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 Hutchings, W. H. 1835-1912 
 The life of prayer 
 
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THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 
 
THE LIFE OF PRAYER 
 
 a Series of lecture0. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. W. H/HUTCHINGS, M.A., 
 
 SUB-WARDEN OF THE HOUSE OF MERCY, CLEWER. 
 
 RECTE NOVIT VIVERE, QUI NOVIT ORARE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOSEPH MASTERS AND CO., 78, NEW BOND STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVII. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 J. MASTERS AND CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 ALBION BUILDINGS, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE, E.C. 
 
TO THE 
 
 HONOURABLE MRS. MONSELL, 
 Superior of tfjc Community of S. Sofjn baptist, ©Ietoor, 
 
 DURING THE FIRST TWENTY-THREE YEARS OF ITS EXISTENCE, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, 
 
 AS A SLIGHT EXPRESSION OF THE AUTHOR'S AFFECTION FOR 
 HERSELF ; 
 
 AND IN REVERENT ESTEEM FOR HER LONG AND DEVOTED 
 WORK, 
 
 TO WHICH HER BRIGHTNESS OF SPIRIT AND POWER OF SYMPATHY 
 
 IMPARTED NO ORDINARY INFLUENCE. 
 
AD FERttSEMENT. 
 
 HHHE thoughts which are contained in the following pages, 
 formed the substance of a course of Lectures, which 
 were delivered at All Saints' Church, Margaret Street, in 
 the present year. The Lectures have been written for 
 publication since their delivery, and have undergone expan- 
 sion in the process ; some new matter also has been added, 
 and a few more quotations. " The Life of Prayer/' as the 
 subject itself demanded, has been treated in a doctrinal and 
 devotional manner, and, with the exception of the Third 
 Lecture, has in it little allusion to controversy. It was felt, 
 however, by the author, to be necessary, that one Lecture 
 should be devoted to the consideration of the " objections 
 to Prayer f as in the serial literature of the day as well as in 
 the inner regions of the spiritual life, doubts concerning the 
 doctrine of Prayer from time to time are presented to the 
 minds of those, who have no love for, and feel no pride in 
 them, and who will therefore welcome and value a thought 
 which may help them in rejecting the temptation in them- 
 
viii Advertisement. 
 
 selves, or aid them in giving to others " a reason of the 
 hope that is in" them. 
 
 In preparing these Lectures for the press, the author has 
 been aided by some notes and outlines which were placed 
 at his service by one who heard them, and who has, on a 
 previous occasion, performed the same kind office, to whom 
 again his thanks are due. These Lectures, though not 
 written, were as carefully prepared as time would permit 
 before their delivery, but their subsequent composition has 
 been achieved amid much interruption ; the author trusts, 
 however, that though this may have affected the style, no 
 inaccuracy will be discovered in the matter. He humbly 
 and unreservedly submits the contents of this volume to the 
 teaching of the Universal Church. 
 
 The Warden's Lodge, Clewer, 
 Feast of S. John Baptist, 1877. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Hectute I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE NA TURE OF PR A YER ...... i 
 
 ILecture II. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF PRA YER 27 
 
 Hectute IH. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO PRA YER 61 
 
 ILecture IV. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF PRA YER .99 
 
 Eecture V. 
 
 MENTAL PRA YER : 
 
 I. MEDITATION • 144 
 
 //. CONTEMPLATION *7 2 
 
 Hecture VI. 
 
 VOCAL PRA YER : 
 
 I. PRIVATE I9 1 
 
 //. PUBLIC 2I1 
 
 ///. INTERCESSOR Y 229 
 
THE LIFE OF PRAYER, 
 
 %uti\vt h 
 
 THE NATURE OF PRAYER. 
 
 " But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou 
 hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father 
 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." — S. Matt. vi. 6. 
 
 T N the Sermon on the Mount, Christ assumes that the 
 three practices, which had been prominent expressions 
 of religious life amongst the Jews, would continue to hold 
 their place in the Religion of which He was the Founder. 
 In the transition from the Old Dispensation to the New, 
 some customs must disappear, some fresh obligations be 
 established, but those three — almsdeeds, prayer, and fast- 
 ing, were recognised as possessing a lasting importance ; 
 they would enter into the life of the Christian as they had 
 into the life of the Israelite. As S. Paul says of faith, hope, 
 and charity, that they should ' abide' as constituent features 
 of the inner life, when the extraordinary gifts and transient 
 manifestations of the Spirit had ceased ; so prayer, alms- 
 
 B 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 deeds and fasting, were to maintain their position, when all 
 that was of temporary value in the former Covenant had 
 come to an end. 
 
 For the reason of their permanency we have not far to 
 look ; it is to be found in man's nature, condition, and 
 moral obligations. Man's nature, according to S. Paul, 1 
 may be regarded as threefold, as consisting of body, soul, 
 and spirit ; and fasting, almsdeeds and prayer, are exercises 
 which appertain to those three elements of our being — 
 fasting, to the body ; almsdeeds, to the soul, the centre of 
 desire and attachment ; prayer, to the higher side of the 
 incorporeal nature, the spirit. Again, S. John describes 
 man as the subject of three great temptations ; he is liable 
 to be carried away either by his love of pleasure, of wealth, 
 or of honour, and the visible world presents material for the 
 gratification of all the three. Thus the Apostle has left us 
 the inspired warning — " Love not the world, neither the 
 things that are in the world .... for all that is in the 
 world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the 
 pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world." 2 
 Now fasting, almsdeeds and prayer, are correctives of these 
 three vicious tendencies of corrupt nature : the first weakens 
 " the lust of the flesh" by " keeping under the body ;" the 
 second regulates the desires of the soul, " the lust of the 
 eyes ;" and the third subdues " the pride of life" through 
 that sense of dependency which prayer cherishes. More- 
 1 i Thess. v. 23. 2 1 S. John ii. 15, 16. 
 
The Nature of Prater. 
 
 over, man has moral obligations in three directions ; he has 
 duties towards, and consequently can sin against, himself, 
 his neighbour, and his God. Prayer, almsdeeds and fasting, 
 are actions, which have a preservative or reparative effect, 
 and enable, by God's grace, those who practise them to 
 " live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world" 1 
 — " soberly," in regard to themselves ; " righteously," towards 
 others ; " godly," towards God. 
 
 It is evident, then, that successive Dispensations would 
 not interfere with religious practices, the roots of which 
 lay so deep in man's nature, trials and necessities ; and 
 from their permanency we may conclude their importance. 
 When we find Patriarch, Jew and Christian, resorting to the 
 same practice, we may not doubt but that we are confront- 
 ing some primary and fundamental expression of religion. 
 
 But the religious exercises referred to, not only continued 
 to exist in the Religion of Christ, but in it they attain a 
 perfection which they had not before ; He purified the 
 affection and motive with which they were done, and im- 
 parted to them a new dignity and power ; He turned away 
 the eye of His disciple from the creature and directed it to 
 the Face of the Creator, to " the Father which seeth in 
 secret f in the language of the Prophet, He separated 
 " the precious from the vile." 2 The power of the visible 
 had made itself felt, where the Invisible should have been 
 supreme ; these duties had been fulfilled to gain " glory of 
 1 Titus ii. 12. 2 Jer. xv. 19. 
 
The Nature of Prater. 
 
 men f l a common disease had infected all of them, which 
 Christ would heal and remove. He rebuked the desire 
 for vain-glory, and enjoined withdrawal from the public 
 gaze, so as to avoid the outward occasion of this evil — 
 " But thou, when thou pray est, enter into thy closet, and 
 when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which 
 is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall 
 reward thee openly/' Christ not only removed the alloy 
 from the metal, but enriched the ore with new veins of 
 wealth — dignified these practices by His own Example, Who 
 for our sakes became poor that we through His poverty 
 might be rich, Who fasted for forty days and nights in the 
 wilderness, and spent whole nights in prayer on the moun- 
 tain-top. Christ bestowed a new efficacy upon all that 
 would henceforth be undertaken in union with Himself, 
 and added a new promise of recompense in each case — " thy 
 Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." 2 
 
 What has been as yet said concerns equally the " three 
 eminent duties," it must not be on that account assumed 
 that fasting, almsdeeds and prayer, are on a level in point 
 of dignity and importance. As faith, hope, and charity, 
 are all three virtues of the first rank, yet the last is " the 
 greatest ;" so of these three religious practices, prayer stands 
 pre-eminent in many respects. Fasting and almsdeeds are 
 the preparation for and accompaniments of prayer ; they 
 are of a negative, it is of a positive character, they remove 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 2. 2 Ibid. 4, 6, 18. 
 
The Nature of Prater. 
 
 hindrances, it perfects the creature ; they have to do with 
 material things, it with Divine ; they are concerned with 
 the flesh and the outer world, it with the spirit and the 
 Kingdom of Heaven ; they detach the soul from the crea- 
 ture, it unites the soul with the Creator. These three act, 
 it is true, and re-act on, one another, but they are not there- 
 fore equal ; for soul and body are not equal because of 
 their mutual influence. There are conditions under which 
 the latter exists without the former, and is acceptable to 
 God, but never can the former rise to Him without the 
 latter. We are conscious then, that we are entering upon a 
 subject of supreme moment, when we choose for our con- 
 sideration " the Life of Prayer/' We shall need at every 
 step the assistance of the Holy Spirit. He who helpeth 
 our infirmities when we pray, must also help us, if we are 
 to speak aright and profitably on a theme so deep, so vast, 
 so full of mystery, and so difficult of analysis as that of 
 prayer. Our aim will be to treat the subject rather in a 
 suggestive than in an exhaustive manner ■ we will consider 
 the Nature of Prayer; its Necessity; Objections to it; the 
 Conditions of Prayer; and the different kinds of Prayer, 
 mental and vocal. And first, we shall be occupied with the 
 Nature of Prayer. 
 
 I. What is prayer? We shall perhaps be better able 
 to answer this question, if we resolve an act of prayer into 
 its constituent parts, and consider each separately. An act 
 of prayer requires one who shall make it ; one to whom it 
 
The Nature of Prater. 
 
 is directed ; and a communication between the two. These 
 three parts are mystically represented in the dream of 
 Jacob, 1 — there was the patriarch beneath, the Lord God 
 above, and the ladder of intercourse between the two. Thus 
 for an act of prayer there must be two terms, and some 
 contact between them. Let us begin from beneath, and 
 consider the one who prays. 
 
 For a being to be capable of praying, he must possess 
 two attributes ; he must be rational and dependent. " Of 
 all beings here below, man alone prays." 2 Religion more 
 than reason distinguishes man from the brute which perisheth, 
 in that of the latter in the brute there are glimpses, but 
 not of the former ; there is nothing in animals which bears 
 the same relation to Religion as instinct does to reason. 
 Religion is a new commencement in man ; as consciousness 
 is, in the animal kingdom. We are at once aware when we 
 find in the Psalter such expressions as these — " the young 
 lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God," 3 
 " He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens 
 which cry" 4 — that the inspired writer does not ascribe 
 to the lower creatures the act of prayer ; but in a graphic 
 manner he alludes to them as provided for by Divine Pro- 
 vidence, when they go in quest of food, in accordance with 
 the instincts of their nature. They are said to " seek their 
 
 1 Gen. xxviii. 12. 
 
 2 M. Guizot, L'Eglise et la Societe Chretienne, 1861, p. 22. 
 
 3 Ps. civ. 21. 4 Ps. cxlvii. 9. 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 meat from God," in the same sense as wind and storm are 
 said to obey His word. To place the roar of an animal 
 and the utterance of prayer on the same level, is either to 
 credit the animal with intellect, or to degrade prayer to the 
 irrational exclamations of an uncivilized state. Prayer is 
 the voice of hope ; the cry of the animal, that not only of 
 distress but of overthrow. Prayer is the utterance of an 
 intelligence, the outpouring of a mind, with its numberless 
 associations, its memories, its foresight, its inward, back- 
 ward, forward, upward gaze : the cry oT the animal bears 
 witness to the momentary pang of its nature, is an utterance 
 significant of pain or want, but has no further meaning or 
 direction. Prayer necessitates the presence of reason in 
 the being who employs it ; man and angel therefore are 
 linked together in the exercise of this power. As with the 
 body and its passions, man has affinity with the animal 
 world; so with the soul and its aspirations, he has some 
 fellowship with beings who are above him in the scale 
 of creation. Angels surpass us in their powers of sup- 
 plication and worship ; as the being purely intellectual 
 excels in mental constitution the being who is only rational. 
 Therefore the Church endeavours to kindle into a fuller 
 flame our feebler devotion by associating it with that of the 
 choirs above, as at that solemn moment when she thus bids 
 us join them — " therefore with Angels and Archangels, and 
 with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy 
 glorious Name ; evermore praising Thee, and saying, Holy, 
 
8 The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 holy, holy, Lord God of hosts." And in Holy Scripture, 
 the masterful capacities for prayer and praise in the angels 
 are often mentioned ; but the greatness of their powers does 
 not divide them from us. As the beasts on the one side ex- 
 ceed us in animalism ; so the angels on the other surpass us 
 in spirituality, their powers differ from ours in degree rather 
 than in kind, and the consciousness of their keener as- 
 pirations has a sustaining and elevating influence on our own. 
 Mind, then, is essential ; without k, a creature cannot prap. 
 But, further, the being who prays must be dependent ; 
 he must have a Superior, must acknowledge a Power abo^e 
 him, upon Whose Will his life hangs — " my soul hangeth 
 upon Thee, Thy right hand hath upholden me." There can 
 be no prayer without an acknowledgment of inferiority ; 
 the being who prays must be one of limited power. Hence 
 between the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, who 
 are Co-equal in Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, prayer 
 cannot pass. When we speak of Christ as praying, we 
 are able to do so because He is " inferior to the Father, 
 as touching His Manhood ;" He prayed by means of that 
 nature which He assumed. And, further, it seems to be con- 
 trary to the instinct of the Catholic Church to beseech 
 our Lord to pray for us now. We use the term prayer 
 of those supplications which He offered on earth, when 
 His Humanity was not only inferior as a nature to 
 the Divine Nature, but inferior also in point of mortality ; 
 when in short Christ was a "wayfarer." But when we 
 
The Nature of Prater. 
 
 describe Christ's action in Heaven, we call it Intercession. 
 " It must not be said, ' O Christ, pray for us,' but ' Hear 
 us,' or i Have mercy on us,' both to avoid the error of 
 Arius and Nestorius, and because prayer is directed to the 
 Person, which is Divine." Though we regard our Lord as 
 presenting His Humanity,, and Pleading the Merits of His 
 Passion before the Father,, we use a more exalted term 
 than that of prayer, and approach Him on that side of His 
 Being " by virtue of which He bestows rather than seeks." 
 Again, when S. Paul asserts that the Blessed Spirit makes 
 " intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered," 1 
 he is not imputing to the Divine Spirit Himself a crea- 
 ture's act, but he is attributing to the Spirit those fervent 
 aspirations and deep emotions which the Spirit excites in 
 the souls of the faithful, and offers for them in some mys- 
 terious way in the Courts above. There can be no prayer, 
 then, between Divine Persons ; prayer is ever the cry of 
 dependence and inferiority, and the act of prayer, as it is a 
 witness to, so does it increase, the sense of dependence on 
 a Higher Power. The being, then, who prays, must be 
 both rational and dependent. 
 
 II. We have now to direct our thoughts to the other 
 term of an act of prayer. To whom are we to pray ? There 
 is but One to Whom prayer can, as an act of Worship, be 
 addressed — God. The Being who can hear and answer 
 prayer must be credited with the attributes of Omniscience 
 1 Rom. viii. 26. 
 
io The Nature of Prayer, 
 
 and Omnipotence. Those who are in the habit of address- 
 ing creatures, of course admit that those creatures cannot 
 by their own powers hear them, or if they heard them, 
 answer their prayers ; they believe them to learn from God 
 those petitions which are offered on earth, as angels have 
 some way of discovering, and rejoicing on account of the 
 penitence of some sinner. The pulse of joy which beats in 
 the Divine Heart reaches, as an expanding circle, the 
 blessed spirits in their various orders ; and in a similar 
 manner it is conceived, that Saints gain possession from the 
 Divine Mind of what passes on earth : the Divine Mind 
 Alone knows directly our supplications. Again, those who 
 invoke creatures, pray to them only to pray for them, not 
 to grant their requests ; they regard them as intercessors 
 with God — those who by office or personal holiness can 
 add some force to their own petitions, and press them, so to 
 speak, upon God. Thus the people besought the prophet 
 to pray for them when terrified by a thunder-storm at the 
 time of wheat-harvest — " the people said unto Samuel, Pray 
 for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not." 1 
 So the sorcerer asked the Apostle to pray for him, " Pray 
 ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye 
 have spoken come upon me." 3 There is a conviction that 
 nearness to God, whether on earth or in Heaven, strengthens 
 the power of prayer ; but whatever view may be taken of 
 calling in the aid of the Saints, all will be ready to acknow- 
 1 I Sam. xii. 19. 2 Acts viii. 24. 
 
The Nature of Prater. ii 
 
 ledge that prayer, properly speaking, as an act of worship, 
 can only be addressed to Almighty God, for He alone can 
 hear, and He alone can answer; and that by whatever 
 route according to devotional attractions prayers may travel 
 upwards, they must not only, to be of any avail, finally 
 reach the Eternal Throne, but the very knowledge of them 
 in Heaven must emanate from Him Who is " a discerner 
 of the thoughts and intents of the heart." 1 When, therefore, 
 the disciples asked Christ to teach them to pray, He said, 
 when ye pray say, " Our Father, which art in Heaven ;" 2 
 He taught them, that is, that prayer should be directed to 
 God, as the One who could hear and answer — " O Thou 
 that nearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come." 3 
 
 That prayer must be addressed to the One Supreme 
 Essence, the Life upon which all other lives depend, will 
 be admitted by all who believe in a Personal God, and 
 those who do not believe in a Personal God do not believe 
 in a personal self, and so the two terms of prayer are de- 
 stroyed at one blow, and therefore prayer itself becomes an 
 impossibility ; our own personality is bound up with the 
 Personality of God, for we are made in His Image, though 
 our personality must fall far short of His. But here the 
 question arises, whether in the full light of the Gospel, in 
 the knowledge which we possess of the Inner Life of God, 
 our prayers as to the Object addressed may not have some 
 advance upon the supplications of the Patriarch or devout 
 
 1 Heb. iv. 12. 2 S. Matt. vi. 9. 3 Ps. lxv. 2. 
 
12 The Nature of Prater. 
 
 Jew. May we not pray to the different Persons of the 
 Godhead, as well as to the Divine Unity. The Church 
 certainly sanctions both ways of directing cur prayers to 
 God. We are not only taught to pray to God, as the Jew, 
 whose revelation was summed up in the words, " the Lord" 
 thy "God is one Lord;" 1 but as those who have been 
 baptized into " the Name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost." The Litany, collects, and 
 hymns, supply instances of addresses to distinct Persons of 
 the Godhead,. " (J God, the Father, of Heaven," " O God, 
 the Son, Redeemer of the world," a O God, the Holy 
 Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son," " Al- 
 mighty Father, who hast given Thine only Son," 2 "O 
 Lord Jesu Christ, who at Thy first coming didst send 
 Thy messenger," 3 " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire," 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, Eternal God." 4 So in Holy Scrip- 
 ture we find S. Stephen calling on Jesus in his dying hour. 
 As we have revealed to us not only the Relations of Per- 
 sons between Themselves in the Divine Life, but also the 
 special work of Each in regard to us, we are drawn to turn 
 especially to that Person to Whom is appropriated the par- 
 ticular Mystery on which we are dwelling, or the fruits of 
 which we are seeking.; for although all external works are 
 
 1 Deut. vl 4. 
 
 2 Collect for First Sunday after Easter.. 
 a Collect for Third Sunday in Advent. 
 
 4 Hymns in. Ordinal. 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 13 
 
 common to the Blessed Trinity as the Divine Nature Itself, 
 yet they are wrought in a certain order in reference to 
 Divine Persons — thus Creation is attributed to the Father, 
 Redemption to the Son, and Sanctification to the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 But it must be borne in mind, that such prayers as are 
 offered to distinct Persons of the Deity are not the ex- 
 clusive worship of that Person, but addresses to the One 
 God under that Eternal Distinction of His Being ; it would 
 be a sin or grave error either to imagine that an act of 
 devotion could be paid to a part of the Divine Life, or to 
 attribute to One Person of the Godhead a greater Power, 
 Wisdom, or Goodness than to Another, or to conceive a 
 greater affection for or to bestow greater honour on One 
 Person than Another. Nevertheless special devotions to 
 Each Divine Person are not only legitimate, but to be en- 
 couraged, when it is clearly understood that prayer to One 
 is prayer to All ; such devotions consisting in those 
 thoughts, affections, and effects, which the knowledge of 
 the Divine Person who is addressed excites within the soul 
 — knowledge of His Origin in the Godhead and Work in 
 the creature; and these devotions have the subjective 
 effect of impressing on the mind the Distinctions of the 
 Life of the One God, and of exciting the affections. 
 
 However, after all, the soul in prayer turns rather to the 
 Attributes than to the Relations of God, rather to the Cha- 
 racter than to the Distinctions of the Divine Life ; it lays 
 
14 The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 hold of His Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, and moving 
 amongst these, leans in turn then on one, then on another ; 
 it trusts His Power, rests on His Wisdom, delights in His 
 Goodness, passes from perfection to perfection, as the Foun- 
 dations on which belief in prayer is based. God stands 
 primarily to the creature as God, the Distinctions of the 
 Divine Life are its Relations within Itself. When, then, 
 Christ directed prayer to be addressed to the Father — 
 " say, Our Father, which art in Heaven" — He was not, 
 we may believe, bidding us to pray to the First Person of 
 the Deity, unless the First Person stand for the Principle 
 of the Whole Deity, for those whom He addressed had not 
 yet grasped the Distinctions in the Godhead ; but He was 
 revealing God as a Father, and showing how He was to 
 be regarded in the Christian Covenant, and the spirit in 
 which He was henceforth to be approached ; He was mani- 
 festing the New Testament aspect of God. Now we were 
 to draw near to God as a child to a Parent with love and 
 confidence, with joy and tenderness ; and not with the 
 dread and uncertainty, and consciousness of distance from 
 Him, which belonged to the spirit of the Old Dispensation. 
 Jesus Christ says, "View God as your Father, as the 
 One who loves you with that special kind of love of which 
 you have had some experience in earthly relationship." 
 Whilst, then, in regard to the Object to Whom prayer is 
 offered, our devotions may be in advance of the Jew ; we 
 must keep alive as clear a consciousness of the Divine 
 
The Nature of Prater. 15 
 
 Unity as he possessed ; and when directing our worship 
 to One Divine Person, not imagine that the Other Two are 
 excluded — not suppose, if it may be reverently said, that 
 we are praying to a part of the Godhead — but that we are 
 addressing the Divine Essence, the One God, under One 
 of the Three Eternal Distinctions of His Life, which have 
 been revealed to us in the Christian Dispensation. 
 
 III. Our attention has been fixed on the two terms of 
 prayer, the being who prays, the Being who is prayed to, 
 we have now to consider what passes from the one to the 
 Other, the act of prayer. Beings may exist which possess 
 the required attributes, the one of mind and dependency, 
 the Other of Infinite Knowledge and Power; but unless 
 there is some inter-communication — if they stand entirely 
 apart — prayer does not as yet exist. There must be some 
 movement of the one to the other, some offering and ac- 
 ceptance, some ladder of intercourse. Prayer is the move- 
 ment from beneath, mind rising up to Mind, feebleness to 
 Omnipotency ! 
 
 Prayer is like sacrifice, a term of wide and varied signifi- 
 cation ; it is capable of an extensive as well as intensive 
 definition. Thus everything which is offered to God by 
 the creature, and is acceptable to Him, has the nature of 
 prayer ; every good action which is done with a pure in- 
 tention — " Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a 
 memorial before God," 1 — not only the prayers but the 
 1 Acts x. 4. 
 
1 6 The Nature of Prater. 
 
 alms also. The Son of Sirach shows how the different ends 
 of sacrifice may be obtained by good actions — " He that 
 keepeth the law bringeth offerings enough : he that taketh 
 heed to the commandment offereth a peace offering. He 
 that requiteth a good turn offereth fine flour ; and he that 
 giveth alms sacrificeth praise. To depart from wickedness 
 is a thing pleasing to the Lord ; and to forsake unrigh- 
 teousness is a propitiation." 1 Prayer is every effort made 
 for God. Besides the maxim u pray and labour," there is 
 the one which identifies labour and pTaycr, " to labour is to 
 pray." " By this," says one of old, " we bring it to pass 
 that we pray without ceasing, when by our works we please 
 God ; the whole life of a righteous man is a prayer." S. 
 Augustine speaks of the Psalm which is pleasing to God, 
 not only when it is sung, but when it is expressed in deed 
 — " God is not so much pleased by the word of the mouth, 
 as He is by the thing and action." So again he explains 
 mystically what is meant by singing to God on " an instru- 
 ment of ten strings." 2 " He sings, who with a vivified 
 spirit keeps the ten commandments, and does good with 
 brightness. He who does good with sadness bears the 
 psaltery, but cannot be said to ' sing' upon it." To act in 
 view of pleasing God is to pray; in this way the Apos- 
 tolic precept is fulfilled, "whether therefore ye eat, or 
 drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 3 
 Man possesses a triple utterance, " the word of the heart, 
 1 Ecclus. xxxv. 1—3. 2 Ps. xcii. 3. 3 I Cor. x. 31. 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 17 
 
 of the mouth, and of the deed ;" hence the wide extent of 
 prayer, at one time it is the desire of the heart, at another 
 the expression of the lips, at a third the performance of the 
 action, which is acceptable to God. This power of turning 
 into an oblation, and investing with the character of a sup- 
 plication, every action of life, is a ground of comfort for 
 those who have little leisure for exercises of devotion ; the 
 prayer of good works is within the reach of all who cannot 
 offer at any length the prayer of the lips, or withdraw their 
 attention for any time from their outward occupation, and 
 thus the most commonplace act may be raised to God 
 through the leverage of a pure intention. 
 
 But not only, nor chiefly, actions which are outward, but 
 those also which are inward and finished in the region of 
 the soul, may become messages to God, and have a pre- 
 catory value. Thus a temptation resisted for His sake 
 takes wing and passes up as an utterance — " We offer spi- 
 ritual sacrifices, by means of a well-ordered life, and by 
 resisting the least stain of the soul" — "Then indeed we 
 offer ourselves to God, when we die to sin." The resist- 
 ance is accompanied with moral cost, and therefore has a 
 sacrificial character ; the cost is not only measured by the 
 effort of the soul when in prayer power is converted into 
 action, but by the effort which is put forth to overcome a 
 special hindrance and a counter power. It is on this ac- 
 count obedience is better than sacrifice, when there must 
 be a choice between the two. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 The Nature of Prater. 
 
 In the same way sorrow and suffering, rightly borne, 
 come within the range of this extended signification of 
 prayer. The Psalmist reminds us that tears do not pass 
 away without a record — " Thou tellest my wanderings, put 
 Thou my tears into Thy bottle ; are they not in Thy book?" 1 
 God of old heard the cry of Hagar's child, and sent His 
 angel to deliver them. " Sorrow has for the Lord the value 
 of a prayer." So suffering, accepted with resignation, and 
 united with the Passion of Christ, ascends to God, when 
 the mind, it may be, cannot frame sentences or the lips utter 
 them. The bed of the dying is the Cross, upon which pain 
 and sorrow are offered to and accepted by the Father ; and 
 conformity of mind and will to each succeeding pang, has 
 before the Throne of Heaven the eloquence of an ardent 
 supplication. The blood of sprinkling which speaketh 
 better things than that of Abel, gives to suffering a voice, 
 an echo of Calvary, which reaches the Heart of God. 
 
 We have seen the comprehensive range of prayer, as 
 it embraces every action done, and every struggle and suffer- 
 ing endured for the sake of God. We must now gather in 
 our thoughts from its wide and general import, to its specific 
 character, from its extensive to its intensive nature. 
 
 There are numerous definitions of the act of prayer, 
 
 for the communications between one person and another 
 
 are as manifold, as the affections with, or purposes for 
 
 which they are made ; they are " as numerous as the 
 
 1 Ps. lvi. 8. 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 19 
 
 manifestations of love in the heart of the saints." S. 
 Augustine describes prayer as " the ascent of the soul from 
 earthly to heavenly things, the seeking of that which is above, 
 the desire of the Invisible." Or again, prayer " is the turn- 
 ing of the mind toward God through a pious and humble 
 affection." The following form which the definition has 
 ultimately assumed may be traced to John of Damascus, 
 " Prayer is the ascent of the mind to God, or the asking from 
 God for becoming things." The first part of the definition con- 
 tains its generic character ; the last part, one of its species, 
 and its most common signification. Prayer, of whatever kind, 
 is " the ascent of the mind to God." The Holy Spirit is 
 the original source of this definition, thus in the Psalms 
 we find elevation of soul to be of the essence of an act of 
 prayer, "Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." 1 
 " Rejoice the soul of Thy servant ; for unto Thee, O Lord, 
 do I lift up my soul." 2 Again, " Cause me to know the way 
 wherein I should walk : for I lift up my soul unto Thee." 3 
 
 But what is the meaning of this expression, this ascent 
 or lifting up of the soul to God ? How can we lift up our 
 soul to Him in whom "we live and move and have our 
 being ?" How to Him who is everywhere ? One of the 
 natural conditions of the Divine Life is Omnipresence — 
 " If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there, if I make my 
 bed in hell, behold, Thou art there." 4 How then is a 
 
 1 Ps. xxv. 1. 2 Ps. lxxxvi. 3. 
 
 3 Ps. cxliii. 8. 4 Ps. cxxxix. 8. 
 
20 The Nature of Prater. 
 
 spiritual essence to be lifted up to the Omnipresent God, 
 spirit to Spirit ? By rising above the captivity of the flesh 
 with its passions, of the senses, and of the external world. 
 The material metaphor is the clothing of a thought which is 
 a reality to our consciousness. We know the opposite move- 
 ment, " the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and 
 the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind," 1 and in 
 the act of prayer the soul makes its effort to counteract and 
 overcome this depressing tendency, and to renew its up- 
 ward flight ; it strives to put forth its native energy so as to 
 rise above phenomena and reach the Reality, to pass beyond 
 the scenery of the journey of life and ascend to its Home, 
 to the " Father which is in Heaven !" Thus praying on 
 the mountain-top, and the lifting up of the hands in prayer, 
 were outward representations and helps toward this inward 
 elevation. 
 
 Every ascent of the mind to God, however, is not ne- 
 cessarily prayer. There is the lifting up of pride as well 
 as of devotion, " His soul which is lifted up is not up- 
 right in him ;" 2 or again, there is the speculative approach 
 to God of the philosopher or theologian, unaccompanied 
 with right, or accompanied with wrong dispositions. Hence 
 prayer has sometimes been more fully described as " the 
 lifting up of the mind and heart to God" — " We approach 
 God," says one, "not by a corporeal but by a cordial 
 ascent." The elevation must be one of love ; the upward 
 1 Wisd. ix. 15. a Habak. ii. 4. 
 
The Nature of Prater. 21 
 
 flight must be with " the wings of a dove," if we would flee 
 away and be at rest, it must be not only a mental turning to 
 God, but also a turning to Him " with a pious and humble 
 affection." 
 
 The elevation attained will not be the same in all who 
 pray \ nor, whatever it is, will it be sustained alike by all. 
 The ascent of the soul is like the upward flight of birds, 
 which is dependent on their strength and the right use of 
 their wings. The ascent in prayer will accord with the 
 attainment in the spiritual life in each case. Though there 
 may be times of unwonted power and facility of rising 
 into God, yet as a rule, the height of the ascent will be in 
 proportion to the degree of grace in the soul, and will 
 increase with the increase of spiritual life. The two will 
 keep pace together, " Blessed is the man whose strength is 
 in Thee, in whose heart are Thy ways," or as it is in another 
 version, "Thine ascensions;" 1 "the greater the love, the 
 greater the ascent." Thus the elevation of the soul in 
 prayer, the " strength" of its ascent will be a measure of the 
 soul's life and a test of it. 
 
 The latter part of the definition of prayer " or the 
 asking from God of becoming things," leads us to remark 
 that the soul ascends to God in prayer with some special 
 purpose in view, which itself enters into the nature of 
 prayer. We may represent to ourselves the soul in the 
 immediate Presence of God, having made its ascent, the 
 1 Ps. Ixxxiv. 6. 
 
22 The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 world left behind, itself reaching forth into the Eternal, 
 gazing on the Fountain of Life, before the Throne of God 
 at the very Seat of Love and Power ! With what design 
 has it come before Him ? The purposes for which God 
 may be approached are revealed in the sacrificial system of 
 the Jews; their sacrifices were offered with four distinct 
 objects, viz., Praise, Thanksgiving, Propitiation, and Peti- 
 tion. The outward offering was an image of the inward ; 
 and the soul may have passed into the Presence of God, 
 intending to make its spiritual offering for any one of these 
 four purposes. The object may be the Praise of God, 
 adoration of His Majesty, the contemplation of and delight 
 in His Perfection — " Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all 
 that is within me bless His Holy Name f or again, the 
 purpose of the prayer may be thanksgiving, the acknowledg- 
 ment of some benefit which has touched the heart of the 
 recipient with the thought of the Love of the Giver, and 
 brought him back to give glory to God as he realises the 
 freedom of the Giver in bestowing the blessing, and his own 
 unworthiness to receive it, and again the words of the 
 Psalmist may be employed — " Praise the Lord, O my soul, 
 and forget not all His benefits;" 1 or the soul may draw 
 near (but not so near now) after a fall, to appeal to Divine 
 Mercy and avert Divine Wrath, and may enter into that 
 Presence only to utter the cry of the Publican, " God be 
 merciful to me a sinner;" 2 or again, the ascent to God may 
 1 Ps. ciii. I, 2. 2 S. Luke xviii. 13. 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 23 
 
 be for the favourite purpose of gaining from Him some 
 spiritual or temporal blessing, as when the blind man made 
 his earnest supplication in reply to the question of Christ, 
 What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee ? " Lord, that I 
 may receive my sight f 1 or, when the Apostles said, " Lord, 
 increase our faith." 2 
 
 The soul may be " lifted up" to God for any one of these 
 ends, aid not only for the sake of gaining some benefit 
 from Htn. To imagine that prayer and petition are co- 
 extensive is to confound a generic term with one of its 
 species, aid to invest prayer with a selfish and subjective 
 character ly depriving it of its noblest and most generous 
 features, JF we look into the pages of Holy Scripture, 
 we see how irge a part of inspired devotions is given to the 
 offering of gory and honour ; and from this, we may learn 
 to be on ourguard against allowing prayers for pardon and 
 for benefits aogether to set aside those important duties of 
 praise and thnksgiving, by means of which the knowledge 
 and love of Gd are increased in the soul and the spirit of 
 self-forgetfulnes is fostered. 
 
 We have ths endeavoured to enter into the Nature of 
 Prayer, and to ;ain a more tangible idea of it by analysing 
 it in action ; seing it not as a power or capacity, but, as it 
 were, in its livir; exercise. On the one side is the rational 
 and dependent reature ; on the other, the Omniscient and 
 Almighty Create, the One God in Three Persons : the act 
 1 S. Luke xvi 41, 42. 2 S. Luke xvii. 5. 
 
24 The Nature of Prayer. 
 
 in its wide and figurative sense, is all that is done, or 
 endured for God ; in its proper and restricted definition, the 
 ascent of the soul to God — an ascent which is in proportion 
 to the spiritual state of the one who prays, an ascent of 
 love as well as thought, an ascent capable of being rcade 
 with a fourfold purpose, either for praise or thanksgiviig, to 
 avert evil or to entreat for good. Such is prayer. 
 
 It is evident then, if the practice of prayer is to be 
 cultivated, the creature must cherish the sense d depen- 
 dency, which lies at the base of all approach toGoD, the 
 consciousness that "in Him we live and moveand have 
 our being;" and prayer in turn will increase this/eeling and 
 enable the soul more intensely to realise its perstfial relation 
 to God. This sense of dependence may be ty awhile set 
 aside, and an opposite spirit of self-sufficiency mf be instilled 
 into the mind by a false philosophy backec by physical 
 strength and worldly prosperity, but sooner or later the 
 original and creaturely feeling will re-assert ilelf ; and thus 
 times of sickness, weakness, and trial, wha self-reliance 
 breaks down, are ever the times when the ^irit of prayer 
 is more easily caught and devoutly cherishe^ 
 
 It must, however, be remembered that ft growth in the 
 power of prayer there must be spiritual process — the over- 
 throw of faults, the increase in virtues, the prooting of the 
 besetting sin, the formation of habits of faitfulness to grace 
 
 generally ; these are the sources by which 
 flight is quickened and sustained, and the 1 
 
 e soul's upward 
 her the ascent, 
 
The Nature of Prayer. 25 
 
 as in mountain-climbing, the wider will be the range of 
 view, the greater the illumination. Yet this ascent does not 
 only depend on the state of grace which has been already 
 reached, but also on the assistance of actual grace at the 
 time of praying ; and therefore Divine succour in the act 
 itself must be sought and co-operated with — " Draw me, we 
 will run after Thee." 1 
 
 Finally, let the unselfish devotions of praise and adora- 
 tion maintain their rightful place ; and in all prayer, even of 
 petition, let the desire, apart from the gain, be to please 
 God by the act itself, remembering that prayer is an action 
 which is acceptable in His sight, and an offering which He 
 loves to receive from His creatures. Prayer on this account 
 is compared to incense in Holy Scripture — " let my prayer 
 be set forth in Thy sight as the incense ;" 2 and for the same 
 purpose, to describe the acceptability of sacrifices as images 
 of the Central Sacrifice, both they and It are named sacrifices 
 " of a sweet savour." 3 Prayer for many reasons may be 
 likened unto incense, but the comparison viewed on the 
 side of God portrays prayer as rising up to Him as a 
 grateful odour; His delight in receiving prayer is set forth 
 under the image of the enjoyment which man derives from 
 inhaling some fragrant perfume. In the Tabernacle and 
 Temple of old, in the language of the Psalter, in the 
 description of the worship of the Church on earth, in the 
 
 1 Solomon's Song, i. 4. 2 Ps. cxli. 2. 
 
 3 Lev. i. 9 ; Eph. v. 2. 
 
26 The Nature of Prater, 
 
 description of the worship of Heaven, incense accompanies 
 or is the symbol of acts of devotion, proclaiming the accept- 
 ableness of prayer before God. And it is an inspiring 
 thought, that each one who prays on earth may now have 
 a share in the glorious worship of the Courts above, may 
 place something in those " vials full of odours," 1 which are 
 accepted in union with the ceaseless offering from " the 
 golden censer" in which is " much incense," 2 — even the 
 infinite merits of the Sacred Humanity — which the Angel 
 of the Covenant, the Mediator Himself, presents before 
 the Father's Throne. 
 
 1 Rev. v. 8. 2 Rev. viii. 3. 
 
Serture H. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. 
 
 "And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always 
 to pray \ and not to faint." — S. Luke xviii. I. 
 
 T N the last Lecture we considered the Nature of Prayer. 
 We saw that an act of prayer, when resolved into its 
 parts, consists of a person who prays, of a person who is 
 addressed, and of some communication between the two. 
 Certain attributes were required in the creature, in order 
 that he might be capable of this noble action ; certain Per- 
 fections in the One who was addressed, that the prayer 
 might be heard and answered ; and the prayer itself, must 
 be an ascent not only of the mind but of the heart to God, 
 regulated by the soul's attainment in holiness, and taking its 
 specific character from the purpose for which it was offered. 
 We now proceed to examine the grounds upon which 
 the necessity for such an act as this is based. We postulate 
 the existence of personal creatures and a Personal Creator, 
 and then — with both in view, we look first at the one, 
 and then at the Other, to see whether there is any deeply- 
 
28 The Necessity of Prayer. 
 
 written trace in the nature of the one, or clear intimation 
 on the part of the Other, of the necessity of Prayer ; setting 
 aside any argument that may be derived from the previous 
 likelihood, that there would be some communication of this 
 kind between the Maker and those whom He had made. 
 
 Christ proclaims the necessity of prayer, " Men ought 
 always to pray and not to faint." He had been speaking, 
 if S. Luke's order is followed, of the trials which would fall 
 on His disciples in the last days, how they must " suffer 
 many things, and be rejected," and then He at once re- 
 ferred to prayer as a source of strength, as a means of 
 warding off discouragement, for " if thou faint in the day 
 of adversity, thy strength is small." 1 Likewise S. Paul, when 
 he had described the different pieces of armour which the 
 Christian soldier must wear and carry, presently adds — 
 "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the 
 Spirit;" 2 prayer was needed, according to the Apostle, to 
 supply the strength and courage requisite for using success- 
 fully the weapons which he had enumerated, against those 
 spiritual enemies with whom the battle is fought. 
 
 We will view, then, the necessity of Prayer, first as dis- 
 covered to us by nature ; secondly, as a revealed means of 
 grace ; thirdly, as an act of obedience to a Divine precept ; 
 and lastly, as a transforming influence. 
 
 I. It may seem, at first sight, unnecessary to search into 
 the depths of human nature for the glimpses of any truth 
 1 Prov. xxiv. 10. 2 Eph. vi. 1 8. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 29 
 
 which has been most clearly revealed ; unless, indeed, we 
 have in view those who deny or doubt the authority of the 
 Scriptures. But there are two reasons for appealing to 
 nature in the first instance : one, the fact that this ground 
 of the necessity of praying has been denied, and prayer 
 asserted to be " an element foreign to our original mental 
 and moral constitution," something imported into our nature 
 by the skill of theologians, who either directly inoculate the 
 youthful mind with the fallacy that God hears and answers 
 prayer, or who by means of maternal tenderness and anxiety 
 introduce into the nursery an error, at a time when impres- 
 sions are easily made, which are afterwards with difficulty 
 (if ever) effaced ; the other, that at a time when many seem 
 eager to trace out and make the most of the apparent 
 divergences in the manifold works of God — to seize on, in 
 the different spheres of nature and grace, of science and 
 revelation, the points of seeming contrast, and to lose sight 
 of the deep under-lying unities ; — it may be helpful to observe 
 the correspondence between the cravings of nature and the 
 lights of inspiration, between the cry of the human heart 
 and the authority with which that cry is invested by the 
 declarations of the written Word. 
 
