although acknowledging its fundamental purpose to be that of providing a
means of direct communication between God and man, vary according to the
different conceptions of the nature of God of which prayer is the
logical corollary, and from which all ideas of immortality are derived.
For instance, the notion of God as a Person, made in the image of man,
and endowed with his characteristics and powers in a superlatively human
degree, is naturally accompanied by belief in the efficacy of prayer as
a means of modifying the circumstances of life by permitting them to
deviate from the normal operating sequence of cause and effect, into
irregular acquiescence with the particular and changing desires of
individuals. Such an interpretation of the use of prayer is chiefly
characteristic of the religious history of the childhood of the human
race; but it also represents a type of mind surviving to-day under the
domination of ecclesiastical Christianity which, inculcating the theory
that the government of God in the world is directed towards the especial
benefit of mankind at the expense of the so-called "lower creation," is
largely responsible for those ideas of inconsistency between the
principles of religion and science which have led to controversial
warfare between these two educative influences of the human mind.
Most of the conceptions of immortality which accompany belief in a
purely personal Deity trend towards an actual epitomised realisation of
all that appears possible to obtain from God through the medium of
prayer. The savage, attributing to his deity the power of capriciously
inflicting upon him pain and pleasure, misery and happiness, prays for
the satisfaction of his personal desires, and for immunity and
protection from bodily harm. His ideas of immortality hover consequently
about the imagined summarised reality of his prayers--Heaven being
conceived of as a place where the human joys for which he has prayed can
be realised in a magnified degree for ever; and Hell as the threatened
compendium of all his fears, the culmination of pains and perils, to
escape which he offers up propitiatory and supplicating prayer.
In order to guard as far as possible against verbal misunderstanding, it
is perhaps as well to offer a definition of the sense in which the word
prayer is here used.
_The expression of the desire to correspond with the will of God._
Have we not here a basic point of spiritual correspondence, from which
man's hope of immortality may be seen to justify its conception?
Careful consideration of the many and apparently conflicting methods of
enunciating prayer leads to the observation that there exist
practically but two great categories into which all varieties of prayer
naturally fall:--
1. "Prayer of Specific Petition"--the outcome of the physical
susceptibilities of men.
2. "Prayer of Spiritual Acquiescence"--the expression of the psychical
apprehensions of men working through the medium of sense into perception
of God as the supreme Spirit of Life, revealed in form, and present as
the Spirit of Truth in knowledge.
The one is antecedent to the other. That is to say, prayer of spiritual
acquiescence is a natural growth from prayer of specific petition,
observation of which fact offers striking evidence of the evolution of
the soul of man.
It is one of the foremost characteristics of youth to demand from
established authority satisfaction of those mental and physical desires
which growth of consciousness entails. A child naturally attributes to
his parents the ability to grant or to deny his requests. He receives
from them all the necessaries of life; reward and punishment are in
their keeping; and he therefore conceives the idea of propitiating
their good-will towards him, trying by his conduct to rouse the approval
and pleasure and avert the wrath of the parental government. He is
disappointed when his requests are refused or ignored, and grateful when
they are granted, perceiving himself at the mercy of a strength and
power greater than his own.
Under precisely the same circumstances of ignorant youth, the so-called
"uncivilised man" bows to the authority of what he believes to be
supernatural power exerted upon him by the gods. He is, apparently, the
plaything of a capricious deity, who holds as clay within his hands
those conditions of life which bind him to his fate. Surely he does
wisely to propitiate this authoritative power by gifts, vows, and
supplications; by thank-offerings for danger averted; by petitions for
the deliverance from threatened evil. Before all serious undertakings he
tries by means of omens to read the will of his god towards him, even
as the little children, studying their parents' faces, hope to discern
thereon the propitious moment for the voicing of a particular request.
