To 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 OREMUS: 
 
 OR 
 
 THE PLACE OF PRAYER 
 IN MODERN RELIGIOUS LIFE.
 
 OREM US 
 
 OR 
 
 THE PLACE OF PRAYER 
 IN MODERN RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. R. COHU, 
 
 RECTOR OF ASTON CLINTON, BUCKS ; SOMETIME FELLOW 
 OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 (Author of " The Old Testament in the Light of Modern Research 
 " The Sermon on the Mount" ; " The Morning Service" ; 
 " The Ten Commandments") 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 
 RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 OXFORD: JAMES PARKER & CO. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD. 
 
 1908.
 
 BV 
 
 TO THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 HERBERT EDWARD RYLE, D.D., 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION 
 OF 
 
 MUCH KINDLY ENCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 1C29S40
 
 ^INTRODUCTION'. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD Bisnor 
 .of WINCHESTER. 
 
 I WELCOME the appearance of a new and sug- 
 gestive work upon :" Prayer.", ; The subject is 
 one upon which Christian thought needs to be 
 aroused and invigorated. The Church has too 
 often shown itself to be timid, or forgetful, in the 
 matter of prayer. If " we have followed too much 
 the devices and desires of our own hearts," we have 
 also made too little endeavour to realise the privilege 
 of our communion with the Heavenly Father. The 
 very meaning of prayer is often misunderstood ; its 
 practice is often grievously neglected ; its blessings 
 are often lost. The Church has sadly forfeited its 
 living confidence in the efficacy of prayer. May 
 God grant that we may be standing on the threshold 
 of a great reawakening into new spiritual activities ; 
 and that prayer may come to receive its fuller 
 recognition as part of our divine life on earth, and 
 as the focus of our human faith and devotion ! 
 
 The Rev. J. R. Cohu has given us, in his present 
 work, the results of careful and devout study. Very 
 possibly the conclusions at which he comes will not
 
 viii Introduction. 
 
 in all cases commend themselves to all readers. But 
 he states his views clearly and reverently. He does 
 not shrink from the problems mat have been raised 
 by the discoveries of modem science and by the de- 
 velopments of modern philosophy. We may welcome 
 in him a writer who is in full sympathy with the 
 questionings of many a religious-minded and well- 
 read Layman ; and we may be thankful for the frank 
 and lucid manner in which he has endeavoured to 
 combine the explanation of present-day difficulties 
 with the steady maintenance of practical and spiritual 
 teaching. 
 
 HERBERT E. WINTON. 
 
 FARNHAM CASTLE, 
 Sept. 28tfi, 1908.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 OOME apology is due for adding one more to the 
 ^ legion of books on Prayer. It may well be 
 thought that Dr. Jellett, Canon Liddon and Canon 
 Worlledge, amongst others, have said the last word 
 on this subject. 
 
 But the last ten years have witnessed a change 
 little short of a revolution in modern thought, and 
 even Theology has been deeply affected by it. 
 After a cycle of Realism, we are all coming back to 
 a modified Idealism. 
 
 These metaphysical terms need not alarm the 
 reader. Throughout this volume we have as- 
 siduously courted simplicity and lucidity : there has 
 been much of that limae labor et mora which 
 Horace advocates, and we hope these chapters 
 will be found readable. In spite of the common 
 saying " in philosophy truth is obscure and sim- 
 plicity fallacious," we do not believe that Ruskin, 
 Darwin and Liddon, with all their simplicity, are 
 obscure. The ordinary writer must admire their 
 genius afar off, but he can, at least, try to copy 
 their simple prose. An obscure style may mean 
 Hegelian depth of vision ; oftener it suggests the 
 author's own cloudland.
 
 x Author's Preface. 
 
 Chapter VI. is, we fancy, the one chapter that may 
 be obscure to the ordinary thoughtful reader, but it 
 can be skipped by all who do not care for the academic 
 jargon of the schools, and the alternative Chapter VII. 
 restates most of its arguments in a more practical 
 way. It was necessary to attempt to meet the 
 philosophic and scientific objections on their own 
 ground, and this Chapter VI. was forced upon us 
 with its analysis of "consciousness" and the meta- 
 physical questions this involves. 
 
 Our task has not been as easy as we anticipated. 
 We set out with the intention of combating objec- 
 tions to the efficacy of prayer. At first sight, this 
 seemed simplicity itself. But it soon dawned upon 
 us that there were three distinct classes of readers 
 whose prayer-difficulties had to be met. 
 
 Even in this age of cold indifference, there are 
 happy and privileged souls who know one prayer 
 beyond all others : " Behold my delight is in Thy 
 commandments, O quicken me in Thy righteous- 
 ness." They have their prayer-difficulties: but 
 these are such as arise from/their imperfect reading 
 of God's Word, their one Guide. Explain away 
 their doubts by the light of the Bible, and all be- 
 comes clear to them. 
 
 But with most of us it is different. .On many 
 a mind the spirit of a critical and sceptical age leaves 
 its scar now-a-days, if it does no. more. In religious 
 homes, they have learnt spiritual truths as children. 
 All their lives they have accepted their creed on
 
 Authors Preface. xi 
 
 authority, without verifying and assimilating it for 
 themselves. Suddenly they come across a sceptical 
 book, and bring to bear upon it their educated 
 habits of thought and judgment. Unversed in science, 
 and with nothing but traditional views of religion 
 to support them, they are troubled and perplexed, 
 at the mercy of their new instructor, utterly unable 
 fully to weigh his worth or worthlessness. It seems 
 to them as if science had authoritatively spoken the 
 last word on the subject of prayer or even religion. 
 With mingled feelings of irritation and sadness, 
 they begin to question the truths they learnt at their 
 mother's knee. These, too, have their prayer- 
 difficulties. 
 
 There is still a third class. From youth upwards 
 they have been trained in the modern historical 
 school of accurate, methodical, exact thought. Truth 
 and Truthfulness of character are to them a second 
 nature. They are fearlessly honest and sincere : 
 impatient of half-truths, preferring to suspend their 
 judgment where no solid basis of evidence is to be 
 found. In their eyes, it is a sacrilege to darken 
 and degrade the soul by accepting on bare authority 
 opinions which their reason cannot endorse and 
 convert into convictions. On one side stand God 
 and His Bible, on the other the verified facts of 
 modern science and of Nature. The two seem to 
 contradict each other. Their hearts pull in one 
 direction, their heads in another ; and they cannot 
 see their way to force their reason to walk in step
 
 xii Autlior's Preface. 
 
 with their hearts. Needless to say, these also have 
 their prayer-difficulties. 
 
 Now, if our subject was to be " prayer-difficulties," 
 it was essential that we should address ourselves not 
 to one class exclusively, but to all three equally. 
 But the kind of reasoning that would appeal to the 
 whole-hearted believer in the Bible would not arrest 
 the attention of the scientific thinker ; while chapters 
 that might possibly interest the latter would be un- 
 suitable to educated men of the world who had no 
 taste for purely academic discussions, and yet wanted 
 their scientific prayer-difficulties resolved. 
 
 A wiser and more prudent writer would probably 
 have paid due heed to a well-known fable and 
 a familiar proverb. Somewhat rashly, we have 
 endeavoured to write for all three classes, and may 
 fail to please either. 
 
 A glance at the general summary of contents will 
 show that Part I. (Chapters I. IV.) is purely Bib- 
 lical ; plain, practical Theology. Chapter V. at- 
 tempts to state the scientific objections to Prayer 
 fully and candidly in a plain readable way. 
 The aim of Chapter VI. is to meet these ob- 
 jections on their own scientific and philosophic 
 ground. Chapter VII. is an alternative to Chapter 
 VI., but couched in simpler language. It deals with 
 the same scientific objections, only from a more 
 practical standpoint, and discards the technicalities 
 of psychology. The last Chapter (VIII.) merely 
 ventures to suggest a few simple rules, or rather
 
 Author's Preface. xiii 
 
 principles of Prayer which the long experience of 
 mankind has found to be helpful. 
 
 The skeleton frame-work of the book is simple. 
 Throughout, we stand for a few fundamental truths 
 which we accept {for ourselves} as positive, viz. : 
 
 (a) The Immanence of God in His Universe 
 (plus His Transcendence). 
 
 () Man's personality (or soul) is one in essence 
 with God's Personality. He is the Father-soul, we 
 are His Spirit-children, akin to Him, yet absolutely 
 dependent on Him. 
 
 (c) This Fatherhood of God involves the Brother- 
 hood of man, with all its responsibilities. 
 
 (d) The Universe is one Whole, and God is the 
 meaning of it. 
 
 As a matter of fact, (d), (c} and (d} naturally flow 
 from (a) as corollaries. 
 
 It may be asked why in Chapter VI. we lay 
 such stress on the abstruse topic of " consciousness " 
 or " personality." A few words of explanation may, 
 perhaps, not be out of place, even though it broaches 
 just those metaphysical problems we would gladly 
 avoid. 
 
 Personality, human and Divine, is now the key- 
 note of the philosophy of religion. We are pledged 
 to it.
 
 xiv Authors Preface. 
 
 "God .... soul .... the only facts for me. 
 Prove them facts? That they o'erpass my power of 
 
 proving 
 Proves them such." (R. Browning.} 
 
 What do we mean by Personality ? We have 
 attempted to grapple with this problem in Chapter 
 VI. p. 157, and we must refer our reader to those 
 pages. It is impossible in a few lines to describe 
 this strange mysterious something which subtly 
 underlies all our thinking, feeling, willing. Ever 
 one and the same, this personality, consciousness, 
 or soul calls itself " I," survives all the " fluxes " 
 of the body, binds together tightly for us past, 
 present and future into a connected living whole. 
 Amid the flux of things, there is within us all an 
 immortal centre, the controlling principle of our 
 life, directing everything for us, the nucleus of our 
 being. " There sits the helmsman, his hand on the 
 tiller. There the log is kept, the reading of which 
 is the biography of our individual lives." 
 
 It is this personality which gives us the power to 
 say " I am," " I will." And this inevitably leads on to 
 an " I can," " I must," when, at our best and highest, 
 we call into activity this inborn God which is in 
 us all : " the true Light that lighteth every man 
 born into the world"; for modern thought is more 
 and more coming round to the view that our own 
 consciousness is the child of the Universal Conscious- 
 ness which we call God. It is this personality which
 
 Authors Preface. xv 
 
 makes each one of us a real " self," with an indi- 
 viduality of our own which is not merged in man- 
 kind, not even absorbed, or ever to be entirely 
 absorbed in God. Hereafter, "we shall be like 
 Him," but to be swallowed up in God at the last 
 would destroy our personality, which is eternal. 
 
 Personality, whether in God or man, is essentially 
 a self-directing, creative, moral force, the most potent 
 factor in the world-evolution. So much so that 
 there, if anywhere, lies for us the secret of the 
 Universe-riddle, if only we can guess or solve it. 
 
 For the Universe, if it is a living whole at all, 
 owes its life and unity to an Eternal I AM, I WILL, 
 of Whom it is the self-expression. He alone gives 
 us (His children) and it (His Body) a meaning and 
 a unity. All is one whole, and God is the meaning 
 of it. His self-directing creative Personality, Love 
 Divine, is the driving-power behind evolution, and 
 the one key to it. Nature is an organic whole 
 and not a mere piece of machinery, the result 
 
 of automatic, unconscious, blind forces, but the 
 
 \/ 
 orderly obedience of jitoms of matter to the I 
 
 WILL of God. Every moment He is guiding 
 His world-evolution, and so wisely, and therefore 
 so simply, that we sometimes fancy it works of 
 itself like clock-work. We can detect and classify ^/ 
 some of God's simple methods, and we call them r\ 
 Laws of Nature. We even go so far as to sub- 
 stitute them for God. 
 
 In one sense, there is a faint copy ot personality, 
 b
 
 xvi Aut '/tor's Preface. 
 
 an embryo consciousness in plants and in animals, 
 just as the human consciousness pervades and 
 quickens the very hairs of our head, and our bodily 
 members, but in man alone is the Divine conscious- 
 ness explicit, identical in essence and in aim with 
 God's. [We would add, and in Christ alone is it 
 fully and perfectly manifested.] 
 
 It is on these two facts, the personality of God 
 and the personality of Man, that the philosophy 
 of Religion now builds its edifice. It reaffirms the 
 Gospel of Christ, and restates in other words 
 S. John i. i 10. 
 
 Replace revealed Religion philosophy never can. 
 It helps us much, but, at the best, it is and must ever 
 be only religion's handmaiden. Spiritual things 
 must be spiritually discerned. If we discard revela- 
 tion, then our one guide into all truth must be the 
 consciousness, the soul, the light within, not human 
 reason. The philosophy of Religion with its Divine 
 Immanence re-echoes S. Paul's words : " For what 
 man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of 
 man which is in him ? Even so, the-things of God 
 knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. But God 
 hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit : for the 
 Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
 of God." It is only because the spirit of man is 
 one in aim and essence with God's Spirit that there, 
 in our soul, truth abides in all its fulness. Therefore 
 S Paul's caution against " the enticing words of 
 man's wisdom " are needed now as ever. In Chapter
 
 Author's Preface. xvii 
 
 VI. Part II. we have tried to show that human 
 reason in dealing with the Universe - Problem is 
 setting itself a task to which it is, by its very 
 nature, unequal. It may spell out the message 
 of the soul, it can never dictate it. 
 
 Yet religion cannot dispense with thought. The, 
 Spirit must first guide us into all these deep truths, 
 for religion can never be resolved into pure thought. 
 But our faith, to be real and explicit personal ex- 
 perience, must call in reason as its subordinate ally. 
 Someone has defined faith as " reason not aware of 
 itself that it is reason." Be that as it may, a re- 
 flective religious experience is as much more rich 
 and helpful than ordinary religious experience, in 
 the same proportion as natural science is more rich 
 and practically useful than the plain man's opinions 
 of the natural world. 
 
 As already hinted, another great truth that 
 flows as a natural corollary from the relationship 
 between the Personality of God and our indi- 
 vidual personality is this. If we are God's spirit- 
 children, if the Fatherhood of God is a literal fact, 
 then this means the essential Brotherhood of men, 
 and, (in the light of our Father's Love and our 
 Lord's Life and vicarious suffering,) serving God 
 in serving our brother-man becomes the truest ex- 
 pression of our oneness with God. We all know 
 that God's Eternal Purpose, as declared by Christ, 
 is the establishment of His Kingdom here and now 
 on earth, a Kingdom of Love, which will deliver
 
 xviii Author's Preface. 
 
 mankind from evil in every form. God has chosen, 
 in His mysterious Providence, to work out man's 
 welfare through man's co-operation, and it is not 
 only our great privilege, but our bounden duty to 
 be " fellow-workers together with God " in this Great 
 Divine Purpose. 
 
 Where recent religious thought seems chiefly to 
 have gone wrong is in laying too much emphasis 
 on Divine Immanence, identifying God with His 
 Universe or with man. Better a thousandfold retain 
 the antiquated Deistic conception of a merely Tran- 
 scendent God, far out of our reach, Who set the 
 world agoing then left it to work itself out, than 
 the crude Immanence of which we hear so much 
 nowadays. At any rate, the old idea of Transcend- 
 ence gave us a majestic conception of God, Maker 
 of Heaven and Earth, while this pseudo-Immanence 
 theory utterly belittles Him, belittles Christ, belittles 
 sin. 
 
 We want the creed of Divine Immanence, but 
 we cannot for one moment dispense with God's 
 Transcendence, and the due proportions of both 
 must be preserved. Man is in nowise God : He 
 is akin to Him, His child, one in essence with Him, 
 but absolutely dependent upon Him. 
 
 On these two chief foundation-stones, (a) The 
 Divine Immanence (plus Transcendence) and () 
 The Brotherhood of Man, or God's Eternal Purpose 
 for the universal welfare of mankind, is built the 
 whole of what follows in these pages.
 
 Authors Preface. xix 
 
 So deeply impressed are we with the importance 
 of these two postulates that we must crave our 
 readers' patience for the constant repetitions of these 
 two facts in our pages. We crave their kindly for- 
 bearance also for occasional digressions, but we hope 
 that these obiter dicta will play the part of the 
 Greek Chorus and prove equally conducive to the 
 main plot a . 
 
 Apart from a long series of Articles which have 
 appeared in Theological and other Journals, few 
 authorities have been specially consulted. Several 
 standard works, of course, have been read, notedly 
 Jellett (largely quoted in Chapter VII.), Liddon, 
 Worlledge and Gore. Chapter VI. was fully written 
 before we read Henri Bergson's " Evolution Crea- 
 trice " and found that we both held practically 
 identical views. After reading Bergson's book, 
 and Mr. Tyrrell's excellent essay on it, the latter 
 portion of Chapter VI. (Part II.), dealing with the 
 human reason, has been rewritten, and it now em- 
 bodies many hints, and even whole passages in that 
 section, borrowed from these writers. Here and 
 there paragraphs have been copied from our 
 commonplace-book. Many are original, some are 
 borrowed, but the source of the loans is not always 
 given, and unfortunately it is now impossible to 
 trace and acknowledge them all. 
 
 Our thanks are due to two friends for their re- 
 
 * Some of these digressions are bracketed in the text.
 
 xx Authors Preface. 
 
 vision of the proofs, and to the Bishop of Winchester 
 for that most difficult part of an author's task the 
 selection of a Title. 
 
 We are aware that our style is rugged, but we 
 have elsewhere explained the difficulty of writing 
 in a borrowed tongue. Many of the views here 
 expressed will be considered broad, but a writer 
 can only rise up to the level of his own convictions. 
 We sincerely hope that these, and many other flaws, 
 will not seriously militate against the one aim we 
 have had in view, the humble, earnest, reverent 
 desire to promote, so far as in us lies, the interests 
 of true religion. 
 
 J. R. COHU. 
 
 ASTON CLINTON, 
 
 Oct., 1908.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 (The Argument at the commencement of each chapter gives a full 
 synopsis of its contents.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION by the Right Rev. the LORD 
 
 BISHOP OF WINCHESTER vii 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE ix 
 
 CONTENTS xxi 
 
 PART!. Biblical i 116 
 
 Chapter I. The Prayer-Instinct 3 
 
 Chapter II. The Form of Prayer 29 
 
 Chapter III. For what may we pray 59 
 
 Chapter IV. Prayer Difficulties (Theo- 
 logical) 75 
 Part I. 77 
 Part II. 99 
 
 PART ii. Scientific an& pbilosopbical 117238 
 
 Chapter V. Scientific Objections to Prayer 119 
 
 Chapter VI. Scientific Objections examined 141 
 
 Part I. 143 
 
 Part II. 177 
 
 Chapter VII. Alternative Chapter to 
 
 Chapter VI. - 211 
 
 PART III. DePOtfOltal - 239262 
 
 Chapter VIII. Some Helps to Prayer and 
 
 some Hindrances 241
 
 PART I 
 
 Biblical.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRAYER -INSTINCT.
 
 A rgument. 
 
 WORD-PICTURE illustrating the truth that man's soul 
 is directly sprung from the Father-Soul, God. Man's 
 soul-hunger and self-dissatisfaction, a proof of God's in- 
 dwelling Spirit. Hence the universal prayer - instinct. 
 Divine Immanence is Christ's message to mankind 
 hence His optimism but He carefully safeguards the 
 Transcendence of God. Much of our modern ' New 
 Theology' a caricature of Christ's revelation. [Yet the 
 attitude of the Church towards ' new thought ' (in genuine- 
 seekers after Truth) should be like Gamaliel's, passive,, 
 tolerant, receptive.] Divine Immanence is prayer's raison 
 d'etre. Prayer is the soul's cry for reunion and com- 
 munion with its Divine Source. Prayer is hard, but it 
 is the soul's life-breath ; and the greatest thing we 
 can do for self, for man, for God. Our prayers are a 
 condition mysteriously attached by God to the granting. 
 of many of His blessings, because He respects man's, 
 freedom, and will not lay His finger on our wills. 
 Prayer is man's consent to God's Will, whereby he freely 
 enlists himself as a fellow-worker with God in His Eternal 
 Purpose of delivering mankind from evil in every form, 
 i.e. the establishment of His Kingdom of Love on earth^ 
 The Fatherhood of God means the Divine Immanence 
 in every man, i.e. the brotherhood of man; and this in- 
 volves corresponding debts and duties, which prayer's 
 purifying and strengthening power alone enables us to- 
 fulfil.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRAYER - INSTINCT. 
 
 A. 
 
 AN illustration often acts as a barb to the arrow 
 which carries home truth to the mind, so we 
 shall begin with a parable. 
 
 Men of science tell us that this earth on which 
 we live is a chip a of the Sun, cast off from it ages 
 upon ages ago. Originally our planet and the Sun 
 were one, but, in course of time, our parent the Sun 
 sent earth his child to live an existence of its own 
 apart. At first the earth-planet was, even as the 
 Sun itself, a globe of intensely glowing gas, which 
 gradually became a ball of liquid fire, still further 
 cooling, shrinking, wrinkling till, at last, it assumed 
 its present form. But our father, the Sun, has not 
 altogether cast us off and left us to shift for ourselves. 
 True, we are now separated from him by oceans 
 of ether, a kind of thin air, so cold that frost itself 
 is as fire in comparison. Yet it is only because 
 the Sun's warmth and light can quickly pierce this 
 vast separating gulf, ninety millions of miles wide, 
 that plants, animals, man, that is to say, life in any 
 
 a " Chip " is scientifically inaccurate, for it conveys the idea of 
 something broken off a solid block, and the sun is not, we know 
 a solid mass at all.
 
 6 The Prayer-Instinct, 
 
 form can exist on this globe at all. In a word, 
 this earth's very life depends absolutely on its keep- 
 ing in actual touch with the Sun, whose child it 
 is, from which it originally sprang, made in its 
 own likeness. In the Sun we live, and move, and 
 have our being. 
 
 Like all parables, this word-picture may prove 
 helpful if we take its central idea and do not press 
 the accidental points of resemblance too far. Man, 
 as we know him, bears no more likeness to God 
 than does this cold, shrunken, tiny earth to the 
 blinding splendour of the Sun blazing at noon-day. 
 Yet man is God's child, and God is man's Father. 
 The last word of modern philosophy has come back 
 to the Bible view, assuring us that " the very ex- 
 istence of conscious beings, endowed with a spirit 
 or soul, is the best proof of the existence of a pure, 
 omnipresent Spirit, God, immanent in them, and from 
 Whom they have sprung." This is precisely what 
 we are told in the first chapter of Genesis : " And 
 God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness " ; while in Gen. ii. we read : " and the 
 Lord God breathed into man's nostrils the breath 
 of life : and man became a living soul." Man's 
 spirit or souL is essentially as much part of God 
 Himself, as this earth of ours is a chip of the Sun, 
 the source of its light and warmth. 
 
 Even at the cost of being tiresome, let us carry this 
 analogy still further. Just as the Sun has thrown 
 off our planet, its child, to live an existence of its
 
 The Prayer- Instinct. 7 
 
 own apart, yet ever linked to its parent by a bond 
 which cannot be broken, dependent on its' father's 
 warmth and light for its very life ; even so has God 
 our Father placed us, His offspring, on this earth, 
 apparently at a distance from Himself, to live our 
 own life, But never has He lost touch with us. 
 The eternal loving Father-Spirit holds us as safely 
 within the sphere of His living influence, as the 
 pull and tug of the Law of Gravitation keeps the 
 earth from flying away from the Sun b . In God we 
 live, and move, and have our whole being. From 
 Him we sprang, and our true life hangs on our 
 keeping in actual touch with His life-giving light 
 and warmth. 
 
 What has all this to do with prayer? 6 Much every 
 way. If c it is true that man, though weak and frail, 
 has a unique worth and dignity of his own as 
 directly sprung from God : if it is true that man 
 is not 6nly an animal, but closely akin to God, 
 made in His express likeness with a soul which is 
 of the same essence as the pure Spirit of God, 
 then the universal instinct of prayer here finds 
 
 b .Here, of course, the analogy breaks down. It is physically 
 impossible for the earth to get out of touch with the sun, whereas 
 we, as moral beings, are at liberty to cut off our connection with 
 God's Holy Spirit and quench it. 
 
 * We should hardly have considered it necessary to state that here, 
 and in similar passages (e.g. pp. 15, 21, and 25), the ? and the "if" 
 are rhetorical, expressive of our own convictions ; but a friendly 
 critic^ to whom we are heavily indebted for revising these proofs^ 
 has suggested that they indicate the suspicion of a doubt in o,ur 
 own mind. Thev certainly do not.
 
 3 The Prayer- 1 nsiiixt. 
 
 its true explanation. It is the soul's yearning cry 
 for reunion with its Divine Source. 
 
 To carry on our analogy between the spiritual and 
 the natural world, this instinctive yearning of the 
 soul after God, which finds its natural expression 
 in prayer, is but another illustration of the universal 
 Law of Attraction, which is to be seen at work 
 everywhere, in the material and moral, as well as 
 in the spiritual world. That weird, inexplicable 
 principle of attraction and repulsion, pull and push, 
 by its strange magnetic force ever draws like to 
 like. In the world of matter, it crystallizes kin- 
 dred minerals without flaw or fault. In the moral 
 world, it links soul with kindred soul. And 
 in the spiritual world the same law holds good. 
 The idea is well expressed in SergiefFs famous 
 phrase : " The foundation of prayer is the yearning 
 of the image towards its prototype, as of like to 
 like." Hence the universality of the natural in- 
 stinct of prayer : it is as impossible for it not to 
 exist, this instinct of prayer, in man's heart, as it 
 is for water not to find its own level, or for the 
 magnet not to attract the needle to itself. " My 
 soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living 
 God : when shall I come to appear before the 
 Presence of God ? " " As panteth the hart after 
 the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, 
 O God." This is the cry of every human heart. 
 In this life man is an exile. He is parted from 
 his true home ; cut off from his kith and kin.
 
 TJte Prayer- Instinct. 9 
 
 Home-sick, filled with a passion, a void, a craving 
 of which it does not understand the secret, our soul 
 cries, with all the agonized earnestness of a dis- 
 appointed and tortured being: "Why art thoU 
 cast down, O my soul ? and why art thou thus 
 disquieted within me ? " 
 
 " My soul is athirst for God." If we wanted 
 further proof, over and above Bible-revelation, of 
 our Divine Sonship, surely we have it here in the 
 insatiable restlessness, the divine self-dissatisfaction 
 innate in every human heart. This " wasting fever 
 of the heart " attracted the attention of ancient 
 thinkers ; it is with us now. Whoever and what- 
 ever we may be, saints or sinners, wherever in 
 time we stand, we are dissatisfied with what is 
 so far achieved by us, both in our life-work and 
 character. Good men and bad alike, in so far 
 as they are finite wills conscious of their own in- 
 dividual intents and purposes, agree in being dis- 
 satisfied in this world. The righteous man is 
 dissatisfied with his present opportunity to express 
 his will : " the good that I would, I do not." The 
 conscious sinner is dissatisfied with the very will 
 that he is at the moment trying to express : " all 
 is vanity." 
 
 We look back upon our past and say : " so much 
 have we done " ; the future lies before us as the field 
 for deeds yet to be done by us ; the present is our 
 opportunity for action, or self-expression, and the 
 clearer our insight of our life's true purpose and
 
 IO The Prayer- Instinct. 
 
 goal, the more earnestly do we echo S. Paul's wail : 
 " to will is present with me, but how to perform 
 that which is good, I find not." Our conscious will 
 is ever trying to express itself, but at no point on 
 this side of the grave can we rest satisfied. We feel 
 that we are at war with ourselves, and full of hatred 
 with our own imperfections. Our soul within us is 
 disquieted and restless, not with the dissatisfaction 
 of gloomy feelings, but with the insatiable eagerness 
 for further deeds, for more complete self-realization. 
 Our soul is literally in need, an hungred, athirst, in 
 prison, a wanderer from home. 
 
 Thank God for this soul-hunger ! This Godward 
 restlessness is the purest and best desire we can 
 know. It is this very discontent that constitutes 
 our real and true self. All else about us, fortune, 
 feeling, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, these are mere 
 accidental belongings, our mere clothing ; but the 
 sharp pang, the inarticulate home-sick yearning of 
 the soul, " this personal warfare with my own tem- 
 poral maladjustment to my own ideal " which we 
 are unable to interpret, but which is nothing else 
 than the Divine germ come forth from God and 
 longing to find its way back, this is '" the immortal 
 centre within us," which is our real self. Again we 
 say, thank God for this Divine unrest, for it is God 
 the Holy Spirit Himself revealed and striving within 
 us. " Blessed are' they that hunger " : " He filleth the 
 hungry with good things." This soul-hunger is the 
 assurance that the Divine germ xvithin us is healthily
 
 The Prayer- Instinct. n 
 
 alive ; and, in prayer, it is this unsatisfied "immortal 
 centre" within us which the Holy Spirit of God 
 searches, " making intercession for us with groanings 
 which cannot be uttered." 
 
 " My soul is athirst for God." Do we thirst for 
 God ? Well, if we will, in God fully revealed in 
 Christ the soul may slake the thirst of the ages. 
 This sphinx-riddle of our restlessness, which Psalm- 
 ist and the wisest thinkers of old alike felt so 
 keenly, yet could not unravel, Christ has interpreted. 
 God, the Father-Soul, is the meaning and satisfac- 
 tion of this thirst. In reunion and oneness with 
 Him, its Fountain-Head, the dreariest, the darkest,, 
 the most restless soul may now find illumination 
 and peace, a peace which all earthly good things, 
 all the tentative guesses of human philosophies have 
 never been able to give it. " Whosoever drinketh 
 of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever 
 drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
 never thirst; but the water that I shall give him 
 shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life." 
 
