THE mania for Prayer-meetings has lately been largely on the increase,
and the continual efforts being made to
"Move the arm that moves the world,"
naturally draw one's attention strongly to the subject of Prayer; to its
reasonableness, propriety, and prospect of success. If Prayer to God
be reverent as towards the Deity, if it be consistent with his
immutability, with his foreknowledge, with his wisdom, and with
every kind of trust in his goodness--if it be also, as regards man,
permissible by science, and approved by experience, then there can be
no doubt at all that it should be sedulously practised, and should be of
universal obligation. But if it be at once useless and absurd, if it be
forbidden by reason and frowned at by common sense, if it weaken man and
be irreverent towards the Being to whom it is said to be addressed, then
it will be well for all who practise it to reconsider their position,
and at least to endeavour to give some solid reason for persisting in a
course which is condemned by the intellect and is unneeded by the heart.
The practice of Prayer is generally founded upon the supposed position
held by man--first, as a creature towards his Creator, and secondly,
as a child towards his Father in heaven. In its first aspect, it is a
simple act of homage from the inferior to the superior, parallel to the
courtesy shown by the subject to the monarch; it is an acknowledgment of
dependence, and a sign of gratitude for the gifts which are supposed
to be freely given by God to man--gifts which man has done nothing to
deserve, but which come from the free bounty of the giver. Putting aside
the whole question of God as Creator, which is not the point at issue,
we might argue that, since he brought us into this world without our
request, and even without our consent, he is in duty bound to see that
we have all things necessary for our life and happiness in the world in
which he has thus placed us. We might argue that the "blessings" said
to be bestowed upon us, such as food, clothing, &c, can only be called
"given" by a fiction, for that they are won by our own hard toil, and
are never "gifts from God" in any real sense at all. Further, we might
plead that we find "bestowed" upon us many things which are decidedly
the reverse of blessings, and that if gratitude be due to God for some
things, the contrary of gratitude is due to him for others; and that
if praise be his right for the one, blame must be his desert for
the second. We should be thus forced into the logical, but somewhat
peculiar, frame of mind of the savage, who caresses his fetish when it
hears his prayers, and belabours it heartily when it fails to help him.
But, taking the position that Prayer is due from man by reason of his
creaturehood, it must surely be clear that it cannot be a proper way
of manifesting a sense of inferiority to degrade the Being to whom the
homage is offered. Yet Prayer is essentially degrading to God, and the
character ascribed to him of "a hearer and answerer of Prayer" is a most
lowering conception of Deity. For God to hear and to answer Prayer
means that Prayer changes his action, making him do that which he would
otherwise have abstained from doing; it means that man is wiser than
God, and is able to instruct him in his duty; and it means that God is
less loving than he ought to be, and will not bestow upon his creature
that which is good for him, unless he be importuned into giving it. We
are told that God is immutable, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever;" "God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he
should repent." If this be true--and surely immutability of purpose must
be a necessary characteristic of an all-wise and all-good Being--how can
Prayer be anything more than a childish fretting against the inevitable?
The Changeless One has planned a certain course of action, and is
steadily carrying it out; in passionless serenity he goes upon his way;
then man breaks in with his feeble cries and petulant upbraidings,
and actually turns God from his purpose, and changes the course of his
providence. If Prayer does not do this it does nothing at all; either
it changes the mind of God or it does not. If it does, God is at the
disposal of man's whim; if it does not, it is perfectly useless, and
might just as well be left undone. The parable told by Christ about the
unjust judge (Luke xviii. 1-8) is a most extraordinary representation
of God: "Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by
her continual coming she weary me.... And shall not God avenge his own
elect, which cry day and night unto him?" Verily, the picture of the
divine justice is not an attractive one! The judge does his duty, not
because it is his duty, not because the widow needs his aid, not because
her cause is a just one, but "lest by her continual coming she weary"
him. There is only one moral to be drawn from this, namely, that God
will not care for his "elect," because they are "his own;" that he will
not guard them, because it is his duty; but that, if they cry day and
night to him, he will attend to them, because the continual cry wearies
him, and he desires to silence it. In the same way God the immutable
changes at the sound of Prayer, not because the change will be better or
wiser, but because man's cry "wearies" him, and he will be quiet if he
obtains his petition. Surely the idea is as degrading as it can be; it
puts God on a level with the unwise human parent, who allows himself to
be governed by the clamour of his children, and gives any favour to
the spoilt child, if only the child be tiresome enough in its petulant
persistence.
