Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/219

 ing a virtue, Also, earnest prayer and beep meditation clear our ideas of God and bring us into closer touch with Him. As a consequence, we pray in a more fervent spirit, we meditate with deeper concentration; and thus we are taken nearer to God. Thus the practice grows; and in the final result, worship comes to be recognised as the very soul of our religious existence; but for this communion with our Father, religion would be found to be a mere skeleton without any vitality.

It might, again, be asked whether worship—prayer and communion—is indispensable for a religious life, apart from the argument that prayer is spontaneous or reasonable. Strictly abstaining from wickedness, vigorously practising goodness, faithfully serving humanity, may not man lead a religious life? Against this question, we can only appeal to the experience of those that have prayed and communed for the best part of their lives. We believe that, according to them, only to abstain from wicked deeds, merely to