hopes and fears
excited by themselves?

"And people pray--millions of them--and claim they are answered. Are
they? Was ever supplication sent into that sky by troubled humanity
answered, or even heard? Who knows? They pray for rain and sunshine, and
both come in time. They pray for health and success and both are but
natural in the marching of events. This is not evidence. But they say
that they know, by spiritual uplifting, that they are heard, and
comforted, and answered at the moment. Is not this a physiological
experiment? Would they not feel equally tranquil if they repeated the
multiplication table, or boxed the compass?

"Millions have believed this--that prayers are answered--and these
millions have prayed to different gods. Were they all wrong or all
right? Would a tentative prayer be listened to? Admitting that the
Bibles, and Korans, and Vedas, are misleading and unreliable, may there
not be an unseen, unknown Being, who knows my heart--who is watching me
now? If so, this Being gave me my reason, which doubts Him, and on Him
is the responsibility. And would this being, if he exists, overlook a
defect for which I am not to blame, and listen to a prayer from me,
based on the mere chance that I might be mistaken? Can an unbeliever, in
the full strength of his reasoning powers, come to such trouble that he
can no longer stand alone, but must cry for help to an imagined power?
Can such time come to a sane man--to me?" He looked at the dark line of
vacant horizon. It was seven miles away; New York was nine hundred; the
moon in the east over two hundred thousand, and the stars above, any
number of billions. He was alone, with a sleeping child, a dead bear,
and the Unknown. He walked softly to the boat and looked at the little
one for a moment; then, raising his head, he whispered: "For you, Myra."

Sinking to his knees the atheist lifted his eyes to the heavens, and
with his feeble voice and the fervor born of helplessness, prayed to the
God that he denied. He begged for the life of the waif in his care--for
the safety of the mother, so needful to the little one--and for courage
and strength to do his part and bring them together. But beyond the
appeal for help in the service of others, not one word or expressed
thought of his prayer included himself as a beneficiary. So much for
pride. As he rose to his feet, the flying-jib of a bark appeared around
the corner of ice to the right of the beach, and a moment later