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Cl 145
PRACTICAL REMARKS
ON
“THE LORD’S PRAYER.”
By A LAYMAN.
WITH
ANNOTATIONS BY A DIGNITARY OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
“ Be not rash with thy mouth, neither let thy heart be hasty toput forth a word before the Elohim; for the Elohim is in heaven and
thou on the earth, therefore let thy words be few.”—Ecclesiastes.
“ When ye multiply prayer I do not hear.”—Isaiah.
“ Make not much babbling when thou prayest-”—Ecclesiasticus.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS
MOUNT PLEASANT. RAMSGATE.
1869.
Price Sixpence.
SCOTT,
�1
)
I
�THE LORD'S PRAYER.”
Matthew vi., 5-8, Jesus warns his disciples
neither to imitate the hypocrites who pray at
the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men,
nor the heathen, who think that they shall be heard for
their much speaking. This was, in effect, to pass before
hand the most severe yet truthful criticism on two
modes of prayer greatly in use among orthodox Chris
tians of the present day.a In publicity and repetition,
have they not left far behind them, both hypocrites
a The Censure pronounced by Jesus on those who Prayed
in Public.—The censure must have been intended to apply, not to
public congregational prayer, but to the parading before the public
individual, personal, prayer; for the prayer he taught his disciples is a
joint prayer, and, therefore, a prayer to be used in public. I wish that
we had two words for congregational and individual prayer; for, to
address God in a form of words prescribed for us is a very different
thing from addressing to him our own thoughts and feelings in our
own language. This last only is, strictly speaking, praying; the former
may, no doubt, on special occasions, so harmonise with the frame of
mind in which a member of a congregation happens to be, as to become
his prayer; but its common and almost universal character is that of a
religious rite. Its justification is, the necessity of a religious body
assembling, from time to time, and its being appropriate for such
assemblings. It may be observed that numbers (may I not say nearly
all'?) except on occasions of strong emotion, although desirous of
praying,—i.e., of addressing God in words of their own, expressive of
what they think and feel,—are incapable of doing so. I was once
requested by a clergyman,—a sensible, well-informed, and pious man,—
to give him a form for his private devotions, which would have been
like a schoolboy’s letter written to his parents under his master’s dicta
tion. Length and repetition are, no. doubt, censurable, and were cen
sured by our Lord.
�6
Practical Remarks on
and heathen ? After this good caution and advice,
Jesus gives to his disciples the celebrated form called
“ The Lord’s Prayer.”
What an idiot we should take that man to be
who, having a favour to ask, repeated his request
over and over again, in the very same terms.
Would the case be less absurd if, instead of
addressing his request to man, he addressed it to
God ? On the contrary, it would be still more so,
for we might hope to obtain from a man, by sheer
importunity, some favour he would have refused to
a single request, while there could be no hope of
inducing God to concede to wearisome iteration what
he would refuse to the first simple petition. Were it
otherwise, the people of Thibet and Mongolia are far
wiser in their generation than are many orthodox
Christians, who yet look on the Asiatic plan for
unceasing prayer only as a subject for laughter.
These people, firmly impressed with the idea of
the immense importance of continual prayer, make
revolving wheels, which are covered with forms of
prayer, and keep these wheels in constant move
ment ; the rolling action gives volubility to the prayer
far beyond anything they could do unassisted by the
machinery.
Compared with many others, “ The Lord’s
Prayer ” has at least the merit of brevity, but
when closely examined is found to contain many fair
subjects for criticism. A twofold interpretation for
several clauses of this prayer is possible. We first
take that interpretation which actually prevails
amongst orthodox Christians, and which they, not
unjustly, maintain to be countenanced by other pre
cepts of Jesus, and representations in the Bible. We
shall after it deal with the other interpretation, and
make such remarks as it suggests.
“ Our Father ”—The idea, which represents God
�The Lord's Prayer.
1
as the universal Father, is no less beautiful than true,
and had the idea been always present to the mind of
orthodox Christians, their religion would not have
been disfigured by so many cruel dogmas, nor tar
nished by so many crimes.
The address entitles God, Our Father “ which art
in heaven
or rather, “ who art in the heavens.”1*
b Our Father which art in Heaven.—The & ev rois ovpavois,
must, I think, have been a gloss, explanatory of irdrep ipxGiv. There
is, however, something like it in Luke x. 21, where Jesus is represented,
in addressing- his Father, as using, not the vocative, but the nominative
6 iraTTip, as if it were customary so to use a recognised title of God.
However this may be, a prevalent idea conveyed by the “ which art in
Heaven ” has been, as you observe, that of a local habitation, and this
among both Jews and Christians. Yet some, even of the Jews, must
have derived a truer conception of the Deity and his mode of existence,
if from no other source, from Solomon’s words on the dedication of
their Temple,—" The Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain
thee, how much less this house which I have builded ” (1 Kings viii. 27).
What does the word Heaven mean when God is said to be in Heaven?
I should say that it is a, positive expression with a negative signification,
—not on earth, not local, not dependent for existence on matter, space,
time. God is known to us in his absolute nature only by negatives, in
his relative nature by the results of his agency, including specially our
own human fabric. Herein consists the difficulty of addressing him;
which it is hard to do without substituting some positive idea for the
negative; and not only of addressing him, but of loving him, fearing
him, reverencing him. Hence, too, the tendency to idolatry even in
those who are convinced that God is not a material object. Hence,
again, the question whether (setting aside revealed commands) it is
designed that we should pray to him, love him, reverence him. My
reply is,—The promptings of our nature, innate aspirations (apart from
all reasoning) to do these things, are his implanting, his agency -, and
compliance with them has, therefore, his sanction. To believe that
there is such a Being is inseparable from the desire to make some effort
to hold communion with him, and to hope for some response ; to culti
vate appropriate feelings towards him, and to hope for something corre
sponding to them from him. Our reasoning faculty, likewise the result
of his agency, and so carrying with it his sanction to exercise it on
these very tendencies, puts stringent limitations on them, checks and
directs them, and especially teaches us to hesitate in determining what
is accomplished by prayer to God, loving him, reverencing him, &c., all
of which is at once unreasonable and natural. In this our intellectual
nature bows to our moral nature ; yet not so as to relinquish its control
over it. Both are of God; and the perfect reconciliation of the two
�Practical Remarks on
These words, though capable of an unblamable and
instructive exposition, yet if accepted (as generally)
in connection with prevalent biblical views, mischie
vously localise the abode of God.
Heaven is here understood to be a local region,
like Earth ; a region where the Most High sits on a
sapphire throne, and holds a court or levee in State
of those ministers without whose agency, it seems,
he is as much mutilated and inefficient, as a king
without messengers and civil servants. Origen was
aware of the mean ideas which Heaven here carried
to the popular mind, and refused to accept the phrase
in its ordinary acceptation.
The modern Christian, enlightened by the astro
nomy of Kepler and Newton, and by the philosophy
of Anaxagoras and Cicero, looks up to “ Heaven ” in
his devotions, not as a special locality, but as the
actual Universe, embracing Earth on all sides, as a
petty point lost in its immensity, and elevates his
conception of God by the vast distance of the stars :
so that, to our philosophic mind, God in Heaven
means God omnipresent, God dwelling in the entire
Universe.
But is it reasonable to suppose that, if Jesus had
held such a view, he would have taken no pains to
enlighten his followers ? It is rather to be feared
that the meaning of God in Heaven, prevalent in the
bible and among the Christian vulgar, was the sense
intended by Jesus.
“ Hallowed be thy name.” c—It might seem that
expressions of his will in this matter would seem to be among those
reserved points of knowledge which are at present beyond our compre
hension, such as the positive of eternity, the positive of infinity, uncreated
existence, the co-existence of God and Evil, of Creation and Eternity.
c Hallowed be tliy name.—Was not “name” shem an established
expression for any special revelation made by God of himself ? So,
among numerous instances, it is used in Exodus iii. 13, vi. 3. It is in
this sense I understand it here, the hallowing being a hallowing of God
�The Lord's Prayer.
9
this speaks one sense, one only; and that, a sense to
which every reverential mind bows assent. But was
this really what Jesus intended ? Unbiassed inquiry
shows that the whole prayer is in closest conformity
with the notions and precepts of the contemporary
Rabbis. It is therefore more reasonable to believe
that here also Jesus intended what they intended,
when they inculcated reverence for the sacred name.
They would not utter the name Jehovah at all, but
superstitiously altered it into the words which mean
Lord, in Hebrew and in Greek. Modern Christians
have propagated the confusion thus introduced, so
that God, Jehovah, Master, and Sir are alike possible
interpretations of the Greek kurios; to the great
convenience of Trinitarian disputants, and great
darkening of the Scriptures. It is to be feared that
Jesus, since he nowhere points at this error of the
national teachers, did but recommend and intensify a
scruple which had in it more of sanctimoniousness
than of reverence. In Ecclus. xxiii. 9, we find,
“ Use not thyself to the naming of the Holy One.”
Do orthodox Christians ever reflect on the number
of times they use the Holy name in their ordinary
forms, whether of worship or of state ? Those to
whom this command was addressed would not even
write the name of the Holy One.
“ Thy kingdom come.” d—No one can imagine that
revealed to us as “Our Father;” embracing in the term the idea of
what may be designated a Patriarchal sovereignty, and connected,
therefore, with the clauses of the prayer immediately following.
d Thy Kingdom Come.—It must certainly mean something yet to
come so long as the prayer is used. Your suggestion that it might have
been taken from a Rabbinical form is probably right; but the Rabbinical
form itself must have had its origin in Daniel ii. 44. In the Lord’s
Prayer it implies that Jesus had only announced and prepared mankind
for the perfect establishment of the promised kingdom, which will take
place at his second coming. This event the early Christians looked for
as “ at hand.” What did he mean by telling his disciples, when shortly
before his death he was partaking of the wine at supper with them,
�IO
Practical Remarks on
there was originality in this prayer. Of course, the
thought was familiar to the prophets, that an over
throw of the heathen monarchies was shortly to
come, and a righteous rule on earth to be established
under the saints of the Most High. This rule was
called the kingdom of God. That the heart of man
should long for this, is of course right; and longing
leads to aspiration. But can it be denied, that under
this prayer is conveyed the false and mischievous
notion, that hitherto God has not governed on earth,—
that the heathen nations were ruled over by devils
or by Satan, God’s enemy,—that God is ever going
to rule, and ever disappointing and postponing our
hope ? A philosophic Christian of Germany sees
“ God in historybut can any one pretend that in
this prayer, or anywhere else, Jesus so taught his
disciples to look on the actual history of the world ?
We do not see very clearly what this petition means.
The kingdom of God, whether we wish for it or not,
always was, is, and will be, “ come” ; it is as neces
sarily past and present, as future. If by “ thy king
dom,” another life is understood, it is a wish in which
there is nothing to blame, though our wishes are
equally powerless to hasten or to retard it. Perhaps
that “ kingdom” which Jesus led his followers to
believe would be realised by him on earth, soon after
his death, is meant here ; that kingdom which ortho
dox Christians are still waiting for more than eighteen
that he would not again taste wine until he drank it new with them in
“ my Father’s kingdom? ” He may have been speaking figuratively of
a future state after death; but the more obvious and likely interpreta
tion of the words is that he would soon return to renew his intercourse
with them in the future kingdom on earth. The petition in the prayer
admits of another application, although I hardly think one which was
intended. The human race is clearly moving on to some changes, as
great, perhaps, and as gradual, as those physical changes which have
brought the earth to its present improved condition. The result may be
a coming of “ God’s kingdom,” not through any change of the Divine
Ruler’s rule, but in the perfect recognition of it by his human subjects.
�’The Lord's Prayer.
11
hundred years after his death. The Jews have a
prayer called “ Kaddish,” a word signifying sanctification,—-the prayer is in the Chaldee language, and
is supposed to be as old as the time of the captivity.
Did Jesus take this phrase from the old Jewish
prayer ? The ancient Jewish writings furnish paral
lels to every other phrase in it. Perhaps, then, we
may take these passages, “ hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,” as a reproduction of an old
Jewish thought, and an expression of hope of the
coming of the Messiah. Be this as it may, the
Jewish prayer is still in daily use, and is as follows:
11 May His great name be magnified and sanctified
throughout the world which He hath created accord
ing to his own good pleasure; may He establish
His kingdom while ye live, in your days especially,
even time quickly coming. Amen.”
“ Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. ”e—
The general sense of this is identical with “ Thy king
dom come.” It adds the somewhat gratuitous idea that
Sin is not incident to the heavenly world, although,
according to the traditionary belief, Sin did break out
in heaven itself with an intensity so awful, that (at
least according to the doctrine now universal) no
Redemption was attempted, and no Person of the Tri
nity devoted himself to recover the rebellious angels.
But pass this by, and let us dwell on another side of
the prayer. Has not a vicious, morbid Resignation
e Thy Will be done, in Earth, as in Heaven.—This is, appa
rently, an expansion of the preceding clause, and explains what is
meant by the coming of God’s kingdom, in a manner which accords
well with the meaning last suggested. What is told us of fallen angels
is not, I think, inconsistent with the desire that God’s will may, some
day, be as perfectly observed on earth as it now is in heaven; but rather
suggests an analogy between the two—heaven as it once was, and earth
as it is now. The prayer would thus be that, as in heaven, when its
rebellious sinners were exiled, God’s will became perfectly recognised,
so it may be on earth, when earth’s sinners shall be banished.
�12
Practical Remarks on
prevailed among Christians, as a result of intended
submission to the will of God ? Have they not been
taught to regard as God’s will, not only things natu
rally inevitable, but also that which is nothing but
the fruit of human folly ? To practise resignation
to this as to the will of God is decidedly immoral.
“ Give us this day our daily bread.” f This does
not differ much from Prov. m., 8, 9, but it contains
an epithet which, without any cause, is translated
daily. The Greek is epiousios, a word unknown to
the Greek classics. There is but one analysis of it,
which the analogy of the Greek language permits,
viz., that which Professor Renan points out. In the
New Testament the word epiousa habitually means
“the morrow;” in Attic Greek it is “the on-coming”
(day). From this the adjective epiousios is legiti
mately derivable, which gives to this clause the
sense, “ Give us this day to-morrow's bread.” (See
Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, p. 491.) Renan
asserts that this very prayer is to be found among
Jewish formulas. If Jesus taught his disciples so to
pray, he taught a lesson widely different and wiser
than when he bade them to take no thought for the
morrow. Christians in general, on the contrary,
interpret this clause by his precept which follows
f Give us this Day our Daily Bread.—The right rendering of
eirtovcriov is “ sufficient.” I understand the clause, too, not as asking
God for the day’s sustenance, independently of those exertions through
which it has been provided, or is yet to be procured, but as acknow
ledging that he is still, and not the less, the giver of it, having created
that which becomes food for us, and endowed us with those faculties
through which we are enabled to procure it,—that he is the sustainer of
our life, through whatever fixed laws of our nature and of the world
he accomplishes his benevolent and fatherly purpose. Daily experience
would teach the disciples that he did not otherwise give them daily
bread. Note.—See ‘ Bishop Hinds’s Free Discussion of Sacred Topics,’
Part II., p. 93, where the meaning of the word is determined from its
relation t.o neptovcrios, and the analogy of other words similarly com
pounded of
and irepi.
�'The Lord's Prayer.
ij
presently in this same sermon on the Mount, and
understand that we are to be satisfied with to-day's
bread. The result of such doctrine is counteracted
by homely common sense ; nevertheless, the ten
dency of the religion has been to deprecate active
exertion for worldly good. If we can learn to dis
criminate between the wiser and the less wise, the
fanatical and the spiritual, of the books called
inspired, we may at length accept from Jesus the
prayer for to-morrow’s bread, if that be the real
sense of his words.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them
that trespass against us.”s There are more ways
than one of reading this petition. First, if we take
the version in Luke as our exposition, Jesus says:
“Forgive us our sins, for even we (kai gar hemeis)
forgive those who offend us ” That is to say, the
sinner (holding himself up as a pattern to his Maker),
remonstrates with his heavenly Lord, — “Surely,
s Forgive vs our Trespasses os we forgive them that
Trespass against us.—Agreeing- with you in interpreting this
clause as an acknowledgment that those who ask to be forgiven ought
to be forgiving, I do not look at its moral bearing in the same light.
What is expressed as true of our forgiving is, according to Gospel
teaching, equally true of repentance, faith, and other requirements.
The assertion of it in the prayer would seem to be owing, not only to
the opposition between this portion of our conduct and the forgiveness
we seek, but to the fact that neither Jews nor Gentiles regarded it as
any part of a good moral life. Its prominence in our Lord’s teaching,
and the strong language which he uses about it, is fairly attributable to
this peculiarity, without supposing that it has more to do with our for
giveness, in the Gospel scheme, than other portions of a good life. That
the expectation of obtaining forgiveness thus destroys the essence of
good moral conduct, which ought to be practised for its own sake,
involves us in a question which divided heathen as much as it has
Christian moralists. In our own literature we have Butler, &c., on one
side, and Paley, &c., on the other. The correct view, as it appears to
me, is that the hope of reward may, but does not necessarily, exclude
the love of virtue for its own sake, or debase the motive which directs
us to it. To give a homely illustration : A man marries a woman
because he loves and esteems her; but is well pleased to know that she
�Practical Remarks on
O Lord, thou canst not be less generous to me than
I am to my fellow-men,” which, though an excel
lent argument in a philosophic thesis (and over
whelming against the Christian hell), is not in a
tone at all suitable to prayer, even though it be
found in the Gospel of Luke. But in Matthew
vi. 14, 15, the clause is put in a different light.
There Jesus says that, according as we do or do not
forgive our enemies, God will or will not forgive us.
Hence he makes us pray, “ Forgive us (or not),
according as we forgive (or do not forgive).” It is
hard to admire or to imitate a prayer so couched.
Truly a heart utterly free from malice, and desiring
every enemy to be converted to God, to goodness,
and to true happiness, is such a heart as will find
pardon and peace with God. None the less is the
same likely to shrink from a prayer, that it may be
dealt with as it deals with others. Nor is it elevating
to any soul, rather it is debasing, to urge, “ Judge
not, that ye may not be judged; or, forgive, that ye
may be forgiven.” It rather teaches laxity and self
seeking under the guise of religion. It turns the
mind from doing (as Aristotle teaches) good because
it is good, and sets one on thinking, What we are to
by goodness.
“ Lead us not into temptation.” h If we take this
brings him a large fortune, or the advantage of influential relatives, who
may promote his worldly interest. He would have married her all the
same had she possessed none of these Worldly recommendations; but
he does not the less value them.
h Lead us not into Temptation ; but deliver us from Evil.
—It is true, as you observe, that temptation is our appointed lot as free
agents. Still temptation is a danger from which we naturally shrink,
and as naturally express our dread of it by praying to God so to order
our path of life that we may be spared trials which may prove too
strong for us ; and this notwithstanding that trial is inseparable from
our condition, and notwithstanding also that the Divine Providence is
exercised by general laws. So prayed Jesus, “ Father, save me from
this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.” No prayer—
�The Lord's Prayer.
15
to the letter, it is a request that God would suppress
the very conditions of our freedom ; those moral
trials through which we may raise ourselves to the
dignity of beings who, having gained a painful vic
tory, merit reward. To have no temptations, to know
no evil and, consequently, no good, is the state of
moral innocence of the animal creation and the infant
at the breast. But such innocence is not virtue.
Virtue consists in overcoming temptation ; still we
must never expose ourselves needlessly or out of
pure bravado to opportunities for evil doing, although
virtue cannot exist without experience of resistance.
And note here the inconsistency of the New Testa
ment to itself. The Apostle James, i. 2, 12, 13,
assures us that God tempts no one; which may
seem to supersede a prayer that he will not lead us
into temptation. But what is far worse, the whole
book, the whole Christian scheme is pervaded by the
frightful notion that the just and compassionate
“ Father in Heaven” lets loose upon weak, inex
perienced men and children a subtle rebel angel, a
tempter well versed in all our weakness, and oc
cupied day and night in seducing us. Luke might
bid us to pray, “ Let not Satan tempt us, FOR even we
deal not thus with our children.”
“ Deliver us from evil.”—From what evil ? The
evil we ourselves do ? This is to ask God to act in
our place, to do our work for us when he has given
us all that is necessary for doing it well ourselves.
Is it from the evil which we believe he permits the
devil to urge us to do, that we pray to be delivered ?
But it would be simpler and far more reasonable to
believe that God permits nothing so detestable. Is
it from the physical evil attached to our nature ?
indeed, not the simplest ejaculation—is free from this objection of
inconsistency. As I have before remarked, praying is at once natural
and unreasonable.
�16
Practical Remarks on
But this is to ask God both to give us the victory
without the trouble of the fight, and to overturn the
general laws by which he governs the Universe.
“ For thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, for ever.”1—In Chron. xxix. 11, we find,
“ Thine, 0 Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power,
and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty;
for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ;
thine is the kingdom Jehovah, and thou art exalted
as head above all.” We find this prayer also in Luke
xi. 2-4, but in a slightly shortened form. The curi
ously different language which Matthew and Luke
cause Jesus to hold at the time he gives this prayer
to his disciples is worth noticing.
But after thus commenting on “ The Lord’s
Prayer” in detail, we must address ourselves to the
question, Has it been beneficial, was it wise, to give
to the disciples a form of prayer at all ? For what
is spiritual prayer ? Paul tells us, “We know not
what to pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us, with groanings that can
not be uttered.” This is to avow, that no two hearts
can pray entirely alike ; no full prayer can have lite
rary expression. Look at all the superstitions which
the Pater Noster has for ages caused. Did Jesus
foresee this ? It is hard to think so.
Prayer, as understood by Paul, is the upward
s pressure of spiritual aspiration or of painful need:
Prayer is the Soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed,
The heaving of a hidden fire
That stirs within the breast.
Prayer is the utterance of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward lifting of an eye
When only God is near.—J. Montgomery.
> The Doxology.—There is little doubt that this made no part of the
prayer as dictated by our Lord.
�The Lord's Prayer.
Prayer, as inculcated in the Pater N osier, can be
only an external church document. Shall we adopt
the theory of a few, that Jesus intended merely to
give instruction in outline as to the proper topics of
prayer ? It may be. Certain it is, that Christians
systematically disobey his command in this very
matter. Jesus bade them not to use vain repetitions ;
yet not only does the Church of Rome cause the
Pater Noster to be gabbled over to the counting of
beads; the Protestant Church of England also
recites the Lord’s Prayer four times at a single meet
ing. Jesiis forbade his disciples to pray in public,
which he stigmatises as hypocrisy ; yet public prayer
is now practically identified with religion, and one
who refuses to attend it is treated as an infidel. Our
dissenters, who avoid the error of repeating the Lord’s
Prayer, are more and more forward in the other
more offensive error. At the corners of our streets,
and on the lawns and the sands of our wateringplaces, we are annoyed by men, standing aloft, pray
ing aloud or singing hymns, who fancy that hereby
they are fulfilling their Master’s precepts.
In this examination of “ The Lord’s Prayer ” we
have confined ourselves to pointing out what our
prayers should not be. What they should be may,
in part, be learned from the pamphlet, in this same
series, ‘ Basis of a New Reformation.’
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Practical remarks on "The Lord's Prayer"
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[Unknown]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 17 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By a layman ; with annotations by a dignitary of the Church of England. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Thomas Scott
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1869
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CT149
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Prayer
Religious Practice
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Practical remarks on "The Lord's Prayer"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
Lord's Prayer
Prayer
-
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THE CONTROVERSY
ABOUT
PRAYER.
BY PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
No. 11
The Tebeace, Fabquhar Road, Uppee Nobwood,
London,
S.E.
1873.
Price Threepence.
��THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT
PRAYER.
OME have said that religious knowledge is not
progressive: with about as
Ssay that medical knowledge much tr.uth we might On
is not progressive.
each topic mankind has made enormous errors, and
on each is still very far from a sound and satisfactory
state ; yet on each it has left many errors far behind.
Primitive theology is man’s interpretation of the
outer world which he perceives ; and his interpreta
tion is largely influenced by his consciousness and his
emotions. Enlarged and improved knowledge of the
universe almost necessarily modifies theology, as does
the improved moral culture of nations. Religion
therefore (in its popular sense of “ thought concerning
God”), unless artificially stereotyped by nationally
established creeds and by sacerdotal authority, must
everywhere tend to improve, as nations become
nobler in morals, or in breadth and accuracy of know
ledge. So strong indeed is this natural tendency,
that we do in fact trace this improvement, in spite of
hierarchies and domineering institutions, and some
times, in the higher minds, even in spite of public
demoralization. Theological opinion, and the inter
pretation of generally received doctrines, cannot but
undergo change, when the ascendant system of (what
is called) metaphysics changes; much more, when,
�4
^he Controversy about Prayer.
as in the last three centuries of Europe, acquaintance
with the outer world has been immensely enlarged
and at the same time become beyond comparison
more accurate.
But the mass of the population in Christendom is
very far from duly appreciating the truths of natural
science ; and the teachers of religion on the one
side are bound down by Church Articles and Liturgies,
or on the other cannot conveniently outrun the tra
ditionary creed of their congregations. Men of
business have not much time for original thought
concerning religion; and a great majority of the
female sex have too little scientific knowledge or too
little independence of judgment to deviate knowingly
from current .opinion. Necessarily therefore within
the same Church, whatever the submission to common
ordinances, there is a great mental gap between those
who are most and those who are least influenced by
the thought and knowledge of the age, especially in
Astronomy, in Geology, in Geography, in Physiology,
to say nothing of History and Literary Criticism.
Minds which have by no means gone so far as to
throw off belief of an established religion, or the
cardinal and prominent tenets of a creed, nevertheless
to a great extent interpret things differently, so as
practically to come to a different result from the
older beliefs.
Now in this matter of Prayer, it is obvious what
was the primitive doctrine of most nations, and in
particular both of the Hebrews and of the early
Christians. That God ruled the universe by law,
none had any idea. They supposed that His rule
might be compared to that of an earthly king, who
said to one servant Go, to another Gome, to a third
Do this, and was obeyed. Indeed the Hebrews,
like the Persians and Arabs, supposed ministering
spirits to guide the actions of the elements and of the
heavenly bodies ; also, to guard or watch humaji in
�The Controversy about Prayer.
5
dividuals. Instinct, under a sense of weakness or
desire, often impelled them, as it impels us, to pray
for this, or for that; and they could but very
vaguely define to themselves the limits within which
prayer was right, and beyond which it would be rather
impious than pious. We should all be much astonished
to hear of barbarians so stupid as to pray that the
new moon should give as much light as the full moon,'
or that a winter day should be luminous and long as
a day of summer. In the very infancy of man the
steadiness of sun and moon was so fully recognized,
that it would have seemed idiotic to pray for any irre
gularity. But there has always been an enormous
margin of events concerning which man saw no reve
lation of a fixed divine purpose, and therefore could
not chide prayer as a presumptuous desire to turn the
divine decrees aside. Indeed under polytheistic belief,
the gods are morally imperfect; and no greater im
propriety was felt in coaxing a god (a genius, a fairy)
than in coaxing a mortal man. A vow,—in which a
promise was made contingently upon the god hearing
a prayer,—was thought a pious procedure ; yet it is
nothing but an attempt to bargain with the god. Such
bargains in antiquity were solemnly sanctioned by
many states, as by the Romans, and public money
was often voted in fulfilment. In the Hebrew book
of “ Judges ” the atrocious vow of Jephthah is not
blamed. To vow to a god the tithe of an enemy’s
spoil on condition of victory, seemed wholly unblameable and decidedly pious to most ancient nations.
It may be doubted whether in any Christian sect
of England or the United States prayers of this
character could be endured. A vow, as understood
by Christians, has nothing conditional in it. If it be
an arbitrary, yet it is an absolute, promise to the Most
High ; it is not a bargain, as with the Romans. Of
necessity those among us who believe the tides, the
meteors, the clouds, the winds, to be guided by laws
�6
'The Controversy about Prayer.
as fixed as gravitation, are hereby disabled from
praying about them or against them, equally as about
an eclipse. Nevertheless, whatever weaknesses—the
fruit of ancient ignorance—are incorporated with the
Christian Scriptures, are accepted and even treasured
up by simple hearted and pious persons, whose intel
lect either is not duly informed or has not duly acted
on their creeds ; and the deplorable dogma of Infalli
bility has made it very difficult for the pious to go
directly against the sacred book, however grave and
obvious the error. But within the compass of that
book itself there is a variety of doctrine, a higher as
well as a baser view; and to the higher view the
nobler and more thoughtful minds tend. If at one
time encouragement is given to importunity in prayer,
on the assumption that God is comparable to a man
who grants a petition merely to get rid of a teazing
beggar ; yet elsewhere it is laid down that repetition
in prayer is vain, and that God is not moved by much
speaking. If in one place it is said, that when two
or three shall agree to pray for a thing, be it what it
may, it shall be granted to them ; in other places
there is limitation, and human ignorance of what it is
wise to ask is pointed at. In fact, in every prayer
for things outward, among persons not wholly fana
tical, the proviso, “ if it be according to Thy will,”
is now understood or expressed; and in matters of
vehement personal desire, the clause is probably
added: “ nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be
done.” Also, if any Christian teacher be asked, under
what circumstances it is reasonable to have confidence
that our prayer will be granted, he will hardly fail to
reply, under the guidance of a familiar text, that it is
only when we know that we ask a thing which is in
accordance with the will of God.
Under such a complication,—which is the ordinary
state of every Church,—it is (I must think) painful
rudeness in an opponent, if indeed he is as well
�The Controversy about Prayer.
7
informed of the facts as a critic ought to be, to assume
in the present generation of English Christians the
lowest and meanest views of prayer which prevailed
in less instructed and Pagan times. It exasperates
too much to enlighten. It was a simple insult, nothing
less, to propose that Christians should pray for the
sick in one special ward of an infirmary, and then (as
a test of the utility of prayer) should observe whether
the patients recovered better in that ward than in the
other wards. Did its proposer imagine that a Christian
is a&Ze to pray for any thing that others may dictate
to him ? One must be drawn keenly by desire from
within or by painful distress, and must feel either
assurance or strong hope that the petition conforms
with the divine mind, before he can pray fervently.
A philosopher (whatever his merits in his own line)
sadly lowers himself when he so intrudes into sacred
feelings and j udgments which he does not understand.
At the same time, there was and is abundant cause
for grave remonstrance with the religion of the day in
this very matter ; and with a moderate turn, the same
proposal might have given point unblameably to the
argument.
It might have been set before English Christians,
that they would certainly resent it as an insult, if any
one were to propose, as a test of the utility of prayer,
petition for a given topic (such as that concerning
the hospital-ward)—without caring to ascertain first
whether the thing asked could reasonably be esteemed
in accordance with the divine will, or whether they
themselves had any fervent desire for it. This being
the ease, how can the same enlightened Christians
passively endure that the Privy Council should dictate
to them what they are to ask of God for each member
of the Royal Family ? How can they approve of a
stereotype prayer against public enemies, as if it were
always a priori certain that in every war England is
right and has God on her side ? Knowing, as all the
�8
The Controversy about Prayer.
educated do, that rains and droughts and pestilences,
follow laws of matter as fixedly as do the planets,
how can they think it pious to supplicate the Most
High to interfere with them ? Such public prayers,
written in an age of lower knowledge, and sustained
by the routine of State, train all the educated to
hypocrisy, and lower the standard of truthfulness.
