THERE is a prayer of supplication, and the nature of

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1 DO WE PRAY? KATE SWOPE. THERE is a prayer of supplication, and the nature of that prayer is to ask, to plead, to beg God to be good. There is a prayer of affirmation, it is the prayer of faith; its nature is to declare that God is good, and thereby reflect a consciousness of God's presence and power. Jesus said to his disciples, "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Herein we learn how to pray, and the Christian Scientist employs the method of prayer expounded by Jesus in the words, "He shall have whatsoever he saith." Saith is the word used. It shall be as a man affirms or declares, rather than as he pleads. It therefore becomes necessary that we affirm the truth, and the truth only; but before we can declare the truth, we must know what is truth, for to know the truth is to find freedom. If we declare trustingly and understandingly that God is good, our experience will be in keeping with this declaration. Christian Science prayer is a declaration of those things which are, and which "shall come to pass" in so far as the Christian Scientist makes his affirmation in faith and understanding. Such prayer is a declaration of God and of His man. therefore it is man's declaration of independence, in the true sense of freedom. Know (declare) the truth, "and the truth shall make you free," describes a Christian Science prayer and its effects in human experience. When we pray or treat, we scientifically "entertain and declare" the subject of Being, the subject of God and man. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, his prayer was simple and commanding. He said, "come forth," and it was as he said. He faced death; he declared or bore witness to the power of Life. Christian Scientists face disease, face it with the courage of knowledge, and pray the prayer of affirmation, believing that those things which they say shall come to pass. They speak the word of Truth, they 334

2 DO WE PRAY? 335 say "Come forth," for man is not dead in sin, is not bound by disease; mortal sense is asleep under mortal law the heavy mesmeric sleep of Adam. All salvation is won by this same prayer of spiritual command or affirmation. Spiritual sense saith, "Come forth come out of mortal law into the spiritual law of being; come out of the sense of yourself as buried in mortality, as bound in matter, come into the spiritual sense of man. Let the Christ speak within, as of old 'Rise,' 'come forth.' " Believing that it shall come to pass, one shall come forth a risen man, risen out of the false beliefs of sin, disease, and sleep. "O Lord, save me," describes the prayer of supplication. "Come forth," describes the prayer of affirmation and dominion, wherein man works out his salvation through spiritual understanding, rather than blindly pleads for it. One's prayer must doubt not in the heart that salvation shall come to pass, and it shall come to pass as he hath said. Christian Scientists are familiar with the expression, "But I have prayed for years, and if God will not answer my own prayers directly, why should they be answered through a Christian Scientist?" The difference lies in the nature of the prayer offered. One was the prayer of supplication; the other the prayer of affirmation. One asks God to be power; the other declares and bears witness to His power. One pleads; the other declares the Truth of being, and saith what shall come to pass; namely, God's will, health, wholeness, harmony, and the result is as he hath said. The result is in proportion as he "shall doubt not in his heart," and as he conforms to the Christ teachings. In Science and Health we read, "You say you have not slept well, or have overeaten. You are a law unto yourself. Saying this, and believing it, you will suffer in proportion to your belief and fear" (p. 385). Herein we see the bondage caused by the reversal of the method of prayer taught by Jesus. Believing in disease, evil, and doubting not that it shall come to pass, it shall be as a man saith. This is contrary to divine law. Mortals are a law unto themselves, declaring mortal laws to their own disadvantage, as the Christian Scientist is a law unto himself, affirming spiritual law to his greatest possible advantage. Christian Science prayer is the perception of a scientific process or spiritual law, and is an affirmation of truth. It stands to reason that one cannot affirm the law of good, God, until he first understands something of

