People are more inclined to pray for themselves and their country in times of trouble than at other times, and the nature of their prayers will be determined by their concept of God. One who is entertaining a humanized, personalized concept of God is likely to pray from the basis of material sense and from the standpoint of urgent petition or pleading. He may attempt to acquaint God with the difficulty and ask that those upon whom heavy responsibilities rest be granted the necessary strength and wisdom to fulfill them. And in so praying he will feel that he has fulfilled his responsibility and that the rest is up to God.

But, in Christian Science, if one understands God to be the divine Principle of the universe, and he himself in reality an idea of this Principle, he will reconcile himself to the spiritual facts that exist right where the trouble seems to be present. In place of threats of danger, he will hold to the divine facts of safety.

In teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus used a very helpful illustration. He said (Matt. 6:6), "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy likens the closet to the sanctuary of Spirit. Its door serves a dual purpose. It lets in and shuts out. It lets in Truth, Life, and Love and shuts out sinful sense. Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 15), "The Master's injunction is, that we pray in secret and let our lives attest our sincerity."

When we shut the door, we have undisturbed communion with God. We lay hold of the truths that are the divine answer to all problems and through which we become superior to the difficulty. Becoming more spiritually sensitive, we are more receptive to Truth's ideas, ideas which rule out of thought the aggressive suggestions of evil, and we replace them with spiritual impartations, the realities of being. This is the reward, the inevitable result, of spiritual communion with God.

Our most intimate association with God takes place when we are alone with Him in the grateful recognition that divine Principle governs all and that in reality the destinies of all men and all nations are governed by it. Nations are no more sufficient unto themselves than are individuals. Their true purpose should be to show forth on a collective basis the order and harmony of the universe by submitting to the divine control of Truth and Love, the control which Science reveals.

Intimate relationship with God requires spiritual sensitivity and increases it. The communion becomes one of son with a loving Father. The more unselfed our prayer, the clearer the transparency of our consciousness that God's will may appear "in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6: 10). H is will obeyed brings strength, peace, and purpose into our lives.

Turning to God in prayer, one exercises the spiritual sense with which he is divinely endowed. At first it may appear to be small, no larger than the grain of mustard seed Jesus spoke of in the well-known parable (see Matt. 13: 31, 32). But as our prayer becomes an expression of gratitude and praise, our susceptibility to Truth grows until, like the tree in the parable, right ideas come and lodge in its branches.

The more our thought is impressed with the grandeur of Spirit, the more our prayer will be one of thanksgiving, of the acknowledgment of God's infinite goodness and the adequacy of His love to meet the human need.

In such healing prayer pure affection coincides with divine Love, which holds creation in flawless relationship to its creator. The spiritual qualities reflected in human thought radiate the power of Love that, conscious of its own allness, knows nothing unlike itself. The most potent prayer is one that magnifies good to the point where evil loses all semblance of reality.

Prayer is willing surrender of the human to the divine. It is the turning aside momentarily— or permanently, if prayer is without ceasing—from the phantasmagoria of material sense, with its shifting scenes of illusions, imaginative fancies, and deceptions, to become conscious of spiritual realities, permanent and harmonious.

The purer our prayer, the more real and tangible the facts of being. Thought permeated with Truth and Love brings the touch of the divine to the human. The human responds to it as parched ground responds to the rain, and the result is healing.

In Science and Health we read (p. 1), "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." The sick are healed and the sinners reformed through the power of prayer, a spiritually scientific method of meeting and overcoming the presentations of evil with the might of revealed Truth. James said (5:16), "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." This prayer rises above mere pleading to the utilization of the truths that have been given to us through divine revelation.

Ralph E. Wagers