Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds

by Earl John Russell Russell

May God make my enemies happy.

MAHOMET.

What admirable prayers! But I observe that they are pronounced with very little importunity: a man does not pray for temperance so fervently as for the death of his wife.

ANGEL.

These prayers are called virtue by those who utter them. There are many who think that to pray for virtue is equivalent to the practice of it, and they therefore pray to be good in preference to being so, as the less troublesome undertaking of the two. If these devout people believed there was any danger of their prayers being heard, they would be very cautious of praying for virtue, but they think God is not likely to force goodness upon them because they ask for it; they have full confidence in their own fidelity to pleasure, and rest secure that they can still be as voluptuous as they please, though they should pray every hour to become austere. Thus the man whom you heard asking aid against the wife of his neighbour Ali considers that he has not the less chance of success in his pursuit of her by praying against it, and he hopes, too, that his prayer may be some little atonement for the actual sin. But I think for the present you have heard enough, and can now justify God in listening inexorably to so many prayers.

MAHOMET.

But still there is a difficulty: I have seen that many prayers are rejected, and many are fulfilled with ruin, so that I am at a loss to discover the utility of praying at all; and it seems to me that if men lived by their own endeavours without prayer their prosperity would not be lessened. To what purpose or benefit, then, should I enjoin prayer in the Koran, and how can I recommend it? If I order men to pray, and tell them that they will be equally fortunate without it, I think they will hardly take the trouble; and if I affirm that by prayer they may be rich, of long life, and the parents of many children, I shall be guilty of a great deception.

ANGEL.

But men must be deceived for their welfare: they must believe in the prosperity from prayer, that there may be religion in all they do. You talk of deception—man is born to be deceived: the child is deceived by its parent, subjects by the king, worshippers by the priest, and all mankind are deceived by God. Man is cheated by his senses, his imagination, his reason: from his first hour to his last he is under illusions, without which he would not be a man.

MAHOMET.