LITERARY MAGAZINE

is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life
from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a
beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God
pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to
effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes
dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As
soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He
will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer
kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower
kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard
throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in
Fletcher's Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind
of the god Audate, replies, —

"His hidden meaning lies in our endeavours;

Our valors are our best gods."

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets.
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of
will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the
sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil
begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We
come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for
company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in
rough electric shocks, putting them once more in
communication with their own reason. The secret of
fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods
and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are
flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all
eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and
embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously
and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he
held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods
love him because men hated him. "To the persevering
mortal," said Zoroaster, "the blessed Immortals are swift."

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their
creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those
foolish Israelites, 'Let not God speak to us, lest we die.
Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.'

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