 But the Christian message to mankind Man is 
 God's child, God is man's Father is not the 
 modern grotesque assertion, man is God. It sim- 
 ply declares that the Divine germ is in each one 
 of us : " this is the true light that lighteth every 
 man that cometh into the world." It assures us 
 that in a sense every man is potentially a revela-
 
 1 2 TJte Prayer-Instinct. 
 
 tion of God, by the ideal of his conscience if not 
 by his actual character. And it is because every 
 man is the child of God, because God is verily 
 immanent in us, that even the^ worst of men feels 
 a Divine constraint laid upon him at times, yields 
 to the impulse of the Divine Spirit within him, 
 and so does that which is just, pure, lovely, kind. 
 The message of Christianity is no blind identification 
 of God with man : it affirms identity in difference, 
 likeness amid unlikeness, dependence as well as 
 kinship. God is not less God because we kindle 
 our flame at His Sun, nor is our light the less our 
 own because it is borrowed. 
 
 " The Temple of the Lord is holy, which Temple 
 ye are." It was to illuminate this truth that Christ 
 came. He manifests it in all its fulness in His own 
 Person. To each one of us He says : " Rise to the 
 consciousness and dignity of your noble origin and 
 destiny. You belong to God, you are part and 
 parcel of Him, you are His own child. Forget 
 not your lineage, your immense possibilities, your 
 responsibility. For the education of self, and the 
 good of others, also children of God, and citizens 
 of Heaven, whence they came, you are placed here 
 on earth awhile. Be about your Father's business. 
 Let your meat be to do His Will. If God be for 
 you, who can be against you? The true child of 
 God, doing his Divine Father's Will, is as invincible 
 as his God. 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father 
 in Heaven is perfect.' Make your Father's purpose
 
 The Prayer- Instinct. 13 
 
 your own, and be a fellow-worker together with 
 Him." 
 
 This is the message of Christ. Jesus is essentially 
 optimistic. He believes in and appeals to the like- 
 ness of God that is in every man. He has nothing 
 in common with the pessimistic view of human 
 nature which insists on the total depravity and utter 
 worthlessness of natural man. In the parable of the 
 lost sheep and especially in that of the Prodigal Son, 
 given in the fifteenth chapter of S. Luke, He ex- 
 plicitly shows us that bad men are not by nature 
 callous and hopeless sinners, only sheep that have 
 wandered from the fold, and know not the way back ; 
 not useless and worthless human stuff, but souls that 
 carry beneath the rust and grime the genuine stamp 
 of their divine birth : not outcasts whose death would 
 be a good riddance, but living children of God loved 
 and missed in their Father's home. This wreck, 
 Jesus is for ever insisting, is not the man only his 
 lower self, the bushel which hides the light that is 
 there all the while. Release the true self that lies 
 hidden beneath this unnatural obstacle and you 
 come to the real man. " When he came to himself" : 
 this was Jesus' reading of publicans and sinners 
 the pariahs of civilization. He moved among the 
 people with a sanguine expectation ; full of en- 
 thusiasm and faith in man ; ever demanding 
 achievements of the most unlikely, and, therefore, 
 constantly gladdened by a wondrous response. 
 Zacchaeusi the hated tax-gatherer, makes a vast
 
 14 The Prayer- Instinct. 
 
 surrender. S. Mary Magdalene, the by-word of 
 society, has in her the passion of a saint. S. Peter 
 flings off his weakness, and changes into the rock 
 of the Church. Jesus treated men as actual sons 
 of God, and they gladly responded. 
 
 Jesus Himself tells us, " I am come not to destroy, 
 but to fulfil the Law and the Prophets," and knowing 
 Him to be very God of very God, not merely the 
 perfect and ideal man, perfect in a unique and 
 paramount way as compared with other good men, 
 but God incarnate, manifesting in Himself in all 
 its fulness the Godhead which in us is but in the 
 germ, we are not surprised to find in His revelation 
 the culmination, the concentration, the fulfilment 
 of all religions ever since the world began. Christ's 
 Gospel contains the heart of all that is best in them, 
 it focuses into itself the highest and deepest truths 
 of the universal religious consciousness. All prophets 
 and seekers after God, Jewish or otherwise, before 
 Christ had emphasised either the Immanence of God, 
 i.e., the nearness of God, the kinship of man and God, 
 or the Transcendence of God, i.e., the aloofness of 
 God, removing God beyond the ken of man alto- 
 gether, Christ first of all, and once and for all, 
 combined and harmonised the Immanence and the 
 Transcendence of God. And the religious con- 
 sciousness can yield up neither of the two con-- 
 ceptions, except with its own life. Actual living 
 religion, the religion which is both trust and 
 devotion, requires a God Who is both very near
 
 The Prayer- Instinct, 1 5 
 
 to man, akin to man; and yet it demands a God 
 Who is far above and beyond man, a God of Whom 
 it can truly be said, from the very fulness of His 
 perfection, " no one can really know God but God 
 Himself." 
 
 This is the God revealed to Us by Christ : a God 
 Who is above all else our Father, a God Whose 
 very child I am, a God Who dwells in me; and 
 yet a God " Which is in Heaven " ; of Whom even 
 Jesus, in Whom God was fully manifested, has to. 
 say "My Father is greater than I," and "of this 
 hour knoweth no man, no not the Son even, but 
 the Father only." 
 
 Why, in dealing with Prayer, do we say all this ? 
 Because it is on the Immanence of God that the 
 very reasonableness of prayer hangs ; and yet one 
 is. almost afraid nowadays to speak of God's im- 
 manence, for obvious reasons. The one-sided 
 modern utterances on the Divine Immanence too 
 often belittle God, by the grotesque assertion that 
 man is God ; belittle Christ, by raising us all to 
 the dignity of "God in the flesh," making the 
 difference between us and Christ only a difference 
 of degree and not of kind, so that, at any moment, 
 one of us may become a real Christ; belittle sin, 
 by making it not merely a means to good, but an 
 actual good ; sin and pain becoming so many 
 additional perfections in God's universe. " Sin 
 itself is a quest for God," say they.
 
 1 6 The Prayer-Instinct. 
 
 This is a parody of Christ's message, yet we should 
 be truly grateful to these seekers after God who have 
 the courage and candour thus openly to state their 
 honest convictions. If every true teacher and 
 thinker would really teach up to the level of his 
 own knowledge and conviction, the battle would 
 sooner be won. We do want " scribes instructed 
 unto the Kingdom of Heaven to bring forth out 
 of their treasures things new and old." And the 
 Church is ever ready to recognize new truth and 
 adopt it ; only it must be verified truth. If an 
 authoritative Church opens its lips to prophesy at 
 all, it must be with a "Thus saith the Lord." 
 
 d [The reluctance of the Church at any time to 
 reconstruct its faith is more than pardonable it is 
 right. It should not do it if it can avoid the doing 
 of it and live. The new truth must be proved 
 to it to be a Gospel, which it is a sin not to 
 preach, before it can accept it. 
 
 But truth is ever progressing, yet never reaches 
 its goal. The truth of one generation is transcended 
 by the truth of the next, and invaluable as are our 
 catholic creeds, they do not cover the whole truth ; 
 no word-definitions ever can. They do not even 
 cover the whole truth as we know it now. 
 
 These creeds are the sum-total of the thoughts 
 of men concerning the nature and character of God 
 and His relationship to man, but only man's thoughts 
 
 d For explanation of these brackets, see Introduction, footnote.
 
 The Prayer-Instinct. 1 7 
 
 on this subject up to certain periods in Christian 
 history e . God's Holy Spirit, " the giver of all good 
 gifts," gifts of the brain as well as of the heart 
 has for hundreds and hundreds of years since then 
 been guiding us into all truth, and religious ideas 
 must keep pace with this advance in knowledge of 
 mind and heart. Large re-interpretations and re- 
 statements of theological belief are, therefore, ne- 
 cessary if Christian belief is to be placed on a level 
 with our modern requirements. 
 
 " Mankind has never civilized itself except by 
 humanizing its God," someone has truly said, and 
 this is only another way of saying, that in propor- 
 tion as God's Holy Spirit enlightens men's hearts, 
 and this He is doing daily more and more, 
 our view of God becomes newer and truer, and we 
 must re-state our creed accordingly. To many of 
 us such a task seems rash and irreverent, and it is 
 often so. But when honest, courageous, enlightened 
 seekers after Truth reverently endeavour to absorb 
 new truths, to adapt old dogmas to modern wording, 
 to enlarge and follow the teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit, our attitude towards them should be like 
 
 e We do not wish to be misunderstood. Few, we fancy, will refuse 
 to recognize the intrinsic merits of the Apostles' Creed ; fewer still, 
 the beauty or inspiration of the Nicene Confession of Faith. But we 
 do sympathize with those who fail to see the same perfection and 
 inspiration in the Athanasian Creed. Even in the two other Creeds, 
 we must not forget that they rightly borrow Bible word-pictures, and 
 we must interpret them accordingly. (See especially Bishop of 
 Chester's article in Guardian of Sept. 17, 1908.) 
 
 C
 
 1 8 The Prayer- Instinct. 
 
 that of Gamaliel. " Ye men of Israel, take heed to 
 yourselves, what ye intend to do as touching these 
 
 men Refrain from these men, and let them 
 
 alone : for if this counsel or this work be of men, 
 it will come to nought : but if it be of God, ye 
 cannot overthrow it ; lest haply ye be found even 
 to fight against God." 
 
 We believe that at the present time " a revo- 
 lution at least as considerable as that effected 
 by the Reformation has got somehow to take 
 place in popular religious ideas if Christianity 
 is to continue a real living force in modern 
 life." This does not mean that Christianity must 
 capitulate to the modern world, give up its own 
 platform in order to adopt alien principles. No- 
 thing of the kind ! On the contrary, Christianity 
 is just re-discovering Jesus and His real Gospel. 
 God's Holy Spirit, Which has guided us into all 
 truth as we see it now, is more and more leading 
 us back to the real Christ f : the Christ Who tells 
 us that man is by nature God's child, and this earth 
 is the scene of God's Kingdom. The Christ Who 
 sees good in the weakest and vilest : Who sees worth 
 in birds and flowers, and beauty in all things : the 
 Christ Who has an implicit faith in man : the 
 Christ Who judges man not by his quality as an 
 
 1 " The modern change of emphasis from a Christianity of right 
 belief to a Christianity of right character and right social service, has 
 brought us nearer to Christ, and has made us both able and willing 
 to learn from Him." Hastings' " Dictionary of the Bible," extra 
 vol., p. 14.
 
 The Prayer- Instinct. 19 
 
 isolated moral unit, but by his contribution to the 
 common well-being of mankind. 
 
 Therefore, when an honest seeker after God 
 openly states his candid convictions, let us not 
 judge him rashly. Let us test his teaching by 
 Christ's standard, and welcome the new utterance. 
 The man is unselfishly contributing his mite. If 
 the coin does not bear God's stamp, its false ring 
 will soon be found out. In any case it makes 
 thinking men examine their own opinions or con- 
 victions, state their objections, if they dislike the 
 new teaching, proclaim over again their own belief 
 in as straightforward and intelligible a way as he 
 has done, and thus strengthens, confirms, enlightens 
 faith.] 
 
 So it has come about that while not budging 
 one inch from our firm stand on the unshaken 
 foundation of our faith in God's Transcendence, 
 modern views have brought us back wondrously 
 to Christ and His assertion of the Immanence 
 of God as well as His Transcendence. Realizing 
 that there is "an immortal centre in us all," we 
 realize man : s dignity, man's immense possibilities, 
 his equally great responsibility. Pessimism is 
 crushed out of our hearts, for we now see that 
 pessimism, hopelessness, despair, whether it afflicts 
 the individual or society, is a disease, a sin against 
 God, an insult to Him, a denial of His Father- 
 hood. 
 
 But, while thus grasping our intimate kinship
 
 2O The Prayer- Instinct. 
 
 with God, we do not forget our absolute dependence 
 upon Him. Now, more than ever, do we echo the 
 Psalmist's words : " I was brought low, and He 
 helped me." At the same time, the Psalmist's yearn- 
 ing cry for a closer walk, a closer communion with 
 his God, becomes but the natural expression of our 
 inmost hearts, the soul's natural craving for re-union 
 with its Divine Source : " My soul thirsteth for God, 
 even for the living God : when shall I come to 
 appear before the living God ? " or, again, " As for 
 me, I shall behold Thy Face in righteousness : 
 I shall be satisfied, when I awake in Thy like- 
 ness." 
 
 This instinctive yearning of the soul for re-union 
 with the Father-Soul is the idea which underlies 
 the best-known definitions of prayer; for instance, 
 " Prayer is communion with God " ; " prayer is 
 correspondence with God " ; " prayer is the conscious 
 converse of the soul with its God " ; or as Canon 
 Liddon writes, "prayer is the act by which man, con- 
 scious at once of his weakness and of his immortality, 
 puts himself into real and effectual communication 
 with the Almighty, the Eternal, the Self-existent 
 God." Each of these gives expression to the profound 
 truth that in prayer the soul of man instinctively 
 turns towards God as the one and only object which 
 satisfies all its deepest yearnings. Thus only can 
 it escape awhile from this " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," 
 stifling prison-house of its earthly tabernacle, and 
 breathe its own pure, native, bracing air : " as
 
 The Prayer- Instinct. 2 1 
 
 panteth the hart after the water-brooks, so panteth 
 my soul after Thee, O God." The soul feels a void 
 which nothing outside God can fill, but God can 
 and does fill it full, and satisfies its deep cravings. 
 " Thou didst turn and refresh me ; yea, Thou 
 broughtest me up from the deep of the earth 
 again/' 
 
 B. 
 
 If prayer is this ; if it is the channel through 
 which the soul of man, " thirsting after its God," 
 draws its living waters from the Fountain-Head ; 
 if prayer is the means by which God again breathes 
 the breath of life into the stifling soul, and refreshes 
 it when it is weary ; if prayer thus brings the divine 
 nature within us, clay-clogged as it is, into intimate 
 quickening touch with its original Divine Source, 
 then, surely, prayer is to us a matter of life and 
 death. Well may Baxter call it " the life-breath 
 of the soul " ; or G. Herbert, " the soul's life-blood." 
 Is it any wonder that saints of God refer to prayer 
 in such strong terms ? Listen, for instance, to 
 Bunyan : " if thou art not a praying person, thou 
 art not a Christian " ; or Hooker, " Prayer is the 
 first thing with which a righteous life beginneth, 
 and the last wherewith it doth end " ; or S. Chry- 
 sostom, " The just man doth not desist from praying 
 until he ceaseth to be just." 
 
 And One far greater than any of these says: "Men 
 ought always to pray, and not faint." Yet, strange
 
 22 T/ie Prayer-Instinct. 
 
 as it may seem, earnest fervent prayer, which for the 
 true child of God should be as instinctive as breath- 
 ing, is hard to man as we find him. It may be easy 
 enough to " say " our prayers, but to pray with all 
 our heart and strength, with a soul " thirsting after 
 God," to realize the actual immediate Presence of 
 the living God, to believe vividly that God is listen- 
 ing to our heart's voice, to have a soul so attuned 
 to the Holy Spirit's prompting within us that our 
 own spirit is thinking with God in all its thoughts, 
 our heart burning within us with a glow kindled 
 by the Divine Fire, this is not so easy. 
 
 It is so much easier to drift into the languor 
 which provoked the prophet's cry : " There is none 
 that calleth upon Thy Name, tJiat stirreth up himself 
 to take hold upon Thee" " No man is likely to do 
 much good in prayer," says Bishop Hamilton, " who 
 does not begin by looking upon it in the light of 
 a serious work." And our Lord's own teaching and 
 example bear this out : for not only does He Him- 
 self so earnestly wrestle with God and agonize 
 in prayer, that His sweat was as it were great 
 drops of blood falling upon the ground, but, in 
 a striking parable, He presses upon us the need and 
 power of importunity in prayer, as being the best 
 test of our earnestness. 
 
 Yes, true availing prayer is hard work, but it is 
 worth while. All our moral worth, all our influence, 
 all our life-work hang on our character, on the set or 
 bent of our soul, that is to say, on the actual mental,
 
 The Prayer Instinct. 23 
 
 moral, spiritual condition we have reached at any 
 given moment. In other words, our work, be its 
 sphere what it may, must be what we ourselves are. 
 The only way to make others good is to be good 
 in ourselves. Therefore, if we desire to minister to 
 others, and for this end we were born, there is one 
 solemn obligation which rests upon us, to sanctify 
 ourselves, to rise to the full stature of our manhood, 
 to develope "self" to the utmost of its capacity. 
 
 Prayer alone can do this. We shall never do it 
 till we bring the divine germ within us into living 
 touch with the Father-Soul whence it sprang, and 
 thus let Him pour His own character into our hearts. 
 For in prayer we can draw without stint, if we 
 will, upon the infinite power, knowledge, goodness 
 and love of God. 
 
 " If we will," for there must be an open door 
 through which God can enter into our hearts to give 
 us the gifts and graces He longs to communicate to 
 us. In God's sight, we are men, not machines ; 
 moral beings with a free-will of our own, and God 
 respects our freedom too much to force us even to 
 our own good. He stands at the door of our heart, 
 and knocks, if any man will open unto Him. No 
 one but ourselves can open the heart-door^, and we 
 must do it of our own free-will and accord. Prayer 
 opens that door ; the prayer which is not mere lip- 
 
 This point is well brought out in Holman Hunt's famous picture 
 "The Light of the World," in which the door has no handle outside. 
 Cf. Hastings' "Dictionary of the Bible," ii , 432.
 
 24 The Prayer- Instinct. 
 
 service, but the heartfelt yearning cry of the soul 
 athirst after the living God. It is the soul's implor- 
 ing cry to its Father-Soul to come in and make His 
 abode there. Then, and not till then, does God 
 gladly enter into our inmost heart He fills it full 
 of Himself, so that we feel as He feels, think as 
 He thinks, will as He wills. Our very character 
 is transfigured. We go forth truly minded to do 
 His pleasure, full of His goodness, His virtue, His 
 strength. We are now fitted to be fellow-workers 
 together with Him in the establishment of His King- 
 dom of love and peace here and now on earth, to be 
 literally saviours of our fellow-men by promoting the 
 spirit of love and unselfishness between man and 
 man, so that they shall live with each other as 
 brothers, sons of a common Heavenly Father. 
 
 And, like Christ, we must lay stress on this King- 
 dom of Heaven on earth. To our Lord, the Father- 
 hood of God means His indwelling in every human 
 being, and, therefore, the essential Brotherhood of 
 man. The Incarnation has drawn us into one family 
 by declaring us one with God, one with our fellow- 
 men. This involves precisely what God's Kingdom 
 on earth implies, sacrificing self on the altar of 
 humanity's need. From the creation of the world 
 this has been the eternal purpose of God, the 
 welfare of mankind. The Bible tells us this in 
 so many words : " The will of God is that all 
 men should be saved " ; that is to say, delivered 
 from evil in every form. But He means man
 
 The Prayer-Instinct. 25 
 
 to work out his own salvation. " By man came 
 death, and by man came also the resurrection of 
 the dead." It was to build this Kingdom that 
 Jesus laboured. He began this moral resurrection 
 of a dead world. To the same service He sum- 
 moned, regenerated, trained His disciples. He 
 placed these regenerated few among their fellows as 
 the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the little 
 leaven which leaveneth the whole lump. Now there 
 are millions upon millions of these men pure in 
 heart, true citizens of God's Kingdom here on earth. 
 It is through them that the world is being daily 
 regenerated ever more and more ; through them 
 that the world-conscience is being quickened so 
 that sympathy and service are everywhere taking 
 the place of indifference and selfishness. Not only 
 Christians but multitudes of others have caught 
 their inspiration and are spending themselves for 
 the good of others, and are unwittingly serving 
 God well in serving men. Ever nearer and nearer 
 are we drawing to that golden year when " mercy 
 and truth are met together : righteousness and 
 peace have kissed each other." Let us believe 
 implicitly in this golden era, for it will assuredly 
 come, we can help it on, we can retard it, but 
 come it will. But, and this is what concerns you 
 and me it is through us individually that the work 
 has got to be done. " They without us shall not be 
 made perfect." 
 
 But what has this to do with prayer ? Everything.
 
 26 The Prayer-Instinct. 
 
 If to be a Christian means to be in close relationship 
 not with God alone but with our fellow-men, and 
 to serve God in serving them, we must purify our- 
 selves before we can minister to others, and we have 
 seen, that nothing but prayer, or actual touch with 
 God, will enable us to do this. Again, all answer 
 to prayer depends on this one condition, whether 
 our prayers are in harmony with the Will of God. 
 " This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, 
 if ive ask anything in accordance with His Will, He 
 heareth us." Therefore, knowing that the Will of 
 God is the universal well-being of all men, the 
 establishment of His Kingdom of Love and peace 
 on earth, if our prayers do not come into line with 
 this, they must fail. Once more, if it is through 
 man that the universal salvation of mankind is to be 
 achieved, if we are each one not merely our brother's 
 keeper, but far more our brother's brother, and in- 
 dividual men and women are the pathway by which 
 others are to be drawn into the Kingdom of God, 
 then, what a high value we should set on prayer I 
 Not only, is it through prayer that we strengthen 
 and purify ourselves for our life-work of ministering 
 to others, but prayer is the power that moves the 
 Hand which rules the Universe. Thus prayer be- 
 comes the greatest thing that we can do for self, 
 for God, for man. 
 
 For self, since it transfigures our very character 
 more and more into the likeness of God with Whom 
 it brings us into living touch. For man, since it
 
 The Prayer-Instinct. 27 
 
 is on our character that our influence hangs. For 
 God, since it is only through the close relationship 
 with Him which prayer fosters, and our consequent 
 readiness to serve Him by serving our brother-men 
 that we can be fellow-workers together with Him 
 in His eternal purpose of establishing His Kingdom 
 here on earth. 
 
 Therefore, if it is true that as a man prays, so is 
 he ; if it is true that we must be, before we can do ; 
 if we are wise, we shall put prayer first, and every- 
 thing else second. 
 
 " Let Thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the 
 prayers of Thy humble servants ; and that they may 
 obtain their petitions make them to ask such things 
 as shall please Thee ; througJi Jesus Christ our 
 Lordr
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORM OF PRAYER.
 
 A rgument. 
 
 IN what words should we pray? Prayers without 
 words. Emerson's "All men pray; all their prayers are 
 answered," examined. Prayer, regarded as a mere " ask- 
 ing for what we want and have not," a low, narrow, 
 unscriptural conception. Homage and humility, praise 
 and thanksgiving, placing God first, man second, the 
 key-note of true prayer. Reverence and submission to 
 God's Will must precede petition and intercession. 
 
 Bible -proofs. In the Old Testament prayers, and 
 especially in the Psalm-prayers, we see how right our 
 Church is in moving us to approach God's Throne of 
 Grace by these natural steps : confession, thanksgiving, 
 praise, meditation, supplications and intercessions. Above 
 all, our Lord's Prayer " teaches us how to pray." Christ, 
 in it, sets reverence, homage, bowing to God's Will, first; 
 intercession pervades it ; self comes last. 
 
 Objections considered: e.g., "God is in Heaven: 
 thou on earth : let thy words be few " ; " ye shall not 
 be heard for your much speaking " ; brevity of our Lord's 
 Prayer, and especially of His Agony-Prayer, and of the 
 Publican's prayer ; God wants life-service, not lip-service ; 
 .all these seem to forbid such long prayers as would be 
 needed to include all so-called essential elements of 
 prayer. Yet these very objections prove exactly the 
 reverse. 
 
 Laborare est orare, a half-truth. True that "prayer 
 without works is dead," and God does not like dead 
 prayers. Christ's religion is not " otherworldly." He 
 expressly condemns that sickly religious egotism which 
 shuts itself off from the service of man. But Christ's 
 whole life and teaching proves that we must first get 
 {lod's touch in prayer before we can work our best.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORM OF PRAYER. 
 
 A. 
 
 PRAYER, we have said, is the channel through 
 I which the immortal soul of man, " thirsting 
 for God," draws its living waters from the Fountain- 
 Head ; the means by which God again breathes 
 the breath of life into the stifling human soul, the 
 soul in need, athirst, in prison; and refreshes it 
 when it is weary. 
 
 If this is so, in what words, then, does the soul 
 speak to the Father-Soul in its conscious converse 
 with God in prayer ? 
 
 This may seem a matter of no consequence 
 whatsoever, a mere accident of prayer. Indeed, 
 are there not many excellent prayers without words ? 
 Prayer need not be vocal. You may pray without 
 falling on your knees, or opening your lips. " Prayer 
 is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed." 
 There are prayers which are felt and not spoken. 
 It may be a pleading note wrung from a heart of 
 pain, it may be one sob of ecstasy, but yet it can 
 express supplication, contrition or thanksgiving. 
 Such prayer brings with it the feeling of consolation. 
 It comes like the rush of tears to the over-burdened 
 heart, and in its very weakness there is strength.
 
 32 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 May it not be true that just as " the best portion 
 of a good man's life" consists in "his little, nameless, 
 unremembered acts of kindness and of love," so it 
 is with these little, wordless, unremembered prayers ? 
 It is in such instinctive, almost unconscious, moods 
 that we best express our true character. 
 
 Was it not in this sense that Emerson said : " All 
 men are always praying, and all their prayers are 
 answered " ? " Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
 uttered or unexpressed." If these strong ruling 
 desires are our real prayers, all men have them, so 
 all men are always praying. And these ruling 
 desires have a strange power, a strange trick, of 
 fulfilling themselves. "As a man thinketh in his 
 heart so is he." Our several characters are but the 
 sum of the ruling aims and desires which we have 
 cherished and pursued. We are what we would be, 
 although we are not what we would be, i.e., our 
 character is the sum-total of our ruling desires, 
 though it is not the self-expression of our highest 
 ideal. So it is that in their ruling desires all men 
 pray, and as these ruling desires have a strange 
 trick of registering themselves in our character, and 
 so fulfilling themselves, all our prayers are answered. 
 So we should be very careful of our unspoken 
 prayers. When we consciously speak with God, 
 we realize His Presence, and in the light of that 
 pure Presence we sift, and purge, and raise our 
 desires. But when we pray without words, when 
 we simply cherish a strong desire, which, though it
 
 The Form of Prayer. 33 
 
 may spring from nothing better than a sensual or 
 selfish craving for ease or pleasure or worse, has 
 yet all the force of a prayer, we forget the pure 
 Presence in which we stand ; we make no effort 
 to purge, sift and raise our souls, and before we 
 have recognized our evil plight, we may know the 
 misery of a granted prayer. 
 
 Strictly speaking, however, these unspoken prayers 
 do not come within the scope of Prayer if we de- 
 fine it as : "The conscious converse of the soul with 
 its God." But there are prayers without words which 
 are essentially the conscious communion of the soul 
 with the living God. There is an attitude of the 
 soul which Archbishop Benson describes as a " silent, 
 uplifted, but unasking condition of mind, formulating 
 no supplications, requests, desires or petitions, but 
 rapt in the contemplation of God, adoring Him," 
 an attitude which has at all times appealed to deep 
 religious natures. " My soul, be thou silent unto 
 God." 
 
 It was in such an attitude of contemplation that 
 S. Paul beheld the beatific vision. " I knew such 
 a man in Christ (whether in the body, I cannot tell ; 
 or whether out of the body, I cannot tell) ; such an 
 one caught up to the third heaven . . . and he 
 heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for 
 a man to utter " (cf. Is. vi.). But, although such rapt 
 visions are not unknown even now, this converse 
 with God, rapt in contemplation of Him, adoring 
 Him, is, perhaps, more adapted to an Isaiah or a 
 
 D
 
 34 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 S. Paul than to ordinary mortals. There is, un- 
 doubtedly, in this conception of silent contemplative, 
 absorbed prayer, an element which lies at the very 
 root of all prayer, heartfelt reverence "prayer's 
 silent background." But, if prayer is " conscious 
 converse with God," our reason, and will, and heart 
 must take an active part in the intimate communion 
 of the soul with its God, and the soul's yearning will 
 find utterance in words. 
 
 But, whether we include words or not in our 
 conception of prayer, what we now wish to examine 
 is rather this : What is the soul's main attitude 
 towards God in the act of prayer ? What is the 
 intention with which we approach God ? We wish, 
 surely, to give expression to some feelings and 
 aspirations. What, then, are the feelings, the 
 aspirations, the thoughts uppermost in our hearts, 
 when we thus kneel in the immediate Presence of 
 God ? They will vary, naturally, with the sup- 
 pliant's various moods ; but, taking prayer generally, 
 do we come before God in prayer merely as 
 petitioners, asking for what we want and have not ? 
 Or is our communion with God something other, 
 and better, and larger than this ? 
 
 This is a vital question which goes right down 
 to the root of the mystery of prayer. It is mainly 
 because our idea of prayer is low and narrow, 
 because we have not yet risen to a large, generous 
 and spiritual conception of it, that prayer is so often
 
 The Form of Prayer. 35 
 
 slighted or misunderstood. Christians, on the one 
 hand, complain : " The unanswered prayers of 
 believers are a mystery to us." Agnostics, on the 
 other hand, regarding prayer as a mere begging 
 for gifts, speak of it in scorn as "a machine war- 
 ranted by theologians to make God do what His 
 clients want." 
 
