Let us answer this question first of all ; and then let us see what we can do to fulfil to the letter tlie Apostle's injunction.
L
Prayee is a Spiritual Attitude.
1. The chief, sometimes the one, idea we have of prayer is that it is petition, asking for certain things we want, some help we desire, or deliverance from the power of some evil. But this is just where we make a mistake. Prayer, the very highest, is where there is least petition, least asking of definite benefits, most
20 CEASELESS PRAYER
of communion, reliance, trust in God. The higher our spirituality, the more full our confidence in God, the more complete our acquiescent surrender to His will, the less petition there will be. Prayer in its highest meaning is thus communion with, recog- nition of, and sympathy with God, continual desire of the soul after God as the one supreme object of its love, intercourse of our spirit with the Divine. It is the soul living and I'eeling as if it were always in the presence of God, holding converse with Him, not always by audible words, but with a constant sense of His presence, trusting, loving, following, and serving Him. In one word, the soul in a state of sympathy and love to God — that is prayer. As the needle, however the ship may swing, points ever to the pole, so the soul, in every place and in every circum- stance of life, turns to God and sets and rules its life by Him.
^ It is impossible to doubt the spiritual intensity, the religious fervour, of passages such as these from the pages in Suggestions for Thought in which she describes " Communion with God " : —
" If it is said ' we cannot love a lavj ' — the mode in which God reveals Himself — the answer is, we can love the spirit which originates, which is manifested in, the law. It is not the material presence only that we love in our fellow-creatures. It is the spirit, which bespeaks the material presence, that we love. Shall we then not love the spirit oi' all that is lovable, which all material presence bespeaks to us? . . . What does ignorant finite man want? How great, how suffering, yet how sublime are his wants ! Think of his wounded aching heart, as compared with the bird and beast ! his longing eye, his speaking counten- ance, compared with these ! they show something of such differ- ence, but nothing, nothing compared with what is within, where no eye can read. What then, poor sufferer, dost thou want ? I want a wise and loving counsellor, whose love and wisdom should come home to the whole of my nature. I would work, oh ! how gladly, but I want direction how to work, I would suffer, oh ! how willingly, but for a purpose. . , . God always speaks plain in His laws — His everlasting voice. . . . My poor child, He says, dost thou complain that I do not prematurely give thee food which thou couldst not digest ? My son, I am always one with thee, though thou art not always one with me. That spirit racked or blighted by sin, my child, it is thy Father's spirit. Whence comes it, why does it suffer, or why is it blighted, but that it is incipient love, and truth, and wisdom, tortured or suppressed ? But Law (that is, the will of the Perfect) is now,
I THESSALONIANS v. 17 21
was without beginning, and ever shall be, as the inducement and the means by which that blight or suffering which is God within man, shall become man one with God." ^
2. If, then, we define prayer as the means whereby the fellow- ship of the soul with God, the oneness of our life with the life of GOg 'is realized, prayer will not necessarily be the saying of P^'dth Goj^°^^^ §^^® definiteness to our thoughts, and there are ^^xod tim*^^°™ words make concentration of mind possible; but tl^ /SecT-^^ ^^ themselves are nothing. The real act of prayer is nd?fin the words that are used, but in the attitude of the man towards his God when he is using them. God does not hear the words, but He is infinitely sensitive to the spiritual attitude. So prayer is much more than the " saying of prayers." The utter- ance of thoughts in words may be true prayer; thinking may also be true prayer; work may be prayer; wrestling with a problem may be prayer ; fighting for a noble cause may be prayer ; private meditation may be prayer ; there is such a way of doing the ordinary round and the daily task of life that this shall be true prayer ; any act of our lives, whatsoever it may be, if we do it in such a way as consciously and concentratedly to cultivate a spiritual attitude of sympathy and fellowship with God, is prayer.
^ St. Anthony was once asked how we might know if we prayed properly. " By not knowing it at all," he answered. He certainly prays well who is so taken up with God that he does not know he is praying. The traveller who is always counting his steps will not make much headway.