THE'RAYER-GAUGE DEBATE.
BY
PROF. TYNDALL, FRANCIS GALTON,
AND OTHERS,
DR. LITTLEDALE, PRESIDENT McCOSH,
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, CANON LYDDON, AND
"THE SPECTATOR."
BOSTON:
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY,
BEACON STREET.
1876.




COPYRIGHT.
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY.
1875.
BOSTON:
STEREOTYPED BY C. J. PETERS AND SON,
73 FEDERAL STREET.
Press of Rand, A very, 6& Co.




INTRODIUCTORY.
IN the month of July, 1872, "The London Contemporary
Review" published a paper, entitled " The Prayer for the
Sick: Hints towards a Serious Attempt to estimate its
Value."  Prof. John Tyndall fathered it with an Introduction, while disavowing the authorship. His name, and not
any intrinsic novelty or merit in the thing itself, gave significance and notoriety to it.
The succeeding numbers of The Review contained replies, which were followed by rejoinders from Prof. Tyndall
and his disguise. Other magazines entered the lists.
Francis Galton marshalled the doughty columns of statistical tables, to support Mr. Tyndall, in " The Fortnightly
Review." For weeks the great newspapers of London were
loaded with editorials upon the Prayer-Gauge, and with
communications prepared by all classes and conditions of
men, from a bookseller's clerk to the highest dignitaries of
the English Church and peers of the realm. The PrayerGauge Debate was the sensation of the season.
The question in dispute was not the question of a season,
however, but of all time. The objections to the efficacy of
prayer were none of them new, and never will be old. They
have come up afresh with every sun-rising since Cain dis3




4                   -Introductory.
puted with Abel; and they will continue to come up till the
millennium. It is well for Christian believers to examine
them: it is an advantage to look at them in the flaming light
in which scientific unbelievers delight to exhibit them. It
will assist in establishing the truth to put the objections in
their strongest array, face to face with the answers which
the Christian intelligence of the day has given.
Those who followed the discussion at the time in "The
Contemporary Review," "Fortnightly Review," and "The
Spectator," will welcome a volume containing, in orderly
arrangement, all the articles which touched the substance of
the dispute; while the greater number who have not seen
the English publications, and know them only by hearsay,
will be glad to read and weigh these papers for themselves.
They are worth preserving; for they exhibit principles and
methods of reasoning of permanent value.
We reprint, in the order in which they appeared, the articles from the two reviews, for and against this Christian
doctrine, with editorials from " The Spectator," and selections from the communications of correspondents. Of
course, we assume no responsibility as to the substance or
expression of the arguments on either side.
JOHN O. MEANS.




CONTENTS.
THE PRAYER FOR THE SICK.
PROF. TYNDALL AND SIR HENRY THOMPSON (?).
Hints towards a Serious Attempt to estimate its Value.  9
II.
THE PROPOSED PRAYER-GAUGE.
" THE SPECTATOR.'"
1. Editorial........ 23
2. Correspondence.                               31
THE RATIONALE OF PRAYER.
REV. RICHARD FREDERICK LITTLEDALE, D.C.L...       37
IV.
STATISTICAL INQUIRIES INTO THE EFFICACY
OF PRAYER.
FRANCIS GALTON, F.RS...85
V.
ON PRAYER.
CRITICISMS OF CRITICS.
1. By Prof. Tyndall.. 109
2. By the Author of "Hints towards a Serious Attempt
to estimate the Value of the'Prayer for the Sick'". 116
3. By James McCosh, D.D., President of Princeton College, United States....... 135




6                      Contents.
VI.
CAPT. GALTON ON THE EFFICACY OF
PRAYER.
" THE SPECTATOR."
1. Editorial.....147
2. Communications by Astley Cooper, Protagoras, and
J. J. Murphy. 153
VII.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
"THE SPECTATOR."
1. Communications by H., C. W. Stubbs, E., E. D. W.,
and J. Silvanus...167
2. Editorial... 184
3. Francis Galton, in reply. 191
4. John Macnaught, C. WI. Stubbs, A. Babington,
J. W. F., and WV. J.. 195
5. M. M. G., and Editorial                       203
VIII.
THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE.
REV. WILLIAM KNIGHT, Dundee.. 221
IX.
PRAYER.
THE Two SPHERES; ARE THEY TWO?
By the Duke of Argyll..253
X.
PRAYER THE CHARACTERISTIC ACTION OF
RELIGION.
H. P. LIDDON, D.D........ 273




I.
THE "PRAYER FOR THE SICK."
HINTS TOWARDS A SERIOUS ATTEMPT TO ESTIMATE
ITS VALUE.
TmIs is the title of the paper which started this discussion in
"The Contemporary Review," seventh year, new series, the number
for July, 1872, pp. 205-210.
Strahan & Co. are the publishers, 56 Ludgate Hill, London.
The authorship, distinctly disavowed by Mr. Tyndall, is generally
attributed to Sir Henry Thompson, F. R. C. S., an eminent London
surgeon, professor of surgery U. Coll. Hospital, &c., author of several
important medical works.
7








I.
THE  "PRAYER  FOR  THE  SICK."
HINTS TOWARDS A SERIOUS ATTEMPT TO ESTIMATE ITS
VALUE.
THE following suggestive letter has been placed in my
hands, with a view to publication. It is sure, I think,
to interest the thoughtful readers of " The Contemporary
Review." It deals, indeed, with a subject which interests
everybody, and regarding which all manner of men, from
the prime-minister downwards, have given the public the
benefit of their views.
If such be attainable, it is surely desirable to have clearer
notions than we now possess of the action of " Providence"
in physical affairs.  Two opposing parties here confront
each other,- the one affirming the habitual intrusion of
supernatural power in answer to the petitions of men; the
other questioning, if not denying, any such intrusion. The
writer of the letter wishes to bring these opposing affirmations to an experimental test.  He considers the subject
to be accessible to experiment, and makes a proposal,
9




Io          The "Prayer for the Sick."
which, if faithfully carried out, would, he thinks, displace
assertion by demonstration as regards the momentous point
in question.
It was justly stated by the Archbishop of York at a
recent meeting of the supporters of the Palestine Exploration Fund, that the progress of the human mind is from
vagueness towards precision. The letter before us seems an
illustration of this tendency. Instead of leaving the subject
to the random assertions of half-informed sceptics on the
oi;l hand, and hazy lecturers of the Victoria Institute on the
other, the writer seeks to confer quantitative precision on
the action of the supernatural in Nature. His proposal is
so fair, and his mode of stating it so able and conciliatory,
that I could not, when asked to do so, refuse to give it the
support implied by these few lines of introduction.
JOHN TYNDALL.
ATHEN2EU3 CLUB, June, 1872.
DEAR PROFESSOR TYNDALL,
SINCE our conversation the other night, when you were
good enough to listen to a suggestion I made relative to
a means of determining the value of prayer to the Deity,
it occurred to me to put the idea. into writing, and to ask
you to do me the further kindness of looking at it in this
shape.




The "Prayer for the Sick.'"                 I
It seems to me impossible, at the present day, to find ourselves in contact with a source of power available for human
ends (or affirmed to be so on high authority), without recognizing a necessity, or even that it is a duty, to estimate
its value. And especially if the power be one which is
effective for the production of physical results, is it desirable to examine its nature, and to measure its extent, and
the conditions under which it works.
The value of prayer to the Deity has been recognized in
all ages and by all nations, not merely by the ignorant and
superstitious, but by the more cultivated portions of the
human race; and I think it may be said, that, among the
great body of religious people of all denominations in this
country, a belief in its efficacy is almost universally professed. As to the objects which it is believed are attainable
by prayer, they are almost without limit as to kind.  Taking
as an authority that well-known compendiumn, which none will
dispute to be the national epitome of English religious idea
on the subject, "The Book of Common Prayer," 1 the
legitimate objects of supplication to God may be classified
as follows:
Class A. Spiritual improvement, moral superiority, intellectual power.
1 Although not used by Dissenters, they do not reject it on account
of its contents, since its very phraseology is often employed by thelm,
but, for the most part, because all forms are deemed by them undesirable.




12          The "Prayer for the Sick."
Class B. National supremacy; preservation from pestilence, famine, and battles; the fertility of the
soil, whether suitable for the growth and preservation of vegetable products; the health,
wealth, and long life of the chief national
ruler; a special share of grace and wisdom
for the nobility, and for members of the legislature and of the Executive.
Class C. For all that are in danger; for the preservation
of travellers, of sick persons, of young
children, prisoners, orphans, and widows;
protection against murder and sudden death.
Class D. Comprehends special forms for occasional use;
e.g., for " moderate rain and showers," &c;
that "' scarcity and dearth may be turned into
cheapness and plenty;" that " this plague
and grievous sickness may be withdrawn;"
and the prayer for "sick persons," which is
not precise in its requests on their behalf.
From all the foregoing, it is impossible to resist the conclusion, already more than hinted, that a very ample belief
exists in the Christian Church in the efficacy of prayer to
God to avert dire physical evils, which without it might
occur; such, for example, as disease and death. Were any
one, however, hardy enough to question this, it would suffice
to point out that the custom of offering prayers for the
recovery of sick persons when in great danger is almost




The "Prayer for the Sick."               13
universal here. And it may be added, that, in the larger and
more ancient section of the Church, prayer still continues on
behalf of the deceased,- a custom, perhaps, not less pious
and reasonable than the first-named.
Now, I propose to examine this subject from one point of
view only, in the endeavor to discover a means of demonstrating, in some tangible form, the efficacy of prayer. I
commence by remarking, however, that the objetts of
prayer in Class A clearly present inordinate difficulties, and
are obviously unfitted for our purpose. Class B furnishes
subjects which might be examined, but which are less easy
of treatment than some of those to be found in Classes C
and D. But, even here, elements of disturbance present
themselves; thus, in reference to the influence of prayer on
states of the weather in limited localities, that food may be
cheapened, that travellers may be preserved from accident,
&c., it is certain that considerable difficulty would arise in
any systematic attempt to arrive at accurate conclusions.
But this leads me to remark, that there appears to be one
source from a study of which the absolute calculable value
of prayer (I speak with the utmost reverence) can almost
certainly be ascertained.  I mean its influence in affecting
the course of a malady, or in averting the fatal termination.
For it must be admitted that such an important influence,
manifestly either does, or does not exist. If it does, a careful investigation of diseased persons by good pathologists,
working with this end seriously in view, must determine the




14          The "Prayer for the Sick."
fact. The fact determined, it is simply a matter of further
careful clinical observation to estimate the extent or degree
in which prayer is effective. And the next step would be to
consider. how far it is practicable to extend this benefit
among the sick and dying. And I can conceive few inquiries
which are more pregnant with good to humanity when this
stage has been arrived at.
You will naturally next say, What practical shape does
the method take by which you propose to attain your end?
The method has its difficulties; but I see none that are
insuperable. If I may reckon on the active co-operation
of those who most believe in the value of such prayer (and I
think I have a right to do so), the inquiry will be easy; for
few more interesting subjects of inquiry can exist for the
honest believer than the extent of man's influence with
Heaven at the most momentous crisis in his personal
history.
Before entering on the details demanded, it-is first necessary to remark, that prayer for the recovery of sick persons
exists in two distinct forms, or, if I may use the term, in
two orders or degrees of quality. For, first, there are the
general prayers for the sick, made, without distinction as to
individuals or to numbers, on most occasions of public
worship.  These prayers are offered by, perhaps, thirty
thousand congregations every Sunday in our country, since
it. is no less the practice of the Dissenter than of the
Churchman to remember devoutly the sick in the weekly




The "Prayer for the Sick."               I5
supplication.  But, besides these, there are the special
prayers for individual sick persons, which are, by general
consent, deemed also necessary; and thus it is, that, when
the patient holds a very high place in society, a special
form of petition is sometimes ordained to be used throughout
the national churches for his recovery. It is one of the
advantages of rank and gentle birth in England, that special prayers are made for such, every week at least, in most
churches throughout the country.
The first kind, or " general prayer," then, must be held to
have a certain value not inconsiderable, since it is this kind
which is relied on against the dangers of travel, of murder,
and of sudden death, and respecting which no other or
special petitions are provided. This general prayer for the
recovery firom sickness is constantly ascending, if I may use
the term, in a broad stream to Heaven; yet, its objects
(" all men") being so numerous, it is not held to suffice
for all individual cases: hence the second kind, or special
prayer. And the object sought by those who are interested
in the recovery of the sick, obviously is to concentrate the
special prayers of many on the recovery of one, in the belief,
that, by this means, the malady may be more certainly
checked than were the patient's fate to depend only on the
influence of the I' general prayer."  With this end it is, that
the special prayers of a congregation are asked for A or B,
or a special prayer-meeting is held to offer the one object of
petition. I have been myself present at such meetings, and




I6          The "Prayer for the Sick."
have witnessed the number, the minuteness, and the length
of the petitions.
Now, the latter kind, or " special prayer," is that which
readily lends itself to the earnest inquiher in this matter;
and it is by its means, if carefully and conscientiously pursued, that we may certainly arrive, if at all, at a solution of
the great question I have proposed.
The following appears to me to indicate the manner of
conducting the inquiry. It should be pursued on a system'somewhat analogous to that which is pursued by the faculty
when a question arises as to the value of any particular
mode of treating disease. For example, a new remedy has
been proposed, or is said on high authority to be efficacious;
and as authority does not suffice in medicine, further than to
recommend a given course, and never to prescribe it, the
remedy is carefully tested. Usually a hospital or a ward is
assigned for the purpose. All the patients suffering from
the disease to be treated are, during a certain period, divided into two classes; and all are subjected, as far as possible, to the same conditions, that single one of treatment
alone excepted. The ages, sexes, and many other particulars of the patients, are taken into accdunt, and duly noted.
The one class is treated by the old system; and the other, by
the new remedy. When a very large number -for in large
numbers only is there truth -has been thus dealt with, the
results are compared, and the value of the remedy can be
definitely expressed; that. is, its influence above or below




The "Prayer for the Sick."             I 7
that of the old treatment, as the case may be, will appear in
the percentage of recovery, or of other results.
Now, after much thought and examination of the various
questions and objections which may possibly be urged, I do
not hesitate to propose an analogous arrangement, in order
to estimate and rightly appreciate the influence of special
prayer to check disease, or to avert death.
We possess unquestionable data in reference to certain
well-known maladies, particularly the fevers of eruptive
type; such as small-pox, typhoid, scarlet fever, &c. Of
some local acute disorders, such as pneumonia, we know
what is termed the natural history pretty well, — their duration, and probable termination, at different ages, &c. The
mortality which follows the great surgical operations at different ages is a matter known and determined; for example,
after lithotomy and lithotrity, amputations of the limbs,
hernia, &c. The very large records of past cases which
exist, and the very wide and careful researches which have
been made, have had for their result the production of
known numerical mortality-rates per cent, and applicable to
future patients of different ages and conditions.  Indeed,
the whole system of life-assurance is, all the world over,
based solely on the accuracy of such data, and on the certainty with which they will reproduce themselves. Whatever these numerical results have been, - whether the mortality-rates deduced belong to healthy lives or to diseased
lives  all have been necessarily made subject to the condi2




is          The "Prayer for the Sick."
tions of human life as it now exists, and including, among
a thousand other influences, that most important one of
"general prayer" by the whole Christian Church for " all
men," as it has been already described, and influencing as it
does, whatever may be its extent, the sick, the suffering,
those exposed to murder and sudden death, &c., throughout
the whole world. Subject to this influence is that 9f every
drug prescribed. Influenced by this is the result of every
surgical operation.
Now, for the purpose of our inquiry, I do not propose to
ask that one single child of man should be deprived of his
participation in all that belongs to him of this vast influence.
But I ask that one single ward, or hospital, under the care
of first-rate physicians and surgeons, containing certain
numbers of patients afflicted with those diseases which have
been best studied, and of which the mortality-rates are best
known, -whether the diseases are those which are treated
by medical or by surgical remedies, - should be, during a
period of- not less, say, than three or five years, made the
object of special prayer by the whole body of the faithful,
and that, at the end of that time, the mortality-rates should
be compared with the past rates, and also with that of other
leading hospitals similarly well managed during the same
period. Granting that time is given, and numbers are sufficiently large, so as to insure a minimum of error from accidental disturbing causes, the experiment will be exhaustive
and complete.




The "Prayer for the Sick."             19
I might have proposed to treat two sides of the same hospital, managed by the same men; one side to be the object
of special prayer, the other to be exempted from all prayer.
It would have been, the most rigidly logical and philosophical
method. But I shrink from depriving any of —I had
almost said- his natural inheritance in the prayers of
Christendom. Practically, too, it would have been impossible. The unprayed-for ward would have attracted the
prayers of believers, as surely as the lofty tower attracts
electric fluid. The experiment would be frustrated. But the
opposite character of my proposal will commend it to those
who are naturally the most interested in its success, —
those, namely, who conscientiously and devoutly believe in
the efficiency, against disease and death, of special prayer.
I open a field for the exercise of their devotion. I offer an
occasion of demonstrating to the faithless an imperishable
record of the real power of prayer.
ATHEN2EUM CLUB, PALL MALL, June, 1872.








II.
"THE SPECTATOR" ON THE PROPOSED
PRAYER-GAUGE.
THE: earliest~reply to the challenge of Mr. Tyndall and his friend
appeared as an editorial in " The Spectator," July 6, 1872, No. 2,297,
pp. 846, 847.
" The Spectator" is issued every Saturday, and is now approaching
its fiftieth year. It is supposed to represent the best culture of the
Broad Churchmen. Mr. R. H. Hutton was the editor, or one of the
editors. This is numbered 1.
In the number of the succeeding week, July 13, No. 2,298, p. 879,
a correspondent, with the signature A. A., follows up the editorial,
opening the letter-bag of contributions to the discussion. This communication is numbered 2.








THE PROPOSED PRAYER-GAUGE.
1.
PROF. TYNDALL should hardly have given the sanction of his deservedly respected name to the unworthy piece of literary irony,- for such we unhesitatingly
deem it, - in which an anonymous writer in " The Contemporary Review " proposes gravely to the believers in prayer
to make an attempt at quantitative measurement of God's
accessibility to prayer, i.e., at a physical determination
of the value of special providences. If the physicists are
as accurate as they are apt to be arrogant, they should at
least know how to respect the religious feelings of the
believers they despise, and not attempt to poke fun at them
in the shape of thinly-veiled scoffs at their most profound
and intimate faiths. We are aware, indeed, that some of
the readers of this elaborate sarcasm have attributed it to a
believer, and not a disbeliever, in the power of prayer.  We
will give, in a moment, our reasons for feeling confident that
this is impossible; but a single sentence of the paper to
23




24         The Proposed Prayer-Gauge.
which Prof. Tyndall has lent his sanction will, probably, suffice to convince most of our readers of its true nature.
Speaking of the special prayers for sick people in imminent
danger, the writer says, " It is one of the advantages of
rank and gentle birth in England, that special prayers are
made for such, every week at least, in most churches throughout the country."  Few will doubt that the author has
here been unable to repress the sneer of which his whole
paper is an elaborate embodiment, nor that his democratic
bias in this case combined for the moment with his sceptical
feeling to sharpen the sting of his sentence; yet, as a matter
of fact, we imagine the truth to be quite otherwise. In
most churches, one hears prayers for the sick poor every
Sunday; while the reserve of the rich usually prevents their
asking the prayers of the congregation, even where they are
not sceptical as to their value. What Mr. Tyndall's friend
affects to wish is this, — that special prayers should be
continually offered by all the believers in prayer who will
consent to join, during three or five years, for the recovery
of the patients of a single hospital, without depriving " one
single child of man" of what the writer "had almost called
his natural inheritance in the prayers of Christendom."
He would then compare the average duration of sickness,
and the average rates of mortality, in that hospital, with the
same rates, for the same class of diseases, in other not specially distinguished hospitals, and regard the shortening of
the average time of sickness, if any, and the diminution




The Proposed Prayer -Gauge.              25
of the death-rate, if any, as a residuary phenomenon due to
the special prayer-power concentrated on that institution.
We describe this ironical proposal with something of reluctance and disgust; for we confess that we do not think subjects of this kind suitable for efforts of literary sarcasm. If
sceptics like to state their doubts and their pity for others'
unreasonable faith openly, we have nothing but approval to
express. So, and so only, can the doubters come to understand the believers; andclhe believers, the doubters. But the
instinct of the trapper, and the policy of the ambuscade,
cannot be applied to subjects of this kind without indefinitely increasing the estrangements and bitter alienations of
our religious and irreligious worlds.
And now we will justify the line we have taken about this
insidious challenge, by stating why the author's proposal
seems to us, what a certain number of simple religious
people will very likely not find it, a covert sneer, and not
the frank challenge of a cultivated inquirer. What Christians believe, for the most part, is, that God answers, sometimes in -one way and sometimes in another, those prayers
which really come from the depth of the heart, -prayers
which cannot but be accompanied by a deep effort of submission to his higher will; and, when we say that he
answers them, we mean that he makes a real answer, —
whether in the way of pitiful denial, or tender assent, or
assent in some different and deeper sense than that of the
request itself, - which is manifest to the heart of him who




26         The Proposed Prayer - Gauge.
offered the prayer. But we should be much surprised to
learn that any man who had really given up his mind to
thoughts of this kind at all had ever regarded his prayer as
a sort of petty dictation to God, the effect of which might
be measured, like a constituent's pressure on his representative in parliament, by the influence it exerted on the issue.
You pray, if you pray in the spirit of Christ at all, not for
a specific external end, but because it is a deep relief to
pour out your heart to God in the frankest way possible to
limitedl human nature, and in the hope, that, if your wish is
not granted, your want may be. Suppose you pray for the
recovery of a mortally sick friend, who dies. What your
prayer really consists of is the confession of the blank you
fear for yourself, and still more, perhaps, for others; of your
dread of losing the moral help and sympathy so essential to
you; of the yearning that this trouble may not come on
those whom it threatens. And is not that prayer as much
answered by the substitution of other and possibly more
potent moral influences for those which are lost, as by the
recovery of the threatened life itself?  Yet " answer to
prayer," in the sense of the " conciliatory" writer in " The
Contemporary," as Prof. Tyndall flatteringly terms him,
could mean but one thing, - that the specific life threatened
should be restored.
But, beyond this, the proposal of Prof. Tyndall's friend is
of a very ambiguous character, for a deeper reason.  He
respectfully declines to attempt applying what he calls " the




The Proposed Prayer - Gauge.             27
more rigidly logical and philosophical method" of comparing one ward in a hospital where the inmates had every
care and help, except intercessory prayer, with another,
where they had all these influences, and the advantage of
intercessory prayer as well; because, as he justly remarks,
it would not be possible to keep religious people from offering up special prayers for the ward on which the experiment
of no prayer ought to be tried. In other words, we suppose
he thinks it would be difficult to discover a spiritual equivalent for the process known as hermetically sealing a glass
tube against the intrusion of any physical influence from
without. He is obliged, therefore, to have recourse to the
inductive method known as that of " variations," rather
than that of " differences."  He cannot wholly deduct the
influence of prayer in any case; but he suggests that a
special excess of its influence might be secured in a particular case, and that you might, in this way, secure an increase
of the effect in proportion to the increase of the cause, if
the cause be a vera causa at all. But he quite forgets, that
to have the true antecedent he wants, in any sense in which
most Christians admit its efficacy, you must have for your
antecedent a prayer that is the single expression of the
heart, and not something, which, while it seems to ask one
thing, is really pointed at another, and which makes the
recovery of the patients in a particular hospital a mere
indirect mode of applying a barometric gauge to the special
providence of God. When an intimate friend asks a favor,




28         The Proposed Prayer- Gauge.
not because he simply wants the thing he asks for, but
wants to test his influence with the person whom he is
soliciting, we all know that the whole condition of the
request is changed, and that, very often, what the friend
solicited would accede to in the former case, he would refuse
as a deliberate abuse of personal influence in the latter case.
No doubt, Prof. Tyndall's friend might reply, that in the Old
Testament, at least, we have instances (notably Elijah's)
where prayer was professedly an invitation to God to give
the world some means of judging of the influence which a
particular person had with him, as a kind of sign that this
person was really inspired by an omnipotent and omniscient
Being. But, whatever we may say of Elijah's proceeding,
Christians are accustomed to think that they are forbidden
to ask for signs as measures of their influence with God;
and that it is to this morbid tendency that our Lord's words,
even as to his own similar temptation, " Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God," specially apply. Certainly there
is something simply revolting to the spirit of Christian prayer
in the proposal to gauge indirectly, by continuous prayer for
a particular institution's success, the divine susceptibility to
prayer. How should we think of any one who prayed -
i.e., who ought to be pouring out the deepest longings of
his soul —for the restoration of certain persons to health,
only to make a delicate experiment on the relation between
the spiritual and physical forces of the universe? Does it
follow, because, in some sense, God answers true prayer, lle




The Proposed Prayer -Gauge.             29
would answer the demand for a scientifically scaled prayergauge? Even Elijah put his prayer for a sign openly. He
asked for nothing desirable in itself, but solely for a physical
sign that his God held the elements in his hands. But what
Prof. Tyndall's friend desires, is, that we shall cloak our
request for a sign under a request for something which we
suppose to be intrinsically desirable; that we shall approach
God disguised, with a sort of excuse on our lips, our object
not being in itself the recovery of the patients of the particular institution, but the scientific determination of our
moral command of the fountains of divine mercy. Can it
be well conceived that such a proposal could be made, except
in profound irony?
But Prof. Tyndall and his friend will reply, " Well, then,
you confess that the power of prayer is - for physical purposes at all events - practically incalculable, since you
resist, even with scorn, all attempts to test its limits; and
how can you expect physicists to believe in any physical
cause whatever, which is admitted to have only incalculable
effects?"   To which we should simply rejoin, " How,
indeed?   But who ever thought before of convincing
physicists, as physicists, of the reality of a power, which,
by the very nature of the case, they could not as physicists
appeal to, even if they were convinced of its existence?"
A great ambition often produces a great career; but you
cannot produce a great ambition by dwelling on the charms
of a great career. A great love defies death; but you can



30         The Proposed Prayer- Gauge.
not get a great love simply by wishing for a force strong
enough to defy death. So earnest prayer may have a mysterious power which it is quite impossible to trace, even over
physical events; but you cannot get earnest prayer simply
from the intense desire to mould physical events to your
will. Prayer is, if it is any thing at all, communion with
God; and the very conditions of the case exclude this base
experiment on the possible construction of a prayer-gauge.
And free communion with God excludes, and necessarily
excludes, the desire to dictate the answer. Its language is
accommodated to the language of Isaiah, "'My thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts."  If Christians are not ashamed to pray
sometimes for specific physical blessings, it is or ought to
be, rather as the simplest expression of their anxieties, than
as expecting that the divine response either must or ought
to be the giving of the exact blessing, or the warding-off the
exact trouble, which they name. We believe prayer to be a
true power, - a power which alters the external course of
the world, as well as its internal course; but we believe it
on precisely the same kind of evidence on which every sane
man believes that the passionate desires of individuals so
often realize themselves, and that the hopes of multitudes
create the great historic changes for which they cry. It
seems to us far simpler to believe that those results take




The Proposed Prayer- Gauge.             31
place through the providence of God than that they come
to pass through the magic influence of human passion, - far
simpler, because there are so many objects of desire which
intense desire only throws into the greater distance, while
with high moral and spiritual objects of desire, at all events,
this is never so. But we should be as sincerely disgusted
with such an experiment on God as Prof. Tyndall's friend
suggests, as he is probably delighted with himself for the
invention of that triumphant dilemma, into which, as he
imagines, he has wedged the superstitious crowd whom he
desires to expose.
2.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE. SPEICTATOR."]
SIR, - Although I agree with you in holding the letter in
"The Contemporary Review" to be "an elaborate sarcasm," I still think there is one moral to be drawn from it,
which, in your admirable article, you did not pause to draw;
namely, the fresh testimony it affords of the utter inability
of a certain class of scientific minds to understand who and
what the Deity is whom Christians confess and adore. The
writer practically says this: " You Christians believe that
there is a certain mighty force, which you are allowed to
summon at command. One person can'set it in motion
slightly: a large number, acting simultaneously, can move
it still more. If you can secure the co-operation of a larger




32         The Proposed Prayer - Gauge.
body still, there is no knowing what the results may not
be." The writer's argument, in short, is intended as a
reductio ad absurdum of what he conceives to be the Christian ideas of God, and men's access to him by prayer.
The striking and most melancholy feature of the letter is,
I hat it wholly ignores the existence of any moral or even reasonable qualities in the Being to whom prayer is addressed.
The writer has not even attained to the conception of God
as a wise and good man, or he would never have proposed a
mode of address to him, which a man of the most moderate
degree of sense and decency would instinctively resent, if
paid to himself. What would the writer have said to his
own children, if he heard them concocting a plan for making
an experiment upon his good-nature, not dictated by their
real necessities or honest desires, but by curiosity as to the
amount of pressure he could succeed in resisting? And, if
there be a God at all, is he not likely to be at least as
jealous of the moral well-being of those whom he calls his
children as even the proposer of this monstrous experiment?
The writer chooses to assume as the God of the Bible a
being whose relations to his creatures are not those of a
moral being at all. The charge which Christ brought
against the Gentiles, that they thought they would be
heard for their much speaking, is here brought, for the
purpose of the writer's argument, against the God whom
Christ was laboring to reveal. Christ taught expressly that
God regarded the sincerity of the worshipper as the first




The Proposed Praye - Gauge.            33
condition of his answering the prayer. The writer before us
deliberately assumes that the God of the Christian's worship
not only will, but is bound to, grant any petition, though
dictated by the idlest curiosity, or (worse still) by the
insane expectation that he will be deceived as to the real
purpose for which it is presented. Surely, nothing but a
virulent hostility to the religion of Christians could so blind
a man to the first conditions of the problem which he is
aiming to solve. I am, sir, &c.,             A. A.
3








III.
THE RATIONALE OF PRAYER.
BY THE REV. RICHARD FREDERICK LITTLEDALE, D.C.L.
Tms appeared in the August number of " The Contemporary Review," pp. 430-454, next after the number in which the question
was stated. Dr. Littledale is considered an extreme Ritualist, alAd
one of the ablest men of this section of the English Church. His
contribution to the discussion may be appreciated by those who have
no sympathy with his advocacy of prayers for the dead, or with his
flings at Calvinism.








III.
THE RATIONALE OF PRAYER.
"For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and
therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a' should be thought a coward." -
SHAKSPEARE.
IN the July number of this "Review" appeared a communication from Prof. Tyndall, accompanying an unsigned
letter, wherein a proposal was broached for testing the
efficacy of prayer by means of inductive experiment and
quantitative analysis.
Lest any readers of this paper should have omitted to
examine Prof. Tyndall's contribution, it is well to say that
the scheme suggested was to set apart one ward of some
hospital for the reception of a number of cases of diseases,
which have been satisfactorily tabulated as to the ratio of
seizures and deaths; to have this ward, while under exactly
the -same medical treatment -as the others, specially interceded for by a general union for prayer; and then to
ascertain, after a sufficient time had been allowed for the
experiment, whether any appreciable difference in the proportion of deaths to cures, and, if so, what, would be manifested as the result of united petitions to Heaven.
37




38            The Rationale of Prayer.
With this scheme I do not propose to deal yet a little.
It may be propounded in the' spirit of Voltaire, or in that
of St. Francis when he offered himself to the ordeal of fire
against the Egyptian Imams; and therefore, although I shall
presently discuss its evidential value, I confine myself,
for the time, to investigating the intentions and arguments
of its sponsor.
The paper coincides, in date of publication, with one by
Prof. Beesly in "' The Fortnightly Review," from  which I
extract the following passage, whose delicate humor and
refined good feeling need no comment of mine: —
"When Archbishop Tait claims to have effected the cure of the
Prince of Wales by his Form of Public Prayer, issued to all churches
and chapels in England and Wales, and in the town of Berwick-uponTweed, he is, in the eyes of most educated men, as much an impostor as Father Peter Conway driving a voter to the" poll at the point
of the sacrament, or a gypsy examining the hand of a kitchen-maid;
and, to borrow a phrase from'The Pall Mall Gazette,''not one whit
less an impostor, because he believes in every word he says, in good
faith.' All these avail themselves of their mysterious claims to
extract money from the community; and, if the amount so extracted
were to be the measure of criminality and of punishment, it is to be
feared that Lambeth would come off worst."
I may digress for a moment, to point out that the logic of
this expression of opinion is at fault from  the lack of one
essential quality, — that of true resemblance between the
things compared.
On the one hand, there is neither evidence nor probability




The Rationale of Prayer.             39
that Archbishop Tait issued his form -which is simply
neither better nor worse than the average of those very
curious Lambeth prayers - as an infallible specific and spell.
He did not say, even by implication, " Use this formula,
and you will succeed; use any other, and you will probably
fail."  Nor, on the other hand, would his position and
income have been affected in the smallest degree by popular
neglect or acceptance of the'document.
Prof. Tyndall has not been, on this occasion, as explicit as
Mr. Beesly; but, some years ago (1865 and 1867), he uttered
opinions in the very same periodical and in " The Pall Mall
Gazette," which are identical in effect, however more courteously worded; and he has not subsequently retracted them.
In one particular, he has gone even beyond his brother sceptic; for, while Prof. Beesly modestly contents himself with
ranking on his side the "'majority of educated persons' as
disbelievers in the efficacy of prayer, Prof. Tyndall claimed
the support of the "great majority of sane persons," and
thus leaves the creed of a special providence not even the
sympathies of a respectable minority of ignorant, albeit not
unthinking, men; but will have it, that in the wise and
charitable language of an anonymous though easily recognizable writer in "Fraser's Magazine," in 1866, "intelligent men have withdrawn from active participation in the
whole matter; and enthusiasts, dreamers, knaves, and fools
have now the field to themselves."
In order to appreciate Mr. Tyndall's objections at their




4o            The Rationale of Prayer.
true value, it is only just to him and to myself to let him
speak in his own words: —
"I turn to the account of the Epping cholera case, and learn that
the people drank poisoned water. To alter by prayer the consequences of this or any similar fact, to deprive by petition even a
single molecule of miasmatic matter of its properties, would, in the
eye of science, be as much a miracle as to make the sun 4nd moon
stand still. For one of these results, neither of us would pray: on
the same grounds, I refuse to pray for either." -Pall Mall Gazette,
Oct. 19, 1865.
"' They ask for fair weather and for rain, but they do not ask that
water may run up hill; while the man of science clearly sees that the
granting of one petition would be just as much an infringement of
the law of conservation as the granting of the other. Holding the
law to be permanent, he prays for neither."
I have an objection to allege on the threshold, before I
proceed to show where I believe a fallacy to underlie these
statements. It is, that Prof. Tyndall does not plainly say
what theological ground he takes up.  There are five different grounds, however, which may be taken up by disbelievers in prayer: —
1. They may be Atheists; in which case, prayer logically
falls through for lack of an object, albeit it is maintained
none the less by Comte in the very curious religion he
invented.
2. They may be Pantheists; in which case, the things
usually prayed against are to them as much parts of the




The Rationale of Prayer.               4I
universally-diffused Divinity as their opposites, and, being
necessary, are, of course, irremovable and irreformable.
3. They may be Theists, of that particular stamp which
regards God in the light of a skilful mechanician, who after
constructing the universe, and setting it at work, withdrew
himself, thenceforward, from all interference with it, as completely as a clockmaker does in the instance of a clock
which he has exported to a foreign country. Prayer here is
useless, because God, under this theory, is not a party
actively concerned, and will not interfere.
4. They may think themselves Christians, and then argue,
either from the Calvinist point of view, that God has
ordained all events whatsoever by an absolute and irreversible fiat, which can in no wise be affected by any entreaties
of man;
5. Or else, what comes practically to the same thing,
though not open to quite the same moral objections, they
may urge that God, being supremely wise, just, loving, and
merciful, ordains every thing in the very best way; so that.
were he to alter his arrangements to meet man's ignorant
wishes, he would have to alter them for the worse; and it is
therefore the truest faith to leave the matter in his hands.
This is the argument which Canon Kingsley adduced; not
without a certain force, when the registrar-general's returns
in 1861 showed that the cold, wet summer of 1860, which
drew forth so many petitions for fair weather, had been
exceptionally healthy for men and cattle; so that the average
of deaths throughout England sank considerably.




42           The Rationale of Prayer.
These five grounds, though various enough to distinguish
contrariant schools, are reducible to two, - Atheism and
Necessism.
It is possible to take up yet another, the only one which is
genuinely sceptical, in the true sense of that misused word,
- that of the Agnostics, who frankly confess that they know
nothing, and have very little expectation of ever knowing
any thing, of the merits of the question on the one side or
the other. But Prof. Tyndall's active crusade against prayer
(albeit not easily reconcilable with another expression of
his opinions, which I will cite presently) disallows him this
position, and compels him to accept one of the other two.
If he is consciously arguing from the Atheistic side, I
submit that he is bound to tell us so much. And, as the
discussion is idle between persons who are not agreed on
the existence of a God, I shall prefer to assume that Prof.
Tyndall's objection comes from the Necessarian side.
And to Necessism  there are  some fatal objections.
Whether it be taken to express the absolute unchangeability
of God himself, or that of a system of laws devised by him,
it is clear, that, if we once postulate it, we must allow the
universality of its range and operation. We cannot argue
that there must be fixity inT one sphere, and yet that there
may be contingency in another. Every thing'must be part
of the sequence of inevitable law; and nothing can be, or
could have been, other than it is.
Now, I would just point out the circumstance, that, whether




The Rationale of Prayer.               43
this theory be true or false, every human being acts, and
cannot help acting, on the hypothesis of its falsehood. The
most fanatical disciple of Islam, the most philosophic Spinozist, although striving to accommodate himself to the practical recognition of destiny, cannot do it. He will eat when
he is hungry, if food be attainable; he will go out of his
way to cross a bridge, rather than attempt an untried ford
right in the path; he will lock up his valuables if he anJticipates theft. It is of no use to reply that his taking all
these precautions against danger of any kind is as much
pre-ordained as any thing else, for the fact remains that he is
conscious of free choice in the matter; and no argument
-within himself, however ingenious its special pleading, will
really convince him that he had no alternative, since, if
there be a constraining force, it is absolutely imperceptible.
Not only so; but there is an element of direct disproof,
which is, that, wherever the fatalist theory avowedly prevails,
we always find a very exceptional ratio of physical and
mental apathy, as in Turkey and China, whence we are
fairly entitled to argue that it is the known presence of this
dogma which benumbs activity, since, were its operation
really universal, mere ignorance of its existence would make
no visible difference. Necessism, therefore, as a theory of
life, being always and eVerywhere unworkable, is condemned
as unthinkable too.
If we base the argument on God's immutability, we are
the sport of an ambiguous expression. Moral fixity and




44           The Rationale of Prayer.
perfection is necessary to our idea of God, but not so iron
uniformity of action.
In truth, a moment's thought will show that to predicate
absolute unchangeableness in all respects of him is to
detract from his perfection., not to enhance it, since variety
is a necessary integer in man's conception of absolute beauty.
Change from what is in itself perfect need not be changed to
less or more loveliness, as any one can tell who has watched
the sunrises and sunsets of the Adriatic and the Archipelago,
with their marvellous shifting and play of colors, alike in
beauty, but diverse in chromatic expression. And, granted
his existence as Creator and Lawgiver, sufficient evidence
exists that he has been the Author of change. I interrogate
the records of geology; and I find certain strata wherein no
token of former life, no trace of organic remains, is discoverable. Moreover, science tells me, that, at the era indicated as that when these strata were formed, life was not
only absent, but impossible. After a time, a change of the
most momentous character is discernible. Life made its
appearance on our globe, at first in vegetable forms, and
later on in animal ones also. No ingenuity on the part of
the extremer champions of evolution has yet shown that life
can be evolved out of death. I will grant that some little
progress has been made towards showing that organisms
may possibly be developed out of inorganic bodies by a
re-arrangement of molecules; but not -one decillionth of an
inch has yet been spanned of the unmeasured gulf which




The Rationale of Prayer.              45
parts death and life, as modes of existence, from each other.
Second only, if even second, to this inexplicable prodigy, is
the sudden appearance of man upon the surface of the globe,
differing, as he does, in essentials, more widely from  the
anthropoid apes than they do from the amoeba and the
rhizopod. Life and reason were once not on the earth.
They are so now.  What prodigy can be greater, what
change more astonishing?  If we could imagine a race of
reasoning beings inspecting our globe from a neighboring
planet, with instruments'powerful enough to afford them a
clear view of its surface, and carrying on their recorded
observations for some centuries before the first vegetable
sprang up, or the first saurian crawled, might we not also
assume that they babbled inductive nonsense about "the
necessary character of natural laws," and the impossibility
of any change ever taking place?
For here comes in the deadliest argument of all against
Necessism. It is an unreasoning and unreasonable hypothesis, and no more. I find myself, as a thinker, in frequent
collision with the fact that men - educated and sane men,
yes, and eminent physicists, too - will say the same thing in
differnut words, and think, or try to make me think, that
they.ave explained or accounted for it. We laugh at the
story of the quack, who satisfied an old woman, who had
long inquired in vain why her child was born dumb, by
telling her that the reason was, that it had come into the
world without the faculty of speech. But when a physicist




46           The Rationale of Prayer.
tells me that the reason why oil and water will not mix, or
why sulphuric-acid does not melt gold, is, that these substances have severally no chemical affinity for each other,
he is doing exactly the same thing, and expecting me to be
grateful for this increase to my stock of ideas. And this is
the juggle which is played with the expression, " natural
law." There is absolutely no intellectual process at work
in the assertion that things will go on in the way that they
have hitherto done; for I deny that any law making con.
tinuance necessary, or even probable, has been discovered,
or that physicists have as yet established more than the fact
that certain phenomena or acts come after one another in, as
yet, invariable sequence. That the antecedent event is the
cause, and the subsequent one the effect, no one has shown,
far less why the results are such and such in any case. It is
not reason, but mere brute instinct, which makes me expect
sunrise to-morrow. Stars have, ere now', disappeared from
the gaze of astronomers; and no man knows what has become of them, - whether they have been burnt out by some
tremendous combustion, or carried away into space, or
absorbed by attraction into some other orb; but they are
gone. What intellectual reason can be given why the sun
should not be the next to vanish?  And, supposing he did,
what would be the effect on our solar system? Of course,
the answer given will be, " It is certain that the sun will
rise to-morrow."
I am not disputing the fact, though I deny that the past




The Rationale of Prayer.              47
can prove the future; but the point I wish to urge is this:
I am told by Prof. Tyndall and his friends, that the great
majority of educated and sane men are at one as to the
absolute invariability of natural law, and, by implication,
that I am a dunce and a fool for believing that God can and
does work miracles.
I will not trouble myself to disclaim the epithets; but I
may fairly ask my scientific critics to deal with me as a
teacher at Earlswood Asylum would do with any idiot whom
he wished to instruct. The use of the terms "educated"
and " sane " surely implies that the objection to a belief in
the " miracles of prayer " is an intellectual one. If so, let
us have it, by all means. But to say, " Such a thing has
been hitherto, therefore it will continue to be," is not an intellectual proposition at all; and the word " therefore " has
no business in it, for there is no minor term to the syllogism.
On the other hand, the argument for prayer is an intellectual one, and is based on a regular process of reasoning.
The reasoning may be good or bad, conclusive or inconclusive; but, as a mere mental process, it stands on an
immeasurably higher level than the bare unprovable assertion of Prof. Tyndall and the Necessarians, which has no
loftier mental rank than the instinct which prompts some
insects to lay up a winter-store of provisions.
I dwell upon this point, not out of soreness, nor from any
desire for recrimination, but simply to press on public attention the defects of hazy thought and unbalanced expression,




48           The Rationale of Prayer.
which mark this whole school in every thing unconnected
with the idols of its cave. Take the very plea which is
meant to impose on the jury before which the case is being
tried. Is it not plain that the broad and unqualified allegation as to the opinions of the " great majority of sane and
educated persons " can only be accounted for in one way,
that of using the words " educated and sane " in a novel
and arbitrary sense, as equivalent to " holding the opinions
of Profs. Tyndall and Beesly"?  If the physicists had
been men of a truly and universally scientific temper, they
would. have made an induction from the opinions of the
"great majority of sane and educated men," I suppose, in
Europe, America, and the various Colonies, leaving Africa
and Asia out of consideration.
It would not, in the present condition of our race, have
been necessary to examine much more than ten millions of
people of all countries subject to the inquiry; and the Blue
Book thus produced would be a highly interesting volume,
but perhaps a little defective on the score of portability.
No human being supposes that they have done this, or taken
any steps towards doing it; and yet, till they have achieved
something of the kind, they have no right to use loose talk
of this sort about the numerical strength of their supporters.
When Canning asked the famous question,' Did you ever
know a senior wrangler that wasn't a fool?" we may be
sure he had no idea of casting a doubt on the success of the
tripos as a test of mathematical faculty and acquirement.