 For our own sake, therefore, as well as for the 
 honour of our Faith and our God, it is essential 
 that we should, in this important matter of prayer, 
 believe what is true and do what is right 
 
 We all pray ; but many of us have very vague 
 notions of prayer. Not for one moment do we wish 
 even to suggest that the faculty of prayer is an intel- 
 lectual gift : that a man, before he can truly pray, 
 must understand the whole theory of prayer, be able 
 to explain lucidly and convincingly the various parts 
 played by the reason, the will and the heart respec- 
 tively in prayer, or to solve all its hard problems. 
 Far be it from us even to hint at such a conception 
 of true prayer ! Real prayer is a matter of the 
 heart far more than the brain. Now as ever, those 
 who pray best talk least about it. A little child, 
 an unlettered peasant often prays more truly and 
 effectually than a theologian or a ripe scholar. 
 Indeed, the more simplicity there is in our heart 
 as we kneel before God, the more our attitude in 
 prayer in God's immediate Presence is like that of 
 a little child, the more likely are we to be heard 
 of our Father Which is in Heaven, for " of such is
 
 36 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 the Kingdom of God." Perhaps one chief reason 
 why prayer for most of us is so hard is because we 
 find it so hard to be simple. 
 
 In our contention that many of those who pray 
 have very vague notions of prayer, our meaning is 
 quite different. Is "it not a common thought that 
 prayer is a crying to God for help or relief; merely 
 asking God to give us those things which we want 
 and have not ? Do not many of us, when we have 
 prayed, as we often do, more or less fully for our 
 own and others' needs, stop there, and call this the 
 whole of prayer ? 
 
 If we may say so without irreverence, too many 
 people in their prayers look upon God in the light 
 of a relieving officer. With such a low, narrow, 
 unspiritual view of prayer, is it any wonder that 
 even Christians are grieved and puzzled because 
 their petitions often remain apparently unanswered ? 
 Is it any wonder that their low view of God naturally 
 reacts on themselves, so that they approach Him in 
 words that no Apostle would have dared to use? 
 Is it any wonder, if Christians so misunderstand 
 prayer, that others do so too, and with a sneer, even 
 challenge believers, as in the historical "hospital 
 test" suggestion, to put the efficacy of prayer to 
 the proof by actual experiment ? 
 
 Undoubtedly, petitions and supplications do form 
 a great part of prayer; "in everything, by prayer 
 and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests 
 be made known unto God." Constituted as we are,
 
 TJie Form of Prayer. 37 
 
 deeply conscious of our own littleness and weakness, 
 our natural tendency is to cry to God for help : " I 
 was brought low, and He helped me." In its proper 
 place and proportion, this natural dependent instinct 
 is not only pardonable, it is right ; but to look upon 
 God as a Being the whole or main purpose of Whose 
 existence is to answer prayer, is an attitude towards 
 Him which is radically wrong, and it is no wonder 
 that "we ask, but receive not, because we ask 
 amiss." 
 
 Search the Scriptures. There we see holy men 
 drawing near to God. True, they approach Him as 
 children come to a loving Father, with the love and 
 trust which casts out fear. But they never forget 
 the relationship in which the creature must always 
 stand to the Creator; the sinner, to the All-Holy; 
 the ignorant, to the All-Wise ; the selfish, to Him 
 Whose aim is the well-being, not merely of the 
 individual, but of all mankind. 
 
 Face to face with his God, sinful man instinctively 
 feels awed. God is so holy and great ; he is so little 
 in body and soul alike. The better and holier the 
 man, the more deeply and consciously does he realize 
 his own utter unworthiness. " I am the chiefest of 
 sinners," naturally exclaims a S. Paul. 
 
 And what then ? The first cry that instinctively 
 rises to his lips is an outburst of adoration and 
 humility. " Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts : 
 the whole earth is full of His glory. . . . Woe is me ! 
 for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips,
 
 38 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean 
 lips ; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord 
 of hosts." (Is. vi. cf. S. Luke v. 8.) 
 
 Homage and humility, this is the key-note of 
 prayer. God, not man, is the central idea of 
 the soul vividly realizing the immediate Pre- 
 sence of the All-Holy. But if we realize our 
 insignificance : " Depart from me, O Lord, for 
 I am a sinful man," then does God's Holy Spirit 
 immediately prompt the comforting assurance of our 
 Father's infinite love and gracious goodness to us- 
 ward, and the humbled soul at once rises on the 
 wings of praise and thanksgiving : " Praise the Lord, 
 O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." 
 
 We " think and thank." So is our soul now 
 attuned to the Will of God, now prepared to offer 
 up petitions for our own needs, and intercessions 
 for others. Our sense of God's greatness and our 
 own littleness, our consciousness of God's gracious 
 Providence in all His works, will so have filled our 
 hearts with awe, reverence, loving trustfulness, that 
 our very requests will now fall into line with the 
 perfect Will of God. We shall no longer be in the 
 mood to drag His Will down to ours, but ask Him 
 to raise ours up to His. " Nevertheless, Father, not 
 as I will, but as Thou wilt." We shall not complain 
 of unanswered prayers : we shall realize that our 
 Father, in His infinite love and wisdom, knows far 
 better than we, His ignorant wilful children, what is 
 expedient for us. Whether our requests are granted
 
 The Form of Prayer. 39 
 
 or denied, we shall trust Him fully, and accept 
 cheerfully, and with gratitude, His decision in 
 every case. 
 
 But of this we may rest assured, that, apart from 
 humility and homage, praise and thanksgiving, 
 implicit trust and loyal bending of our will to His, 
 we are not in full touch with God, nor are our 
 prayers as true as they might be. 
 
 B. 
 Bible proofs. 
 
 The more we read our Bible, the more clearly shall 
 we realize that this is its conception of true prayer. 
 It is because the compilers of our Prayer-Book 
 were so steeped in the Scriptures, had so thoroughly 
 imbibed the spirit of them, that, in the General 
 Exhortation, these are precisely .the steps by which 
 they urge us to approach God's throne of grace : 
 confession, thanksgiving, praise, meditation, sup- 
 plications and intercessions. So, too, in the West- 
 minster Shorter Catechism we have this definition 
 of prayer : "praying is the offering up of our desires 
 unto God, in the Name of Christ, for things agreeable 
 to His Will, with confession of our sins, and thank- 
 ful acknowledgment of His mercies." 
 
 Let us turn to the Bible itself. In reading the 
 Old Testament, we must remember that prayer 
 did not form an invariable or indispensable part of 
 worship in those early Hebrew days. Sacrifices
 
 4O The Form of Prayer. 
 
 were the principal and most essential factor ; they 
 were the visible expression of awe and reverence, 
 joy and gratitude, contrition and atonement, and 
 the substitute for our modern prayers. But the 
 natural, universal instinct of prayer, the spon- 
 taneous outpouring of the heart's gratitude, despair, 
 entreaty is there all the same, and nothing can 
 exceed the fervour or beauty of such supplications 
 as Hannah's, David's, Solomon's, or the majority of 
 the Psalms. 
 
 There is Hannah's prayer (i Sam. ii. 10), on which 
 Mary's " Magnificat " is modelled. What are they 
 but one rapt outburst of praise, adoration and 
 thanksgiving ? So, again, Habakkuk's Psalm is 
 expressly called a prayer, yet it is one glad song 
 of praise, a Te Deum. Or consider many of the 
 Psalms, which are nothing if not model prayers. 
 They may, at times, be heavy with sighs, but they 
 also glow with rapture. They offer the sacrifices 
 of a meek and contrite heart, but they are also 
 songs of gladness and adoration ; they make their 
 requests known unto God, but they also meditate 
 on His glory, and the gracious works He has 
 wrought ; they appeal to His mercy, but they 
 equally extol His Providence. 
 
 But " 'tis an assured good to seek the noblest," 
 so let us leave man's prayers, and take our Lord 
 Himself for our Example. What does our Lord's 
 Prayer teach us about prayer ? It has set once 
 and for all the standard form and tone of all
 
 The Form of Prayer. 41 
 
 true Christian prayer : " after this manner pray ye." 
 Lofty as is the ideal, it is within our reach, for it 
 was essentially to plain men that Christ chose to 
 give Himself and His message. Yet with all its 
 simplicity, there is such profundity in the Lord's 
 Prayer that we have a product such as the world 
 has never seen and will not see again. A peasant 
 child can understand enough of it to make it the 
 expression of his daily needs, but the ripest scholar, 
 philosopher and saint cannot exhaust all its possi- 
 bilities of meaning. In a few minutes it may be 
 committed to memory : but it is the work of a life- 
 time to learn it with the heart. It is a prayer 
 which every being who believes in God can use, yet 
 to no two of us does it mean exactly the same thing, 
 for each man uses it in proportion to his belief. 
 What, then, does it tell us of prayer ? 
 
 Its every clause is thrown into the form of a 
 petition, yet it contains but one request for those 
 earthly good things which usually monopolize our 
 own prayers ; " give us this day our daily bread." 
 Even this solitary petition for temporary blessings 
 is emptied, redeemed of all possibility of selfishness 
 by being converted into an intercession as well. Its 
 very wording, " give us (not, me) our (not, my) 
 daily bread," compels us to ask it for our neigh- 
 bours and all mankind as well as ourselves. More 
 than this, consider where our Lord places this 
 petition. It only comes after we have prayed the 
 earlier and greater petitions : " Our Father, Which
 
 42 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 art in Heaven : Hallowed be Thy Name : Thy 
 Kingdom come : Thy Will be done, as in Heaven, so 
 in earth." 
 
 Thus does our Lord's Prayer clearly prove that, 
 in His eyes, the praise and glory of God must come 
 first and foremost, that is to say, reverence and 
 homage. Then comes a petition for the accomplish- 
 ment of God's gracious purpose for the universal 
 welfare of mankind, followed by a prayer for loyal 
 submission to His Will. After, but only after, 
 " we have exalted God's glory, and merged our 
 littleness into God's greatness, and bent our will to 
 minister to God's Will, only then are we allowed 
 to express our own wants for ourselves." Then 
 only may properly follow entreaty for our bodily and 
 spiritual needs, our cry for forgiveness, and the final 
 appeal for deliverance and protection from danger. 
 
 Thus, then, did saints of God pray in Bible-days ; 
 this is our Lord's own answer to the human heart- 
 cry : " Lord teach us to pray." 
 
 With such prayers as these in our minds, and it 
 would be easy to add many more, such as our Lord's 
 Intercessory Prayer in S. John xvii., it is impossible 
 that we should conceive of prayer as simply an ask- 
 ing, an insisting on a supply of our real or imaginary 
 wants. 
 
 Our prayers, naturally, will change with the vary- 
 ing moods of the soul. Thus it is that in the 
 Psalms, which sweep the whole gamut of human 
 thought and emotion, as on a harp with a thousand
 
 The Form of Prayer. 43 
 
 strings, the prayer is at times a tender, sustained, de- 
 vout meditation on God ; on what He is, what He 
 does, how He stands related towards us ; at times it 
 is a mournful, passionate, persistent quest after Him. 
 Now it is a rapturous burst of praise, now it takes 
 the form of earnest supplication for a supply of the 
 Psalmist's own wants, or of a generous intercession 
 for the needs and sins of his fellows. Here, it burns 
 and glows with imagination and passion, there it 
 breathes a sacred and divine calm. 
 
 But, though the Psalms echo all the various moods 
 of the soul, their one distinctive note throughout is 
 the same that we see in our Lord's prayers, in the 
 Magnificat, the Nitnc Dimittis, in the prayers with 
 which S. Paul's Epistles abound, it is the uplifting, 
 the gathering up of all the faculties of the soul in 
 an earnest, intense ardour of reverence, love, and 
 praise, as well as petition. This alone constitutes 
 sincere, thoughtful spiritual communion and inter- 
 course with the Father of Spirits, in Whom we 
 live. 
 
 C. 
 
 But, it may be asked, how is it possible for us 
 ordinary men to soar to this high plane, to make 
 this lofty ideal our own ? It is, doubtless, true that 
 adoration, praise, thanksgiving, meditation, suppli- 
 cation, intercession are one and all desirable in 
 prayer, but who is sufficient for these things ? Be- 
 sides, does not the Bible itself tell us : " Be not
 
 44 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty 
 to utter anything before God : for God is in Heaven, 
 and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words be 
 few"? (Eccl. v. 2). Does not one greater than 
 Ecclesiastes also expressly warn us : " When ye 
 pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do ; 
 for they think that they shall be heard for their 
 much speaking " ? Is it not also true that the one 
 prayer of man commended by our Lord is an appeal 
 for mercy, and consists only of some half-a-dozen 
 words : " Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner"? Did 
 not our Lord Himself in His Agony pray, thrice 
 over, a prayer which is contained in half a verse 
 (S. Matth. xxvi. 39) ? If each day had forty-eight 
 hours, and each week fourteen days, we might 
 possibly pray as fully as is proposed, but, as things 
 are, it is impossible. The best prayer is not lip- 
 service, but life-service : " Whatsoever thy hand 
 findeth to do, do it with thy might," as in the sight 
 of God. Laborare est orare. 
 
 No one will endorse these suggested objections 
 more sincerely than the man of prayer, and they 
 call for an answer. 
 
 Not for one instant do we imply that every single 
 prayer must contain every single one of the consti- 
 tuent parts of which prayer is composed. Prayer, if 
 it is real and sincere, must be the natural outpour- 
 ing of the heart, and, as we have so often said, our 
 prayers, naturally, will vary with the changeful colours
 
 The Form of Prayer, 45 
 
 and moods of the soul : now it will be full of joyful 
 rapture, now troubled and disquieted within us, and 
 the heart-voice will be its echo and attuned accord- 
 ingly. Christ's own prayers amply prove this. But 
 even the shortest of Christ's recorded prayers, in 
 His Agony, contains every single one of those 
 essential factors of a true prayer which He Himself 
 gives us in His own model prayer, except, of course, 
 the confession of sin and petition for forgiveness. 
 And if, like Him, we always approach God as " Our 
 Father, Which is in Heaven, hallowing His Name, 
 longing and working for the coming of His kingdom, 
 loyally bending our own will to His," then, whatever 
 our mood, however brief our prayer, there will be 
 that humility, adoration and thanksgiving which 
 is essential to true prayer. It need not be vocally 
 uttered, but it will be there, all the same, as a silent 
 background. 
 
 We do not hold a brief for long prayers. " After 
 this manner pray ye," says our Lord, and His model 
 prayer only consists of some fifty words. But our 
 Lord's words about avoiding "vain repetitions and 
 much speaking" do not for one moment imply that 
 He condemns such prolonged prayers as are the 
 genuine utterances of heart-felt devotion, the im- 
 passioned outpouring of the really earnest and 
 sincere soul. Over and over again did our Lord 
 Himself " continue all night in prayer to God." In 
 the same manner, our Lord's warning "use not vain 
 repetitions" does not exclude repetition in prayer.
 
 46 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 Thrice did He Himself, in His Agony, pray in the 
 self-same words. What our Lord does condemn is 
 the mere formal, unthinking, mechanical saying of 
 prayers, be they long or short, where the heart 
 does not voice and endorse the lip-words. 
 
 The publican's prayer, we know, is short, but, as 
 we have already seen, so is Christ's in His Agony. 
 Yet will anyone presume to say that the publican 
 just knelt down, said his six or seven words, and 
 straightway got up again and went his way ? Was 
 our Lord's agonized prayer merely the work of the 
 few moments it would take to utter its few words ? 
 Anyone who has truly wrestled with God in prayer, 
 " offering up prayer and supplication, with strong 
 crying and tears, unto Him that is able to save him 
 from death, and been heard in that he feared " 
 (Heb. v. 7), will readily supply the answer. 
 
 As to the passage from Ecclesiastes, " Be not 
 rash with thy mouth, &c.," the whole gist of it is to 
 emphasize the very point on which we lay so much 
 stress, viz., that reverence and humility lie at the 
 foundation of all prayer. 
 
 But all this is beside the mark. So long as our 
 whole heart pours itself out before the Lord, such 
 true communion of the soul with its God is abso- 
 lutely independent of time, or place, or words. Let 
 our prayer focus our whole heart and soul on God, 
 with the intensity of reverence and humility, of 
 confession and entreaty that we see in the Publican, 
 and his seven words are enough, or no words at all.
 
 The Form of Prayer. 47 
 
 Our sole contention is that to conceive of prayer 
 as merely an asking for what we want and have not, 
 won't do. We must have that large, reverent and 
 spiritual conception of prayer which the very 
 wording and order of the petitions of our Lord's 
 model prayer sets before us as our ideal. Beside 
 it, we cannot but feel that our own prayers are 
 unworthy of the name, they are so narrow, selfish, 
 unspiritual. We approach God irreverently. We 
 dictate to Him ; we place ourselves first, and Him 
 second, and call that the importunity which Christ 
 enjoins. 
 
 There is an importunity which God loves, the 
 importunity which is the outcome of a sincere, 
 trustful, earnest, impassioned soul. If prayer is 
 " conscious converse with God," it needs effort and 
 time. For effort and importunity in prayer Christ 
 Himself has prepared us by His own example (Heb. 
 v. 7). His own prayers were strenuous and im- 
 passioned from that hour in the wilderness when 
 angels came to minister to the prostrate Man of 
 Sorrows, on to that awful Agony in the Garden 
 when His sweat was as it were great drops of blood. 
 Ah ! but that was because prayer meant so much 
 more to Jesus than it does to us. 
 
 How much prayer meant to Jesus ! It was not 
 only His regular habit, but His one resource in every 
 emergency. When perplexed, He prayed. When 
 hard pressed by work, He prayed. When hungering 
 for fellowship, He prayed. When tempted, He
 
 48 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 prayed. When criticized, He prayed. When 
 fatigued in body or spirit, He had recourse to His 
 one unfailing secret of prayer. There was no 
 emergency, no difficulty, no necessity, no temptation, 
 no sorrow that would not yield to prayer, as He 
 practised it. 
 
 There is one objection we have left unanswered : 
 " The best prayer is life-service, not lip-service. 
 Laborare est orare" This is one of those plausible 
 half-truths which cannot be dismissed in a para- 
 graph. It must have a section to itself. But Christ 
 gives us the key to the answer. He knew, what 
 we still have to learn when we so glibly quote the 
 proverb " To work is to pray," that no real work 
 can be done till we have obtained through prayer 
 the unmeasured power which nothing but com- 
 munion with God can bestow. He knew that in 
 prayer we borrow not only God's goodness but 
 His Almighty strength. And because Christ knew 
 that at the background of all power for work 
 lies prayer, therefore He always made time for 
 prayer, even at the cost of a night's sleep. Often 
 He had no leisure so much as to eat, but He always 
 found time to pray. 
 
 D. 
 
 Laborare est orare. 
 
 
 
 The world says " to work is to pray." Christ tells 
 us : " he works best, who prays best." And ex-
 
 The Form of Prayer. 49 
 
 perience proves that the men who have " laboured 
 more abundantly than they all " are precisely those 
 who, like Christ and S. Paul, have placed prayer first, 
 and work second, the men who have learnt the inspiring 
 and energizing power of prayer. Prayer first gives 
 them all the divine strength they need, then con- 
 strains them to be up and doing; to spend themselves 
 in man's and, therefore, God's service ; to quit them 
 like men and be strong. These are they who " what- 
 soever their hand findeth to do, do it with their 
 might." 
 
 But there is a sense in which laborare est orare 
 is essentially true. There is a prayerful state of 
 mind which is not acceptable to God at all, prayer 
 that is not immediately followed up by action. Of 
 prayer, as of faith, it is literally true that " prayer 
 without works is dead," and God does not like dead 
 prayers. 
 
 Studying Christ, we discover that His great 
 purpose was the Kingdom of God, the reign of the 
 spirit of love among men, and that He believed 
 this to be the supreme concern of His Father Whose 
 Will was His meat and drink. It was to build this 
 Kingdom that Christ laboured ; it was to this 
 same end that He summoned and sanctified His 
 disciples, and placed them amongst their fellow-men 
 as the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump. 
 Christ's ideal is the ideal of service, to serve God in 
 serving your fellow-man. 
 
 At the risk of being charged with repetition, we 
 E
 
 50 The Form of Prayer, 
 
 must insist on this truth over and over again. It 
 is Christ's Golden Rule, the " secret of Jesus." 
 
 For this work God wants men, not religious 
 dreamers who seek the Kingdom of God in medita- 
 tion or cloister, when God is calling aloud to them, 
 all the while, to forward that Kingdom of God in 
 the only possible way, by imparting to their 
 brother-man the best that is in them, be that 
 what it may. 
 
 The conventional religion of Christ's day com- 
 manded the doing of certain formal deeds : that of 
 our day commands the acceptance of certain creeds. 
 At the ^basis of both lies the vicious individualism 
 which asserts a righteousness in the sight of God apart 
 from all question of one's value in the world. We 
 must go back to Christ and His message. The true 
 service of God, He held, is the service of man, and 
 the righteousness which leaves this out of its reckon- 
 ing is no righteousness at all. " Whosoever will save 
 his life, shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his 
 life for My Sake, the same shall save it." And 
 what does He mean by " for My sake " ? " For 
 I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat : I was 
 thirsty, and ye gave Me drink : I was a stranger, 
 and ye took Me in ; naked, and ye clothed Me ; 
 I was sick, and ye visited Me ; I was in prison, and 
 ye came unto Me," " for inasmuch as ye did it to one 
 of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it 
 unto Me." 
 
 This is the message of Jesus ever ringing in our
 
 The Form of Prayer. 5 1 
 
 ears, the life-work He appoints us, the one test by 
 which we shall be judged on that Day when we give 
 an account of our stewardship. Here He says to you 
 and me : " make some man, woman, child or animal 
 the better or happier for your having been near, 
 do something for somebody. Your revealed kinship 
 to God implies corresponding responsibilities and 
 obligations to God's other children, your brothers 
 and sisters. For this end were you born. Come 
 unto Me, first of all ; let My Holy Spirit enter into 
 your heart and make it pure, sanctify yourself, 
 and then, take up My cross, ' lose your life for 
 My sake and the gospel's,' spend yourself in the 
 service of God by serving your brother-man. You 
 have some God - lent talent, communicate 'it to 
 others." 
 
 Lazarus is ever at Dives' gate, the drink-degraded 
 Lazarus, the sweated Lazarus, the ignorant Lazarus- 
 Hold out a helping hand to him and you will find 
 that you are clasping God's hand at the same time ; 
 for God is Himself at work wherever men are doing 
 His work and Will, wherever they are working with 
 unwearied compassion among brother-souls for the 
 uplifting of humanity, dealing sympathetically 
 and helpfully with the ignorance and misery of 
 mankind. "The will of God is that all men should 
 be saved," delivered from evil in every form ; be 
 a fellow-worker with Him. God's victory can only 
 be achieved through man's willing co-operation. Do 
 your share. To leave the world as you find it is
 
 52 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 to stunt yourself, to rob your brethren, to deny God 
 and fly in His Face. 
 
 This was ever Christ's message. It is often said 
 that the religion of Christ is too " otherworldly." 
 This is exactly what it is not, though men ever 
 try to make it so. Our natural tendency is far too 
 much to concentrate our gaze on our own souls \ 
 to fly feebly from a sinful world instead of manfully 
 stemming the evil of it ; to indulge in that senti- 
 mental, morbid, mystic frame of mind which is for 
 ever meditating on " things above," the things of 
 the next world, dreaming of the joys of Heaven 
 before our work on earth is half done. We 
 must, of course, be " pure in heart," true citizens 
 of God's Kingdom, real members of Christ ourselves 
 before we can serve God in serving men ; but history 
 has clearly shown that over-absorption in the contem- 
 plation of God may distract a man as completely from 
 the Christ-like service of his brethren as absorption in 
 the pursuit of one's own pleasures. " Ye men of 
 Galilee/' said God's angels to the Apostles after the- 
 Ascension, " why stand ye gazing into Heaven ? " 
 Their work lay elsewhere. There is a religious 
 selfishness little less fatal to the true Christian, 
 calling than the vulgar selfishness of the worldly- 
 minded crowd. This is the meaning of the paradox,. 
 " Jesus was a foe of religion in so far as it inter- 
 fered with active service, just as much as He was 
 a foe of selfishness and greed." His whole attitude 
 to the men of His day proves that He laboured
 
 The Form of Prayer. 53 
 
 to free them from the superstitious idea of religion 
 as they understood it, a fear of God which made 
 a multiplicity of religious exercises of one kind or 
 another necessary in order to appease His wrath, 
 and so distracted men from a true conception of God 
 as their Father, and from their real life-work, the 
 service of man. A form of religion which only or 
 mainly consists in endless worship and contempla- 
 tion, and makes all else seem barren and empty, 
 is a self-delusion on man's part and unlovely in 
 God's eyes. " Many whose lives are blameless, 
 their orthodoxy unerring, but whose indifference 
 to the disadvantages of their less favoured brethren 
 has permitted to exist the bad social conditions ot 
 which they are the victims, are greater sinners 
 in God's sight than the drunkards, burglars, harlots 
 whom society condemns, punishes, and outcasts." 
 It is of such Christ says, " ye shut up the Kingdom 
 of Heaven against men : for ye neither go in your- 
 selves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to 
 go in." 
 
 Yes, that insulated religious individualism which 
 shuts itself off from the service of man is more than 
 a blunder : it is a sickly form of egotism which 
 stultifies our very existence, makes us mere cum- 
 berers of the ground, a disgrace to our divine lineage, 
 deniers of God. 
 
 So there is a true sense in which " to work is 
 to pray." Indeed, there are times when God is 
 positively grieved with men for praying, if we may
 
 54 77^ Form of Prayer. 
 
 reverently say so. "Why criest thou unto Me?" 
 He says to Moses; "speak to the children of Israel 
 that they go forward." It was a time for action, 
 not for prayer. The Israelites had already prayed 
 to God. He had answered their prayer, and 
 definitely told them what to do, so now they were 
 praying at the wrong time. It was a time for deeds, 
 not words. 
 
 But, though the Christian endorses the creed that 
 Christ's ideal is the ideal of service, serving God in 
 serving man, and precisely because this is his heart- 
 creed, therefore does he place prayer first, and work 
 second. Like His Master, he knows that no real 
 work can be done till we have obtained through 
 prayer the divine power which nothing but "God's 
 touch " can bestow. He knows that this close touch 
 with God gives us, as nothing else can, that force 
 of heart and steadiness of purpose, that purity of 
 will which lies at the foundation of all true work. 
 He knows his own littleness and weakness ; he 
 knows how vast is the life-work before him ; he 
 knows that in prayer he can borrow the strength of 
 Almighty God ; therefore he asks God beforehand 
 for His enabling strength and guidance. " Cause 
 me to know the way wherein I should walk : for I 
 lift up my soul unto Thee." " Teach me to do Thy 
 Will and quicken me, for Thou art my God." And, 
 all said and done, experience proves that, in their 
 value and in their results, work prefaced by prayer, 
 and work that is not, are as wide apart as the poles.
 
 The Form of Prayer. 55 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 To sum up. All this we know well. We know 
 that in prayer we are speaking to the King of Kings 
 and Lord of Lords, and, therefore, homage and 
 reverence are His due. We know that God is our 
 All-Wise loving Father, therefore we can readily 
 accept His decisions, whether our requests are 
 granted or denied. We know that God's eternal 
 purpose is the universal welfare of all men, and 
 that our petitions often clash with this ; therefore 
 we must add to our prayers " nevertheless, Father, 
 not my will but Thine be done." We know it is 
 not enough to pray " Thy Kingdom come," we must 
 hasten that coming ourselves. 
 
 All this we know : it is so simple and reasonable, 
 to talk about ; but do we pray as if we believed 
 and accepted it in our heart of hearts ? 
 
 What are our prayers really like ? Are they the 
 rapturous outburst of grateful song : " praise the 
 Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise 
 His Holy Name"? Are they calm and reverent 
 meditations on the gracious works and ways of God, 
 and His infinite goodness to us men ? Are they 
 true confessions of sin, and a heartfelt yearning, 
 thirsting for that oneness with the great Father-Soul 
 on which the very life of our soul hangs ? Are they 
 impassioned longings for the establishment of God's 
 Kingdom of love and good- will on earth, with a firm 
 resolve to help it on ourselves ? Are they real acts
 
 56 The Form of Prayer. 
 
 of intercession for our fellow-men, followed by 
 prompt action ? Do our heart and life echo the 
 words of our lips, "Thy will be done in earth, as 
 in Heaven " ? Are our prayers, in a word, the 
 sincere outpouring of our full heart, the true voice 
 of the Divine germ within us, prompted by the Holy 
 Spirit ? Then shall we surely be blessed, and ours 
 is the gracious promise : " Be anxious for nothing ; 
 but in everything, by prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto 
 God. And the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 
 through Christ." 
 
 Is this the case with us? Or are our prayers only, 
 or mainly, importunate petitions trying to persuade 
 God to let us have our own way, to enrich us with 
 all we want and have not ? Are they even less or 
 worse than this, a cold, formal, unthinking repetition 
 of the same stereotyped phrases day after day, with 
 all the heart and life gone out of them, a mere 
 recitation of the same personal, selfish wants and 
 desires ? 
 
 Millions of Buddhists believe that praying in itself, 
 however formal, perfunctory and mechanical, is a 
 meritorious act and all-powerful with God. They 
 have a set prayer of six syllables : " Om mane padme 
 Hum" words which the majority of them do not 
 even understand. This prayer is not only repeated 
 orally many times a day by myriads of worshippers, 
 but it is multiplied indefinitely by a very simple
 
 TJie Form of Prayer, 57 
 
 method. These four words of prayer are inscribed 
 on praying-wheels, which are made to revolve either 
 by hand or by water-power. Whoso sets these 
 wheels going is credited with as many prayers as 
 the wheel makes revolutions. The more revolutions, 
 the larger the number of prayers, and therefore the 
 greater the blessing obtained. 
 
