111/. EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
[TO THE EDITOR. OF TEES " SPEOTATOR:1 Sin,-0 wing to my absence from England on a somewhat erratic tour, I have only just received the Spectator of the 3rd and 10th of this month, the first containing your article on the "Efficacy of Prayer" in answer to Mr. Galton, and the second several letters on the same subject. I hope it is not altogether too late for one more, as there is an aspect of the question which has not been touched upon by the others which I am very anxious to bring before your readers, as affording the only ground on which belief in the efficacy of prayer can be held consistently with the belief in the invariable order of nature which is from year to year extending and strengthing its hold upon all educated minds. Professor Tyndall, Mr. Galton and all other scientific opponents of the former belief, of course, direct their efforts to show that prayer is inefficacious over the course of physical events, and obtain an easy success, first, because even in cases of apparent physical changee in answer to prayer it is impossible to prove that they were not mere coincidences ; and secondly, because their opponents have, unconsciously, it is true, but not the less surely, as little belief as themselves in the power of prayer to alter the order of nature, where that order is known and manifest. The most devout believer in prayer would never, in our day, dream of praying that the sun should be arrested in its coarse, though the fate of all that was dearest to him on earth depended on the prolongation of the day or night. The habitual and lifelong experience of the invariable order of the sun's course would be too strong, and the consequent perception of the magnitude of the miracle required to change it too vivid to allow the idea of praying for it even to enter the mind. It is clear that in every case where the same certainty of experience existed the same sense of the inutility of prayer would follow, and that the only real difference between the scientifically educated and the uneducated mind in this matter, is the extent of the range of phenomena in which re- spectively they perceive and feel the immutability of natural order. Were the laws of meteorology or those which govern disease ever to become so thoroughly and universally known as to form part of the habitual experience of mankind, people would no more pray for health or fine weather than they pray now for the sun to halt on its way. They would instinctively recoil from the arro- gant absurdity of asking that a miracle involving changes in the settled order of the universe should be worked for their special benefit, which might be the special disaster of their neighbours. Even now, I believe, the feeling once expressed by the lute Duke of Cambridge when prayers for fine weather were being read in churcb,—"Very proper, very proper, but. it won't come till the wind changes," is that of most modern congregations, and few forms of scepticism are more des- tructive of true religious faith. There is another and far higher ground than any possible or probable increase in our scientific knowledge which will lead to the disuse of prayer for physical boons, i.e., the higher conception of God which grows with the growth of moral and spiritual life, the conception of Him as a perfectly wise and good Father to whom we stand in the relation of weak, blind, and helpless children, superseding the
conception of an omnipotent Autocrat, whose wrath may be pro- pitiated or favour won by the gifts, prayers, or praises of the slaves of his arbitrary will. The mind to which the former con- ception has become a reality revolts from the ineffable arrogance and folly of petitions which would dictate to that perfect goodness and alter the order established by that perfect wisdom. There can be but one prayer with reference to the outward events of life for him who has faith in God as his Father and King : "Thy will be done; give me strength to do and bear it." And here we come to the prayer which is efficacious, to the domain in which prayer is all-powerful and never fails of its answer, and that answer is not a matter of belief, but of knowledge. He who has prayed in agony of soul, every fibre of his being quivering with dread of the cup presented to his lips, knows that his prayer is answered when the angels of strong patience and enduring faith descend into his heart, ministering the peace of perfect trust till he can take the cup with unfaltering hand, and drain it, saying only, "Thy will, not mine, be done." He]who in the dark storm of doubt or temptation has prayed for light, only for light to see the truth and the right, knows that his prayer is answered when a path becomes visible in which he is constrained to tread, let it lead where it may. And when we pray like this, we know that we cannot pray amiss. There is no earthly blessing which may not be a curse in disguise, but faith, love, purity, strength to do our duty even unto death, these must ever remain blessings, the value of which cannot change with any change of circum- stances. Those, again, to whom prayer "is not only petition, but communion ;" they also know that their prayers are answered, when in the stillness of morning or evening, in the hush of mid- night, or the pause in the toil:and turmoil of the day, they lift up their hearts to that Presence whose holiness shames all impurity, whose love shames all selfishness, whose ceaseless activity shames all faint-hearted sloth. To tell all these that they first imagine the strength, the light, the help they are conscious of receiving, and then account for them by imagining a God who answers prayer, is neither a more nor less valid argument, than to say that we first imagine the impressions we are conscious of through our senses, and then invent an external world to account for them. The proof of the existence of a God in communion with the souls He has created is of precisely the same kind as the proof of an external world, and is equally incapable of being demonstrated or disproved.
The question of the efficacy of prayer for the moral welfare of others, family, country, or race, is not so easy to deal with. We can have no knowledge that changes we have prayed for in other minds are really the results of our prayers. One result we can, indeed, reckon upon, for he who prays in spirit and in truth for the good of others will do all that in him lies to promote it, and in this way a prayerful people—I do not mean a people who say their prayers—will so far bring about the fulfilment of their own petitions. All other means by which such prayers become effica- cious are hid from us in impenetrable mystery. This only is certain, that no instinct is stronger than that which impels us to pray for those we love, impels even those who never pray for them- selves, and have no conscious belief in a God who can hear and answer prayer. Such an instinct, so powerful and so universal, carries with it, to all who believe in a beneficent Creator, its own proof that it cannot have been implanted in vain, a miserable mockery of the unselfish affection which is the divined thing within us, and beyond this the understanding cannot go.—I am, Sir, &c., [This letter must close this correspondence.—ED. Spectator.]
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