As a factor of Christianity the purpose of prayer is that by its means men may become conscious in their present environment of the power and presence of God, and make practical the truth of man's unity with his Maker,—not in a mere intellectual or emotional sense, but as an individual demonstration and experience. Whatever fails of accomplishing this purpose, or that offers no certainty of its accomplishment, is not the manner of prayer which the Master taught and which he so effectively used in his ministry.
Jesus said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them;" and in the parable of the prodigal he represented the father as saying to the elder son, "All that I have is thine," thus indicating the line along which human redemption from error must be worked out. If we cannot adopt this attitude toward God, namely, that of childlike trust in His infinite goodness, it is only because we have not sufficient faith in Him, not because this idea of prayer is not susceptible of practical use by every Christian.
It is not required that God should be different from what He now is, in order to be supreme to each human being. Moses and the later prophets, Christ Jesus and the apostles, all gave actual and visible evidence that the all-power of God is available to men, and that this power, rightly discerned and applied, overcomes all evil. It is undeniable that the truth by which their works were accomplished remains to be demonstrated in modern experience, and will be found as helpful to men in the world today as at any time in human history.