 Is this mechanical praying unknown among 
 professing Christians ?
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FOR WHAT MAY WE PRAY?
 
 Argument. 
 
 WHAT may we pray for? One school of thought says 
 *' everything " ; a second, " nothing " ; a third, " spiritual 
 gifts"; a fourth, "prayer is only of subjective value." 
 The second, or scientific objection formulated, and its 
 full consideration postponed. Bible - view of prayer 
 based on the Fatherhood of God. Every wise father 
 frames rules and principles for the orderly guidance 
 and welfare of his children, but this does not hinder 
 them from making their requests known unto him. Even 
 so, our Father grants His children's reasonable requests, 
 and when a Father of Love denies, it is because to grant 
 would be a violation of Love. The Bible urges us to 
 pray for both spiritual and temporal gifts Unqualified 
 as the promises of answer to prayer may, at first sight, 
 seem, the Bible itself attaches one condition to effectual 
 prayer, it must be in Christ's Name. What this es- 
 sential proviso connotes. Expression ' : Name of Christ," 
 *' Name of God," examined and explained. Prayers "in 
 Christ's Name" are those prompted by His Holy Spirit, 
 and, therefore, such as He can endorse. Therefore, the 
 Bible's large promises of answer to prayer are incom- 
 patible with all selfish or narrow prayers, with any re- 
 quests that clash with God's great plan for the universal 
 welfare of mankind.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I 
 
 FOR WHAT MAY WE PRAY? 
 
 A. 
 
 N the preceding chapters we have attempted to 
 define the nature and the form of prayer. We have 
 tried to show that prayer, " the thirsting of the soul 
 for the living God," is the natural cry, the instinctive 
 yearning of the divine germ within us for reunion 
 with the Eternal God from Whom it sprang. " The 
 foundation of prayer is the yearning of the image 
 towards its prototype, as of like to like." 
 
 We have also seen that prayer is much more than 
 a mere asking for what we want and have not : that 
 the common conception of it is too low, too narrow, 
 too unspiritual. At the background of all true 
 prayer must ever lie adoration, thanksgiving, con- 
 fession, submission, as our Lord's own teaching 
 and example clearly prove. 
 
 But, having said this, it is well to remember that 
 prayer does include asking and receiving, asking 
 even for personal and temporal blessings, still more 
 for the " gifts of the Holy Spirit." " In everything, 
 by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let 
 your requests be made known unto God."
 
 62 For what may we Pray? 
 
 This is the subject of the present chapter. Does 
 God answer our prayers ? It is an immense topic, 
 and perhaps on no other point is modern opinion 
 so divided. One school of thought emphatically 
 believes that "everyone that asketh, receiveth." 
 Another equally dogmatically affirms " no one that 
 asketh, receiveth." A third holds the balance evenly 
 between these two extremes, and maintains that it 
 is right and proper to pray for spiritual graces, but 
 that it is not right to ask for temporal blessings. 
 There is still a fourth set of thinkers who allege 
 that the only effect of prayer is to be looked for in 
 the heart of the suppliant ; that is to say, prayer 
 really secures none of the objective benefits for 
 which we pray, but simply brings the heart of the 
 suppliant into harmony with God. 
 
 Which of these four are we to believe ? Here 
 we touch a question which has perplexed some of 
 the deepest religious minds, and dogmatism is out 
 of place. Those who believe in the unlimited power 
 and efficacy of prayer base their conviction on the 
 Bible promises, and on their knowledge of God as 
 their loving Almighty Father : those who deny or 
 limit the efficacy of prayer, on the other hand, 
 commonly base theirs on rational and scientific 
 grounds. They maintain that God's rule is a reign 
 of Law, not of caprice; that prayer for temporal 
 blessings, certainly, is asking God to suspend and 
 violate His own fixed and unalterable natural laws, 
 in other words, to work a miracle in order to show
 
 For what may we Pray ? 63 
 
 favour to this man or that. In fact, it is to ask for 
 a moral impossibility. 
 
 With the purely scientific objections to prayer 
 we do not propose to deal now, though we hope 
 to state and examine them in a future chapter. 
 Our debt to these modern men of science is immense. 
 As honest and indefatigable seekers after truth, 
 they have let in a flood of light upon every sphere 
 of human life and thought. They have taught us to 
 be impatient of half-truths, not to go beyond our 
 facts, to suspend our judgment where no solid basis 
 of evidence is to be found, to wait patiently till new 
 light comes, rather than indulge in plausible guesses 
 or generalize without positive data. They have 
 taught us also to see unity, law, progress in God's 
 universe. Thanks to them, we are all evolutionists 
 now, and this discovery has coloured all our modern 
 thought. It has retaught us our Bible, and suffused 
 history, even for the least religious mind, with the 
 idea of a loving Providence as the driving-power be- 
 hind the evolution of the human race. It has set Chris- 
 tianity in a new light as the goal and crown of all 
 the religions of the world ever since the creation 
 of man. 
 
 Science and religion are comrades working side 
 by side on a vast and unfinished problem. Let 
 us both realize the problem is unfinished. One 
 day each will have completed his section of the 
 work, and the two solutions will be found to har- 
 monize. Then misunderstandings between religion
 
 64 For wJiat may we Pray ? 
 
 and science will be impossible ; now they seem 
 almost inevitable. For the quarrel between religion 
 and science, we religionists are mainly to blame in 
 the past. We did not realize that our own solution 
 of the problem was very unfinished work as yet, 
 Our ignorance of this fact made us too imperious,, 
 lordly, dogmatic, and, for a time, in self-defence, 
 science copied our dogmatism. Now both are begin- 
 ning to recognize the fact that they are but beginners, 
 and the field very vast. This has taught each side 
 humility and the sense of comradeship. We see now 
 that science and religion are like two converging 
 lines of railway, still far apart, but bound one day to 
 meet. Honouring scientists as we must do for their 
 generous ardour and unselfish devotion in the service 
 of scientific truth, we are confident, when they as- 
 sure us that prayer is a moral impossibility on 
 purely scientific grounds, that their assertion is 
 founded on honest, conscientious and intelligent 
 conviction, and it must be met in the same spirit 
 We shall attempt to do so in Chapters V. VII.] 
 
 This chapter is meant for readers who are ready 
 to accept the Bible as the final court of appeal, and 
 to abide by its verdict in the matter of prayer. We 
 should say in answer to the question, " For what 
 may we pray ? " it seems to us that the Bible dis- 
 tinctly states that we may rightly pray for anything- 
 whatsoever which it is proper for God's children to 
 ask of their Heavenly Father, as God's loyal children, 
 temporal blessings included.
 
 For what may we Pray ? 65 
 
 We hope to show that this proviso, " as God's 
 children," is the one and only condition which the Bible 
 attaches to effectual prayer. And it is a pregnant 
 and suggestive stipulation. 
 
 Our Lord assures us that God is, above all else, 
 our Father. Now a wise and good father has rules 
 by which he guides his own life, and his intercourse 
 with his household. Thus only can he have an 
 orderly and happy household. But can he not, 
 without violating these rules, listen to his children's 
 requests ; sJtoiv them what he is doing for them 
 always, and why, at times, he cannot give them 
 what they ask ; infuse a cheerful courage and per- 
 fect trust in his love and wisdom into their breasts 
 when they have to do without what they wished to 
 have ; and, at times, both grant them their desire 
 and enhance the value of his gift by the thoughtful 
 and tender kindness with which it is bestowed ? The 
 children of such a father instinctively recognize the 
 wisdom and goodness of his rules ; the justice of 
 his demand that they should observe them. But 
 does this hinder them from ever coming to him 
 with a request, or prevent him from ever granting 
 it ? On the contrary, it begets in them a confident 
 expectation that he will listen to their reasonable 
 requests. 
 
 So it is precisely with us. We are God's children. 
 He is our Father. As God's loyal children, we, on 
 our side, know that we are sons and daughters of 
 a loving All-wise, Almighty Father, members of 
 
 F
 
 66 For what may we Pray ? 
 
 His large family. We know that our Father's one 
 aim and will is our welfare, our truest and highest 
 welfare. With perfect confidence, therefore, we make 
 our requests known unto our Father, for we are sure 
 that if our request is a reasonable one, if it is not 
 inimical to our own or to our brethren's well-being, 
 and we are not selfish enough to wish our own in- 
 terests to clash with theirs, God will grant it. We 
 also know the ruling principle which guides our 
 Father's own life and His intercourse with His 
 household ; the rule by which He steadfastly abides. 
 We know that our Father's Will and unchangeable 
 purpose is the salvation of every single one of His 
 large family of children, their deliverance from evil 
 in every form, the evil from which all our miseries 
 spring, in other words, the establishment of His 
 Kingdom of love and peace here on earth. This is 
 our Father's Golden Rule, and He also demands 
 that His children shall observe it. And if God's 
 rule means our own and our brethren's best good, 
 who wants to break it ? Who would ask God to 
 give him what is inconsistent with his own or the 
 general welfare ? Who would ask for what Love 
 must deny ? 
 
 Here, then, surely, we have the key to our great 
 question, " For what may we pray ? " We may 
 pray for whatsoever is truly consistent with our 
 loving Father's eternal purpose, the universal weal 
 of mankind. If our request accord with this purpose 
 of unchangeable love, we may be sure that God will
 
 For what may we Pray? 67 
 
 grant it. If we are simply seeking some personal 
 gratification or indulgence, something which would 
 not subserve our own best good and the general 
 welfare of the human race, we may be equally 
 certain that God will not answer our prayer in the 
 form in which we ask it, and we ought to be very 
 thankful that He does not. " God's Love knows 
 no limits but those which Love itself imposes. 
 When Love denies it is because to grant would be 
 a violation of Love " (Godet). 
 
 B. 
 
 To this view of the efficacy of prayer it may be 
 objected, and not unnaturally, that it unduly narrows 
 the far larger, the unqualified promises of the Bible. 
 In the Bible, many will say, we have large promises 
 of answer to prayer, promises made to plain people, 
 and, surely, these promises bear their own clear 
 meaning written plainly on the face of them. The 
 very wording of these promises appears to leave the 
 choice of his requests to the discretion of the man 
 who prays. Therefore, to limit his choice as you 
 have done, does not seem consistent either with the 
 letter or the spirit of the Bible-promises. It does not 
 meet the case to say that the individual must be 
 merged in mankind, and gratefully accept for himself 
 some subjective blessing in answer to his prayer, 
 some spiritual gift which may be as good as what 
 he prayed for, but is nevertheless something very
 
 68 For what may we Pray ? 
 
 different from the thing, the objective benefit, he 
 actually wanted. " It is not so nominated in the 
 bond." 
 
 But is it absolutely true that the plain Bible- 
 promises of answer to prayer leave the choice of 
 his requests to the man who prays, and in no wise 
 limit the scope of prayer ? Let us examine these 
 promises a little more closely. 
 
 "Whatsoever ye ask in My Name, that will I do " 
 (S. John xiv. 13). 
 
 " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, 
 ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
 you " (S. John xv. 7). 
 
 " Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye 
 shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you " 
 (S. Luke xi. 9). 
 
 These passages of unbounded promise might be 
 multiplied indefinitely, but these three may, perhaps, 
 be taken as a fair and candid sample of them all. 
 At first sight, it does seem as if Christ in them set 
 practically no limit to the power of prayer ; and, for 
 the true child of God, there is none. 
 
 " Whatsoever ye ask in My Name, that will I do " 
 is absolutely and literally true : yet it does not 
 follow that anyone can pray for whatsoever he 
 chooses, and he shall have it. Common experience 
 proves only too clearly that daily there are many 
 earnest prayers offered which seem to remain un- 
 answered. Our own common-sense assures us that 
 the granting of an explicit and specific answer to
 
 For ivhat may we Pray ? 69 
 
 every prayer would lead to absurd anomalies. Two 
 men might faithfully pray, at one and the same 
 moment, the one for fine weather, the other for rain. 
 Or we might honestly ask for something which 
 seemed to us essentially good in itself, and yet was 
 really quite inconsistent with our own or the general 
 welfare. In a word, it would take the government 
 of the world out of God's hands, and place it at 
 weak wilful man's mercy and caprice. 
 
 How then are we to reconcile these two facts ? 
 On the one hand, God apparently gives us specific 
 and unqualified promises of answer to our prayers : 
 on the other, there is the obvious fact of prayers 
 innumerable to which no answer has been vouch- 
 safed. Can we harmonize these apparent contra- 
 dictions? Is the discrepancy between man's 
 everyday experience and God's large promises real 
 or on the surface only ? 
 
 As we have seen, the promises are as large and 
 general as can be. They arrest the attention by 
 their very largeness. They arrest it, too, by their 
 obvious contradiction to facts and experience. But 
 where does the contradiction come in ? In every 
 single instance, these promises are guarded by their 
 very wording. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in My 
 Name" : " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide 
 in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be 
 done unto you." 
 
 Even where no direct condition is inserted in so 
 many words (e.g., " Ask, and ye shall have "), we
 
 70 For what may we Pray ? 
 
 \ 
 
 must bear in mind that the words are addressed, 
 and the promises made, to men who are the disciples 
 of Jesus, and only in so far as they are His disciples. 
 
 This essential proviso connotes a great deal more 
 than meets the eye, and gives us the key to the 
 whole problem. In every single instance, there is 
 one essential condition, expressed or understood, one 
 clear stipulation attached to God's promises, which 
 a plain man can see and grasp. Prayer must be 
 offered " in the Name of Christ? " Whatsoever ye 
 shall ask in My Name, that will I do." 
 
 And what is meant by "asking in the Name of 
 Christ " ? Does it merely imply that, provided we 
 conclude our prayer, be it what it may, with the 
 formula " in the Name of Jesus Christ," we have 
 fully satisfied God's one condition, and our prayer 
 will be granted ? A great many people seem to 
 think so, but Christ intended nothing of the kind. 
 
 Throughout the Bible, the word " name," in such 
 expressions as " the Name of God," " the Name of 
 Jesus," stands for a very great deal more than it 
 usually means to us. We should nowadays define a 
 name as a label attached to persons or things to 
 enable us to distinguish them from each other. But, 
 in the Bible, the expression " Name of God " goes im- 
 measurably beyond this. It stands for the personality 
 of God Himself; His whole nature, attributes and 
 character. It forcibly expresses every single feature 
 or quality of God that we can possibly think of 
 when we picture Him to ourselves.
 
 For ivliat may we Pray ? 71 
 
 In the New Testament, we find the expression " the 
 Name of Christ " constantly thus employed to denote 
 the character, the dignity, the authority, the very 
 Personality of Jesus, as the Son of God. Over and 
 over again, we are told that Christ's disciples were 
 persecuted "in His Name"; worked miracles "in His 
 Name"; were baptized "in His Name." In each 
 case, it means that the disciples were so steeped in 
 Christ's Spirit, so prompted and animated by it, that 
 they thought as He thought, felt as He felt, willed 
 as He willed. " I live : yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me" (Gal. ii. 20). In them, Christ's prayer found 
 its answer : " I pray that they also may be one in 
 us : as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee." So 
 it was that Christ's disciples were one with Christ, 
 His accredited representatives. 
 
 Bishop Gore cites a happy illustration. " An 
 ambassador is sent to a foreign country in the 
 name of his king. What does this mean ? It means 
 that the ambassador who speaks in the name of 
 his country, does so, not because he represents his 
 own views, but the views of the power which sent 
 him." For the time being, and in his official ca- 
 pacity, he is invested with all the dignity and power 
 that stands behind the sovereignty of his own nation. 
 He is its full representative. In his capacity of 
 ambassador, he is the mouthpiece not of his own 
 views but of his country. In so far as he is loyal 
 to his trust, his nation sanctions, endorses his words 
 and acts, and is ready to support and enforce them
 
 72 For wliat may we Pray? 
 
 with all the weight of its authority. If he fails to 
 be a true representative of the views of his nation, 
 the nation repudiates and recalls him. He is no 
 longer acting " in its name." 
 
 Precisely in the same way, when we approach God 
 " in the Name of Christ," we come as accredited re- 
 presentatives of Christ, and because we are at one 
 with Him. We are invested with His character. 
 Our relationship to Christ is so close that " our 
 mind is His mind, our point of view His point of 
 view, our wishes His wishes." If we are thus truly 
 His friends, Christ endorses our words and actions, 
 sets His seal to them, but it is on the express con- 
 dition " if ye abide in Me, and My words abide in 
 you." Otherwise, we are none of His. 
 
 So, when Christ says, " Whatsoever ye shall ask 
 in My Name, I wiil do it," He gives us a distinct 
 pledge and a large promise, but there is an equally 
 clear condition attached to His words. Christ 
 undertakes to do His part, if we do ours. The 
 very wording of the promise cautions us that we 
 must be sure that Christ, Whose representatives we 
 are, would Himself have offered our petition if He 
 had been in our place offering our own prayer for 
 us. As our Head, He now presents to God the 
 prayers of His people and intercedes for them, and 
 these prayers must be in harmony with His char- 
 acter and His work. "If ye abide in Me, and My 
 words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and 
 it shall be done unto you."
 
 For wJiat may ive Pray ? 73 
 
 Now, what is the natural conclusion to be drawn 
 from all this ? What answer does it give us to our 
 question, " For what may we pray ? " It brings us 
 back to the very point from which we started. 
 Christ Himself expressly tells us, " My meat is to 
 do the Will of My Father." And what is that 
 Heavenly Father's Will ? What is God's eternal 
 purpose? The establishment of His Kingdom of 
 Love on earth. It was, as we have so often stated, 
 to build this Kingdom that Christ laboured all along. 
 " For this end was I born, and for this cause came 
 I into the world." 
 
 Therefore, if we pray in Christ's Name, as His 
 representatives, we must pray in His Spirit, ani- 
 mated by the motives that prompted His own 
 prayers, aspiring to be fellow-workers together with 
 God in His eternal purpose of Love, bending our 
 will loyally to His Will, so alone shall we reflect 
 in ourselves the character of Christ, pray in His 
 Name. 
 
 With the spirit of such prayers as Christ con- 
 templates, all personal selfishness, all narrowness 
 which cannot realize intelligent, loving, enthusiastic 
 co-operation with God's great plan beyond self, or 
 family, or country, or even beyond the Catholic 
 Church, is incompatible. It inspires a constancy of 
 purpose and a purity of will which is the life of 
 true or reasonable prayer, the death of selfish and 
 unreasonable prayer.
 
 74 For what may we Pray ? 
 
 We have already hinted that even the words, 
 " Ask, and ye shall have," are qualified in the same 
 manner. They were addressed by Christ to dis- 
 ciples who had forsaken all, taken up their cross, 
 and followed Him. To the best of their ability 
 they were loyally and faithfully co-operating with 
 their Divine Master in His work and purpose of 
 love. And only in so far as we are equally in touch 
 with our Lord do the words of His promise to them 
 apply to us. 
 
 From their own words, we can see how fully the 
 Apostles themselves realized the one condition at- 
 tached to these great promises. " Whatever we 
 ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His com- 
 mandments, and do those things that are pleasing in 
 His sight" (i S. John iii. 22). "This is the con- 
 fidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any- 
 thing according to His Will, He heareth us " 
 (i S. John v. 14). 
 
 Clearly, then, Christ's large promises of answer 
 to prayer are addressed and limited to God's child- 
 ren as God's children, to Christ's disciples in so far 
 as they are Christ's disciples. To claim the pro- 
 mises at all, we must be fellow-workers together 
 with God in His eternal purpose. Then, and only 
 then, are our prayers a power with God, Who is 
 saving man through man, and has graciously, though 
 wondrously, " attached the development of His 
 Kingdom, by a mysterious Providence, to our 
 prayers" (R. M. Benson).
 
 CHAPTER IV. PART I. 
 
 PRAYER-DIFFICULTIES (THEOLOGICAL). 
 
 Argument. 
 
 FOUR theological prayer-difficulties stated. 
 
 A. " To pray as Christ would have prayed, had He been 
 in our place, is a moral impossibility." But in prayer 
 God's Holy Spirit prompts us, so that we do pray accord- 
 ing to the Will of God (Rorn. viii. 26). Human expe- 
 rience daily proves how immensely one human spirit in- 
 fluences another ; so it is with the influence of God's Holy 
 Spirit on ours. If we will, the Holy Spirit "dwells in 
 us," and we are " in the Spirit " ourselves, so that we are 
 one with Christ, and this prayer- difficulty vanishes.
 
 76 A rguinent. 
 
 B. " Prayer according to God 's Will is a waste of 
 breath ; God ^s Will is sure to be done, whether we pray 
 or not" Therefore many maintain that the only true 
 effect of prayer is subjective, i.e. it brings the mind of 
 him who prays into harmony with God ; but, in other 
 respects, the objective result of prayer is nil. But human 
 experience and the Bible-promises prove that this is not 
 all the efficacy of prayer. The Word of God attaches 
 prayer as a condition to the bestowal of many of His 
 blessings. Why even God cannot dispense with our 
 human prayers, so long as we remain free moral agents. 
 
 C. " It is right to pray for spiritual gifts ; but it is 
 more than open to question whether material petitions are 
 according to the Will of God." This is the modern scien- 
 tific objection to prayer which will be examined in Part II. 
 Here it is only suggested that such an objection is tin- 
 philosophical and un-Christian. Unphilosophical, because 
 it draws an artificial line between the spiritual aud natural 
 realm of Law. Un-Christian, because our Lord urges us 
 to pray for material blessings. Christ cuts across the 
 imaginary distinction between the spiritual and the na- 
 tural, and shows that it is as easy for God to cure the 
 body of a fever, as to cure the soul of sin, e.g. in the 
 case of the man sick of the palsy. " Those were days 
 of miracles," men say. What are miracles ? A miracle 
 produces, through the action of ordinary causes, results 
 which seem to us extraordinary because they are a 
 variation of the accustomed order of things. Material 
 prayers which are wrong : prayers wherein we pray to 
 be delivered from the physical results of our own ig- 
 norance or folly. Here Laws of Nature are declarations 
 of God's Will, and we dare not ask Him to interfere with 
 their operation. 
 
 D. (see next chapter).
 
 CHAPTER IV. PART I. 
 
 PRAYER - DIFFICULTIES (THEOLOGICAL). 
 
 WHEN we have reached this point, the natural 
 objection may plausibly be urged that such 
 a view of prayer robs it of much of its value, for 
 the following reasons : 
 
 (1) It is morally impossible for an ordinary man 
 to be in such close touch with Christ as to think 
 as He thinks, act as He acts, will as He wills. 
 Therefore, ordinary men can never pray aright. 
 
 (2) If we only receive answers to our prayers in 
 so far as they are in perfect harmony with God's 
 Will, why need we pray at all ? What are we the 
 better for asking Him to do His Will, when that 
 Will is sure to be done whether we ask or whether 
 we do not ? 
 
 (3) We know that spiritual graces are essentially 
 good in themselves, and, therefore, in harmony with 
 God's Will, so we shall continue to pray for these. 
 But we can never be sure that our petitions for tem- 
 poral blessings are good, therefore we must now 
 discontinue them. 
 
 (4) If prayer is to be confined to true and sincere 
 Christians, then no " publicans and sinners " need 
 pray, for they are not praying in Christ's Name, 
 and, therefore, their prayers will not be heard.
 
 78 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological}. 
 
 This is a heavy indictment, and we must meet 
 it fairly and squarely. To fear investigation even 
 in matters of faith, to conceal difficulties, to slur 
 over inconsistencies, or to overstate convictions are 
 faults which darken and degrade the soul. We 
 should be deeply grateful to critics when they sub- 
 ject our theories to a fierce search-light to see if 
 our hypothesis covers all the facts or is itself borne 
 out by facts. It forces us to stop and think ; it 
 constrains us to test and overhaul carefully the 
 bases of our knowledge and, like the Beroeans, 
 "search the Scriptures, whether these things are 
 so." It is but reasonable that we should " always 
 be ready to give an answer to every man that 
 asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us." 
 
 Let us consider these four objections in their 
 order : 
 
 A. 
 
 (i) " It is morally impossible for any ordinary 
 man to be in such close touch with Christ as to 
 think, act and will as He does. Therefore, ordinary 
 men cannot pray aright." 
 
 In His Holy Word, God Himself has anticipated 
 this difficulty, and supplied the answer to it. " Like- 
 wise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we 
 know not what we should pray for as we ought : 
 but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered .... and maketh
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}. 79 
 
 intercession for the saints according to the Will of 
 God " (Rom. viii. 26, 27). 
 
 Let us try to put this in simpler language. In 
 each one of us there is a divine germ which is 
 closely akin to God. This is our true self. In 
 prayer it is this child-soul that thirsts for reunion 
 with the Divine Source, the Father-Soul, from which 
 it sprang. God is a Spirit, so are we. 
 
 Now if there is one thing more marvellous than 
 another in our human experience, it is the strange, 
 weird magnetic influence which brain exercises upon 
 brain, heart on heart, spirit on spirit in our com- 
 mon human intercourse. In some inexplicable way, 
 the doors of our soul are open to others, and theirs 
 to us. Thoughts and feelings come into our minds 
 from fellow-spirits through avenues which we never 
 consciously left open, and thoughts go out of our 
 minds to others unconsciously in a way which is 
 inexplicable in our eyes. No one can detach himself 
 from this connection. From every single one of us 
 there emanates and radiates this influence by which 
 we impress ourselves on others and diffuse our own 
 personality throughout the world, an influence which 
 proceeds from the very heart of our character and 
 infects all with whom we come into contact. Well 
 says Emerson, " Character teaches over our head." 
 Whoever comes near us is infected by us, for it is 
 as impossible for character not to influence others 
 as for a flame to withhold its light, a rose its per- 
 fume, fire its heat. We can no more escape from
 
 8o Prayer-Difficulties (Theological}. 
 
 it than from the gravitation of the earth. So it is 
 that the mere silent presence of one man blights 
 our spirits like an east wind, while another cheers 
 us like a ray of sunshine, to know this man as 
 a friend is a liberal education, while association with 
 that other proves our curse. " There are natures in 
 which, if they love us, we are conscious of having 
 a sort of baptism and consecration " (G. Eliot). 
 Even a child can wield this inspiring influence. 
 " Here lies a little girl of whom her playmates 
 said, it was so much easier to be good when she 
 was with us." Just as it was said of Napoleon 
 that the magnetic power of his personality was so 
 intense, that his mere presence on the battle-field 
 was worth an additional 15,000 troops. 
 
 If this is true and who dare deny it ? if it is 
 a fact that " there are no bounds to the help 
 which spirit can give to spirit in the intercourse of 
 a noble life " (Archbp. Temple), then, what bounds 
 dare we set to the influence of God's Holy Spirit 
 upon our spirit which has come forth directly from 
 His? 
 
 True, God respects our freedom too much to force 
 our wills even for our own best good. As our loving 
 All-wise Father, He does not compel us to do right, 
 He can only make us good by winning us of our 
 own accord to do that which is right, and so form 
 the character which He approves. But the one way 
 in which even a wise earthly father trains his child 
 to be good, is by bringing good influences persua-
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (TJieological). Si 
 
 sively to bear upon him, placing him in as good 
 and healthy a moral atmosphere as he can. And 
 thus God acts, and must act with us if He is our 
 Father. He will not lay His finger upon our wills ; 
 but as friend ennobles friend, as our friend's good 
 character enters into our very soul through avenues 
 we wot not of; even so, God's Spirit touches the 
 springs of our spirit and transfigures our very nature 
 so that, loving Him, we grow like Him. In the 
 warmth and light of His Presence our understanding 
 is enlightened, our imagination spiritualized, our 
 best feelings are kindled, our wills purified. And 
 when we are steeped in this Divine Spirit, conscious 
 of our Father's intense love, His belief and trust 
 in us, we are conscious too of a new birth, baptism, 
 and consecration. He unveils the beauties of holi- 
 ness to us, and the miseries and degradations of sin, 
 and our sins become in our eyes a sacrilege, wound- 
 ing our loving Father's heart. At such moments 
 God shows us what His will is, shows us that in 
 His unchanging love He is seeking our best-welfare, 
 and invites and persuades us to join Him in seeking 
 it, and through it our fellow-man's. 
 
 This is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter which 
 proceeds from God and His Christ, the Spirit of 
 purity and love and truth which guides into all truth. 
 
 He has been with us from the beginning, ever 
 since God breathed into man's nostrils the breath 
 of life, so that he became a living soul (Gen. ii. 7). 
 There has ever been a unique fellowship of kindred 
 
 G
 
 82 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological). 
 
 Spirit with kindred spirit in spite of man's wilful 
 flying in the face of God. More and more, as one 
 generation succeeded another, was this fellowship 
 of God with man realized by both Jew and Gentile. 
 "Warriors and poets, prophets and priests, all found 
 their inspiration in this Holy Spirit of God as the 
 living motive power animating their words and 
 deeds." " Every good gift and every perfect gift 
 is from above, and cometh down from the Father 
 of lights " (S. James i. 17). 
 
 At all times man has instinctively felt this re- 
 lationship between God and man. Thinking men 
 always and everywhere have yearned intensely to 
 realize this kinship, but they had no absolute 
 guarantee of it till Christ historically realized and 
 revealed it in Himself. In the Incarnation at last, 
 in the fulness of time, the Father of man satisfies 
 the instinct He has Himself implanted, and comes 
 forth from Infinity to respond to the universal de- 
 mands of the race. 
 