3 336 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL. spiritual law, or God as Principle; until he discerns the straight and narrow way between mortal belief and spiritual law, between the beliefs of the flesh and the law of Spirit. Understanding spiritual law, the next step is to apply it. It shall come to pass as the awakening man saith, implies that it shall occur, or be, according to the spiritual law he declares, law affirmed in understanding and applied in faith. While Christian Scientists dissociate faith healing from Christian Science Mind-healing, they by no means belittle faith. One seeks to heal by prayer to the human sense of a personal God; the other heals by prayer, in the realization of God as Principle, affirming His law and applying that understanding in faith. By this distinction we do not undervalue faith, its power and fruits, for the law we affirm in understanding we apply in faith. We do not forsake faith, but go beyond it into an understanding of spiritual law. We by no means discard sweet old-fashioned faith in God, His love, His laws, His operation and will. The condition, "shall not doubt in his heart," is the faith that is forever linked with the promise that "he shall have whatsoever he saith" in Truth, or whatsoever law he affirms in Truth. Of some lone one wandering along the shores of discouragement seeking health and happiness, of one who has prayed in supplication for years, let me ask, What have you said to yonder mountain of woe? What have you said shall come to pass? Not what have you asked, but what have you said? What laws have you declared? and what kind of laws? Have you affirmed spiritual law and doubted not in your heart the power and efficacy of that spiritual law? Do you understand the law? do you know the truth which makes free? Do you know or understand how to apply that law or truth? No. Then thank God that the hour of awakening has dawned, wherein you perceive the call to prayer in the sense of a working out of your salvation, wherein an appeal comes to your hungering, thirsting after righteousness to study spiritual law, the Science of being, or Christian Science. Prayer is the greatest power for help known to man, a means to which all men instinctively resort, ignorantly maybe, yet as intuitively as a flower turns toward the light. Prayer, then, being the greatest means of help known to man, is of all things the most essential study, the crowning halo of all knowledge. How to find help in time of need, is, above everything, the most practical

4 DO WE PRAY? 337 wisdom that man can acquire; and where to find it is the next most practical and helpful information. The Science of accurate prayer, and the accurate Science of prayer, is expounded in the Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science text-book, and to all who knock, it shall be opened unto them. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." One of the most vital questions that a Christian can ask is, "What constitutes prayer?" One of the most practical questions the novice in Christian Science can ask is, "What constitutes a treatment?" Our first business in life is to understand how to pray (or treat), not how to speculate or theorize or puzzle the Samaritan who would help mankind, but to learn how to apply what we may know. We are here not so much to admire truth as to use it. "One of his [Jesus'] disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Teach us how to apply the truth is the earnest plea of the practical student. If one's faith in spiritual law is no larger than a grain of mustard seed, even that application will remove mountains of error. The scientific statement of being in Science and Health (p. 468), is adapted to meet every need. "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." By enlarging on the term "matter" we may cover the entire range of mortal mind; thus, there is no life, truth, intelligence, or substance in malice, envy, jealousy, sensuality, fear, injustice, sin, sickness, and death. "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." Thus all is infinite Mind, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Principle, intelligence, presence, power, harmony, and its infinite manifestation. The scientific statement of being is a prayer or treatment always at hand for the ready comprehension and application of those who hesitate before the thought of giving a treatment, doubting their ability to apply the truth to the daily discords of mortal life. It includes the "nay, nay," and the "yea, yea," of scientific prayer, the denial of error, and the affirmation of Truth. The Christian Scientist is not prayerless because he affirms rather than supplicates; on the contrary, he prays incessantly in so far as he applies the truth continuously. Christian Scientists pray largely; their prayer reaches from the healing of the nations down to the sparrow,

