Prayer of the kind indicated is an effort to secure assistance in circumstances where the normal human means fail. Normally, for example, if a man would have bread, he sets about to plant the proper seed, or grind the flour, or mix the dough. He finds out, in short, the laws that govern the production or manufacture of breadstuffs; and he does not expect to secure his desired result until he has accommodated himself in all the requisite ways to these laws and conditions. If a man would save himself from a burning house, he looks for a fire-escape, or a rope, or calls for a ladder; again accommodating his action to the fundamental conditions of the situation. But if the heavens are long without rain and the seed dry up, or the fire burns away the means of escape, the man, at the end of his human resources, calls to another power for help. Such a call for help is based upon two assumptions, which in some respects scarcely support each other. They are the assumption, first, that there is a power able to control to his beneficent purposes forces that are humanly uncontrollable; but, second, that this power will not act unless attracted by very special and fervent appeal. The latter fact, that special appeal is needed, may be due to the God’s impotence, his inability to be in all places at once: he does the best he can, hurrying hither and thither from one distressing circumstance to another. Or it may be due to his demand that his creatures shall continually turn their minds to him, an attitude which he succeeds in securing in them for the most part only when they are hard pressed with danger. Stated thus baldly, it would be difficult even on the naïve planes of religious thought to find persons who would acknowledge either that their God was a jealous god, refusing help until all the requisite ceremonies of abasement and supplication had been fulfilled, or that he was a finite God, half distracted by the imploring voices calling to him from all quarters of his universe. And yet, in prayer as it is ordinarily practised, both of these views are more or less unconsciously mingled. What prevents the emergence of their absurdity into clear consciousness is the relatively healthy thought underlying all prayer that if a man would secure something for himself he must himself spend some effort in the process. _Ex nihilo nihil._ In situations that pass beyond all his power of practical human control, there is nothing for him to do but to give his mere effort of adoration and hope.