 From that day forth there has been established 
 in the human consciousness a relationship so close 
 between God and man that it can only be conveyed 
 in terms expressive of the most intimate kinship 
 and communion. Not only can it be asserted that 
 God's Spirit "dwells in man," but man is "in the 
 Spirit." What was the fulness of God in Christ is 
 in us in the germ. Through the Holy Spirit in us 
 we are literally one with God and with Christ, and, 
 if we will, this enabling Spirit is the channel through
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological}. 83 
 
 which we can draw without measure upon God's 
 goodness and strength and make it our very own. 
 
 All that Christ promised respecting this Holy 
 Spirit is ours now, if we will. " I will not leave you 
 comfortless : I will pray the Father, and He shall 
 give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of 
 Truth. At that day ye shall know that I am in 
 My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He will 
 guide you into all truth. He shall glorify Me, for 
 He shall receive of Mine, and show it unto you. 
 All things that the Father hath are Mine ; therefore 
 said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show 
 it unto you. He dwelleth with you, and shall be 
 in you." 
 
 This, then, is the Holy Spirit Who " when we know 
 not what to pray for as we ought, helpeth our in- 
 firmities, and Itself maketh intercession for us ac- 
 cording to the Will of God" S. Paul tells us that 
 this Holy Spirit not only assures us that we are 
 really and truly sons of God, so that we can now 
 come confidently to Him as our loving Father ; but 
 also that this indwelling Spirit reveals to us the Will 
 of God, so that we acutely feel earth's sorrow, and 
 long and are able to do our share as fellow-workers 
 together with God in His eternal purpose of Love. 
 "The whole creation groaneth until now, and tra- 
 vaileth in pain. And not only so, but ourselves also, 
 which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we 
 ourselves groan within ourselves," i.e. at earth's 
 sorrows, longing to mend them.
 
 84 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological). 
 
 Well, then, when God's Spirit so clearly shows us 
 the Will of God for the deliverance of ourselves,. 
 of our homes, of our fellow-men from all form of 
 evil, let us not " Quench the Holy Spirit." When 
 the story of the sin and sorrow of humanity is told 
 us thus clearly by God, let us not close our ears and 
 refuse to share in the pain of others, or to bear 
 their burdens. This is to grieve the Spirit indeed. 
 We ought to hear, we ought to know, we ought to 
 heal the sob, and sigh, and agony of the world. 
 When we feel that, then, through the Spirit helping 
 our infirmities, we shall truly and verily pray accord- 
 ing to the Will of God. We shall do more, out of 
 such prayer will come the toil on our own part 
 which will help to bring in the Kingdom of God. 
 
 B. 
 
 (2) "If we receive answers to prayer only in so 
 far as our prayers are in perfect harmony with 
 God's Will, why need we pray at all ? What are 
 we the better for asking Him to do His Will, when 
 that Will is sure to be done whether we ask or 
 whether we do not ? " 
 
 The objection is so natural and takes so many 
 forms that, even though we have answered it to- 
 ourselves a thousand times, it is ever starting up 
 in our hearts as strong as ever, and is almost ready 
 to deny that it has ever been answered at all. 
 
 Indeed, it voices a view of prayer which has at 
 all times appealed to spiritually-minded men. If
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}. 85 
 
 God is, as we know He is, our All-loving, All-wise, 
 Almighty Father, He knows beforehand all that 
 we His frail and ignorant creatures and children 
 need, far better than we do. "Take no thought, 
 saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? 
 or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " says Christ, 
 " for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
 need of all these things." He does not need to be 
 informed of our needs : and since He is a good 
 Father Who cares for His children, He does not 
 require to be coaxed or solicited to supply our 
 wants. 
 
 Besides, God is not a man that He should change 
 His mind. He already knows beforehand what He 
 means to do, and no prayers on our part will make 
 Him alter His purpose. If our prayers are according 
 to His Will, they are just asking for what He was 
 going to do all along : if they are not in harmony 
 with His Will, we are simply wasting our breath, 
 for our petitions are worse than useless. Therefore, 
 in either case our prayers are futile. Such prayers 
 are a misunderstanding of Providence, looking at 
 God from a wrong standpoint, based on a radically 
 wrong principle. 
 
 Is prayer, then, altogether a mistake ? Not at all, 
 reply these critics : the true object of prayer is the 
 ennobling effect it undoubtedly has on the man who 
 prays. The issue of our requests, their being granted 
 or denied, is of slight consequence, a minor con- 
 sideration. The one thing which alone matters is
 
 86 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}. 
 
 the immense influence for good this intercourse with 
 God has upon our soul and character. No doubt 
 the Divine Will will be accomplished whether with 
 our prayers or without them. But it will make all 
 the difference in the world, at least to you who 
 pray, to say from your heart of hearts, " Father, 
 Thy Will, not mine, be done." It is to consent 
 to that Will of God, to adopt it, to make it your 
 very own ; and can anything uplift and ennoble 
 you more than that ? 
 
 The true value of prayer, they insist, resides in 
 the fact that it is a speaking to God, and the oftener 
 we come thus into His immediate Presence the 
 better, though the objective results of prayer are 
 nil. Even in our purely human friendships, we grow 
 more and more like those with whom we associate, 
 we unconsciously copy those friends whom we look 
 up to and love. The attachment we form to noble 
 souls is beyond all wealth, honour or even health. 
 A true friend brings out the best that is in us. 
 " The theatre of all my actions is fallen," said a 
 great man of old on the death of his best friend, 
 and "fortunate are they who get a theatre where 
 their audience demands their very best " (G. Eliot). 
 So it is with the soul, when dealing with the Friend 
 of friends, our Father Which is in Heaven. The 
 more we are in His inspiring Presence, seeking His 
 Face and communing with Him in prayer, the more 
 surely will godly graces spring up within us and 
 bear fruit in our lives. How beautifully this is
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological). 87 
 
 expressed in the Bible-story of Moses. " And it 
 came to pass when Moses came down from Mount 
 Sinai where he had seen God face to face, the 
 children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the 
 skin of Moses' face shone, but Moses wist not that 
 the skin of his face shone while he talked with God." 
 
 So with us, each time we consciously and truly 
 talk with God in prayer, our faces shine with their 
 best and purest light. The reflection of God is 
 mirrored in us, we are bathed in the fountains of 
 Divine Glory. 
 
 We have attempted to state the objection as 
 strongly and candidly as we can. But is this all 
 the value, all the use, all the efficacy of prayer ? 
 Do not the instinct of prayer, the universal ex- 
 perience of the saints of God in all ages, above all, 
 do not the large promises of answer to prayer made 
 to us by Christ point to very much more than this ? 
 Would most men continue to pray if they supposed 
 that the only blessing they were to derive from prayer 
 was that subjective good we have just described ? 
 
 This is very far from being the answer to the 
 question which God Himself gives us in His own 
 Word. Unless we misread our Bible altogether, God 
 there tells us that we must ask, or we shall not 
 receive. Prayer on our part is the condition im- 
 posed by God in connection with the bestowal of 
 His blessings. With every promise there is the 
 implied condition, " I will yet for this be inquired 
 of by the house of Israel to do it for them."
 
 88 Prayer-Difficulties (Tlieological}. 
 
 This is what Archbishop Benson means by, " What 
 in God is Divine purpose, in us is prayer, and again 
 in Him is fulfilment," and R. M. Benson, " God has 
 attached the development of His glory by a mysteri- 
 ous Providence to our prayers." 
 
 And, in a way, we can understand why it is so. 
 A few pages back, we said that our All -Wise loving 
 Father is ever seeking our welfare, but He respects 
 our freedom too much to secure even our welfare 
 apart from our own will and our own actions. He 
 has chosen to surround Himself with children pos- 
 sessed of intelligence, free moral agents, and even 
 He cannot make us good by mere mechanical or 
 even moral pressure. Were He to do so, the good- 
 ness, such as it was, would be His not ours. He 
 persuasively brings to bear all the good influences 
 He possibly can upon us His children, by com- 
 municating His own Holy Spirit to us. But it rests 
 absolutely with us to welcome or quench this Holy 
 Spirit in our hearts. 
 
 God makes this very clear in His own Word. 
 " I stand at the door, and knock." We ourselves 
 must open the heart-door, for God will not enter 
 where He is not a welcome guest. 
 
 If, then, God will only win us by winning us over 
 to Himself of our own freewill and accord : if He 
 will not accomplish His own eternal purpose, our 
 welfare and the welfare of the human race which 
 He is ever seeking, till He can persuade us to 
 respond to His invitation to join Him of our own
 
 Prayer-Difficulties {Theological). 89 
 
 freewill in seeking this welfare, what then ? Strong 
 as the statement may sound.it is true all the same, 
 God cannot dispense with our prayers : they form 
 one of the strongest links in the chain of love by 
 which He is drawing mankind to Himself. Our 
 prayers are our own personal appeal to the Giver 
 of all good gifts to give us the help, the strength, 
 the will, the heart we need to secure our welfare 
 the welfare He Himself is seeking but which He 
 will not force upon us. Our prayers are the consent 
 on our part without which He will not interfere 
 with us. 
 
 Very far from our prayers according to God's 
 Will being unnecessary, God Himself cannot do 
 without them. Apart from our human prayers, God 
 Himself is reluctant to do what He means to do'. 
 He means man's salvation to be worked out by 
 man himself, and our prayers according to His Will 
 are the most potent factor in His eternal purpose, 
 the establishment of His Kingdom here on earth. 
 
 C. 
 
 (3) "We know that spiritual graces are essentially 
 good in themselves, and, therefore, in harmony with 
 God's Will, so we shall continue to pray for these. 
 But we can never be sure that our petitions for 
 material blessings are good, therefore we must now 
 discontinue them." 
 
 This objection leaves the efficacy of prayer un-
 
 9O Prayer-Difficulties (Theological). 
 
 touched when its object is a spiritual blessing ; it 
 only seeks to exclude the physical world from the 
 scope of prayer. The advocates of this view allow 
 man to ask that his faith may be strengthened, or 
 that his heart may be purified, but they deny the 
 propriety of prayer for temporal blessings ; they 
 deny, for example, that it is right to pray for re- 
 storation of health, the arrest of famine or pestilence, 
 for rain or fine weather, and so forth. 
 
 But, surely, this distinction is unphilosophical, for 
 it rests on the assumption that the material world 
 is a closed circle, where everything is so unalterably 
 fixed according to laws of Nature laid down by God 
 Himself, that even He is the slave of His own laws, 
 and cannot possibly interfere with them : whereas 
 the spiritual world is not thus subject to law but 
 admits of God's constant interference. But why 
 make this distinction ? For the matter of that, our 
 character is, in precisely the same way, determined 
 for us by laws, as every student of psychology knows. 
 If, then, it is an objection to prayer for temporal 
 blessings, that, in offering them, we are asking God 
 to perform a miracle, it is equally an objection to 
 prayer for spiritual blessings. You ask Him to 
 perform as real a miracle, when you ask God to 
 cure your soul of sin, as you do when you ask Him 
 to cure your body of a fever. This distinction 
 between the material and spiritual spheres is illogical. 
 
 The objection to prayer for material blessings is 
 one which takes many forms. The great modern
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological). 91 
 
 argument against prayer for material benefits is 
 this : In God's world we everywhere find the reign 
 of law. God rules the universe and the affairs of 
 men in certain fixed and invariable ways, accord- 
 ing to certain well - established Laws of Nature. 
 How, then, can we hope or wish that He should 
 violate these laws, which ensure the general wel- 
 fare ; that He should work a special miracle to 
 show favour to this man or that, to supply his 
 want or gratify his desire ? 
 
 The scientific idea of law, say these modern 
 teachers, renders these material prayers absurd. 
 "We know that a shower is the product of atmo- 
 spheric laws, which make a shower, under certain 
 circumstances, inevitable. We know that health and 
 disease are the natural results of physiological laws, 
 which absolutely determine that one man shall live 
 and another die." Therefore, material prayers be- 
 long to the days when the idea of Law had not yet 
 dawned upon man's intellect, when temporal bless- 
 ings were thought to depend upon the caprice of God. 
 Now we know that the whole material world is ruled 
 by God according to fixed and unchangeable laws. 
 To pray God to alter, suspend, violate these Laws 
 is to pray against God Himself, to imply that His 
 methods are not " very good," to suggest that man 
 can advise God how to make them better. 
 
 On the purely scientific side of this question more 
 will be said hereafter. Here we are addressing be- 
 lievers who are ready to accept the Bible's verdict
 
 92 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological). 
 
 as final, and we must confine ourselves to its de- 
 clarations on the subject. 
 
 We have already said that " in Christ's Name " we 
 can pray for all that He Himself prayed for, any- 
 thing which He Himself would ask were He in our 
 place and offering our prayers for us. 
 
 Now, not only does He Himself distinctly urge 
 us to pray for temporal blessings : " Give us this day 
 our daily bread," but He also enjoins us to include 
 time and weather in our petitions. " Pray ye that 
 your flight be not in winter" (S. Mark xiii. 18), 
 He says to His disciples with reference to the dark 
 days coming with the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 And when His disciples pray for fair weather in 
 time of storm, Christ at once hears and answers 
 their prayer (S. Matth. viii. 26). 
 
 Christ once and for all cuts across the imaginary 
 distinction between spiritual and material blessings. 
 He emphatically proves that it is as easy for God to 
 cure the body of disease, as to cure the soul of sin, 
 " Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, 
 or to say, Arise and walk ? " and, there and then, 
 Christ bestowed both the one and the other on the 
 man sick of the palsy. 
 
 In His lifetime, Christ fed the hungry, healed the 
 sick, stilled the storm, and shall we say it is wrong 
 now to ask Him, in His Name, to do for us what He 
 was so ready to do then? 
 
 "Those were days of miracles," men say. What 
 is a miracle ? If God is actually dwelling in His
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological}. 93. 
 
 universe as well as guiding it, if all that is is 
 an expression of the Divine Intelligence a , then^ 
 " to me there is nothing but miracle " (Walt 
 Whitman). In the Galilee-storm, God was both 
 the storm and the queller of it. Was it a mira- 
 cle ? Do I work a miracle if, after placing an 
 irritant on an ailing body for medical purposes, 
 afterwards, when the pain and distress is gone, I 
 arise and soothe the irritated surface with some balm, 
 and there is a great calm ? I am the agent in both 
 cases, with a purpose in both, but I have not worked 
 a miracle. Jesus, as God, had all the power of -the 
 Divine Intelligence embodied in Him. He could 
 and did work miracles, i.e. produce, through the 
 operation of ordinary causes, results which to us 
 seem extraordinary, because they are a variation 
 of the order of things to which we are accustomed. 
 But Christ seldom and almost unwillingly worked snc/t 
 miracles*. Prof. Huxley warned men to be cautious 
 in their attacks on miracles. These are his words : 
 
 a "All the higher philosophy, from Aristotle onwards, has main- 
 tained that the universe is ultimately spiritual, and that matter, as 
 we call it, is a manifestation and an instrument of the spirit " (Illing- 
 worth). Cf. " All that is is God's thought in process of transmutation 
 into matter." 
 
 b This may seem too sweeping a statement. Christ was always 
 glad to perform works of mercy, but He steadily refused to make 
 miracles the test of His claims, His credentials. This was precisely 
 one of the temptations which He had faced and conquered in the 
 wilderness. If we crave for a "sign," the crowning miracle of 
 Christianity is the Incarnation, and all other miracles flow naturally 
 from that.
 
 94 Prayer- Difficulties (TlieologicaP). 
 
 " A man with absolute knowledge of every secret 
 and molecular arrangement of Nature could control, 
 subordinate, transfigure, retard, accelerate Nature's 
 ordinary processes and do all Jesus did." We 
 believe that Jesus, as God, had this absolute know- 
 ledge, and what God did then for men, He is ready 
 to do now in answer to prayer. 
 
 BUT, having said this, we must protest with all 
 our might against some of the absurd misconceptions 
 of prayer prevalent nowadays. Men constantly and 
 consciously break God's revealed laws, laws which 
 reward and punish of themselves, and then when 
 they reap the natural fruits of the seeds they have 
 sown, they fly to God for deliverance in prayer and 
 insist on being heard. 
 
 As a general rule, we may take it that a Law 
 of Nature, a known law of the physical world, is 
 a declaration of the Will of God. There are, for 
 instance, the well-known laws of health. We have 
 no patience with those people who, through their 
 own recklessness, carelessness, excess, uncleanness, 
 selfish lives, ruin their health and character, let 
 their bodily physique run to rack and ruin, rear 
 puny children who naturally take after them, then 
 look up languidly to Heaven, with a sigh of re- 
 signation to the Will of God, and pray to be 
 delivered from their distress. If we prepare a dish 
 of food carelessly, we do not expect God to 
 make it palatable : neither need we expect Provi- 
 dence to interfere miraculously on our behalf if,
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}. 95 
 
 through years of folly, we misguide our own life, and 
 sow the seeds of physical or moral disease. 
 
 We may and should pray to be delivered from 
 evil, physical, moral and spiritual, but only on con- 
 dition that we do not wilfully run into it ourselves. 
 We may and should pray for our children, but 
 only on condition that we ourselves do our utmost 
 to train them up in the right way. God only helps 
 those who help themselves, and we are not doing 
 that when we fly in the face of those revealed 
 physical laws which are a declaration of His Will. 
 
 This is one condition which God has attached to 
 His promise of answers to prayer for temporal 
 blessings, and here is another : " Is our prayer con- 
 sistent not only with our own best welfare, but with 
 God's eternal purpose, the well-being of the world 
 at large ? " Wherever we turn, this central idea 
 ever meets us, and we are bound ever to keep it 
 before our eyes, for it is the one supreme purpose 
 of God, as revealed to us by His Son. It is only 
 in the light of this one fundamental truth that we 
 can reach a consistent and rational view of the evo- 
 lution of the human race, with a loving Providence 
 behind it all the while as its driving-power, and we 
 ourselves must fall into line with this Divine purpose, 
 or we are retarding it instead of being fellow-workers 
 together with God. 
 
 Therefore, each time we pray for a material 
 blessing, be it health, fine weather or what it may, 
 we must remember that we are not the best judges
 
 96 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}. 
 
 of what is consistent not only with our own, but 
 mankind's best good. 
 
 S. Paul prayed thrice for the removal of a bodily 
 infirmity. His prayer was earnest, trusting and 
 sincere, but it was not granted in the way he asked, 
 God showed him that it was denied only because it 
 was better for himself and others that his infirmity 
 should remain. This very infirmity, which he so 
 deprecated, was calculated to strengthen his own 
 character, and so make him a better fellow-worker 
 with God. 
 
 One far greater than S. Paul, on the eve of His 
 crucifixion, prayed " Father, if it be possible, let 
 this Cup pass from Me." We know that Christ 
 had to drink that bitter Cup, thus alone could His 
 own complete victory and God's eternal purpose 
 be achieved. 
 
 So, if we are wise, when we pray, especially when 
 we pray for temporal blessings, where our judgment 
 is specially likely to be narrow and warped, we 
 shall also add to our " Father, if it be possible," 
 Christ's own words, " nevertheless, Thy Will, not 
 mine, be done." 
 
 With this stipulation, we may and we should pray 
 for temporal blessings. Do not let us listen to 
 the plausible argument that God and His Universe 
 are too great for Him to be able to attend to 
 our trivial personal needs. 
 
 The Bible only endorses the verdict of reason
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological). 97 
 
 when it assures us that "the very hairs of our 
 head are all numbered." Even in our human 
 experience, the best and greatest are they who 
 act not only with a wide grasp but also with a 
 clear insight into details. So we honour God 
 most when we look up to Him as the Ruler of 
 the Universe, Who, in the absolute perfection of 
 His knowledge " knows all the stars by name," 
 yet knows and loves each one of us as if we were 
 the sole object of His care. 
 
 " In everything, by prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known 
 unto God," says the Bible ; and the true Christian 
 will call upon Him not only for spiritual but for 
 temporal blessings as well, confident that, if it is 
 according to God's Will, He will grant the request, 
 even if it needs what we call a miracle to effect 
 that result. 
 
 " I verily believe," writes Canon Liddon, " that 
 God is Omnipotent, and can control at Will the 
 laws He Himself has made. I believe He is a 
 Moral Being, and that He is likely so to control 
 them, supposing moral interests affecting mankind 
 at large to be at stake. It would be shocking to 
 pray for or against an eclipse, to state a very 
 extreme case, only in order to gratify the curiosity 
 of a scientific association. Nay the bodily distress 
 of millions of human beings might perhaps be no 
 sufficient reason for asking God to work so complex 
 and gigantic a miracle as is here in question. But 
 
 H
 
 98 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological). 
 
 let us suppose an eclipse to provoke some outbursts 
 of crime on a large scale, which could not be 
 counteracted by any known human agency. In that 
 case prayer against an eclipse would at least be 
 rational and reverent. Rational, because God might 
 arrest eclipses, and a great deal else, if He willed 
 to do so : and reverent, because God is pre- 
 eminently a Moral Being, and such a prayer would 
 be an acknowledgment of His Goodness. Of course, 
 He might not answer such a prayer under any 
 circumstances. But it is inconceivable that, being 
 what He is, He should be angry with His suppliant. 
 " God is not merely a Force or an Intellect, but 
 a Father. We must indeed watch, anxiously and 
 reverently, His ways of working in Nature as else- 
 where. We may not lightly ask Him to reverse 
 what we believe to be His rules of working. We 
 dare not ask Him to vary capriciously His action 
 in the physical world, or at once to take our judg- 
 ment of the needs of the moral world for granted. . . . 
 But we will not, on the other hand, treat the 
 Living God as a helpless Fate." 
 
 There is one more theological difficulty, but we 
 must give it a chapter to itself.
 
 CHAPTER IV. PART II. 
 
 PRAYER - DIFFICULTIES (THEOLOGICAL), 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 Argument. 
 
 " Prayer ' in Christ's Name ' excludes sinners, non- 
 Christians, heathen, however good they may be, from effec- 
 tual prayer? This must be a leaden arbitrary canon, 
 for it offends God and man, and is diametrically contra-
 
 ioo Argument, 
 
 dictory to Christ's teaching in the parables of the Pro- 
 digal Son and the Publican's Prayer. These parables tell 
 us that we are, even at our worst, loved sons of God, not 
 " children of wrath," repulsive by nature lo an angry 
 affronted God. They also correct our wrong attitude to- 
 wards those whom we regard as outside the pale of God's 
 fold, whether as heretics or heathen, because their creed 
 is not ours. 
 
 Creeds essential to all true religion. All belief in God, 
 all heart-convictions pre-suppose a creed, a confession of 
 faith. Each time we call God " Father," or Christ " Son 
 of God," we commit ourselves to a creed. A Faith with- 
 out a creed is a moral impossibility. 
 
 But we can be orthodox overmuch, even as we may be 
 " righteous overmuch," and make our creed the test of 
 a man's acceptance with God. God's test is far rather 
 Tightness of character than Tightness of belief (S. Matth. 
 xxv. 35 sqq.). He who serves man best, serves God best. 
 
 If so, then many Agnostics, i.e. honest seekers after 
 Truth, whose hearts are true and their lives right, though 
 their eyes are still holden and they see not God, are very 
 near to the Kingdom of God. Is not such a man's life 
 a prayer, though his lips may never pray? Similarly, 
 does not our Lord's commendation of the Roman cen- 
 turion, of the Syro - Phenician woman, as well as His 
 express statement that many heathen shall enter God's 
 Kingdom while the so-called orthodox remain outside it, 
 prove that heathen-prayers are heard of God ? S. Paul 
 and Malachi prove it too. 
 
 Therefore, sinners, Agnostics, heathen can and do pray 
 effectually to God, because every man has within him a 
 soul directly sprung from God, his Father ; a soul which 
 instinctively thirsts after God. But there is a sense in 
 which sinners cannot pray.
 
 CHAPTER IV. PART II. 
 
 PRAYER-DIFFICULTIES (THEOLOGICAL), continued. 
 
 \In Part I. of this chapter we have tried to meet three of 
 the prayer-difficulties, but there is still a fourth religious 
 objection, which opens out s^ech a wide field that we have 
 thought it advisable to devote a whole chapter to its con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The very wording of this prayer-difficulty compels us to 
 define the meaning of some of its essential terms : and this, 
 in its turn, leads its into what many of our readers will 
 call a long, unnecessary (and perhaps offensive) digression. 
 We crave their patience and forbearance. We have carefitlly 
 weighed our words, and hope that they will be found to have 
 a direct bearing on the question at issue.'] 
 
 D. 
 
 (4) " TF effectual prayer is confined to those who 
 1 pray ' in Christ's Name ' i.e. if it is limited 
 to God's children, as God's true children, to Christ's 
 disciples, in so far as they are Christ's disciples, 
 then no 'publicans and sinners' need pray, for 
 they are not praying ' in Christ's Name," and, 
 therefore, their prayers will not be heard.'* 
 
 In plain words, our definition of prayer seems 
 to imply, if we drive our premises to their logical 
 conclusion, that prayer " in Christ's Name," by its 
 very connotation, excludes not only the prayers of 
 " publicans and sinners," but also all non-Christian
 
 IO2 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological], continued, 
 
 petitions. In that case there would be no virtue, no 
 efficacy, in the " heart's desire, uttered or unex- 
 pressed," of those many good men amongst us 
 " whose life is in the right," but who are not 
 strictly religious in the sense in which we com- 
 monly understand religion ; there would be no effi- 
 cacy, either, in the prayers of the countless multi- 
 tudes who are accounted as heathen. 
 
 On the face of it, such a limitation of the efficacy 
 of prayer is clearly an arbitrary canon, a leaden 
 rule ; it proves too much. Such a line of demar- 
 cation offends our common - sense, our common 
 humanity, our common experience. It contradicts 
 the very essence of the teaching of Christ and the 
 Word of God. 
 
 It you reduce prayer in Christ's Name to such 
 narrow limits, what meaning can we attach to 
 Christ's beautiful word-pictures of the Prodigal 
 Son and the praying Publican ? The whole purport 
 of the story of that one prayer of man commended 
 by our Lord: "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner," 
 and of that other parable of the Prodigal Son, is to 
 prove that God gladly hears and instantly answers 
 the heart's desire, uttered or unexpressed, of the 
 most wilful and wayward of His beloved children. 
 
 Indeed, the story of the Prodigal Son seems to 
 show that God, if such a thing is possible, is thinking 
 even more of the son who has gone utterly to the 
 bad than of his brother who is already in His 
 Father's home. Christ's word-picture paints the
 
 Prayer-Difficulties {Theological), continued. 103 
 
 prodigal as almost the more human and lovable 
 of the two. The elder brother maintains such 
 a petulant, self-satisfied, superior attitude of surly 
 aloofness ; he is so unbrotherly, so ungenerous. His 
 poverty of affection, his cold, selfish, offensive 
 attitude of insistence on his legal rights stand out 
 in such marked contrast with his affectionate father's 
 warmth of welcome, and the prodigal's mute appeal 
 which draws our very heart out towards him. 
 
 In every parable of our Lord, there is a surface 
 and an inner meaning ; so it is here. This word- 
 picture gives us a comforting revelation of the 
 boundless love, the measureless forgiveness of our 
 Father. 
 
 " Kind hearts are here, but yet the tenderest one 
 Has limits to his mercy, God has none. 
 And man's forgiveness may be true and sweet, 
 But yet he stoops to give it. More complete 
 Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet 
 And pleads with thee to take it. Only Heaven 
 Means ' crowned,' not vanquished, when it says ' forgive.' " 
 
 This parable tells us, too, that we are real sons 
 of God by birth as His Spirit-children, sons who 
 are sadly missed when they are away from home, 
 sons whom our Father's heart yearns for with a love 
 that cannot rest till it has sought them out and 
 found them. And. we want this divine truth brought 
 home to our inmost souls even now. when our tra- 
 ditional theology, our clumsy Deistic conception of
 
 IO4 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological], continued. 
 
 God still insists so strongly on the unutterable 
 corruption of man with his original sinfulness, and 
 makes him in his natural state an object of repulsion 
 to an angry affronted God Who needs to be appeased. 
 
 Inherited tendencies to unregulated sinful desires 
 there undoubtedly are in us, but "children of wrath " 
 in God's eyes we certainly are not, in the sense 
 ordinarily attributed to this expression. " Children 
 of wrath " simply means " wrathful men," men who 
 give way to wrath, hatred, jealousy, strife, slander 
 and sulkiness ; just as " sons of disobedience " means 
 disobedient men. S. Paul's simple and innocent 
 phrase was never intended to cover the dreadful 
 dogmas that have been fathered upon it. "Ye are 
 the sons of God " your loving Father, affirms Christ. 
 Nay, say the theologians, ye are by nature the 
 " children of wrath." Christ's story of the Prodigal 
 Son flatly contradicts man's view. 
 
 But over and above God's boundless unchangeable 
 love for us His sons, sons beloved even when we are 
 at our very worst, the parable of the Prodigal Son 
 corrects our wrong attitude towards those whom we 
 regard as outside the pale of God's fold, those whom 
 we label as heterodox or absolutely irreligious be- 
 cause they do not see eye to eye with us in matters 
 of faith. " Those who know not the law are accursed," 
 said the Jewish religious teachers. In the same spirit, 
 we are too apt to assert even now, " Whoso does not 
 believe thus and thus about God and His Christ shall 
 perish everlastingly." Law or dogma rigidly applied
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological), continued. 105 
 
 makes no allowance for a man's temperament, motive 
 or environment. Love points out a better way, and, 
 in showing mercy, is sensitive to the finest shades of 
 justice, for the story of the Prodigal Son shows us 
 that mercy is justice perfectly applied. 
 