 With regard to the necessity of prayer, the germ of this as 
 of other revealed doctrines, is to be found in our nature, and 
 affords one illustration of the truth of that profound excla- 
 mation, " O soul, thou art by nature Christian !" Of moral 
 truth there is an inward engraving, a light, which lighteth 
 
30 The Necessity of Prayer, 
 
 every man that cometh into the world } " the virtues," says 
 a modern writer, " were like plants half-developed in some 
 gloomy shade, till Christ poured His sunshine upon them, 
 and made them flourish with luxuriance." 2 It is important, 
 then, to ground the necessity of prayer on the dictates of 
 nature as well as on the teaching of Revelation, thereby rest- 
 ing it on a double authority each of which lends support to 
 the other. Let us see, then, whether there is not an instinct 
 in our nature which bids us pray, and whether that instinct 
 is feeble or imperious in the way it asserts itself. 
 
 For any thing to be original in our nature, it must possess 
 certain properties ; in looking back to the beginning of our 
 race it will present itself without any external origin, and 
 it will continue to exist under conditions most diverse and 
 at all times. With regard to the first property it will be 
 observed that an instinct differs from a capacity in nature, 
 in that the latter may remain dormant for any length of 
 time, until it is called into exercise by a set of circum- 
 stances, without which its very presence would possibly not 
 be detected. Thus races and individuals have had latent 
 powers, which were brought to light by outward crises, 
 but for which they may have never displayed them. But 
 an instinct is a movement from within, independent of con- 
 ditions ; not a solitary expression of unsuspected power, the 
 result of the situation, but the original and constant action 
 of a creature according to the law of its being. As to the 
 1 S. John i. 9. 2 Rev. H. Wace, "Christianity and Morality." 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 31 
 
 universality of an instinct, the second property which we 
 have assigned to it, the term of course must be taken in a 
 rough and general sense. Exceptions to the presence of an 
 instinct may be found, but they are too few to have weight, 
 and are not national but individual. The fact that there are 
 idiots, in no wise invalidates the truth that man is invested 
 " with sanctity of reason f and in the same manner the fact 
 that there may be found persons whom an instinct seems to 
 have overleapt, is no argument against its universality when 
 viewed in reference to humanity as a whole. 
 
 We examine, then, the history of the past, we take up 
 the book which contains the first records of our race in 
 order to discover whether this communing with God existed 
 from the first — to see what the first human souls did. It 
 is evident that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve held 
 converse with God ; their life had a relation of dependency 
 upon Him, they heard His voice, spoke to Him. By the 
 statement that they hid themselves behind the trees of the 
 garden, it is clearly intended that we should understand 
 that they were taking an unusual course ; that now instead 
 of meeting God Face to face, they had interposed a hin- 
 drance, and stood behind the screen of nature, doing what 
 fallen man has done since — making that hide Him which 
 He had made to reveal Him. There are all the elements 
 of prayer in Adam's intercourse with his Maker : man, 
 rational and dependent ; God, Almighty and Omniscient ; 
 and, communications between the two. The Poet re- 
 
32 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 presents our first parents as absorbed in the offering of 
 praise and thanksgiving 1 in their unfallen condition, when 
 propitiation and necessity had not yet become reasons 
 for praying to God ; but as soon as man had fallen, we 
 find " the ascent" of fear and of need, of deprecation and 
 excuse, on record in the book of Genesis. We trace the 
 instinct of prayer continuing in fallen man, else it might 
 have been supposed that it was a part of his supernatural 
 equipment, and had no foundation in his natural life. In 
 Adam's sons this instinct survived ; Cain and Abel offered 
 sacrifices, and sacrifices are the outward expression of 
 prayer ; there was an ascent of the mind to God, a real 
 ascent at least in one case, for " by faith Abel offered unto 
 God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." 2 In the next 
 generation, after the birth of Enos, this instinct seems to 
 have attained some new form of expression, for "then" we 
 are told " began men to call upon the name of the Lord." 3 
 At first sight, it might appear that in these words we have 
 a record of the commencement of the practice of prayer, 
 and that therefore the attempt to ground the necessity of 
 prayer on an instinct of our nature must be abandoned, in 
 that the first property of an instinct — the absence of any 
 ascertained origin of a practice — is wanting ; but the pre- 
 vious examples of prayer and worship, at once forbid the 
 verse to be so interpreted. Various explanations have been 
 
 1 Paradise Lost, Book iv. 720. 2 Heb. xi. 4. 
 
 3 Gen. iv. 26. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 33 
 
 given to these words : they have been thought to refer to 
 public worship — that then some formulated method of 
 approaching God was adopted, some "assembling of" 
 themselves "together/' others have seen in them an in- 
 timation that in the family of Seth was instituted some 
 higher kind of life of special devotion to God — a germ 
 in fact of the Religious Life with its special vocation and 
 service ; whilst some from the words, " the Name of the 
 Lord," that is, " Jehovah," have supposed that a clearer 
 idea of God, not only as the Creator but as the Ever-living 
 and Sustaining Source of life, had come to man, and in- 
 creased the warmth and frequency of his worship ; or again, 
 an interpretation has been based on the expression " call 
 upon" the Name of the Lord, as implying not only faith 
 but trust and dependence ; and this explanation is sup- 
 posed to receive countenance from the fact that "Enos" 
 means " weakness," and is thought to be descriptive of the 
 condition of man, as the effects of the Fall began to be 
 more felt by him, and his lingering strength showed signs 
 of abatement, and consequently the sense of dependency 
 was increased, and thus men the more earnestly " began 
 to call upon the Name of the Lord." 
 
 Whatever be the meaning which the history is intended 
 to convey, it cannot be that the practice of prayer com- 
 menced in the third generation, when we have already an 
 account of the approaches to God in the first and second. 
 But whichever interpretation we take, the words have an 
 
 d 
 
34 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 important bearing on the first property of the instinct of 
 prayer, for they show that it was not only when man was 
 fresh from the Hand of his Maker and by the very gates 
 of Paradise, that prayer was offered — for if so it might have 
 arisen from a fading remembrance of a state which had 
 been forfeited — but that prayer as an original instinct held 
 its place, and developed as that nature developed from 
 which it sprang. In an unfallen state, the instinct of the 
 soul was to turn to the Author of its happiness through 
 joyousness ; in a fallen state, the instinct of the soul is 
 to turn to Him through its sense of weakness and depres- 
 sion ; but in both states there is the instinct to turn to Him, 
 though the prominent cause for doing so may be different. 
 Looking back, then, into the past by the light of the only 
 record which can safely guide us, we find the practice of 
 prayer from the first without any external command or origin, 
 and therefore it preserves one mark of an instinct of nature. 
 But an instinct to be acknowledged must not only be 
 able to claim antiquity on its side but also universality. 
 That which is a genuine part of human nature will a/ways 
 be a part of human nature. If that which marked human 
 life in its earlier stages, disappears in times of advanced 
 civilization and culture, it may be doubted whether it was 
 a pure instinct of our nature, and be attributed either on 
 the one side to an original revelation or on the other to a 
 defective or barbarous condition. It must, however, be 
 admitted that in matters of Religion, the mark of antiquity 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 
 
 35 
 
 in an instinct has a special value ; we can see in it " natural 
 Religion" before it has been tampered with. If we want to 
 learn the habits of an animal, we must see it in its native 
 freedom, and not only after it has been trained and domes- 
 ticated. The kind of civilization to which human nature 
 has been subjected, might consist of the development of 
 one or more instincts or faculties to the prejudice of the 
 rest ; nay, it might tend directly to the obliteration of some 
 instinct ; and thus, we turn with greater confidence to nature 
 in its unsophisticated state for the discovery of its intuitions 
 and tendencies. 
 
 The instinct of prayer, however, does not lack the second 
 property, universality; we find it both in the highest and 
 lowest states of civilization, in places and races widely 
 sundered both in position and circumstance. " Prayer is 
 not less general in mankind at large than is faith in Provi- 
 dence. It has ever been in use, both as a personal and as 
 
 a social practice If, in order to determine what the 
 
 Religion of Nature is, we may justly have recourse to the 
 spontaneous acts and proceedings of our race, as viewed on 
 a large field, we may safely say that prayer ... is a con- 
 stituent of man's religion." 1 It matters not for our present 
 purpose, that this instinct has been oftentimes directed to 
 false gods, and has found expression in ways various and 
 grotesque ; the very variety of its exhibition, according to 
 a modern writer on the Atonement, strengthens our con- 
 1 Dr. Newman, " Grammar of Assent," p. 398. 
 
36 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 viction that it is an instinct — these are his words, "The 
 variety and great divergence in practice favours the idea 
 that it was not from any primaeval tradition, but from in- 
 stinct, (sacrifices of atonement were offered.") If we examine 
 the practices of barbarous nations ; if we turn to the ancient 
 religions of the East ; if we look at Greece and Rome 
 in the plenitude of their intellectual power, we find that 
 in some form or shape the necessity of prayer and homage 
 to a superior Power is admitted, and in no nation is the 
 instinct entirely obliterated. In the root of human nature 
 there is a sense of dependency, and a sense of guilt ; 
 natural Religion is based on these two, the correlatives of 
 which are prayer and atonement — the actions respectively 
 proper to the creature, and to the sinner. It is useless 
 to speak of the instinct of prayer as of something imported 
 into our nature ; that which is simply imported does not 
 make its home so fixed and sure, that no lapse of time or 
 change of circumstances has the power to dislodge it. 
 That which we find in the actions of the first members 
 of our race, that which is witnessed to by every shrine 
 and Rite, by every sacred Temple or ruin, that which the 
 barbarian practises before his idol, and which the philoso- 
 pher tells us the educated Greek resorted to " in commenc- 
 ing every work, great or small," 1 bears the genuine mark 
 of something original in our nature, of a pure instinct 
 implanted by God. 
 
 1 Conf. Plato. Timaeus, iii. 27. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 37 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the instinctive character 
 of prayer, because on it I first ground its obligation; 
 we ought to pray out of deference to an instinct with which 
 God has endowed us, for by our intuitions and instincts He 
 expresses His Will to us, and to neglect to act in accord- 
 ance with them, is to disobey His voice within us. " The 
 general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of 
 God Himself. For that which all men have at all times 
 learned, Nature herself must needs have taught ; and God 
 being the Author of Nature, her voice is but His instru- 
 ment. By her from Him we receive whatsoever in such 
 sort we learn." 1 
 
 Moreover, this instinct of prayer is an imperious one ; it 
 is one which will assert itself, even when it has been set 
 aside, and its presence denied. There are moments in life 
 when men are superior to their own principles, and human 
 systems fail to silence the deep cry of the heart; when 
 men pray who have denied the power of prayer. There 
 are moments when the artificial gives way before the real, 
 and the acquired before the original, when instinctive yearn- 
 ings have a directive force which scatters to the winds the 
 vain objections of the intellect, and sorrow with its rude hand 
 breaks up the hardened soil of pride and self-sufficiency, 
 when the words of the poet are more than verified — 
 
 " * There is no God,' the foolish saith, 
 But none, ' there is no sorrow,' 
 
 1 Hooker, Eccl. P., B. I., ch. viii. 3. 
 
38 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 And nature oft the cry of faith 
 In bitter need will borrow. 
 
 " Eyes which the preacher could not school 
 By way-side graves are raised, 
 And lips say, ' God be pitiful,' 
 Which ne'er said, ' God be praised !' " l 
 
 Thus S. Augustine speaking on the parable of " the friend 
 at midnight," 2 by which Christ taught His disciples to 
 continue instant in prayer, explains "midnight" as "the 
 midst of a time of sorrow and darkness," and points out 
 how tribulation has the effect of stimulating us to pray. 
 In times of great danger, at the approach of death, at 
 momentous points in human life, those who have neglected 
 prayer often turn to it naturally and manifest an earnestness 
 of supplication which is a witness not to a "borrowed" 
 power but to an intuitive force, which at last, however it 
 may have been stifled, finds a vent, and will assert itself. 
 " That men ought always to pray," then, is the teaching of 
 nature, and prayer as a matter of natural religion is an 
 express duty. 
 
 II. We pass now from the sphere of the natural to 
 the super-natural, from nature to grace, to find another 
 basis for the necessity of prayer. Prayer meets us with 
 a twofold claim in the domain of revealed Religion : it 
 is necessary as a means of grace, it is necessary also 
 as a fulfilment of an express command of God; these 
 
 1 Lines quoted by Dr. Hessey in his " Boyle Lectures.'/ 
 3 S. Luke xi. 5. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 39 
 
 are two sides, the one objective, the other subjective, of 
 the same truth. Actions which are a necessity for spi- 
 ritual life, are encircled with a Divine command to reveal 
 their importance and to ensure their accomplishment ; as 
 actions which are wrong in themselves and injurious in their 
 consequences, are forbidden, in order to proclaim their bad- 
 ness, and to add another and a strong motive for avoiding 
 them. But although the two reasons from which the neces- 
 sity of prayer arises in the supernatural life, are thus con- 
 nected together in their source, they are separate in their 
 relation to us ; the one appealing to our sense of duty, the 
 other to our interest. As another instance of this twofold 
 necessity for performing a religious action, I may refer to 
 the obligation of receiving the Holy Eucharist ; the action 
 is necessary because there is a distinct command, " This do 
 in remembrance of Me," 1 which enjoins its performance, 
 the action is necessary also as a means of grace, for " ex- 
 cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His 
 blood, ye have no life in you." 2 When a religious action is 
 revealed to us with this twofold claim on our attention, we 
 may at once conclude that it is momentous. There are 
 actions commanded, which are tests of obedience, the 
 necessity for the accomplishment of which does not lie in 
 the nature and effects of the thing itself; so also, there are 
 actions which may be means of grace, but which become so 
 indirectly and are of no universal obligation, and are accord- 
 1 S. Luke xxii. 19. 2 S. John vi. 53. 
 
40 The Necessity of Prayer. 
 
 ingly invested with no Divine command; but when the 
 action is urged upon us both on the score of obedience 
 and also as a means of spiritual life and power, then 
 it has a special sacredness and importance, its omis- 
 sion involves us in a sin as well as in a loss, and its 
 fulfilment, on the other hand, brings with it a double 
 blessing. 
 
 We shall gain a clearer view of the revealed necessity of 
 prayer, if we take separately the two grounds on which its 
 obligation in the spiritual life rests ; we will accordingly 
 first consider it as a means of getting grace. 
 
 It will be observed, that the necessity of prayer viewed in 
 this connection, is derived from the prior necessity of grace. 
 " Every man is held to pray in order to obtain spiritual 
 goods, which are not given, except from heaven ; wherefore 
 they are not able to be procured in any other way but by 
 being thus sought for." In the New Testament, that grace 
 is a necessity for the supernatural life, is an elemental 
 truth. Grace is to that life, what the water is to the life of 
 the fish, or the air, to our natural life — something absolutely 
 indispensable. The difference between the advancing dis- 
 pensations of God in their effects upon man, lies in the 
 different measures of grace which are placed within his 
 reach. To the potency, richness, diffusiveness, variety, and 
 proximity of this spiritual force, is to be traced all those 
 exuberant formations of spiritual life in the New Dispensa- 
 tion, which the earlier Covenant did not produce. What- 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 41 
 
 ever may be the efforts of the will to put to account the 
 gifts of God, grace is requisite both to set in motion, to 
 sustain, and to ripen the life within us. This truth is clearly- 
 revealed in Holy Scripture, " Of His fulness have all we 
 received, and grace for grace." 1 " No man can come to Me, 
 except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." 2 
 " Without Me ye can do nothing." 3 " Being justified freely 
 by His grace." 4 " By grace ye are saved." 5 " By the grace 
 of God I am what I am ; and His grace which was bestowed 
 upon me was not in vain." 6 " Grow in grace." 7 " He which 
 hath begun a good work in you will perform it." 8 In fol- 
 lowing the operations of grace from the commencement of 
 the spiritual life to its end, five effects have been enume- 
 rated ; 9 it heals the soul, it produces a good will, it enables 
 the good which was willed to be brought about in action, it 
 makes perseverance in good possible, it leads to glory. 
 Thus grace is, from first to last, the invisible nourishment of 
 the soul's life, and prayer is the means in man's own power 
 of gaining grace ; it is through prayer, that the different 
 effects of grace are wrought in us. We ask God for spiritual 
 healing — " Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee." 
 "O cleanse Thou me from my secret faults." We need 
 Divine Help for resisting temptations — " When Christ was 
 
 1 S. John i. 16. 2 S. John vi. 44. 
 
 3 S. John xv. 5. 4 Rom. iii. 24. 
 
 5 Eph. ii. 5. 6 1 Cor. xv. 10. 
 
 7 2 S. Pet. iii. 18. 8 Phil. i. 6. 
 9 S. Thorn. Sum. 12. q. cxi. 3. 
 
42 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 baptized and prayed, the heavens were opened, for after 
 Baptism prayer is necessary to man in two ways, to over- 
 come the inward proneness to evil, and the outward entice- 
 ments of the world and the devil." Temptations to be 
 resisted with sanctifying effect must be resisted in the power 
 of prayer; slight temptations may perhaps be vanquished 
 by natural effort, or overthrown by an opposite vice, but 
 such victories are not registered in Heaven. As Christ 
 said of Himself, " no man hath ascended up to heaven, but 
 He that came down from heaven," 1 so no work or effort 
 ascends to God, unless it is wrought in the power of the 
 grace which first descended from Him. If external tempta- 
 tions assail us, we must cry with the Apostle when the 
 angry waves threatened to engulf him, " Lord, save me :" 2 
 or if inward temptation arises, we must resort to prayer, as 
 another Apostle did, when the thorn in the flesh tormented 
 him ; he tells us, how he besought the Lord thrice, that it 
 might depart, and received from Him the assuring reply, 
 " My grace is sufficient for thee." 3 
 
 So again, to advance in the spiritual life, in the deve- 
 lopment of virtues, prayer is a necessity — The Apostles 
 prayed, " Lord, increase our faith." The increase of 
 the interior life simply consists in the growth of different 
 virtues and graces, and these virtues are formed by the 
 combined action of grace and free-will ; these are the two 
 
 1 S. John iii. 13. 2 S. Matt. xiv. 30. 
 
 3 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 43 
 
 factors, the raw material so to speak, from which the 
 fabric is manufactured. A continual supply of grace is 
 needed for the increase of each virtue, and therefore 
 prayer is needed, not only in general, but also with 
 definite reference to the support of the virtue which we 
 have to exercise, or in which we are most conscious of 
 defect. The Apostles' petition for the increase of faith is a 
 case in point ; they felt their need of, and the poverty of 
 their attainment in respect of that virtue. Prayer, therefore, 
 after their example, should be offered for growth in definite 
 virtues. Again, with regard to the gift of final perseverance, 
 prayer is essential. That special gift of God which pre- 
 serves the soul through the perils of dying, cannot be 
 merited. " It is," says S. Augustine, " His hand, not ours, 
 which holds us firm to Him." " It is not of him that 
 willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth 
 mercy." 1 But " those things which we merit not, we may 
 obtain by prayer." And not only grace for the present, 
 and perseverance to the end, but the glory of another world 
 into which grace finally ripens, may be the subject of prayer. 
 " Father, glorify Thou Me . . . with the glory which I had 
 with Thee before the world was," 2 is a prayer reaching into the 
 depths of eternity, which in a lower sense may become the 
 supplication of each one of us ; we may pray that that idea 
 of the Divine mind which existed from eternity concerning 
 each one of us, that special form of glory for which 
 1 Rom. ix. 16. 2 S. John xvii. 5. 
 
44 The Necessjtt of Prater. 
 
 we were created, may be attained hereafter in all its 
 fulness. 
 
 It may seem in what has been said concerning the 
 necessity of prayer and the necessity of grace, that the 
 two things have not been kept distinct, and that at the 
 time when we were supposed to be treating of the need of 
 prayer, we were suddenly found to be speaking of the need 
 of grace. This intersection of the lines of thought arises 
 from their close proximity. A sentence of S. Jerome's, 
 when he was arguing with those who denied the necessity 
 of grace, will at once explain how premises and conclusions 
 may slide about and be inverted with regard to the neces- 
 sity of prayer and grace — He says " prayer and grace are 
 of the same necessity ; grace is necessary for salvation, hence 
 it ought to follow that prayer also is necessary \ but why 
 should prayer be ordained in relation to eternity, unless 
 it be for the sake of obtaining grace ?" 
 
 There are, however, two limits to the power of prayer 
 which we must not forget in its relation to grace. Prayer is 
 itself dependent on grace in the spiritual life, and an act of 
 prayer for grace is a correspondence with a grace which 
 has been already given. "The Spirit also helpeth our 
 infirmities : for we know not what we should pray for as 
 we ought." 1 "Grace," says S. Chrysostom, " precedes our 
 prayers always." The good thought or desire is a touch 
 from another world ; the angels of God descended as well 
 1 Rom. viii. 26. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 45 
 
 as ascended on " Bethel's Stair." We are not " sufficient 
 of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our suf- 
 ficiency is of God." 1 So again, S. Augustine says, " Some 
 things are granted without prayer to God, such as the 
 beginning of faith." The beginnings of life, whether 
 natural or supernatural, are from God; the continuation 
 and increase of life depend also on human co-operation. 
 The act of prayer stands as it were between the early 
 and the latter rain, of prevenient and subsequent grace, 
 the result of one, the cause of the other. 
 
 Again, prayer as a means of grace must not take the 
 place of Sacraments. The Revelation which proclaims the 
 necessity of the one, also asserts the obligation of the 
 other. There are sacramental graces, the effects proper 
 to the Sacrament, special helps, indelible character, which 
 are not ordinarily within the reach of prayer. By prayer 
 the soul ascends to God : by Sacraments God descends 
 to the soul; they are points of contact with Him, ex- 
 ternal means of receiving grace, channels of the Incar- 
 nate Life. Prayer is the respiration of the soul; Sacra- 
 ments, its medicine and food ; both alike necessary, though 
 the one constant, the other occasional. 
 
 These limits to the power of prayer are of practical 
 
 consequence ; by the first, we are reminded that whatever 
 
 our attainments in devotion may be, they cannot be the 
 
 ground of self-complacency, in that, they result in every 
 
 1 2 Cor. iii. 8. 
 
46 The Necessity of Prayer. 
 
 stage, from the preventing grace of God ; by the second, 
 we are warned against a species of pietism and subjec- 
 tivity, which, whilst it exalts prayer, affects to disregard or 
 disparages the virtue of those ordinances which Christ 
 has ordained and pronounced of vital importance. 
 
 We have then considered the necessity of prayer as a 
 means of gaining grace ; and Christ Himself by His pre- 
 cepts and example, has taught us how to use this means. 
 Christ teaches us by His words — " Pray to thy Father 
 Which is in secret;" 1 "men ought always to pray;" 2 
 " watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation ;" 3 
 " ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
 find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ;" 4 — your 
 heavenly Father shall give " the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask Him." 5 Again, Christ teaches us by His actions 
 — although the Spirit was given without measure to Him, 
 He upheld His Human Soul by constant communion 
 with His Father. He spent whole nights in prayer to 
 God. His praying was not merely an exemplary action, 
 which He performed for the sake of others, but a real 
 work; He prayed not only in the presence of others, 
 but went away into retired spots where He might hold 
 uninterrupted communion with the Father. The length, 
 and the solitude of those supplications on the mountain- 
 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 6. 2 S. Luke xviii. I. 
 
 3 S. Matt. xxvi. 41. 4 S. Luke xi. 9. 
 
 5 S. Luke xi. 13. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 47 
 
 top forbid us to regard them as actions of no conse- 
 quence to Himself. "In all things it behoved Him to 
 be made like unto His brethren ;" ] and hence — though He 
 was the Fountain of all grace to others, He willed to sus- 
 tain His soul by the exercise of prayer. That prayer was 
 a real support to His soul is manifest also from its effects ; 
 thus Christ seems to rise from His knees with a new 
 consciousness of power, refreshed and invigorated, after He 
 had beneath the olives of Gethsemane, struggled and 
 wrestled, like Jacob of old ; at one time He was sorrowful 
 and very heavy, and then presently in fortitude and majesty 
 He confronts His enemies who recoil from the very dig- 
 nity of His Presence. Grace did not vary as a possession 
 of the Sacred Humanity, but it varied in its conscious pre- 
 sence, and thus Christ willed to taste, as far as possible, 
 the vicissitudes of the spiritual life. He sustained His 
 created nature, by the grace which He as God communi- 
 cated to it ; but His Human Soul, if it may be reverently 
 said, made that grace its own by means of prayer, so that 
 He might be really our Example and not only in appear- 
 ance. That Christ then should pray, proclaims the ne- 
 cessity of prayer, imparts to its exercise a special merit and 
 efficacy, and teaches the right manner of its fulfilment. 
 
 III. The obligation to pray is not, however, to be viewed 
 simply in reference to our own benefit. Prayer is also an 
 act of Religion, an act of obedience to a Divine Precept 
 1 Heb. ii. 17. 
 
48 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 which we are bound to perform, even if no grace came 
 to us from its performance. This objective view of the 
 necessity of prayer is one less familiar, but hardly less im- 
 portant. Prayer is not only necessary as a means of grace, 
 but also as a primary religious duty, for prayer is distinctly 
 commanded by Christ and His Apostles. Thus in the 
 text, Christ says, "men ought always to pray." 1 He bids 
 His disciples " watch and pray ;" 2 " pray always." 3 S. Paul 
 says, " pray without ceasing." 4 S. Peter, " watch unto 
 prayer." 5 S. James, " pray one for another." 6 Prayer is an 
 act of Religion, an act whereby we render worship to the 
 Almighty; it is a recognition of His Being and of His 
 Providence. " How shall they call," says S. Paul, " on 
 Him in whom they have not believed ?" 7 Prayer is an ex- 
 ercise of faith, hope, and love in the Divine Power, Wisdom 
 and Goodness, and in itself as an act of homage is the 
 duty of the creature. The creature who performs this 
 action, makes a protestation of his dependency on God, 
 and of God's absolute Sovereignty and Dominion over 
 him ; he acknowledges the rights of God ; he may even 
 desire, like the Psalmist, to call in the aid of the inanimate 
 creation to join him in his worship, when his soul is full of 
 the praise of God. Prayer is then an act of obedience to 
 the precepts of the Gospel. 
 
 1 S. Luke xviii. 1. 2 S. Mark xiii. 33. 3 S. Luke xxi. 36. 
 
 4 1 Thess. v. 17. 5 r S. Pet. iv. 7. 6 S. James v. 16. 
 
 7 Rom. x. 14. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 49 
 
 Now from this doctrine flow two results. The omission and 
 neglect of prayer involve not only a loss of grace, but con- 
 stitute a distinct sin ; it is a sin against religion, and against 
 charity. Religion is a moral virtue, whose province it is to 
 show due honour and reverence to Almighty God j to cease 
 to pray therefore, is to fail to exercise a moral virtue, and 
 that the highest. What justice is to the creature, religion 
 is towards God — that by which we seek to give Him His 
 due. To neglect prayer, is also to sin against charity. 
 Charity presents three objects — God, ourselves, others — all 
 of whom are to be loved : but when prayer is omitted we 
 fail in the love of God, for we desire to hold converse with 
 those whom we love ; the love of our neighbour we fail in 
 also, for he needs our prayers ; and the love of our soul we 
 fail in, by the neglect of a duty upon which our spiritual 
 life depends. How the neglect of prayer is itself a sin, 
 may be thus illustrated — ' If a soul is in the presence of a 
 temptation, and is aware of it and conscious of its power, 
 and resists it, it may be, for a while but in its own strength, 
 and then falls into the sin, it incurs a twofold guilt ; there 
 is the guilt of the sin committed, and the guilt of the sin of 
 omission, in that in the time of temptation, it did not resort 
 to prayer for strength, and so neglected to fulfil a command 
 of the Gospel.' This is one result of the precept of prayer ; 
 that neglect of its fulfilment, is in itself a sin. 
 
 The other result is, that the act of prayer is in itself a 
 good work. Where a command is given, obedience to it 
 
50 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 procures a reward. This truth may be viewed either as to 
 the past, or in reference to the future. With regard to the 
 past it invests prayer, when performed for the purpose, with 
 a reparative value. Thus prayer is associated with fasting 
 and almsdeeds as penitential works. If we have failed in 
 some action in the past, we strive afterwards to perform the 
 same action with greater earnestness and regularity, to show 
 our sorrow for the failure ; in making compensation, we try 
 to give back that which we have wrongly taken. Penances 
 have relation to sins : thus, the sins of the flesh are re- 
 venged by fasting ; covetousness, by almsdeeds ; and neg- 
 lect of the worship of God, by prayer. A devotional 
 penance may be slight ; it may be so purposely to bring 
 out more clearly the greatness of the Love which forgives, 
 yet its fulfilment is no slight thing, for it is a recognition of 
 past failure, and an act of reparation which is to be a re- 
 minder of the neglect in the past. There are three kinds 
 of goods which we possess and can offer to God, or defraud 
 Him of by not offering them — goods external, goods of the 
 body, goods of the soul ; and of whichever of these three 
 in the past we have defrauded Him, we can now by His 
 grace in loving reparation offer to Him of the same kind 
 more generously. If by neglect of prayer and worship, we 
 have sinned by keeping back from Him the affections and 
 desires of the soul ; we may now increase in the length and 
 fervency of prayer, with a view of redeeming the past. In 
 reference to the future, the fact that prayer is an act of 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 51 
 
 obedience to a Divine Precept gives to prayer a meritorious 
 character, when it is offered in union with Christ, and in 
 the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, when Christ adds a promise to the prayer 
 which is offered to the Father in secret, He does not say 
 " He will grant it," but asserts that the prayer will here- 
 after be rewarded — " He who seeth in secret will reward 
 thee openly." 1 Prayer has not only a relation to the past 
 by filling up deficiencies, to the present by supplying grace, 
 but also to the eternal future, by " laying up in store .... 
 a good foundation against the time to come." 3 Every act 
 of worship, every devotion or office, every meditation or 
 even ejaculation rightly offered, will through the Good- 
 ness of God contribute something to the radiance of the 
 crown of glory in the Day when the faithful fulfilment of 
 every duty shall have its reward, and every secret service 
 shall be revealed and acknowledged before the Throne 
 of God. 
 
 It remains for us to notice when this precept of prayer is 
 binding, so that the omission of it becomes a sin. When 
 Christ says, " men ought always to pray," it is evident that 
 He does not mean that no other duty should be fulfilled \ 
 but that at all times, whatever we are doing, the spirit of 
 prayer should be preserved. But the practice of continual 
 recollection, the habitual sense of the Presence of God, the 
 " always" beholding " the Face of the Father," is rather 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 6. 2 1 Tim. vi. 19. 
 
52 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 a matter of perfection than of precept. A precept is that 
 which regulates the general tenor of Christian life, and 
 applies to all persons. The precept of prayer must be ob- 
 ligatory at certain times and on certain occasions, when it 
 becomes the positive duty of the soul to turn to God, and 
 when the neglect to do so is a'sin. The fact that the pre- 
 cept obliges us to pray is generally admitted, but the special 
 times when the obligation touches our life are not so clearly 
 revealed. The following are the occasions on which spi- 
 ritual writers usually consider prayer to be a matter of ex- 
 press obligation : — in the beginning of our moral life, that 
 is, when we first come to the use of reason, for if some 
 time is allowed to elapse before the being with its new 
 consciousness of a personal existence turns to recognise the 
 Author of its life, it is a grave sin of omission } in the end 
 of life, the soul, should it possess its powers, ought to pray 
 for perseverance and victory over the temptations of the 
 last hour ; often in life, prayer is a duty at certain intervals, 
 thus the Psalmist prayed, " Let my prayer be set forth in 
 Thy sight as the incense," which was offered morning and 
 evening in the Tabernacle ; when some Sacrament is to be 
 received, prayer is necessary as a means to fit the soul and 
 give it right dispositions for its reception ; in time of Divine 
 Worship and the Eucharistic Oblation, respect for the 
 Presence of God teaches its necessity; when any grave 
 temptation arises, or bodily danger impends, to seek the 
 1 S. Thomas, Sum. 12, q. lxxxix. a. 6. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 53 
 
 help of Divine grace is a distinct duty. In the fulfilment 
 of the precept of prayer at such times, we see, it is true, the 
 lowest requirements of the Divine Command, but by faith- 
 fulness in that which is least, the foundations of the life 
 of prayer are laid, and an extended sense of the obligation 
 of the precept of prayer will be sure to follow upon obe- 
 dience to it in its rudimentary form. 
 
 IV. We have now to view the necessity of prayer as a 
 transforming influence. Those who do not admit that 
 prayer has power with God, yet acknowledge that it has 
 power with us, and allow that it possesses a reflex in- 
 fluence on those who use it. Whether it is necessary in 
 order to produce this effect that the worshipper should 
 believe in prayer, is a point upon which they do not seem 
 to agree. 1 That prayer has a subjective effect is vividly por- 
 trayed by the outward changes which it produced. Bodily 
 transfigurations are images of and witnesses to the inward 
 
 1 Thus the Rev. Stopford Brooke says of prayer, " use it, pour out 
 your wild petition at your Father's feet, even though you know it is 
 useless, and the expression gives relief," &c. On the other hand Mr. 
 Lecky says, "the man who offers up his petitions with passionate 
 earnestness, with unfaltering faith, and with a vivid realisation of the 
 presence of an Unseen Being, has risen to a condition of mind which is 
 itself eminently favourable both to his own happiness and to the ex- 
 pansion of his moral qualities. But he who expects nothing more will 
 never attain this. To him who neither believes nor hopes that his 
 petitions will receive a response such a mental state is impossible. . . . 
 If prayers were offered up solely with a view to this benefit, they would 
 be absolutely sterile." — Brooke's "Christ and Modern Life," p. 143. 
 Lecky's Europ. Morals, p. 37. 
 
54 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 results of communing with God. Thus we are told that 
 when Moses came down from the Mount " the skin of his 
 face shone" 1 so brilliantly, that he was obliged to cover him- 
 self with a vail whilst he spake to the people. So again, it 
 is said S. Stephen's upturned face, gazing into Heaven, 
 caught something of an unearthly radiance, for they " saw 
 his face as it had been the face of an angel." 2 But we 
 have a grander instance — in that it was no borrowed bright- 
 ness, but the outshining of Him in whom " dwelt all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily" — of the transforming 
 power of prayer on Mount Tabor. Christ, S. Luke 
 tells us, " went up into a mountain to pray. And as He 
 prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His 
 raiment was white and glistering." 3 These effects of prayer 
 on the lineaments of the face are not only prophecies of 
 the glorified body ; but they are also descriptive of the pre- 
 sent power of prayer on the inner life, of a spiritual change 
 which S. Paul refers to, when he speaks of being "trans- 
 formed by the renewing of" our "mind," 4 and of being 
 inwardly " changed into the same image from glory to glory, 
 even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 5 
 
 But whilst the fact, that prayer has an "influence of a 
 very beneficial character upon the minds of the worshippers" 
 is thus generally accepted, it is accounted for in very dif- 
 
 1 Exod. xxxiv. 30. 2 Acts vi. 15. 
 
 3 S. Luke ix. 29. 4 Rom. xii. 2. 
 
 5 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer, 55 
 
 ferent ways by those who believe and those who do not 
 believe in its supernatural character. The one attributes 
 this subjective influence to a law of our nature, apart from 
 all supernatural "intervention;" the other, to the contact 
 of the soul with God in prayer. If prayer be, what we have 
 seen it to be in the first Lecture, " the ascent of the soul to 
 God," we at least are not at a loss to account for the effects 
 which it produces. S. Augustine has long ago said, and 
 experience confirms the saying, that " the soul becomes 
 vhat it turns to." If the soul turns to earth, it becomes 
 eirth ; if it turns to God, it becomes GoD-like. To let the 
 tloughts and affections rest on the earth and on the flesh, 
 is (as far as can be) to materialise and carnalise the soul, 
 whist to raise mind and heart to God is to divinise it. If 
 the degradation of the soul follows upon a course of world- 
 line:s and sensuality, much more will its elevation be the 
 resut of communing with God ; for spirit is kindred with 
 Spiri, and the soul, made for converse with God, in turning 
 to Km, is taking its native and legitimate direction. The 
 soul by communing with God becomes like God, receives 
 from His Perfections supplies of light, of power, and love 
 accoding to its needs. The subjective effects of prayer are 
 as rranifold as the Divine Perfections. Thus when in dark- 
 ness, doubt, or error, we turn to Him, Who is the Fountain 
 of Lght and Truth, we receive illumination, " they looked 
 to lim and were enlightened f l when in weakness, in a 
 1 Ps. xxxiv. 5. 
 
56 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 struggle with evil, we turn to Him Who is the Almighty 
 One, we gain new power — when Christ came down from 
 the Mount of Prayer, He overcame the complex evil in the 
 lunatic child, which the Apostles at its foot had failed to 
 do ; when we are in sorrow or desolation, we turn to Him 
 in Whose Presence is fulness of joy, and catch something 
 of His Blessedness — joy is a revealed effect of prayer, " I 
 will make them joyful in My house of prayer/' 1 " Is any 
 among you afflicted, let him pray," 2 " Comfort the soul oi 
 Thy servant, for unto Thee do I lift up my soul ;" 3 wher 
 we are perplexed and disturbed, we turn to " the God of 
 peace," 4 and are calmed and tranquillized; when lone^ 
 and forsaken, we turn to the God of our life, and a*e 
 comforted, as Christ Himself declares when He says to 
 the disciples, " Ye shall leave Me alone, yet I am not akne, 
 because the Father is with Me." 5 In all the varied stites 
 of the soul, contact with God brings the light, the streigth, 
 the comfort, or the peace which is needed ; its faculties are 
 quickened by the Pure Energy of His Life ; its menory, 
 will, and understanding are strengthened and purified by 
 habitual devotion. And the effect cannot be confind to 
 the inner life where the transforming influence is receved, 
 but will find an outlet in look and manner, words and 
 actions ; it will manifest itself in sincerity, in absen<e of 
 
 1 Isa. lvi. 7. 2 S. James v. 13. 
 
 3 Ps. lxxxvi. 4. 4 Rom. xv. 33. 
 
 5 S. John xvi. 32. 
 
The Necessity of Prayer. 57 
 
 human respect, in decisiveness, in courage, in lowly dignity, 
 in calmness and evenness of spirit. As with the Apostles, 
 men took knowledge of them that they had been with 
 Jesus, so those who " walk with" God, will be discerned by 
 their recollectedness and consistency. 
 
 It is said that constant intercourse between creatures 
 causes them to resemble one another, not only in dispo- 
 sition and habits, but even in features ; after the same 
 manner, that closest of all fellowship which constitutes the 
 life of Prayer, gives to the mind and character something 
 heavenly and divine — "He that is joined unto the Lord 
 is one spirit." 1 Words fail, when we attempt to describe the 
 effects of prayer ; I have therefore ascribed to it a transform- 
 ing influence, because by the term " influence" is represented 
 something subtle, fine, all-pervading, penetrating, ethereal — 
 something of which we may be fully conscious, yet are unable 
 to analyse or define, which is nevertheless as manifest to 
 us, as the rays from a light, or the perfume from a flower ; 
 and from this transforming power of prayer its necessity is 
 again evident, for no active discharge of duties, or exercise 
 of social virtues can produce that change which is only 
 brought about by the habit of going up into the Mount, and 
 holding converse with the Unseen. 
 
 We have traced the necessity of prayer to an instinct of 
 our nature, to the voice of God within us ; we have seen 
 how the voice of God by an external Revelation corres- 
 1 1 Cor. vi. 17. 
 
58 The Necessity of Prater. 
 
 ponds with, directs, and confirms this instinct of the soul, 
 teaching prayer to be necessary as a means of grace to the 
 supernatural life, and as an act of obedience to a Divine 
 precept ; we have found also a necessity for prayer in that 
 transforming influence which it exerts on the natural life. 
 This fourfold ground for its necessity will show how great 
 is the culpability, and how grievous the loss, which those 
 incur who neglect the practice of prayer, or regard it only 
 in the light of a formal acknowledgment of the Deity, and 
 not as an act upon which the sustaining of their spiritual, 
 and the reforming and transfiguring of their natural life 
 depend. 
 
 The first basis of its obligation will remind us that we 
 must not regard our nature as entirely corrupt, and its voice 
 as always misleading, but that in it, fallen as it is, there are 
 vestiges of its original greatness, and intuitions and instincts 
 which are to us an inward revelation of the Mind and Will 
 of God. The second reason for the necessity of prayer, 
 will explain perhaps the cause of our weakness in the hour 
 of temptation — our lack of grace. Our inability in the 
 time of trial to meet the enemy, arises from the neglect of 
 seeking that supernatural force without which we cannot 
 but fail. It is not in the strength of our own will only — 
 " not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit" 1 — that we 
 can hope to conquer. Weakness in the strife arises from 
 attempting to meet the supernatural, in the strength only of 
 1 Zech. iv. 6. 
 
The Necessity of Prater. 59 
 
 the natural. If the weapons of our warfare are not only 
 natural but spiritual, then they will be mighty to the pulling 
 down of strongholds. 
 
 Further, we must be careful to regard prayer not only 
 as a means of grace but as a duty, and thus fulfil it with- 
 out reference to our own delight or profit in the act. To 
 neglect to pray at certain times is itself a sin \ to pray, 
 is an act of grace and of virtue. If, again, we complain 
 of our earthliness and worldliness, and the difficulty which 
 we have in fetching our motives of action from a higher 
 sphere, may it not be that we have failed to realise the 
 importance of prayer in its subjective effect upon cha- 
 racter, and have thought to gain a ray of heavenly bright- 
 ness without the habitual communing with God upon the 
 Mount? 
 
 The four reasons for praying may appeal to us with un- 
 equal force, or with a varying power at different times and 
 according to different moods of the soul, but together they 
 make up a cumulative argument for its necessity, which, 
 unless we silence the imperious instinct of our better nature, 
 deny the claims of Divine Revelation, and disregard the 
 highest interests of our souls, we must not only admit, 
 but bring to bear in practical effect upon our daily life. 
 Upon faithfulness in the discharge of this duty, spiritual pro- 
 gress depends, Christ pointed to prayer as a source of 
 strength and endurance, " men ought always to pray, and not 
 to faint ;" and the prophet had expressed the same truth 
 
60 The Necessity of Prayer. 
 
 before more amply, when he described the perpetual re- 
 newal which was the result of " waiting upon" God. " He 
 giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might 
 He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall be faint and 
 be weary . . . but they that wait upon the Lord shall re- 
 new their strength; they shall mount up with wings as 
 eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary j they shall walk, 
 and not faint." 1 
 
 1 Isa. xl. 29—31. 
 
lecture Mh 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER. 
 
