"Second Part or Response—I ya wo."
And this prayer, so touching in its simplicity, was as successful as the most elaborate composition of Jewish prophet or Christian bishop; for the narrator states that Utshaka "Sang a song and prayed to the Lord of heaven; and asked his forefathers to pray for rain to the Lord of heaven. And it rained" (R. S. A., vol. i. p. 92). The efficacy of prayer is plainly independent of the creed of him who offers it.
The Mexicans held an important annual festival in the month of May, of which the main purpose was to entreat for water from the sky, this being the season at which there was the greatest need of rain (H. I., b. v. ch. 28). They used to address an elaborate prayer to a god named Tlaloc, the king of the terrestrial paradise, to obtain deliverance from drought. They entreated him not to visit the offenses they had committed with such severity as to continue the privation under which they were laboring.[1] The Tannese, when put to much inconvenience by the dust falling from a certain volcano, "were in the habit of praying to their gods for a change of wind" (N. Y., p. 75). Certain other South Sea Islanders used to pray to their gods to avert the supposed calamity of a lunar eclipse. "As the eclipse passes off, they think it is all owing to their prayers," a mode of reasoning which presents an exact parallel to that employed by many Christians.
Sir John Davis gives a very interesting specimen of a prayer for rain employed by Taou-Kuâng, the Emperor of China, in 1832, on the occasion of a long drought in that country (Chinese, vol. ii. p. 75). As may be expected from so civilized a people, this prayer rises far above the outspoken begging of savage petitions, yet it has in substance precisely the same end. The emperor describes himself as "scorched with grief," and pathetically inquires whether he has been remiss in sacrifice, has been proud or prodigal, irreverent, unjust, or wanting in discretion in the exercise of patronage. Here we see the intrusion of the theological idea that calamities are sent as punishments for sin, which plays no small part in Christian theology; but this only serves to veil, without effacing, the essential character of the prayer. The very same notion, that sin is visited by unfavorable weather, is found in the prayer of Solomon, whose mind upon this question seems to have been in the same stage of thought as that attained by the Chinese emperor. "When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee" (1 Kings viii. 35), is the language of Solomon: "My sins are so numerous that it is hopeless to escape their consequences," so runs the penitent confession of Taou-Kuâng. But whatever may be the cause to which the drought is attributed, the prayer, whether uttered by Chinaman, Jew, or Christian, is still simply the petition to the Amazulu, the South Sea Islander, or the native American—a request that God will so influence the phenomena of the skies as to suit our convenience. The notion that this object may sometimes be attained by our prayers is not extinct even among ourselves.
Other special occasions are sometimes held to call for prayer. Such are national calamities; as a pestilence among men or cattle, the illness of some eminent person, and other similar misfortunes. A good harvest is very generally prayed for; so is victory in time of war. The ancient Aryans, who composed the Vedic hymns one thousand years or more before Christ, continually prayed for this last blessing; and we ourselves, when engaged in warfare, piously continue the same custom.
Very frequently the notion of a bargain between the god and his worshiper appears in prayer. The worshiper claims to have rendered some service for which the god ought in equity to reward him; or he holds out the discontinuance of his former devotion as a motive to induce the concession of his desires. The constant conjunction of praise with prayer is explicable on this principle of a reciprocity of benefits. If the worshiper gains much from the god, yet the god gains something from him, being addressed in a strain of unbounded eulogy. His power, his greatness, his goodness, his excellences of all kinds are vaunted in glowing terms, no doubt sincerely used by the worshiper, but repeated and accumulated to satiety from an impression that they are pleasing to their object, and may dispose him to beneficence. Titles thus bestowed upon their deities are aptly described by the Amazulus as "laud-giving names" (R. S. A., vol. i. p. 72, and vol. ii. p. 149). In the Vedic hymns and in the Psalms, the deities spoken of are constantly addressed by such complimentary epithets. One of the hymns to the Maruts begins by announcing the poet's intention to praise "their ancient greatness." And at the conclusion, after he has done so, he says, "May this praise, O Maruts, ... approach you (asking) for offspring to our body, together with food. May we find food, and a camp with running water" (R. V. S., vol. i. pp. 197, 201). The Psalmists were never weary of exalting the extraordinary might and majesty of Jehovah, mingling petitions with panegyric; and a large portion of the worship of Christians consists in expressions of pious admiration at the extraordinary goodness of their God, especially for his redemption of the world which he had himself condemned. All these extravagant eulogies betray a latent impression that the Deity is, after all, a very arbitrary personage, and may be moved to more merciful conduct than he would otherwise pursue by large doses of flattery.
