gous reason, _i.e._, for lack of attuning. The mere
uttering of devotional phraseology, or even the sending forth of
anguished appeals, does not of necessity constitute true prayer at all,
and hence remains ineffective, because the soul is not really _en
rapport_ with God. We suggest that the supplication which "availeth much
in its working" will be the outcome of a whole spiritual discipline,
whereby the individual spirit has become attuned to the Spirit whom it
seeks; if the majority of prayers go unanswered, it is because they are
mere recitals of a tale of wants, without even an attempt upon the {212}
part of those who utter them to put themselves into the attitude upon
which an answer depends. On the other hand, where the adjustment of
which we speak has reached a high state of perfection, the soul not only
transmits its message to God with the perfect assurance of being heard,
but it is also continually sensitive to the messages which incessantly
flash through the spiritual ether from God, but which only those can hear
who have learned the secret of listening for His word.

In dealing with this question of unanswered prayer, we have given the
first place to what seems to us the most important as well as the least
frequently regarded reason--the lack of spiritual discipline, which is
ultimately the lack of faith, with which we pray. When we remember,
moreover, that many of our petitions are framed in very natural and
inevitable ignorance of what is for our truest good, we realise another
and very obvious reason for the non-fulfilment of a large proportion of
the wishes we lay before the throne of God, whose goodness is as much
attested by what He denies to our foolishness as by what He grants to our
entreaties. And how numerous are the prayers which reflection and an
awakened moral sense rule out of court: prayers which ask God to do for
us by special intervention what we ought to do for ourselves by our own
effort and industry; prayer for success in dealings and enterprises which
in themselves are ethically {213} unjustifiable, and to which the only
answer could be, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as
thyself"; prayers which carry the spirit of egoism, of competition, of
bargaining even into our relations with the Most High; prayers of an
imprecatory character such as meet and shock us in some of the psalms.
How could these and their like possibly be granted by a just and merciful
Creator?