 It has been truly said, " Limiting the universal 
 grace of God to one nation was Israel's sin, and the 
 Gospel of Jesus broke forth, perforce, from these 
 narrow limits. Limiting the free grace of God to 
 one visible Church was the sin of Rome, and Protes- 
 tantism came forth from the mediaeval cloisters to 
 breathe in a freer spiritual atmosphere. Limiting 
 the free grace of God to the adherents of a certain 
 * confession of faith ' or creed has always been the 
 menacing evil of Protestantism. Free, pure, spiritual 
 religion must break forth from its present bondage 
 to the formulas of beliefs, if a living trust in a loving 
 Father is the sole deliverance of the soul." 
 
 We do not wish to be misunderstood. In a sense 
 this quotation is quite true, but it is an exaggerated 
 truth, a truth " run to death." It is possible to give 
 disproportionate attention to correctness of belief: 
 to set creeds in such relief that they hold an alto- 
 gether false place : to be orthodox overmuch. 
 There are men who are so jealous for orthodoxy that 
 they write over every lintel, "Thou art weighed in 
 the balances and found wanting." 
 
 But creeds, say what we will, are an essential or 
 all true and genuine heartfelt religion. If we are 
 to trust in God and His Christ at all, to believe in
 
 io6 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}, continued. 
 
 them, we must know something, at least, of what 
 we mean by God, and why we identify Christ with 
 God. We must be always ready and able to give 
 ourselves and others " an answer, a reason of the 
 hope that is in us." How can a man trustingly 
 look up to God, and pray, if He knows Him not? 
 
 This knowledge of God is not of a purely intel- 
 lectual character, it is far rather inward, personal, 
 spiritual, an instinct and conviction of the heart. 
 Therefore Christ Himself naturally and necessarily 
 insisted on it. What else is the meaning of His 
 vital question to S. Peter : " And Whom say ye that 
 I am ? " Why did Christ straightway pronounce 
 such an emphatic blessing on S. Peter's confession 
 of faith, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God," if a confession of faith is as valueless as some 
 people fancy ? For, if words mean anything, S. 
 Peter's answer is nothing if not a creed. 
 
 Christ, when on earth, demanded of those who 
 would enter the Kingdom of God, as .His conscious 
 and accredited disciples, the acknowledgment of 
 certain clearly defined personal claims on His part. 
 To go no further than S. Mark's Gospel, the 
 authenticity of which is universally admitted even by 
 the most advanced critics, we find, as the author of 
 Ecce Homo has shown, that Jesus claimed to be the 
 Messiah (viii. 29; ix. 41; xii. 6; xiv. 62). He 
 speaks with an inexpressible dignity and authority 
 which no prophet ever assumes, and which none but 
 His Divine claims can justify (ii. 28 ; x. 4 ; cf.
 
 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological}, continued. 107 
 
 S. Matth. v. 27 sqq.). He claims the power to 
 forgive sins (ii. 10). Why were these claims made, 
 if it is quite immaterial whether we accept them or 
 not? So, precisely, with Christ's claims to be God 
 Incarnate, born into the world of a woman, in the 
 likeness of sinful man, yet the express image of God. 
 Either we endorse His credentials or we do not. If 
 we do, what is this but a confession of faith or a 
 creed ? 
 
 We cannot even speak of God as " Father," or of 
 Christ as " Lord," " Son of God," " Saviour," without 
 by that very act committing ourselves to a creed, 
 and we verily believe that of such heartfelt " con- 
 fessions of faith " or spiritual, inward, personal con- 
 victions, Christ s^ys now as of old : " Blessed art 
 thou, for flesh and blood have not revealed it unto 
 thee, but My Father Which is in Heaven." 
 
 As the Bishop of Southwark ably puts it : " We 
 are more sure of the Unity of God and Man in Jesus 
 than we are of the definition or description by which 
 the Creed attempts to explain the Mystery : just as 
 we are more sure of the character and personality 
 of Jesus than we are of the complete authenticity 
 of the Gospel records of Him. But this will not 
 prevent us from recognizing that the Gospels are 
 to be reverenced as the Spirit-fashioned shrine of 
 the life and power of Christ, containing sufficiently 
 what it is for us to know about Him; just as we 
 see no prospect of any better expression superseding 
 the Creed in which the Holy Spirit taught the early
 
 io8 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological], continued. 
 
 Church explicitly to embody the inner meaning of 
 its faith in Him." 
 
 This we fully and unconditionally endorse, and to 
 our mind the Nicene Creed is little short of inspired. 
 At any rate, every conscious Christian is bound to 
 adopt a clearly-defined attitude in his acknowledg- 
 ment or rejection of Christ's claims and his own 
 conception of God. A man's moral responsibility 
 in this matter is immense. " Let every man be fully 
 persuaded in his own mind." A creed of some 
 definite sort we must all have, now that the true 
 light has come into the world. " This is their con- 
 demnation," says Christ, " that light is come into 
 the world," and some men with the full light pouring 
 in upon their hearts, will have uone of it. Un- 
 doubtedly it is " with the heart that man believeth 
 unto righteousness," but S. Paul also takes care to 
 add, " and with the mouth confession is made unto 
 salvation." 
 
 But, having said this, we must protest with all our 
 might against the modern tendency to give dispro- 
 portionate attention to correctness of belief, to make 
 our creed the universal canon of orthodoxy, the test 
 of a man's acceptance with God. It is our bounden 
 duty to " contend earnestly for the faith once de- 
 livered to the Saints," but let us first be positively 
 certain that our statement of it is Christ's own state- 
 ment as He delivered it. " Conventional Theology 
 is ever covering God's Door with cobwebs, and 
 obscuring God's clear light, so that God has ever
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological), continued. 109 
 
 to be re-revealed " ; and do let us take care in our 
 insistence, for example, on the frequent public use 
 of the Athanasian Creed, that we are not " binding 
 heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laying 
 them on men's shoulders." It is a man's own honest 
 convictions that God requires of him, not the opinions 
 he may have borrowed from others. He does not 
 want mere parrot-like repetitions of other men's 
 sayings, He asks us to let down our nets of thought 
 into deep and true principles, to get at the heart of 
 the matter for ourselves. And this individualizing 
 of personal religion is one of the healthiest signs of 
 our day. " Men's minds are more and more set 
 towards the spiritual, even when they are set away 
 from Christianity" (Lambeth Conference, 1908). 
 God's light has grown so much clearer, man's 
 spiritual ideas and needs have so gained in height 
 and depth and breadth, the Holy Spirit has so 
 quickened the hearts even of merely professing 
 Christians that they will not any longer endorse 
 what they do not fully believe. It is better thus. 
 In spite of its many false applications, there is truth 
 in the now trite words of Tennyson : " there lives 
 more truth in honest doubt than in half the creeds." 
 
 And does not Christ tell us in S. Matth. xxv., as 
 we have said over and over again, that, on the great 
 Day when each one of us gives an account of our 
 stewardship, the test He will apply to our life-work 
 will be not our orthodoxy but our service to our 
 fellow-men ? Throughout the Bible it is by this one
 
 IIO Prayer-Difficulties (Theological), continued. 
 
 standard that God tests the value of our religion. 
 " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
 Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows and 
 to keep himself unspotted from the world." " What 
 doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to 
 love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 
 (cf. Is. Iviii.). 
 
 May we not also look at the " creed-fetish " of 
 the present day in another way ? Is it not true 
 that although we say the self-same words: "I be- 
 lieve in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven 
 and earth," and utter them just as our forefathers 
 have repeated these identical words for the last 
 fifteen hundred years and more, yet the Holy 
 Spirit of God has so been at work upon man's heart 
 and brain during all that time, has so quickened and 
 enlightened our hearts, that the meaning of these 
 words we recite in the Creed, identical as they may 
 sound, has totally altered ? Our knowledge, mental, 
 moral and spiritual has made such immense strides 
 in these hundreds of years, our ideas of God and 
 His Universe are so much deeper, wider and higher, 
 that the only words in that sentence of the Apostles' 
 Creed which we really interpret exactly as our 
 ancestors did, are the words " the," " and," and 
 " of." Every generation, in which there is a real 
 advance of thought, must shape its theology for 
 itself; though the religious facts which lie behind 
 our theologies remain the same from age to age. 
 
 To sum up. Much of the recent belittling of
 
 Prayer- Difficulties ( Theological), continued. 1 1 1 
 
 creeds is worse than a blunder, it is almost a sin ; 
 yet charity compels us to add that many of those 
 whom religious men are apt to dub " Agnostics," 
 are in God's eyes very near to the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. By the term " agnostics " we, of course, 
 only refer to those honest, conscientious " seekers 
 after truth " who revere Truth so much that they 
 prefer to suspend their judgment in matters where 
 no solid basis of evidence is to be found. Truth 
 in itself, and truthfulness of mind are to them so 
 sacred that, in their eyes, to state as a personal 
 conviction any fact of which you are not positively 
 certain is a sort of sacrilege, and bound to darken 
 and degrade the soul. Such a state of mind implies 
 not only a strong sense of personal dignity and re- 
 sponsibility, but is close akin to righteousness. It 
 is severe to itself for the sake of others, animated 
 ever by that purest of motives, the clear intention 
 in all things to convey a right impression. 
 
 Can a man who thus thinks the thought that is 
 noblest, and earnestly strives to live the thought 
 he thinks, be aught but true to his best self; and 
 is he likely to be false to man, or false in the eyes 
 of God ? How dare we say that such a man's life 
 is not a prayer in Christ's Name, even though his 
 lips may never voice a prayer to Him ? Such loving, 
 unselfish Tightness of purpose is not far from the 
 purity of heart which sees God and is far nearer 
 to Him than much of the Phariseeism which glibly 
 condemns him. " Not everyone that saith unto Me,
 
 1 1 2 Prayer- Difficulties ( Theological}, continued. 
 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 but he that doeth the Will of My Father Which 
 is in Heaven." We are but poor judges of our 
 neighbours ; man sees their outward acts, and draws 
 hasty deductions, God reads the heart-motives. 
 
 It was not among religionists that Christ found 
 most to praise when He was on earth. See how 
 he commended not only the praying Publican, but 
 the Roman centurion and the Syro - Phenician 
 woman. Why ? Their theological views about 
 Him were probably all wrong. They did not, in 
 all likelihood, know that He was anything but 
 a very good and holy man. No, but their simple, 
 receptive, trustful attitude towards Him, their con- 
 fidence in His ability and willingness to do them 
 good, their assurance of His perfect sympathy were 
 such that even Christ, with all His optimistic belief 
 in man, was amazed at it : " Verily, verily I say 
 unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not 
 in Israel." They were true to the light they had, 
 such as it was : they obeyed the promptings of the 
 divine nature within them, this was why Christ 
 loved them. And in so far as Agnostics do the 
 same, "who maketh us a judge over them?" Let 
 us rather see to it that, with all our privileges and 
 our light, we are as true as they. " More has been 
 given us ; more will be required." 
 
 Precisely the same line of thought furnishes us 
 with the answer to the question, " can heathen 
 pray in Christ's Name?" Certainly they can. As
 
 Prayer-Difficulties ( Theological] , continued. 1 1 3 
 
 Justin Martyr tells us, " Those of old who lived 
 according to the Logos, i.e. obeyed their highest 
 intuitions, were really Christians, though they have 
 been thought Atheists." Does not S. Paul say 
 exactly the same thing ? " For when the Gentiles, 
 which have not the law, do by nature the things 
 contained in the law, these, having not the law, 
 are a law unto themselves : which show the work 
 of the law written in their hearts, their conscience 
 also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean- 
 while accusing, or else excusing one another" 
 (Rom. ii. 14, 15). 
 
 More than this; sacred, God-inspired, soul-saving 
 as our Bible is, it is not the only Word of God 
 which has moulded the thoughts and swayed the 
 destinies of the human race. In the Bibles of the 
 great non-Christian religions there are (amid much 
 that is pure childishness) thoughts of God that 
 are so beautiful and true that they can only be 
 out- breathings of the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 Even to those living in heathen darkness, God 
 has not left Himself without a witness. S. Paul 
 recognized the element of truth in heathen creeds 
 (Acts xvii. 23 sqq.), so did Malachi long before him. 
 Not only does this Hebrew prophet say that God's 
 Name is magnified among the heathen, but he 
 distinctly speaks of their offerings as having Jehovah 
 for their object. "For from the rising of the Sun 
 even unto the going down of the same, My Name 
 is great among the Gentiles : and in every place 
 
 I
 
 H4 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological}, continued. 
 
 incense is offered unto My Name, and a pure 
 offering : for My Name is great among the Gentiles " 
 (Mai. i. II, R.V.). And our Lord endorses this truth, 
 for He tells the Jews that many shall come from 
 the North and from the South, from the East and 
 from the West, and shall sit down in the Kingdom 
 of God while they themselves are thrust out. 
 (S. Luke xiii. 29.) 
 
 Therefore sinners can and do pray in Christ's Name, 
 so do non-Christians in Christian lands, so do the 
 heathen. And we can easily understand how this 
 comes about. There is no immeasurable chasm be- 
 tween God and man, between the child-soul and the 
 Father-Soul How can there be so long as there 
 dwelleth in each man the true light that lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world ? Each man 
 has a lower nature akin to the animal nature, and 
 this it is which drags him down, but in each one of us 
 there is also the higher nature, the essence of God, 
 the divine germ which uplifts us, and is akin to God. 
 This twofold nature it is that alone explains why no 
 man is so bad but that we may find much good in 
 him, if only, like Christ, we know how to look for it 
 and appeal to it ; and no man is so good but that, 
 like S. Paul, he at least finds much that is evil 
 in himself. 
 
 All men are by nature sons of God, not " children 
 of wrath," not even merely adopted sons, who have 
 first to go through a covenant or compact with 
 God before He recognises them as sons ; adopted
 
 Prayer- Difficulties (Theological) y continued. 115 
 
 sons ! we are nothing of the kind, we are real sons 
 of God by birth as His spirit-children. And because 
 there is this higher nature within us, this divine 
 germ come direct from God, which is our true 
 self, therefore there is always a healthy spot in us, 
 diseased as we may be, where God can work on 
 us for our good. 
 
 " When he came to himself," says Christ of the 
 Prodigal Son. What a depth of meaning these 
 words open out ! This wreck of a man, Jesus insists, 
 is not the man, only his lower self, ignorant, per- 
 verted, corrupt. The other and true self, which bears 
 the stamp of its divine birth, lies hidden beneath this 
 surface grime and rust, and must be released, then 
 you will come to the real man. And when this true 
 self asserts itself ; when the man " comes to him- 
 self," and, obedient to the promptings of the " im- 
 mortal centre within," prays, then how gladly does 
 God hearken to this cry of His child-soul " thirst- 
 ing for the living God." " Gladly," did we say ? this 
 is far too tame a word to express God's joy and 
 welcome : listen rather to Christ's own words : " But 
 when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, 
 and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, 
 
 and kissed him And the Father said to his 
 
 servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it 
 on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes 
 on his feet : and bring hither the fatted calf, and 
 kill it ; and let us eat, and be merry. For this 
 my son was dead, and is alive again : he was lost 
 and is found."
 
 n6 Prayer-Difficulties (Theological), continued. 
 
 True, the prayer of the worst sinner is gladly 
 heard as soon as he " comes to himself," and, obe- 
 dient to the promptings of his highest self, turns 
 unto God, saying, " I will arise, and go to my 
 Father." He is then praying as God's true child, 
 and, therefore, according to the Will of God. But 
 this is also equally true, and we must not make light 
 of it. If the Bible gives us this comforting assurance, 
 it lays equal stress on the fact that so long as 
 man follows the unregulated desires of his lower 
 nature, deliberately sins, hugs his sin to his breast 
 and means to go on living in sin this child's prayer 
 is not heard. 
 
 There is a fact well known to electricians. If 
 a telegraph wire touches the ground fairly and 
 squarely, the electric current is instantly arrested. 
 The circuit is as much broken as if you had actually 
 cut the wire deliberately, and no message can be 
 sent or received over that wire. The wire is 
 " grounded,' as it is technically called. Now this is 
 exactly what persistent, wilful, deliberate sin does. 
 It "grounds" the connection between God and man. 
 There may still be prayer, but it is no longer a means 
 of grace between God and man. The " fault " in 
 the connection is on man's side and of his own 
 making, and, till he himself mends and removes 
 it, his soul cannot commune with its Father- Soul. 
 Sin and prayer cannot dwell in the same heart 
 at the same time. One or the other must go. They 
 cannot breathe the same atmosphere.
 
 PART II. 
 
 Scientific anb philosophical.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER.
 
 Argument. 
 
 A. HISTORY of the feud between Science and Religion. 
 Both sides forgot that their respective solutions of the 
 Universe-problem were incomplete and provisional. They 
 now realize this, and hatred has given way to mutual 
 respect. More than this, each side has taken a leaf from 
 the other's book : theology is now more scientific, science 
 more religious. 
 
 Religion's great debt to Science : it has adopted its 
 main facts, and learnt its scientific methods. We have 
 jettisoned much useless lumber from our Theology, yet 
 we have not lost one single valuable asset, or yielded one 
 inch of our own true ground. We have only eliminated 
 from Christianity its alien elements and excrescences, while 
 retaining all developments of Christian Truth which are 
 developments and not perversions of Christ's Gospel. 
 
 B. Science maintains that the religious view of the 
 efficacy of prayer involves a flat denial of the Laws of 
 Nature. This is a world of Eternal Law, not Caprice. 
 The whole evolution of the world's history is pre-deter- 
 mined by laws that never change ; and naturally flows 
 onward in its orderly uniform obedience to these laws. 
 The idea that weather, health, character are dependent 
 on the will of a capricious Power, is utterly unscientific 
 and irrational : a survival of benighted days of ignorance. 
 So, therefore, is Prayer. 
 
 Materialist conception of the origin of the world, with 
 modern scientific hypotheses on the origin of life.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER. 
 
 A. 
 
 was a time, and this not long ago, well 
 within the memory of any of us, when Science 
 and Religion were at daggers drawn. In a former 
 chapter, we have already stated that, in the past, we 
 religionists were mainly to blame for this antagonism. 
 At every point where scientific discoveries in any way 
 clashed with our theological dogmas we flatly con- 
 tradicted every statement of science, called scientists 
 by very hard names, and would not let them alone. 
 For instance, when science in its slow, careful, exact, 
 methodical way read God's Book of Nature, spelt 
 out its meaning word by word and sentence by 
 sentence, and, as the result of its accumulated 
 verified evidence, told us that the world was 
 hundreds of millions of years old ; still more, when 
 Charles Darwin, in 1859, published his Origin of 
 Species and formulated his Law of Evolution, which 
 has revolutionized modern knowledge, theologians 
 denounced such language in no measured terms 
 as little short of blasphemy. And this persecution 
 of science, as a rule, was prompted by high motives. 
 In its own mind the Church was firmly convinced
 
 122 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 of the identity between the dogmas it imagined 
 to be true and all the highest interests of mankind. 
 In the eyes of a Church which interpreted the 
 Hebrew account of the Creation contained in the 
 first chapter of Genesis in the light of pure and 
 absolute history, and not as a parable, this new 
 scientific teaching was regarded as nothing if not 
 damnable heresy. Such heretics were to be promptly 
 stamped out, like a deadly plague, if mankind in 
 general was to be saved from the poison of its 
 contagion. The sanctity of the Bible, the Authority 
 of the Church, popular prejudices, sarcasm, perse- 
 cution were some of the weapons employed to an- 
 nihilate these scientific anarchists. 
 
 In self-defence, fighting for the very existence 
 of their cause and on behalf of the Truth, scientists 
 were forced to combine against their common op- 
 pressor, to assume the offensive and carry the war 
 into the enemy's own country. In its turn, science 
 openly and boldly assailed Theology and its dogmas, 
 and, as events have proved, for this we owe 
 science a heavy debt. When opponents enter the 
 arena, as in this case, firmly persuaded, on either 
 side, that they are fighting for a righteous cause, 
 the issue is never doubtful. The fittest and truest 
 ideas must survive, and the keener the battle, the 
 sooner will it be over. 
 
 Both sides were fighting for the Truth, that is 
 to say, for God. Theologians, backed by God's 
 Book of the Bible (which they often misread),
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 123 
 
 scientists backed by the Book of Nature, equally 
 God's Book, which they also often misread. Like 
 all special pleaders, each side overstated its case, 
 and looked upon its provisional readings of the 
 facts as final. This passage of arms between 
 them opened the eyes of both. They now see 
 that each is working at different sections of the 
 same problem, that, as yet, their solutions are very 
 unfinished. Both sides have come out of the battle 
 wiser but humbler men, more imbued with mutual 
 respect, if not with a feeling of actual comrade- 
 ship. 
 
 We religionists have had to recognize, in the light 
 of overwhelming revelations in the world of Nature 
 and in the face of scientific facts, that the Universe 
 is far larger and older than we had dreamed, and that 
 everywhere, throughout it, reigns unbroken order, 
 unchanging law, continuous development. We have 
 learnt the lesson. In 1860 adherents of Darwinism 
 were commonly denounced as blasphemers : in 1908 
 orthodox theologians regard evolution as an estab- 
 lished principle. When Queen Victoria came to the 
 throne, the year 4004 B.C. was generally accepted as 
 the date of the Creation of the world : now we 
 measure the age of the world by hundreds of mil- 
 lions of years a . 
 
 a Joly (from the ocean-salt), Geikie (from geological strata), Ruther- 
 ford (from minerals), calculate the earth's age at anything between 
 ninety and a thousand million years. v. Arrhenius, "Worlds in 
 the Making" (1908), pp. 42, 43.
 
 124 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 Not only have we learnt and adopted the main 
 facts of science, we have done better ; we have 
 learnt its methods. We have borrowed from science 
 its passion for accurate, methodical, painstaking 
 research, its courageous sincerity and reality, its 
 fearless zeal for truth. In every other department 
 we have seen the bases of knowledge tested, verified, 
 scientifically overhauled, and we have gladly sub- 
 jected our own theology to the same tests. Nowa- 
 days we neither ask nor wish that criticism should 
 pause or stay its progress even before the shrine 
 of the Christian Faith. We do not protest now 
 as of old and bid investigators leave at least 
 the Bible untouched. Living in an age dominated 
 by the modern scientific method of thought, we 
 welcome it, and theologians themselves are now 
 foremost in subjecting theology to the fierce search- 
 light of criticism to see if the truths they proclaim 
 are borne out and verified by the facts themselves. 
 We know that it is not by setting ourselves 
 against the scientific spirit of the age, but by fall- 
 ing into line with it so far as we honestly may, 
 that we are likely both to win the age to God, 
 and a wider knowledge of the Truth for our- 
 selves. We have too long presented the truth in 
 a hard dogmatic way, and it is to be feared that 
 the Church is partly answerable for much of 
 the scepticism of the world, because we have not 
 sufficiently endeavoured to show how reasonable 
 religion is, but have lagged behind the best thought
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 125 
 
 of our day. We are still proclaiming the truths of 
 Christianity in the dogmatic form, the mould of 
 thought, in which it was cast 1500 years ago; 
 a form admirably adapted to that age, not to ours. 
 
 The obvious retort : " we want the Christianity 
 not only of 1500 years ago, but of 1875 years ago, 
 if we are to be Christians at all," is as apparent 
 and convincing to us as to those who advance this 
 plea. But this is precisely what modern criticism 
 is offering us. Not all that calls itself Christianity 
 nowadays can show an equally good title to that 
 name. Like every organism, Christianity has often 
 to thrive amid alien environment and borrow from it 
 elements which are foreign to itself. Men of other 
 faiths have adopted Christianity, and introduced 
 into it ideas and practices which had their origin 
 in different surroundings and were intended to 
 minister to other needs. The human element has 
 crept into Christianity, and types of religious life 
 and thought which have little in common with the 
 original stock have been grafted on to it. We 
 must therefore go " back to Christ " and eliminate 
 these borrowed elements of local origin if we would 
 recover the Christianity which expresses the true 
 spirit, aims, principles and faith as we see them in 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 But this does not fetter and tie us down to the 
 exclusion of all later developments in Christianity, 
 provided only it be development and not perversion. 
 It is one of the chief glories of Christianity that
 
 126 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 it encourages independence of religious develop- 
 ment. It freely takes from other faiths the truth 
 and the beauty which they contain. And this is 
 not a mark of its weakness but of its strength, the 
 proof that it is indeed the universal religion which 
 it claims to be. What is meant by " going back to 
 Christ" is that in estimating the significance of 
 the development through which Christianity has 
 passed, we must admit nothing as truly Christian 
 which is inconsistent with Christ's own principles. 
 No type of faith which is alien to His Spirit and 
 inconsistent with His ideals can rightly shield itself 
 under the shelter of His Name. 
 
 Now this is precisely what the scientific method 
 of criticism is doing. Retracing the history of 
 Christianity to its true source, it has brought us at 
 last face to face with Jesus. It has brushed away 
 the excrescences and cobwebs which had gathered 
 upon God's Door during twenty centuries, and given 
 us back the Gospel of Christ, not in the jargon of 
 schoolmen, but in the language and thought of our 
 own day. 
 
 This is what is meant by saying that religion 
 owes a heavy debt to science for teaching theology 
 its scientific methods. We have been greatly the 
 gainers thereby all along the line. Our Bible and 
 our Faith now stand on a firmer basis than ever, and 
 mean a great deal more to us. A scientific study of 
 comparative religions has taught us that Christ is 
 not only the climax, " after Him there is none like
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 127 
 
 Him, nor any that were before Him " ; it has taught 
 us also that He is the fulfilment of all other prophets 
 and all other religions. He is alone ; yet every 
 atom of goodness and truth to be found elsewhere 
 finds itself and is found anew in Him. Science 
 has taught us that Nature is God's Book clearly 
 revealing Him, and " we have gone back to Nature 
 and humanity, and found that Christian thought, 
 like the fabled giant, must have its feet on earth 
 for strength and vitality, and yet be seated, with 
 Him Who is its Head, in Heavenly places: that the 
 more Christian Christian thought is, the more truly 
 natural and human will it be" (Bishop of South- 
 vvark). 
 
 But Theology, while wisely jettisoning some of its 
 useless lumber and borrowing many of the valuable 
 assets of science, has not in the very least capitulated 
 to the modern world, given up one single plank of 
 its true platform by way of compromise or adopted 
 alien principles. On the contrary, it has only taken 
 stock of its belongings, retained all the treasures that 
 it ever possessed, and they are vast, while it has 
 rejected the lumber which it had picked up by the 
 way, mistaking an artificial paste-gem for a true 
 diamond. So it is that now, as never before, Chris- 
 tianity stands on a foundation that cannot be shaken. 
 
 And if Theology has gained by borrowing the 
 scientific temper, men of science have returned the 
 compliment and borrowed the religious temper. 
 They, too, have learnt that if Theology is but the
 
 128 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 provisional reading of the facts of religion, a human, 
 imperfect and ever-varying interpretation of Scripture, 
 so it is with Science. It is also only a provisional 
 reading of the facts of Nature, with scientific inter- 
 pretations of the Universe differing in every age. 
 At one time Science spoke as if it carried the key 
 of the Universe in its pocket, now it knows better. 
 The Holy Spirit from Whom cometh every good and 
 every perfect gift has taught scientists, as well as 
 theologians, the need of that modesty, patience and 
 forbearance which means death to dogmatism and to 
 the tendency to judge and condemn those who differ 
 from us. 
 
 This is the religious temper which the Holy Spirit 
 is diffusing widely to-day before our eyes. " Men's 
 minds are more and more set towards the spiritual, 
 even when they are set away from Christianity. 
 Materialism has not, for the minds of our generation, 
 the strength or the attractiveness that it once had. 
 Science displays in an unprecedented way the witness 
 of Nature to the wisdom of God " (Lambeth Con- 
 ference Encyclical, 1908). 
 
 At present Science and Religion have not yet 
 joined hands, one day they will. Their solutions of 
 their respective problems are still too incomplete. 
 Even a sincere attempt to bring the very unfinished 
 scientific theories of the present day into perfect accord 
 with the equally unfinished theological interpretations 
 of the Universe of the present day, is bound to fail. 
 Both must continue at their respective tasks honestly
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 129 
 
 and courageously for many a day, but a finish and 
 a harmony there will be. If God is conducting the 
 education of the human race, it encourages the hope 
 that, as knowledge grows from more to more, the 
 theories of science and the interpretation of theology 
 may one day "make one music as before but vaster." 
 Then misunderstandings between the two will be 
 impossible, now they seem inevitable. Science and 
 Religion are converging towards the same goal, but 
 still wide apart. They still fight : but now they 
 honestly shake hands before they fight, and after. 
 
 B. 
 
 One of the chief points on which Science and 
 Theology can not agree is Prayer. Very roughly 
 stated, the theologian says, " All prayer is heard," 
 the scientist, " No prayer is heard." 
 
 And, undoubtedly, science does raise a very heavy 
 indictment against answers to prayer, as we under- 
 stand them, basing its whole argument on purely 
 scientific grounds. So plausible is the plea of the 
 scientific objector to the efficacy of prayer that many 
 orthodox believers even are more than half convinced 
 by their arguments. 
 
 The great scientific plea against prayer is that 
 belief in the efficacy of prayer involves an ignorance, 
 a denial, a flat contradiction of the universal Laws 
 of Nature. It is asking God to suspend or violate 
 these eternal laws, these well-known fixed and in- 
 
 K
 
 130 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 variable modes in which He rules the universe and 
 the affairs of men, to work a miracle, in fact, in order 
 to show favour to this man or that. This, even God, 
 if there be a God, cannot do. 
 
