IMPULSE OF PRAYER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1940, Page 6

IMPULSE OF PRAYER

THROUGH THE AGES. MOST VITAL OF SUBJECTS. Prayer is the most universal and. at the same time the most vital of subjects, writes Rhoda Astles in the ‘‘Sydney Morning Herald.” In all ages, in all places, among all peoples, and of all languages it is found in some form or other. Even in animal life, the instinct of prayer is evident. A dog outside a closed gate barks to the powers of man that it may be permitted to enter. The bark is a request. In the helpless, the same instinct cannot be quenched. An infant’s cry is for the more developed person to do for him what he cannot do for himself. By denying himself the habit of prayer, man severs his connection with one of the most elemental functions of human life, for prayer, being of such a natural tenancy, comes as a practice like eating, sleeping, and speaking. Men pray because they cannot help praying. So much a part of nature is its impulse, that once tlje desire to pray is given rise to. it cannot be extinguished. Buddhism is a religion which logically should exclude prayer, yet, in countries of that faith, prayer is present with it. Confucius, who urged his followers to have little to do with the gods, was himself set up as a god and prayed to. From the Himalayas and among the Khonda of North India, comes the habitual petition: “C : Lord, we know not what is good for us. Thou knowest what it is. For it we .pray.” In the Aztec ruins there is proof of the prayer of the affilicted: “Oh merciful Lord, let the chastisement with which Thou hast visited us, give us freedom from evil and from folly.” In the Greek world, typical of all ancient civilisation, prayer was very evident. Xenophon began each day’s march with prayer; Pericles every address. The greatest of Greek orations, Demosthenes’s “On the Crown.’ and the greatest of Greek poems. “Iliad,” commence with prayer. From the preaching of Plato, “Every’ man of sense, before beginning an important work, will ask help of the gods," one may turn to his practice and read this beautiful prayer, “King Zeus, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us.” Many prayers of Mohammedanism, although misplaced, and so often not understood by the utterers, possess beauty both in words and meaning. To the Christian, prayer is his refuge. Instinctively, he turns to the Power not in himself in times of crisis and peril, and before grave responsibility which unaided he feels inadequate. “I have been driven many times to my knees,” stated Abraham Lincoln, “by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go; my own wisdom and that of all around me seemed insufficient for the day.” Prayer is’ the acknowledgment of faith—an act of very highest energy of which the mind is capable, and by which the noblest and best lives have been inspired and sustained. Doctor Samuel Johnson when asked what was the strongest argument for prayer, replied: “Sir. there is no argument for prayer.” Carlyle in a letter to a friend declared that “Prayer was and remains the strongest impulse of the soul of man.” This instinctive turning to prayer was never more evident than at the present time. Proof of this is the fact that buildings of worship throughout the whole Empire could not hold the numbers who, irrespective of creed and religious thought, gathered at the King’s word to pray with one accord. No greater inspiration can be found than in the words of his Majesty himself who, in his recent broadcast, said: “At tiiis fateful hour we turn, as our fathers before us have turned, to God Most High. Let us with one heart and soul, humbly but confidently commit our cause to God and ask His aid, so that we may valiantly defend the right as it is given us to see it. With God’s help we shall not fail.”