strength, and
thus having lost your communion with me will die. "When Jeshurun
waxed fat he kicked." This is the oft-repeated story of the Old
Testament and of all history. And thus, while material blessings are
given in answer to prayer, these are not the chief end for which
prayer is to be offered.

Prayer is a means of conformity to environment, of godlikeness. How
do you become like a friend? Of course by associating and talking
with him. And why does it help you to associate with a hero? Simply
because you cannot be with him without being inspired with his
heroism. And so while I may pray for bread and clothes and
opportunities, and God will give me these or something better; I
will, if wise, pray for purity, courage, moral power, heroism, and
holiness. And I know that these will stream from his soul into mine
like a great river. And so I may pray for bread and be denied; for
hunger, with some higher good, may be far better for me than a full
stomach. But if I pray for any spiritual gift, which will make me
godlike, and on which as an heir of God I have a rightful claim,
every law and force in God's universe is a means to answer that
prayer. And best of all, if I pray for the gift of God's Spirit,
that is the prayer which the whole world of environment has been
framed to answer.

But this I can never have unless I hunger for it. I can never have
it to use as a means of gaining some lower good which I worship more
than God. God will not and cannot lend himself to any such idolatry.
I must be willing to give up anything and everything else for its
attainment. Otherwise the answer to the prayer would ruin me.

I cannot grasp the higher while using both hands to grasp the
lower.

Thus religion is the interpenetration and permeation of my
personality by that of God. And prayer is the communion by which
this permeation becomes possible. And faith is the vision of these
possibilities, the being persuaded by them, and the resolute purpose
to attain them. And faith in Christ is confiding communion with him
and obedience to his commands that his divine life may flow over
into me and dominate mine. And common-sense, and the more refined
common-sense which we call science, can show me no other means to
the attainment of that godlikeness which is the only true conformity
to environment.

And, holding such a belief and faith, we must be hopeful. And only
next in importance to faith and love stands hope. The hero must be