[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR, —Can you allow me space for a few words on the subject of the "Efficacy of Prayer "?
1. It seems to me that Mr. Gallon, and those who think like him, have, as against the Christian, avoided the main point at
issue. Surely the Christian argues from the existence of a loving Father in heaven to the efficacy of prayer, and not from the efficacy of prayer to the existence of a personal God. It is because Christ has revealed to us a Heavenly Father who loves us with a love of which we can only see a faint reflection in the highest earthly affection, that we Christians are emboldened to offer up our petitions to Him in trustful and child-like confidence. It would be to me the most glaring contradiction in terms to believe in a Deity such as the God of the New Testament, and yet to hold either that He does not heed my prayers, or else that He cannot answer them if he would. Let Mr. Galton prove to me that Christianity is an imposture or a delusion, and he will have no need to pelt me with statistics in proof of the inefficacy of prayer.
2. Mr. Galton says of his opponents, "They assert, first, that the desire , to pray is intuitive to man." I assert nothing of the sort in the sense in which Mr. Galton understands the words. I hold that the desire to pray is " intuitive " just so far as the belief in a personal God is "intuitive," and no further. And this belief in a personal God I shall certainly hold to be " intuitive " and " necessary" in the highest sense of the words, in spite of the un- doubted fact that the vast majority of the human race have never held the belief at all.
3. "But," it is urged, "examine statistics ! see with what difficulties your doctrine of prayer is beset I" Granted ; but I assert, in reply, that the highest spiritual truths are precisely those which are and must be beset with the greatest difficulties. I hold with Dr. Newman that the fundamental spiritual truth, without which all religion can be little better than a mockery, the belief in a personal God, is the one point of faith which is encompassed with most difficulty. Yet this being of a God is a truth which is borne in upon my mind with a conviction as irresistible as the conviction of my own existence. That this subject of the efficacy of prayer is in many respects painfully perplexing, I readily admit. But I venture to think that the Christian solution is, at least, as satisfactory as that of the philosopher who, like the ancient sophist, insists upon making man the measure of all things, and metes out with the iron measuring-rod of statistics and averages the influ- ences of that Spirit which " bloweth where it listeth."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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