5 338 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL. whose life is held in God. An orthodox minister once said "I do not understand absent treatment." And he was asked, "Did you ever pray for the welfare of the nation and for the President at Washington?" He admitted that he did. "But you were in different cities, how did you expect your prayer to be answered?" "O, but that is prayer," he argued. "So is this," came the answer. Materia medica is fond of saying that "Christian Science treatment is good enough for weak, hysterical women, but good for nothing else." That a woman's body is weak and her nerves unstrung does not of necessity imply that her mind and character is weak, as witnessed in Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the poetess of her age. Far be it from Christian Scientists to deny that many such women are helped and healed by Christian Science. When this Science is better known, and its protection is better understood, the "weak, hysterical woman" will be unknown. Prayer which involves an emotional religious state, is a very bad thing indeed for such an one, apt to stir self-pity, tears, and beget a worse state after than before the supplication. Such prayer is not conducive to the recovery of nervous invalids, and if Christian Science "is good enough for such," it is because it heals super-sensitiveness, undue emotionality, intensity, and a strained pleading with God, thus giving an entire new outlook on the subject of prayer and religion; one conducive to self-command, self-protection, and salvation generally. But what of the once "nervous, hysterical woman" who, after her own healing is accomplished, heals others of just such plain, old-fashioned diseases of good repute in materia medica as rheumatism, malaria, bone felons, bilious attacks, etc.? The relation of prayer to compensation in Christian Science is difficult of general comprehension, yet the association of spiritual service and financial return therefor, in every other religious organization, is so familiar as to excite no comment. Injustice, selfishness, and ingratitude produce a lack of compensation which in turn is the root of all poverty and mendicancy, a condition incompatible with enlightenment, civilization, and Christianity. Injustice, selfishness, and ingratitude are impersonal errors, which would rob the Christian Science ranks of the best workers by holding them in outgrown grooves of financial support, causing them to bury their healing talent in the napkin of earthly vocations; hence the necessity of overcoming this evil and blindness.

6 DO WE PRAY? 339 Compensating those who heal the sick should not be regarded as charity, but as justice; for when justice and gratitude reign supreme, poverty and mendicancy will be unknown. Is ingratitude so Christian a virtue that it can sit in judgment on the Christian Scientist who allows another to reap the fruits of his knowledge of life, knowledge wrought out through years of chastening and experience? If Christian Scientists are called to heal all error, why not let all error be healed, such as selfishness, injustice, and ingratitude, that mendicancy may become unknown? Divine Love melts the frozen channels of the tightened heart, so that gratitude may freely flow. "Freely ye have received, freely give." Christian Science teaches gratitude as an essential to spiritual progress, and none are so slow to heal and progress as the ungrateful, hence the need of Paul's teaching: "Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account." An expression of gratitude is desired that it may abound to the account, or receptivity, of the patient, rather than to the healer. Gratitude is the solvent of discouragement and selfishness, which sees only how far, rather than how near one is to the goal. We often meet the argument, that if God does the healing, why compensate the practitioner? If ye cannot love man whom ye have seen, how can ye love God whom ye have not seen? And it may be added, that if we cannot express gratitude to the helpful man whom we have seen, how can we feel gratitude toward the helpful God whom we have not seen? The kingdom of heaven is at hand, Jesus taught, and gratitude belongs to this heaven at hand, not afar. It is blind faith that prays to the sense of a personal God in the belief of life in matter; it prays for healing in the flesh rather than for redemption from the flesh, dominion over matter. Spiritual understanding, the prayer of Christian Science, includes a perception of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It unveils not only the Father's face but the Son's, it unveils the face of man, the Christ-mind, and it unveils the Holy Ghost; the Comforter Divine Science. To these three in one must the sick turn for help. They must turn to God as the Source of all health; they must also turn to the Son (the mediator or Christ-consciousness) and to the spiritual understanding of Divine Science. The healing Christ is very, very near, and the sick must turn to that "Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Jesus said, "Abide in me,