The Rationale of Prayer.              49
What he possibly had in his mind, albeit he had, perhaps,
not thought it out fully, is, that men who have devoted themselves exclusively to geometry and its branches, wherein
necessary sequence does exist, and where contingency is
totally absent, are singularly deficient in practical judgment.
because they have never learnt to make allowance for unexpected events disturbing their calculation of futurity.
In like manner, the physicists seem unable to rise out of
the plane of material conceptions into broad moral and
spiritual views, or even to look at phenomena belonging to
other spheres of knowledge with scientific eyes. They are
like Jedidiah Buxton, the calculating boy of the last century,
taken to see Garrick act Shakspeare, and coming away
unimpressed alike by poet and actor; but being able to state
with precision how many separate words Garrick uttered in
the course of the drama.
One result of these very narrow sympathies is, that they
live in a clique; and the cliquish temper makes them, as I
have said, profoundly unscientific.  To me possibly, as
neither sane nor educated, every fact is a fact; and I do not
see my way to ignoring any fact that comes in my way, and
interferes with me in any fashion. As soon as Mr. Darwin's
theory of "natural selection" is proved, I am  ready to
embrace it; and I am not in the least frightened at the
word " evolution."
But Christianity seems to me quite as large and important
a fact in the world as the existence of a cross-breed of




50           The Rationale of Prayer.
pigeons, or the dropping-off of a tadpole's tail; and the
belief in the efficacy of prayer is not only an inseparable
integer of that form of belief, but of every other that rises
above the lowest grade of savage Feticism. Now, here is
an example of what I said about the difficulty physicists
experience in facing any save material ideas. If you draw
their attention to any very widely-spread and enduring
practice affecting men's bodies, notably such matters as the
use of fermented stimulants, or of narcotics, such as tobacco,
opium, bhang, or betel, they will,argue, and, as I think,
quite justly, against teetotalers, that the very universality of
the practice is an adequate proof that it fulfils some useful
purpose in animal economy, and that, consequently, whatever may be said in favor of regulation, abolition would be
an error.
But, transfer precisely the same argument to the plane of
spiritual ideas, and they are at once incapable of applying
the analogy. They allege that the presence of a whole
world of aspirations and notions concerning a supernatural
ideal, and the incontrovertible fact that men's morals and
conduct are powerfully influenced by the shape which these
aspirations and notions take, is no proof whatever that they
are more than brain-phantasms, as unreal in their working
as in their origin. This seems to me purely unphilosophical; for I can see no reason why prayer, as an actual fact
in the universe, should not be investigated as patiently and
exhaustively as tobacco.




The Rationale of Prayer.              5'
And, while I am  dealing with this point, I may draw
attention to the noteworthy circumstance, that in proportion
as we ascend in the scale of humanity, as we take a higher
race in a higher stage of intellectual development, these
notions an' aspirations become more definite, more elaborate,
more completely recognizant of orderly supernaturalism.
We find Brahminism and Buddhism above the Fetish creedswe see Mohammedanism rising in many particulars above
them, and Christianity at the summit of the scale; that is,
that, according as whole nations become more " sane and
educated," the nearer they are to accepting the system
which Mr. Tyndall urges us to reject; while it is only
amongst the lowest savages, of races so degraded that the
English idiot is incomparably more decent and teachable,
that we find that absence of the belief and practice of prayer
to God which is offered now as the ultimate test of superior
wisdom. With all deference, I prefer the Aryan to the
Andaman or the Papuan type; and I cannot see how a
recurrence to the religious level of the latter can be other
than fatuously retrograde.
I complain that the opponents of Christian prayer refuse
to face these broad facts, and persist in ignoring them, as if
that made them loom less large on the canvas of the world.
They are bound, if they wish us to set aside truths of such
visible magnitude and of such philosophical significance, to
give us some sufficient reason for neglecting the successive
strata of human thought, and the vigorous surface of living




52           The Rationale of Prayer.
mental growth, and for concentrating our attention on the
inorganic granite of Nihilism.
Again: I have said that I am not frightened at the word
" evolution." But the word " supernatural" seems to startle
an ordinary physicist into hysterics; and he has no presence
of mind left after he has once heard it, or suspects its coming
Utterance. If he does listen to the sound for a moment, it
is merely to assure us that it is exploded nonsense, and will
vanish in a few years through the progress of science.
Here, again, I must draw attention to a curiously unscientific attitude which physicists adopt towards psychology.
They never can take in the simple fact that human nature, in
its mental as well as its physical constitution, has been much
the same as far back as our records testify. Hence they
confuse two radically distinct notions, - that of the accumulation of human knowledge, and that of the advance of the
human intellect. Nothing is commoner than to find a certain school of biblical critics starting as new and insurmountable some objection to the authenticity of some
scriptural document which must, almost of necessity, have
presented itself to the shrewd dialecticians who tasked the
powers of the early Apologists, but which is imagined to be
naccessible to any save a modern intellect, as. though that
were something different in kind firom an ancient one. And,
conversely, we are told in very clear and unfaltering accents,
that there are follies of belief and temperament, which have
died out of inanition, as a result of mental growth through




The Rationale of Prayer.              53
the ages; and that Christianity is one of the'e, and is going
its:way. They are perpetually crying out to us, -
"Thou, too, shalt pass, Galilean: thy dead shall go down to their dead."
The cleverest exposition of this theory was in Mr. Lecky's
"History of Rationalism in Europe," wherein the decadence, and, as it was alleged, the disappearance, of the belief
in witchcraft, was treated at length as a palmary example.
And now the Spiritualism of America, which does not differ
one jot, in character or method, from the " white magic " of
the middle ages, has spread with such force and rapidity,
almlost since Mr. Lecky's book appeared, as to count,
amongst one of the most educated and hard-headed populations in the world, disciples variously estimated at from six
to ten millions. I see no proofs of superiority in other
matters. I had very much rather trust the statements, the
inferences, the judgment, of Thucydides in any matter of
history, than Mr. Froude's. I am sure Mr. Tyndall would
not claim equality for his own powers with those of Aristotle, Bacon, or Newton (though the two latter were misguided enough to believe in supernaturalism, and were
ignorant of many things which Mr. Tyndall knows); and
I doubt whether any modern feats of engineering, as mere
exemplifications of human skill and power, exceed the
achievements of those who built the Pyramids, and raised
the vast temples of Karnak and Luxor.




54             The Rationale of Prayer.
" The age culls simples,
With a broad clown's back turned broadly-to the glory of the stars:
We are gods by our own reckoning, and may well shut up the temples,
And wield on, amid the incense-steam, the thunder of our cars.
And we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self-admiring,
With, at every mile run faster,'Oh the'wondrous, wondrous age!'
Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron,
Or if angels will commend us at the goal of pilgrimage.
Why, what is this patient entrance into Nature's deep resources,
But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without bane?
When we drive forth, from the cloud of steam, majestical white horses,
Are we greater than the first men who led black ones by the mane?
If we trod the depths of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising,
If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath,'Twere but power within our tether, no new spirit-power comprising;
And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death."
Considerations such as these dispose, as it seems to me,
of both the assertions, that belief in the supernatural is
doomed, and that the coming doom is the result of the
intellectual progress of mankind. And, moreover, if they
did not, still these assertions belong to the sphere of unfulfilled prophecy; and it is with the present we have to deal,
not with the future.  The question is not, How  will our
posterity, in a millennary or so, account for the disappearance of Christianity? but, How is the present and continued
existence of that belief to be intelligently accounted for
now?




The Rationale of Prayer.              55
I think it must be allowed as a philosophical axiom, that
the fact of any thing continuing to live is a proof that it has
vitality in it, and that such vitality must be as true as any
other fact in the physical or moral universe, and, therefore,
as fitting matter for scientific inquiry. Now, if the word
" supernatural " be looked at dispassionately, its terrors disappear. They exist only in the imagination of those who
persist in limiting the word " natural " to such matters -as
fall within the sphere of sensible observation, and who, if
they recall the speech once made by a young man to Dr.
Parr, " I make a rule never to believe any thing I do not
understand," also remind one of the answer, " Then your
creed will be one of the shortest on record."  What we
mean by supernatural is no more than that the thing spoken
of belongs to a higher plane in creation than its surroundings. In a world of granite, a solitary plant would be supernatural; for it would possess the unshared attributes of life
and growth. In a purely mineral and vegetable world, an
animal endowed with motion and volition would be supernatural; and man was supernatural when he appeared first
in the world which lacked him as its head. No preceding
causes could account for these several manifestations; but,
when once admitted and tabulated, they fell within the
recognized order of Nature. All, therefore, that is implied
in the word "' supernatural'.' is the belief (not necessarily
absurd in itself), that there may be existences higher in the
scale of being than man, and capable, in perfectly orderly




56          The Rationale of Prayer.
fashion, of achievements which as far surpass his as the construction of the most intricate machinery (for instance, that
used in making cards for wool, or in Mr. Babbage's famous
engine) exceeds the skill of the beaver. A miracle does not
mean a reversal of existing laws, but the manifestation of
some law unknown to and inexplicable by man, and can be
declared impossible only on the hypothesis that there is no
God, or that God is not a free agent.
Take Mr. Tyndall's two examples, as cited earlier in this
paper,-: the folly of praying that miasma may be neutralized,
or that water may run up hill. These would be impossible
miracles to an ape. I can perform them any day I please.
I pour a few drops of a wholesome disinfectant into the
poisoned water, and I can drink it with safety. I rig a
force-pump, and drive the reluctant fluid up through pipes
to the top of the loftiest mansion, and, lo! there are the two
miracles worked. If God gave chemists the wisdom to
invent disinfectants, if he disclosed the secret of the pump
to Torricelli, why cannot he do the like himself, at times,
without revealing his processes?  Must he, of necessity,
work through human agency? or does it follow, that, where
human agency is visible, there can have been no antecedent
prayer?
Neither of these questions can be answered, save by the
high a priori method, which is not very convincing to logicians. And to take no notice of them is, in fact, to fall back
on the unavowed principle of Atheism; for the distinction




The Rationale of Prayer.              57
between the natural and supernatural does not belong to
Scripture, to theology, nor to man's original consciousness.
It is a mere artificial product of modern speculation, and
need not have, most probably has not, any true existence in
the world of being. To the Christian( philosopher, the words
indicate no more than the known and the unknown operations of the same Almighty God; and the estimate he forms
of them is, that as all the known operations are orderly, and
free from arbitrary caprice, so the unknown ones are presumably the like. And it is no more difficult or unreasonable
to suppose the immediate cure of blindness or paralysis,
given an adequate reason for it, than to acknowledge the
ordinary fact of the development of a fully sentient human
being out of an embryonic germ, since each equally surpasses our power, and baffles our investigation.
I have said that the doctrine of prayer, unlike the assertion of invariable sequence, is the result of intelligent
thought; but I have not yet shown why it is so. The facts
of geology establish, as I have said, that change is not, in
itself, alien to the Divine Mind. Yet no help is gained, so
far, towards meeting the objections of those who allow God's
freedom from all restraint, save that of the necessity of his
own perfections, but who argue, that, though he can change,
he will not, because he already orders all things for the best.
This is the subtlest form of Necessism, but is met at once by
the problem of evil, moral and physical. Unless we fall
back on that form of Pantheism which sees in evil as much




58           The Rationale of Prayer.
a part of God as in good, we are forced to confess a permitted antagonism in the universe; and we find in any case,
that a great part of our own intellectual and moral progress
is reached through the conflict with evil, and through our
efforts to banish or neutralize its malign influence. Unless
our reflective faculties are in a very apathetic or a very
degraded state, we recognize this conflict, apart from its
salutary effect on ourselves, as a duty to God and to society;
that is, we employ ourselves in doing what, on the Necessarian theory, is simply thwarting God's will, since, if he
did not mean evil to continue, he would not fail to destroy it
himself. And,'consequently, no one acts on this theory in
morals any more than in the practical concerns of life, -
sowing and reaping, and such like provisions for physical
needs; so that it, too, is universally rejected, and therefore
ultimately unthinkable.
What does this establish? Simply that we constantly base
our action on the fact that not every thing is in the best
possible state, but that most things may be and ought to be
bettered. If we do so, there is nothing inconsistent, but
rather the reverse, in asking God to help us in so bettering
what we think to be wrong or evil. And as the Christian
Scriptures, in common with the Jewish, constantly inculcate
the duty of prayer as an element of the war with evil, it
seems hardly open to members of any Christian body to
question its utility.  Further: even the Necessarian view
does not logically exclude prayer, though it seems to do so;




The Rationale of Prayer.              59
for it is perfectly conceivable that God may have ordained
prayer as a necessary preliminary to the obtaining certain
results, and that it enters into his system of pre-arrangement
in a manner which may be compared, in some degree, to the
use of stamped paper to give civil validity to certain documents amongst us. An unstamped receipt for sums of a
certain value is inadmissible in our courts as evidence of
payment, and even exposes the signatory to a heavy fine,
albeit it is just as complete historical and moral evidence as
the stamped receipt.  The object with us is to increase
national revenue with the least onerous incidence of taxation; and God's object in requiring prayer may very well be
as simple and practical, though the direct motive on man's
part may be merely the obtaining of desired benefits.
Now, this object on God's part must needs be a moral
one, unless we are content to form a low estimate of his
nature. - It cannot be the mere desire to promote his own
glory (which is, or used to be, the hyper-Calvinist explanation), since that would bring him down to the moral level
of Nebuchadnezzar, or any similar Oriental despot who
claims the adoration of his subjects. And, moreover, such an
explanation would not cover the area of human prayer, since
populous nations which have no knowledge of. the God of
the Bible are none the less in the habit of making petitions
to unseen and superhuman powers. The vast and almost
universal extent of this tendency cannot be philosophically
accounted for in any fashion which does not recognize the




60           The Rationale of Prayer.
necessary function of prayer in satisfying certain inherent
desires of man. Those desires are to know, or at least feel
after, something higher, stronger, nobler, than himself, to
obtain its sympathy, and to shelter himself under its protection; in the spirit of Wellington's despatch immediately
after Waterloo,' I have escaped unhurt: the finger of
Providence was upon me."   Now, Feticism which is in
some of its forms very closely allied to the modern theology
of physicists, in that it deifies the brute forces of Nature,
stands lowest amongst religions, precisely because it does not
reach to the notion of divine personality. Hydraulic and
electric force are stronger and more enduring than I; but they
can only incidentally affect me: whereas I can govern and
direct them, through the conduit, along the telegraph-wires,
down the lightning-conductor. I may use them, I may sometimes fear them; but I cannot apply such language as love,
trust, or sympathy to my feelings towards them, or any other
natural forces. They do not and can not satisfy my intellectual and moral cravings,which require a Person to content
them, precisely because I am conscious that my own personality, which puts me so much higher in the scale of creation
than any impersonal or unreasoning force, must come from a
Person who is at least as high over me as I am over a galvanic current. Were it otherwise, man would be, in the
fullest sense of the word, self-sufficient, and would find his
ideal in the noblest of his own race; but that is not true,
even under the Comtist worship of humanity. It has be



The Rationale of Prayer.                6 
come necessary for it to treat the most famous of mankind
merely as inferior saints of a calendar, and to invent a
Frankenstein monster, a personification of aggregate mankind, as the supreme object of worship, in order to cheat that
hunger of the soul after a perfect Man, which Christianity
alone can assuage, because it alone tells us that this perfect
Man is also perfect God, and thus brings into harmonious
contact two ideas otherwise parted and irreconcilable.
If we take from man this craving for worship, and throw
him back on hiimself alone for his ideal, all history tells us,
that brute force and material prosperity become the only
recognized good.  Therefore it is part of God's moral
education of man to keep the craving alive, to lead men
onwards by setting before them the loftiest conceivable
standard, to soften hardness and to abase pride by teaching
man that the All-Holy is also the All-Merciful, that the lost
High is also the mqst lowly, in that lie rejects no suitor, and
scorns no intercourse.
But there is only one way to prevent the craving from
wearing itself out; and that is by satisfying it, at least
occasionally.  If it be conceded (as it must on any theistic
hypothesis) that God has implanted the longing in us, then
it follows, as a necessary consequence of his nature, that he
will not cheat his petitioners.  If the experience of mankind were, that he neither heard nor answered prayer, there
is small probability that its prevalence wouild still be wellnigh universal.




62           The Rationale of Prayer.
On the contrary, the whole induction is immeasurably the
other way, and asserts that God always does hear, and
always does answer, devout and trustful prayer, albeit he
may not always grant the special petition of any given
worshipper.  Here is another case in which unscientific
prejudice has barred honest investigation. It is,the plainest
duty of any man who undertakes to demonstrate the inefficacy of prayer, to inquire into the results ascribed to devout
intercession by all sincere Christians. It would be easy
enough for a truly impartial investigator to apply for data
to a certain number of ministers of religion, belonging to
different societies, and to ask them to send in details of
cases which satisfy the following conditions: —
1. Extreme need of obtaining some benefit seemingly or
really inaccessible, by ordinary means, to the person in want.
2. Devout prayer on behalf of the said person, whether
offered by himself or by others.
3. The obtaining the desired benefit in an unforeseen
manner, subsequently to the prayer.
I do not at all mean to suggest that only cases of this
sort are likely to represent answers to prayer, nor yet to
assert categorically that 2 and 3 must needs be connected
together as cause and effect; but what I urge is, that, if
some hundreds or thousands of such cases are discoverable (a
thing of which I have no doubt whatever), the number of the
coincidences would raise a very strong presumption in favor
of the Christian theory, and be evidence of exactly the same




The Rationale of Prayer.              63
kind as is relied on by physicists; that is, that extremely
frequent sequence of two events argues a connection between
them, though it cannot exactly prove it. I assert, in common with all men who have had any wide spiritual experience, that such answers to prayer are amongst the ordinary
facts of religion, and that it is the plainest duty of any one
who denies their existence, to base his objection on inductive
disproof, not on a priori theories which are simply contradicted by other a' priori theories that satisfy a larger number
of mental wants. For, as I have pointed out again and
again, the Necessarian doctrine really means that God is not
a free agent, and makes the highest manifestation of him
to lie in unbroken uniformity: whereas, the other a priori
conception of God as a moral governor of the universe
assumes, as I think more reasonably, that he would take
pains to make his creatures sure of his existence,- a thing
he can effect in no way conceivable to us, save by convincing
us, through some superhuman act of his which we cannot
reduce under ally known law, that the only necessity is his
will, and that his laws are neither identical with himself, nor
superior over him. Such an act, when made to draw attention to some spiritual teaching, and having, therefore, a definite aim, we call a miracle.
And, unless we are prepared to deny our own powers and
operations, we cannot logically or reasonably refuse this
power of working miracles to God. I have already shown
how man's skill can deal with the two tasks which Prof.




64           The Rationale of Prayer.
Tyndall thinks are too great for God. But let us take
achievements on a much larger scale. If it were recorded
in the Bible, that two men, ten thousand miles apart, were
enabled to communicate with each other instantaneously, and
thus practically annihilate space, is there the smallest doubt
that the whole ruck of unbelievers, in days before the electric telegraph, would have ridiculed the story as an Oriental
hyperbole?  Or let us take another kind of example.
Readers of old English chroniclers are familiar with the
accounts given of the soil, the climate, the flora, and the
fauna of the East-Anglian counties, as they were in the
middle ages. Embankment, draining, and cultivation have
changed all four, and that in no petty degree, but radically.
Man has brought another set of laws and conditions to bear
upon a large tract of country, and has changed the very
face of Nature thereby. And, conversely, man's neglect has
made a pestilential desert of the Roman Campagna, once
thickly set with gardens, farms, and dwellings. Yet we are
told to believe that God cannot do what man does on so
great a scale, or, what comes to the same thing, that he will
not do what he instructs and empowers man to do. For
here is the dilemma for Necessarians who plead God's
changelessness. Either God wills an unalterable state of
things, or he does not. If he does, then maln is able to
counteract him, and is so far stronger than he: if he does
not, the argument, from invariable sequence, falls to the
ground.




The Rationale of Prayer.              65
There is, however, a sub-form  of the same objection
which I have not yet directly met, although it is already
answered by implication. I mean that drawn from God's
omniscience. Granted that he can, and even may, change
his apparent course of dealing with men, why should it be
necessary for them to tell him their wants, seeing that he
knows them already, and is just and loving enough to fulfil
such as are commendable or reasonable?
The answer is, that prayer is not for God's instruction, but
for ours. It is to teach us dependence on him, not to inform
him  of any thing whereof he may be presumed ignorant.
And, besides, this objection is only the a priori fallacy again.
If we base our belief in God's omniscience on Holy Writ,
then that revelation declares as fully his requirement of
prayer as it does any thing else concerning him: if we base
it merely on our own conceptions of what suits the character
of God, then we find ourselves faced by the necessity of
also attributing direct sympathy with us to him; and sympathy without intercourse is a delusion.
There is yet another aspect of prayer which is too important to be omitted. I mean its reflex action on those who
habitually practise it. So salutary is it seen to be even by
unbelievers, that Comte has been forced to import it as an
incongruous exotic into his system, lest his disciples should
lack its influence; and even Prof. Tyndall has committed
himself to approval of it in very emphatic language. He
says,
5




66            The Rationale of Prayer.
" While prayer is thus inoperative in external nature, it may re-act
with beneficial power on the human mind.... And if our spiritual
authorities could only devise a form in which the heart might express
itself, without putting the intellect to shame, they might utilize a
power which they now waste, and make prayer, instead of a butt to
the scorner, the potent inner supplement of a noble life."
Merely premising that the use of the word "power" in
this sentence shows that the word " prayer" cannot here be
taken as equivalent to praise or worship, but must mean a
force of. some kind brought to bear on God, that is, petition
or intercession, I ask, in unfeigned perplexity, What ever
does Prof. Tyndall mean?
He has told us that he refuses to pray for any interference
with natural laws; and moral questions are so bound up with
physical ones, that I fail to see how he could consistently
ask for any change of temperament for himself or others;
so that altogether, bearing in mind the limitations he puts
on divine power, I am at a loss to guess what kind of a God
he is willing to pray to, or what kind of blessings he is prepared to pray for.
For myself, I can conceive no more immoral sham than
going through a process of the sort, fully conscious that I
did not expect any result from my petitions, except such as
might arise from temporary excitement; and that I was
degrading man's highest privilege, that of sacred communion with his Maker, to the level of a fit of voluntary
hysterics over the fictitious sorrows of a sentimental novel.




The Rationale of Prayer.               67
If, as seems conceded; prayer actually does produce a beneficial effect on those who practise it, no explanation is valid
or reasonable which does not admit the truth of its fundamental notion, - that there is a superhuman Being who hears
and answers prayer; for a mere delusion cannot produce
tangible and recurrent results. Imagination is a powerful
agent, no doubt, and has often wrought singular effects on
the nervous system; but I do not know of any evidence
in proof of the permanence of such effects; for, unless I
mistake, the fancied benefit mostly disappears with the temporary excitement. But, in this case, a habit is generated,
a gradual transformation of mind is brought about, and the
whole man is lifted into a higher and purer atmosphere;
while the incendiary assassins of the Parisian Commune
help us to guess what kind of morality is developed by the
negation of prayer.
And now to say another word about Prof. Tyndall's
crucial examples. Let us suppose that he had chosen them
more happily, and that he had taken a prayer for the suspension of the law of gravity, or something analogous, as a
type of petition which Christians do not employ.  His
corollary from such abstention is, that we are inconsistent
and unscientific, because we refrain from asking certain
things which we regard as impossible, while we ask for other
things which in the eyes of science are equally impossible.
This is merely another instance of his lack of clear thought.
When God has revealed his will distinctly to us in the order




68           The Rationale of Prayer.
of nature, our duty as affectionate children and loyal subjects imposes on us the obligation of conforming ourselves
to that will. But where he has not so disclosed his intentions, and where contingency may enter in, we are surely
reasonable, not foolish, in asking that he may help us in his
own way.
For example, if we saw a child thrusting its hand into a
red-hot fire, we should scarcely pray that the fire might lose
its scorching power, since that would be asking God to
reverse his own laws. But if we sent up a cry that a sudden downpour of rain, such as often occurs, might extinguish the flame in time, or, failing that, should entreat for a
blessing on the medical remedies employed, where would be
the unscientific attitude?  For as yet science has not laid
down meteorological or pathological laws with such accuracy
as to declare that they move in unchangeable cycles, or to
assure us, that, given certain antecedents, certain consequents
must undoubtedly follow; and I see no more impossibility in
God's way to prevent him from directing a thunderstorm
over a burning mass than there is in mine to hinder me
from using a fire-engine for the same purpose. I may add,
as an exhaustive refutation of this charge of inconsistency
against Christians, that, while they firmly believe that Christ
raised certain persons from the dead, they yet do not ask
for the resuscitation of deceased friends, because they also
believe that his ordinary will is that they should die; and
therefore they conform themselves humbly to that will,




The Rationale of Prayer.              69
though, up to the actual moment of death, they may often
prolong their entreaties for recovery.
We are, in short, reasonable beings, praying to a reasonable God, and believing in the correlation of moral forces;
and that is the true reason for rejecting the scheme for a
prayer-gauge propounded by Mr. Tyndall's anonymous correspondent. That gentleman has indeed pointed out one
scientific objection to his own proposal, which would deprive
it, even were quantitative analysis of prayer a possibility, of
any value as a test. I mean the impracticability of isolating
the wards, so that the influence of prayer should be concentrated on one only. But, setting aside this consideration,
the moral defect of the scheme is that which is really fatal
to it.
It degrades worship and prayer to the rank of a magical
incantation, and God to a being weak enough to be inthralled
and compelled by such an influence.
This notion prevails in the Brahmin system. It is there
held, that certain rites and sacrifices have an inherent power
in themselves to sway the gods, altogether apart from the
moral character or religious intention of the offerer, and that
it is even possible, given the knowledge and opportunity, for
a man not merely to subject his deities to his own will, but
to dethrone them, and assume their place and attributes.
Readers of the' Curse of Kehama " will need no digression
on this head. But the God of Christians is a Being at once
omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly moral. He cannot be




70           The Rationale of Prayer.
constrained, he may not be deceived; he will not lend himself to such a juggle; yet, that the experiment should have
even an initial value or interest, it would be necessary that
he should have given his assent to its being tried, either by
open sign or by express revelation.  The plagues of Egypt,
the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal, are examples of what I mean. But nothing now empowers us to accept
such a challenge, were it even morally defensible; for the
precept which binds us in all such matters is, " Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God."  A writer in " The Spectator"
of July 6, 1872, has with much shrewdness pointed out
another objection, which is, that answer is promised only to
sincere, devout, single-minded prayer; but that such a
scheme as this necessarily involves insincerity and doublemindedness, since the recovery of the patients, nominally
asked, is not the real motive of the petitioners, who are
merely trying to prove and show off their personal influence
with God.
There is yet another reason against the plan: it is that
we cannot quantify prayer any more than we can poetry, artfeeling, or any other lofty and imponderable gift. I mean
that there is no such thing as equality in the valqe of intercession. It does not follow at all, that, if you have one person praying for a thing, and ten persons praying for another
thing, the calculus of probability is ten times in favor
of the second petition. If this were so, prayer would be a
mere mechanical force, and of no ethical value or significance whatever.




The Rationale of Prayer.              7I
There is such a thing as a gift of prayer, just as there is
of dramatic or artistic faculty. I do not mean the power,
common in almost every Nonconformist pulpit, of making
rhetorical addresses of a more or less devotional kind to the
Deity, but that "' effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man," or woman, which, as an apostle tells us, "availeth
much." I have known, within my own experience, a few
persons with whom it was a common thing to ask in prayer
for various matters, and to get them. I do not assert that
the prayer brought the desired blessings; but I do allege that
the coincidences, if purely accidental, were more wonderful
and inexplicable than the hypothesis of a God who can hear
and answer his worshippers.  Now, on the quantitative
theory, this fact would introduce such a disturbance into the
calculation, that no trustworthy results could be obtained.
One petition from some unknown saint on behalf of the neglected wards, might outweigh in spiritual efficacy the
aggregate intercessions of the forces concentrated on the
experiment.
Further: it happens that I employed myself, some considerable time ago, in speculating what would be the practical
result on modern unbelief, of a public revival of miracles.
I have put before me the hypothesis of my being myself
invested with a supernatural power of healing, and have asked
myself what would come of it, assuming that the number and
notoriety of the cures forced the physicists to take the matter up, and inquire into it, instead of dismissing it with con



72          lThe Rationale of Prayer.
temptuous incredulity. And I became satisfied, that unless
the power were universal and persistent in me, that is, that
no case failed, under any conditions, its evidential value
would be superciliously disregarded. The objectors would
insist on God's working so as to please them. They would
require a variety of specified conditions to be, fulfilled in
every instance, bargaining for the nature and duration of
the disease, the character and number of witnesses to be
present, the uniform repetition of the cure under carefully
diversified circumstances, and the like. Then, if God did
not choose to submit himself to such critics, or withdrew
after a time the power conferred, they would look to the
cessation of the miracle, not to its previous persistence, and
reject it accordingly, as a mere abnormal phenomenon, not
deserving of serious attention; while, on the other hand,
even if it did continue, they would, I am convinced, ascribe
it to the discovery on my part of some hidden pathological
law, and would deny the existence of any superhuman causation. The evangelists are careful to let us know that the
miracles they ascribe to Christ were so far from converting
his chief opponents, that they merely imbittered their hostility. And I consequently do not believe for a moment,
*that even if the proposed experiment were one which is
lawful for a Christian to try, if it were carried out to the
letter, as suggested, and if the tabulated result should
exhibit an enormous percentage of cures in the favored
ward, that the hyper-dogmatic asserters of the impossibility




The Rationale of Prayer.              73
of miracles would be convinced. They would whisper about,
that one of the physicians had got a secret specific somehow,
and was in league with the parsons to palm off his success
as theirs; and they would probably point their remarks by
showing how very conceivably that trick might have been
played when chloroform was discovered, but not yet currently known.
The temper of Naaman, going away in a rage when told
to avail himself of a secondary remedy divinely indicated,
while he expected the pomp and dramatic circumstance of a
public miracle, is common still. Reading the letter of Prof.
Tyndall's correspondent between the lines, it seems to me to
come from the pen of a materialist surgeon or physician;
more probably the former. Now, as a theologian, I hold
and teach that God works, as a rule, mediately rather than
immediately upon men; and I think I can show a much
simpler and more scientific test of the effect of prayer on
the healing of the sick than the one proposed.
I mean, and all skilled pathological experience will bear
me out, that first-rate nursing is almost, if not quite, equal
to first-rate medical advice in curative value.  First-rate
nursing cannot be had, save as a rare exception, from the
class whence the Gamps and Prigs of our hospitals are, or
used to be, recruited. It tasks all the refinement, tact, and
educated sympathy of a lady to raise it to the highest level.
Several years ago Sir Edward Parry strove hard to get
nurses of this stamp to volunteer for Haslar Hospital. Not




74           The Rationale of Prayer.
one was forthcoming.  But the powerful religious movement which is revolutionizing the Church of England before
our eyes has since created the desired class; and several
hospitals, notably that of University College, London, are
now nursed by Sisters of conventual societies, who are moved
by piety to their labor of love, and sustained in it by prayer.
Would not a tabular comparison of the results severally
attained by nursis who work for God, and nurses who work
for money, be of some value as a basis of calculation? I
desire to enforce my argument, that, as prayer is unquestionably the motive-power which produces the Sister of Mercy,
it must be credited with the benefit a patient derives from
having her at his bedside. Nor is this plea weakened by
any allegation that a very much improved class of nurses,
working primarily and avowedly for payment, can now be
had; because the rehabilitation of nursing as a profession,
the lifting it up out of the grade of drunken beldames to be
the fit occupation of refined ladies, was the work of praying
men and women, and of them only, whether we trace the
English movement back to St. Vincent de Paul, Pastor
Fliedner, or Miss Sellon.
I do not charge the physicists with any exceptional perverseness in their attitude towards religious questions. I
simply note the facts, that any exclusive devotion to one
particular range of study has a necessarily narrowing influence upon the intellect; and that physical science, like law,
requires for its mastery such undivided and unremitting




The Rationale of Prayer.               75
attention, that it is well-nigh impossible for its fervent
devotees to be men of wide culture, and broad, statesmanlike intelligence.  The superior mechanical accuracy of
execution obtained in the industrial arts by the minute
division of.labor in modern times has its compensating
drawbacks in the extreme difficulty which is experienced in
obtaining the harmony of idea and effect of earlier work,
where the whole design, and the chief toil of elaboration,
proceeded from. a single brain and hand. Similarly, when
the range of human knowledge was so far limited, that it was
not a wild impossibility for a great and laborious intellect
to survey it all, the leaders of scientific thought, the Aquinases, the Bacons, the Descartes, were able to see all forms
of knowledge as parts of an harmonious whole. But now,
when a man devotes forty years of patient study to butterflies or to confervce, he does much to enlarge the store of
facts at our disposal; but he inevitably cramps his owni
intellect in the process, and becomes incapable of giving a
valuable opinion on any subject outside his routine. And
the special stumbling-block in the way of physicists is, that
the very fascination of their favorite pursuit blinds them
altogether to its subordinate position in the domain of knowledge; for as the study of organic bodies ranks higher in
complexity and interest than that of inorganic ones, as botany
stands above mineralogy, and zo6logy over botany, so the
loftiest range of all earthly science must needs be the investigation of the highest conceptions of the highest of animals,
man.




76           The Rationale of Prayer.
Failing to understand this, they act as intelligently as a
mineralogist would do, if he totally refused to allow the
problem of life, because his own subjects of study are inorganic. Human physiology leads up, by inevitable process,
to human psychology; and, when we reach that point, we
are faced by the existence of prayer, not in the lowest, but
in the highest natures.
A really scientific temper would say, "The fact of the
existence of this phenomenon entitles it to respectful consideration. The fact that all inquiry in lower spheres of knowledge testifies to the truth of normal sequence, perhaps of
law, makes it antecedently probable that prayer also belongs
to a sphere of law, and has a definite purpose in the economy of the universe; since, if it had no such purpose, it
would not, and could not, exist at all. Therefore, instead
of irrationally denying its efficacy, let us examine its practical operation, without insisting on deductively accommodating it to a preconceived hypothesis."
Now, the preconceived hypothesis which underlies the
whole argument against prayer is, that God, if there be a
God, is only a collective name for an aggregate of blind,
irrational, and inevitable forces, not a rational and moral
Beina, endowed with perfect free-will as an agent. Mr. J. S.
Mill's clear brain sees this truth; and, in marked contradistinction to the narrow dogmatism of Prof. Tyndall, he
allows at once that the existence of a personal God is fatal
to any objection against miracles. He says in his " System




The Rationale of Prayer.                77
of Logic, " In the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion
is, that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in
consequence, of a counteracting cause; namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some Being who has power
over nature, and, in particular, of a Being whose will, being
assumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers by
which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able
to counteract them. A miracle (as was justly observed by
Brown) is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect:
it is a new effect supposed to be introduced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if
present, there can be no doubt; and the only antecedent
improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle is the
improbability that any such cause existed."
I may cite, in considering the supposed improbability,
those true words of a poet I have already quoted:" And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God."
For the true philosophical deduction from the posited view,
that man, despite his rational faculties, his free-will, and his
high aspirations, is but the sport and plaything of blind,
irrational forces, against which he is powerless to contend,
and which have no moral power to pity or help him, is that,
in like manner, the thinking part of man must needs be
subjected to the instincts and passions of his animal nature;
so that the gratification of his appetites becomes the loftiest




78           The Rationale of Prayer.
goal of his ambition.  It is not only the philosophical
deduction, but the practical issue, as La Mettrie, Lagrange,
and to some extent Diderot, established alike by precept
and example.
The loftier spiritual philosophy argues, with Kant, that
the supreme good consists of two factors, - supreme virtue
and supreme happiness; and that, to realize the latter, we
must admit the immortality of the soul, and, for the former,
the existence of God. And, to establish that harmony of
relation between the physical and moral world which is
necessary to fully developed happiness, we are compelled to
assert that this God is the common source and cause of both
nature and morality.
Now, let us push the inquiry a step further, in the spirit
of another great thinker, Hegel. What is good, not in the
abstract, but concretely, to me?  It is the union of the
particular subjective will with the universal objective will; it
is the volition of true reason in its purest form; it is Christ
saying for himself, and teaching us to say, " Father, thy
will be done." It follows, therefore, that we cannot construct, even in thought, a moral world without the introduction of prayer, which is the conscious reference of our needs
and perplexities to a higher power and a purer reason than
our own, and that if a true harmony of the universe exists
at all, if it be no anarchic chaos, but a cosmic order, -the
conclusion to which all theories of law point, - there must
not only be a correlation of physical forces and a correlation




The Rationale of Prayer.                   79
of moral forces, but the physical and moral forces must be
also mutually correlated, so that prayer legitimately enters
as a kindred ally, not as a foreign and unlicensed intruder,
into the domain of natural law.
I cannot forbear from  citing some trenchant paragraphs
from  Emerson, which seem  to me to drive this argument
home:
"The cure for false theology is mother-wit. Forget your books
and traditions, and obey your moral perceptions at this hour. That
which is signified by the words'moral' and'spiritual' is a lasting
essence, and, with whatever illusions we have loaded them, will certainly bring back the words, age after age, to their ancient meaning.
I know no words that mean so much. In our definitions, we grope
after the spiritual by describing it as invisible. The true meaning
of spiritual is real, — that law which executes itself, which works
without means, and which cannot be conceived as not existing. Men
talk of' mere morality,' which is much as if one should say,'Poor
God, with nobody to help him!' I find the omnipotence and omnipresence in the re-action of every atom in nature.... Our recent
culture has been in natural science. We have learned the manners
of the sun and of the moon, of the rivers, the rains, of the
mineral and elemental kingdoms, of plants and animals. Man has
learned to weigh the sun, and its weight neither loses nor gains.
The path of a star, the moment of an eclipse, can be determined to
the fraction of a second. Well, to him the book of history, the book
of love, the lures of passion, and the commandments of duty are
opened; and the next lesson taught is the continuation of the inflexible law of matter into the subtle kingdom of will and of thought;
that if, in sidereal ages, gravity and projection keep their craft, and




8o            The Rationale of Prayer.
the ball never loses its way in its wild path through space, a
secreter gravitation, a secreter projection, rule not less tyrannically
in human history, and keep the balance of power from age to age
unbroken. For though the new element of freedom and an individual has been admitted, yet the primordial atoms are prefigured, and
predetermined to moral issues, are in search of justice, and ultimate
right is done. Religion, or worship, is the attitude of those who see
this unity, intimacy, and sincerity; who see, that, against all appearances, the nature of things works for truth and right forever." 1
It seems to me that ministers of religion are more to
blame than any other class for the doubts which have been
cast on the efficacy of prayer. Prof. Tyndall's correspondent, after a few words on the prevalence of prayer for the
sick, adds, that, " in the larger and more ancient section of
the church, prayer still continues on behalf of the deceased,a custom, perhaps, not less pious and reasonable than the
first-named."
To refuse these prayers, as is done by large numbers of
persons who do not accept the entire Christian code, is to
exhibit unbelief as deep and real as Prof. Tyndall's, though
not covering so large an area. For it amounts to this, that
they deny God's power in the realm  of spirit as truly as
Prof. Tyndall denies it in the realm of matter, since they
virtually teach that the disembodiment of the soul terminates
God's ability to influence it, and that it thus passes, for all
practical purposes, out of his jurisdiction. This is the neI Emerson's Essays on the Conduct of Life: Worship.




The Rationale of Prayer.               8I
gation of omnipotence, the negation of progress, and, ultimately, the negation of immortality, and ought, if men were
logical, which they happily are not, to lead to the rejection
of Christianity altogether.
There is another particular in which the laxity and bad
faith of the ministers of religion work to the same end. I
mean the habitual omission of intercessory prayer, save at
the distant intervals of Sunday worship.  The English
Church, in common with the other ancient communions of
Christendom, enjoins upon all her clergy, whether parochial
or not, the daily recitation of certain offices, which are
largely intercessory, and further enjoins those who have
parochial charges to give facilities to their congregations for
daily assembling to the same end.
But the great majority, on no avowed plea whatever save
personal sloth, evade, refuse, or even deride, the performance
of this plain obligation; and it is only the other day that the
Ritual Commission, in the interests of those who have systematically violated their voluntary pledges during the whole
of their clerical career, endeavored to nullify this provision
by a diluting rubric, which involved a moral bull of a very
remarkable kind, to the effect that the object of the provision
in question was merely to testify to the value set by the
Church of England on daily prayer and intercession, and
therefore that indolent clergymen might, for the future, testify
the value they set upon it by omitting it at their pleasure.
The only deduction possible from such an attitude is, that




82            The Rationale of Prayer.
all persons who adopt it really consider prayer as a decent
but nugatory form, to be employed as rarely as can well be
contrived without coming into abrupt collision with vulgar
prejudice; since, if they really did believe in its prevalence
with God, and had any clear prospect of the mass of moral
and physical evil with which they are surrounded, they
would say, in the words of Isaiah, " I have set watchmen
upon thy walls, 0 Jerusalem, which shall never hold their
peace day nor night: ye that are the Lord's remembrancers,
keep not silence, and give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." This would be true belief and
true brotherhood, and would carry into action those noble
words of a living bard:" But thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me, night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
RICHARD FREDERICK LITTLEDALE.