 " If any of yon lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men 
 liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him. But let him 
 ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that waver eth is like a wave of 
 the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that 
 he shall receive anything of the Lord."S. James i. 5 — 7- 
 
 T 1 TE attempted in the last Lecture to answer the ques- 
 tion, " Is prayer necessary ?" We grounded its 
 obligation first on the teaching of nature, on an instinct 
 original and universal — that " general and perpetual voice 
 of man" which is " as the sentence of God Himself." In 
 turning from the inward to the outward Revelation of God 
 we discovered that prayer in two ways was declared to be 
 necessary, first as a means of grace, and secondly as an act 
 of obedience to a Divine precept. Lastly, we saw its 
 necessity from the subjective effects which it produced in 
 those who were in the habit of holding close communion 
 with God. Much of what has been said both on the Nature 
 and on the Necessity of Prayer applies to the whole inter- 
 course of the soul with God ; but in this and the following 
 
62 Objections to Prater. 
 
 Lecture, we shall use the term " prayer" in its narrowest 
 and also commonest sense — that of petition. 
 
 We shut out from our view for the present any other ascent 
 of the soul to God, than that which is prompted by the desire 
 to gain something from Him, some spiritual or temporal gift. 
 We draw near to Him no longer in order that we may 
 praise Him, worship Him, and give Him thanks, but for 
 the sake of what we hope to receive from His hands. We 
 have already seen that this is one of the four purposes for 
 which the soul may approach God, and though only one, 
 when the term "prayer" is used without description, it is 
 usually understood to mean " petition." 
 
 S. James lays down two principles as to this prayer of 
 petition; he ascribes to it efficacy, he makes its efficacy 
 conditional — " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of 
 God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; 
 and it shall be given him." By "wisdom" the Apostle 
 evidently intends a spiritual and not merely an intellectual 
 endowment, for he is addressing himself to those who found 
 it difficult to realise that crosses were blessings, and had 
 consequently chafed at them ; after exhorting them to be 
 patient, he proceeds to teach them how they are to gain a 
 right view of the usefulness of tribulation and of its bearing 
 on the ultimate end of life — " if any of you lack wisdom, 
 let him ask of God." He further encourages those whom 
 he addresses to seek this spiritual gift, by pointing to the 
 Divine Beneficence — " let him ask of God that giveth to 
 
Objections to Prater. 63 
 
 all men liberally and upbraideth not;" after a few verses 
 he recurs again to the thought of the Divine Liberality, 
 " every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and 
 cometh down from the Father of lights." 1 God giveth, and 
 giveth to all, and giveth liberally, ' and upbraideth not f in 
 other words — His blessings are freely bestowed, not pur- 
 chased ; granted to all, not only to favourites ; given without 
 stint, simply; and vouchsafed without recrimination as to 
 past misuse of His gifts, or as to present unworthiness to re- 
 ceive them. The Apostle follows up this description of the 
 Divine Character with an assertion of the potency of prayer 
 — " and it shall be given him." Then, descending from the 
 contemplation of the one term of the act of prayer, he 
 comes to the other, and adds the warning, that prayer 
 if it is to gain the desired result, must be offered " in faith," 
 " but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that 
 wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind 
 and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive 
 anything of the Lord." S. James therefore first affirms the 
 efficacy of prayer ; secondly, he makes that efficacy con- 
 ditional. The conditions under which prayer is productive 
 of results will occupy our attention hereafter, we shall now, 
 after reviewing briefly the grounds on which prayer for 
 spiritual or temporal blessings is justified, consider the objec- 
 tions which at different times have been raised against this 
 doctrine. First, let us see what authority we possess for re- 
 1 S. James i. 17. 
 
64 Objections to Prater. 
 
 garding prayer as an exercise which not only produces 
 subjective effects, by acting upon those who employ it ; 
 but also objective results, by acting, so to speak, upon 
 God. 
 
 I. We will select instances from the Divine Revelations, 
 which will show that a belief in the power of prayer as a 
 means of bringing about the objects which were sought, 
 was at all times entertained. We begin with the Patriarchal 
 period — Abraham's servant when he went to Mesopotamia 
 for the purpose of finding a wife for Isaac, as he stands at 
 the well's mouth at eventide when the women came to draw 
 water, utters this remarkable prayer, " O Lord God of 
 my master Abraham, I pray Thee send me good speed 
 to-day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Be- 
 hold I stand here by the well of water, and the 
 daughters of the men of the city come out to draw 
 water : and let it come to pass that the damsel to whom 
 I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I 
 may drink, .... let the same be she that Thou hast 
 
 appointed for Thy servant Isaac And it came to 
 
 pass before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah 
 came." 1 That one of Abraham's servants should thus resort 
 to prayer in the fulfilment of the task solemnly assigned 
 him by his master, is an evidence that a belief in the power 
 of prayer was not confined to the Patriarchs themselves, to 
 the Saints of God, or the higher spirits of the age, but was 
 1 Gen. xxiv. 12 — 15. 
 
Objections to Prater. 65 
 
 shared by the people ; and that prayer was an instrument 
 which they trusted in, and turned to in their difficulties. 
 
 Again, " Isaac," we are told, " entreated the Lord for his 
 wife, because she was barren ; and the Lord was entreated 
 of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived." 1 This brief 
 record sums up in a few words the earnest entreaties of, 
 perhaps, twenty years, and the physical result upon which 
 depended the fulfilment of the Promises. " God had 
 appointed, that from Rebekah, Jacob and Christ should be 
 born, but not without those mediating second causes, the 
 prayers of Isaac." Whether we regard the fervour of the 
 prayer, depicted in the word " entreated," or its duration, or 
 its result, it is a wonderful instance of the power of petition. 
 Then, Jacob witnesses to his belief in the power of prayer, 
 when he is terrified by the approach of Esau, he thus 
 beseeches God to defend him from his brother's wrath, " O 
 God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, 
 .... deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of Esau." 2 
 
 Again, the potency of prayer to produce or to remove 
 physical evils was marvellously manifested by Moses, when 
 he brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. Plague 
 after plague came in rapid succession, when he uplifted his 
 rod ; plague after plague departed, when " Moses cried unto 
 the Lord f z " and the Lord did according to the word of 
 Moses." When Amalek fought against Israel, it was upon 
 the intercession of Moses on the top of the hill that 
 
 1 Gen. xxv. 21. 2 Gen. xxxii. 9, 11. 3 Exod. viii. 12. 
 
66 Objections to Prater. 
 
 success depended — " it came to pass, when Moses held up 
 his hand, that Israel prevailed j and when he let down his 
 hand, Amalek prevailed f l the fluctuations in the conflict 
 revealed the source from which Israel's strength was 
 derived. At Taberah, where " the people complained, it 
 displeased the Lord, and the Lord heard it, and His 
 anger was kindled ; and the fire of the Lord burnt among 
 
 them Moses prayed unto the Lord," and "the 
 
 fire was quenched." 2 Thus, in the Levitical as well as the 
 Patriarchal Revelation, there is a continuous witness to the 
 use of petition. 
 
 The prophets resort to the same agent for working 
 miracles. When the Philistines attacked Israel, the children 
 of Israel said to Samuel, " Cease not to cry unto the Lord 
 our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the 
 Philistines .... And Samuel cried unto the Lord for 
 Israel .... and the Lord thundered with a great thunder 
 on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited them." 3 
 Again, Elijah " prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and 
 it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and 
 six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave 
 rain." 4 Elijah and Elisha raised the dead through the 
 power of prayer — " O Lord my God, I pray Thee, let this 
 child's soul come into him again." 5 — "And when Elisha 
 
 1 Exod. xvii. II. 2 Num. xi. I, 2. 3 I Sam. viii. 8 — 10. 
 
 4 S. James v. 17, 18 ; I Kings xvii. I ; xviii. 1, 42, 45. 
 
 5 1 Kings xvii. 21. 
 
Objections to Prater. 67 
 
 was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, 
 and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore and 
 shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the 
 Lord." 1 Thus, life was brought back to the widow's 
 son, and to the child of the woman of Shunem. Daniel 
 prayed for the city of Jerusalem, and an angel presently 
 was despatched to answer his supplication — "whilst I 
 
 was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel 
 
 touched me." 2 "Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God 
 out of the fish's belly," 3 and was delivered. 
 
 If from the Old Testament we turn to the New, in the 
 latter, as we should expect, is more fully revealed the power 
 of prayer ; Christ by His example and teaching bore witness 
 to it. Christ prayed for S. Peter, that his faith might not 
 fail in the awful fall which awaited him. Christ revealed 
 at the grave of Lazarus, that He constantly employed prayer 
 in doing His mighty works — " And Jesus lifted up His 
 eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard 
 Me, and I knew that Thou hearest Me always"** Christ, 
 as with omniscient gaze He looked into the future, and 
 beheld as a widening circle, the expansion of His King- 
 dom, prayed first for Himself, then for His disciples, 
 thirdly, for all those " which shall believe on" Him " through 
 their word." 5 His teaching also is explicit on this point ; 
 prayer with Him is not represented as merely a healthy 
 
 1 2 Kings iv. 32, 33. 2 Daniel ix. 21. 3 Jonah ii. 1. 
 
 4 S. John xi. 41, 42. 5 S. John xvii. 1, 9, 20. 
 
68 Objections to Prater. 
 
 occupation of our faculties, profitable simply because of its 
 reflex action on the soul, but as a means of gaining what 
 we need from God. Thus in the Sermon on the Mount — 
 to which we especially refer for a clear intimation of the 
 Mind of Christ on practical questions — He says, " Ask, 
 and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
 and it shall be opened unto you." 1 Christ then, finds an 
 illustration of the power of prayer in the natural sphere, 
 and sees in the child's solicitation of a gift from a parent, 
 and in the readiness of the parent to grant what is good for 
 the child, a representation of the action of prayer on our 
 heavenly Father — a blurred and feeble image, indeed, 
 because of the evil which is in our nature, and so He adds, 
 " if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your Father which is 
 in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ?" 2 The 
 prayer which Christ Himself has taught us, authorizes, 
 too, belief in petition, for it consists of seven petitions for 
 spiritual and temporal blessings. Again, when the disciples 
 were standing before the withered fig-tree and wondering at 
 the rapidity with which its leaves had shrivelled up, Christ 
 reminded them of the omnipotency of prayer — "all things 
 whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall re- 
 ceive" 3 — a truth which He repeated again in His discourse 
 with them before He suffered, when He willed to impress 
 them also with the thought of His Mediation, " Verily, 
 1 S. Matt. vii. 7. 2 Ibid. 11. 3 S. Matt. xxi. 22. 
 
Objections to Prater. 69 
 
 verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father 
 in My name, He will give it you." 1 By word then and by 
 example, Christ proclaimed the efficacy of prayer. 
 
 The Apostles with one consent, both by practice and 
 exhortation, enforce the same doctrine. S. Paul writing to 
 Philemon expressed the belief that through his prayers he 
 would be liberated from prison, " I trust that through your 
 prayers I shall be given to you." 2 S. Peter in the chamber 
 of death "kneeled down and prayed," 3 and thus brought 
 back to the body of Dorcas the spirit which had fled. S. 
 James asserts the restorative power of prayer — " The 
 prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
 him up." 4 S. John re-echoes the words of his Master, 
 " And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we 
 ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And 
 if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know 
 that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." 5 
 
 Thus, throughout the successive Revelations of God, 
 whether in the Old Testament we look at the practice of 
 Patriarch, Law-giver, or Prophet ; or, in the New we listen 
 to the teaching of Christ, and of His Apostles, there is one 
 continuous witness to the belief in the power of prayer. 
 
 Likewise, the mind of the Church has been from the first 
 clearly expressed on this point. The " law of believing" and 
 the " law of praying" ever follow one another, the one is the 
 
 1 S. John xvi. 23. 2 Philemon 22. 3 Acts ix. 40. 
 
 4 S. James v. 15. 5 1 S. John v. 14, 15. 
 
70 Objections to Prater. 
 
 expression of the other. The practice of the Church may 
 be at once ascertained by reference to the ancient Litur- 
 gies ; we find in them prayers for various benefits, e.g. for 
 " victory over enemies/' " deliverance from adversities," and 
 " from the difficulties of this world/' for " cleansing from all 
 impurity of flesh and spirit," "for them that journey, are 
 sick, labour, are in captivity," &c, for the "peace of the 
 world and Church," for "forgiveness of sins," for " unity 
 and charity," &c. Petition enters largely into those earliest 
 Forms of Worship, and has ever held its place in the 
 Service-books of the Church. And the doctrine of the 
 Church concerning prayer — "the law of believing" — is as 
 easily discovered by reference to " ancient authors" and 
 Councils. 
 
 Justin Martyr, for instance, tells us how after trying suc- 
 cessive systems of philosophy, he himself was brought to 
 Christ — how when walking by the sea-shore a venerable 
 man met him, and bade him resort to prayer, in the midst 
 of his mental difficulties and dissatisfaction, " Pray, before 
 all things, that the gates of light may be opened to you." 
 And the result was, " a fire was kindled in his soul /' he 
 became a Christian and an apologist. Another says, " seek 
 without doubting, and you shall know the mercy of the 
 Lord, that He will not forsake thee, but will grant thy peti- 
 tion." 1 Again, " the prayer of the just is the key of heaven ; 
 petition ascends, Divine mercy descends." 2 S. Jerome re- 
 1 Hermas, Mand. lx. 2 S. Augustine. 
 
Objections to Prayer. 71 
 
 lates a mercy of God granted to prayer — " In our times too 
 we have seen hosts of locusts cover Judea, which afterwards, 
 by the mercy of the Lord, when the priests and people, 
 * between the porch and the altar,' i.e. between the place of 
 the Cross and the Resurrection, prayed the Lord and said, 
 1 Spare Thy people,' a wind arising, were carried headlong 
 1 into the Eastern sea and the utmost sea.' vl Again, " God 
 wills to be asked, wills to be forced, wills with a certain 
 importunity to be conquered." 2 S. Chrysostom speaks of 
 prayer " as the parent, source, and root of all goods, and 
 those innumerable." But we are not left to gather from the 
 writings of the Fathers, the teaching of the Church as to 
 the power of prayer. Again and again in Councils, 3 as 
 from time to time misbelief on this subject arose, has the 
 Church asserted prayer to be not only an act of worship, 
 but also a means of gaining from God what we need. 
 
 To those who denied the need of grace, and con- 
 sequently of prayer also ; to those " who denied that it is 
 through grace we are brought to pray;" to those who resolved 
 all prayer into the prayer of good works ; to those who 
 regarded prayers of petition as incompatible with conformity 
 to the Divine Will ; the reply of the Church was ever the 
 same, viz. the affirmation of the efficacy of prayer, as a 
 supernatural action, an instrument by virtue of which the 
 Divine Will is accomplished. 
 
 1 Dr. Pusey's Joel, p. 123. 2 S. Gregory. 
 
 3 At Carthage, Orange, Valence, &c. 
 
72 Objections to Prater. 
 
 From the rapid survey which we have now taken of the 
 teaching of Holy Scripture, and of the Church, it is at once 
 manifest, that all who believe in the inspiration of the Bible 
 and in the claim of the Church to be "the pillar and 
 ground of the truth," 1 are committed to a belief in the 
 power of prayer. The doctrine that prayer acts as a second 
 cause in the fulfilment of the Divine purposes, and conse- 
 quently produces results both in the spiritual and phy- 
 sical world, is a matter of faith and not of opinion, to 
 those who have already admitted the authority of Revela- 
 tion and of the Church. Yet to notice the objections 
 which have been brought against this doctrine, is a matter 
 of necessity, for two reasons : first, the spirit of the age in 
 which we live, which breathes in the current literature of 
 the day, with which we must be all more or less familiar, 
 and is characterised by unbelief or doubt as to this power 
 of prayer, imposes on us this task ; secondly, the fact that 
 there are souls, apart from the infecting atmosphere around 
 them, who are oftentimes molested by temptations as to 
 the efficacy of prayer, renders it a duty, in treating of 
 the " Life of Prayer," to attempt to help them. On the 
 one hand, we encounter the " oppositions of science falsely 
 so called ;" 2 on the other, difficulties are suggested as to the 
 Divine Perfections, so that now for awhile we must assume 
 an apologetic tone, and endeavour to give " a reason of the 
 hope that is in" us. 3 
 
 2 i Tim. vi. 20. 3 i S. Pet. iii. 15. 
 
Objections to Prayer. 73 
 
 II. Difficulties in accepting the doctrine of prayer may 
 arise either from an over-statement of the doctrine itself, or 
 from a forgetfulness of its nature, or from a certain incapa- 
 city in the mind itself to deal with the subject. 
 
 With regard to the first, it is not uncommon to hear 
 prayer represented as a means whereby the Divine Will is 
 changed. This exaggeration of the doctrine of prayer is 
 mentioned and condemned as an error by Aquinas — " they 
 say that the disposition of Divine Providence is variable, 
 and that by prayers .... the disposition of Divine Pro- 
 vidence is changed." Again, it is often not sufficiently kept 
 in the fore-front, that the efficacy of prayer is a mystery, a 
 truth insoluble by the reason of man, a truth which may be 
 defended against the different attacks of reason, but which 
 in its essence we cannot bring down to the level of the 
 human understanding so as to leave nothing to be ex- 
 plained. Reason may answer reason, but for reason to 
 attempt to deal with a mystery as with a mathematical 
 problem, is both to forget the nature of a mystery and the 
 limits and province of its own powers. Further, the bent 
 of mind, which is the result of close and constant attention 
 to one class of studies, may incapacitate us for entering 
 with impartiality into another, and consequently from doing 
 that other justice. Thus, it has been noticed, how the habi- 
 tual application of the mind to that which is going on 
 within itself, enfeebles the powers of observation of the 
 external world — how the encouragement of abstract thought 
 
74 Objections to Prater. 
 
 often weakens the historical faculty ; in the same way, the 
 study of physical science, when pursued alone, unfits the 
 mind for dealing with the problems of the spiritual world. 
 The satisfaction which the intellect derives in the sphere 
 of the necessary, produces in it often a positive distaste for 
 the investigation of the probable, the moral, and the spiritual ; 
 and thus, I premise, as one of the causes of difficulty in 
 the acceptance of the doctrine of prayer, the tone and 
 temper of mind with which the subject is often approached. 
 
 The objections to the efficacy of prayer may be divided 
 into three classes — those, grounded on its alleged incom- 
 patibility with the Divine Perfections; those which take 
 their origin in its supposed impossibility, because of the 
 fixity of natural laws ; and those which are of a practical 
 nature, and concern man himself. 
 
 And first, prayer is said to present a difficulty, when it 
 is viewed in relation to the Divine Mind. One of the 
 absolute Perfections of God is His Omniscience ; He has 
 revealed Himself as One able to penetrate into the secret 
 recesses of our hearts — thus " the righteous God trieth the 
 reins and the hearts" 1 — " I the Lord search the heart, I 
 try the reins" 2 — " Thou understandest my thought afar off" 3 
 — " the Word of God ... is a discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart, neither is there any creature that 
 is not manifest in His sight : but all things are naked and 
 
 1 Ps. vii. 9. 2 Jer. xvii. 10. 
 
 3 Ps. cxxxix. 2. 
 
Objections to Prater. 75 
 
 opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." 1 
 Is it then reasonable to bring before Him our thoughts and 
 desires, as if He did not know them already ? Why spend 
 time in telling another that which he knew, before the 
 desire and thought were formed in us ? But — is it unreason- 
 able to act thus, or is this a true representation of the pur- 
 pose of prayer? We often seek to gain from others by 
 entreaty, that which they long ago knew we wanted; we. 
 again and again proffer the same petition, surely not with the 
 intention of informing them of our need, but for the sake of 
 influencing their will ; their previous knowledge of our wishes, 
 does not hinder us from persevering in pressing them upon 
 them. If previous acquaintance with our thoughts and 
 wishes, does not make it unreasonable for us to continue 
 to supplicate creatures, why should it be a hindrance in ap- 
 proaching the Creator ? Moreover, an untrue statement of 
 the purpose of prayer lies at the root of this objection ; we 
 do not pray in order to intimate to God our desires. Christ 
 when He enjoined prayer, guarded us against this notion — 
 " your Father," He says, " knoweth what things ye have 
 need of, before ye ask Him." 2 Prayer is a means of solicit- 
 ing the will more than of informing the mind ; it is " the 
 interpreter of" our " desire," whereby we seek to influence 
 the Divine Will. God has commanded this act for our 
 sakes — " it is not necessary to direct our prayers to Him, 
 in order to manifest to Him our needs and desires" — as the 
 1 Heb. iv. 12, 13. 2 S. Matt. vi. 8. 
 
76 Objections to Prater. 
 
 subjects of some great king who lived in a far region, and 
 depended on postal arrangements for his knowledge of their 
 condition — " but that we ourselves by the consideration of 
 those necessities, might be brought to seek Divine help." 
 By prayer we heighten the sense of our need ; and by 
 formulating it in our minds, we press upon ourselves the 
 thought (which we might otherwise sometimes forget) of our 
 dependence upon His Divine Majesty. 
 
 But further, it is contended, that, whatever may be the 
 subjective effects of prayer, to regard it as a power capable 
 of bending and directing future events, as "a controlling 
 force over the processes of nature and history," is incon- 
 sistent with Divine Foreknowledge. God not only sees all 
 things, but foresees all things — " I am God, and there is 
 none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning" 1 — 
 " Thou understandest my thoughts long before." 2 To re- 
 gard God as only knowing the past and present, is to render 
 His Wisdom finite. " All things are naked and opened" 3 
 to Him. If then God knows everything which is to 
 happen ; if the vista of the future is now before His Eyes, 
 so that He beholds not only the general outline, but every 
 object in the landscape, and sees the untrodden paths by 
 which each one of us must travel to his end, what can be 
 the use of prayer ? Surely to know that an event is to take 
 place, is to know that it must be. 
 
 Here I would have you observe, that this objection does 
 1 Isa. xlvi. 9, 10. 2 Ps. cxxxix. 2. 3 Heb. iv. 13. 
 
Objections to Prater. 77 
 
 not affect prayer only, but all human action ; we are at 
 once in the district of that universal problem — the difficulty 
 of harmonizing the Divine Foreknowledge with human 
 freedom ; we are in the presence of those highest truths, 
 which, like the doctrine of the Being of the Triune God, 
 wear the appearance of contradiction. If we forego prayer 
 because of this theoretical objection, to be consistent, we 
 should sit with our hands folded, and give up all human 
 exertion. All second causes must fare alike, if we desist 
 from praying because the future is a settled matter. Some 
 have attempted to extricate themselves from the difficulty, 
 by denying the one doctrine ; others, by denying the other. 
 On the one hand, they have argued that the Divine Pre- 
 science does not extend to free and undetermined actions 
 which could not, say they, from their nature be calculated on : 
 on the other, there have not been wanting those who have 
 disbelieved in human freedom. But it is not by hanging 
 before the Divine Mind the curtain which hides futurity 
 from us, neither is it by depriving man of his responsibility 
 and excellence as a free agent, that we can dispose of this 
 difficulty. S. Augustine says, " God has as many witnesses 
 to His Prescience as He has prophets," and calls it " most 
 manifest madness to confess God, and deny His knowledge 
 of the future" — Prophecy settles the question of Divine 
 Foreknowledge. With equal clearness, the doctrine of 
 human freedom is revealed to us ; and thus it is not by the 
 denial of one of these principles, but by the acceptance of 
 
7 8 Objections to Prater. 
 
 both, that the truth as to the nature of God and man is 
 preserved. " Both," says S. Augustine, " are to be held ; 
 the one that we may believe aright, the other that we may 
 live aright." 
 
 But whilst we must leave these truths in their irrecon- 
 cilability, it may help us to bear in mind, that fore-know- 
 ledge is not necessarily fore-ordination, for were the two 
 identical, God would become the author of evil. From the 
 existence of moral evil, we may conclude that there are 
 other causes at work besides the First Cause. If to fore- 
 know were necessarily to pre-determine, then the prophets 
 would become the causes of the fulfilments of their pre- 
 dictions. Truths are foretold, because they are going to 
 happen, do not happen simply because they are foretold. 1 
 The very perfection of Divine Foreknowledge lies in the 
 fact, that God not only foresees ends, but also contingent 
 causes, and takes them all into account ; so that our prayers 
 themselves are foreseen, and have their rightful place as 
 factors in the workings of Divine Providence. And further, 
 we are liable to forget when we treat of God's Foreknow- 
 ledge, how far we are going out of our depth. We may be 
 drawn on in our delight in contemplating a Divine Perfec- 
 tion, until — like rowers who have been pushing out upon 
 the deep without a backward look, we suddenly discover 
 how far we are from shore. For after all, what do we mean 
 by Divine Prescience? by attributing ^r^-knowledge to 
 1 Origen contra Celsum. 
 
Objections to Prater. 79 
 
 God, we are introducing an element of time into the Mind 
 of the Eternal. Presentiality is the only way (says Arch- 
 bishop Bramhall) of reconciling man's freedom and God's 
 Foreknowledge. 1 That the Mind of God is unaffected by 
 the passage of time, that the Eternal can have no common 
 measure with it, brings home to us the fact, that in ascribing 
 to God Foreknowledge, we are using a term suitable to 
 man's finite powers of comprehension, and then dealing 
 with a difficulty which the imperfection of our language has 
 raised. 
 
 As to the objection, then, to the efficacy of prayer 
 grounded on the Divine Foreknowledge, we reply — such an 
 objection extends to all human action, reaches into myste- 
 ries which are far above our comprehension, wrongly iden- 
 tifies Divine Foreknowledge with Divine Predestination, 
 and arises partly from the employment of a term inadequate 
 to express the Divine Wisdom. But when two truths are 
 in variance, the one practical, the other speculative, it is 
 our duty to act upon that which is within our reach. All 
 laws and governments, rewards and punishments, religion 
 and morality, honour and shame, take into account or 
 spring from as a fundamental axiom, human liberty, and 
 by praying we are only acting upon the same principle ; we 
 
 1 " The readiest way to reconcile contingence and liberty with the 
 decrees and prescience of God ... is to subject future contingents to 
 the aspect of God, according to that presentiality which they have in 
 eternity." — Bramhall, Works, p. 709. 
 
80 Objections to Prayer. 
 
 look for results from our prayers in the same way as we 
 look for results from our other efforts, and in neither case 
 should we allow the theoretical difficulty of reconciling 
 God's knowledge of the future with man's freedom, to 
 interfere with our labours and hopes. 
 
 We pass now, from the objections which relate to the 
 Divine Mind, to those which more immediately concern 
 the Divine Will. The efficacy of prayer is said to be incom- 
 patible with the Immutability of the Divine Will ; the need 
 of prayer, to be a disparagement of Divine Goodness and 
 Liberality. We will take these allegations separately. 
 Changelessness is one of the conditions of the Divine Life ; 
 no Perfection is more plainly revealed — " I am the Lord, 
 I change not," 1 — " they," says the Psalmist, speaking of the 
 heavens, "shall be changed, but Thou art the same." 2 
 S. James again, describes God as " the Father of lights, 
 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 3 
 If, then, the Will of God be Immutable, what is the utility 
 of prayer ? for by prayer we attempt to change or influence 
 the will of another. 
 
 This question arises both from a misconception of the 
 Divine Immutability, and of the purpose of prayer. Im- 
 mutability is not the same as necessity; on the con- 
 trary, Divines have laboured to show how in God Immu- 
 tability and the highest Freedom of Will meet. There is 
 one form of freedom, it is true, which God does not share 
 
 1 Mai. iii. 6. 2 Ps. ci. 26, 27. 3 S. James i. 17. 
 
Objections to Prater. 8i 
 
 with us — " God is not a man, that He should lie ; neither 
 the son of man, that He should repent" 1 — God has " the 
 blessed necessity" through which He is not able to be un- 
 just, but He is perfectly free in all other respects. There 
 are three choices within the power of freewill 2 — that of 
 acting or not acting, of choosing this or that good, of 
 choosing this or that evil ; and the two former of these are 
 exercised supremely by the Divine Will. Thus David says, 
 " Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and 
 in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." 3 And God, by 
 the mouth of the prophet, describes Himself as open to act 
 in this way or that, according to the conduct of His crea- 
 tures — " If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good 
 of the land : but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured 
 with the sword." 4 God is Immutable within the sphere of 
 His own Being, because He is Simple, Eternal, Perfect, 
 and nothing in Himself can pass into a higher perfectness 
 or activity; but by creation He reveals Himself in the 
 sphere of the mutable, in which He wills to manifest His 
 Freedom. Some, in speaking of the Divine Volition, have 
 used the terms " first and second Will," or " antecedent and 
 consequent Will of God :" meaning by the former, the will 
 of God acting without relation to circumstances ; by the 
 latter, the will of God dependent on certain circumstances 
 or second causes — by the former the will of God working 
 
 1 Num. xxiii. 19. 2 Petavius, lib. v. cap. iv. 
 
 3 Ps. xxxv. 6. i Isa. i. 19, 20. 
 
82- Objections to Prater. 
 
 absolutely and alone ; by the latter, the will of God as it seems 
 to modify and adapt itself according to the behaviour of the 
 creature, 'Pius, there are instances in Holy Scripture, where 
 the Divine Will seems to be changed by the conduct of man 
 — e.g. Hezekiah's death was predicted, and yet by prayer his 
 life was lengthened — Nineveh's destruction was announced, 
 but when they cried " mightily to the Lord, God repented 
 of the evil that He had said He would do to them ; and 
 He did it not." 1 The evil with which Ahab was threatened 
 was, on his repentance, removed from him. 2 The " Pro- 
 phecy of commination" is all of this nature, it reveals what 
 will happen, unless certain circumstances intervene between 
 cause and effect to prevent the occurrence. 
 
 Perhaps we may find a trace of this combination in man. 
 Strength of will is manifested by faithfulness to certain prin- 
 ciples of conduct, but not by lack of pliancy in matters 
 where those principles are not involved. Strength of will, 
 on the contrary, stands behind readiness at every turn to 
 be moved by and to comply with the wishes of others ; 
 whereas weakness of will, is often marked by great obstinacy. 
 So in God, whilst Immutability is essential to His Nature, 
 as the One who "continueth holy;" yet in His relation 
 with His creatures, where no contradiction to His other 
 Attributes is incurred, there is Freedom ; and as He was at 
 first free to create, so now He works all things " not by the 
 obligation of necessity, but according to the choice of His 
 1 Jonah iii. 10. 2 I Kings xxi. 29. 
 
Objections to Prayer. 83 
 
 Free Will." 1 We must be careful, lest we identify the Im- 
 mutability of God with necessity, thereby converting the 
 Divine Personality into a machine, and reducing the All- 
 ruling Mind to the level of the " Fates" of the heathen. 
 
 Moreover, the objection we are considering misrepresents 
 the purpose of prayer ; it is based on the idea that prayer 
 is an instrument whereby the creature endeavours to change 
 the counsels of the Eternal, which is an exaggeration of the 
 doctrine of prayer. The position claimed for prayer is, 
 that of a certain action by means of which the Divine Pur- 
 poses are accomplished. We pray "not to change but to 
 fulfil the Divine Will," hence one of the dispositions for 
 acceptable prayer is conformity to the Will of God ; we 
 pray and act, in order to do the Will of God. God in His 
 Providence not only appoints certain results, but also makes 
 those results contingent on the intermediate causes, which 
 have a certain relation to those results. God's Will is done 
 through human agency — " Thy Will be done in earth as it 
 is in Heaven" 2 — " My meat is to do the Will of Him that 
 sent Me" 3 — and prayer is one form of human agency where- 
 by that Will is fulfilled. It would be even wrong to pray 
 for that, which God had clearly revealed to be contrary to 
 His Will \ we may only pray for that, about which His Will is 
 unknown, or apparently favourable, believing that in His 
 Providence He deigns to use prayer as a factor without the 
 employment of which certain results would not follow. 
 1 S. Ambrose. 2 S. Matt. vi. 10. 3 S. John iv. 34. 
 
84 Objections to Prayer. 
 
 Thus, the doctrine of the efficacy and need of prayer, rightly 
 stated, does not clash with the Perfection of Divine Im- 
 mutability. 
 
 A further charge has been laid against prayer in relation 
 to God's Will ; the need of such intervention is taken to be 
 a disparagement of Divine Liberality and Goodness. Since 
 " nothing is more dearly purchased than that which is pur- 
 chased by prayers/' 1 therefore, it is said, as God is most 
 liberal, it is more fitting that He should bestow His bless- 
 ings without being asked for them. This ancient objection 
 is one to which two replies may be given. In the first 
 place, God does give innumerable things without the inter- 
 vention of prayer, — He openeth His hand, and filleth all 
 things living with plenteousness ; He " maketh His sun to 
 rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the 
 just and on the unjust ;" 2 and, secondly, God in His 
 Wisdom has devised this plan of petitioning Him in our 
 necessities, that He might bestow a double blessing — the 
 gift, and contact with the Giver, the latter having, as we 
 have seen, a transforming effect on the worshipper, whilst 
 it acts as a reminder of the relation of dependency upon 
 Him who is " the Giver of all good gifts." Prayer, then, 
 rather witnesses to, than obscures the Liberality of God. 
 
 Perhaps, the most plausible objection in reference to the 
 Divine Perfections, is that which is based on the incom- 
 patibility of prayer with our ideas of Divine Greatness ; its 
 1 Seneca. 2 S. Matt. v. 45. 
 
Objections to Prayer. 85 
 
 plausibility lies in the fact, that it comes to us under the 
 mask of reverence and profound regard for the Divine 
 Majesty. Is it consistent, it is said, with the Infinite Ma- 
 jesty of the Most High, that He should hear the prayer of 
 an insignificant creature — that He Who created and sustains 
 numberless worlds, should attend to the cry of some poor 
 sinner ? It is indeed wonderful, that He " the High and 
 Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity" 1 should deign to listen 
 to our prayers, but all things are wonderful with God. Yet 
 are we not trusting too much to our conceptions of Divine 
 Greatness and of human insignificancy ? We conclude with 
 the Stoic, that greatness involves a contempt for detail, 2 
 because in man we rarely find the powers of comprehension 
 and minuteness combined. We notice a division of these 
 in human shadows of greatness ; in one man, precision of 
 detail, carefulness of particulars, keenness of analysis, regard 
 for finish ; in another, grasp of great principles, ability in 
 generalisation, rapidity of induction, capacity for ruling. 
 But though it may be generally true, that these qualities are 
 found apart in man : it must be remembered, first, that 
 creatures are too limited in their capacities to represent in 
 its totality the Divine Greatness, and therefore one chiefly 
 reflects one side of it, another, another • and further, that 
 there are exceptions even amongst men to this experience, 
 and some are found who in some degree combine the great 
 
 1 Isa. lvii. 15. 
 
 2 " Magna dii curant, parva negligunt," Cicero, de Nat. Deor. 
 
86 Objections to Prayer. 
 
 and the small, who are as capable, for instance, of forming 
 the policy of a country or of dealing with the difficulties of 
 international law, as of entering into the details of finance 
 or the finest distinctions of language. In God we find the 
 perfection of this combination, of which rare genius some- 
 times provides us with a distant illustration. As in God 
 the highest activity is blended with the deepest repose, 
 so " the infinitely great" and " the infinitely little" are at 
 once the object of His Divine Care. He not only created 
 the orbs of light, the mountains, and the sea, but the fibres 
 of each leaf, and the petals of each flower, and painted the 
 smallest shell with its various tints, 1 the beauty of which 
 can only be seen with the microscope. And as in nature, 
 so in Revelation, God manifests Himself as not indifferent 
 to detail; the smallest incident or object falls under His 
 Providence — "are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? 
 and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your 
 Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." 2 
 Divine Greatness combines the upholding of the worlds with 
 the closest attention to the most minute event, and therefore 
 prayer is not inconsistent with the majesty of Heaven. 
 
 But further, besides a fallacious estimate of Divine Great- 
 ness, is there not also at the base of this objection a false 
 view of human insignificancy ? Man is insignificant, it is 
 true, when viewed in relation to God ; but He is not insig- 
 nificant as the object of Divine care, in comparison with 
 
 1 E.g. the shells of the Foraminifera. 2 S. Matt. x. 29, 30. 
 
Objections to Prater. 87 
 
 other creatures. We are too apt to measure greatness by 
 the material size of an object, and not by its moral and 
 spiritual worth \ and therefore we conclude that Divine Pro- 
 vidence is less unworthily engaged in directing vast bodies, 
 than in listening to the cry of the human soul. David for 
 a moment felt the insignificancy of man compared with the 
 great objects of nature, and wondered at the Divine interest 
 in him — " what is man, that Thou art mindful of him P" 1 
 but he presently turns to the grounds of his real greatness 
 both present and future, — Thou madest him " a little lower" 
 than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship. The 
 Psalmist fully impressed with man's material littleness, was 
 also fully alive to his spiritual greatness, in that in the scale 
 of being he was only " lower than the angels," and pos- 
 sessed a capacity for future bliss and honour. Even in 
 material things, bulk is not always the measure of value, as 
 the precious gem bears witness. Man, as he has a soul 
 more valuable than all material things, — which will alone out- 
 live this present scene, is surely more worthy than they are 
 of the Divine Care ; and hence I conclude that the objection 
 to prayer on the score of man's insignificancy and its in- 
 compatibility with Divine Greatness, will disappear before a 
 juster conception of man's position as a spiritual and im- 
 mortal being, and a more worthy estimate of the Divine 
 Majesty. We must beware, lest from applying human no- 
 tions to the Divine Mind, we regard God as one so ab- 
 1 Ps. viii. 4, 5. 
 
88 Objections to Prayer. 
 
 sorbed in dealing with that which is vast and general, as to 
 leave no room for attending to that which is particular and 
 individual. Still, let us with the Psalmist, wonder at the 
 Divine Condescension — "Who is like unto the Lord our 
 God, that hath His dwelling on high ; and yet humbleth 
 Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth." 1 
 
 We have now canvassed the leading objections to prayer 
 which are grounded on its seeming incompatibility with the 
 Perfections of God — with His Omniscience, Foreknowledge, 
 Immutability, Liberality, and Greatness. Without attempt- 
 ing the solution of a mystery, the thoughts we have ad- 
 vanced may be of use in repelling the temptations, which 
 sometimes beset the faithful soul concerning the efficacy of 
 prayer ; and, in general, we must remember, that it is He 
 Who has revealed Himself as All-wise, Changeless, Almighty, 
 Liberal and Great, Who has also promised to hear and 
 answer prayer ; so that in His Mind that incompatibility, of 
 which we have been treating can have no place. From our 
 finiteness, from the fact that now we "know" only "in 
 part," we see but scattered and broken rays of Divine 
 Truth, which are so refracted, that we cannot trace them up 
 to their common source and unity. 
 
 On the first class of objections we have dwelt at length, 
 as lying more distinctly within the province of divinity, as 
 affecting human minds more generally than those which are 
 the product of a particular study, and as forming the more 
 
 1 Ps. cxiii. 5. 
 
Objections to Prayer. 89 
 
 common ground of temptation. Those who make physical 
 science their pursuit, imagine the fixity of natural laws to 
 preclude the possibility of an answer to prayer, at least be- 
 yond the spiritual sphere. The ground of their objection 
 is, that, as far as they have examined they find in nature 
 that certain causes produce certain results ; this order they 
 find everywhere as far as they have reached, and they con- 
 clude, that the unsearched will prove to be under the same 
 law of order as that which has been searched ; this order is 
 so invariable, this " Reign of Law" so ' adamantine,' that 
 they cannot conceive the possibility of any interference with 
 it : and therefore — to expect an answer to prayer is to expect 
 a miracle. It may be worth while to observe, that, although 
 an answer to prayer may be compared to a miracle as in- 
 volving a movement of the First Cause : yet the two are 
 quite different in other respects, for the one is an extraor- 
 dinary event, whilst our contention is that the other is a 
 normal mode of the action of Divine Providence \ the one is 
 a manifest modification or suspension of natural law, whilst 
 the other is secret and incapable of test. A miracle is an 
 unusual event which is vouchsafed in order to draw attention 
 to some messenger from God or to ratify a Divine Revelation, 
 or is the concomitant of some exalted attainment in sanc- 
 tity ; whilst prayer is a power of all times, and within the 
 reach of all. The very purpose of a miracle obliges it to be a 
 conspicuous deviation from the ordinary course of nature ; 
 whilst an answer to prayer, where it comes out into the reach 
 
90 Objections to Prayer. 
 
 of human cognizance, so veils itself with the processes of 
 nature as to preclude all certainty as to its Divine origin. 
 
 In the first place, the limits of human knowledge as to 
 physical causation deprive this objection of its force ; it is 
 grounded on an inference, and an inference from a very 
 limited area of knowledge, to the immense and unfathom- 
 able regions of the unsearched, and perhaps unsearchable. 
 We take a leap when, from the uniformity which we ex- 
 perience, we come to the conclusion that Natural Law is 
 universal ; such a conclusion is conjectural, not scientific — 
 " the reasons for this reliance (i.e. as to the universality of 
 Natural Law) do not hold good in circumstances unknown 
 to us, and beyond the possible range of oar experience." 1 
 Moreover, as to the invariability of Physical Laws, there 
 are exceptions which show that the expression has its limits 
 even within the sphere of human experience. There are 
 instances in which God does interfere with the action of 
 a law, and suspends it at a certain point where its action 
 would clearly become harmful. But if such interventions 
 could not be discovered in the world of matter ; the power 
 of man — who is made in the image of God — to control, 
 direct, and counteract natural laws, at once disturbs the 
 doctrine of the inevitable sequence of cause and effect. 
 The free-will which can project a stone upwards or detain 
 it from falling downwards, despite the law of gravitation, is 
 but a single illustration of the truth, that mind can inter- 
 1 Mill, Logic, Vol. ii. p. 108. 
 
Objections to Prater. 91 
 
 fere with the successions of matter. And if this be so 
 with the finite mind, are we to make the Infinite Mind 
 less free than it, and to make God the captive of His own 
 laws ! 
 