7 340 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL. and I in you," and "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." We cannot dodge a complete expression of gratitude by attributing the healing to a God afar, thereby hoping to cancel the debt near at hand. Of yore our prayers to a God afar did not heal the sick, for mankind is not healed by a God afar, but is healed ''through man, whenever man is governed by God" (Science and Health, p. 495). The sick are helped by the one who is God-governed. They are helped by that healer which is with every man, even unto the end. Therefore gratitude must be broadly placed. It may even include a gratefulness for one's receptivity to truth, which plays so large a part in the healing. Jesus did not heal promiscuously, he healed only such as were responsive to the touch of Truth and Love. He advised us not to cast pearls of thought before the unreceptive. He sometimes exacted as many as three pleas for healing, as a test of receptivity, before he complied. It lay within his power to heal the Magdalene of sensuality, because she was receptive to virtue, while yet the jealousy of Judas stalked by his side untouched by the Christ-mind, and unhealed. Nor did Jesus pray promiscuously, as we learn from the following, "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." And again he said, "Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none;" from which we may infer that he lost none who were receptive to Christ, Truth; for such were given him by God. The apostles who were under the direct teaching of Jesus himself, seem to have had their occasional failures of answer to prayer. Upon one occasion of failure they came to Jesus and asked him why they had not succeeded; not why God had not, but why they had not cast out error. Jesus answered, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." The fasting demanded is the starvation of mortal thought, its beliefs, fears, sins, etc. Many forms of error cannot go forth because we have not fasted, or starved our mortal sense of life. Our prayers rise to higher faith and understanding, not through starving matter, but through starving the consciousness of matter. It is mortal mind that must be starved out, so that spiritual sense may discern God more clearly and thus rise to greater heights in prayer. In Romans we find a similar requirement, "But if the

8 DO WE PRAY? 341 Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." How many, many times the sick and distressed have asked for help and it came not! Does not this imply that there must be something more required than merely asking? What are the conditions set forth in the above verse? If Spirit dwell in you. That if implies something more than a mere asking, pleading, and supplicating. It implies the obedience to a premise, a rule. It suggests law and order. Prayer is the practical application of spiritual knowledge to every-day life. It is the vital power of Christianity, and Christianity must be vital, must be life-giving, must supply our every need, or it brings no Saviour to man. Not to be able to point out clearly defined instances in one's life of directly answered prayer, and yet to call oneself Christian, is on a par with saying, "Yes; I understand mathematics, but I cannot work out any mathematical problems." What of the Christian who says, "Yes; I understand Christianity, but I cannot work out my salvation; my life problem is unsolved, my prayers unanswered." It is often thought strange that after one has prayed unavailingly for years, a single Christian Science prayer ofttimes produces a complete restoration of health. Why is this? Because the Christian Scientist understands the scientific ordering of prayer; he has fasted, starved a mortal sense of being, whereas all the erstwhile patient did was to ask God to heal him of a disease that he believed to be real, and this he called a prayer. A petition for health is good, in so far as it goes, if it goes far enough to lead thought in the right direction, for if one looks to God, instead of to material help, he must eventually be led toward the wholeness which he seeks. But much socalled prayer is a hungering after mortal help, and not after the righteousness which earns help. There is a prayer of mortal sense, and there is the prayer of spiritual sense. The animal instinct of self-preservation will, in the most degraded, cry out in its extremity and fear of death, "O God, save me!" The prayer of spiritual sense will, in an extremity, rise above fear and exclaim in assurance, "God is my life, I cannot die!" You may say that "Thy will be done," was the very climax of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, and so it was, and so it is, in the light of Truth. But many of us can remem-

9 342 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL. ber a time when the thought of God's will froze us with fear, and we yielded to a fear of God more than we yielded to God's will. Our submission should be intelligent, it should be a submission to the Truth of being, a surrender to Spirit and not to the flesh; it should be a surrender of the belief of a will of death and discord, and a firm abiding in the will of Life and harmony. The will of Life is to live, and Life is God, therefore the will of God is to live, "Man is immortal and lives by divine authority" (Science and Health, p. 76). A practitioner once called to treat a dying man, entered the room and, approaching the patient, was greeted with his dispirited words, "Well, I am resigned." "Resigned to what?" came the quickening response. To what do we say, "Thy will be done"? To what are we acquiescing? To what are we resigned? to poverty, sickness, and death; or are we so resigned to the Christ, Truth, so at-one with life that we can exclaim with St. Clement, the martyr, "And this I know, that in me Christ conquers, and that he will triumph." Are we so resigned to Spirit that we can say, "In me spiritual sense, understanding, Christ, conquers and will triumph over matter (flesh), sin, and death, and will always, 'even unto the end.' " There is a personal wish and a spiritual desire. The stronger of the two will defeat the weaker. It was Jesus' personal wish that the cup might pass from him, yet he yielded to his stronger spiritual desire, to prove forever the immortality of man, life eternal. He conquered death in passing through its portals. After the last enemy was overcome, and resurrection was proven, he then said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." His desire to reflect the allness of Divine power was greater than his love of earth's comfort. He surrendered his personal wish to be spared humanly, to the Divine desire to rise spiritually, to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, including that last enemy, death. Tenacity to a personal wish, only defeats the higher spiritual desire. We ourselves thwart the answer to our prayers by interfering with a natural growth and unfoldment of life. Let the will of Spirit have its way, let that will be done to the defeat of the personal wish. Let us be comforted in knowing that the spiritual desire or prayer is nearest fulfilment when the personal wish is most defeated. "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself

