would that you might pray also in the fullness

of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of

yourself in the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your

darkness into space, it is also for your

delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul

summons you to prayer, she should spur you

again and yet again, though weeping,

until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air

those who are praying at that very hour,

and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible

be for naught but ecstacy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other

purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble

yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for

the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

GOD listens not to your words save when

He Himself utters then through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the

seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountain and

the forests and the seas can find their

prayer in your heart.

And if you but listen in the stillness of

the night you shall hear them in silence:

Our GOD, who art our winged self,

it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

"It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights,

which are thine, into days, which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught,

for thou knowest our needs before

they are born in us:

"Thou art our need; and in giving us more

of thy self thou givest us all."