IV.
STATISTICAL INQUIRIES INTO THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
BY FRANCIS GALTON, F. R. S.
IN the same month of August, 1872, in which Dr. Littledale replied
to Mr. Tyndall in " The Contemporary," Mr. Galton brought re-enforcements to the attacking party by this article in " The Fortnightly
Review," John Morley, editor, Chapman & Hall, publishers, 193
Piccadilly, vol. xii., new series, xviii., old series, No. lxviii., pp. 125135.
Mr. Galton gained a certain position by his book on " Hereditary
Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences," published in
1869. His recent volume on " English Men of Science, their Nature
and Nurture," is written to support Darwinism in its application to
the human species. Mr. Galton gives us pedigrees in this last volume,
from which it appears that he is own cousin to Mr. Darwin.








IV.
STATISTICAL INQUIRIES INTO THE EFFICACY
OF PRAYER.
AN eminent authority has recently published a challenge
to test the efficacy of prayer by actual experiment. I
have been induced, through reading this, to prepare the
following memoir for publication, nearly the whole of which
I wrote and laid by many years ago, after completing a
large collection of data, which I had undertaken for the
satisfaction of my own conscience.
The efficacy of prayer seems to me a simple, as it is a
perfectly appropriate and legitimate, subject of scientific
inquiry. Whether prayer is efficacious or not, in any given
sense, is a matter of fact on which each man must form an
opinion for himself. His decision will be based upon data
more or less justly handled, according to his education and
habits. An unscientific reasoner will be guided by a confused recollection of crude experience. A scientific reasoner
will scrutinize each separate experience before he admits it
as evidence, and will compare all the cases he has selected
on a methodical system.
85




86              Statistical Inquiries
The doctrine commonly preached by the clergy is well
expressed in the most recent, and by far the most temperate
and learned, of theological encyclopedias; namely, "' Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible."  The article on " Prayer," written
by the Rev. Dr. Barry, states as follows: " Its real objective
efficacy... is both implied and expressed (in Scripture) in
the plainest terms..... We are encouraged to ask special
blessings, both spiritual and temporal, in hopes that thus,
and thus only, we may obtain them..... It would seem the
intention' of Holy Scripture to encourage all prayer, more
especially intercession, in all relations and for all righteous
objects." Dr. Hook, the present Dean of Chichester, states
in his " Church Dictionary," under " Prayer," that " the
general providence of God acts through what are called the
laws of nature. By his particular providence, God interferes
with those laws; and he has promised to interfere in behalf
of those who pray in the name of Jesus.... We may take
it as a general rule that we may pray for that for which we
may lawfully labor, and for that only."
The phrases of our church service amply countenance this
view; and, if we look to the practice of the opposed sections
of the religious world, we find them consistent in maintaining it. The so-called " Low Church" nIotoriously places
absolute belief in special providences accorded to pious
prayer. This is testified by the biographies of its members,
the journals of its missionaries, and the " united prayermeetings " of the present day. The Roman Catholics offer




into the Efficacy of Prayer.            87
religious vows to avert danger; they make pilgrimages to
shrines; they hang votive offerings and pictorial representations, sometimes by thousands, in their churches, of fatal
accidents averted by the manifest interference of a solicited
saint.
A priman facie argument in favor of the efficacy of prayer
is therefore to be drawn from the very general use of it.
The greater part of mankind, during all the historic ages,
have been accustomed to pray for temporal advantages.
How vain, it may be urged, must be the reasoning that ventures to oppose this mighty consensus of belief! Not so.
The argument of universality either proves too much, or else
it is suicidal. It either compels us to admit that the prayers
of Pagans, of Fetish worshippers, and of Buddhists who
turn praying-wheels, are recompensed in the same way as
those of orthodox believers; or else the general consensus
proves that it has no better foundation than the universal
tendency of man to gross credulity.
The collapse of the argument of universality leaves us
solely concerned with a simple statistical question, Are
prayers answered, or are they not? There are two lines of
research, by either of which we may pursue this inquiry.
The one that promises the most trustworthy results is to
examine large classes of cases, and to be guided by broad
averages: the other, which I will not employ in these pages,
is to deal with isolated" instances. An author who made
much use of the latter method might reasonably suspect his




88              Statistical Inquiries
own judgment: he would certainly run the risk of being
suspected by others in choosing one-sided examples.
The principles are broad and simple upon which our
inquiry into the efficacy of prayer must be established. We
must gather cases for statistical comparison, in which the
same object is keenly pursued by two classes, -similar in
their physical, but opposite in their spiritual state; the one
class being prayerful, the other materialistic.  Prudent
pious people must be compared with prudent materialistic
people, and not with the imprudent nor the vicious. Secondly, we have no regard, in this inquiry, to the course by
which the answer to prayers may be supposed to operate.
We simply look to the final result, - whether those who pray
attain their objects more frequently than those who do not
pray, but who live, in all other respects, under similar conditions. Let us now apply our principles to different cases.
A rapid recovery from disease may be conceived to depend
on many causes besides the reparative power of the patient's
constitution. A miraculous quelling of the.disease may be
one of these causes: another is the skill of the physician
or of the nurse: another is the care that the patient takes
of himself. In our inquiry, whether prayerful people recover
more rapidly than others, under similar circumstances, we
need not complicate the question by endeavoring to learn
the channel through which the patient's prayer may have
reached its fulfilment.  It is foreign to our present purpose
to ask if there be any signs of a miraculous quelling of the




into the Efficacy of Prayer.           89
disease, or if, through the grace of God, the physician had
showed unusual wisdom, or the nurse or the patient unusual
discretion. We simply look to the main issue,- do sick
persons who pray, or are prayed for, recover, on the average,
more rapidly than others?
It appears, that, in all countries and in all creeds, the
priests urge the patient to pray for his own recovery, and
the patients' friends to aid him with their prayers, but
that the doctors make no account whatever of their spiritual
agencies, unless the office of priest and medical man be
combined in the same individual. The medical works of
modern Europe teem with records of individual illness and
of broad averages of disease; but I have been able to discover hardly any instance in which a medical man of any
repute has attributed recovery to the influence of prayer.
There is not a single instance, to my knowledge, in which
papers read before statistical societies have recognized the
agency of prayer, either on disease or on any thing else.
The universal habit of the scientific world to ignore the
agency of prayer is a very important fact. To fully appreciate the " eloquence of the silence" of medical men, we
must bear in mind the care with which they endeavor to
assign a sanatory value to every influence. Had prayers for
the sick any notable effect, it is incredible but that the
doctors, who are always on the watch for such things, should
have observed it, and added their influence to that of the
priests towards obtaining them for every sick man. If they




90              Statistical Inquiries
abstain from doing so, it is not because their attention has
never been awakened to the possible efficacy of prayer, but,
on the contrary, that, although they have heard it insisted on
from childhood upwards, they are unable to detect its influence. Most people have some general belief in the objective
efficacy of prayer; but none seem willing to admit its
action in those special cases of which they have scientific
cognizance.
Those who may wish to pursue these inquiries upon the
effect of. prayer for the restoration of health could obtain
abundant materials from hospital cases, and in a different
way from that proposed in the challenge to which I referred
in the beginning of these pages. There are many common
maladies whose course is so thoroughly well understood as
to admit of accurate tables of probability being constructed
for their duration and result. Such are fractures and amputations. Now, it would be perfectly practicable to select out
of the patients at different hospitals, under treatment for
fractures and amputations, two considerable groups,- the
one consisting of markedly religious and piously befriended
individuals, the other of those who were remarkably coldhearted and neglected.  An honest comparison of their
respective periods of treatment, and the results, would manifest a distinct proof of the efficacy of prayer, if it existed,
to even a minute fraction of the amount that religious
teachers exhort us to believe.
An inquiry of a somewhat similar nature may be made




into  the Efficacy  of Prayer.                 91
into the longevity of persons whose lives are prayed for,
also that of the praying classes generally; and in both these
cases we can easily obtain  statistical facts.   The public
prayer for the sovereign of every state, Protestant or
Catholic, is, and has been, in the spirit of our own, " Grant
her in health long to live." Now, as a simple matter of
fact, has this prayer any efficacy?  There is a memoir by
Dr. Guy, in " The Journal of the Statistical Society" (vok.
xxii. p. 355), in which he compares the mean age of sovereigns with that of other classes of persons. His results are
expressed in the following table:MEAN AGE ATTAINED BY MALES OF VARIOUS CLASSES WHO HAD SURVIVED THEIR THIRTIETH YEAR, FROM 1758 TO 1843.  DEATHS BY
ACCIDENT OR VIOLENCE ARE EXCLUDED.
Number.  Average.  Eminent
nmen. 1
Members of royal houses....        97   64.04
Clergy...........        945   69.49   66.42
Lawyers.........  294   68.14   66.51
Medical profession....    244   67.31   67.07
English aristocracy....  1,179   67.31
Gentry...                        1,632   70.22
Trade and commerce..      513   68.74
Officers in the royal navy.      366   68.40
English literature and science     395   67.55   65.22
Officers of the army....      569   67.07
Fine arts....  239   65.96   64.74
The sovereigns are literally the shortest lived of all who
have the advantage of affluence.  The prayer has, therefore,
no efficacy, unless the very questionable hypothesis be raised,
that the conditions of royal life may naturally be yet more
1 The eminent men are those whose lives are recorded in Chalmers's
Biography, with some additions from the Annual Register.




92               Statistical Inquiries
fatal, and that their influence is partly, though incompletely,
neutralized by the effect of public prayers.
It will be seen that the same table collates the longevity
of clergy, lawyers, and medical men. We are justified in
considering the clergy to be a far more prayerful class than
either of the other two.. It is their profession to pray; and
they have the practice of offering morning and evening
family prayers in addition to their private devotions. A
reference to any of the numerous published collections of
family prayers will show that they are full of petitions for
temporal benefits. We do not, however, find that the clergy
are in any way more loifg lived in consequence. It is true,
that the clergy, as a whole, show a life-value of 60.49 as
against 68.14 for the lawyers, and 67.31 for the medical
men; but the easy country-life and family repose of so
many of the clergy are obvious sanatory conditions in their
favor. This difference is reversed when the comparison is
made between distinguished members of the three classes;
that is to say, between persons of sufficient note to have
had their lives recorded in a biographical dictionary.  When
we examine this category, the value of life among the
clergy, lawyers, and medical men, is as 66.42, 66.51, and
67.04 respectively; the clergy being the shortest lived of
the three. Hence the prayers of the clergy for protection
against the perils and dangers of the night, for protection
during the day, and for recovery from sickness, appear to be
futile in result.




into the Efficacy of Prayer.           93
In my work on " Hereditary Genius," and in the chapter
on " Divines," I have worked out the subject with some
minuteness on other data, but with precisely the same result.
I show that the divines are not specially favored in those
worldly matters for which they naturally pray, but rather the
contrary, - a fact which I ascribe, in part, to their having,
as a class, indifferent constitutional vigor. I give abundant
reason for all this, and do not care to repeat myself; but I
should be glad if such of the readers of this present paper
who may be accustomed to statistics would refer to the
chapter I have mentioned. They will find it of use in confirming what I say here. They will believe me the more
when I say that I have taken considerable pains to get at
the truth in the questions raised in this present memoir, and
that, when I was engaged upon them, I worked, as far as
my material went, with as much care as I gave to that
chapter on "Divines;" and, lastly, they will understand,
that, when writing the chapter in question, I had all this
material by me unused, which justified me in speaking out
as decidedly as I did then.
A further inquiry may be made into the duration of life
among missionaries. We should lay greater stress upon
their mortality than upon that of the clergy, because the
laudable object of a missionary's career is rendered almost
nugatory by his early death. A man goes, say, to a tropical
climate, in the prime of manhood, who has the probability
of many years of useful life before him, had he remained at




94              Statistical Inquiries
home. He has the certainty of being able to accomplish
sterling good as a missionary, if he should live long enough
to learn the language and habits of the country. In the
interval, he is almost useless. Yet the painful experience
of many years shows only too clearly that the missionary is
not supernaturally endowed with health. He does not live
longer than other people. One missionary after another
dies shortly after his arrival. The work that lay almost
within the grasp of each of them lingers incompleted.
It must be here repeated, that comparative immunity from
disease compels the suspension of no purely material law,
if such an expression be permitted.  Tropical fever, for
example, is due to many subtle causes which are partly
under man's control. A single hour's exposure to sun, wet,
or fatigue, or mental agitation, will determine an attack.
Now, even if God acted only on the minds of the missionaries, his action might be as much to the advantage of their
health as if he wrought a physical miracle. He could disincline them  to take those courses which might result in
mischance, such as the forced march, the wetting, the abstinence from food, or the night-exposure, any one of which
was competent to develop the fever that struck them down.
We must not dwell upon the circumstances of individual
cases, and say, " This was a providential escape," or, " That
was a salutary chastisement: " but we must take the broad
averages of mortality; and, when we do so, we find that the
missionaries do not form a favored class.




into the Efficacy of Prayer.           95
The efficacy of prayer may yet further be tested by inquiry into the proportion of deaths at the time of birth
among the children of the praying and the non-praying
classes. The solicitude of parents is so powerfully directed
toward the safety of their expected offspring, as to leave nc
room to doubt that pious parents pray fervently for it, especially as death before baptism is considered a most seriols
evil by many Christians.  However, the distribution of
still-births appears wholly unaffected, by piety. The proportion, for instance, of the still-births published in " The
Record" newspaper, and in " The Times, was found, by me,
on an examination of a particular period, to bear an identical relation to the total number of deaths. This inquiry
might easily be pursued by those who considered that more
ample evidence was required.
When we pray in our Liturgy, I' that the nobility may be
endued with grace, wisdom, and understanding," we pray
for that which is clearly incompatible with insanity. Does
that frightful scourge spare our nobility?  Does it spare
very religious people more than others? The answer is an
emphatic negative to both of these questions. The nobility
probably from their want of the wholesome restraints felt
in the humble walks of life, and from their intermarriages -
and the very religious people of all denominations - probably from their meditation on hell - are peculiarly subject to
it. Religious madness is very common indeed.
As I have already hinted, I do not propose any special




96               Statistical Inquiries
inquiry whether the general laws of physical nature are ever
suspended in fulfilment of prayer; whether, for instance,
success has attended the occasional prayers in the Liturgy,
when they have been used for rain, for fair weather, for the
stilling of the sea in a storm, or for the abatement of a
pestilence. I abstain from doing so for two reasons.
First, if it is proved that God does not answer one large
class of prayers at all, it would be of less importance to
pursue the inquiry. Secondly, the modern feeling of this
country.is so opposed to a belief in the occasional suspension of the general laws of nature, that an English reader
would merely smile at such an investigation.
If we are satisfied that the actions of man are not influenced by prayer, even through the subtle influence of his
thoughts and will, the only probable form of agency will
have been disproved, and no one would care to advance a
claim in favor of direct physical interferences.
Biographies do not show that devotional influences have
clustered in any remarkable degree round the youth of those,
who, whether by their talents or social position, have left a
mark upon our English history. Lord Campbell, in his
Preface to his " Lives of the Chancellors," says, " There is
no office in the history of any nation that has been filled with
such a long succession of distinguished and interesting men
as the office of lord-chancellor," and  that, "generally
speaking, the most eminent men, if not the most virtuous,
have been selected to adorn it." His implied disparage



into the Efficacy of Prayer.           97
ment of their piety is fully sustained by an examination
of their respective biographies, and by a taunt of Horace
Walpole, quoted in the same Preface. An equal absence
of remarkable devotional tendencies may be observed in the
lives of the leaders of great political parties. The founders
of our great families too often owed their advancement to
tricky and time-serving courtiership. The belief so frequently expressed in the Psalms, that the descendants of the
righteous shall continue, and that those of the wicked shall
surely fail, is not fulfilled in the history of our English peerage. Take, for instance, the highest class, that of the ducal
houses. The influence of social position in this country is
so enormous, that the possession of a dukedom is a power
that can hardly be understood without some sort of calculation. There are, I believe, only twenty-seven dukes to about
eight millions of adult male Englishmen, or about three
dukes to each million; yet the cabinet of fourteen ministers
which governs this country, and India too, commonly contains one duke, often two, and in recent times three. The
political privilege inherited with a dukedom in this country
is, at the lowest estimate, many thousand-fold above the
average birthright of Englishmen. What was the origin of
these ducal families, whose influence on the destiny of England and her dependencies is so enormous? Were their
founders the eminently devout children of eminently pious
parents? Have they and their ancestors been distinguished
among the praying classes? Not so. I give in a footnote
7




98               Statistical Inquiries
a list of their names,l which recalls many a deed of patriotism, valor, and skill, many an instance of eminent merit of
the worldly sort, -which we Englishmen honor six days out
of the seven, - many scandals, many a disgrace, but not, on
the other hand, a single instance known to me of eminently
prayerful qualities. Four, at least, of the existing ducal
houses, are unable to claim the title of having been raised
into existence through the devout habits of their progenitors,
because the families of Buccleuch, Grafton, St. Albans, and
Richmond, were thus highly ennobled solely on the ground
of their being descended from Charles II. and four of his
mistresses; namely, Lucy Walters, Barbara Villiers, Nell
Gwynne, and Louise de Querouaille.  The Dukedom  of
Cleveland may almost be reckoned as a fifth instance.
The civil liberty we enjoy in England, and the energy of
our race, have given rise to a number of institutions, societies, commercial adventures, political meetings, and combinations of all sorts.  Some of these are exclusively clerical,
some lay, and others mixed. It is impossible for a person
to have taken an active share in social life without having
had abundant means of estimating for himself, and of hearing the opinion of others, on the value of a preponderating
clerical element in business committees. For my own part,
1 Abercorn, Argyll, Athole, Beaufort, Bedford, Buccleuch, Buckingham, Cleveland, Devonshire, Grafton, Hamilton, Leeds, Leinster,
Manchester, Marlborough, Montrose, Newcastle, Norfolk, Northumberland, Portland, Richmond, Roxburghe, Rutland, St. Albans, Somerset,
Sutherland, Wellington.




into the Efficacy of Prayer.           99
I never heard a favorable one. The procedure of convocation, which, like all exclusively clerical meetings, is opened
with prayer, has not inspired the outer world with much
respect. The histories of the great councils of the church
are most painful to read. There is reason to expect that
devout and superstitious men should be unreasonable; for a
person who believes his thoughts to be inspired, necessarily
accredits his prejudices with divine authority. He is, therefore, little accessible to argument, and he is intolerant of
those whose opinions differ from his, especially on first principles.  Consequently he is a bad coadjutor in business
matters. It is a common week-day opinion of the world
that praying people are not practical.
Again: there is a large class of instances, where an enterprise on behalf of pious people is executed by the agency
of the profane. Do such enterprises prosper beyond the
average?  For instance, a vessel on a missionary errand is
navigated by ordinary seamen. A fleet, followed by the
prayers of the English nation, carries re-enforcements to
quell an Indian mutiny. We do not care to ask whether the
result of the prayers is to obtain favorable winds, but simply
whether they ensue in a propitious voyage, whatever may
have been the agencies by which that result was obtained.
The success of voyages might be due to many other agencies than the suspension of the physical laws that control
the winds and currents; just as we showed that a rapid
recovery from illness might be due to other causes than




100oo           Statistical Inquiries
direct interference with cosmic order. It might have been
put into the captain's heart to navigate in that course, and
to perform those acts of seamanship which proved links in a
chain that led to an eventual success. A very small matter
would suffice to make a great difference in the end. A
vessel navigated by a man who was a good forecaster of
weather, and an accomplished hydrographer, would considerably outstrip another that was deficient in so accomplished
a commander, but otherwise similarly equipped. The perfectly instructed navigator would deviate from the most
direct course by, perhaps, some mere trifle, first here, then
there, in order to bring his vessel within favoring slants of
wind and advantageous currents. A ship commanded by a
captain, and steered by a sailor, whose hearts were miraculously acted upon in answer to prayer, would unconsciously,
as by instinct, or even, as it were, by mistake, perform
these deviations from routine, which would lead to ultimate
success.
The missionaries who are the most earnestly prayed for
are usually those who are on routes where there is little traffic,
and therefore where there is more opportunity for the effects
of secret providential overruling to display themselves than
among those who sail in ordinary sea-voyages. In the usual
sea-routes, a great deal is known of the peculiarities of the
seasons and currents, and of the whereabouts of hidden
dangers of all kinds: their average risk is small, and the
insurance is low. But, when vessels are bound to ports like




into the Efficacy of Prayer.            IOI
those sought by the missionaries, the case is different. The
risk that attends their voyages is largely increased; and the
insurance is proportionately raised. But is the risk equally
increased in respect to missionary vessels, and to those of
traders and of slave-dealers?  The comparison between the
fortune that attends prayerful and non-prayerful people may
here be most happily made. The missionaries are eminently
among the former category; and the slave-dealers and the
traders we speak of, in the other. Traders in the unhealthy
and barbarous regions to which we refer are notoriously the
most godless and reckless (on the broad average) of any
of their set. We have, unfortunately, little knowledge of
the sea-risks of slavers, because the rates of their insurance
involve the risk of capture. There is, however, a universal
testimony, in the parliamentary reports on slavery, to the
excellent and skilful manner in which these vessels are sailed
and navigated, which is a prima' facie reason for believing
their sea-risks to be small. As to the relative risks run by
ordinary traders andcl missionary vessels, the insurance offices
absolutely ignore the slightest difference between them.
They look to the class of the vessel, and to the station to
which she is bound, and to nothing else. The notion that a
missionary or other pious enterprise carries any immunity
from danger has never been entertained by insurance companies.
To proceed with our inquiry, whether enterprises in behalf
of pious people succeed better than others when they are




I02              Statistical Inquiries
intrusted to profane hands, we may ask, Is a bank or other
commercial undertaking more secure when devout men are
among its shareholders, or when the funds of pious people,
or charities, or of religious bodies, are deposited in its keeping, or when its proceedings are opened with prayer, as was
the case with the disastrous Royal British Bank? It is
impossible to say Yes. There are far too many sad cexperiences of the contrary. If prayerful habits had influence on
temporal success, it is very probable, as we must again
repeat, that insurance offices, of at least some descriptions,
would long ago have discovered, and made allowance for it.
It would be most unwise, from a business point of view, to
allow the devout, supposing their greater longevity even
probable, to obtain annuities at the same low rates as the
profane. Before insurance companies accept a life, they
make confidential inquiries into the antecedents of the applicant. But such a question has never been heard of as,
"Does he habitually use family prayers and private devotions?" Insurance offices, so wakeful to sanatory influences,
absolutely ignore prayer as one of them. The same is true
for insurances of all descriptions, as those connected with fire,
ships, lightning, hail, accidental death, and cattle-sickness.
How is it possible to explain why Quakers, who are most
devout and most shrewd men of business, have ignored these
considerations, except on the ground that they do not really
believe in what they and others freely assert about the efficacy of prayer?.It was, at one time, considered an act of




into the Efficacy of Prayer.          10o3
mistrust in an overruling Providence, to put lightning-conductors on churches; for it was said that God would surely
take care of his own. But Arago's collection of the accidents from lightning showed they were sorely needed; and
now lightning-conductors are universal.  Other kinds of
accidents befall churches equally with other buildings of the
same class; such as architectural flaws (resulting in great
expenses for repair), fires, earthquakes, and avalanches.
The cogency of all these arguments is materially increased
by the recollection that many items of ancient faith have
been successively abandoned by the Christian world to the
domain of recognized superstition. It is not two centuries
ago, long subsequent to the days of Shakspeare and other
great names, that the sovereign of this country was accustomed to lay hands on the sick for their recovery, under the
sanction of a regular church service, which was not omitted
from our prayer-books till the time of George II. Witches
were unanimously believed in, and were regularly exorcised,
and punished by law, up to the beginning of the last century.  Ordeals and duels, most reasonable solutions of
complicated difficulties, according to the popular theory of
religion, were found absolutely fallacious in practice. The
miraculous power of relics and images, still so general in
Southern Europe, is scouted in England. The importance
ascribed to dreams, the barely extinct claims of astrology,
and auguries of good or evil luck, and many other wellknown products of superstition which are found to exist in




Io4             Statistical Inquiries
every country, have ceased to be believed in by us. This is
the natural course of events, just as the Waters of Jealousy,
and the Urim and the Thummim of the Mosaic law, had
become obsolete in the times of the later Jewish kings.
The civilized world has already yielded an enormous amount
of honest conviction to the inexorable requirements of
honest fact; and it seems to me clear, that all belief in the
efficacy of prayer, in the sense in which I have been considering it, must be yielded also. The evidence I have been
able to collect bears wholly and solely in that direction; and,
in the face of it, the onus probandi lies henceforth on the
other side.
Nothing that I have said negatives the fact that the mind
may be relieved by the utterance of prayer. The impulse to
pour out the feelings in sound is not peculiar to man. Any
mother that has lost her young, and wanders about, moaning, and looking piteously for sympathy, possesses much of
that which prompts men to pray in articulate words. There
is a yearning of the heart, a craving for help, it knows not
where, certainly from no source that it sees. Of a similar
kind is the bitter cry of the hare when the greyhound is
almost upon her: she abandons hope through her own efforts,
and screams -but to whom? It is a voice convulsively sent
out into space, whose utterance is a physical relief. These
feelings of distress and of terror are simple; and an inarticulate cry suffices to give vent to them. But the reason
why man is not satisfied by uttering inarticulate cries




into the Efficacy of Prayer.          I05
(though sometimes they are felt to be the most appropriate)
is owing to his superior intellectual powers. His memory
travels back through interlacing paths, and dwells on various
connected incidents: his emotions are complex; and he
prays at length.
Neither does any thing I have said profess to throw light
on the question of how far it is possible for man to com-k
mune in his heart with God. We know that many persons
of high intellectual gifts and critical minds look upon it as
an axiomatic certainty that they possess this power, although
it is impossible for them to establish any satisfactory criterion to distinguish between what may really be borne in
upon them from without, and what arises from within, but
which, through a sham of the imagination, appears to be
external. A confident sense of communion with God must
necessarily rejoice and strengthen the heart, and divert it
from petty cares; and it is equally certain that similar
benefits are not excluded from those, who, on conscientious
grounds, are sceptical as to the reality of a power of communion. These can dwell on the undoubted fact that there
exists a solidarity between themselves and what surrounds
them, through the endless re-actions of physical laws, among
which the hereditary influences are to be included. They
know that they.are descended from an endless past, that
they have a'brotherhood with all that is, and have each
his own share of responsibility in the parentage of an endless future. The effort to familiarize the imagination with




Io6     Statistical Izquiries into Prayer.
this great idea has much in common with the effort of communing with a God; and its re-action on the mind of the
thinker is, in many important respects, the same. It may
not equally rejoice the heart; but it is quite as powerful in
ennobling the resolves; and it is found to give serenity
during the trials of life, and in the shadow of approaching
death.                             FRANCIS GALLTON.




V.
ON PRAYER.
1. -BY PROFESSOR TYNDALL.
2. — BY THE AUTHOR OF "HINTS TOWARDS A SERIOUS
ATTEMPT  TO ESTIMATE  THE  VALUE  OF  THE'PRAYER FOR THE SICK.'"
3. —BY JAMES McCOSH, D.D., PRESIDENT OF PRLNCETON
COLLEGE, UNITED STATES.
THESE three papers appeared in this order in " The Contemporary
Review," October, 1872. In the first, Mr. Tyndall suggests his own
views, which were not set forth in his brief Introductory Note to the
original "Hints," &c., though his views might be inferred. The
author of " The Hints," in this second paper, replies to Dr. Littledale, and re-enforces the argument of his original communication.
Dr. McCosh's paper was intended as an answer to the original communications of Mr. Tyndall and his friend, and did not have reference to their replies, published in the same number of the review
which contained Dr. McCosh's Defence of Prayer.








V.
ON PRAYER.
1.
THE editor of " The Contemporary Review" is liberal
enough to grant me space for a few brief reflections on
a subject, a former reference to which, in these pages, has, I
believe, brought down upon me a considerable amount of
animadversion.
It may be interesting to some, if I glance at a few cases
illustrative of the history of the human mind in relation to
this and kindred subjects. In the fourth century, the belief
in antipodes was deemed unscriptural and heretical. The
pious Lactantius was as angry with the people who held this
notion as my censors are with me, and quite as unsparing in
his denunciations of their " monstrosities."   Lactantius
was irritated, because, in his mind, by education and habit,
cosmogony and religion were indissolubly associated, and
therefore simultaneously disturbed. In the early part of
the seventeenth century, the notion that the earth was fixed,
and that the sun and stars revolved round it daily, was
109




I 1                 On Prayer.
interwoven in a similar manner with religious feeling; the
separation then attempted by Galileo arousing animosity,
and kindling persecution. Men still living can remember
the indignation excited by the first revelations of geology,
regarding the age of the earth; the association between
chronology and religion being for the time indissoluble. In
our day, however, the best-informed clergymen are prepared
to admit that our views of the universe and its Author are
not impaired, but improved, by the abandonment of the
Mosaic account of the creation- Look, finally, at the excitement caused by the publication of " The Origin of Species,"
and compare it with the calm attendant on the appearance
of the far more outspoken, and, from the old point of view,
more impious, " Descent of Man."
Thus religion survives after the removal of what had been
long considered essential to it. In our day the antipodes
are accepted; the fixity of the earth is given up; the period
of creation, and the reputed age of the world, are alike dissipated; evolution is looked upon without terror; and other
changes have occurred in the same direction too numerous
to be dwelt upon here. In fact, from the earliest times to
the present, religion has been undergoing a process of purification, freeing itself slowly and painfully from the physical
errors which the busy and uninformed intellect mingled with
the aspiration, of the soul, and which ignorance sought to
perpetuate.  Some of us think a final act of purification
remains to be performed; while others oppose this notion




On Prayer.                   I I I
with the confidence and the warmth of ancient times. The
bone of contention, at present, is the physical value of
prayer. It is not my wish to excite surprise, much less to
draw forth protest, by the employment of this phrase. I
would simply ask any intelligent person to look the problem
honestly and steadily in the face, and then to say whether,
in the estimation of the great body of those who sincerely
resort to it, prayer does not, at all events upon special
occasions, invoke a Power which checks and augments the
descent of rain, which changes the force and direction of
winds, which affects the growth of corn, and the health of
men and cattle,- a Power, in short, which, when appealed
to under pressing circumstances, produces the precise effects
caused by physical energy in the ordinary course of things.
To any person who deals sincerely with the subject, and
refuses to blur his moral vision by intellectual subtleties,
this, I think, will appear a true statement of the case.
It is under this aspect alone that the scientific student, so
far as I represent him, has any wish to meddle with prayer.
Forced upon his attention as a form of physical energy,
or as the equivalent of such energy, he -claims the right of
subjecting it to those methods of examination from which
all our present knowledge of the physical universe is derived.
And if his researches lead him to a conclusion adverse to its
claims; if his inquiries rivet him still closer to the philosophy
infolded in the words, "' He maketh his sun to shine on the
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and




112                 On Prayer.
upon the unjust," -he contends only for the displacement
of prayer, not for its extinction. He simply says, physical
nature is not its legitimate domain.
This conclusion, moreover, must be based on pure physical evidence, and not on any inherent unreasonableness in
the act of prayer. The theory that the system of nature is
under the control of a Being who changes phenomena in
compliance with the prayers of men, is, in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate one. It may, of course, be rendered futile
by being associated with conceptions which contradict it; but
such conceptions form no necessary part of the theory. It
is a matter of experience that an earthly father, who is at
the same time both wise and tender, listens to the requests
of his children, and, if they do not ask amiss, takes pleasure
in granting their requests. We know, also, that this compliance extends to the alteration, within certain limits, of
the current of events on earth. With this suggestion offered
by our experience, it is no departure from scientific method
to place behind natural phenomena a universal Father, who,
in answer to the prayers of his children, alters the currents
of those phenomena. Thus far, theology and science go
hand in hand. The conception of an ether, for example,
trembling with the waves of light, is suggested by the
ordinary phenomena of wave-motion in water and in air;
and, in like manner, the conception of personal volition in
nature is suggested by the ordinary action of man upon
earth. I therefore urge no impossibilities, though you con



On Prayer.                   I I-3
stantly charge me with doing so. I do not even urge inconsistency, but, on the contrary, frankly admit that you have
as good a right to place your conception at the root of
phenomena as I have to place mine.
But, without verification, a theoretic conception is a mere
figment of the intellect; and I am sorry to find us parting
company at this point. The region of theory, both in science and theology, lies behind the world of the senses; but
the verification of theory occurs in the sensible world. To
check the theory, we have simply to compare the deductions
from it with the facts of observation. If the deductions be
in accordance with the facts, we accept the theory: if in
opposition, the theory is given up. A single experiment is
frequently devised by which the theory must stand or fall.
Of this character was the determination of the velocity of
light in liquids as a crucial test of the Emission Theory.
According to Newton, light travelled faster in water than in
air: according to an experiment suggested by Arago, and
executed by Fizeau and Foucault, it travelled faster in air
than in water. The experiment was conclusive against
Newton's theory.
But, while science cheerfully submits to this ordeal, it
seems impossible to devise a mode of verification of their
theory which does not arouse resentment in theological
minds. Is it, that, while the pleasure of the scientific man
culminates in the demonstrated harmony between theory and
fact, the highest pleasure of the religious man has been
8




114                  On Prayer.
already tasted in the very act of praying, prior to verification; any further effort in this direction being a mere distulbance of his peace? Or is it that we have before us a
residue of that mysticism of the middle ages which has been
so admirably described by Whewell,- that " practice of
referring things and events, not to clear and distinct notions,
not to general rules capable of direct verification,, but to
notions vague, distant, and vast, which we cannot bring into
contact with facts, as when we connect natural events with
moral and historic causes"?  "' Thus," he continues, " the
character of mysticism is, that it refers particulars, not to
generalizations homogeneous and immediate, but to such as
are heterogeneous and remote; " to which we must add, that
the process of this reference is not a calm act of the intellect, but is accompanied with a glow of enthusiastic feeling.
Every feature here depicted, and some more questionable
ones, have shown themselves of late most conspicuously, I
regret to say, in the " leaders " of a weekly journal of- considerable influence, and one on many grounds entitled to
the respect of thoughtful men.  In the correspondence,
however, published by the same journal, are to be found
two or three letters well calculated to correct the temporary
flightiness of the journal itself.
It is not my habit of mind to think otherwise than solemnly of the feeling which prompts prayer. It is a potency
which I should like to see guided, not extinguished, devoted
to practicable objects, instead of wasted upon air. In some




On Prayer.                    115
form or other, not yet evident, it may, as alleged, be necessary to man's highest culture. Certain it is, that, while I
rank many persons who employ it low in the scale of being,natural foolishness, bigotry, and intolerance being, in their
case, intensified by the notion that they have access to the
ear of God, —I regard others who employ it as forming part
of the very cream of the earth. The faith that simply adds
to the folly and ferocity of the one is turned to enduring
sweetness, holiness, abounding charity, and self-sacrifice by
the other. Christianity, in fact, varies with the nature upon
which it falls. Often unreasonable, if not contemptible, in
its purer forms prayer hints at disciplines which few of us
can neglect without moral loss. But no good can come of
giving it a delusive value, by claiming for it a power in physical nature.  It may strengthen the heart to meet life's
losses, and thus indirectly promote physical well-being, as
the digging of JEsop's orchard brought a treasure of fertility
greater than the treasure sought. Such indirect issues we
all admit; but it would be simply dishonest to affirm that it
is such issues that are always in view. Here, for the present, I must end. I ask no space to reply to those railers who
make such fiee use of the terms "insolence;"' outrage,"
"profanity," and  "blasphemy."   They obviously lack
the sobriety of mind necessary to give accuracy to their
statements, or to render their charges worthy of serious
refutation.                            JOHN TYNDALL.




ii6                  On Prayer.
2.
IN a paper published in " The Contemporary Review " of
July last, I made a proposal to ascertain, by a practical
test, the value of prayer on behalf of the sick. It was my
aim to invite the attention of all thoughtful persons; but I
desired co-operation especially from those who have a firm
belief in the value of such prayer. Strange to say, none of
the latter have responded in a favorable sense. Indeed, by
many'my proposal has been called " profane," " irreligious," and by other similar epithets; while, in the numerous
articles which have appeared on the subject, I myself have
been termed " materialist" and " infidel," whatever those
appellations may signify. Nevertheless, I have often observed invitations to united prayer issued for various objects
to the " religious world," - such as for the prosperity of
Sunday schools, the conversion of the Jews or of foreign
peoples to Christianity, - and that the invitations have been
largely and devoutly complied with. In the last-named
instance, I have read glowing descriptions of the obvious
answers that have been vouchsafed to such prayer; and I
have even seen numerical estimates of the conversions which
have thus been effected. Yet, and with equal solemnity, I
have said to the religious world, " Let us pray;" and the
religious world has declined the exercise. This strikes me as
a remarkable circumstance; and I propose to inquire why
it has occurred; for the object of prayer - the recovery




On Prayer.                    I17
of. the sick -is, as I have formerly shown, universally
admitted by the Christian Church to be a legitimate one.
And the ultimate aim of my proposal was, that the value of
prayer might be not only estimated, but also utilized, to a
larger extent than heretofore, on behalf, at any rate, of our
great charitable institutions. What was there in this to
warrant the opposition, the abuse, the attempt to affix
the odium  theologicum, which the proposal encounters?
Why, indeed, was my suggestion not regarded with favor
by professedly religious people, and embraced with that
activity and fervor which would certainly have been manifested by many, had I proposed special services for the
conversion of the " heathen," instead of for the recovery of
the sick? I propose, at the outset, to pursue this inquiry.
Some things seem to have been wholly lost sight of, or not
understood, by my opponents. Among these, I must include
the Rev. R. F. Littledale, whose paper on " The Rationale
of Prayer" appeared in the August number, so far as he
criticises my proposal, although the article mainly applies
to Prof. Tyndall.
Now, at the outset, that which strikes me most forcibly,
and, I must confess, which painfully shocks me, is the
extreme ignorance of what is comprehended by the exercise,
- prayer, - and the really irreligious state of heart,_if I may
borrow what is almost a theological metaphor, manifested by
my critics, especially those who write from  the soi-disant
"religious" side of the question. For example, while I




I 118                On Prayer.
specifically designed an inquiry to ascertain the value of
"prayer for the sick," and by means of this the value of
direct petition for material benefits of any kind, as classified
by me, I am charged with denying directly, or by implication,
the value of prayer altogether?  It scarcely seems to enter
into the schemes of my opponents, that to some minds,
especially may I say to the minds of the much abused physicist, the larger and more important part of pray&' is that
which is in no sense of the words a petitioning for benefits.'Dr. Littledale, in replying to Prof. Tyndall's obvious allusion to this larger sense (in a passage quoted), denies that
it has that meaning, and terms the secondary or reflected
benefit arising to the mind from prayer for good, to which he
limits it, "' an immoral sham;" " is at a loss to guess what
kind of a God he" [the professor] " is willing to pray to, or
what kind of blessings he is prepared to pray for." Mark,
-" blessings to pray for," - always petition, and, beyond
petition, nothing! Prof. Tyndall can well take care of himself; and I shall interfere in no part of the question between
himself and Dr. Littledale, except so far as it concerns
views which I myself hold. Besides, I have not the least
means of knowing what the belief of Prof. Tyndall may be,
except through his writings, having but once spoken to him
on the subject of my former paper, and having had no sort
of communication with him of any kind since. I am compelled to say this, lest he may be held answerable for any
opinion of mine, except so far as his note of July last indi



On Prayer.                   I 19
cated. If prayer be nothing more than asking a Deity to
confer, as gifts, many things which -to our little vision and
narrow circles of observing appear desirable, then I for
one, in common with many other "' physicists," have long
labored under a delusion; and one of the nobler effects of
prayer, I learn from the lips of a divine to be little better
than "a fit of voluntary hysterics," — a condition, let
me observe, twice applied to his opponents in the course
of one article, I think I may fairly say with as little of
real meaning as' of good taste. However, I am willing to
believe he is unacquainted with the malady.
I can understand how, in this practical and material age
as it has become the fashion to call it, the great bulk of
mankind has come to associate the idea of acquiring good,
and that idea only, with the exercise of prayer. To ask
that God may protect us in danger; that a carriage may convey us safely; that a medicine may be blessed, and so help
us to get to our business again; that the rain may fall in the
fields about us, when the crops are taking harm for want of
water, - is the natural outcome of a man whose great aim
in life (no doubt a legitimate aim) is to better himself. And
it is very, very much in accord with the needs of an increasing population, when that aim becomes, perhaps, more difficult'than ever of attainment. It is deemed nobler to ask
for a clearer intellect, for greater self-control, and a mastery
over passions; a not less material good each one, after all,
aand not less valuable in pursuing the aim described; compu



120                  On Prayer.
table, therefore, as pecuniary values, equally with the preceding goods, if need be, but by a more complex process.
All such prayer springs from the instinct of self-preservation,
of selfishness if you please. But, if this be the common
faith, the common people have not been left to arrive at it by
that road alone. Their religious teachers have through all
time inculcated the self-seeking petition as a duty, and have
called it " prayer." Perhaps no religious office has been
more extolled, or more regarded as essential to religious
life.  And their teachers, especially those of the ancient
church, have derived large revenues from its exercise by
way of petition, especially for the preservation from suffering in a future state, of individuals who have been able to
pay largely for the influence so exercised with the Deity. I
observe that Dr. Littledale is evidently favorable to the exercise of this function.
But, since prayer has thus been so largely regarded and
utilized as a means of augmenting wealth and comfort, I
and others can scarcely be deemed irreligious, because,
although very willing to accept these goods, we are compelled to doubt the value of the means employed for obtaining them. Moreover, it is greatly disappointing at first, to
the matured man, to be thus forced to question it, having
believed it implicitly by force of education when a youth.
Indeed, the sincere, honest doubt can scarcely arise, except in
a devout mind, - in a mind earnestly desirous to find the
truth, and to accept it, however painful it may at first sight




On Prayer.                   121
appear. The cessation to believe in the value of petition
to the Most High is, at all events, an acknowledgment of a
power lost,- a thing which all men part with reluctantly.
The merely indifferent man, caring for none of these questions, will, if he think at all, exercise a worldly commonsense, and say, " All the world prays: what all the world
has done must be right. If there be any value in prayer
(petition), why should I deprive myself of it?"   And,
behold, he prayeth!- after his fashion.  Now, " all the
world prays," ini that man's mouth, is as good reasoning
as Dr. Littledale's, when he argues for the value of prayer
from its universality. I shall presently consider the question of its practice throughout the world, and of the efficacy
of prayer by way of petition, but will first endeavor to show
what prayer may be according to the views of a physicist,
and which, in all the criticisms I have read, never seems
to be so much as dreamed of. Hence my painful sense
of the want of real religious feeling outside the circle said
to be so exclusive, and incapable of any lofty conceptions,
or of any aims, indeed, beyond purely scientific investigation.
I am a physiologist, say, belonging to a section of the
"narrow" physicists, or a geologist. I am engaged in a
search after the manner or nature of work exercised by some
great Power infinitely beyond me. What wonder and admiration overwhelm me as I trace the operation of a Supreme
Intelligence! I may or may not anthropomorphize that




I22                  On Prayer.
Power, and call " Him" " Creator,"'' Deity," " Father,"
what you will, - terms all equally good, but alike inadequate
to imply the object or source of that inexpressible sense of
admiration which fills me; each term feeble enough, and but
slightly differing one from the other, in presence of the All
Supreme, and in the act of tracing the symbols of originating
Mind in the happily untranslatable text which occupies the
patient and humble seeker after fact; an original, revealing
beauty beyond imagining, power, resource, and order of the
grandest kind; an unerring order, which in our experience
knows no exception, is all-sufficient, and furnishes to us, its
children, the highest type and model of perfect organization.
Do I quail before the inexorable decree, the " necessity"
of that order, if you please?  Or may I not, rather, rejoice
in it, confide, hope, trust in it, know that my own place is
a part of the grand whole, and do my work unquestioningly
and unsuggestingly?  There is no influence so soothing,
none so reconciling to the checkered conditions of life, as
consciousness of the absolute stability of the Rock on which
the physicist takes his stand, who, knowing the intelligent
order that pervades the universe, believes in it, and, with
true filial piety, would never suggest a petition for a change
in the Great Will as touching any childish whim of his own.
I cannot express my repugnance at the notion that supreme
Intelligence and Wisdom can be influenced by the suggestion of any human mind, however great.
It is thus that we may breathe the true spirit of commun



On Prayer.                   123
ion with the Unseen, here realize a sense of dependence
upon that which is too great to be moved, and gladly cherish
submission to the only Mastership found to be unchanging
and sufficing.  Here the physicist fears no catastrophe,
regards calmly all that happens, whatever it may be, as the
outcome of the forces that exist. His work, and the work of
all men, the only work that satisfies and endures, is the finding and maintaining of truth, so far as he knows it, freely,
giving equal license to every other man to do the same;
comparing, as we do at this moment, our observations and
experience, and, in the clash of thought, evoking truth,
victory for whichever side matters not to him, since it surely
will in the end be for the side of truth. For the future, he
has no anxiety: the supreme Order in which he has a place
and work cannot fail to provide; and he submits, without
suggesting limits or a definition to the plan he never could
have devised, and cannot compass, too glad to believe that
all such Order is not to be influenced by human interference.: Such a spirit enters into a man's life, is part of it, needs
ao special seasons or excitement to evoke it: it is in him,
turning spontaneously, and is not added from without by
itny "' means of grace." Such is the devotion of the physi-:ist; and the work of such a life is a perpetual prayer, an
dentification and communion of the worker with the spring
)f all force and power. Doubtless Luther felt this when he
ittered his famous " laborasse est orasse."  It may or may
lot be the spirit of Christianity according to -the Church; but




124                  On Prayer.
it is founded in truth. Is it not the realization and final
consummation of all prayer, even of all petition, — last
arrived at in man's course, - culmination of all matured
piety expressed in the memorable ejaculation, " Thy will be
done"?
But I am told that the profanity of my proposal consists
in its object, inasmuch as this was not the recovery of the
sick, but an endeavor to estimate by figures - that is, scientifically; that is, truly, nothing more - the value of petition on their behalf. And I am gravely told that the Most
High would never answer prayer with such an end in view.
Oh, little estimate of the Supreme! My mind revolts
against the tiny finite who thus seeks to measure by its own
frail and irritable temper the quality of the Infinite. Are
his thoughts as our thoughts, or his ways as our ways?
Shall prayer, which at least is unselfish, and aims only at
attaining truth, be so hardly dealt with on high?  Has it not
an aim as noble as the prayer that an army may be successful in killing, or that our people may amass greater wealth?
Far be it from me to prescribe a limit to Almighty Will and!
Power and Goodness, to presume to assert how human
motives are weighed by Supreme Wisdom! I could judge,
no doubt, as to the result, were a narrow human mind to rule
the universe, if such an intolerable idea be not too shocking.
I do not think a great benevolent human ruler, a more than
father to his creatures, would refuse to show what power his
children might obtain by asking, supposing that he had




On Prayer.                   125
repeatedly exhorted them to ask, and had promised to give
liberally to all. In making such a supposition, I do but
follow my opponents' cue, and have no intention of lowering my ideal of a Supreme Power to any likeness of any
thing in earth or sky. Only, on their own showing, I contend that my critics are not warranted in denying that a
good Deity would probably regard with favor my request. I
quite understand, that, with the mental and moral constitution often attributed to Deity, some sense of affront to his
personal dignity might perhaps be imagined by some men
to stand in the way of the divine compliance. That is evidently the notion intended. Is it more ridiculous, or is it
more painful, to learn that to such a miserable and primitive
type the idea of God has descended, and that in a nation
which vaunts itself not " heathen"?
The question comes home to me very forcibly, more so
than it ever did before, Do these people believe in the
efficacy of petition? Does the religious world really believe
that the Sunday services affect the health, the wealth, the
wisdom, of the prayed-for, diminish the deaths, increase
the products of the field, preserve from  accidents, &c.?
Do they think, that, without such prayers, there would be
more deaths and smaller crops? It either is or is not so;
and no discussion about direct and indirect influence will
avail one jot to obscure the question. Is the world to go on
forever with such a problem unsolved? Will men be much
longer content to be uncertain how far all the phenomena of




126                 On Prayer.
life and its surroundings are obedient to perfect order, and
are regulated by supreme wisdom, or how far they are influenced by the infinitely small and ignorant?
I know it will be retorted that Divine Wisdom selects the
petitions, and answers only such as are wise and good; that
is, such as are in perfect accord with itself, so that none
need fear any undue meddling with the universal order.
Why, then, petition? If all is to be left to Infinite' Wisdom,
after all, why make certainly ignorant, perhaps impertinent,
suggestions? And who are they, even with "the gift of
prayer" who shall ask in perfect harmony with the divine
thought?
But suppose some wise, what is the highest wisdom
attainable here in relation to that which rules the mighty
scheme?  To a physicist, less than nothing and vanity. He
who most studies, most endeavors to search, who, laboring
ever on the verge of the unknown, meekly, patiently, earnestly tries to press forward the slowly advancing realm of
the known into the infinity of the dark unknown, will be
the most ready to confess his ignorance, and will never presume to carry it, in the form of any petition for interference,
into the court of the Most High. He knows but one desire,
the prayer for " more light; " but he knows, too, that he
must achieve his end by untiring labor; and that no light
ever entered this world, within human experience, except
in reward to much labor. And so, again, " laborare est
orare."