But there comes a time when the child ceases to be a child; when he puts
aside childish things--idle questions and unreasoning entreaties; when
he no longer asks in words for the satisfaction of each transitory
desire; when he acquiesces with perfect confidence in that loving wisdom
of his father, which experience has proved to him to be a will for his
own good in conjunction with the good of the whole of life; when the
reasonableness of such acquiescence with his father's will controls his
thoughts and pervades his consciousness; when the maturing man, looking
out with awakened perceptions of the order of the world, recognises the
will of God, written upon the face of Nature, as the true revelation of
his own will. His mode of prayer has changed. Spiritual acquiescence has
taken the place of specific petition. He enters into fuller
understanding of the works of his Father; he approaches communion of
consciousness with the supreme Spirit of Life.
Development of the desire to correspond with the will of God accompanies
both the spiritual progress of the individual consciousness of men and
of the collective consciousness of mankind. That is to say, the
evolution of prayer here suggested--showing how a faithful desire to
know and to do the will of God induces its own fulfilment by growing
consciousness of and acquiescence with the divine Spirit of Life--is not
only applicable to individual effort, but also to those combinations of
aspiration which we designate as public prayer. For if the repetition of
a sincere desire to be, say, moral, be in an individual a strong bias
towards morality, the office of general prayer, employed for a like
congregational purpose, must be capable of carrying with its rehearsal a
similar inducement towards its own fulfilment.
But although a priest may give utterance to the noblest of sentiments,
to the highest and purest aspirations of those human hearts whose
mouth-piece he professedly is, if the spirit of sincere individual
desire be not instilled into the spoken prayer that is supposed to
represent the congregational will, performance of the office becomes a
mockery of its intention, its expression as surely falling into
nothingness as the echoes of the human voice fade to silence. But when
the performance of public prayer is truly utilised to express the united
wills of many individuals, such a concentration of desire must make for
fulfilment by means as purely natural as those by which the laws of
demand and supply operate in life--the medium between desire and its
fulfilment being the operating power of will. If the efficacy of public
prayer were more generally recognised, surely there might be added to
orthodox liturgies an increasing power which would illuminate the idea
of the divinity of man, witness to the glory of the government of God,
and bring into a union of love the souls of the children of God. For
word is the fruit of the Spirit which brings into being the germ of the
deed that shall, at the appointed time, fulfil the purpose of its being.
To those thinkers whose spiritual perceptions have been quickened by the
doctrine of the unity of Nature into recognition of God as the Spirit of
Life present in all form, a connection between prayer and immortality
will be plainly evident. But if the idea of the aim of prayer which
accompanies the interpretation of Nature as the vesture of God be that
of voluntary effort to become one with the Divine Will, what idea of
immortality is the natural outcome of such belief?
If we assume Christ's conception of God to have been drawn from His
interpretation of Nature as the vesture of the Divine Spirit of Life, we
may expect to find some presage of His ideas relating to the immortality
of man in His teaching concerning the meaning and function of prayer.
The so-called "Lord's Prayer" is commonly accepted as summarising His
doctrine relating to the right rendering of prayer, and offers a
remarkable illustration of that combined specific petition and spiritual
acquiescence which is characteristic of His own employment of prayer.
In His dual capacity of reformer of a corrupted religious symbolism and
innovator of new esoteric ideas, He sought to cultivate a new order from
the old, not by grafting upon past habit and tradition the bud of an
extraneous growth, but by inviting the co-operation of the free-will of
men with the working of the natural laws of development, perceived by
Him to offer a means of attaining to a higher plane of spiritual
consciousness. When He told His disciples that "All things whatsoever ye
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," He tacitly
acknowledged the value of specific petitionary prayer, the right
employment of which we know to be capable of providing an educational
basis for the attaining of higher ideas of the relation between things
material and things spiritual.
But His advocacy of all such specific petition was accompanied by a
prefatory acknowledgment of God as the Father of man, the natural
expression of His sense of union with the supreme Spirit and Source of
Life. On the occasion of His own prayer before His betrayal, we find an
expression both of His physical and spiritual desires. The man prays
that suffering may be averted from him, while the spirit voices its
longing to conform to God's Will and thus to obtain perfect union with
the Spirit of Life in him and over him.
"Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup
from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt" (St Mark xiv.
36).
Is not this acknowledgment of the spiritual fatherhood of God, which
here prefaces Christ's own employment of prayer, as well as His
recommended form for the use of His disciples, another expression of the
conception of God as the supreme Spirit of Life, manifested through
love, and attested by the Spirit of Truth, which finds representation
in His words and deeds and in His rite of communion?
