Father Payne by Arthur Christopher Benson (novels in english .TXT) 📖

relationships, and can't get away?" said I.

"Yes, there are such cases," said Father Payne; "I don't deny it. If there is really no escape possible, then you must tackle it, and make the finest thing you can out of the situation. Fulness of life, that is what we must aim at. Of course people are hemmed in in other ways too--by health, poverty, circumstances of various kinds. But, however small your saucepan is, it ought to be on the boil."

"But can people _make_ themselves active and hopeful?" I said. "Isn't that just the most awful problem of all, the listlessness which falls on many of us, as the limitations draw round and the net encloses us?"

"You must kick out for all you are worth," said Father Payne. "I fully admit the difficulty. But one of the best things in life is the fact that you can always do a little better than you expect. And then--you mustn't forget God."

"But a conscious touch with God?" I said. "Isn't that a rare thing?"

"It need not be," said Father Payne, very seriously. "If there is one thing which experience has taught me, it is this--that if you make a signal to God, it is answered. I don't say that troubles roll away, or that you are made instantly happy. But you will find that you can struggle on. People simply don't try that experiment. The reason why they do not is, I honestly believe, because of our services, where prayer is made so ceremoniously and elaborately that people get a false sense of dignity and reverence. It is a very natural instinct which made the disciples say, 'Teach us to pray,' and I do not think that ecclesiastical systems do teach people to pray--at least the examples they give are too intellectual, too much concerned with good taste. A prayer need not be a verbal thing--the best prayers are not. It is the mute glance of an eye, the holding out of a hand. And if you ask me what can make people different, I say it is not will, but prayer."


LXVIII


OF PRAYER

I was walking about the garden on a wintry Sunday with Father Payne. He had a particular mood on Sundays, I used to think, which made itself subtly felt--a mood serious, restrained, and yet contented. I do not remember how the subject came up, but he said something about prayer, and I replied:

"I wish you would tell me exactly what you feel about prayer, Father. I never quite understand. You always speak as if it played a great part in your life, and yet I never am sure what exactly it means to you."

"You might as well say," he said, smiling, "that you never felt quite sure what breakfast meant to me."

He stopped and looked at me for a moment. "Do we know what anything _means_? We know what prayer _is_, at any rate--one of the commonest and most natural of instincts. What is your difficulty?"

"Oh, the usual one," I said, "that if the God to whom we pray is the Power which puts into our minds good desires, and knows not only what is passing in our thoughts, but the very direction which our thoughts are going to take--reads us, in fact, like a book, as they say--what, then, is the object or purpose of setting ourselves to pray to a Power that knows our precise range of thoughts, and can disentangle them all far better than we can ourselves?"

"Why," said Father Payne, "that is pure fatalism. If you carry that on a little further it means all absence of effort. You might as well say, 'I will take no steps to provide myself with food--if God is All-Powerful, and sends me a good appetite, it is His business to satisfy it!"

"Oh," I said, "I see that. But if I set about providing myself with breakfast, I know exactly what I want, and have a very fair chance of obtaining it. But the essence of prayer is that you must not expect to get your desires fulfilled."

"I certainly do not pretend," said he, "that prayer is a mechanical method of getting things; it isn't a _substitute_ for effort and action. Nor do I think that God simply withholds things unless you ask for them, as a dog has to beg for a piece of biscuit. I don't look upon prayer as the mere formulating of a list of requests; and I dislike very much the way some good people have of getting a large number of men and women to pray for the same thing, as if you were canvassing for votes. And yet I believe that prayers have a way of being granted. Indeed, I think that both the strength and the danger of prayer lies in the fact that people do very much tend to get what they have set their hearts upon. A recurrent prayer for a definite thing is often a sign that a man is working hard to secure it. It is rather perilous to desire definite things too definitely, not because you are disappointed, but because you are often successful in attaining them."

"Then that would be a reason for not praying," I said.

Father Payne gave one of his little frowns, which I knew well. "I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, Father," I said; "I really want to understand. It seems to me such a muddle."