Evidently, to pray for the royal family is enforced as
a test of loyalty ; which is on a par with the command
to show loyalty by worshipping Caesar’s image. The
coarseness of (what is called) the National Anthem,—
“ God save the Queen,”—against the Queen’s (imagi
nary) foes, is quite disgusting. There is plenty of
matter here for just and profitable attack from those
who never pray, if they would make the attack from
the highest and noblest principles of Christians them
selves ; moreover, it is very reasonable to claim, that
those who hold high dignity in Church or State, and
at the same time are distinguished by intellect and
freedom of thought, will initiate public movement
against these evil stereotyped prayers. Will they for
ever preserve a dastardly silence, and leave reform to
avowed opponents or to enemies who are strangers to
the deep things of the Christian heart ?
Cicero and Horace alike held, that men ought to
pray to God for things external,—which man cannot
control and God does control;—not for things
internal, such as contentment, courage, or in a word,
virtue; which a man ought to provide by his own
effort. To despise any one for believing with Cicero,
I find myself unable; the contumely which I read in
many quarters is to me very unseemly and painful.
Nevertheless, I regard it as quite certain that the
progress of knowledge will ere long enforce the entire
abandonment of stereotype prayer,—prayer made
beforehand,—for outward blessings or conveniences
however inevitable it be, that under pain, want or
severe anxiety human nature will ejaculate to the All-
�The Controversy about Prayer.
9
ruler earnest desire, not unprofitably. “He who
searcheth hearts ” knows how to estimate such prayers
aright,—cannot blame them,—and has his own way
of answering them. But to plan beforehand how
others may or shall pray for a King or Queen’s “ health,
wealth, long life ” and “ victory,” is quite a different
matter from prayer that is extorted by inward instinct
or agony. So too is the “ agreeing together ” before
hand what to pray for, as if (in the coarse words of a
ranting preacher) “ by a long pull, a strong pull, and
a pull all-together ” men could rival Keliama, and drag
God along with them.
Undoubtedly the received belief of old was, that
God’s Providence ruled the world by agencies from
without. A pious saint in danger from enemies was
imagined to pray for (perhaps) “twelve legions of
angels ” as a military aid. A prophet’s eyes were
opened to see chariots and horses, invisible to other
mortals, fighting on the side of his people. To such
a mental condition the prayer of those days adjusted
itself. But now all thoughtful persons educated in
England are aware that the Divine rule is carried on
by the laws of the material universe, and by the
agencies of the human mind; and as it is no longer
admissible to entreat that the Most High will tamper
with his own laws, prayer tends to concentrate itself
upon the human mind,—that is, invokes influence
from the Divine Spirit on the mind either of him
who prays or of some others.
Against this form of prayer, which may be called
spiritual prayer, materialists rush with as rude and
coarse attack as against prayer for things external.
Their tone, and frequently their bold utterances, all
but make an axiom of Atheism. Now I have no
harsh feeling for Atheists, knowing as I do with what
difficulties noble intellects struggle, and how cruelly
the follies and crimes of theological devotees have led
astray and exasperated meaner intellects. But it
�io
The Controversy about Prayer.
suffices to accept and accost Atheists as our equals,
whom we invite to courteous debate on fit occasion,
and will always esteem and love, if they be morally
worthy. Many of them seem to manifest nothing but
scorn for Theism, and demand to lay down axioms of
their own, which no wise Theist can ever accept.
One of these axioms is, that “ of course we can know
nothing but phenomena.” Since God assuredly is
not a phenomenon, this assumes that “of course ” we
can know nothing of God. Another axiom is, that
when we speak of one thing as the cause of another,
all that we mean is, that the latter invariably follows
the former; so they attempt to resolve causation into
antecedence. I stoutly deny that that is all that I
mean when I say “ causeand if they reply that it
it is all that I ought to mean, I beg them to prove
that, and not assume it without proof, as they do.
The purport of their pretended axiom is to involve
the whole universe, material, moral, and mental, in a
rigid mechanical chain,—that is, in Fate : this granted,
prayer of course is vain. Again, the idea of a Per
sonal Deity they treat with contempt as “ anthropo
morphic,” and assert that Personality implies limita
tion. Nay, but Person is only another word for Mind
or Spirit. If we say Divine Spirit, they show equal
enmity to the phrase. What avails the objections of
such men to prayer ? Their attack is not against
prayer as such,—i.e., entreaty made to a Divine Spirit,
but against the existence or accessibility of any such
Spirit. Spiritual prayer of course assumes that God
is in the human mind,—that he is aware and (so to
say) conscious of all our minds,—moreover, that he
not only approves of, but is concerned to promote,
human virtue. In the attacks which I read against
spiritual prayer, it is visible that these axioms of
Theism are denied: hence the attack is really that of
Atheism against Theism,—which is all fair, if it be
conducted by quiet reasonable argument, not by
�Che Controversy about Prayer.
ti
scornful assumptions, nor under a pretence that they
are only attacking a practice of Theists.
As Cicero and Tacitus and Aristotle, and the wisest
modern moralists, insist, there is no morality if there
be no freedom of the will. . If a man’s action is in all
details predetermined like the path of a comet, he can
no more be virtuous or vicious, praiseworthy or blame
able, than the comet. Whatever may be said for
a doctrine of universal Necessity by eccentric and con
fident reasoners, who think themselves pre-eminently
philosophic, the great mass of mankind continue to
believe as firmly as their own existence, that they
have a choice between the better and the worse, and
that they deserve blame for many of their bad actions ;
in short, that God, “ while binding Nature fast in
Fate, left free the human will.” For myself, I must
profess that my belief in my Free Will is coeval with
and as firm as my belief in matter; and I think it
'clear that the belief in both is the first principle of all
knowledge, and of course is prior to a belief in God.
The assailant of spiritual prayer is apt to assume
that the actions of the human will are as much deter
mined beforehand as the movements of material par
ticles, and therefore such prayer is as vain as prayer
for things outward. But he does not pretend any
proof that the will is thus mechanically predeter
mined : indeed he knows that proof is impossible:
but he says that we probably shall hereafter find that
the case of mind is similar to that of meteorology,
and that in the progress of knowledge it will be dis
covered that the mind has no freedom. This amounts
to saying that the progress of knowledge will probably
annul the first axioms on which all knowledge is
built. I need only reply that it has not yet done so,
and I utterly disbelieve that it ever will.
We see in the marvellous instincts of brute minds,
and in human instinct too, the operation of a Higher
Mind in the animated universe. How this action
�12
The Controversy about Prayer.
takes place we are necessarily ignorant, just as we
are how we think at all. We can have no ultimate
standing ground but in simple fact. Thought, life,
existence, must remain for ever a mystery. So must
the action of the Divine Spirit on the animal mind,
which I see as a fact; and seeing it, I cannot doubt
the action of the same Spirit in the higher regions of
the human mind. Religion has long been described
by pious persons as a “walking with God that is,
as a permanent tendency of the mind, when relieved
of other necessary thought, to remember the over
sight, the insight, the joint consciousness of the Divine
Spirit, who essentially and primarily loves goodness,
justice,—in short, moral perfection. That virtue is
the final object for which man and the whole of human
life is ordained is a main principle of Theism. To
supplicate God inwardly for increase of virtue, or
pour out gratitude for his tender mercies to ourselves,
and admiration of his manifold infinitude, is therefore
its natural instinct; and such instinct cannot have
been given us for nothing. In fact, its moral influence
on the heart which cultivates it is the richest of all
rewards. Materialists and Atheists are generally very
severe against those who needlessly mortify lower
and animal instincts, and are often slow to discover
when it is not needless: they have then certainly no
right to claim that a pure and noble instinct shall be
repressed rather than cultivated. The best informed
among the opponents of all prayer will (with good
reason) deprecate the epithet Atheist; but if the God
whom alone they admit to be possible has none but a
mechanical existence, and praying to him is no wiser
than praying to the clouds, he is no more to us than
the gods of Epicurus ; we can have no personal rela
tions with him any more than with dead men.
Let the strong and scornful opposition to Prayer,
which has been so widely echoed, be directed . on
formal, public, cut-and-dried Prayer, lengthy musical
�The Controversy about Prayer.
13
Prayer, profane singing of sacred words for the sake
of fine music, Litanies with endless repetition, the
“Lord’s Prayer ” recited so often and so fast that it
becomes unintelligible ;—and much good may come
of this outburst. There is scarcely a public prayer
used in all Christendom which does not admit,
perhaps urgently need, keen criticism. The “ Lord’s
Prayer ” is nowise to be excepted from this remark.
Moreover, to pray without desire, is the more profane,
the more it is done in combination and in system.
What then of coaxing or scolding young people into
it ? What of paying choristers and public singers of
addresses to God ? There is abundant room for
intelligent and profitable correction, without shocking
any of the rightful sanctities of the heart.
�INDEX TO MR SCOTT’S PUBLICATIONS,
ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.
The following Pamphlets and Papers may be had on addressing
a letter enclosing the price in postage stamps to Mr Thomas
Scott, 11 The Terrace, Farquhar Road, Upper Norwood,
London, S.E.
Price.
Post-free.
ABBOT, FRANCIS E., Editor of ‘Index,’ Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A.
S’
The Impeachment of Christianity. With Letters from Miss Frances
P. Cobbe and Professor W. F. Newman, giving their Reasons for not
calling themselves Christians
0 3
Truths for the Times
-03
ANONYMOUS.
A.I. Conversations. Recorded by a.Woman, for Women. Parts I., II.,
and III. 6d. each Part
-16
A Few Self-Contradictions of the Bible
- 1 0
Modern Orthodoxy and Modern Liberalism
- 0 6
Modern Protestantism. By the Author of “ The Philosophy of
Necessity”
-06
On Public Worship
-03
Questions to which the Orthodox are Earnestly Requested to Give
Answers -------Sacred History as a Branch of Elementary Education.
Part I.—Its Influence on the Intellect. Part II.—Its Influence on the
Development of the Conscience. 6d. each Part
- 1 0
The Church and its Reform. A Reprint - 1 0
The Church : the Pillar and Ground of the Truth
- 0 6
The Opinions of Professor David F. Strauss - 0 6
The Twelve Apostles
-06
Via Catholica; or, Passages from the Autobiography of a Country
Parson. Part I. -13
Woman’s Letter -03
BARRISTER, A.
Notes on Bishop Magee’s Pleadings for Christ •
- 0 6
BASTARD, THOMAS HORLOCK.
Scepticism and Social Justice
- 0 3
�Index to Mr Scott's Publications.
Price.
Post-free.
BENEFICED CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
The Chronological Weakness of Prophetic Interpretation - 1 1
The Evangelist and the Divine - 1 0
The Gospel of the Kingdom
- 0 6
BENTHAM, JEREMY.
The Church of England Catechism Examined. A Reprint
- 1 0
BERNSTEIN, A.
Origin of the Legends of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Critically Examined -10
BROOK, W. 0. CARR.
Reason versus Authority -03
BROWN, GAMALIEL.
An Appeal to the Preachers of all the Creeds - 0 3
Sunday Lyrics
------The New Doxology
- 0 3
CARROLL, Rev. W. G., Rector of St Bride’s, Dublin.
The Collapse of the Faith; or, the Deity of Christ as now taught
by the Orthodox -06
CLARK, W. G., M.A., Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
A Review of a Pamphlet, entitled, “ The Present Dangers of the Church
of England ”
-06
CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
Letter and Spirit -06
The Analogy of Nature and Religion—Good and Evil - 0 6
The Question of Method, as affecting Religious Thought
- 0 3
COBBE, Miss F. P.
Letter on Christian Name. (See Abbot) .
CONWAY, MONCURE D.
The Spiritual Serfdom of the Laity. With Portrait
- 0 6
The Voysey Case -06
COUNTRY PARSON, A.
The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Creeds,—Their Sense and their
Non-Sense. Parts I., II., and III. 6d. each Part - 1 6
COUNTRY VICAR, A.
Criticism the Restoration of Christianity, being a Review of a
Paper by Dr Lang
-03
The Bible for Man, not Man for the Bible
- 0 6
CRANBROOK, The late Rev. JAMES.
On the Formation of Religious Opinions - 0 3
On the Hindrances to Progress in Theology
- 0 3
The Tendencies of Modern Religious Thought
- 0 3
F. H. I.
Spiritual Pantheism
.
-06
FORMER ELDER IN A SCOTCH CHURCH.
On Religion
--06
GELDART, Rev. E. M.
The Living God
0 3
�Index to Mr Scott's Publications.
Price.
Post-free.
s. d-
GRAHAM, A. D,, and F. H.
On Faith ------03
HANSON, Sir R. D., Chief-Justice of South Australia.
Science and Theology
-04
HARE, The Right Rev. FRANCIS, D.D., formerly Lord Bishop of
Chichester.
The Difficulties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of
the Scriptures
-06
HINDS, SAMUEL, D.D., late Bishop of Norwich.
Annotations on the Lord’s Prayer. (See Scott’s Practical Remarks)
Another Reply to the Question, “ What have we got to Rely
on, if we cannot Rely on the Bible ? ” (See Professor Newman’s
Reply)
>
.
- 0 6
A Reply to the Question, “ Apart from Supernatural Revela
tion, what is the Prospect of Man’s Living after Death ? ” 0 6
A Reply to the Question, “Shall I Seek Ordination in the
Church of England? ”
-06
Free Discussion of Religious Topics. Part I., Is. Part II.
- 1 6*
The Nature and Origin of Evil. A Letter to a Friend
- 0 6
HOPPS, Rev. J. PAGE.
Thirty-Nine Questions on the Thirty-Nine Articles. With
Portrait -03
JEVONS, WILLIAM.
The Book of Common Prayer Examined in the Light of the
Present Age. Parts I. and II. 6d. each Part
- 1 0
The Claims of Christianity to the Character of a Divine
Revelation Considered
- 0 6
The Prayer Book adapted to the Age - 0 6
KALISCH, M., Ph.D.
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THE
BY
Q-. W. FOOTE.
. Second Edition, with a New Introduction.^
PRICE ONE PENNY.
' -j.
..
~~
■
------------------------------------------~
LQNDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1884.
�INTR OR U C TI 0 N.
The following Essay was originally published, four years ago, under
the title of “ The Futility of Prayer.” I now republish it under the
more forcible title of “ The Folly of Prayer.” My object in this
change is not simply, as Hosea Biglow says, to “combine morrul truth
with phrases sich as strike,” although a great deal may be said for
that policy. The longer I live, the more deeply I feel the necessity of
attacking superstition in the plainest language. I am also convinced
that Heine was right when he said “ the superfluous is harmful.” Pro
gress is so huge a task, so arduous and painful, that any diversion of
human energy into unprofitable channels is a disaster. If Prayer is
futile, it is a folly.
This new edition gives me an opportunity of adding a little to my
Essay, of bringing it, so to speak, up to date. My space is limited,
and I must be succinct.
We are now in the midst of a political crisis. The Peers are showing
their historic qualities of selfishness, stupidity and arrogance. They
are trying to thwart the nation’s will with respect to the Franchise as
they have tried to thwart it with respect to every great reform in the
past. They seem bent on holding true to their evil traditions, and
proving themselves to the very end the obstinate foes of progress.
Fortunately, however, their day of doom is rapidly drawing near.
Never since the Long Parliament locked the door of the Upper House
and turned the Lords adrift has there been such a storm of indigna
tion against the Peerage. Mend them or end them, says Mr. Morley ;
and “ End them ” is the responsive shout from the people. Yes, the
Lords are happily wrecking their own craft. They will lose both ship
and cargo in the end. With their political power will go all hope of
retaining their bloated estates. Was there ever such fatuity since
the French nobles invited the Revolution ? If this is the way God
endues them with “ grace, wisdom and understanding,” it is a very
remarkable proof of the efficacy of prayer.
Candor compels me to admit, however, that her Majesty continues
to flourish in “ health and wealth,” according to the formula of our
Church Prayer Book. Yet we need not resort to prayer for an expla
nation of this fact. Her Majesty’s wealth is provided by the nation,
without any contribution by Providence ; and her health is protected
by the ease which our constitutional monarchy allows her to enjoy.
So far from trusting in the Lord, except at church, she never fails to
appeal to us for the support of her numerous offspring and their
extensive families. When our lavish generosity is considered, there
seems remarkably little scope for the bounty of Providence.
I omitted in my Essay to mention the recovery of the Prince of
Wales, many years ago, from gastric fever, and the national Thanks
giving Service held in St. Paul’s Cathedral. What wild orgies of
religious excitement were worked up by the London press, and notably
by that eminently pious journal the Daily Telegraph ! How we were
bidden to watch the great national wave of prayer surging against the
�THE FOLLY OF PRAYER.
“ These was,” says Luther in his Table Talk, “ a great
drought, as it had not rained for a long time, and the grain
in the field began to dry up, when Dr. M. L. prayed con
tinually and said finally with heavy sighs: 0 Lord, pray
regard our petition in behalf of thy promise. ... I know
that we cry to thee and sigh desirously ; why dost thou not
hear us ? And the very next night there came a very fine
fruitful rain.” From Luther to Sammy Hicks the Yorkshireman is a far cry, but an episode of his history somewhat
resembles this naive story of the great lieformer. Sammy
Hicks was a miller and a Methodist, and once while looking
forward to a Love Feast, at which cakes were consumed, he
was sorely troubled by a dead calm that lasted for days
together, and caused a complete stoppage of his windmill.
It so happened that all the flour was exhausted before the
calm was broken, and on the very eve of the Love Feast there
was none left for the cakes. In this extremity recourse was
had to prayer. Sammy himself, who excelled in that line,
petitioned Heaven for a breath of wind to fill his sails. In a
few moments the cheeks of the suppliants were fanned by a
gentle zephyr, which rapidly grew to a strong breeze.
Around went the sails of Sammy’s mill until enough flour
was ground to make the Love Feast cakes, when the wind
suddenly subsided and died away as miraculously as it came.
How amusing are both Luther and Sammy Hicks, in these
instances, to the educated minds of to-day! Yet amongst
the ignorant and those who are not imbued with the spirit
of Science, the old superstition of prayer still lingers, and ever
and anon betrays itself in speech and act. Whatever remnant
of superstition exists the priests are very careful to foster.
Accordingly, whenever an opportunity occurs, they stimulate
popular folly and make themselves the laughing-stock or
contempt of the wise and thoughtful. In Catholic countries
the miracles of the Middle Ages are even now, in this age
�Introduction.
iii.
throne of grace 1 Well, the Prince recovered, thanks to a good con
stitution and the highest medical skill. But the sky-pilots saw their
chance. They insisted that the Prince’s recovery was due to prayer.
They organised a huge farce at St. Paul’s, where in the nation’s name
they thanked God for his marvellous mercy. But curiously, amidst all
this delirium, the authorities retained a little sagacity. God was duly
thanked, but the doctors were not forgotten : one of them was knighted,
and all were handsomely rewarded. Deity had the empty praise, and
the physicians the solid pudding.
Since then we have seen the United States praying for the recovery
of their President. Week after week Science fought with Death over
his sick bed, and the awful struggle was watched by a trembling world.
Would he live, would he die ? “0 God, let him live,” prayed millions
in church and chapel. “ 0 God, spare him, my husband, my darling,”
cried the agonised wife. But his life ebbed slowly away amidst a
nation's prayers for his recovery. Why did not God save General
Garfield ? Is the Almighty a respecter of persons after all ? Or is he
so monarchical that he will not aid the President of a Republic? Can
Christians explain this without denying the efficacy of prayer or im
peaching the character of God ?
Now a word for the cholera. This frightful scourge has ravaged
France and Italy this summer and roused the latent superstition of the
people. In some cases the Catholics demanded religious processions
through the streets and public prayers to the Virgin. But the Secular
authorities firmly resisted this clamor, and they were sometimes backed
up by the higher priests, who knew that undue excitement and con
sequent exhaustion would only make the multitude easier victims to
the plague. The English press chronicled these cases of superstition
as they might record the eccentricities of the worshippers of Mumbo
Jumbo. Yet our Church Prayer Book has a definite form of “ prayer in
time of sickness.”
This leads me to enquire whether our sky-pilots are sincere. I fancy
not. Let us judge them by their practice instead of their profession.
What swarms of them invade our health resorts in summer! How
they all take a long holiday when they can ’ Go to fashionable water
ing-places like Bath, and observe the large floating population of sky
pilots in search of health and rich widows. When they fall ill they
act like other men. They consult Dr. Science instead of Dr. Provi
dence, and if possible scuttle off from the Lord’s vineyard to the seaside.
Faith is the same in both places, but the air is different. Prayer
works better with oxygen than with carbonic acid gas.
Trust in God and keep your powder dry, said Cromwell, Yes, but
will faith help you if you get your powder wet ? This is a very onesided doctrine. Well does James Thomson sing in “ Bill Jones on
Prayer”:—
Which seems to mean—You doth work.
God helpeth him who helps himself,
Have all the trouble and pains,
They preach to us as a fact,
Which seems to lay up G od on the shelf, While God, that ind o 1 en t grand 0 Id Turk,
Gets credit for the gains.
And leave the man to act.
I despair of improving on that.
can, once for all.
November 1, 1884.
It sums up the matter, as genius only
G. W. FOOTE.
�The Folly of Prayer.
5
of railways and electric telegraphs, repeated before the
shrines of new-fangled saints. Pilgrims journey to Lourdes
and other holy places, where the credulity of the multitude is
equalled by the imposture of their priests. The blood of St.
Januarius still liquifies annually at Naples, precious relics
heal all manner of diseases, and the Virgin appears to prayer
ful peasants and hysterical nuns. In England these things do
not happen, for there is not faith enough to make them
possible. Yet here also the Catholic priest gets souls out of
purgatory by the saying of masses which have to be duly
paid for; and our own Protestant priests, who have re
linquished almost every peculiar function of their office, still
retain one, that of standing between us and bad weather.
We may call them our Rain Doctors, a name applied to the
African medicine-men, who beat gongs and dance and shout,
to scare off the sun and bring down rain when the land is
parched with drought. The difference between a bishop of
the English Church praying for sunshine and an African
medicine-man howling for wet, is purely accidental and no
wise intrinsic. Intellectually they stand, on the same level,
the sole difference being that one goes through his perform
ance in a vulgar and the other in a high-bred fashion.
Perhaps there is another difference ; one may be honest and
the other dishonest, one sincere and the other hypocritical.
Cato wondered how two augurs could meet without laughter,
and probably it would be comical to witness the meeting of
two friendly parsons after a lusty bout of prayer for fine
weather.
In 1879 we were afflicted with a descent of rain scarcely
paralleled in the century. Through the spring and
through the summer the deluge persisted, and each month
seemed to bring more violent storms than its predecessor.
Yet our Rain Doctors kept quiet as mice. Perhaps they
reflected that it was scarcely politic to pray for sunshine
until the Americans had ceased to telegraph the approach of
fresh tempests. How different from the African Rain
Doctors, who will pray for rain while the sun glares torrid
and implacable, and no cloudlet mitigates the awful azure of
heaven! But, deceived by a brief spell of fine weather in
the middle of July, they suddenly plucked up courage and
proceeded to counsel Omniscience. The result was woeful.
On the very next Sunday after prayers for fine weather
�6
The Folly of Prayer.
began to be offered, a terrific storm burst over the land, and
for weeks after the rain was almost incessant. During one
week in August only seventeen hours of sunshine were
registered in London. The harvest was spoiled, about forty
million pounds’ worth of produce was lost to the country, and
farmers looked in the face of ruin. This was the answer to
prayer !
Yet the votaries of superstition and their priestly abettors
will not admit the futility of prayer. Their reasoning is like
the gambler’s “heads I win, tails you lose ” ! All the facts
that tell for their case are allowed to count, and all that
tell against it are excluded. If what they pray for happens,
that proves the efficacy of prayer ; if it does not happen, that
proves nothing at all. Such is the logic of superstition in
every age and clime.
Notwithstanding the occasional outbursts of our Rain
Doctors, it is evident that the doctrine of Prayer is being
gradually refined away, like many other doctrines of theology.
It originated in simpler times, when people thought that
something tangible could be got by it. Whenever danger or
difficulty confronted our barbarous ancestors, they naturally
looked to the. god or gods of their faith for assistance. If
any transcendental philosopher or mystical theologian had
told them that prayer was not a practical request but a
spiritual aspiration, they would have answered with a stare of
astonishment.
Even the New Testament embodies the
belief of the savage, although in a slightly refined form, and
the Lord’s Prayer contains a distinct request for daily bread.
Before the advent of science, when men ignorantly and
unskilfully wrestled with the manifold evils of life, their
prayers for aid were grimly earnest, and often the last cry of
despair. Fire, earthquake, flood, famine, and pestilence
afflicted them sorely; often they gazed blankly on sheer
ruin ; and in lifting their supplicating hands and eyes and
voice, they besought no spiritual anodyne, but a real outward
relief. The hand of supernatural power was expected to
visibly interpose on their behalf. Now, however, the idea of
prayer is greatly changed for all save a few fools or fanatics.
Educated Christians, for the most part, do not appear to think
that objective miracles are wrought in answer to prayer.
They think that now God only works subjective miracles, and
by operating upon men’s hearts, produces results that would
�The Folly of Prayer.
not happen in the natural course of things. According to
this subtler form of superstition, outward circumstances are
never interfered with, but our inward condition is changed to
suit them. Thus, if a ship were speeding onward to some
fatal danger of simoon or sunken reef, God would not alter
the circuit of the storm, or remove the rocks from the ship’s
path, but if he deigned to interpose would work upon the
captain’s mind and induce him to deviate from his appointed
course. If an innocent man were sentenced to be hung, God
would not break the rope or strike the executioner blind, but he
might influence the Home Secretary to grant a reprieve. Or
if in a thunder-storm we had sought the shelter of a tree,
God would not divert the lightning, although he might, just
before it struck the tree, whisper that we had better move on.
This last refinement of the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer
is very intelligible to the psychologist. Physical science has
thoroughly demonstrated the reign of law in the material
universe, and educated people are indisposed to look for
miracles in that direction, notwithstanding the occasional
attempts of our rain doctors to cure bad weather with spiritual
medicines. But mental science has produced much less effect.
Man’s mind is still supposed to be a chaos, haunted and
mysteriously influenced by a phantasmal free-will. Save by
a few philosophers and students, the reign of law is not sus
pected to obtain there. Accordingly, the miracles which
were thought to occur in the material world are now rele
gated to the spiritual world—a ghoul-haunted region wherein
there survives a home for them. Yet progress is being made
here also, and we may confidently predict that as miracles
have been banished from the domain of matter, so they will
be banished from the domain of mind. The reign of law, it
will be perceived, is universal within us as without us. It is
manifested alike in the growth of a blade of grass and in the
silent procession of the stars ; alike in tumult and in peace,
in the loud overwhelming storm or engulphing earthquake,
and in the soft-falling rain or golden sunshine, nurturing the
grass in a thousand valleys and ripening the harvest on a
thousand plains : and no less apparent in the noblest leaps of
passion and the highest flights of thought, but binding all
things in one harmonious whole, so that the brain of Shake
speare and the heart of Buddha acknowledge kinship with the
mountains, waves and skies.
�8
The Folly of Prayer.
Meanwhile the sceptic asks the believer in prayer to justify
it, and show that it is not a mere superstitious and foolish
waste of energy. The proper spirit in which to approach
this subject is the rational and not the credulous. The
efficacy of prayer is a question to be decided by the methods
of science. If efficacious, prayer is a cause, and its presence
may be detected by experiment or investigation. The ex
perimental method is the best, but there is difficulty in apply
ing it, as the believers perversely refuse to undertake their
share of the process. Professor Tyndall, on behalf (I think)
of Sir Henry Thompson, has proposed that a ward in some
hospital should be set apart, and the patients in it specially
prayed for, so that it might be ascertained whether more
cures were effected in it than in other wards containing
similar patients, and tended by the same medical and nursing
skill. This proposal the theologians fought shy of ; and one
of them (Dr. Litttedale) gravely rebuked Professor Tynda.ll
for presuming to think that God Almighty would submit to
be made the subject of a scientific experiment. Theologically
there is much force in this objection, although scientifically
and morally there is none. A universal Father would as
suredly welcome such a test of his goodness, but the proud
irascible God of theology would be sure to frown upon it, and
signalise his preference for the fine old plan of closing our
eyes while opening our mouths to receive his benefactions.
There is, however, a way to take him as it were by a side-wind.
There are certain things impossible even to omnipotence.
Sidney Smith (I think) said that God himself could not make
a clock strike less than one. Nor can any powei' revoke what
has already occurred.
“ Not heaven itself upon the past has power,”
as Dryden tells us. The past is irrevocable, and we may in
vestigate it for the purpose of ascertaining whether prayer
has been efficacious, without the least fear of being baffled by
any power in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the
waters under the earth. People have prayed enough in the
past—far more, indeed, than they are likely to pray in the
future—and if we find that their prayers have been futile,
the whole question at issue must be considered as practically
decided in the negative.
Let us dismiss all appeals to individual experience, and deal
only with broad classes of facts. It is quite impossible in any
�The Folly of Prayer.
9
particular case to determine whether prayer has been answered
or not, even when the object besought has been wholly ob
tained. A single result is so often produced by a combination
of causes, some obvious and direct, and others obscure and
indirect, that we cannot absolutely say whether the natural
agencies have operated alone or in conjunction with a super
natural power. If after long and fervent prayers a precious
life has been spared, it cannot be affirmed that prayer was a
cause of the recovery, since the sick person might have re
covered without it. Nor, on the other hand, can it be affirmed
that prayer was not a cause, since the sick person might have
died without it. Our ignorance in such cases precludes us from
deciding one way or the other. The only way to neutralise this
is to examine general categories, to take whole classes of persons,
and see whether those who pray get what they ask for any
more than those who do not pray, or if classes of persons who
are prayed for by others are more favored than those who
enjoy no such advantage.
Pursuing this line of inquiry, Mr. Francis dalton, the author
of a remarkable work on “Hereditary Genius,” was led many
years ago to collect and collate statistics relative to the subject
of prayer, which he subsequently published in the Fortnightly
Review of August, 1872. Mr. Galton’s article did not, so far
as I am aware, attract the attention it deserved. Its facts and
conclusions are of great importance, and the remainder of my
own essay will be largely indebted to it.
Let us take first the case of recovery from sickness. It has
been frequently remarked that sickness is more afflictive than
death itself, and it is common for persons who suffer from it,
if they are at all of a religious turn of mind, to pray for relief
and restoration to health. Their relatives also pray for
them.
However pious men may be, they always submit
to Omniscience their own view of the case when their lives
are in the least degree endangered ; and however fer
vently they believe in the eternal and ineffable felicities of
heaven, they are scarcely ever content to leave this vale of tears.
They desire as long a continuance of life on this earth as the
sceptic does. Often, indeed, they repine far more than the
sceptic at the ordinance of fate. Now, as a matter of fact, is
it found that pious persons of a prayerful disposition recover
from sickness more frequently than worldly persons who are
not in the habit of praying at all ? If so, the medical pro
�10
The Folly of Prayer.
fession would long ago have discovered it, and prayer would
have taken a recognised place among sanative agencies. On
this point Mr. Galton writes as follows :—
“ The medical works of modern Europe teem with records of in
dividual illnesses and of broad averages of disease, but I have been
able to discover hardly any instance in which a medical man of any
repute has attributed recovery to the influence of prayer. There is
not a single instance, to my knowledge, in which papers read before
statistical societies have recognised the agency of prayer either on
disease or on anything else. The universal habit of the scientific world
to ignore the agency of prayer is a very important fact. To fully
appreciate the ‘ eloquence of the silence ’ of medical men, we must bear
in mind the care with which they endeavor to assign a sanitary value
to every influence. Had prayers for the sick any notable effect, it is
incredible but that the doctors, who are always on the watch for such
things, should have observed it, and added their influence to that of
the priests towards obtaining them for every sick man. If they abstain
from doing so, it is not because their attention has never been awakened
to the possible efficacy of prayer, but, on the contrary, that although
they have heard it insisted on from childhood upwards, they are unable
to detect its influence.”