On Prayer.                      I27
Thus much for two of the chief grounds for non-compliance on the part of the religious world with my proposal,their inadequate conceptions respecting prayer itself, and,
secondly, their views of what it is reasonable to suppose
might be the relations of a great, wise, and good Deity with
his creatures.
I now desire briefly to show why it is difficult to believe
that events are affected by petition to a Supreme Power; such
as, for example, the recovery of the sick, the improvement
of the weather, the health and wealth of particular persons,
the preservation from murder and sudden death, &c. I may
confess that my own very grave doubts on this question impelled me to propose a test. Dr. Littledale, in referring to
the test, makes the following remark, with which I entirely
agree, and which might have formed a motto (had it then
been written) for my former paper; and how it is applicable
to me in any sense of admonition, I am at a loss to conceive.
"A really scientific temper would say,'The fact of the existence
of this phenomenon' [the habit of prayer]' entitles it to respectful
consideration: the fact that all inquiry in lower spheres of knowledge
testifies to the truth of normal sequence, perhaps of law, makes it
antecedently probable that prayer also belongs to a sphere of law, and
has a definite purpose in the economy of the universe; since, if it
had no such purpose, it would not and could not exist at all. Therefore, instead of irrationally denying its efficacy, let us examine its
practical operation, without insisting on deductively accommodating
it to a preconceived hypothesis.' "




128                 On Prayer.
Is this not precisely what I proposed to do?
He adds another remark to the same purpose, which to
most readers would seem almost profane; and, had I uttered
it, what a torrent of abuse would have been called forth, and
deservedly so! for I should have been guilty of using language, which, however just, would have been unjustifiable in
me, because it would do unnecessary violence to the best
sentiments and the religious feelings of many e\xcellent
people. I refer to the following: " For I can see no reason
why prayer as an actual fact in the universe should not be
investigated as patiently and exhaustively as tobacco"
Somehow, from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Littledale, these
words excite no criticism.
I believe that I may safely assume that all will agree,
that certain events within everybody's knowledge have
always happened with such absolute regularity, that no one
would dream of petitioning Hleaven for any change in their
modes of occurrence, - events the order of which has never
been disturbed during the historic period. Let me instance
the rising and setting of the sun, the movements of the tide,
the decay and death of all organized bodies: many more
will suggest themselves to every mind. It is quite beside
the mark to enter upon any metaphysical discussion of the
terms " law,"  order," " relation of cause to effect," and so
forth. It suffices for our purpose that no sane and moderately intelligent person would dream of praying that the sun
may appear on the norrow an hour sooner or later than his




On Prayer.                   I29
appointed time, that the action of the tide may be suspended or reversed, or that decay and consequent death
may not take place in any given case. People pray for
prolongation of life, or postponement of death; but no one
thinks of asking that the event may never arrive. Why is
this?  And why does the practice of not praying for such
things obtain among those who believe in the efficacy of
petition for, let us call them, smaller matters? Simply because the person praying has an absolute conviction that the
events in question are so fixed, unaltering, and unalterable,
that they are beyond the scope of prayer. So we see that
practically, and beyond all dispute, the phenomena of the
universe are ranged by people who fully believe in the
efficacy of petition in two categories, - a class, which I shall
call number one, respecting which it is quite useless, if not
presumptuous, to pray; and a class (number two) of events
which are the legitimate objects of prayer. Now, it is curious
to observe that there is no agreement at all among religious
people as to the principles on which such classification is to
be made. Some persons will place a much larger proportion
of subjects in class one than others will, and vice versa.
Had the objects which can be influenced by prayer been
authoritatively defined, and particularly the objects specified
which cannot be so influenced, a useful work for the Church
would have been accomplished. For, without such guidance,
many people must (from ignorance) be asking God for things
which are unattainable in this manner; while others are not
9




I30                  On Prayer.
asking for good which might be so procured.  In first
examining this question, I'called the Book of Common
Prayer to my aid; and, although I found by inference some
little indication of an answer there,'it is by no means a
satisfactory or complete one.  The common-sense, shall I
say, of some people, or the more precise intelligence of
others, leads them to regard some objects as certainly not to
be attained by petition. Thus, one of my opponents says,
"' Of course, it would be useless to pray for recovery in the
case of hydrophobia," although he thinks that less severe
maladies might be much modified Ihrough the influence of
prayer. I notice this, because the idea is a typical one, and
embodies the practice of a great number who might still
hesitate so plainly to express in words their real belief.
They summon Almighty Power when the requirement is not
considerable; but when, as in the case of a formidable disease above quoted, the power of medicine appears to be nil,
they have little or no hope from an appeal to Omnipotence.
But if the theory be true, that petition to the Deity is an
available power to influence human events, then the line of
demarcation referred to must absolutely exist. There is no
escape from this inference. It is either right and reasonable
to pray for an alteration of the earth's course round the sun,
or it is not. There must be a category of events not affected
by prayer; and there should be a category of events, if my
opponents are right, which can be so affected. Now, I contend they are bound to define these categories. They are




On Prayer.                   131
bound to say what may be prayed for, and what must not be
prayed for. I offered to aid in the inquiry by a practical
test, -a test which I am still quite ready to prove to be
practicable, if necessary, in spite of all that has been said
against it, and of the objections to it, which, it is rightly
stated, I have myself foreseen. If they concede, as they
must, that the alteration of a star's or of a planet's course is
not a fit object of petition, the onus probandi of explaining
why, and also of stating what objects may be prayed for,
rests with them. If they consent to make every event a
legitimate object of prayer, then they are released from this
obligation, and not otherwise.
But what has been the practical mode of arranging the
two classes hitherto? for that they have been recognized by
religious people in all time, although perhaps almost unconsciously, is obvious. The comprehensiveness of either class
has varied at different periods, but precisely in obedience to
the intelligent acquaintance of mankind with physical phenomena, nothing more: there is the whole secret. In the
early stages of man's history, when his acquaintance with
those phenomena was far more intelligent, he was ready to
make almost any event the object of petition to some imaginary unseen power, to any deity, or the many deities by
which he fancied himself to be surrounded, -- deities, be it
remarked, of a malevolent or adverse character towards
him; a belief natural enough to a mall surrounded by the
forces of Nature, which, as yet, he could not tame, or teach
to do his bidding.




132                  On Prayer.
This dilemma, however, soon called forth an intermediate
man, who obtained his share of food and shelter without
labor, by claiming to possess some influence with the deity
to be propitiated, or coaxed into compliance. Naturally,
any occurrence might then furnish an object of petition;
the credulity and ignorance of the worshipper, and the
daring and tact of the intermediate man, being the two
factors from which almost any absurdity was producible.
From that time to the present, advance in knowledge has
enlarged-the class of objects not to be prayed for, and has
also, by equal steps, diminished the pretensions of the intermediate man, producing, in his place, the priest, now an
educated and conscientious teacher. It is not marvellous,
however, that he is always in antagonism with the physicist.
For it is solely due to the observation, labor, and thought
of the patient searcher into the physical conditions of the
universe, that, year by year during the world's history, its
phenomena have been removed from the realm of the providential and supernatural, and placed in that of natural and
unvarying order.  Thus it is that Class I. grows larger
day by day, while Class II. diminishes in like proportion.
Where shall this progress stop? Will any say it stops today, or a year hence, or that it will not continue to go on
as long as one single intelligent scientific worker dwells on
the globe? Class 1. must inevitably grow larger and larger;
Class II., as inevitably smaller. When and where will the
professed believer in petition venture to draw  the line




On Prayer.                    I33
between them?  He must follow, drawn by inexorable
power, in the wake of advancing science, and after hard
resistance, as always; giving up one post after another, and
resigning event after event, to be detached from the once
great class of objects to be prayed for, and admitting their
title of admission into the great class of settled and ordered
events not to be influenced by human interference, and
capitulating with the best grace he may when forced to
surrender.
So it follows, that what a man will pray for depends precisely on the extent of his intelligent acquaintance with the
phenomena around and within him. The more ignorant he
is of these, and of their modes of occurrence, the larger his
field for petition: the more intelligent, the smaller must be
his range.
Past experience, then, makes it very probable that the class
of phenomena which have an order as defined as that of the
movements of the heavenly bodies, that is, a regularity
without known exception, is a very large one. And there
are many, who, perhaps not unreasonably,.believe the analogy
thus offered to be so strong, that it is not improbable that
there really are no events which are not equally determined
by natural order, and might be equally foreseen and forecast, were we in possession of the necessary data.
To apply, by some means, a scientific method to solve a
part of the problem, was the sole object of my proposal.
It is matter of extreme satisfaction  to me to find an




134                  On Prayer.
authority so respected as that of Dr. Littledale agreeing
with me on the legitimacy of the object, and asserting that
the efficacy of petition to Deity is a subject for uncompromising, exhaustive scientific research. We differ as to the
mode, - the devotion of the hospital ward to the purpose.
That is a mere trifle: I simply desired to raise the question,
and to call public attention to it. For a large majority of
writers on this subject have labored to show that iGrayer is
not a fit subject for such an inquiry, and that I have sinned
by laying a profane hand on the ark of God, in proposing
to learn whether or no he will thus specifically aid us in the
humane work of battling with disease, suffering, and death.
Still I am no partisan of the scheme, and shall gladly listen
to a plan which shall better attain our common end. For
myself, I take leave of the controversy. The practical work
of life, which circumstances have laid on me, forbids my
further participation at present in the inquiry. It is evidently full of interest for myriads of others also. As a
contribution towards its solution, it is'impossible to overrate Mr. Galton's laborious and scientific record relating to
the-subject, nor to overlook its importance.  Had I done
nothing more than elicit the production of this last work of
his, I should have been amply content.
I have only to remind my former critics and any future
ones, that it is beside the issue to term me or my views' materialistic," "' fatalist," or the like. It forms no part of
a candid reply to do so. And although many good people




On Prayer.                      I35
still respond to the prejudice so easily and so cheaply aroused
by attaching epithets 1 which have little meaning, and are really
designed to be opprobrious, the great body of the public
desire a rational solution of every important question, and
have a right to expect its discussion unalloyed with adventitious matter of this kind.
THE AUTHOR OF " HINTS TOWARDS A SERIOUS ATTEMPT TO
ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF THE PRAYER FOR THE SICK."
ATHENAIUM CLUB, September, 1872.
3.
THERE is a story told somewhere, that, when Copernicus
divulged his theory of the earth running round the sun, a
countryman came to him, declaring that he would believe it
when he saw it, and insisted on his working an experiment
to give him ocular demonstration.  I forget what Copernicus
did; but I know that Francis Bacon would have said, "A
man cannot enter the kingdom of nature in any other way
than he enters the kingdom of heaven, - by becoming a little
child," and by submitting to what the Master teaches, and
the rules of his school.
The experiment proposed in the paper forwarded by Prof.
1 Even Dr. Littledale, with all his desire to test scientifically the
value of prayer, condescends to style me " a materialistic surgeon or
physician," for proposing a method, and adroitly contrives to associate
me in the same paragraph with Voltaire. For what end, but to cause
prejudice? surely not to enforce an argument.




I36                 On Prayer.
Tyndall is not conceived in the spirit of Bacon. Every
one sees how unreasonable it would be to propose, as a test
of the efficacy of prayer, that all the clergy of the Church,
joined by all the Dissenting ministers, should agree to pray
that the sun should stand still on a certain day at noon, and
to allow that prayer is of no value, provided he went on in
his course. We laugh at Rousseau's method of settling the
question of the existence of God: he was to pray, and then
throw a stone at a tree, and decide in the affirmative or
negative, according as it did, or did not, strike the object.
The experiment projected by Prof. Tyndall's friend is
scarcely less irrational.
A man has to enter the one kingdom as he does the other,
- by a docile attention to its laws. But the laws of the two
kingdoms are not the same. In the one, the investigator
must patiently watch phenomena, and settle every thing by
observation and experiment. But he would not thereby be
required to submit to such a proposal as that made to Copernicus. The Christian has also a method which he follows;
and he can explain it to those who may wish to follow it, and
he can give good reasons for his belief in Providence and
prayer. But he gets his evidence in a different way from
the man of science; and he is not obliged, in logical consistency, to test his belief in the way propounded in the paper
inserted in " The Contemporary Review."
(1.) The proposal is not consistent with the method and
laws of God's spiritual kingdom. The project, in fact, is im



On Prayer.                    137
perious, and is as little likely to be successful as the attempts
by scientific men to force Nature to reveal her secrets by
"anticipation," or by dogmatic reason.  God's spiritual
kingdom, like his natural, non imperatur nisi parendo. The
project is not prescribed by God, nor is it one to which we
can reasonably expect him to conform.
Every intelligent defender of prayer has allowed a becoming sovereignty to God in answering the petitions presented
to him. A number of persons are in the ward of a hospital; and there'are Christian visitors praying for them, for
their spiritual improvement and for their recovery - if it be
agreeable to the will of God. In answering this prayer, God
mayprovide that some, or many, or all, or that few or none,
be cured, as it may be for the good of the persons praying,
or the persons prayed for, or of the families and community
to which they belong. And this sovereignty of God, always
regulated by wisdom, is not to be interfered with by a proposal dated from the " Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall," even if
it has the sanction of one, who, conforming to the methods
of science, has performed very effective experiments on heat
and sound. Every one sees that the world might be thrown
into inextricable confusion, were God necessitated to attend
to such schemes, sanctioned in no way in his Word, or by
the religion of Nature. In answering prayer, God has (to
speak after the manner of men) to weigh a thousand circumstances, including the character of the men who pray, and
the spirit ifi which they pray, and the character of those




138                  On Prayer.
who are prayed for, and the influence they may exercise on
society at large. A few years ago the late Prince Albert
was in a raging fever; and hundreds of thousands were
praying for his recovery. Must God answer these prayers
by restoring the prince to health, and this whatever be the
consequences? It is said, -on what I believe to be good
authority,- that, shortly after the death of the prince, the
wise and good Queen of Great Britain declined fllowing
the counsel of her advisers, when they wished to proclaim
war against America, and she did so because her departed
husband was always opposed to such a fratricidal proceeding. We may put the supposition that the prince, if alive,
might not have had influence enough to stop the war; and
that it could have been arrested only by the firmness of a
woman inspired by regard for the dead. I enter in no way
into the secret designs of God; but, putting the supposition,
I ask whether even the hundreds of thousands praying
would have been entitled to insist that the prince should be
restored, when the result would have been the most unjustifiable and disastrous war of which our world has been the
theatre? And might there not be equally weighty reasons
why God should not spare more persons in the side of the
hospital prayed for in the scientific experiment than in the
other side not so cared for by man?
It is said of our Lord, that, at a certain place, he could not
do many mighty works, " because of their unbelief." In
order to his hearing prayer, in order to his answering prayer,




On Prayer.                   I39
God requires faith, as large, at least, as a mustard-seed.
With the evidence which every man has furnished to him of
the existence, the love, and care of God, this requirement is
most reasonable. It can be shown that there is admirable
wisdom in God's plan of connecting the acceptance of prayer
and the answer to prayer with a previous or contemporaneous faith. And it can be shown that our Lord showed equal
wisdom in declining to work miracles on every occasion.
He always refused to work them for mere empty display, or
to gratify the.wonder-seeking spirit of the Jews.  Where
they denlanded signs in an arbitrary manner, he told them
they had enough of evidence, and declared, that, if they
believed not Moses and the prophets, neither would they
believe, though one rose from the dead, - a declaration which
was realized, when, a short tile after, he rose from the
dead, and the Jews continued as incredulous as ever. Suppose the proposed experiment succeeded for once, the scientific men would have some way of accounting for it, and
would insist on the experiment being repeated once and
again; which could be done only at the expense of deranging
the whole of the delicately hung scales of Providence.
(2.) The project is not consistent with the spirit in which
Christians pray. They pray because commanded to pray;
they pray because it is the prompting of their hearts, commended by conscience; they pray because they expect God
to listen to the offering-up of their desires; they pray because
they expect God to grant what they pray for, so far as it




140                  On Prayer.
may be agreeable to his will and their own good. But they
shrink from praying as an experiment. A dutiful child
would shrink from such an experimenting on the love of an
earthly father. Such prayer, they feel, would imply doubt
on their part, and might give offence to One who expects us
to come to him as children unto a father. They fear that it
might look as if they required him to answer prayer in a
particular way, whether it may be for good or evil, and
unjustifiably expose him to reproach, provided he refused to
comply with the uncalled-for demand.
Christians would shrink from the idea of praying for the
sick on the one side of a hospital, and not praying for those
on the other. To reduce the whole project to an absurdity,
we can conceive one body of men praying for one part of
the ward, and another for the other part, and thus no choice
left to God. True, there must be something like this when
there is war between two countries; as, for instance, in the
late war between France and Germany. But, in all such
cases, God is judge, and may, we suppose, answer the prayers
of the right side: nay, he may answer the prayers of both
sides, giving the victory to Germany, and the trial to France,
as a means of chastening her, and as she profits by it, and
continues to pray, raising her to greater eminence in years
to come.
(3.) These considerations show the negative side; but I
cannot close without opening the positive side. What, then,
induces a reasonable man to pray?  What reason has he for




On Prayer.                   14I
thinking that his prayers will be answered?  He has abundant reasons, quite as convincing as the scientific man has
for believing, that, if he proceeds on the method of induction,
he will make Nature reveal her secrets. But the evidence is
not precisely the same in the two cases.
Every logician knows that there are various sorts of evidence, each convincing in its own department. There is
one kind in physical science, of which Prof. Tyndall is
master, but another kind in mathematics, and yet a third
kind in morals and in practical duty. A father, let me suppose, recommends his son to follow virtue, to be temperate,
chaste, honest, and benevolent, and assures him that he will
thereby enjoy a much larger amount of happiness.  But
young hopeful professes not to be satisfied, and wishes to
have clearer notions on the specific point, - whether a youth,
indulging all his desires, with only a little prudence, may not
have as much enjoyment as one who restrains them? And
he insists that an experiment be tried with the boys of a
poor-house, one half of whom are allowed every indulgence,
while the other half are exposed to restraint. The wise
father would at once cut off all such discussion, by showing
that virtue is a thing binding on us, that, by its very nature,
it is fitted to lead to happiness, and by pointing to the issues
of virtue and vice seen in common life.
We are entitled to treat in the same way the proposal
made to us in I" The Suggestive Letter " forwarded to the
"Contemporary Review."  We show that prayer is the




I42                 On Prayer.
becoming expression of gratitude, the required confession
of sins committed.  We show that CQod commands us to
pray:'" Men ought always to pray."  It is a confessed duty
of revealed religion: it is, also, a duty of natural religion:
it is the natural and proper outburst of a heart under the
influence of becoming feeling.  We believe that He who
thus commands us to pray, will, in his own time and way,
send an answer,
We should always be prepared to leave a sovereignty with
God as td the means he may employ in answering praver. I
do not believe that God usually answers prayer by violating,
or even changing, his own laws, - I mean physical laws. In
answering prayer, God will have a respect to his own laws,
ordered so wisely and so kindly. A violent, capricious
interference with them, even in answer to prayer, might
work irremediable mischief. But surely God is not precluded from answering prayer, because he hath instituted a
wise economy in his physical government. I believe that
God commonly answers piayer by natural means, appointed
for this purpose from the very beginning, when he gave to
mind and matter their laws, and arranged the objects with
these laws for the accomplishment of his wise and beneficent
ends, - for the encouragement of virtue, and the discouragement of vice, and, among others, to provide an answer to the
acceptable petitions of his people.  God, in answer to
prayer, may restore the patient by an original strength of
constitution, or by the well-timed application of a remedy.




On Prayer.                    143
The two, the prayer and its answer, were in the very counsel
of God; and, if there had not been the one, there would not
have been the other. The believer is in need of a blessing,
and he asks it; and he finds that the'God who created the
need, and prompted the prayer, has provided the means of
granting what he needs. But what reason can we have for
believing that this experiment, devised in the Athenmeum
Club, Pall Mall, has a like place in the counsels of heaven?
He prays for things agreeable to God's will. He will not
pray for any thing which God shows to be absolutely denied
him. When his son is evidently dead, he will not pray that
God would restore him to life in this world. As he prays
for the sufferers on one side of a hospital, he will not be
precluded from praying with equal fervency for those on the
other side.
Led by such reasons to pray, he finds that his prayers are
answered.  His experience confirms his faith. Beginning
the exercise in faith, he gains, as he continues, as abundant
evidence of the power of prayer as of the power of any physical agent.. In the course of years, and as he looks back
upon his life, he can discover case upon case in which,
unobserved by the world, his petitions have been Igranted;
or, rather, he perceives, that, as he prays in duty and in faith,
his whole life is ordered by the Lord. It is especially so,
when his requests are for progress in spiritual excellence.
WVhen his prayers are hindered, he sees that his moral progress is hindered. When his aspirations are fervent, he finds
that his soul is filled with peace, with comfort.




I44                  On Prayer.
The proposal made in the letter forwarded by Prof. Tyndall is evidently regarded as likely to be troublesome to
religious men. If they accept, it is expected that the issue
of the experiment will cover them with confusion. If they
decline, they will be charged with refusing to submit to a
scientific test. It may turn out, however, that all that the
letter proves is an utter ignorance, on the part of certain
scientific men, of the kind of evidence by which moral and
religious truths are sustained. I believe that the time has
come when the intelligent public must intimate pretty decisively that those who have excelled in physical experiments
are not, therefore, fitted to discuss philosophical or religious
questions.  Persons who do not follow the, appropriate
method in physical science will not be rewarded by discoveries. Those who decline coming to God, believing that
"he is, and that he is a rewarder of them  that diligently
seek him," need not expect the blessings of religion. Prof.
Tyndall has faith in the ordinances of nature; and he, and
those who read his works, have profited by it. I have no
evidence that he has studied so carefully the method of earning fruit in the kingdom  of grace as in the kingdom of
nature. But of this I am sure, that with a like faith in God,
in his providence and word, as he has in science, he will
reap a yet greater and more enduring reward.
JAMES M'CosH.
PRINCETON, N.J., U.S., Aug. 5, 1872.




CAPTAIN GALTON ON THE EFFICACY OF
PRAYER.
THE SPECTATOR.
IN No. 1,230, Aug. 3, 1872, pp. 974, 975, an editorial appeared under
this title, which is now placed first.
Second includes letters,- by Astley Cooper in favor of the efficacy
of prayer, by Protagoras against, and by J. J. Murphy in favor.
These came out in the following number of " The Spectator," Aug.
10, pp. 1011-1013.
10








VI.
CAPTAIN GALTON CRITICISED.
THE scientific men, the men, that is, who hold it weakness
to believe strongly any thing not supported by material
evidence, - evidence which can be tested by the senses,
appear disposed to fight out their lifelong contest with the
supernaturalists upon the battle-ground of the efficacy of
prayer. In so doing, they are exhibiting considerable powers
of strategy. With the instinct of heretics, - that is, of men
who are resisting a widely received opinion, fighting an army
more numerous than their own, -they perceive that this is
the key to the position; that, if this ground is lost, all is lost;
and perceive, also, that it is, of all the threatened points,
the one most difficult to defend. We may say broadly, -
what they see clearly enough, though they will not openly
say it (a reticence which is not quite creditable to their
fairness),- that if prayer is not answered, and cannot be
answered, then there is in the Christian, or, rather, the religious, sense of the word, no God. If he exists at all as a
sentient being, of whom man can form some limited and
147




I48         Captain  Galton Criticised.
inadequate conception, he must have some relation to the
sentient beings he has created, or has suffered to be
created (for we will not exclude even the demiurgus theory);
and he must have some free-will, as his creatures have;
and if there is the relation, and if there is the free-will,
there must. be, to some extent, however limited, or however
described, a power in him of answering prayer. He must
be able to do something, if it be only what a man could do.
How anybody can get out of that proposition, we confess
ourselves wholly unable to conceive. It must be true under
any conditions whatever, compatible with his existence at
all. Suppose him even a limited Being, a Demiurgus, or that
mere ultimate result of natural evolution of which some
Atheists have dreamed (and that is the lowest view of the
Godhead of which we can conceive); and still he must
have some power, and some relation to men, and, with the
power and the relation, some readiness, or, to speak more
frankly, some moral obligation, to attend to prayer.
Inability to do that is equivalent, for the purposes of man, to
non-existence, to the absence of any relation between creature and Creator, which it is worth the trouble of analyzing
or thinking about. With the idea of prayer, disappears the
idea of God, and, with both, the whole of that body of
supernaturalism which the physicists so bitterly hate. If
prayer is a delusion, so are the creeds, churches are organized superfluities, priesthoods are impostures, revelations are
only methods of securing a false importance for messages




Captain  Galton  Criticised.           I49
addressed by man to himself, - messages which may be
more or less new or important in the field of morals, but are
no more to be reverenced than similar messages in the field
of science. In fact, every thing' that physicists dislike disappears with belief in the efficacy of prayer, and the field is
left clear for their faith (which we freely concede to them is,
if not the only alternative, by far the most reasonable alternative), - the dominance of unalterable law, the perpetual
evolution of physical effect from physical cause. At the
same time, no position, as the physicists are well aware, is
so difficult to maintain, by evidence which they will accept,
as that of the efficacy of prayer. The very best evidence,
namely, the experience of innumerable trustworthy persons,
who in all ages have asserted that their prayers have been
answered, they will not.accept, indeed are precluded by their
system from accepting; and of visible tests such as they
would accept, there can be none, such test involving, ex
necessitate, the coercion of a Being whom it is the first doctrine of those who believe in prayer to declare beyond the
possibility of such coercion. Prof. Tyndall's challenge to
pray for the inmates of one ward in a hospital, and not for
another, and see what followed, is inherently absurd, not
only for the reasons we gave the other day, but also for this,
that, unless God possesses free-will, prayer is a waste of
emotional energy; and, if he possesses free-will, he cannot
be coerced into action in the manner the professor suggests
he should be. We might as well test the royalty of an abso



150         Captain  Galton  Criticised.
lute monarch by demanding, that, if royal, he should grant
the next petition addressed to him, even though granting it
denied the freedom of his royalty. All that can be proved of
prayer is, that its efficacy in some form is a necessary consequence of the existence of a God (for with Mr. Mill, we
cannot admit the notion of God creating, and abandoning
responsibility to the created); that the best men in all ages
have not only believed it, but acted on the belief, without
being ever deterred by the mass of experience to the contrary which they must have gradually acquired; and that
keen, shrewd,.nay, strange to say, sceptical intellects of the
present day, in every country and under every condition,
assert that their prayers have been answered. What other
evidence is there, or can there be, for an assertion which
most physicists credit, but which many would declare to be
quite incredible, that the will-mere volition, without
change of circumstances — can subdue or even banish existing pain? If the testimony of consciousness is valueless
about the one thing, why not about the other?
While, however, we admit at once the enormous importance of the question, and the enormous difficulty of demonstrating our side of it to men who will not accept our data,
we are not bound to submit patiently to arguments such as
those by which Capt. Francis Galton, in this month's "' Fortnightly," evidently thinks he has disposed of the efficacy of
prayer.  They are a little too trying to one's intellectual
patience. Prof. Tyndall, though he scoffed with a kind of




Captain  Galton  Criticised.           I 5
pride which seems to us out of place in a discussion in which
he himself thinks certainty so difficult of attainment, did
propose a test, which, though in our judgment so inapplicable
as to raise doubts of his seriousness, was, at all events in
form, the test which physicists would apply when experimenting with a view to certainty on any doubtful point of
physical research, say, the efficacy of a new drug, or system
of hygienic treatment. But Capt. Galton says no test is
needed. The experience of mankind is already conclusive.
Prayer never is answered, because doctors never have relied
on prayers for the sick; because Christian sovereigns, who
are universally prayed for, die, on the average, sooner than
other' rich people (probably from a family tendency, the
Christian sovereigns of Europe being all members of a
single family or clan, all, in fact, in one way or other, the descendants of one man); because missionary ships, which are
prayed for, are no safer than slavers, which are not; because
prayerful persons do not outstrip secular persons in the race
of life, half our dukes, for example, being the descendants
of kings' mistresses; because insurance-offices make no
difference in favor of the pious; and because the clerics who
pray for the success of their enterprises more than other
people are not more successful in those enterprises. On this
evidence, which we shall not dispute, Capt. Galton affirms
that prayer has no efficacy; that belief in it will die, like
any other superstition; and that it is, in all probability, a
mere bleat, an expression of suffering, which, like the bleat
of a sheep in pain, gives relief, we know not why.




I52          Captain  Galton  Criticised.
We will not answer this astounding argument, as we might
at first sight feel inclined to do, by declaring it physicism
gone wild, a direct attempt to weigh mental consequences in
a pair of brass scales, or by pointing out, that, according to
the Christian belief which Capt. Galton is attacking, God
has expressly declared that he does not limit his benevolence
by men's deserving, raining equally on the just and unjust,
or by asking Capt. Galton for proof that his pious persons
ever pray earnestly without the earnest addition of a prayer
that God's will shall be done, and not theirs; but will meet
him face to face on his own ground, with his own method,
and with a blank denial. In two cases, so large and so visible as to be better than any of his own, persons, about whom
the presumption alike of prayer and of a prayerful spirit is
greater than it is about any of those he names, have been
enormously, almost miraculously successful. If it can be
asserted of any human beings that they prayed for the diffusion of their ideas of faith, it can be asserted about the early
Christians. If it can be asserted about any prayer, that it
involved an antecedent improbability of realization, it can
be asserted about —that particular prayer. And in spite of all
circumstances, of the reluctance of mankind, of the horrorstruck resistance of princes, of the antagonism between
those ideas and the instincts of mankind, of the weakness
(as Capt. Galton would say) of those ideas, that prayer was
heard, those ideas were diffused: that faith is the faith of the
peoples who control the world. It is not we who are press



Captain  Galton  Criticised.          I53
ing that kind of evidence for prayer: we are simply accepting Capt. Galton's method, and giving him an overwhelming
instance of a cause which was hopeless, which was prayed
for, and which did win. The other instance is an even
stronger one, on Capt. Galton's system of proof. He says
that God is incessantly asked to grant sovereigns long life,
and they die quicker than other people. We say, in return
that God is perpetually asked, in the same formal way, to
protect the Papacy, and that in spite of all circumstances, of
all oppositions, of, as we think, its own inherent and necessary tendency to death,- its pretensions being baseless, -
the Papacy endures through the ages, and seems, as Macaulay
said, as if it might survive all existing institutions. We do
not say post hoc, ergo propter hoc, in the second instance
we could not say it; but Capt. Galton, by the law of his
method, is bound to say it for us. If the absence of protection for churches from lightning, and of kings from early
death, are proofs that prayer is useless, then the victory of
Christianity and the durability of the Popedom are greater,
because more certain and visible, proofs that prayer is useful.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, - The thanks of one so obscure as myself can be of
very little importance to you for your recent able and interesting article in the controversy touching the efficacy of
prayer; but they are due, not merely from me, but from




I54         Captain  Galton  Criticised.
hundreds of others; and: you must allow me, as I am sure
you will, judging from your well-known courtesy to correspondents, to tender them in my own name, and in the
names of many of your readers with whom I have conversed
on the subject. Your arguments are complete and strongly
compact, so far as they go, and I can hardly hope to
strengthen them; but concurrent lines of thought ire like
parallel streams when they meet, and swell the volume, and
increase the force. On this principle, I would submit for
consideration the following suggestions, which, I think, -are
not foreign to the point:1. The opponents to the belief in the efficacy of prayer
assume that there is a promise that all prayers shall be
answered.  From  whence do they get this assumption?
Possibly they would answer, From the words which we regard
as divine, " Ask, and ye shall have," &c. But surely such
a promise as this must be fenced and limited. This may be
illustrated by the relation of parent and child. We encourage our children to give us their confidence, and to make
known to us their wants. But a want made known is not
necessarily a want supplied, though it may be quite in our
power to grant it; and this, because, in our superior intelligence and further-seeingo wisdom, we know that the petition
granted would bring with it mischievous or useless consequences. We withhold, not because we are unable to grant:
we refuse the petition, not in indifference, but with the truest
interest.  The child sees not that now; but in after-life,




Captain  Galton Criticised.          155
when the man comes to reflect, he understands and appreciates. May not all this apply to the divine Fatherhood of
God? By the side of his intelligence and age, the most
cultured, the most experienced, and the most advanced in
age, are but the veriest children. And even more: some of
us, as we look back, can see that the withholding the coveted
gift by the divine Hand was the truest kindness, and the,
best answer to our prayer; and as we advance another
stage, by a reasoning which we have a perfect right to use,
we may expect, that "what we know not now, we shall
hereafter."
2. And, if the words of the Master must be limited in the
matter of the promise of the fulfilment of solicitations from
the divine Hand, his life teaches exactly the same lesson.
We who accept the teaching of the New Testament always
speak of its Author's life as one of constant communion
with the Father; but he asked for that which, at times, was
denied him, though he said,'" I know that thou hearest me
always." Two memorable instances stand out. The Garden
of Gethsemane was the scene of the one, and the hour that
of the intense mental agony. Thrice was the prayer repeated, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup fromn
me;" but it was not removed: it was drained to its last
deadly drop. But in another way it was answered, " And
there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening him."
The.other was the case of St. Peter: " Behold, Satan hath
desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have




I56         Captain  Galton Criticised.
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not."  But his faith did
fail; and then came the oath, the cowardice, and the lie.
Directly the Master's prayer was unanswered; indirectly, in
another way, it was answered, - in the repentant, experienced, and more powerful man. I do not waste space in
applying: the application is too obvious.
3. You rightly quote instances, and give historical facts,
in illustration of your arguments for the truth and reality of
prayer, - that belief which is so dear to tens of thousands.
You might have gone to biography, if you had chosen.
Allow me to give you an illustration.  It was my happiness
to know, near the scene of his labors, John Coleridge Patteson, whose apparently untimely death we are all lamenting.
His was not a feeble intellect, or a superstitious nature, or a
conventional, phrase-making tongue.  He was a man of
excellent parts in every way, and a believer in and a practiser of prayer. Above all things, he asked those who were
interested in his mission to pray for its success; and his own
life was fortified by it. The following incident in his life
will illustrate what I mean: Some years ago he landed on
an island, for the second time, which he was seeking to
Christianize and civilize. He desired, after landing, to reach
the chiefs hut; and, to this end, he asked some natives, whom
he saw on the beach, to guide him thereto. They consented;
but, as he followed their leading, the idea came upon him
~that they meant treachery, as indicated by their vehement
speech, gesticulations, and angry backward glances. Un



Captain  Galton  Criticised.           I57
easiness took possession of the bishop; and he feared for his
life. Presently he came to an abandoned hut; and for a few
minutes he left his guides, and those moments he employed
on his knees in prayer. The effect, he used to relate, of
thus commending himself to his divine Father, soul and
body, was wonderful.  All fear left him, and he came out
of that hut regardless of consequences. And upon his treacherous guides the effect was no less wonderful. They gradually ceased to plot; and at last one of them turned, confessed
the treachery, and offered to lead him back to his boat in
safety. Was this the superstitious feelings of a weak mind,
or the deep realities of the supernatural in answer to prayer?
I am, sir, &c.,
ASTLEY COOPER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, -The article which appeared in your last issue on
" Capt. Galton on the Efficacy of Prayer," though written
with the general spirit of fairness characteristic of your
journal, yet missed some points, and those very important
ones, relating to the motives which actuate physicists in their
antagonism' to the doctrine of prayer as popularly held. One
very important point, namely, the moral motive for their
antagonism, seemed completely left out of sight. This moral
motive, if we may be allowed so to term  it, is the feeling
which men have, who, being in full possession of knowledge,
experience opposition to its application.  This occurs most




158        Captain  Galton Re-enforced.
emphatically when any attempt is made to apply a scientific
result to human life. To come down from generalities to
concrete-facts, it is impossible scientific men, however they
may be imbued with the realities of science, can, in consequence, have intentions of making the idea of a God impossible, or even of upsetting all belief in what is termed the
supernatural: what is really the case is, that they wish, in
the interests of science and the conditions of human welfare,
to get men to a rational comprehension of the results of
science, so as to be able to apply them in a thoroughly
complete way to human life, - ends impossible, so long as
superstitions infect human practice, though perhaps unconsciously, in the ordinary ways of living.
The doctrine of prayer as popularly held is one which is
completely in opposition to all positive science, professing, as
it does, to be based on facts, which, if true, throw doubt on
all inductive inference, throwing doubt, as it does, on all constancy in natural phenomena. It is very certainly to be
inferred, from the facts exhibited by physiology and pathology, that the duration of life is dependent on the power any
organism has for assimilating the elements necessary for
keeping up the store of force in it requisite for performing
its functions; upon the power it has of rejecting elements
which are noxious or superfluous; and the power it has of
resistance to changes in its surroundings hostile to it: yet the
doctrine of prayer, if true, implies that these powers may be
increased, if suitable appeal be made to the Deity. Now,




Captain  Galton Re-enforced.           I59
belief in such doctrine, if worthy of the name of belief,
must act most powerfully on men's practice, especially in
matters of ordinary life. And though the belief in the doc-.trine of prayer is not very implicitly held by the generality
of people now, yet it has implicit acceptance, and we find, as
a result, general apathy in the cause of hygienic reform; and
the path of the sanitary reformer is blocked by a dead-weight
of stupidity, having its raison d'e'tre in a vague notion that
disease is a consequence of any thing at all, rather than
inattention or direct violation of the physical conditions of
health, and may be obviated, or even annihilated, by due
ceremonial observances towards the Deity. And medical
men find themselves checkmated in their efforts towards the
cure and prevention of disease by superstitions more worthy
of Central Africa than of Great Britain in the nineteenth
century.
If God is a being any thing like one which we could term
intelligent, and capable, likewise, of volition, we must, as the
writer of your article says, believe him capable of answering
prayer. But this is not the question in dispute, but, rather,' Has he made the universe in such a way as to necessitate
his occasional extra-interference in ways at variance (for,
whatever sophisms may be used to prove the contrary,
the doctrine of prayer presupposes the idea of miracle; and
the idea of miracle is that of contrary action to some law
or laws of nature) with the order he has ordained phenomena
should occur to us? "  Now, in no province of knowledge is




16o         Captain  Galton Re-enforced.
there more uncertainty than in that of medicine; and, therefore, in no other is there so much room for contradictory
hypotheses: but from the analogies of demonstratively everpresent law in other regions of Nature, have we any reason
to conclude medicine to be an exception to the dominion of
law? Yet the doctrine of prayer amounts simply to the
assumption that it is. Prayer has been, and is, asserted to
be able to set up conditions different from what would have
been, if prayer had not been used; and most particularly is
this asserted in matters with which medical science has to
do. If this assertion is true, it is very easy, as Dr. Tyndall
has shown, to bring it to test. To term such an experiment
as your writer does an attempt at coercing Deity seems absurd: it would simply be an appeal from humanity suffering
in body and soul for want of his supporting presence; and
what grander manifestation of himself could there be than in
the healing of misery in this nineteenth century, as he is said
to have done in the first? It is impossible that the relief of
a suffering creature can be derogatory to the freedom of an
infinitely benevolent Being. Mr. Galton's method of testing
the efficacy of prayer is not so intrinsically absurd as your
writer will have it to be, however matter-of-fact it may seem.
For if, as is asserted, I" the best men in all ages have not'only believed, but acted on the belief, &c., and affirm that
their prayers have been answered; " and if, at the same time,
the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer is true, - it follows, that,
even if the truth of that doctrine cannot be judged of from




Captain  Galtons  Re-enforced.         I61
an individual and special case, we must, by all laws of
probability, be able to discover evidences of its truth by comparison of the averages (and these are of health, long life,
and success) in classes where it has undoubtedly been acted
upon, and where we have every reason to presume it has not.
But, from Mr. Galton's tables and statistics, it is very evident that the very opposite is the fact to what the truth of
the doctrine would lead us to expect.
To quote the spread and power of Christianity, and the
perdurability of the Papacy, as reasons for an opposite conclusion to Mr. Galton on his own line of argument, seems
useless. For it is questionable whether, even in want of
prayer, Christianity would not have spread as rapidly and
extensively as it has done, judging from its history. And,
with regard to the Papacy, any argument drawn from its
continued existence is simply suicidal; for, in the first place,
the popes have not been very notoriously long-lived after
attaining the throne, especially the more enlightened ones,
in spite of prayers for their well-being and long life in this
world. And, secondly, if the Papacy, as a system, is proof
of the efficacy of prayer, - a system of venerable imposture
and self-delusion, according to the verdict of at least onethird Christendom, - it follows that the efficacy of prayer has
no relation to'the intrinsic merits or requirements of those
who pray: therefore it will be better to trust to the providences given us in the knowledge of natural laws than to
the capricious interference which has cursed and may curse
humanity.                                   11




162        Captain  Galton Re-enforced.
Though something might be said on the relations of the
idea of prayer to that of natural law, it does not enter into
the purpose of this letter; but the conclusions to be come to
are, that the ordinary belief in the efficacy of prayer is based
on no better grounds than any other superstition which has
had similar generality of acceptance, say, for instance, the
belief in judicial astrology; and that, the sooner the popular
mind can be disabused of it, the better, if any progress is
to be made towards a permanently elevated condition of
civilized life, by the means given us in the results of physical
and biological science.
I am, sir, &c.
PROTAGORAS.
[We recommend this letter to the consideration of those
who think that only philosophers are discussing these questions, which had better, therefore, be kept out of newspapers.  It is written by a bookseller's assistant in a
provincial town. - ED. " SPECTATOR."]
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."]
Sin, — In your notice of the 3d inst. of Mr. Galton's
argument for the uselessness of prayer, you quote from him,
without appearing to contradict it, that missionary ships,
which are prayed for, are no safer than slavers, which are
not. Is this certain? Many years ago, I heard it stated in
a public lecture by James Montgomery, the poet (not to be
confounded with Robert, or Satan Montgomery), that the




Captain Galton on the Efficacy of Prayer. i63
annual ship to the Moravian missionary stations among the
Esquimaux had never been lost in a period of about a hundred years, and was insured at half the usual rate for ships
voyaging in the same seas, though I presume that Lloyds is
as devoid of religious sympathies as the Stock Exchange.
I think this fact worth noting, though my belief that God
hears and answers prayer does not rest on this kind of
evidence.             I am, sir, &c.,
JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY.
OLD FORGE, DUNMURRY, CO. ANTRIM, Aug. 5, 1872.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR.]
SiR, -Your reviewer, last week, repeatedly gives me a title
of his own invention by styling me " Captain." I have
never been in the army or navy in my life.
I am, sir, &c.,
FRANCIS GALTON.
42 RUTLAND GATE, Aug. 4, 1872.
[We had momentarily, but stupidly, confused Mr. Galton's history with that of a relative who was in the engineers. - ED. " SPECTATOR."]