The little frown passed off in a smile. "Yes, it isn't a wholly rational thing," said Father Payne, "but it's a natural and instinctive thing. To forbid prayer seems to me like forbidding hope and love. Prayer seems to me just a mingling of hope and desire and love and confidence. It is more like talking over your plans and desires with God. It all depends upon whether you say, 'My will be done,' which is the wrong sort of prayer, or 'Thy will be done,' which is the right sort of prayer, and infinitely harder. I don't mind telling you this, that my prayers are an attempt to put myself in touch with the Spirit of God. I believe in God; I believe that He is trying very hard to bring men and women to live in a certain way--the right, joyful, beautiful way. He sees it clearly enough; but we are so tangled up with material things that we don't see it clearly--we don't see where our happiness lies; we mistake all kinds of things--pleasures, schemes, successes, comforts, desires--for happiness; and prayer seems to me like opening a sluice and letting a clear stream gush through. That's why I believe one must set oneself to it. The sluice is not always open--we are lazy, cowardly, timid; or again, we are confident, self-satisfied, proud of our own inventiveness and resourcefulness. I don't know what the will is or what its limitations are; but I believe it has a degree of liberty, and it can exercise that liberty in welcoming God. Of course, if we think of God as drearily moral, harsh, full of anger and disapproval, we are not likely to welcome Him; but if we feel Him full of eagerness and sympathy, of 'comfort, light, and fire of love,' as the old hymn says, then we desire His company. You have to prepare yourself for good company, you know. It is a bit of a strain; and I feel that the people who won't pray are like the lazy and sloppy people who won't put themselves out or forego their habits or take any trouble to receive a splendid guest. The difference is that the splendid guest is not to be got every day, while God is always glad of your company, I think."

"Then with you prayer isn't a process of asking?" I said. "But isn't it a way of changing yourself by simply trying to get your ideals clear?"

"No, no," said Father Payne; "it's just drawing water from a well when you are thirsty. Of course you must go to the well, and let down the bucket. It isn't a mere training of imagination; it is helping yourself to something actually there. The more you pray, the less you ask for definite things. You become ashamed to do that. Do you remember the story of Hans Andersen, when he went to see the King of Denmark? The King made a pause at one point and looked at Andersen, and Andersen said afterwards that the King had evidently expected him to ask for a pension. 'But I could not,' he said. 'I know I was a fool, but my heart would not let me.' One can trust God to know one's desires, and one's heart will not let one ask for them. It is His will that you want to know--your own will that you want to surrender. Strength, clearsightedness, simplicity--those are what flow from contact with God."

"But what do you make," I said, "of contemplative Orders of monks and nuns, who say that they specialise in prayer, and give up their whole time and energy to it?"

"Well," said Father Payne, "it's a harmless and beautiful life; but it seems to me like abandoning yourself to one kind of rapture. Prayer seems to me a part of life, not the whole of it. You have got to use the strength given you. It is given you to do business with. It seems to me as if a man argued that because eating gave him strength, it must be a good thing to eat; and that he would therefore eat all day long. It isn't the gaining of strength that is desirable, but the using of strength. You mustn't sponge upon God, so to speak. And I don't honestly believe in any life which takes you right away from life. Life is the duty of all of us; and prayer seems to me just one of the things that help one to live."

"But intercession," I said, "is there nothing in the idea that you can pray for those who cannot or will not pray for themselves?"

"I don't know," said Father Payne. "If you love people and wish them well, and hate the thought of the evils which befall the innocent, and the overflowings of ungodliness, you can't keep that out of your prayers, of course. But I doubt very much whether one can do things vicariously. It seems to land you in difficulties; if you say, for instance, 'I will inflict sufferings upon myself, that others may be spared suffering,' logically you might go on to say, 'I will enjoy myself that my enjoyment may help those who cannot enjoy.' One doesn't really know how much one's own experience does help other people. Living with others certainly does affect them, but I don't feel sure that isolating oneself from others does. I think, on the whole, that everyone must take his place in a circle. We are limited by time and space and matter, you know. You can know and love a dozen people; you can't know and love a hundred thousand to much purpose. I remember when I was a boy that there was a run on a Bank where we lived. Two of the partners went there, and did what they could. The third, a pious fellow, shut himself up in his bedroom and prayed. The Bank was saved, and he came down the next day and explained his absence by saying he had been giving them the most effectual help in his power. He thought, I believe, that he had saved the Bank; I don't think the other two men thought so, and I am inclined to side with them. Mind, I am