ns; it must be in the form
of "Let thy Will be done," and that which prays must be capable of
making its petition felt, by having already gained a knowledge of what
that Will is. I am, of course, not referring to that form of prayer
which, alas with so many, seems to be the attempt to get as much out
of the Absolute as is possible, with the least amount of trouble.

If now we carefully examine the Phenomena around us, we make the
extraordinary discovery that this power to influence is the very basis
of survival and of progress throughout the universe. In the organic
world all Nature seems to be praying in one form or another, and only
those that pray with efficacy, based upon the above two conditions,
survive in the struggle for existence. The economy of Nature is
founded upon that inexorable law the "Survival of the Fittest"; every
organism that is not in sympathy with its environment, and cannot
therefore derive help and nourishment from its surroundings, perishes.
Darwin tells us that the colours of flowering plants have been
developed by the necessity of attracting the bees, on whose visits
depends the power of plants to reproduce their species; those families
of plants which do not as it were pray to the bees with efficacy, fail
to attract, are not therefore fertilised, and disappear without
leaving successors. Flowers may also be said to be praying to us by
their beauty, or usefulness, and in some cases, as with orchids, by
their marvellous shapes. We answer their prayer by building hot houses
and tending them with care, because they please us, and therefore we
help them to live; while, on the contrary, those plants that have not
developed these qualities are not only neglected, but, in some cases,
as with weeds, we take special trouble to exterminate them, because
their existence is distasteful to us.

Charles Darwin also tells us that Heredity and Environment are the
prime influences under which the whole Organic World is sustained; in
other words, every organism has implanted in it by heredity the
principle of life, but the conditions under which it will be possible
for that life to expand and come to perfection, rest entirely upon its
power to bring itself into harmony with its environment. This
principle of life does not come naked into the world, it is fortified
by heredity, with power gained by its parents in their struggle for
existence, and in their persistence to get into sympathy with their
environmen