It thus appears that prayer is a medicine only in the
pharmacopoeia of the priests. Many doctors rather dislike
it. A medical friend of mine, who hated the sight of a
parson, used always to keep any member of the clerical
fraternity waiting outside the sick-room door in extreme
cases, until it was certain that death would supervene. He
would then allow the reverend gentleman to go through his
performance, knowing that he could do no harm. My friend
said that when his patients required absolute repose their
nerves were often agitated in his absence by obtrusive and
officious priests.
A class of persons who are specially and generally prayed
for are kings and queens and other members of royal
families. A high value is always set on things which cost
a great deal. Royal personages are very expensive, and we
naturally esteem and love them according to their cost.
Animated by an amiable desire that they may long live to
spend the money we delight to shower upon them, we pray
that God will prolong their existence beyond that of ordi
nary mortals, “ Grant her in health and wealth long to
live,” is the prayer offered up for the Queen in our State
churches, and the same petition is made in hundreds of
Nonconformist chapels. If, then, there be any efficacy in
�The Folly of Prayer.
11
prayer, kings should enjoy a greater longevity than their
subjects. We do not, however, find this to be the case.
The average age of ninety-seven members of royal houses
who lived from 1758 to 1843, and survived their thirtieth
year was 54-04 years, which is nearly two years less than
the average age of the shortest-lived of the well-to-do
classes, and more than six years less than that of the longest.
Sovereigns are literally the shortest lived of all who have the
advantage of affluence. In their case it is evident that
prayer has been absolutely of no avail.
Another class of men very much prayed for are the
clergy. They pray for themselves, and as they all profess to
be called to the ministry by the Holy Ghost their prayers
should be unusually efficacious. If there be any faith capable
of removing mountains, they should possess it. If the
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, the fervent
prayer of a parson should avail exceedingly.
Now the
clergy pray not only for spiritual light and help, but also
for temporal blessings. They like to prosper here as well
as hereafter, and are adepts in the sublime art, reprobated
by Jesus but luminously expounded and forcibly commended
by Dr. Binney, of making the best of both worlds. They
believe in heaven, but are in no haste to get there, being
content to defer occupation of the heavenly mansions in
store for them until they can no longer inhabit the snug
residences provided for them here. With a laudable desire
to enjoy the bird-in-the-hand to the uttermost before resort
ing to the bird-in-the-bush, which is sure to await their
convenience, they naturally pray for health, and therefore
for long life, since health and longevity are inseparable
friends. Yet we do not find that they live longer than
their less pious brethren. The average age attained to by
the clergy from 1758 to 1843, according to Mr. Galton’s
statistics was 69-49 years, while that of lawyers was 68-14,
and of medical men 67-31. Here is a slight advantage on
the side of the clergy, but it is amply accounted for by the
greater ease and comfort so many of them enjoy, and the
general salubrity of their surroundings. The difference is,
however, reversed when a comparison is made between dis
tinguished members of the three classes—that is to say,
between persons of sufficient note to have had their lives
recorded in a biographical dictionary. Then we find the
�12
The Folly oj Prayer.
respective mean ages of the clergy, lawyers and doctors, are
66'42, 66
5
*1
and 67
0
*4,
the clergy being the shortest lived
of the three. Thus they succumb sooner than the members
of secular professions to a heavy demand on their energies.
Prayer does not protect them from sickness, does not recover
them when they are laid low. or in the least prolong their
precious lives. They are no more favored than the ungodly ;
one fate befalls them both. In their case also prayer has
been absolutely of no avail.
The same law obtains with regard *o missionaries. They
t
are not miraculously protected from sickness or danger,
from perils by night or the pestilence that walketh by day,
The duration of life among them is accurately proportioned
to the hazards of their profession. Yet theirs is a case
wherein prayer should be peculiarly effectual. Arriving in
a remote region of the earth, they are almost powerless until
they have acquired, a thorough knowledge of the language
and habits of the people. They are engaged in the Lord’s
work, ahd if any persons are watched over by him they
should be. Yet at dangerous stations one missionary after
another dies shortly after arrival, and their efforts are thus
literally wasted, while the work naturally suffers because
the Lord does not economise the missionary power -which
has been provided for it.
Ships also have sunk with
missionaries on board before they could even reach their
destination; and the Lord has so far refrained from work
ing subjective miracles on their behalf, that missionaries
have been in some cases digested in the stomachs of the
very savages whose souls they had journeyed thousands of
miles to convert.
Parents are naturally very anxious as to their offspring,
and it is to be presumed that the children of pious fathers
and mothers are earnestly and constantly prayed for. This
solicitude antedates birth, it being generally deemed a mis
fortune for a child to be still-born, and often a serious evil
for death to deprive it of baptism, without which salvation is
difficult if not impossible. In extreme cases the Catholic
Church provided for the baptism of the child in the womb.
Yet the prayers of pious parents are not found to exercise
any appreciable influence. Mr. Galton analysed the lists of
the Record and the Times of a particulai period, and the pro
*
portion of still-births to the total number of deaths was dis-
�The Folly of Prayer.
13
covered to be exactly the same in both. A more conclusive
test than this could scarcely be devised.
Our nobility are another class especially prayed for. The
prescription for their case may be found in the Church
Liturgy. In a worldly sense they are undoubtedly very
prosperous ; they live on the fat of the land, and enjoy all
kinds of privileges. But these are not the advantages we
ask God to bestow upon them; we pray “ that the nobility
may be endued with grace, wisdom and understanding.”
And what is the result? The history of our glorious
aristocracy shows them to have always been singularly
devoid of “grace,” in the religious sense of the word; and
they have manifested a similar plentiful lack of “ wisdom
and understanding.” Even in politics, despite their excep
tional training and opportunities, they have been beaten by
unprayed-for commoners. Cromwell, Chatham, Pitt, Fox,
Burke, Canning, all arose outside the sacred precincts of
nobility. Gladstone is the son of a Liverpool merchant,
and Earl Beaconsfield was the son of a literary Jew. In science,
philosophy, literature and art, how few aristocrats have dis
tinguished themselves 1 Further, as Mr. Galton points out,
“wisdom and understanding ” are incompatible with insanity.
Yet our nobility are not exempted from that frightful scourge.
On the contrary, owing to their intermarriages, and the lack
of those wholesome restraints felt in humbler walks of life,
they are peculiarly liable to it. Clearly the aristocracy have
not been benefited by our prayers.
Let us now turn to another aspect of the question. How
is it that insurance companies make no allowance for prayers ?
When a man wishes to insure his life, confidential questions
are asked about his antecedents and his present conditions,
but the question, “ Does he habitually pray ?” is never
ventured. Yet, if prayer conduces to health and longevity,
this question is of great importance; nay, of the very
greatest; for what are hereditary tendencies to disease, or
the physical effects of previous modes of living, to a man
under the especial protection of God ? Insurance offices, how
ever, eliminate prayer from their calculations.
They do
not recognise it as a sanitary influence, and this fact proves
that there is no efficacy in prayer or that its efficacy is so
slight as to be altogether inappreciable.
Suppose the owner of two ships, similarly built and rigged,
�14
The Folly of Prayer.
and bound for the same port, wanted to insure them for the
voyage ; and suppose the one ship had a pious captain and
crew taken red-hot from a Methodist prayer-meeting, while
the captain and crew of the other ship, although excellent
seamen, never entered a place of worship, never bent their
knees in prayer, and never spoke of God except to take his
name in vain. Would any difference be made in the rate of
insurance ? Assuredly not. And if the owner, being a
soft-headed sincere Christian, should say to the agent: “ But,
my dear sir, the ship with the pious captain and crew, who
will certainly pray for their safety every day, runs much
less risk than the other, for the Lord has promised that he
will answer prayer, that he will watch over those who trust
him, and that whatsoever they ask, believing, that they shall
receive,” what would the answer be ? Probably this : “My
dear sir, as a Christian I admit the truth of what you say,
but I can’t mix up religion with my business. That sort of
thing is all very well in church on Sunday, you know, but it
doesn’t do any other day of the week down in the City.”
The decline and final extinction of belief in ordeals and
duels is an episode in the history of prayer. Both these
superstitious processes were appeals to God to decide what
was indeterminable by human logic. In the ordeal of jealousy,
so revoltingly set forth in the fifth chapter of Numbers,
the same curious concoction was given to all suspected wives,
and the difference in the effect produced was attributable
solely to the interposition of God. The same idea prevailed
in other forms during the chaotic Middle Ages, notably in
connection with the witch mania. Some idea of the critical
ability which accompanied it may be gathered from the fact
that “ witches” were often tied at the hands and feet,
and thrown into the nearest pond or river: if they swam
they were guilty, and at once burnt or hung, and if they
sank they were innocent, but of course they were drowned!
The duel was explicitly sanctioned and sometimes com
manded by the ecclesiastical and secular authorities, and it
■was devoutly believed that God would give the victory to
the just and overthrow the wrong. This belief has died out,
but a reflex of it exi-ts in the fond idea, not yet wholly
discarded, that the God of battles fights on the side of his
favorites. Only the simpletons think thus, and only the
charlatans of clericalism abet them. All the praying in the
�15
The Folly of Prayer.
world is powerless against superior tactics, more scientific
arms, greater numbers, and better discipline. Victory, as
Napoleon remarked, is on the side of the heaviest battalions ;
and prayer, as a counteractant to such advantages, is just as
efficacious as the celebrated pill to cure earthquakes.
Driven from all tangible strongholds by inevitable logic,
the believers in prayer take final refuge in their cloudcitadal of faith. They maintain that there is a spiritual if not
a material efficacy in prayer, that communion with God exalts
and purifies their inner nature, and thus indirectly influences
the course of events. “Certainty,” says a man of magnificent
genius, though not a Materialist, “it does alter him who
prays, and alters him often supremely, changing despair into
hope, confusion into steady light, timidity into confidence,
cowardice into courage, hatred into love, and the genius
of compromise into the spirit of martyrdom. * Far be it.
from me to deny this. It is attested by the life and death of
many a patient saint and martyred hero. But the God
communed with has been aftei’ all not a person, but a lofty
ideal, varying in each according to the greatness and
purity of his nature. A similar communion, in essence
the very same, is possible to the Humanitarian, who feels
himself descended from the endless past, bound to the
living and working present, and in a measure the paren'i
of an endless future. His ideal of an ever-striving and ever
conquering Humanity, emerging generation after generatiointo loftier levels, and leaving at its feet the lusts and follie
of its youth, serves him instead of a personal God; and i
moments snatched from the hot strife of the world he ca.
commune with it, either through its great poets and prophe"
or solely through the vision of his own higher self, which
essential humanity within him, and thus find serenity r
the ennoblement of resolve. This communion, into wh i
religions prayer may ultimately merge, will survive, beca X
while inspiring it does not outrage intellect and fact. Tlie
laws of nature will not be suspended to suit our needs for—
“ Nature with, equal mind
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away!
Allows the proudly riding and the foundered bark.” f
(
* Dr. Garth Wilkinson: “ Human Science and Divine Revelation,” p. 380.
t Matthew Arnold: “ Empedocles on Etna.”
J
-
qq
�16
The Folly of Prayer.
But “the music born of love,” as another poet tells us, will
“ ease the world’s immortal pain.” Finding no help outside
ourselves, seeing no Providence to succor and comfort the
afflicted, no hand to lift up the down-trodden and establish
the weak, to wipe the tear from sorrowing eyes and convey
balm to wounded hearts; knowing that except we listen the
wail of human anguish is unheard, and that unless we give
it no aid can come ; we shall feel more imperative upon us
the duties and holy charities of life. If the world’s misery
cannot be assuaged by fatherly love from heaven, all the more
need is there for brotherly lo^e on earth.
A P .P E N I) I X.
The following table of longevities was prepared by Mr.
Galton from a Memoir by Dr. Guy in the Journal of the Sta
tistical Society (Vol. xxii., p. 355) :—
Mean Age attained by Males of various classes who had
survived their 30th year, from 1758 to 1843. Deaths
by Accident or Violence are excluded,
Average. Eminent
*
Men.
Members of Royal Houses
97 in number
Clergy...................................... 945
Lawyers
294
99
Medical Profession
244
English aristocracy
1,179
Gentry ...
1,632
"rude and Commerce ...
513
fficers in tho Royal Navy ... 366
higlish Literature and Scionco 395
99
\ fficers of the Army ...
569
99
A me Arts
239
99
64-04
69-49
6814
67-31
67-31
70-22
68-74
68-40
67 55
67-07
65-96
66-42
66-51
67-07
65-22
64-74
* The eminont mon are those whoso lives are recorded in Chambers’s
Biography, with some additions from the Annual Register.
Printed and Published by Rainsey and Foote at 2S Stonecutter Stree', E.C
�
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The folly of prayer
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Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: iii, [4]-16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. New introduction by the author, signed November 1 1884. First published 1880 under title 'The futility of prayer'. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Prayer
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Text
THE CONTROVERSY
ABOUT
PRAYER.
BY PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED
BY
THOMAS
SCOTT,
No. 11 The Teeeace, Faequhae Road, Upper Norwood,
London, SJ3.
1873.
Price Threepence,
��THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT
PRAYER.
O OME have said that religious knowledge is not
IO progressive: with about as much truth we might
say that medical knowledge is not progressive. On
each topic mankind has made enormous errors, and
on each is still very far from a sound and satisfactory
state ; yet on each it has left many errors far behind.
Primitive theology is man’s interpretation of the
outer world which he perceives ; and his interpreta
tion is largely influenced by his consciousness and his
emotions. Enlarged and improved knowledge of the
universe almost necessarily modifies theology, as does
the improved moral culture of nations. Religion
therefore (in its popular sense of “ thought concerning
God”), unless artificially stereotyped by nationally
established creeds and by sacerdotal authority, must
everywhere tend to improve, as nations become
nobler in morals, or in breadth and accuracy of know
ledge. So strong indeed is this natural tendency,
that we do in fact trace this improvement, in spite of
hierarchies and domineering institutions, and some
times, in the higher minds, even in spite of public
demoralization. Theological opinion, and the inter
pretation of generally received doctrines, cannot but
undergo change, when the ascendant system of (what
• is called) metaphysics changes; much more, when,
�4
The Controversy about Prayer.
as in the last three centuries of Europe, acquaintance
with the outer world has been immensely enlarged
and at the same time become beyond comparison
more accurate.
But the mass of the population in Christendom is
very far from duly appreciating the truths of natural
science ; and the teachers of religion on the one
side are bound down by Church Articles and Liturgies,
or on the other cannot conveniently outrun the tra
ditionary creed of their congregations. Men of
business have not much time for original thought
concerning religion; and a great majority of the
female sex have too little scientific knowledge or too
little independence of judgment to deviate knowingly
from current opinion. Necessarily therefore within
the same Church, whatever the submission to common
ordinances, there is a great mental gap between those
who are most and those who are least influenced by
the thought and knowledge of the age, especially in
Astronomy, in Geology, in Geography, in Physiology,
to say nothing of History and Literary Criticism.
Minds which have by no means gone so far as to
throw off belief of an established religion, or the
cardinal and prominent tenets of a creed, nevertheless
to a great extent interpret things differently, so as
practically to come to a different result from the
older beliefs.
Now in this matter of Prayer, it is obvious what
was the primitive doctrine of most nations, and in
particular both of the Hebrews and of the early
Christians. That God ruled the universe by law,
none had any idea. They supposed that His rule
might be compared to that of an earthly king, who
said to one servant Go, to another Gome, to a third
Do this, and was obeyed. Indeed the Hebrews,
like the Persians and Arabs, supposed ministering
spirits to guide the actions of the elements and of the
heavenly bodies ; also, to guard or watch human in
�The Controversy about Prayer.
$
dividuals. Instinct, under a sense of weakness or
desire, often impelled them, as it impels us, to pray
for this, or for that; and they could but very
vaguely define to themselves the limits within which
prayer was right, and beyond which it would be rather
impious than pious. We should all be much astonished
to hear of barbarians so stupid as to pray that the
new moon should give as much light as the full moon,
or that a winter day should be luminous and long as
a day of summer. In the very infancy of man the
steadiness of sun and moon was so fully recognized,
that it would have seemed idiotic to pray for any irre
gularity. But there has always been an enormous
margin of events concerning which man saw no reve
lation of a fixed divine purpose, and therefore could
not chide prayer as a presumptuous desire to turn the
divine decrees aside. Indeed under polytheistic belief,
the gods are morally imperfect; and no greater im
propriety was felt in coaxing a god (a genius, a fairy)
than in coaxing a mortal man. A vow,—in which a
promise was made contingently upon the god hearing
a prayer,—was thought a pious procedure; yet it is
nothing but an attempt to bargain with the god. Such
bargains in antiquity were solemnly sanctioned by
many states, as by the Romans, and public money
was often voted in fulfilment. In the Hebrew book
of “ Judges ” the atrocious vow of Jephthah is not
blamed. To vow to a god the tithe of an enemy’s
spoil on condition of victory, seemed wholly unblameable and decidedly pious to most ancient nations.
It may be doubted whether in any Christian sect
of England or the United States prayers of this
character could be endured. A vow, as understood
by Christians, has nothing conditional in it. If it be
an arbitrary, yet it is an absolute, promise to the Most
High ; it is not a bargain, as with the Romans. Of
necessity those among us who believe the tides, the
meteors, the clouds, the winds, to be guided by laws
�6
'The Controversy about Prayer.
as fixed as gravitation, are hereby disabled from
praying about them or against them, equally as about
an eclipse. Nevertheless, whatever weaknesses—the
fruit of ancient ignorance—are incorporated with the
Christian Scriptures, are accepted and even treasured
up by simple hearted and pious persons, whose intel
lect either is not duly informed or has not duly acted
on their creeds ; and the deplorable dogma of Infalli
bility has made it very difficult for the pious to go
directly against the sacred book, however grave and
obvious the error. But within the compass of that
book itself there is a variety of doctrine, a higher as
well as a baser view; and to the higher view the
nobler and more thoughtful minds tend. If at one
time encouragement is given to importunity in prayer,
on the assumption that God is comparable to a man
who grants a petition merely to get rid of a teazing
beggar ; yet elsewhere it is laid down that repetition
in prayer is vain, and that God is not moved by much
speaking. If in one place it is said, that when two
or three shall agree to pray for a thing, be it what it
may, it shall be granted to them ; in other places
there is limitation, and human ignorance of what it is
wise to ask is pointed at. In fact, in every prayer
tor things outward, among persons not wholly fana
tical, the proviso, “ if it be according to Thy will,”
is now understood or expressed ; and in matters of
vehement personal desire, the clause is probably
added: “ nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be
done.” Also, if any Christian teacher be asked, under
what circumstances it is reasonable to have confidence
that our prayer will be granted, he will hardly fail to
reply, under the guidance of a familiar text, that it is
only when we know that we ask a thing which is in
accordance with the will of God.
Under such a complication,—which is the ordinary
state of every Church,—it is (I must think) painful
rudeness in an opponent, if indeed he is as well
�The Controversy about Prayer.
7
informed of the facts as a critic ought to be, to assume
in the present generation of English Christians the
lowest and meanest views of prayer which prevailed
in less instructed and Pagan times. It exasperates
too much to enlighten. It was a simple insult, nothing
less, to propose that Christians should pray for the
sick in one special ward of an infirmary, and then (as
a test of the utility of prayer) should observe whether
the patients recovered better in that ward than in the
other wards. Did its proposer imagine that a Christian
is able to pray for any thing that others may dictate
to him ? One must be drawn keenly by desire from
within or by painful distress, and must feel either
assurance or strong hope that the petition conforms
with the divine mind, before he can pray fervently.
A philosopher (whatever his merits in his own line)
sadly lowers himself when he so intrudes into sacred
feelings and j udgments which he does not understand.
At the same time, there was and is abundant cause
for grave remonstrance with the religion of the day in
this very matter ; and with a moderate turn, the same
proposal might have given point unblameably to the
argument.
It might have been set before English Christians,
that they would certainly resent it as an insult, if any
one were to propose, as a test of the utility of prayer,
petition for a given topic (such as that concerning
the hospital-ward) — without caring to ascertain first
whether the thing asked could reasonably be esteemed
in accordance with the divine will, or whether they
themselves had any fervent desire for it. This being
the case, how can the same enlightened Christians
passively endure that the Privy Council should dictate
to them what they are to ask of God for each member
of the Royal Family ? How can they approve of a
stereotype prayer against public enemies, as if it were
always a priori certain that in every war England is
right and haa God on her side ? Knowing, as all the
�8
The Controversy about Prayer.
educated do, that rains and droughts and pestilences,
follow laws of matter as fixedly as do the planets,
how can they think it pious to supplicate the Most
High to interfere with them ? Such public prayers,
written in an age of lower knowledge, and sustained
by the routine of State, train all the educated to
hypocrisy, and lower the standard of truthfulness.
Evidently, to pray for the royal family is enforced as
a test of loyalty ; which is on a par with the command
to show loyalty by worshipping Czesar’s image. The
coarseness of (what is called) the National Anthem,—
“ God save the Queen,”—against the Queen’s (imagi
nary) foes, is quite disgusting. There is plenty of
matter here for just and profitable attack from those
who never pray, if they would make the attack from
the highest and noblest principles of Christians them
selves ; moreover, it is very reasonable to claim, that
those who hold high dignity in Church or State, and
at the same time are distinguished by intellect and
freedom of thought, will initiate public movement
against these evil stereotyped prayers. Will they for
ever preserve a dastardly silence, and leave reform to
avowed opponents or to enemies who are strangers to
the deep things of the Christian heart ?
Cicero and Horace alike held, that men ought to
pray to God for things external,—which man cannot
control and God does control;—not for things
internal, such as contentment, courage, or in a word,
virtue ; which a man ought to provide by his own
effort. To despise any one for believing with Cicero,
I find myself unable; the contumely which I read in
many quarters is to me very unseemly and painful.
Nevertheless, I regard it as quite certain that the
progress of knowledge will ere long enforce the entire
abandonment of stereotype prayer,—prayer made
beforehand,—for outward blessings or conveniences
however inevitable it be, that under pain, want or
severe anxiety human nature will ejaculate to the All-
�The Controversy about Prayer.
9
ruler earnest desire, not unprofitable-. “He who
searcheth hearts ” knows .how to estimate such prayers
aright,—cannot blame them,—and has his own way
of answering them. But to plan beforehand howothers may or shall pray for a King or Queen’s “ health,
wealth, long life ” and “ victory,” is quite a different
matter from prayer that is extorted by inward instinct
or agony. So too is the “ agreeing together ” before
hand what to pray for, as if (in the coarse words of a
ranting preacher) “by a long pull, a strong pull, and
a pull all-together ” men could rival Kehama, and drag
God along with them.
Undoubtedly the received belief of old was, that
God’s Providence ruled the world by agencies from
without. A pious saint in danger from enemies was
imagined to pray for (perhaps) “twelve legions of
angels ” as a military aid. A prophet’s eyes were
opened to see chariots and horses, invisible to other
mortals, fighting on the side of his people. To such
a mental condition the prayer of those days adjusted
itself. But now all thoughtful persons educated in
England are aware that the Divine rule is carried on
by the laws of the material universe, and by the
agencies of the human mind; and as it is no longer
admissible to entreat that the Most High will tamper
with his own laws, prayer tends to concentrate itself
upon the human mind,—that is, invokes influence
from the Divine Spirit on the mind either of him
who prays or of some others.
Against this form of prayer, which may be called
spiritual prayer, materialists rush with as rude and
coarse attack as against prayer for things external.
Their tone, and frequently their bold utterances, all
but make an axiom of Atheism. Now I have no
harsh feeling for Atheists, knowing as I do with what
difficulties noble intellects struggle, and how cruelly
the follies and crimes of theological devotees have led
astray and exasperated meaner intellects. But it
�io
The Controversy about Prayer.
suffices to accept and accost Atheists as our equals,
whom we invite to courteous debate on fit occasion,
and will always esteem and love, if they be morally
worthy. Many of them seem to manifest nothing but
scorn for Theism, and demand to lay down axioms of
their own, which no wise Theist can ever accept.
One of these axioms is, that “ of course we can know
nothing but phenomena.” Since God assuredly is
not a phenomenon, this assumes that “of course ” we
can know nothing of God. Another axiom is, that
when we speak of one thing as the cause of another,
all that we mean is, that the latter invariably follows
the former; so they'attempt to resolve causation into
antecedence. I stoutly deny that that is all that I
mean when I say “ cause and if they reply that it
it is all that I ought to mean, I beg them to prove
that, and not assume it without proof, as they do.
The purport of their pretended axiom is to involve
the whole universe, material, moral, and mental, in a
rigid mechanical chain,—that is, in Fate : this granted,
prayer of course is vain. Again, the idea of a Per
sonal Deity they treat with contempt as “ anthropo
morphic,” and assert that Personality implies limita
tion. Nay, but Person is only another word for Mind
or Spirit. If we say Divine Spirit, they show equal
enmity to the phrase. What avails the objections of
such men to prayer ? Their attack is not against
prayer as such,—i.e., entreaty made to a Divine Spirit,
but against the existence or accessibility of any such
Spirit. Spiritual prayer of course assumes that God
is in the human mind,—that he is aware and (so to
say) conscious of all our minds,—moreover, that he
not only approves of, but is concerned to promote,
human virtue. In the attacks which I read against
spiritual prayer, it is visible that these axioms of
Theism are denied: hence the attack is really that of
Atheism against Theism,—which is all fair, if it be
conducted by quiet reasonable argument, not by
�7 he Controversy about Prayer.
t i
scornful assumptions, nor under a pretence that they
are only attacking a practice of Theists.
As Cicero and Tacitus and Aristotle, and the wisest
modern moralists, insist, there is no morality if there
be no freedom of the will. If a man’s action is in all
details predetermined like the path of a comet, he can
no more be virtuous or vicious, praiseworthy or blame
able, than the comet. Whatever may be said for
a doctrine of universal Necessity by eccentric and con
fident reasoners, who think themselves pre-eminently
philosophic, the great mass of mankind continue to
believe as firmly as their own existence, that they
have a choice between the better’and the worse, and
that they deserve blame for many of their bad actions ;
in short, that God, “ while binding Nature fast in
Nate, left free the human will.” For myself, I must
profess that my belief in my Free Will is coeval with
and as firm as my belief in matter; and I think it
clear that the belief in both is the first principle of all
knowledge, and of course is prior to a belief in God.
The assailant of spiritual prayer is apt to assume
that the actions of the human will are as much deter
mined beforehand as the movements of material par
ticles, and therefore such prayer is as vain as prayer
for things outward. But he does not pretend any
proof that the will is thus mechanically predeter
mined : indeed he knows that proof is impossible :
but he says that we probably shall hereafter find that
the case of mind is similar to that of meteorology,
and that in the progress of knowledge it will be dis
covered that the mind has no freedom. This amounts
to saying that the progress of knowledge will probably
annul the first axioms on which all knowledge is
built. I need only reply that it has not yet done so,
and I utterly disbelieve that it ever will.
We see in the marvellous instincts of brute minds,
and in human instinct too, the operation of a Higher
Mind in the animated universe. How this action
�12
The Controversy about Prayer.
takes place we are necessarily ignorant, just as we
are how we think at all. We can have no ultimate
standing ground but in simple fact. Thought, life,
existence, must remain for ever a mystery. So must
the action of the Divine Spirit on the animal mind,
which I see as a fact; and seeing it, I cannot doubt
the action of the same Spirit in the higher regions of
the human mind. Religion has long been described
by pious persons as a “walking with God
that is,
as a permanent tendency of the mind, when relieved
of other necessary thought, to remember. the over
sight, the insight, the joint consciousness of the Divine
Spirit, who essentially and primarily loves goodness,
justice,—in short, moral perfection. That virtue is
the final object for which man and the whole of human
life is ordained is a main principle of Theism. To
supplicate God inwardly for increase of virtue, or
pour out gratitude for his tender mercies to ourselves,
and admiration of his manifold infinitude, is therefore
its natural instinct; and such instinct cannot have
been given us for nothing. In fact, its moral influence
on the heart which cultivates it is the richest of all
rewards. Materialists and Atheists are generally very
severe against those who needlessly mortify lower
and animal instincts, and are often slow to discover
when it is not needless : they have then certainly no
right to claim that a pure and noble instinct shall be
repressed rather than cultivated. The best informed
among the opponents of all prayer will (with good
reason) deprecate the epithet Atheist; but if the God
whom alone they admit to be possible has none but a
mechanical existence, and praying to him is no wiser
than praying to the clouds, he is no more to us than
the gods of Epicurus ; we can have no personal rela
tions with him any more than with dead men.
Let the strong and scornful opposition to Prayer,
which has been so widely echoed, be directed on
formal, public, cut-and-dried Prayer, lengthy musical
�The Controversy about Prayer.
13
Prayer, profane singing of sacred words for the sake
of fine music, Litanies with endless repetition, the
“Lord’s Prayer ” recited so often and so fast that it
becomes unintelligible ;—and much good may come
of this outburst. There is scarcely a public prayer
used in all Christendom which does not admit,
perhaps urgently need, keen criticism. The “ Lord’s
Prayer ” is nowise to be excepted from this remark.
Moreover, to pray without desire, is the more profane,
the more it is done in combination and in system.
What then of coaxing or scolding young people into
it ? What of paying choristers and public singers of
addresses to Grod ? There is abundant room for
intelligent and profitable correction, without shocking
any of the rightful sanctities of the heart.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The controversy about prayer
Creator
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 13, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1873
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CT111
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Prayer
Religious practice
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English
Conway Tracts
Prayer
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Text
CT
U
A NEW ORDER
°F ,
PUBLIC WORSHIP.
ARRANGED FOR THE
CONGREGATION AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL,
BY THE
REV. CHARLES VOYSEY, B.A.
(late vicar of
iiealaugh).
------- ♦--------
LONDON:
TO BE OBTAINED OF THE AUTHOR
AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL,
or at
CAMDEN HOUSE, DULWICH.
1872.
Price Two-pence.
��THE ORDER OF
PUBLIC WORSHIP.
IT The Minister shall read the following sentences, all standing.
T is a good thing to give mouth. We should first of all
thanks nnto the Lord, and remember that the only true
to sing praises nnto thy Name,worship of God is our adoration
0 thou Most Highest: to tell of of His holiness, and the highest
thy loving-kindness early in the expression thereof is the faith
morning, and of thy truth in the ful service of our fellow men.
If this be our earnest convic
night season.
For thou, Lord, hast made us tion, we are then, and then only,
glad through thy works, and we in a fit and proper state of mind
will rejoice in giving praise for to join in public worship and to
the operations of thy hands.
sing His praise. The meaning
0 sing praises, sing praises of our assembling together is
unto our God.
not the endeavour to add by our
0 sing praises unto our king; human words and songs to the
for God is the King of all the glory of God, which is already
earth ; let us sing praises unto infinite and perfect, nor yet the
him with understanding.
endeavour to commend ourselves
to His most gracious favour,
EARLY beloved, forasmuch which He has already poured out
as we have assembled to upon us all from His Fatherly
gether to offer the homage love ; but the meaning of our
of
our lips to Almighty God our worship is the natural expres
Heavenly Father, it is meet that sion of our gratitude, adoration
we should draw near to this holy and filial love for our own plea
celebration with a perfect un sure and profit, to gratify the
derstanding of its meaning and strongest and most exalted in
use, and with hearts in perfect stincts of our nature, and to
accord with the words of our cultivate within our souls a
I
D
�2
THE ORDER OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
greater devotion to His most our fellow-men, believing with
full assurance of faith that He
holy will.
