must be condemned
as essentially irreligious and wicked. In that case, what will such a
missionary, if sent to the Khonds of Orissa, say, when he finds them
praying thus: "We are ignorant of what it is good to ask for. You know
what is good for us. Give it to us!"? Can he possibly say to his
flock, "All your prayers, all the things that you pray for now, are
wicked; and your only hope of salvation lies in ceasing to pray for
them"? If not, then he must recognise the fact that it is possible for
the heathen to pray, and to pray for some things that it is right to
pray for. And he must not only recognise the fact, but he must utilise
it. Nay! more, he must not only recognise the fact if it chances to
force itself upon him, he must go out of his way with the deliberate
purpose of finding out what things are prayed for. He will then find
himself in {140} more intimate contact with the soul of the man than he
can ever attain to in any other way; and he may then find that there
are other things for which petitions are put up which could not be
prayed for save by a man who had a defective or erroneous conception of
Him who alone can answer prayer.

But it is a blundering, unbusinesslike way of managing things if the
missionary has to go out to his work unprepared in this essential
matter, and has to find out these things for himself--and perhaps not
find them out at all. The applied science of religion should equip him
in this respect; it should be able to take the facts and truths
established by the science of religion and apply them to the purposes
of the missionary. But it is a striking example of the youth and
immaturity of the science of religion that no attempt has yet been made
by it to collect the facts, much less to coordinate and state them
scientifically. If a thing is clear, when we come to think of it, in
the history of religion, it is that the gods are there to be prayed to:
man worships them because it is on their knees that all things lie. It
is from them that man hopes all things; it is in prayer that man
expresses his hopes and desires. It is from his prayers that we should
be able to find out {141} what the gods really are to whom man prays.
What is said about them in mythology--or even in theology--is the
product of reflection, and is in many cases demonstrably different from
what is given in consciousness at the moment when man is striving after
communion with the Highest. Yet it is from myt