132 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY IV 



maxim, "Do ut des," is to form the basis of 

 negotiation, I am afraid that secular science will 

 be ruined ; for it seems to me that theology, under 

 the generous impulse of a sudden conversion, has 

 given all that she hath ; and indeed, on one point, 

 has surrendered more than can reasonably be asked. 



I suppose I must be prepared to face the reproach 

 which attaches to those who criticise a gift, if I 

 venture to observe that I do not think that the 

 Bishop of Manchester need have been so much 

 alarmed, as he evidently has been, by the objections 

 which have often been raised to prayer, on the 

 ground that a belief in the efficacy of prayer is 

 inconsistent with a belief in the constancy of the 

 order of nature. 



The Bishop appears to admit that there is an 

 antagonism between the " regular economy of 

 nature " and the " regular economy of prayer " 

 (p. 39), and that "prayers for the interruption of 

 God's natural order " are of " doubtful validity " 

 (p. 42). It appears to me that the Bishop's 

 difficulty simply adds another example to those 

 which 1 have several times insisted upon in the 

 pages of this Review and elsewhere, of the mischief 

 which has been done, and is being done, by a mis- 

 taken apprehension of the real meaning of " natural 

 order " and " law of nature." 



May I, therefore, be permitted to repeat, once 

 more, that the statements denoted by these terms 

 have no greater value or cogency than such as may 