-VII.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
THE SPECTATOR.
FIRST, are presented letters which appeared in "The Spectator,"
No. 1,232, Aug. 17, by H., by C. W. Stubbs, by E., by E. D. W., and
by Silvanus, pp, 1042-1044.
Second, the editorial of the same number, p. 1038.
Third, a letter from Francis Galton, which was published the following week, Aug. 24, p. 1073.
Fourth, letters from "The Spectator" of Aug. 31, by John Macnaught, by C. W. Stubbs, by A. Babington, by J. W. F., and by W. Y.,
pp. 1104-1106.
Fifth, a letter by M. G. G., p. 1139, and an editorial of Sept. 7,
which summed up and closed the discussion on the part of "The
Spectator."








VII.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, -Because of the uniformity of Nature, and our confidence in the continuousness of the action of cause and
effect (which is what our belief in uniformity amounts -to),
it does not surely follow that there is nothing in the whole
universe that is not under the law of cause and effect. That
is the conclusion to which natural science, in the hands of
the physicists, to use that odious word, is more and more
striving to drive us; and it is a conclusion which rests upon
a very partial induction of the facts before us. This latest
attempt, for example, to disprove the efficacy of prayer by
an appeal to experience rests wholly on the assumption, that,
if prayer have any validity, it, also, must be reducible under
the category of cause and effect. That there may be anywhere in the universe a power outside of the causal chain
able to modify the results of the action of the various links
in that chain, without altering and varying the connection,
so as to reduce all to arbitrariness, is a conception that seems
167




I68          The  Efficacy of Prayer.
utterly alien to the modern man of science. And yet what
is the exercise of man's free-will but precisely a fact of that
kind? If the universe be a storehouse of merely physical
powers, which must, under certain unvarying relations,
always produce the same precise connections and effects, -
an evolution that goes on unalterably and unaltering, - obviously there is no room for man to modify by his action the
results of these relations and connections. The writer of
the article in last week's " Spectator," signed " Protagoras"
puts the matter in a somewhat crude way, but still fairly and
faithfully, as it is generally conceived by the physicist.
There are, he says, certain assimilating forces in the human
body; and the duration of the latter depends upon its assimilation of certain external elements, or consequent rejection
of certain others. Now, if the doctrine of prayer be true,
it must imply that these powers may be increased, if suitable
appeal be made to the Deity. No more surely than the fact
that man is able to introduce new directions in the connections of forces, that he can vary and alter indefinitely the
relations in which they are to each other, and to independent
objects, implies such a power. The whole history of scientific discovery is a record of the application, by man, of the
laws and forces of Nature under such conditions as bring
altogether new results; and yet there is no change in the
character of the connection, and no addition of new elements
other than those generated through the action of these forces
themselves in their new conditions. All the elements that




The Efficacy of Prayer.             I69
render a steam-engine possible were in the world before
Watt's great discovery; and that discovery has not made any
difference in the regularity and order of the causal connection of the forces employed. But a new result has been
obtained simply by the new direction given to the action of
these -forces, by which man's power over Nature has been
immeasurably increased, and he has been enabled to do what
was before quite inconceivable. If such power over Nature
rest with man, who is to modify so largely the action of
natural laws and'forces, by controlling them to the extent
of giving to them new applications, why should it be deemed
impossible for an infinitely higher intelligence, presumably
the Author of these forces, to do the same? It is altogether
fallacious to suppose that an answer to prayer, say, for
restoration of health, can only be given by direct interposition, in the way of adding some new force or element to the
chain of causes and effects by which physical existence is
constituted. If man is capable of varying and modifying
the action of these forces, so as to bring out new and different results by giving to them new directions, and if man
is capable of receiving influence from God, why is it absurd
to suppose that God may answer his prayers by suggesting,
or leading to the suggestion to him, of the use of such means
as will give the direction to the natural forces that must
conduct to his restoration? In that case, the answer to
prayer would give a fresh illustration of the reality of the
connection of these- forces, instead of being an arbitrary




170          The Efficacy of Praye'r.
violation of it. The difficulty does not lie on the side of
Nature or its order, then, but on the side of the relations
between God and the human spirit. Yet once admit the
existence of these two, and there is surely no inherent
improbability in the assumption that such relations do exist,
and that, therefore, man may ask, and God may answer. If
a man may ask a fellow-man to do something for him, which
implies the bringing-out of a result different from what the
chain of cause and effect would do if left to itself, why may
he not ask God to do so?
I am surprised that so acute a thinker as "' Protagoras"
seems to be should fancy there is any thing in his argument
from the divine perfection against prayer. " Has he [i.e.,
God] made [he asks triumphantly] the universe in such a
way as to necessitate his occasional extra-interference in
ways at variance with the order [in which] he has ordained
[that] phenomena should occur to us? " It is altogether an
assumption that answers to prayer necessitate interference
with any order. As we have seen, it is supposable praver
may be answered through and by means of the natural order,
by simply using it in the way man does when he bends the
order of phenomena to his own purposes. In regard to the
supposed argument from the perfection of the divine plans,
which should require no interference, why am I to assume
that it is not part of these very plans that certain results
should be brought about by prayer?  If man has been gifted
with such a constitution of mind and character, that prayer




The Efficacy of Prayer.              17 
is needed to educate its highest capacities (and even MIr.
Galton does not deny the possibly beneficial subjective
influence of prayer), then the perfection of his Creator's
plan implies that room has been left for such interferences in
the way of guidance and direction as may be involved in
answers to prayer. Nay, it is evident that it may very well
be that only in and through these, as in and through the felt
necessity to worship on the part of man, can the best results,
both of physical and hyperphysical nature, be developed.
Thus we are led to accept efficacious prayer as included in
the divine scheme, without which that would not have been
what it is; and therefore it is absurd to speak of it as an
interference with it.
These objections and answers, however, only touch, as it
were, the fringe of the great question. That remains, as
iinted at the outset, - whether there is nothing in the whole
iniverse but an invariable chain of cause-and-effect connec-;ions. Yet what we have already said disposes entirely of
gr. Galton's argument. On the hypothesis we have venured upon, the interposition of the Deity to restore a patient
o health cannot, from the nature of the act and its instruaents, become a matter of observation.  The causes that
Lave acted upon the physical frame and constitution of the,atient are matter of observation, and therefore, we say, his
estoration is due to them; and the most quick-witted and
harp-sighted of medical attendants could trace nothing but
hem in the sphere of sense-perception. But, because that is




I72           The Efficacy of Prayer.
so, it by no means, of necessity, follows that the influence of
prayer is excluded. Who is able to affirm, in any case whatever, that certain suggestions leading to modifications of
medical treatment, or certain minute mental and spiritual
influences,- giving a special direction, it may be, to the
patient's thoughts, and in the subtle association of mind and
body, thereby giving opportunity for the vis medicatrix in
the latter to operate, - are not due to Him without whose care
no sparrow falls to the ground?  We may give full scope to
all the efforts of scientific men, and yet the region in which
spiritual agencies and influences operate may not be affected
or approximated to in  the slightest measure; because,
unless all our higher feelings and aspirations are a mockery
and a lie, there is a region, above the sphere of cause-andeffect connection, in which free-will rules. Not that freewill implies the power of altering the constitution of Nature
as a realm, or region, of cause-and-effect connections; for,
though it is able to use Nature as its instrument, it can only
do so by respecting its actual constitution. But free-will is
not arbitrariness.  If the higher philosophy of Germany
have taught us any thing at all, it is that free-will and reason
are identical; that law and liberty are reconciled as being
one and the same principle, viewed from different sides. It
is in the nature of reason to act rationaly; and it would not
be to act rationally to ignore the law or order, which is
the rational element in the external world. The highest, the
only true freedom, which is as far apart as possible from the




-The Efficacy of Prayer.           173
arbitrariness of self-will, consists in such rational action; so
that there can be no dread of the recognition of freedom
leading to superstition.  The reason within  rejoices in
recognizing the reason that is without. The latter, I say, is
seen in the connection of cause and effect in Nature; for the
constancy and universality of that relation can only be
derived from reason, from thought. Hence the philosophers
of mere experience have been driven to admit that cause
and effect may not hold good as a universal law. It is Mr.
Mill who has been guilty of the absurdity of averring the
possibility that there may be regions in space where the law
of cause and effect no longer holds good, and where two and
two may not make four. Only from thought can we derive
a law of universal necessity in things. But, because it is the
law of reason that the relation is universally necessary in
things, it does not follow that it is the same in what is the
ruler, the master, the lord over things, viz., in thought itself,
in the reason of an intelligent Being, which, as above all
things, is capable of using and moulding these, and the order
in them, for its purposes. But, if we once admit this,and unless by reducing man to a machine, and depriving
ourselves of all warrant for affirming even an order in the
universe of matter itself, we must admit so much, - we can
no longer deny that free intelligences, from a point outside
of and above the chain of causes and effects in Nature, may
modify the action by changing the directions of the causes
and effects, and by introducing fresh combinations of them.




174           The Efficacy of Prayer.
And if that be so; if man, as a free intelligence, can do so
much, - surely we cannot refuse a like power to God, if we
admit a God at all. Once this point is reached, there can
be no room for a denial of the possibility of the efficacy of
prayer through the influence of the Supreme Will upon
inferior wills. The actuality of its efficacy is, of course, a
further question; but the kind of evidence adduced by sceptical physicists in questioning, as well as the kind of
evidence they require to prove it, are, I think I have shown,
alike and altogether beside the question.
I am, sir, &c.,
H.
[TO THE EDITOR OF  "THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR,-The question as between science and theology
with regard to the efficacy of prayer is not, as you very
justly pointed out last week, one which is engaging the
attention of philosophers alone: it has a very near interest
for men of all classes. It is all the more necessary, therefore, that we should keep ourselves quite clear as to what
the exact point at issue is, and how much is involved in its
retention or renunciation.
There are, as it appears to me, two entirely different views
which may be held as to what is meant when we speak of
God as granting a direct answer to our prayers. It is most
important, I think, in this controversy that those two views
should be kept perfectly distinct.
First, there is the view, held, I suppose, by a very large




The Efficacy of Prayer.               175
majority of Christian people, that the man who is in the
habit of praying to God with sincerity and faith has a right
to expect that external circumstances will be ordered by the
Deity in direct answer to his prayers.
Secondly, there is the view, held by an increasing number
of thoughtful Christians, that, although God does undoubtedly grant a direct answer to the sincere prayer, yet that he
does so, not by alteration of external circumstances, but by
change in the suppliant's relation to circumstance.
In a word, both views imply the belief in direct answer to
prayer; but, in the one case, it is regarded as being brought
about by the alteration of circumstances with regard to the
suppliant's position; in the other, by the alteration of the
suppliant's position with regard to external circumstances.
Those who hold the first view naturally base their argument
on the literal acceptation of such words as those in Matt.
xxi., "' All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," and are honestly content to explain
all failure in their petitions by assigning it to their own want
of faith; while, on the other hand, those who uphold the
second view, rejecting a literal interpretation of our Lord's
words, citing his own prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
(which certainly, on the first hypothesis, must be regarded as
a failure) in proof of their position, are content to insist on
a rational interpretation of the letter, in accordance with the
essential spirit of Christ's teaching.
Practically, of course, with the majority of Christian




176           The Efficacy of Prayer.
people, neither of these views is held quite separately or
accurately; but we are more generally suffered to modify
one another according to circumstances. Such inaccuracy?
of course, is natural enough; but, at the same time, it is, in
all possibility, owing to the fact that such views are not kept
quite independent one of another, that, in some instances
(noticeably in the " Contemporary" letter), science has
taken up a mistaken position. It is, of course, with the first
view only, that science can claim any legitimate right to
express' an opinion. As one of your correspondents rightly
said,'" It is special prayer only, not all prayer, that is really
obnoxious to the attacks of science." The assertion of
actual change in external circumstances offers at once a
definite field for experiment, and, therefore, for the operation
of scientific reasoning. But with the second -view, at
present, at any rate, as it appears to me, science has simply
no power whatever to deal.  How far, and in what way,
man's emotions may be influenced or controlled by man's
own will, is surely a question which neither physics nor
metaphysics have as yet at all satisfactorily explained, much
less, therefore, how far, and in what way, they may be influenced or controlled by God's will. And this is, of course,
what is involved in the acceptation of the second view.
But, on the other hand, with the first view, as I have said,
science is entirely competent to deal; and, however much
we may be inclined to object to the apparent spirit in which
the question has been raised by the proposer of the experi



The Efficacy of Prayer.              I77
mental prayer-gauge, I think we must honestly allow,
that not only is the attitude of'science with regard to the
efficacy of special prayer a reasonable one, but it is one that
has actually, in this respect, influenced and modified theological opinion.
If it should happen, as a result of this controversy, that
the second view of prayer should be finally accepted as the
most truly in accordance with the spirit of Christianity, it
will not be the first time that theology has gone to school to
science to be taught the true meaning of its own books.
There is a possible result of this controversy which should
not be lost sight of. To the Christian, the triumph of
science on this question wtuld probably be nothing but pure
gain: to the churchman, it would necessarily raise occasions
of some perplexity. In the Book of Common Prayer, there
are not only prayers for special occasions, but prayers whose
form presupposes that view, which, in expecting an answer,
demands a distinct change in the course of natural phenomena. Yet to ask God to send even five minutes' rain, or
to withhold it, science tells us, is to ask for the disarrangement of the whole order of the world, and, therefore, to
demand a miracle. To any one, therefore, accepting the
scientific conclusion with regard to what is called the law of
the conservation of energy, a form of prayer which directly
implies the creation of new force could not be conscientiously
used.. The only legitimate prayer to such a person would be
one which took the form of a petition for a change, not of
12




I78           The Efficacy of Prayer.
external circumstances, but of the relation of the suppliant
to those circumstances.'I do not see any intermediate
position. But, if there be not, surely the clergy of the
Church of England, at any rate, are in this dilemma:
either they must accept that form of prayer which practically
implies the continual working of miracles, or there must
remain a considerable portion of that book which it is their
duty to use in their public ministrations, to which tlfey cannot give an unfeigned or honest assent.  Surely a question
is here raised, infinitely wider and more far-reaching than
any that has resulted in the assertion that there must
necesarily be a schism in the Church, if the reading of the
Athansian Creed is to be left to the option of individual
clergymen.
I am, sir, &c.,
CHARLES W. STUBBS.
GRANBOROUGH VICARAGE, BUCKS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, - Your article on " The Efficacy of Prayer " has
called forth so many letters, that I can hardly expect
you to find room  for mine. If any of your readers were
capable of supposing that the subject is discussed " by
philosophers only," they must be undeceived by this time.
In fact, no question is more continually debated in conversation by persons of all shades of belief and all degrees
of knowledge; and many must have been as grateful to you




The Efficacy of Prayer.             I79
as myself for so good an opportunity of discussion, and
especially for the tone of your own article.
I cannot but think that many (though not all) of the
difficulties the question seems to involve are occasioned by a
strange self-deceit. Do many persons really believe- not
only think they ought to db so, but truly believe - that they
can alter the intentions of the Most High by their entreaties?
If so, how dare they ever open their lips to ask for an.
earthly boon whatever? How dare they ask for the life of
their dearest friend, knowing, as they must, that God only
can tell whether such a favor is not the most utter cruelty?
Who that really had no doubt of the result would ask for
worldly prosperity or success; nay, who would dare to
pray for what he believed to be the most truly religious
object? I cannot believe that any one would really incur
so fearful a responsibility. All the efforts that we make
towards an object will, as we trust, be mercifully frustrated,
if God should see that their success is undesirable; but to
expect him to change from his plans to ours, at our request,
would truly be to believe, that, when we asked bread, he
would give us a stone. As to the question of fact, it seems
to me decided, as far as visible results go, by one circumstance. There is probably no purer or more fervent prayer
offered on earth than the prayer of a mother that her son
may grow up a good man: we can conceive no reason why
it should fail; but the son does not always grow up good.
God forbid that we should therefore suppose her prayer is




I8o           The Efficacy of Prayer.
in vain! but certainly it does not produce a visible answer,
such as a large class of persons think they expect.
The truth I believe to be that many persons have no conception of prayer, except as a request for some specified
favor. They think, truly, that God has promised to hear
prayer: therefore they feel bound to believe that he will
grant the favor. Surely this is not what prayer means. It
is not the intercourse an earthly father desires with his
children. He would have them speak to him of every thing,
-their joys and sorrows, their faults and resolutions, no
doubt, also, their fears and wishes; but he would not have
them speak only when something was to be got, or suppose
him to be inattentive to them, unless he gave them every
thing they asked. So we should make our prayers rather
communion than entreaty. We should tell our Father in
heaven all that we feel, or fear, or wish. If it is important
to us, we know he will not think it too trifling for him to
hear; but to suppose that the getting or not getting a special
boon is the test of his existence, or his love, is a great and
unhappy mistake.
It may be said, that, on this view, we cannot have evidence
from the result of our prayers. We cannot; nor is it to be
expected that we should, - such evidence, at least, as can
be convincing to another person. The theory of visible and
immediate answers raises at least as many difficulties as it
removes. But we who already believe shall find, that, the
more true communion we have with God, the more he be



The Efficacy of Prayer.             18 
comes an actual living Being to our feeling and conviction,
not a mere force to be moved, or not moved, as the case
may be, by another force.
I am, sir, &c.,
E.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, - If your correspondent " Protagoras " finds " the
doctrine of prayer, as popularly held," actually interfering with sanitary reforms in his own town, he may be
right to protest; but he should not assume that scientific
investigations and exposure of " popular" notions of this or
any other subject are the same thing. He should examine
and test the language of the great thinkers - say, such men
as Mlaurice and Bunsen - who have strictly and habitually
asked themselves what they meant by prayer, and who did,
as the result of such inquiry, continue to believe that it had
a meaning, and was no mere popular superstition. He
would then find that the question is one of premises; that its
" scientific " solution depends entirely on. the " scientific"
solution of the previous questions, -- What is God? what is
the relation of man to God.? Prayer may be the utterance of
"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language )but a cry."
But whether that cry has a meaning, depends on whether,
as a fact, that child'" crying, knows his father near."
Or if we contemplate God as a Creator and Sovereign, as
well as a Father, prayer may still have a " scientific"




I82          The Efficacy of Prayer.
reality, if we believe —as many learned and accurate
thinkers have believed, after a life-long investigation of
the subject —that the world has been created, and is
actually governed, by a God. Such a belief no more
necessarily involves a superstitious belief in miraculous
interference with the laws of Nature than does the belief
that the personal guidance and control which Mr. Brassey
exercised over his agents, contractors, and workmen, was
essential to the making of his railways, implies that every
act of -such contract of guidance was a miracle; or that
there is a conceivable, an actual, guidance of the Government of England by Mr. Gladstone, which neither, on the
one hand, leaves the State to work by itself without any
interference, nor, on the other hand, interferes by miracle.
WVhy is the personal guidance of the machinery of the
universe by God less conceivable than the government of
certain portions of it by men? And why should not God
recognize conditions under which men may act with God in
carrying on that government? Prayer has a scientific basis
for those who believe in an actual relationship between God
and man, however true it may, be that many popular superstitions have been raised on that basis. And, if' Protagoras " will investigate the question scientifically, he must
begin with that previous question which underlies it. There
is no real argument between men who are not agreed on
their principles.
I am, sir, &c.,            E. D. WV.




The Efficacy of Prayer.               183
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, - I have read with much interest the letters in your
paper upon  the efficacy of prayer.  I now  venture to
intrude the few following remarks upon that subject, as it
appears to me that your correspondents have entirely overlooked, or not considered, the points to which I wish to draw
attention.
The apparent answering of any prayer is no proof that it
has received the special attention of the Almighty. I believe this will be rendered clear by the following observations: (1.) The existence of a God is considered admitted,
and that his attributes are omnipotence, omnipresence, and
omniscience, infinite love, and infinite perfection. (2.) As
all things emanate from him, he being perfection itself,
it follows that his works must be perfect. Putting aside all
considerations of the morality of man praying to infinite
Perfection to alter creation for his especial benefit and temporary necessity, is it possible for the Almighty to change
what is?  It must be borne in mind the attributes of
God prove that alteration of his plans is impossible, because
to presume the possibility of change is at once denying the
infinite perfection of the Almighty. (3.) Can man, remembering always the attributes of God, deny, that, when a
prayer has presumably been answered, the same results
would not have followed, had the prayer never been uttered?
If he is infinite perfection, he must have created all that is




I84          The Efficacy of Prayer.
requisite for man; and to request him to provide other than
that which exists implies a complete want of faith in his
eternal providence. Of course, if these attributes should be
denied, God is at once reduced to the position of a more - or
less powerful, and more or less beneficent Being, according
to the ideal of any individual.
I am, sir, &c.,
J. SiLVANUS.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
WE have before us a very curious proof of the interest
taken by the educated and semi-educated class in the
subject of the efficacy of prayer. It is a heap of letters,
all about prayer, sent us for publication in two days, which
would fill, as nearly as we can calculate, sixteen pages of
this journal. One or two of them, we are bound to say, are
mere sermons; but the majority are attempts, sometimes by
half-educated men, at a frank and close reasoning-out of the
matter. As "The Spectator," though deeply interested in
theological questions, is not specially devoted to theology,
and is desirous of treating it from the lay observer's point
of view, we must refrain from publishing more than a selection from this mass, and can hardly hope that the excluded
will approve, or understand, the principle upon which the
selection has been made. The majority of the letters before
us are written, as was natural, from the supernatural side;
but a great many of them bear trace of a feeling we had




The Efficacy of Prayer.             I85
scarcely expected to find, -a strong desire on the part of
many persons who believe in a sentient God, and of some
who are apparently Christians, to get rid of the difficulties
of the subject by reducing, without denying, the efficacy of
prayer. They seem to be aware of the direct connection
between the question of the possibility of an answer to supplication, and the existence of a sentient Being ruling the,
universe, and want to retain prayer as a spiritual exercise,
but to find for it another and sufficient spiritual use. Of
course, they are in part successful. It is quite true, as one
correspondent suggests, that the emotion of prayerfulness, or
state of being prayerful, is, when sincere, beneficial; and
true also — though not, we fear, absolutely true in all cases
and with all men — that the habit of prayer, even when
ineffectual, would tend to produce a habit of submissiveness
to the divine Will, which might be the very highest attitude
of the human soul. It is also true that the majority of
believers have a belief as strong as an instinct, that, in praying, they are obeying the will of God, — "co-operating"
with him, as one clergyman expresses it, — and therefore
renewing their moral vigor; and truest of all, that, without
prayer, there can be no sense of individual communion with
God, the point which Canon Liddon, in his collection of lectures just published, seems disposed to press so strongly.
But then it is also true, that if prayer is never answered,
and never can be answered, and we know that it never is or
can be, this becomes a tainted method of spiritual exercise,




I86          The Efficacy of Prayer.
tainted with conscious unreality and sham. A prayer is
more than a monologue in the vocative case; and to join in
a long series of supplications, or to make supplication for
one's self, while fully confident that no supplication will be
heard or attended to, is a great deal too much like lying
solemnly.
Moreover, it seems to us that most of these arguments are
beside the point at issue, certainly beside that one raised
in the publications with which the controversy commenced.
The physicists are not trying to assert that prayer, or any
other mental operation, may not be attended with benefit of
some kind, -just as the lamb's prayer, the bleat, may; in
some unknown way, tend to relieve its suffering, -but to
show that to expect an answer is unreasonable to absurdity;
is to expect that the continuity of cause and effect - which,
as far as observation extends, is never broken, and, as they
maintain, never can be broken - shall be violated for the
sake of an individual. This is clearly the argument upon
which the whole discussion turns, and the one which impresses
itself even upon the orthodox; for it is this which, in all their
solutions, they are endeavoring —of course quite unconsciously - to evade. We cannot see why they should evade
it, or why -admitting fully and earnestly, as we have
throughout tried to do, the magnitude of the intellectual
difficulties which surround the whole subject —they should
feel more difficulty in ascribing to God this power, than, say,
the power of creation, or conversion, or any other of the




The Efficacy of Prayer.             187
actions which we habitually, and, as we think, on good evidence, ascribe to the divine Will. If he exists at all, - and
we are just now addressing those who admit that cardinal
proposition, -he must have some power; and the difficulty
of comprehending or defining the limits of that power is not
greater in one case than in another. Our Buckinghamshire
correspondent, for example, seems to be greatly perplexed
by the prayer for rain, and suggests, though he does not
quite say, that this, at all events, must be ineffectual.
Why? That it'would usually be ineffectual may be granted
at once; for it would be nine times out of ten one of those
selfishly stupid prayers, which no Being at once good and
wise could properly be expected to grant. For why, on any
theory of his love, should he grant John's desire, when to
grant it is to refuse Joseph's? But we could imagine a
tenth time, a time of drought in a tropical land, when the
heavens were as brass, and the earth as iron, and all hearts
and brains absorbed in the. desire of rain till the spiritual
life was in danger of being overmastered as by a lunacy,
when the selfish supplication might become a true and an
unselfish, and even a spiritual prayer; and why should it not
be answered then? To say it might not be is reasonable;
for to say that God knows best whether it is better for his
usual modes of action to be supplemented by a new one, or
for the people of Orissa to perish, is not to ascribe to him
any incredible degree of wisdom, -little more than the wisdom of a great general who lets a regiment perish that a




I88          The Efficacy of Prayer.
people may be free; but to say that he could not answer it
is, at all events, to deny him creative power, to go infinitely
further than a very strong physicist, Dr. Carpenter, is, in
his inaugural address to the British Association, prepared
to go. He, unless we mistake him in a curious way, holds
that the final end of physical research may be, and probably
will be, the discovery that a mind was the final cause; and,
if it can be the cause of matter, why not of the phenomena
of matter? It may be terribly difficult for the mind to conceive of'God creating a cloud, or modifying by volition the
physical conditions of a sick man; but it is not more difficult
than to conceive his creating any thing at all which did not
exist before, or changing the operations of a man's mind by
invisible agency, or issuing the law according to which, even
on Dr. Carpenter's apparent theory, Nature maintains her
immutability. That legislation surely is a. high effort of
absolutism. That is no answer to Dr. Tyndall, or the writer
he edits, or to Mr. Galton; but it seems to us a complete
answer to any one who accepts a sentient Creator, even
though he thinks, in defiance of common justice, that a
creator may create, yet be irresponsible to himself for the
fate of the created. Why God should so exert his authority
at the request of a man is a different matter, depending on
the proof that the creative mind must establish, and does
establish, relations with his creatures, which, in some way,
must be sympathetic or beneficent; but that he can is
included in the argument that he is Creator.  The diffi



The Efficacy of Prayer.             I89
culty of miracle - that is, of the intervention of a power
whose laws we have not ascertained — is but part of the
difficulty of conceiving a creating Being at all. No conceivable miracle is equal to that implied in the words Longinus
thought so sublime: " And God said,' Let light be.' Light
was."  It is not more difficult to conceive that God blighted
a fig-tree, man needing that particular lesson, than to conceive that he issued and maintains a law, under which all
fig-trees, under certain conditions, must be blighted.  Mr.
Silvanus's retort, that the fig-tree could not be blighted
except under the conditions, because departure from the
conditions would imply their imperfection, which, they being
God's work, is impossible, is either no retort at all, or is
only a restatement of the old difficulty of free-will.  If
God cannot change aught of his eternal law, he is not free,
is more bound than me. But why is it incredible that one of
the eternal conditions of matter should be amenability to
the volition, which, on Mr. Silvanus's theory, created it?
A correspondent in another page has put this point, as we
think unanswerably: " In regard to the supposed argument
from the perfection of the divine plans, which should require
no interference, why am I to assume that it is not part of
these very plans that certain results should be brought about
by prayer? If man has been gifted with such a constitution
of mind and character, that prayer is needed to educate its
highest capacities, - and even Mr. Galton does not deny the
possibly beneficial subjective influence of prayer, -then the




Igo          The Efficacy of Prayer.
perfection of his Creator's plan implies that room has been
left for such interferences, in the way of guidance and direction, as may be involved in answers to prayer. Nay, it is
evident that it may very well be that only in and through
these, as in and through the felt necessity to worship on the
part of man, can the best results, both of physical and
hyperphysical nature, be developed." At all events, it cannot be fair to accept the power of God to create, and deny
his power to modify his creation. Nor, so far as we can
see, is it fair to talk of the magnitude of any effort of the
supreme volition. We do not know what is great or little to
God; do not even know, that, in his creative work, there can
be inequality of effort.
We are most anxious not to introduce any reference to
Scripture, which, to most of our opponents, would seem
beside the mark, and, to some, the taking of an unfair
advantage; but it has interested us to notice that the
" refusal" of Christ's prayer in Gethsemane has, in some
minds, definitely decreased the idea of the efficacy of prayer.
Mr. Stubbs mentions this; and accidentally another correspondent asks if it is not proof against the Orthodox view;
and a third quotes it as proof positive that earnestness is no
guaranty for acceptance. As Christ prayed only as a human
being, as his prayer was that God's will might be done, and
as his prayer in his agony was contrary to the perpetual
interest of all mankind, the illustration seems a weak one;
but we want to ask why it is so universally asserted that tho




The Efficacy of Prayer.              9 I
prayer was rejected? The prayer was not to be relieved
from death, but from the cup of bitterness; and it seems to
us, accepting, of course, the literal accuracy of the record,
that the narrative may mean that it was answered; that the
certainty which overcomes that bitterness had arrived when
he conveyed the assurance to the penitent thief, though it
was again lost in physical agony; that in the words, "It
is finished," was announced a new and full conception of
the whole plan of his life, which must have extinguished forever all that was' of bitterness in the cup. That is, perhaps,
but a " view; " but it is at least sufficiently borne out to
deprive an argument upon which too much stress is laid by
many minds of its operative force.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SI, - I thank you for having opened your columns to
discussion upon the efficacy of prayer, and to have so
well acted as moderator, in a matter which deeply touches
the feelings of many men, as to have enabled the discussion
to be carried on with mutual forbearance and respect on the
part of the disputants.
fMy object in writing now is to endeavor to confine the discussion to what I conceive to be strategic points, though they
are commonly neglected, and are usually but indirectly
aimed at, by your numerous correspondents. Those who
deny tile right of appeal to statistical inquiries upon the effi



I92           The Efficacy of Prayer.
cacy of prayer assume~ implicitly two propositions, both of
which I gainsay, and which I will now explicitly state.
They assert, first, that the desire to pray is intuitive to
man (let the word pass, for the moment); secondly that
the cogency of intuition is greater than of observation. I
maintain, on the other hand, that the desire to pray is not
intuitive, and, even if it were, that the cogency of intuition
is less than that of observation. As regards the meaning I
assign in this letter to " intuitive perceptions," I am perfectly willing to accept the widest definition my adversaries
can reasonably desire. I do not wish to haggle about narrowing the limit: it is in no way necessary to my argument
that I should do so, therefore I will concede enormously, and
will allow that all perceptions or feelings strongly developed
in the average man may be reckoned as intuitive to the
human race. Now, I assert that the desire for prayer is not
one of these feelings, but that it is an artificial creation of
theologians; also that the class of similar feelings which are
intuitive are such as obedience to dreams, incantations, and
witchcraft, fear of the evil eye, belief in demoniacal possessions, exorcising, coercion of an angry spirit by some tomtom ceremony, fetish-worship, and taboo. The savage does
not pray by natural inclination; but the missionary teaches
him to pray; and as, at the same time, he preaches to him
on the existence of a God who listens to prayer, precept to
pray is a logical sequence of that instruction. The savage
believes in what the missionary tells him, because the mis



The Efficacy of Prayer.              193
sionary is avowedly a more instructed man than himself in
many things, and he is certainly in earnest: therefore the
missionary's deity is accepted by the savage, and the converted heathen is taught to pray.
In modern civilization, the action of the mother upon the
belief and habit of the child resembles, in many respects, that
of the missionary upon those of the savage. She tells him
loving tales about God's watchful jare, and of his answers
to those who kneel and speak to him; and she joins his little
hands together, and sets him on his knees, and teaches him,
with caressing earnestness, to pray for temporal blessings,
from the very dawn of his intelligence. What wonder that
this nursery theology should pervade his life, and that it
should be so associated with his deepest feelings that he
should at last believe it to have been intuitive? His belief
is confirmed by the events of his after-life; for, on all its
solemn occasions, it, is the habit for the clergyman to step
in, and to consecrate them by prayer. He is present by the
death-bed, by the marriage-altar, and by the baptismal font;
he usually superintends early instruction; and he has by
custom the opportunity and unrestrained right of preaching
and praying before large congregations on every seventh day.
Again I ask, What wonder is it that a habit of prayer, and a
sense of its necessity, should be formed, which seem, until
their sources have been analyzed, to be one of primeval
origin?
My second point is easily disposed of; namely, that, even
13




194          The Efficacy of Prayer.
if the belief in prayer were intuitive, its cogency ought to
be considered inferior to that which is prompted by the
observation of facts. My argument is this, - I do not care
to go into the metaphysics of the matter, but would simply
point out that the very theologians who insist on the supreme
authority of religious intuition are precisely the men who
have already most prominently denied it in practice. Their
predecessors at the time of the Christian era, and for hundreds of years subsequently, nay, even men of the present
time in' Catholic countries, have believed in the divine origin
of dreams and auguries, in ordeal and in duel, in lots after
prayer, in blessing and in cursings, in witchcraft, in miraculous cures, in demoniacal possessions, and in exorcisms.
All this the theologians of the present English Church have
quietly suppressed as of " superstitious" origin. They
also complacently ignore that their predecessors have been
beaten along their whole line by statistical inquiries; for it is
by more or less unconscious use of statistics that the belief
in ordeal, duel, augury, and the rest, has disappeared; and,
now that theologians are summoned on statistical grounds
to surrender a belief which I have shown to have much
less claim to be considered as intuitive, they start with
naive indignation, as at a previously unheard-of and most
unreasonable interference. You will observe that the views
advanced in this letter could be much more strongly enforced
by an elaborate essay; but " sapienti verbum sat," and I
write concisely, at the risk of weakening my case, in order




The Efficacy of Prayer.              I95
to induce those who may answer me in your columns to be
equally concise and pointed.
I am, sir, &c.,
FRANCIS GALTON.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, — Mr. Galton's interesting letter in your paper of
yesterday induces me to trouble you with a few observations in reply to that gentleman, and on the subject generally.  With reference to your correspondent's first point,
must it not be conceded, that, even though prayer be not
intuitive, it may be effective of its proper purposes? Hardly
any one would maintain that the multiplication-table or the
47th proposition of the first book of Euclid come to man
intuitively; but yet they are very effective means for the
accomplishing of certain ends. Similarly, prayer may be
efficacious, even though it be, as Mr. Galton thinks, the
result of'instruction, and not of intuition.
If this be so, one need not, in this connection, examine
your correspondent's other point, touching the comparative
cogency of intuition and observation. But now, to come to
the great question of the efficacy of prayer, and to the challenge to have a ward in some hospital set apart as a prayertest.
So far as one prays to achieve some purpose one's self, it
may probably be assumed, and will scarcely be questioned,




I96           The Efficacy of Prayer.
that earnest desires, reverently stated before God as even a
supposed friend, will be purified of some unattainable and
unreasonable cravings; and the same process of stating
desires to one's God will strengthen resolution, and will
insure a wiser selection of means for attaining the wishedfor end. To this extent, then, perhaps, it may be allowed
that prayer is efficacious.
But then there is intercessory prayer. What of it?  May
we not say, that so far as it is employed in the manner
sketched above, and so far as it sets the petitioners to work
devising and executing the best methods for superinducing
health and happiness and good morals for those on whose
behalf supplications are made, to this extent prayer is efficacious?  But limits to its effectiveness become more and
more perceptible. With reference to good wishes before
Heaven, for ourselves and for our neighbors, the poet's
words are in no small measure true: -
"And all your views may come to nought
When every nerve is strained."
So, again, but more obviously still, when prayers are made
for rain, or dry weather, or success in war, or any such
matter, opposing entreaties are morally certain to be
addressed to the Deity; and both sets of desires cannot be
accomplished at the same time and place; so that, supposing, as we may, each petition to come from equally acceptable
hearts, here is another source of limitations to the efficacy of




The Efficacy of Prayer.             I97
prayer. Something might be urged to the effect that the
praying farmer will be most provident in varying his crops,
and doing the best that can be done to make hay while the
sun shines. But those who doubt the efficacy of prayer
would reply, that it is the wisdom, and not the piety, of the
agriculturist, that secures his crop; or the sternness, and not
the religion, of the Cromwellian, that wins the battle.
Besides, if we' pass from prayer generally, to Christian
prayer in particular, must not the widest hopes and precepts
and promises of the New Testament be interpreted and limited by the fact that the Master himself, when he prayed,
repeatedly and with intensest earnestness, for deliverance
from a death of anguish and ignominy to himself accompanied by wretched sin in those around him, only prayed conditionally:' If it be possible;" " nevertheless, not my will,
but thine be done"? Surely Christian prayer for whatsoever we wish in Christ's name, the " effectual, fervent prayer
of a righteous man," can only be addressed to the heavenly
Father with this same conditionality attached, by implication
or expressly, to its every sigh, its every thought, its every
word. But if this be the very nature of Christian prayer;
if we can only ask recovery of health for ourselves or others,
if such be the Father's will, -what becomes of the proposed
test by a hospital ward?  Christian prayer must be for all
the wards and all their patients, that they may all recover, if
God will. As likely as not, it may be in his wisdom that
the ward not allotted to the necessarily non-Christian suppli



I98           The Efficacy of Prayer.
cations shall have the larger proportion of recoveries. Look
at it as we may, the test shows itself to be inapplicable.
And yet it may be held, not as a matter of miracle, in the
popular conception of that term, but as a result of common
observation, that in the case of two hospitals, one of which
is conducted in careful but non-religious ways, and the other
in careful and Christian ways, the patients in the latter
would, generally, gain peace of mind and hope in such wise,
that they would be more likely to recover health than the no
less skilfully tended sufferers in the former.
To sum up, this letter is intended to maintain, that,
whether the desire to pray be intuitional or acquired, prayer
is, in a large measure, effective in attaining the direct objects
prayed for; and, where this may not be, it-soothes the mind,
anrd strengthens the suppliant for enduring manfully that
which is the inevitable behest of beneficence; and, yet further, this letter maintains, that, apart from Christian prayer
necessarily involving such efforts for the objects prayed for
as would be credited with the special cures in the ward-test
contemplated (if that test were otherwise possible), it is
simply and absolutely impossible, by reason of the conditionality which attaches as an essential characteristic to all
Christian prayer.
I am, sir, &c.,
JOHN MACNAUGHT.
LoNDoN, Aug. 25, 1872.




