f
science who are searching for the traces of antiquity in old
languages,--in the ruins of speech. I inquire, for example, of my
learned fellow-countryman, M. Adolphe Pictet: "You who have studied,
with patient care, the first origins of our race--what have you
discovered in the way of religion?" He replies: "When I have gone as far
back as historical speculations can carry us by the aid of language, it
appears to me that I no longer see temples built by the hand of man,
but, beneath the open vault of heaven, I see our earliest ancestors
sending up together the chant of prayer and the flame of
sacrifice."[174]

And now, from this remote antiquity, I come down to the paganism, in
which modern civilization had its beginning. Tertullian teaches us that
the pagans, seeming to forget their idols, and to offer a spontaneous
testimony to the truth, were often wont to exclaim--Great God! Good God!
What in their mind was the order of these two thoughts, the thought of
greatness and that of goodness? The pediment of a temple at Rome bore
this famous inscription, _Deo optimo maximo_; and Cicero explains to us
that the God of the Capitol was by the Roman people named "very good" on
account of the benefits conferred by him, and "very great" on account of
his power.[175] It is the idea of goodness which here appears to be
first. But let us go more directly to the root of the question: What do
we gather from the universality of prayer? What is it to pray? To pray
is to ask. Prayer may be mingled with thanksgivings, and with
expressions of adoration, but in itself prayer is a petition. This
petition rises to God: and when does it so rise? In distress, in
anguish. It is misery, weakness, the heart cast down, the failing will,
which unite to raise from earth to heaven that long cry which resounds
across all the pages of history: Help!--I analyze this fact, and inquire
what it means. A request is made, and for what? For strength, for
tranquillity, for peace; for happiness under all its forms. And of whom
is happiness asked? Of goodness. Justice is appeased, power is dreaded,
but it is goodness which is invoked. It is so in human relations. The
man who supplicates the fiercest tyrant only does so because he supposes
that a fibre of goodness may still vibrate in that savage heart. Take
from him that thought; persuade him that the last gleam of pity is
extinct in the heart to which he appeals, and you will arrest the prayer
on the lips of t