346 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
when we do not intend it. She does assert, for example, 
that without a disturbance of natural law, quite as serious 
as the stoppage of an eclipse, or the rolling of the river 
Niagara up the Falls, no act of humiliation, individual or 
national, could call one shower from heaven, or deflect 
toward us a single beam of the sun. 
Those, therefore, who believe that the miraculous is still 
active in nature, may, with perfect consistency, join in 
our periodic prayers for fair weather and for rain: while 
those who hold that the age of miracles is past, will, if 
they be consistent, refuse to join in these petitions. And 
these latter, if they wish to fall back upon such a justifi- 
cation, may fairly urge that the latest conclusions of science 
are in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Master 
himself, which manifestly was that the distribution of 
natural phenomena is not affected by moral or religious 
causes. " He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on 
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 
Granting " the power of Free Will in man," so strongly 
claimed by Professor Mansel in his admirable defense of 
the belief in miracles, and assuming the efficacy of free 
prayer to produce changes in external nature, it necessarily 
follows that natural laws are more or less at the mercy of 
man's volition, and no conclusion founded on the assumed 
permanence of those laws would be worthy of confi- 
dence. 
It is a wholesome sign for England that she numbers 
among her clergy men wise enough to understand all this, 
and courageous enough to act up to their knowledge. Such 
men do service to public character, by encouraging a manly 
and intelligent conflict with the real causes of disease and 
scarcity, instead of a delusive reliance on supernatural aid. 
But they have also a value beyond this local and temporary 
one. They prepare the public mind for changes, which 
though inevitable, could hardly, without such preparation, 
be wrought without violence. Iron is strong; still, water 
in crystallizing will shiver an iron envelope, and the more 
unyielding the metal is, the worse for its safety. There 
are in the world men who would encompass philosophic 
speculation by a rigid envelope, hoping thereby to restrain 
it, but in reality giving it explosive force. In England, 
thanks to men of the stamp to which I have alluded, scope 
is gradually given to thought for changes of aggregation, 
