Ver. 3. — 2%e reasonableness of prayer, " Call upon me, and I will answer thee," etc. This is one of the blessed promises of God given for the help of sorrowful and struggling men. None but God knows how many have been helped by it and by the glorious throng of Divine words which are like unto it, or how often, or how mightily. "Ah! you think so," replies a voice not unfrequently nor too modestly heard in these days. 'Tis the voice of the disciples of science, which says, " Yes ; you religious people think God answers your prayers and hears you when you call upon him ; but really it is no such thing ; it is all a mistake, and, what is more, you ought to know and confess it, and therefore give over what you are pleased to call your prayers. Prayer 1 how is such a thing possible in a universe governed everywhere by fixed laws as ours is ? Where in such an order is there room for what you call ' answers to prayer ' ? It is scientifically impossible, not to say absurd, and the marvel is that people don't see this." So speak, and some of them with far more of arrogance and scorn than now repre- liented, not a few of the scientists of the day. The calling upon God in the day of trouble is nothing more, so one of the most distinguished of modem philosophers has said, than the piteous cry of the hare when she knows that the hounds are upon her. A bitter cry of distress wrung out from the soul. It is thought by those who utter it to go up to Ckid, and that God will hear it and help; but that is all a vain imagination ; it goes out into mere space ; nothing does come of it, and nothing can. This is what is (aid, and i' is based upon the observed uniformity and inflexibility of law. All science is built up upon this faith of the unbroken order and regularity of law, and without it there could be no science, and indeed no life at all. The reign of law is everywhere ; how then can prayer be reasonable ? and where is there room for those Divine inter- positions which prayer asks for and thinks it receives ? What is the use, then, of the mother weeping her heart out in her prayers that God would give back the health of her beloved child? What the use of national fasts and days of prayer for rain, for removal of pestilence, tor restoration of the health of princes, and the like ? If these things lie in the order of fixed law, they will come to pass without any prayer; if not, they will not be in spite of all the prayers of all the Churches in all the world. Now, this is what is so loudly and largely being said on all sides. What have we to reply 7 Has the Christian preacher nought to urge on the other side ? We think he has. He has a right to ask the scientists such questions as these —
I. Has bcienoe discovered all God's fixed laws? Are you quite sure that nowhere there may be some law which shall provide for these results which Christians call " answers to prayer " ? We are bound to be grateful for the magnificent discoveries of the laws of the universe which science has already made. But has it discovered all these laws ? and if not, why amongst those as yet undiscovered ones may there not be that which the Christian needs to justify his prayer ? It is the same argument as John Foster urges against the atheistic doctrine that there is no God 1 " What ages and lights are requisite for this attainment, the knowing that there is no God ! This intelligence involves the very attributes of divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in evsry place in the universe, he cannot know but that in some place there may be manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. . . . Unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another deity by being one himself, he cannot kru>w that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist." Now, in like manner, the Christian may meet the scientific unbeliever by asking him whether he has traced every effect up to its cause. May not, then, the cause you do not know be the one which meets the Christian's need and secures answer to his legitimate prayers ?
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OH, XXXIII. 1—26.] THE BOOK OF THE PBOPHET JEEBMIAH. 77
DEDUOEB BIB DOOTBCtE THAT GoD ANSWEBS PRAYER, THAK THE CHRISTIAN HAS TO REJECT THE rAOTB UFOK WHICH SCIENCE BABES HER DOCTRINE OF INVARIABLE LAW ? Science