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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.” 
W e 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 ? 
Eev. 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. 
Eev. 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 paper he has read which contain the germ of a thoroughly 
complete and crushing refutation of Professor Tyndall’s argument ; but there 
they are, waiting, I suppose, for some Darwinian process of evolution to bring 
them 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 Eedeemer’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- 