We desire, moreover, by this will be found of all those who
our humble service to keep in diligently seek Him.
remembrance that God is our
Father, and that we are His IT Then shall the people make this response,
children; that a relation does
really subsist between Him and
“ 0 thou that hearest prayer,
our souls, like unto that of unto thee shall all flesh come.”
father and child, only unspeak
Minister. Let us lift up our
ably more tender and dear, and hearts with our voice unto God
we draw near, as it were, to His on High.
outstretched arms to receive His
People. We lift them up unto
welcome and to utter forth our the Lord, for it is meet and right
gladness.
so to do.
It is our privilege, rather than
our duty, to pray to Him when
ever we feel that we need a IT Then shall all kneel, and the Minister
shall say,
strength greater than our own,
LMIGHTY and Most Mer
or help which no human hand
ciful Father, we beseech
can give. It is good for us to
thee to teach us to pray;
call to mind our weakness and
our sin when our spirits bend cleanse the thoughts of our
before His Throne, and so to hearts by the inspiration of
cleanse our hearts by contact thy Holy Spirit, that we may
with His holiness, and to draw worship thee in spirit and in
new life out of the fountain of truth; that the words of our
mouth and the meditation of our
His Everlasting Strength.
And to remember the wants soul may be now and always ac
and sorrows of our fellow-men ceptable in thy sight; that while
when we are most full of joy we praise thee for thy bounty,
and thanksgiving at the thought we may adore thee for thy
of His bounty to ourselves will Holiness ; that while we rejoice
surely help us to remember them in our own happiness, we may
seek more and more to help and
in the daily turmoil of life.
Let us then, dearly beloved, comfort our fellow-men. Teach
draw near to the throne of the us to know, to believe in, and to
Most High, with hearts over love the truth above all things,
flowing with thankfulness and and may we learn this day some
adoration, and desiring above new lesson out of thy law, some
all things, to show forth His fresh story of thy love. Show
praise by our lives here below, to each one of us the path of
and to worship Him in spirit and duty, and make our feet stead
in truth by the faithful service of fast therein. Let no false hopes
A
�THE ORDER OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
3
We praise thee in thy power, 0
God!
We praise thee in thy sanctity.
We praise thee who reignest in
the furthest heavens,
We praise thee who dwellest in
our inmost souls,
Our Lord and hidden com
forter.
No voice can duly proclaim thy
greatness,
No heart can comprehend thy
goodness,
0 thou Father of all our spirits.
The longings of the spirit are
inexhaustible:
Only thou canst fill the heart.
When it is empty and aching for
thee,
UR Father, which art in Hungering and thirsting for thy
heaven, Hallowed be thy
righteousness,
Name. Thy kingdom come.
Thou visitest it with peace un
Thy will be done on earth, As
speakable.
it is in heaven. Give us this With thee there is no misery to
day our daily bread. And for
the distressed;
give us our trespasses, As we But sorrow is hallowed and pain
forgive them that trespass
is sweetened,
against us. And lead us not And hardship is assuaged, and
into temptation ; But deliver us
fear is calmed.
from evil: For thine is the king For, thine own nature is blessed
dom, The power and the glory,
ness,
For ever and ever. Amen.
And thou makest thy worship
pers blessed.
Minister. 0 Lord, open thou
Yea, blessed is thy presence,
our lips.
0 Lord most Holy I
People. And our mouth shall Blessed is it to dwell with thee
shew forth thy praise.
and to know thee,
Minister. Let us give thanks To rest on thee and to serve
unto our Lord God.
thee.
People. We will alway give Blessed shall the nations be
thanks unto the Lord. His
when thy glory is recog
praise shall ever be in our
nised,
mouth.
When all who love thee unite to
H Then shall be sung, all still kneeling,
succour and raise the weak
and fears tempt or drive us from
a true following of thee. May
we love the thing which thou
commandest, and desire that
which thou hast promised.
May we seek no reward for duty
but the bliss of keeping thy
commandments. Let the light
of thy presence cheer and
strengthen us; never let it be
clouded over by the mists of our
own distrust, or by the tamper
ing of our souls with sin. And
when we come to die, 0 thou
Most Merciful Father, may we
welcome thy loving call and find
in thee our Everlasting Rest.
A »?«??£.
O
�4
THE ORDER OE PUBLIC WORSHIP
Strengthen us in life and death,
in this, and in every life,
To he thine in heart, as we are
thine in right;
To obey cheerfully, to strive
loyally,
To suffer meekly, to enjoy thank
fully,
So shall we love thee while we
live, and partake of thy joy,
And triumph over sorrow, and
fulfil thy work.
And be numbered with thy saints,
and die on thy bosom.*
’ll Or Psalm 145,
WILL magnify thee, 0 God,
my King: and I will praise
thy Name for ever and ever.
2 Everyday will I give thanks
unto thee : and praise thy Name
for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord and mar
vellous, worthy to be praised:
there is no end of his greatness.
4 One generation shall praise
thy works unto another: and
declare thy power.
H Then shall follow the reading of the
5 As for me, I will be talking
First Lesson,
If -After which shall be sung a Hymn, of thy worship: thy glory, thy
II Then shall follow the reading of the praise, and wondrous works;
6 So men men shall speak of
Second Lesson,
If After which shall be sung the
the might of thy marvellous acts:
Jubilate,
and I will also tell of thy great
BE joyful in the Lord, all ye ness.
lands: serve the Lord with
7 The memorial of thine abun
gladness, and come before his kindness shall be shewed :
dant
presence with a song.
and men shall sing of thy right
2 Be ye sure that the Lord he eousness.
is God: it is he that hath made
8 The Lord is gracious, and
us, and not we ourselves; we merciful: long-suffering and of
are his people, and the sheep of great goodness.
his pasture.
9 The Lord is loving unto
3 0 go your way into his gates every man: and his mercy is over
with thanksgiving, and into his all his works.
courts with praise: be thankful
10 All thy works praise thee,
unto him, and speak good of his 0 Lord: and thy saints give
Name.
thanks unto thee.
4 For the Lord is gracious,
11 They shew the glory of thy
his mercy is everlasting: and his kingdom: and talk of thy pow er;
truth endureth from generation
12 That thy power, thy glory,
to generation.
and mightiness of thy kingdom:
Glory be to God, the Father might be known unto men.
Almighty;
13 Thy kingdom is an ever
As it was in the beginning, is lasting kingdom : and thy do
now and ever shall be, world minion endureth throughout all
without end. Amen.
' ages
I
O
* This is taken from the Fpilogus, “ Theism,” by F. W. Newman.
�THE ORDER OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
14 The Lord upholdeth all
such as fall: and lifteth up all
those that are down.
15 The eyes of all wait upon
thee, 0 Lord : and thou givest
them their meat in due season.
16 Thou openest thine hand ;
and fillest all things living with
plenteousness.
17 The Lord is righteous in
all his ways : and holy in all his
works.
18 The Lord is nigh unto all
them that call upon him : yea,
all such as call upon him faith
fully.
19 He will fulfil the desire of
Jhem that fear him ; he also will
hear their cry, and will help
them.
21 My mouth shall speak the
praise of the Lord : and let all
flesh give thanks unto his holy
Name for ever and ever.
H Then shall follow the Service of
Benediction.
1T The Minister standing, the People
kneeling,
Minister. Blessed are all they
who love the Lord, and who walk
in His ways. Blessed are they
who keep His commandments,
and do those things which are
pleasing in His sight.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are they who
search diligently for the truth,
loving it above all earthly re
ward, and sacrificing all else
5
that they may faithfully pro
claim it.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are they
who love mankind, whose lives
are spent in doing good, who are
active in labour, tender in sym
pathy, and the well-springs of
help and consolation.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are the up
right and trustworthy, whose
promise is never broken, and
whose word is sure.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are the pure
whose hearts shrink from ini
quity, in whose lips there is no
guile, and to whom all things
are pure.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are the mer
ciful who remember their own
need of mercy; the humble,
who judge not harshly their
brothers’ sin; and the meek,
who are slow to take offence.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are the pa-
�6
THE ORDER OE PUBLIC WORSHIP.
tient, long-suffering, and for parents, and dwell together in
bearing ; and the peacemakers, unity, learning wisdom and vir
who by silence or timely speech tue, and growing more truthful,
heal the strifes of men.
honourable and pure from day
People. Lord, enrich us with thy to day.
blessing,
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
Fill our hearts with joy and
blessing,
peace.
Fill ozvr hearts with joy and
Minister. Blessed are the kind,
peace.
considerate and generous mas Minister. Blessed are all faith
ters, who take thought for the ful friends who comfort each
souls and bodies of those who other in sorrow, rejoice together
serve them.
in prosperity, and whose friend
People. Lord, enrich us with thy ship cannot be shaken by a
blessing,
timely reproof.
Fill our hearts with joy and People. Lord, enrich us with thy
peace.
blessing,
Minister. Blessed are the diliFill our hearts with joy and
ligent, faithful and honest ser
peace.
vants, who care more to ’serve
Minister. Blessed are they
well than to receive much.
who, living under the clouds of
People. Lord, enrich us with thy sorrow or disappointment them
blessing,
selves, are yet sources of com
Fill our hearts with joy and fort to others, and shed peace
peace.
and joy on all around them.
Minister. Blessed are the hus People. Lord, enrich us with thy
bands and wives ■who live toge
blessing,
ther in faithful love, tenderly
Fill our hearts with joy and
caring for each others’ good.
peace.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
Minister. Blessed are the hon
blessing,
est teachers, who are loyal to
Fill our hearts with joy and truth and duty, and who suffer
peace.
in mind, body, or estate through
Minister. Blessed are the fa their own integrity.
thers and the mothers who rule
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
their households well, and bring
blessing,
up their children in the paths of
Fill our hearts with joy and
holiness and peace.
peace.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
Minister. Blessed are the faith
blessing,
ful guardians of other men’s
Fill our hearts with joy and lives, rich or poor, who honour
peace.
all men, and speak unto others
Minister. Blessed are the chil as they would men should speak
dren who love and obey their lunto them.
�THE ORDER OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
Minister. Blessed are they who
care more for the good of others,
and for their own growth in
virtue, than for their own plea
sure and worldly good, and who
value the approval of conscience
more than their necessary food.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peaee.
Minister. Blessed are all they
who have learned by the inte
grity of their own lives that God
is j ust and holy; who have learned
by the generosity of their own
hearts that God is merciful and
loving; and who have learned
by their own trustworthiness to
commit the well-being of them
selves, and of all mankind, with
out one doubt or fear, into His
hands as unto a Faithful Creator.
People. Lord, enrich us with thy
blessing,
Fill our hearts with joy and
peace.
IT Then the Minister shall say,
sin, and become more and more
what Thou dost wish us to bo.
So cleanse our inmost hearts
that we may forget every thought
of our own pleasure in desiring
and striving only to do Thy
blessed will and to give peace
and comfort to each other.
May we hunger and thirst after
righteousness, and leave every
issue of good and ill fortune, of
health and disease, of life and
death, now and evermore, in
Thy most loving hands. Amen.
1T Then shall follow the Hymn,
Oh, that the Lord would guide
my ways
To keep his statutes still;
Oh, that my God would grant
me grace
To know and do his will.
From vanity turn off mine eyes,
Let no corrupt design
Nor covetous desires arise
Within this soul of mine.
Order my footsteps by thy Word,
And keep my heart sincere ;
Let sin have no dominion, Lord,
But keep my conscience clear.
Make me to walk in thy com
mands,
Let us Pray.
’Tis a delightful road ;
LORD most High, Thou Nor let my feet, or heart, or
fount and source of every
hands
blessing, who hast ever been
Offend against my God.
unto us more than we could de
sire or deserve, fill our souls
U Or this,
with all holy desires, all good
counsels, and all pure purposes, Father ! whate’er of earthly
that we may outgrow our sel
bliss
fishness, our weakness and our
Thy Sovereign will denies,
�8
THE ORDER OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
Accepted at Thy throne of
Grace
Let this petition rise.
Give me a calm and thankful
heart
From every murmur free ;
The blessings of Thy Grace im
part,
That I may live to Thee.
Let the sweet hope that I am
Thine
My life, my death attend ;
Thy presence through my jour
ney shine,
And crown my journey’s end.
Amen.
IT Then the Minister shall say,
The blessing of the Lord it
maketh rich, and he addeth no
sorrow therewith.
Thou, oh
Father, wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on
Thee, because he trusteth in
Thee.
People. Trust ye in the Lord
for ever, for in the Lord alone
is everlasting strength. Amen.
�5'
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A new order of public worship. Arranged for the congregation at St. George's Hall
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Voysey, Charles [Rev.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed in double columns. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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[the author?]
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1872
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CT21
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Religious practice
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Conway Tracts
Prayer
Public Worship
Unitarian Universalist Churches
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Text
Cl V&
THE BEAUTIES
OF
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
. Price Sixpence.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE TULTENEY STREET,
DAY MARKET, W.
�THE
BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK.
MORNING- PRAYER.
“ ~T~TABIT is second nature,” saith a Vise old saw,
1 1 "so it must be from custom that it has become
natural to Church people to repeat placidly, week
after week, the same palpable self-contradictions and
absurdities. A sensible, shrewd man of business
puts away his papers on the Saturday night, and
apparently locks his mind up with them in his desk;
certain it is that he
“ Goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys ;
He hears the parson pray and preach,”
and yet never discovers that his boys are repeating
the most contradictory responses, while the parson
is enunciating as axioms the most startling propo
sitions.
When the preliminary silence in church is broken
by the “ sentences,” the first words that fall from the
clergyman’s lips are a distinct declaration of the
conditions of salvation: “ When the wicked man
turneth away from his wickedness that he hath com
mitted, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he
shall save his soul alive;” and we are further in
structed as to our sins, that “ if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” These very
plain statements take high and comprehensible
ground. God is supposed to desire that man should
be righteous, and is therefore naturally satisfied when
�4
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
“the wicked forsakes his way and the unrighteous man
his path.” We proceed, then, to confess our sins, and
after Mrs. A., whose eyes are straying after her
neighbour’s'Vbonnet, has confessed that she is erring
and straying like a lost sheep, and Mrs. B., who is
devising a way to make an old dress look new, has
owned plaintively that she is following the devices of
her own heart; and Squire C., of the rubicund
visage and broad shoulders, has sonorously remarked
that there is no health in him, and his son, with the
joyous face, has cheerfully acknowledged that he is a
miserable sinner—after these very appropriate and
reasonable confessions to a Divine Being who “seeth
the heart,” and may therefore be supposed to take
them for what they are worth, have been duly gone
through, we are somewhat puzzled to hear the clergy
man announce that God “ pardoneth and absolveth
all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe His
holy Gospel.” What is this sudden appendix to the
before-declared conditions of salvation ? We had
been told that if we confessed our sins God’s faith
fulness and justice would cause him to forgive us;
here we have duly done so, and surely the language
is sufficiently strong; we are yet suddenly called
upon to believe a “ holy Gospel ” as a preliminary to
forgiveness. But we are not yet, to use a collo
quialism, out of the wood ; for while we are moodily
meditating on this infraction of our contract the
time slips on unobserved, and, it being a feast-day.,
we are startled by a stern voice conveying the cheer
ful intelligence, “ Whosoever will be saved, before all
things, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.
Which Faith except every one do keep whole and
undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlast
ingly.” “Before all things?” before repentance?
before turning away from our wickedness ? before
doing that which is lawful and right ? And what is
this “ Faith ” which we must keep whole and undefiled
�The "Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
$
if we would save our souls alive? A bewildering
jumble of triplets and units, mingled in inextricable
confusion. But as he that “ will be saved must thus
think of the Trinity,” we will try and disentangle the
thread of salvation. “ The Father is God, the Son
is God, and the Holy Ghost is God,” says the parson.
“ They are not three Gods, but one God,” shout out
the people. We are compelled “to acknowledge
every Person by Himself to be God a,nd Lord,” re
iterates the parson. “We are forbidden by the
Catholic Religion to say there be three Gods or three
Lords,” obstinately persist the people. Then, after
some rather intrusive particulars about the family
(and very intricate) relations of the Father to the
Son, and of both to the Holy Ghost, we are told that
“ so ”—why so ?—“ there is one Father, not three
Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost,
not three Holy Ghosts.” In so far as we have been
able to follow the meaning, or rather the no-meaning,
of the preceding sentences, no one said anything
about three Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy
Ghosts. The definite article the had been used in
each case with a singular noun. We imagine the
clause must have been inserted because all ideas as
to the • meaning of numerals must have been by this
time so hopelessly lost by the congregation, that it
became necessary to remark that “the Father” meant
one Father, and not three. The list of necessaries
for salvation is not yet complete, for “furthermore
it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also
believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” So far, then, from its being true that the
wicked man who turns from his sins shall save his
soul alive, we find that our sinner must also believe
the Gospel, must accept contradictory arithmetical
assertions, must think of the Trinity in a way which
makes thought a ludicrous impossibility, and must
believe rightly all the details of the method by which
�6
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
a Divine Being became a human being. If a sinner
chances to go out of church after the first sentence,
and from being a drunkard becomes temperate, from
being a liar becomes truthful, from being a profligate
becomes chaste, and foolishly imagines that he is
thereby doing God’s will, and thus saving his soul
alive, he will certainly, according to the Athanasian
Creed, wake up from his pleasant delusion to find
himself in everlasting fire. As sceptics, we need
offer no opinion as to which is right, the creed or the
text; we only suggest that loth cannot be correct,
and that it would be more satisfactory if the Church,
in her wisdom, would make up her venerable mind
which is the proper path, and then keep in it. After
all this, we are in no way surprised to learn from a
collect that being saved is dependent on quite a new
support, namely, on the knowledge we have of God.
How many more things may be necessary to salva
tion it is impossible to say at this point, but the
office for Morning Prayer, at any rate, gives us no
more. It would be rash to conclude, however, that
we have fulfilled all, for the Church has some more
scattered up and down her Prayer-Book ; the end of
all which double-dealing is, that we can never be
sure that we have really fulfilled every condition;
sad experience teaches us that when the Church
says, “ do so-and-so, and you shall be saved,” she is,
meanwhile, whispering under her breath, “ provided
you also do everything else.”
We fail also to see the reasonableness of the con
stant cry, “ for the sake of Jesus Christ,” or “ through
Jesus Christ.” We ask that we may lead “a godly,
righteous, and sober life” for His sake; but this is
just what we are told God wishes already, so why
should He be asked to grant it for some one else’s
sake, as though He were unwilling that we should be
righteous, and can only be coaxed into allowing us to
be so by a favourite son ? In the same way we are
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
7
to come to God’s “ eternal joy ” through Jesus, which
is, by the way, another of these endless conditions of
salvation. We ask to be defended from our enemies
“ through the might of Jesus Christ,” as though God
Himself was not strong enough for the task; and
God is urged to send down His healthful Spirit for
the “ honour of our advocate and Mediator,” although
that very advocate told His disciples that God would
always give that spirit to those who asked for it. To
the outside critic, these continual references to Jesus,
as though God grudged all good gifts, appear very
dishonouring to the “Father in Heaven.”
Is it considered necessary to press God vehemently
to hurry himself ? “0 God, make speed to save us.
0 Lord, make haste to help us.” Will not God, of
His own accord, do things at the best possible time ?
and further, is it possible for a Divine Being to make
haste ?
It will, perhaps, be considered hypercritical to ob
ject to the versicles : “ Give peace in our time, 0 Lord,
because there is none other that fighteth for us but
only thou, O God.” What more do they want than
an almighty reinforcement ?
“ None other ? ”
Well, we should have fancied that God and somebody
else were really more than were needed. At any rate,
it sounds very insulting to say to God, “ please give
us peace, since we cannot count on any assistance
except yours.”
We have nothing to say about the prayers for the
Royal Family, except that they do not show any very
attractive results, and that it must have much edified
George IV. to hear himself spoken of as a “ most re
ligious and gracious king.” Never surely was a family
so much prayed for, but cwi bono ? If the “Bishops,
Curates, and all congregations ” truly please God, he
is about the only person that they succeed in pleasing,
for the Bishops abuse the clergy, and the clergy
abuse the Bishops, and the congregations abuse both.
�8
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
Of the last prayer, we must note the exceeding failure
of the petition to grant the Church knowledge of
truth, and we cannot help marvelling why, if they
really desire to know the truth, they so invariablv
frown at and endeavour to crush out every earnest
search after truth, every effort for clearer light. Of
all things that can happen to the Church, the know
ledge of the truth would be the least “ expedient for”
her, for she would fade away before the sunshine of
truth as ghosts are said to fly at the cockcrow which
announces the dawn.
A criticism on the office of Morning Prayer is
scarcely complete without a few words upon the can
ticles appointed to be daily sung by the faithful to
the glory of God. Anything more ludicrously absurd
than these from the lips of our congregations it would
indeed be difficult to imagine. The Venite (Ps. xcv.) is
the first we are called upon to take part in, and the first
shock comes when we find ourselves chanting “ The
Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.”
“Above all gods!” what terrible heresy have we
been unwittingly committing ourselves to ? Is there
not only one God—or, at least, it may be three—but,
if three, they are co-equal, and no one is above the
other; who are these “all gods ” that “ the Lord ” is
“king above?” We remember for a moment that
when this psalm was written the gods of the nations
around Israel were believed to have a real existence,
and that, therefore, it was noinconsistency in the mouth
of the Hebrew to rejoice that his national god was ruler
above the gods of other peoples. This explanation is
reasonable, but then it does not explain why we, who
believe not in this multiplicity of deities, should pre
tend that we do. Our equanimity is not restored by
the next phrase, “In his hand are all the corners of
the earth ; ” but the earth is a globe, and has no cor
ners. A misty remembrance floats through our mind
of Iraoneus stating that there were four gospels be
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
9
cause there were four corners to the earth and four
winds that blew; but since his time things have
changed, and the corners have been smoothed off. Is
it quite honest to say in God’s praise a thing which we
know to be untrue, and must we be unscientific because
we are devotional ? We then hear about our fathers
being forty years in the wilderness, although we know
that they were not there at all, unless the people—
generally looked upon as amiable lunatics—are cor
rect, who assert that the English nation is descended
from the ten lost tribes of Israel. Why should we
pretend to God that we are Jews, when both He and
we know perfectly well that we are nothing of the
kind ? We come to the Te Deum, said to have been
composed by S. Ambrose for the baptism of S. Augus
tine :—“ To thee cherubin and seraphin continually
do cry.” Putting aside the manifest weariness both
to God and to the cryers of the never-ceasing repeti
tion of these words, and the degrading idea of God
implied in the thought that it gives Him any pleasure
to be perpetually assured of His holiness, as though
it were a doubtful matter—we cannot help inquiring,
“ Who are these cherubin and seraphin ? ” Accord
ing to the Bible, they are six-winged creatures, who
cover their faces with two wings, and their feet with
two more, and fly with the remaining pair: they may
be seen in pictures of the ark, balancing themselves
on their feet-covering wings, and preventing them
selves from falling by steadying each other with
another pair. “ Lord God of Sabaoth,” or “of Hosts
is this a reasonable name for one supposed to be a
“ God of peace ? ” The elder Jewish and the Chris
tian ideas of God here come into* direct collision : ac
cording to one, “ the Lord is a man of war ”
(Ex. xv.), while the other represents him as
“the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
(Isai. ix.) The Te Deum midway changes the object
of its song, and addresses itself to the Son instead
B
�io
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
of to the Father. How far this is permissible is
much disputed, for certain it is that in the early ages
of Christianity prayer was addressed to the Father
only, and that one of the Fathers* sharply rebukes
those who pray to the Son, since they thereby deprive
the Father of the honour due to Him alone. How
this can be, when Father and Son are one, we do not
pretend to explain. Then ensue those curious details
regarding Christ which we shall touch upon in deal
ing later with the Apostles’ Creed. We find our
selves. presently, asking to be kept “ this day without
sinyet, we are perfectly well aware, all the time,
that God will do nothing of the kind, and that all
Christians believe that they sin every day. Why
does the Church teach her children to sing this in
the morning, and then prepare a “ confession ” for
the evening, unless she feels perfectly sure that God
will pay no attention to her prayer ? The wearisome
reiteration in the Benedicite is so thoroughlyrecognised
that it is very seldom heard in the church, while the
Benedictus (Luke i.) is open to the same charge of
unreality as is the Venite, that it is a song for Jews
only. Many other faults and absurdities might be
pointed out which disfigure Morning Prayer, even if
the whole idea of prayer be left untouched. The
prayers of the Prayer-Book are dishonouring to God
from their childishness,their unreality, their folly, their
conflict with sound knowledge. Allowing that prayer
may be reasonable, these prayers are unreasonable;
allowing that prayer may be reverent, these prayers
are irreverent; allowing that prayer may be sincere,
these prayers are insincere. They are fragments of
an earlier age transplanted into the present, and they
are as ludicrous as would be men walking about in our
streets to-day clad in the armour of the Middle Ages,
the ages of Darkness and of Prayer.
Origen.
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
11
EVENING PRAYER.
The Church, in her wisdom, fearing that the quaint
conceits and impossibilities which we have referred
to, the—
“Jewels which adorn the spouse
Of the eternal glorious King,”
should not be sufficiently appreciated and admired by
her children, if presented to their adoration once only
on every day, has appointed for the use of the faith
ful an office of Evening Prayer, which, in its main
features, is identical with that which is to be “said
or sung ” each morning. Sentences, address, confes
sion, absolution, Lord’s Prayer, and versicles, are all
exactly reproduced, and Psalms and Lessons follow
in due course, varying from day to day. To take the
whole Psalter, and analyse it, would be a task too
long for our own patience, or for that of our readers,
so we only pick out a few salient absurdities, and ask
why English men and women should be found singing
sentences which have no beauty to recommend them,
and no meaning to dignify them. We will not lay
stress on the quaintness of a congregation standing
up and gravely singing : “ Or ever your pots be made
hot with thorns, so let indignation vex him, even as
a thing that is raw ” (Ps. lviii.); we will not ask
what the clergyman means where he reads out
to his congregation: “ Though ye have lien among
the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove.”
(Ps. lxviii.) These are isolated passages, which
a pen might erase, retaining the major part of
the Psalter: we go further, and challenge it as
a whole, asserting that it is ludicrously inappro
priate as a song-book for sensible people, even
although those people may be desirous of praying to,
or praising God. Our strictures are here levelled,
not at prayer as prayer, but simply at this particular
form of prayer. In the first place the Psalter is
written only for a single nation ; it is full of local
�12
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
allusions, and of references to Israelitish history,
which are only reasonable in the mouth of a Jew.
With what amount of sense can an English congrega
tion every 15th evening of the month sing such a Psalm
as the Ixxviii., recounting all the marvels of the plagues
and of the exodus, or on the following day plead with
God to help them, because “ the heathen are come into
Thine inheritance ; Thy holy temple have they defiled,
and made Jerusalem an heap of stones ? ” (Ps. lxxix.)
Is there any respect to God in telling him’that “ we are
become an open shame to our enemies; a very scorn
and derision unto them that are round about us ” (v. 4),
when, as a matter of simple fact, the speakers are
become nothing of the kind ? Can it be thought to be
consistent with reverence to God to make these extra
ordinary assertions in praying to Him, and then to
base upon them the most urgent pleas for His imme
diate aid ? for we find the congregation proceeding:
“Help us, 0 God of our salvation, for the glory of
Thy Kame; O deliver us and be merciful unto our sins
for Thy Kame’s sake. ... 0 let the vengeance of Thy
servant’s blood which is shed be openly shewed upon
the heathen in our sight. 0 let the sorrowful sighing
of the prisoners come before Thee ; according to the
greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou those that are
appointed to die ” (yv. 9, 10, 11).
Kow in all sober
seriousness what does this mean ? Is this addressed
to God, or is it not ? If it be, is it right and fit to
address to him words that are absolutely untrue, and
to cry urgently for aid which is not required, and
which He cannot possibly give ? If it be not, is it
decent to solemnly sing or read phrases seemingly
addressed to God, but really not intended to be noticed
by him, phrases which use His name as though an
appeal to Him were seriously made ? It cannot be
healthy to juggle thus with words, and to make emo
tional prayers which are utterly devoid of all meaning.
Some devout persons talk veryfreely about the wicked
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
i3
ness of blasphemy, but is not that kind of game with
God, in wailings which are devoid of reality, appeals
not intended to be answered, a far more real blasphemy
in the mouth of any one who believes in Hirn as a
hearer of prayer, than the so-called blasphemy of
those who distinctly assert that to them the popular
and traditional “ God” is a phantom, and that they
see no reason to believe in His existence ? Passing
from this graver aspect of the use of the Psalter as a
Congregational song-book, we notice how purely comic
many of the psalms would appear to us, had not the
habit-fashion of our lives accustomed us to repeat
them in a parrot-like manner, without attaching the
smallest meaning to the words so glibly recited.
“ Every night wash I my bed and water my couch with
my tears ” (Ps. vi.), is sung innocently by laughing
maiden and merry youth, the bright current of whose
life is undimmed by the shadow of grief. “ Bring unto
the Lord, O ye mighty, bring young rams unto the
Lord ” (Ps. xxix.), is solemnly read out by the country
clergyman, who would be beyond measure astonished
if his direction were complied with. There we find
the congregation making the certainly untrue asser
tion : “ Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast
out my shoe; Philistia, be thou glad of me.” (Ps. lx.)
At another time they cry out, “ 0 clap your hands to
gether, all ye people” (Ps. xlvii.); they speak of pro
cessions which have no existence, “ The singers go
before, the minstrels follow after, in the midst are the
damsels playing on the timbrels.”(Ps. lxviii.) Another
phase of this Psalter, which is offensive rather than
comic, is the habit of swearing and cursing which
pervades it; we find Christians, who are bidden to
love their enemies, and to bless them that curse
them, pouring out curses of the most fearful character,
and displaying the most reckless hatred: “ The
righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance;
he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the
�14
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
ungodly.” (Ps. Iviii.) “Let them fall from one
wickedness into another, and not come into Thv
righteousness (Ps. lxix.); ” a nice prayer, truly,
for one man to pray for his brother man, to a holy
God who is supposed to desire righteousness in man.
Then there is that fearful imprecation in Psalm cix.,
too long to quote, where the vindictive and cruel
anger not only curses the offender himself, but passes
on to his children, “ Let there be no man to pity him,
nor to have compassion upon his fatherless children.”
Of course people do not really mean any of these
terrible things which they repeat day after day;
' humanity is too noble to wish to draw down such
curses from heaven, the people have outgrown the
bad spirit of that cruel age when the Psalter was
written, and their hearts have grown more loving;
but surely it is not well that men and women should
stand on a lower level in their prayers than in their
lives; surely the moments, which ought to be the
noblest, should not be passed in using language which
the speakers would be ashamed of in their daily lives;
surely the worship of the Ideal should not be de
graded below the practice of the Real, or the notion
of God be less lofty than the life of man. By making
their worship an unreality, by being less than urue in
their religious feelings, by using words they do not
mean, and by pretending emotions they do not
experience, people become trained into insincerity,
and lose that rare and beautiful virtue of instinctive
and thorough honesty. When the prayer does not
echo the yearning of the heart, then the habit grows
of not making the word really the representative of
the thought, of not making the feeling the measure
of the expression. Much of the cant of the day,
much of the social insincerity, much of the prevalent
unreality, may be laid at the door of this crime of
the Churches, of making men speak words which are
meaningless to the speaker, and of teaching them to
be untrue in the moments which should be the truest
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
ly
and the purest. At another time, we might impeach
prayer as a whole ; we might argue against it, either
as opposed to the unchangeableness and the wisdom
of God, if a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering
God be believed in, or as utterly futile, and proved
worthless by experience. But here we only plead for
sincerity in prayer, wherever prayer is practised ; we
only urge that at least the prayer shall be sincere,
and that the lips shall obey the heart.
