WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 6l 



pray * for rain ?" And the candidates for the ministry 

 could not tell, for they began to see that even simple 

 changes of weather may have the strength of the whole 

 universe behind them. It has never yet rained when by 

 any possibility it could do otherwise. It has never failed 

 to rain when rain was possible. 



We hear good men say sometimes that the crying 

 need of this sceptical age is that it may see some law 

 of Nature definitely broken, that it may rain when rain 

 is impossible, or that some burning bush may, uncon- 

 suming, proclaim that the force which is behind all law 

 is also above it and can break or repeal all its own laws 

 at will. 



Emerson somewhere speaks of the purpose in life — 



"to be sound and solvent." As his life was in all ways 



" sound and solvent," perhaps such 



Soundness and j.^,^ ^^ conduct was his own. But one 



solvency of 



>T may say. This is only a human resolu- 



tion. The man himself should be above 

 all rules and requirements of his own making. Let Mr. 

 Emerson show that his life is above his principles. Let 

 him break these rules to show his power. Let him be 

 "unsound and insolvent" for a time. Then only will 

 his real greatness appear. But the soundness and sol- 

 vency were the expression of Emerson's life. Without 

 these he would not be Emerson. 



The laws of Nature are the expression of the infinite 

 soundness and solvency of the universe. They will not 

 be broken, nor through their unsoundness and insol- 



* " The essence of prayer is to bring two things into unison — 

 the will of God and the will of man. Superstition imagined, no 

 doubt, that prayer would change the will of God, but the more 

 spiritually minded have always understood that the will which 

 must be modified in prayer was the will of man." — Bernard 

 Bosanquet. 



