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PRAYER,
AND THE
PRAYER GAUGE.
BY
REV. MARK HOPKINS, D.D.
NEW YORK:
DODD & MEAD, PUBLISHERS,
762 BROADWAY.








PRAYER.
BUT for the invitation of several pastors, and of others whose opinion I
respect, and whose wishes I regard, I
should not have thought of entering
into the discussion on the subject of
prayer that is now going on.  I come
now  in no spirit of controversy. My
simple wish is to aid candid minds on a
subject of vital interest, and certainly not
without its difficulties.
Let us then, first, look at the subject
itself; and afterward at the special difficulties, not new, but made prominent at
the present time.
The term "prayer," as it is ordinarily




6          PRAYER, AND
used, includes worship-adoration, praise,
confession, thanksgiving. These may be
acceptable to God, and useful to ourselves in their reflex influence, but they,
together with all considerations of reflex
influence, are to be excluded from the
present discussion. I propose, as we are
asked to do, to consider prayer solely as
petition, and petition as a means of obtaining that for which we ask. If it be not
that, I have no plea to make for it.
In prayer regarded as petition, we
hope for some change that would not
have been without the prayer. We find
that we can change events and their
issues in other ways. Despite any. difficulties that may be raised about the
unchangeable laws of nature, or the
immutability of God, we all know that
it lies with us to use means that will




THE PRAYER GAUGE.            7
cause events and their issues to be different from what they would have been if
we had not used those means.   If not,
there is an end to all rational activity.
The only question is, whether prayer is
one of those means at all; and if so, to
what extent.
To decide this, we naturally inquire
how it is that changes are produced. If
we notice, we shall observe that the
changes around us come in two ways.
They come either by what we call immutable law, or by the action of free will.
Immutable law belongs to matter. There,
with the exception of a miracle, we not
only acknowledge that it is, but claim
that it is. The law of matter, called the
first law of motion, or sometimes the law
of inertia, that is, that a body will continue at rest, or in a state of uniform




8          PRAY ER, AND
motion, until it is caused to change its
state by some external force, is an immutable law. If I lay my watch on the
desk before me, it will lie there forever
unless removed by some external force.
If this and other laws of matter were not
immutable, there would be no basis for
physical science.  Without this, experience would lose its value.
Free-will, on the other hand, belongs
to mind, and when we come to that, we
come into a different region. In matter,
as subject to law, there is necessity, and
only that.  There is no room   for an
alternative. The stone cannot roll halfway down the hill and then turn round
and roll back.  But in freedom there is
no necessity.  The very term  precludes
it. There is room for an alternative.
Accordingly science, in the sense of the




THE PRA YER GA UGE.         9
physicist, can never come into this
region. The phenomena are wholly different, and I must beg you to keep
these regions distinct, for the discussion
will turn very much upon the relation of
one of them to the other-the relation of
free-will to physical law.
What the ultimate relation of will is
to what we call immutable law, but
which we know only as uniformity within
a limited period, we do not now stop to
inquire. There are those, and I am of
the number, who believe that these uniformities of nature, called laws, may be
ultimately resolved into will; but for the
purpose of this discussion they are to be
accepted as uniformities, as given quantities, and, except by miracle, immutable while the present system stands.
Changes, then, may be wrought, I




10        PRA YER, AND
will not say by law, for I cannot conceive
of law as an agent, or by force, which is
equally an abstraction, but by some
agent possessing force and acting uniformly. The river runs, and the ice-berg
floats downward from the pole by the
law of gravitation. On the other hand,
changes are produced by will. The will
of man comes between these laws and
their results as they would be without
that will.  Without his will the stream
would flow on uniformly. By the interposition of that will it is made to set
back and pour over a dam, and turn his
water-wheel. He stands at the sluiceway, and by a slight movement directs
the flood at his will. This you will observe he does, and knows that he can
do, through the very immutability of the
laws of gravitation and fluidity. It is by