Exactly the same objection applies to the 11 Canti
cles,” which, in modern lips, are absolutely devoid of
sense. What meaning has the “ song of the blessed
Virgin Mary ” from an ordinary English congrega
tion ; why should English people talk about God
promising His mercy “ to our forefathers, Abraham,
and his seed for ever,” when Abraham is not their
forefather at all ? Why should they ask God to let
them “ depart in peace,” when they have not the
smallest desire to depart at all, and why should they
assert to Him that they “have seen Thy salvation,”
when they have seen nothing of the kind ? Eor the
perpetually recurring Gloria, one cannot help wonder
ing what it means; when was “the beginning,” and
is the “it” which was at that period, the “glory”
which is wished to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
further, what is the good of wishing glory to Him—
or to Them—if He—or They—have always had, and
always will have it ? When we have heard a congre
gation reciting the Creed, we have sometimes
wondered what meaning they attached to it. “ The
maker of heaven and earth.” Do people ever try to
carry the mind back to the time before this “ making,”
and realise the period when nothing existed ? Is it
possible to imagine things coming into existence,
“ something ” emerging from where before “ nothing”
was? And then Jesus, the only Son, conceived by
the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from Himself, and son,
therefore, not of “the Father,” but of that spirit
�16
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
which only exists in and through “the Father and the
Son.” Again, how can a “spirit” conceive a mate
rial body ? If the whole affair be miraculous, why
try to compromise matters with nature, by making
this kind of pseudo-father ? Surely it would be simpler
to leave it a complete miracle, and let the Virgin
remain the solitary parent. Except for making the
story match better with the elder Greek mythology,
there is no need to introduce a god-parent in the
affair; a child without a father is no more remarkable
than a mother who remains a virgin. This attempt
at reasonableness only makes the whole more out
rageously unnatural, and provokes criticism which
would be better avoided. A God, who suffered, was
crucified, dead, buried, who rose and ascended, is a com
plete enigma to us. Could He, the impassive, suffer ?
could He, the intangible, be crucified ? could He, the
immortal, die ? could He, the omnipresent, be buried
in one spot of earth, rise from it, and ascend to some
place where He was not the moment before ? What
kind of God is this who is to “come again” to a
place where He is not now ? If the answer be,that all
this refers to the manhood of Jesus, then we inquire,
“ Is Christ divided ? ” if He be one God with the
Father, then all He did was done by the Father as
much as by Himself; if He did it only as man, then
God did not come from heaven to save men; then
this is not a divine sacrifice at all; then, a simple
man cannot have made an atonement for the sin of
the world. And where is “ the right hand ” of
Almighty God ? Is Jesus sitting at the right hand of
a pure spirit,, who has neither body nor parts ? and,
since He is one with God, is He sitting at his own
right hand ? Such questions as these are called blas
phemous ; but we fling back the charge of blasphemy
on those who try to compel us to recite a creed so
absurd. We decline to repeat words which convey to
us no meaning, and not ours the fault, if any inquiry
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
17
into the meaning produce dilemmas so inconvenient
to the orthodox. We are also required to believe in
“ the ” Holy Catholic Church, but we know of no
such body. Catholic means universal, and there is no
Universal church: to believe in that which does not
exist would, indeed, be faith without sight. There is
the Orthodox Church, but that is anathematised by the »
Roman ; there is the Roman Church, but that is the
“ scarlet whore of Babylon” in the eyes of the Pro
testant ; there are the Protestant sects, but they are
many and not one, a multiformity in disunity. We
are asked to acknowledge a “ Communion of Saints,”
and we see those who severally call themselves saints
excommunicating each the other: in a “ forgiveness
of sins,” but Nature tells us of no forgiveness, and we
find suffering invariably following on the disregard of
law ; in a “resurrection of the body,” but we know
that the body decays, that its gases and its juices are
transmuted in the alembic of Nature into new modes
of existence; in a “ life everlasting,” when the dark
veil of ignorance envelopes the “Beyond the tomb.”
Only the thoughtless can repeat the creed ; only the
ignorant cannot see the impossibilities it professes to
believe.
The two Collects, which are different in evening
prayer to those used in the morning office, call for no
special remark, save that they—in common with all
prayers—make no practical difference in human life.
The devout Christian is no more defended from “ all
perils and dangers of this night,” than is the most
careless atheist; wisely, also, does the Christian,
having prayed his prayer, walk carefully round his
house, and examine the bolts and bars, mindful that
these commonplace defences are more likely to be
efficacious against burglars than the protecting arm
of the Most High.
The remainder of the service is the same as that
used in the morning, so calls for no further remark.
�18
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
If only people would take the trouble of thinking about
their religion; if only they could be led, or even
provoked, into trying to realise that which they say
they believe, then the foundations of the popular
religion would rapidly be undermined, and the banner
of Free Thought would soon float proudly over the
crumbling ruins of that which was once a Church.
THE LITANY.
The Litany has a fault which runs throughout the
Prayer-Book, that “vain repetition ” which, accord
ing to the Gospel, was denounced by Jesus of
Nazareth ; the refrain of “ Good Lord, deliver us,”
and “ We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord,” recurs
with wearisome reiteration, and is repeated mono
tonously by the congregation, few of whom, probably,
would know from what they were requesting deli
verance, if the clergyman were to stop and ask so un
expected a question. Gods the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost are severally besought to have mercy
upon the miserable sinners praying to them, and then
the Trinity as a whole is asked to do the same. How
far this separation is consistent with the unity of the
Godhead, and whether, in praying to the Son, we do,
or do not, implicitly pray to the Father, and vice versA,
those only can tell us who understand the “ mystery
of the Holy Trinity.” This preamble over, the
remainder of the Litany is addressed to “ God the
Son,” who is the “ Good Lord ” invoked throughout,
in spite of His reproof to the young man who knelt
to Him, calling Him “ Good Master; ” “why callest
thou Me good ? ” Various dogmas are alluded to in
the succeeding verses in which few educated people
now retain any belief. How many really care to be de
livered “from the crafts and assaults of the devil,” or
believe in the existence of the devil at all ? He is one
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
19
of those phantoms that can only be found in the dark
ness, and which fade away when the sun arises. How
many believe in the “ everlasting damnation,” of the
same verse, or really consider themselves in the
smallest danger of it ? Ho one who believed in hell
could pray to be delivered from it in careless accents,
for the smallest chance of that awful doom would
force a wail of terror from the lightest-hearted of the
listeners. Is it consistent to ask Christ to deliver us
from His wrath ? if He loved men so much as to die
for them, it seems as though a great change must
have come over His mind since He ascended into
heaven, if He really requires to be pressed so urgently
not to “ take vengeance,” and to spare us and deliver
us from His wrath. Which is right, the wrath or the
love ? for they are not compatible; and does God
really like to see people crouching before Him in this
fashion, praising His mercy while they tremble lest
He should “ break out ” upon them ? If we were
inclined to be hypercritical we might suggest that
the prayer to be delivered from “ all uncharitableness”
gives a melancholy proof of the inadequacy of prayer ;
the answer to it may be read weekly in the Church
Times and the Hoch, more especially in the clerical
contributions. The other petitions are also curiously
ineffectual; “ from all false doctrine, heresy, and
schism,” is so manifestly accepted at the Throne of
Grace in these rationalising days. Jesus is then ad
jured to deliver His petitioners by the memory of His
days upon earth, and we get the ancient idea of an
incarnate God, so common to all eastern religions,
and the curious picture of a God who is born, circum
cised, baptized, fasts, is tempted, suffers, dies, is
buried, rises, ascends. How God can do all this
remains a mystery, but these suffering, and then con
quering gods are familiar to all readers of mytho
logies ; we learn further, that God the Holy Ghost
can come to a place where He was not previously,
�20
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
although He is the infinite God, and is therefore
omnipresent. Verily, it needs that our faith be
great. Being delivered sufficiently, the congregation
proceed to a number of additional petitions, the first
of which is, unfortunately, as great a failure as the
preceding ones, for it prays that the Church may be
guided “in the right way;” and having regard to the
multiplicity of Churches, each one of which goes
doggedly in her own particular way, it is manifest
that they can’t all be right, as they are all different.
Then follow prayers for the Royal Family and the
Government, and a general request to “ bless and
keep all Thy people; ” a request which is systema
tically disregarded. In these days of “ bloated arma
ments ” it is at least pleasant to dream in church of
there being given “ to all nations, unity, peace, and
concord.” The “ pure affection ” with which God’s
Word is received is also perfectly imaginary ; those
who do not believe it criticise and cavil; those who
do believe it go to sleep over it. The last part of
these verses seems designed simply to pray for every
body all round, and this being satisfactorily accom
plished, we come across another trace of an ancient
creed : “ Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of
the world ; ” this is a fragment of sun-worship, allud
ing to the sun-god, when, entering the sign of the
Lamb, he bears away all the coldness and the darkness
of the winter months, and gives life to the world.
The remainder of the Litany is of the same painfully
servile character as the earlier portions; God seems
to be regarded as a fierce tyrant, longing to wreak
His fury on mankind, and only withheld by incessant
entreaties. All possible evils seem to be showering
down on the congregation, and, if one closed one’s
eyes, one could imagine a sad-faced, care-worn,
haggard group of Covenanters, or Huguenots, instead
of the fashionable crowd that fills the pews ; and when
one hears them ask that they may be “ hurt by no
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
21
persecutions,” one is inclined to mutter grimly : “ You
are all safe, mother Church, and you are the perse
cutor, not the persecuted.” The service concludes
with the same unreal cant about afflictions and infir
mities, till one could wish almost to hear something
of the style of observation made by an angry nurse to
a tiresome child: “ If you don’t stop crying this
minute, I will give you something to cry for.” If
men would only be as real inside the church as they
are outside ; if they would think and mean what they
say, this pitiful burlesque would speedily be put an
end to, and they would no longer offer up that sacri
fice of lying lips, which are said to be “ an abomina
tion to the Lord.”
PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON
SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
These special prayers are, perhaps, on the whole,
the most childish of all the childish prayers in the
Church-book before us. A prayer “for rain;” a
prayer “ for fair weather : ” it is almost too late to
argue seriously against prayers like these, except that
uneducated people do still believe that God regulates
the weather, day by day, and may be influenced in
His arrangements by the prayer of some weather
critic below. Yet it is a literal fact that storm-signals
fly before the approaching storm, and prepare people
for its coming, so that when it sweeps across our seas
the vessels are safely in port, which otherwise would
have sunk beneath its fury ; meteorology is progressing
day by day, and is becoming more and more perfect,
but this science—as all other science—would be im
possible if God could be influenced by prayer; a
storm-signal would be needless if prayer could stay
the storm, and would be unreliable if a prayer could
.Suddenly, in mid-ocean, check the course of the
�22
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
tempest. Science is only possible when it is admitted
that “ God works by laws,” t.e., that His working at
all need not be taken into account. The laws of
weather are as unchangeable as all other natural laws,
for laws are nothing more than the ascertained
sequence of events ; not until that sequence has been
found by long observation to be invariable, does the
sequence receive the title of “ a law.” As the weather
of to-day is the result of the weather of countless
yesterdays, the only way in which prayers for change
can be effectual is that God should change the whole
weather of the past, and so let fresh causes bring
about fresh results; but this seems a rather large
prayer, to say the least of it, and might, by the carnal
mind, be considered as somewhat presumptuous. In
the prayers “in the time of dearth and famine” we
find the old barbarous notion that men’s moral sins
are punished by physical “ visitations of God,” and
that God’s blessing will give plenty in the place of
dearth : if men work hard they will get more than if
they pray hard, and even long ago in Eden God could
notmake his plants grow, because “there was not aman
to till the ground; ” at least, so says the Bible. The
prayer “in the time of war,” is strikingly beautiful,
begging the All-Father to abate the pride, assuage
the malice, and confound the devices of some of His
children for the advantage of the others. The “most
religious and gracious ” Sovereign recommended to
the care of God has been known to be such a king as
George IV., but yet clergy and people went on day
after day speaking of him thus to a God who
“ searcheth the hearts.” A quaint old Prayer-Book
remarks upon this prayer for the High Court of
Parliament, that the “right disposing of the hearts
of legislators proceeds from God,” and that “ both
disbelief and ignorance must have made fearful
progress where this principle is not recognised.”
In these latter days we fear that disbelief and
�The Beauties of the Prayer-Book,
23
ignorance of this kind have made very considerable
progress. The Thanksgivings run side by side with
the prayers in subjects, and are therefore open to the
same criticisms. None of these prayers or praises
can be defended by reason or by argument; reason
shows us their utter folly, and their complete
uselessness. Is it wise to persist in forcing into
people’s lips words which have lost all their meaning,
and which the people, if they trouble themselves to
think about them at all, at once recognise as false F
All danger in progress lies in the obstinate maintenance
of things which have outlived their age; just as a
stream which flows peacefully on, spreading plenty
and fertility in its course, and growing naturally
wider and fuller, will—if dammed up too much—
burst at length through the dam, and rush forward as
a torrent, bearing destruction and ruin in its course ;
so will gradual and gentle reform in ancient habits
change all that needs changing, without abrupt altera
tions, letting the stream of thought grow wider and
fuller ; but if all Reform be delayed, if all change be
forbidden, if the dam of prejudice, of custom, of habit,
bar the stream too long, then thought hurls it down
with the crash of revolution, and many a thing is lost
in the swirling torrent which might have remained
long, and might have beautified human life. Few
things call more loudly for Reform than our hitherto
loudly-boasted Reformation.
PRIKTED BY C. W. BEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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The beauties of the prayer-book
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Besant, Annie Wood
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Author is Annie Besant. Attribution 'My Path to Atheism'. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Thomas Scott
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Prayer
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Book of Common Prayer
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Text
Pamphlets for the People
No. 3
WHAT IS
THE USE OF
PRAYER?
CHAPMAN
COHEN
THE PIONEER PRESS
�What is the Use of Prayer?
i.
“Without Prayer there would be no Religion.”
Dr. Ji. W. Inge, late Dean of St. Paul’s.
“Men would not pray unless they expected to get something
by it, and that their prayers would have the effect of
securing it.”—Archdeacon Paley.
Why do men pray? The obvious reason is that given
by Archdeacon Paley: they hope to get something
which they would not get without it. Whether we
pray for a change in the weather, for safety while at
sea, or for recovery from-sickness, the same thing holds.
Mankind has produced quite a number of varieties of
the genus “fool,” but there has never existed that kind
of a fool who would pray while convinced that it would
make no difference to the course of events.
But when man prays he must pray to some one, to
one that is able to listen and respond. No one prays
to a volcano to stop erupting, or to the rain to stop
falling. There is, of course, the childish rhyme.
Rain, rain, go away, come again another day
but no adult now believes the petition has any effect
on the weather. Yet, put the child’s rhyme in the
form of a solemn prayer, say it in proper form, recite
it in a church, and it is believed that some one listens
and stops the rain, although he might not have done
so had the prayer remained unsaid. We should like
someone to try to establish a real difference between the
child’s incantation and the adult’s prayer.
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
3
Prayer is a matter of a transaction between two
persons.
Mian asks and God grants.
If either of
the two terms is wiped out prayer is impossible. Or
if things would happen as they do whether one prays
or not, then prayer becomes a manifest absurdity.
Paley is right. Dr. Inge is also right when he says
that without prayer there would be no religion. The
practice of prayer is based on the belief that gods exist
and that they manipulate events in the interests of those
who pray.
Primitive peoples pray for rain and for success in
life exactly as Christians do to-day, but with more
logic and sincerity.
Roman Catholic papers out of
England—they are carefully trimmed for the British
public—give numerous accounts of recoveries from
sickness, of jobs gained, of good business deals done,
as a result of prayers to God or the Saints. In
continental churches stacks of crutches are exhibited
which are said to belong to those who have been
cured by .prayer. So medicine-men of a savage tribe
pray for their chief, exactly as the Archbishop in this
country prays for the King, and with equal results.
All Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and other places
of worship have their set prayers, and in the long run
they all boil down to the identical petition, “Oh Lord
give us something.’’ It may be that God made man
so that man might worship him, it is equally certain
that the worship would not continue for long unless
it was believed that God did something in return.
Gods are not worshipped for merely existing. They
are believed in and worshipped as in investment, and
the dividends received are duly published. The reason
for prayer is that God does something for those who
pray.
Without this belief prayer would die, and
“without prayer there would be no religion.’’
There is no real doubt why men pray; neither is
there any doubt as to why mankind developed the
practice of and the belief in prayer. Prayer origin
�4
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
ates at that stage of human development when man
thinks of the forces around him as akin to himself.
So far as he thinks about what is going on <n the
world outside himself, he reasons as a child would,
if it faced the world without the stored-up knowledge
and experience which is the heritage of all in a civil
ized society. Man feels that somehow or other he
must get on terms with these powers that are angry
with him in the storm, and pleased with him in the
smile of the sunshine. If the rain does not fall or if
the crops wither, or if a disease breaks out, it is be
cause the gods are angry with man. In these circum
stances f\e reacts to the different aspects of nature as
he does to those men who are stronger than himself,
or who exert authority. He praises, he flatters, he
worships. In other words he gives the gods service,
and he expects something solid in return.
But unlike the modern religionist, primitive man,
or even semi-civilized man, is not above “talking
back’’ to his gods. If the gods fail him he may turn
to others.
In a more advanced stage even the
temple of a defaulting god may be closed. He very
easily, as missionaries among primitive peoples, find,
swaps one god for another, if greater benefits are
promised.
Many amusing instances of this are given in that
great encyclopeadia of primitive customs, The Golden
Bough, by Sir James Frazer.
Here is one of them
concerning an incident that occurred in Sicily as recently
as 1893.
There had been- a very long drought. The earth
was parched, processions of priests and people had
marched through the streets of Palermo, and conse
crated candles had been burned in the churches in
honour of certain selected saints. At last the peasants
lost patience.
Many of the saints were banished
altogether. At Palermo they threw St. Joseph into a
garden, so that he might see for himself how bad things
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
6
were, and threatened to leave him there till the rain
fell. The golden wings of St. Michael were taken from
his. shoulders and replaced with pasteboard.
His
purple mantle was taken from him, and he was given
a mere clout for a covering. At Liacto, the patron saint
was reviled, put in irons and threatened with drowning
or hanging if he did not soon send rain. “Rain or the
rope,’’ was the cry of the people.
But it is not often that the modern believers thus
stand up to their gods. The worse they are treated the
lower they grovel. The more the gods punish them,
the louder they declare their unworthiness, and the
more vehemently they proclaim the greatness and the
justice of the god who is afflicting them.
In all this we have the persistence of the original
mentality which is enshrined in all our creeds and
catechisms, which is expressed in our spring festivals
when the god is asked to give us a good crop. In
the harvest thanksgiving when he is thanked for what
he has given, in the blessing of Ashing boats and nets,
in the official prayers for fain, for the health of the
King, and, in a more vulgar form, in the lavish use
of mascots, in the belief in lucky days, and in the
common conviction that when disaster occurs to a people,,
it is because they have offended or “forgotten’’ God,
there is the persistence of primitive beliefs.
But if we are certain of anything it is that when
there is a ,bad harvest it is due to bad soil, or bad
weather, or bad husbandry, or, other assignable causes.
If an Atheist and a Christian start farming, the
Christian is no better off than the Atheist.
Whether
a man reads his Bible daily or his Freethinker weekly,
makes not the least difference, other things equal. A
doctor who sent his consumptive patients for residence
to a Church in preference to a sanatorium would soon
find himself out of practice. And* those people in this
country who trust to the “Prayer of faith to save the
sick,’’ may, if their child dies, find themselves brought
�€
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
before a Christian judge and sent to a Christian prison
for the offence of trusting to the power of prayer. British
law and British common sense say that you may believe
in prayer, but it is criminal to rely upon it.
When prayers are offered up in churches for rain,
or for good crops, or for the health of the King, or
for our Members of Parliament to be dowered with
wisdom, who is it that is deceived? It cannot be the
Christian God, because we have it authoritatively
stated that he cannot be deceived.
It is not the
clergy, they are the operators. Who is’it that is fooled?
It must be the people.
II.
Dr. R.. W. Inge is one of the ablest of modern theo
logians. Until recently he was Dean of St. Paul’s
Cathedral, London.
At the modern Churchman’s
Conference held at Oxford, in August, 1936, Dr. Inge
gave an address on “What to Believe About Prayer.’’
He began by assuring his audience that there was no
subject “on which Christ spoke with more downright
explicitness than of the efficacy of prayer.’’ By example
and precept Jesus taught that prayer could accomplish
miracles. The dead were raised, the blind coukj be
made to see and the lame to walk. The Christian
Church, officially, teaches that all things may be
accomplished by prayer. There is not a critical occasion
in the life of the country when the Churches do not
announce a united service of prayer, as though by a kind
of mass volleying, high heaven will do what the people
want.
But Dr. Inge deliberately scoffs at the idea that our
prayers can have any influence on the weather. He
says: —
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
7
The more we know about the causes of clmatlc phenomena
the less likely we are even to dream of changing them
in order to save our hay crop, or to secure a fine day for
our garden party.
Which is exactly what Freethinkers have been trying
to drive into the heads of believing Christians.
Prayers for the sick come off quite as badly. Thus:—
But can we consistently give up praying for rain with
the expectation of altering the weather for dur benefit and
continue to pray fdr the recovery of a relation pr a friend
in sickness. Knowledge has been enlarged in this field
also during our lifetime. We know something about microbes;
how can they be affected by our prayers?
/
For generations Freethinkers have been insisting that
faith in prayer was only another name for igiiorance.
Here is one of the most prominent clerics of the Eng
lish Church saying the same thing without disguise.
We have said thousands of times what Dr. Inge is
now permitted to say to a congregation of his fellow
Christians.
Of course, it is said without acknow
ledgment of the work of Freethinkers, and when a
Freethinking trpth is admitted it is duly acknow
ledged—as a product of Christianity. We do make
headway, even among the leaders of the Christian
Church.
But if prayers for rain and for the sick are of no
value to-day, then they were of no value at any time.
Microbes did not begin to exist the other day.
Meteorological processes did not commence yesterday.
Prayers were as useless in the time of Christ as they
are in the time of Edward the Eighth. The teachings
of the New Testament that the prayer of faith shall
save the sick, were as false when the advice was
given as they are now. The teachings of the Churches
were completely wrong, the money taken by the
churches was money obtained by fraud, and the
buildings, the churches erected for the purpose of
�8
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
prayer, were so many monuments to fraud or folly,
or both.
This is not all. The Church of England has set
prayers for rain, for better harvests, for the sick, and
so forth. The Church of England prayer-book says
definitely that whatsoever one’s disease may be, it “is
certainly God’s visitation.’’ There is a kind of lunatic
logic in asking God to take away a disease he has
definitely inflicted, but lunatic logic is not unusual in
religious reasoning. When the late King George was
ill, prayers for his recovery were ordered by the
Churches*, and when he recovered, God was thanked
for what he had done.
The Church said it was
God’s visitation. Ex-dean Inge says it was a matter
of microbes, and the prayers were all so much rubbish.
Why thank God for the King’s recovery if the doctors
cured him? Why thank the doctors for the recovery
if God cured him? Was it to humour God that prayers
were offered, or was it to fool the doctors that they
were thanked for effecting a cure?
If prayer is of any value, why wait till a man is
dying, or the crops are perishing, or the land is
parched before prayers are said? Prevention is better
than cure, so why not set aside, saj*, a week at the
commencement of each year, apd offer an omnibus
prayer for all the things we want for the rest of the
twelve months? Is it only with God that we are to wait
for a preventable accident to happen before a move is
made to protect the public from danger? A local council
that behaved in this stupid manner would find itself held
up to public condemnation.
Still further. Dr. Inge was for many years Dean
of St. Paul’s. On official occasions he had to take
part in prayers for the health of the Royal Family,
for the victory of the nation in war, and for rain
when it was needed. How long has Dr. Inge held
these ideas about prayer? Was he always praying with
his tongue in his cheek, or had he to wait until he
retired from office before he reached a conclusion that
�WHAT IS THE USE OF
PRAYER?
9
was a commonplace with millions of people outside the
Church?
And how many other preachers inside the
Church hold the same belief as Dr. Inge without saying
anything about it?
Dr. Inge asks whether the consequences of prayer
can be tested by statistical methods. He implies they
cannot. But if prayer has any observable effect it must
be a calculable one.
Dr. Inge asks whether the
husband of a “prayerful wife’’ has a . better life value
to an insurance office than has a husband whose wife
does not pray? The answer is that insurances com
panies decline to recognize any such influence. They
require, other things equal, the same premiums, whether
people are Christians or Atheists. Insurance companies
enquire into a man’s family history, what were the ages
of father and mother when they died, are there certain
diseases in the family, and some ask whether a man is
a teetotaller or not.
But none of them asks whether
the applicant prays regularly. Even those companies
that cater specially for the clergy make no allowance
for very prayerful characters. If there is any building
in the world that is guarded by prayer it is a church;
but insurance companies will ask a bigger premium for
a church without a-lightning conductor than they would
for an Atheist lecture-haH with one.
The Royal Family are prayed for more th^n any
other family.
Have they a longer life or a better
life than other people have?
Everyone knows they
have not, and in several of the royal families of the
world, mental and other diseases are marked. Being
the defender of The faith did not give George the Fifth
robust health; it did not endow George the Second with
wisdom; nor did it save George the Third from insanity.
Thare is a special prayer in the Litany, “That it
may please Thee to endue the Lords of the Council
and the Nobility with grace, wisdom and understanding.’’
Has anyone been able to trace any marked result of
that prayer said regularly and with professional
competency ?
�10
WHAT'IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
Every Church Congress since the Christian Church
was established has been opened with prayer. Never
have these assemblies been cited, even by Christians, as
examples of wisdom, good feeling and a sense of justice.
There is no direction in which one can look for answer
to prayer.
There is also a special petition in the prayer book
for safety at sea—altered a few years back to one
for “seamen of the British Navy.” This may have
been done because it was thought that asking God to
look after all was too big a job, or because it was
considered that if God would look after the British Navy,
other navies could take their chance. But will anyone
say that the number of those lost at sea differs in
proportion to the prayers said? The Board of Trade
has a number of regulations for sea-going ships; it
makes no provision whatever in the matter of prayer.
It does say that ships carrying more than a certain
number of passengers must carry a qualified doctor, it
says nothing about parsons. It considers the famous
Plimsoll line of greater consequence than the prayers
of the united British churches.
There is no test to which the believer will submit to
prove that prayers are answered. Belief in praver is
nowadays a huge “bluff.” The Freethinker calls the
bluff—and the Christian runs away.
Dr. Inge says:—
The very definite promises made by Jesus Christ seem
to be contradicted by experience. Most of us would say
they have been contradicted by common experience. Hence
the problem troubles us all the time.
4‘Seem,” to be contradicted by experience!
The
belief in prayer is contradicted by all experience*. Dr.
Inge knows this as well as we do, but it is hard for
any cleric—active or retired—to be intellectually straight
forward where religion is concerned. Even a horse
gets attached to ^linkers in time, and a dog learns to
love its collar.
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
11
III.
But Dr. Inge still professes allegiance to something
which he may call religion, even though the very core of
religion is absent from it. He says:—
If prayer has no efficacy we must give up not only our
trust in the plain words of Christ, but all practice of
religion, for if prayer has no result, no one could care to
pray, and without prayer there can be no religion. Prayer
is * the very breath of religion; its most essential and
characteristic activity.
So Dr. Inge must find some use for prayer, and save
something that can be called religion; and as
the notion that the world is governed by natural laws
which may be modified or suspended at any time by divine
intervention is felt to be the least satisfactory of philosophies,
some place for prayer must be found, where its conse
quences cannot be tested, or even observed.
There are two pleas put in, both worthy of the
greenest of green young curates. The first is:—
If we ask why men pray, the simple answer is; because
they cannot help it.
This is very crude. There are many millions who
never pray, and the number of those who do pray is
steadily diminishing. Of course there is a sense in
which whatever one does, cannot be helped. It is as
true of a man crawling round a room on his knees as
it is of a man kneeling to pray. That kind of thing
ought not to pass muster in a Sunday school.
The second reason looks better: but involves mental
crookedness.
In so far as prayer is loving intercourse or reverent
homage, or thanksgiving, or meditation on the revered
�12
WHAT IS THE USE OF
PRAYER?
attributes of God, or contrition for sin, it is meaningless
to ask whether it is efficacious. No one doubts that as
an exercise it deepens character, strengthens the will, purifies
the affections, and brings peace, rest and blessedness.
This passage is priceless as an example of the sheer
verbiage a man of ability may put forth when he is
trying to rationalize an absurdity. Loving intercourse
with whom? For what? If God does nothing, if he
does not interfere with things, if things will happen
as they do happen, whether we pray or not, what have
we to thank God for? The only thing left is to thank
God for doing nothing. Does all this spiritual ’ “kow
towing” really mean no more than an Alice in Wonderland
performance?
Of course prayer brings comfort to most of those who
believe in it.
No one has ever disputed this. The
war-dance of the savage encourages him to fight. The
wearing of a mascot strengthens the confidence of those
who are idiotic enough to wear them. An hysteric may
be cured by faith in Jesus Christ, or in a doctor, or
in a bread pill, a gambler may feel strengthened by
carrying a rabbit’s foot, or warned not to gamble by
a black cat crossing his path. The question is not
whether people believe certain things benefit them—all
the quacks and humbugs in the worjd, political, religious,
social and literary—live on this belief.
The real
question is whether this kind of belief rests on more than
pure self-suggestion?
Dr. Inge must know that the science upon which he
relies says very definitely that “divine interference” is
not merely untrue of what takes place in the physical
world, but of the mental world also. And among the
things that science is rapidly bringing to an under
standing is the mechanism of this phenomenon of self
suggestion which plays so large a part in all cases of
hysteria, and its attendant ailments.
It is this grain of truth in tfie practice of prayer which
is used—often criminally used—by quacks of all kinds,
�WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
13
and, which forms the stock-in-trade of the travelling
evangelist, while it also forms the basis of the
megalomaniacal ravings of Mrs. Eddy and her benighted
followers. If Dr. Inge cares to call this kind of thing
“spiritual influence,’’ he may do so; but no one has
ever disputed the /ability of a man to deceive himself,
whether it be for goodness or badness. And if a man
will deceive. himself, he can have no better machinery,
than that provided by religion.
But is this process of self-deception what the world
really understands by prayer? Is it what Dr. Inge had
in mind when for many years he read the official prayers,
and when he stood in the pulpit and said to his
congregation, “Let us pray’’?
Did he really mean
to say:—
There is no answer to the prayer which I am asking
you to offer in the shape of any visible alteration in the
course of events. You must not expect rain to fall in
answer to your prayer, nor that disease will be cured. Microbes
are not influenced by prayer, nor are meteorological conditions
changed. Prayers will save neither the sailor at sea nor the
soldier on land. But if you can persuade yourself that there
is someone somewhere who will listen to your prayer and
will answer it as you desire, then you will find that prayer
will bring you peace and blessedness.
I think that if Dr. Inge had addressed his congrega
tion in these plain words he would soon have been
without a congregation to address. But he was only
following the example of large numbers of the more
intelligent of the clergy in thus using the old phrase
ology, while inwardly giving his words a new inter
pretation.
Preachers thus believe one thing and say
another. I admit that this1 kind of double-dealing is
not cofifinetf to the Church, but it is in the Church
that it finds its strongest and most popular expression.