 Secondly, this objection to the efficacy of prayer assumes 
 that an answer to prayer must involve a perceptible inter- 
 ference with the sequence of cause and effect, and so intro- 
 duce an element of confusion and uncertainty, where all 
 before was governed by a fixed order. But prayer may be 
 answered without any such dislocation of causes and effects. 
 Science, it must be remembered, is only able to trace a few 
 links of this mysterious chain of causation; it cannot ex- 
 plain to us how it is connected with the Throne of God ; 
 it deals only with that which is proximate, while Religion 
 deals with the Ultimate. Prayer touches the secret springs 
 of action far beyond the reach or cognizance of scientific 
 investigation ; prayer addresses the First Cause, who can 
 set in motion a series of effects which may reach us in the 
 natural order without the slightest observable disturbance. 
 Science is as one regarding the interaction of different parts 
 of some complex musical instrument; Religion looks be- 
 hind it, to the One who is fingering the keys. As one has 
 so clearly and forcibly expressed it, God "can adapt the 
 forthgoings of His power to all the wants and all the prayers 
 of His dependent family. For this purpose He does not 
 need to stretch forth His hand on the inferior and visible 
 links of any progression, so as to shift the known succes- 
 
92 Objections to Prater. 
 
 sions of experience, or at all to intermeddle with the lessons 
 and the laws of this great schoolmaster. He may work in 
 secret and yet perform all His pleasure, not by the achieve- 
 ment of a miracle upon nature's open platform, but by the 
 touch of one or other of those master-springs which lie 
 within the recesses of her inner laboratory. There, and at 
 His place of supernal command, by the fountain-head of 
 influence, He can turn whithersoever He will the machinery 
 of our world, without the possibility by human eye of de- 
 tecting the least infringement upon any of its processes." 1 
 And it is the absence of this visible appearance " upon 
 nature's open platform" of the effects of prayer, which has 
 caused its power to be ignored. When the cholera was 
 raging in 1866, some ridiculed 2 the idea of praying to be 
 delivered from the scourge, and trusted only to the effi- 
 ciency of certain sanitary improvements ; and a recent writer 
 takes much the same line, when he seems to regard " the 
 force" 3 of such prayers to lie in the fact that they act as a 
 stimulant of sanitary reform. The power of prayer is dis- 
 believed, because the very disturbance of the natural se- 
 quence with which it was charged, cannot be traced. One 
 part of the mystery of prayer is that it operates secretly ; 
 its effects elude the senses — it touches the chain of 
 
 1 Chalmers' Works, vol. iii. p. 624. 
 
 2 "A Protest against the Prayer for the Cholera," and " Pall Mall 
 Gazette." 
 
 3 Rev. Stopford Brooke, " Christ and Modern Life," Sermon on 
 " the Force of Prayer." 
 
Objections to Prater. 93 
 
 causation at a point in the series which is beyond the ken 
 of man, and produces its results without any violation of 
 the laws of nature. 
 
 Further, this objection seems also to arise from viewing 
 the order of nature as apart from its Creator — as though, by 
 it He had raised a hindrance to His own Freedom, and 
 was removed from us further and further as every new dis- 
 covery of cause and effect was made good ; and from the 
 assumption, that we can know something of the method of 
 the Primal Agency from the action of those causes which 
 are within the reach of investigation. With regard to the 
 first, by " the laws of nature," those who believe in a Personal 
 God, mean only the regular mode of His working — " can 
 we help regarding the physical laws of creation as His per- 
 sonal habits ; the moral order of Providence as the unfold- 
 ing of His character ?" 1 God is not to be regarded as a 
 limited Monarch restricted by the laws of the Constitution, 
 for the system of Nature is but the expression of His Own 
 Will. From the way " the laws of nature" are sometimes 
 spoken of, it might be almost supposed that they were 
 living agents, and that God had been relegated by them to 
 the back-ground. And, secondly, when we conclude that the 
 First Cause must act precisely in the same way as those 
 few second causes act with which we are familiar, is 
 this not to forget that the difference between the First 
 Cause and these others is one not of degree but of kind; 
 1 Martineau, "Endeavours after the Christian Life," p. 16. 
 
94 Objections to Prater. 
 
 for the First Cause is self-derived, and from Him flows the 
 Causative influence which sets in motion all the rest. Of 
 His Agency we can know but little, how He sustains the 
 worlds in being, how He adjusts the different forces He has 
 lodged in the Universe; and yet this objection to prayer 
 is based on the supposition that we are so capable of judg- 
 ing of the method of Divine Government, as to be able to 
 exclude from it one factor for which God has Himself left 
 a place, because we may not be able to see how this 
 spiritual force " prayer" can work without introducing dis- 
 aster and confusion. 
 
 That the efficacy of prayer is a mystery, has been already 
 admitted, and therefore the mode by which God answers 
 prayer we cannot know. Whether, as some have thought, 
 He acts immediately and yet veils the isolated event from dis- 
 covery, or acts through the agency of ordinary laws ; whether 
 He employs second causes, of the existence of which we 
 have no knowledge, or creates anew the physical conditions, 
 the matter or force, or both, requisite to produce the result, 
 we cannot determine ; but, that the invariability of natural 
 laws precludes the possibility of God's answering our 
 prayers is an assertion, which the limited knowledge we 
 possess of physical causation and of the Primal Agency of 
 the Almighty, renders altogether unwarrantable. 
 
 Lastly, objections to the practice and utility of prayer 
 have been raised in reference to man himself. It has been 
 said, " Is it not better to occupy yourself in practising 
 
Objections to Prater. 95 
 
 virtues and in the fulfilment of the duties of your state, than 
 to spend time in praying?" A favourite artifice in con- 
 troversy, when we want to disparage or dishonour any truth 
 or practice, is to place it in such a way, as though an alter- 
 native must be made between it and some other truth or 
 duty ; and this is resorted to, when prayer and action are 
 put in opposition to one another. The maxim, which has 
 before been quoted, " Pray and work," contains the 
 answer to this objection. Neither work nor prayer must be 
 omitted. To pray and not to employ the means placed 
 within our power, would be to dissociate what God has 
 conjoined. He who bids us pray, bids us also do with our 
 might every other duty. It may be, that there are those 
 who do not rightly balance their duties, and who by the 
 sweetness and rest of prayer may be drawn aside from the 
 irksome task ; as also, there are those who are of an active 
 turn of mind, and are too ready to sacrifice prayer for work, 
 but such abuses do not affect the general principle, that it 
 is only by combined prayer and action that we can succeed. 
 Moreover, it must be borne in mind, that for the right 
 fulfilment of duty and for the exercise of virtues, prayer is 
 requisite on account of their inter-dependence, so that the 
 two cannot be separated; and prayer, instead of being 
 placed in antagonism to work, must be regarded as its 
 indispensable adjunct. To grow in virtue, to do all things 
 for the glory of God, to labour well for time and for 
 eternity, we need grace ; and grace, as we have already 
 
96 Objections to Prater. 
 
 seen, is gained through prayer. Experience teaches us that 
 those who have formed habits of prayer, are active and 
 industrious in the business of daily life, and are marked by 
 a sense of the value of time. Prayer is, indeed, one remedy 
 for sloth, whether that disease infect the mind, the soul, or 
 the body. Frequent contact with the Life of God — the Life 
 which is all action and energy — quickens the sluggish powers 
 of corrupt nature, and imparts to our faculties something of 
 its vigour and brightness. Those who in early morning 
 hold communion with their Maker, go forth braced by this 
 exercise for the discharge of the duties of the day, catch 
 and give out something of the spirit of His life, and prove 
 by their activity that prayer and work go together. 
 
 But once more, whilst we admit, it may be said, the 
 invigorating effects of prayer, must it not after all often be a 
 waste of time, when regarded as petition, for often as a fact 
 are not prayers ineffectual ? In answer to this, we have 
 only to bear in mind, that in prayer we leave the results to 
 God in humble submission to His Holy Will ; the answer 
 may be different from what we desire, and still be a fulfil- 
 ment of our petition. " We pray for health, and God 
 gives sickness," says Bishop Taylor. " The prayer is really 
 answered, if it be a sickness which carries us to eternal 
 health." The reply is the same with regard to contradictory 
 petitions ; God can answer both in different ways, according 
 to the real needs of the two supplicants. From this it will 
 be evident that the power of prayer cannot be tested by 
 
Objections to Prater. 97 
 
 results, for results will often not coincide with our desires ; 
 and moreover, as we are not acquainted with all physical 
 causes and their interaction, it would be impossible to 
 ascribe as a certainty any ordinary event to the force of 
 prayer : yet there are occurrences which come within the 
 experience of many, marvellous coincidences, restoration to 
 health when all human hope was gone, conversions from 
 sin in most unlikely subjects, which to a devout mind are 
 sufficient evidence of its efficacy, though not enough to 
 convince the gainsayer, or to satisfy those who presump- 
 tuously seek a sign from heaven. 
 
 Our brief review of the different objections to prayer, 
 grounded on its incompatibility with the Divine Perfections, 
 its impossibility viewed in relation to the fixity of the laws 
 of nature, its inutility with regard to man, must now be 
 brought to a close. The main thought to be grasped with 
 reference to the first class of objections, is that prayer 
 is a means not of changing but of fulfilling the Divine 
 Purposes, — that God in the perfect government of His Uni- 
 verse, appropriates human desires, and in some wondrous 
 manner takes them into account and makes them an 
 element of His administration. As to the difficulty of 
 reconciling prayer with physical law, we must cultivate 
 intellectual lowliness, bearing in mind how little we know 
 of nature's secrets, and how much less we know of God's 
 modes of acting ; we must accept the light of Revelation 
 as our guide, where science leaves us in darkness, regard- 
 
 H 
 
Objections to Prater. 
 
 ing the one as the complement of the other. And as to 
 the inutility of prayer on the side of man, how opposite 
 to experience is this objection, for prayer is found to be a 
 source of energy, a spring of life, a necessity to man for 
 the right discharge of all other duties, a power which has 
 results which are for his benefit, whether they are in accord- 
 ance with his wishes or not. 
 
 Every man has a certain portion of the Divine Will, the 
 execution of which has been made to depend upon his faith- 
 ful co-operation with God, and one part of that co-operation 
 lies in the exercise of the power of prayer. Prayer is, then, 
 if this view be taken of it, a spiritual force, in the due 
 employment of which there is a great responsibility ; it 
 is a talent, for the use of which we must give account; 
 it is a high privilege and blessing, for a sure promise is 
 annexed to it — " let him ask in faith, nothing wavering . . . 
 and it shall be given him" 1 — and a greater than an Apostle 
 has ascribed to it a sovereign power — " Whatsoever ye shall 
 ask the Father in My name, He will give it you." 3 
 
 1 S. James i. 5, 6. 2 S. John xvi. 23. 
 
lecture W. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF PRAYER. 
 
 ** Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." — S. James iv. 3. 
 
 HTHE next thing, after we have made good a possession, 
 is to know how to turn it to account. In the last 
 Lecture, having traced the continuity of the belief in the 
 efficacy of prayer from the days of the Patriarchs to the 
 Dispensation in which we live, and noted the marvellous 
 effects which were produced by prayer as abiding witnesses 
 to its power ; we then attempted to meet some of the lead- 
 ing objections, which prayer, in the sense of petition for 
 spiritual and temporal benefits, has called forth. We had 
 to reconcile this gift with the Perfections of the Giver, with 
 which it seemed to some at variance ; we had to call atten- 
 tion to the limits of human knowledge in the sphere of 
 physical laws, and to show how prayer may be answered 
 without any visible disturbance of that settled order, the 
 contemplation of which so regales the scientific mind ; we 
 had to justify the practice of prayer from the insincere 
 
ioo Conditions of Prater. 
 
 charge of encroachment on other duties, and from the re- 
 proach, that it was a waste of time. Having thus then 
 endeavoured to make good our possession, our next busi- 
 ness is to see how we are to use it. 
 
 We are still treating of prayer only as petition ; as a 
 means of gaining something from God, the bestowal of 
 which depends on the rightful employment of this agent. 
 And here I would notice, before entering upon the con- 
 sideration of the " conditions of prayer," that we are justi- 
 fied in using prayer for definite blessings and for the removal 
 of definite evils. There have been those who, whilst they 
 admit the power of prayer in general, will not allow that 
 prayer should be made for any special and distinct bless- 
 ing ; who agree with the opinion of the heathen philosopher, 
 which was to the effect " that nothing else should be sought 
 from the immortal gods, but that they should bestow good 
 things," that is, that no definite form of good was to be 
 asked for. The reasons which are given for this avoidance 
 of specific requests are, that God must know better than 
 we do what is wanted, and that for us to seek any thing 
 in particular is to interfere with the Divine Will. It may 
 be replied, that these reasons if carried to their legitimate 
 consequences would exclude all petitions, whether general 
 or particular ; and that the second is based on the fallacy, 
 that by prayer we dictate to God and seek to change His 
 Will. But we have positive authority for seeking definite 
 things from God. Christ Himself both by word and 
 
Conditions of Prater. ioi 
 
 deed has taught us to pray for specific benefits ; in the 
 Lord's Prayer we have prayers for separate blessings, and 
 in Christ's intercession for S. Peter, we have an instance 
 of prayer for a particular virtue of a particular person. 
 Moreover, those who came to Christ for healing not only 
 made general supplications for mercy, but laid their specific 
 needs before Him ; and He Himself drew them on to ask 
 distinctly for what they wanted, as when He questioned 
 the blind man who had appealed for pity, " What wilt thou 
 that I shall do unto thee ?" and he said, " Lord, that I 
 may receive my sight." 1 So again, S. Paul prayed definitely 
 concerning the thorn in the flesh, "For this thing I be- 
 sought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me ;" 2 
 and the Apostle in like manner bade the Philippians let 
 their "requests be made known unto God." 3 It is clear, 
 then, from Holy Scripture, that we are to pray not only in 
 general terms of supplication, but also with definite peti- 
 tions for the spiritual or temporal good of which we stand 
 in need; and it is evidently to such definite prayers S. James 
 alludes, otherwise the fact that they were not answered 
 would not have been known, for — after rebuking those who 
 do not pray at all, he proceeds (notwithstanding the pro- 
 mise of infallibility in regard to prayer) to notice, that we 
 pray and yet have not what we pray for — " ye ask, and re- 
 ceive not, because ye ask amiss." 
 
 Prayer, then, to be efficacious must be gathered upon 
 1 S. Luke xviii. 41. 2 2 Cor. xii. 8. 3 Phil. iv. 6. 
 
102 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 certain points, and must be exercised with certain condi- 
 tions. It is a spiritual force, which like all other, has its 
 laws and limits of action. Christ says, " ask, and it shall 
 be given you ; wl S. James says, " ye ask, and receive not, 
 because ye ask amiss." 2 There is an infallible force in 
 prayer, if we can only lay hold of it, and direct it aright, 
 but the simple asking is evidently not enough. There are 
 conditions which are requisite to render petitions of avail 
 before the Throne of God, and into these it will be our 
 next step to inquire. 
 
 The Conditions of Prayer may be considered first, in 
 reference to the thing which is prayed for; secondly, as 
 they relate to the person who prays; thirdly, as to the 
 manner of praying. Defect in either respect may deprive 
 prayer of its efficacy, or weaken it. 
 
 I. The promise given to prayer, is conditional, and not 
 absolute, as touching the thing which is prayed for, and 
 therefore we may fail in gaining an answer to prayer in con- 
 sequence of praying for that which is wrong in itself, or 
 which would be fraught with danger to its possessor. Prayer 
 is not a power entrusted to us, like that of free-will, which 
 we may exert for good or evil, for weal or woe ; it must be 
 used for good, either present or ultimate. What we pray 
 for, it must be consistent with the Divine Perfections to 
 grant. The heathen in their prayers often sought that 
 which would gratify their evil passions ; the satisfaction of 
 1 S. Matt. vii. 7. * koikus. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 103 
 
 a vicious thirst for gain or revenge, or the success of some 
 lustful design, would form the subject of their petitions ; 
 but they were consistent in one respect, for they credited 
 their gods with those very vices, for the indulgence of 
 which they prayed to them. Deities who were idealised 
 passions, would be naturally invoked for the furtherance of 
 those passions. To pray to a Holy God for the fulfilment 
 of some evil desire, and to suppose that He will grant our 
 petition, is to degrade God in a way which He Himself has 
 denounced — " thou thoughtest wickedly, that I am even 
 such a one as thyself," 1 and to make Him an accomplice 
 in our sins. "He who asks evil from God, judges and 
 thinks God the author of evil." Thus, S. James adds the 
 further reason why those to whom he referred, asked and 
 received not, viz. that they prayed for the gratification of 
 their "lusts" 2 — "ye receive not, because ye ask amiss, that 
 ye may consume it upon your lusts." " He asks amiss who, 
 dismissing the love of the supernal, seeks only the lowest 
 goods, and those, not for the support of human frailty, but 
 for the excess of unrestrained pleasure." 3 
 
 But whilst we are treating of that for which we may not 
 pray, and seeing how prayers of human passion are incom- 
 patible with Divine Holiness, we are naturally led to touch 
 upon a difficulty which many have felt in using the impre- 
 catory language of the Psalter, in such passages as these : 
 
 1 PS. 1. 21. " TCUS TjSoVCUS. 
 
 3 Bede, quoted by Corn, a Lapide in loc. 
 
104 Conditions of Prayer. 
 
 — " let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick 
 into hell ; for wickedness is in their dwellings and among 
 them ;" ] — " let their table become a snare before them. . . . 
 let their eyes be darkened that they see not .... let their 
 habitation be desolate .... let them be blotted out of the 
 book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." 2 
 So again, " Set Thou a wicked man over him ; and let Satan 
 stand at his right hand .... let his prayer become sin ... . 
 let his days be few ; and let another take his office .... let 
 his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow/' 3 &c. It 
 cannot be denied that these inspired utterances have a very 
 startling sound ; the passion of revenge seems to revel in 
 the varied expressions of malediction, and the tongue of 
 the Psalmist to be fired with human vindictiveness. Dif- 
 ferent interpretations have been given of the meaning and 
 purpose of these verses. It has been said that they should 
 all be read as predictions rather than imprecations. The 
 prophet, " after the mode of imprecating, predicts what he 
 saw was about to be ;'* 4 and this interpretation is defended, 
 sometimes on grammatical grounds, and sometimes on the 
 ground that it was the custom of Jewish prophets. The 
 employment of the future tense in the original is said to 
 justify us in turning what is expressed in our version as a 
 wish, into a simple declaration of what was to come to 
 pass ; yet the future under special circumstances has some- 
 
 1 Ps. lv. 15. ~ Ps. lxix. 23—28. 
 
 3 Ps. cix. 6 — 9. 4 Bellarmine in Psalmos, p. 444. 
 
Conditions of Prayer. 105 
 
 times a jussive or optative force ; whilst on the other hand 
 the prophets sometimes employ the imperative for strong 
 affirmation or for predicting a " doomed futurity." 
 
 Again, another way of dealing with the difficulty, is to 
 find in these imprecations the outpouring of the soul's 
 hatred for sin, sin being personified, or represented in the 
 concrete, (as it is in the Epistle to the Romans,) because 
 apart from a subject it could not be apprehended. Thus 
 the devotional purpose of these verses would be to stimulate 
 and express one side of the virtue of contrition, in which 
 the Psalmist enjoins the rightful use of a human passion, 
 "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." 1 Others have sepa- 
 rated these vindictive utterances from all reference to 
 human penalties, and have seen in them simply a vehement 
 affection for the Divine Justice and Honour. According 
 to this view, the soul is wholly united with, and absorbed 
 in the contemplation of Divine Vengeance. As in another 
 place, the Psalmist says, " The righteous shall rejoice when 
 he seeth the vengeance : he shall wash his feet in the blood 
 of the wicked ;" 2 and as the souls under the altar cried 
 with a loud voice, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, 
 dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood?" 3 And as God 
 hath " no pleasure in the destruction of the living," but in 
 the manifestation of His Perfections; so the soul simply 
 yearns for the expression of Divine Justice, and depicts 
 
 1 Ps. xcvii. 10. ' Ps. lviii. 10. 
 
 3 Rev. vi. 10. 
 
106 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 with the imagination, without any thought of individuals, 
 the scope and consequences of its exercise. 
 
 Moreover, these imprecations have been regarded as not 
 altogether wanting in love even for the sinner upon whom 
 they were to fall. For it is said, they were desires not 
 simply for his punishment, but for his cure, that " the sins 
 might be destroyed, but the man remain," as when the 
 Prodigal " came to himself" 1 through temporal affliction ; 
 or, if some of these maledictions seem final, still good was 
 wished him, for by dying he would cease from sin, and 
 therefore his penalty be no longer increased. S. Augustine 
 says further, that benefits from witnessing Divine judgments 
 accrue to the good, by which they are enabled to become 
 better. 
 
 Whatever explanation of the difficulty may seem to our 
 minds the least unsatisfactory, there are two general 
 thoughts which remove all such prayers from becoming 
 precedents for imitation : first, they are divinely-inspired 
 moulds for conveying predictions of the miserable end of 
 Judas, and the calamities of the Jews, through reference to 
 past histories such as those of Dathan, and Abiram, and 
 Ahithophel; and secondly, they breathe the spirit of the 
 Old Testament rather than of the New. Our Lord has 
 taught us that there were acts and words in keeping with 
 an earlier Dispensation, which yet did not rise to the higher 
 level of charity which characterised His Teaching. Thus, 
 1 S. Luke xv. 17. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 
 
 107 
 
 when the disciples desired to call down fire from Heaven 
 upon the churlish Samaritans — an act permitted, be it re- 
 membered, to the prophet of Israel — He rebuked them in 
 those significant words, " Ye know not what manner of 
 spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to de- 
 stroy men's lives, but to save them.'' 1 
 
 These passages in the Psalms, then, though useful as 
 triumphant expressions of the hatred of evil, are in no wise 
 types of petitions which, without the guarantee of inspira- 
 tion, are to be reproduced by us ; but are rather to be seen, 
 where they are, as suffused with the richer glow of that 
 Divine Charity which shines back upon them from the New 
 Testament. There are times, it may be true, when it is 
 permissible to pray for a temporal evil as a means of trial 
 to oneself; but this is rarely advisable with regard to others, 
 for fear of danger to charity or of any movement of envy 
 or hatred, and is never to be done when the one who prays 
 must be the agent of inflicting that evil. Of all prayers, 
 which are prompted by evil passions, or have their indul- 
 gence for their object, the language of the Psalmist still 
 holds good, they are " turned into sin." It is evident, then, 
 that we may not pray for that which is evil, or prejudicial 
 to our eternal interests. 
 
 Having seen what we may not pray for, we are now in a 
 better position for considering what are legitimate subjects 
 for petition. The good things which are given to us by 
 1 S. Luke ix. 55, 56. 
 
io8 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 God are either spiritual or temporal : under the former are 
 included our salvation and perfection, and all the means 
 which directly lead to and insure those results, e.g. pardon 
 for sins, strength against temptation, final perseverance ; 
 under the latter, " all the blessings of this life." 
 
 We will take temporal goods first, and spiritual after. 
 The term " temporal goods" is so wide that we must employ 
 a subdivision, for the sake of clearness and because of the 
 practical issues which are involved. Amongst temporal 
 goods there are those which are rightly and fittingly desired, 
 and those also which are only (when at all) relatively de- 
 sirable : the former class I will name " human goods" to 
 distinguish them from their less respectable relations — they 
 are such as concern our health, integrity of body, sanity of 
 mind, strength, natural life, &c. ; the latter class we will 
 call " worldly goods," which are not desirable for their own 
 sake — they are riches, fame, honour, success, position, &c. 
 
 With regard to both classes of temporal goods, to seek 
 them as our Ultimate End, so that our thoughts and affec- 
 tions centre in them and find in them their rest, is sinful. 
 It is of the essence of deadly sin, that it makes an end of a 
 means ; as it is the fault of lesser sins, not rightly to relate 
 the means to the end. To pray for temporal, to the utter 
 neglect of spiritual things, is especially wrong in a Christian, 
 because the spiritual and eternal have been more distinctly 
 laid open to him. We cannot compare the Old Testament 
 with the New, without seeing that temporal goods, through 
 
Conditions of Prater. 
 
 109 
 
 the dimness of the Revelation of the world to come, held 
 a higher place in the estimation of the Jew, than they can 
 retain in the mind of a Christian. The Vision of the 
 Eternal, imparted by Christ and His Spirit, gave to tem- 
 poral goods their true measure — "life and immortality" are 
 brought "to light by the Gospel." 1 Hence such expres- 
 sions as these embody the spirit of Christianity — " Labour 
 not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which 
 endureth unto everlasting life ;" 2 " We look not at the 
 things which are seen, but at the things which are not 
 seen ;" 3 " What things were gain to me, those I counted 
 loss for Christ ; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but 
 loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus 
 my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things." 4 
 And therefore to set the affections on things on the earth 
 is now especially sinful, for to desire, pray for, and seek 
 them, has not the excuse of former days — but it is delibe- 
 rately to choose the temporal in preference to the eternal, 
 after the latter has been offered. The revelation of the 
 Eternal, then, heightened the evil of turning to the crea- 
 ture, and made it to become a greater sin to pray for some 
 passing benefit or pleasure as the ultimate object of life. 
 
 After this principle has been laid down — that all tem- 
 poral goods, whether human or worldly, must not be sought 
 for, save as related to our Final End ; we shall be able to 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 10. 2 S. John vi. 27. 
 
 3 2 Cor. iv. 18. 4 Phil. iii. 7, 8. 
 
no Conditions of Prater. 
 
 proceed with less diffidence to show, that prayers for 
 temporal blessings may be rightly used, and in what 
 manner. 
 
 That human goods are permitted subjects for petition, 
 may be proved by reference to the Gospels. The multi- 
 tudes which gathered round the Son of Man were drawn 
 to Him in great measure by bodily needs ; they brought 
 their friends, or came themselves to be healed. The blind 
 man prays, "Lord, that I may receive my sight;" 1 the 
 leper, " If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean ;" 2 the 
 deaf, the dumb, the lunatic, the possessed, were brought to 
 Him for restoration of body or of mind. And to those 
 prayers for human benefits He listened without rebuke, 
 and answered them by bestowing the desired blessings. 
 To pray, then, for health, life, strength, preservation of 
 sense or faculty, has the sanction of Christ. And in 
 praying for such things, it is not requisite always to keep 
 consciously before the mind their relation to our Final 
 End ; it will suffice that, as they are good and fitting to our 
 nature and condition, and a part of God's first Will for us, 
 they are in themselves related to our Beatitude. The soul 
 may frame its supplication in the hour of trial, by the bed 
 of sickness, or in the presence of danger, without rising at 
 the same moment above the thought of the temporal 
 blessing which is being sought. Was there any other 
 thought in the blind man as he persisted in his cry, "Jesus, 
 1 S. Luke xviii. 41. 2 S. Matt. viii. 2. 
 
Conditions of Prater. hi 
 
 Thou Son of David, have mercy on me," than that of the 
 restoration of this world's light to his eye-balls ? or again, 
 did the leper seek aught else but the removal of the foul 
 tetter from his skin? or did the Canaanite mother think 
 of aught else but the deliverance of her child from the 
 contortions of her malady? and yet Jesus was gracious 
 unto them. At any time a temporal need may press home 
 upon us, and then the power of prayer may be for the 
 occasion so called into exercise as to appear absorbed by 
 the immediate demand upon it ; yet there is no danger in 
 thus praying, when the relative value of the temporal and 
 spiritual has been already grasped, and has become a prin- 
 ciple of life. 
 
 But temporal blessings must be always prayed for con- 
 ditionally, because it is impossible for us to know, whether 
 they will, or will not be prejudicial to our eternal interests. 
 It has been sometimes urged that in this respect temporal 
 goods do not differ from spiritual, in that both must be 
 only conditionally sought ; a spiritual gift, it is said, can 
 be abused as well as a temporal, and made to stand in the 
 way of our progress in holiness. Yet there is a difference 
 between them ; the perversion of a spiritual gift may be 
 only something accidental, whereas the temporal good may 
 be in itself a hindrance to the receiver, and contrary to the 
 Divine purpose which has not been made known concern- 
 ing it. Attached to every prayer for temporal things, then, 
 there must be understood, or expressed, the clause — " as 
 
ii2 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 may be most expedient for" us, until we know the Will 
 of God concerning the thing we are asking from Him. 
 However, the condition, as well as the relation to beati- 
 tude in the gift we are seeking, may be taken for granted 
 without being stated ; for God knows the heart, and that 
 the special thing is asked in ignorance, and would not be 
 sought, if it were known to be against His Will. The 
 supplicant has, if it may be reverently said, an understand- 
 ing with God, if his life is ruled according to that utterance 
 of the Redeemer — " not my will, but Thine be done/' 1 each 
 knows the other, and the soul which leads a life of prayer 
 has confidences with Him, and a treasury of past ex- 
 periences. However, whether it be only implied or be 
 expressed, there must ever be this limitation to prayer for 
 human goods, and consequently uncertainty as to the special 
 form in which according to the Wisdom of God, the answer 
 will be given. 
 
 With regard to the other class of temporal goods, that is, 
 " worldly goods," such as riches, influence, and the like, there 
 is great danger in seeking them, even when they are desired 
 with the best motive — that they might be used for the 
 Glory of God and the benefit of man. There is a fear, lest 
 that which was prayed for with the purest intention, when 
 given, should prove a snare to the soul — " they that will to 
 be rich," says S. Paul, " fall into temptation." 2 Sometimes 
 also the desire which seems noble, has in it some latent 
 1 S. Luke xxii. 42. 2 1 Tim. vi. 9. 
 
Conditions of Prayer. 113 
 
 form of self-love, and upon what appears to be a fair flower, 
 may be found the trail of avarice or pride ; the prayer, 
 apparently so pure and disinterested, may have in it an 
 element of corrupt passion so subtle as to be concealed 
 from the one who prays, who sees in the future, great wealth 
 or power expended on good works, but does not see 
 nature craving exaltation and self-prominency. And what 
 is more to the point, it was not by such means as these 
 Jesus and His disciples fulfilled their mission ; He for our 
 sakes became poor, gathered around Him those who were 
 poor and who gave up the little they possessed to follow 
 Him, for the weapons of their warfare were spiritual and 
 not carnal, and consequently were mighty to the pulling 
 down of the strongholds of Satan. Whilst then we should 
 use wealth, influence, or power, which God has placed in 
 our path, for the furtherance of His kingdom, it seems — 
 considering the dangers which surround such things, and 
 the opposite method which Christ employed — that we 
 should rarely, if ever, make them the subject of our 
 petitions. 
 
 We now come to solid ground, as we pass from the con- 
 sideration of the place which temporal things should or may 
 hold in our prayers, to deal with petitions which concern 
 spiritual blessings only. Spiritual goods differ from the 
 former in two great respects. They must be sought pri- 
 marily ; and prayers for them, need not be guarded by 
 any implied or expressed condition. 
 
ii4 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 In the prayer which Christ Himself has taught us, we 
 have not only all that can be rightly desired, but we have 
 a model as to the arrangement and relative order of our 
 desires. The first thing to be desired, according to the 
 Lord's Prayer, and therefore the first petition to be made 
 (for prayer is " the interpreter of desire,") is for the Glory 
 of God — " Hallowed be Thy Name" expresses His glory 
 in Himself, " Thy kingdom come," His glory in us ; the 
 second desire must have regard to the means whereby 
 we can glorify God — " Thy will be done in earth as it is in 
 heaven," points to the means on our side, the fulfilment 
 of the Divine purposes ; " Give us this day our daily bread," 
 proclaims the need of grace from God's side ; the third 
 desire is for the removal of hindrances to this end, which 
 are threefold, viz., sin, temptations, and penalties, and 
 thus the soul is taught to pray with regard to the first, 
 " forgive us our trespasses ;" with reference to the second, 
 " lead us not into temptation ;" and as touching the third, 
 " deliver us from evil." Thus, the whole of " the Lord's 
 Prayer" may be interpreted in relation to the Invisible, 
 and in this light discloses the order and direction which 
 our spiritual desires should take amongst themselves, and 
 their priority over all others. It is not until we come 
 to the fourth petition, that the temporal is linked to the 
 spiritual — "The temporal good we seek when we say, 
 ' Give us this day our daily bread ;' the spiritual good 
 has already been sought in the three earlier petitions." The 
 
Conditions of Prater. 115 
 
 Glory of God, then, the advancement of His kingdom, 
 the fulfilment of His Will, must occupy the first place 
 in our prayers. The Lord's Prayer is a compendium of 
 all prayer, and clearly are we told by it that we must give 
 to spiritual things the first place. 
 
 Christ by word and example constantly impressed upon 
 the minds of His disciples the pre-eminent claim of all 
 that was spiritual. To be anxious only, or chiefly, for tem- 
 poral things was, according to Him, to cast in your lot 
 with those whose hopes were limited to this passing scene, 
 for "after all these things do the Gentiles seek." Christ 
 at once added what was to be the opposite temper of 
 mind of His followers, " but seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness." 1 Again, when He had 
 given the promise to His disciples, "whatsoever ye shall 
 ask the Father in My name, He will give it you," 2 He 
 tells them that " hitherto" they had " asked nothing in His 
 name." S. Augustine remarks that this statement at first 
 sight seems strange and contradictory. For had not S. 
 Peter prayed to remain on mount Tabor, that he might 
 enjoy the delight of beholding his Master in His ante- 
 dated glory? Had not James and John prayed for the 
 right hand and the left in Christ's kingdom? It is 
 true, they had asked for those things, but according to 
 the Saint, they were, in comparison as " nothing." For 
 S. Peter desired a continuance of the sensible joy which 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 33. 2 S. John xvi. 23. 
 
n 6 Conditions of Prayer. 
 
 he experienced from the Vision, S. James and S. John the 
 honour of the first places in an earthly kingdom — things 
 which did not stretch out into the Eternal ; things which, 
 however great, were, from the temporal ideas or motives 
 associated with the prayers for them, as "nothing." In 
 the very promise too, there is a limitation — it is "what- 
 soever ye shall ask in My name" ye shall receive. "In 
 My name," implies something more than 'through My 
 Merits, through My Cross and Passion,' or ' through My 
 all-prevailing Intercession,' the effect of these words is, 
 to render it a necessary condition of claiming the promise, 
 that the thing sought should be in accordance with the 
 Mind and Will of Christ Himself— something which He 
 in His own Heart would seek for His members. 
 
 And as by word so by His actions, Christ ever asserted 
 that the interests of another world must hold the highest 
 place in our prayers. When He prays, it is for the con- 
 version of His fallen apostle, it is for the salvation of man, 
 it is for the advancement and unity of His kingdom, it 
 is for the increase of the Father's Glory ; if He prays in 
 working bodily cures, still they are wrought with a directly 
 moral or spiritual purpose. In these prayers of Christ 
 Himself, we have revealed to us what is nearest His Heart, 
 and what consequently should occupy the first place in 
 the petitions of the Christian. And yet, notwithstanding 
 the relative pre-eminence of spiritual to temporal interests, 
 which is set forth in the Lord's Prayer, enjoined by the 
 
Conditions of Prater. 117 
 
 teaching and Example of Christ, and theoretically ad- 
 mitted by all who believe in another world — prayers for 
 deliverance from temporal evils are marked by an earnest- 
 ness and gain a sympathy, which spiritual objects rarely 
 awaken. It is the impending famine, the spreading pes- 
 tilence, the portents of war, which stir the heart of a nation 
 and bend it low before its God in supplication ; so in 
 private life, it is the dangerous disease, it is the approach 
 of death, the ruin of bright hopes, which call forth the 
 agony of intercession ; the sensible evil, that which touches 
 us now and by an actual experience, is that which is ever 
 apt to overtop and cast into the background spiritual 
 and eternal interests, and therefore we must be on our 
 guard against and hold in check this encroaching tendency, 
 and maintain the rightful position of supremacy in our peti- 
 tions, for the things which belong to our everlasting peace. 
 
 There is another characteristic of prayer for spiritual 
 benefits, it can be offered wiconditionally. The presence 
 of a condition in a prayer is necessitated, either by some 
 doubt of God's Will as to the bestowal of the thing which 
 is sought, or some doubt of the goodness of the thing 
 sought, either in itself, or relatively to the circumstances 
 of the supplicant. Now in spiritual things we know God's 
 Will — " this is the will of God, even your sanctification f 1 
 as to the thing sought — pardon, peace, light, purity, 
 strength, we know also that they are good. The Psalmist 
 1 1 Thess. iv. 3. 
 
n8 Conditions of Prayer. 
 
 prayed for them without a condition, " heal my soul, for 
 I have sinned against Thee." 1 " Grant us Thy salvation." 2 
 " O send out Thy light and Thy truth, let them lead me ;" 3 
 and they are good relatively to us, for spiritual benefits 
 cannot be hindrances to our salvation. 
 
 But here it may perhaps be said, spiritual things are 
 liable to abuse as well as temporal — an objection which has 
 been already glanced at, and of which the amount of truth 
 there is in it we must ascertain, that we may know how 
 far petitions for spiritual goods should be unconditional. 
 
 " Spiritual things" is so comprehensive a term that it 
 must be dealt with in the way in which " temporal things" 
 were treated ; it must undergo sub-division — there are essen- 
 tial spiritual gifts, and those which are only accidental and 
 for others. By the first, is intended all that appertains 
 to personal sanctification, such as, forgiveness of sins, 
 strength against temptation, perseverance, everlasting life : 
 by the second, certain " gratuitous gifts" for influencing 
 others ; or, spiritual endowments, such as powers of con- 
 templation, sensible sweetness in devotion, special attrac- 
 tions, high vocations. Now the gifts which lie in the 
 thoroughfare of the spiritual life are those which may be 
 the subjects of unconditional prayer to God; but those 
 which belong to the byways, may not be sought without the 
 limitation "not my will, but Thine be done." 
 
 There is sometimes a temptation to seek the accidental 
 1 Ps. xli. 4. 2 lxxxv. 7. 3 xliii. 3. 
 
Conditions of Prater, 
 
 119 
 
 to the forgetfulness of the substantial in spiritual things, 
 as the former are apt to feed self-love or self-complacency. 
 Thus, we may be drawn to pray for showy virtues — the 
 right and the left in the kingdom — virtues which bring a 
 name and create a reputation, whilst we should be better 
 employed in asking for solid goods, contrition, lowliness, 
 or the fear of the Lord ; we may pray for a power of con- 
 templation, for the sake of the sweetness of its rest and 
 oblivion, whilst it is not the gazing up into Heaven, but 
 the doing of the Master's work, which is our lot ; we may 
 pray for the crown of martyrdom and keep the eye fixed on 
 some distant greatness, whilst we should rather be seeking the 
 grace of patience for our daily trials, which are already too 
 much for our tempers — but we think we can compensate for 
 present failure by imagining what we would do, if we could 
 only have the destiny of a S. John Baptist or a S. Andrew. 
 Or again, we may pray for wealth, because life is toilsome 
 and the cross galls our shoulders, whereas we should rather 
 pray for continuance of life, than for entrance into Para- 
 dise, as life is the time of service, the seed-time of eternity 
 — but nature seeks relief, and wants all to be over, and 
 to come down from the cross, whereas grace says, he that 
 endureth to the end shall be saved ; or, once more, we 
 may pray for high vocations, special gifts for acting upon 
 others, forgetful, that " every man hath his proper gift of 
 God, one after this manner, and another after that," 1 and, 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 7. 
 
120 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 that illustrious gifts expose the soul to self-exaltation, and 
 are often more beneficial to others than to those who 
 possess them : these are some instances of misdirected 
 desire for spiritual things of the second kind, which do 
 not enter into the essence of the life, but are its accidental 
 excellencies or accompaniments, and are liable to abuse, 
 and therefore cannot be prayed for in an absolute manner. 
 
 Spiritual things then, meaning thereby, the solid virtues 
 of the Christian life, forgiveness of sin, overthrow of self- 
 love, mortification, growth in grace and in likeness to 
 Jesus — these may always be prayed for without a condition 
 by every man, for " God our Saviour" " will have all men 
 to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth," 1 
 and upon these, holiness depends. It has been observed, 
 as a law of the distribution of light and heat in the natural 
 world, that the substances which reflect most brilliantly 
 the light which falls upon them, are those which do not 
 absorb the light, and therefore do not become hot in the 
 same degree as substances of a dark and rugged exterior ; 
 so in the spiritual life, where the grace which is given 
 is at once reflected far and wide, the soul from not ap- 
 propriating the gift may remain cold and cheerless, whilst 
 the dark substance, the life which is hidden, so absorbs 
 the Divine Heat which the Sun of Righteousness pours 
 upon it, that those who come into close contact with it 
 know the heavenly glow which is concealed beneath. And 
 1 I Tim. ii. 3, 4. 
 
Conditions of Prayer. 121 
 
 all the graces which constitute that hidden life, and relate 
 to salvation — contrition, compunction for sin, humility, 
 mortification, resignation, are spiritual things which may 
 be sought from God with the certainty that they will be 
 granted, as far as the subject of the prayer is concerned ; 
 for to add a condition to such prayers, would be to distrust 
 the efficacy of prayer in the very sphere of its unre- 
 stricted exercise, and to dishonour Divine Faithfulness and 
 Love. 
 
 The conditions of prayer as far as the thing prayed for 
 is concerned, from the lowest to the highest subject of 
 petition, have been now considered ; we have seen what 
 cannot be prayed for — that which is evil and prejudicial to 
 our salvation: what may be prayed for, but conditionally 
 and subordinately — temporal goods \ what must be prayed 
 for, primarily and absolutely — spiritual goods. 
 
 We must now turn from the thing which is prayed for, 
 to the person who prays ; and see, what are the conditions 
 of acceptable prayer in reference to the supplicant. 
 
 II. That the state of the person who asks a benefit is 
 a matter of consequence, may be learnt from the reflection 
 of the action of prayer when it is addressed to creatures ; 
 we are very much influenced by the relation of the peti- 
 tioner to us, in granting a favour. Christ appeals to this 
 fact of human experience, when He says, " if ye being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts unto your childre?i." 1 To be 
 1 S. Matt. vii. u. 
 
