Page:War and the Christian Faith.pdf/39

of Syon. We are more or less miserable, because of this uncertainty as to our true business; as "the busy bee" would be miserable if it cast an anxious eye on the ox, and tried to swallow a mouthful of clover in admiring imitation; or as "the happy bird" would be miserable if it endeavoured to live on honey. We are thus distracted, and thus miserable, because we do not realise, because we cannot keep on realising, that we have only one real business: and that is God; God immanent and transcendent, in all and above all. Prayer is the effort to realise this; the effort to attain the state of perfect conformity to the eternal will, whatever it may be; to attain to the state of the bee and the bird, who, being in paradise, cannot so much as conceive the desire for an order and life which do not belong to them. Our true