As a child I was always a bad sleeper, and got into the habit of making up stories to amuse myself when lying awake in bed. This habit continued as I grew older; but, after a time, the stories ceased to be connected in any way with myself. Years ago I began a story which has grown gradually through three generations, and there are signs of the coming of a fourth. The old house has remained as the centre of the story for years; most of the characters are men, and no one of either sex bears any possible relationship to me. They have all become far more real to me than my own relations; at bed-time, on long railway journeys (sometimes), or when I am walking or doing needlework, they are there. If I get to the house at bed-time, I sleep well. If I am there when travelling, I don't get tired, and the characters grow and develop quite naturally. It is my inner life, and, if I were given that way, it might become a series of visions. I can quite understand men having ecstasies in which the ideals they have always before them become apparently materialised. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER. I cannot too strongly insist that all this is extremely instructive. It explains so many things that still have to be explained, if religion be untrue. The new science of psychology has already accounted for many abnormal phenomena that were formerly considered miraculous--"faith cures," [234] for instance. Does it not account for the effects of prayer? We know nothing of the efficacy of prayer in securing material benefits--there is no proof either way; but we do know that it has often an ethical value, and is also a means of strengthening faith. Does it necessarily follow that a Supernatural Being hears and answers the suppliant's prayers? I think not. Suggestion, it is now known, exercises an extraordinary influence over the subjective mind. In prayer auto-suggestion undoubtedly plays its subtle rôle. Let me give an example of the benign results that may be effected by suggestion without any appeal to the supernatural. Often a moral change for the worse in a most estimable person is distinctly traceable to causes over which he or she had no control, and the physician or surgeon, having diagnosed the case, proceeds to do his best to bring about a cure. Where it is some nervous malady, mental therapeutics or psychic healing is sometimes extremely efficacious. [235] Vices and weaknesses are now looked upon by many in the light of diseases and ailments--curable, ameliorable, or incurable, as the case may be. Disease or Devil, the fact remains that medical treatment may effect a cure even where the patient's disorder has been brought on by, as we say, his own fault. Dipsomania, morphinomania, kleptomania, nymphomania, satyriasis, and various moral perversions may yield to a purely natural treatment, whether it be the method of a Milne Bramwell (by suggestion) or of Keeley.