Editorial March 18, 1916 Issue

"Words, words, words!"

Archibald McLellan

"What do you read, my lord?" the sage Polonius asked of the king's son. And Hamlet's reply, "Words, words, words!" comes pertinently to thought when, as occasionally happens, there appears at the editorial desk a copy of the so-called "endless chain prayer," which still finds circulation with doubtless well-meaning but certainly ill-informed people. For at least a generation, and perchance even longer, this meaningless string of "words, words, words" has been going the rounds, because here and there it falls into the hands of some one who, awed by the implied penalty or lured by the equally vague promise of "some great joy," hesitates to "break the chain," and this despite the fact that the fraudulence or absence of authority for this "prayer" has again and again been exposed and disclaimed in the newspapers, and that the sending of a threat through the mails—for that is what it practically amounts to—is in direct violation of the law of the land.

In view of the by-law forbidding the use of formulas (Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 9), there should be no need of cautioning our readers against assisting in the circulation of these anonymous documents, and yet they are more often than not the victims of this practice, being selected as the ones most likely to be interested, because of their well-known belief in the power of prayer. In these stirring times the very thought that some good may possibly be accomplished even indirectly by these "prayers" makes strong appeal, and the unwary may be deceived thereby; but there is only one disposition to be made of these and all other anonymous documents as well, and that is to destroy them immediately. Their very anonymity stamps them on the face as worthless, for he who has good thoughts and true to bestow on mankind is ready to assume the responsibility attaching to them by signing his name thereto.

Remembering too the Master's counsel that when we pray we are not to use "vain repetitions, as the heathen do," we shall not be misled by these appeals. One earnest prayer to God, such as Jesus prayed when he sought to bless mankind and which he had the assurance was always heard by the Father, is of more avail, if we would invoke the infinite blessing and protective care, than a million "copies" of "words, words, words!" Who that has faithfully studied the inspiring chapter on Prayer in Science and Health could for a moment think that the omnipotent and ever present God could be importuned by a meaningless jumble of phrases such as these so-called "chain prayers" convey!

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