Now, if we assume men's ideas of heaven and hell to be respectively the
imagined realisation of desire and the compendium of fear, of a degree
and kind consistent with their physical and spiritual evolution, and
forming the basis of their prayer to God, an appreciation of the means
and end of prayer as advocated by Christ should in some measure reveal
His ideas on the subject of human immortality.
The keynote of His reported teaching on prayer is that of union with the
Will of God which, held by Him to be the true end of all attempted
spiritual correspondence with God, becomes at once the foundation of and
the justification for the Christian's hope of immortality.
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of the Father which is in
heaven" (St Matt. vii. 21).
Not merely by calling upon the name of Christ, but by obeying His
injunction to realise with Him our union with God as the Spirit of Life,
and to make our wills one with the Divine Will, is the certainty of our
spiritual inheritance revealed to us. For, "This is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent" (St John xvii. 3).
We know the true God through form, through the expression of God,
through the Word, learning from Christ to apprehend the Spirit of Life
behind the Name or Manifested Life. "I have manifested thy name unto the
men which thou gavest me out of the world.... I have given them the word
... thy word is truth" (St John xvii.).
The mental development of man gives him vantage-ground whence he can, if
he will, obtain with a clearness, certainty, and completeness
proportionate to the intellectual elevation he has attained, on the one
side a retrospective view of his descent, and on the other a
perspective discernment of his possible destiny. In other words, the
whence of his being is more remotely traceable, and the whither of his
evolution more definitely perceptible, according as his growing powers
of thought and reason enable him to deduce from his present
circumstances certain data bearing on the past history of his life.
Knowledge of facts pertaining to his descent, by enlarging his
consciousness of himself in his relation to the Whole of Life, offers an
explanation of his present status that is at the same time a basis for
the forecasting of his future possible fate, testifies to the continuity
of his being, and brings his conception of immortality within reasonable
bounds of justification.
But confirmation of his ideas of human immortality is dependent upon an
ability to attain an intellectual vantage-ground high enough to permit
him to trace to its source the history of his life, and to throw a
previsionary understanding over the destined end of his evolutionary
career, wherein the blending of his physical and spiritual immortality
is gradually revealed to him. For in the same way that an examination of
the evolution of prayer leads to the observation of a change from
specific petition to spiritual acquiescence--a change which we may
interpret as evidence of the development of the soul of man, and of the
collective consciousness of Creation--so in the study of the
life-history of mankind we reach a point whence we may behold the
unbroken continuity of his physical evolution merging into that of
spiritual evolution. That is to say, the physical immortality of mankind
as a whole (the varied manifestation of the Spirit of Life through
changing species) is crowned by individual consciousness of spiritual
immortality, wherein the purpose of the incarnation of life finds
fulfilment.
Pride of ancestry is so prominent a characteristic of nations, families,
and individuals alike, that there is some justification for calling it a
peculiarity of the human race. Men glory in the possession of records
that tell of mighty deeds of valour wrought by their progenitors. Pride
of kinship with heroes of past times breeds a sense of responsibility as
an accompaniment to the inheritance of a noble name, urging the
necessity of passing it on to posterity if not enriched, at least
untarnished in its purity.
The idea of the immortality of the individual in the race,
characterising the Hebrews as recorded in the Books of the Old
Testament, is one outcome of this innate pride of birth, which here
becomes, as in many other instances, incorporated as part foundation of
a religious creed. Ancestor-worship is another such example. Only, be it
noted, whereas this idea of the continuity of being finds its chief
expression in recognising and revering the link between present and past
generations of men, that of the Hebrew is built upon a conception of
survival in their children. Both offer a remarkable testimony to the
innate desires of men to contribute towards the continuity of humanity
in the establishment of the individual's relationship to the Whole of
Life. The Hebrew prays that his seed may multiply and cover the face of
the earth, seeing therein the security of his own immortality. But the
prayer of a devout Chinaman embodies rather his recognition of honour
due to his dead ancestors than his desire to secure a prolific progeny.