The Efficacy of Prayer.              199
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, —I must confess to have experienced a certain
amount of difficulty in apprehending the exact force of Mr.
Galton's argument with regard to what he considers " strategic points" in the present discussion.
He asserts that those who deny the right of appeal to statistical inquiry upon the efficacy of prayer implicitly assume
two propositions; viz., that the desire to pray is intuitive,
and that the cogency of intuition is greater than observation.
These two propositions he proceeds to disprove.  Now,
granting, for the moment, that he has succeeded in doing so,
I do not clearly see how he considers that he has advanced
his position with regard to the inefficacy of prayer. It
appears to me that Mr. Galton's argument is entirely a work
of supererogation.
I am not aware that those who profess belief in the efficacy
of prayer are under the necessity of arguing that the reason
of holding such a belief is a matter of intuition with them.
The reasonable Christian, no more, I suppose, than the scientific man, is liable to maintain that a proposition which is
not of the nature of an axiom is incapable of proof. Yet
Mr. Galton's letter seems to be based on a contrary opinion.
The process of his reasoning is very simple. He first makes
the assumption that those who oppose his view consider
intuition to be the only ground for prayer. He proceeds to
prove that the desire to pray is not intuitive. This he considers equivalent to proving that the belief in the efficacy of




200           The Efficacy of Prayer.
prayer is absurd.  Surely the demonstration is not quite
complete.
The objection of those who deny the right of appeal to
statistical inquiry in this matter is not that such a method is
an appeal to experience, when it should be an appeal to
intuition, but, rather, that it is an appeal to only one branch
of experience, and that a branch which science is not competent to investigate. If Mr. Galton means to maintain that
there is nothing which is not within the range of scientific
inquiry, he should say so. The discussion would be much
simpler.  To assert that there is no efficacy in prayer,
because there is no God to pray to, would be a plain enough
statement. Perhaps this is a I" strategic point " in reserve.
I am, sir, &c.,
CHARLES W. STUBBS.
GRANBOROUGH VICARAGE, BUCKS.
[TO THE EDITOR -OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
Si, - Can you allow me space for a few words on the
subject of the " Efficacy of Prayer "?
1. It seems to me that Mr. Galton, and those who think
like him, have, as against the Christian, avoided the main
point at issue. Surely the Christian argues from the existence of a loving Father in heaven to the efficacy of prayer,
and not from the efficacy of prayer to the existence of a
personal God. It is because Christ has revealed to us a
heavenly Father who loves us with a love of which we can
only see a faint reflection in the highest earthly affection,




The Efficacy of Prayer.             20I
that we Christians are emboldened to offer up our petitions
to him- in trustful and childlike confidence. It would be to
me the most glaring contradiction in terms, to believe in a
Deity such as.the God of the New Testament, and yet to
hold, either that he does not heed my prayers, or else that he
cannot answer them if he would. Let Mr. Galton prove to
me that Christianity is an imposture or a delusion, and he
will have no need to pelt me with statistics in proof of the
inefficacy of prayer.
2. Mr. Galton says of his opponents, " They assert, first,
that the desire to pray is intuitive to man." I assert nothing
of the sort in the sense in which Mr. Galton understands the
words. I hold that the desire to pray is "' intuitive " just so
far as the belief in a personal God is "' intuitive," and no
farther. And this belief in a personal God I shall certainly
hold to be " intuitive " and " necessary," in the highest
sense of the words, in spite of the undoubted fact that the
vast majority of the human race have never held the belief
at all.
3. " But," it is urged, " examine statistics; see with what
difficulties your doctrine of prayer is beset!"   Granted.
But I assert, in reply, that the highest spiritual truths are
precisely those which are and must be beset with the greatest
difficulties. I hold, with Dr. Newman, that the fundamental
spiritual truth, without which all religion can be little better
than a mockery, the belief in a personal God, is the one
point of faith which is encompassed with most difficulty.




202            The Efficacy of Prayer.
Yet this being of a God is a truth which is borne in upon my
mind with a conviction as irresistible as the conviction of
my own existence.  That this subject of the efficacy of
prayer is in many respects painfully perplexing, I readily
admit.  But I venture to think that the Christian solution
is at least as satisfactory as that of the philosopher, who,
like the ancient sophist, insists upon making man the
measure of all things, and metes out with the iron measuring-rod of statistics, and averages the influences of that
Spirit which " bloweth where it listeth."
I am, sir, &c.,
A. BABINGTON.
MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, —If the desire to pray is, as Mr. Galton asserts,
" not intuitive " to humanity, but " is an artificial creation
of theologians," what made the theologians pray? Out of
nothing, nothing can come, is as true of mind as of matter.
If a future missionary should ever find a tribe of savages
who have no belief in invisible power, and no feeling of worship, he will find it a hard, if not a hopeless task, to create
such a feeling. The records of Christian missions clearly
prove that the missionary has not to create the inclination
to pray, but merely to direct the existing worship -of the
unseen to a worthier object. Indeed, Mr. Galton, in admitting fetish worship among the " class of feelings which are
intuitive," virtually concedes his first strategic point; for it




The Efficacy of Prayer.            203
is the instinct or intuition of worship, not its perfection, that
the theologian claims to be common to humanity. If we
believe in the existence of a personal Deity, the Father of
all men, it is surely not too much to suppose that he condescends to every aspiration, however feeble and imperfect, of
the lowest of his children. When men could find no better
mode of judging than the result of a trial by ordeal or duel,
I believe that God, even through such imperfect means, did
often " defend the right."  If he had invariably done so, the
process of mental and spiritual growth would have been
arrested. If it is true generally, as Mr. Galton believes,
that the theologians of the present English Church do not
believe in the divine origin of dreams, miraculous cures,
demoniacal possessions, and exorcisms, so much the worse
for that Church, since its leaders have ceased to believe in
the faith of their Master.
Mr. Galton's second point is, to use his own expression,
easily disposed of. Worship of the invisible is intuitive, if
by intuition is meant that it exists, and has existed in every
age and nation; and it has what Mr. Galton considers the
superior cogency prompted by the observation of facts.
Christians need have no fear of the result of statistical
inquiries as to the efficacy of prayer, provided that the
inquirers are men thoroughly qualified to deal with the subject.              I am, sir, &c.,
J. W. F.




204           The Efficacy of Prayer.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SIR, - The continued interest manifested in this discussion is a very satisfactory indication of moral earnestness
pervading a great number of liberal thinkers.  Will you
accept the following crude contribution to it, qucantanz valeat?
How are we to reconcile the reasonableness of prayer with
the existence of a divine Being, who, from the first, planned
every thing in perfect wisdom, and who, as we must Suppose,
from the first foresaw the whole infinite series of causes and
effects that would be evolved from his creation? Can the
divine purposes be changed?  Can they become different in
the result from what they were in the original intention? We
can scarcely suppose it. How, then, can prayer under any
circumstances be effectual? Perhaps some indication of the
answer may be found in the following considerations.
We conceive all events to have their source in the will of
the divine Mind, and that the " laws of nature " are merely
the expression of that will. Although the divine Mind be
endowed with perfect foreknowledge, we must still conceive
it to be conscious of a succession of impressions, i.e., of a
past, a present, and a future distinct from each other; the
two first only being certain as having existed, the last being
still contingent upon the divine will. It is only from his
knowledge of what that will will be that even God can be
certain as to the future. We must also conceive the divine
Mind to be susceptible of satisfaction (if we may use the
expression) in the evolution and working-out of his plans,




The Efficacy of Prayer.             205
and, in so far, of being influenced and acted upon by what
we may term external causes.
Now, why may not prayer in itself be one of these causes?
May not the perception of the earnest desire of the creature
be a cause acting upon the divine Mind (we need scarcely
say that it is only the thoroughly earnest and sincere prayer
which is entitled to the name)? And may we not go a step
further, and say that every prayer becomes one of the endlesA
series of events, and so must have an effect? — what, or in
what way, is beyond us to know. That the Creator foresaw
that such cause would arise, need not diminish its influence
when it actually arises. It seems only reasonable further to
conceive, that, according as prayer emanates from a mind
more or less in harmony with the divine Mind, so we may
anticipate that the effect will correspond.
I am, sir, &c.
W.Y.
THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR OF " THE SPECTATOR."]
SiR, - Owing to my absence from England on a somewhat
erratic tour, I have only just received "The Spectator"
of the 3d and 10th of this month, - the first containing your
article on the " Efficacy of Player," in answer to Mr.
Galton; and the second, several letters on the same subject.
I hope it is not altogether too late for one more, as there
is an aspect of the question which has not been touched




206           The Efficacy of Prayer.
upon by the others, which I am very anxious to bring before
your readers, as affording the only ground on which belief
in the efficacy of prayer can be held consistently with the
belief in the invariable order of Nature, which is from year to
year extending and strengthening its hold upon all educated
minds. Prof. Tyndall, Mr. Galton, and all other scientific
opponents of the former belief, of course, direct their efforts
to show that prayer is inefficacious over the course of
physical events, and obtain an easy success; first, because,
even in.cases of apparent physical changes in answer to
prayer, it is impossible to prove that they were not mere
coincidences; and, secondly, because their opponents have,
unconsciously, it is true, but not the less surely, as little
belief as themselves in the power of prayer to alter the order
of Nature, where that order is known and manifest. The
most devout believer in prayer would never, in our day,
dream of praying that the sun should be arrested in its
course, though the fate of all that was dearest to him on
earth depended on the prolongation of the day or night.
The habitual and lifelong experience of the invariable order
of the sun's course would be too strong, and the consequent
perception of the magnitude of the miracle required to
change it, too vivid, to allow the idea of praying for it even
to enter the mind. It is clear, that, in every case where the
same certainty of experience existed, the same sense of the
inutility of prayer would follow; and that the only real
difference between the scientifically educated and the unedu



The Efficacy of Prayer.            207
cated mind in this matter is the extent of the range of
phenomena in which respectively they perceive and feel the
immutability of natural order. Were the laws of meteorology, or those which govern disease, ever to become so
thoroughly and universally known as to form part of the
habitual experience of mankind, people would no more pray
for health or fine weather than they pray now for the sun to
halt on its way. They would instinctively recoil from the
arrogant absurdity of asking that a miracle involving
changes in the settled order of the universe should be
worked for their special benefit, which might be the special
disaster of their neighbors. Even now, I believe, the feeling
once expressed by the late Duke of Cambridge, when prayers
for fine weather were being read in church, -" Very proper,
very proper; but it won't come till the wind changes," - is
that of most modern congregations; and few forms of scepticism are more destructive of true religious faith. There is
another and far higher ground than any possible or probable
increase in our scientific knowledge, which will lead to the
disuse of prayer for physical boons, i.e., the higher conception of God, which grows with the growth of moral and
spiritual life, - the conception of him as a perfectly wise and
good Father, to whom we stand in the relation of weak,
blind, and helpless children, superseding the conception of
an omnipotent Autocrat, whose wrath may be propitiated, or
favor won, by the gifts, prayers, or praises of the slaves of
his arbitrary will. The mind to which the former conception




208           The EIfficacy of Prayer.
has become a reality revolts from the ineffable arrogance and
folly of petitions which would dictate to that perfect goodness, and alter the order established by that perfect wisdom.
There can be but one prayer with reference to the outward
events of life5 for him who has faith in God as his Father
and King: " Thy will be done; give me strength to do and
bear it." And here we come to the prayer which is efficacious, to the domain in which prayer is all-powerful, and
never fails of its answer; and that answer is not a matter of
belief, but of knowledge. He who has prayed in agony of
soul, every fibre of his being quivering with dread of the
cup presented to his lips, knows that his prayer is answered,
when the angels of strong patience and enduring faith
descend into his heart, ministering the peace of perfect trust
till he can take the cup with unfaltering hand, and drain it,
saying only, "' Thy will, not mine, be done." He who, in
the dark storm of doubt or temptation, has prayed for light,
only for light to see the truth and the right, knows that his
prayer is answered, when a path becomes visible in which
he is constrained to tread, let it lead where- it may.. And,
when we pray like this, we know that we cannot pray amiss.
There is no earthly blessing which may not be a curse in
disguise; but faith, love, purity, strength to do our duty
even unto death, these must ever remain blessings, the
value of which cannot change with any change of circumstances. Those, again, to whom prayer " is not only
petition, but communion," - they, also, know that their




The Efficacy of Prayer.             209
prayers are answered, when in the stillness of morning or
evening, in the hush of midnight, or the pause in the toil
and turmoil of the day, they lift up their hearts to that
Presence whose holiness shames all impurity, whose love
shames all selfishness, whose ceaseless activity shames all
faint-hearted sloth. To tell all these that they first imagine
the strength, the light, the help, they are conscious of
receiving, and then account for them by imagining a God
who answers prayer, is neither a more nor less valid argument than to gay that we first imagine the impressions we
are conscious of through our senses, and then invent an
external world to account for them. The proof of the
existence of a God in communion with the souls he has
created is of precisely the same kind as the proof of an
external world, and is equally incapable of being demonstrated or disproved.
The question of the efficacy of prayer for the moral welfare
of others - family, country, or race - is not so easy to deal
with. We can have no knowledge that changes we have
prayed for in other minds are really the results of our
prayers. One result we can, indeed, reckon upon; for he
who prays in spirit and in truth for the good of others will
do all that in him lies to promote it: and in this way a
prayerful people —I do not mean a people who say their
prayers - will so far bring about the fulfilment of their own
petitions. All other means by which such prayers become
efficacious are hid from us in impenetrable mystery. This
14




2Io           The Efficacy of Prayer.
only is certain, that no instinct is stronger than that which
impels us to pray for those we love, -impels even those who
never pray for themselves, and have no conscious belief in a
God who can hear and answer prayer. Such an instinct, so
powerful, and so universal, carries with it, to all who believe
in a beneficent Creator, its own proof that it cannot have
been implanted in vain, a miserable mockery of the unselfish
affection which is the divinest thing within us; and beyond
this the understanding cannot go.
I am, sir, &c.
M. G. G.
CnAMOUNI, Aug. 22, 1872.
[This letter must close this correspondence. - ED. " SPECTATOR." ]
THE DISCUSSION ABOUT PRAYER.
A FEW remarks, in conclusion, on the very remarkable
correspondence which we have published, and which we
have suppressed, - mere considerations of space have compelled us to suppress many times as much as we have published, including some very able letters,-concerning the
efficacy of prayer, may, perhaps, bring out the opposite views
taken by the scientific and by the religious mind of this generation, with more clearness than was possible when it began.
In the remarkable paper by Mr. Galton, which recommenced
the discussion, there were two main threads of the argument.
First, Mr, Galton, with happy results for his own case, —




The Efficacy of Prayer.              2 I1
though in perfect conformity with the true statistical spirit,
which always, and quite rightly, endeavors to get free of
the error likely to result from studying individual instances,
and to test general laws by large averages, - appealed to
the results of formulated prayers for the life of kings, for
the grant of grace, wisdom, and understanding to the nobility, and so forth, and showed by figures that those prayers
are by no means answered by any special lengthening of the
life of sovereigns, and appear to be explicitly rejected as
regards the wisdom of the nobility, since insanity - a characteristic the most opposite to " grace, wisdom, and understanding "- is commoner in their caste than in most others.
And Mr. Galton made a strong point of the lives of missionaries. There, he very fairly said, if anywhere, you would
be sure that the ground of the prayer for length of life is
eminently rational and disinterested.  A great part of a
missionary's life is spent in acquiring a thorough command
of the means of communicating with the people he is to convert. Yet missionaries die, like other men, from the effects
of climate, before they have even brought their devout purposes to bear on the people they address. Even if they do
not, there is no supernatural lengthening of their lives.
Their averages of life are not unlike the averages of profane
lives. They, as a class, appear to owe nothing to their
religious purpose, or the prayers for a long career, which
their religious purpose may be supposed to occasion. Stch
was his first point; and it is only fair to add that he did not




212           The Efficacy of Prayer.
assume, but carefully repudiated, any abstract ideas of physical law as bearing on these questions. He was candid
enough to point out, -what some of our correspondents,
who otherwise take Mr. Galton's view, have forgotten or
ignored, —that, apart from the supposed invariability of
physical laws, many means are open to the Christian's Providence of answering such prayers as these through the mere
exertion of influence over the minds of the missionaries, or
other subjects of the prayer. God may keep a man out of
peril of tropical fever, or wreck, or assassination, by simply
so guiding his thoughts and purposes as to restrain him
from exposing himself to the conditions or causes of these
dangers. If he does not so guard us, it is not from any
want of purely spiritual resources for so doing. Mr. Galton's second point was, that there is quite enough to
account for the universal use of prayer, and for the relief
it gives, without supposing  that prayers are answered.
The germ of feeling, he said, which leads to prayer, is
common to the lower animals, especially to mothers which
have lost their young. "There is a yearning of the heart,
a craving for help," he said with a good deal of eloquence
and pathos, " it knows not whence, certainly from no source
that it sees.  Of a similar kind is the bitter cry of the
hare when the greyhound is almost upon her. She abandons hope through her own efforts, and screams- but to
whom? It is a voice convulsively sent out into space, whose
utterance is a physical relief." And he added, in a subse



The Efficacy of Prayer.               213
quent letter printed in these columns, that prayer is in no
other sense than this intuitive with men; and that it acquires
the apparent character of an  imperative instinct, only
through the ascendency of a habit early implanted by the
piety of mothers, or other friends and teachers.
To Mr. Galton's arguments, it has been replied by ourselves, or some of our correspondents, that there is no real
basis such as Mr. Galton is so eager to assume for a statistical treatment of the results of prayer; since, in the first
place, prayers are not mere utterances in the vocative case,
of which any specimen is as good as another, but vary in
proportion to the depth and intensity of the life thrown into
them; so that the very kind of prayers by which chiefly Mr.
Galton tests his case -the formulated prayers for classes of
persons — are, probably, those which partake least of all
of the spiritual essence of prayer. Again: we might have
added that the general prayers in question are not exclusive
prayers, the efficacy of which, if they have efficacy, implies
that the classes named shall have longer lives than other
people, - since all classes are successively included, all " the
siek " and all " the afflicted," until we reach the comprehensive prayer for " all thy people," -but, on the contrary,
they are mere classifications to help the imagination of the
petitioner; in other words, are prayers which would be
answered rather by the greater health, bodily and mental, of
the whole people, than bv any comparative favor to a particular section of them. Further, it has been replied, that, the




214           The Efficacy of Prayer.
intenser and the truer is the spirit of any prayer, the more
completely is a prayer offered in that spirit wholly outside
the reach of classificatory observation, and the less would it
prescribe to God the exact mode in which it should be
answered; so that, even if it could be observed and classified, it would be hard indeed, without cross-examining him
who offered it on the deepest secrets of his spiritual life, to
determine whether it had been answered or not. Finally,
we have observed that the only prayer which we know to have
been offered throughout all the ages of the Christian Church,
from the depth of the Christian heart, - the prayer for the
progress of Christ's gospel, - has been granted in the most
marvellous way, and that against all the a priori probabilities
of the case, if there were no God who answers prayer.  In
relation to Mr. Galton's second thesis, - that though prayer,
so far as it is a blind cry of nature for help, directed it knows
not whither, may be intuitive, yet so far as it is a conscious
spiritual address to a perfect and all-powerful invisible Being,
it is a result of the education (we use the word in its highest
and truest sense) of complex faiths and affections, -there
is, we think, a very general disposition to agree with Mr.
Galton; and we confess that we do not see the bearing of
this part of his argument on his sceptical position. His drift
appeared -to be, " Do not argue that prayer, in your sense, is
inseparable from the higher nature of man. The mere blind
cry for help may be inseparable from that nature; but the
belief in the reality of that help depends on the special line




The Efficacy of Prayer.            215
of development of the intellectual and moral life."  To
which we reply," that, of course, so far as the blind cry
for help is not naturally and essentially connected in man
with the sense of right and wrong, with the transcendent
obligation of doing right, and the need of getting grace to
do it, so far, certainly, intellectual development may fail to
give this blind cry any more certain object than is present
to the lower animals in the agony of their death-spasm;
but, in our opinion, the normal development of the emotion
which sends this instinctive cry into the night for help
is bound up with the growth of moral law within us, and
with the growing faith in the grace and love of a Lawgiver." On this last point, the believers in prayer are, no
doubt, at issue with Mr. Galton, but not many of them, as.far as we can see, on the point which he presented to us. If
disbelief in a God who can give, at the very least, ample
moral power in answer to earnest appeals for it, - and with
it the many physical gifts of which such moral power may be
the source, - is a natural and normal result of the accumulation of experience, inward and outward, then Mr. Galton's
position as to the " intuitive" origin of prayer comes to
something. If not, not.
It will be observed, that, in this account of the opposite
positions taken by Mr. Galton and by his opponents, we have
excluded the somewhat irrelevant discussion, carefully
excluded also -by Mr. Galton himself, as to the means by
which God may answer prayer without miraculous inter



216           The Efficacy of Prayer.
ference with natural laws. We may fairly assume that no
imodest Christian will pray for a miracle for his own particular benefit, or that of his friends, -i.e., for any interference
which would unsettle all other men's confidence in the great
invariable laws known to us, and therefore their trust in the
God of Nature, - nay, even that he could hardly believe it
permitted to a religious mind so to pray. But it does not
follow from this at all that it is permissible to pray for spiritual blessings only. How any clear-headed man can doubt,
that, if'we are to assume "any scope for a real answer to
prayer at all, it can be strictly limited to spiritual blessings,
we cannot see. If God gives what is best for us independently of all prayer, then to pray for even spiritual blessings
is quite superfluous, except on the dishonest theory of
re&acting upon yourself by a kind of dramatic spiritual fiction.
If, as all who believe in prayer suppose, he has, for the sake
of securing free communion between himself and his creatures, thought right to leave many good things ungiven till
they are asked for from the bottom of the heart, in an act of
free intercourse with himself, then, though good- men will
always suspect their prayers for happiness and the supposed
means of happiness much more, and offer them much more
submissively, than their prayers for goodness, it seems to us
impossible to say that it is wrong or useless to include them
in their prayers. As to God's conceivable power of answering such prayers without miracle, M3r. Galton himself points
out how wide and close is the interweaving of the physical




The Efficacy of Prayer.              217
and spiritual, so that, to an all-powerful Being, it is hard to
conceive what even physical ends might not be gained by
mere action on the spirits of men. If, for example, as some
sober observers believe, - we are not implying any belief in
it ourselves, but putting a mere hypothesis, - even heavy
physical objects can be raised, and serious physical ailments
cured, by new forms of purely " psychic " force, it would not
be in the least inconceivable that the climatological causes
of rain itself might be controlled without " miracle" by the
agency of prayer: At all events, we certainly know far too
little of the interweaving of spiritual with physical laws to
dogmatize about the impossibility that God should answer
earnest and humble prayers for even physical blessings without miracle. Undoubtedly, however, the whole strength of
the belief in prayer centres on that conscious and imperious
need of man for spiritual and moral help, which makes prayer
to the Source of all righteousness a vital function of his
inner life, —a need which may often justify, and oftener
excuse, the prayer for physical blessings, such as the life of
those dear to us, or even much meaner things, so far as
these seem really bound- up with the deepest needs of the
spirit.
It will be said, with perfect truth, that this review of the
controversy with Mr. Galton only comes to this,- that
while his statistical argument against the efficacy of prayer
goes for very little, or, to give our own true valuation of it,
for nothing, the argument on our own side, being merely a




218          The Efficacy of Prayer.
priori, has no force for those who look at the matter, as Mr.
Galton does, as a mere case for impartial investigation by
the methods of inductive science. And this we freely admit.
We utterly deny that all truth is attainable by the same
avenues. We do not doubt that MIr. Galton could disprove
the " efficacy" of (human) love quite as successfully (or
unsuccessfully) as the efficacy of prayer. We feel little
doubt, for instance, that beautiful faces have, on the whole,
attracted to themselves more love, both at home and abroad,
than homely faces; and, very likely, Mr. Galton could prove
beyond all doubt that the owners of beautiful' faces have
reaped from the love thus lavished upon them much more
anguish and calamity than joy. If, however, Mr. Galton
were to argue from this that human love has no " efficacy"
to shed gladness on human life, the common sense of mankind would probably laugh him down, and declare that this
was not a region in which, at present at least, statistical
methods can be applied with any kind of advantage. We
say the same of the argument against the " efficacy of
prayer." Apart from the a priori scientific preconceptions
which Mr. Galton himself disowned, but which constituted
all the real attraction of his argument for the great majority
of those who eagerly seized upon it, the statistical method
has just as much applicability to the question of the " efficacy of prayer," as it has to the question of the efficacy of
the human affections to produce happiness, - in other words,
none at all.




Vll.
THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER IN THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE.
BY REV. WILLIAM KNIGHT, DUNDEE.
"" CONTEMPORARY REVIEW," VOL. XXI., JANUARY, 1873, PP. 183-189.
Trns article was made the occasion of the discipline of Mr. Knight
by the Free Church Presbytery of Dundee, of which he was a member. He had previously been tried by the same presbytery on charges
preferred against him for preaching, on invitation, in the Unitarian
chapel in London, of which Rev. James Martineau was minister.
Mr. Knight was censured by the Church court for the view of
prayer here presented. In consequence, he withdrew from the Free
Kirk; and St. Enoch's Church, of which he was minister, followed
him. They joined the Established Presbyterian Church of Scotland,
action being taken by the General Assembly in his favor, and he and
his church were formally received by the Dundee (Established) Presbytery, June 10, 1874.








VIII.
THE FUNCTION OF PRAYER IN THE ECONOMY
OF THE UNIVERSE.
RECENT controversy regarding the function of prayer
in the economy of- the universe has illustrated the
almost chronic tendency of two schools of thought, and the
seemingly inveterate bias which they produce. The reluctance of the religious world to admit that there is a sphere
to which prayer (in the sense of petition) is inherently
applicable, is quite as conspicuous as is the hesitation of the
physicist to concede its legitimacy, and to admit its power
within the spiritual domain. It is natural that those whose
life-work is the investigation of physical law, and whose
researches are rigorously governed by the methods of induction, should wish to prove the value of an alleged power by
definite experimental tests, such as the collection of statistics, or by some process not inferior in accuracy to those on
which all science rests. But it is manifestly unfair to deal
thus with a power which the wisest of their opponents
remove altogether from the sphere of physical causation. It
221




222           The Function of Prayer
is, perhaps, equally natural that those whose deepest experience records that prayer " availeth much," should shrink
from narrowing the area to which its efficacy extends, and,
perceiving that the spiritual and physical forces are interrelated and reciprocal, should be jealous of any encroachment from the physical side. But it is as unphilosophical
for the spiritualist to thrust within the province of the
naturalist a power which is unchallengeable within its own
sphere, as it is for the naturalist to slight a force the rationale of which escapes his physical tests.
The controversy resembles that which has lasted firom the
dawn of speculation between the intuitionalists and experimentalists; in which the disciples of both schools are reluctant to concede the full value of the data in which the
counter-theory takes its rise. It is, indeed, but a subordinate phase of the same controversy, kindred, in this respect,
to that which divides the advocates of evolution from those
who believe in successive incursions of creative force. The
success which has attended the labors of naturalists in
accounting for the origin of species by " natural selection,"
has induced them to extend the operation of the law to the
intellectual and moral nature of man, where (though it
explains subordinate phenomena), in the presence of freewill, it breaks down. While the discussion is exhilarating,
and, the whole controversy a stimulus to patient and accurate
research, collision between the two schools is philosophically
illegitimate, and fruitless of result. In the one system, we




in the Economy of the Universe.           223
see the spiritual protest of the reason and the conscience
against the domination of material law and the paralyzing
sense of necessity, but, in alliance with it, a frequent vagueness of statement, the airiness of mysticism, and occasionally an indifference to facts. In the other, we experience
the healthful recoil of the scientific mind against all rash
ontology, and alleged but unverifiable data, but, along with
it, the frequent collapse of that spiritual instinct which leads
behind the barriers of physical sequence. It is the part
of a wise eclecticism to attempt a reconciliation between the
opposite schools, and, in the question at present brought to
the front (the validity of prayer), to vindicate against the
physicist its function in the economy of Nature, and, against
the ultra-spiritualist, to maintain the invariability of natural
laws, and the irreverence of human entreaty for any interference with these. It is a blot upon our civilization, that,
in the conduct of this controversy, there has been so much
heat and acrimony, and a lack of comprehensive fairness on
either side.
No one, even slightly acquainted with scientific methods
and results, can, for a moment, brook the idea of any interference with the laws of external nature produced by human
prayer. We may add, that (be our knowledge of science
virtually nil) we can scarcely doubt that the amount of
physical force within the universe is incapable either of
increase or diminution, but only of endless modification;
that the physical nexus between phenomena, in their cease



224          The Function of Prayer
less flux and reflux, is never broken; while the order in
which the -phenomena appear is governed by the rigor of adamantine law. The links of the chain of physical sequence
continue to lengthen out interminably, connecting the past
with the present, and uniting the present to the future
infallibly. Catastrophe, the breaking of the chain, is
simply inconceivable. And, so far as we can think of the
complex economy of Nature as a series of pre-arrangements,
they have been adjusted each to each with the completest
mastery. of all possible emergencies. Were they ever altered
at the suggestion of a creature, either they were imperfect
before the suggestion was made, or they were made less
perfect by means of it. If previously perfect, the change
would be undivine; and, if not perfect until the change, we
could with difficulty believe in the perfection of Him who
made it.
This conception of the absolute fixity of physical law is
one which the progress of science has made axiomatic. Belief in an all-comprehending Intelligence, which saw " the
end from the beginning," and " determined beforehand"
the history of every inorganic atom, and the evolution of
each sentient structure, is a postulate of rational theology;
and that, in the guidance of the universe, its great Superintendent acts according to laws " set up from everlasting " is
no less axiomatic. The more vehement opponents of this
doctrine boldly challenge the datum from which it starts;
viz., the invariability of mat6rial law. They say that it is




in the Economy of the Universe.            225
an unproved, and, therefore, an unscientific assertion; that
the sequences which seem to us invariable are so necessarily.
Let us grant that the invariability is not " in the nature of
things."  The calm rejoinder of the physicist is, " We have
no scientific experience to warrant the belief that Nature's
sequences ever are variable;" and, mere experience taken
as our guide, the solution of the question on both sides would
be easy. The efficacy of prayer to quicken and exalt, to
change the character, and elevate human life, is a fact of
consciousness.' On the other hand, we have, now-a-days,
no instance of the suspension of physical law in answer to
prayer. Alike in the physical and moral region, the causal
nexus is inviolate. In both, it is always as a man sows, that
he reaps. If he injures his physical frame, he reaps the
consequence in physical detriment: if he impairs his moral
power and spiritual vision, he gathers the harvest of moral
degeneracy. But there is no confusion of the spheres of
moral and physical agency. To put it otherwise, a spiritual
antecedent will not produce a physical consequent. The
exercise of the religious function of prayer cannot directly
effect any material change. It is the appeal of spirit to
spirit, conducted within the spiritual sphere, for purposes
that are strictly supra-natural.
It is vain to reply that we are continually interfering with
the seemingly fixed laws of the universe, and altering their
destination by our voluntary activities, or scientific appliances; for, in all such cases, we simply make use of existing
15




226           The Function of Prayer
forces. We are ourselves a part of the physical cosmos;
and, in accordance with its laws, we exert a power which
changes external nature. But we can never escape from the
domain of law. Our act, were we to attempt it, would
itself be a link in the chain of phenomenal sequence. The
very moment we put it forth, as agents in a phenomenal
world, that instant the energy we exert (itself determined
by prior influence) enters as a new element into the vast
chain of physical causation. In short, we can only change
the existing order by the exercise of a power which is itself
a part of that order, and whose every movement is regulated
by law.
The extremely vague manner in which those who imagine
that prayer can directly alter the sequences of Nature state
their case, is in the last degree unscientific. Thus it is
said, May not God, who is sovereign and free, direct the
forces of Nature in one direction rather than another, in
reply to the free entreaty of a creature whom he encourages
to pray? and the atmospheric phenomena are supposed to
be peculiarly amenable to such " direction."  Suppose, then,
that, after a period of dry weather, prayer is offered, and rain
begins to fall, will the theologian venture to deny that there
was as exact an order in the physical antecedents as there
would have been, had no prayer been offered?  Will he
hazard the assertion, that there was a break in the nexus
between the descent of the rain and the physical causes
which produced it; that a spiritual agency, exerted by the




in the Economy of the Untiverse.           227
petitioner, has become the cause of the atmospheric change
(the condensation of the cloud, and the descent of the rain)
at a particular spot and a special time? The crude notion
seems to be widely entertained, that because the changes of
the weather are apparently capricious, the wind blowing
" as it listeth," it may be sent forth on special errands in
answer to human entreaty. Is not this the polytheistic
notion of Eolus, with the winds in his fists? It is supposed
that the destination of a physical force can be arrested, and
the otherwise'inevitable result prevented, by an act of
divine volition. But the antecedent must spend itself, and
determine some consequent. It simply cannot be arrested,
or lifted out of its place amongst the links of physical causation, without the whole chain falling to pieces. Its efficiency
in giving rise to a new sequence is involved in its very
existence; while the discovery of the correlation and transmutation of the forces proves that the prior agent is still
present, and operative under an altered form.
But it is said, that, while the chain of physical sequence
remains unbroken, the local incidence (if we may so speak)
of each link may be determined by some ethereal wave of
hyper-physical energy, transmitted along the entire line, from
its fountain-head, in: delicately subtle undulations, resembling
the waves of light and sound, or the flash of electricity
through a telegraph-wire; and that the course of this hyperphysical energy may be determined in answer to the prayers
of man. This assertion has all the characteristics of an




228          The Function of Prayer
hypothesis devised to escape from the horns of a dilemma.
It is not supposed to apply to the whole domain of Nature,
but only to a part of it; since no one would pretend that the
rotation of the seasons ways thus determined. Yet the
fluctuations of the weather between two seconds of time are
as rigorously determined by law as are the larger successions
of the seasons; and to imagine that the Supreme Power
would thus isolate some physical events from  the rest is
inconceivable.  It would introduce the most arbitrary
casualism in place of the orderliness of law. Again: suppose
that there be no physical " fountain-head," but an endless
cycle of recurrent energy; and what becomes of the h3ypothesis? Further: what purpose would this hyper-physical wave
subserve, that is not already and better accomplished in the
ordinary causation of the universe? Again: the introduction
of this casual element, overruling and deflecting some
phenomena of Nature (much as the free volitions of a man
determine the sequences of his acts), would infallibly disturb the rest, and introduce bewildering chaos. For, though
hyper-physical in its origin and character, the effect it is
said to produce is not hyper-physical (in that case we should
have no controversy with its advocates), but physical; and
it is believed to give rise to an interminable series of fresh
physical results. That it should be in the power of any
creature thus to launch a new agency almost at will into the
pre-arranged system of Nature, and thereby to begin a series
of changes which are absolutely interminable in their effect,




in the Economy of the Universe.           229
is simply incredible. Lastly, we have no experimental
evidence of this subtle wave of influence, or of its results,
from  which we might infer a cause. It is an unverified
hypothesis at the best.
Setting it aside, therefore, we are forced to the conclusion
that human prayer has no validity as a force directly working within the domain of physical nature. To pray for fine
weather, or for rain (except as a humble expression of man's
dependence upon forces that are vaster than he, and upon
Him from whom they emanate), is quite as illegitimate as
it is to pray against the approach of winter, the return of
summer, or even against to-morrow's sunrise. If the rain
we ask for is needful in our particular district, in the ultimate and general economy of Nature it will fall in due
course. If it does not do so, it is simply because it, or its
physical equivalents, have been required elsewhere in the
balance of that supreme economy. To desire its local
cessation when it seems excessive, or its local presence
when there is a drought, is the mere impulse of human
selfishness, anxious to possess the most desirable things in
one's immediate neighborhood (and ignorant of what these
really are), forgetting that the Administrator of the universe
has to consider the greatest good of the whole number; that
he is superintending the whole economy of Nature, iii which
the apparent bane of one district is the blessing of another,
while he is devoid of favoritism; and that these terms,'bane" and "blessing," have really no meaning to the
physical universe at large.