Still more clearly does the idea of a commercial relationship with the gods make its appearance in a poet who stands on a higher intellectual and moral level than the writers of the Hebrew Psalms, namely Aischylos. In the Seven against Thebes, Eteokles implores Zeus, the Earth, and the tutelar deities of the city to protect Thebes; and subjoins as a motive for compliance, "And I trust that what I say is our common interest; for a prosperous city honors the gods" (Aisch. Sept. c. Th. 76, 77—Dindorf). And there is a similar appeal to the divine selfishness further on in the same play, where the chorus inquires of the gods what better plain they can expect to obtain in exchange for this one, if they shall suffer it to pass into the enemy's hands (Aisch., Sept. c. Th. 304).
In the Choephoræ, Zeus is distinctly asked in the prayer of Agamemnon's children whence he can expect to obtain the sacrifice and honors which have been paid him by Orestes and Electra if he should suffer them to perish (Aisch., Choeph., 255). While in the Electra of Sophocles the converse motive of gratitude is appealed to: the god Apollon being desired to remember not what he may get, but what he already has got, from the piety of his supplicant (Soph. El., 1376—Schneidewin). And Jacob, who was a good hand at a bargain, makes his terms with Jehovah in a thoroughly business-like spirit. "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." The adoption of Jehovah as Jacob's God being thus entirely dependent on the performance by that Deity of his share in the contract (Gen. xxviii. 20-22).
Sometimes it is quaintly suggested that were the worshiper in the place of the god, he would not neglect the interests of his devotee. Thus, the author of a hymn in the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ, addressing the Gods of Tempest, exclaims: "If you, sons of Prisni, were mortals, and your worshiper an immortal, then never should your praiser be unwelcome, like a deer in pasture grass, nor should he go on the path of Yama" (R. V. S., vol. i. p. 65). Another unsophisticated poet gives the following hint to the god Indra, the Hindu Jupiter: "Were I, Indra, like thee, the sole lord of wealth, the singer of my praises should be rich in cattle" (S. V., i. 2. i. 3. p. 218). And the same god is asked elsewhere in the Veda: "When wilt thou make us happy? for it is just this that is desired" (S. V., i. 5. i. 3. p. 233). With equal plainness is the expectation of a quid pro quo enunciated in one of the most ancient hymns, contained in the sacred books of the Parsees:—"Every adoration, O True One, consists in actions whereby one may obtain good possessions, full of security, and happiness round about" (F. G. vol. ii. p. 54.—Yama 51. i).
More emphatically still is this conception of a reciprocity of benefits expressed in another consecrated action, that of Sacrifice. Sacrifice holds a most important place in all religions. It originates in a stage of the human mind which, if not quite as primitive as that which gives rise to prayer, is nevertheless so early as to be practicably inseparable from it. Wherever we find prayer, we find sacrifice; but as the latter is generally found organized under definite forms, and confined to certain specified objects, we may conclude that in the state in which we recognize it, it implies a certain degree of regulation and forethought on the part of religious authorities which we do not meet with in the simplest types of prayer. Prayer is often the mere natural outpouring of our wants before a power which is considered capable of fulfilling them: sacrifice, though doubtless in the first instance an equally artless offering of gifts to beings who are regarded with veneration and gratitude, is soon converted into a formal presentation of acknowledged dues, performed under ecclesiastical supervision. No doubt prayer also tends to assume this formal character; but we have hitherto considered it in its uncorrupted aspect; its treatment in its later developments belongs to another portion of this chapter.