THE PRA YER GA UGE.          I
this only that he halters them, and
breaks them into his service. Inflexible
laws in their relation to will are like inflexible sticks of timber, and are all the
more serviceable for their inflexibility
provided they admit of a varying adjust
ment among themselves. This they do
admit. By the interposition of will, in
flexible sticks of timber may be arranged
into very different shapes, and in the
same way inflexible laws may be so ad
justed among themselves as to work out
very different results.
But, in speaking of the inter-action
of will with fixed law in producing
changes and results, we have need to
clear the ground by defining our terms.
For want of this men have talked and
written at cross purposes.  There are
three terms especially, the meaning of




12        PRA YE R, AND
which, at least as we shall use them, we
need to fix. These are nature, or natural, supernatural and miraculous.
And first, of nature.  By this we
mean that region of fixed law of which
I have spoken, the region of necessity,
the region where nothing begins to be
in any thing that is not caused by some
thing external to itself. There is in it
no power of originating any thing: no
choice, no will, no freedom. This, as I
have said, is the region of physical
science.
By the supernatural we mean, not,
as some say, what God only can do;
nor, as others say, what beings superior
to man only can do, but we mean just
what the name implies, a region above
nature. We mean a region in which
action can be originated, a region of




THE PRA YER GA UGE.         13
will, of choice, of personality, one from
which nature can be looked down upon,
and comprehended and controlled. This,
of course, makes the actions of man
supernatural so far as they are free.
There are those who object to this, but
they do not seem to see that it is only
thus that we can find a distinction in
kind, and so really separate the natural
from the supernatural, and the supernatural from the miraculous.  When I
raise this book I overcome a law of nature, a law that was holding it down. I
do what nature never could have done,
and therefore, as originating the action,
what is above nature or supernatural.
As originating in free-will that act is
just as supernatural, just as much out
of and beyond any power of nature, as
it would be for an angel to descend and




14        PRA YER, AND
appear on this platform. That would
be supernatural, but not miraculous.
Unless we make a miracle merely a
wonder, the appearance of the angels
to the shepherds was not a miracle.
What, then, would be miraculous?
What is a miracle? In the Bible the
supernatural and the miraculous are not
carefully  distinguished.  Indeed,  the
word supernatural is not in the Bible
at all.  The two    are  grouped  as
"signs," "wonders," and miracles," but
we need to find a distinction in kind.
In itself a miracle is not different from
any other event; That an event should
become a miracle requires two things:
First, there  must be laws of nature
previously established, and those laws
must be transcended.   In the beginning, before the laws of nature were




THE PRA4 YER GA UGE.        15
established, a miracle was impossible.
The creation of the world was not a
miracle. And, second, the laws of nature must be transcended by a direct
act of will. If I toss this book into
the air it will fall by the law of gravitation. That is natural. If I suspend
it from  the  ceiling  by  a  cord, I
counteract the law of gravitation by
the stronger law of cohesion, and so
change the result. This is not a miracle, because I use one law of nature
to counteract another. It is all natural,
except that act of intervention by which
the counteraction  is brought about.
That is supernatural, but not miraculous.
But if now I were to toss the book
into the air, and, by a direct act of
my will, with no means intervening, it
were to remain suspended, that would




I6        PRAYER, AND
be a miracle. There would be no violation or suspension of any law of nature, as some suppose there must be, in
a miracle. Gravitation would act as before, as it did when the book was
suspended by a cord, but would, as
in that case, be overcome by a stronger
force. In both cases there is an intervention of will. The difference is, that
in the one case the law is overcome
by a stronger law, through an adjustment made by intelligence and will;
in the other case will acts directly. A
miracle, then, will be a physical effect
in which a law of nature is overcome,
or the elements of'nature are controlled
by a direct act of will. This reveals a
personal power above nature, which a
uniform law, that is, nature, could not
do. Such was the feeding of the five




