If prayer is really to be its own reward, it must not consist of a demand addressed to some Being exterior to one’s self, it must be a subjective act of love, what Christianity calls an act of charity. Charity is the eternal element in prayer. To ask for something for one’s self is a thing difficult to justify; to ask for something for someone else is at least a beginning of disinterested conduct. “How much longer thy prayers grow, grandmama, day by day!” “The number of those for whom I pray increases day by day.” Over and above this element of charity, prayer contains a certain beauty—a beauty which will not disappear with the disappearance of the superstitions which have clustered about it. The moral beauty of prayer is intimately bound up with certain profound human sentiments: one prays for somebody whom one loves; one prays out of pity or of affection; one prays in despair, in hope, in gratitude; so that the most elevated of human sentiments sometimes ally themselves with prayer and colour it. This tension of one’s whole being at such times finds its way out upon the visage, and transfigures it with the intense expression that certain painters have loved to catch and to perpetuate.[66] What is most beautiful and probably also what is best in prayer is, more than all else, the human and moral element in it. If there is thus an essential charity in genuine prayer, charity of the lips is not enough, that of the heart and hands must be added to it, and that is to say in the last resort action must be substituted for it. [66] This, however, is exceptional; in church, during the services, the majority of the faces remain inexpressive, for the reason that prayer with the majority of the faithful is almost always mechanical. [Sidenote: Increasing tendency for such prayer to express itself in action.]