Is Prayer consistent with the _foreknowledge_ of God? It is one of the
attributes ascribed to God that he knows all before it happens, and that
the future lies mapped out before him as clearly as does the past. If
this be so, is it more reasonable to pray about things in the future
than things in the past? No one is so utterly irrational as to pray to
God, in so many words, to change the things that are gone, or to alter
the record of the past. Yet, is it more rational to ask him to change
the things that are coming, and to alter the already-written chart of
the future? In reality, man's own eyes being blinded, he deems his God
such an one as himself, and where he cannot _see_, he can allow himself
to _hope_. But there is no excuse from the inexorable logic which
pierces us with one horn or the other of this dilemma, however we may
writhe in our efforts to escape them; either God knows the future or he
knows it not; if he knows it, it cannot be altered, so it is of no use
to pray about it, everything being already fixed; if he knows it not, he
is not God, he is no wiser than man. But, then, some Christians argue,
he has pre-arranged that he will give this blessing in answer to Prayer,
and he foreknows the Prayer as well as its answer. Then, after all, it
is pre-determined whether we shall pray or not in any given case, and we
have only to follow the course along which we are impelled by an
irresistible destiny; so the matter is beyond all discussion, and the
power to pray, or not to pray, does not reside in us; if there is a
blessing in store for us which needs the arm of Prayer to pluck it from
the tree on which it hangs, we shall inevitably pray for it at the right
moment, and thus--in his effort to escape from one difficulty--the
praying Christian has landed himself in a worse one, for absolute
foreknowledge implies complete determinism, and prevents all human
responsibility of any kind.
Is Prayer consistent with the _wisdom_ of God? After all, what does
Prayer mean, boldly stated? It means that man thinks that he knows
better than God, and so he tells God that which ought to happen. Is
there any self-conceit so intolerable as that which pretends to bow
itself in the dust before him who created and who upholds the infinite
worlds which make up the universe, and which then sets itself to correct
the ordering of him who traced the orbits of the planets, and who
measured the rule of suns? Finite wisdom instructing infinite
wisdom; mortal reason laying down the course of immortal reason; low
intelligence guiding supreme intelligence; man instructing God. All this
is implied in the fact of Prayer, and every man who has prayed, and who
believes in God, ought to cast himself down in passionate humiliation
before the wisdom he has insulted and impugned, and ask pardon for
the insolent presumption which dared to lay hands on the helm of the
Supreme, and to dream that man could be more wise than God. At least,
those who believe in God might be humble enough to acknowledge his
superiority to themselves, and if they demand that homage should be paid
to him by their brethren, they should also confess him to be wiser and
higher than they are themselves.
Is Prayer consistent with _trust in the goodness_ of God? Surely Prayer
is a distinct refusal to trust, and is a proclamation that we think
that we could do better for ourselves than God will do for us. If God
be "good and loving to every man," it is manifest that, without any
pressure being put upon him, he will do for each the best thing that
can possibly be done. The people of Madagascar are wiser, in this matter
than the people who throng our churches and our chapels, for they say,
addressing the good Spirit, "We need not pray to thee, for thou, without
our prayers, wilt give us all things that be good for us;" and then they
turn to the evil Spirit, saying, that they must pray to _him_ lest, if
they do not, he should work them harm, and send troubles in their way.
Prayer implies that God judges all good gifts, and will withhold them
unless they are wrung from his reluctant hands; it denies that he loves
his creatures, and is good to all. In addition to this, it also
implies that we will not trust him to judge what is best for us; on the
contrary, we prefer to judge for ourselves, and to have our own way. If
a trouble comes, it is prayed against, and God is besought "to remove
his heavy hand." What does this mean, except that when God sends sorrow,
man clamours for joy, and when God deems it best that his child should
weep, the child demands cause for smiles? If people trusted God,
as they pretend to trust him--if the phrases of the Sunday were the
practice of the week--if men believed that God's ways were higher than
man's ways, and his thoughts than their thoughts--then no Prayer would
ever ascend from earth to the "Throne of grace," and man would welcome
joy and sorrow, peace and care, wealth and poverty, as wise men welcome
nature's order, when the rain comes down to swell the seed for the
harvest, and the sunshine glows down upon earth to burnish the golden
grain.