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           17
thousand by Christ, and his walking
on the water.  According to this, so
far as the dividing of the Red Sea
was due to the east wind, it was not
a miracle. It was a wonder, a marvel
like the effects of fire and of tornadoes,
which are such that but for the evidence of our senses we could not believe them.  It was supernatural, and,
under the circumstances, as signally an
interposition of God as if it had been
a miracle, but that it was not.
But is it possible that will can act
thus? The physicist says no. Why?
For no other reason apparently but that
his own will cannot do it. Certainly
it is not given us to control nature,
except through her laws. We conquer
her by obeying them. But, so far as
we can see, our wills must have direct
2




I8        PRAYER, AND
power over some of the matter in our
bodies; and as the essence of a miracle consists in a revelation of the direct power of a personal will as a force
superior in the control of matter to the
laws of nature, we have only to suppose the will of God to have a relation
to nature, like that of our wills to this
matter in our bodies, and the power of
miracles would follow of course. Who
shall say that this is not so?  What
do we know of the relation of the will
of God to his universe?
With the views now stated all will
not agree. I give them as my own, and
pass on to consider how it is that we
are trained up from the first, and need
to abide permanently, in connection with
these two great and only methods of
producing changes-immutable law, and




THE PRAYER GA UGE.          I9
will. The measure of a man's power is
his ability to produce changes.  How
does nature teach us to produce them?
From  our earliest recollection  our
wants have been supplied and our
wishes met in two ways; either by our
own exertions, or by our asking others
to exert themselves for us.  Of these,
dependence on a person, which is virtually asking, comes first, and  was
the  more   prominent in  our  earlier
years, but as we grew up, they were
inseparably blended in our training. If
our parents were wise they did not do
for us what we could do for ourselves.
They knew that the muscles and mental faculties are developed only as they
are exercised, and for our sakes, even
though we asked them, they refused to
help us when we could help ourselves.




20         PRAYER, AND
That was the principle, or should have
been, never to help us so as to encourage indolence or inefficiency. But when
we could not help ourselves, when the
plaything was too high, or the stick
too heavy, or the knot too hard, and
especially in falls and bruises and sickness, they would help us if we asked.
If we were hungry, and asked for bread,
they did not give us a stone. And so,
helping ourselves, and getting help by
asking  it-sometimes getting  it, and
sometimes not, we grew up, our wants
being supplied in these two methods.
Can any thing better be conceived for
the training of the whole man —for
awakening intellect, for arousing energy,
for calling out the affections?
Now observe that, when we helped
ourselves, we brought about changes




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           21
through the fixed laws of nature. We
were trained under them. We wished to
be warmed. We went to the fire, and by
a fixed law of nature, we were warmed.
We wished to slide down hill, and, when
we had made the adjustment, by an
immutable law, the sled went.   Here,
doing our part, we invariably got what
we wanted. We knew we should. We
got it ourselves, and we thanked nobody.
We were in the region of invariable and
impersonal law, and we could not thank
that. But when we asked, all this was
changed; we were in the region of will,
and looked for the changes desired
directly or indirectly from that. We did
not suppose a miracle would be wrought,
but we knew our parents had a wider
range of control over the immutable forces
than we had, and we hoped for aid through




22        PRAYER, AND
that. We did not appeal to "physical
energy," or to any " equivalent of such
energy," but to affection and will. We
could never be sure that our requests
would be granted. For our own sakes
some of them ought not to have been;
but, if they were granted, there was room,
and a call for gratitude and love. So
much for our training under law in childhood.
But now we have reached manhood.
Parents have passed away; but the laws
of nature abide. The ground and process
of our training under them continue.
As we become more acquainted with these
laws the more admirable do they seem,
and the training under them becomes
richer in its fruits, and more beneficent.
And is the other great side and element
of our training to drop entirely away?




