is unanswered prayer. When men pray for things which do not come
that way--pray with sincere belief that prayer, unaided and alone,
will compass what they ask--then, not getting what they ask, they
often give up prayer.
This is the natural history of much atheism, not only an atheism of
atheists, but a more terrible atheism of Christians, an unconscious
atheism, whose roots have struck far into many souls whose
last breath would be spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a
mistaken Christianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief in
the omnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when the appropriate
conditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, but not blind prayer.
Blind prayer is superstition. Prayer, in its true sense, contains
the sane recognition that while man prays in faith, GOD ACTS BY LAW.
What that means in the immediate connection we shall see presently.
What, then, is the remedy? It is impossible to doubt that there
is a remedy, and it is equally impossible to believe that it is
a secret. The idea that some few men, by happy chance or happier
temperament, have been given the secret--as if there were some sort
of knack or trick of it--is wholly incredible and wrong. Religion
must be for all, and the way into its loftiest heights must be by
a gateway through which the peoples of the world may pass.
I shall have to lead up to this gateway by a very familiar path.
But as this path is strangely unfrequented where it passes into
the religious sphere, I must ask your forbearance for dwelling for
a moment upon the commonest of commonplaces.