REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW. 3 



had no faith in the priest's blessing; still, he deemed 

 his prayer different in kind from a request to open 

 a new river-cut, or to cause the water to flow up- 

 hill. 



In a similar manner the same Protestant gentleman 

 would doubtless smile at the honest Tyrolese priest, 

 who, when he feared the bursting of a glacier dam, 

 offered the sacrifice of the Mass upon the ice as a means 

 of averting the calamity. That poor man did not ex- 

 pect to convert the ice into adamant, or to strengthen 

 its texture, so as to enable it to withstand the pressure 

 of the water; nor did he expect that his sacrifice would 

 cause the stream to roll back upon its source and re- 

 lieve him, by a miracle, of its presence. But beyond 

 the boundaries of his knowledge lay a region where rain 

 was generated, he knew not how. He was not so pre- 

 sumptuous as to expect a miracle, but he firmly be- 

 lieved that in yonder cloud-lands matters could be so 

 arranged, without trespass on the miraculous, that the 

 stream which threatened him and his people should be 

 caused to shrink within its proper bounds. 



Both these priests fashioned that which they did 

 not understand to their respective wants and wishes. 

 In their case imagination came into play, uncontrolled 

 by a knowledge of law. A similar state of mind was 

 long prevalent among mechanicians. Many of these, 

 among whom were to be reckoned men of consummate 

 skill, were occupied a century ago with the question 

 of perpetual motion. They aimed at constructing a 

 machine which should execute work without the ex- 

 penditure of power; and some of them went mad in 

 the pursuit of this object. The faith in such a con- 

 summation, involving, as it did, immense personal pro- 

 fit to the inventor, was extremely exciting, and every 

 attempt to destroy this faith was met by bitter resent- 