122 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 in a state of grace, to have the privilege of the adopted 
 child, then, is a ground of acceptance with God ; whilst 
 on the other hand, if the heart is set on sin, and has no 
 covenanted relation with God, however right the thing 
 asked for may be, the prayer will be of no avail. Solomon 
 says, " he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, 
 even his prayer shall be abomination." 1 The Psalmist dis- 
 tinctly asserts that an evil disposition in the petitioner de- 
 prives prayer of its power — " if I incline unto wickedness 
 with my heart, the Lord will not hear me." 2 So in the book 
 of Job, we are reminded of the need of personal cleansing 
 to render prayer acceptable to God — "if thou prepare 
 thine heart and stretch out thine hands towards Him ; if 
 iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away .... for then 
 shalt thou lift up thy face without spot." 3 Isaiah tells us 
 the effect of not following this advice — " when ye spread 
 forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, 
 when ye make your prayers I will not hear : your hands are 
 full of blood."* 
 
 In the New Testament we find the same truth — at the 
 healing of the blind man, it was tersely expressed by him, 
 " we know that God heareth not sinners," 5 — words which 
 must be taken with certain limitations, as we shall pre- 
 sently see. We might proceed further in this direction, 
 and affirm, that not only is a state of grace a ground of 
 
 1 Prov. xxviii. 9. 2 Ps. lxvi. 18. 3 Job xi. 13 — 15. 
 
 4 Isa. i. 15. 5 S. John ix. 31. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 123 
 
 acceptance with God, but to ensure all the effects of prayer 
 is a necessity. The prayer " which proceeds from the good 
 desire of nature" may be heard by God ; and actual grace 
 which is at work everywhere, may give to the movement 
 of the human soul a supernatural quality; but, unless the 
 soul itself is in a state of grace, the act of prayer cannot 
 lay up a reward above, or be the source of spiritual refec- 
 tion — these are results of prayer which must have their root 
 in charity. But we are at present concerned alone with 
 petition, and have only to consider the effect of the con- 
 dition of the supplicant on the efficacy of the prayer ; and 
 in this respect the utterance of the blind man, though " the 
 saying of one not yet fully illumined," contains a truth which 
 is clearly affirmed by S. John himself, that in order to gain 
 our requests, our hearts must not condemn us at the very 
 time we are making them known to God — " if our heart" 
 says the Apostle, " condemn us, God is greater than our 
 heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart con- 
 demn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And 
 whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep 
 His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing 
 in His sight." 1 
 
 Prayer unites the soul to God, but we cannot conceive 
 
 of that union, unless there is some likeness between the 
 
 terms of it, "for what fellowship hath righteousness with 
 
 unrighteousness ? and what communion hath light with 
 
 1 1 S. John iii. 20 — 22. 
 
124 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 darkness P" 1 The soul which is in a state of sin cannot 
 perform any supernatural action, the corrupt tree cannot 
 bring forth good fruit, the poisoned spring cannot give 
 forth pure waters. Reason itself would tell us that one who 
 was constantly offending God, would not be likely to be 
 heard by Him when he prayed — " With what face," says 
 S. Augustine, " can you ask God to do what He promised, 
 if you do not what He commands." 
 
 This truth then being admitted, that a state of grace is a 
 ground of acceptance with God, from it flows another, 
 which is this : — the more perfect the state of grace is, the 
 more potent the prayer; in other words, the nearer the 
 soul is to God, the greater is the efficacy of its petitions. 
 Holiness gives power to prayer, not only because those 
 who are in a high state of grace pray better and with greater 
 intensity than those who are careless or have reserves in 
 the oblation of themselves to God ; but also on account of 
 inwrought sanctity, the prayers of the holy are more accept- 
 able and efficacious. From their nearness to God, from the 
 closeness of their union with Christ, from the greater 
 measure of the Spirit which indwells them, they can lay 
 hold of this spiritual force with a firmness, and direct it 
 with an energy, which souls in lower states cannot attain to. 
 As an illustration, we may refer to the difference of bodily 
 strength in states of health and sickness ; we have in robust 
 health, powers of exercise and endurance, which in times 
 1 2 Cor. vi. 14. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 125 
 
 of illness, or in weakness of constitution, we do not pos- 
 sess ; and those powers, too, we can increase and toughen 
 by discipline and habitual use. Similarly, the soul which is 
 in vigorous spiritual health, with its faculties developed and 
 exercised, — and on account of this faithfulness, too, specially 
 loved by God — has manifestly a power of prayer beyond 
 those who are of feebler capacity and attainment. 
 
 In Holy Scripture, we find the prayers of persons who 
 are near to God by personal sanctity or high office, re- 
 presented as having a special potency. In Abraham's in- 
 tercession for Sodom, and in Moses' intercession for Israel, 
 we have instances of this. In the latter case, God repre- 
 sents the prayer of His servant as a restraint upon His 
 anger — " Let Me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot 
 out their name from under heaven." 1 So again, the power 
 of holiness in the Presence of God, is alluded to by God 
 Himself — " Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet 
 My heart could not be toward this people." 2 And in the 
 prophecies of Ezekiel, we have a similar acknowledgment — 
 " though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in 
 it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righte- 
 ousness." 3 God implies, that if anything could influence 
 Him, it would be the prayers and the presence of His 
 Saints, which in these cases were insufficient to turn away 
 His wrath from others. And the power of their sanctity 
 was not confined to their life-time, but their past faithfulness 
 
 1 Deut. ix. 14. 2 Jer. xv. I. 3 Ezek. xiv. 14, 20. 
 
126 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 and the Divine Goodness of which they were the subjects, 
 were brought before God as of value in the present — "O Lord 
 God, turn not away the face of Thine anointed : remember 
 the mercies of David Thy servant." 1 At all times it has 
 been felt, that those who are near to God by holiness or 
 office, have some special grounds of acceptance with Him : 
 this feeling prompted the Israelites to ask Samuel " to cry 
 unto the Lord" 2 for them, and Saul likewise ; and Simon in 
 like manner besought S. Peter — " pray ye to the Lord for 
 me." 3 Thus, Divine revelation and human instinct alike 
 bear witness to the truth, that God's favour is towards 
 His Saints. 
 
 And if on earth, holiness is a power with God, we may 
 conclude that the prayers of the Saints who are before the 
 Throne have still greater efficacy. The Saints need them 
 no longer for themselves, so that there can be no division 
 of interests or conflict of duties as in the case of those 
 who are still in a state of probation and uncertainty ; they 
 can pray too with the fulness of illumination, for "in 
 Thy light we shall see light," whilst here we are often in 
 error ; they can pray, too, with a fulness of charity such as 
 is found only in Heaven ; they can pray with an eagerness 
 of zeal which the attainment of the vision excites, as they 
 see what to us is an object of faith — "ye shall tell my 
 father," says Joseph, " of all my glory . . . and of all that 
 ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father 
 
 1 2 Chron. vi. 42. 2 1 Sam. vii. 8. 3 Acts viii. 24. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 127 
 
 hither f l they can pray with a higher union in a state of 
 glory, when the last remnant of corruption has been re- 
 moved, "for they are without fault before the Throne of 
 God." 2 As the Psalmist looks up to the myriad hosts of 
 pure and blessed spirits, when he would fain exalt his God 
 more worthily, and bids them supplement his feeble efforts 
 with their more vigorous faculties — " praise the Lord, ye 
 angels of His, ye that excel in strength ;" 3 so we, if we would 
 see prayer in its highest exercise, in the climax of its po- 
 tency, must look for it in the Courts above — to those who 
 by nearness to God can touch more closely, and, as it were, 
 move the Divine Heart by their petitions. 
 
 In estimating the effect of the condition of the suppli- 
 cant upon the efficacy of the petition which he offers to 
 God, we have as yet been looking up ; we have seen that 
 a state of grace is a ground of acceptance, and the higher 
 that state is, the higher in proportion is the potency of the 
 prayer ; but now we must also look down for a moment, to see 
 how those in a state of sin are also heard, when they pray. 
 
 There are limits to be carefully assigned to that say- 
 ing to which we have already adverted, " God heareth 
 not sinners." 4 The first is that by " sinners" we must un- 
 derstand, those who at the time of praying are bent on evil, 
 and are hardening their hearts against the impressions »f 
 Divine grace. For in the deepest gloom of a soul which has 
 given itself up to a life of sin, and has enveloped itself with 
 1 Gen. xlv. 13. 2 Rev. xiv. 5. 3 Ps. ciii. 20. 4 S. John ix. 31. 
 
128 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 a darkness which may be felt, there are momentary corus- 
 cations of Divine light — as a gleam of sunshine is sometimes 
 seen to find its way through the dense and murky clouds 
 which have long hung over some city, or light up for a moment 
 some remote corner which we had thought inaccessible to 
 its rays ; and if that soul respond for the time to that illu- 
 mination of grace, and send up some pious thought or desire 
 to the distant Heaven, though without any intention of 
 giving up sin, yet that prayer may be heard, and detached 
 from the taint of its earthly origin, may find acceptance, and 
 gain an answer, through His Infinite Mercy who " maketh 
 His sun to rise on the evil and on the good." 1 Again, 
 " sinners" are heard, when they pray to God officially, when 
 they are the appointed ministers of His Church, and offer up 
 to God the prayers which they recite in the name of the con- 
 gregation. As it is said of " evil ministers," " in the ministra- 
 tion of the word and Sacraments," " the effect of Christ's 
 ordinance is not taken away by their wickedness ;" 2 so the 
 efficacy of their prayers, as far as others are concerned, is 
 not destroyed by the fact that they are unworthy of their 
 sacred office, and approach God in a state of sin. By 
 " sinners" too, must be intended those who are in a con- 
 scious state of enmity against God, and not those who 
 from some latent fault or defect of repentance of which 
 they are not aware, are not in His friendship. But by far 
 the most important limitation to the assertion, " God heareth 
 1 S. Matt. vi. 45. 2 Article xxvi. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 129 
 
 not sinners," remains to be noticed, — it is that God heareth 
 sinners when they turn to Him, though from the lowest 
 depths of sin ; if there is a moment, we may be sure, when 
 the Divine attention is, so to speak, arrested, when angels 
 gaze down in breathless interest, it is when the cry goes up 
 from some sin-stricken soul — "God be merciful to me a 
 sinner." 1 Amid the din of angry voices, amid reproaches 
 and revilings on Calvary, the ear of Jesus caught the ac- 
 cents of the prayer of the dying criminal — " Lord, remember 
 me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." 2 In one respect, 
 such prayers are heard in preference to the petitions of the 
 highest Saint, for they mark the birth-pang of a soul ; the 
 cry for mercy may be, but the day of small things as far as 
 the spiritual life is concerned, as birth is in the natural life, 
 but whatever may be the after-developments, it differs in 
 kind from them, it belongs to the sphere of the creative ; and 
 thus in the first burst of a genuine contrition, there is, we 
 are told, a movement of joy amongst the choirs above, nay, 
 in the heart also of the Good Shepherd Himself, and by 
 his acceptance of that cry and quick response to it, He rele- 
 gates the hard-sounding utterance we are considering to 
 its proper sphere of wilfulness and obduracy, and fulfils His 
 own promise — " him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise 
 cast out." 3 
 
 We have now considered the state of the person who 
 
 1 S. Luke xviii. 13. 2 S. Luke xxiii. 42. 
 
 3 S. John vi. 37. 
 
130 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 prays, in its bearing on the prayer which he offers ; and have 
 traced how grace on the one hand, and sin on the other, in 
 the supplicant, affects the efficacy of his petitions. It re- 
 mains for us to see what is requisite in the act itself of 
 praying, for its due performance; so that in this respect 
 we may not " ask and receive not," because we " ask amiss." 
 
 III. There are certain conditions which ought to accom- 
 pany the act of praying, in order to ensure success. Prayer 
 is a momentous action, and must therefore be performed in 
 a becoming manner ; and a defect in this respect, though 
 the thing prayed for be right, and the soul that prayed in 
 a state of grace — may hinder the accomplishment of its pe- 
 titions. As in the reception of the Holy Eucharist, it does 
 not suffice, that the soul be in a state of grace, but it is 
 also of importance that certain dispositions should be ac- 
 tively excited as a preparation for the sacred Gift, without 
 which its full benefit cannot be realised ; so, in the act of 
 praying, whatever may be the habitual state of the peti- 
 tioner, it is necessary that at the time it should be accom- 
 panied with the exercise of those virtues which render it 
 acceptable to God. The first of these is faith. 
 
 The dispositions which are required in prayer are illus- 
 trated by the virtues which Christ demanded, or formed, 
 in those who approached Him in order to gain from Him 
 some benefit, during His Public Ministry. A belief that 
 He could do what He was asked, was an essential for the 
 performance of a miracle — " Believe ye that I am able to do 
 
Conditions of Prater. 131 
 
 this P" 1 is the question which goes before the act of power. 
 When the father of the lunatic child put the condition in 
 the wrong place — " if Thou canst do any thing, have com- 
 passion on us and help us/' Jesus corrected his error and 
 said — " if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him 
 that believeth." 2 The absence of faith hindered the out- 
 goings of Divine power — " He did not many mighty works 
 there because of their unbelief." 3 Faith, where it was pos- 
 sible, was an indispensable condition, in those who asked 
 for a miracle. In like manner in order to secure the results 
 of prayer, the same virtue is called into demand — " all 
 things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall 
 receive." 4 " What things soever ye desire when ye "pray, believe 
 that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." 5 So S. James 
 makes faith the condition — " let him ask in faith, nothing 
 wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea . . . 
 let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the 
 Lord." 6 " If faith fails," says S. Augustine, " prayer perishes." 
 It must be observed, that the faith which should accom- 
 pany an act of prayer, is of a special kind ; it does not con- 
 sist in the acknowledgment of the Unseen, or in the accept- 
 ance of Revealed Truth generally, but has direct reference 
 to the Promises of God which concern prayer. To " waver" 
 is to entertain some doubt as to the efficacy of prayer ; to 
 pray with faith, is to believe in its power. Yet it must not 
 
 1 S. Matt. ix. 28. 2 S. Mark ix. 23. 3 S# Ma tt. xiii. 58. 
 
 4 S. Matt. xxi. 22. 5 S. Mark xi. 23. 6 S. James i. 6, 7. 
 
132 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 be supposed, that in order to pray acceptably, we must 
 always feel quite certain of obtaining our requests ; we must 
 feel quite certain that as far as God is concerned, He has 
 the power to hear and answer prayer, and that He uses it 
 as an instrument of His Providence, but in temporal things 
 at least, the bestowal of what we ask may not be expedient 
 for us, and therefore absolute certainty of gaining it cannot 
 be entertained. We may pray with a full faith in the power 
 of prayer, and yet not know whether our petition will be 
 granted ; we can find instances of such tentative prayers in 
 Holy Scripture. When David fasted and prayed for his 
 child — "who can tell," says he, "whether God will be 
 gracious to me, that the child may live P" 1 So again, when 
 the Ninevites cried "mightily to God," they said, "who 
 can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from 
 His fierce anger ?" 3 And God heard that prayer. The faith 
 which realises the Divine Power and Goodness is also 
 ready to leave itself in the hands of Divine Wisdom ; it 
 retains its hold on the Promise of God, though the answer 
 to prayer may take a different shape from that which was 
 desired; it beholds the Divine Perfections not only in 
 themselves, but in relation to this Promise, and sees the 
 Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God set in motion, so to 
 speak, by prayer, and occupied in answering it. It is this 
 faith in the Divine Promise made to prayer, which is the 
 prime disposition for praying aright, but a faith which, be it 
 1 2 Sam. xii. 22. 2 Jonah iii. 9. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 133 
 
 remembered, takes in also the conditional nature of that 
 promise, for it is only " if we ask anything according to His 
 will, He heareth us." 1 
 
 Another disposition for praying aright, and one which 
 touches so closely on the first as to render its separate 
 treatment a difficulty, is to be found in the exercise of 
 hope. Faith and hope are very different virtues in them- 
 selves ; but when faith is occupied in laying hold of God's 
 Fidelity to His Promises — and this is its employment in the 
 act of praying — it touches very closely on the province of 
 hope. However, hope contributes something over and 
 above that, which faith gives to the efficacy of our petitions • 
 for Christ not only demanded faith, but evidently tried to 
 inspire those who came to Him for the purpose of gaining 
 some miraculous blessing, with hope and confidence. When 
 the palsied man was brought into His presence, He ex- 
 horted him to "be of good cheer," 2 to "have confidence." 
 Christ willed that the sufferer should hope for himself, that 
 the boon which others sought for him would be granted. 
 Again, when the ruler besought Christ to come down and 
 lay His hand upon his daughter, Christ by His Providence 
 had arranged that the woman with an issue of blood should 
 touch His garment and be healed on the road to the ruler's 
 house, thereby arousing in the latter, confidence that the 
 same mighty power would be exerted in his behalf. 
 
 It was this confidence which was tested and displayed 
 1 1 S. John v. 14. 2 S. Matt. ix. 2. 
 
134 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 by the hindrances which sometimes had to be surmounted, 
 before Christ could be reached or His help obtained; it 
 was manifested by the blind man who, when the disciples 
 rebuked him that he should hold his peace, cried so much 
 the more ; it was manifested by the friends of the palsied 
 man, who overcame the material obstacle which was in 
 their path, and " let" the sufferer " down through the tiling" 
 which was "upon the housetop;" 1 it was manifested by the 
 Canaanite mother, whose confidence enabled her to triumph 
 over what seemed to be rebuffs from Jesus Himself. 
 
 And in these approaches to Christ on earth, we have 
 an image of the affections which should be stirred when we 
 approach God in prayer now; we must "therefore come 
 boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, 
 and find grace to help in time of need ;" 2 we must, like the 
 father of the faithful, '"'against hope" believe "in hope;" 3 
 and this trust is a special homage to the Divine Goodness, 
 which has itself a promise appertaining to it — "they that 
 trust in Thee, shall never be confounded." 
 
 The fact that hope is required besides faith, may be con- 
 cluded from the nature of prayer itself, for "prayer is the 
 voice of hope." It would be unreasonable to imagine that 
 a prayer could be offered to God for something, when the 
 soul utterly despaired of receiving any answer to it ; yet we 
 can conceive of a soul having a full belief in the Divine 
 Promise made to prayer, though destitute in a particular 
 
 1 S. Luke v. 19. 2 Heb. iv. 16. 3 Rom. v. 18. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 
 
 J 35 
 
 instance of any hope of laying hold of and of appropriating 
 that Promise. There is a difference then, between faith and 
 hope — though they blend in one object — in that they can be 
 distinguished, when viewed in reference to the nature of 
 man : for by the one, we have a clear mental realization of the 
 Promise ; by the other, we apply that truth to our needs, 
 make it our own, and stimulate the will to respond to it. 
 And though strength of hope ought naturally to follow upon 
 firmness of faith, yet we know how conviction and action, 
 mind and will, are liable to be divorced. Prayer then must 
 be sustained by hope ; we must not unduly dwell either 
 upon the magnitude of the thing asked, or the unlikelihood 
 of its bestowal, or our unworthiness to receive it, but rather 
 turn to the Merits of our Mediator, " in whom," S. Paul 
 says, " we have boldness and access with confidence by the 
 faith of Him;" 1 and to the Fatherhood of God, as our 
 Lord Himself, in the prayer which He has given us, has 
 directed, that this second disposition for praying acceptably 
 may be elicited and sustained. 
 
 But this confidence must be flanked by another virtue, 
 to hinder it from excess. Though it be true, that "the 
 prayer of the timid does not reach the heavens," it is also 
 to be remembered that the prayer of the presumptuous only 
 reaches Heaven to be beaten back to earth. Confidence 
 must be held in check by lowliness. Thus — to go back 
 again to the Public Ministry of Christ — those who came to 
 1 Eph. iii. 12. 
 
136 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 Christ for benefits, humbled themselves in His sight when 
 they sought them ; the leper came " and worshipped Him f 1 
 the woman of Canaan came " and worshipped Him ;" 2 
 Jairus " fell at His feet ;" 3 the Samaritan "fell down on his 
 face at His feet.'' 4 The image of acceptable prayer, which 
 Christ Himself depicted in the parable, was of one who 
 " standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes 
 unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be 
 merciful to me a sinner." 5 Christ sought to create humi- 
 lity where it was wanting, or to perfect and display it in 
 those who were strong in it; He reminds the woman of 
 Samaria of her sin, to bring her to herself and humble her ; 
 He rejected the Syrophcenician woman with those crushing 
 words, "it is not meet to take the children's bread and to 
 cast it to dogs," 6 knowing the wealth of virtue which would 
 be laid open by her ready acceptance of the humiliating 
 title. And nature itself teaches us, that the proper posture 
 of one who craves mercy or forgiveness is that of humility, 
 and how inconsistent it would be to exhibit pride when 
 asking for a gift. In presenting our requests even before 
 earthly monarchs, we should come into their presence with 
 every mark of homage and subjection; and if such feeling 
 and behaviour be right when we supplicate the kings of 
 earth, what self-humiliation should accompany our approach 
 
 1 S. Matt. viii. 2. 2 S. Matt. xv. 25. 
 
 3 S. Mark v. 22. 4 S. Luke xvii. 16. 
 
 5 S. Luke xviii. 13. 6 S. Matt. xv. 26. 
 
Conditions of Prayer. 137 
 
 to Him " who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King 
 of kings, and Lord of lords I" 1 
 
 And lowliness should be a virtue, which should not only 
 be present as a habit in the soul, but be in action, whilst we 
 offer our petitions to the Most High. It should be called 
 out by the consideration, on the one side, of the Majesty of 
 Him whom we address ; and on the other, by the thought of 
 our own nothingness in His sight, of our natural corruption, 
 of our personal sins and shortcomings, and of our utter 
 dependence upon His support both in the natural and 
 supernatural life. Its exercise is an important contribution 
 to the power of prayer, and invests it with a sort of at- 
 tractiveness in the sight of God. We are repeatedly told, 
 how this grace draws Him to listen to and to answer prayer 
 — " He forgetteth not the cry of the humble" 2 — " Lord, 
 Thou hast heard the desire of the humble ; Thou wilt pre- 
 pare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear" 3 — 
 " While the King sitteth at His table," the " spikenard" 4 of 
 lowliness rises up to Him with delightful fragrance. Both 
 S. James and S. Peter remind us that God "giveth grace 
 unto the humble." 5 And God Himself by the prophet has 
 described the kind of person He will regard — " to that man 
 will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, 
 and trembleth at My word." 6 
 
 1 1 Tim. vi. 15. 2 Ps. ix. 12. 3 Ps. x. 17. 
 
 4 Song of Solomon i. 12 ; S. Luke vii. 37. 
 
 5 S. James iv. 6 ; 1 S. Pet. v. 5. 6 Isa. lxvi. 2. 
 
138 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 There is but one disposition more which is necessary, if 
 we would secure the whole force of prayer — for attention in 
 prayer will be more fitly considered when we come to treat 
 of "vocal prayer" — and that is, perseverance. The dis- 
 positions which have been hitherto taken into account, 
 faith, hope, lowliness, belong to the act itself of prayer; 
 perseverance concerns the continuation or repetition of that 
 act. For the importance of this virtue in praying, we shall 
 again refer to Christ's words and acts. The precept of 
 prayer is framed in language which denotes both the re- 
 iteration of the same desire, and that with increasing earnest- 
 ness — "Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
 find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Christ in 
 the parables of " the friend at midnight," and of " the unjust 
 judge," distinctly attributes success in prayer to the "im- 
 portunity" 1 of the supplicant. Again, by His acts, He 
 teaches us to continue " instant in prayer," 2 for He Himself 
 continued whole nights in prayer to God ; 3 and in His 
 Agony, He again and again returned to the struggle, pray- 
 ing " more earnestly," and " the third time, saying the same 
 words." 4 Likewise, in dealing with those who came to 
 Him for blessings, He sometimes delayed to be gracious, 
 in order that the petitioner might exercise perseverance in 
 seeking Him. This was signally the case with the woman 
 of Canaan, in whose supplication some 5 have found an 
 
 1 S. Luke xi. 8 ; xviii. 5. 2 Rom. xii. 12. 3 S. Luke vi. 12. 
 
 4 S. Matt. xxvi. 44. 5 Bourdaloue and Massillon. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 139 
 
 example of all the dispositions which are required for pray- 
 ing successfully ; time after time was her petition rejected, 
 and herself almost scorned, yet in the end she won, and 
 — by the delay the very power of prayer was the more 
 manifest. 
 
 God promises to answer prayer, but He does not bind 
 Himself to answer it at the time we think best. There are 
 reasons for delay, some doubtless inscrutable, but others 
 which are in some degree within the reach of our compre- 
 hension ; delay may be occasioned by the fact that our 
 dispositions need to be ripened before, according to the 
 Divine Providence, an answer to prayer can be granted ; 
 or, again, another time may be better for us to receive the 
 benefit for which we have besought God ; or, again, some 
 past sin may for a while suspend the Divine favours, or 
 make them more difficult of attainment, as a needful dis- 
 cipline ; or, the delay may be for the purpose of heightening 
 our sense of the benefit, when granted. If the only object 
 of prayer were the bestowal of the things sought, then we 
 might have expected that the process of seeking them would 
 not be unnecessarily protracted ; but when we bear in mind 
 that, beside the answer, God has in view, perhaps as the 
 deeper reason of prayer, the transforming effect upon the 
 creature of contact with Himself, we may not be surprised 
 when, by the postponement of answers to prayer, He makes 
 that intercourse with Himself more continuous and so more 
 productive. 
 
140 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 Moreover, the struggle itself in perseveringly pressing 
 upon God our petitions, is lucrative in several ways ; it lays 
 up store above, where patient faithfulness is not unre- 
 warded ; it has a sanctifying effect, for the inner life grows 
 through the exercise of those virtues which prayer calls into 
 operation. When Jacob wrestled with the angel and pre- 
 vailed — when he seemed to hold the messenger of Heaven 
 unwillingly in his grasp, until he wrung from him a blessing 
 — Jacob's name was changed to Israel, "for as a prince" 
 had he " power with God and with men, and prevailed ;" x 
 the change of name betokened an advance of spiritual life, 
 in consequence of the struggle. And a third effect of perse- 
 vering and finally successful petition, is to be found in the 
 witness it bears to the power of prayer — to ourselves, and 
 if known, to others also — for, as in seeking any thing from 
 one another, it is not in that which is given at once, that 
 we find an evidence of the power of our solicitation, but in 
 that which has been again and again refused, and at last is, 
 as it were, almost extorted from another; so when God 
 grants our requests, after He has long refused to do so, we 
 seem to conquer Him by our entreaties, and thereby the 
 potency of prayer is conspicuously manifested. God " wills 
 to be forced," to quote again S. Gregory's words, "wills by 
 a certain importunity to be conquered, for we are told, 
 ' the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
 take it by force.'" 
 
 1 Gen. xxxii. 28. 
 
Conditions of Prater. 141 
 
 Many an answer to prayer, is lost through the lack of this 
 disposition of perseverance ; and there may be not only loss 
 but sometimes even sin, in soon giving up prayer when the 
 petition is not granted ; when, for instance, we abandon it 
 in a spirit of impatience, distrust, or rebellion. We must, 
 then, if we would avoid this danger, pray " always with all 
 prayer and supplication in the Spirit," and, as S. Paul adds, 
 watch " thereunto with all perseverance," 1 or, as he ex- 
 presses it in another Epistle, " continue in prayer ;" 2 and we 
 should also bear in mind, that perseverance in prayer ensures 
 those other effects which have been referred to, and is there- 
 fore on many grounds important in the spiritual life. 
 
 The conditions of prayer have now been considered, as 
 they relate to the thing prayed for, the person praying, and 
 the act of prayer itself. We have seen how it is possible 
 in each respect to "ask and receive not because" we "ask 
 amiss" — how the postponement of the eternal to the tem- 
 poral, or the evilness or falseness of the thing sought, may 
 hinder the action of prayer ; how evil allowed in the heart 
 of the petitioner may incapacitate him for laying hold of 
 this spiritual force, and so rob prayer of its power; and 
 thirdly, how a fault may attach to the act of praying, and so 
 its results be impaired or forfeited by the feebleness of our 
 endeavours. 
 
 With regard to the thing asked, we learn the great im- 
 portance of giving priority to spiritual interests in our 
 1 Eph. vi. 18. 2 Col. iv. 2. 
 
142 Conditions of Prater. 
 
 prayers, and the necessity of praying with conformity of 
 will, especially when temporal goods are sought ; but in all, 
 we must seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for He 
 " helpeth our infirmities," and without His assistance, " we 
 know not what we should pray for as we ought." Further, 
 as the power of prayer depends also on the state of the 
 petitioner — unrepented sin and the allowance of bad pas- 
 sions, on the one hand, hindering or quenching it ; and, on 
 the other, the presence of holiness heightening it — our failure 
 in prayer may flow from the general failure of our spiritual 
 life, and therefore be a call to us seriously to examine our- 
 selves in order to correct, with the help of God's grace, 
 what is at fault, and to supply what is lacking ; whilst the 
 knowledge that the success of prayer depends on growth in 
 holiness, may provide an additional motive for its cultiva- 
 tion. And lastly, the dispositions which are required in 
 praying, teach us the momentousness of the act itself, and 
 the need of keeping those virtues bright, burnished, and 
 ready for use, which enrich our supplications. 
 
 It may appear from this survey of the ' conditions of 
 prayer,' that they are so various and so many as to make it 
 difficult not to "pray amiss." But it must be observed, 
 that we have traced this power of prayer from the lowest 
 to the highest degree of its operation, from the cry of the 
 sinner to the intercession of the glorified saint, and have not 
 only dwelt on what was requisite in order to avoid praying 
 amiss or to no purpose, but also have considered the states 
 
Conditions of Prater. 143 
 
 and affections which add potency to prayer, and go to make 
 up its ideal exercise. We have dwelt with prayer as with 
 any natural force — seen how it acts both in the most un- 
 favourable and in the most favourable circumstances. And, 
 moreover, the anatomy of a spiritual act in all its bearings, 
 will of necessity cause it to wear a complex appearance ; 
 though the act itself may in its living exercise be most 
 simple, and attended with no embarrassment on account 
 of the many sources of its strength. The matter may be 
 summed up in few words — if we turn from sin and seek 
 God, if we turn from earth and seek Heaven, if in prayer 
 we exert all our spiritual energies, we shall be heard ; and 
 we shall have no cause to join in the lament of the soul in 
 captivity — " When I cry and shout, He shutteth out my 
 prayer," 1 — but shall be able from our own experience to 
 bear witness to the power of prayer — and each one will then 
 make those words of humble rejoicing his own — " God hath 
 heard me ; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 
 Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, 
 nor His mercy from me." 2 
 
 1 Lam. iii. 8. 2 Ps. lxvi. 19, 20. 
 
lecture ©♦ 
 
 MENTAL PRAYER. 
 
 tl Let the words of my month, and the meditation of my heart, be ac- 
 ceptable in Thy sight, Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." — 
 Ps. xix. 14. 
 
 "\ 1 7"E have been solely occupied in the third and fourth 
 Lectures with that species of prayer which is termed 
 petition ; noticing the authority for it, the objections against 
 it, and the conditions which are requisite for its efficacy. 
 We described it as one of the four kinds of prayer, when 
 prayer is distinguished by the purposes for which the soul 
 approaches God ; viz., to praise Him, to thank Him, to 
 propitiate Him, or to invoke His help. But although 
 ' petition' is thus represented as only a fourth part of prayer, 
 it has an importance of its own beyond the rest, and there- 
 fore it only is added to the formal definition of prayer. 1 
 Praise, thanksgiving, deprecation of Divine wrath, are 
 devotional acts which are concluded between the soul 
 and God; petition is something more than the elevation 
 of an affection of the soul to God, it touches the secret 
 1 P. 19. 
 
Mental Prayer. 145 
 
 springs of causation and acts upon the spiritual and material 
 world — God thereby appropriating human desires, and taking 
 them into account in the administration of His Providence 
 — and therefore we have devoted so large a space to the 
 consideration of this kind of prayer. Moreover, in vin- 
 dicating petition, we are indirectly doing a service to the 
 other kinds of prayer; for, to harmonize the Divine Mind 
 and Will with it, is to present the Perfections of God to the 
 soul as the worthiest object of praise ; to find scope for it 
 amid the unvarying laws of nature, is to maintain the 
 doctrine of Divine Freedom, without which the very notion 
 of gratitude is impossible, and propitiation, fruitless. 
 
 We now pass to another division of prayer : that which 
 we have referred to, depends upon the motive of the soul 
 in drawing near to God ; this, upon the manner of the 
 act of prayer itself. The Psalmist, having prayed that 
 he might be cleansed from sin, and " innocent from the 
 great transgression," proceeds further to desire that he may 
 become pleasing to God — " Let the words of my mouth, 
 and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy 
 sight." In these words he provides us with the main 
 division of prayer, based on the organ or faculty which 
 is employed in it : by " the words of my mouth," vocal 
 prayer is suggested ; by " the meditation of my heart," 
 mental prayer is described. Mental Prayer is transacted 
 entirely within the soul ; vocal Prayer is that which employs 
 the ministry of the tongue, or in some other way finds 
 
 L 
 
146 Mental Prater. 
 
 expression. In considering these kinds of prayer, I shall 
 reverse the order of the Psalmist, and take internal prayer 
 first, both on account of its importance as the soul of all 
 prayer, and also as it is the first in the order of production, 
 for " out of the abundance of the heart" the " mouth 
 speaketh f 1 on the other hand, the order of the Psalmist 
 is that of acquirement and attainment, we learn in child- 
 hood first to say prayers, afterwards to think them, and 
 we govern our words as a step towards the healing of " the 
 inward parts." All prayer is either mental or vocal : the 
 former includes meditation and contemplation; the latter 
 embraces vocal, public, and intercessory prayer ; it remains 
 for us to consider each of these kinds of prayer as they 
 fall under this principal division. 
 
 First, we will deal with the practice of Meditation, the 
 authority for it, the dignity and importance of it, and the 
 acts or parts of which it is composed ; secondly, we will 
 briefly regard contemplative prayer ; and lastly, we will 
 examine a difficulty which is often experienced in the per- 
 formance of these devotions. 
 
 I. If we examine the Holy Scriptures, and the writings 
 of the Saints, we shall find authority for the practice of 
 Meditation. We will look at the successive Revelations of 
 God, as we did when we were dealing with the prayer of 
 Petition, for instances and enforcement of mental prayer. 
 It must not, however, be expected that references to Medi- 
 
 1 S. Luke vi. 75. 
 
Mental Prayer. 147 
 
 tation will be as frequent and direct as they were in the 
 case of Petition ; for the latter is a matter of obligation, 
 the former of devotion — the latter that which touches upon 
 the outer world, the former that which is transacted in the 
 world within. 
 
 And first we will turn to the Old Testament. In the 
 Patriarchal period, such expressions as "Enoch walked 
 with God," 1 " Noah walked with God," 3 or God's command 
 to Abram, " walk before Me, and be thou perfect," 3 may 
 be taken as involving a habit of mental prayer, but it is 
 in the history of Isaac we first find meditation spoken of. 
 " Isaac," we are told, " went out to meditate in the field 
 at eventide." 4 He " went out" so as to be alone, and 
 "in the field" amid the objects of nature, and "at even- 
 tide" when the heat and toil of the day were past, and 
 the time itself was calculated to foster a pensive mood of 
 soul. And here it may be observed, that the language 
 of the Jews is rich in words which depict this inner process 
 of the mind — meditation. The word employed in the 
 verse which has been quoted, signifies " to produce or 
 bring forth," 5 and in its literal sense refers to the bud- 
 ding of plants, whilst the word " the meditation^ of my 
 heart" rather portrays the act of communing with oneself. 
 Isaac, then, went forth to meditate — to evolve thoughts 
 
 1 Gen. v. 24. 2 Gen. vi. 9. 
 
 3 Gen. xvii. 1. 4 Gen. xxiv. 63. 
 
 3 Gesen. Lex., 788. 6 Gesen. Lex., 215. 
 
148 Mental Prayer. 
 
 and affections from his inner being, as the shoot or sprout 
 is developed out of the parent stem. No term could more 
 aptly picture the process of meditation, by which the mind 
 under the action of Divine grace, becomes a germinating 
 principle; and thoughts, affections, and resolves, are its 
 buds, flowers, and fruit. 
 
 When we pass from the simplicity of Patriarchal devotion 
 to the complex system of the Jews, we find meditation 
 enjoined, and the subject of it appointed. Moses thus 
 bade the people to consider the law, " set your hearts unto 
 all the words which I testify among you;" 1 Joshua, after 
 the death of the law-giver, gives the same exhortation, 
 " thou shalt meditate" in the book of the law " day and 
 night ;" 2 and we find the Psalmist's ideal of the righteous 
 man, includes obedience to this precept as a primary feature 
 — " His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law 
 doth he meditate day and night." 3 Meditation is a term 
 frequently in the mouth of the Psalmist — " Consider my 
 meditation" 4 — " let the meditation of my heart be accept- 
 able in Thy sight" — " I will meditate also of all Thy work 
 and I will meditate of Thy doings," 5 — a verse which contains 
 two different words for meditating. 
 
 In the N'ew Testament, meditation either as an act or 
 a disposition of mind occupies a prominent place. The 
 
 1 Deut. xxxii. 46. 2 Josh. i. 8. 
 
 3 Ps. i. 2. 4 Ps. v. 1. 
 
 5 Ps. lxxvii. 12. 
 
Mental Prater. 149 
 
 Holy Spirit, through the Evangelist S. Luke, reveals to 
 us how the Blessed Virgin stored up within her mind as 
 a precious treasure the events of the Infancy of Christ. 
 Very little is told us of Mary, but this is told us twice 1 — 
 " But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in 
 her heart." And again, after new Mysteries had been 
 added, " but His mother kept all these sayings in her heart." 
 It was the Blessed Virgin and S. John — those who were 
 alike marked by this meditative disposition, who were found 
 at the foot of the Cross, gazing in silence on the Bleeding 
 Form, when others who had pondered less upon Divine 
 Truth, could not persevere unto the end — "Jesus, there- 
 fore, saw His mother and the disciple standing by, whom 
 He loved." 2 The habit of meditation is a ground of 
 perseverance, because of the power which it gives to pierce 
 through the appearance and to lay hold of the Reality ; 
 for endurance results from " seeing Him Who is Invisible." 3 
 Christ Himself affords an example of this kind of prayer ; 
 in those long prayers when He spent all the night on 
 the mountain-top, or when He withdrew into the desert, 
 or into the garden where He " ofttimes resorted," 4 we may 
 conclude that He was engaged not only in repeated petition 
 and intercession, but that during those periods He was 
 holding communion with the Father and exercising the 
 powers of His Human Soul in that intercourse. The 
 
 1 S. Luke ii. 19, 51. 2 S. John xix. 28. 
 
 3 Heb. xi. 27. 4 S. John xviiu 2. 
 
150 Mental Prater. 
 
 words, " He went up into a mountain apart to pray/' 1 have 
 been invariably understood to refer to mental prayer ; and 
 it may be remarked, that the term employed for prayer 
 both here and in the Gospel of S. Luke, where that Evan- 
 gelist says, Christ " went out into a mountain to pray and 
 continued all night in prayer to God," 2 is not that used 
 for petition, but that which is employed to denote prayer in 
 general. That our Lord commended the habit of medita- 
 tion, and preferred the mind which was of a contemplative 
 cast to that which was restless and spent itself in over- 
 activity, may be gathered from the approval which He 
 gave to Mary and the rebuke with which He visited the 
 anxiety of Martha ; the one who " sat at Jesus' feet, and 
 heard His word," 3 was said to have chosen the better part 
 and that which should not hereafter be taken from her. 
 And when in the Sermon on the Mount, a reward is pro- 
 mised to prayer, it was evidently something more than 
 petition which was intended by that secret converse with 
 the Father, to which Christ alluded. 
 
 The Apostles again, by word and example, would lead us 
 to regard prayer in this extended sense. Of them, we are 
 told, that, after the Ascension — when they were waiting for 
 the Coming of the Holy Ghost — they " continued" " in 
 prayer and supplication ;" 4 " prayer" again here is a general 
 term, and stands for all approach to God, whilst " supplica- 
 
 1 S. Matt. xiv. 23. 2 S. Luke vi. 12, " iv t?? 7rpo<rei>x??. " 
 
 3 S. Luke x. 39. 4 Acts i. 14. 
 
Mental Prater. 151 
 
 tion" refers to petition. 1 And S. Luke in another place 
 describes them as occupied during that period in " praising 
 and blessing God." 2 We may gather from these passages, 
 that the Apostles spent the interval between the departure 
 of the Second Person of the Deity and the arrival of the 
 Third, in a sort of retreat, giving themselves up to spiritual 
 exercises as a preparation for the reception of the Guest, 
 Whose Coming had been promised to them. S. Paul's 
 sojourn in Arabia 3 after his conversion was probably passed 
 in a similar manner, "in religious meditation" before en- 
 tering on his active ministry. When the same Apostle was 
 giving advice to Timothy as to doctrine and practice, he 
 bids him "meditate on these things" 4 — exercise thy mind 
 upon them — " that thy profiting may appear to all." 
 Perhaps also the remarkable expression of S. Jude, "pray- 
 ing in the Holy Ghost," 5 may be interpreted of mental 
 prayer. 
 
 In the writings of the Saints, again, we have constant 
 reference to the practice of meditation. S. Ambrose bids 
 us " exercise ourselves in meditation before conflict that 
 we may be prepared for it," and in a striking passage, de- 
 scribes the nutritive effects of meditation ; he says, " we 
 
 1 The first term denotes "prayer" in general, precatio ; the second, 
 "a special character or form of it, 'petition,' rogatio." Bp. Ellicott on 
 Eph. vi. 18, also I Tim. ii. I. But " /ecu 777 Severn" i s nere omitted in 
 the most ancient MSS. 
 
 2 S. Luke xxiv. 53. 3 Gal. i. 17, 18. 
 4 1 Tim. iv. 15. 5 S. Jude 20. 
 
152 Mental Prater. 
 
 ought for a long while to bruise and refine the utterances 
 of the heavenly Scriptures, exerting our whole mind and 
 heart upon them, that the sap of that spiritual food may 
 diffuse itself into all the veins of our soul, &C." 1 S. Augus- 
 tine, in words which we shall have occasion to quote again, 
 enumerates the steps which lead ilp to " prayer," — " medi- 
 tation begets knowledge, knowledge compunction, com- 
 punction devotion, and devotion perfects prayer." 2 S. Basil 
 enjoins mental prayer, as a means of exercising the faculties 
 of the soul. S. Gregory mentions the morning as a fitting 
 time for meditation ; he says, " as the morning is the first 
 part of the day, each of the faithful ought at that moment 
 to lay aside all thoughts of this present life, in order to 
 reflect upon the means of rekindling the fire of charity." 
 So again, " as God is not on the surface, they apply them- 
 selves to meditation, they examine at the root their own 
 thoughts .... they cease not by all means to search for 
 God, and burn with the desire of knowing more and more 
 of Him." S. Bernard represents meditation and prayer as 
 the two feet of the soul, by which it ascends ; the one 
 showing its needs, the other turning to God for their satis- 
 faction. S. Theresa describes meditation as "a thing es- 
 sential to Christian life." 3 
 
 It is not of course intended, that by these references to 
 
 1 De Abel et Cain, lib. ii. c. vi. 
 
 2 Lib. de Spir. et anima, c. 50. 
 
 3 Via Perf. c. 16. 
 
Mental Prater. 153 
 
 interior prayer, both in the Holy Scriptures and the writings 
 of the Saints, the particular mould into which meditation 
 has been usually cast since the sixteenth century is autho- 
 rised ; except in so far as that was only an anatomy of what 
 must have always existed implicitly — the unfolding in an 
 orderly manner of that which had hitherto been done with- 
 out conscious method, for it is based upon the constitution 
 of the human soul. S. Ignatius did for this practice, what 
 the schoolmen did for patristic doctrine, he systematized it. 
 We are not now referring to "the Spiritual Exercises" 
 themselves — wonderful enough, as they are, to favour the 
 tradition as to the way the Saint drew his inspiration — but 
 to the method which is usually associated with his name ; 
 and with regard to this, it must be borne in mind, that 
 meditation, whatever may be its special form, in its essence 
 remains the same, viz. the exercise of the powers of the 
 soul upon Divine Truth in the Presence of God, and for 
 this — the inferences which have been drawn from Scripture, 
 and the quotations which have been made, supply a true 
 basis of authority. 
 
