ective media of the Prayer, the Myth and the Cult. The
first embraces the personal relations of the individual to the object
of his worship, the second expresses the opinions current in a community
about the nature and actions of that object, the last includes the
symbols and ceremonies under and by which it is represented and
propitiated.

The first has the logical priority. Man cares nothing for God--_can_
care nothing for him practically--except as an aid to the fulfilment of
his desires, the satisfaction of his wants, as the "ground of his
hopes." The root of the religious sentiment, I have said, is "a wish
whose fruition depends upon unknown power." An appeal for aid to this
unknown power, is the first form of prayer in its religious sense. It is
not merely "the soul's sincere desire." This may well be and well
directed, and yet not religious, as the devotion of the mathematician to
the solution of an important problem. With the desire must be the
earnest appeal to the unknown. A theological dictionary I have at hand
almost correctly defines it as "a petition for spiritual or physical
benefits which [we believe] we cannot obtain without divine
co-operation." The words in brackets must be inserted to complete the
definition.

It need not be expressed in language. Rousseau, in his _Confessions_,
tells of a bishop who, in visiting his diocese, came across an old woman
who was troubled because she could frame no prayer in words, but only
cry, "Oh!" "Good mother," said the wise bishop, "Pray always so. Your
prayers are better than ours."[119-1]

A petition for assistance is, as I have said, one of its first forms;
but not its only one. The assistance asked in simple prayers is often
nothing more than the neutrality of the gods, their non-interference;
"no preventing Providence," as the expression is in our popular
religion. Prayers of fear are of this kind:

"And they say, God be merciful,
Who ne'er said, God be praised."

Some of the Egyptian formulae even threaten the gods if they prevent
success.[119-2] The wish accomplished, the prayer may be one of
gratitude, often enough of that kind described by La Rochefoucauld, of
which a prominent element is "a lively sense of possible favors to
come."[119-3]

Or again, self-abasement being so natural a form of flattery that to
call ourselves "obedient and humble servants" of others, has passed
into one of the commonest forms of address, many prayers are made u