titude might be summed up as, 'Go to it, old top!' If the scientist, on his part, is too narrow-minded to admit the possibility of a realm beyond the range of the telescope, microscope, or probe, it is too bad; but it can't be helped, and the theologian will stick to what is his own particular sphere. It makes me laugh, my dear George, that you think yourself able to discount God's mercy by showing the inconsequence of man's life as compared with geological time. I should go you one better and compare the span of human existence with the eternity of God. God's infinity in giving Him the power to see all time as at a glance does not preclude His vision of small things. We finite thinkers are apt to reason too much by analogy with ourselves and suppose that God can't see the little things because He has so much to look at."

In some such vein would the real Edward Pierson have answered George Laird. If Mr. Galsworthy wanted to attack Christianity, and was unable to make the defence realistic, he might easily have secured help from someone competent to do that end of the job for him, and would thereby have ultimately made his case stronger. As it is, he and dozens of others who have written along these lines simply fail to play the game. Apparently it is chiefly in novels dealing with religion that we find this one-sided treatment. It may be that the politically or sociologically inclined novelists have a greater fear that their readers will know something about the subject in hand, and so are careful to present both sides fairly than do the theologically minded writers of fiction who rely on the more or less wide-spread indifference to theology of any kind to keep them from being too severely criticized. Perhaps the authors of these religio-propagandist novels are right. Perhaps nine hun

dred and ninety-nine of every thousand readers are as uncritical as they are supposed to be. If, so, it is the humble aim of this paper to snow that the thousandth reader is impatient of men of straw.

Mental Prayer

REV. J. H. C. JOHNSON, S.S.J.E.

HIS paper is about that kind of prayer which we probably call by the name of Meditation. It is easier for us to use this word-"Meditation"-in speaking of that which we attempt, than to call it "prayer" or "mental prayer"; we feel almost shy of speaking about "prayer," with reference to the little which we succeed in doing, but yet "mental prayer" is really a more correct expression than "meditation," for describing what I believe we mean when we speak of "meditation."

This kind of spiritual exercise consists in a deliberate and methodical effort to draw near to God, that we may listen to what He will say to us, and that we may speak to Him with more freedom than is possible in "vocal prayer," and that we may give ourselves to Him, and that we may throw our hearts and minds open to receive whatever Grace He may be willing to give us.

The word "meditation" rightly belongs to that part of our mental prayer in which we use our understanding; it means reflecting upon some divine truth, or upon some words of Holy Scripture, exercising upon it our imagination or our reasoning powers, setting out our thoughts in order, or considering in what way they apply to our own lives.

Fr. Baker, the seventeenth century Benedictine, in his book "Holy Wisdom" says: "Meditation is such an internal

prayer in which a devout soul doth, in the first place, take in hand the consideration of some particular mystery of faith, to the end that, by a serious and exact search into the several points and circumstances in it, with the understanding or imagination, he may extract motives of good affections to God."

But this part of mental prayer which consists in our intellectual activity is not the whole, and the great teachers about prayer agree in telling us that it should be a subordinate part, and that, as the soul learns to live nearer to God, the activity of the intellect is less and less needed in prayer, and that close personal communion with God will be found in simple acts of the will and of the affections, rather than in what can rightly be described by the word "meditation." Mental prayer is then a more correct word than "meditation" for describing what we mean, for we mean something in which praying is more important than meditating; we mean a devotional exercise in which we meditate in order that we may pray, and in which we proceed as soon as possible from meditation to prayer.

In the Christian Church the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ has been manifested in a variety of outward settings; Christian faith and devotion in one age or country have a different appearance from that which we see in other ages or countries, but, wherever we look and find that our Lord's ministers have been powerful in bringing His grace to His people and in bringing His people to Him, I believe that we shall find that those ministers habitually practiced some form of mental prayer, and that it was, to a great extent, their practice of this kind of prayer which made them to be such men of God as they were.

Was it not that which made the monastic system of the Middle Ages to be a real religious force? Was it not St.

Ignatius Loyola's method of mental prayer which brought such power to the Jesuits, so much grace to many that learnt from them? Did not the evangelical movement bring men to our Lord because the clergy read their Bibles and meditated upon God's Word, and spent much time in prayer?

In the revival of the Catholic religion in our own Church, has not God's work been done by priests who have prayed, and who have taught others to come to God in meditation and prayer? In that revival of Catholic life, we cannot duly estimate the effect upon our Church of Retreats, and of the practice of "making a meditation," even as these are actually practiced among our clergy and people; even though they are practiced far less commonly that we could wish, their results are very far-reaching in the life of the Church.

We shall probably all agree that there are many reasons which make a habitual provision of time for mental prayer to be very important in the ordering of a priest's life.

(1) It is easy to resolve to live a life of prayer, and often it appears as if it ought to be quite an easy thing to do, but, in actual fact, most of us find that it is not an easy thing to do, and that our lives may easily become unprayerful.

The fact is that life is very full of things that press upon us and, if we leave it to chance, the time for prayer does not come, or, when it does come, we find ourselves disinclined and even unable to escape into the world which is

unseen.

If a definite portion of our life is protected, railed off, as it were, as belonging to God, our lives will not be prayerless lives. Even though we hardly manage to pray at other times, such a practical endeavor to make room for God in our lives is prayer, and, if we persevere in it, our lives will

not be prayerless. As a matter of fact it is probable that, if we are faithful to our time of mental prayer, prayer at other times will become less difficult. I should say that the habitual providing of some good large spaces in our lives, protected for meditation and prayer, is the best method by which to set about trying to make our lives to be lives of prayer.

(2) For the clergy it is very important that we should provide opportunity for contemplating divine truth as something that concerns ourselves, and not only as something which it is our business to present to others.

It is easy to get into a habit of declaring, and explaining and applying God's word to others, without thinking of it as something which we ourselves need to appropriate, and carefully to apply to our own souls.

Our position is different from the position of those to whom we minister. God requires from us something different from that which He requires from them. Some of our temptations and difficulties and dangers are not theirs. The word of God which we ourselves need is often that which we should never be likely to dwell upon in considering others.

And so we need that a special portion of our time should be devoted to attending upon God, for the enlightenment and strengthening of our own souls, and for making our individual response to the word which He speaks to us, and it is importnat that we should protect this time from becoming occupied with the preparation of sermons and instructions.

And yet our sermons and instructions will gain much from our keeping our mental prayer time for ourselves and for God.

(3) There is a greater danger for us of the clergy than