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feet clay ; and yet^ wlien we would pray, there are some who 

 would stop the impulse by alleging the inflexibility of Nature. 

 What ! my intelligence can direct the hidden forces of Nature 

 to work an end subservient to purposes of usefulness; and shall 

 my soul alone be powerless? The fact that we can control the 

 powers of Nature is beyond dispute, and yet^ if this be admitted, 

 fatalism falls to the ground. 



Sceptics may reply that man^s power to modify the course of 

 Nature is visible and appreciable, and that there is no relation 

 between this and the doctrine of the influence of prayer, which 

 is and must remain wholly invisible. But that is not the ques- 

 tion — which is. Can man modify the course of Nature, or can 

 he not ? The invisible mode of the action of prayer is beside 

 the argument; for how few operations which we know take place 

 can we comprehend ? How does spirit act on matter ? How, 

 or why, does the movement of my hand obey the volition of my 

 intelHgence? Here is a question which baffles learned and 

 simple alike. AVhen the farmer casts his seed into the ground, 

 does he understand the germinative process ? Of course he 

 does not, neither can the most learned man of science explain 

 it to him ; yet he trusts his grain to the ground confidently. 



Neither do we know how prayer acts; but we may safely 

 leave the result to God, certain that each spiritual seed will 

 find its own furrow, and bear an appropriate and abundant 

 harvest. 



And, after all, who are the unbelievers in the efficacy of 

 prayer? — who are its opponents ? The Sceptic and the Atheist 

 — the very persons who never pray, and, consequently, are 

 utterly unable to testify as to the results of prayer. Indiffer- 

 ence or lukewarmness in the act, coupled with a want of 

 reverence to the Dispenser of all Gifts, must ever of themselves 

 be fatal to the realization of the petitions of prayer. We must 

 pray and not faint, pray in faith, nothing doubting. 



The very essence of prayer consists in an implicit belief that 

 the person addressed, whether human or Divine, has the power 

 to grant its petition ; and, indeed, how do we know that, beyond 

 the laws that human ingenuity and science have discovered, 

 there may not exist occult laws framed to meet and govern 

 every conceivable variety of circumstance, and which laws are 

 only called into operative action by spiritual and submissive 

 faith, belief in God^s love, and humble acknowledgment of His 

 Omnipotence? 



It may be one of God^s laws that a petition for spiritual 

 advancement (in contradistinction to one of mere personal 

 aggrandisement), if presented in humble faith and dependence 

 upon God^s love, may be accorded, which, without that prayer 



