MIRACLES, SCIENCE, AND PRAYER. 281 



see fit to do so does not interfere one whit with the principle 

 of prayer. "In everything, by prayer and supphcation, with 

 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." 

 The question of giving or withholding rests entirely with 

 Him. But even prayers which ai'e selfish or foolish are better 

 than forgetfulness of God. We may learn wisdom in our 

 prayers by experience. But if it be folly to pray unwisely, it 

 is far greater folly not to pray at all — far greater folly to 

 assign limits to God's power other than His Wisdom and His 

 Love. Even hair-breadth escapes from death are due not to 

 chance, but to His control over the countless forces of nature. 

 If you are saved by one inch from deadly peril, it is by His 

 Providence that you were guided to that particular spot.* 

 No single event happens which is not referable to a countless 

 variety of causes, and the Will of the All-Father superintends 

 them all. In truth, prayer is a practice inseparable from the 

 doctrine of a moral Governor of the world, to Whose will 

 all the forces of nature are necessarily subject. 



Science has not demonstrated the impossibility of the exist- 

 ence of such a Being. Nay, we may venture to predict that 

 when science is sufficiently advanced, it will make the existence 

 of such a Being a self-evident truth. The miraculous, which is 

 identical with the supernatural and spiritual, will be seen not 

 only to be not impossible, but to be universal — a manifestation 

 of the working of the one final cause to which all phenomena 

 must ultimately be ascribed, the origin of Force, the source 

 of Will, the fount of Reason, the suppoiter and upholder of 

 man and human society, the first principle which underlies 

 the world and all that is therein. 



The President (Sir G. G. Stokes, Bart.). — I will aslv yon, in 

 the first instance, to i-etnrn your thanks to Mr. Lias for this 

 interesting paper, and then invite discussion thereon after some 

 communications have been read. 



* I may be allowed on this point to refei' to p. 240 of the Miracles 

 Credible. 



