Marian said: “Perhaps we think natural selection not so cruel among animals, because we did not do the suffering.”
The children all said they did not remember just what relation evolution had to our idea of life. I answered that the very fact that we could not go on in our thought without it proved its relation, and that we would constantly come back to it, that I did not need to explain it now.
Then we spoke of prayer. I asked each one in turn what and how much they had thought of it.
Alfred said he had never thought of it, that he had prayed as a baby, but had stopped early and never felt the need. Florence said the same. Henry said he believed in prayer, especially in prayer for strength in any undertaking. “Of course,” he went on, “I don’t expect to be helped against the other fellow, but I get strength in praying for strength.”
“I agree with you,” said Ruth, “only don’t you pray to know whether you are right or not? For you might be wrong.”
“If I thought I might be wrong,” he answered, “I wouldn’t be doing the thing I was doing.” They argued it a bit. “But,” he went on, “I have no set formula for prayer, nor a definite time.”
Virginia said: “I have always prayed. When I was little I got in the habit of saying a silly little German prayer, so that I could not go to sleep without saying something. So when the little prayer seemed too silly to me, I began saying each evening the stanza of a poem.”
“The last stanza of the ‘Chambered Nautilus.’ I could not go to sleep unless I said it.”
Marian said: “It depends on what you mean by prayer. I never learned to say any, nor ever wanted to, but I do have a prayer-feeling.”
We all agreed that the prayer which asked for something definite was folly. I said prayer was getting into oneness with the vast Self around and behind us, and drawing strength from that which was ours for the asking, which _was_ ourself.
Marian said it was getting into harmony with the world.
We thought every one had that feeling of vastness, of oneness with God, at times. Virginia said she got it especially when she was by the sea.
“I feel it most,” said Marian, “when I am out of doors, and feel my close relation with nature.”
Henry said he felt it most in a big crowd of people.