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account for. But that vague admission is worth little or nothing. We do 

 not want Professor Tyndall, or any " ghost from the grave, to tell us this." 

 We can, I think, account for all. if we have our faith based on reason. And 

 reason shows that there must always have existed some great Infinite Spirit. 

 And then comes the question, has that Great Spirit told us anything of 

 Himself ? and if so, how can that be left out of consideration ? 



Rev. J. H. TiTCOMB. — The last speaker has expressed the truth from one 

 side of the question ; but I do not think he has approached it from the proper 

 stand-point. What he has said is that which, as Christians, we all fully 

 concur in, namely, that they who discuss the question of prayer ought to 

 admit the truth of divine revelation. This no doubt is eminently satis- 

 factory to those who are here to-night ; but it is eminently unsatisfactory to 

 unbelievers, and it seems mere child's play to talk in this way to people 

 who do not believe. We meet on subjects like the present with persons 

 who are outside our own range of thought, and who occupy a totally different 

 stand-point from that on which we are resting. We must, therefore, go into 

 the enemy's camp and attack our opponents where they stand, dealing 

 lovingly, and faithfully, and honourably with them ; but at the same time 

 trying to show them that there are difficulties in their own path, and en- 

 deavouring to win them over to ourselves. I did not intend to have spoken 

 at all in this discussion ; but I could not refrain after what had been said, 

 because I felt it desirable to point out that gentlemen who engage in these 

 matters, meeting as members of a scientific society, ought to deal with such 

 opponents on ground totally different from that of Scriptural belief. 



Rev. S. Wainwright, D.D. — I think that there is obvious ground for us 

 to show that from the stand-point Mr. Titcomb has very properly put down, 

 there is, on scientific grounds, no room for a foothold against what we main- 

 tain to be the doctrine of prayer. I hope that Dr. Irons will deal gently with 

 me when he rises at the end of the discussion, if I say that I do not go so far 

 as he has in some respects — while in others I would go beyond him. I think 

 the worthy lecturer has somewhat failed to do justice to himself. I find 

 passages in the jiaper he has read which contain the germ of a thoroughly 

 complete and crushing refutation of Professor Tyndall's argument ; but there 

 tliey are, waiting, I suppose, for some Darwinian process of evolution to bring 

 tliem into their final stage of development at some future time. I find in the 

 paper one of those pleasant sentences in which it is said that Professor 

 Tyndall speaks of the relation of physics to consciousness as invariable, and 

 the lecturer says that Professor Tyndall almost contradicts himself. I say 

 that the Professor directly contradicts himself when he says that " the forces 

 which have been present are insufficient cause for all these phenomena." I 

 say that they are altogether insufficient. Coleridge, who thought much on the 

 subject, says there are times when the soul ceases to feel its own impotence, 

 except in regard to its conscious capacity to be filled with the Redeemer's ful- 

 ness. This may be a delusion on Coleridge's part, and the millions who endorse 

 it may be mistaken ; but whether this be so or not, I maintain that they have 

 this consciousness, and I claim that it should be dealt with as a real and ob- 



