Editorial October 20, 1917 Issue

True Prayer and Vain Repetitions

William P. McKenzie

Jesus had very little patience with the formalities of religion. With keen characterization he showed the ineffectuality of the labored efforts of the Pharisees and others who "for a pretence make long prayer," who would trumpet their almsgiving in the streets, or paint their faces with haggard lines during a fast, so as to "appear unto men to fast." His sense of prayer was simple and direct. It meant to come close to the Father by first shutting out worldly cares, and then in absolute quiet to commune with Spirit, in order that the result might be manifest in spirituality; and so the Father, seeing in secret, would thus reward openly. He was emphatic in saying to his disciples, "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do."

This is to be noted: that even to the heathen vain repetitions became monotonous; hence a prayer mill was invented, the prayer being first inscribed, then fastened to a wheel, which as it was revolved brought the prayer to constantly recurring notice. But Thibetan cleverness went farther, and relieved the priests of the weary work of praying (or turning the wheel) by attaching the prayer mill to a water wheel, so that the praying became absolutely mechanical.

We smile at these quaint devices of those we are pleased to call the heathen; but our superior airs would vanish if we realized how the theory of a prayer mill is utilized by various groups of self-seekers who are making their prayers not to God but to mankind. These groups, having no sense of God, of course do not pray to any invisible source of good for benefit. The good they desire is visible to the eyes and appreciable to the senses, and their deep desire is to get it away from those who have it. Let not those who call themselves modern and civilized think themselves so superior to their brethren in Thibet. What is a subsidized newspaper but a prayer mill, constantly demanding of that hydra-headed god, the public, that those who express their determined desire shall gain it, and enjoy advantage, perquisite, and power. As we have said, the mundane schemers have no sense of God as Principle, or the source of good; but they have the subtle conviction that if they can mesmerize mankind, they can get abundantly just what they want, and so "lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!"

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