He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.  Let a Stoic[226] open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh,[227] born to shed healing to the nations,[228] that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him,—­and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

1.  In what prayers do men allow themselves![229] That which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly.  Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous.  Prayer that craves a particular commodity,—­anything less than all good,—­is vicious.  Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.  It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul.[230] It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good.  But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft.  It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness.  As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg.  He will then see prayer in all action.  The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends.  Caratach,[231] in Fletcher’s Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies,—­

   “His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;
    Our valors are our best gods.”

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets.  Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will.  Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.  Our sympathy is just as base.  We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason.  The secret of fortune is joy in our hands.  Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide:  him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.  We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation.  The gods love him because men hated him.  “To the persevering mortal,” said Zoroaster,[232] “the blessed Immortals are swift.”