 Our next step will be to point out the dignity and im- 
 portance of this kind of prayer : its dignity will be found 
 in its nature ; its importance will be seen from its results. 
 Its dignity is at once proclaimed by the fact that meditation 
 is converse with God, and converse too, of a close and 
 intimate order. Meditation is not satisfied with appearing 
 before God as a supplicant, offering for a minute or two a 
 
154 Mental Prater. 
 
 request, and then withdrawing from His immediate Pre- 
 sence ; neither is it content with speaking to Him only in 
 the accents of fear and remorse, though such must ever 
 form a part of it ; but meditation involves a continuing for 
 a while in communion with God, and allows the intercourse 
 to be one of a tender and affectionate nature, growing into 
 a holy familiarity and friendship. S. Chrysostom, speaking 
 of it, breaks forth into wonder at the thought of the Divine 
 Condescension — " who can but wonder and marvel," says 
 he, " at such goodness and benevolence, as that which God 
 declares towards us men, Who bestows upon us so great an 
 honour as to deign to admit us to hold converse with 
 Himself, and to lay before Him our vows." Others have 
 described meditation, as the highest foretaste of Eternal 
 Bliss; thus, S. Augustine in his Confessions records the joy 
 which he experienced when his soul found its resting-place 
 in God — " Sometimes Thou bringest me to certain feelings 
 of tenderness, and to an extraordinary sweetness, which, 
 should it still increase, I know not what would happen." 1 
 To enter from the outward into the inward, from the bodily 
 to the spiritual, to reduce all sense-impressions so that the 
 soul may be still and wait on God, to remain face to Face 
 with God, to exercise the highest acts of virtue towards 
 Him, to listen for and respond to His Voice, — is surely a 
 preparation for Heaven, and when this practice of mental 
 prayer has been in some degree attained, it is sometimes 
 1 S. Aug. Conf. x. 40. 
 
Mental Prater. 155 
 
 accompanied with an earnest of our inheritance, a foretaste 
 of Beatitude. 
 
 The importance of the practice may be estimated by its 
 results. Prayer, as we have seen, is capable of producing 
 four results ; it may either have the effect of reparation for 
 the past, or it may lay up a reward for the future, or it 
 may obtain gifts from God, or be a source of spiritual 
 influence. The value, therefore, of any kind of prayer will 
 very much depend on the vigour with which these ends 
 are attained, and on the width of its fruitfulness. Now in 
 meditation, there is a fertility as to these four results, 
 beyond all other kinds of prayer ; which will be manifest, 
 if we examine them in order. 
 
 Christ has promised, that prayer shall be rewarded by 
 the Father which seeth in secret ; because prayer, when 
 rightly performed, is in itself a good work. And in all 
 good works, that which God chiefly looks to and regards 
 is the contribution of the heart, and not merely the outward 
 action. But meditation is a species of prayer which is 
 entirely inward ; its acts are those of the soul itself, which 
 are done to the Father in secret, they are the purest 
 expression of religion and charity, the utterance of the 
 heart itself in the Divine Presence — " My heart hath talked 
 of Thee, Seek ye My face ; Thy face, Lord, will I seek." 
 If, then, God is said to number our Sittings, and to put 
 our tears into His bottle — to note all things in His book, 
 surely He treasures up those vital actions of which medi- 
 
156 Mental Prater. 
 
 tation consists — those thoughts, affections, and purposes of 
 our inmost being, to be rewarded in the day when " He 
 will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." 1 
 
 In reference to Reparation, meditation, from another 
 point of view, which will appeal to the experience of many, 
 has a marked place. Works of reparation and penitence, 
 it is always felt, should be accompanied with some toil and 
 effort. Sins of omission are simply occasions in the past, 
 when we have wrongly withdrawn ourselves from that 
 universal law of toil which was one penalty of man's trans- 
 gression. To make reparation for these neglects — in the 
 language of Scripture, to redeem the time — we strive with 
 God's grace to perform the selfsame actions with greater 
 regularity and intensity ; we show our sorrow for past laxity, 
 by doing works which are difficult and involve some strain 
 of our powers. And meditation — whatever may be the joy 
 which is experienced by those who have formed the habit 
 of it — is, in its earlier stages, and occasionally at all times, a 
 work which requires considerable effort, and cannot be duly 
 performed without much cost to the soul. There is in the 
 cultivation of mental prayer, a demand made both on the 
 body and the soul. For, to attain any excellence in it, the 
 mortification of the flesh is a preliminary necessity; the 
 control of bodily passions and appetites is required, in 
 order that the spiritual side of our complex nature may 
 preponderate, else the corruptible body will press down 
 1 1 Cor. iv. 5. 
 
Mental Prayer. 157 
 
 the soul, and take away its capacity or relish for spiritual 
 things. And in the act itself of meditation, every one will 
 know, that at times effort is necessary to sustain the 
 thoughts, and to follow obediently the lights and inspira- 
 tions which are vouchsafed by the Spirit ; there is the effort 
 of will which is required to make the mind think, there is 
 the effort of will without which the affections may remain 
 quiescent, and there is the effort of will in making the resolve. 
 Thus, in whatever light we view the act of meditating, we 
 see it is one which is not accomplished without toil, and 
 therefore may be classed with those works which have a 
 reparative value. Meditation is a species of prayer which 
 from its difficulty richly produces this effect ; and this is 
 the case more directly when the omission in the past, has 
 been in the matter of prayer and of the worship of Al- 
 mighty God — the reparation is then not only general, not 
 merely effort to be put into the scale against past inertness, 
 but special, since it is the employment of effort in that very 
 direction in which it had been wanting, and so a reparation 
 in kind of that of which God had been defrauded. 
 
 Prayer of Petition, again, forms a part, as we shall pre- 
 sently see, of meditation, and is most potent when offered 
 under the influence of it. Meditation affects petition, by 
 maturing those dispositions which give power to our suppli- 
 cations. It will be remembered, 1 that certain virtuous affec- 
 tions in the act of praying, were regarded as a necessity 
 1 Lecture IV., pp. 130 — 141. 
 
158 Mental Prayer. 
 
 for the acceptance of the prayer itself. Now at no time 
 are those virtues in more active exercise than in that of 
 meditation ; the length of this devotion has the effect of 
 exciting our spiritual gifts and graces, so that clearness of 
 vision, deep self-humiliation, fervour of confidence, con- 
 stancy of purpose, are all ready at hand to accompany the 
 petition, and to render it acceptable at the Throne of Grace. 
 " Whilst I was musing," the Psalmist says, " the fire 
 kindled," 1 through intercourse with God, the soul gathers 
 something of the Divine Heat ; when the Disciples 
 walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, they remem- 
 bered the unearthly glow which His words excited — " Did 
 not," said they, " our heart burn within us, while He 
 talked with us by the way;'" 2 meditation, by stimulating 
 that flame of affection, and by calling out the faith, the 
 trust and the lowliness of the soul, adds strength and 
 vehemency to the petition, and thus contributes to another 
 effect of prayer. 
 
 The fourth result of prayer is perhaps more readily seen 
 to be brought about by meditation, than the rest ; and 
 indeed, if it be not exclusively attributable to it, it certainly 
 is rarely to be discovered apart from the practice of it, I 
 refer to the transforming influence of prayer. Meditation, 
 it has been said, has a generative effect, and therefore it 
 has been described as " the root of all virtue." All actions 
 and desires arise from thoughts, and mental prayer is said 
 1 Ps. xxxix. 3. - S. Luke xxiv. 32. 
 
Mental Prater. 159 
 
 to have this creative quality, because it is " the seminary 
 of holy thoughts." Through it, holy thoughts are sown in 
 the soul, new views of God, of His Being and Perfections, 
 or new aspects of some truth or mystery of the Life of 
 Christ, or a new insight into the soul itself; these beget 
 new aspirations and desires, and lead to resolves, efforts, 
 and finally to actions, all of which date from the reception 
 of the holy thought during meditation. To meditate, there- 
 fore, is to nourish the root of the tree, it is to instil into 
 it new sap and new vigour, which will terminate in outward 
 growth of leaf, flower, and fruit. It is evident, then, that 
 meditation, in which there is long and fervent contact with 
 God, will take away more than any other kind of prayer, 
 impressions of His Life, will gain from converse with Him 
 Divine Knowledge and Divine Love, and so exert a trans- 
 forming influence upon those who are diligent in the exer- 
 cise of it. The dignity of meditation in itself, and its 
 importance because of its rich productiveness in the fruits 
 of prayer, we have now considered ; we have found, that, 
 whether it be regarded as a good work which stores up 
 favour with God, or as an act of compensation for past 
 neglect, or as a means of adding force to our petitions, or 
 in point of its subjective effect on our life — it outstrips 
 other kinds of prayer in the number and quality of its 
 effects. 
 
 The authority for, and the dignity and advantages of the 
 habit of meditation, have hitherto occupied us. We shall 
 
160 Mental Prater. 
 
 now attempt an analysis of the act itself of meditation, in 
 order to discover its different parts and their mutual 
 bearing, and with the further object of gaining such an 
 acquaintance with its frame-work as may assist us in the 
 practice of it. 
 
 Meditation is an exercise of our inner powers, an action 
 of the soul ; to trace its different parts, will therefore require 
 us to notice the movements of the several faculties of the 
 soul. 
 
 In entering into meditation, there are certain prelimi- 
 nary acts of devotion which are usually performed. The 
 soul places itself in the Presence of God and adores Him — 
 falling down before Him, as if visibly Present, and attended 
 with the Celestial Court ; a prayer is then made, in which 
 we acknowledge our nothingness in the Presence of His 
 Majesty, express sorrow for our sins, offer our faculties to 
 Him to be guided by Him, and invoke the assistance of the 
 Holy Ghost. Before meditating, it is customary to store 
 up some subject in the memory, by reading it, perhaps the 
 night before ; and to recall it in the morning. S. Bernard, 
 or the author of the treatise " on the manner of praying" in 
 his works, 1 makes a great point of the " reading," and seems 
 to regard it as essential ; he says, commenting on the words, 
 " seek, and ye shall find" — " seek by reading, find by medi- 
 tating, knock by praying, and it shall be opened unto you 
 by contemplating. Reading places solid food into the 
 1 S. Bernard, Tom. V. p. 649 — 660. Ed. Gaume. 
 
Mental Prayer. 161 
 
 mouth, meditation masticates and breaks it." It is cus- 
 tomary at the time of meditating to depict the scene, place, 
 or circumstances, of the event upon which we are to dwell, 
 in order to arrest the imagination, and to hinder distrac- 
 tions ; this is called " the first prelude," or " the composition 
 of place." If the subject which we have chosen is not an 
 event but a truth, and one incapable of material representa- 
 tion, some illustration or result of it, or even a sentence, may 
 provide us with the first prelude — e.g., if a virtue, its ex- 
 pression in some part of the Life of Christ ; if a Divine 
 Perfection, its manifestation in Heaven ; if a precept of the 
 Gospel, the words which contain it. Some may find the 
 simple remembrance of the subject they have read, a suf- 
 ficient help. In the next place, a prayer is offered, that the 
 special fruit of the meditation may be gained. This differs 
 from the preparatory prayer which is made for the general 
 purpose of meditating aright ; in that this has in view some 
 particular end, which is consistent with the subject which 
 has been chosen for meditation ; the former therefore will 
 be always the same, the latter will vary. 
 
 The memory recalls the subject as clearly as possible, 
 taking each point separately which has been designed for 
 consideration. The act of the memory is not that simply 
 of literal recollection, as of something which has been 
 learnt, but of the subject with its attributes and bearings. 
 Thus, such questions have to be answered by the memory 
 as, " who said or did this ?" " to or for whom ?" " why ?" 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Mental Prater. 
 
 "when?" "how?" &c. The subject having been thus 
 accurately proposed, the understanding begins to work upon 
 it — begins to penetrate the truth. Meditation has been 
 called " the studious investigation of a hidden truth f of 
 course, a Divine " truth" is meant, and the " investigation" 
 not speculative but practical, and undertaken in a spirit of 
 love and devotion — as the Psalmist prays, " let the medi- 
 tation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight." 
 
 The soul acquires knowledge in two ways, from without 
 and from within : from without, it is approached through 
 the channels of the senses ; from within, it possesses know- 
 ledge, by intuition, reflection, and Divine illumination. 
 The external world is a reality through contact with it : 
 through union between the object and the sense, the im- 
 pression is received ; light, reaches the eye ; sound, the 
 ear ; touch, the hand ; and hence the object is seen, or the 
 idea taken in, or the form felt and known. By the repeti- 
 tion of these impressions, we amass knowledge, and the 
 visible world becomes a reality to us. Without the repeti- 
 tion of the impressions, our acquaintance with different 
 objects diminishes and is finally lost. We forget places 
 which we have not seen for a long time, or retain an in- 
 correct notion of them. In a similar manner, the reality 
 of the Unseen World is gained, and the consciousness of 
 it sustained. As with the external world there must be 
 contact with it, through the senses ; so with the Unseen 
 there must be contact, through the faculties of the soul and 
 
Mental Prater. 163 
 
 the powers of the inner life ; and this contact must be re- 
 peated and habitual, in order that the consciousness of the 
 Unseen may be preserved. The soul in meditation is fixedly 
 directed to some truth or mystery of the faith, which is seen 
 with the inward light of the Spirit, and under His guidance 
 makes good to itself some portion of the spiritual and in- 
 visible world. We may learn divine truths by means of 
 the senses, but we realise them by reflection and by direct 
 spiritual contact with them. Teaching from without must 
 be supplemented by teaching from within; the Dispensa- 
 tion of the Spirit must follow that of the Son of man — 
 "when He the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you 
 into all truth," 1 is the promise of Christ Himself — a pro- 
 mise which was not only fulfilled in the case of the Apostles 
 themselves, and in the Church "the Pillar and ground of 
 the truth," 2 but also in some degree belongs to each soul, 
 for it is written, " they shall be all taught of God." 3 In this 
 realisation of the Invisible, we have one great result of me- 
 ditation ; meditation counterbalances the power of the visible 
 and external world — a power which exerts itself imperiously 
 over the mind by the constant and direct assertion of itself 
 through the organs of sense ; and it imparts a strength of 
 endurance and courage, through " seeing Him Who is invi- 
 sible." 4 Through this exercise of the understanding, a vital 
 hold is gained on the mysteries of Religion — " the eyes of" 
 
 1 S. John xvi. 13. 2 I Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 3 S. John vi. 45. 4 Heb. xi. 27. 
 
164 Mental Prater. 
 
 the " understanding being enlightened" we "know what is 
 the hope of our " calling, and what the riches of the glory 
 of" the "inheritance in the saints." 1 "Meditation," to 
 recur to S. Augustine's words, " begets knowledge." 
 
 But this knowledge, as it has been already remarked, 
 must not be only a firmer grasp of the truth in question 
 itself, and of its relation to other truths, but — what is more 
 to the point — must lie in its practical bearing on our spiri- 
 tual life. Meditation has its ultimate end, not in knowledge, 
 but in action. It is the business of the understanding to 
 apply the truth upon which it gazes, by putting to itself 
 such questions as these : — " What conclusion ought I to 
 draw from this ?" " how have I failed as to this in the 
 past?" "how shall I do in the future?" "what means shall 
 I use?" " what will stand in my way?" 
 
 The knowledge of Divine Truth is obtained by means of 
 meditation, for through it the human mind becomes a sanc- 
 tuary of holy thoughts, which are so transfused into it as to 
 become a part of itself. S. Paul says, " We have the mind 
 of Christ;" but this knowledge is sought in meditation not 
 for its own sake as a possession of the intellect, but for the 
 further purpose of exciting desire and action by its presence. 
 The impression which was received in meditation survives 
 the actual contemplation of the truth, as sensations remain 
 after contact with the material objects has ceased ; and 
 each repeated meditation deepens the engraving on the soul, 
 1 Eph. i. 18. 
 
Mental Prater." 165 
 
 but this depends on the response which the soul gives to 
 the revelation. Here we pass to the third part of a medi- 
 tation, the exercise of the will and of the affections. A 
 dry intellectual light may suffice the philosopher, but a 
 meditation cannot be concluded in the mental sphere 
 alone ; the heart as well as the head must be laid under 
 contribution, meditation is not only a receptive but also 
 a responsive act. The mind dwells on the spiritual vision 
 in order to stimulate the affections — "whilst I was mus- 
 ing, the fire kindled." One difference between the Life 
 of God and that of the creature lies in this; the crea- 
 ture possesses powers which are dormant, until they are 
 called into play, whilst God is Unchangeable, the purest 
 Energy and Action ; there are parts of our being which 
 are silent, until they are, as it were, played upon in order 
 to produce sound and harmony, and this arises partly from 
 the necessity of our nature, partly from our corruption. 
 We have to arouse these affections, and to cry with the 
 Psalmist, " awake up, my glory" — to call upon " all that is 
 within" us. Even the highest and purest creatures seem 
 capable of fluctuation in their devotional acts, for they are 
 represented as crying one to another, as it were to excite 
 into a still keener intensity the rapture of their adoration ; 
 and with us, who are naturally slow, and sinfully insensible 
 to spiritual things, this process of eliciting the affections 
 has to be oftentimes strenuously performed. Thus, spiritual 
 writers recommend us to bring to bear certain motives upon 
 
1 66 Mental Prater. 
 
 the heart, which are likely to move it, and make it respond, 
 such as these — " what advantage will this be to me !" 
 " how sweet, if I can accomplish it !" " how easily may this 
 be done !" " how dreadful the results, if I neglect it !" 
 Such considerations, — through the Holy Spirit who not 
 only illuminates the understanding but also touches the 
 heart by His inspirations, produce affections of sorrow for 
 past failure, love of virtue, desire to grow in this or that 
 form of loveliness ; the virtues of faith, hope and love, are 
 exercised, and to the call, "seek ye My Face," the soul 
 makes the response, " Thy Face, Lord, will I seek." 1 
 
 It is at this point in the meditation, in which a more 
 definite sense of our needs in regard to the matter under 
 consideration is excited, and amid the warm movements 
 of the affections, the soul begins to turn to petition, 
 seeking Divine help to overcome the vice, or form the 
 virtue, or sustain the habit, whatever it may be, or to go on 
 to perfection. " Meditation," to quote again S. Augus- 
 tine's words, "meditation begets knowledge," then know- 
 ledge touching the heart produces " compunction ; com- 
 punction, devotion; and devotion perfects prayer." But 
 the prayer of petition, when it is offered in meditation, as- 
 sumes the character of pleading with God ; it is not, as at 
 other times, only asking Him for something, but in the 
 holy familiarity which springs up between the soul and 
 God during a fervent meditation, the bestowal of the bless- 
 1 Ps. xxvii. 8. 
 
Mental Prater. 167 
 
 ing is urged upon the Divine Heart on various grounds. 
 In different directions the soul turns, to find reasons on 
 which to plead with God, and to press upon Him its peti- 
 tions. The Divine Perfections naturally present the first 
 ground. In Holy Scripture, God's Attributes are appealed 
 to as reasons for His hearing prayer and granting our re- 
 quests — " turn unto the Lord your God : for He is gracious 
 and merciful." 1 " Have mercy upon me, O God, according 
 to Thy Lovingkindness."' 2 ' " To the Lord our God belong 
 Forgiveness y z So again the Psalmist bases his hope of an 
 answer on the Divine Fidelity, " in Thy Faithfulness answer 
 me, and in Thy Fig/iteousness."* 
 
 Again, the soul will turn to the Mediator, to His Cross 
 and Passion, to His Sacred Wounds, to His Infinite Merits, 
 to His all-prevailing Intercession, and will cry in deep self- 
 humiliation, " Look upon the Face of Thine Anointed," 5 on 
 "Jesus Christ, the Righteous," for He is "the Propitiation 
 for our sins." 6 Or, reaching forth towards God from be- 
 neath, the soul may plead with God on the ground of the 
 favour He has shown to His Saints, as Moses did at the foot 
 of the Mount — "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, 
 Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self." 7 
 Likewise Solomon, at the Dedication of the Temple, pleaded 
 God's mercies and promises to David his father. 8 And 
 
 1 Joel ii. 13. 2 Ps. li. I. 3 Dan. ix. 9. 
 
 4 Ps. cxliii. 1. 5 Ps. cxxxiv. 9. 6 I S. John ii. I. 
 
 7 Exod. xxxii. 13. 8 2 Chron. vi. 
 
1 68 Mental Prayer, 
 
 God, in the days of Hezekiah told him, that He would de- 
 fend Jerusalem" for " His servant David's sake." 1 Or once 
 more (though this may seem a more dubious ground, yet for 
 it too we have a " warranty of Scripture") when the soul is 
 depressed and tempted to despair, or at any rate to be dis- 
 trustful, it may even turn, when such a course is possible, 
 to the thought of its past faithfulness to grace, recalling 
 times or even acts of diligent service, with deep lowliness 
 and simplicity ; after this manner, Hezekiah, when he prayed 
 that his life might be lengthened, appealed to his past in- 
 tegrity — " Remember, now, O Lord, how I have walked 
 before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have 
 done that which is good in Thy sight." 2 And Nehemiah 
 likewise — " Think upon me, my God, for good, according 
 to all that I have done for this people." 3 And S. John 
 assures us, that " if our heart condemn us not, then have 
 we confidence towards God" 4 that He will hear our peti- 
 tions. In these different directions, the soul may seek for 
 grounds on which to plead with God, remembering, that it 
 is not from any reluctance on His part to grant our re- 
 quests, that He permits us to urge these various claims 
 upon His Attention ; but that we may be drawn closer to 
 Him by our supplications, may exercise virtues, and gain a 
 deeper impress of the Divine Character and Personality by 
 these appeals. 
 
 1 2 Kings xx. 6. 2 Isa. xxxviii. 3. 
 
 3 Nehemiah v. 19. 4 1 S. John iii. 21. 
 
Mental Prater. 169 
 
 But the will is not only employed in exciting the affec- 
 tions, or in prompting these petitions for Divine Help ; its 
 final action lies in the resolve, with which the meditation 
 should conclude. All leads up to this, and upon faithful- 
 ness in forming and fulfilling the resolution lies the fruit 
 of this devotion. The resolve should be practical — some- 
 thing to be done or avoided, and during perhaps the 
 same day, in the morning of which the meditation has 
 been made ; it should be definite — something, the fulfil- 
 ment or neglect of which may be clearly noted ; it should 
 be solid — something pertaining to the duties of life, to 
 salvation and holiness ; and it should be made humbly, 
 distrustful of self, and trustful in God, wholly relying on 
 His grace to be enabled to carry it out. The effect of the 
 meditation should not be general but particular, and 
 should bear upon some fault of character, or temptation to 
 which we are liable, and at that time likely to be exposed. 
 Self-knowledge is required, for making a good practical 
 application of the subjects on which we meditate ; and 
 therefore the habit of self-examination aids mental prayer. 
 By meditation we grow in the knowledge of God ; by self- 
 examination, in the knowledge of the soul : and these two 
 forms of knowledge, which S. Augustine prayed to obtain — 
 " Lord, make me to know Thee, and to know myself" — 
 keep pace one with another, act and react one on the 
 other. As we grow in the power of discerning the move- 
 ments of the soul, we discover our sins, we are enabled to 
 
170 Mental Prater. 
 
 distinguish between them, and we draw a sort of spiritual 
 chart, to which we can refer in order to form a specific 
 resolution which shall be in keeping with the subject of our 
 meditation; besetting sins, deadly sins, venial sins, infir- 
 mities, propensities, occasions of sin, kinds of sin, are as so 
 many rocks and quicksands, eddies and currents, shallows 
 and buoys, to be avoided in our course, and when one or 
 other of these is sighted, we have to tack accordingly. 
 
 It can never be too strongly impressed upon those who 
 meditate, that they are not to indulge in mere reverie or 
 fanciful roaming of the imagination ; but they are to bear in 
 mind, that every thought and affection should tend to some 
 practical issue, which will fit them for the better fulfilment 
 of the duties of their state. We ought then, at the end of 
 every meditation to make a resolve to do better in some- 
 thing — making it as definite as possible, not expecting to 
 do too much at a time, but to go on step by step, " here 
 a little and there a little," 1 in humble dependence on the 
 grace of God. 
 
 As in entering upon meditation, there are preliminary 
 acts of devotion, so at its end, it is usual to close with 
 some prayers and colloquies. Some make a sort of reca- 
 pitulation of the meditation, and gather up the fragments 
 that remain that nothing be lost ; then an act of thanks- 
 giving for the lights and inspirations of the Holy Spirit, 
 which have been vouchsafed during prayer ; an act of 
 1 Isa. xxviii. 10. 
 
Mental Prayer. 171 
 
 contrition for infidelities to grace; and finally an act of 
 oblation, in which all is offered to God through the Merits 
 of Jesus Christ. It has been recommended, after the 
 meditation is finished, to make some brief record of the 
 thoughts which God has given during it, and of the resolves 
 which have been formed ; and to preserve some feature of 
 it, as an ejaculation. The advice of S. Francis under this 
 head is well known — " I bade you gather a little bouquet 
 of devotions. When walking in a beautiful garden, most 
 people are wont to gather a few flowers as they go, which 
 they keep, and enjoy their scent during the day. So, when 
 the mind explores some mystery in meditation, it is well 
 to pick out one or more points that have specially arrested 
 the attention, and are most likely to be helpful to you 
 through the day." 1 
 
 We have now seen the different parts or acts of which 
 a meditation is composed, and described what may perhaps 
 be termed the machinery of the practice. We must add 
 before leaving this portion of our subject, a word of caution, 
 lest we should be open to the charge of dogmatising upon 
 a matter in which every one has perfect liberty. It is not 
 intended that the plan of meditation which has been ana- 
 lysed is the only one; or that, when it is adopted, the 
 order in which the faculties of the soul have been repre- 
 sented as being called into exercise, must be rigidly fol- 
 lowed ; but it has been chosen, because it is the ordinary 
 1 Devout Life, p. 77. 
 
172 Mental Prayer. 
 
 method, and the natural one. As in acquiring a language 
 or an art, there are certain rules for learning it, which seem 
 dry and technical, but when it is acquired, these rules are 
 carried out with ease and even unconsciously ; so in medi- 
 tation, when the habit is gained, the soul goes through the 
 different steps, without any thought of those directions, by 
 the careful observance of which the practice of mental 
 prayer was formed. And as there are those who, forsaking 
 the ordinary way of teaching, devise shorter and, as they 
 conceive, easier roads to the attainment of a language or 
 art ; so there may be some, who, not willing to follow the 
 beaten path, choose some other method of gaining the 
 habit of meditation : it will suffice, however, in both cases, 
 if the end is gained, whatever be the means whereby it was 
 reached. But it will be found, that, whatever differences 
 may appear on the surface as to the plan and mode of 
 meditating, in its root and essence the act will in the main 
 accord with the account we have given of it, which is based 
 on the organism of the human soul. 
 
 II. Mental Prayer includes another kind of prayer be- 
 sides meditation, which is that of Contemplation. We 
 shall treat this most briefly, because the gift of Contempla- 
 tion is one which is very rarely possessed. It is said, too, 
 on the natural side to require certain qualities of mind and 
 character, and seldom to be vouchsafed except after a 
 process of spiritual trial and purification ; so that, in passing 
 from the consideration of meditation to that of contempla- 
 
Mental Prater. 173 
 
 tion, we feel that we are going off the thoroughfare into 
 the by-ways of Religion. Moreover, to deal with the sub- 
 ject at all adequately, would need a separate treatise, so 
 full of resources is mystical theology. We cannot, how- 
 ever, altogether pass over this sublime kind of prayer, 
 both because in "the Life of Prayer" it ought to find 
 some place for the sake of completeness; and also from 
 the fact, that, although as a permanent gift it is a rare 
 endowment, yet it is sometimes vouchsafed as a tran- 
 sient favour in times of prayer and meditation. We will 
 first notice the special features of Contemplation, as distin- 
 guished from Meditation ; and then, its kinds and degrees. 
 
 Meditation, it has been seen, demands effort ; it involves 
 a mental process, the arrangements of considerations and 
 deductions from them ; in it, we start with certain reasons, 
 and arrive at certain practical conclusions. Now in con- 
 templation there is nothing of this kind ; there is no labour 
 in attaining Truth, but the soul is said to behold it in- 
 tuitively, and to remain fixedly gazing upon God. Viewed 
 in reference to the understanding, contemplation is the 
 employment of the highest faculty in the highest sphere 
 of truth, in a simple and direct manner, as the bodily eye 
 sees external objects. Definitions of the act of Contem- 
 plation, agree in attributing to it this directness of mental 
 action ; it is " the simple gaze at Truth," 1 it is " the intent 
 and free gaze of the mind," 2 it is " the true and sure gaze 
 1 S. Thorn., Sum. 22, q. 180, 1. 2 Richard, S. Vict. Benj. Maj. c. 4. 
 
ij4 Mental Prater. 
 
 of the mind." 1 Another mark of Contemplation is to be 
 found in the great exercise of the affection of wonder and 
 admiration, which results from it ; some regard this as its 
 chief characteristic. S. Bernard speaks of it, as "admira- 
 tion of Majesty/' and S. Augustine, as " sweet wonder at 
 clear Truth." The amazement of delight fills the soul as 
 it beholds the things of God, their greatness, surpassing 
 beauty, mysteriousness ; so that, it is ready to join in the 
 anthem of those who " stand on the sea of glass," and say, 
 "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Al- 
 mighty . . . who shall not fear Thee, O Lord ?" 2 In medi- 
 tation, wonder is only one of many affections which are 
 called forth, and that only during a part of it ; but in Con- 
 templation, it is the prime and continuous posture of the 
 soul, as it was with the prophets in times of vision, " I saw, 
 I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that 
 spake," 3 " I was astonished at the vision." 4 
 
 Again, Contemplation is said to have in it a certain fore- 
 taste of eternal bliss ; it produces not only wonder, but 
 " delightful wonder." 5 Wonder is a complex sensation, 
 into which several ingredients enter, from the preponder- 
 ance of one or more of which it assumes a special tint or 
 colour ; fear, lowliness, joy, curiosity, all enter into it, any 
 one of which may be regnant \ in contemplative wonder, 
 
 1 S. Bern, de Consid. c. ii. 2 Rev. xv. 3, 4. 
 
 3 Ezekiel. 4 Daniel. 
 
 5 " Jucunda admiratio." 
 
Mental Prater. 175 
 
 joy is in power, and towers above the rest ; it is a wonder 
 radiant with a foretaste " of eternal sweetness," that which 
 S. Peter tasted on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he 
 rapturously cried, " Lord, it is good for us to be here," 1 
 and the Psalmist referred to, when he said, " Taste and see 
 how gracious the Lord is." 2 Although Contemplation is 
 a mental act, it is prompted by love, and " terminates in 
 love ;" and hence the joy and delight of the soul in the 
 close embrace of God — " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 neither have entered the heart of man the things which 
 God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God 
 hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." 3 
 
 Another feature of Contemplation is its repose; joy is 
 sometimes boisterous and exciting, the joy of Contemplation 
 is restful and calm, it closes the senses to the external world, 
 it follows the bidding of the Psalmist, " Be still, and know 
 that I am God." 4 Contemplation is ever associated with 
 the idea of rest. If we speak of a person as one who is of 
 a contemplative disposition, we mean one in whom there 
 is the absence of hurry, who gives himself to thought more 
 than to outward action, who has a peaceful eye and gentle 
 manner. In contemplation, not only is the action of the 
 senses suspended, but the faculties of the soul itself rest, for 
 in it " the mind is resting in God." 5 " Turn again," says 
 
 1 S. Matt. xvii. 4. 2 Ps. xxxiv. 8. 
 
 3 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. 4 Ps. xlvi. 10. 
 
 5 S. Bernard, " Contemplatio, est mentis in Deum suspensse." 
 
176 Mental Prater. 
 
 the Psalmist, " unto thy rest, O my soul." 1 Mary "sat at 
 Jesus' feet and heard His word." 2 In meditation, the soul 
 is on a journey ; when Contemplation is granted, the soul 
 rests because it is at its end, in God — " and so He bringeth 
 them to the haven where they would be." — This rest, how- 
 ever, must not be regarded as the absence of all activity, 
 but as that most perfect action which brings with it satis- 
 faction and peace. Absence of activity brings no rest, to 
 those who are made for action; their rest, lies in the 
 repose of each faculty when it has found its predestined 
 sphere of exercise. Neither must this rest be exaggerated 
 into one of such indifference to all things, as to quench 
 the desire for one's own salvation — an error which has 
 several times in the history of the Church been a fruitful 
 source of trouble — on the contrary, this peace in part arises 
 from a certain confidence as to the future, which the soul 
 obtains from those drops of joy which are in Contemplation 
 vouchsafed to it, and which are intended to sustain it 
 during the days of its pilgrimage. 
 
 The union of the soul with God is another mark, and 
 the final object of Contemplative Prayer ; and this union is 
 said to be of two kinds, active and passive. The former 
 consists in the perfect correspondence of the Human Will 
 with the Divine Will ; it is more than submission, it is 
 joyous co-operation with the Will of God. S. Paul was 
 an example of this spirit, when rising from the ground at 
 1 Ps. cxvi. 7. 2 S. Luke x. 39. 
 
Mental Prater. 177 
 
 his conversion, blinded to earth, he cried at once to God — 
 " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?" in this conformity, 
 by which our own wills and judgment are perfectly offered 
 up to God, lies the highest expression of Divine love, and 
 so of union, for " he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God 
 and God in him." 1 The passive union is one of a mystical 
 nature, in which, instead of the rising of the will of man to 
 God, God seems to descend and to flood the faculties with 
 His own Presence ; memory, understanding, and will, being 
 placed at His sole disposal. This leads to sublime forms 
 of union which are found only in supernatural states, into 
 which we need not now enter, such as extasy, and rapture, 
 of which S. Paul again is an example, when he comes " to 
 visions and revelations of the Lord" and speaks of himself 
 as " caught up to the third heaven," " whether in the body 
 or out of the body," he could " not tell." 2 
 
 The leading features of Contemplation have been now 
 noted, intuitive gaze upon Truth, admiration, foretaste of bliss, 
 repose, and finally union with God of a high order. Before 
 leaving this exalted theme, we will glance for a moment at 
 the kinds, and some of the stages of, Contemplative Prayer. 
 
 Contemplation is divided into that which is intellectual, 
 and that which is affective ; 3 that is, into two sorts of 
 prayer, in which the action of the understanding or that of 
 
 1 1 S. John iv. 16. 2 2 Cor. xii. 1—3. 
 
 3 These are sometimes called cherubic and seraphic, as the cherubim 
 are conceived to be angels especially of light ; the seraphim, of love. 
 
 N 
 
178 Mental Prater. 
 
 the will, respectively preponderate ; the head and the heart 
 contribute in both cases, but unequally. This first kind 
 of Contemplation, being intellectual, is based upon and 
 aided by those virtues and gifts of the Spirit which perfect 
 the mind ; thus, faith, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, 
 are all required and put to account in it. The objects 
 which are before the soul in this Contemplation, are the 
 Holy Trinity, the Divine Perfections, the Incarnation, the 
 Holy Eucharist, the Heavenly Court, the works of God. 
 In it, different degrees of prayer may be attained, one 
 of which is called " the prayer of silence f David seems 
 to refer to this when he says, " Silence is praise to Thee, 
 O God, in Sion." 1 The soul's inability to express its sense 
 of the Divine Majesty, is itself a species of acceptable 
 worship. But besides the silence of amazement, there 
 is the silence of attention, the stillness of soul, which is 
 preserved in order to catch the faintest whispers of the 
 Divine Voice, a condition like that of Samuel when he 
 said, "Speak, for Thy servant heareth," 2 or, that which 
 the Psalmist enjoins, " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, 
 and incline thine ear." 3 There are times, when nature 
 itself seems hushed into silence, when there is a quietness 
 and clearness of the atmosphere, which make distant 
 sounds audible, and distant objects appear near ; as when, 
 for instance, by the sea at eventide, the surface of the deep 
 
 1 Ps. lxv. 1, S. Jerome's interp. 2 1 Sam. iii. 10. 
 
 3 Ps. xlv. 10. 
 
Mental Prater. 
 
 179 
 
 seems scarcely creased, and the measured ripple of the 
 waves, like a feeble pulse, may be heard from some far-off 
 shore, and through the limpid air the coast-line from point 
 to point may be distinctly traced — such is an image of that 
 inward stillness of soul which hearkens for every movement 
 of the Divine Life, and is able to gain a clear insight into 
 the relations of Divine Truth. Another degree of this kind 
 of Contemplation, is " prayer in obscurity." Of God, we are 
 told " clouds and darkness are round about Him." 1 And 
 of Moses, that he " drew near to the thick darkness where 
 God was." 2 And " the Lord spake ... out of the midst 
 of the thick darkness." 3 Mystical writers represent this 
 darkness as arising not from the withdrawal but from the 
 excess of light, like the darkness which the eye experiences 
 when dazzled by a sudden blaze of light. This differs from 
 the former state, in which each object was seen clearly; 
 in this obscurity, the faculties are so overwhelmed with the 
 radiance, that nothing is, as it were, separately discerned, 
 but there is a new consciousness of the whole, and a sense 
 of awful nearness to God. There is also a state of prayer, 
 in which the soul is so deprived of all other joys save that 
 of the Divine Presence, that it is said to be " asleep" or 
 " entombed." The words in the book of Canticles, " I 
 sleep but my heart waketh," 4 have been often referred 
 to this degree of contemplation, as also those of the 
 
 1 Ps. xcvii. 2. 2 Exod. xx. 21. 
 
 3 Deut. v. 22. 4 Song of Sol. v. 2. 
 
180 Mental Prater. 
 
 Apostle, " Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ 
 in God." 1 
 
 The second kind of Contemplation being affective, is 
 founded on love, and involves the exercise of the virtue 
 of charity, and of those gifts of the Spirit which perfect 
 the will ; and therefore, their increase. As many as ten 
 degrees of this Contemplation have been enumerated, of 
 which we can only briefly describe some. The first is that 
 of "fire" a term which is employed to depict the ardour 
 of devotion, as when the two disciples exclaimed — " Did 
 not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us 
 by the way;" 2 the second degree is said to be attained, 
 when this inward fire breaks out into flame, thus, the 
 Spouse speaking of love says, " the coals thereof are coals 
 of flre, which hath a most vehement flame" z by this is 
 represented the upward, active, fervent ascent of affection 
 after affection towards God ; another degree is solitude, 
 when there is a temporary withdrawal of spiritual delights to 
 intensify desire, when the Beloved " had withdrawn himself 
 and was gone," 4 or was standing near, yet hidden, as when 
 the Magdalen wept by the empty Tomb ; and another 
 degree is that of soliloquy, when the soul rejoices with itself 
 on His return — " I found him whom my soul loveth. I 
 held him and would not let him go." 5 "For a small 
 
 1 Col. iii. 3. 2 S. Luke xxiv. 32. 
 
 3 Song of Sol. viii. 6. 4 Song of Sol. v. 6. 
 
 5 Song of Sol. iii. 4. 
 
Mental Prater. 
 
 151 
 
 moment have I forsaken thee ; but with great mercies will 
 I gather thee f l and the tenth degree is that of wounded 
 love — " I am," says the Spouse again, " sick of love." 2 
 A fervent love for God is accompanied with pain, like 
 that of an inextinguishable thirst — " My soul is athirst for 
 God, yea even for the living God, when shall I come to 
 appear before the presence of God" 3 — a love unable to 
 be repressed ; and in the saints so intense, as sometimes 
 to exhaust the natural strength, and to make itself, it has 
 been said, manifest by pallor of the countenance. 
 
 Such, in brief, are the marks, kinds, and degrees of 
 this sublime species of prayer — Contemplation. There 
 are two things to be remembered, before dismissing this 
 portion of our subject. The first is, we have dealt ex- 
 clusively with Contemplative Prayer, and have not entered 
 upon what is called " the Contemplative Life," and there- 
 fore the sketch we have made is of practical importance, 
 and may be of use to those who are beyond the precincts 
 of the cloister. There are some who have the gift of 
 Contemplation, and still are called to lead an active life ; 
 it must not be supposed, that contemplation and action 
 are incompatible. One of the effects of Contemplation is 
 a great love and zeal for our neighbour's good, for con- 
 templation sustains and quickens the love of God in the 
 soul j and the love of God and of our neighbour, are but 
 two expressions of one virtue, two flames of one fire. 
 
 1 Isa. liv. 7. 2 Song of Sol. ii. 5. 3 Ps. xlii. 2. 
 
1 82 Mental Prater. 
 
