ke
that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming
ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the
strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all
obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God.
The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even
while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his
obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom
we live, and move, and are."

[Footnote 116: "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
name is Judge."--Kant.]

This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of obligation, lie
at the very foundation of all religion. They lead the mind towards God,
and anchor it in the Divine. They prompt man to pray, and inspire him
with an instinctive confidence in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer
is natural to man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller
found a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been found
without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences, but never
without prayer any more than without speech. Plutarch wrote, eighteen
centuries ago, If you go through all the world, you may find cities
without walls, without letters, without rulers, without money, without
theatres, but never without temples and gods, or without _prayers_,
oaths, prophecies, and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and
benefits, or to avert curses and calamities.[117] The naturalness of
prayer is admitted even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says,
"Let us who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion
of nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as the
flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural man."[118] Is
man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is
in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul turns towards
God. "Nature in an agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to
fly, flies to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some blind
nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power, but gratitude to
God. The soul's natural and appropriate language in the hour of
deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.

[Footnote 117: "Against Kalote