stroy him, and then
subsequently regrets that decision. In a word, the God of the Hebrew
tradition, whom the Christian Church still popularly preaches, is in
reality a magnified copy of an Oriental Sultan, whose tastes and
proclivities are such as the _Arabian Nights_ has familiarised us
with--greedy of praise, adulation and homage, cruel and vindictive to
those who refuse their worship and adoration.

Now this Orientalism is no longer tolerable in the eyes of thoughtful
people. We cannot conceive that the Infinite Being should find
pleasure in hearing all day and night how wonderful he is, and how
miraculous his works. It is not easily intelligible how services and
litanies of "praise" can be acceptable to the Creator when they would
certainly be nauseous to the best men on earth. Jesus openly reproved
one who praised him as "the good master". "Call no man good," he said:
"God only, he is good." Wellington's reply to the famous individual
who claimed to have "saved the life of the saviour of Europe" is too
well known to repeat. The truth is, that these prayers and chants are
offered up not for God's sake, but for _ours_. They are a relief to
the heart surcharged with religious emotion, the outcome of the
vehement impulse of the soul towards communion with the Life of its
life. Speaking reverently, prayer and praise are like a lover's
protestations, which are not an act of adulation at the shrine of his
mistress, but an irresistible unburdening of the greatness of the
emotion that fills his heart. But no lover could speak from his soul
in a public place, in the sight or hearing of other men. Solitude,
silence, "the element in which everything truly great is made," is
needed above all else, that the soul may find adequate utterance for
thoughts so sublime.

And, therefore, Jesus warned man to pray in his own chamber, in secret,
the lonely soul bared in the presence of the Alone, "to the Father
which seeth in secret". Hence no sound of spoken prayer is heard at
our services. The deed is too solemn. Nevertheless, the whole object
of the series of acts which are done is to suggest, to create, first
thought, and then emotion, after the manner of the Hebrew psalmist, who
sang "In the midst of my thoughts shall a fire flame forth". The
_hymns_ are chosen with the idea, not of praising the Almighty, who
needs no such praises, but of filling our souls with a sense of the
unearthly beauty of the moral life, of th