PRAYER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY 45 



member the indignation excited by the first revelations 

 of geology regarding the age of the earth, the association 

 between chronology and religion being for the time in- 

 dissoluble. In our day, however, the best-informed the- 

 ologians are prepared to admit that our views of the Uni- 

 verse and its Author are not impaired, but improved, by 

 the abandonment of the Mosaic account of the Creation. 

 Look, finally, at the excitement caused by the publication 

 of the "Origin of Species"; and compare it with the calm 

 attendant on the appearance of the far more outspoken, 

 and, from the old point of view, more impious, "Descent 

 of Man." 



Thus religion survives after the removal of what had 

 been long considered essential to it. In our day the 

 Antipodes are accepted; the fixity of the earth is given 

 up; the period of Creation and the reputed age of the 

 world are alike dissipated; Evolution is looked upon 

 without terror; and other changes have occurred in the 

 same direction too numerous to be dwelt upon here. In 

 fact, from the earliest times to the present, religion has 

 been undergoing a process of purification, freeing itself 

 slowly and painfully from the physical errors which the 

 active but uninformed intellect mingled with the aspira- 

 tions of the soul. Some of us think that a final act of 

 purification is needed, while others oppose this notion 

 with the confidence and the warmth of ancient times. 

 The bone of contention at present is the physical value 

 of prayer. It is not my wish to excite surprise, much 

 less to draw forth protest, by the employment of this 

 phrase. I would simply ask any intelligent person to 

 look the problem honestly in the face, and then to say 

 whether, in the estimation of the great body of those who 



