of anger and disapproval, we are not likely to welcome Him; but if we feel Him full of eagerness and sympathy, of ‘comfort, light, and fire of love,’ as the old hymn says, then we desire His company.  You have to prepare yourself for good company, you know.  It is a bit of a strain; and I feel that the people who won’t pray are like the lazy and sloppy people who won’t put themselves out or forego their habits or take any trouble to receive a splendid guest.  The difference is that the splendid guest is not to be got every day, while God is always glad of your company, I think.”

“Then with you prayer isn’t a process of asking?” I said.  “But isn’t it a way of changing yourself by simply trying to get your ideals clear?”

“No, no,” said Father Payne; “it’s just drawing water from a well when you are thirsty.  Of course you must go to the well, and let down the bucket.  It isn’t a mere training of imagination; it is helping yourself to something actually there.  The more you pray, the less you ask for definite things.  You become ashamed to do that.  Do you remember the story of Hans Andersen, when he went to see the King of Denmark?  The King made a pause at one point and looked at Andersen, and Andersen said afterwards that the King had evidently expected him to ask for a pension.  ‘But I could not,’ he said.  ’I know I was a fool, but my heart would not let me.’  One can trust God to know one’s desires, and one’s heart will not let one ask for them.  It is His will that you want to know—­your own will that you want to surrender.  Strength, clearsightedness, simplicity—­those are what flow from contact with God.”

“But what do you make,” I said, “of contemplative Orders of monks and nuns, who say that they specialise in prayer, and give up their whole time and energy to it?”

“Well,” said Father Payne, “it’s a harmless and beautiful life; but it seems to me like abandoning yourself to one kind of rapture.  Prayer seems to me a part of life, not the whole of it.  You have got to use the strength given you.  It is given you to do business with.  It seems to me as if a man argued that because eating gave him strength, it must be a good thing to eat; and that he would therefore eat all day long.  It isn’t the gaining of strength that is desirable, but the using of strength.  You mustn’t sponge upon God, so to speak.  And I don’t honestly believe in any life which takes you right away from life.  Life is the duty of all of us; and prayer seems to me just one of the things that help one to live.”

“But intercession,” I said, “is there nothing in the idea that you can pray for those who cannot or will not pray for themselves?”