10 DO WE PRAY? 343 maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,... and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God [good]." The love of good keeps the motives pure, and the desires spiritual; this too maketh intercession for us in words that cannot be uttered. Even if we personally know not what we should pray for, one's pure motive will rule destiny, will work all things together for good, for the supremacy of the higher, purer, desire and motive. He that searcheth the heart, knoweth the mind, motive, or desire of Spirit, but heareth not the personal desire. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" is the lonely cry of suffering personal sense. Spiritual sense being the only real intelligence, is eternally defeating the mortal sense, and working all things together for good to them that love good, to them whose desires are spiritual. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Are earth's pleasures, its ties, and its treasures taken away from you? It is divine Love that doeth it, and sayeth, 'Ye have need of all these things' " (Message, 1902). Not that God sends affliction, but liberation from whatever constitutes an obstacle to spiritual progression. Divine Love is reflected in man's spiritual desires. Our pure motives are the expression of God's will, our longing for love is the reflection of divine Love's longing for us. "We love him, because he first loved us." The higher spiritual love in man defeats his earthly ties, treasures, and pleasures; removes his obstacles to progress, so that the higher life within, for which he yearns, may triumph, even as it did with Jesus in Gethsemane. The larger motive triumphs over the lesser, "not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." The purer love triumphs over the more human, not accepting it, that the resurrection of a higher love might obtain, wherein that love for God gratefully exclaims, Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee: E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me. Our pure desires are God-given. Man reflects the divine Mind, so that when we read, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him," we feel that man has a right, as a reflection of the Father, to know the things He knoweth. In so far as we consciously reflect God, we bring about what is best for us, before we ask it. If the love for God is supreme in our lives, it thwarts everything that

11 344 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL. hinders us from drawing nearer and nearer to the Father. It is divine Love that doeth it; it is divine Love reflected in man that removes his obstacles; it is Love reflected in man that leads him to his need before he asks. All is infinite Love and its infinite manifestation, and in manifesting love we shall find our prayers answered before we ask. "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468), and in manifesting Mind, we shall know what is best for us, even as the Father knoweth. We could never know what is best for us unless God already knew it. Jesus' greatest prayer was, "Thy will be done." It is a prayer we all must learn. It is synonymous with, "Let the will of Truth, of Life, of Love, of good be done in me. Let the Christ be risen within; let the conquering Christ triumph in me as life eternal. Let the spiritual nature defeat the mortal (within) ; let the will of progression, of ascension, of victory be done." So shall the spiritual desire triumph, so shall a pure will be done in the so-called physical realm as it is in heaven, "for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." No language that can be employed by pen, no words that can be spoken by the tongue, can exaggerate the influence which Christ's philosophy has already exerted upon the race or estimate its future power. Between the doctrine of might and the doctrine of right; between the principle that propagates itself by the sword and the principle that grows through the persuasive influence of its own intrinsic merit; between the grasping, over-reaching spirit that enthrones self and sacrifices all else to its own advantage and the generous, manly recognition of the rights of others; between a measure of greatness that estimates a man by what he has absorbed from society and that which estimates men worthy in proportion as they do service and diffuse blessings these differences surpass comprehension. The Commoner.