JOHANNESBURG — South Africans prayed Sunday for the health of former President Nelson Mandela and waited for word about the 94-year-old antiapartheid leader after he was admitted to a military hospital.

Mandela remains almost a secular saint and a father figure to many in South Africa. His hospitalization over the weekend for unspecified medical tests inspired huge newspaper headlines and ripples of fear in the public that the frail leader is fading further away.