 And secondly, although we have treated Contemplation 
 and Meditation as two separate forms of Mental Prayer, 
 yet they must not be regarded as so distinct, as that the 
 one does not sometimes run into the other ; or, that one 
 person can only pray in one way, and another in the 
 other. There is no pillar between the two territories which 
 marks the confines of both ; in the course of Meditation, 
 God sometimes bestows the quiet, restful gaze of Con- 
 templation ; or at one period of life, the Spirit of God 
 may lead to one kind of prayer, at another time, to 
 another ; and therefore, it is of great consequence in prayer, 
 that the soul should follow Divine attractions ; that it should 
 remember that Mental Prayer should be carried on with 
 freedom of spirit, and not be performed in such a business- 
 like manner, as never to rest in it, or turn aside from the 
 lines of thought which were laid down in the preparation. 
 On the contrary, he who would meditate with fruit must 
 entirely yield up the powers of his soul to the guidance 
 of the Holy Ghost, and rest, when the Heavenly Visitant 
 calls, prizing those occasions when " His Divine Majesty" 
 brings Him "to the banqueting-house," and vouchsafes 
 to him a taste of the joys of Contemplation. And so, with 
 regard to the different points of the meditation, we need 
 not use all of them, unless they are required, but should 
 follow the advice of S. Francis of Sales, " if your mind 
 finds sufficient matter, light, and fruit, wherein to rest in 
 any one consideration, dwell upon it, even as the bee 
 
Mental Prayer, 183 
 
 which hovers over one flower so long as it affords 
 honey." 1 
 
 III. We now proceed to speak of a difficulty which many 
 experience in the practice of Mental Prayer, I refer to 
 dryness of spirit. This, when perhaps neither sloth, 
 occupation, nor pleasure have caused us to omit or to make 
 irregularly our meditation — has made us desist. It may 
 be useful then, to inquire into the causes of this difficulty, 
 the purposes of it, and the way it is to be endured. 
 
 At the first approach of this malady, it is necessary to 
 examine into the cause of it, so that, if possible, the cause 
 may be removed. There are three directions in which the 
 cause may be sought ; first in the conscience, secondly in 
 the state of health, thirdly in the Providence of God. The 
 soul, from some sin, which perhaps is hidden, may have 
 forfeited the favour of God. Thus the Psalmist, lost the 
 sight of God's countenance by yielding to a presumptuous 
 thought — " I said in my prosperity, I never shall be moved, 
 Thou, Lord, in Thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong. 
 Thou didst hide Thy face from me, and I was troubled." 2 
 All sins have shadows, but some, such as sins against 
 charity and purity, have darker shadows than others, and 
 shut out the light. Then there is a dryness which comes 
 from nature, which is caused by bodily infirmity or tempera- 
 ment, and which will accordingly disappear on the return 
 of health — " the voice of joy and health is in the dwellings 
 1 Devout Life, Part ii. chap. v. 2 Ps. xxx. 6, 7. 
 
184 Mental Prater. 
 
 of the righteous." 1 This health is primarily of course 
 spiritual, but body and soul are so closely knit together, 
 that the one is always liable to affect the other, and there- 
 fore the " corruptible body" is said to press "down the 
 soul." Another cause of dryness of spirit, is to be found on 
 the side of God ; He sends it as a spiritual trial, and this 
 form of it is the most severe. It may not only be the 
 absence of consolation, of sweetness in prayer and delight 
 in devotional exercises, but also a distressing state, in which 
 God seems altogether to have forsaken the soul, and to 
 have left it in its darkness, nakedness, and corruption. 
 " Oh that I were," says Job, " as in months past, as in the 
 days when God preserved me; when His candle shined 
 upon my head . . . when the secret of God was upon my 
 tabernacle." 2 It was this sense of the withdrawal of God 
 which the Psalmist revealed, when he cried, " My God, my 
 God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" 3 And again, " Why 
 art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so dis- 
 quieted within me ?" 4 and " hide not Thy face from me, 
 lest I become like unto them which go down into the pit." 5 
 In one or other of these three directions, the cause of dry- 
 ness of spirit will exist ; but it may not be possible to say 
 with certainty, whether it arises from spiritual trial or from 
 fault or infirmity, it will be sufficient to make a diligent 
 
 1 Psalm cxviii. 15. 2 Job xxix. 2 — 4. 
 
 3 Psalm xxii. I. 4 Psalm xlii. 5. 
 
 5 Psalm cxliii. 7. 
 
Mental Prayer. 185 
 
 examination of conscience, and if no definite sin is dis- 
 covered, to leave the matter in the hand of God. 
 
 With regard to the purposes of this suffering, they are 
 manifold, and may be viewed in reference to God, to our 
 neighbour, and ourselves. God may send dryness into the 
 souls of those who have experienced delight in prayer, in 
 order that they may realise that the gift which they had 
 enjoyed, was one undeserved, and freely bestowed by God's 
 Goodness ; or again, the withdrawal of this delight in prayer, 
 may have the purpose of hindering vanity and self-com- 
 placency — faults often near at hand in times of devotion ; 
 or again, the gift may temporarily be taken away, in order 
 that the Giver Himself may be sought more purely and 
 disinterestedly, and that our desires may be enlarged, as 
 when a parent by putting away some pleasure, causes a 
 child to cry after him. The purpose of dryness in prayer 
 may relate to our conduct with our neighbour : to be 
 always in the light, to be always full of spiritual comfort, 
 may hinder the outgoings of compassion towards others ; 
 we sympathise with those who suffer, when the hand of 
 God has touched us ourselves, the vigorous find it difficult 
 to feel for the weak, those who know not by personal ex- 
 perience what temptation is, rarely are able to help the 
 struggler, those who do not know what sorrow is are poor 
 comforters, so desolation qualifies us for imparting sym- 
 pathy to others ; and this is of especial importance, in the 
 case of those whose office it is " to bind up the broken- 
 
1 86 Mental Prayer. 
 
 hearted" and " to comfort all that mourn." 1 Moreover, it 
 may be God's purpose, that by a distaste on the one side of 
 our life, we may be drawn to cultivate the other ; by the 
 absence of consolation in prayer, we may be led to the 
 greater practice of active virtues, to perform deeds of ser- 
 vice to others, and instead of continuing to gaze up into 
 Heaven, may be stimulated to try a little more to bring 
 Heaven about those for whom we are called to labour, or 
 on whom we should exert our influence. And lastly, with 
 regard to ourselves, there are purposes for which God 
 may send dryness, whatever may be our stage of progress 
 in the spiritual life : thus, penance for past sin — sin forgiven, 
 but of which spiritual penalties remain, may be the explana- 
 tion of dryness, in which God's purpose is the deeper 
 purification of the soul ; or again, dryness may be intended 
 by Him for the cultivation of virtues, such as faith, patience, 
 resignation, trust, which grow in seasons of darkness; or 
 once more, it may be a process through which the soul is 
 to attain some high state of union with God, as in Contem- 
 plative Prayer. Such are some of the purposes for which 
 dryness of spirit may be sent ; and the examination of con- 
 science and of state, will be necessary again, in order to 
 profit by the trial, as it was requisite for the possible dis- 
 covery of its cause. 
 
 From whatever source it arises, in bearing this dryness, 
 we must exercise conformity to the Will of God, offering 
 1 Isa. lxi. i, 2. 
 
Mental Prater. 187 
 
 ourselves to bear whatever He thinks fit, — " Lord, if 
 Thou wiliest me to be in darkness, be Thou Blessed ; if, 
 in light, be Thou again Blessed." Yet we may pray for 
 the removal of dryness or darkness, as the Psalmist did — 
 " Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon 
 us." 1 " O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may 
 lead me." 2 " Comfort the soul of Thy servant, for unto 
 Thee do I lift up my soul." 8 " My soul thirsteth after 
 Thee, as a thirsty land; hear me speedily, O Lord, my 
 spirit faileth." 4 Further, in the midst of desolation, we 
 may sustain the soul by reflection on the past, and expecta- 
 tion of the future ; treasuring up past experience of light, 
 and awaiting with confidence its return, as David again, in 
 his desolation remembered the things that were past, how 
 he went with the multitude into the house of God with the 
 voice of joy and praise, and how he also expected a return 
 of joy — " I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my 
 countenance and my God." 5 But we have a higher model, 
 to which we should ever turn when the heart is desolate ; 
 there is One Who can give sympathy and is " mighty to 
 save," Who Himself as He trod " the winepress alone," 
 went through the anguish of an awful desolation — it is to 
 Him Who cried upon the Cross, with a loud voice, expres- 
 sive of His agony — " My God, My God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken Me ?" 6 We can unite all withdrawals of light or 
 
 1 Ps. iv. 6. 2 Ps. xliii. 3. 3 Ps. lxxxvi. 4. 
 
 4 Ps. cxliii. 6, 7. 5 Ps. xlii. 11. 6 S. Matt, xxviii. 46. 
 
Mental Prater. 
 
 of comfort with that Suffering, bear them in the strength 
 of it, and so obtain some portion of its Merit. There is 
 one caution, which is very needful, whilst speaking of the 
 way to bear dryness in prayer, and that is — we must be on 
 our guard against the temptation to give up the habit of 
 mental prayer, because of this dryness ; and against the de- 
 lusive pretext, that prayer without feelings can be of no 
 avail, and is not acceptable to God. On the contrary, 
 oftentimes, more grace and favour with God are obtained 
 by the prayer which brings no comfort to us, and which 
 is undertaken only through a sense of duty and faithful- 
 ness. God may delight in that which gives us no delight, 
 because He regards our improvement rather than any pass- 
 ing pleasure which the act may bring us ; we must therefore 
 be content with the Divine Delight, and patiently endure 
 the trial, knowing that " the trial of our faith" is " much 
 more precious than of gold that perisheth," and will at last 
 " be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appear- 
 ing of" 1 Christ. 
 
 The authority for, dignity of, and different parts of, Medi- 
 tation, have now been explored ; Contemplative Prayer, 
 intellectual and affective, as another kind of mental prayer, 
 has been briefly touched ; and finally we have discussed 
 the difficulty of dryness of spirit, examining its causes, 
 purposes, and the ways of bearing it aright. The importance 
 of meditation, as a part of each day's spiritual work, cannot 
 1 i S. Pet. i. 7. 
 
Mental Prater. 189 
 
 be over-stated. Perseverance has been felt to depend so 
 much upon daily meditation, that their intimate connection 
 has passed in some countries into a proverb. What has 
 been said on Contemplation, will only concern those to 
 whom God has imparted this gift (except when an occa- 
 sional accompaniment of meditation,) and with regard to 
 them, it must be so used as to produce a deeper love 
 for God and man, — they must strive to unite the calmness 
 of Mary with the activity of Martha, and so, by their com- 
 bination, approach nearer to the CHRiST-life ; whilst they 
 " sit at Jesus' feet and hear His words," they must also 
 imitate His Life who " came not to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister," 1 for " the manifestation of the Spirit is given 
 to every man to profit" 2 not only himself, but others also. 
 The difficulty of dryness of spirit, which especially affects 
 mental prayer, will be no hindrance, if only notwithstanding 
 it, we are steadfast in our resolves ; and the darkness will 
 not be without an occasional ray of light. As when the 
 moon is in crescent, there are a few bright points still visible 
 upon its unillumined part ; and those bright points are sup- 
 posed to be peaks of mountains so lofty as to be able to 
 catch the sunlight ; so in the darkness of the soul, the with- 
 drawal of grace is not total, but there are still, as it were, 
 certain eminences, which the Sun of Righteousness now and 
 then touches with His glory. But whatever the dryness or 
 the darkness be, if we persevere, the light will return at 
 1 S. Matt. xx. 28. 2 1 Cor. xii. 7. 
 
i go Mental Prater. 
 
 last ; and if, with the Psalmist, we have longed after God 
 " in a dry and thirsty land where no water is," 1 we shall 
 also with him be able to say — " my soul" is " satisfied as 
 with marrow and fatness," for Thou didst turn again and 
 refresh me, and hast brought me out of the depths of the 
 earth, and comforted me on every side. 
 
 1 Ps. lxiii. i, 3, 5. 
 
lecture m. 
 
 VOCAL PRAYER. 
 
 "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, interces- 
 sions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men." — I Tim. ii. I. 
 
 TV /TENTAL Prayer differs from Vocal, in that, in the 
 former the mind alone is employed ; in the latter, 
 the tongue also. In the examination of Mental Prayer, 
 we were concerned with the operations of the memory, 
 the understanding, and the will ; in dealing with Vocal 
 Prayer, our attention will be directed to the agency of 
 the bodily organs, and to external assistance. The life 
 of Prayer would be incomplete, if our devotions were 
 exclusively mental. The Psalmist prayed not only that 
 "the meditation of" his "heart," but also that "the 
 words of" his " mouth" might be acceptable to God ; and 
 in another place, he says, " my heart and my flesh rejoice 
 in the living God." When S. Paul exhorts " that first 
 of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of 
 thanks, be made for all men," he is evidently alluding 
 
192 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 to prayers which were to be accompanied by some outward 
 expression, that is, he was solemnly enjoining the practice 
 of vocal prayer. 
 
 The words themselves have received several interpreta- 
 tions. Some have thought that the terms "supplications, 
 prayers, intercessions," were used by the Apostle not for 
 the purpose of describing different sorts of prayer, but 
 that, by the employment of cumulative language, he might 
 the more enforce the importance of prayer in general; 
 that he piled up words which had various shades of 
 meaning, only with the view of impressing the mind of 
 Timothy with the one substantial idea of which they were 
 the garments. But with regard to this explanation, it must 
 be said that it is very unsatisfactory ; for, beside the fact 
 that it is not a reverent mode of dealing with Revelation, 
 to resolve the terms which the Apostle accumulates, into 
 a mere rhetorical sentence — when the words are evidently 
 not synonyms, such a course is inadmissible. 
 
 Others have referred the four terms, " supplications, 
 prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks" to the different 
 members of a prayer, or collect, which was in use in the 
 Church ; or even to the different parts of the Eucharistic 
 Liturgy. It is well known that S. Augustine explained the 
 passage in this latter way : " supplications," according to 
 him, pointed to that part of the Divine Liturgy, which 
 preceded the Act of Consecration ; " prayers," to the time 
 of Consecration ; " intercessions," to the devotions which 
 
Vocal Prayer. 193 
 
 followed the Consecration ; and " giving of thanks," to the 
 conclusion of the Service. 
 
 In the dispositions of the soul again, some have sought for 
 one explanation of the Apostle's meaning. Thus, it has been 
 said, the ruling idea in the act of offering " supplications" 
 is, that of our own unworthiness and vileness ; in offering 
 " prayers," the thought of the Divine Majesty and Holiness 
 is uppermost; in using "intercessions," 1 fervour or urgency 
 in pressing some definite petition upon God is the charac- 
 teristic; in " giving of thanks," of course a grateful love 
 is the leading emotion. Whilst a fourth view, is based on 
 the meaning or use of the words themselves. According 
 to this explanation, by " supplications" is intended depreca- 
 tions, or prayers for the aversion of evil ; by " prayers," 
 petitions for good ; by " intercessions," a close and indi- 
 vidual intercourse with God ; and by " giving of thanks," 
 thanksgiving for benefits which had been vouchsafed. 
 
 Now whatever interpretation is selected, the general drift 
 of the words which are under consideration, remains the 
 same, which is this : — S. Paul was urging upon his son 
 Timothy the primary duty — "I exhort, therefore, first of 
 all" — of teaching his flock, that prayers of various kinds 
 should " be made," that is, offered ; and further, that these 
 prayers should be also used in public. In this latter state- 
 ment, I am but following the stream of commentators, 
 who regard the direction which is contained in these words, 
 1 eVrev|ets ; postulationes, Vulg. 
 O 
 
194 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 as relating to Public Worship. " The Apostle having (in 
 the first chapter of this Epistle) instructed Timothy as 
 to the matter of preaching, proceeds in the next place 
 to give him further orders concerning other Ecclesiastical 
 matters ; and ' first of all' and chiefly, concerning the Public 
 and Common Prayers of the Church." 1 And the context 
 also shows, that the Apostle had in his mind the arrange- 
 ments of Divine Service, for he presently says — " I will 
 therefore that men pray everywhere," 2 that is, in " every 
 place of customary resort, everywhere where prayer is wont 
 to be made," and that " the woman learn in silence with 
 all subjection." 3 The prayers which were enjoined by the 
 Apostle, were also to have an intercessional character, 
 for they were to be made " for all men." The words, then, 
 of the Apostle, open up a wide field before our view, 
 leading us to consider Vocal Prayer itself, for the less 
 is included in the greater ; then, Public Prayer ; and lastly, 
 Intercessory Prayer. First, we will examine the autho- 
 rity for, the advantage of, and some modes of using Vocal 
 Prayer. 
 
 I. There have been those who have denied the utility 
 of Vocal Prayer altogether, who regard all formal prayer 
 with suspicion or dislike, except perhaps "the Lord's 
 Prayer." Their objection is based on the truths, that " God 
 is a Spirit ;" and that prayer, to be accepted by God, must 
 
 1 Bull, Sermons, Vol. ii. 543. 2 I Tim. ii. 8. 
 
 3 1 Tim. ii. II. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 195 
 
 proceed from the heart. They say, to speak to God, is to ap- 
 proach Him in a material manner, and to treat Him as if He 
 had bodily organs, and would hear through them what we 
 say. It is on the same grounds, that all worship which is 
 not exclusively spiritual is denounced, and ceremonial obser- 
 vances regarded as superstitious. Whilst, however, we are 
 as fully possessed as they are, with the thought of the 
 Spirituality of God, and admit the sinfulness of drawing 
 nigh to Him with the lips, while the heart is far from 
 Him ; we do not forget, that man is a being spiritual only 
 in part, and also that God has clothed Himself with a 
 Human Form, so that, as we look up, we behold not only 
 God Himself, but the Glorified Christ, who wears at 
 the Father's Right Hand our Flesh. As man is composed 
 of body and soul, so each should contribute its share to 
 his acts of worship. 
 
 The practice of using the voice and other outward 
 expressions and signs in praying, is authorised by the 
 teaching of the Holy Scripture, and by the Church. In 
 the book of Psalms, where we should naturally turn for 
 reference on this subject, we find constant allusions to the 
 use of the voice in prayer, e.g., " Unto Thee will I cry, O 
 Lord my Rock, be not silent to me : lest, if Thou be silent to 
 me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Hear 
 the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto Thee." 1 
 "God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice 
 1 Psalm xxviii. I, 2. 
 
196 Vocal Prater. 
 
 of my prayer." 1 " Lord, I cry unto Thee : make haste 
 unto me ; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto Thee." 2 
 " I cried unto the Lord with my voice ; with my voice 
 unto the Lord did I make my supplication." 3 Again, in 
 the prophet Hosea, God bids Israel return to Him in this 
 manner : " take with you words, and turn to the Lord : 
 say unto Him, Take away all iniquity ; so will we render 
 the calves of our lips." 4 They were to bring with them 
 " not costly offerings," but " words ; worthless as mere 
 words ; precious, when from the heart ; words of confession 
 and prayer f and they promised to " render the calves 
 of their lips," that is, their uttered thanksgivings, which 
 would be in lieu of the thank-offerings of the law. 
 
 Christ, and His Apostles, both by precept and practice, 
 teach the necessity of vocal prayer. When the disciples 
 asked Christ to teach them to pray, and He in reply gave 
 them " the Lord's Prayer," He prescribed its vocal recita- 
 tion — "When ye pray, say, Our Father, &c." 5 And He 
 Himself employed words, and used outward signs in prayer, 
 as when at the grave of Lazarus — "Jesus lifted up His 
 eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast 
 heard Me ;" 6 and again, in His Intercessory Prayer, He is 
 described by the Evangelist as praying audibly — "Jesus 
 .... lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said, Father, 
 
 1 Ps. lxvi. 19. 2 p Si cx ii j 
 
 3 Ps. cxlii. 1. 4 Hos. xiv. 2. 
 
 5 S. Luke xi. 2. 6 S. John xi. 41. 
 
Vocal Prater. 197 
 
 the hour is come, glorify Thy Son -," 1 and in the Agony, 
 we are told, He " prayed the third time, using the same 
 words ;" 2 and S. Paul in a remarkable manner depicts the 
 vehemency of Christ's prayers and their outward expres- 
 sion — he says of Him, that " in the days of His flesh . . . 
 He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying 
 and tears." 3 The Apostles, as a body, we find engaged in 
 vocal prayer on the deliverance of Peter and John — " When 
 they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one 
 accord ;" 4 and S. Paul, writing to the Romans, bids them 
 "with one mind and one month glorify God." 5 
 
 The Church, without giving any express precept on the 
 subject, has always regarded the use of vocal prayer as of 
 the highest importance. "Words," says S. Augustine, 
 " are necessary for us to impress upon us our needs, not 
 to inform God of them." And S. Cyprian, when speaking 
 of the Lord's Prayer, describes the Father as recognizing 
 the words of His Son, when we use them. Another gives 
 it as his opinion, that — " after the tradition of the Church, 
 vocal prayer is an obligation imposed on every Christian." 
 And the customs of Christians in all ages, bear witness to 
 the fact, that vocal prayer is a necessity of our nature. 
 
 Having seen the authority for the employment of vocal 
 prayer, we will in the next place consider its advantages and 
 
 1 S. John xvii. I. 2 S. Matt. xxvi. 44. 
 
 3 Heb. v. 7. 4 Acts iv. 24. 
 
 5 Rom. xv. 6. 
 
Vocal Prater. 
 
 purposes. And first, it gives expression to the inward desire 
 of the soul by utterance, and therefore is a relief. It is natural 
 to us to speak when the heart is full — out "of the abundance," 
 says our Lord, "of the heart," the "mouth speaketh." 1 
 You do violence to an instinctive yearning, if you do not 
 grant the heart this relief, of telling out its needs, its griefs, 
 its sins, its burdens. The Psalmist describes the agony 
 which he endured from not acknowledging his sin — "Whilst 
 I held my tongue, my bones consumed away through my 
 daily complaining," 2 and, although these words refer pri- 
 marily to the burden of sin, they mark the effect of the 
 violation, in a single instance, of an universal law of our 
 nature — that law in obedience to which, the soul seeks to give 
 out through the instrumentality of the tongue, the sorrows, 
 the aspirations, the hopes, the fears, the longings, the needs 
 which are pent up within it. Language, moreover, is not 
 only the channel through which thought flows forth, as 
 gathered waters well out from an opened lock; language 
 has a reflexive effect on thought itself. By speaking, our 
 ideas become clearer; we gain greater power of analyzing 
 and defining them, when we have the opportunity of telling 
 them forth ; and the material which was fusing in the mind 
 is thereby cast into a shape and fixed in a mould for perma- 
 nent use. Language is therefore not only the interpreter of 
 thought, but also its anatomist, its fertilizer and preserver. 
 As words, then, are the spontaneous outcome of a desire 
 1 S. Luke vi. 45. 2 Ps. xxxii. 3. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 
 
 199 
 
 which is implanted in us, to communicate with one another 
 what is passing within, whereby spirit holds converse with 
 spirit through the medium of the flesh; so, we feel the 
 need of the same sort of intercourse with Him, Who is 
 " the God of the spirits of all flesh," 1 and find it in vocal 
 prayer : and as by words we not only express, but also 
 enrich our thoughts in giving them forth to others ; so in 
 supplication, utterance will often have the further advantage 
 of rendering definite or of amplifying, those desires which 
 we want to bring before God. 
 
 But vocal prayer has another effect on the worshipper, 
 beside that of making the thoughts clearer, or of adding to 
 them — it excites devotion. S. Augustine and other writers, 
 have placed this as the first advantage of vocal prayer ; he 
 says, "We pray with the voice, that we may excite our- 
 selves to devotion." Again, " Words excite interior devo- 
 tion, whereby the mind of him who prays is raised to God," 
 and Aquinas adds the reason, " For it is by apprehending 
 external signs the mind of man is moved, and consequently 
 the affection." 
 
 We have seen that the soul of man is acted on in two 
 ways, from within and from without ; and as that which 
 reaches us through the organs of sense, touches us very 
 keenly, therefore the sensible signs of prayer often re- 
 call the soul and excite its fervour — " that desire may 
 effectually ascend upward for the obtaining of Divine gifts, 
 1 Num. vi. 22. 
 
200 Focal Prater. 
 
 it is necessary that our affection be fervent, and thought 
 collected, and our expectation sure and firm ; and because 
 our heart is often lukewarm, often scattered, often fearful 
 through remorse for sin ... . hence it is, that the Lord 
 wills us not only to pray mentally but also vocally, that our 
 affections may be excited by the words, and the recollection 
 of our thoughts, by the meaning of the words." 1 Thus, the 
 utterances of prayer re-act on the soul, and — so close is the 
 union between soul and body — the faculties of the one are 
 often stirred by the exercise of the other. 2 As an illustra- 
 tion of the effect of uttered words on the heart, I would 
 point to the act of confessing sin. Whatever may be the 
 previous knowledge which the soul possesses of itself, and 
 the sorrow which it has in consequence called forth, how 
 does the very enumeration of its offences, stir a deeper 
 compunction than any which had been before experienced. 
 Another instance of the effect of the uttered word upon 
 the heart, may be found in the way in which, in times of 
 bereavement, when the sorrow is fresh and keen, we are 
 obliged to avoid the mention of the name of the departed 
 one, because we could not utter it, or another could not 
 hear it without "breaking down;" such sounds not only 
 reach the outer ear, but touch inner chords too delicate 
 
 1 S. Bonaventure, Brevil. v. c. 10. 
 
 2 Thus, to impress anything deeply on the memoiy the aid of the 
 senses is called in. We are advised to repeat aloud what we would 
 remember ; to look at it, if in print ; and to write it ; so that sound, 
 sight, and touch might combine in helping us to retain it. 
 
Vocal Prater. 201 
 
 and sensitive to bear the vibration. And not only do the 
 utterances of prayer, or the sensible signs which are used, 
 stimulate devotion, they sometimes serve the further pur- 
 pose of bringing back the errant spirit, which, from quick- 
 ness of thought or the flicker of the imagination, soon 
 wanders from the prayer which it was engaged in 
 offering. 
 
 Thirdly, on an independent ground, vocal prayer might 
 be urged as a necessity, viz. as an element of the homage 
 we owe to God, for the body must have its offering as well 
 as the soul. We have already alluded to that species of 
 false spirituality, which affects contempt for the body and 
 for bodily worship. The body, it must never be forgotten, 
 is an integral part of our being; our soul is not like an 
 angelic spirit, complete in itself, and without need of a 
 material organism ; our flesh was created by a distinct act 
 of God to be the eternal vestment of the human spirit, and 
 to provide that spirit with fitting instruments through which 
 it might operate, and without which it has but a maimed 
 life. When the Apostle tells us of his longings to be 
 "delivered from the burden of the flesh," he pauses to 
 discriminate, and explains that it was not the flesh itself — 
 " not for that we would be unclothed," be, that is, " naked" 
 spirits — that he desired to be freed from, but " mortality," 
 the flesh, that is, in its mortal condition ; he felt that to be 
 " unclothed" 1 was to be in an imperfect state, and one 
 1 2 Cor. v. 4. 
 
202 Vocal Prater. 
 
 contrary to the first Will of God. The body, then— being 
 not a mere temporary environment of the immortal spirit, 
 but its home, its correlative, its partner in reward or woe, 
 as in deeds of shame and of nobleness — must yield its 
 distinctive homage, must place its various powers to the 
 service of the soul, and join with it in the worship of God. 
 The musician needs the instrument upon which to play, 
 and the body is the instrument through which the soul of 
 man expresses itself — an instrument, moulded by the im- 
 press of the kindred spirit, and in harmony with its quali- 
 ties. Thus David in the Psalms calls upon his tongue to 
 aid him in the praises of God — " Awake up, my glory ;" 
 he speaks of the tongue, as the gift which is his " glory," 1 — 
 the gift of excellency, which distinguishes man from the 
 beast, the gift through which the Holy Ghost betokened 
 His Presence, and which He chose for His agency — with 
 this as well as with all his inward powers, he would render 
 homage to the Most High. S. Paul says, " the body" — not 
 only the soul — "is for the Lord," 2 and bids us "present" 
 our "bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." 3 
 Vocal prayer, then, in addition to mental, is necessary as 
 one element of the homage of the body, and one which is 
 so acceptable to God, that He attributes greater value to 
 it than to all the costly sacrifices of Israel, for that which 
 pleases "the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns 
 
 1 Ps. lvii. 8 ; xvi. 9 ; Acts ii. 26. 2 1 Cor. vi. 13. 
 
 3 Rom. xii. I. 
 
Vocal Prater. 203 
 
 and hoofs/' 1 is the song of praise and the prayer of thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 The advantages and purposes of vocal prayer, we have 
 found to lie in the relief which utterance gives to our in- 
 most thoughts and feelings, in the powerful and productive 
 influence which language exerts over thought itself, in its 
 stimulative and remindful effects upon devotion, and in the 
 offering of a bodily act of worship. We should now pro- 
 ceed to notice some ways of using vocal prayer. 
 
 Though differing in degree, the advantages which are 
 inherent in the act itself of vocal prayer will be the same, 
 whether we regard it as a part of private devotion or public 
 worship ; and therefore much of what has been advanced 
 will be found to be applicable, with equal or greater force, 
 to the latter. But in examining the ways of using vocal 
 prayer, our attention will for the present be exclusively 
 directed to prayer in private; and we shall employ the 
 term "vocal prayer" as inclusive of what is sometimes 
 named " verbal prayer," that is, prayer in which words are 
 used or repeated, but not necessarily aloud, that of which 
 the prayer of Hannah is in one respect an example — it is 
 said of her, " She spake in her heart, only her lips moved, 
 but her voice was not heard." 2 
 
 Vocal prayer in private may be either formal, spontaneous, 
 or ejaculatory. In formal prayer, we use devotions which 
 have been already prescribed, or arranged, or committed to 
 1 Ps. lxix. 30, 31. 2 I Sam. i. 13. 
 
204 Vocal Prater. 
 
 memory, which are of the utmost importance. Christ 
 Himself, by giving us a form of prayer, sanctioned this mode 
 of praying. It is a great delusion to imagine, that after we 
 have attained a certain proficiency in prayer, these elemen- 
 tary devotions ought to be discarded. On the contrary, 
 the higher the house is, the more dangerous it is to neg- 
 lect the foundations; whatever our attainments may be 
 in meditation, we should be careful to say morning and 
 evening prayers, the preparation for and thanksgiving 
 after Sacraments, according to some set form of devo- 
 tion — and therefore we cannot be thankful enough to those 
 who have spent their time, labour, and learning in com- 
 piling books of devotion, and so in providing for this ne- 
 cessity. 
 
 The habit of using forms of prayer has many advantages 
 attached to it. Such prayers are in the first place, sugges- 
 tive ; they quicken the movements of our inner being, when 
 the faculties are dull and inactive ; they supply a stream of 
 thought, when the mind itself has little or no creative power, 
 and so needs to be fed from without ; they are to some, as 
 the stick which helps us when we cannot walk alone, or as 
 the frame to which the weak tendrils of a plant cling for 
 support. Moreover, these prayers are often hallowed by 
 association ; memories which never entirely lose their power, 
 are often linked with the forms of prayer we use ; they 
 were syllabled, perhaps, first at a mother's knee, and now the 
 portions which are still retained, remind us of those who 
 
Vocal Prater. 205 
 
 are within the veil, they seem to have a character of their 
 own, and differ from all subsequent devotions — like a birth- 
 place has associations of its own which are different from all 
 others, because in it we received the first impressions of 
 our natural life. So, again, there are spiritual associations ; 
 the words we use may have been the well-worn utterances 
 of Saints, which have been preserved for the benefit of sub- 
 sequent generations — prayers which were framed by those 
 in whom the Spirit of God dwelt richly, which therefore are 
 far better than any we can devise for ourselves — prayers 
 which were composed by those who are now amongst the 
 Blessed, and in using them, we seem to place ourselves, as 
 it were, within the influence of their holiness. The prayers 
 of a S. Augustine, of a S. Gregory, or a S. Bernard, seem, 
 not only from the spiritual instinct in their composition but 
 from the law of association, to come to us almost with a 
 special grace. 
 
 Again, the use of written prayers obviates two opposite 
 evils : on the one side, the scrupulous mind is always ques- 
 tioning itself as to the fulfilment of its obligations, is in 
 doubt whether it has done this or that, and to such the 
 simple direction to say certain stated prayers, will be neces- 
 sary to hinder disquietude ; on the other, the lax dispo- 
 sition will be ready to content itself with some dreamy 
 effusion in which the soul wanders hither and thither with- 
 out laying hold of anything, when the will should be really 
 exerting itself in some definite petitions, and to such, set 
 
2o6 Vocal Prater. 
 
 prayers, will be necessary for the prevention of sloth and 
 negligence. 
 
 In another and an opposite way, vocal prayer may be 
 employed, that is, without any set form. It was mentioned 
 as the first effect of vocal prayer, that it relieved the soul ; 
 and there are times when this relief can only be obtained 
 by the outpouring of the soul before God, that is, by an 
 unpremeditated and spontaneous effusion ; times, for in- 
 stance, of deep sorrow, great perplexity, aching remorse for 
 sin, when no form of prayer exactly meets the need, and 
 the only resource lies in telling all to God. The Psalmist re- 
 fers to such a mode of praying, as a personal experience and 
 by way of exhortation — " pour out your heart before Him, 
 for God is our hope." 1 And when Hannah explained her 
 gestures to Eli, she said, "I am a woman of a sorrowful 
 spirit : I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but 
 have poured out my soul before the Lord." 2 S. Ambrose 
 explains this " effusion of heart" to consist in " an open 
 and sincere confession whereby we acknowledge our sins 
 and miseries, and from our inmost heart beseech God 
 to have mercy upon us." There are prayers, in Holy 
 Scripture, which were poured forth according to the move- 
 ment of the Spirit at the time of utterance ; and such in- 
 stances, though they were the result of a special inspiration, 
 may lend a sanction to the spontaneous outpourings of 
 love and sorrow, of those who are the recipients only of an 
 1 Ps. lxii. 8. ' I Sam. i. 15. 
 
Vocal Prater. 207 
 
 ordinary grace. This extemporaneous outflow of the heart, 
 this speaking to God in our own words, is a legitimate por- 
 tion of oral prayer, and when resorted to at a fitting time, 
 or occasion, will hinder intercourse with God from becom- 
 ing mechanical. The two different modes of approaching 
 God, the formal and the spontaneous, which are both of 
 great profit, will act on one another as a mutual check, and 
 each should hold its due place in the life of Prayer. 
 
 Under vocal prayer, it is usual to include the prayer of 
 ejaculation. It might seem that ejaculation, was rather a 
 part of mental than of vocal prayer ; it may be either, but 
 as words are often used or some other outward expression, 
 such as a glance, posture, or pause, it is considered a species 
 of vocal prayer. It is by the practice of ejaculatory prayer 
 that the precept to " pray always" 1 to " pray without ceas- 
 ing/' 2 is fulfilled j and by it, the " spirit of prayer" is sus- 
 tained. The " spirit of prayer" is not any one of our ex- 
 ercises of devotion, " it is, if it may be so expressed, the 
 part subtile and ethereal of each of our exercises, which 
 again ascends into the high regions of the soul, and forms 
 an habitual reservoir of holy thoughts and pious feelings, 
 the perfume of which exhales itself when the soul is occu- 
 pied with external duties." 3 Each communion, each prayer 
 or meditation, each office or ejaculation, contributes some- 
 thing to that perfume — " that odoriferous vapour of pure 
 
 1 S. Luke xxi. 36. 2 1 Thess. v. 17. 
 
 3 Landriot, "La Priere Chretienne," p. 233. 
 
2o8 Vocal Prater. 
 
 souls." But ejaculatory prayer is the means of retaining 
 the sweet odour, when we are engaged in work ; it may be 
 internal only, or also accompanied by some outward action. 
 Christ Himself has given us an example of this quick 
 mode of praying ; when healing the deaf and dumb man, 
 He gave an upward glance towards heaven ; again, at the 
 grave of Lazarus, " He lifted up His eyes" to the Father ; 
 the words from the Cross also were ejaculations. The 
 prayer, whereby the publican was justified in God's sight, 
 was an ejaculation. Peter's cry amid the billows, " Lord, 
 save me, I perish," was an ejaculation. These prayers were 
 described by S. Augustine, as darts which the soul secretly 
 sends up to heaven in the midst of outward employments. 
 They are flames which are kindled by the Holy Spirit, in 
 him in whom the fire of love is a continuous possession ; 
 whose life is " only one holy desire." 
 
 There are different kinds of ejaculatory prayer, and modes 
 of acquiring the habit of using it. Converse with God 
 through His works in nature, is one method : the soul ac- 
 customs itself to be reminded of certain Divine things, 
 when it comes into contact with certain external objects 
 — "in every object, you may see a thought Divine;" S. 
 Francis, we read, whenever he saw a lamb, was at once 
 led to think of the meekness of Christ. Converse with 
 God, through His works of grace is another method : the 
 soul recalls some Mystery, or supernatural benefit which 
 has been received, as e.g. the Holy Communion, and 
 
Vocal Prater. 
 
 209 
 
 makes an ejaculation of thanksgiving at certain intervals 
 during the day. Or again, there is interrogatory ejacula- 
 tion, the resort of the soul in perplexity and desolation, 
 which the Psalmist used, when he exclaimed, " Why art 
 thou so heavy, O my soul P" 1 " My God, my God, why 
 hast Thou forsaken me ?" 2 and this kind of prayer is of great 
 advantage, when we are in honest doubt and quite unable 
 to comprehend the Providence of God. And there is 
 pathetic ejaculation, in which vent is given to tender feelings 
 and emotions, e.g., " Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee," 3 
 — " Jesus, my love, is crucified/' and that of the father who 
 said, "with tears, Lord, I believe." 4 The kind of ejacu- 
 lation will depend either on the mood of the soul at the 
 time, or on the outward occasion of its utterance ; and the 
 attainment of the habit will depend on the employment of 
 certain events or objects as signals, on our perseverance, 
 and on the general growth of a spiritual mind. 
 
 The practice is of importance in all stages of the spiritual 
 life ; in the hour of temptation, the remembrance of the 
 Presence of God hinders a fall — " I have set God always 
 before me, He is on my right hand, therefore I shall not 
 fall ;" 5 in time of repentance, the thought of the Divine gaze 
 heightens compunction — " hide Thy Face from my sins ;" 6 
 in the cultivation of virtues, the sense of the Divine Pre- 
 sence which ejaculatory prayer sustains, acts as a stimulant 
 
 1 Ps. xlii. II. 2 Ps. xxii. 1. 3 S. John xxi. 17. 
 
 4 S. Mark ix. 14. 5 Ps. xvi. 8. 6 Ps. li. 9. 
 
2io Vocal Prater. 
 
 — " I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies : for all 
 my ways are before Thee j" 1 in the higher paths of holiness, 
 love and union are perfected by this practice of the Divine 
 Presence — " they always behold the face of their " Father 
 which is in heaven ;" 2 in the agony of death, it alone can 
 quell alarm — "though I walk through the valley of the 
 shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." 3 
 For the neglect of ejaculatory prayer, there can be no 
 excuse. When we omit other kinds of prayer, there are 
 grounds of excuse, which are not seldom alleged, viz., that 
 we have not time, that our mind is not capable of meditat- 
 ing, that we are harassed by distractions, that prayer brings 
 temptations, that we are afflicted with distaste and dryness 
 of spirit, &c. Not one of these, however, can be urged as 
 a plea for the neglect of ejaculatory prayer; for ejaculations 
 occupy no time, demand no sustained action of the mental 
 powers, are too quick to admit of distraction, and are too 
 short to produce weariness or trial. By diligence in these 
 prayers, we turn to account the actual grace which passes as 
 a current through the soul — those scintillations of Divine 
 light which are so rapid, that they only admit of a momen- 
 tary correspondence — those movements of the Spirit, which 
 like waves, pass by unused, unless they bear us on their 
 crest; so that, ejaculations — beside the fact that their ex- 
 ercise is one of especial facility and sweetness — are of great 
 moment, for by them a transient illumination or inspira- 
 1 Ps. cxix. 1 68. 2 S. Matt, xviii. io. 3 Ps. xxiii. 4. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 211 
 
 tion may be converted into the substance of a virtue, and 
 be productive of a lasting reward. 
 
 In our survey of Vocal Prayer, we have examined the autho- 
 rity for it, its advantages, and lastly, three modes of exercis- 
 ing it, viz., by formal, spontaneous, and ejaculatory devotions. 
 We pass now from the consideration of Vocal Prayer in refe- 
 rence to private devotions, to treat of Public Prayer. And 
 first we will regard Public Worship as a duty ; secondly, we 
 will enumerate some of its advantages ; and finally, consider a 
 difficulty which stands especially in the way of its performance. 
 
 II. It has been noticed, that, when S. Paul exhorts 
 Timothy " first of all that supplications, prayers, interces- 
 sions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men," he had 
 primarily in view the arrangements of public worship. It 
 was important that the Bishop of Ephesus should impress 
 on his flock, that they should pray to God not only as in- 
 dividuals, but as members of a society or corporation. 
 Prayer as well as faith, is not satisfied with an inward con- 
 viction or private exercise, it must have a public profession, 
 " for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and 
 with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 1 The 
 mind of God is clearly revealed in Holy Scripture on this 
 matter. The central object in the Old Testament is the 
 Temple of God. We find God, not only directing Moses 
 to construct a Tabernacle for the united worship of the 
 people, but giving commands as to every feature of the 
 1 Rom. x. 10. 
 
2i2 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 Building, and every portion of the Ritual which was to be 
 carried on within it. Again, God filled the Temple of 
 Solomon, with a manifest glory when it was dedicated to 
 His service, 1 and accepted the gorgeous worship with which 
 in that magnificent structure He was approached. God 
 has told us what was the main purpose of this building — I 
 will " make them joyful in Mine house of prayer ... for 
 Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." 2 
 And for this Temple, the Holy Spirit instilled into the 
 soul of every true Israelite a special reverence and love. 
 Again and again, does the Psalmist break out into fervent 
 desire and affection for the House of God, e.g., " One thing 
 have I desired of the Lord which I will seek after, that I 
 may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my 
 life." 3 When for a while exiled from it, he exclaims, 
 ' ' O how amiable are Thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts ; my 
 soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord." 4 
 Again, when returning to it, he gives utterance to his joy — 
 " I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the 
 House of the Lord." 5 Daniel, when he prayed, had the 
 window of his chamber " open toward Jerusalem." 6 
 
 Christ Himself, by His love for the Temple, and dili- 
 gence in resorting thither at the Feasts, by His lingering in 
 it, when His parents had left it, and teaching in its hal- 
 lowed precincts, indicates the necessity of Public Prayer. 
 
 1 2 Chron. vii. 2. 2 Isa. lvi. 7. 3 Ps. xxvii. 4. 
 
