of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of
the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard
throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach,[231] in Fletcher's
Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate,
replies,--

"His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;
Our valors are our best gods."

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want
of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you
can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and
already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base.
We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company,
instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric
shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason.
The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods
and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him
all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our
love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We
solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he
held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him
because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said
Zoroaster,[232] "the blessed Immortals are swift."

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a
disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, "Let
not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and
we will obey."[233] Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my
brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables
merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind
is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and
power, a Locke,[234] a Lavoisier,[235] a Hutton,[236] a Betham,[237] a
Fourier,[238] it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new
system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number
of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his
complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which
are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental
thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is
Calvinism,[239] Quakerism,[240] Swedenborgism.[241] The pupil takes the
same delight in subordinating everything to the