Ministers of religion often indulge in this practice
�14
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
'because they think their congregations will complain if
told what the clergy really think. Congregations go on
pretending to believe what is told them, because they
do not wish to shock their parson. Open and honest
speech on both sides might lead to some startling results.
Belief in the efficacy of prayer belongs, as I have
said, to the childhood of the race.
It bejongs to a
time when mankind believed that nature was a com
plex of living forces that could be swayed in their
action by prayers and worship.
Thence arose the
elaborate ceremonies that belong to the religions of
the world. Prayer meant the establishment of diplomatic
relations between man and the gods.
But these
diplomatic relations were disturbed by the growing
knowledge that the forces of nature were not conscious
of man’s desires and needs, that they were not deviated
from their path by his prayers; and with that knowledge
there set in the decline of the belief in prayer.
To-day science will have nothing to do with prayer.
It cannot admit the slightest probability or possibility
that the course of natural happenings is to be influenced
in this way.
And, willy-nilly, other people follow
the line indicated by science. Their attitude is that
of Falstaff (adapted) “Will prayer mend a broken
arm? No. Will prayer mend a broken leg?
No.
Prayer hath no skill in surgery.
A fig then for
prayer; I’ll none of it.’’ History endorses the dictum
of wise old Montaigne, “We prav only by custom and
habit.’’
But the power of even custom and habit has its
limitations.
And Dr. Inge’s theory, that prayer is
good so long as one can persuade oneself that it is
good, will not work.
People have not prayed for
health, or for rain, or for protection, or for victory,
�WHAT LS THE USE OF PRAYER?
15
because they believed they were indulging in a kind
of mild mental exercise, or because they wished to
fool themselves with phrases.
They prayed because
they believed there were gods that took sides with
those who praised them and punished those who
did not. Let this belief die and religion exists as a
mere shadow of a shade, while the gods join that
lengthy procession of dead deities that wind like a
ghostly caravan across the face of history.
The position of the educated clergy to-day is not
one to be envied. In terms of historic Christian belief
and doctrine they are committed to the belief in, and
teaching of, the power of prayer.
In the light of
scientific knowledge, in view of their own self-respect,
they are bound to recognize the absurdity of belief
in prayer.
Some of those who have begun their
ministerial career have broken away, although family
and social connexions often keep them silent concerning
their opinions. Others decline the priesthood although
their parents had destined them to enter this ancient,
but hardly, to-day, wholly honourable profession. Those
who, despite their knowledge and understanding, enter
the ministry, find themselves on the horns of a dilemma.
On the one hand, if they openly discard prayer, without
which religion has no sense of reality, they will lose
the support of multitudes of simple-minded believers.
On the other hand, if they proclaim the power of prayer,
they know they will lose the respect, even though
they may retain a measure of deference, of more intelligent
and better-educated folk. And beyond all is the deeper
question as to the use of a God who does nothing to
help those who believe in him, and nothing against those
wbo do not. It is good to find a man of Dr. Inge’s
eminence repudiating the historic function or prayer. It
would also be interesting to know for how long he has
�16
WHAT IS THE USE OF PRAYER?
held this belief about prayer. It would be still more
interesting to know how many thousands of the clergy,
in practice, share Dr. Inge’s opinions, and how many
of them awaA till their retiring age, before taking the
general public into their confidence.
The belief in prayer was
the religious world. To-day
and is fast becoming a
churches sre called upon to
prospect is—Bankruptcy.
once the greatest asset of
it is ceasing to be an asset
liability.
And when the
liquidate this liability, the
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G W Foote & Co., Ltd.
702 Holloway Road
London N19 3NL.
Printed by
Aidgate Press
84b Whitechapel High Street
London El.
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What is the use of prayer?
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Cohen, Chapman [1868-1954]
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Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the People
Series number: No. 3
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Prayer
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Prayer
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Text
OF PRAYER
G. W. FOOTE.
(Third Edition.)
TWOPENCE.
PRICE
LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.G.
1887.
�LONDON :
MINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�fS 2474-
INTRODUCTION.
The following Essay was first published in 1880, and a second
edition was published in 1884, with an introduction dealing with
current illustrations of the doctrine of prayer. In issuing this third
edition I rewrite that Introduction, bringing the subject “up to
date.”
My Essay was originally entitled 77/e Futility of Prayer, but the second
edition bore the more forcible title of The Folly of Prayer. I am con
vinced that Heine was right when he said that “ the superfluous is
harmful.” Progress is so huge a task, so arduous, and so painful, that
any diversion of human energy into unprofitable channels is a disaster.
If prayer is futile, it is a folly.
I omitted in my Essay to mention the recovery of the Prince of
Wales from gastric fever, many years ago, and the National Thanks
giving Service held in St. Paul’s Cathedral. What orgies of religious
excitement were worked up by the London press, and notably by that
eminently pious journal, the Daily Telegraph ! How we were bidden
tofwatch the great national wave of prayer surging against the throne
of grace! Thanks to a good constitution, and the highest medical
skill, the Prince recovered. But the clergy insisted that his recovery
was due to prayer. Accordingly they organised a stupendous farce at
St. Paul’s, where they thanked God for his marvellous mercy. But
amidst all the delirium the authorities retained a little sagacity. The
doctors were handsomely rewarded, and one of them was elevated to
the dignity of a knight. Deity received the empty praise, and the
phvsiciansthe solid pudding.
Several years after that interesting event, President Garfield was
assassinated by a wretched being, whose mind was diseased with vanity
and religion. Week after week science fought with death over the
President’s sick bed, while prayers for his recovery were offered up in
every church and chapel in the United States. But his life ebbed
slowly away amid a people’s supplications. If prayer saved the life of
�Introduction.
the P rince of Wales, why did it not save the life of President Garfield ?
Is God a respecter of persons? Or is the Deity so monarchical that
he will not succor the President of a Republc ? It is difficult to see
how the fatality of Guiteau’s bullet can be explained, without denying
the effioac y of prayer, or impeaching the character of God.
When France and Italy were visited by the cholera, in 1884, it
naturally excited the popular superstition. Religious processions and
public prayers to the Virgin were frequently demanded, but the civic
authorities resisted these pious clamors, and it is a remarkable fact that
they were usually supported by the higher priests, who were sensible
enough to perceive that excitement would render the multitude more
susceptible to the plague. There can be litttle doubt that, if England
were visited by the plague, our higher clergy would exhibit the same
prudence, although our Prayer Book contains a form of “prayer in
time of sickness.”
During the present year the north of Italy and the south of France
have suffered from earthquakes. But while the gambling hell of Monte
Carlo was scarcely shaken, the sacred edifices of many other towns
have been injured or demolished. The inhabitants of Bajardo fled
from their dwellings at the first shock, and assembled in the parish
church, where they fell on their knees, and implored the divine pro
tection. The priests and the people were praying with one voice, when
the celestial answer arrived. A fresh wave of earthquake rent the
walls, and the roof fell in on the devoted crowd, killing three hundred,
and mutilating as many more.
Such an appalling illustration of the folly of prayer might be thought
sufficient to destroy the doctrine. But superstition is not so easily
extinguished. Faith is superior to logic, and there is always a loophole
for the Deity's c scape. Prayer is like the quick-tongued gambler ; it
plays on the principle of “ heads I win, tails you lose.” All the facts
on one side are counted, and all on the other side neglected.
There is even a subtler form of the same irrationality. It is
sometimes said that God helps those who help themselves. We
must trust in God, but we must also keep our powder dry. This
exhortation, however, loses sight of the very essence of the
problem. The deity is supplicated when our own resources fail,
and it is certainly absurd to credit another being, however exalted,
with the fruits of our own wisdom, our own courage, and our
own strength. Such a one-sided doctrine is not too severely
atirised in the following epigram by James Thomson :
�Introduction.
“ God helpeth him who helps himself,
They preach to us as a fact,
Which seems to lay up God on the shelf,
And leave the man to act.
Whish seems to mean—You do the work,
Have all the trouble and pains,
While God, that indolent grand Old Turk,
Gets credit for the gains.”
It may be safely said that there is very little practical belief in the
efficacy of prayer among the clergy themselves. Whole regiments of the
Black Army may be seen at places like Bath, in search of health and
rich widows. When they fall ill they act like other men. They con
sult Dr. Science instead of Dr. Providence, and leave the Lord’s vine
yard for the seaside. Faith is the same in both places, but the air is
different, and it is a curious fact in religious chemistry that prayer is
more efficacious when it is taken with oxygen than when it is taken
with carbonic acid gas.
Mr. Spurgeon, for instance, is accounted one of the most orthodox
preachers of our age. He maintains all the time-honored doctrines of
Christianity, and among them the efficacy of prayer. But his own
practice is a curious commentary on his teaching. Whenever he is
troubled by his old acquaintance the gout, he rushes off to Mentone,
and leaves his congregation at home to pray for him ; and as soon as the
Mediterranean air and sunshine have given him relief, he writes to the
Tabernacle “ Beloved, the Lord has heard our prayers.” The
unctuous hypocrisy of all this would be beneath contempt, if religion
were not such a lively influence for evil. Not 'only could God cure
Mr. Spurgeon’s gout in South London as easily as in the South of
France, but he might extend his divine assistance to the myriad suf
ferers from disease in the back-streets and slums of the metropolis, who
do-not earn a few thousands a year by preaching the gospel, and are
unable to take a month’s holiday at a fashionable watering-place.
�THE FOLLY OF PRAYER.
“ Thebe was,” says Luther in his Table Talk, “ a great drought, as
it had not rained for a long time, and the grain in the field began
to dry up, when Dr. M. L. prayed continually and said finally with
heavy sighs : 0 Lord, pray regard our petition in behalf of thy
promise. ... I know that we cry to thee and sigh desirously ; ivhy
dost thou not hear us ? And the very next night there came a
very fine fruitful rain.” From Luther to Sammy Hicks the Yorkshireman is a fap cry, but an episode of his history somewhat
resembles this naive story of the great Reformer. Sammy Hicks
was a miller and a Methodist, and once while looking forward to a
Love Feast, at which cakes were consumed, he was sorely troubled
by a dead calm that lasted for days together,'and caused a complete
stoppage of his windmill. It so happened that all the flour was
exhausted before the calm was broken, and on the very eve of the
Love Feast there was none left for the cakes. In this extremity
recourse was had to prayer. Sammy himself, who excelled in that
line, petitioned Heaven for a breath of wind to fill his sails. In a
few moments the cheeks of the suppliants were fanned by a gentle
zephyr, which rapidly grew to a strong breeze. Around went the
sails of Sammy’s mill, until enough flour was ground to make the
Love Feast cakes, when the wind suddenly subsided and died away
as miraculously as it came.
How amusing are both Luther and Sammy Hicks, in these
instances, to the educated minds of to-day! Yet amongst, the
ignorant and those who are not imbued with the spirit of Science,
the old superstition of prayer still lingers, and ever and anon betrays
itself in speech and act. Whatever remnant of superstition exists
the priests are very careful to foster. Accordingly, whenever an
opportunity occurs, they stimulate popular folly and make them
selves the laughing-stock or contempt of the wise and thoughtful.
In Catholic countries the miracles of the Middle Ages are even now,
in this age of railways and electric telegraphs, repeated before the
shrines of new-fangled saints. Pilgrims journey to Lourdes and
other holy places, where the credulity of the multitude is equalled
by the imposture of their priests. The blood of St. Januarius still
liquefies annually at Naples, precious relics heal all manner of
�The Folly of Prayer.
7
diseases, and the Virgin appears to prayerful peasants and hysterical
nuns. In England these things do not happen, for there is not
faith enough to make them possible. Yet here also the Catholic
priests get souls out of purgatory by the saying of masses which
have to be duly paid for; and our own Protestant priests, who have
relinquished almost every peculiar function of their office, still
retain one, that of standing between us and bad weather. We may
call them our Kain Doctors, a name applied to the African medicine
men, who beat gongs and dance and shout to scare off the sun and
bring down rain when the land is parched with drought. The
difference between a bishop of the English Church praying for sun
shine and an African medicine-man howling for wet, is purely
accidental and nowise intrinsic. Intellectually they stand on the
same level, the sole difference being that one goes through his per
formance in a vulgar and the other in a high-bred fashion. Perhaps
there is another difference ; one may be honest and the other dis
honest, one sincere and the other hypocritical. Cato wondered how
two augurs could meet without laughter, and probably it would be
comical to witness the meeting of two friendly parsons after a lusty
bout of prayer for fine weather.
In 1879 we were afflicted with a descent of rain scarcely paral
leled in the century. Through the spring and through the summer
the deluge persisted, and each month seemed to bring more violent
storms than its predecessors. Yet our Hain Doctors kept as quiet as
mice. Perhaps they reflected that it was scarcely politic to pray
for sunshine until the Americans had ceased to telegraph the
approach of fresh tempests. How different from the African Bain
Doctors, who will pray for rain while the sun glares torrid and
implacable, and no cloudlet mitigates the awful azure of heaven !
But, deceived by a brief spell of fine weather in the middle of July,
they suddenly plucked up courage and proceeded to counsel Omni
science. The result was woeful. On the very next Sunday after
prayers for fine weather began to be offered, a terrific storm burst
over the land, and for weeks after the rain was almost incessant.
During one week in August only seventeen hours of sunshine were
registered in London.
The harvest was spoiled, about forty
million pounds’ worth of produce was lost to the country, and
farmers looked in the face of ruin.
This was the answer to
prayer !
Yet the votaries of superstition and their priestly abettors will
not admit the futility of prayer. Their reasoning is like the
gambler’s “ heads I win, tails you lose ” ! All the facts that tell
for their case are allowed to count, and all that tell against it are
excluded. If what they pray for happens, that proves the efficacy
�8
The Folly of Prayer.
of prayer ; if it does not happen, that proves nothing at all. Such
is the logic of superstition in every age and clime.
Notwithstanding the occasional outbursts of our Rain Doctors,
it is evident that the docrine of Prayer is being gradually refined
away, like many other doctrines of theology. It originated in
simpler times, when people thought that something tangible could
be got by it. Whenever danger or difficulty confronted our bar
barous ancestors, they naturally looked to the god or gods of their
faith for assistance. If any transcendental philosopher or mystical
theologian had told them that prayer was not a practical request
but a spiritual aspiration, they would have answered with a stare
of astonishment. Even the New Testament embodies the belief of
the savage, although in a slightly refined form, and the Lord’s
Prayer contains a distinct request for daily bread. Before the
advent of science, when men ignorantly and unskilfully wrestled
with the 'manifold evils of fife, their prayers for aid were grimly
earnest, and often the last cry of despair. Fire, earthquake, flood,
famine, and pestilence, afflicted them sorely ; often they gazed
blankly on sheer ruin ; and in lifting their supplicating hands and
eyes and voice, they besought no spiritual anodyne, but a real out
ward relief. The hand of supernatural power was expected to
visibly interpose on their behalf. Now, however, the idea of prayer
is greatly changed for all save a few fools or fanatics. Educated
Christians, for the most part, do not appear to think that objective
miracles are wrought in answer to prayer. They think that now
God only works subjective miracles, and by operating upon men’s
hearts, produces results that would not happen in the natural
course of things. According to this subtler form of superstition,
outward circumstances are never interfered with, but our inward
condition is changed to suit them. Thus, if a ship were speeding
onward to some fatal danger of simoon or sunken reef, God would
not alter the circuit of the storm, or remove the rocks from the
ship’s path, but if he deigned to interpose would work upon the
captain’s mind and induce him to deviate from his appointed course.'
If an innocent man were sentenced to be hung, God would not
break’the rope or strike the executioner blind, but he might influ
ence the Home Secretary to grant a reprieve. Or if in a thunder
storm we had sought the shelter of a tree, God would not divert
the lightning, although he might, just before it struck the tree,
whisper that we had better move on.
This last refinement of the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer is
very intelligible to the psychologist. Physical science has thoroughly
demonstrated the reign of law in the material universe, and
educated people are indisposed to look for miracles in that direc-
�The Folly of Troyer.
9
tion, notwithstanding the occasional attempts of our rain doctors
to cure bad weather with spiritual medicines. But mental science
has produced much less effect. Man’s mind is still supposed to be
a chaos, haunted and mysteriously influenced by a phantasmal free
will. Save by a few philosophers and students, the reign of law is
not suspected to obtain there. Accordingly the miracles which
were thought to occur in the material world are now relegated to
the spiritual world—a ghoul-haunted region wherein there survives
a home for them. Yet progress is being made here also, and we1
may confidently predict that as miracles have been banished from
the domain of matter, so they will be banished from the domain of
mind. The reign of law, it will be perceived, is universal within us
as without us. It is manifested alike in the growth of a blade of
grass and in the silent procession of the stars ; alike in tumult and
in peace, in the loud overwhelming storm or engulphing earth
quake, and in the soft-falling rain or golden sunshine nurturing
the grass in a thousand valleys and ripening the harvest on a
thousand plains ; and no less apparent in the noblest leaps of
passion and the highest flights of thought, but binding all things
in one harmonious whole, so that the brain of Shakespeare and tne
heart of Buddha acknowledge kinship with the mountains, waves
and skies.
e
Meanwhile the sceptic asks the believer in prayer to justify it,
and show that it is not merely a superstitious and foolish waste of
energy. The proper spirit in which to approach this subject is the
rational and not the credulous. The efficacy of prayer is a question
to be decided by the methods of science. If efficacious, prayer is a
cause, and its presence may be detected by experiment or investiga
tion. The experimental method is the best, but there is difficulty
in applying it as the believers perversely refuse to undertake their
share of the process. Professor Tyndall on behalf (I think) of Sir
Henry Thompson, has proposed that a ward in some hospital should
be set apart, and the patients in it specially prayed for, so that it
might be ascertained whether more cures were effected in it than
in other wards containing similar patients, and tended by the same
medical and nursing skill. This proposal the theologians fought
shy of ; and one of them (Dr. Littledale) gravely rebuked Professor
Tyndall for presuming to think that God Almighty would submit
to be made the subject of a scientific experiment. Theologically
there is much force in this objection, although scientifically and
morally there is none. A universal Father would assuredly welcome
such a test of his goodness, but the proud irascible God of theology
would be sure to frown upon it, and signalise his preference for the
fine old plan of closing our eyes while opening our mouths to
�10
The Folly of Prayer.
receive his benefactions. There is a way, however, to take him at
it were by a side-wind. There are certain things impossible even
to Omnipotence. Sidney Smith (I think) said that God himself
could not make a clock strike less than one. Nor can any power
revoke what has already occurred.
“Not heaven itself upon the past has power,”
as Dryden tells us. The past is irrevocable, and we may investi
gate it for the purpose of ascertaining whether prayer has been
efficacious, without the least fear of being baffled by any power in
the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the
earth. People have prayed enough in the past—far more, indeed,
than they are likely to pray in the future—and if we find that their
prayers have been futile, the whole question at issue must be con
sidered as practically decided in the negative.
Let us dismiss all appeals to individual experience, and deal only
with broad classes of facts. It is quite impossible in any particular
case to determine whether prayer has been answered or not, even
when the object besought has been wholly obtained. A single
result is so often produced by a combination of causes, some obvious
and direct, and others obscure and indirect, that we cannot abso
lutely say whether the natural agencies have operated alone or in
conjunction with a supernatural power. If after long and fervent
prayers a precious life has been spared, it cannot be affirmed that
prayer was a cause of the recovery, since the sick person might,
have recovered without it. Nor, on the other hand, can it be
affirmed that prayer was not a cause, since the sick person might,
have died without it. Our ignorance in such cases precludes us
from deciding one way or the other. The only way to neutralise
this is to examine general categories, to take whole classes of
persons, and see whether those who pray get what they ask for any
more than those who do not pray, or if classes of persons who are
prayed for by others are more favored than those who enjoy no
such advantage.
Pursuing this line of inquiry, Mr. Francis Galton, the author of
a remarkable work on “Hereditary Genius,” was led many years
ago to collect and collate statistics relative to the subject of prayer,
which he subsequently published in the Fortnightly Review of
August, 1872. Mr. Galton’s article did not, so far as I am aware,
attract the attention it deserved. Its facts and conclusions are of
great importance, and the remainder of my own essay will be
largely indebted to it.
Let us take first the case of recovery from sickness. It has been
frequently remarked that sickness is more afflictive than death
�The Folly of Tray er.
11
itself, and it is common for persons who suffer from it, if they are
at all of a religious turn of mind, to pray for relief and restoration
to health. Their relatives also pray for them. However pious men
may be, they always submit to Omniscience their own view of the
case when their lives are in the least degree endangered; and how
ever fervently they believe in the eternal and ineffable felicities of
heaven, they are scarcely ever content to leave this vale of tears.
They desire as long a continuance of life on this earth as the sceptic
does. Often, indeed, they repine far more than the sceptic at the
ordinance of fate. Now, as a matter of fact, is it found that
pious persons of a prayerful disposition recover from sickness more
frequently than worldly persons who are not in the habit of praying
at all? If so, the medical profession would long ago have dis
covered it, and prayer would have taken a recognised place among
sanative agencies. On this point Mr. Galton writes as follows :—
“ The medical works of modern Europe teem with records of individual
illnesses and of broad averages of disease, but I have been able to discover
hardly any instance in which a medical man of any repute has attributed
recovery to the influence of prayer. There is not a single instance, to^my
knowledge, in which papers read before statistical societies have recognised
the agency of prayer either on disease or on anything else. The universal
habit of the scientific world to ignore the agency of prayer is a very important
fact. To fully appreciate the ‘ eloquence of the silence ’ of medical men, we
must bear in mind the care with which they endeavor to assign a sanitary
value to every influence. Had prayers for the sick any notable effect, it is
incredible but that the doctors, who are always on the watch for such things,
should have observed it, and added their influence to that of the priests
towards obtaining them for every sick man. If they abstain from doing so,
it is not because their attention has never been awakened to the possible
efficacy of prayer, but, on the contrary, that although they have heard jt
insisted on from childhood upwards, they are unable to detect its influence.”
It thus appears that prayer is a medicine only in the pharma
copoeia of the priests. Many doctors rather dislike it. A medical
friend of mine, who hated the sight of a parson, used always to
keep any member of the clerical fraternity waiting outside the
sick-room door in extreme cases, until it was certain that death
would supervene. He would then allow the reverend gentleman to
go through his performance, knowing that he could do harm. My
friend said that when his patients required absolute repose their
nerves were often agitated in his absence by obtrusive and officious
priests.
A class of persons who are specially and generally prayed for are
kings and queens and other members of royal families. A high
value is always set on things which cost a great deal. Royal per
sonages are very expensive, and we naturally esteem and love them
according to their cost. Animated by an amiable desire that they
�12
The Folly of Prayer.
may long live to spend the money we delight to shower upon them, '
we pray that God will prolong their existence beyond that of ordinary
mortals. “ Grant her in health and wealth long to live,” is the
prayer offered up for the Queen in our State churches, and the
same petition is made in hundreds of Nonconformist chapels. If,
then, there be any efficacy in prayer, kings should enjoy a greater
longevity than their subjects. We do not, however, find this to be
the case. The average age of ninety-seven members of royal houses
who lived from 1758 to 1843, and survived their thirtieth year,
was 54-04 years, which is nearly two years less than the average
age of the shortest-lived of the well-to-do classes, and more than
six years less than that of the longest. Sovereigns are literally the
shortest lived of all who have the advantage of affluence. In their
case it is evident that prayer has been absolutely of no avail.
Another class of men very much prayed for are the clergy. They
pray for themselves, and as they all profess to be called to the
ministry by the Holy Ghost their prayers should be unusually effica
cious. If there be any faith capable of removing mountains, they
should possess it. If the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much, the fervent prayer of a parson should avail exceedingly.
Now the clergy pray not for spiritual light and help, but also for
temporal blessings. They like to prosper here as well as hereafter,
and are adepts in the sublime art, reprobated by Jesus but lumi
nously expounded and forcibly commended by Dr. Binney, of making
the best of both worlds. They believe in heaven, but are in no
haste to get there, being content to defer occupation of the heavenly "
mansions in store for them until they can no longer inhabit the
snug residences provided for them here. With a laudable desire
to enjoy the bird-in-the-hand to the uttermost before resorting to
the bird-in-the-bush, which is sure to await their convenience, they
naturally pray for health, and therefore long life, since health and
longevity are inseparable friends. Yet we do not find that they
live longer than their less pious brethren. The average age attained
to by the clergy from 1758 to 1843, according to Mr. Galton’s
statistics, was 69-49 years, while that of lawyers was 68-14, and of
medical men 67-31. Here is a slight advantage on the side of the
clergy, but it is amply accounted for by the greater ease and com
fort so many of them enjoy, and the general salubrity of their
surroundings.
The difference is, however, reversed when a
comparison is made between distinguished members of the three
classes—that is to say, between persons of sufficient note to have
had their lives recorded in a biographical dictionary. Then we
find the respective mean ages of the clergy, lawyers and doctors, are
66-42, 66-51 and 67-04, the clergy being the shortest lived of the
�The Folly of Prayer.
13
three. Thus they succumb sooner than the members of secular
professions to a heavy demand on their energies. Prayer does not
protect them from sickness, does not recover them when they are
laid low, or in the least prolong their precious lives. They are no
more favored than the ungodly; one fate befalls them both. In
their case also prayer has been absolutely of no avail.
The same law obtains with regard to missionaries. They are not
miraculously protected from sickness or danger, from perils by night
or the pestilence that walketh by day. The duration of life among
them is accurately proportioned to the hazards of their profession.
Yet theirs is a case wherein prayer should be peculiarly effectual.
Arriving in a remote region of the earth, they are almost powerless
until they have acquired a thorough knowledge of the language
and habits of the people. They are engaged in the Lord’s work,
and if any persons are watched over by him they should be. Yet
at dangerous stations one missionary after another dies shortly
after arrival, and their efforts are thus literally wasted, while the
work naturally suffers because the Lord does not economise the
missionary power which has been provided for it. Ships also have
sunk with missionaries on board before they could even reach their
destination ; and the Lord has so far refrained from working sub
jective miracles on their behalf, that missionaries have been in some
cases digested in the stomachs of the very savages whose souls they
had journeyed thousands of miles to convert.
Parents are naturally very anxious as to their offspring, and it
is to be presumed that the children of pious fathers and mothers
are earnestly and constantly prayed for. This solicitude antedates
birth, it being generally deemed a misfortune for a child to be
still-born, and often a serious evil for death to deprive it of baptism,
without which salvation is difficult if not impossible. In extreme
•cases the Catholic Church provided for the baptism of the child in
the womb. Yet the prayers of pious parents are not found to
-exercise any appreciable influence. Mr. Galton analysed the lists
of the Record and the Times of a particular period, and the propor
dion of still-births to the total number of deaths was discovered to
be exactly the same in both. A more conclusive test than this
could scarcely be devised.
Our nobility are another class especially prayed for. The pre
scription for their case may be found in the Church Liturgy. In
a worldly sense they are undoubtedly very prosperous ; they live
on the fat of the land, and enjoy all kinds of privileges. But these
are not the advantages we ask God to bestow upon them ; we pray
“ that the nobility may be endued with grace, wisdom and under
standing.” And what is the result ? The history of our glorious
�14
The Folly of Prayer.
aristocracy shows them to have always been singularly devoid of
“ grace,” in the religious sense of the word; and they have mani
fested a similar plentiful lack of “wisdom and understanding.”
Even in politics, despite their exceptional training and opportunities,
they have been beaten by unprayed-for commoners. Cromwell,
Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Canning, all arose outside the sacred
precincts of nobility. Gladstone is the son of a Liverpool merchant,
and Earl Beaconsfield was the son of a literary Jew. In science,
philosophy, literature and art, how few aristocrats have distinguished
themselves! Further, as Mr. Galton points out, “wisdom and
understanding ” are incompatible with insanity. Yet our nobility
are not exempted from that frightful scourge. On the contrary,
owing to their intermarriages, and the lack of those wholesome
restraints felt in humbler walks of life, they are peculiarly liable
to it. Clearly the aristocracy have not been benefited by our
prayers.
Let us now turn to another aspect of the question. How is it
that insurance companies make no allowance for prayers ? When
a man wishes to insure his life, confidential questions are asked
about his antecedents and his present condition, but the question,
“ Does he habitually pray ?” is never ventured. Yet, if prayer
conduces to health and longevity, this question is of great import
ance ; nay, of the very greatest; for what are hereditary tendencies
to disease, or the physical effects of previous modes of living, to a
man under the especial protection of God ? Insurance offices,
however, eliminate prayer from their calculations. They do not
recognise it as a sanitary influence, and this fact proves that there
is no efficacy in prayer or that its efficacy is so slight as to be
altogether inappreciable.
Suppose the owner of two ships, similarly built and rigged, and
bound for the same port, wanted to insure them for the voyage ;
and suppose the one ship had a pious captain and crew taken redhot from a Methodist prayer-meeting, while the captain and crew
of the other ship, although excellent seamen, never entered a place
of worship, never bent their knees in prayer, and never spoke of
God except to take his name in vain. Would any difference be
made in the rate of insurance ? Assuredly not. And if the owner,
being a soft-headed sincere Christian, should say to the agent:
“ But, my dear sir, the ship with the pious captain and crew, who
will certainly pray for their safety every day, runs much less risk
than the other, for the Lord has promised that he will answer
prayer, that he will watch over those who trust him, and that what
soever they ask, believing, that they shall receive,” what would the
answer be ? Probably this : “ My dear sir, as a Christian I admit
�The Folly of Prayer.
15
the truth of what you say, but I can’t mix up my religion with my
business. That sort of thing is all very well in church on Sunday,
you know, but it doesn’t do any other day in the week down in the
City.”
The decline and final extinction of belief in ordeals and duels
is an episode in the history of prayer. Both these superstitious
processes were appeals to God to decide what was indeterminable
by human logic. In the ordeal of jealousy, so revoltingly set forth
in the fifth chapter of Numbers, the same curious concoction was
given to all suspected wives, and the difference in the effect pro
duced was attributable solely to the interposition of God. The
same idea prevailed in other forms during the chaotic Middle Ages,
notably in connection with the witch mania. Some idea of the
critical ability which accompanied it may be gathered from the fact
that “ witches ” were often tied at the hands and feet, and thrown
into the nearest pond or river : if they swam they were guilty, and
at once burnt or hung, and if they sank they were innocent, but of
course they were drowned! The duel was explicitly sanctioned
and sometimes commanded by the ecclesiastical and secular autho
rities, and it was devoutly believed that God would give the victory
to the just and overthrow the wrong. This belief has died out,
but a reflex of it exists in the fond idea, not yet wholly discarded,
that the God of battles fights on the side of his favorites. Only
the simpletons think thus, and only the charlatans of clericalism
abet them. All the praying in the world is powerless against
superior tactics, more scientific arms, greater numbers, and better
discipline. Victory, as Napoleon remarked, is on the side of the
heaviest battalions ; and prayer, as a counteractant to such advan
tages, is just as efficacious as the celebrated pill to cure earthquakes.
Driven from all tangible strongholds by inevitable logic, the
believers in prayer take final refuge in their cloud-citadel of faith.
They maintain that there is a spiritual if not a material efficacy in
prayer, that communion with God exalts and purifies their inner
nature, and thus indirectly influences the course of events. “ Cer
tainly,” says a man of magnificent genius, though not a Materialist,
“it does alter him who prays, and alters him supremely, changing
despair into hope, confusion into steady light, timidity into confi
dence, cowardice into courage, hatred into love, and the genius of
compromise into the spirit of martyrdom.”* Far be it from me to
deny this. It is attested by the life and death of many a patient
saint and martyred hero. But the God communed with has been
after all not a person, but a lofty ideal, varying in each according
* Dr Garth Wilkinson, Human Science awl Divine Revelation, p. ■8).
