steady expression of themselves and of the good.

[Sidenote: Discipline and contemplation are their own reward.]

Prayer, in fine, though it accomplishes nothing material, constitutes
something spiritual. It will not bring rain, but until rain comes it may
cultivate hope and resignation and may prepare the heart for any issue,
opening up a vista in which human prosperity will appear in its
conditioned existence and conditional value. A candle wasting itself
before an image will prevent no misfortune, but it may bear witness to
some silent hope or relieve some sorrow by expressing it; it may soften
a little the bitter sense of impotence which would consume a mind aware
of physical dependence but not of spiritual dominion. Worship,
supplication, reliance on the gods, express both these things in an
appropriate parable. Physical impotence is expressed by man's appeal for
help; moral dominion by belief in God's omnipotence. This belief may
afterwards seem to be contradicted by events. It would be so in truth if
God's omnipotence stood for a material magical control of events by the
values they were to generate. But the believer knows in his heart, in
spite of the confused explanations he may give of his feelings, that a
material efficacy is not the test of his faith. His faith will survive
any outward disappointment. In fact, it will grow by that discipline and
not become truly religious until it ceases to be a foolish expectation
of improbable things and rises on stepping-stones of its material
disappointments into a spiritual peace. What would sacrifice be but a
risky investment if it did not redeem us from the love of those things
which it asks us to surrender? What would be the miserable fruit of an
appeal to God which, after bringing us face to face with him, left us
still immersed in what we could have enjoyed without him? The real use
and excuse for magic is this, that by enticing us, in the service of
natural lusts, into a region above natural instrumentalities, it
accustoms us to that rarer atmosphere, so that we may learn to breathe
it for its own sake. By the time we discover the mechanical futility of
religion we may have begun to blush at the thought of using religion
mechanically; for what should be the end of life if friendship with the
gods is a means only? When thaumaturgy is discredited, the childish
desire to work miracles may itself have passed away. Before we weary of
the attempt to hide and piece ou