“Great Lord of life, who lives in me, And lives in all I know, With happy thoughts I go to sleep; And while I sleep I grow.
“I hope to wake this coming morn More strong, and brave and bright; While you shall stay, both night and day, With all I love to-night.”
They said it did not seem babyish to them. Henry, especially, liked it, and several of them wished to copy it.
I said one might have the “prayer-feeling,” the sense of the whole, so constantly that one would not need to pray, that one’s whole life might be a prayer.
The children objected to this, because they thought it would be impossible now, in our imperfect condition. Virginia said: “A person who lived that way would be a perfect saint.” Henry thought it would make one cold and unsympathetic.
“How is that possible,” I asked, “when it would be a state of constant sympathy and understanding of life?”
“No,” said Ruth; “such a person would be too much above us. I don’t think one could live so, at present. It would imply a perfection physical and mental that we have not yet reached.”
Florence said she not only thought such a state possible, but she believed there were people who lived in this way now, and that she knew such people.
Some one suggested that they must be unspeakably happy.
“No,” answered Florence; “not necessarily happy, at all.”
I said that I thought such a life would be a state of happiness.
They all agreed; Florence, too, after a moment.
Marian and Henry said they had never met people without limitations. Florence insisted she had; whereupon Marian called her a hero-worshiper. I said people’s limitations were where they failed to understand, and that we none of us understood everything. The sense of oneness would not imply, however, either perfection or apartness or superiority. One might feel everything in this way, whenever one thought of it.
Henry answered: “But how often is one not occupied? Little things distract us constantly.”
Marian said: “It means having always the sense of oneness, sympathy and understanding, and always acting, thinking and judging according to that.”
“Yes,” said I, “and there is another thing that seems to me a prayer. Every creative action; that is, everything we do which brings us into relation with the world, is a prayer because it is an expression of oneness.”