But to return to the modern Egypto-Arabs. To us there appears to be very little, surprisingly little, in their minds. They have but little thought about political matters, no thoughts about history, no thoughts about the knowledge of outward nature. Their ideas, then, of God, which are the summary of their religion, obtain full sway over them. Prayer is the continual exhibition of them to their minds. It stirs and keeps alive their hearts and souls. While these ideas are acting upon them they are conscious of an unselfish, and sublime, exaltation of their moral, and intellectual being. With us Prayer has somewhat of a different aspect, both as to its immediate source, and even, apparently, in some degree, as to its substance. It is not always primarily, or mainly, an attempt to bring our inmost thought into contact with the pure and simple idea of God. It almost seems as if something had occurred which had interposed an insulating medium between our hearts and that idea, which cannot now, as of old, directly reach our hearts, and generate within them its own forms of moral perfectness. Much of our Prayer is prompted by the thought of our own wants, and of our own sins; and so has something of a personal, and of a selfish character. Still, perhaps, this is ultimately the same thing. It may be only an indirect way of reaching the same point. It is, evidently, a perpetual reminder of our moral requirements, and a perpetual effort to form just and elevated conceptions of those requirements. This mode of culture quickens the moral sentiments, raises them to the level of their immediate purpose, and makes them distinct, vigorous, ever-present, and instinctive. What has been said will explain why Orientals pray in set forms of words. Words represent ideas; and the Prophet, or the Saint, whose mind is in a state of extraordinary religious exaltation, and the general thought of religious teachers and of religious people, can, of course, better imagine the attributes of Deity, and clothe what they imagine in more appropriate words, than ordinary people could. It is, therefore, better to take their words than to leave the matter to the ignorant, the unimaginative, and the dead in soul. Under their system of unchangeable forms all become alike animated by the best ideas, presented in the most suitable words. This will explain why they practise repetitions. With their method it is a necessity.