230           The Function of Prayer
But we are repeatedly told by theologians that an answer
to prayer within the physical realm is a sign of the divine
presence, helpful to the suppliant's faith. Is this a worthy
conception of God's relation to the universe, that he, every
now and then, interferes with his established order to prove
his own supremacy? that he interrupts the working of his
machine, to prove that he is there behind it, and has power
to alter Nature, or to grant the requests of his creatures?
Is not such a notion the offspring of the very rudest anthropomorphism? It is difficult to imagine a poorer idea of
divine revelation than is implied in such arbitrariness.  To
those who think it gracious condescension, it may be replied,
that it would be quite as significant of caprice. It is
supposed, that having created a tiny creature, and brought
him into the midst of the universal order (a creature that
scarcely ever comprehends the meaning of that order), the
supreme Artificer finds it expedient continually to announce
himself by an alteration of the course and destination of
phenomena at the unenlightened (it may be the selfish) call
of that creature, and that he does so while at the same
time his presence is ceaselessly revealed within every pulse
and movement of the universe. But the very purport of
revelation (which is merely the withdrawing of a veil) is
not to show the creature that primeval order can be violated,
or that " the material is subordinate to the spiritual: " it
is to announce the fact, that the spiritual lies abidingly
within, the material as its underlying essence. And, while




in the Economy of the Universe.          231
this is the philosophical notion, is it not, also, the biblical
idea of the relation Which God sustains to the cosmos? We
have no evidence that the writers of our sacred books
regarded the power which manifested itself to them in
unusual ways, as different from that of which we see a daily
apocalypse in the material world. So far from this, these
writers uniformly speak of all natural phenomena as the
direct outcome of divine agency. God " walks on the wings
of the winds," the clouds are " his chariot;" " his voice"
is heard when it thundereth, and so forth. To the Hebrew
prophets and psalmists, at least, the supernatural was the
power which works through the natural order, of which all
the forces of the universe are manifestations to men.
But there is a farther question to which the physicist may
validly demand an answer. All men instinctively abstain
from  presuming to ask God for certain things within the
physical sphere; for example, for constant daylight, for
perpetual summer, for physical immortality, or for the
resurrection of the dead. The physicist asks us, Why do we
abstain from such requests, but because we find that they
are contrary to the laws of Nature, that their occurrence
would involve the absolute overthrow of the existing cosmical order?  And he is equally entitled to press for an answer
to the question, Why should we draw a line, and exclude
any physical phenomena whatsoever from  the category of
the fixed and predetermined?  By degrees we learn to include all that seems at first anomalous within the majestic




232           The Function of Prayer
sweep of predetermined law. And is it not in exact proportion to our ignorance of what is fixed, that we make it the
subject of our petitions? Religious men do not pray for
eternal sunshine or for physical immortality. Why? Simply because they recognize that such would be contrary to
the will of God as revealed in the laws of'external Nature;
and it rests with them to prove that one single physical
event may validly be excluded from the list of the predetermined, before they call on us to pray with reference to it.
We are bound to reply to this appeal of the naturalist.
Meanwhile there is another objection that is fatal to this
habit of prayer for things that are purely physical. It distorts the petitioner's idea of the moral character of God,
leading him, almost invariably, to imagine that special catastrophes are signs of displeasure, calling for confession of sin,
and repentance. A season of unusual cold and rain, resulting
in a bad harvest and threatened famine; or a winter of prolonged storm, strewing our shores with wrecked vessels and
wasted cargoes; or a time of cattle-plague; or an outbreak
of cholera, - these are regarded as marks of the general
displeasure of Heaven, calling for general confession of sin,
and prayer for the lessening or removal of such disaster.
Men do this, and yet call their ancestors irrational, because
they prayed against eclipses, and the medieval warriors
foolish because they feared a catastrophe on the earth when
the auroral light was colored in the sky. In both cases it is
to cower with craven hearts as before a capricious Deity.




in the Economy of the Universe.          233
The habit of mind it induces is disastrous to piety and even
to sincerity; and there is often mere arbitrariness, as well as
spiritual unreality, in the appointment of humiliation days
for bad harvests or the presence of a plague. It would be
more rational~ to appoint a fixed hour for humiliation, to
last the whole year round, for the thousand human miseries
that are more acute and terrible than the loss of crops, or
death of cattle, or winter wrecks, or the incursions of pestilence, can ever be. Even the most ignorant of those who
observe such days do not regard the calamitous events as
judgments for special sins. The divine words touching the
Tower of Siloam have dissipated that idea, at least for
Christendom. But it is judged expedient, when disaster
overtakes a nation or a community, to make some confession
of sin in general, and, in conjunction with it, to pray for the
removal of the calamity. Now, so far as it can be obviated
or lessened by human action, prudence, foresight, and conformity to the laws of Nature, man may validly pray to be
enabled to put forth that foresight and sagacity, and to conform to these laws. But, in so far as the disaster is due to
causes with which he cannot interfere, it is illegitimate in
him to pray for their removal. His obvious duty, then, is to
acquiesce in the will of the Supreme. If he prays as he
should, it must be simply for the spirit of submission. Even
in the former case, it is only indirectly that he may pray for
the removal of a pestilence. He may ask for wisdom to cope
with it, for a knowledge of the laws of health, and for ability




234          The Function of Prayer
to conform to these; inasmuch as unconscious aid is often
vouchsafed to the will of the agent who is striving to observe
them. Doubtless this is often involved in petitions for the
removal of existing evil; but it is as commonly ignored in
the selfish longing for some " special Providence" which
may sweep the pestilence away.
But there is superficiality, as well as irreverence, in the
easily-uttered cry for deliverance, which frequently dulls the
edge of practical endeavor to remove the evil, and conform
to the neglected law, expressive of the divine will. There
is irreverence in it, implying a distrust of the absoluteness of
the divine wisdom and love; and it is altogether irrational,
if offered up in opposition to the clear evidence of experience that it is fruitless, and that God does not thus gratify
wishes which may be the mere caprices of his creatures.
Doubtless the undertone of all devout prayer is, " Not my
will, but thine, be done;" that is to say, the petitioner
confesses his ignorance of what ought to be, and rejoices in
the surrender of his wishes. But, in addition to this acknowledged undertone, if God reveals the fact that his will
is done through the laws he has established, is it not
supreme irreverence in man, craving for a " sign and a
wonder," to cry out for something more? It is blasphemous
to imagine that God ever violates a law. The only violation
of law of which we can form any conception is its non-observance by an agent who can and should obey it. And, in
reference to that, he may always pray for strength patiently
to conform to the eternal order.




in the Economy of the Universe.         235
Conceding all this (and that not reluctantly), because it
is in conformity with the dictates of reason, and also with
the " sweet reasonableness" of Christianity, we must also
vindicate, against those who impugn it, the function and
the no less " sweet reasonableness " of prayer, as a spiritual
fact within the economy of Nature. It is unfortunate that
our modern physicists do not begin their inquiry into the
rationale of prayer by testing its value within the spiritual
domain. They might disarm hostility to the doctrine they
teach touching physical nature, were they to recognize in
spiritual prayer, not a mere " potent supplement" to the
religious life, but the very pulse of that life itself. Now, it
is incorrect to say that prayer is ever regarded by its advocates as a " form of physical energy," unless as a loose
figure of speech, that is simply a travesty of what is held by
all rational theologians. Prayer is always believed (even
by the most illiterate) to be a spiritual power, the exercise
of which determines the acts of the spiritual Power above,
which, in its turn, accomplishes a change amongst phenomena. This may be erroneous; and it is for the naturalist
to combat it, if he is scientifically able to do so. But our
physicists say they " cannot express their repugnance at the
notion that Supreme Intelligence and Wisdom can be influenced by the suggestions of any human mind, however
great." Is not this totally to deny the validity of prayer
by an absolute assertion to the contrary?  We are informed
that modern science contends only for " the displacement"




236          The Function of Prayer
of prayer, not for its I" extinction."  But, when we ask what
is the value attached to it within its own domain, we
receive this very vague reply, " that in some form or other,
not yet evident, prayer may, as alleged, be necessary to
man's highest culture." It is a peradventure, at the best.
It may be of use, and that only as a means towards "man's
highest culture," and that in a way "not yet eYident."
Do the accumulated experiences of the ages, then, go for
nothing on these points, - that the prayer of the righteous " availeth much; " that it is the opening of a window
to the supernatural; and that, while a devout man prays, his
spirit is touched from above to finest spiritual issues? Have
all religious men who have prayed for inward light, quickening, and help, and believed that they were listened to, no
claim to be heard as witnesses in favor of a fact which is
dim to the scientific eye?
We maintain that the true spirit and function of prayer
are purely spiritual (though, in one important respect, the
results of prayer tend out beyond that region); and that it
is in the spiritual freedom of man, on the one hand, and the
eternal freedom of God, on the other, that we find; its
rationale. The being and the moral character of God,
must, of course, be taken for granted in any discussion as
to the function of prayer. To every theory of the universe
that dispenses with his existence, or merges it in Nature,
prayer is manifestly an excrescence. It might still be an
impressive utterance of the soul in moments of sorrow, or




in the Economy of the Universe.          237
tragic loss, or even of triumph, - like a stream  chafing
between the rocky barriers of its course; but it would have
no rational ground, and could never be a duty. It is noteworthy, however, that the act of devotion arising out of the
felt dependence of the creature is one of the means by
which the latent sense of the divine presence may be quickened into life. Starting, then, with this postulate, -the
existence and recognizability of God,- the raison d' etre of
prayer is almost self-evident. In a sense, it is by the
avenue of prayer that we come unto God, even unto his seat.
The act of devotion leads the worshipper into his presence,
not- as revealed in space or time, or through any representative form, but as the ever-present and eternal Life. It is
but the inarticulate language of the heart, the voice of
the spirit, recognizing its own original. This very power
of recognition, however, implies superiority to the unconscious forces of the material world.  Had we no free
spiritual power within us, differentiating us from surrounding existence, we could not " come into " God's presence in
the act of devotion; for surely, in that presence, man, as
well as unconscious nature, always stands. But, endowed
with intelligence and spiritual freedom, he may, by an act
either of the will or of simple aspiration, present his spirit
to the divine, withdrawing it from the sphere of the
sensuous, and subjecting it to the influence of the supersensible. And the divine nature may then act upon the
human to quicken and exalt, directly " endowing it with




238           The Function of Prayer
power from on high." In the conscious freedom of our own
wills we recognize a power, irreducible by analysis, which
proclaims our superiority to the links of physical causation,
while it acts in unbroken harmony with these. It testifies,
that, in our inmost essence, we are not the mere products of
organizing force, but that we have (to use the Kantian
terms) natures noumenally free, and therefore noumenally
related to God. The sphere of prayer is, therefore, the life
of the creature endowed with moral freedom and the
capacities of spiritual growth. Its value to the individual
consists in the impulse it conveys to the inmost energies of
the soul in their ascent and progress. By a direct divine
afflatus, it tends, when it is, in Pauline phrase, "prayer
with the spirit and with the understanding also," to clarify
the intellect, and to elevate the heart, to rectify the bias
of the passions, to strengthen the conscience, and discipline
the will, and to foster all the virtues. Are these results to
be slighted, because the power which effects them is inoperative in external nature?  In that outer region all is
orderly and fair; but, in the region of the spiritual, there is
conscious disorder, moral chaos, which is at once an
evidence of the need, and a vindication of the reasonableness, of an interference with it. Since, then, it can be
altered for the better (while physical nature cannot), and since
the alteration of this internal world is accomplished by the
efforts of a man's free will, while God works in it, and is
impossible, in its highest phases, without help and co-oper



in the Economy of the Uriverse.         239
ation from him, why should not man petition for that help?
why should he not ask for the presence of the CGo-operator?For that is absolutely all.  Prayer involves petition; but
it is request for nothing outward. The petition is but the
expression of that hunger and thirst for the divine presence,
of which the Hebrew psalmists write with such passionate
ardors, — the longing for perfection, the desire to escape
from fell disorder, and conform to the order of everlasting
right, with absolute submission to the will of the Eternal.
Thus the act of prayer is the very key to the kingdom of
God. We cannot dispense with it without discarding all
worship whatsoever, all recognition of the Supreme Being,
or of "the power which makes for righteousness " in the
world. If religion be the recognition of, and allegiance
to, the personal and ever-present God, a man cannot be
religious, and neglect devotion.  He may be modest,
reverent, humble, full of admiration, or awestruck before
the mysteries and sublimities of the universe; but religious,
in the sense above defined, he cannot be.
We are told, however, by all agnostic teachers, that this
is a mistake; that the essence of religion is the recognitionof mystery, the essential element of prayer being a feeling
of wonder and admiration in presence of resistless force,
unerring wisdom, and everlasting power. As our confidence
in the eternal order deepens, we are lifted to the true
" Rock that is higher than we;" and filial piety evidences
itself by the absence of any wish for a change of that which




240          The Function of Prayer
is. Mute dependence on resistless force, fearing no catastrophe, believing in none, independent of all "means of
grace" and seasons of devotion, -that is the alpha and
omega of piety. Surely it is the old Stoic fate, with its one
virtue of submission, under a roseate modern guise. To
work and to wonder, — that, and that alone, is to pray.
We are further told, that, whatever be the wisdom of the
petitioner, his knowledge is literally less than nothing, and
vanity, to the Most High; and that his ignorance, breeding
humility, forbids every petition. In short, the more ignorant a man is, the more he will pray for; the more intelligent
he is, the less he will pray for; and, when his intelligence
is perfected, he will not pray at all.
It would conduce to clearness, and lessen the risks of
misrepresentation, were we informed whether such a sweeping condemnation as the above applies to all petitions
whatsoever, or only to prayer for physical well-being, and
interferences with Nature. The opponents of prayer do not
sufficiently recognize the fact, that very few, if any, petitions
are offered up in an absolute and unsubordinated manner.
Even when unaccompanied by the express reservation,
"Thy will be done," this is (as we have remarked) the
essential undertone, or suppressed premise, in all true
prayer. It is the unvarying yet most musical refrain running through every song of devotion; and, if rash suggestions touching the physical world are occasionally heard
from the lips of rude though pious worshippers, we may




in the Economy of the Universe.         241
be sure that the Hearer of prayer, "unto whom all flesh
shall come," does not despise the stammering speech due
to infancy of mind. Such stammering, however, becomes
irreverence in mental manhood; and in this matter,
emphatically, when " we become men, we must put away
childish things."
We have said that the mind trained in the patient study
of Nature's processes learns gradually to include even seeming anomalies within the sweep of predetermined law; but,
if trained also in reflective science, it asks, What constitutes
" a law"? and discovers that it is but the expression of the
way in which the forces of the universe fulfil their mission;
and that is, in other words, to say, by which the eternal
Mechanist and Sustainer works within his own creation.
He is the living pulse within the whole machinery of Nature;
and the laws of matter or of mind are but the indices of his
activity, the generalized expression or interpretation of the
way in which the supreme Artist, Builder, and Administrator, controls his own creation. So far all is fixed,
though it is the fixity of unerring wisdom, unalterable, simply
because it is the arrangement of an optimist Ruler. But,
within the mind that contemplates this unchallengeable
order, there is something that is not fixed. We are conscious of moral freedom, the autocratic power of selfdetermination, while we are also conscious of moral
disorder, and the need of rectification. The latter consciousness impels the spirit instinctively to look beyond
16




242           The Function of Prayer
itself for aid; that is to say, it prompts it to pray; while
the former suggests the presence of One who is the source
of the freedom, and is able to re-adjust.
It is impossible, in this paper, to unfold the evidence
which our moral freedom bears to its own Archetype and
Original.  But assuming the divine Existence, and the
resemblance between the human and the divine, the corollary
is evident enough.  If within the fountain-head of the
divine nature, in which the human lives and has its being,
there is a fulness of life unexhausted in the existing universe, power in reserve, yet communicable, prayer is but
the approach of the human spirit to its Source, that it may
receive the inspiration of that power. We must admit the
existence of this reserve of communicable life within the
divine essence, unless we hold that it has exhausted itself in
creation, or that the moral fountain-head is an exact
counterpart of a physical spring, and that what issues from
it previously entered it in an altered form; that is to say,
unless we believe in the transmigration of souls, or their
re-absorption in the universal life. But if an addition is
made to the moral contents of the universe on the appearance of every new human life, there must be this reservoir
of unexhausted power within the moral source. And, if it
exists in eternal wealth and communicable freshness (its
most spiritual features suggested by the wells of earth,those " fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and
hills "), man may surely pray for it, and may find it descend




in the Economy of the Universe.           243
upon him, or, rather, rise up within him, pervading his
faculties, moulding his life, and replenishing his will. Intelligent recognition of the ever-present Mind is itself an act
of prayer. The expression of such power in the language
of adoration or trust is secondary to the act of recognition
itself. But no sooner does the soul look, as through a
window (we must speak in material figures), on the supernatural, than desire to approach the divine Presence, and to
be brought into harmony with it, instinctively arises. And
that longing (of. which St. Augustine has left so noble a
record in his " Confessions"),  the  desiderium  of the
heart, is most truly the essence of prayer. It is petition for
the loftiest order of good, tempered with submission, and
yet prescient of success.
If, now, we are told by those whose researches have confined them for a lifetime within the tracks of physical law,
that, with this region of " inner mysteries," they are unfamiliar, it might be a perfectly valid and strictly philosophical
rejoinder, that they c" have faculties within, which they have
never used." If, recognizing the divine existence, they are
not conscious of the stirrings of that instinct which prompts
the prayer of the devout, of that flagging of the wing of
all endeavor which evokes it in some, or that sense of
loneliness which awakens the filial cry in others, they are
not at liberty to treat it either as a weakness or an unproductive act, to be banished from the realm of scientific
utilities. By-the very conditions of the case, they are pre



244           The Function of Prayer
eluded from pronouncing on its validity, because they cannot isolate the phenomenon in question, throw it into a
crucible, and subject it to analytic tests. It is simply impossible to bring the life of the petitioner within the compass
of any experimental gauge. As has been well remarked,
" we cannot enter into the heart of those who pray, and take
scientific precautions lest the experiment be delusive, and
measure what was the moral strength before the prayer, and
what accession of strength has come after it "(F. Newman).- Besides, the deepest aspirations of the soul are least
discernible by those who study the process from without;
and the most intense replies - accessions of spiritual power
-are necessarily unperceived by those who merely watch
the current in its flow, that they may compute the volume of
its waters. They always reduce the worshipper to silence,
and breed reserve. The soul may be kindled to unwonted
glow with the inspiration of Heaven, and may find that the
words of a litany, or the music of a psalm, are the fittest
channel in which to express itself; but the power which has
reached it from above can never be subjected to scrutiny in
its origin or transit. The concession made by the physicist,
that prayer may " strengthen the heart to meet life's losses,
and thus indirectly promote physical well-being, as the digging of IEsop's orchard brought a treasure of fertility greater than the treasure sought," needs only to be extended a
little farther in the same direction to warrant all we are
contending for. If, along with the " wise passiveness" it




in the Economy of the Universe.         245
breeds, helping us to bear the loss and the defeat, it becomes
an active power, stirring the fires of devotion, and leading
to moral victory, the immeasurable range of its influence
will be conceded, and even a scientific truth discerned in
that " counsel of perfection," Ask, and ye shall receive.
So far, we may not be challenged by any but the dogmatic
materialist, or the necessitarian, or the agnostic. But we
have already raised the question, Is there any thing beyond
the life or subjective experience of the petitioner that may
be legitimately'sought in prayer? and have added, that, if
the spiritualist maintains that there is, he is bound to define
that thing, or class of things, with rigorous precision, and
to show the reasonableness of his act. The character of
the class in question is easily defined. It might be thought,
that as the popular adage puts it, "Man's extremity is
God's opportunity," the class would be that to which human
efficiency does not extend. It is precisely the reverse.
Whatever may be accomplished by human instrumentality
within the physical domain may be a subject of petition,
inasmuch as prayer may originate a movement which tends
outward from the will of the agent, and indirectly accomplishes these results. This admission is in full consistence
with our primary statement, that the sphere of prayer is
wholly spiritual; for the area in which the answer is vouchsafed is the life of the petitioner (or of those for whom he
prays), where the will of the Supreme may freely move the
natures underneath its touch. Thus in asking for deliver



246          The Function of Prayer
ance in a time of peril, the really devout heart will pray
(though perhaps unconsciously), not- for interference with
existing order, but for help to enable it to conform to that
order. And it may pray for the result, without alluding to
the instrumentality; just as we set down a contraction, or a
short-hand sign, for a full word.
To take two simple instances. We pray for a friend's
life that seems endangered. Such prayer can never be an
influential element in arresting the physical course of disease
by one iota; but it may bring a fresh suggestion to the
mind of a physician, or other attendant, to adopt a remedy,
which, by natural means, " turns the tide" of ebbing life,
and determines the recovery of the patient. Or we pray for
the removal of a pestilence; and the answer is given within
the minds and hearts of those who take means to check it or
uproot it. The latent power that lies within the free causality of man may be stimulated and put in motion from a
point beyond the chain of physical sequence; and crises
innumerable- may be averted through human prayer, thus
dislodging a spiritual force that slumbers, and sending
it beneficently forth from  its "hiding-place of power."
Nevertheless, it will always be exceedingly unsafe to infer,
from the observation of results, that any such dislodgement
has taken place. For, in the first place, there will always
be a larger number of petitions offered up for recovery -than
are ever granted; and, secondly, there will be many more
coincidences between prayer and recovery that have no




in the Economy of the Universe.         247
causal connection. Restoration may begin immediately
after prayer; but it would be extremely rash to infer that the
former was a consequence of the latter. Suppose a case in
which prayer is offered, and there is no subsequent interference by man in any way, and the patient recovers, it would
be sheer assumption to affirm that the prayer had caused the
cure. Even were it able directly to affect the physical chain
of antecedents and consequents (which it is not), it would be
impossible, in any single case, to know that it had done so.
As in the case of spiritual response, we cannot insulate the
phenomena one from another so as to apply an experimental
test. There is manifestly no scope for inductive science to
an invisible agency which eludes observation: therefore, we
believe that answers to prayer touching things physical are
only possible when effected through the agency and instrumentality of man; and even then, we can never know how
far they have or have not been granted. It is easy to
perceive the reason of this inability, and also to see the
mischievous results which would ensue were such knowledge
ours.
There is another aspect in which prayer for physical results may be regarded, though no reply is ever granted. It
may be a legitimate expression of our longing for perfection,
our desire for the harmony of creation, with the abolition of
all that now seems to mar its order. It is doubtless a consistent theory, that, as we live in an optimist universe, there
is now no real blot, or lack of harmony, within it; and that




248           The Function of Prayer
what seems imperfect is simply due to the nature of our
lenses, or the limited range of the human eye, that cannot
see all round the perfect sphere.  It is more consistent,
however, to believe that a real chaos exists, which will be
but temporary; that its temporariness does not destroy its
present reality; and that "the discords have rushed in,"
only that harmony may result. If, then, a disturbing
element really exists, one who sees the meaning, and is
attracted towards the universal order, may validly desire
the extinction of its opposite, and may express that longing
in a prayer. This, indeed, is the very essence of the cry,
"Thy kingdom come: thy will be done in earth as in
heaven."  It is a prayer for universal harmony. The blight
and pestilence of the world are surely abnormal: they
are not a part of the absolute order, are not even the
outcome of law. We cannot speak of the laws of disease as
we speak of the laws of health. Disease is the non-fulfilment of the conditiors of health: it is anarchic and lawless. It seems reasonable, therefore, to desire the extinction of disease and blight with physical discord of every
kind, as well as to desire the abolition of all moral evils.
The gradual wearing-out of an organic structure by slow
decay, when it has fulfilled its function' in nature, is no
encroachment on physical perfection; but its removal by a
sudden stroke we lament as untimely: though, in both cases,
it is the same ending of terrestrial life; just as the plucking of a bud is a loss different in kind from the gradual




in the Economy of the Universe.           249
decay of the flower when its bloom is over. And our desire
for the physical perfection of the whole creation might
prompt the expression of that longing to its Author.
But here, again, we are on the verge of rashness, and run
the risk of inexactitude. It may be that the varieties of
disease are as much a part of the fixed arrangements of the
cosmos as are the different types of organization. Certainly the causes which produced them have worked for centuries, and must continue operative in the future. Their
variety may have, also, a certain physiological beauty. It is
more in keeping with the general plan of Nature that human
life should terminate in a hundred ways than that all should
reach old age, and fall monotonously into the tomb. Besides, we find a system of elaborate contrivances to inflict
pain, and to effect slaughter and sudden death, in the animal
world. The whole living system of Nature, from the infusoria to the mammal, is a storehouse of illustrations of the
same apparent evil, while" Nature, red in tooth and claw,
-With ravine shrieks against our creed."
And may it not be the best arrangement in our human world,
thathaundreds and thousands should die (as we say prematurely) to make way for successors, while their own life is
continued elsewhere?
Thus, on the one side, the fatalist alternative meets us full
in the face; and over against it are the signs of disorder,
wreck, loss, pain, presenting us with a physical text, which




250           The Function of Prayer
we interpret as disease,- an element foreign to the perfection
of the universe. We may refuse to be dragged either into
the Scylla or Charybdis of this philosophical antinomy;
but we can only do so by the recognition of a living Will
ruling the universe beneficently. The Theistic faith and
prayer do not remove the mystery that shrouds it; but they
relieve its forward pressure.
History and experience alike testify that the power of
prayer is simply immeasurable. Though to approach God
with endless and irregular requests, soliciting him for favors,
instead of arising to do his will, or acquiescing in it, is
unquestionable irreverence, no theory of causation can rob
the heart of its right to pray " without ceasing," or the intellect of its assurance that spiritual "prayer availeth
much." Mutual concessions, such as those which often end
the strife of rival litigants, are unknown in philosophical
controversy; but it would promote a better understanding
between fellow-workers in the cause of humanity, were our
theologians and teachers of science to bestow upon each
other a more frank, ungrudging recognition, and to say, as
Aprile to Paracelsus, in Browning's noble drama, -
" Let our God's praise
Go bravely through the world at last:
What care through thee or me."
WILLIAM KNIGHT.




IX.
PRAYER. THE TWO SPHERES: ARE THEY
TWO?
BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.
Tnrs was printed in the next (February) number of " The Contemporary Review," pp. 464-473, as an answer to Mr. Knight.
In a subsequent number of "The Review," Mr. Knight replied.
His reply is a sharp criticism of the Duke of Argyll, and reiteration
and amplification of the original argument in favor of two spheres
for prayer. Mr. Knight endeavors to convict the duke of contradictions between some of his statements in "The Review" and statements in his " Reign of Law." As it advances nothing new in the
argument, this reply is not deemed worth reprinting.








IX.
PRAYER.
THE TWO SPHERES: ARE THEY TWO?
R. KNIGHT'S  paper in the last number of this
" Review" is an attempt to give a precise and logical
definition to the function of prayer in the economy of
the universe.  This attempt is a bold one, and invites
criticism. No one can deny that there are intellectual difficulties connected with the idea of prayer in its relation to
"the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,"difficulties, however, of exactly the same kind as beset all
ultimate conceptions of our own free-will, and of its effects
on the course of Nature. And, as regards the practical
question of the fitting objects of petition in prayer, St. Paul
expressly tells us, that " we know not what we should pray
for as we ought."  If any new light can be thrown upon
this subject, enabling us to define accurately what prayer
can, and what it cannot, do, an important benefit would
be conferred on the Christian Church.
1 Rom. viii. 26.
253




254                   Prayer.
Having read Mr. Knight's paper with close attention, I
wish to indicate the grounds on which I think his attempt a
failure, and his philosophy to be unsound. Not having- time
or opportunity at present to write more fully on the subject, I shall simply specify a number of propositions which
are to be found in Mr. Knight's paper, either directly
asserted, or by implication involved in various passages,
with a few comments which suggest themselves upon each of
these.
The first is,That there is a " sphere" to which prayer is " inherently
inapplicable" (p. 221).
This is a very different thing from saying that there are
some things, or many things, that ought not to be prayed
for; as, for example, for things manifestly unreasonable.
It involves the proposition that there is a particular class of
things, capable of being accurately defined, for which we
ought never, under any circumstances, to pray, not because
we can see them to be unreasonable or wrong, but because,
to them, prayer is inherently inapplicable. The next proposition gives us the definition. It is, -
" Prayer is a power which is removed altogether from the
sphere of physical causation " (p. 221).
The difficulty in accepting this proposition is, that we are
wholly ignorant how much the " sphere of physical causation" may include. If there be, indeed, two " spheres,"
absolutely separate, - the physical and the spiritual, - they




Prayer.                    255
are in such inseparable contact in (for example) our own
organism, that we cannot in the: least tell where the one
begins, and the other ends. Many men are now in the constant habit of talking of thought as a " cerebration;" and
they seem to regard this language as essential to a correct
understanding of what thought is. There can, therefore,
be no practical value in a definition which assumes an absolute separation where none such probably exists, where
certainly none such can be proved, and the lines of which,
even if it existed, cannot confessedly be traced. Strange
to say, Mr. Knight's third proposition admits this, -
"' That,the spiritual and physical forces are inter-related
and reciprocal " (p. 222).
If this be true, it does not seem quite easy to understand
how the one is a sphere open to prayer, and the other is a
sphere to which prayer is " inherently inapplicable."
" That the application of the physical law of evolution
(natural selection) to the intellectual and moral nature of
man breaks down in the presence of free-will " (p. 222).
This assumes that the free-will of man is not subject to
law; or, at least, that it is not subject to law in the same
sense in which physical nature is subject to law. My own
conception of the sense in which "law " prevails in Nature
is very different from the conception which Mr. Knight
appears to entertain; but in this proposition we have the
admission, that his conception of the " operation of law"
is not applicable to the intellectual and moral character of




256                   Prayer.
man. This is important, considering what Mr. Knight's
idea is of the " reign of law " in Nafure, - an idea which
is next explained to us in those loose rhetorical terms which
are now so common on the subject, -
" We can scarcely doubt that the amount of physical force
within the universe is incapable of increase or diminution, but
only of endless modi.ication " (p. 223).
This proposition, in so far as it represents any tfuth at
all, has no relevancy whatever to the subject of prayer.
There may be many excellent reasons why we should not
pray for the stoppage of the earth's rotation; but even
the success of such a petition as this would not involve
the smallest addition to the amount of physical force in the
universe. The arrested rotation would pass into other forms
of motion. " Endless modification" of physical forces is
all that is needed to satisfy even the most extravagant
petitions.
Next we are told, that -
" The physical nexus between phenomena in their ceaseless
flux and reflux is never broken " (p. 223).
If this means that there is always some physical tie
between phenomena, it is (so far as we know) true, being
simply one way (and a very obscure one) of expressing the
general law of causation; but if it means that this law of
causation is any impediment to will (divine or human) in
working out its own designs, then it is not only untrue, but
it is the reverse of truth. The constancy of elementary




Prayer.                    257
forces, and the certainty of causation, are the very conditions, and, so far as we know, the essential conditions, on
which will works, and works with illimitable effect.
Next we are told, that —
" The order in which phenomena appear is governed by the
rigor of adamantine law" (p. 224).
There is no intelligible sense in which this is true. The
order of phenomena is capable of endless change. Plas.
ticity, infinite plasticity, in the hands of knowledge and
of power, is of the very essence of natural law in its com
binations and results.
But, as Mr. Knight's idea of physical law is such as hb
describes it here, it is satisfactory at least to find that he
admits the existence of an element in man which breaks
down any attempt to apply to his "' intellectual and moral
nature" the same physical law which (he thinks) has been
successfully applied to his body. The next proposition,
however, seems to deprive this admission of all value, and
even of all meaning. It is, that —
"A spiritual antecedent will not produce a physical consequent" (p. 225).
This proposition we know to be untrue in the case of our
own organism. If we have a " moral and intellectual
nature" separate from a mere physical nature, it is quite
certain that moral and intellectual antecedents do produce
physical consequents in our body, and, through our bodily
action, upon external things. If, on the other hand, our
17




258                    Prayer.
" moral and intellectual nature" is not separate from our
organism, what becomes of Mr. Knight's absolute separation
between the two " spheres"?  Again: if we are so much
under mere " physical causation " that our spiritual antecedents can never produce a physical consequent, what
becomes of Mr. Knight's former proposition, that we have,
in any sense of the word, a free-will?  Accordingly we find,
that, in the next proposition, Mr. Knight gives up the doctrine of free-will altogether; for here it is, -
" It is vain to reply that we are continually interfering with
the seemingly fixed laws of the universe, and altering their
destination by our activities or scientific appliances" (p. 225).
If this be a " vain " reply to the materialist or the physicist who wishes to apply the ordinary law of physical causa.
tion to man's moral and intellectual nature, what other reply
has Mr. Knight to give?  What becomes of his previous
assertion, that the attempt to apply to the mind of man the
same physical law of evolution which has been applied to his
body "breaks down in the presence of free-will'"? and
what becomes of a subsequent assertion, that the human
spirit, recognizing in God its own original,.I"implies superiority to the unconscious forces of the material world"
(p. 237)?
Next we come to Mr. Knight's reason for thus abandoning the position he had himself assumed, and for dismissing
as a " vain reply:" any reference to our own voluntary agency. The reason he gives is this, "For, in all such cases, we




Prayer.                    259
simply make use of existing forces."  No doubt: but how
this should prove that a "' spiritual antecedent will not produce a physical consequent," I cannot see. Have we, or
have we not, a free-will, which enables us by a spiritual antecedent to make use of our own physical forces, and, through
them, of other existing forces? Mr. Knight's next proposition seems to imply that we have not. It is this," We are ourselves apart of thephysical cosmos" (p. 226).
But if we are a part of the physical cosmos, and nothing
else, then there can be no part of us outside the sphere of
purely physical causation. If, on the other hand, we are
part of the physical cosmos, but with an additional element
whose working " is a fact of consciousness," then our being
part of the physical cosmos does not show any " vanity"
in quoting our voluntary agency as belonging to the separate
" sphere " which Mr. Knight has endeavored to define and
assert. Mr. Knight sums up some remaining sentences on
the vanity of resting any argument on our own voluntary
agency; thus,
"In short, we can only change the existing order by the
exercise of a power Which is itself a part of that order, and
whose every movement is regulated by law " (p. 226).
Here, again, we are landed in a mere confusion, or contradiction. If the power of will is a part of the existing
order, it cannot properly be said to change it. But, if the
power of will can change the existing order, it must be
something more than a mere part of it. Or else the words,




260                   Prayer.
"the existing order" are mere words, and nothing more,
capable of being made to mean any thing, or nothing, or
every thing and nothing, alternately.- And this I suspect to
be very near the truth.
Next we take a sentence involving the following proposition:" The destination of a physical force cannot be arrested,
or the otherwise inevitable result prevented, by an act of
divine volition " (p. 227).
This proposition, it will be observed, involves not merely
the assertion that physical forces cannot be destroyed or
suspended by the Creator's will. Such an assertion would
be bold enough; and I am quite ignorant of the scientific
discoveries which entitle Mr. Knight to make it. But his
assertion is much more stringent than this. As the destination of a physical force depends on its association with other
forces of the same kind, and on the proportion in which it is
so associated with one or more, the assertion of Mr. Knight,
is that the divine Will cannot even direct physical forces to
the accomplishment of particular ends. Man can do this to
a limited degree, because he is part of the cosmos; but God
cannot do it, although, I presume, Mir. Knight would admit
that the subordination of the cosmos to God is involved in
any idea of a Creator which we can form.
Next we have an observation to the effect, that the possibility of prayer affecting the physical sphere "is not
supposed to apply to the whole domain of Nature, but only to




Prayer.                     26I
a part of it; since no one would pretend that the rotation of
the seasons was thus determined " (p. 228). This implies
the argument, that the possibility of prayer being answered
does not depend at all upon what may be called the reasonableness of the petition, and that a prayer for something
which involves the ruin of a world is quite as absurd as a
petition for something which (for aught we know, or for any
thing that is probably true) may be done without any greater
disturbance than is produced by any of our own actions in
" changing the existing order." This argument is against
common sense, and is obviously founded solely on the assumption, that the reasonableness, or unreasonableness, of
a petition, has no bearing whatever on the possibility of its
being granted; which possibility is absolutely negatived
wherever any physical change is concerned, however small
this change may be.
This proposition is accordingly distinctly formulated as
follows -
" Yet the fluctuations of the weather between two seconds
of time are as rigorously determined by law as are the larger
successions of the seasons" (p. 228).
This is quite true in one sense, and quite untrue in another.' The sense in which it is true is, that all physical
phenomena are the result of forces in combined operation,
and can never be uncaused. The sense in which it is not
true, is, that these combinations of force are incapable of
direction, that they either never can be or never are




262                    Prayer.
changed. We know this to be false as regards man; and
we may well decline to accept it as a self-evident truth with
regard to God.
Next comes a sentence which shows that Mr. Knight again
recognizes the analogy between the known agency of man
and the assumed agency of a divine Will in changing the
order of physical sequences. He compares the introduction
of a " casual element overruling and deflecting some phenomena of Nature" with " the free volitions of a man determining the sequences of his acts " (p. 228); and he asserts that
any such introduction "would infallibly disturb the rest, and
introduce bewildering chaos" (Ibid.).  Now; as this is not
the necessary consequence of man's "interference," it is
difficult to understand why it should be the necessary consequence of God's " interference," with physical causation.
Mr. Knight next tells us, speaking of the absurdity of
praying for changes of weather, " that the apparent bane of
one district is the blessing of another; " and that " these
terms,' bane' and' blessing,' have really no meaning to (in?)
the physical universe at large " (p. 229).
That what we mistake for banes may often be really
blessings is very true, and ought always to be remembered.
But that all we enjoy, and all we suffer, are given to us in
measures absolutely fixed, and absolutely incapable of any
other distribution than that which is determined by a purely
physical necessity, has not been yet proved, or even indicated, by any fact of science or any analogy of Nature.




Prayer.                     263
But then Mr. Knight farther tells us, that the purport
of Revelation "is not to show that the material is subordinate to the spiritual," but " to announce the fact that the
spiritual lies abidingly within the material as its underlying
essence" (p. 230). But if this is so, if the spiritual is the
very essence of the physical, how  comes it that the two
spheres can be so neatly and completely divided as Mr.
Knight's fundamental proposition implies?
And yet, a little further on, we have a recurrence to this
division and distinction as one which overrules all the possibilities of prayer.  " All men instinctively abstain from presuming to ask God for certain things within the physical
sphere; for example, for constant daylight, &c.     Religious men do not pray for eternal sunshine, or for physical
immortality.  Why? Simply because they recognize that such
would be contrary to the will of God as revealed in the laws
of external nature; and it rests with them to prove that one
single physical event may be validly excluded from the list of
the predetermined  (p. 231).  Here, again, the whole stress
of the alleged impossibility is laid, not upon the moral character of a petition, but on its physical or non-physical
character. Prayer is quite applicable in the spiritual, which
is the essence of the material; but it is absolutely excluded
in those outward physical forms which are the manifestations
of the spiritual.
All this may be so; but it is not recommended to us by
reason, nor (may I say so? ) on adequate authority.




264                    Prayer.
The difficulty of accepting it is not abated when we come
to examine what Mr. Knight's idea is of the sole legitimate
sphere of prayer.
Although God can not, or will not, alter physical sequences, man can do so, and ought to do so, as far as his
means and his knowledge enable him. The sphere of his
own action, therefore, and no other as regards physics, is
the sphere of legitimate prayer. Mr. Knight says, " Now,
so far as it (calamity) can be obviated or lessened by human action, prudence, foresight, and conformity to the laws
of Nature, man may validly pray to be enabled to put forth
that foresight and sagacity, and to conform to those laws.
But so far as the disaster is due to causes with which he
cannot interfere, it is illegitimate in him to pray for their
removal (p. 233).
This involves the assertion that God never can or never
does use any other agency than that of man to act upon
physical causation. That God does use and bless human
agency for the production of physical effects, and that the
prayer for enlightenment, and for strength to use that agency
well and wisely, is a legitimate, and ought to be an habitual,
prayer, is no novelty among religious men. But that our
prayers must cease when our own agency, or that of our
fellow-men, is exhausted, is certainly a novelty. But, then,
like many other novelties, " it requires confirmation." It
does not commend itself to reason, or to science, or to any
rational conception of the relations of a Creator to man and




Prayer.                     265
to the world, especially when the assertions upon which it
is founded as an axiomatic truth are assertions which must
inspire doubt as to prayer being available at all, even in
the sphere which is assigned to it.
We have been told that a " spiritual antecedent cannot
determine a physical consequent." How, then, can the spiritual aid of God in the spirit of man determine, or help in
any way, his physical exertions?  And what if the physiologists should prove that man's " cerebrations " originate
in his physical organization? how can the spiritual antecedent of the divine volition determine the physical consequent in the brain of man? I do not say that physiologists
have been able to prove this; nor do I believe it to be capable of proof. But we all know that thought in man is so
intimately associated with physical conditions, that they
cannot be separated in the present world: and if we are to
retain any belief in prayer at all, even in the spiritual sphere,
it is not safe to be dependent on what may be found out, or
what may be conceived, as to the nature and extent of this
connection.
It is, indeed, satisfactory to find that Mir. Knight guards
himself, or desires to do so, against this danger by the following emphatic declaration, " In the conscious freedom of our
own wills, we recognize a power, irreducible by analysis,
which proclaims our superiority to the links of physical
causation " (p. 238). But it is idle to suppose that man's
superiority to the links of physical causation can be success



266                   Prayer.
fully asserted when God's superiority to those links is
denied.  Mr. Knight has himself not only indicated, but
has adopted, the bad metaphysics which pretend to make our
supposed consciousness of free-will "' reducible by analysis "
to a mere delusion. We are ourselves parts only of the
cosmos: all that is of us, and all that is in us, is itself
determined by prior influence; and every movement which
we think is " free " is in reality regulated by law. Men who
have been deluded into the belief that words strung together
after this fashion represent any truth whatever are not
likely to be brought back to commnon sense by Mr. Knight's
assurance, that "the latent power that lies within the free
causality of man may be stimulated and put in motion from
a point beyond the chain of physical sequence" (p. 246).
For who knows how far this chain extends? Mr. Knight
had previously told us, that " the links of the chain of physical sequence continue to lengthen out interminably" (p. 224).
This may mean, either that the chain never ends, or that we
do not know where it ends. If it never ends, there can be
no point beyond it. If it does end, but we don't know
where, then our prayers must not only be ignorant, but must
be founded upon our ignorance, and upon that alone.
Accordingly Mr. Knight, in another part of his paper, asks,
" Is it not in exact proportion to our ignorance of what is
fixed that we make it the subject of our petitions? " (p. 232).
This, truly, is the result of Mr. Knight's theory; but it is
not the result of the old Christian theory, or of any theory




Prayer.                    267
consistent with science, or our own experience.  Mr.
Knight's theory of a fundamental separation between the
physical and the spiritual is a theory entirely unsupported
by any evidence in observation or in consciousness. The
spiritual, we have been told, is not superior to the material,
but is only within it. Who knows, then, that the spiritual
can be got at without passing through the physical as a
crust, or an envelope, or as a channel? The thinnest bit of
such a crust is enough, in Mr. Knight's philosophy, to
intercept the divine power and will. He tells us, indeed,
that I" the will of the Supreme may freely move the natures
underneath its touch."  But, then, no part of the chain of
physical causation is among these natures; and any part of
that chain extending beyond our knowledge will cut off our
communication with God. It is in the face of our profound
ignorance of the relation between the spiritual and the
material, in the face of his own admission that the one underlies the other, and the one is the essence of the other, that
Mr. Knight again tells the spiritualist — who believes that
prayer can possibly affect any thing except the "petitioner's
own life and subjective experience " —that he is " bound to
define that thing, or class of things, with rigorous precision "
(p. 245). This is, indeed, the great error at the root of the
whole argument, - the assumption that we know what we do
not know, that we can define what we cannot define, that
our poor verbal distinctions reach and represent the real
nature of things, instead of representing only one-sided




268                    Prayer.
aspects of them, and partial glimpses of a system only
partially understood. Hence comes the use of language in
senses inconsistent and.self-contradictory, confounding the
little knowledge we possess in empty and confused logomachies.
It is indeed difficult to understand how Mr. Knight could
have penned the following very crude statement of the difficulty connected with the master-mystery, the origin of evil,
and imagine that he is helping the definition of a legitimate
sphere of prayer by dividing absolutely between the physical and the spiritual: " So far as we can think of the complex economy of Nature as a series of pre-arrangements,
they have been adjusted each to each with the completest
mastery of all possible emergencies.  Were they ever altered
at the suggestion of a creature, either they were imperfect
before the suggestion was made, or they were made less perfect by means of it. If previously perfect, the change would
be undivine; and, if not perfect until the change, we could
with difficulty believe in the perfection of Hinm who made it "
(p. 224). Can any one suppose that the "difficulty" here
set forth can be confined to the sphere of " the physical "?
And can any of us put these " difficulties" into words,
without a perfect consciousness that we are talking nonsense,
- talking about things which we do not in the least understand; so that it only remains to follow up such questionings
with the confession, " So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was
as a beast before thee"? 1
1 Ps. lxiii. 22.




Prayer.                   269
The predominance of petitions purely spiritual among the
petitions of the Lord's Prayer is a good argument for
giving the same predominance to them in all prayer. But
that great exemplar of prayer includes at least one direct
petition for temporal blessings, and in all of them the two
"spheres" are inseparably intermingled. Reason, science,
and revelation alike point to the folly and ignorance of any
attempt to draw an absolute line where we confessedly have
not the knowledge to enable us to do so, and confirm the
sound philosophy, as well as the piety, of the old Christian
practice of " in all things making our requests known,"
with the overriding, overruling condition, " nevertheless not
our will, but Thine, be done."
ARGYLL.








x.
PRAYER, THE CHARACTERISTIC ACTION OF
RELIGION.
BY H. P. LIDDON, D.D., CANON OF ST. PAUL'S.
ONE of the Lent lectures by Canon Liddon, delivered in 1870, in St.
James's Church, Piccadilly, London, and published, in 1872, in a volume entitled, " Some Elements of Religion," anticipates in substance,
as well as in publication, the Prayer-Gauge debate, of which it forms
no part historically. For that very reason it seems suitable to stand
as the end, and wind up the discussion.








X.
PRAYER, THE CHARACTERISTIC ACTION  OF
RELIGION.
" Ask, and it shall be given you." - MATT. Vii. 7.
RELIGION is the bond between the soul and God, which
sin, by virtue of its very nature, breaks up and destroys.
It is of importance to inquire whether man can strengthen
and intensify.that which he can, it seems, so easily ruin if
he will. Does his power lie only in the direction of destruction? Has he no means of invigorating and repairing a tie,
in itself so precious, yet, in some respects, so frail? The
answer lies in our Lord's promise. Prayer is the act by
which man, conscious at once of his weakness and of his
immortality, puts himself into real and effective communication with the almighty, the eternal, the self-existent God.
I say, effective communication; for prayer, as our Lord
teaches in the text and elsewhere, is not without results.
God answers prayer in many ways. His answers to the
soul's petition for health and strength are collectively
described as grace; grace being the invisible influence
18                                  273




274      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
whereby he, on his part, strengthens and quickens the tie
which binds the petitioner to himself. " Ask, and it shall
be given you." Prayer, then, braces the bond of religion
from the side of man; and grace, God's highest answer to
prayer, braces it in a different, and far more powerful, sense,
on the part of God.
It is not too much to say that the practice of prayer is
co-extensive with the idea of religion. Wherever man has
believed a higher power to exist, he has not merely discussed
the possibility of entering into converse with such a power:
he has assumed, as a matter of course, that he can do so.
Upon desert plains and wild promontories, not less than in
crowded thoroughfares and gorgeous temples, priesthoods
and kings and multitudes have taken prayer for granted, as
being the most practical, as well as the most interesting and
solemn, concern of life. The surface of the earth, of parts
of our own island, is still covered with the relics of some
among these ancient worships. And if the implied conceptions of Deity were degraded, and the rites cruel, or
inhuman, or impure, and the minds of the worshippers not
seldom imbruted by the very acts which should have raised
them heavenward, still the idea of worship as the natural
correlative of belief in the superhuman was always there.
To know that a higher Being existed, and interested himself, in whatever way, in the destinies of man, was to feel
that it was at once a right and a duty to approach him.
And as we pass the historical lines within which, as




of Religion.                    275
Christians believe, mankind has enjoyed a knowledge of
God's successive revelations of his true self and his true
will, we find that prayer is the prominent feature, the
characteristic exercise, of man's highest life. Sacrifice
begins at the very gates of Eden.' The life of early patriarchs is described as a " walking with God," a continuous
reference of thought and aspiration to the Father above,
who yet was so near them.2 And after the Mosaic law was
given, when the idea and range of sin had been deepened
and extended in the mind of Israel, we find prayer organized
in a system of sacrifices, suited to various wants and moods
of the human soul, consciously dealing with its God as the
king both of the sacred nation and of the individual conscience. Penitence, thanksgiving, intercession, adoration,
each found an appropriate expression.8  Later still, in the
Psalter, prayer - the purest, the loftiest, the most passionate — took shape in imperishable forms. And when, at
length, a new revelation was made in Jesus Christ, there
was little to add to what was already believed as to- the
power and obligation of prayer, beyond revealing the secret
of its acceptance.  Our Lord's precepts4 and  example5
are sufficiently emphatic; and his apostles appear to represent prayer, not so much as a practice of the Christian life,
as its very breath and instinctive movement. The Christian
1 Gen. iv. 4.   2 Gen. v. 24, vi 9.  8 Levit. i.-vii.
4 Matt. vi. 9, xxvi. 41; Mark xi. 24; Luke xi. 2, xviii. 1, &c.
6 Matt. xiv. 23; Mark vi. 46; Luke vi. 12, ix 28; John xvii. 1.




