s element. Whether a given formula then is prayer or
spell may be difficult to decide, when it has some features which seem
to be magical and others which seem to be religious. The magical
element may have been original and be in process of disappearing before
the dawn of the religious spirit. Now, the formula uttered is usually
accompanied by gestures performed. If the words are uttered to explain
the gesture or rite, the explanation is offered to some one, the words
are of the nature of a prayer to some one to grant the desire which the
gesture manifests. {xviii} On the other hand, if the gestures are
performed to make the words more intelligible, then the action
performed is, again, not magical, but is intended to make the
words--the prayer--more emphatic. In neither case, then, is the
gesture or rite magical in intent. Dr. Frazer's suggestion that it
required long ages for man to discover that he could not always
succeed--even by the aid of magic--in getting what he wanted; and that
only when he made this discovery did he take to religion and prayer, is
a suggestion which cannot be maintained in view of the fact that savage
man is much more at the mercy of accidents than is civilised man. The
suggestion, in fact, tells rather against than in favour of the view
that magic preceded religion, and that spells preceded prayer.

The Australian black fellows might have been expected to present us
with the spectacle of a people unacquainted with prayer. But in point
of fact we find amongst them both prayers to Byamee and formulae which,
though now unintelligible even to the natives, may originally have been
prayers. And generally speaking the presumption is that races, who
distinctly admit the existence of spirits, pray to those spirits, even
though their prayers be concealed from the white man's observation.
Gods are there for the purpose of being prayed to. Prayer is the
essence of religion, as is shown by the fact that gods, when they cease
to be prayed to, are ignored rather than worshipped. Such gods--as in
Africa and elsewhere--become little more than memories, when they no
longer have a circle of worshippers to offer prayer and sacrifice to
them.

The highest point reached in the evolution of pre-Christian prayer is
when the gods, as knowing best what is good, are petitioned simply for
things good. Our Lord's prayer is a revelation which the theory of
evolution cannot account for or explain. Nor does H