The Washington herald., 1914-11-12

throne of God. They rise for few feet and then
of their own weight. they fall to the ground"
i Since that time the words have often occurred tc
me, both in churches and outside.
! l wonder if in every church in the world there
can be pile Of such petrihed prayers.
| recently went to hear a distinguished citizen
make public address. Ten thousand people had as
sembled to sit his feet Shortly after he appeared
and the applause had subsided, clergyman stepped
forward and delivered what seemed to to be a
prayer remarkable because il was not prayer at all
1t was speech, apparently directed to the Divine
Presence, but really addressed to that audience II
took up great deal of time and it made the audience
impatient and restless
Then l asked myself il that kind of thing hap
pened often and looked back for similar occasions
From my own experience ] could recall several in
stances where prayer had been q means Of self-ex-
ploitation.
wonder if all such prayers do not make a large
contribution to those piles of stones in the churches
of the world and if they have not done good deal
to weaken the influence of prayer in the minds of
men,
Prayer is such delicate thing, so personal, so
intimate sacred, that the faintest breath of insin
cerity must defle it and change its nature.
What can the Divine Being think of such prayers?
Surely in His infinite wisdom and patience He can
not think nearly so harshly of them as we, standing
apart and eritieizing them, are tempted to think.
To Him they may be merely expressions of human
weakness. And from their weakness there may rise
a powerful appeal
So, perhaps, my old gentleman was mistaken in
thinking that insinoere prayers fell wholly to earth
of their weight.
Perhaps what falls, if anything falls is only the
pretension in such prayers, the self-assertion.
In the beautiful play, THE Dawn of a Tomor-
row." Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett expresses, in
its simplest FORM the popular attitude in regard to
prayers. ITS asking" the little heroine repeatedly
declares
Here find an echo of the New Testament
Ask and ye shall receive"
So amazing has been the success in many cases of
asking" that the more profane philosophers have
ately been inquirng into the matter They have dis
oyered that asking has profound psychological
IMPORT. They have shown that, simply by asking"
without being allied to any creed, without making
ny pretension of faith achieve extraordinary
esuts. There is not needed belief in the Divine
'ower, though such belief is a great help. possibly
trough its Strengthening of confidence The healers
or example, frankly say that they do much more
nth people of strong religious faith than with people
faith at all. And yet with people of faith q
all they reach marvellous results. They persuade
ler patients to ask and they ask with their patients
nd the asking opens the pores of the mind to healing
All that needs is sufficient confidence to ask n
Where we keep the pores of the body open we
lay still keep the pores of the mind closed. So the
lind, becoming diseased infects the body. a
But let the mind open itself out to spiritual
loughts and ASPIRATIONS and it will take new /
ealth, which may extend even into the physical c
ature