276      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
must be "continuing instant in prayer:" he must " pray
without ceasing."l
Each faculty, or endowment, or form of activity, that
belongs to man has, over and above a number ot more
indirect effects, its appropriate and characteristic action, in
which its whole strength is embarked, and in which it has,
so to speak, its full play. To this law, religion is no exception. While its influence upon human life is strong and
various, in proportion to its high aim and object; while it
is felt, when it wields real empire, in every department of
human activity and interest, as an invigorating, purifying,
chastening, restraining, guiding influence,- it, too, has a
work peculiarly its own. In this work it is wont, if we
may so speak, to embark its collective forces, and to become
peculiarly conscious of its direction and intensity. This
work is prayer. Prayer is emphatically religion in action.
It is the soul of man engaging in that particular form of
activity which presupposes the existence of a great bond
between itself and God. Prayer is, therefore, nothing else
or less than the noblest kind of human exertion. It is the
one department of action in which man realizes the highest
privilege and capacity of his being. And, in doing this,
1 Rom. xii. 12; 1 Thess. v. 17.




of Relig'on.                 277
he is himself enriched and ennobled almost indefinitely.
Now, as of old, when he comes down from the mountain, his
face bears tokens of an irradiation which is not of this world.
That this estimate of the value of prayer is not universal
among educated people in our day is only too notorious.
If many a man were to put into words, with perfect honesty
and explicitness, what he thinks, he would say that prayer
is an excellent thing for a clergyman, or for a recluse, or
for a sentimentalist, or for women and children generally;
that it has its uses as a form of' desultory occupation, an
outlet for feeling, a means of discipline: for himself, he
cannot really think that much prayer would help him much.
It implies a life of feeling, perhaps, he would say, of morbid
feeling; and he prides himself upon being guided only by
reflection. It is sustained, he thinks, by imagination,
rather than by reason; and he deems imagination puerile
and feminine. His religion, whatever it is, has nothing to
do with imagination, and is hard reason from first to last;
and, accordingly, prayer seems to him to be altogether less
worthy of the energies of a thinking man than hard work,
whether it be work of the hands, or of the brains, whether
it be study or business. The dignity of real labor is proverbial; but where, he asks, is the dignity of so sentimental
an occupation as prayer?' For his own part, he thinks"
(I am quoting words which have actually been used) " that
religion is not worship, but only another name for doing
good to our fellow-creatures."




278      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
Now, without saying one word to disparage the intimate
connection between religion and philanthropy, let us examine the idea of prayer, which is taken for granted in such
language as the foregoing. Is it true, that prayer is, as is
assumed, little else than the half-passive play of sentiment,
which flows languidly on through the minutes or hours of
easy revery?  Let those who have really prayed give the
answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the patriarch
Jacob as a wrestling-together with an Unseen Power, which
may last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the
night-hours, or even to the break of day.' Sometimes they
refer to common intercession with St. Paul as a concerted
struggle.2 They have, when praying, their eyes fixed upon
the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane, upon the drops of
blood which fall to the ground in that agony of resignation
and sacrifice.3 Importunity is of the essence of successful
prayer.  Our Lord's references to the subject especially
imply this.  The friend who is at rest with his family
will rise, at last, to give a loaf to the hungry applicant.4
The unjust judge yields, in the end, to the resistless eagerness of the widow's cry.5  Our Lord's blessing on the Syrophoenician woman is the consecration of importunity with
God.6  And importunity means, not dreaminess, but sustained work. It is through prayer especially that " the
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it
1 Gen. xxxii. 24. 2 Rom. xv. 30. 8 Luke xxii. 44. 4 Luke xi. 8.
6 Luke xviii. 5.  6 Matt. xv. 28, 29; Mark vii. 28, 29.




of Religion.                 279
by force." 1 It was a saying of the late Bishop Hamilton
of Salisbury, that " no man was likely to do much good in
prayer, who did not begin by looking upon it in the light
of a work, to be prepared for and persevered in with all
the earnestness which we bring to bear upon subjects which
are in our opinion at once most interesting and most
necessary. "
This, indeed, will appear, if, looking to an act of real
prayer, we take it to pieces. Of what does it consist? It
consists always of three separate forms of activity, which,
in the case of different persons, co-exist in very varying
degrees of intensity, but which are found, in some degree,
in all who pray, whenever they pray.
To pray, is, first of all, to put the understanding in motion,
and to direct it upon the highest object to which it can
possibly address itself, - the infinite God. In our private
prayers, as in our public liturgies, we generally preface the
petition itself by naming one or more of his attributes, —
Almighty and Everlasting God! If the understanding is
really at work at all, how overwhelming are the ideas, the
truths, which pass thus before it!- a boundless power, an
existence which knows neither beginning nor end. Then
the substance of the petition, the motives which are alleged
for urging it, the issues which depend upon its being granted
or being refused, present themselves to the eye of the
understanding. And if our Lord Jesus Christ is not him1 Matt. xi. 12.




280       Prayer, the Characteristic Action
self, as being both God and man, the object of prayer, yet
his perpetual and prevailing intercession opens upon
Christian thought the inmost mysteries before the eternal
throne. And thus any common act of real prayer keeps,
not the  imagination, but the  understanding, occupied
earnestly, absorbingly, under the guidance of faith, from
first to last.l
Next, to pray is to put the affections in motion: it is to
open the heart. The object of prayer is the Uncreated Love,
the Eternal Beauty, - He of whose beauty all that moves
love and admiration here is, at best, a pale reflection. To be
in his presence in prayer is to be conscious of an expansion of the heart, and of the pleasure which accompanies it,
which we feel, in another sense, when speaking with an
intimate and loved friend or relative. And this movement
of the affections is sustained throughout the act of prayer.
It is invigorated by the spiritual sight of God; but it is also
the original impulse which leads us to draw near to him.2
In true prayer as in teaching, " out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh." 8
Once more: to pray is to put the will in motion, just as
decidedly as we do when we sit down to read hard, or to
walk up a steep hill against time.4  That sovereign power
1 Eph. vi. 18; John iv. 22-29; Rom. x. 14; Heb. xi. 6.
2 Matt. xv. 8; 1 John iii. 21, 22.
8 Matt. xii. 34; Luke vi. 45.
4 John ix. 31; Matt. vii. 21; James iv. 7, 8. These passages all imply
that prayer in which the will is not engaged is worthless.




of Religion.                 28I
in the soul, which we name the will, does not merely, in
prayer, impel us to mnake the first necessary mental effort,
but enters most penetratingly and vitally into the very
action of the prayer itself. It is the will which presses the
petition; it is the will which struggles with the reluctance
of sloth, or with the oppositions of passion; it is the will
which perseveres; it is the will which exclaims, " I will not
let thee go, except thou bless me."' The amount of will
which we severally carry into the act of prayer is the ratio
of its sincerity  and, where prayer is at once real and prolonged, the demands which it makes upon our power of concentrating determination into a specific and continuous act
are very considerable indeed.
Now, these three ingredients of prayer are also ingredients in all real work, whether of the brains or of the hands.
The sustained effort of the intelligence and of the will must
be: seconded in work, no less than in prayer, by a movement
of the affections, if work is to be really successful. A man
must love his work to do it well. The difference between
prayer-and ordinary work is, that, in prayer, the three ingredients are more equally balanced. Study may, in time,
become intellectual habit, which scarcely demands any effort
of will: handiwork may, in time, become so mechanical as
to require little or no guidance from thought: each may exist
in a considerable, although not in the highest, degree of
excellence, without any co-operation of the affections. Not
1 Gen. xxxii. 26.




282      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
so prayer. It is always the joint act of the will and the
understanding, impelled by the affections; and, when either
will or intelligence is wanting, prayer at once ceases to be
itself, by degenerating into a barren intellectual exercise, or
into a mechanical and unspiritual routine.
The dignity of prayer as being real work becomes clear to
us, if we consider the faculties which it employs. This will
be made clearer still, if we consider the effect of all sincere
prayer upon the habitual atmosphere of the soul. Prayer
places the soul face to face with facts of the first order of
solemnity and importance, with its real self, and with its
God. And just as art, or study, or labor, in any department,
is elevating, when it takes us out of and beyond the petty
range of daily and perhaps material interests, while yet it
quickens interest in them by kindling higher enthusiasms
into life, so, in a peculiar and transcendent sense, it is with
prayer. Prayer is man's inmost movement towards a higher
power; but what is the intellectual view or apprehension of
himself that originally impels him to move? Under what
aspect does man appear to himself in prayer?. In a former
lecture, we have encountered the mystery which lies enclosed
within each one of us, - the mystery which is yet a fact, -
of an undying personality.  It is that which each human
speaker describes as "'I." It is that of which each of us
is conscious as no one else can be conscious. Its existence
is not proved to us by a demonstration, since we apprehend
it as immediately obvious. Its certainty can be shaken by




of Religion.                   283
no sophistical or destructive argument, since our conviction
of its reality is based upon a continuous act of primary perception. No sooner do we withdraw ourselves from the importunities of sense, from the wanderings of imagination,
from the misleading phrases which confuse the mental sight,
than we find ourselves face to face with this fact, represented
by' I."  For it is neither the body which the real self may
ignore, nor a passionate impulse which the real self may
conquer, nor even that understanding, which, close as'it is
to the real self; is yet distinct from it. The body may be in
its decrepitude; the flames of passion may have died away;
the understanding may be almost in its dotage: yet the
inward, self-possessed, self-governing being may remain untouched, realizing itself in struggling against the instincts
of bodily weakness, and in crushing out the embers which
survive the fires of extinct passions. Now, it is this self,
conscious of its greatness, conscious of its weakness, which
is the real agent in prayer. In its oppressive sense of solitude, even in the midst of multitudes, this self longs to go
forth, and to commune with the Father of spirits who
gave it life. This real self it is which apprehends God with
the understanding, which embraces him  with the affections,
which resolves through the will to obey him; and thus does
it underlie and unite the complex elements of prayer, so
that, in true heartfelt prayer, we become so conscious of- its
vitality and power. It is in prayer especially that we cease
to live, as it were, in a single faculty, or on the surface of




284      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
our being: it is in prayer that we cease to regard ourselves
as animal forms, or as social powers, or as family characters,
and look hard, for the time being, at ourselves as being
what we really are; that is to say, as immortal spirits,
outwardly draped in social forms and proprieties, and linked
to a body of flesh and blood, but, in our felt spiritual solitude,
looking steadily upwards at the face of God, and straining
our eyes onwards towards the great eternity which lies
before us.1
Prayer is, then, so noble, because it is the work of man
as man, —of man realizing his being and destiny with a
vividness which is necessary to him in no other occupation.
But what shall we say of it, when we reflect further, that,
in prayer, man holds converse with God; that the Being of
beings, with all his majestic attributes, filling and transcending the created universe, traversing human history,
traversing each man's own individual history, is before
him; that, although man is dust and ashes, he is, by prayer,
already welcomed in the very courts of heaven? It is not
necessary to dwell on this topic. Whatever be the daily
occupations of any in this church, be he a worker with the
hands, or a worker with the brain, be he gentle or simple,
be he unlettered or educated, be he high in the State, or
among the millions at its base, is it not certain that the
nobleness of his highest forms of labor must fall infinitely
below that of any single human spirit entering consciously
into converse with the infinite and eternal God?
1 Luke xviii. 13, 14.




of Religion.                   285
2.
But granted, men say, the dignity of prayer, granted,
even, its dignity as labor: what if this labor be misapplied.?
There are many functions in many states, very dignified,
and not a little onerous, yet, in a social and human sense,
not very productive.  Is prayer, in its sphere, of this
description?  Has it no tangible results?  Does it end
with itself? Can the laborer in this field point to any thing
definite that is achieved by his exertions?
The question is sufficiently serious at all times, but
especially in our own positive and practical day. And
it is necessary to make two observations, that we may see
more clearly what issue is precisely before us.
In the first place, there is here no question as to the
subjective effect of prayer, - the effect which it confessedly
has upon the mind and character of the person who prays.
Such effects have been admitted on the part of those who,
unhappily, do not pray themselves; just as the Jews, at the
time of the betrayal, were so alive to tokens in the disciples of companionship with Jesus. That all the effects of
Christian  prayer upon the soul, or most of them, are
natural, a Christian cannot admit: he believes them  to be
chiefly due to the transforming power of the grace of God,
given, as at other times, so especially in answer to prayer.
But that some effects of prayer upon the soul are natural
consequences of directing the mind  and the affections




286      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
towards a superhuman object, whether real or ideal, may
be fully granted. Thus it has been observed that persons
without natural ability have, through the earnestness of
their devotional habits, acquired, in time, powers of sustained thought, and an accuracy and delicacy of intellectual touch, which would not else have belonged to them.
The intellect being  the instrument by which  the soul
handles religious truth, a real interest in religious truth
will, of itself, often furnish an educational discipline: it
alone'educates an intellect which would otherwise be
uneducated.' The moral effects of devotion are naturally
more striking and abundant.  Habitual prayer constantly
confers decision on the wavering, and energy on the
listless, and calmness on the excitable, and disinterestedness on the selfish. It braces the moral nature by transporting it into a clear, invigorating, unearthly atmosphere:
it builds up the moral life, insensibly but surely remedying its deficiencies, and strengthening its weak points, till
there emerges a comparatively symmetrical and consistent
whole, the excellence of which all must admit, though
its secret is known only to those who know it by experience.2 Akin to the moral are the social effects of prayer.
Prayer makes men, as members of society, different in
their whole bearing  from  those who do not pray.  It
gilds social intercourse and conduct with a tenderness, an
unobtrusiveness, a sincerity, a frankness, an evenness of
1 Ps. cxix. 100.    2 PS. xxvii. 4, 5, 6.




of Religion.                   287
temper, a cheerfulness, a collectedness, a constant consideration for others, united to a simple loyalty to truth
and duty, which leavens and strengthens society. Nay, it
is not too much to say that prayer has even  physical
results. The countenance of a Fra Angelico reflects his
spirit no less than does his art: the bright eye, the pure
elevated expression, speak for themselves. It was said of
one who has died within the present generation,' that, in
his later years, his face was like that of an illuminated clock:
the color and gilding had long faded away from the hands
and figures; but the ravages of time were more than compensated for by the light which shone from within. This
was what might have been expected in an aged man of
great piety. To have lived in spirit on Mount Tabor during the years of a long life is to have caught in its closing
hours some rays of the glory of the transfiguration.
Secondly, prayer is not only —perhaps, in some of the
holiest souls, it is not even chiefly —a petition for something that we want, and do not possess. In the larger sense
of the word, as the spiritual language of the soul, prayer
is intercourse with God, often seeking no end beyond
the pleasure of such intercourse. It is praise; it is congratulation; it is adoration of the infinite Majesty; it is
a colloquy in which the soul engages with the All-wise and
the All-holy; it is a basking in the sunshine, varied by
ejaculations of thankfulness to the Sun of righteousness
I Rev. J. Keble.




288      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
for his light and his warmth. In this larger sense, the
earlier part of the Te Deum is prayer, as much as the
latter part; the earliest and latest clauses of the Gloria
in Excelsis, as truly as the central ones; the Sanctus or
the Jubilate, no less than the Litany; the Magnificat, as
certainly as the Fifty-first Psalm. When we seek the
company of our friends, we do not seek it simply with the
view of getting something from them: it is a pleasure to
be with them, to be talking to them at all, or about any
thing; to be in possession of their sympathies, and to be
showing our delight at it; to be assuring them  of their
place in our hearts and thoughts. So it is with the soul,
when dealing with the Friend of friends, — with God.
Prayer is not, as it has been scornfully described, "' only
a machine warranted by theologians to make God do what
his clients want."  It is a great deal more than petition,
which is only one department of it: it is nothing less than
the whole spiritual action of the soul turned towards God
as its true and adequate object. And, if used in this comprehensive sense, it is clear, that as to much prayer, in
the sense of spiritual intercourse with God, the question,
Whether it is answered can never arise, for the simple
reason that no answer is asked for.
But whether prayer means only, as in popular language
it does generally mean, petition for a specific object, or
the whole cycle of possible communion between the soul
and God, the question, Whether it is heard is a very




of Religion.                  289
practical one. We do not address inanimate objects, however beautiful they may be, except in the way of poetical
apostrophe. We do not enter into spiritual colloquy with
the mountains, or the rivers, or the skies, with a. view to
discharging a duty to them, or really improving ourselves.'
If there is really no Being above who does hear us, what
can be the use of continuing a practice that is based upon
an altogether false presumption? The subjective benefits
of prayer depend upon. our belief in its real power. But,
even if they did not, who would go through a confessedly
fictitious exercise, at regular intervals, with a view to
securing them?  Who would continue to pray regularly,
if he were once well persuaded that the effect of prayer
is, after all, only like the effect of the higher philosophy or
poetry, - an education and a stimulus to the soul of man,
but not an influence that can really touch the mind or will
of that Being to whom it is addressed? Nobody. denies the
moral and mental stimulus which is to be gained from the
study of the great poets. But do we read Homer, or
Shakespeare, or Goethe, each morning and evening, and
perhaps at the middle of the day? Or, if such were the
practice of any of us, should we have any approach to
a feeling of being guilty of a criminal omission, if, now
and then, we omitted to read them?  No: if-prayer is to
be persevered in, it must be on the strength of a conviction
1 The apostrophes of the Psalms and the Benedicite are really acts
of praise to God, of which his creatures furnish the occasion.
19




290      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
that it is actually heard by a living person. We cannot
practise any intricate trickery upon ourselves with a view
to our moral edification. We cannot pray, if we believe in
our hearts that in prayer we are only holding communion
with an ideal world of our own creation; that we are like
children with overheated imaginations, vainly endeavoring
to pass the barriers which really confine us to our dark,
earthly prison-house, while, in our failure, we half consciously, half unconsciously, cheat ourselves with the consolation of talking to shapes of power or benevolence, traced
by our fathers or by ourselves upon its inexorable walls.
We cannot fall- into the ranks of the Christian Church,
lifting up the holy hands of sacrifice and intercession on
all the mountains of the world, -if, in our hearts, we see
in her only a new company of Baal-worshippers, gathering
upon the slopes of some modern  Carmel, and vainly
endeavoring to rouse her idol into an impossible animation,
while the Elijahs of materialistic science stand by to mock
her fruitless efforts with the playful scorn of that tranquil
irony to which their higher knowledge presumably entitles
them.
The question whether God hears prayer, is, at bottom,
the question whether he is really alive; whether, in any true
sense of the term, he exists at all. No word is used more
equivocally than the word " God" in the present day. If
by " God" we mean only a product of the thought or consciousness of man, to which it cannot be certainly presumed




of Religion.                   291
that any being actually corresponds; the highest thought
of man, yet only man's highest thought, -then there is,
of course, no one who can hear us. It has been said, that if
a man talks out loud to himself, apostrophizing what are, in
truth, only his own conceptions, it is difficult not to credit
him with a certain tinge of madness; and it would be just
as practical to address our prayer to the carved and gilded
idols of Babylon, whose manufacture roused the sternest
satire of the evangelical prophet, as to the unreal abstractions, which, labelled with the most holy Name, are sent
us from the intellectual workshops, ancient and modern, of
Alexandria or of Berlin. And if by "God" is meant only
the unseen force of the universe, or its collective forces, if
he is the principle of growth in the plant, the life-principle
in the animal or in man, we need not read Spinoza in order
to convince ourselves of the fruitlessness of prayer.  A
self-existing force or cause, if such can be conceived,
without intelligence, without personality, of course without
any moral attributes, may be a thing to wonder at; but it
certainly is not a being to speak to.' We may, of course,
ejaculate to such a thing, if we like; but we might just as
well say litanies to the winds or to the ocean. The question may be safely left to our utilitarian instincts. Time
and strength, after all, are limited; and we shall not, in the
long-run, spend " our money," at least in this direction, " for
that which is not bread, or our labor for that which satisfieth
not." 1
1 Isa. Iv. 2.




292      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
If, on the other hand, God exists, whether we think about
him or not; if he be not merely the mightiest force, the
first of causes, but something more; if he be a personal
being, thinking, with no limits to his thought, and willing,
with no fetters around his liberty, - then, surely, we may
reach him if we will. What is to prevent it?  Cannot we
men, at our pleasure, embody our thought, our feeling, our
desires, or purposes, in language, and so make them pass
into and be apprehended by the created finite personalities
around us? Where is the barrier that shall arrest thought,
longings, desires, entreaties, not as yet clothed (why need
they be clothed'?) in speech, as they mount up from the
soul towards the all-embracing intelligence of God? And
if God be not merely an infinite Intelligence, but a moral
Being, a mighty Heart, so that justice and mercy and
tenderness are attributes of his character, then to appeal
to him in virtue of these attributes is assuredly to appeal to
him to some purpose. If an omnipresent Intelligence is a
sufficient guaranty of his being able to hear us, an interest such as justice and mercy imply on his part towards
creatures who depend upon him for the original gift, and
for the continued maintenance, of life, is a guaranty of his
willingness to do so.
It is on this ground that God is said to hear prayer in
Holy Scripture.  That he should do so follows from the
reality of his nature as God. Elijah's irony implies that
he is unlike the Phoenician Baal in being  really alive.l A
1 1 Kings xviii. 27.




of Religion.                 293
later psalmist contrasts him, in like manner, with the
Assyrian idols, in that " they have eyes, but see not: they
have ears, but hear not." 1 They do but fill their temples
with gorgeous impotence. But Israel's God is the Author
of the very senses whereby we are conscious of each
other's presence and wishes, and can enter into a companionship of thought and purpose. Is he debarred from
the use of the gifts which he himself bestows with so
bountiful a hand?  "He that planted the ear, shall he not
hear? or he'that formed the eye, shall he not see?" 2 Is
it not, on the contrary, reasonable to believe that these
powers must exist in a much higher and more perfect form
ill the one Being who gives them than in the myriads
upon whom they are bestowed, and by whom they are only
held in trust?  And if it is improbable, that, amid the
innumerable beings who are alive to the sights and sounds
of his creation, the Creator alone should be blind and deaf,
is it more probable that He who has implanted in our breasts
feelings of interest and pity for one another should be himself insensible to our pain and need? Our hearts must
anticipate and echo the statement of the Psalmist, that God
does hear the desire of the poor; that the innocent, the
oppressed, the suffering,'have especial claims upon him.
And, to omit other illustrations, our Lord reveals him as a
Father, the common Parent of men, of whose boundless
love all earthly fatherhood is a shadow and a delegation.
1 Ps. cxv. 5.  2 Ps. xciv. 9.




294     Prayer, the Characteristic Action
If the earthly parent, being evil, does not yet give a stone
when his child cries for bread, the heavenly Father will not
fall short of the teachings of an instinct which he has
himself implanted, by failing to give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask him.1
3.
If a man is a good Theist, we need not say a good
Christian; he must believe that the Father of spirits is
not deaf to the voice of the human soul; that the thanksgiving and praise, the intercessions and supplications, the
penitence and the self-surrender, of beings to whom he has
given moral and intellectual life, is not utterly lost upon the
Giver. But will he indeed answer prayer when prayer takes
the form of a petition for some specific blessing which must
be either granted or refused? There is no doubt as to the
reply which the Bible and the Church have given to this
question. But what do some modern thinkers say about
it?  Do they not deny the power of prayer by surrounding
the throne of God with barriers, which, as they would have
it, oblige him, while " the sorrowful sighings of the prisoners" of this vale of tears incessantly " come before him,"
to make as though he heard not, and to shorten his hand as
if it could not save?
The first presumed barrier against the efficacy of prayer,
1 Luke xi. 11-13.




of Religion.                 295
to which men point, is the scientific idea of law, reigning
throughout the spiritual as well as the material universe.
This idea, as we are constantly reminded, is one of the most
remarkable conquests of modern thought; and no man, so
it is said, can enter into it with an intelligent sympathy,
without abandoning the fond conceit that God will grant a
particular favor to one of his creatures upon being asked
to do so. It may have been pardonable to pray for rain,
for health, for freedom from pestilence and famine, when
these things were supposed to depend upon the caprice of
an omnipotent Will; but the scientific idea of law renders
these prayers absurd.  We know that a shower is the
product of atmospheric laws which make a shower, under
certain circumstances, inevitable; that the death of an
individual is the result of physiological laws which absolutely determine it. The idea that a shower, or the death
of a man, is contingent upon the good pleasure of a Being
who can avert or precipitate them at pleasure is unscientific:
it belongs to days when the idea of law had not yet dawned
upon the intellect of civilization, or when, at any rate, large
margins of the physical world, and the whole of the spiritual
world, were supposed to be beyond its frontiers, as being
abandoned to the government of a capricious Omnipotence.
Surely, it is added, we have really attained to a, nobler idea
of the universe than was this old theological conception of
the Bible and the Church: the superiority is to be measured
by those fundamental instincts of fitness within us, which




296      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
assign to law and order a higher place in our minds than can
belong to a personal will.
Does not the very word " law," by reason of its majestic
and imposing associations, here involve us in some' indistinctness of thought? What do we mean by law? When
we speak of a law of Nature, are we thinking of some selfsustained, invisible force, of which we can give no account,
except that here it is, a matter of experience?  Or do we
mean by a law of Nature only a principle, which, as our
observation shows us, appears to govern particular actions
of the almighty Agent who made, and who upholds, the
universe?  If the former, let us frankly admit that we
have not merely fettered God's freedom: we have, alas!
ceased to believe in him. For such self-sustained force is
either self-originating (in-which case there is no being in
existence who has made all that constitutes this universe);
or otherwise, having derived its first impact from the
creative will of God, this force has subsequently escaped
altogether from'his control, so that it now fetters his
liberty; and, in this case, there is no being in existence
who is almighty in the sense of being really master of
this universe. If, however, we mean by law the observed
regularity with which God works in nature as in grace,
then, in our contact with law, we are dealing, not with
a brutal, unintelligent, unconquerable force, but with the
free-will of an intelligent and moral Artist, who works,
in his perfect freedom, with  sustained  and  beautiful




of Religion.                  297
symmetry. Where is the absurdity of asking him to hold
his hand, or to hasten his work? He to whom we pray may
be trusted to grant or to refuse a prayer, as may seem best
to the highest wisdom and the truest love. And, if he grant
it, he is not without resources, even although we should
have asked him to suspend what we call a natural law.
Can he not, then, provide for the freedom of his action without violating its order? Can he not supersede a lower rule
of working by the intervention of a higher? If he really
works at all, if something that is neither moral nor intelligent has not usurped his throne, it is certain that "the
thing that is done upon earth he doeth it himself;" and that
it is, therefore, as consistent with reason as with reverence to
treat him as being a free Agent, who is not really tied and
bound by the intellectual abstractions with which finite
intellects would fain annihilate the freedQm of his action.
No: to pray for rain or sunshine, for health or food, is
just as reasonable as to pray for gifts which the soul only
can receive, - increased love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith. All such prayers presuppose
the truth, that God is not the slave of his own rules of
action; that he can innovate upon his work without forfeiting his perfection; that law is only our way of conceiving of his regularized working, and not an external force,
which governs and moulds what we recognize as his work.
It dissolves into thin air as we look hard at it, this fancied
barrier of inexorable law; and, as the mist clears off, beyond




298      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
there is the throne of the moral King of the universe, in
whose eyes material symmetry is as nothing when compared
with the spiritual well-being of his moral creatures.
A second barrier to the efficacy of prayer is sometimes
discovered in the truth, that all which comes to pass is foredetermined in the predestination of God.  "How  is the
efficacy of prayer to be reconciled," asks the fatalistic predestinarian, " with the boundless power and knowledge of
God? " Is not every thing that happens to us the decision
of an almighty, wise, beneficent Will, - a Will which, in
human phrase, has ordained it from all eternity?  Could this
Will have been, could it be, other than it is? Has time any
meaning for it? Is it not, in its omniscience and omnipotence, eternally what it is?  Where, then, is there any room
for the effect of prayer?  Can it be conceived that the
erring understanding and finite will of the creature will be
allowed to impose its decisions on the infallible mind and
resistless determinations of God? Surely if we are to go
on praying, after recognizing the sovereignty of God, we
must give up the notion of'exerting a real influence upon
the divine Will: we must content ourselves with resignation, with bringing our minds into conformity with that
which, as a matter of fact, is quite beyond the range of our
influence.
This language does but carry us into one department of
the old controversy between the defenders of the sovereignty
of God on the one side, and the advocates of the free-will




of Religion.                 299
of man on the other. The very idea of God as it occurs to
the human mind, and the distinct statements of revelation,
alike represent the divine Will as exerting sovereign and
resistless sway. If it were otherwise, God would not be
almighty; that is, he would not be God. On the other
hand, our daily experience, and the language of Scripture,
both assure us that man is literally a free agent: his freedom is the very ground of his moral and religious responsibility. Are these two truths hopelessly incompatible with
each other?  So it may seem  at first sight; and if we
escape the danger of denying the one in the supposed
interests of the other, if we shrink from sacrificing God's
sovereignty to man's free-will with Arminius, and from
sacrificing man's freedom to God's sovereignty with Calvin,
we can only express a wise ignorance by saying, that to us
they seem like parallel lines, which must meet at a point in
eternity far beyond our present range of view.  We do
know, however, that, being both true, they cannot really
contradict each other; and that, in some manner which we
cannot formulate, the divine sovereignty must not merely
be compatible with, but must even imply, the perfect freedom
of created wills. So it is with prayer and the divine predestination.  God orders all that happens to us, and, in
virtue of his infinite knowledge, by eternal decrees. But
he also says to us, in the plainest language, that he does
answer prayer, and that practically his dealings with us are
governed, in matters of the greatest importance, as well as




300      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
of the least, by the petitions which we address to him.
What if prayers and actions to us at the moment perfectly
spontaneous are eternally foreseen, and included within the
all-embracing predestination of God, as factors and causes,
working out that final result, which, beyond all dispute, is
the product of his good pleasure? Whether I open my
mouth, or lift my hand, is, before my doing it, strictly
within the jurisdiction anfd power of my personal will; but,
however I may decide, my decision, so absolutely free to
me, will' have been already incorporated by the all-seeing,
all-controlling Being, as an integral part, however insignificant, of his one, all-embracing purpose, leading on to effects
and causes beyond itself. Prayer, too, is only a foreseen
action of man, which, together with its results, is embraced
in the eternal predestination of God. To us, this or that
blessing may be strictly contingent on our praying for it;
but our prayer is, nevertheless, so far from  necessarily
introducing change into the purpose of the unchangeable,
that it has been all along taken, so to speak, into account by
him. If, then, with " the Father of lights" there is, in this
sense, "no variableness, neither shadow  of turning," it is
not, therefore, irrational to pray for specific blessings, as we
do in the Litany, because God works out his plans not
mei'ely in us, but by us; and we may dare to say that that
which is to us a free self-determination may be not other
than a foreseen element of his work.
A third barrier supposed to interfere with the efficacy of




of Religion.                 301
prayer is the false idea of the divine dignity, which is
borrowed from  our notions of human royalties.  It is
assumed that a supreme governor cannot be expected to
take account of trifling circumstances, or to decide between
petty and conflicting claims. He legislates for the universe;
but it is not to be supposed that he will also discharge all
the minute and harassing duties of a local executive.'lihe
power of prayer implies a special providence; and a special
providence, we are told, is beneath the dignity of God.
We have already encountered this line of thought, not in its
practical bearings upon prayer, but as it affects our belief as
to the divine nature. " Do you imagine," men ask, " when
you reflect upon the vast universe in which we live, upon
that immeasurable space, upon those innumerable worlds,
upon those systems beyond systems of suns which are discovering themselves slowly but surely to our telescopes,
that He who made this mighty whole has nothing to do but
to listen to the little story of your wants and hopes and
fears? He has instituted some good and universal rules of
government under which you live: if they sometimes bear
hardly upon you, your case is only that of others, and you
must take your chaince. To expect him to suspend, or to
revoke, his legislation on your particular account, is to
sacrifice common sense to outrageous egotism, - the egotism
which can suppose that a petty individual life, a worm
crawling on the surface of one of his- smallest planets, can
be an object of this particular consideration and interest to
the almighty Creator."




302      Prayer, the Character:istic Action
Even at the risk of representing human egotism, it must
be here and again asserted, that man's place in the creation
is not determined by the considerations which this objection
supposes.  In the eyes of an intellectual and spiritual
being, material bulk is not the only or the highest test of
greatness. If God is not to be supposed to be mainly
interested in vast accumulations of senseless matter; if
there be, in the estimate of a moral being, other and
worthier measures of greatness; if the organic be higher
than the inorganic, and that which feels, than that which
has no feeling; if that which thinks be higher than that
which only feels, and that which freely conforms to moral
will higher than that which only thinks; if a fly be really
a nobler thing than a granite mountain, and a little child
than a rhinoceros or a mammoths-then we need not
acquiesce in this depreciatory estimate of man's place in
creation, or of his claims upon the ear of God. On his
bodily side, man is insignificant enough. As a spirit concious of his own existence, and determining his action in
the freedom of his will, he does not deceive himself in
believing that God has crowned him with an especial glory
and honor among the visible creatures.l But, even if man
were not thus honored, it is, as we have seen, no part of the
divine dignity to be inattentive even to the lowest creatures
of his hand. The throne of heaven is not modelled upon
the type of an Oriental depotism; and God's greatness is not
1 Ps. viii. 5.




of Religion.                  303
compromised by the duties of administration any more
than it is heightened by the enactment of law. The infinite
Mind is not less capable of formulating the most universal
principles, because he enters with perfect sympathy and
intelligence into each of our separate wants and efforts, —
the wants and efforts of creatures who are really greater,
because infinitely more like, their Creator, than are the
largest stars and suns.
A fourth barrier to the efficacy of prayer is supposed to
be discoverable in an inadequate conception of the interests
of human beings as a whole. To suppose that God can
answer individual prayers for specific blessings is inconsistent, we are told, with any serious appreciation of human
interests. One man or nation asks for that which may be
an injury to another. The Spaniards prayed for the success
of their Armada: the English prayed against it. Both could
not be listened to. The weather cannot consult the convenience of everybody at once: and therefore the specific
prayers of well-meaning villagers, if they could be attended
to, could only be attended to by a God, who, instead of
being the Father of all his creatures, reserved special
indulgences for his favorites.
Here it is natural to remark, that, if God should think
fit to grant a large proportion of the particular requests
which would be found among the daily prayers of an earnest
Christian, he would not, to say the least, thereby do any
injury to others, whether they were Christiaps or not.




304      Prayer, the Characteristic Action
Prayer for the highest well-being of any human being may
be granted without damaging other human beings. If God
should condescend, in answer to prayer, to teach one of his
servants more humility, purity, or love, this would not
oblige him to withdraw spiritual graces from any others in
order to do it. Nor are other persons the worse for coming
into contact with one whom God has made loving, or pure,
or humble, in answer to prayer. Is it not nearer the truth
to say that they are likely to be much better; and, therefore,
that a large number of answers to prayer for personal blessings necessarily extend, in their effects, beyond those who
are immediately blessed?
But observe, further, that every prayer for specific blessings in a Christian soul is tacitly, if not expressly, conditioned. The three conditions which are always understood
are given at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, -  Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done."
In effect, these three conditions are only one. If a change
of weather, or a restoration to health, or any blessing, be
prayed for, a Christian petitioner deliberately wills that his
prayer should be refused, supposing that to grant it should
in any way obscure God's glory in other minds, or hinder
the advance of his kingdom, and so contravene what must
be his will. Every Christian tacitly adds to every prayer,' Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." All
Christian prayer takes it for granted, first, that the material
world exists for the sake of, and is entirely subordinate to,




of Religion.                   305
the interests of the moral; and, secondly, that God is the
best judge of what the true interests of the moral world really
are. Therefore, if his specific petition is not granted, a
Christian will not conclude that his real prayer is unanswered. His real prayer was, from the first, that God's
name might be hallowed among men by the advance of his
kingdom and the doing of his will, through God's granting a
particular request which he urges. He knows that his own
highest object may be best secured by the refusal of the
very blessing for which he pleads; and he puts his finite
knowledge and his narrow sympathies into the hands of
infinite Wisdom  and infinite Love, with perfect confidence
that the final decision will be the best answer to his real
and deepest prayer. It is thus that he realizes the promise,
" Every one that asketh receiveth."  He, too, receives
that which he really wants, though his specific petition
should be refused.
A last barrier to faith in the efficacy of prayer is really
to be discovered in man's idea of his own self-sufficiency.
It can scarcely be doubted that one of the excellences of
our character as a nation is constantly a source of danger
to our faith in the power of prayer. Pelagius was himself a
native of Britain; and the old heresy of substituting human
self-sLfficiency for dependence on the grace and help of
God is very congenial to the temper which we English
cultivate, with such success, in individual action and in
political life. After all, we say, do we not depend on our
20




306     Prayer, the Characteristic Action
own efforts for being what we are, and for doing what we
do?  Whatever God may see fit to do for us, our best form
of prayer is work: it is the determination to secure what we
want by personal efforts to get it. The indolent or the
imaginative may be left to lengthen out their litanies; but
practical men will fall back upon the wise proverb, that
" God helps those who help themselves."
Here, however, it must be insisted on by the one side,
and admitted on the other, that many objects of prayer are
altogether out of the reach of human effort, and that, if they
are to be secured at all, they must be given freely by God.
But the fact of our moral freedom, as felt in the capacity
for work, to which Pelagianism appeals, is not more clear
than the fact of our dependence. Do what we will, we
depend on others: we are linked to them  by a thousand
ties. We are, all of us, acted upon most powerfully by the
circumstances which surround us: the governing moods of
thought and feeling within ourselves are often determined
by these circumstances. This is true of " self-made men,"
as we call them, not less than of others. How much did
not Faraday owe to Sir Humphry Davy! And this dependence upon circumstances is, in fact, dependence upon
things which God controls. Facts are not less facts because
they seem to be incompatible, because the effort to reconcile
them teaches our reason that its limits are narrower than we
wish. It is easier to say that man is entirely free, that he
depends on nothing, or to say that man is simply the




of Religion.                  307
creature of circumstances, that he is never really free, than
to say, what is the real truth, that man is, in his entire
freedom, absolutely dependent, that he is, in his entire dependence, absolutely free. Yet this apparent paradox is
the literal truth, which refuses to ignore facts in order to.
make the task of reason easier, and to enable it the better
to round off its trenchant but inconclusive theories about
human action. And, because life is so subtle an intermixture of dependence and action, prayer is the most practical
of all forms of work: it is at once the activity of man's
freedom, and the expression of his dependence; and the
answer which it wins is not less, in one sense, the result of
human effort, than, in another, it is the work of God.
And thus it is in and by prayer that the two governing
elements of religious life, thought and work, alike find their
strongest impulse and their point of unity. Such is our
weakness, that we constantly tend to a one-sided use of
God's gifts. We are either absorbingly speculative and
contemplative on the one hand, or we are absorbingly
practical, and men of action, on the other. Either exaggeration is fatal to the true life of religion, which binds the soul
to God by faith as well as by love, by love not less than by
faith, by a life of energetic service not less truly than by a
life of communion with light and truth. It is in prayer that
each element is at once quickened in itself, and balanced by
the presence of the other. The great masters and teachers
of Christian doctrine have always found in prayer their




308      Prayer, the UCharacteristic Action
highest source of illumination. Not to go beyond the limits
of the English Church, it is recorded of Bishop Andrewes,
that he spent five hours daily on his knees. The greatest
practical resolves that have enriched and beautified human
life in Christian times have been arrived at in prayer, ever
since the day when, at the most solemn service of the
apostolical Church, the Holy Ghost said, "Separate me
Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called
them." 1 It is prayer which prevents religion from degenerating into mere religious thought on the one side, or into
mere philanthropy on the other.~ In prayer, the man of
action will never become so absorbed in his work as to be
indifferent to the truth which is its original motive. In
prayer, the man of study and contemplation will never
forget that truth is given, not so much that it may interest
and stimulate our understandings, as that it may govern and
regenerate our life. And thus it is, that prayer is of such
vital importance to the well-being of the soul. - Study may
be dispensed with by those who work with their hands for
God; handiwork may be dispensed with by those who seek
him in books and in thought: but prayer is indispensable,
alike for workers and students, alike  for scholar and
peasant, alike for the educated and the unlettered; for we all
have to seek God's face above: we all have souls to be
sanctified and saved; we all have sins and passions to beat
back and to conquer. And these things are achieved pre1 Acts xiii. 2.




of Religion.                 309
eminently by prayer, which is properly and representatively
the action of religion. It is the action whereby we men, in
all our frailty and defilement, associate ourselves with our
divine Advocate on high, and realize the sublime bond
which in him, the one Mediator between God and man,
unites us in our utter unworthiness to the strong and allholy God.
That prayer, sooner or later, is answered, to all who have
prayed earnestly and constantly, is, in different degrees, a
matter of personal experience. David, Elijah, Hezekiah,
Daniel, the apostles of Christ, were not the victims of an
illusion, in virtue of which they connected particular events
which would have happened in any case with prayers that
preceded it. They who never pray, or who never pray with
the humility, confidence, and importunity that wins its way
to the heart of God, cannot speak from experience as to the
effects of prayer; nor are they in a position to give credit,
with generous simplicity, to those who can. But at least,.on such a subject as this, the voice of the whole company of
God's servants may be held to counterbalance a few   priori
surmises or doctrines; and it is the very heart of humanity
itself, which, from age to age, mounts up with the Psalmist
to the eternal throne,  O0 thou that hearest prayer, unto thee
shall all flesh come."1 And Christians can penetrate within
the veil. They know that there is a majestic pleading,
which for eighteen centuries has never ceased, and which is
1 s. lxv. 2.




3IO     Prayer, the Characteristic Action
itself omnipotent, -the pleading of One who makes their
cause his own. They rest upon the divine words, " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, in my name, he will give it
you."1
A time will probably come to most of us, if it has not
come to some already, when we shall wish that the hours at
our command, during the short day of life, had not been
disposed of as they have. After all, this world is a poor
thing to live for, when the next is in view. Whatever be
their claims, created beings have no business to be sitting
on that highest throne within the soul that belongs to the
Creator. Yet, for all that, too often they do sit there.
And time is passing. Of that priceless gift of time, how
much will one day be seen to have been lost! how ruinous
shall we deem our investment of this our most precious
stock! How  many interests, occupations, engagements,
friendships, - I speak not of the avowed ways of I" killing
time," as it is termed with piteous accuracy, —will be then
regarded only as so many precautions for building our house
upon the sand, as only so many expedients for assuring our
failure to compass the true end of our existence! It may
not now seem possible that we should ever think thus. Life
is like the summer's day; and in the first fresh morning we
do not realize the noonday heat; and at noon we do not
think of the shadows lengthening across the plain, and of
the setting sun, and of the advancing night. Yet to each
1 John xvi. 23.




of Religion.                3 II
and all the sunset comes at last; and those who have made
most of the day are not unlikely to reflect most bitterly how
little they have made of it. Whatever else they may look
back upon with thankfulness or with sorrow, it is certain that
they will regret no omissions of duty more keenly than
neglect of prayer; that they will prize no hours m6re than
those which have been passed, whether in private or in
public, before that throne of justice and of grace upon
which they hope to gaze throughout eternity.