PRAYER. Man has been described as a praying animal, and it has been claimed that prayer is a human instinct. This is hardly true of prayer in a high sense of the word. " Nobody dreams of propitiating gods or spirits by prayer while magic is universally practised," says Andrew Lang (Magic and Religion). Prayer is in tuitional rather than instinctive. The truth about its value has come to men by Revelation (q.v.). Prayerless ness is characteristic either of a savage state or of a degenerate civilisation. In either case it is due to a lack of real knowledge. In the latter case the knowledge was at one time present, but it has run to seed. Prayer, where it has not become mechanical, is characteristic of a high stage of culture. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Arabians, Jews, Romans, Greeks, and early Christians have given us examples. The Hebrew Psalms and the Babylonian Psalms (q.v.) contain beautiful prayers. J. A. Farrer (Paganism and Christianity) quotes a beauti ful prayer to Zeus, composed by Simplicius (sixth century A.D.). It is as follows " I beseech Thee, 0 Lord, the Father and Guide of our reason, to make us mindful of the noble origin Thou bast thought worthy to confer upon us; and to assist us to act as becomes free agents; that we may be cleansed from the irrational passions of the body and may subdue and govern the same, using them as instruments in a fitting manner; and to assist us to the right direction of the reason that is in us, and to its participation in what Is real by the light of truth. And, thirdly, I beseech Thee, my Saviour, entirely to remove the darkness from the eyes of our souls, in order that we know aright, as Homer says, both God and Man." In the best sense of the word, prayer of course assumes that the Supreme Power is good and is knowable. The truth of this assumption is vouched for by a know ledge which is intuitional. And goodness involves righteousness, justice, impartiality. God is no respecter of persons. This of itself means that prayers cannot always be answered, because they are such as a good and impartial ruler cannot grant. A benefit granted to one individual or to one nation could often be granted only at the expense of another individual or another nation. This has been well expressed by Matthew Arnold in the poem " Consolntion." Prayer must ever be made with humility and with resignation to the will of a good and impartial God. What can be objected to the practice is that it has so often been misused and abused. But so long as the petition is a good one, it is better to have prayed in vain than never to have prayed at all. W.
M. Salter complains (Ethical Religion) that " men have heretofore conceived of the Supreme Power of the world as a personal being like themselves; and they have had so slight a notion of the order of nature and the fixity of nature's laws that they have thought they might pray to him and ask him to do for them what they could not do for themselves." This is true, but the moral should be not that men should give up praying, but that they should learn to pray rightly. Salter thinks that prayer to what he chooses to call the Unknown God, " involves a double vice—first, distrust of the beneficence of that order through which he is already manifested, and which holds fast whether we pray or not; second, a despair of our ability to act as proximate causes and to bring about the results we wish ourselves." But no intelligent person prays for the suspension of a law which he knows to be beneficent. Discrimination has to be exercised. One cannot abolish divine laws, but one can pray to under stand them. And one can, by prayer, abolish violations of divine laws. Who shall say that Slavery was not abolished by prayer? And as to the second point, man does not despair of his own ability, but, believing in a God of Goodness, Power, and Love, he naturally seeks His help. And this leads us to the highest kind of prayer. Prayer is not merely a petitioning for some material benefit, but is also an act of praise and adora tion. It is also, and pre-eminently an act of communion with God. As such it has power to bring such substantial benefits as health and happiness. This kind of prayer was better understood and more widely practised in days when faith was more fervent and thought was less materialistic. Its power was well known in the early days of Christianity, and though in many quarters effectual prayer has become a lost art, the power has never ceased to operate. Prayer of course need not always be vocal. Mental or Silent Prayer is of the highest value. Here a distinction has been drawn between Meditation (q.v.), Affective Prayer, and Con templation. In Affective Prayer " the soul goes straight to God by affection of the will without need of formal discourse or reasoning" (Oath. Diet.). Contemplation " is either natural or infused in an extraordinary manner by God, and in the latter the soul is said to be passive i.e., to be in some special sense moved by God." See Schaff-Herzog; Benham ; Vernon Staley, The Catholic Religion, 1S9i; the Cath. Diet.; P. Vivian, The Churches and Modern Thought, 190S; Reinach, O.