But, say the praying Christians, even if Prayer be not defensible as
homage from the creature to the Creator, in that it lowers our idea of
God, it must surely yet be natural as the instinctive cry from the child
to the Father in heaven; and then follow arguments drawn from the family
and the home, and the need of communion between parent and child. As a
matter of fact,--taking the analogy, imperfect as it is--do we find much
Prayer, as from child to parent, in the best and the happiest homes; _is
not the amount of asking the exact measure of the imperfection of the
relationship?_ The wiser and the kinder the parent, the less will the
child ask for; rather, it learns from experience to trust the older
wisdom, and to be contented with the love which is ever giving,
unsolicited, all good things. At the most, the simple expression of
the child's wish is all that is needed, if the child desire anything
of which the parent have not thought; and even this mere statement of a
wish is still the result of _imperfection, i e._, the want of knowledge
on the parent's part of the child's mind and heart In this case there
is no pleading, no urging; the single request and single answer suffice;
there is nothing which corresponds with the idea of the prophet to
pray to God and to "give him no rest" until he grant the petition. In a
well-ordered home, the child who persisted in pressing his request
would receive a rebuke for his want of trust, and for his conceited
self-sufficiency; and yet _this_ is the analogy on which Prayer to God
is built up, and in this fashion "natural instincts" are dragged in, in
order to support supernatural and artificial cravings.
Leaving Prayer, as it affects man's relationship to God, let us look at
it as it regards man's relationship to things around him, and ask if it
be permitted by our scientific knowledge, and approved by experience and
by history. The chief lesson of science is that all things work by law,
that we dwell in a realm of law, and that _nothing_ goes by chance. All
science is built up upon this idea; science is not possible unless this
primary rule be correct; science is only the codified experience of the
race, the observed sequence of to-day marked down for the guidance of
to-morrow, the teaching of the past hived up for the improvement of
the future. But all this accumulation and correlation of facts becomes
useless if laws can be broken--i e., if this observed sequence of
phenomena can be suddenly broken by the interposition of an unknown and
incalculable force, acting spasmodically and guided by no discoverable
order of action. Science is impossible if these "providential
occurrences" may take place at any moment. A physician, in writing his
prescription, selects the drugs which experience has pointed out as the
suitable remedy for the disease under which his patient is labouring.
These drugs have a certain effect upon the tissues of the human frame,
and the physician calculates on this effect being produced; but if
Prayer is to come in as a factor, of what use the physician's science?
Here is suddenly introduced--to speak figuratively--a new drug of
unknown power, and the effect of medicine plus Prayer can in no way be
calculated upon. The prescription is either efficient or non-efficient;
if it be efficient, Prayer is unnecessary, as the cure would take place
without it; if it be non-efficient, and Prayer makes up the deficiency,
then medical science is not needed, for the impotency of the drugs can
always be balanced by the potency of the Prayer. This argument may be
used as regards every science. Prayer is put up for a ship which goes to
sea. The ship is fitted for the perils it encounters, or it is unfit. If
fitted, it arrives safely without Prayer; if, though unfit, it
arrives, being guarded by Prayer, then Prayer becomes a factor in the
shipbuilder's calculations, and sound timbers and strong rivets sink
into minor importance. If it be argued that to speak thus is to use
Prayer unfairly, because it is our duty to take every proper means to
ensure safety, what, is this except to say that, after all, Prayer is
only a fiction, and that while we bow our knees to God, and pretend to
look to _him_ for safety, we are really looking to the strong timbers of
the ship-builder, and to the skill of the captain?
Science teaches, also, that all phenomena are the results of preceding
phenomena, and that an unbroken sequence of cause and effect stretches
back further than our poor thoughts can reach. In stately harmony all
Nature moves, evolving link after link of the endless chain, each link
bound firmly to its predecessor, and affording, in its turn, the same
support to its successor. Prayer is put up in the churches for fair
weather; but rain and sunshine do not follow each other by chance, they
obey a changeless law. To alter the weather of to-day means to alter
the weather of countless yesterdays, which have faded away, one after
another, "into the infinite azure of the past." The weather of to-day
is the result of all those long-past phases of temperature, and, unless
they were altered, no change is pos sible to-day. The Prayer that goes
up in English churches should really run:--"O God, we pray thee to
change all that thou hast wrought in the past; we, to-day, in this petty
corner of thy world, are discontented with thy ordering; we desire of
thee, then, that, to pleasure our fancy, thou wilt unroll the record of
the past, and change all its order, remoulding its history to suit our
convenience here to-day." It is difficult to say which is the worse, the
self-conceit which deems its own petty needs worthy of such complaisance
of Deity, or the ignorance which forgets the absurdities implied in the
request it makes. But, after all, it is the ignorance which is to blame:
these Prayers were written when science was scarcely born; in those days
God was the immediate cause of each phenomena, sending rain from heaven
when it pleased him, thundering from heaven against his enemies, pouring
hailstones from heaven to slay his foes, opening and closing the windows
of heaven to punish a wicked king or to pleasure an angry prophet. In
those days heaven was very close to earth: so near that when it opened,
the dying Stephen could see and recognise the form and features of the
Son of Man; so near that, lest man should build a tower which should
reach it, God had himself to descend and discomfit the builders. All
these things were true to the writers whose words are repeated in
English churches in the nineteenth century, and they naturally
believed that what God wrought in days of old he could work also among
themselves. But knowledge has shattered the fairy fabric which fancy had
raised up; astronomy built towers--not of Babel--from which men could
gauge the heaven, and find that through illimitable ether worlds
innumerable rolled, and that where the throne of God should have been
seen, suns and planets sped on their ceaseless rounds. Further and
further back, the ancient God who dwelt among men was pressed back,
till now, at last, no room is found for spasmodic divine solutions, but
Nature's mighty order rolls on uninterrupted, in a silence unbroken by
voice and undisturbed by miraculous volitions, bound by a golden chain
of inviolable law. The most learned and the most thoughtful Christian
people now acknowledge that prayer is out of place in dealing with
"natural order;" but surely it is time that they should make their
voices heard plainly, so as to erase from the Prayer-book these obsolete
notions, born of an ignorance which the world has now outgrown. Few
really _believe_ in the power of Prayer over the weather, but people go
on from the sheer force of habit, repeating, parrot-like, phrases which
have lost their meaning, because they are too indolent to exert thought,
or too fettered by habit to test the Prayer of the Sunday by the
standard of the week. When people begin to _think_ of what they repeat
so glibly, the battle of Free Thought will have been won.
