emed so small and
insignificant, were, alas! as big and as important as myself; I felt as
an exile from the porches of heaven, a fallen spirit.

XXVIII

Prayer

I am often baffled when I try to think what prayer is; if our thoughts
do indeed lie open before the eyes of the Father, like a little clear
globe of water which a man may hold in his hand--and I am sure they
do--it certainly seems hardly worth while to put those desires into
words. Many good Christians seem to me to conceive of prayers partly
as a kind of tribute they are bound to pay, and partly as requests that
are almost certain to be refused. With such people religion, then,
means the effort which they make to trust a Father who hears prayers,
and very seldom answers them. But this does not seem to be a very
reasonable attitude.

I confess that liturgical prayer does not very much appeal to me. It
does not seem to me to correspond to any particular need in my mind.
It seems to me to sacrifice almost all the things that I mean by
prayer--the sustained intention of soul, the laying of one's own
problems before the Father, the expression of one's hopes for others,
the desire that the sorrows of the world should be lightened. Of
course, a liturgy touches these thoughts at many points; but the
exercise of one's own liberty of aspiration and wonder, the pursuing of
a train of thought, the quiet dwelling upon mysteries, are all lost if
one has to stumble and run in a prescribed track. To follow a service
with uplifted attention requires more mental agility than I possess;
point after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to
wonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service.
I suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of
intercession. But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a
waste of time. I should make an exception in favour of the Sacrament,
but the rapid disappearance of the majority of a congregation before
the solemn act seems to me to destroy the sense of unity with singular
rapidity. As to the old theory that God requires of his followers that
they should unite at intervals in presenting him with a certain amount
of complimentary effusion, I cannot even approach the idea. The
holiest, simplest, most benevolent being of whom I can conceive would
be inexpressibly pained and distressed by such an intention on the part
of the objects of his care; and to conceive of God as gr