12 ADDRESS OF 



adequacy to account for the whole course of nature, as we see it 

 going on before us, is now the almost universal opinion of edu- 

 cated men. This revolution in human thought is, perhaps, clearly 

 brought out in the different view we now take of certain religious 

 observances introduced by our ancestors, whose ideas would now 

 be considered as approaching the irreverent. Take, for example, 

 the prayers, for the right kind of weather, which we find in our 

 prayer-books. When they were first composed and inserted, their 

 object was a purely practical one. As the farmers now sometimes 

 fire off cannon to make the black cloud break and discharge its 

 contents upon the parched field, so the prayers were to be offered 

 up in order that the aqueous vapor in the air might be made to 

 condense and fall. That a much more exalted view of prayer than 

 this is now taken by the more enlightened portion of the religious 

 World, I think we have every reason to believe. 



Although we can hardly entertain a serious doubt that the me- 

 chanical theory of natural operations, or, as it is sometimes called, 

 the doctrine of the uniformity of nature, is generally acquiesced 

 in by the mature thought of intelligent Christendom, yet objections 

 are frequently made to it because it seems to run counter to some 

 of our most cherished ideas. If it were not paradoxical to make 

 the assertion, it .might be said that we hold, or at least express 

 entirely inconsistent views on the subject. The fact is that we 

 are pupils of two opposing schools, which are, in a certain degree, 

 antagonistic, one of which we cannot, and the other of which we 

 will not, give up. In one of these schools the chief teachers are 

 observation and experience. All sentiment and emotion are ban- 

 ished from its curriculum, which admits only the hard realities of 

 the outer world. The older we grow the more we see and hear .of 

 this school, and the more unreservedly we accept its teachings. 

 It tells us fhat the whole course of nature takes place in accord- 

 ance with certain laws capable of expression in mathematical lan- 

 guage ; that these laws act with more than an iron rigor, and 

 without any regard to consequences ; that they are deaf to prayer 

 or entreaty, and know no such thing as sympathy or remorse ; that 

 if we would succeed we must study them, and so govern ourselves 

 that their action shall enure to our benefit. 



The other school is that of sympathy, emotion, and religious 

 faith. In it, as children, we receive our first teachings. It shows 

 us ourselves placed, as it were, in a forest of mystery, surrounded 