�16
The Folly of Prayer,
to the greatness and purity of his nature. A similar communion,
in essence the very same, is possible to the Humanitarian, who feels
himself descended from the endless past, bound to the living and
working present, and in a measure the parent of an endless future.
His ideal of an ever-striving and ever-conquering Humanity,
emerging generation after generation into loftier levels, and
leaving at its feet the lusts and follies of its youth, serves him
instead of a personal God; and in moments snatched from the
hot strife of the world he can commune with it, either through its
.great poets and prophets, or solely through the vision of his own
higher self, which is essential humanity within him, and thus find
serenity and ennoblement of resolve. This communion, into which
religious prayer may ultimately merge, will survive, because while
inspiring it does not outrage intellect and fact. The laws of nature
will not be suspended to suit our needs; for—•
“ Nature with equal mind
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away 1
Allows the proudly riding and the foundered bark.”*
But “ the music born of love,” as another poet tells us, will “ ease
the world’s immortal pain.” Finding no help outside ourselves,
seeing no Providence to succor and comfort the afflicted, no hand
to lift up the down-trodden and establish the weak, to wipe the
tears from sorrowing eyes and convey balm to wounded hearts ;
knowing that except we listen the wail of human anguish is un
heard, and that unless we give it no aid can come ; we shall feel
more imperative upon us the duties and holy charities of life. If
the world’s misery cannot be assuaged by. fatherly love from heaven,
all the more need is there for brotherly love on earth.
♦ Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The folly of prayer
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. First published 1880 under title The futility of prayer; 2nd ed. 1884. Printed and published by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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Progressive Publishing Company
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1887
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N239
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Prayer
Religious practice
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The folly of prayer), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
NSS
Prayer
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Text
CT 431
THE
BEAUTIES
OF
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
PAET
PUBLISHED
II.
BY THOMAS
SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1876..
Price Sixpence.
�4
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
them, and therefore celebrates the service with much
of the ancient pomp ; while the other furiously rejects
this so-called idolatry, and makes the service as bare
and as simple as possible. Both parties can claim
parts of the Communion Office as upholding their
special views, for the English service has passed
through much of tinkering from High and Low, and
retains the marks of the alterations that have been
made by each.
To those outside the Church this office has particu
lar attraction, as being, in a special manner, a link
between the past and the present, and being full of
traces of the ancient religion of the world, that catho
lic sun-worship of which Christianity is a modernised
revival. From the Nicene Creed, in which Jesus is
described as “ God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God, Begotten not made, Being of one sub
stance with the Father, By Whom all things were
made ”—from this point we breathe the full atmo
sphere of the elder world, and find ourselves engaged
■in the worship of that Light of Light, who, being the
image of the invisible God, the first-born of every
creature, has for ages and ages been adored as incar
nate in Mithra, in Christna, in Osiris, in Christ. We
give thanks for “the redemption of the world by the
death and passion of ‘ the Sun-Saviour, who suffered
on the Cross for us,’ who lay in darkness and in the
shadow of death
we praise Him who fills heaven
and earth with His glory, and who rose as “ the Pas
chal Lamb,” and has “ taken away the sin of the
world,” bearing away in the sign of the Lamb the
darkness and dreariness of the winter; we remember
the Holy Ghost, the fresh spring wind, who, “as it
had been a mighty wind,” came to bring us “out of
darkness ” into “ the clear light ” of the sun; then
we see the priest, with his face turned to the sun
rising, take the bread and wine, the symbols of the
God, and bless them for the food of men, these sym
�The Communion Service.
$
bols being changed into the very substance of the
deity, for are they not, in very truth, of him alone ?
“ How naturally does the eternal work of the sun, daily
renewed, express itself in such lines as
‘ Into bread his heat is turned,
Into generous wine his light.’
And imagining the sun as a person, the change to
‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ becomes inevitable; while the
fact that the solar forces are actually changed into
food, without forfeiting their solar character, finds
expression in the doctrines of transubstantiation and
the real presence.” (‘Keys of the Creeds,’ page 91.)
After this union with the Deity, by partaking of his
very self, we praise once more the “ Lamb of God
that takest away the sins of the world,” and is “ most
high in the glory of God the Father.” The resem
blance is made the nearer in the churches where much
of ceremony is found (although noticeable in all, since
that resemblance is stereotyped in the formulas them
selves ; but in the more elaborate performances the
old rites are more clearly apparent) in the tonsured
head of the priest, in the suns often embroidered on
vestment and on altar-cloth, in the rays that surround
the sacred monogram on the vessels, in the cross im
printed on the bread, and marking each utensil, in the
lighted candles, in the grape-vine chiselled on the
chalice—in all these, and in many another symbol,
we read the whole story of the Sun-god, written in
hieroglyphics as easily decipherable by the initiated as
is the testimony of the rocks by the geologian.
But passing by this antiquarian side of the Office,
we will examine it as a service suitable for the use of
educated and thoughtful people at the present time.
The Rubric which precedes the Office is one of those
unfortunate rules which are obsolete as regards their
practice, and yet which—from their preservation—■
appear to simple-minded parsons to be intended to
be enforced, whereby the said parsons fall into the
�6
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
clutches of the law, and suffer grievously. “ An open
and notorious evil-liver ” must not be permitted to
come to the Lord’s Table, and this expression sepms
to be explained in the Exhortation in the Office,
wherein we read: “if any of you be a blasphemer of
God, an hinderer or slanderer of His word, an adul
terer, or be in malice, or envy, or in any other
grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come
not to that holy Table; lest, after the taking of that
holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered
into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and
bring you to destruction both of body and soul.”
In a late case, the Sacrament was refused to one who
disbelieved in the devil and who slandered God’s
word, on those very grounds, and it would seem to
be an act of Christian charity so to deny it; for
surely to say that part of God’s word is “ contrary to
religion and decency” must be to slander it, if words
have any meaning, and people who do not believe in
the devil ought hardly to be sharers in a rite after
which the devil will enter into them with such melan
choly consequences. It would seem more consistent
either to alter the formulas or else to carry them out;
true, one clergyman wrote that the responsibility lay
with the unworthy recipient who “ did nothing else
but increase ” his “ damnation,” but it is scarcely a
pleasing notion that the clergyman should stand in
viting people to the Lord’s table and, coolly handing
to one of those who accept, the body of Christ,
say, “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve
thy body and soul unto everlasting life,” when he
means—in the delicate language used by the abovementioned clergyman—“ The Body of our Lord Jesus
Christ damn thy body and soul unto everlasting
death.” No one but a clergyman could dream of so
offensive a proceeding, and, to those who believe, one
so terribly awful.
The Ten Commandments which stand in the fore-
�The Communion Service.
7
front of the service are very much out of place as
regards some of them, to say nothing of the want
of truthfulness in the assertion, that “ God spake
these words,” &c. In the second we are forbidden
to make any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing, a command which would destroy all art, and
which no member of the congregation can have the
smallest notion of obeying. The Jews, who made
the cherubim over the ark, upon which God sat, are
popularly supposed not to have disobeyed this command,
because the cherubim were not the likeness of any
thing in heaven, earth, or water : they were, like
unicorns, creatures undiscovered and undiscoverable.
Yet in direct opposition to this command, Solomon
made brazen oxen to support his sea of brass (1
Kings vii. 25, 29), and lions on the steps of his
ivory throne (1 Kings x. 19, 20) ; and God himself is
said to have ordered Moses to make a Brazen Serpent.
God is described, in this same Commandment, as
“ a jealous God ”— which is decidedly immoral
and unpleasant—who visits “ the sins of the fathers
upon the children, unto the third and fourth gene
ration of them that hate me;” the justice of this
is so obvious that no comment on it is necessary.
The fourth Commandment is another which no one
dreams of attending to ; in the first place, we do
not keep the seventh day at all, and in the second,
our man-servant, our maid-servant, and our cattle
do all manner of work on the day we keep as
the Sabbath. Further, who in the present day be
lieves that “ in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the
seventh day; ” geology, astronomy, ethnology have
taught us otherwise, and, among those who repeat
the response to this commandment in a London
church, not one could probably be found who believes
it to be true. The fifth Commandment is equally out
of place, for dutiful children do not live any longer
�8
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
than undutiful. The remainder touch simple moral
duties, enforced by all creeds alike, and are notice
able for their omissions and not for their commis
sions : the insertion of the Buddhist Commandment
against intoxication, for instance, would be an im
provement, although such a commandment is natu
rally not to be found in the case of so gross and
sensual a people as the ancient Jews. The alterna
tive prayers for the Queen, which follow next, are
only worth noting, because the first enshrines the
doctrine of divine right, which is long since dead and
buried, except in church; and the other says “ that
the hearts of Kings are in thy rule and governance,”
and suggests the thought that, if this be so, it is
better to be out of that “rule and governance,” the
effects on the hearts of Kings not having been speci
ally attractive. The Nicene Creed comes next, and
is open to the objections before made against the
Apostles’ Creed ; the last clauses relating to the Holy
Ghost are historically interesting, since the “ and the
Son ” forms the Filioque which severed Eastern from
Western Christendom ; “ Who with the Father and
*
the Son together” ought to be “worshipped and
glorified,” would be more true to fact than “is,”
since the Holy Ghost is sadly ignored by modern
Christendom, and has a very small share of either
* A short, but very graphic account of the shameful transac
tion by which the Filioque clause was, so to speak, smuggled
into the Nicene Creed, is to be found in the first ten or twelve
pages of the shilling pamphlet written by Edmund S. Ffoulkes,
B.D., entitled “The Church’s Creed, or the Crown’s Creed,”
published by J. T. Hayes, Ly all-place, Eaton-square, Lon
don. The following short prayer, ‘ ‘ Mentes nostras, quaasumus, Domine, Paraclitus, qui a te procedit, illuminet: et
inducat in omnem, sicut tuus promisit Filius, veritatem ” (i-’ide
Praeparatio ad Missam, in the “Missale Romanum”), clearly
proves, too, that the Church of Rome once held that the Holy
Ghost only proceeded from the Father, as the Dominus in it
can only refer to the Father.
�The Communion Service.
9
prayers or hymns: yet he is the husband of the
Virgin Mary, and the Father of Jesus Christ; he is,
therefore, a very important, though puzzling, person
in the Godhead, being the Father of him from whom
he himself proceeds: this is a mystery, and can only
be understood by faith. The texts that follow are
remarkable for their ingenious selection : “ Who goeth
a warfare,” &c. (1 Cor. ix. 7) ; “If we have sown,”
&c. (1 Cor. ix. 9) ; “ Do ye not know,” &c. (1 Cor. ix.
13) ; “He that soweth little” (2 Cor. ix. 6); “Let
him that is taught” (Gal. vi. 6). The pervading selfish
ness of motive is also worth noting : Give now in order
that ye may get hereafter ; “Never turn thy face from
any poor man, and then the face of the Lord shall not be
turned away from thee“ He that hath pity upon the
poor lendeth unto the Lord: and look,what he layeth out,
it shall be paid him again;” “If thou hast much, give
plenteously; if thou hast little, do thy diligence
gladly to give of that little ; for so gathered thou thyself
a good reward in the day of necessity.”* No free, glad
giving here ; no willing, joyful aid to a poorer brother,
because he needs what I can give; no ready offer of
the cup of cold water, simply because the thirsty is
there and wants the refreshment; ever the hateful
whisper comes : “ thou shall in no wise lose thy
reward.” These time-serving offerings are then pre
sented to God by being placed “ upon the holy Table,”
and we then get another prayer for Queen, Christian
Kings, authorities, Bishops and people in general,
concluding with thanks for the dead, not a cheerful
subject to bless God for, if there chance to be pre
sent any mourner whose heart is sore with the loss of
As if the clergy, with very few exceptions, are not suffi
ciently provided for by the tithes, &c., without having to go
a-begging like either Buddhist or Roman Catholic monks, to
both of whom P.P. and P.M. are not inappropriately applied
(Professors of Poverty and Practisers of Mendicancy).
�IO
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
a beloved one. At this point the service is supposed
to end, when no celebration of the Holy Communion
is intended, and here we find two Exhortations, or
notices of celebration, from the first of which we have
already quoted : in the second, we cannot help re
*
marking the undignified position in which God is
placed; it is a “grievous and unkind thing” not to
come to a rich feast when invited thereto, wherefore
we are to fear lest by withdrawing ourselves from
this holy Supper, we “provoke God’s indignation
against ” us. “ Consider with yourselves how great
injury ye do unto God what a very curious expres
sion. Is God thus at the mercy of man ? Surely, then,
of all living Beings the lot of God must be the sad
dest, if his happiness and his glory are in the hands
of each man and woman ; the greater his knowledge
the greater the misery, and as his knowledge is per
fect, and the vast majority of human kind know and
care nothing about him, his wretchedness must be
complete. All things being ready, the clergyman
begins by another Exhortation, of somewhat
threatening character : “ So is the danger great if we
receive the same unworthily. For then we are guilty
of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we
cat and drink our own damnation, not considering
the Lord’s Body; we kindle God’s wrath against us ;
we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases, and
sundry kinds of death.” (Surely we cannot be
plagued with more than one kind of death at
once, and we can’t die sundry times, even after the
Communion.) One almost wonders why anyone
accepts this very threatening invitation, even though
* It is, however, only just to say that that portion of it con
tained between “ The Way and Means thereto, ” and “ Offences
at God’s Hands,” is one of the best bits in the whole PrayerBook, and which far surpasses the generality of sermons one
hears afterwards.
�The Communion Service.
11
there are advantages promised to “meet partakers.”
The High Church party have indeed the right to talk
much of the real presence, since ordinary bread and
wine have none of these fearful penalties attached to
the eating and drinking, and some curious change
must have taken place in them before all these terrible
consequences can ensue. What would happen if some
consecrated bread and wine chanced to be left by mis
take, and a stray comer into the vestry eat it unknow
ingly F One thinks of Anne Askew, who, told that
a mouse eating a crumb fallen from the Host would
infallibly be damned, replied, “ Alack, poor mouse ! ”
Then follows a Confession of the most cringing kind,
fit only for the lips of some coward suppliant crouch
ing at the feet of an Eastern monarch; it is marvel
lous that free English men and women can frame
their lips into phrases of such utter abasement, even
to a God ; manliness in religion is sorely needed,
unless, indeed, God be something smaller than man,
and be pleased with a degradation painful to human
eyes. The prayer of consecration is the central point
of the ordinance; of old they prayed for the descent
of the Holy Ghost on the elements, “ for whatsoever the
Holy Ghost toucheth is sanctified and clean”—it is not
explained how the Holy Ghost, being omnipresent,
manages to avoid touching everything—and now the
priest asks that in receiving the bread and wine we
“ may be partakers of” Christ’s Body and Blood, and
repeats the words, “ This is my Body,” “ This is my
Blood,” laying his hand alternately over the bread
and the wine; now if this means anything, if it is not
mere mockery, it means that after tfie consecration the
bread and wine are other than they were before ; if
it does not mean this, the whole prayer is simply
a farce, a piece of acting scarcely decent under the
circumstances. But flesh and blood ! Putting aside
the extreme repulsiveness of the idea, the coarseness
of the act, the utter unpleasantness of eating flesh
�12
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
and drinking blood, all of which has become non
disgusting by habit and fashion, and the distasteful
ness of which can scarcely be realised by any believer
—putting aside all this, is there any change in th©
bread and wine ? Examine it; analyse it; test it in
any and every fashion; still it answers back to the
questioner, “ bread and wine.” Are our senses de
ceived ? Then try a hundred different persons; all
cannot be deceived alike. Unless every result of
experience is untrustworthy, we have here to do with
bread and wine, and with nothing more. “ But faith
is needed.” Ah yes ! There is the secret: no flesh
and blood without faith ; no miracle without credu
lity. Miracle-working priests are only successful
among credulously-disposed people; miracles can only
be received by those who think it less likely that Na
ture should speak falsely than that man should deceive;
those who believe in this change through consecration
cannot be touched by argument; they have closed,
their eyes that they may not see, their ears that they
may not hear ; no knowledge can reach them, for they
have shut the gateways whereby it could enter, they
are literally dead in their superstition, buried beneath
the stone of their faith. The reception of the Body
and Blood of Christ being over, the people having
knelt to eat and drink, as is only right when eating
and drinking Christ (John vi. 57), the Lord’s Prayer
is said for the second time, a prayer and thanksgiving
follows, confined to “we and all thy whole Church,”
for the spirit is the same as that of the prayer of
Christ, “ I pray not for the world, but forthem whom
thou hast given me” (John xvii. 9), and then the
service winds up with the Gloria in Bxcelsis and the
Benediction. Such is the“bounden duty and ser
vice” offered by the Church to God, the service of
which the central act must be either a farce or a
falsehood, and therefore insulting to the God to
whom it is offered. Regarded as a service to Godz
�The Baptismal Offices.
13
the whole Communion Office is objectionable in the
highest degree ; regarded as an antiquarian survival,
it is very interesting and instructive ; it is surely time
that it should be put in its right place, and that its
true origin should be recognised. The day is gone by
for these barbarous, though poetic, ceremonials ; the
“flesh and blood,” which was a bold figure for the
heat and light of the sun, becomes coarse when joined
in thought to a human being; ceremonies that fitted
the childhood of the world are out of place in its man
hood, as the play that is graceful in the child would
be despicable in the man ; these rites are the baby
clothes of the world, and cannot be stretched to fit
the stalwart limbs of its maturer age, cannot add
grace to its form, or dignity to its graver walk.
THE BAPTISMAL OFFICES.
For all purposes of criticism the Offices for “ Public
Baptism of Infants, to be used in the Church,” for
“ Private Baptism of Children in houses,” and“ Bap
tism to such as are of riper years, and able to answer
for themselves,” may be treated as one and the same,
the leading idea of each service being identical; this
idea is put forward clearly and distinctly in the pre
face to the Office: “ Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all
men are conceived and born in sin; and that our
Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the king
dom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew
of water and of the Holy Ghost; I beseech you to
call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus
Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to
this Child that thing which by nature he cannot
have.” According to the doctrine of the Church,
then, baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation:
None can enter . . . except he be . . . born
�14
rlhe Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
anew of water thus peals out the doom of condem
nation on the whole human race, save that fragment
of it which is sprinkled from the Christian font;
there is no evasion possible here; no exception made
in favour of heathen peoples; no mercy allowed to
those who have no opportunity of baptism • none can
enter save through “ the laver of regeneration.” Can
any words be too strong whereby to denounce a doc
trine so shameful, an injustice so glaring ? A child is
born into the world; it is no fault of his that he is
conceived in sin; it is no fault of his that he is born
in sin ; his consent was not asked before he was
ushered into the world; no offer was made to him
which he could reject of this terrible gift of a con
demned life; flung is he, without his knowledge,
without his will, into a world lying under the curse
of God, a child of wrath, and heir of damnation.
“ By nature he cannot have.” Then why should God
be wrath with him because he hath not ? The whole
arrangement is of God’s own making. He fore
ordained the birth ; he gave the life; the helpless,
unconscious infant lies there, the work of his own
hands; good or bad, he is responsible for it; heir of
love or of wrath, he has made it what it is ; as wholly
is it his doing as the unconscious vessel is the doing
of the potter; as reasonably may God be angry with
the child as the potter swear at the clay he has clum
sily moulded : if the vessel be bad, blame the potter ;
if the creature be bad, blame the Creator. The con
gregation pray that God 11 of his bounteous mercy,”
“ for thine infinite mercies,” will save the child, “ that
he, being delivered from thy wrath,” may be blessed.
It is no question of mercy we have to do with here ;
it is a question of simple justice, and nothing more ;
if God, for his own “ good pleasure,” or in the pursu
ance of the designs of his infinite wisdom, has placed
this unfortunate child in so terrible a position, he is
bound by every tie of justice, by every sacred claim
�The Baptismal Offices.
15
of right, to deliver the blameless victim, and to place
him where he shall have a fair chance of well-being.
“It is certain by God’s Word,” says the Rubric,
“ that children which are baptized, dying before they
commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.” And
those which are not baptized ? The Holy Roman
Church sends these into a cheerful place called Limbo,
and the baby-souls wander about in chill twilight,
cursed with immortality, shut out for ever from the
joys of Paradise. Many readers will remember
Lowell’s pathetic poem on this subject, and the
ghastly baptism; they will also know into what de
vious paths of argumentative indecency that Church
has wandered in deciding upon the fate of unbaptized
infants;—how, when mothers have died in childbirth,
the yet unborn children have been baptized to save
them from the terrible doom pronounced upon them
by their Rather in heaven, even before they saw the
light;—how it has been said that in cases where
mother and child cannot both be saved the mother
should be sacrificed that the child may not die un
baptized. Into the details of these arguments we
cannot enter; they are only fit for orthodox Chris
tians, in whose pages they may read them who list.
Truly, the Lord is a jealous God, visiting the sins of
the fathers upon the children, since unborn children
are condemned for the untimely death of their mother,
and unbaptized infants for the carelessness of their
parents or nurses. Of course the majority of English
clergymen believe nothing of this kind; but then
why do they read a service which implies it ? Why
do they use words in a non-natural sense ? Why do
they put off their honesty when they put on their
surplices ? And why will the laity not give utterance
to their thoughts on these and all such objectionable
parts of the Service ? In the Office for Adults, as
regards the necessity of the Sacrament, the words
come in : “ where it may be hadbut the phrase reads
�i€
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
as though it had been written in the margin by some
kindly soul, and had from thence crept into the text,
for it is in direct opposition to the whole argument of
the address wherein it occurs, and to the rest of the
office, as also to the other two offices for infants. The
stress laid upon right baptism, i.e., baptism with
water, accompanied by the “ name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” appears specially
in the office to follow the private baptism of a child,
should the child live; for the Rubric directs that if
there be any doubt of the use of the water and the
formula, “ which are essential parts of Baptism,” the
priest shall perform the baptismal ceremony, saying,
“ If thou art not already baptized, I baptize thee,” &c.
Surely such care and pains to ensure correct baptism
speak with sufficient plainness as to the importance
attached by the Church to this initiatory rite; this
importance she gives to it in other places : none, un
baptized, must approach her altar to take the “ bread
of lifenone, unbaptized, must be buried by her
ministers, “ in sure and certain hope of the Resur
rection to eternal life.” The baptized are within the
ark of the Church ; the unbaptized are struggling in
the waves of God’s wrath outside; no hand can be
outstretched to save them; they are strangers, aliens,
to the covenant of promise; they are without hope.
The whole office for infants reads like a play: the
clergyman asks that the infant “may receive remis
sion of his sinswhat sins ? The people are ad
monished “ that they defer not the Baptism of their
children longer than the first or second Sunday next
after their birth.” What sins can a baby a week old
have committed ? from what sins can he need re
lease ? for what sins can he ask forgiveness ? And
yet, here is a whole congregation prostrate before
Almighty God, praying that a tiny long-robed baby
may be forgiven, may be pardoned his sins of—
coming into the world when God sent him! The
�The Baptismal Offices.
17
ceremony would be ludicrous were it not so pitifuh
And supposing that the infant does need forgive
ness, and has sins to be washed away, why should a
few drops of water, sprinkled on the face—or bonnet—
of the baby, or even the immersion of his body in the
font, wash away the sins of his soul ? The water is
''sanctified;” we pray : “ Sanctify this water to the
mystical washing away of sin.” As the hymn sweetly
puts it:
“ The water in this font
Is water, by gross mortals eyed;
But, seen by faith, ’tis blood
Out of a dear friend’s side. ”
Blood once more I how Christians cling to the re
volting imagery of a bygone and barbarous age of
gross conceptions. And, applied by faith, it cleanses
the soul of the child from sin. Well, the whole thing
is consistent: the invisible soul is washed from in- visible sin by invisible blood, and to all outward
appearance the child remains after baptism exactly
what it was before—except it chance to get inflam
mation of the lungs, as we have known happen, from
*
High Church free use of water, which is, perhaps, thepromised baptism of fire. The promises of the spon
sors are in full accordance with the rest of the ser
vices ; promises made by other people, in the child’s
name, as to his future conduct, over which they have
no control. The baby renounces the devil and all his
belongings, believes the Apostles’ Creed, and answers
“ that is my desire,” when asked if he will be bap
tized; all which "is very pretty acting,” but jars
somewhat on the feeling of reality which ought surely
to characterize a believer’s intercourse with his God.
The child being baptized and signed with the Cross,,
"is regenerate,” according to the declaration of the
priest. Some contend that the Church of England
does not teach baptismal regeneration, but it is hard
to see how any one can read this service, and then
B
�18
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
deny the teaching; it is clearer and fuller than is the
teaching of her voice upon most subjects. The cere
mony of baptism and the idea of regeneration are
both derived from the sun-worship of which so many
traces have already been pointed out: the worshippers
of Mithra practised baptism, and it is common to the
various phases of the solar faith. Regeneration, in
some parts, especially in India, was obtained in a
different fashion : a hole through a rock, or a narrow
passage between two, was the sacred spot, and a
worshipper, squeezing himself through such an open
ing, was regenerated, and was, by this literal repre
sentation of birth, born a second time, born into a
new life, and the sins of the former life were no longer
accounted to him. Many such holes are still pre
served and revered in India, and there can be little
doubt that the ancient Druidic remains bear traces of
being adapted for this same ceremony, although a
natural fissure appears ever to have been accounted
the most sacred.
*
One ought scarcely to leave unnoted the preamble
to the first prayer in the baptismal service: “ Who of
thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in
the ark from perishing by water; and also didst
safely lead the children of Israel thy people through
the Red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy baptism ; and
by the baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ,
in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mys
tical washing of sin.” In the two first examples
given the choice of the Church appears to be pecu
liarly unfortunate, as in each case water was the ele
ment to be escaped from, and it was a source of death,
not of life; perhaps, though, there is a subtle meaning
* Even in this country, at Brimham Rocks, near Ripon, in
Yorkshire, the dead form of the custom is, or was, until very
lately, kept up by the guide sending all visitors, who chose to
avail themselves of the privilege, through such a fissure.
�The Order of Confirmation.'
19
in the Red Sea, it points to the blood of Christ: but
then, again, the Red Sea drowned people, and surely
the anti-type is not so dangerous as that ? It must
be a mystery. It would be interesting to know how
many of the educated clergymen who read this prayer
believe in the story of the Noachian deluge, and of
the miraculous passage of the Red Sea; and further,
how many of them believe that God, by these fables,
figured his holy baptism. Will the nineteenth cen
tury ever summon up energy enough to shake off
these remnants of a dead superstition, and be honest
enough to stop using a form of words which is no
longer a vehicle of belief ? When the Prayer Book
was compiled these words had a meaning; to-day
they have none. Shall not a second Reformation
sweep away these dead beliefs, even as the first swept
away for its own age the phrases which represented
an earlier and coarser creed ?
THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION.
These signs shall follow them that believe : In
my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak
with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and
if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt
them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they
shall recover.’’ In those remarkable days the “order
of Confirmation ” might have been in consonance
with its surroundings, a state of things which is very
far from being its present position. Mr. Spurgeon,
writing for the benefit of street preachers, lately
pointed out very sensibly that as the Holy Ghost no
longer gave, the gift of tongues, they had “better
stick to their grammars,” and in these degenerate
�20
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
days honest effort is likely to show results more
satisfactory than those which ensue from the laying
on of Bishops’ hands. When the Apostles performed
this ceremony which the Bishop now performs after
their example, definite proofs of its efficacy were said
to have been seen ; so much so, indeed, that Simon,
the sorcerer, wished to invest some money in heavenly
securities, so that “ on whomsoever I lay hands he
may receive the Holy Ghost.” A Simon would mani
festly never be found nowadays ready to pay a
Bishop for the power of causing the effects of Con
firmation. So far as the carnal eye can see, the
white-robed, veiled young ladies, and the shamefaced
black-coated boys, who throng the church on a Con
firmation day, return from the altar very much the
same as they went up to it: no one begins to speak
with tongues ; if they did, the beadle would probably
interfere and quench the Spirit with the greatest
promptitude. They are supposed to have received
some special gifts : “ the spirit of wisdom and under
standing ; the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength;
the spirit of knowledge and true godliness and in
addition to these six spirits, there is one more : “ the
spirit of thy holy fear.” No less than seven spirits,
then, enter these lads and lasses. Wisdom and under
standing are easily perceptible : are they wiser after
Confirmation than they were before ? do they under
stand more rapidly? do they know more ? if there be no
perceptible difference is the presence of theHoly Spirit
of none effect ? if of none effect, can his presence be of
any use, of the very smallest advantage ? if of no use,
why make all this parade about giving a thing whose
gift makes the recipient no richer than he was be
fore ? Besides, what certainty can there be that the
Holy Ghost is given at all ? Allowing—what seems
to an outsider a gross piece of irreverence—that the
Holy Ghost is in the fingers of the Bishop to be given
away when it suits the Bishop’s convenience, or is in
�The Order of Confirmation.
21
a sort of reservoir, of which the Bishop turns the tap
and lets the stream of grace descend—allowing all
this as possible, ought not some “ sign to follow
them that believe ? ” How can we be sure that the
Bishop is not an impostor, going through a conjurer’s
gestures and mutterings, and no magic results accru
ing ? If, in the ordinary course of daily life, any one
came and offered us some valuable things he said that
he possessed, and then went through the form of
giving them to us, saying: “Here they are; guard
and preserve them for the rest of your life
and the
outstretched hand contained nothing at all, and we
found ourselves with nothing in our grasp, should we
be content with his assurance that we had really got
them, although we might not be able to see them, and
we ought to have sufficient faith to take his word for
it ? Should we not utterly refuse to believe that we
had received anything unless we had some proof of
having done so, and were in some way the better or
the worse for it ? The truth is that people’s religion
is, to them, a matter of such small importance that
they do not trouble themselves about proof—Faith is
enough to comfort them; the six week-days require
their brains, their efforts, their thought: the Sunday
is the Lord’s day, and he must see to it: earth needs
all their earnest attention, but heaven must take care
of itself; the validity of an earthly title is important,
and the confirmation of a right to inherit property in
this world is eagerly welcomed, but the Confir
mation to a heavenly inheritance is a mere farce,
which it is the fashion to go through about the age
of fifteen, but which is only a fashion, the confirma
tion of a faith in nothing in particular to an invisible
heritage of nothing at all.
�22
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
THE FORM OF THE SOLEMNIZATION OF
MATRIMONY.
One of the most curious blunders regarding or
thodox Christianity is, that it has tended to the
elevation of woman. As a matter of fact, the Eastern
ideas about women are embodied in Christianity, and
these ideas are essentially degraded and degrading.
From the time when Paul bade women obey their
husbands, Augustine’s mother was beaten, unresisting,
by Augustine’s father, and Jerome fled from woman’s
charms, and monks declaimed against the daughters
of Eve, down to the present day, when Peter’s
authority is used against woman suffrage, Christianity
has consistently regarded woman as a creature to be
subject to man, because, being deceived, she was first
in transgression. The Church service for matrimony
is redolent of this barbarous idea, relic of a time
when men seized wives by force, or else purchased;
them, so that the wives became, in literal fact, the
property of their husbands. We learn that matri
mony was “ instituted of God in the time of man’s
innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that
is between Christ and his Church.” It would be
interesting to know how many of those joined by the
Church believe in the Paradise story of man’s inno
cency and fall. It seems that Christ has adorned the
holy estate by his first miracle in Cana; but the
adornment is rather of a dubious character, when we
reflect that the probable effect of the miracle would
be a scene somewhat too gay, from the enormous
quantity of wine made by Christ for men who already
had “ well drunk.” Christ’s approval of marriage
may well be considered doubtful when we remember
that a virgin was chosen as his mother, that he him
self remained unmarried, and that he distinctly places
celibacy higher than marriage in Matt. xix. 11, 12,
�The Solemnization of Matrimony.