Many earnest people, however, while recognising the fact that Prayer
ought not to be used for rain, fine weather, and the like, yet think
that it may be rightly employed to obtain "spiritual benefits." Is
not this idea also the product of ignorance? When men knew nothing of
natural laws they thought they could gain natural benefits by Prayer;
now that people know nothing of "spiritual" laws, they think they can
gain "spiritual" benefits by Prayer. In each case the Prayer springs
from ignorance. Is it really more reasonable to expect to gain
miraculous spiritual strength from Prayer, than to expect to give
vigour, by Prayer, to arms enfeebled by fever? Growth, slow and steady,
is Nature's law; no sudden leaps are possible; and no Prayer will give
that spiritual stature which only develops by continual effort, and by
"patient continuance in well-doing." The mind--which is probably what
is generally meant by the word "spirit"--has its own laws, according to
which it grows and strengthens; it is moulded, formed, developed, as
the body is, by the play of the circumstances around it, and by the
organisation with which it comes into the world, and which it has
inherited from a long race of ancestors. Here, too, inexorable law
surrounds all, and in mind, as in matter, the "reign of law" Is
all-embracing, all-compelling.
Is Prayer approved by experience? It seems necessary here to refer to
the experience of some, who say that they have found Prayer strengthen
them to meet a trouble which they had dreaded, or to accomplish a duty
for which their own ability was insufficient. This appears to be very
probable, but the reason is not far to seek, and as the explanation of
the increased strength may be purely natural, it seems unnecessary to
search for a supernatural cause. Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt,
appears to exert a kind of reflex action on the person praying, the
petition not piercing heaven, but falling back upon earth. A duty has
to be done or a trouble has to be faced; the person affected prays
for help, and by the intense concentration of his thoughts, and by the
passion of his desire, he naturally gains a strength he had not, when
he was less deeply and thoroughly in earnest. Again, the interior
conviction that a olivine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and
braces his courage: the soldier fights with a tenfold courage when he
is sure that endurance will make victory a certainty. But all this is no
proof that God hears and answers Prayer; if it were so, it would prove
also that the Virgin Mother, and all the saints, and Buddha, and Brahma,
and Vishnu were alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all cases
the sincere worshipper gains strength and comfort, and finds the same
"answer" to his Prayer. Yet surely no one will contend that all these
are "Prayer-hearing and Prayer-answering" Gods? This fancied answer is
not a proof of the truth of the worshipper's belief, but is only a proof
_of his conviction of its truth_; not the soundness of the belief, but
the sincerity of the conviction, is proved by the glow and ardour which
succeed the act of Prayer. All the dormant energies are aroused; the
soul's whole strength is put forth; the worshipper is warmed by the fire
struck from his own heart, and is thrilled with the electricity which
resides in his own frame. So far, Prayer is found to be answered,
just as every strong conviction, however erroneous, is found to confer
increased strength and vigour on him who possesses it. But, excepting
this, Prayer is not proved to be efficacious when tested by experience.
How many Prayers have gone up to the Father in heaven from his children
overwhelmed in the sea, and drowning in floods, and encircled by fire?
