they feel impotent, they cannot bestir themselves to walk to the pool with the healing waters, but the Lord comes to them and saves them.

The diversity and wealth of spiritual teaching and invigoration to be obtained from a perusal of the Bible cannot even be hinted at. It is an inexhaustible mine, full of precious stones, and gold and silver. But just as in the case of a mine, to the untrained and careless it presents nothing but what is gross and even valueless, to the properly attuned mind, on the other hand, it abounds in treasure. To each individual it brings a special illumination adapted to his particular state. How many people have not repeated with Charles I that wonderful last verse of Psalm xliii ?- Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.'

Swedenborg tells us that when the Word is read by a person who loves it and lives in charity, or by someone even who in his simplicity of heart believes every word he reads, but who has formed no principles contrary to the truth of the internal sense, this latter is displayed by the Lord to the angels in such beauty and pleasantnesswith representatives also in ineffable variety according to the various states in which they are-that the least particulars are seen by them as living. This is the life which is in the Word, and from which the Word had birth. The angels understand the internal sense better and more fully when it is read by children, than when it is read by adults who are not in the faith of charity. For children are in mutual love and innocence, and are thus extremely tender, almost celestial, vessels capable, although unconsciously, of direct Divine disposal. The angels describe the Word as a dead letter which is vivified by the Word according to the capacity and life of the reader.

There can obviously be no conjunction with Heaven unless there be somewhere on earth a Church which has the Word and knows the Lord through it. For without Him there can be no salvation. Nevertheless it is

sufficient that there be such a Church, no matter how few its members. This is explained in the following manner.

The universal Heaven is as one man before the Lord, and so is the Church. The Church in which the Word is read and the Lord is known is as the heart and the lungs in that man. And as the human body is kept alive by these two functions of life, so also are all those in every part of the world with whom there is some kind of religion, who worship one God, live a good life, and thus form part of that man.

In view of all that has preceded, it will cause no surprise to learn that, according to Swedenborg, the Word is in Heaven, where it is read by angels and spirits. A copy of the Word written by angels under the Lord's inspiration is kept by every considerable society in a sacred repository appointed for that purpose, lest it should suffer alteration, and the angels confess that they derive all their wisdom from this source.

4

After this, what importance attaches to the higher criticism? What does it matter who the so-called authors of the various books may be? Swedenborg has given us a key, or a test, in his Arcana Cœlestia' and his Apocalypse Revealed,' by means of which it is easy to determine whether they are merely old folk-lore or genuinely inspired writings. That key is the internal sense. The Word contains within it the marriage of goodness and truth, and must therefore be instinct with wisdom. The human intermediary, the often unconscious messenger, is unimportant.

CHAPTER VII
PRAYER

ONE of the most difficult and perplexing problems of
religious men is the question of prayer. Worship and
adoration are not inexplicable.
not inexplicable. That people should
assemble together and offer up praise to their Maker
strikes nobody as incongruous. To a cynic like Douglas
Jerrold, it might offer occasion for a sneer; and we all
know Defoe's lines :

When God erects Himself a house of prayer
The Devil always builds a chapel there,
And 'twill be found upon examination

The latter has the larger congregation.

No doubt the jibe is deserved. Too many people when worshipping at church are animated by the same feelings which our Lord reprehended in the Pharisee. They consider that they are ingratiating themselves with God by their piety, and thus establishing their superiority over those who are less assiduous, less constant in their devotions, and less confident in their own righteousness. But, on general lines, praise and worship should offer no real difficulties to the religious man, or even to the irreligious-it is not contrary to common sense, it is not repugnant to reason.

But when we come to prayer for material benefits, such as prayer for victory in war, prayer for recovery from sickness, prayer for rain, prayer for success in some worldly enterprise, then we are on very different ground.

In John xv. 13-14, our Lord, speaking to His disciples,

says:

'And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.'

That is a clear and definite promise. Moreover, in Luke xi. we have the following:

And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him?

From this passage it would, however, seem to appear that the benefits to be expected to be derived from prayer are spiritual rather than material. And yet we find prayers said in church for material things, and in the Roman Catholic Church we have even masses for the souls of the departed, by means of which the rich, who can afford it, can get their relatives and friends out of purgatory more quickly than the poor, who have not the wherewithal to pay. The case thus put makes religion seem rather sordid. But all creeds encourage prayer in warfare. We know that when the Normans invaded England they spent the night before the battle of Hastings in prayer, whilst the English spent it in carousing, feasting, and merriment. The result has always been taken as an object-lesson and an illustration of the efficacy of prayer. But when both opposing forces are equally pious the position becomes somewhat puzzling.

Then it must, on reflection, seem rather childish to suppose that the Allwise Governor of the Universe, that an Almighty God, could be affected by the self-interested prayers of His creatures. We know God to be infinite Love and Wisdom, and yet we imagine that that infinite Love and Wisdom can be deflected from an infinitely wise and benevolent purpose by the petitions of his fallible, selfish, and short-sighted creatures!

The whole question is difficult. Its difficulties are best illustrated by two irreverent stories. One is of a little girl, the daughter of a doctor, who prayed that her father and mother might be kept in good health, but that there might be much sickness in the neighbourhood so that her father might have many patients. The other is that of the American trapper who found himself face to face with a bear and prayed to the Almighty, beseeching Him, in this terrible moment, if He could not see His way to help him to get the better of the bear, at least not to favour the latter.

The materialist, of course, regards prayer as an absurdity, and even a believer in the existence of a Deity must have his doubts as to whether the whole idea was not childish. A medical man in Russia, in pre-revolution days, when favours could only be obtained by patronage and by soliciting the support and influence of those possessed of power, claimed great merit for never having importuned the Deity, who must, as it is, be overwhelmed by petitioners! This, again, is childish. But, as already observed, the whole idea of prayer is childish. We are, indeed, enjoined in the Gospels to approach God as little children, otherwise we cannot hope to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

That, indeed, is the whole object of creation, the peopling of the Kingdom of Heaven. If we regard life from this angle, we shall necessarily take a very different view of prayer. To the gross, carnally minded, average sensual man, the success of his undertakings on earth, his material comfort and prosperity, are far more important than the visionary and illusive question of his spiritual welfare. Nor is it in the Divine scheme of things that