“I don’t know,” said Father Payne.  “If you love people and wish them well, and hate the thought of the evils which befall the innocent, and the overflowings of ungodliness, you can’t keep that out of your prayers, of course.  But I doubt very much whether one can do things vicariously.  It seems to land you in difficulties; if you say, for instance, ’I will inflict sufferings upon myself, that others may be spared suffering,’ logically you might go on to say, ’I will enjoy myself that my enjoyment may help those who cannot enjoy.’  One doesn’t really know how much one’s own experience does help other people.  Living with others certainly does affect them, but I don’t feel sure that isolating oneself from others does.  I think, on the whole, that everyone must take his place in a circle.  We are limited by time and space and matter, you know.  You can know and love a dozen people; you can’t know and love a hundred thousand to much purpose.  I remember when I was a boy that there was a run on a Bank where we lived.  Two of the partners went there, and did what they could.  The third, a pious fellow, shut himself up in his bedroom and prayed.  The Bank was saved, and he came down the next day and explained his absence by saying he had been giving them the most effectual help in his power.  He thought, I believe, that he had saved the Bank; I don’t think the other two men thought so, and I am inclined to side with them.  Mind, I am not deriding the idea of a vocation for intercessory prayer.  I don’t know enough about the forces of the world to do that.  It’s a harmless life, a beautiful life, and a hard life too, and I won’t say it is useless.  But I am not convinced of its usefulness.  It seems to me on a par with the artistic life, a devotion to a beautiful dream, I don’t, on the whole, believe in art for art’s sake, and I don’t think I believe in prayer for prayer’s sake.  But I don’t propound my ideas as final.  I think it possible—­I can’t say more—­that a life devoted to the absorption of beautiful impressions may affect the atmosphere of the world—­we are bound up with each other behind the scenes in mysterious ways—­and similarly I think that lives of contemplative prayer may affect the world.  I should not attempt to discourage anyone from such a vocation.  But it can’t be taken for granted, and I think that a man must show cause, apart from mere inclination, why he should not live the common life of the world, and mingle with his fellows.”

“Then prayer, you think,” I said, “is to you just one of the natural processes of life?”

“That’s about it!” said Father Payne.  “It seems to me as definite a way of getting strength and clearness of view and hope and goodness, as eating and sleeping are ways of getting strength of another kind.  To neglect it is to run the risk of living a hurried, muddled, self-absorbed life.  I can’t explain it, any more than I can explain eating or breathing.  It just seems to me a condition of fine life, which we can practise to our help and comfort, and neglect to our hurt.  I don’t think I can say more about it than that, my boy!”