How many passionate appeals of patriots and martyrs, of exiles and of
slaves? How many cries of anguish from beside the beds of the dying,
and the fresh graves of the newly-dead? In vain the wife's wail for the
husband, the mother's pleading for the only child; no voice has answered
"Weep not;" no command has replied, "Rise up;" the Prayers have fallen
back on the breaking heart, poor white-winged birds that have tried
to fly towards heaven, but have only sunk back to earth, their breasts
bruised and bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a pitiless
and relentless fate. So continually has Prayer failed to win an answer,
that, in spite of the clearness and the force of the Bible promises in
regard to it, Christians have found themselves obliged to limit their
extent, and to say that God judges whether or no it will be beneficial
for the worshipper to grant the petition, and if the Prayer be a
mistaken one he will, in mercy, withhold the implored-for boon. Of
course, this prevents Prayer from being ever tested by experience at
all, because whenever a Prayer remains unanswered the reply is ready,
that "it was not according to the will of God." This means, that we
cannot test the value of Prayer in any way; we must accept its worth
wholly as a matter of faith; we must pray because we are bidden to do
so, and fulfil an useless form which affords no tangible results. In
this melancholy position are we landed by an appeal to experience, by
which we are challenged to test the value of Prayer.
The answer of history is even yet more emphatic. The Ages of Prayer
are the Dark Ages of the world. When learning was crushed out, and
superstition was rampant, when wisdom was called witchcraft, and priests
ruled Europe, then Prayer was always rising up to God from the countless
monasteries where men dwarfed themselves into monks, and from the
convents where women shrivelled up into nuns. The sound of the bell that
called to Prayer was never silent, and the time that was needed for work
was wasted in Prayer, and in the straining to serve God the service of
man was neglected and despised.
There is one obvious fact that throws into bright relief the absurdity
of Prayer. Two people pray for exactly opposite things; whose Prayers
are to be answered? Two armies ask for victory; which is to be crowned?
Amongst ourselves, now, the Church is divided into two opposing camps,
and while the Ritualists appeal to God for protection, the Evangelical
clamour also for his aid. To which is he to bend his ear? which Prayer
is he to answer? Both appeal to his promises; both urge that his honour
is pledged to them by the word he has given; yet it is simply impossible
that he should grant the Prayer of both, because the Prayer of the one
is the direct contradiction of the prayer of the other.
Again, none of the believers in Prayer appear to consider, that, if it
were true that Prayer is so powerful a weapon--if it were true that by
Prayer man can prevail with God--it would then be madness ever to pray
at all. To pray would be as dangerous a thing as to put a cavalry sword
into the hands of a child just strong enough to lift it, but unable to
control it, or to understand the danger of its blows. Who can tell all
the results to himself and to others which might flow from a granted
Prayer, a Prayer made in all honesty of purpose, but in ignorance and
short-sightedness? If Prayers really brought answers it would be most
wickedly reckless ever to pray at all, as wickedly reckless as if a
man, to quench a moment's thirst, pierced a hole in a reservoir of water
which overhung a town.
But, in spite of all arguments, in spite of all that reason can urge and
that logic can prove, it is probable that many will still cling to the
practice of Prayer, craving for the relief it gives to the feelings
of the heart, however much it may be condemned by the judgment of the
intellect. They seem to think that they will lose a great inspiration to
work if they give up "communion with God," and that they will miss the
glow of ardour which they deem they have caught from Prayer. But
surely it may fairly be urged on them that no real good can arise
from continuing a practice which it is impossible to defend when it is
carefully analysed. Prayer is as the artificial stimulant which excites,
but does not strengthen, and lends a factitious brightness, which is
followed by deeper depression. Those who have prayed most have often
stated that "seasons of special blessing" are generally followed by
"special temptations of Satan." The reaction follows on the unreal
excitation, and the soul that has been flying in heaven grovels upon
earth. To the patient who is weak and depressed from long illness, the
bright air of the morning seems chill and cold, and he yearns for the
warmth of the artificial stimulants to which he has grown accustomed;
yet better for him is it to gain health from the morning breezes, and
stimulus from the glad clear sunshine, than to yield to the craving
which is a relic of his disease. If they who find in communion with God
a sweetness which is lacking when they commune with their brethren--if
they who cultivate dependence on God would learn the true dependence of
man on man--if they who yearn for the invisible would concentrate their
energies on the visible--then they would soon find a sweetness in labour
which would compensate for the languor of Prayer, and they would learn
to draw from the joy of serving men, and from the serene strength of
an earnest life, a warmth of inspiration, a passion of fervour, an
exhaustless fount of energy, beside which all Prayer-given ardour would
seem dull and nerveless, in the glow of which the fancied warmth of
God-communion would seem as the pale cold moonshine in the glory of the
rising sun.