 This vast universe, they maintain, is not ruled by 
 Caprice. Everywhere throughout it there is evident 
 unbroken order, unchanging law, continuous develop- 
 ment. Everything, man included, is determined by 
 laws that never change, or can change. These eternal 
 Laws of Nature act so truly, uniformly and impar- 
 tially that if we could suppose an absolutely wise 
 man to have been present at the moment of Crea- 
 tion, if there ever was such a moment b , he could, 
 from what lay there before him, and from his absolute 
 knowledge of the natural laws and forces at work 
 upon this primal matter itself, have foretold precisely 
 what the Universe would actually be like millions 
 upon millions of years later in this year of grace 
 1908 A.D. From the very nature of the case, all its 
 subsequent development was already contained in this 
 embryonic matter as the oak is in the little acorn. 
 
 Just as a great naturalist like Huxley or Owen 
 can tell, merely by examining the tooth of a creature 
 belonging to some long-extinct race, not only what 
 the characteristics of that race were, the whole form 
 and nature of that animal, but the general nature of 
 
 b To the end of this Chapter, we are, of course, stating the case 
 from the materialistic point of view, not our own. To us this seemed 
 obvious, till a friendly critic fancied we were giving expression to 
 eur own views. Hence this caution.
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 131 
 
 the scenery amid which such creatures lived : even 
 so could our supposed absolutely wise man easily 
 have read in the primordial embryonic matter before 
 him the whole subsequent evolution of the world 
 from beginning to end. The origin of nebulae, the 
 making of worlds, the growth of life, everything 
 would have been already written there as in an open 
 book. He would have had a vision of the earth as 
 we see it now, with every tree, and animal, and man 
 upon it, down to the minutest detail of its history c . 
 
 God, if there be a God, not only created the first 
 elementary substance perfect in itself, He subjected 
 it to forces and laws which are equally perfect. God 
 is not a God of caprice and confusion, but of law 
 and order. His laws are so ordered that they work 
 of themselves, reward of themselves, punish of them- 
 selves. They are uniform, and therefore impartial. 
 They never show any favouritism, neither do they 
 ever make a mistake or overlook foolish mistakes in 
 others. They are so perfect that not even God can 
 
 c " A single grain of sand or a drop of water must convey to an 
 Omniscient and Omnipresent Being the history of the whole world 
 of which it forms part. Nay, why should we pause here ? The his- 
 tory of that world is in truth bound up so intimately with the history 
 of the Universe, that the grain of sand or drop of water conveys not 
 only the history of the world, but with equal completeness the history 
 of the whole Universe. In fact, if we consider the matter attentively, 
 we see that there cannot be a single atom throughout space which 
 could have attained its present exact position and state, had the 
 history of any part of the Universe, however insignificant, been 
 otherwise than it has actually been, in even the minutest degree." 
 (Proctor, "Other Worlds than Ours.")
 
 132 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 alter them now. He made them "very good," as 
 your own Bible says, at the outset. Any alteration 
 in them would imply that there was something in 
 them capable of improvement, something amiss. 
 Even God Himself cannot now change His Mind, 
 for this would imply caprice and imperfection on His 
 part. "God is not a man that He should repent" 
 and this- is what prayer asks Him to do. 
 
 Time was when it was pardonable that men should 
 pray for rain or for fine weather, for health or abund- 
 ant harvests ; but it is no longer rational now that 
 the scientific idea of law is so clear. A known law 
 of Nature is a declaration of the Will of whatever 
 Power governs the universe. We know that rain is 
 the necessary result of absolutely defined atmospheric 
 laws which render it inevitable. It is the same with 
 health and disease, and even of character. They are 
 determined for us by clearly defined physiological and 
 psychological laws respectively. The idea that rain,, 
 and health, and character are dependent on the will of 
 a capricious Being who can give or withhold them at 
 His pleasure, according as His creatures remember to 
 ask for them or forget so to do, is utterly unscientific 
 and irrational. It belongs to the days when broad 
 margins of human life and thought lay in a gross, 
 darkness, and earthquakes, comets, pestilences were 
 angels sent to punish men in God's anger. Now we 
 know that earthquakes, upheavals and submersions 
 of whole continents, and so forth, are all produced 
 naturally by the same gradual and apparently in-
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 133 
 
 significant causes which we daily see at work now 
 before our very eyes. " Chance " or " acts of pro- 
 vidence" are only other words for our ignorance. In 
 everything, however inexplicable it may seem to us 
 as yet, Nature works according to regular, fixed, in- 
 variable methods. In time we shall spell them all 
 out, and find them so simple that we shall be amazed 
 we did not see it all along. There is in everything 
 a deliberately mapped-out plan. In the thought of 
 Nature, the seed is already the flower, and animal 
 life in its very lowest form has man as its final goal. 
 All is exactly as was predetermined by the Laws of 
 Nature which are eternal. 
 
 Now that ignorance has given place to knowledge 
 in men's minds, confusion to law and order, darkness 
 to light, let us no longer indulge the foolish dream 
 that man's weak and ignorant prayers can avail to 
 work impossible miracles. If there be a God, it is an 
 impertinence and an insult to His Infinite perfection 
 and wisdom to ask Him to suspend or violate His 
 own laws. It is telling Him that He has not arranged 
 everything for the best, offering our counsel, and 
 suggesting a better way than His own. 
 
 If it is to rain, it will rain. Sixty millions of 
 years ago, it was already written in the phenomena 
 of the then existing universe whether rain should 
 fall yesterday, to-morrow or a thousand years hence. 
 So with health ; it is stupid and impertinent on our 
 part to break the eternal laws of health and then 
 ask God to override them to save us from our own
 
 134 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 folly. Nature's laws punish and reward of them- 
 selves : they make no mistakes themselves, and 
 overlook none in others. We are here to learn these 
 laws and then obey them, or pay the penalty. It 
 is well that things are so ordered, for our very 
 punishments are blessings in disguise. They form 
 the school in which mankind is being slowly trained 
 in a practical and salutary way. 
 
 Either our prayers are in harmony with this 
 eternal Plan, or they are not. If they are, we need 
 not pray, for what we are asking will happen any- 
 how. If they are not, the eternal Laws, and not 
 we, will prevail, so our prayers are equally useless. 
 Therefore, in either case we are wasting our breath. 
 The whole theory of the efficacy of prayer is an 
 exploded fiction, a survival of superstitious days. 
 If we are to have a creed, let it be a creed which 
 is at least on a level with man's best intelligence ; 
 a creed which further enquiry and clearer light will 
 strengthen and not destroy. 
 
 In a word, says science, it is in reality as foolish 
 to pray for rain or fine weather as it would be to 
 pray that the sun should set at noonday. It is as 
 foolish to pray for the healing of disease, or for daily 
 bread, as it is to pray for rain or fine weather. It is 
 as foolish to pray for a pure heart, or for peace 
 of mind, as it is to pray for health in sickness or 
 daily bread. All the events which have occurred, 
 are now occurring, or will ever occur are the simple 
 results of the laws of cause and effect. They are
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 135 
 
 absolutely dependent on the working of the simple 
 Laws of Nature. These it is our plain duty as 
 rational men to investigate, and as rational men to 
 obey, if we would enjoy health and happiness. Thus 
 alone can we attain either. 
 
 In our reply, we shall have to refer so constantly 
 to the materialist conception of the evolution of the 
 world, that it may be as well to give a brief sketch 
 of it here. Shortly stated it is somewhat as fol- 
 lows d : 
 
 " This world of ours was once a floating fiery 
 cloud, a nebula or mist, consisting of a homogeneous 
 mass of atoms, the molecules of which were kept 
 asunder by excessive heat. Then came a period 
 when the heat declined, and when the atoms, obey- 
 ing their innate desires, rushed to one another, 
 and concentrating, formed, amongst others, our sun, 
 which, at first, practically filled the solar world 
 But as the sun cooled, and contracted, and rotated, 
 it became a sphere in the centre of our world, 
 and cast off planets. Our little planet, the earth, 
 cooled quickly e , shrank in size, and wrinkled. From 
 
 d Winwood Reade, " The Martyrdom of Man." We have selected 
 him for many reasons : (i) He is clear and lucid, and (subject to 
 a few corrections) he fairly states the materialistic views of the days 
 when scientific objections to prayer were formulated. (2) His book 
 sold by tens of thousands, and so his ideas were sown broadcast, and 
 appealed more to the popular mind than purely scientific works. 
 (3) Very few additional notes bring him up to date. 
 
 e " If we start with 273 (C) as absolute zero, and the sun's tem- 
 perature as 10,000, and adopt the view that our earth assumed its
 
 136 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 a glowing globe of gas, it became a ball of liquid 
 fire, enveloped in a smoky cloud. Close over the 
 surface, vapour of salt was suspended in the air; 
 next, a layer of carbonic acid gas : next oxygen 
 and nitrogen, and vapour of water, or steam'. 
 After long epochs, the surface of the globe cooled, 
 and flakes of solid matter floated on its molten 
 sea of fire. Thin flakes caked together and formed 
 a film. In time, this film hardened and thickened, 
 but subterranean eruptions often ripped it open and 
 poured forth masses of lava, and heaps of ashes e . 
 Gradually the salt above the surface of the earth con- 
 densed and fell like snow upon the earth, several feet 
 deep (?). The oceans lying overhead h , in the layers 
 above described, then descended and sea appeared. 
 From the shape, the attitude and revolutions of our 
 planet resulted then, as now, an unequal distribution 
 of the sun's heat, and winds arose in the air ; 
 currents, in the sea ; the sun sucked up the waters 
 of the sea ; rain-clouds were formed, and fresh water 
 was bestowed upon the land. The underground 
 
 first crust at about 1000, Kelvin has calculated it would not take 
 more than 100 years before the crust's temperature would sink to 
 100 (212 Fahr. ), when low organisms could exist." Arrhenius, 
 " Worlds in the Making," pp. 40 and 89. 
 
 ' "The atmosphere of the earth immediately after the formation 
 of the earth-crust contained some oxygen, besides much nitrogen, car- 
 bonic acid and water vapour." (Ibid., pp. 59, 60, where the modern 
 scientific analysis of the then atmosphere is fully given.) 
 
 8 cf. Arrhenius, chap. i. and pp. 54 and 55. 
 
 h " At 365 water-vapour can first be condensed to liquid water." 
 Ibid., p. 42.
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 137 
 
 fires assisted the planet's growth by transforming 
 the soils into crystalline structures, and by raising 
 the rocks thus altered to the surface." We can 
 readily follow this evolution thus far, but here we 
 are asked to accept a miracle greater than any re- 
 corded in the Bible. " When the thick cloud or veil, 
 which, owing to the excessive heat, had hitherto 
 enveloped the earth, lifted, now that the earth had 
 cooled, then the sunlight was .at last able to enter 
 the turbid waters of the primeval sea, and an 
 interesting event took place. The earth became big 
 with young. There are always in water a multitude 
 of specks which are usually minute fragments of 
 soil. But now appeared certain specks which, 
 though they resembled the others, possessed certain 
 properties of a very peculiar kind. First they 
 brought forth little specks, precise copies of them- 
 selves. And secondly they performed in their own 
 persons elaborate chemical operations. Imbibing 
 water and air, they manufactured those elements, 
 with the assistance of the solar rays, into the com- 
 pounds of which their own bodies were composed, 
 giving back to the water those components which 
 they did not require. 
 
 And then appeared other little specks which 
 swallowed up the first, and manufactured them 
 into compounds more complex still, of which they, 
 the second-comers, were composed. 
 
 The first kind of specks were embryonic plants. 
 The second were embryonic animals. And in both
 
 138 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 cases their life came from solar heat. Life, in 
 fact, is bottled sunshine. These dots of animated 
 jelly, without any form or figure, swimming uncon- 
 sciously in the primeval sea, were the ancestors 
 of man V 
 
 This was written in 1875 by a clever popular 
 writer on scientific matters, but it fairly represents 
 the views of his day as held by materialists. Modern 
 science has, however, abandoned many cosmogonic 
 hypotheses and adopted new ones in the last thirty 
 years. 
 
 Thus, Prof. Arrhenius, in his famous recent book 
 "Worlds in the Making" (1908) throws discredit 
 on Herschel's suggestion of the evolution of stellar 
 nebulae, and Laplace's thesis concerning the formation 
 of the solar system out of the universal nebula ; 
 as well as Kant's idea of the origin of the universe 
 from an original chaos of stationary dust. " The 
 laws of mechanics teach that no rotation can be 
 
 1 In no flippant mood, very much the reverse, we must quote these 
 lines (who wrote them ? ) : they so exactly represent the two opposed 
 points of view : 
 
 A fire-mist and a planet, 
 
 A crystal and a shell, 
 
 A jelly-fish and a saurian. 
 
 And caves where cave-men dwell ; 
 
 Then a sense of law and beauty, 
 
 And a face turned from the clod 
 
 Some call it Evolution, 
 
 And others call it God.
 
 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 139- 
 
 set up in a body which is originally stationary, by 
 the influence of a central force like gravitation." 
 
 According to Arrhenius, the modern idea seems 
 to be that there never was an origin of the Universe, 
 but that nebulae have originated from suns, and 
 suns from nebulae from all eternity, and will thus 
 continue in an eternal cycle, in which there is 
 neither beginning nor end. " The recognition of the 
 indestructibility of energy," says he, " forces this con- 
 clusion upon one. When energy is 'degraded' (loss 
 of heat) in bodies which are in the solar state, the 
 energy is 'elevated,' raised to a higher level, in 
 bodies which are in a nebular state : so there is 
 an eternal balance of gain and loss, world without: 
 end." 
 
 The idea of " spontaneous generation " is now 
 entirely given up as an explanation of the origin 
 of life on the earth. Lord Kelvin and others have 
 shown that inorganic matter can never produce 
 organic life. All experiments to prove spontaneous 
 generation have failed k . 
 
 k If spontaneous generation were proved to-morrow, the theologian 
 would gladly accept it. To Theology, this would only be a restate- 
 ment of Gen. ii. 7 : "God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
 and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living 
 soul." Indeed, the theologian would welcome a discovery that 
 bridged the chasm between matter and life, and evolved all from one 
 primordial substance. It would be his ideal of Divine Evolution with 
 a God of Love behind it as its driving-power. What the theologian 
 will not concede is the eternity of self-existent matter. " For nature, 
 although men ascribe to it wisdom and power, and personify it as 
 if it were a goddess, is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God."
 
 140 Scientific Objections to Prayer. 
 
 Helmholtz' hypothesis is now generally adopted by 
 scientists : " It seems to me a perfectly just scientific 
 procedure if we, after the failure of all our attempts 
 to produce organisms from lifeless matter, put the 
 question, whether life has had a beginning at all, 
 or whether it is not as old as matter and whether 
 seeds have not been carried from one planet to 
 another and have developed everywhere where they 
 have fallen on a fertile soil." (1871 ! .) 
 
 Arrhenius endorses this hypothesis of panspermia, 
 and improves on it. He is " convinced that the 
 Universe in its essence has always been what it 
 is now. Matter, energy and life have only varied 
 as to shape and position in space m ." 
 
 1 Sir Wm. Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) endorsed this view in his 
 presidential address to the British Association at Edinburgh in 1871. 
 
 m Crude and hypothetical as his theory may seem, thus concinctly "/ 
 stated, Arrhenius makes out an extremely strong and rational case 
 for his Cosmogony. His theory of the evolution of the Universe, his 
 thesis that from all eternity nebulas may have originated from suns, 
 and suns from nebulas, his thermodynamic explanation of the eternal 
 indestructibility of heat and energy, are exceedingly clever and ably 
 advocated. In our scientific ignorance, we find his theory of pan- 
 spermia less convincing.
 
 CHAPTER VI. PART I. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS EXAMINED.
 
 Argument. 
 
 HAS materialism lost, for our generation, the attractive- 
 ness it once had ? Summary of Materialist and Theist 
 creeds. Both cannot be right : which is wrong ? The 
 purely apologetic attitude of theist disputants an error of 
 judgment prejudicial to religion's best interests. Immense 
 and unfair advantage of a critic over an apologist. Weak- 
 ness of our opponents' position in their treatment of life 
 as if it were subject to the same inelastic laws as inorganic 
 matter. It ignores consciousness, a creative, potent, dis- 
 turbing factor. Consciousness denned. "The chasm 
 between consciousness and brain-action impassable " (Tyn- 
 dall). Ignoring consciousness, the mechanical application 
 of Evolution and Laws of Nature to conscious living organ- 
 isms signally breaks down. Therefore, these two chief 
 weapons of Materialists in their attack on Theists become 
 useless. Wallace, Darwin, Huxley, and modern evolution- 
 ists admit this intrinsic flaw in Evolution, as ordinarily 
 interpreted. Evolution, plus consciousness behind it, quite 
 adequate to solution of Universe-problem, and not ir- 
 reconcilable with development of consciousness and 
 reason from lowest organic forms right up to man. Illus- 
 tration. "All is one scheme, and God is the meaning 
 of it."
 
 CHAPTER VI \ PART I. 
 
 I 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS EXAMINED. 
 A. 
 
 N the preceding chapter we have endeavoured 
 to state the scientific objections to the efficacy 
 of prayer as fairly, strongly and candidly as even 
 our critics could wish. 
 
 We also readily and gratefully admit that all 
 modern scientists do not endorse such purely mate- 
 rialistic views as these. At the Pan-Anglican Con- 
 gress Mr. Balfour said : 
 
 " In this matter, in my own lifetime, I have seen 
 a great change. I remember the day when it was thought 
 by a large school that there was a fundamental conflict 
 between the religious aspect of the world and the scientific, 
 and that between the two there could be no compromise. 
 The people of whom I speak, and of whom there are many 
 representatives still amongst us, imagined that science was 
 founded upon experience and induction, and that religion 
 represented a last and dying phase of history which went 
 back, and was lost among the early and savage super- 
 stitions of mankind. They supposed that compromises 
 were doomed to early extinction, and that the sphere 
 of science would eat into that of religion as the ocean 
 
 !l The argument of pages 155 200, is mainly scientific and psycho- 
 logical. Readers who do not care for a purely academic treatment 
 of the subject will find the alternative Chapter VII. more satisfactory 
 and convincing.
 
 144 Scientific Objections ezamintd. 
 
 eats into some coast-line, gradually eroding it, and 
 that, though a retaining wall might be put up here 
 and there, the ultimate result was inevitable, a result 
 which would compel us to look out upon the universe, 
 of which mankind is a temporary citizen, as merely 
 a mechanical state of facts, owning no intelligent Creator, 
 leading to no great end. For my own part, I believe 
 that view, however widely it may yet be held among 
 certain sections of our fellow-countrymen, is already an- 
 tiquated, that it is of the past, and that it is not destined 
 to survive to trouble us. ... Indeed, the growth of science 
 has made it easier to believe that the world had a 
 rational and benevolent Creator." 
 
 At the same Congress, another scientist, Mr. 
 Searle, lecturer in experimental physics at Cam- 
 bridge, contradicted the modern hypothesis which 
 we quoted at the end of our last Chapter, viz., that 
 matter, energy and life are eternal, and have only 
 varied as to shape and position in space. Mr. Searle's 
 statement is cited in full because it supplies an 
 answer to a certain portion of the scientific indict- 
 ment which none but a scientist is in a position 
 to refute : 
 
 "If there was no motion in the universe, we could 
 set no limit to its age, past and future : but modern 
 investigations show such a view to be untenable. While 
 the total amount of energy remains unchanged, there 
 is a progressive diminution in its availability, and when 
 the further distribution of energy ceases to be possible, 
 the universe will be physically and chemically inert : 
 in other words, dead. Tracing the operation of physical 
 laws backwards, we find greater and greater availability
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 145 
 
 ot energy. But there is a limit to this process, for the 
 total sum_jof energy is limited. Only a finite number 
 of years have elapsed since the creation of the Universe. 
 
 Between life and matter there is evidently a profound 
 difference. Life involves individuality of a kind not pos- 
 sessed by a molecule. The life of an individual preserves its 
 identity, though the body which it controls is never 
 composed of the same molecules for two minutes together. 
 Experiments lead to the conviction that, in the present 
 order of things, the linking of life with matter can only 
 arise from the action of living organisms, and thus we 
 reach the conception that living organisms did not appear 
 on the earth as the unaided result of actions between mere 
 molecules. The conclusion is that the first living organisms 
 were created b . " 
 
 We shall now attempt to examine the scientific 
 objections to prayer raised in the last chapter, for 
 they are still very much alive even now. It may 
 be true that " Materialism has not, for our gene- 
 ration, the strength or attractiveness that once 
 it had " (Lambeth Encyclical) ; it may be equally 
 true that "it is a cruel libel to say that scientific 
 men are naturally inclined to disbelief, since in 
 the physical laboratories of this country probably 
 
 b cf. Lord Kelvin: "Science brings a vast mass of inductive evi- 
 dence against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation. Dead matter 
 cannot become living matter without coming under the influence of 
 matter previously alive. This seems to me as sure a teaching of 
 science as the law of gravitation" (quoted by Arrhenius, "Worlds 
 in the Making," p. 216). It is only fair to add that Arrhenius in 
 the same book, pp. 191 230, very plausibly attempts to answer 
 Mr. Searle's argument. But see page 139 and footnote to it. 
 
 L
 
 146 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 a larger proportion of active Christian men could be 
 found than in any kind of business " (Searle) ; yet 
 even Mr. Balfour has to own " there are still many 
 representatives of the materialistic school amongst 
 us." 
 
 More than this, even if we grant that the force 
 of materialistic objections to prayer and to religion 
 generally is fast dying and all but spent in the eyes 
 of deeply thinking men, the oft - refuted scientific 
 arguments so ably advanced by Tyndall and Galton, 
 in connection with the celebrated " Hospital Test " 
 case, still have an immense hold on the popular 
 imagination. New ideas, be they true or false, may 
 require a long time to take deep root in the mind 
 of the " man in the street," but when once they 
 have fairly struck root, it is all but impossible to 
 eradicate them. And the worst of it is that these 
 are the very people who seldom grasp the distinction 
 between a hypothesis and a fact. Our modern 
 education has universalized a thin veneer of shallow 
 information upon every subject under the sun, 
 information mostly got from a pet newspaper, so 
 that everyone has an opinion on all subjects, few 
 a conviction on any. For such persons, materialism 
 with its dogmatic pronouncements on great ques- 
 tions, has a peculiar fascination, and an observant 
 student of human nature will find that it still ap- 
 peals forcibly to many more minds than we are 
 apt to imagine. " It, being dead, yet speaketh." 
 
 It is, therefore, now as much as ever, the bounden
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 147 
 
 duty of those who dissent from materialism to state 
 its case as strongly and candidly as they can, to 
 formulate their objections, to set forth their own 
 positive beliefs in a straightforward and intelligible 
 way. 
 
 The question at issue is one which touches the 
 deepest interests of men ; it is an essentially prac- 
 tical, a vital question, deeply. influencing men's lives. 
 There are controversies of a purely theoretical nature 
 where it is quite right to suspend one's judgment ; 
 where it is quite reasonable to assume any one of 
 three attitudes belief, disbelief, or agnosticism. 
 But let the question once pass from the region of 
 theory to that of practice, and you can no longer 
 leave the matter undecided. The religious contro- 
 versy falls under this category. Our very lives de- 
 pend on the answer we give to the question, " Is 
 there a God, or is there no God ? " To accept the 
 view, for instance, that the universe is every mo- 
 ment guided by a good God is to accept a principle 
 according to which the whole length and breadth 
 of a man's experience must henceforth be conformed. 
 In precisely the same way, to accept the view that 
 there is no God, but only blind unconscious Force 
 directing the Universe, is again to accept a principle 
 which must wield an immense influence on any 
 person who adopts such a theory. Let a man hold 
 either of these views, and to him nothing is as it 
 would be if he held the other. Neither the stars 
 in their courses, nor the moral law in the heart ;
 
 148 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 neither God, his neighbour, nor himself retains "the 
 values under the one which they hold under the 
 other. 
 
 Therefore to any one of us the question at issue 
 between the two great opposing schools of thought 
 is not a matter of indifference, very far from it. To 
 forsake the one interpretation of the universe and 
 adopt the other literally creates a new moral world. 
 Nothing is left as before. Our new creed changes 
 whatever it touches as if by magic into a new thing,, 
 all our values are altered, and the whole tenor of 
 our life and character is transfigured. 
 
 If this is so, then, to halt between two opinions 
 is suicidal. We must make up our minds and take 
 a definite stand : " if the Lord be God, follow Him : 
 if Baal be God, then follow him." 
 
 Now what are the two interpretations of the 
 Universe between which we have to make our 
 choice ? 
 
 There is, to begin with, Materialism. It prac- 
 tically says : " There is no God. The only God c is 
 Force or Energy, an eternal Force which governs 
 the universe according to the fixed and invariable 
 modes in which it manifests itself, the Laws of 
 Nature. These laws are uniform, and, therefore, 
 impartial. Learn them, obey them, or it will be 
 all the worse for you. All prayer is a waste of 
 
 c This paradox has been criticized. Of course, we mean "There 
 is no personal God in the sense of Creator. In the sense of First 
 Cause, God is but Force or energy."
 
 'Scientific Objections examined. 149 
 
 breath, for you cannot coax these unchangeable laws 
 and forces to alter their prescribed course. All is 
 predetermined, evolving according to a clearly-de- 
 fined plan, and no power in heaven or earth can 
 change what is to be. Life is a struggle for ex- 
 istence, and in this struggle the fittest survive. It 
 is simply through more loyal obedience to the Laws 
 of Nature, through better adaptation to his surround- 
 ings that man has developed better than his fellow- 
 animals and come to the top. In a sense he is 
 Nature's crown, but he is, after all, a mere speck. 
 The universe is so great that the life of a single 
 man belongs to the minute details of Nature : we 
 are, in her sight, as the rain-drop in the sky. 
 Whether a man lives, or whether a man dies, is as 
 much a matter of indifference to Nature as whether 
 a rain-drop falls upon a field and feeds a blade of 
 grass, or falls upon a stone and is dried to death. 
 The soul is not immortal. There are no rewards 
 and punishments in a future state. The only Hea- 
 ven that lies before us is the perfectibility of Hu- 
 manity. This is man's only rational creed. 
 
 " Take the life of any single man, and it is a mean- \ 
 ingless farce. Survey mankind as One, and there 
 you have an immortal Being, and a glorious future 
 life, a Heaven in the ages far away. Not for us 
 individuals is this immortality, this Heaven, but for 
 the One, the Humanity, of whom we are the in- 
 significant units. Though we perish, Humanity 
 never dies, but grows from age to age more and
 
 150 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 more noble, slowly evolving, ripening unto per- 
 fection. Our religion is Humanity. Our Faith is 
 the perfectibility of Man. We shall never see this 
 Heaven in our lifetime ; indeed, in the struggle to 
 reach this goal, for us and for countless generations 
 after us there must be many a sorrow, many a 
 labour, many a tear, for it is ordained that man- 
 kind should be elevated by misfortune, and that 
 happiness should grow out of misery and pain. In 
 each generation the human race has had to suffer 
 and struggle that their children might profit by 
 their woes. Our own present prosperity is founded 
 on the agonies of the past. We are better off than 
 were our fathers. Is it, therefore, unjust that we 
 should suffer for the benefit of those who are to 
 come?" 
 
 Such is the gospel of Materialism : and what does 
 Theism preach ? This is its creed : "There is a living 
 personal God Who created the Universe ; a God 
 Who is not only an Almighty Force, a supreme 
 Intelligence, but a loving Heart. He did not 
 merely create the Universe, set the world perfectly 
 agoing, subjecting it to laws so admirably ordained 
 that even He cannot now interfere with them, and 
 then leave it to work out its own evolution. God's 
 universe is no mere clock-work self-directing ma- 
 chine. Moment by moment God is guiding His 
 Universe. ' In Him, we and all things live, and 
 move and have our being,' for the world is one 
 Whole and God is the meaning of it. It is His
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 151 
 
 Presence in it that gives the Universe its unity and 
 its life. But God is not merely a fine name for the 
 Universe ; He is not only indwelling in it, but im- 
 measurably greater and higher than anything He 
 has made, and on Him all things absolutely depend. 
 
 " Above all, this supreme, almighty, all-wise, loving 
 and eternal God is our Father, and we are His 
 children, His spirit-children. Therefore, far from 
 prayer being a waste of breath, it is our very life- 
 blood, the one channel through which our thirsty 
 soul draws its living waters from the Fountain-Head. 
 More than this, not only is prayer a communion and 
 reunion of the child-soul with the Father-Soul, it 
 is a potent factor with God. It moves the Hand 
 that moves the Universe. God wants us His children 
 to be fellow-workers together with Him in His great 
 Purpose of establishing His Kingdom of Love on 
 earth. But we are free moral agents, and He wants 
 us to co-operate with Him of our own freewill and 
 accord. Prayer is the way in which we consent to 
 fall into line with our Father's -Will. So it is that 
 even God will not, cannot dispense with our prayers. 
 
 " There is a future life, for the human soul is as 
 immortal as the Father-Soul from Which it sprang. 
 
 " It is not true that the life of even one single man 
 is a meaningless farce. Man is not as unimportant 
 as a rain-drop. ' Ye are of more value than many 
 sparrows. 1 Each child of God is as precious in His 
 eyes as if he were the one and only object of God's 
 Providence. True, man is a mere speck in com-
 
 152 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 parison with the sun, moon, and stars, but mere 
 bulk is not the test of value in God's sight. A fly 
 to God is nobler than a mountain, and man, His 
 child, He has crowned with glory : ' Thou hast 
 made him but little lower than the angels, and 
 coverest him with glory and honour : Thou madest 
 him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands.' 
 Man is to God as ' the apple of His eye.' 
 