THE PRAYER      GAUGE.      23
Is there nothing in this universe that
can sustain that also, and make it more
broad and more blessed? Here comes
the man of science, and says: " No, that
is all passed; you are a man now.
Henceforth only law remains to you. If
there be a God, as perhaps there is, he
must always be unknown. He is, in fact,
unknowable. His plans are too vast; he
is too high to regard you or your wishes."
But if the man of science says this, not
so says the instinct of humanity in
the hour of its trouble. Not so say
"they that go down to the sea in ships
when they mount up to the heaven and
go down again to the depths, and are
at their wits' end. Then they cry unto
the Lord in their trouble." Not so says
the heart of the mother when the balances tremble between the life and death




24         PRAYER, AND
of her child. If the man of science says
that, not so says the Bible. Speaking
through the voice of Him who spoke
as never man spoke, that says, "Ask,
and ye shall receive." It says, "Pray
without ceasing." It says, "Praying always with all prayer." It says, " In every
thing, by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving let your requests be made
known unto God." It does just what
we should expect a true system would
do. It continues, and makes provision
for out discipline on the side of the affections. It enlarges the sphere of that
discipline and brings it out into grander
proportions. It says, "Our Father which
art in heaven." That is enough. We
are not now turned over to immutable
and unsympathizing law. We have a
Father in heaven. While one part of our




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           25
nature is trained up and permanently
provided for, the other is not left to
pine and wither in hopeless emaciation.
Once more, if the man of science says
that, not so says the broader-minded philosopher, who comprehends all the aspects
and needs of our manifold humanity.
The spirit of a true philosophy, its very
beginning, as is well known, is a childlike spirit. It is also comprehensive,
looking on all sides. The true philosopher combines in himself the philosopher and the child-the breadth of
the one and the docility of the other.
That aspect of life and form of culture,
therefore, which belongs to science he
does not neglect. He gives it its place.
Looking at the constitution and the
laws of nature, its balancings and adjustments, its extent and its ongoing, the




26         PRAYER, AND
philosopher that is in- him, and that he
is, says intelligently, "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty."
Looking at the constitution and laws of
the moral world, more marvelous still, and
at God's dealings with him in that, the
child that is in him and that he is, says,
"Just and true are Thy ways, thou King
of Saints." And so the circle is complete. Trained under law to work, and
under parents to ask, all the wants of
our nature are met; and there is provision for their being met while God
remains a Father, and   His universe
stands.
Thus do we reach the great positive
point that I wished to make. It is, that
as our training up to manhood is under
persons by asking, and under law by
working, so the full growth and perfec



THE PRAYER GAUGE.           27
tion of our nature require that it should
continue to be.  This I fully believe;
and I cannot express my sense of the
unwisdom of mere scientists who place
themselves under the training of impersonal law to the exclusion of that higher
and better training which is under
personality.
I have now presented the ground on
which, as I suppose, we may consistently pray; and not for spiritual blessings
only, for I seek no shelter under them,
but also for temporal blessings-for relief from  sickness, and for rain.  The
question, as I said, turns upon the relation of the power of will to the laws
of nature.  If that relation be what I
have stated, I see no difficulty about it.
As I have stated in the chapter on
prayer in "The Law of Love," it is




28        PRAYER, AND
clearly competent to any will, by what
the Duke of Argyle calls "a variable
combination of invariable forces," to
change the order of events without deranging or in any way interfering with
the order of nature.  Man can do it; I
can do it; you can do it; it is represented in the Scriptures that angels can
do it; and yet we are called upon to
believe that God cannot do it. Prof.
Tyndall, while repelling the charge of
denying that God can answer such
prayers at all, yet does deny that he
can answer them without a miracle. He
says expressly, "that without a disturbance of natural law quite as serious as
the stoppage of an eclipse, or the rolling of the St. Lawrence up the Falls
of Niagara, no act of humiliation, individual or national, could call one shower




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           29
from heaven, or deflect toward us a
single beam of the sun." 
We now proceed, as was proposed,
to look at the special difficulties made
prominent at the present time.
In doing this, as my invitation referred particularly to the views of Prof.
Tyndall, I shall be expected to notice
them. And in looking into those views
we are led, first, to inquire how far the
professor is consistent with himself. In
his latest communication on the subject
he says: "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 is a matter of experience that an
earthly father, who is at the same time
* Fragments of Science, 1-39.




