Hence the adage that the only sensible prayer is the earnest prayer. And right here is found the point of the parable of the unjust judge, the "because this widow troubleth me"; also that of the loaves loaned at midnight,† the "because of his importunity 'anaideia], his 'cheek."

So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.

Alfred Tennyson (In Memoriam, liii.).

And here be it observed that the name of that Somewhat is, in one regard, of no consequence,- whether " Ma," " Mother," "Mater or "Pater." The entity, "the rose," is just " as sweet," the growth of gratitude, of jurisdiction, just as sure.‡

As the mother comes and bends by night over her sick and sleeping child, all unconscious of her presence, so the Lord comes and looks on us with tenderest pity when we think nothing of him. Yet sometimes the sick and sleeping child may half arouse itself, and stretch up its little drowsy arm to its mother, and put it round her neck, drawing her face close down to his, and giving her a little sleepy kiss; and the mother is well pleased. So I think that God is well pleased when we, half-awakening from our drowsy sleep in sense and sin, just look up a little moment, and cry out of our heart, though it may be only a single cry of longing, or one unuttered whisper of vague hope. Dr. J. F. Clarke (Sermon on Acts ix., 11, Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, June, 1881).

Sometimes from troubled dream in fear he starts:
One word in glad or piteous tone I hear.-
"Mamma!" his childish lips can add no more.
"What is it, dear? What does my darling want?"
I fondly ask. But "Mamma! mamma!
His only answer, till I e'en must guess

The unspoken want by love's divining art.

still

Thou Love divine, who knowest the things we need
Before we ask, the word upon the tongue

Before 'tis spoken, who of old didst say,
"As one a mother's love soft comforteth,
So will I comfort thee: they may forget,
Yet will not I," we know not what we want,
Or, knowing, find no words to utter it.
Hear thou our cry when from the shows of life
We weary turn, or shrink from threatening ills.
No word but Father we may speak, yet hear,
And read the want too deep for words to tell.
We know not what to pray for as we ought:
Help our infirmities. Foid us within
Thine everlasting arms. Make us to know
All things together work for good to us,

*Luke xviii., 5. † Luke xi., 8.
See in chap. xi., ante, Goethe hereon.

Thy children dear; that neither life nor death,
Nor angels, principalities, nor powers,

Nor things that are, nor things to come, nor height,
Nor depth, nor aught besides, shall ever part

Thy children from thee. And when breaks the cry

Of Father! from our glad or troubled lips,

Whisper sweet words of peace : "Dear child, I know.
Abide in me. My love is over thee."

H. D. Catlin ("Love's Divining." Christian Register, May 26, 1881)..

CHAPTER XXX.

ASPIRATION.

What generally Indorsed Sentiments of Experienced Thinkers upon best promoting the Aspirational Element of Prayer?

WITH these, hymnology overflows. The Buddhist priests are said to have responded to the French missionaries, Huc and Gabet: "We ought to respect all prayer. Men of prayer belong to all countries: they are strangers nowhere. Such is the doctrine taught by our Holy Books."

Under the intermediate thesis just considered, one may commend the objective theory of "help from on high," even while having in view only the subjective_good of self-help, aspiration, and exertion. The father in La Fontaine's fable has never been deemed at all disingenuous for directing his sons to keep the heritage and dig for a concealed treasure. "treasure was in the digging itself, and in the consequent health, harvests, and habits of industry,- a prosperity which an immediate attainment of the object directly longed for would have defeated.

"Labor is worship," the wild bee is ringing.
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing
Speaks to thy soul out of nature's great heart.
Labor is life! 'tis the still water faileth;

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth;

The

Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assaileth.

Frances S. Osgood.

Labor is nature's physician.- Galen.

I have fire-proof, perennial enjoyments called employments.— Jean P. F. Richter.

The reward of doing one duty is the power to perform another.— Ben Azai.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them all day long,
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.

Joy's soul lies in the doing.- William Shakspere.

Charles Kingsley.

The reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing
Is the prize.

Henry W. Longfellow.

Evidently there are two extremes, each having its peculiar evil. The man who never sequesters himself (or, as the New Revision beautifully renders it, enters into his "inner chamber "), and, when he has shut the door against the overbearing pressure of secular pursuits, contemplates his higher destinations, becomes a grovelling earthworm rather than

A glorious thing

Of buoyant wing.

If

The woman's mind that is always in a giddy whirl of frivolities remains inane. "As one thinketh in his heart, so is he." he longs to be submissive, patient, modest, liberal, considerate of his relations to his moral environment, such must he tend to become. To be godlike, he must meditate upon God; to make any part of the attributes of Deity his own, he must aspire to the true, the beautiful, and the good.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and, lo! virtue is at hand.- Confucius.

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,

Whose loves in higher love endure;

What souls possess themselves so pure,

Or is there blessedness like theirs?

Alfred Tennyson (In Memoriam, xxxii.).

You need but will, and it is done. But if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.Epictetus.

Use the temporal; desire the eternal. Thomas à Kempis.

Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die to-morrow. Ansalus de Insulis.

Accordingly, many who hold only to the aspirational view take supplication simply as a means of aspiration. This appears to be the gist of the averment of George Eliot :

The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is the yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness, and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of gladness, a Gloria in Excelsis that such Good exists; both the yearning and the exultation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion

in a form which has expressed them both for long generations of struggling men.— Daniel Deronda, p. 333.*

This recalls the prayer of another noble soul, Phoebe Cary:

I ask not that for me the plan
Of good and ill be set aside,

But that the common lot of man
Be nobly borne and glorified.

I know I may not always keep
My steps in places green and sweet,
Nor find the pathway of the deep
A path of safety to my feet;

But pray that when the tempest's breath
Shall fiercely sweep my way about,

I make not shipwreck of my faith
In the unfathomed sea of doubt.

H. and T. B. for C. and H., 565.

A like model prayer is that of James Merrick:

Author of good, we rest on thee:
Thine ever watchful eye

Alone our real wants can see,
Thy hand alone supply.
In thine all-gracious providence
Our cheerful hopes confide;

Oh, let thy power be our defence,
Thy love our footsteps guide.

And since, by passion's force subdued,
Too oft with stubborn will

We blindly shun the latent good,

And grasp the specious ill,—–—

Not what we wish, but what we want,

Let mercy still supply:

The good unasked, O Father, grant;
The ill, though asked, deny.

Methodist Hymns, 633; H. and T. B. for C. and H., 583.

There is truth in Jeremy Taylor's aphorism: "Every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice and the earth he treads on the altar." But just how far a liturgy is a help to that "powerful movement of feeling," just quoted from George Eliot, is a trite theme. Perhaps no more advanced thought can be found thereon than in a recent discourse by Dr. J. F. Clarke, on Jer. xxiii., 28, "What is the chaff to the wheat?"

The Gentiles worshipped a God of power from fear and hope, deprecating divine vengeance, invoking divine favor. The Jews worshipped a God of Justice, seeking pardon for their sins, and thanking God for his help. No doubt, both Jew and Gentile saw

*For a rather exceptional illustration of "the theological paradox," "In order to pray for grace, we must have grace to pray," see J. T. Trowbridge's story, "Preaching for Selwin," in Coupon Bonds, and Other Stories, p. 329.