But the sacrifices which always became most prominent were those in expiation of sin. These we find in all nations and all religions, testifying that conscience is universal in man. These sacrifices show that man has the sense of wrong-doing. He believes that he needs to do something to obtain pardon. Such ideas spring up naturally in the soul.

While some inward instinct of the soul leads man to adore and worship these invisible presences, and to supplicate help from the heavenly powers, an opposite tendency drifts him away from such spiritual communion, and subjects him to the rule of sense. Outward things distract his attention, and make him forget his prayers. Therefore he seeks for help in those very outward things themselves. To keep his mind fixed on God, he makes an image and calls it God, and by this means fixes his attention. This is the origin of idolatry. The Roman Catholic kneeling before a picture of the Madonna does not mean to pray to the picture, but by means of the picture to keep his mind fixed on the invisible mother of Christ. Just so the savages use their idols as helps, and pray to the God behind them. Such is the legitimate origin of idolatry. After awhile the religious associations which connect the idol itself with the divinity it represents grow so strong that the image becomes sacred, and the God appears to be

fixed to it, to dwell in it. All idolatry runs into this extreme, and worships the means of religion as if they were the end. The Sabbath was a means of shutting out the world, it was "made for man." But at last the Sabbath was considered as holy in itself, apart from its uses; then man seemed made for the Sabbath. So the church and the temple were made as places where the worshipper could be surrounded with sacred associations, and helped to fix his attention on things unseen. The use of the Liturgy, of the Rosary, of the Bible, are for the same end. All are meant as helps to prayer, and as such are good. But when we talk of the Holy Sabbath, the Holy Church, God's day, God's house, we are drifting toward the same sort of mechanism in religion which led to the prayermills of the Buddhists.

§ 6. Jewish Prayers. The Book of Psalms. God spoken to as a friend. Christian Prayer. No liturgy in the New Testament. The prayer of love.

When we turn from these ethnic and prophetic religions, and read the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, we seem to enter into a new atmosphere. In the Vedic hymns, in the hymns on the Egyptian monuments, and in the other religions we find adoration, reverence, profound sincerity, and a longing for help from on high. But the element which comes into prayer with the Psalms of

David is one of happy trust, the freedom of childlike intercourse. God, who in the other religions was far away, has now come near and walks with man as a friend. Therefore this Jewish psalter continues to be the best prayer-book for Christians down to this hour. With much in it that is not Christian, and which we cannot believe in or rightly use, there is in it so much of inspiration, comfort, and joy, so much to purify and strengthen the soul, that we feel it often reached the very spirit of Christ before Christ came.

The New Testament contains no liturgy, no hymnal, no forms of prayer except the Lord's Prayer. This could not have been accidental. The disciples asked for some such help for their devotions. Jesus gave only this brief summary of worship. He feared routine; he warned them against endless repetitions, like those of the Vedas and Zend-Avesta. He preferred private to public prayer, as being more sincere and real. "Be not like the heathen," he said, using "vain repetitions." The worshippers of Baal called to their god the whole morning, crying, "O Baal! hear us!" The Ephesians cried for two hours, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" Terence makes one of his characters say: "Wife, cease deafening the gods with your prayers. You seem to think them like yourself, unable to understand a thing till it has been said a hundred times." Martin Luther

says: "Few words and much meaning is Christian; many words and little meaning is heathen."

Jesus teaches us to pray in spirit and truth, to ask in faith, to ask especially for the Holy Spirit, to "ask in his name," that is in his spirit.1

Thus we see the ascent of prayer; first of all it is a magical charm, an incantation, a mere means of gaining power, wealth, pleasure, victory; then it rises higher and becomes adoration, and a form of sacrifice. Then we see it helping itself with outward aids; with images and idols; with sacrifices and incense; with holy places, holy persons, holy altars and holy books; with liturgies and litanies. At last, in the teaching of Jesus, it reaches the highest form, as a life of communion with the all-loving, ever-present father and friend.

As man ascends, his prayer also becomes more elevated. The element of fear is first partially eliminated. It is not true, as Lucretius asserted, that all religion rests on fear. But in many religions the gods were regarded as capricious, revengeful and cruel. And this view is the source of human sacrifices, of ascetic mortifications, and of a thousand devices for appeasing an angry Deity.

1 The Concordance will show how often in the Jewish books, "name" stands for the character, nature, or spirit of the person or thing.

§ 7. Imprecatory prayer in all religions. Improvement in the spirit and method of prayer.

As prayer continues to ascend, the imprecatory element drops out of it.

The imprecations of Greeks (says Potter), were very terrible, and so powerful, when duly pronounced, as to occasion the destruction, not only of many persons, but of whole cities. The imprecations of Myrtilus on Pelops brought all the dreadful sufferings which Atreus, Agamemnon, and Orestes endured. The most dreadful imprecations were those by parents, priests, kings, and prophets. Criminals were publicly cursed by the priests. Alcibiades was banished and cursed by all the priests of Athens. A single priestess (we are glad to hear) refused. Theano said her office was to bless and not to curse. Pliny says, "All men fear imprecations."

Among the Jews we read of the curse of Saul on Jonathan, and of Balaam sent for to curse the Israelites. The imprecatory Psalms are still read in many churches. And this element of imprecation survives in the Church of England; soon, let us hope, to be removed. There is a commination service still ordered to be read on the first day of Lent, in which to each of a long series of curses the people are to say Amen. But Jesus has explicitly forbidden all this. "Bless your enemies,"