30        PRAYER, AND
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
events of earth. With this suggestion
offered by 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." Now I put it
to you whether this language fairly interpreted, interpreted so as to mean any
thing at all, does not cover the whole
ground I have claimed.  According to
this it is not irrational, not even unscientific, "to place behind natural phe



THE PRAYER GAUGE.           3I
nomena a Universal Father, who, in
answer to the prayers of his children,
alters the currents of those phenomena"
-phenomena, observe, not what passes
within the mind, but physical events. I
ask nothing more, but I do ask on
what ground he, as a philosopher, can
say this and at the same time deny,
as he does in this same connection,
that phenomena    are thus changed?
Has he applied  any  test?  He does
not claim  that he has.     On what
ground does he say here that God can
change the currents of phenomena, as
an earthly father can, in answer to
prayer, and say elsewhere that he can
do it only by doing what is equivalent
to "the rolling of the St. Lawrence up
the Falls of Niagara"? That question
I cannot answer.




32        PRAYER, AND
But leaving the point of consistency
as of little moment, we turn to his
denial of the fact of physical changes
through prayer. And here, that I may
not misrepresent   him, I will state
the case at length as he gives it. "The
bone of contention," he  says, "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 af



THE PRAYER GAUGE.           33
fects 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"-I should
like to know what moral vision has to
do with it-,"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




34         PRAYER, AND
knowledge of the physical universe is
derived."
This is defiantly, and I doubt not,
sincerely put, but I hope to show you
that it involves an entire misapprehension,
and therefore misrepresentation of the
case. For what, I ask, does he mean
by speaking of prayer as "a physical
energy, or an equivalent of that energy"?
Let me illustrate: a man comes to me,
and, to take examples given by himself,
asks me to make his corn grow. I say
to him, I will, and I sprinkle over it a
certain fine powder called plaster, and, by
immutable law, the plaster draws the ammonia from the atmosphere, and he gets
two bushels where he would have got one.
Again he asks me to change the force
and direction.of the wind. I say I
will, and I set fire to Troy, and raise




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           35
a breeze directly, and the wind comes
rushing in from all directions. And what
I do here is far-reaching. Not only do
I change the relative position, but, according to the physicist, I change the actual
position of every particle of the ocean
of atmosphere that surrounds this globe.
For aught I know, I may cause it to
rain in China. At any rate it only needs
that Troy should be large enough, and
I should cause it to rain here. Did the
man then, in appealing to me, appeal to
any form of physical energy, or to any
equivalent of  that  energy? No, he
appealed to intelligence and will, to a
person who might or might not, as we
should choose, turn that energy in the
direction desired. That is all there is to
it. There is no appeal to any physical
energy, or any thing like it. The pro



36         PRAYER, AND
fessor seems to think that religious persons suppose that prayer can be applied
to corn in some such way as plaster
can. No, they only suppose that there
may be more ways than one of getting
down the ammonia, and that "the universal Father," to use his own words,
"can change phenomena in compliance
with the prayers of men," and without
a miracle, quite as easily as man can.
This failure on the part of Prof. Tyndall to apprehend the question rightly,
and still more his failure to find the
distinction between the supernatural and
the miraculous, sufficiently account for the
difficulty he finds in connecting prayer in
any way with physical results. He could
not admit;a miracle; he ought not. He
could not see how  such results could
come without that. That he failed to




