ply
is that man is not merely a contemplative but an active being. If
action were alien to his nature, then man might be satisfied to gaze,
and merely gaze, on God. But man is active and not merely
contemplative. We must therefore either hold that religion, being in
its essence adoration and nothing more, has no function to perform, or
sphere to fill, in the practical life of man; or else, if we hold
that it does, or should, affect the practice of his life, we must
admit that, though religion implies adoration always, it cannot
properly be fulfilled in quietism, but must bear its fruit in what man
does, or in the way he does it. The being or beings whom man worships
are, indeed, the object of adoration, an object _quo nihil maius_; but
they are something more. To them are addressed man's prayers.

It is vain to pretend that prayer, even the simple petition for our
daily bread, is not religious. It may perhaps be argued that prayer is
not essential to religion; that it has not always formed part of
religion; and that it is incompatible with that acquiescence in the
will of God, and that perfect adoration of God, which is religion in
its purest and most perfect sense. Whether there is in fact any
incompatibility between the petition for deliverance from evil, and
the aspiration that God's will may be done on earth, is a question on
which we need not enter here. But the statement that prayer has not
always formed part of religion is one which it should be possible to
bring to the test of fact.

In the literature of the science of religion, the prayers of the lower
races of mankind have not been recorded to any great extent by those
who have had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with them,
if and so far as they actually exist. This is probably due in part to
their seeming too obvious and too trivial to deserve being put on
record. It may possibly in some cases be due to the reticence the
savage observes towards the white man, on matters too sacred to be
revealed. The error of omission, so far as it can be remedied
henceforth, will probably be repaired, now that savage beliefs are
coming to be examined and recorded on the spot by scientific students
in the interests of science. And the reticence of the savage promises
to avail him but little: the comparative method has thrown a flood of
light on his most sacred mysteries.

There may however be another reason why the prayers of the lower races
have not been re