Two or three thousand years before, the pious Egyptian had been bidden to enter quietly into the sanctuary of God, to whom clamour is abhorrent. "Pray to him with a longing heart in which all thy words are hidden, so will he grant thy request, and hear that which thou sayest and accept thy offering." Dear was this silent worship to the higher teachers. A hymn to Thoth (p. 8) addresses him as "Thou sweet spring for the thirsty in the desert," adding, "It is closed for those who speak there, it is open for those who keep silence there. When the silent man cometh, he findeth the spring."
Petitions such as these, rooted in ethical sentiment, demand as their moral condition purity of heart and concentration of thought. The prophets of all ages have protested against formalism and insincerity. The Japanese { 153} god of learning, Temmangu, was once a distinguished statesman. But he fell into unmerited disgrace (A.D. 901), and was banished. Posthumously vindicated, he was promoted to the rank of deity, and declared through his oracle, "All ye who come before me hoping to attain the accomplishment of your desires, pray with hearts pure from falsehood, clean within and without, reflecting the truth like a mirror." The disposition of prayer must be that of life also. It was with reference to similar slander to that from which Temmangu had suffered, that Pindar cried, "Never be this mind in me, O Father Zeus, but to the paths of simplicity let me cleave throughout my life, that when dead I may set upon my children a name that shall be of no ill repute." And Socrates prays, as he and Phædrus rise from the shade of the plane-tree where they have been talking, "Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods that haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one": to which Phædrus adds, "Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in common."
The need of righteousness begets penitence and confession. A Buddhist liturgy issued in China in 1412 with a preface by the Emperor Yung Loh of the Ming dynasty, after the opening invocations, proceeded thus: "We and all men from the very first, by reason of the grievous sins we have committed in { 154} thought, word, and deed, have lived in ignorance of all the Buddhas, and of any way of escape from the consequences of our conduct. We have followed only the course of this evil world, nor have we known aught of Supreme Wisdom, and even now, though enlightened as to our duty, yet with others we still commit heavy sins, which prevent us from advancing in true knowledge. Therefore in the presence of Kwan Yin [the Chinese form of Avalokiteçvara, p. 131], and the Buddhas of the ten regions, we would humble ourselves, and repent of our sins.... For the sake of all sentient creatures in whatever capacity they be, would that all obstacles may be removed, we confess our sins and repent."