He is the child of the past, rather than, as the Hebrew, a child of
expectancy.
With regard to the ideas of spiritual correspondence embodied in the
theories of the transmigration and reincarnation of spirits, it would
appear that such are an outcome of the same search after truth that
found expression nineteen hundred years ago in the Christian doctrine of
the spiritual immortality of all men, by reason of their derivative
union with God as the Spirit of Life, and which are to-day confirmed and
reincorporated in the scientific theories of the evolutionary descent of
man and the unity of Nature.
But it is noteworthy that although the Christian idea of immortality is
dissociated from that of the survival of the individual in the race, as
well as independent of the belief in the transmigration and
reincarnation of spirit in ways other than by the transmission of
personality from parents to their children, it is by no means
antagonistic to, but rather comprehensive of, all these ideas of the
continuity of being. Christ's teaching adequately gathers together the
truth in all the scattered and imperfect ideas of spiritual survival
latent in the tenets of the religious creeds and theories to which
reference has been made. But whereas the Hebrew and Chinese ideas
inculcate the keeping apart of races and of nations, with a clinging to
past tradition necessarily detrimental to progress; and whereas the
transmigration and reincarnation theories constitute a practical
annihilation of the survival of individual consciousness,--the Christian
conception makes for union among men of all peoples of all times,
showing immortality to consist not only in men's relationship to past
and future generations of their own race, or by connection with the
inter-evolution of other organisms, but also and chiefly in their
recognition of God as the supreme Spirit of Life manifested through
love, and known to them as the Father of their beings. Perception of
this truth establishes union among all men, and gives them consciousness
of their assured spiritual and individual immortality.
Thus considered, the Christian idea of human immortality may be seen to
be a natural growth from the conception of the survival of the
individual in the race. It is as remarkable a testimony to the
development of spiritual consciousness, regarded as a whole, as is the
evolution of prayer from its form of specific petition to that of
spiritual acquiescence. For here again we can perceive how spiritual has
accompanied physical evolution--how the evolving apprehension of the
soul has kept pace with the confirming comprehension of the mind of man.
And here again we see how the doctrine of Christ unites past tradition
with new developments of intellectual aspiration, His method of
instruction following the perfect order of Nature, wherein nothing is
irregular or unreasonable, and whereby the indwelling Spirit of Truth
affords perpetual evidence of the development of spiritual consciousness
through natural evolution. The changing of the old order is a necessary
accompaniment to progress. When Christ announced His mission to be that
of fulfilment and not of destruction, was He not inferring the expansion
of knowledge physically perceived into apprehension of its spiritual
significance--an expansion which, foreseen by Him to be the
accompaniment of the future development of man, would call for continual
verification by the critical testimony of the Spirit of Truth? The
insistence laid by Him upon the necessity of the realisation by men of
their spiritual union with God as the basis of all effective prayer, is
fully corroborated in His teaching relating to human immortality.
Indeed, the whole programme of thought and conduct presented by Him to
His disciples can be resolved into an advocacy of prayer as the means of
obtaining conscious spiritual union with God, with the attendant purpose
of establishing thereby the conviction of spiritual immortality. For
eternal life is perceived to be the natural inheritance of all who
through prayer have established correspondence with God as the Spirit of
Life and the Father of their beings, and who therefore know themselves
to be partakers of the infinite and illimitable divinity of God.
Whether we consider the brotherly love between men recommended by Christ
as the Will of God; or the self-sacrifice of the individual in the
interests of the community, advocated by Him as the foundation of true
happiness; or the indwelling Spirit of Life in form, manifested by love
in Nature and illustrated in His rite of communion--the same realisation
of the kinship of all life follows the putting into practice of His
commands, with the result that spiritual life is perceived to be the
birthright of all the children of God.
Proof of immortality is thus closely associated with the desire to
correspond with the Will of God, for through prayer is the Divine Spirit
of Life made visible. Born of the prayers of the faithful expectant, the
Manifested Deity is the incarnation of the ideal desires of mankind--the
accumulated product of those periods of anticipation which constitute
the preparation for fulfilment of desire, and thus make possible some
special culminating revelation which shall be adapted to human
recognition. If the light of God be in men, shall they not by that light
perceive His glory? Designed in the image of God, shall not man become
like unto God, according as the divinely implanted desire to know God
shall lead him towards a more perfect correspondence with His Will?