23
where he urges: “ he that is able to receive it let
him receive it.” St. Paul also, though he allows it
to his converts, advises virginity in preference : “ I
say to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them
if they abide even as I;” “he that giveth her
not in marriage doeth better ” (see throughout
1 Cor. vii.) The reasons given for marriage are
surely misplaced; last of all, it is said that mar
riage is “ ordained for the mutual society, help,
and comfort that the one ought to have of the
other;” this, instead of “ thirdly,” ought to be
“ first.” “ As a remedy against sin and to avoid
fornication, that such persons as have not the gift
of continency might marry,” is not a reason very
honourable to the marriage estate, nor very delicate
to read out before a mixed congregation to a young
bride and bridegroom; so strongly objectionable is
the heedless coarseness of this preface felt to be that
in many churches it is entirely omitted, although it
is retained—as are all remains of a coarser age—in
the Prayer-Book as published by authority. The
promise exchanged between the contracting parties is
of far too sweeping a character, and is immoral, be
cause promising what may be beyond the powers of
the promisers to perform ; “ to love” “ so long as ye
both shall live,” and “ till death us do part,” is a
pledge far too wide; love does not stay by promis
ing, nor is love a feeling which can be made to order.
A promise to live always together might be made,
although that would be unwise in this changing
world, and the endless processes in the Divorce Court
are a satire on this so-called joined by God; “ what
God hath joined together” man does continually “put
asunder,” and it would be wiser to adapt the service
to the altered circumstances of the times in which we
live. The promise of obedience and service on the
woman’s part should also be eliminated, and the con
tract should be a simple promise of fidelity between
�24
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
two equal friends. The declaration of the man as he
places the ring on the woman’s finger is as archaic as
the rest of this fossil service, and about as true: “With
all my worldly goods I thee endow,” says the man,
when, as a matter of fact, he becomes possessed of all
his wife’s property and she does not become possessed
of his. One of the concluding prayers is a delightful
specimen of Prayer-Book science : “ 0 God, who of
thy mighty power hast made all things of'nothing.”
What was the general aspect of affairs when there
was “ nothing ?” how did something emerge where
“ nothing was before ? if God filled all space, was
he “nothing?” is the existence of nothing a con
*
ceivable idea ? can people think of nothing except
when they don’t think at all ? “ who also (after other
things set in order) didst appoint that out of man
(created after thine own image and similitude) woman
should take her beginning“ out of man,” that is
out of one of man’s ribs ; has any one tried to picture
the scene : Almighty God, who has no body nor parts,
taking one of Adam’s ribs, and closing up the flesh,
and “ out of the rib made he a woman.” God, a pure
spirit, holding a man’s rib, not in his hands, for he
has none, and “ making” a woman out of it, fashion
ing the rib into skull, and arms, and ribs, and legs.
Can a more ludicrous position be imagined; and
Adam ? What became of his internal economy ? was
he made originally with a rib too much, to provide
against the emergency, or did he go, for the rest of
his life, with a rib too little ? And the Church of
England endorses this ridiculous old-world fable.
Man was created “ after thine own image and simili
tude.” What is the image of God? He is a spirit
and has no similitude. If man is made in his image,
God must be a celestial man, and cannot possibly be
omnipresent. Besides in Genesis i. 27, where it is
stated that “ God created man in his own image,” it
distinctly goes on to declare : “ in the image of God
�The Solemnization of Matrimony.
25
created he him; male and female created he them.
Thus the woman is made in God’s image as much
as the man, and God’s image is “ male and
female.” All students know that the ancient ideas
of God give him this double nature, and that
no trinity is complete without the addition of
the female element; but the pious compilers of the
Prayer-Book did not probably intend thus to trans
plant the simple old nature-worship into their mar
riage office. Once more we hear of Adam and Eve
in the next prayer, and we cannot help thinking that,
considering all the trouble Eve brought upon her
husband by her flirtation with the serpent, she is
made rather too prominent a figure in the marriage
service. The ceremony winds up with a long ex
hortation, made of quotations from the Epistles, on
the duties of husbands and wives. Husbands are to
love their wives because Christ loved a church—a
reason that does not seem specially d propos, as
husbands are not required to die for their wives or to
present them to themselves glorious wives, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing (!); nor would most
husbands desire that their wives’ conversation should
be “ coupled with fear.” Why should women be taught
thus to abase themselves ? They are promised as a
reward that they shall be the daughters of Sarah ; but
that is no great privilege, nor are English wives likely
to call their husbands “lord;” if they did not adorn
themselves with plaited hair and pretty apparel, their
husbands would be sure to grumble, and the only de
fence that can be made for this absurd exhortation is
that nobody ever listens to it.
_ Among the various reforms needed in the Mar
riage. Laws one imperatively necessary is that all
marriages should be made civil contracts—that is,
that the contract which is made by citizens of the
State, and which affects the interests of the State,
should be entered into before a secular State official;
�26.
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
if after that the parties desired a religious ceremony,
they could go through any arrangements they pleased
in their own churches and chapels, but the civil con
tract should be compulsory and should be the only one
recognised by the law. Of course the Church might
maintain its peculiar marriage as long as it chose, but
it would probably soon pass out of fashion if it were
not acknowledged as binding by the State.
THE ORDER FOR THE VISITATION- OF THE
SICK.
Of all the services in the Prayer-Book this
is, perhaps, the most striking relic of barbarism,
the most completely at variance with sound and
reasonable thought. The clergyman entering into
a house of sickness, and as he enters the sick man’s
room and catches- sight of him, kneeling down and
exclaiming, as though horror-stricken : “ Remember
not, Lord, our iniquities, nor the iniquities of our
forefathers; spare us, good Lord, spare Thy people
whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy most precious
blood, and be not angry with us for ever.” This
clergyman reminds one of nothing so much as of one
of Job’s friends, who appear to have been an even
more painful infliction than Job’s boils. The sick
ness, the patient is told, “ is God’s visitation,” and
“for what cause soever this sickness is sent unto
you : whether it be to try your faith for the example
of others, .... or else it be sent unto you to correct
and amend in you whatsoever doth offend the eyes
of your heavenly Father; know you certainly, that
if you truly repent you of your sins, and bear your
sickness patiently, .... it shall turn to your profit,
and help you forward in the right way that leadeth
�The Visitation of the Sick.
27
unto everlasting life.” One might question the
justice of Almighty God if the theory be correct that
the sickness may be sent “ to try your patience for
the example of others ; ” why should one unfortunate
victim be tormented simply that others may have
the advantage of seeing how well he bears it ? If
we are to endeavour to conform ourselves to the
image of God, then it would seem that we should be
doing right if we racked our neighbours occasionally
to “ try their patience for the example of others.”
And is the idea of God a reverent one F What
should we think of an earthly father who tortured
one of his children in order to teach the others how
to bear pain F if we should condemn the earthly
father as wickedly cruel, why should the same action
be righteous when done by the Father in heaven F
If we accept the second reason given for the sickness,
it is difficult to see the rationale of it. Why should
illness of the body correct illness of the mind ; does
pain cure fretfulness, or fever increase truthfulness F
Is not sickness likely rather to bring out and
strengthen mental faults than to weaken them F
And how far is it true that sickness is, in any sense, the
visitation of God for moral delinquencies ? Is it not
true, on the contrary, that a man may lie, rob, cheat,
slander, tyrannise, and yet, if he observe the laws of
health, may remain in robust vigour, while an
upright, sincere, honest and truthful man, disregard
ing those same laws, may be miserably feeble and
suffer an early death F Is it, or is it not a fact, that
in the Middle Ages, when people prayed much and
studied little, when the peasant went to the shrine for a
cure instead of to the doctor, when sanitary science was
unknown, and cleanliness was a virtue undreamed of,
—is it, or is it not true, that pestilence and black death
then swept off their thousands, while these terrible
scourges have been practically driven away in modern
times by proper attention to sanitary measures, by
�2$
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
improved drainage and greater cleanliness of living ?
How can that be a visitation of God for moral
transgressions, which can be prevented by man if he
attends to physical laws ? Is man’s power greater
than God’s, and can he thus play with the thunder
bolts of the divine displeasure ? The clergyman
prays that “the sense of his weakness may add
strength to his faith ; ” what fine irony is here, as body
and mind grow weak faith grows strong ; as a man
is less able to think, he becomes more ready to believe.
It is impossible to pass, without a word of censure,
over the passage in the exhortation, taken from the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which says, “ for they
(fathers of our flesh) verily for a few days chastened
us after their own pleasure.” Good earthly fathers,
do not chasten their children for their own amuse
ment, while God does it “for our profit ; ” on the
contrary, they do it for the improvement of their
children, while God alone, if there be a hell, tortures
his children for his own pleasure and for no gain to
them. The succeeding portion of the Exhortation,
that, “ our way to eternal joy is to suffer here
with Christ,” is full of that sad asceticism which
has done so much to darken the world since
the birth of Christ; men have been so engaged in
looking for the “eternal joy” that they have let
pass unnoted the misery here; they have been so
busy planting flowers in heaven that they have let
weeds grow here ; yes, and they have rejoiced in the
misery and in the weeds, because they were only
strangers and pilgrims, 'and the tribulation, which
was but temporal, increased the weight of the glory
that was eternal. Thus has Christianity blighted
the flowers of this world, and entwined the brows of
its followers with wreaths of thorns. The concluding
portion of the exhortation deals with the duty of
self-examination and self-accusation, that you may
““not be accused and condemned in that fearful
�The Visitation of the Sick,
29
judgment.” Very -wholesome teaching for a sick
man; sickness always makes a person morbid, and
the Church steps in to encourage the unwholesome
feeling ; sickness always makes a person timid and
unnerved, and the Church steps in to talk about a
“ fearful judgment,” and bewilders and stuns the con
fused brain by the terrible pictures called up to the
mind by the thought of the last day.
But worse follows; for after the sick person has
said that be stedfastly believes the creed, the clergy
man is bidden by the rubric to “ examine whether he
repent him truly of his sins, and be in charity with
all the world.” Imagine a sick person being worried
by an examination of this kind, putting aside the
gross impertinence of the whole affair. Further, “ the
minister should not omit earnestly to move such
persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor.”
When every one remembers the terrible scandals of
by-gone days, -when priests drew into the net of the
Church the goods of the dying, using threat of hell
and promise of heaven to win that which should have
been left for the widow and the orphan, one marvels
that such a rubric should be left to recall the rapa
ciousness and the greed of the Church, and to invite
priests to grasp at the wealth slipping out of dying
hands. And here the sick person is to “ be moved
to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his
conscience troubled with any weighty matter, and the
priest is bidden to absolve him, for Christ having
“left power to his Church to absolve by his authority
committed to me,” says the priest, “I absolve thee.”
Confession ; delegated authority ; priestly absolution ;
such is the doctrine of the Church of England : all
the untold abominations of the confessional are
involved in this rubric and sentence, for if the man
can absolve a man at one time, he can do it at
another; the precious power should surely not be
left unused and wasted; whenever sin presses, behold
�jo
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
the remedy, and thus we are launched and in full
sail. But never in England shall the confessional
again flourish; never again shall English women
he corrupted by the foul questions of the priests ;
never again shall Englishmen have their mental
vigour and virility destroyed by such degradation.
Let the Church fall that countenances such an
accursed thing, and leave English purity and English
■courage to grow and flourish unchecked.
The devil is in great force in this service, as is
only right in a so generally barbarous an office:
*l Let the enemy have no advantage of him“ de
fend him from the danger of the enemy “renew in
him whatsoever hath been decayed by the fraud and
malice of the devil;” “the wiles of Satan;” “deliver
him from fear of the enemy ;” all this must convey to
the sick person a cheerful idea of the devil lingering
about his bed, and trying to get hold of him before it
is too late to drag him down to hell.
Is there any meaning at all in the expression : “ the
Almighty Lord ... to whom all things in heaven,
in earth, and under the earth do bow and obey ?”
Where is “ under the earth ?” The sun is under some
part of the earth to some people at any given
time; the stars are under, or above, according to the
point of view from which they are looked at; of course
the expression is only a survival from a time when
the earth was flat and the bottomless pit was under
it, only it seems a pity to continue to use expressions
which have lost all their meaning and are now
thoroughly ridiculous. People seem to think that
any old things are good enough for God’s service.
The last two prayers are remarkable chiefly far
their melancholy and craven tone towards God : “ we
humbly commend,” “most humbly beseeching thee.”
Surely God is not supposed to be an Eastern despot,
desiring this kind of cringing at his feet. Yet the
“ Prayer for persons troubled in mind or in eonsci-
�The Burial of the Dead.
31
ence ” is one pitiful wail, as though only by passionate
entreaty could God be moved to mercy, and he were
longing to strike, and with difficulty withheld from
avenging himself. When will men learn to stand
upright on their feet, instead of thus crouching on
their knees ? when will they learn to strive to live
nobly, and then to fear no celestial anger, either in
life or in death ?
THE ORDER EOR THE BURIAL OF THE
DEAD.
It is a little difficult to write a critical notice of a
funeral office, simply because people’s feelings are so
much bound up in it that any criticism seems a cruelty,
and any interference seems an impertinence. Round
the open grave all controversy should be hushed, that
no jarring sounds may mingle with the sobs of the
mourners, and no quarrels wring the torn hearts
of the survivors. Our criticism of this office, then,
will be brief and grave.
The opening verses strike us first as manifestly
inappropriate: “ Whosoever liveth and believeth in
me shall never die;” yet the dead is then being car
ried to his last home, and the words seem a mockery
spoken in face of a corpse. In the Fourth Gospel they
preface the raising of Lazarus, and of course are then
very significant, but to-day no power raises our dead,
no voice of Jesus says to the mourners, “ Weep not.”
The second verse from Job is—as is well known—an
utter mistranslation: “without my flesh ” would be
nearer the truth than “ in my flesh,” and “ worms ”
and “ body ” are not mentioned in the original at all.
It seems a pity that in such solemn moments known
falsehoods should be used.
�32
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
The whole argument in the 15th chap, of I Corin
thians is the reverse of convincing. Christ is not
the first fruits of them that slept. A dead man had
been raised by touching the bones of Elisha (II Kingsxiii. 21). Elisha, in his lifetime, had raised the dead
son of the Shunamite (II Kings iv.) ; Elijah, before
him, had raised the son of the widow of Zarephath
(I Kings xvii) ; Christ had raised Lazarus, the daugh
ter of Jairus, and the son of the widow of Main. In
no sense, then, if the Scriptures of the Christians
be true, can it be said that Christ has become the first
fruits, the first begotten from the dead. “ For since
by man came death ”; but death did not come by
man; myriads of ages before man was in the world
animals were born, lived, and died, and they have left
their fossilised remains to prove the falsity of the
popular belief. We notice also that “flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” If this be so,
what becomes of “the resurrection of the flesh,”
spoken of in the Baptismal and Visitation Offices ?
What has become of the “flesh and bones” which
Christ had after his resurrection and with which,
according to the 4th Article, he has gone into heaven ?
Cannot Christ “inherit the kingom of God”? It is
hard to see how, in any sense, the resurrection of
Christ can be taken as a proof of the resurrection of
man. Christ was only dead 36 or 37 hours before he
is said to have risen again; there was no time for
bodily decay, no time for corruption to destroy his
frame: how could the restoration to life of a man
whose body was in perfect preservation prove the
possibility of the resurrection of the bodies which
have long since been resolved into their constituent
elements, and have gone to form other bodies, and to
give shape to other modes of existence ? People talk
in such superior fashion of the resurrection that they
never stoop to remember its necessary details, or to
think where is to be found sufficient matter where
�The Burial of the Dead.
33
with to clothe all the human souls on the resurrection
morn. The bodies of the dead make the earth more
productive ; they nourish vegetable existence ; trans
formed into grass they feed the sheep and the cattle;
transformed into these they sustain human beings;
transformed into these they form new bodies once
more, and pass from birth to death, and from death
to birth again, a perfect circle of life, transmuted
by Nature’s alchemy from form to form. No man has
a freehold of his body; he possesses only a life-tenancy,
and then it passes into other hands. The melancholy
dirge which succeeds this chapter sounds like a wail of
despair:, man “hath but a short time to live and is full
of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower;
he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in
one stay.” Can any teaching be more utterly unwhole
some ? It is the confession of the most complete help
lessness, the recognition of the futility of toil. And
then the agonised pleading: “ 0 Lord God most holy, 0
Lord most mighty, 0 holy and most merciful Saviour,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.”
But if he be most merciful, whence all this need of
weeping and wailing ? If he be most merciful, what
danger can there be of the bitter pains of eternal
death ? And again the cry rises: “ Shut not thy merci
ful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy,
O God most mighty, 0 holy and merciful Saviour,
thou most worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, at
our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from
thee.” It is nothing but the wail of humanity, face
to face with the agony of death, feeling its utter help
lessness before the great enemy, and clinging to any
straw which may float within reach of the drowning
grasp; it is the horror of Life facing Death, a horror
that seems felt only by the fully living and not by
the dying; it is the recoil of vigorous vitality from
the silence and chillness of the tomb.
After this comes a sudden change of tone, and the
�34
The Beauties of the Prayer-Book.
mourners are told of God’s “great mercy” in taking
the departed, and of the “ burden of the flesh,” and
they are bidden to give “ hearty thanks” for the dead
being delivered “ out of the miseries of this sinful
world.’ Can anything be more unreal ? There is
not one mourner there who desires to share in the
great mercy, who wants to be freed from the burden
of the flesh, or desires deliverance from the miseries
of this world. Why should people thus play a farce
beside the grave ? . Do they expect God to believe
them, or to be deceived by such hypocrisy ?
It is urged by some that the Church cannot have a
“ sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal
life” as regards some of those whom she buries with
this service; and it is manifest that, if the Bible be
true, drunkards and others who are to be cast into
the lake of fire, can scarcely rise to eternal life at the
same time, and therefore the Church has no right to
express a hope where God has pronounced condemna
tion. The Rubric only shuts out of the hope the un
baptized, the excommunicated, and the suicide; all
others have a right to burial at her hands, and to the
hope of a joyful resurrection, in spite of the Bible.
We may hope that the day will soon come when
people may die in England and may be buried in
peace without this cry of pain and superstition over
their graves. Wherever cemeteries are within rea
sonable distance the Rationalist may now be buried,
lovingly and reverently, without the echo of that in
which he disbelieved during life sounding over his
grave ; but throughout many small towns and country
villages the Burial Service of the Church is practically
obligatory, and is enforced by clerical bigotry. But
the passing knell of the Establishment sounds clearer
and clearer, and soon those who have rejected her
services in life shall be free from her ministrations at
the tomb.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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The beauties of the prayer-book. Part II
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 34 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Published anonymously. Author is Annie Besant. Attribution 'My Path to Atheism'. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1876
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CT191
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The beauties of the prayer-book. Part II), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Subject
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Church of England
Religious Practice
Baptism
Book of Common Prayer
Church of England
Communion
Confirmation
Conway Tracts
Funeral services
Marriage
Prayer
-
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PDF Text
Text
THE
EXERCISE OE PRAYER.
BY
THOMAS LUMISDEN STRANGE.
LATE A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF MADRAS.
AUTHOR OF “THE BIBLE, IS IT ‘THE WORD OF GOD,*” “THE SPEAKER’S
COMMENTARY REVIEWED,” “ A CRITICAL CATECHISM,” ETC.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
•*’.* ■«- ■
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��THE EXERCISE OF PRAYER.
E have had an interesting article on the “ Province
of - Prayer,” from an able writer in this series,
who signs himself W. E. B. He describes what others
have said on the proper action and effects of prayer,
and gives his own conclusions on this momentous sub
ject. There are some positions taken by him to which
many will be ready to yield assent. We may, for
example, cordially agree with a writer cited by him
from the Contemporary Review, who says, “ I cannot
express my repugnance at the notion that supreme
intelligence and wisdom can be influenced by the
suggestion of any human mind, however great.” It is
also most true that the phenomena of the exact sciences
are beyond the province of prayer, and that it is only
because ignorant of the prevailing laws which govern
the weather, or the progress of disease, that persons,
who would not dream “ of praying that the sun should
always be visible in England,” expect by prayer to
change the weather and avert disease. But if we are
to conclude, as W. E. B. appears to do, that all con
nected with ourselves is so absolutely under the do
minion of fixed regulation, as to make variation in the
distribution of effects an impossibility, and that the
result of prayer is merely to put into operation our
own proper resources, mental and spiritual, and to
create a “reflex action” -upon our individual minds,
without causation by any power beyond us, it seems to
W
�6
The Exercise of Prayer.
me that we are introduced to two very serious nega
tions ; \st, that the Creator has ceased to interfere
with the concerns of those whom he has created, but
has committed all affecting them to the ministration of
his appointed laws; 2d, that no desire expressed by
us reaches him, but merely serves to excite emotions or
thoughts of our own, which are turned back upon our
selves. If this be so, there is an end of prayer. No
one would address a being who cannot be moved, or
put his aspirations in the shape of prayer, when all
that is to be looked for is the promotion of his own
mental activities. Reflection and resolution would be
his resources, hut never prayer.
The physicist, cited by W. E. B. from the Contem
porary Review, in the consciousness of the immutability
of the laws of the universe, describes himself as one
who “ fears no catastrophe—regards calmly all that
happens. . . . Bor the future he has no anxiety ;
the supreme order in which he has a place and work
cannot fail to provide, and he submits, without suggest
ing limits, or a definition, to the plan he never could
have devised, and cannot compass—too glad to believe
that all such order is not to be influenced by human
interference.” This is an enviable condition to have
arrived at, doubtless; but are we limited to the acquisi
tion of mere contentment ? Have we no thought of
bettering ourselves, dr those around us ? Have we no
aspirations for what lies beyond us ? Are existing
conditions for ever to satisfy us ? Is every considera
tion to centre in the narrow element of ourselves ?
Man is assuredly not constituted for this impassive
and isolated state. He has relations with all that is
present to his senses, which draw him continually
beyond the contemplation of his individual being.
He can enter into the joys and woes of others. He
can exert himself to minister to their necessities, or to
take part in their gratifications. He has sentiments
and desires of his own that are never stagnant. He
�The Exercise of Prayer.
7
has aspirations of the highest order. There is nothing
existing, within his reach, but what he grasps at, seeks
to understand, and to utilize. He places before hinr
ideal perfections to which he strives to attain. He is
in continual progress to what is higher, better, vaster,
than what characterizes his existing status. A creature
go greedy of gain, so willing to associate all creation in
the wealth of his advancement, can never rest, with
out something like the process of emasculation, in the
cold immovable condition of placid resignation to
which the physicist would condemn himself. The
question is, can a being, large-hearted, emotional, and
ambitious, as I conceive man to be by nature, be de
pendent, for the realization of his most exalted aims,
upon himself, without requiring, or receiving, external
guidance and support ? If the answer can be yes, then
prayer is uncalled for. If otherwise, then he will
surely address himself to the source wherein may lie
his hope of help.
In respect of his physical state, man is by no means
a self-contained being. He has innumerable wants,
all of which have to be satisfied from what is external
to him. He has to build up his abode, to weave his
apparel, warm his dwelling, and feed himself. He has
to guard himself from hostilities and dangers, to trans
port himself from place to place by sea and land. He
resorts to endless devices to procure himself all that
his necessities require. All his materials are gathered
from outside his system; nor does he work alone. Mostly
he serves himself through the means of others. His
mental wants are similarly satisfied. Many have
laboured in the fields of knowledge, and he profits by
the accumulated results. Is he, in respect of spiritual
attainments, cast only upon himself ? When he takes
in his food, assimilates it, and adds it to the replenish
ment and support of his physical system; when he
feeds, enlivens, and sustains his thinking powers by
resorting to the intellectual productions of others ; is
�8
The Exercise of Prayer.
the process a “ reflex action. ” created out of his indi
vidual resources ? Has he not been drawing upon
materials outside himself for the invigoration and ad
vancement of his own proper condition? And in
seeking the satisfaction of the higher desires of the
soul, in striving to avoid what is hurtful to his spiritual
state, and to acquire that which will fortify and promote
the powrer of his inner life, is he cast absolutely upon
himself ? Are there no wells, no magazines, beyond him,
to which he may look for continual and unfailing supplies?
Centralization presents itself to us everywhere as the
universal method of arrangement. Every organized
object, vegetal or animal, is endowed with some
governing power which watches over and promotes all
its interests. In our social systems, whether constitut
ing families, communities, or nations, there is always
an ultimate ruler and director, from whom the different
administrations derive their authority, and whose
edicts they have to obey. In physics the same rule
obtains. The various forces of nature act together to
effect some common end, the scheme of which betrays
the existence of some influencing medium. Isolation
exists nowhere. All that we come in contact with
exhibits combination, and there must be some combin
ing power. The globe which we inhabit is associated
with other globes, the whole being placed under the
domination of a central governor. There are countless
systems beyond us, which are apparently similarly
associated and directed. And these, there is room to
believe, are held together in one mighty embrace, and
revolve in subordination to some universal centre. Has
the designer of these magnificent arrangements left
himself without any proper action of his own ?
In physics there is always some subtle source which
evades detection. We see certain chemical effects,
but how produced, no one can describe. How our
food is converted into the various elements upon
which our bodies subsist we have not discovered.
�The Exercise of Prayer.
9
Certain combinations terminate in the production of
life. But what life is, and how introduced, none can
say. The prime origin of any force or movement is
beyond our means of discernment. The region of
thought, how it germinates, develops, and multiplies
itself, none have apprehended. Is it not possible that
in these phenomena we have the threads which lead
up to some central influencing and governing power—
the links of the creation with the Creator ?
We have to do on all sides with infinitude. Our
minds stretch back to trace the course of time. We
are satisfied that it has had no beginning, and can
have no end. The same of space; it cannot be con
fined within any bounds. The same of power; it
must have existed always, and can never be absolutely
expended. The same of all the sensations of the mind ;
they are illimitable. Atoms as we are, we are bound up
with this infinitude. Perfect satisfaction is a condition
never attained, and would seem to be unattainable.
With an inexhaustible storehouse before ,us, we are, and
probably shall for ever be, emulous of further good.
The highest result of the creative mind of which we
are conscious is man himself. With his faculty for
adaptation, for designing ends to be accomplished by
selected means, he is continually rearranging, transform
ing, and utilizing the objects around him. He turns
clay into bricks, cuts down the trees and shapes them
to his purposes, quarries and makes use of the slatey
deposits of the hills, and so constructs for himself
dwelling-places. Where there was a marsh, he drains
and converts it into dry arable land. He digs up the
ore, smelts it, and makes therewith an endless variety
of useful implements. He tunnels the mountains,
diverts the course of rivers, bridges their channels,
crosses in comfortable habitations the ocean, skims the
earth in conveyances with the fleetness of a bird, and
sends his messages across seas and continents, round the
globe, with the speed 'of lightning. In these operations
�io
The Exercise of Prayer.
he does not controvert nature, but makes use of her
resources. Is the contriver of all these means debarred
from interference with his provided materials ? Has he
no voice in the endless adaptations and developments
of which they are susceptible ? Is man himself placed
beyond his reach for direction and control ? Does he
call the individual into being, and not rule his cir
cumstances ?
We see it to be otherwise. The discipline of life
gives us the highest testimony of the operation of a
purposing director. Its events, as they pass before us,
each occupy us with their seeming importance; but the
combination of them, and their effect in influencing
our apprehensions and estimate of all with which we
are associated, convey lessons, arriving to us from out
side ourselves, as from a supreme instructor. The
culture of the soul, to those who are awakened to
obedience, produces very marked and durable effects
upon the character. The action of the inward monitor
is as an inspiration from one beyond us. A watchful
and enlightened mind is conscious of being under better
direction than its own. Such a one can compare his
former with his existing self, and be satisfied that he
has been brought under systematic and effectual train
ing by a master-hand. This experience is beyond
estimate in its value. Any one who has had it should
evermore resign himself with gladness and entire con
fidence to the guidance of his maker. He is no
isolated atom, but is in communion, for everlasting
interests, with the central ruler of the universe.
If, then, we do in truth stand associated with some
common centre—the source of life, of power, and of
thought—the creator of every visible object, the ruler
of all that exists—one who has planned everything,
ordered everything, purposed the ultimate design of all
that he has called into being—who commands the
abundance, and the perfection, of all that we can desire;
what more reasonable and allowable exercise of the
�The Exercise of Prayer.
11
mind than that we should turn to him in every
emergency and every need ?
W. E. B. holds that “ Science owes no allegiance to
Religion.” He probably is' here referring to what
passes for revealed religion. Science introduces us to
the works of the Creator, enabling us to comprehend
something of the wTisdom and beneficence with which
they have been ordained, and to appreciate the certainty
with which all the appointments answer their ends.
To study the laws of nature, moral as well as physical,
is therefore, so far, to study the Creator himself. They
read us, in their action, perpetual lessons by which we
may judge of the fitness of things, and estimate results.
We can see the unerring consequences of conforming to
or disobeying these laws. They never violate their
integrity, and they execute their designed sentences
with unfailing fidelity. No sane person should dream
of requiring the disturbance of such a system. He
would be warring in mind against his central ruler,
and courting evil, and not good. No request can be
effectual, but what may consist with the constitution of
the authority addressed. If we could not legitimately
ask an earthly potentate to break through, in our be
half, the settled laws of his dominions, still less should
we expect the supreme ruler to set at nought, for us,
his decreed arrangements. In the compass of our own
necessities, to express the sense of a felt want, or the
fear of a threatening danger, is a natural and a perfectly
legitimate movement. We do our best to obtain a
remedy, and may call upon one mightier than ourselves,
who is ever present, to direct and aid us. We may not
get what we ask for. Seldom is there such a response
as to make it clear that we have had a direct answer to
the particular prayer uttered. But relief in some way
is certain. The apprehensions will in time be tran
quillized, the sense of destitution removed, or positive
help may be brought in. Or we may undergo the
feared calamity, and eventually find we have been
�12
The Exercise of Prayer.
introduced to what has been profitable to us. And
should the danger, to ourselves or another, end in
death, there is a further sphere, beyond this life, in
which the Creator’s action has to be maintained; and
we may look forward for others, and for ourselves, in
hopefulness, beyond the dark inevitable passage that has
to be made. One who sets himself against at,t, evil,
ONE WHOSE POWER AND RESOURCES ARE LIMITLESS,
KNOWS HOW TO TRIUMPH IN EVERY INSTANCE, AND TO
CONDUCT HIS CREAT.URES, BY ASSURED STEPS, TO THEIR
ULTIMATE GOOD.
The writer whose pamphlet is before me has appar
ently a sense of this desired end. He notices the
existence among us of “ a natural craving for sympathy,”
and observes, “there is never perfect sympathy between
two human beings. To no human friend, however
dear, can we talk as unreservedly as we can think and
feel. But we can pray, at least silently, with a freedom
as unrestrained as the thoughts and desires of our
minds. The Divine Being is to us the infinite personi
fication of our purest ideal. We may believe, in an
indefinite way, that He is also infinitely more than this;
but it is as this that we pray to Him. Prayer, then,
in its highest, purest, and, as I think, its only useful
form, consists in a yearning after the loftiest ideal.”
With such a goal before us, with such a friend to
whom to open out our inmost thoughts and aspirations,
may we not ask for help, as we feel the need of it, at
every step of our onward progress; and when we have
the support and guidance wanted, acknowledge, grate
fully, the source beyond us as that from whence the
aid has come ?
Great Malvern,
September 1873.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The exercise of prayer
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Strange, Thomas Lumisden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1873
Identifier
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CT112
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The exercise of prayer), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Prayer
Conway Tracts
Prayer