 4 Ps. lxxxiv. I, 2. 5 Ps. cxxii. 1. 6 Dan. vi. IO. 
 
Vocal Prater. 213 
 
 The Apostles follow the example of their Master, they are 
 to be found in the Father's House too, not only when He 
 was with them, but afterward ; when they waited for the 
 Coming of the Holy Ghost, we are told, they " were con- 
 tinually in the Temple, praising and blessing God ;" 1 when 
 the Comforter had come, they still continued "with one 
 accord in the Temple ;" 2 we find again, Peter and John 
 going up " together into the Temple at the hour of prayer." 3 
 And this duty of Public Service was not to become obsolete, 
 and to pass away with the Jewish Covenant ; rather the 
 worship of Israel was a type of a future Reality. Christ 
 gave a promise of a special presence, " where two or three 
 should be gathered together in His Name ;" 4 S. Paul, in 
 writing to the Hebrews, warns them against " the forsaking 
 the assembling of" themselves "together;" 5 at Philippi, 
 " on the Sabbath," they " went out where prayer was wont 
 to be made ;" 6 in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, there 
 is evident allusion to a place which was designed for public 
 worship ; 7 and the prophet foretold the extension of public 
 worship in the New Covenant — no longer to be confined 
 to the walls of one Building — " for from the rising of the 
 sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall 
 be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense 
 shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering." 8 
 
 1 S. Luke xxiv. 53. 2 Acts ii. 46. 3 Acts iii. 1. 
 
 4 S. Matt, xviii. 20. 5 Heb. x. 25. 6 Acts xvi. 13. 
 
 7 I Cor. xi. 22. 8 Mai. i. 11. 
 
214 Vocal Prater. 
 
 Further, the duty of Public Prayer, may be gathered from 
 the careful provisions which the Church has made for its 
 performance. The " Divine Liturgy" and the " Divine 
 Office" are the two forms of Vocal Prayer, which the Church 
 has employed from the earliest times in her worship. Some 
 Liturgies are so ancient, that they have been thought to be 
 older than some of the books of the New Testament ; so 
 that, it has been a question whether the Liturgy quotes the 
 New Testament, or the New Testament the Liturgy. The 
 Divine Office, too, was provided at a very early date, and 
 gradually assumed its sevenfold form, in commemoration 
 of different stages of Christ's Passion. It has been said that 
 the Divine Office, or Canonical Hours, became sevenfold, in 
 accordance with the Psalmist's resolution — " Seven times a 
 day will I praise Thee." 1 Some of these Hours of Prayer are 
 mentioned in Holy Scripture — thus David says, " Evening, 
 morning, and at noon will I pray," 2 " at midnight I will 
 rise to give thanks to Thee;" 3 and the Apostles prayed 
 at the third, 4 sixth, 5 and ninth 6 hours — consequently we 
 find their recitation was soon enjoined upon the clergy. 7 
 
 And such provisions were a necessity, for there could be 
 no " common prayer" without forms of prayer, which from 
 their repetition would become familiar. God Himself put 
 
 1 Ps. cxix. 164. 2 Ps. lv. 17. 3 Ps. cxix. 62. 
 
 4 Acts ii. 15. 5 Acts x. 9. 6 Acts iii. 1. 
 
 7 An obligation which still survives in the order, that " all priests 
 and deacons are to say daily Matins and Evensong" — services which 
 are a compendium of the ancient Hours. 
 
Vocal Prayer, 215 
 
 into the mouths of His priests of old, the words with which 
 they were to bless the people — " On this wise ye shall bless 
 the people .... The Lord bless thee, &C." 1 Thus God 
 authorized the use of forms of prayer, and the principle of 
 repetition ; the song of Moses also " grew afterwards to be 
 a part of the ordinary Jewish Liturgy." Hooker ridicules 
 the notion that prayers to be accepted by God, must be 
 "always new;" it is according to him "to imagine that 
 God doth loathe to have the self-same supplications often 
 iterated, even as we do to be every day fed without altera- 
 tion or change of diet." 2 Authorised forms of prayer are 
 requisite for many reasons; the worshippers are thereby 
 protected from the danger of anything which is contrary to 
 faith, entering into their devotions through the error or 
 negligence of the minister ; they are preserved from the 
 crude and wandering effusions of those, who, without any 
 blame to themselves, are incapable of conducting the devo- 
 tions of the people; they are provided too, with prayers 
 in which they can join because they know them, whereas 
 it is impossible to pray vocally when the utterances are not 
 according to a prescribed form ; they are preserved also 
 from that confusion and disorder in Divine Worship, which 
 the Apostle describes, when he says, "When ye come 
 together every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, 
 hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation." 3 
 
 1 Num. vi. 22 — 26. 2 Hooker, Bk. v. ch. xxvi. 2. 
 
 3 I Cor. xiv. 26. 
 
216 Focal Prater. 
 
 Therefore S. Paul, when he exhorts Timothy, that " first of 
 all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks 
 be made for all men," was really bidding him " provide by 
 his authority that there should be set forms of prayer . . . 
 to be used in those Churches" which were " under his 
 inspection and jurisdiction." 1 
 
 The advantages of Public Prayer may be viewed, in 
 respect of the place which is set apart for the worship of 
 God ; in reference to the congregation ; in relation to God, 
 and to man. A glance in these different directions will 
 suffice to show, how manifold are the benefits of prayer 
 when it is offered in the House of God. And first, the place 
 itself acts upon us by virtue of its sacredness. Though a 
 building is incapable of formal sanctity, yet when it is con- 
 secrated, it is not only separated from common uses, and 
 made in a peculiar way God's property, but God is also 
 said to dwell therein. But how is the Most High, whom 
 Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, declared " the 
 heaven of heavens" could " not contain," 2 said to dwell in 
 holy places ? By revealing Himself in an especial manner, 
 and by bestowing a special grace in places which are dedi- 
 cated to Him. When Jacob awaked out of sleep, and had 
 seen the vision of angels ascending and descending on the 
 mystic ladder, he exclaimed, " Surely the Lord is in this 
 place, and I knew it not;" 3 he was not ignorant of the 
 
 1 Bull, vol. ii. 547. 2 1 Kings viii. 27. 
 
 3 Gen. xxviii. 16. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 217 
 
 truth of God's Omnipresence, but he felt that in that spot 
 there was a special Presence of God to himself, that there 
 he tasted the Divine Presence in a peculiar manner, and 
 therefore his soul was filled with holy fear. And so in the 
 Temple of old, it was the manifestation by visible tokens 
 of a Divine Presence, which affected the worshipper, and 
 seemed to bring him near to the gates of Heaven. God 
 is Omnipresent, yet He bestows a sense of His Presence 
 in His Temple, and prayer offered there has not only a 
 special promise of acceptance, but the act of praying is 
 helped by a special grace. As we are invigorated by 
 change of air, especially when we live in a climate which 
 has a tendency to weaken and relax the physical frame ; 
 so, the soul by passing into the Courts of the Lord is 
 braced by the pure and heavenly atmosphere of the place, 
 is quickened by the currents of actual grace which are 
 therein, and by its removal from all infectious and unholy 
 influences. 
 
 Beside this supernatural assistance to which we have 
 alluded, we are helped in praying by the sacredness and 
 beauty of the objects which are around us in the House 
 of God. " Temples are erected not for God, but on ac- 
 count of us." That which meets the eye and the ear, acts 
 upon us instinctively by a law of our nature. The " sur- 
 roundings" of our life contribute to the formation of cha- 
 racter and to the development of powers, as much as the soil 
 and climate affect the growth of a plant. Thus, the Greeks, 
 
2i 8 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 we are told, desired their children to be brought up amid 
 things which were beautiful, in order that they might have 
 generous dispositions and pure tastes. And in the Temples 
 of God, architecture, music, painting, sacred symbols, ritual, 
 in short all that is lovely, elevates the soul and touches it 
 with the love of Heaven. 
 
 We have this twofold help to prayer in the House of God 
 — a special grace within the soul, and the external influence 
 of the place j and in addition to these, though God promises 
 to hear prayer, wherever it may be addressed to Him, for 
 " wherever you pray . . . you are a temple," says S. Chry- 
 sostom ; yet we have His special promise to prayer, when 
 it is offered in His sanctuary. It is " the house of prayer," 
 towards which the " eyes" of God are ever " open," and 
 where He will hear " the supplication of" His " servants j" 1 
 into which Pharisee and Publican alike " went up to pray ;" 2 
 where, what we " ask shall be done for" us of our " Father 
 Which is in Heaven." 3 
 
 Further, in prayer we are assisted by the presence of 
 others who are likewise praying. We are stirred by their 
 devotions ; as a silent harp begins to vibrate, when another 
 which is near it is played upon. Soul kindles soul in the 
 great congregation — "I will give Thee thanks," says the 
 Psalmist, "in the great congregation, I will praise Thee 
 amongst much people." 4 A divine fluid seems to circulate 
 
 1 i Kings viii. 2 S. Luke xviii. io. 
 
 3 S. Matt, xviii. 19, 20. 4 Ps. xxxv. 18. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 219 
 
 through the crowd of worshippers, inspiring, elevating, enkin- 
 dling, and thrilling, even the soul which in the beginning of 
 the service was perhaps lukewarm and depressed. Wor- 
 shipper acts, and reacts upon worshipper, in the assembly 
 of the Saints, and thus the latent spark of devotion is 
 fanned into a flame. Who has not experienced this in- 
 spiration, when entering the Temple of God, he has joined 
 with a multitude in some solemn act of Worship, when 
 the Sacred Mysteries of Religion were being enacted ! 
 We gained by sympathy and contact with others, a power 
 of prayer, to which we should have been strangers, had 
 we been left to our own aspirations. We gain, too, some- 
 thing from the feeling that we are not only praying with 
 the assembled congregation, but that we are also en rapport 
 with the whole Mystic Body of Christ, when we are en- 
 gaged in public worship. 
 
 And this thought leads us to regard the advantage of 
 public prayer, when viewed in reference to God. " Union 
 is strength" is a proverb which is true of prayer. God has 
 promised that when two or three agree together to pray 
 for anything, they shall be heard ; that is, their prayer when 
 they so agree, would have greater potency than their iso- 
 lated supplications. One great purpose of Religion, is 
 evidently that of binding men together with a common 
 interest and sympathy. Thus, it has been said, " God 
 cannot resist an army of souls praying, whose hearts are 
 founded in a common affection." The power of united 
 
220 Vocal Prater. 
 
 prayer does not result simply from the contributions of each 
 soul, but from something which is super-added, a sort of 
 interest on the principal, a living energy which could not 
 have accrued from their separated devotions. "If," says 
 S. Ignatius, "the prayer of one and of another has such 
 power, what of that of the Bishop and the whole Church ?" 
 Then, too, in the great assembly, we are not only by the 
 force of numbers able to urge upon God our petitions — like 
 the violent of whom we read that they " take" the kingdom 
 of heaven " by force ; ,n but are also encouraged to make 
 strong and heroic resolutions against temptations, as soldiers 
 are inspired with courage and enthusiasm, when drawn up 
 in battle-array. 
 
 Public Prayer has also its use, with regard to man him- 
 self; it is the symbol of brotherhood. There are, and 
 rightly too, various distinctions in this lower life of ours ; 
 differences of birth, education, powers, vocation, wealth, and 
 success ; but in the public worship of God — though even 
 in the House of God, human selfishness has sometimes 
 raised barriers — earthly distinctions are for awhile oblite- 
 rated, and man as man falls down before his God. There 
 is equality there, whatever may be the social differences 
 beyond its sacred precincts ; transient distinctions must not 
 find a place in the courts of the Eternal ; all meet there 
 on common grounds, as creatures of the same Heavenly 
 Father, as bought by the same Precious Blood, as temples 
 1 S. Matt. xi. 12. 
 
Vocal Prater. 221 
 
 of the same Blessed Spirit. Each one, as he gazes on the 
 Crucified Form can say, " He loved me and gave Himself 
 for me f and thus, we are reminded of our equality in all 
 that is lasting, as the tribute of prayer or of praise ascends 
 up to the common Father of all, when high and low, 
 rich and poor, young and old, meet together in these earthly 
 Courts to worship Him. 
 
 We pass now, from a brief survey of some of the advan- 
 tages of Public Prayer, to consider a special difficulty which 
 belongs in some measure to all kinds of prayer; yet one 
 more commonly felt when we are engaged in Public Prayer 
 than at any other time, both because of its length, our fami- 
 liarity with its forms, and the distractions which may arise 
 from a wrong use of the presence of others. I refer to the 
 difficulty of preserving attention. We will look at the neces- 
 sity for, and the nature of attention, the causes of distrac- 
 tions, and their remedies. 
 
 Without attention, in mental prayer, the whole act ceases ; 
 but in vocal prayer, there may be no attention, and still the 
 mechanical recitation of a prayer be continued. Attention 
 is of the essence of prayer, and is not merely its accom- 
 paniment or adornment. The simple repetition of a form 
 of words is not prayer, unless the soul is performing the act 
 with the intention of praying, and with, at least, a desire to 
 keep the attention upon what it is doing. Thus, a form of 
 devotion may be read, for the sake of knowing what is in it, 
 or for a literary purpose, or in a spirit of hypocrisy, and of 
 
222 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 course would be no prayer. To approach God with the 
 lips, and not with the heart, He has told us, is very offensive 
 in His sight. — " This people draweth nigh unto Me with their 
 mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is 
 far from Me." 1 Mental Prayer is that which is mental only, 
 vocal prayer that which is vocal also; mental prayer is, it has 
 been said, the soul of vocal, and — seeing that mental prayer 
 is the ascent of the mind to God, therefore the mental act of 
 attending is a necessity, and without it vocal prayer is but 
 the body without the soul. 
 
 But when it is said, that attention is requisite for prayer, 
 it must also be added, that there are different kinds or 
 degrees of attention. The lowest or ' external' attention, 
 consists in the care with which the words themselves are 
 recited ; the second kind of attention, lies in the continuous 
 application of the understanding to the meaning of that 
 which is read or uttered ; the third, or ' spiritual' attention, 
 is that in which the soul, without following the sense of 
 each sentence, is uplifted to God, bearing aloft some inten- 
 tion, gazing with sustained power upon some Perfection of 
 the Divine Life, or filled with the thought of some Mystery 
 of Christ. Which of these kinds of intention is chiefly 
 requisite or practicable, will depend either on the nature of 
 the devotion in which we are engaged, or on our physical 
 state. There may be times of weakness, when it is as much 
 as we can do, to keep the eye and the mind upon the 
 1 S. Matt. xv. 8. 
 
Vocal Prater. 223 
 
 words we are using in the prayer ; and again, there are 
 devotions in Offices, such as the Psalms, where it is often- 
 times difficult to grasp the meaning, and the quick recita- 
 tion of which, will render a present penetration of the sense 
 impossible — in such, a spiritual intention is the one which 
 is required, and the psalm so recited, is by our intention or 
 by some antiphon, pervaded with a holy thought or desire, 
 which is directed towards God as an act of worship and 
 praise. Some authors have regarded these different kinds 
 of attention, in their bearing on the effects of prayer : they 
 have considered the second kind of attention, that, to the 
 sense of the words, necessary in order to gain an answer to 
 our petitions ; the third kind, spiritual attention, as requisite 
 for gaining spiritual refection from contact with God. How- 
 ever, for all prayer, attention in this respect is necessary, viz. 
 that all other thoughts must be put away, when we are draw- 
 ing near to God ; the differences between kinds of attention 
 are on the positive side, all kinds require the rejection of 
 foreign and irrelevant thoughts. 
 
 Distractions may arise from many causes, a common 
 cause is an unmortified passion. Attachment to the 
 creature, hinders communion with the Creator; it may 
 bring, as of old, the buyers and sellers into the courts 
 of the Temple, and in the mind mingle an unholy traffic 
 with the Service of God. Distractions of passion, are 
 easily detected; they are to be known by the fact that 
 the mind, when it wanders always gravitates in one direc- 
 
224 Vocal Prayer. 
 
 tion : the avaricious, on money ; the ambitious, on power ; 
 the vain, on praise; the lustful, on gratifications, could 
 fix their thoughts without danger of distraction, for where 
 "the treasure is, there will" the "heart be also." Again, 
 distraction may be purely mental, the result of a mind which 
 is ever wandering and unsettled; these may be known 
 by their variety, and also by the fact that the mind wanders 
 not only in prayer but in doing everything else ; this 
 mental dissipation may arise from original weakness, or 
 from the indulgence of the vice of sloth. Distractions may 
 be also spiritual, and sent by God to humble the soul, and 
 hide those formations of grace which are going on within 
 it. Sometimes, they may be temptations which He permits, 
 by the resistance of which the soul is purified, and its 
 contrition deepened when it is haunted by pictures of its 
 old sins : these will molest the soul, without really disturbing 
 it at its summit; unless indeed, they are not promptly 
 expelled, or are resisted in a spirit of impatience. 
 
 To overcome distractions of passion, it is evident that 
 the particular passion which agitates us, must be mortified. 
 The only cure lies in the eradication of the source of the 
 difficulty; the proper remedies, therefore, will be those 
 which are required for healing the vicious tendency of the 
 soul, and the cultivation of the opposite virtue. It is 
 sometimes recommended also, to meditate (when it is not 
 likely to become a temptation) upon the thought which 
 distracts us, see its worthlessness when compared with 
 
Vocal Prater. 225 
 
 eternal interests, &c. Mental distraction will need to be 
 dealt with in a different manner ; it must be met by efforts 
 of the will, and by quickening the vision of faith. We 
 are brought to attend to an object which is before us, 
 in two ways : by the exercise of the will, by which all 
 other impressions are for the time suspended or reduced ; 
 and, by the attraction of the object itself which absorbs 
 us. The power of concentrating the thoughts is possessed 
 by different persons in various degrees, and by the same 
 persons in different degrees at different periods of their 
 life. Thus, children have little power of fixing their 
 thoughts, their minds being under the control of their senses, 
 which are fascinated by the novelty and freshness of every 
 external object; whilst in manhood, when the mind has 
 been trained, it is no longer so easily caught away by 
 outward things. It is by bringing the mind under the 
 dominion of the will, that the habit of attention is formed. 
 But the matter may be taken out of our hands by the 
 presentation of an object, which is so beautiful or won- 
 derful as at once to enthral us ; the fixed gaze of the eye, 
 the eager look, the faces which are all turned in one 
 direction, show that every one is attending to something, 
 and that without effort. Now attention in prayer is to 
 be acquired in the same manner, by efforts of will, and by 
 the attraction of an object : by the first, opposite impres- 
 sions will be removed and kept away; and the second, 
 the Presence of God, of " the King in His Beauty," — faith 
 
 Q 
 
226 Vocal Prater. 
 
 must supply. Both these means must be employed in 
 the cure of mental dissipation, and from their nature it 
 is manifest, that the cure can only be gradual. Every 
 effort of will to put away a distraction, will strengthen 
 the inward powers ; and every act of faith earnestly made, 
 will increase a sense of that Divine Presence and Divine 
 Beauty which will gather upon Itself by a sweet attraction 
 the faculties of the soul, when they are doing their best 
 on their side to turn away from all creatures. With regard 
 to spiritual distractions, these require no remedy, for they 
 are themselves remedies ; but they must be endured with 
 great patience and conformity to the Will of God, lest His 
 work and the purposes which He has in sending or permit- 
 ting them, be hindered in us. 
 
 In general, in dealing with distractions in prayer, we 
 must bear in mind the great importance of lifting up the 
 mind and heart, and of putting away that about which we 
 have been engaged, before beginning to pray; we must 
 prepare ourselves beforehand, lest we should be like unto 
 those who tempt the Lord. The entrance into the holier 
 parts of the Temple was gradual, as if to warn us of the 
 need of a prepared spirit when we draw nigh to God. 
 Also, if we discover the mind to have wandered away from 
 the subject of our prayer, we should bring it back promptly 
 but calmly, and without impatience with ourselves. We 
 may be comforted by the knowledge that involuntary 
 distractions are no sin in themselves, when they are checked 
 
Focal Prater. 
 
 227 
 
 as soon as they are discovered ; and when distractions molest 
 the soul, and are again and again faithfully dismissed, they 
 may add value to our prayers, for they are the occasion of acts 
 of the will in correspondence with Divine grace. If we only 
 treat distractions as Abraham dealt with " the fowls," which 
 came down to prey upon the sacrifices, for we read, " he drove 
 them away," 1 — our prayers will be acceptable to God, who 
 regards the intention and desire, apart from the infirmity 
 of its fulfilment. Further, in this difficulty we should seek 
 the assistance of the Holy Ghost \ we should ask God, if it 
 be His good pleasure, to bestow upon us the power of fixity of 
 thought in prayer ; and be very careful to guard our senses, 
 lest they become the avenues through which distractions enter 
 the soul ; and preserve, if possible, the posture of adoration. 
 The duty of Public Prayer, its advantages, and the 
 difficulty which is commonly felt in the performance of it — 
 as indeed it is, more or less, in all kinds of prayer, viz., 
 of attending, have been investigated. There are two 
 remarks which this branch of our subject suggests. First, 
 as Public Prayer is a duty of primary importance, so that 
 kind of prayer which leads up to it, and stands between 
 the private supplications of the individual and the voice 
 of the great congregation, must not be overlooked ; for 
 it is of consequence, whether viewed as an act of devotion 
 in itself, or as a preparation for the service of the Temple — 
 I refer to Family Prayer. Family worship sanctifies family 
 1 Gen. xv. 11. 
 
228 Vocal Prater. 
 
 ties; it is the offering to God of those who are bound 
 together by the natural life, as the Worship in the Sanc- 
 tuary is the offering of those who are united by the super- 
 natural life, and the less prepares the way for and is an 
 image of the greater, as in point of time it preceded it ; 
 it is of especial value too, in training the young and fitting 
 them for the higher worship, and blending the super- 
 natural with the natural in the memories of early life, 
 so that the words of one of old might be applied to 
 this subject and become the maxim of every parent — "as 
 for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord." 1 
 
 And further, it will be manifest, from what has been 
 said on Vocal and Public Prayer, how closely the outward 
 is connected with the inward in our approaches to God ; 
 though the outward form or ceremony may be in itself 
 of little value, yet as the expression of inward belief and 
 truth, it is of the utmost consequence. The loss of the 
 outward, of that which brings forcibly before the ear or 
 the eye, the doctrines and mysteries of our religion, 
 would soon be followed by forgetfulness of the inward. 
 The story of the king, who — sensible that nothing so kept 
 alive the ideas of valour and of ancient glory as the 
 traditional poetry of the people, which through the power 
 of music made deep impressions on the minds of the 
 youth — gathered all the Welsh bards, and ordered them 
 to be put to death, is a case in point; he, it has been 
 1 Josh. xxiv. 15. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 229 
 
 said by the historian, pursued " a barbarous but not absurd 
 policy." 1 The Church, conscious of this close relation 
 of the outward to the inward, has ordained a system of 
 Ritual, which, if it admits of national peculiarity, is still 
 everywhere in its main features alike ; and though it may 
 be in the power of a local Church " to decree rites and 
 ceremonies," it is not in its power to do away with those 
 unalterable lines of Ritual, which were not " ordained only 
 by man's authority," but which, like fundamental doctrines, 
 are the expressions of the mind of the Universal Church, 
 and therefore the heritage of all. The defence, therefore, 
 of the outward form or symbol, becomes in its issues, the 
 defence of the doctrine it enshrines. 
 
 III. We pas's by an easy transition from the considera- 
 tion of Public Prayer, to that of Intercessory ; the former 
 is the extension of one term of prayer, the latter of 
 another • the one is praying with others, the other, praying 
 for others. It is not only of Public but also of Interces- 
 sory Prayer S. Paul speaks, when he exhorts " that, first 
 of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of 
 thanks, be made for all men" We will look briefly at the 
 authority for Intercessory Prayer, the extent of its obliga- 
 tion and action, and the manner of using it. 
 
 In the Old Testament, we have a striking instance of 
 it in the conduct of Moses, when Israel was righting against 
 Amalek. We read that Moses, instead of entering into 
 1 Hume, p. 463. 
 
230 Focal Prayer. 
 
 the battle and inspiring the people with courage and 
 enthusiasm by his presence, went up to the top of a hill 
 and there lifted up his hands to heaven in supplication. 
 " And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that 
 Israel prevailed ; and when he let down his hand, Amalek 
 prevailed . . . and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, 
 the one on the one side, and the other on the other, and his 
 hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and 
 Joshua discomfited Amalek." 1 Again, Samuel said, "Gather 
 all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the 
 Lord." 2 And Elijah and Elisha wrought their miracles 
 through intercessory prayer. God requested Jeremiah to 
 cease from praying for the people, showing the power of the 
 prophet's intercession — "therefore pray not thou for this 
 people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them." 3 
 
 Christ has taught us to pray not only for ourselves, 
 but also for one another ; the " Lord's Prayer" is inter- 
 cessory as well as personal, for it is in the plural, " Our 
 Father, which art in Heaven," "Give us this day our 
 daily bread." His own prayers were either directly or 
 indirectly intercessional ; when He prayed for Himself, 
 "Father, glorify Thy Son," 4 it was with the view that 
 that glorification should extend in its effects to others, 
 as when He said, " for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that 
 they also might be sanctified through the truth ;" 5 and He 
 
 1 Exod. xvii. 11 — 13. 2 1 Sam. vii. 5. 3 Jer. xi. 14. 
 
 4 S. John xvii. I. s S. John xvii. 19. 
 
Vocal Prater. 231 
 
 prayed directly for others — " I pray for them, I pray not 
 for the world;" 1 and then a wider circle of intercession 
 follows — " neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
 which shall believe on Me through their word." 2 Again, 
 Christ restored the sick and raised the dead, in answer to 
 intercessory prayer. The first word from the Cross was also 
 a far-reaching intercession — " Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do." 3 The Apostles, in their 
 inspired Epistles, sought the prayers of those to whom 
 they wrote, spake of their own for them, and bade them 
 pray one for another — e.g. " Brethren, pray for us ;" 4 " We 
 ... do not cease to pray for you ;" 5 " And this I pray 
 that your love may abound ;" 6 " Pray one for another." 7 
 S. Chrysostom says, " We ought to pray, rather than per- 
 secute one another," and the ancient Liturgies seem to 
 have followed very exactly the Apostle's order — " when he 
 bade supplication, prayer, intercession, giving of thanks, to 
 be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in 
 authority." 
 
 Further, it is the duty of all to pray for others, and not only 
 of those who have a special vocation, or are in a high state 
 of grace ; but whilst it is the duty of all, it especially apper- 
 tains to those whose business is the salvation of others — 
 
 1 S. John xvii. 9. 2 S. John xvii. 20. 
 
 3 S. Luke xxiii. 34. 4 I Thess. v. 25. 
 
 5 Col. i. 9. 6 Phil. i. 9. 
 " S. James v. 16. 
 
232 Vocal Prater. 
 
 we are told, that Aaron bore upon the breastplate the 
 names of the children of Israel "before the Lord," 1 for 
 the Ministers of God are officially intercessors. The 
 reasons why this easy duty is oftentimes neglected, are to be 
 found in human selfishness and distrust, both of which are 
 often mingled with, if they do not take their rise in, erroneous 
 notions respecting Intercession itself. Devout people as 
 well as others, are liable to become selfish, and conse- 
 quently to pray only or mostly for themselves, imagining 
 that they have no grace which they can spare, and that all 
 that they can obtain they have abundant need of. There 
 are two mistakes in this concentration of all prayer upon 
 oneself. First, it leaves a certain grace which God has 
 given us unemployed, a grace, which like every other talent, 
 we shall have to give an account of. There are two kinds 
 of grace offered to all — the grace of personal sanctification ; 
 and the grace which is to be used upon others, and cannot 
 be absorbed into the first, that "manifestation of the 
 Spirit" which "is given to every man" 2 for the profit of 
 others, which finds its counterpart in the preter-natural 
 gifts of the Apostles, and is turned to account in one way 
 by intercessory prayer. Secondly, it forgets that interces- 
 sory prayer has also subjective effects, and a lasting reward. 
 We hinder anger or envy, and foster or restore a spirit of 
 love, when we pray for those for whom we have an aversion 
 or with whom we are at variance. Such prayers have an 
 1 Exod. xxviii. 2 I Cor. xii. 7. 
 
Focal Prater. 233 
 
 illuminating power, and produce a serene state of mind, 
 shedding peace and joy, quelling or preventing the rise of 
 evil passion ; such prayers produce a feeling of sincerity 
 in social intercourse, when we meet those whose names 
 we have brought before God; and, when they do not 
 benefit their objects, return into the bosom of those who 
 offered them, and may bring an everlasting reward. If the 
 merit of an action depends on the amount of charity which 
 prompted it, then the prayer which is especially marked 
 by unselfishness and love for others, will be richly re- 
 compensed at that Tribunal, where even acts of charity 
 which have been done to the body, will not be for- 
 gotten. 1 
 
 Another cause of the neglect of intercession is to be 
 discovered in a certain distrust of its efficacy, that is, not 
 its efficacy in general but in particular. The soul, conscious 
 of its manifold sins and imperfections, imagines that its 
 prayers are too weak to be profitable to others, and that 
 therefore intercessions must be made by those who are in a 
 higher and more robust spiritual condition. This excuse or 
 plea for not making intercession, is also based on a fallacy. 
 By it, it is assumed, that our prayers have value only in them- 
 selves, whereas the first ground of their potency is union 
 with Christ. Our intercessions avail, notwithstanding our 
 feebleness and sinfulness, because they are accepted in union 
 with those supplications which He offered whilst on earth, 
 1 S. Matt. xxv. 31—46. 
 
234 Vocal Prater. 
 
 and have present union with those intercessions which He 
 is ever making on our behalf in Heaven, and with the 
 Eucharistic Oblation. Moses' Intercession had power, 
 when his hands were uplifted in the form of the Cross, 
 and ours have power also when they are offered in union 
 with the Redeemer's Passion. Moreover, our intercessions 
 are accepted, because they are not only ours, but are also 
 offered in the power of the Holy Ghost ; when they reach 
 the Father's Throne, they are, if it may be said, partly 
 human and partly Divine, for "the Spirit itself maketh 
 intercessions for us, with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered." 1 All, then, are bound to pray for others, what- 
 ever may be their spiritual state ; they are bound to do so, 
 not only because intercession is a matter of duty, but also 
 in order that they may not " receive the grace of God" — 
 which is given them for others as well as for themselves — 
 " in vain ;" and their prayers for others may be offered con- 
 fidently, if they are presented to the Father in union with 
 the all-prevailing Intercession of His Son, and through the 
 power of the indwelling Spirit. 
 
 Again, intercessory prayer should be made not only by 
 all, but also for all — " I exhort, therefore, that first of all, 
 supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, 
 be made for all men ;" this is the extent of its action. 
 Some have ventured to limit the mercies of God, and have 
 confined the action of prayer, not only to those who are on 
 1 Rom. viii. 26. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 
 
 235 
 
 earth, but also to only a few amongst them, who are said to be 
 saved by an eternal decree; but "God our Saviour," — S. Paul 
 tells us in a verse which follows his exhortation to universal 
 intercession — " wills all men to be saved, and to come unto 
 the knowledge of the truth f and therefore " God our 
 Saviour" — after bringing salvation to earth — "went and 
 preached unto the spirits" which " were in prison" — to " the 
 prisoners of hope." Intercession, then, should embrace 
 all ; there are no limits to its action on those who are still 
 in a state of probation, save such as they themselves, by 
 resisting the grace which it sends them, assign it. 
 
 Neither does Holy Scripture withhold from us the hope 
 that prayer may benefit the departed. The Jews, we know, 
 were in the habit of praying for the dead, and our Lord 
 did not forbid the practice. Some have thought a trace of 
 this devotion is to be discovered in S. Paul's prayer for 
 Onesiphorus — " the Lord grant unto him that he may 
 find mercy of the Lord in that day." 1 A belief which ap- 
 pealed so strongly to human hopes and . sorrows was not 
 likely, unless forbidden, to lose its hold, when the eternal 
 world was brought nearer and more clearly revealed, in the 
 Christian Covenant ; whilst the command of our Lord to 
 pray for the coming of His Kingdom — "Thy Kingdom 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 16 — 18. "From the use of the form 'household of 
 Onesiphorus' and ch. iv. 19, but still more the terms of the prayer itself 
 in ver. 18, it has been concluded not without some show of probability 
 that Onesiphorus was now dead." — Bp. Ellicott, Past. Ep., p. 120. 
 
236 Vocal Prater. 
 
 come," and the x\postle's way of looking beyond death and 
 directing the aims and aspirations of the soul to " the day 
 of Jesus Christ," and the mysterious references to Christ's 
 application of the Merits of His Passion in the realms of 
 the dead, and the union between the seen and the unseen 
 in the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, were all cal- 
 culated to increase rather than lessen the conviction, that 
 there is no gulf fixed between this world and the next, which 
 hinders prayers and grace from passing from the one to the 
 other. That the Jewish practice of praying for the dead, 
 did find a home in the Church at an early date, is evident. 
 Tertullian describes one who had lost her husband as pray- 
 ing for his soul — " she prays for his soul and seeks refresh- 
 ment for him in the middle place and fellowship with him 
 in the first resurrection." 1 The Liturgy of the Dead was in 
 use in the days of Constantine the Great ; and the teaching 
 of the Church, whether we look at her Formularies or at 
 the writings of the Saints, has been uniform and continuous 
 on this point. But whilst we acknowledge our belief in the 
 potency of prayer beyond the grave, it must be remembered, 
 that all that is involved in this doctrine as to the state of 
 the departed, is, that they are imperfect, have not yet at- 
 tained their final Bliss, and are waiting for re-union with the 
 body ; and that, in their state of waiting and of preparation, 
 the supplications of the Church Militant may aid the Church 
 within the Vail. 
 
 1 De Monogamia, 10. 
 
Vocal Prater. 237 
 
 It has even been thought that the reach of intercessory 
 prayer is so boundless, that it can penetrate not only the 
 realms of the dead, but also the heights of heaven. 
 Therefore in Liturgies we find intercessions for the Saints 
 themselves, even for those who are in Glory. The Saints 
 are, it has been held, capable of an increase of accidental 
 joy — a joy which is over and above their substantial blessed- 
 ness, a joy, similar to that of the angels, who, though their 
 life is one of unchequered bliss, yet can rejoice over one 
 sinner that repenteth. And such intercessions are offered 
 not only from love for the Saints themselves, but for the 
 greater honour of God who is glorified in them. Inter- 
 cessory Prayer then includes all in the extent of its action, 
 as well as in the duty of practising it. 
 
 We will conclude with a few hints as to the manner of 
 interceding. And first, it is well to have a plan, whereby 
 different days of the week or month are assigned to different 
 objects; and to have a rule, as to the length of time to be 
 employed each day in intercession. Secondly, after praying 
 for all in general, the order of charity should guide us in 
 making a selection of those objects, which have an especial 
 claim upon us, e.g. prayers for those connected with us by 
 ties of kindred or religion, for friends and benefactors, for 
 those who are living in sin, for penitents, for those who 
 are persevering, for the dying, for those against whom we 
 have sinned, &c. And here a caution is necessary, lest we 
 forget great interests and confine ourselves to those which 
 
238 Vocal Prater. 
 
 press upon us in our personal life, e.g. there are those 
 who pray for a single grace or blessing on an individual, 
 and neglect to pray for the Church, or the State, or the 
 Clergy, and those who are in authority ; of these interests, 
 the great and the small, it may be said, " these ought ye to 
 have done, and not to leave the other undone." 1 Thirdly, 
 intercessions need not be always offered by means of 
 prayers framed for the purpose which have the name of 
 the person or object inserted in them, but any prayer 
 or collect may be offered with the intention of inter- 
 ceding for this or that person or object; thus "the 
 Lord's Prayer," or any other, may be repeated for the 
 benefit of others, if we so desire and intend; and in 
 these and many other ways, the process of intercession may 
 be varied, and so performed without weariness, or strain 
 upon the mental powers, such as would be necessitated 
 by the continual creation of suitable petitions. Fourthly, 
 definiteness is very necessary, if we would make our 
 intercessions effectual; by concentration of them on a 
 definite object, we heighten their power, as by extension, 
 that power becomes less. As in natural things so in super- 
 natural, concentration is a secret of success. Fifthly, 
 "union is strength," especially in intercessory prayer, for 
 therein a twofold charity is put to account, and we have 
 the promise that " if two agree" 2 in asking anything, it shall 
 be granted them. Hence, the power of the intercessions 
 1 S. Matt, xxiii. 23. 2 S. Matt, xviii. 19. 
 
Vocal Prayer. 239 
 
 of the Church, and of those unions for prayer which are 
 formed within the circle of the Divinely-constituted Union. 
 Lastly, intercessory prayer must be perseveringly offered, 
 with the hope that it will be at last effectual. If perse- 
 verance is required in praying for oneself, it will be much 
 more necessary in praying for others, for their wills are not 
 under our control ; but when we pray for ourselves we are 
 at least desirous of corresponding with God's grace, when 
 it comes to us. And this hope of final success must be 
 cherished for all, however far from God they may seem to 
 be. The Church, whilst teaching that those who live and 
 die in deadly sin, are eternally separated from God, and 
 forfeit all claims to a supernatural Beatitude, — passes judg- 
 ment on none, save perhaps on one who " by transgression 
 fell, that he might go to his own place f 1 and, although 
 " there is a sin unto death" 2 for which prayer may be un- 
 availing, it would be presumptuous and uncharitable to 
 exclude any from our prayers on the supposition that they 
 had been guilty of it, and were already in an irreclaimable 
 state. The most unlikely persons according to human 
 estimation, have been won to God by the power of inter- 
 cession; "had not a Stephen prayed, the Church would 
 not have had a Paul;" had not Monica persevered 
 in intercession for her wayward but gifted child, the 
 Church would not have had Augustine; through Prayer, 
 not only have souls which were sunk in sin, been saved, 
 1 Acts i. 25. 2 1 S. John v. 16. 
 
240 Vocal Prater. 
 
 but have become saints; so that, those who were "afar 
 off" have not only been "made nigh by the Blood of 
 Christ/' 1 but have "come and built in the Temple of 
 the Lord," 2 illustrating the power of grace and the greatness 
 of Divine mercy, and edifying others by their lives and 
 transformation. Intercessory Prayer, must be made then 
 with confidence and perseveringly ; in this, as in other acts 
 of charity, we must be content to " cast" our " bread upon 
 the waters," and only to " find it after many days." 3 
 
 These reflections, on the authority for intercessory prayer, 
 the extent of its obligation and action, and the manner 
 of employing it, should lead us to a more diligent fulfil- 
 ment of this duty, and put us on our guard against the 
 sloth, selfishness, and distrust which often lie at the root 
 of its neglect. If "prayer is," as S. Augustine says, "the 
 measure of love," it will measure it, not only in its exercise 
 towards God, but also, towards our neighbour; and con- 
 sequently the fervour and frequency of our intercessions 
 in behalf of others, will be the index of our love for them ; 
 and as the practice of intercessional prayer is prompted 
 by the love of our neighbour, so will it in return heighten 
 that love, and by an increase of the primary virtue of 
 religion, minister to our sanctification. 
 
 Thus, under Vocal Prayer, we have considered Private 
 Prayer, Public Prayer, and Intercessory Prayer — the last- 
 named, being either a part of public or private devotion. 
 1 Eph. ii. 13. 2 Zech. vi. 15. 3 Eccles. xi. 1. 
 
Focal Prater. 241 
 
 It must not be forgotten, while treating of the contribution 
 which the body makes to our acts of worship, that it is 
 not only by the voice, but also by other exterior signs, 
 that the spirit of adoration is expressed and sustained; 
 and amongst these, more especially by kneeling. Jesus 
 Himself, we are told by S. Luke, "kneeled down and 
 prayed," 1 and S. Paul bowed his "knees unto the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 The bodily posture, it is 
 true, is in no wise essential to prayer, for " though you do 
 not bend the knee, nor smite the breast, nor raise the hands 
 to heaven, if your soul is fervent, you may make an excel- 
 lent prayer," 3 and yet it is important, seeing that "we 
 prostrate ourselves, as professing that we are nothing of 
 ourselves ;" we feel also, that we are truer when " the out- 
 ward accords with the inward," and the body by its 
 posture manifests the invisible act of the soul. Every- 
 thing, therefore, which concerns the attitude of the body 
 at the time of praying, though of subordinate importance, 
 has a rightful claim on our attention, and, I may add, on 
 our obedience ; for, whilst in private prayer, we may be 
 free to adopt the posture and place which we have found 
 most helpful, in Public Worship, we ought to conform to 
 the ceremonies and customs of the Church. 
 
 We have now traversed the ground which was marked 
 out, at the commencement of these Lectures ; we have 
 considered the Nature of Prayer, its Necessity, the Objec- 
 1 S. Luke xxii. 41. 2 Eph. iii. 14. 3 S. Chrysostom . 
 
 R 
 
242 Vocal Prayer, 
 
 tions which have been from time to time raised against its 
 efficacy, the Conditions of acceptable Prayer, and the 
 different kinds of Prayer which are included under the 
 main division of " Mental" and " Vocal." We feel in leaving 
 our subject, how much precious ore remains unworked, 
 and how much of that which has been drawn from those 
 mines of Truth and devotion, the Holy Scriptures and the 
 writings of the Saints — may have been ill-assorted, or mixed 
 with alloy through feebleness or fault in handling it ; yet, 
 what has been written will not fail in its object, if it leads 
 those to a more systematic "Life of Prayer," who muse 
 upon these pages. 
 
 There is one thought with which we will close our great 
 theme; it is this — the momentous bearing which prayer 
 has on the gift of final perseverance. The gift is that 
 which ensures the safe landing of the soul, when it is 
 passing beyond " the waves of this troublesome world" — 
 laden it may be with a rich burden of graces and virtues, 
 the whole of which may be endangered by those billows of 
 temptation which rise up between it and the Eternal Shore ; 
 and as this gift can only be obtained in answer to prayer, 
 and cannot be acquired by any merit or goodness of our 
 own, we should constantly ask God to grant it. We should 
 seek it, too, in the days of health and strength ; for when 
 it will be needed, perhaps the tongue will be fettered, and 
 the mental faculties unable to grasp a thought, and so prayer 
 impossible. The Psalmist has set us an example in this 
 
Vocal Prayer, 243 
 
 respect, when he — looking forward to the end, cries, " Cast 
 me not away in the time of age, forsake me not when my 
 strength faileth me j" 1 and Christ Himself, has solemnly 
 bidden us "pray always, that" we "may be accounted 
 worthy .... to stand before the Son of Man." 2 
 
 1 Ps. lxxi. 8. 2 S. Luke xxi. 36. 
 
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Date Due 
 
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