All revelations of God are representative also of the spiritual progress
of mankind. The cultivation of qualities considered admirable in human
conduct must be preliminary to the evolution of that type of humanity
which shall be capable of appreciating as a divine manifestation the
incarnation of certain desired spiritual attributes which are conceived
of as partaking of the nature of God.
The Kingdom of God is within us. Therefore must the manifested Divinity
be born of the prayers of the devout. Thus only can God be made visible
to men. Thus only can His Kingdom be established as heaven on earth. And
thus do we learn to regard immortality as the fulfilment of prayer. For
since the spiritual progress of mankind is achieved and sustained by an
increasing consciousness of the glory of God, men must worship as the
manifested Divinity of God the embodiments of those spiritual qualities
which represent the ideals of their own desire. Therefore, to bring
about the conscious and willing co-operation of Creation with the
progressive Will of Love, we have first earnestly to desire the coming
of the Kingdom of God, which desire shall be the preparation for our
enlightenment, when the pure in heart shall see God. His Kingdom is here
at hand, shaping in the midst of us, not approaching from afar as a
condemnatory judgment upon our imperfections, but as the increasing
revelation of Divine Love--a manifestation which is at once our judgment
and our joy. For from the beginning the Word of God, the absolute Truth
of God, has been one with His divine glory; and from the beginning the
progressive consciousness of Creation has been guided by the revelation
of the Will of Love and sustained by the Spirit of Truth.
Therefore, if language be the sign of thought, making for progressive
union of men, and thereby promoting the growth of spiritual
consciousness; and form be evidence of spirit, productive through love
of continuity of the manifestation of spirit; and Nature be the vesture
of God, wherein the intercommunion of all God's creatures is shown to
rest upon mutual sacrifice for mutual continuity of being--is not the
incarnate purpose of all these things the attainment by men of conscious
union and co-operation with their God?
INDEX.
=Abyssinia=, _Shihab al Din_, 37.
=Agricultural Chemical Analysis=, _Wiley_, 55.
=Alcyonium=, _Liverpool Marine Biol. C. Mems._, 49.
=Americans=, The, _Münsterberg_, 30.
=Anarchy and Law=, _Brewster_, 29.
=Anatomy=, _Cunningham Memoirs_, 46.
Surgical, of the Horse, 49.
=Antedon=, _Liverpool Mar. Biol. Mems._, 49.
=Anthropology=, Prehistoric, _Avebury_, 56; _Engelhardt_, 57.
Evolution of Religion, _Farnell_, 12.
=Anurida=, _Liverpool Mar. Biol. Mems._, 49.
=Apocalypse=, _Bleek_, 8; _Clark_, 16.
=Apostles and Apostolic Times=, _Dobschütz_, 4; _Hausrath_, 19;
_Weinel_, 4; _Weizsäcker_, 7; _Zeller_, 9.
Statutes of, edit. G. Horner, 26.
=Apostolic Succession=, _Clark_, 17.
=Arabic=, Grammar, _Socin_, 37.
Poetry, _Faizullah Bhai_, 35; _Lyall_, 36; _Nöldeke_, 36.
=Arenicola=, _Liverpool Marine Biol. Mems._, 49.
=Ascidia=, _Liverpool Marine Biol. Mems._, 48.
=Assyrian=, Dictionary, _Muss-Arnolt_, 36; _Norris_, 36.
Grammar, _Delitzsch_, 34.
Language, _Delitzsch_, 34.
=Assyriology=, _Brown_, 56; _Delitzsch_, 10, 34; _Evans_, 35; _Sayce_,
15; _Schrader_, 9.
=Astigmatic Tests=, _Pray_, 52; _Snellen_, 54.
=Astronomy=, _Cunningham Mems._, V., 46; _Memoirs of Roy. Astronom.
Soc._, 62.
=Atom=, Study of, _Venable_, 55.