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           37
draw the line between the supernatural
and the miraculous should hardly be set
down to his discredit, since theologians
are not agreed about it.
We now pass to the next point, and
that is the prayer gauge, as it has been
called, or the scientific test of the value
of prayer.  In respect to this, Prof.
Tyndall agrees with his friend who proposed it, and complains that "it seems
impossible to propose a verification of
their theory which does not arouse resentment in theological minds." But it is
just at this point that Prof. Tyndall,
together with his friend, shows most
fully that he fails to comprehend the elements with which he is' dealing. Such
a proposal could not be made by any
one comprehending those elements, because, in its very nature, the test is




38         PRAYER, AND
not applicable to the thing to be tested
by it. Let me illustrate again.  Some
discourses are weighty, and some are
heavy, but you would not think of testing either the weight or the heaviness
by a pair of scales. We hear of great
thoughts, but no one would think of
measuring them by a square and compass.
No one would think of selling wheat
by the yard. Just as preposterous is it
to think of a scientific test of the value
of prayer in any of its forms. A scientific test implies necessity, and absolute
uniformity. Without these it would not
be a scientific test. But these can have
no application to any thing into which
free-will comes, as it always does and
must, into  answers to prayer.   They
belong to'different regions, and if the
subject were not a serious one, the




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           39
attempt to transfer the tests fitted to one
over into the other would be simply ludicrous. Without uniformity and necessity
there can be no scientific test. With
these there can be no spiritual world,
no choice, no asking even, and no room
for gratitude and love. All that need
be said is that the test proposed has no
relation to the conditions of the problem.
The value of prayer can be tested by
us just as the value of asking can be
tested by children, and in no other way.
It may also be said, as it has been,
that the application of the proposed test
is impossible. It is sto clearly so that
the proposal of it seems like mere trifling. Who can so isolate any set of
human beings from their Maker and from
human sympathy as to be sure that no
prayer shall go up from themselves, or




40        PRAYER, AND
from others, that God will accept? The
application of the test is as impossible
as the test itself is inapplicable. But
for the indorsement of Prof. Tyndall, the
proposal of such a test would probably
have been attributed to a wag with a long
face, and have excited no serious notice.
But it is not by science alone that
Prof. Tyndall would disprove any connection between prayer and physical results,
but also by that saying of our Saviour
that God "maketh his sun to shine on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth
his rain on the just and on the unjust."
Can the professor really believe that in
this passage our Saviour means to teach
a doctrine of prayer identical with his
own? So it would seem. But the passage has nothing to do with prayer, and
in quoting it he simply makes a false




THE PRAYER      GAUGE.      41
issue, evidently without intending it, by
confounding character with asking, as a
means of good.   Christ says that God
does not give certain things on the
ground of character. Prof. Tyndall says,
and claims that Christ says, that he does
not give them on the ground of asking,
which is a wholly different thing. How
this is we may see by what Christ himself did.  He turned none away.  He
wrought miracles for the evil and the
good equally, just as God makes his
sun to shine; but with scarcely an exception, he wrought them only for those
who asked. And may not God, in the
same way, hear the prayers of those
who come to Him for special favorsreally come whether they are good or
evil? If not, it is sad for us. That he
will is just what Christ taught, if we




42         PRAYER, AND
look at his teachings as a whole.  In
the same discourse, comparing God to
an earthly father, he said, and without
restriction, "Ask, and it shall be given
you."  He said that God would give
"good things to them that ask him."
He taught us, in the Lord's prayer, to
pray for daily bread, and that we might
be delivered from evil, both of which
imply interposition in regard to physical
events.  Fairly interpreted, the whole
teachings, as well as the examples of
Christ, are in direct opposition to the
view in question.
There is one point more. Both Prof.
Tyndall and his friend seem anxious to
know what men may pray for, and
what not.  They are troubled at the
spectacles of weakness and  folly that
are seen in human   prayer, and  talk




