The Religious Sentiment / Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and / Philosophy of Religion

by Daniel G. Brinton

Whatever the form of the prayer, it has direct or indirect relation to the accomplishment of a wish. David prays to the Lord as the one who “satisfies the desire of every living thing,” who “will fulfil the desire of them that fear him,” and it is with the like faith that the heart of every votary is stirred when he approaches in prayer the divinity he adores.

Widely various are the things wished for. Their character is the test of religions. In primitive faiths and in uncultivated minds, prayers are confined to the nearest material advantages; they are directed to the attainment of food, of victory in combat, of safety in danger, of personal prosperity. They may all be summed up in a line of one which occurs in the Rig Veda: “O Lord Varuna! Grant that we may prosper in getting and keeping!”

Beyond this point of “getting and keeping,” few primitive prayers take us. Those of the American Indians, as I have elsewhere shown, remained in this stage among the savage tribes, and rose above it only in the civilized states of Mexico and Peru. Prayers for health, for plenteous harvests, for safe voyages and the like are of this nature, though from their familiarity to us they seem less crude than the simple-hearted petition of the old Aryan, which I have quoted. They mean the same.

The more thoughtful votaries of the higher forms of religion have, however, frequently drawn the distinction between the direct and indirect fulfilment of the wish. An abundant harvest, restoration to health, or a victory in battle is the object of our hopes, not in itself, but for its results upon ourselves. These, in their final expression, can mean nothing else than agreeable sensations and pleasurable emotions. These, therefore, are the real though indirect objects of such prayers; often unconsciously so, because the ordinary devotee has little capacity and less inclination to analyze the nature of his religious feelings.

A recent writer, Mr. Hodgson, has said: “The real answer to prayer is the increase of the joyful emotions, the decrease of the painful ones.”[126-1] It would seem a simpler plan to make this directly the purport of our petitions; but to the modern mind this naked simplicity would be distasteful.

Nor is the ordinary supplicant willing to look so far. The direct, not the indirect object of the wish, is what he wants. The lazzarone of Naples prays to his patron saint to favor his choice of a lottery ticket; if it turn out an unlucky number he will take the little leaden image of the saint from his pocket, revile it, spit on it, and trample it in the mud. Another man, when his prayer for success is not followed by victory, sends gifts to the church, flogs himself in public and fasts. Xenophon gives us in his Economics the prayer of a pious Athenian of his time, in the person of Ischomachus. “I seek to obtain,” says the latter, “from the gods by just prayers, strength and health, the respect of the community, the love of my friends, an honorable termination to my combats, and riches, the fruit of honest industry.” Xenophon evidently considered these appropriate objects for prayer, and from the petitions in many recent manuals of devotion, I should suppose most Christians of to-day would not see in them anything inappropriate.

In spite of the effort that has been made by Professor Creuzer[127-1] to show that the classical nations rose to a higher use of prayer, one which made spiritual growth in the better sense of the phrase its main end; I think such instances were confined to single philosophers and poets. They do not represent the prayers of the average votary. Then and now he, as a rule, has little or no idea of any other answer to his prayer than the attainment of his wish.

As such petitions, however, more frequently fail than succeed in their direct object, and as the alternative of considering them impotent is not open to the votary, some other explanation of their failure was taught in very early day. At first, it was that the god was angered, and refused the petition out of revenge. Later, the indirect purpose of such a prayer asserted itself more clearly, and aided by a nobler conception of Divinity, suggested that the refusal of the lower is a preparation for a higher reward. Children, in well-ordered households, are frequently refused by parents who love them well; this present analogy was early seized to explain the failure of prayer. Unquestioning submission to the divine will was inculcated. Some even went so far as to think it improper to define any wish at all, and subsumed all prayer under the one formula, “Thy will be done.” Such was the teaching of St. Augustine, whose favorite prayer was Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis, a phrase much criticized by Pelagius and others of his time as too quietistic.[128-1] The usual Christian doctrine of resignation proceeds in theory to this extent. Such a notion of the purpose of prayer leads to a cheerful acceptance of the effects of physical laws, effects which an enlightened religious mind never asks to be altered in its favor, for the promises and aims of religion should be wholly outside the arena of their operation. The ideal prayer has quite other objects than to work material changes.

To say, as does Mr. Hodgson, that its aim is the increase of the joyful emotions is far from sufficient. The same may be said of most human effort, the effort to make money, for instance. The indirect object of money-making is also the increase of the agreeable feelings. The similarity of purpose might lead to a belief that the aims of religion and business are identical.

Before we can fully decide on what, in the specifically religious sense of the word, is the answer to prayer, we should inquire as a matter of fact what effect it actually exerts, and to do this we should understand what it is as a psychological process. The reply to this is that prayer, in its psychological definition, is a form of Expectant Attention. It is always urged by religious teachers that it must be very earnest and continuous to be successful. “Importunity is of the essence of successful prayer,” says Canon Liddon in a recent sermon. In the New Testament it is likened to a constant knocking at a door; and by a curious parity of thought the Chinese character for prayer is composed of the signs for a spirit and an axe or hammer.[129-1] We must “keep hammering” as a colloquial phrase has it. Strong belief is also required. To pray with faith we must expect with confidence.