THE PRAYER GAUGE.           43
about a "purification "-a narrowing of
the field of prayer as we come to apprehend more fully the universality and
the immutability of law. It is doubtless
true that prayer is modified as men
become better informed.   Why?   Not
from any apprehended incompatibility
of law with prayer, but for the same
reason that a well-informed child does
not ask for the moon as a plaything. If
wvhat has been said be correct, there is
nothing in reason or in science to prevent our taking the Bible as our guide
in this. That opens a wide domain to
prayer;  it makes it the breath    of
Christian life. It says, as I have said
before, "In every thing, by prayer and
suppsupplica;ion upplication, you see-asking-the apostle was not, as some
seem to be now, afraid of that, as if it




AA4       PRAYER, AND
were less disinterested and dignified than
worship-"in every thing by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known unto God."
But, doing this, it guards against any
thing fanatical, or foolish, or weak, by
inculcating the spirit of children. It is
easy, indeed, to bring examples of weakness and folly in connection with prayer,
and to hold them up to ridicule or to
pity. Such examples there have always
been, and not only of these, but of hypocrisy and wickedness.  There were
such in our Saviour's time, and he rebuked  them.   There are such   now,
especially in countries where the Bible
is not known, or is withheld from the
people. But give a man the Bible and
the spirit of a child, and there is no
danger that he will go far amiss in
his petitions.




THE PRAYE.R GAUGE.          45
To these there will be two limitations.
First. Except under special direction,
such a man could not ask God for a miracle, for the same reason that a child
could not ask his father to burn the
house down. The regular order of nature
is the house we live in. It could not
be disturbed by frequent miracles, and
be fit for the training of rational beings.
Second. Neither could he ask for
any thing, under the laws of nature,
that would contravene the object of
those laws. Whatever we can do for
ourselves under those laws God expects
us to do; it is for our own good that
we should do it. We were put under
them that we might do it; it is precisely here as with the parent and child.
Is the child cold? Let him get up and
go to the fire. If he will not do that,
let him suffer;> and, beg as he may, the




46         PRAYER, AND
wise parent will let him suffer, and, perhaps, punish him too, before he will take
him up and carry him. Let the man do
what he can under natural law. Recognizing God in that, his work will be
prayer. Let him do what he can and
then pray, and God will hear him. "God
helps those who help themselves," but
we cannot expect him to do any thing
that would encourage needless ignorance,
or shiftlessness, or inefficiency. All other
things such a man might ask, but he
would ask for nothing absolutely except
the Holy Spirit and His fruits. Other
things he would ask in subserviency to
the will of his Heavenly Father. And
such a man would have, not only the
precepts of the Bible for his guide, and
the example of good men, but also the
example of Him who prayed so earnestly
that "His sweat was as it were great




THE PRA YER GAUGE.         47
drops of blood falling to the ground,"
and at the same time with a submission
so absolute as to say, "Nevertheless, not
my will but thine be done." Under such
guidance, together with the promised aid
of the Holy Spirit, we may hope that
prayer will be as free from imperfection
as human infirmity will permit any thing
to be.
I have thus taken up, point by
point, the difficulties presented by Prof.
Tyndall, and as he presented them. The
result I leave with you. I have no fear
of science. I believe in it and welcome
it. I have no fear of immutable law.
Rightly understood-understood so that
I can control it and turn it to my purpose-I believe in and welcome that;
but I do not believe in that conception
of physical law that puts it above God,
or that makes it, in any way, other than




48           PRAYER.
an instrument flexible in his hands. I
do not believe in any mode of conceiving, as is constantly done, of the attributes of God in such a way that we
give infinity in one direction only to
impose limits in another. This is the
mistake of pantheism. Especially do I
not believe in any mode of conceiving of his natural attributes, as his
greatness and his immutability, in such
a way as to impose limits upon those
attributes of a Father by which He can
hear the cry of his children, and enter
with the fullest sympathy into all their
wants, and supply them. "Behold the
fowls of the air; for they sow not,
neither do they reap nor gather into
barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than
they?"