 " Suffering is a mysterious fact, it is true, but God 
 has shown us in Himself, when He revealed Him- 
 self to us in the fulness of His Godhead in Christ, 
 that only through suffering can we be made perfect. 
 Even as Christ Himself only achieved His victory 
 through the Cross, so it is with us. It is through 
 the cross of suffering, and especially of self-sacrific- 
 ing suffering, that we conquer. The trials which 
 even a S. Paul called ' a messenger of Satan sent 
 to buffet him/ are really angels of God's Love sent 
 to meet us on our way, guiding true souls unto a 
 high and splendid perfection. " Our light afflictions, 
 which are but for a moment, work out for us an 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
 
 Now here are two readings of the same facts, and 
 they are as wide apart as the poles. One includes 
 God in the Universe, the other excludes Him, and, 
 as we have seen, according as we accept the one 
 creed or the other, the effect on our life and char- 
 acter will be immensely different. A principle is 
 involved in our decision which determines our atti-
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 153 
 
 tude towards everything that enters into our life- 
 experience. Our choice creates for us the world 
 in which we mean to live henceforth : it colours our 
 view of life and death, sin and virtue; there is no- 
 thing which it does not transfigure. 
 
 Both Materialist and Theist cannot be right. 
 Which is wrong, and where is the flaw ? Scientists 
 are spelling their interpretation of God's Universe 
 out of God's own Book of Nature ; we are reading 
 ours from God's other Book, the Bible. If (as we 
 "believe) there is a God, both interpretations should 
 agree, yet they do not. 
 
 Some will suggest readily enough : " Take your 
 answer from the Bible." But from the very nature 
 of the case, Scripture-proofs are not admissible here. 
 Scientists do not believe in the Revelation of the 
 Bible, and they would naturally contend that an 
 appeal to the Bible involved the fallacy of taking 
 for granted the very point which has to be proved. 
 
 For the time being, therefore, Theists consent to 
 put Revelation aside, and to meet Materialists on 
 neutral ground. Each side states its case, which 
 has to be judged by the impartial audience on its 
 own merits. From a purely rational point of view, 
 each of the opposing schools recognizes the fact that 
 its solution of the problem is still incomplete, but 
 each professes to offer a thoroughly workable hy- 
 pothesis which covers all the facts with which it 
 has to deal. Each offers a master-key for the many 
 locked secrets of the universe, and promises a reve-
 
 154 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 lation of order in what seems discord and chaos. 
 Which hypothesis is the more reasonable ? 
 
 B. 
 
 We waive, for the moment, all appeal to Holy 
 Scripture, and we meet our critics on neutral ground, 
 but hitherto our opponents have enjoyed an immense 
 advantage which we refuse any longer to concede. 
 Theists have too long been content to assume the 
 character of mere apologists, that is to say, to remain 
 purely on the defensive while our opponents have 
 been allowed to adopt the far more advantageous 
 position of assailants. 
 
 In argument, as in actual strategy, he who carries 
 the war into the enemy's country starts from the 
 outset with the odds immensely in his favour. Our 
 opponents have cleverly realized this ; they have 
 boldly attacked the weak places of our stronghold, 
 often carried them by assault, pointed out our failure 
 and claimed the victory. They have never been 
 attacked themselves, so they have had no position to 
 defend, and onlookers have naturally concluded that 
 the materialist position was ever so much stronger 
 than our own. 
 
 On principle, therefore, we decline to accept the 
 disadvantageous position of mere apologists, com- 
 pelled to prove that the whole of our assertions are 
 true, while our critics have only to prove that some of 
 our statements do not cover the facts. We insist 
 that they have a position of their own to defend which
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 155. 
 
 is no more impregnable than ours. We admit that 
 our solution of the Universe-riddle is only provisional 
 and still unfinished, but they are in precisely the same 
 plight. Why, then, should we continue to allow our 
 position to appear, in the eyes of men of the world, 
 much weaker than it really is by permitting our critics 
 to point out its weak spots while we never criticize 
 theirs ? 
 
 A tu qnoque may not be worth much ; but if we can 
 prove that the materialistic hypothesis is no stronger, 
 indeed far weaker than our own ; that it does not 
 cover the facts of the universe by any means as 
 satisfactorily as the Theistic view ; we shall inspire 
 our own rank and file with fresh enthusiasm, put new 
 heart and life into the troubled and perplexed, and 
 prove to the world at large that scientists have not 
 made out their case nearly as fully as they imagined. 
 
 Scientists pin their faith to the infallibility of the 
 Law of Evolution, the Laws of Nature, and the 
 light of human reason. On the strength of these 
 shibboleths they claim to have solved the riddle of 
 the Universe. 
 
 We boldly question the infallibility of every single 
 one of these three fundamental principles of theirs. 
 In a sense, they are true principles, but only subject 
 to very many reservations and qualifications. 
 
 Let us explain our meaning. Science deals with 
 natural facts. The world of inorganic matter is 
 its special province. There it has discovered and
 
 156 ' Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 classified laws which hold good uniformly in the 
 physical world, the Laws of Nature. More than 
 this, science has carefully studied these Laws, and 
 enabled man to achieve a wondrous mastery over 
 Nature by showing him how to harness these Laws 
 to do his bidding. In a word, science has conquered 
 Nature by obeying her. 
 
 Equally with scientists we acknowledge these 
 Laws of Nature. We maintain that they obtain 
 universally wherever we have to deal with inert 
 matter ; indeed, wherever matter comes into our 
 reckoning, whether in the inorganic world or in our 
 own selves, so far as our bodies are parcels of 
 matter. 
 
 But here we part company with them. We 
 believe that as soon as we quit the world of 
 purely inert matter and deal with animated matter 
 or life, especially in the higher organisms, and most 
 of all in man, we enter a complex sphere where 
 the simplicity which usually attends the application 
 of the Laws of Nature completely vanishes. Not 
 only so, but a new and potent factor comes in. 
 
 Man, a moral being, stands on a plane immeasur- 
 ably higher than a crystal or even a tree, not 
 merely because he is the crown of the evolutionary 
 process, but far more because in man we find a 
 highly disturbing factor, consciousness, in full swing 
 and, as we believe, a creative consciousness. 
 
 Now this is a factor which should count for much 
 in our calculations. Its originating, initiative power,
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 157 
 
 as we hope to show later on, is so great that it 
 produces results which no human knowledge of the 
 antecedents, however infinite, could have predicted. 
 
 Consciousness makes man no mere mechanism, 
 but a creature of motives and actions far too 
 subtle, variable and complex to be fairly brought 
 under the operation of inelastic, inflexible Laws of 
 Nature just as if he were a bare parcel of matter. 
 
 Professor Tyndall anticipated this difficulty : 
 " Our bodies are never for two moments the same, 
 yet the consciousness remains, and consciousness 
 without brain-action is conceivable. The chasm 
 between brain-action and consciousness is impass- 
 able. Here is a rock upon which materialism must 
 split, whenever it professes to be a complete phil- 
 osophy of the human mind." 
 
 What is this consciousness ? Can we define or 
 even describe it ? There is in man a mysterious 
 something which eludes the investigator, be he ana- 
 tomist or psychologist, a residuum that refuses to 
 be ignored, an immortal centre which knows that it 
 is, and calls itself " I," and survives all the " fluxes " 
 of the body. Not only is it conscious of the 
 moments as they pass, the hair-breadth of the pre- 
 sent, but it remembers the past and anticipates the 
 future, and makes our life an eternal NOW, for it 
 is a something which binds together all the things 
 which enter into our life-experience, and so gives 
 life a living unity. It is not only the controlling 
 principle of our life directing everything for us,
 
 158 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 but it takes every single thing that happens to 
 us, our thoughts, our feelings, our experience 
 generally, and binds all these into one continuous 
 whole. Thus it is that amid the flux of things 
 there is one thing fixed, an immovable focus, con- 
 sciousness, the nucleus of our very being. To 
 adapt the well-known lines : 
 
 " It is within ourselves, it takes no rise 
 From outward things, whate'er you may believe, 
 There is an immortal centre in us all, 
 Where truth abides in fulness. 
 All round, wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in." 
 
 There, in this immortal centre within ourselves, 
 " sits the helmsman, his hand on the tiller. There 
 the log is kept, the reading of which is the bio- 
 graphy of our individual lives." And it is this 
 permanent, creative, controlling consciousness with- 
 in us that makes man stand for permanent inter- 
 ests. We call it life, we call it soul, we call 
 it by various names, and we do not scientifically 
 know what it is, faith calls it the image, the child 
 of the Universal Consciousness (God) which per- 
 vades, vivifying and unifying it, the whole universe, 
 and wells up in each one of us, " the true Light 
 that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." 
 And the whole trend of modern thought is more 
 and more coming round to this view. Be that as it 
 may, not only common-sense, but science itself rebels 
 against its being nothing, and science dare not call
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 159 
 
 it reason or imagination. As already said, even 
 Tyndall admits that. " There is an impassable 
 chasm between consciousness and brain-action." 
 Consciousness is not a mere combination of our 
 faculties (reason, memory, feeling, &c.), but itself, as 
 we shall see, the cause of the birth of them all, so 
 it cannot possibly be explained as their resultant. 
 These secondary faculties are but its instruments 
 (its necessary instruments in this finite world) in its 
 quest for the "real " which lies beyond the things as 
 they appear to our senses. 
 
 This is the self that is ever one and the same 
 throughout our changing years, which binds together 
 all our knowledge in one living unity ; which 
 guides and shapes our lives and is ever seeking 
 after its own perfect self-realization ; for, condi- 
 tioned as it is by being bound to a human body, 
 development is the law of human personality d . 
 Even Jesus " increased in wisdom, as well as in 
 stature, and in favour with God and Man." 
 
 d Science is awakening to this fact. This book was already in the 
 press when the British Association was held at Dublin. In the 
 President's address we read : " It is impossible to know whether 
 or not plants are conscious ; but it is consistent with the doctrine of 
 continuity that in all living thing!: there is something psychic, and if 
 we accept this point of view we must believe that in plants there 
 exists a faint copy of what we know as consciousness in ourselves." 
 Of course Mr. F. Darwin would not define or account for the origin 
 of consciousness as we do. He would assign to it a perfectly natural 
 birth. But we are glad to see science penetrating in'.o a region which 
 it had hitherto left to dreamers.
 
 160 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 And it is just because science ignores this con- 
 sciousness that it fails to understand life, or man. 
 
 As to the Universal Consciousness which we call 
 God, science, being concerned with exact thought, 
 does not deny such a possibility but adopts an 
 attitude of Agnosticism and refuses to take into 
 its calculations a factor of which it knows nothing 
 on verified evidence. Darwin (1873) owned that 
 the grandeur and order of this wondrously-arranged 
 Universe eliminated chance and pointed to an 
 Intelligent First Cause or God. Spencer also 
 postulates some Unknowable Power behind pheno- 
 mena, on which these phenomena somehow depend, 
 But scientists insist that although there seems to 
 be a controlling Power or Consciousness in and 
 behind the Universe, we cannot solve this riddle 
 or know anything about this Power, and must ignore 
 Him. In Bacon's phrase, we must rest satisfied with 
 " second causes," and confine ourselves to a wholly 
 physical interpretation of the phenomena among 
 which we live, and by which our lives are sup- 
 posed to be shaped. The only causes, therefore, 
 which science knows are these " second causes," 
 the observed and classified methods or Laws accord- 
 ing to which the Power Unknowable, that pervades 
 the Universe, actually operates. 
 
 But is this logical ? If behind these " second 
 causes " there lie two other causes higher and 
 stronger than they, human consciousness, and, still 
 more, the Universal Consciousness, can we ignore
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 161 
 
 them, and call our system scientific ? Are we not 
 building a universal philosophy on a foundation 
 of sand, when we omit from our reckoning the 
 controlling and creating first causes which alone 
 produce and explain these "second causes"? If 
 there is a God, as Darwin hinted, or an Unknowable 
 Power, as Spencer suspected, behind phenomena, 
 unifying and vivifying these phenomena, then, it is i /\ 
 unscientific to ignore Him, or, as someone has bluntly 
 put it," to politely conduct the Deity to the confines 
 of His Universe and there give Him His passports." 
 
 Be this as it may, human consciousness is a reality, 
 and in every question dealing with life " conscious- 
 ness " or "personality" is a vital factor. We are 
 pledged to it; for us it is the one key that fits the 
 lock of the Universe. 
 
 Science dare not call it nothing, as Tyndall shows : 
 but it ignores it for precisely the same reason that 
 it ignores the Universal Consciousness, God : be- 
 cause it is a mysterious something which eludes the 
 investigator, be he anatomist or psychologist. Yet 
 it is there, all the same, this "psychic something." 
 
 And this brings us to our next point, which some 
 men of science already recognize, that facts recently 
 discovered are altogether irreconcilable with the in- 
 fallibility of the law of evolution, or rather with the 
 mechanical interpretation of the doctrine of evolution 
 which has been in vogue for the last fifty years. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 C. 
 
 Since the epoch - making publication of their 
 TJieory of Natural Selection by Mr. Darwin and 
 Mr. Wallace in 1858, and the appearance of the 
 Origin of Species in 1859, Evolution has been re- 
 garded as an established and universally accepted 
 truth which has outgrown the trammels of contro- 
 versy. Till quite recently anyone who presumed 
 to call the universality of its application into ques- 
 tion simply laid himself open to general derision. 
 
 But is the doctrine of evolution as infallible as 
 its advocates would have us believe ? Everyone 
 recognizes the immense debt the world owes to 
 Charles Darwin. His discovery set afoot a re- 
 volution in the general opinions of mankind as 
 great as Galileo's or Newton's. It was the birthday 
 of modern science, and of the application of those 
 exact scientific and historical methods whicli have 
 overhauled and tested the foundations of knowledge 
 in every department, and placed it on a sound basis. 
 In a sense we have seen the fulfilment of Huxley's 
 prophecy made at the Dublin British Association 
 of 1878 : " Wlioever may be speaking at this British 
 Association thirty years hence will find that the 
 very paradoxes and horrible conclusions, things that 
 are now thought to be going to shake the founda- 
 tions of the world, will by that time have become 
 parts of everyday knowledge, and will be taught 
 in our schools as accepted truth."
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 163 
 
 All this we gratefully admit. Evolution has proved 
 little short of a divine Revelation, a master-key 
 for many locked secrets, a most fruitful hypothesis. 
 For half a century it has enabled us to co-ordinate 
 facts, to introduce law and order into what had 
 hitherto seemed nothing but caprice, disorder and 
 chaos. But there are sections of the teaching of 
 Darwin which even his adherents are beginning 
 to surrender, and it is felt daily more and more 
 that the doctrine of Evolution must now be re- 
 affirmed with many qualifications. It is no longer 
 the fetish of scientists that it was even six or seven 
 years ago when the writer of the article on Evo- 
 lution in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1902), xxviii. 
 342, could say : " Since Professors Huxley and Sully 
 wrote their masterly essays in the ninth edition 
 of this Encyclopaedia, the doctrine of evolution 
 has outgrown the trammels of controversy and has 
 been accepted as a fundamental principle. Writers 
 on biological subjects no longer have to waste time 
 or space in weighing evolution against this or that 
 philosophical theory or religious tradition : philo- 
 sophical writers have frankly admitted it, and the 
 supporters of religious tradition have made broad 
 their phylacteries to write on them the new words." 
 
 These words could hardly be written now. Many 
 men of science accept it with so many reservations 
 that it is in their hands virtually a new doctrine : 
 philosophers speak of it disparagingly as utterly 
 inapplicable to psychological facts : the " supporters
 
 164 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 of religious tradition " argue that any consideration 
 of man which ignores his spiritual faculty is mislead- 
 ing and unscientific. 
 
 Religionists do not disparage evolution, very far 
 from that. The " word Evolution is written in 
 capital letters on our own phylactery." We firmly 
 believe in the Evolution of life from the amceba 
 up to man ; in the evolution of thought, of character, 
 of history, of religion, of the Bible itself, but with 
 many qualifications. And we equally firmly believe 
 that it is precisely because the extreme advocates 
 of Evolution ignore the potent factor " conscious- 
 ness," that their valuable discovery loses much of 
 its intrinsic value. 
 
 Theists are, for the most part, confirmed Evolu- 
 tionists nowadays, but theirs is an Evolution with 
 consciousness, and, we would add, especially the 
 Universal Consciousness, as the driving-power be- 
 hind it all, its Omnipotent Director. 
 
 One of the greatest evolutionists, Prof. Wallace, 
 Darwin's co-discoverer of evolution, maintains much 
 the same view of it as we do. He holds the essential 
 identity of man's bodily structure with that of the 
 animal world : he agrees that this bodily structure 
 has been derived from the lower animals. But 
 Wallace will not allow that man's consciousness 
 has thus been derived. This great scientist teaches 
 that there are at least three stages in the develop- 
 ment of the organic world when some new cause 
 or power must necessarily have come into action.
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 165 
 
 There is an impassable chasm, he tells us, between 
 the organic and the inorganic, and in the passage 
 from the one to the other a new cause must have 
 come into action. The next stage is the passage 
 from plants to animals. The third stage is the 
 introduction in man of his most characteristic and 
 noblest faculty, the consciousness or soul which 
 raises him far and away above the brutes, and 
 opens up possibilities of almost indefinite advance- 
 ment 6 . 
 
 We know that Wallace is a suspect in the modern 
 evolutionary camp, and that his convictions are 
 attributed to the influence of his present spiritual 
 tendencies. We are also aware that Evolutionists 
 will see in this theory of his a Deus ex machind 
 introduced to cut a Gordian knot and work impos- 
 sible miracles. It will also lay itself open to the 
 
 e It is almost an impertinent presumption on our part to make 
 such a suggestion ; but we believe that two stages alone are necessary. 
 The chasm between the inorganic and the organic is impassable. Lord 
 Kelvin and almost all modern scientists concede that. But is there 
 any further chasm in organic life from the lowest form of organic life 
 up to man, its crown? Is there not a "psychic something," a con- 
 sciousness in plants and animals which is a faint copy of what we 
 know as consciousness in ourselves? Is it not, in each case, the out- 
 come, part and parcel of the Universal Consciousness immanent in 
 the Universe, unifying and vivifying it all, and thus the consciousness 
 of the lower organisms is in some sort of way akin to ours, though 
 vastly, abnormally different in degree ? We have already stated (see 
 footnote, page 139), that we should welcome a discovery that bridged 
 the chasm between matter and life, thus making all development 
 consist of one stage only, with Love Divine behind it as Evolution's 
 key.
 
 1 66 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 charge of a multiplicity of new and imaginary 
 creations. But do these insinuations carry any real 
 weight ? If our view of consciousness, and especially 
 of an Immanent yet Transcendent Universal Con- 
 sciousness, has any truth in it, then the Power 
 controlling, guiding the Universe is a helmsman who 
 never leaves the tiller for one single instant. We 
 believe that Christ's words, " My Father worketh 
 hitherto," are scientifically and philosophically true 
 to the very letter. Creation is a never-ending pro- 
 cess going on at the present moment. 
 
 And does the transition from plants to animals, 
 animals to man, need a miraculous creative act at 
 all ? If the "psychic something" or consciousness, 
 which we and scientists alike see in plants, is 
 itself part and parcel^of the Universal Conscious- 
 ness which quickens and unifies the whole Universe, 
 then, in a very faint way, it is akin to our own 
 consciousness, precisely as protoplasm is akin to 
 man. If the Divine Immanence means anything, 
 it means this: "The Universe is one whole, and 
 God is the meaning of it." It is the Universal 
 Consciousness, the God-Soul that quickens and 
 binds it all together ; and plants, animals, all 
 animated parcels of matter, are such simply be- 
 cause this Universal Consciousness is ever present 
 in them, just as my own consciousness is present 
 in my finger-nails. 
 
 Let us try and make our meaning clearer by an 
 illustration. " There is an inland city in the State
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 167 
 
 of New York which is supplied with water from a 
 river that flows near it. The method is as follows. 
 In a small house on the bank of the river is an 
 engine which goes night and day, pumping water 
 from the stream into the main pipe which leads to 
 the city. The demand in the city regulates the 
 motion of the engine, so that, the more water is 
 drawn off, the faster the engine goes. But when 
 a fire occurs, someone in the city touches a spring, 
 which rings a bell in the engine-room ; on hearing 
 which the engineer in charge, by the turning of 
 a lever, causes the engine to move with such 
 rapidity as to charge the mains to their greatest 
 capacity, so that when the hose is attached to the 
 plugs, water is sent to the top of the loftiest building 
 in the place. Titus an extraordinary demand is met 
 through the ordinary channels f ." 
 
 Now if consciousness in plants and animals is, 
 however faintly, the same consciousness that wells 
 up in ourselves ; immense as may seem the gulf 
 that now separates them, is the great transforma- 
 tion that must have taken place in passing from 
 the one to the other impossible without the inter- 
 vention of a miraculous new creative act ? Is it 
 a difference of kind or only of degree? Is it any 
 whit more wondrous than the transformation be- 
 tween plant or animal instinct and human reason g ? 
 
 * Schaff; in his article on prayer, proving how God can answer 
 prayers for rain without a miracle or new creative act. 
 
 * We are afraid that this last sentence will greatly invalidate our
 
 1 68 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 Other Evolutionists besides Wallace have long 
 had an inkling that discovered facts were irrecon- 
 cilable with the purely mechanical application of 
 the law of evolution : that the theory of natural 
 selection and of the inheritance of acquired faculties 
 does not explain everything. They have realized 
 the presence of a " something mysterious within " 
 plants and animals which disturbed their calculations. 
 Kerner (" Flowers ") writes : " External conditions 
 per se can neither determine the development of 
 an organ, nor its abortion." He insists that from 
 within, out of the secret heart of the plant, comes 
 the controlling and directing force. 
 
 Even Ch. Darwin recognized the same thing in 
 birds. He writes to Huxley : " You have cleverly 
 hit upon one point, which has greatly troubled 
 me : if, as I think, external conditions produce 
 little direct effect, what the devil determines each 
 particular variation ? " 
 
 So clearly has the value of this mysterious interior 
 force as alone determining the whole organization 
 been realized in modern days, that Prof. Church 
 has coined the word Directivity for it. " Directivity 
 is no ' force,' it is merely a characteristic of all 
 life." It expresses the great truth that any changes 
 
 plea in the eyes of many. For its justification we must refer our 
 readers to pp. 177 188, or Chapter VI., Part II. We do not for 
 one moment wish to degrade reason ; but we do wish to trace it to 
 its one Divine Source, the Universal Consciousness, God, as we 
 attempt to prove in that section.
 
 Scientific Objections examined, 169 
 
 the organism may exhibit are first in the germ 
 out of which the organism has sprung, and that 
 the germinal matter itself is determined by ' mental ' 
 rather than by ' physical ' causes V The germ 
 determines the organic structure : the controlling 
 creative force within the heart of the organism, 
 i.e. its soul, fashions the germ. 
 
 What Christ says of the human character, that 
 it is " from within, out of the heart of man " that 
 proceeds its good and its evil, far more than 
 " from without," from the external surroundings ; 
 that character is the child of the secret bias of 
 the soul ; this, strange to say, is also the last 
 word of modern thought in the matter of organic 
 evolution. 
 
 If this is the case even with the lower organisms, 
 how much more will it be true of man, the crown 
 of evolution ! The old mechanical doctrine of evo- 
 lution, which does not even apply to the lowest 
 forms of life, here utterly breaks down. 
 
 " Our consciousness," says Henri Bergson ', " is 
 essentially a self-directing creative consciousness. 
 Under its directivity, our existence is an unbroken 
 process of self-adaptation to an equally unbroken 
 
 h Prof. Henslow, who shows that ' ' even if chemists could achieve 
 the feat of making protoplasm, it by no means follows that the phe- 
 nomena of life will burst forth from it. Living protoplasm can be 
 killed, yet remain chemically the same, while its directivity has gone 
 with its life." 
 
 1 Henri Bergson, "Evolution Creatrice " ; cf. Tyrrell's admirable 
 essay on it.
 
 
 
 I/O Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 process of change in a surrounding environment 
 with which our own existence is continuous _ajs 
 a part is akin to its whole. In this process of 
 conscious self-change, each moment swallows up 
 and yet retains all the preceding moments in 
 a fuller form of existence by a veritable act of 
 creation. This creation, or invention, is not caused 
 by the sum-total. of preceding acts, though it rests 
 on them and refashions them. Our existence, 
 directed by consciousness, is a sort of self-rolling 
 snowball determining its own direction according 
 to the new exigencies of each moment. . . . No 
 two moments of our real life can ever be perfectly 
 alike. However conditioned by preceding results, 
 each fresh moment of that life imports a new 
 element of creative invention which gives to the 
 whole moment a character of originality which no 
 human knowledge of the antecedents, however 
 infinite, could possibly foresee." 
 
 If we have made out our case, if this is as 
 scientifically true as we believe it to be, then the 
 facts of life are utterly irreconcilable with the 
 purely mechanical application of evolution now in 
 vogue. We cannot say that everything is irre- 
 vocably determined for us by the inexorable Laws of 
 Nature which uniformly hold good in the inorganic 
 world. Man's life and actions cannot thus be sum- 
 marily dealt with as if we were so many crystals ; 
 and materialism breaks down.
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 171 
 
 Consciousness, self-directing creative conscious- 
 ness, must be taken into our reckoning as the Power 
 behind evolution which gives it its raison d'etre. 
 The Consciousness of God, the consciousness of 
 man, the Universal Consciousness everywhere, this 
 is the all-important First Cause which gives birth 
 to the " second causes " of scientists. 
 
 The Laws of Nature and Evolution are a useful 
 
 / 
 
 and beautiful system of interpretable signs, but, after 
 all, they are only a series of sequences or methods 
 according to which the Conscious Power, that 
 controls and pervades the Universe, works. " All 
 is one scheme, and God is the meaning of it." 
 
 All said and done, we must come back to Bacon's 
 maxim, which evolutionists have in a manner re- 
 versed, " A little philosophy inclineth man's mind 
 to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's 
 minds about to religion : for while the mind of 
 man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may 
 sometimes rest in them, and go no farther ; but 
 when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, 
 it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." 
 
 We do not quote this passage in a spirit of bitter- 
 ness, neither do we apply Bacon's injurious epithet 
 "atheists" to our critics. The odium theologicum has 
 passed into a proverb, and nothing can possibly be 
 more damaging to the cause of truth than the passion 
 and bitterness of theologians contrasted with the 
 philosophic calm of scientific men. 
 
 Nothing is further from our minds. We sincerely
 
 172 Scientific Objections examined. 
 
 admire and respect Agnostics for conscientiously 
 refusing to accept any conclusions which are not 
 ratified by Reason on the evidence of verified facts, 
 the only reality they know. In very many instances, 
 as was the case with G. J. Romanes, their hearts 
 are all the while crying out for the living God, 
 but they cannot see their way to follow their 
 heart-promptings where their intellects cannot find 
 any foothold at all. 
 
 On the other hand, they will equally respect 
 us for not being able to rest in a creed which, to 
 our minds, leaves out of its calculation the most 
 vital fact in the Universe. 
 
 Note. 
 
 Too late to insert in the text, now that the MS. is in 
 the press, we have just read Mr. F. Darwin's plea for the 
 old doctrine of the inheritance of acquired faculties. "I 
 am told by psychologists that I must define my point of 
 view. I am accused of occupying the unscientific position 
 known as ' sitting on the fence.' It is said that, like other 
 biologists, I try to pick out what suits my purpose from 
 two opposite schools of thought the psychological and the 
 physiological. What I claim is that, as regards reaction to 
 environment, a plant and a man must be placed in the 
 same great class, in spite of the obvious fact that, as re- 
 gards complexity of behaviour, the difference between 
 them is enormous. I am not a psychologist, and I am 
 not bound to give an opinion as to how far the occurrence 
 of definite actions in response to stimulus is a physio- 
 logical, and how far it is a psychological problem. I am
 
 Scientific Objections examined. 173 
 
 told that I have no right to assume the neural series of 
 changes to be the cause of the psychological series, though 
 I am allowed to say that neural changes are the universal 
 concomitants of psychological change. This seems to me, 
 in my ignorance, an unsatisfactory position. I find myself 
 obliged to believe that the mnemic quality in all living 
 things (which is proved to exist by direct experiment) must 
 depend on physical changes in protoplasm, and that it is 
 therefore permissible to use these changes as a notation in 
 which the phenomena of habit must be expressed." 
 
 In its leader on the President's Address at the recent 
 meeting of the British Association at Dublin, 1908, the Times 
 writes : " Of the special thesis of the President's address, 
 the operation of certain stimuli compelling plants to execute 
 certain movements or temporary changes of shape, and the 
 corresponding permanent or morphological changes ; of 
 the dim beginnings of habits, and ' unconscious memory ' 
 in plants and animals, few even among botanists are quali- 
 fied to speak; it all belongs to a province only lately 
 opened to research. The few who have studied these 
 obscure problems are at variance as to facts and explana- 
 tions. They agree only as to the questions to be asked. 
 Mr. Darwin's address is avowedly in large part only a 
 chain of highly ingenious hypotheses. His mnemic principle 
 or quality in all living things, each action leaving its effect 
 on the organism, each generation ' mnemically ' connected 
 with the next, must be supplemented by hypotheses ivhich 
 have for the inquirer their justification, but which are still 
 unverified^." 
 
 k The italics are our own. J. R. C.
 
 CHAPTER VI. PART II. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS EXAMINED 
 
 (CONTINUED).
 
 Argument. 
 
 A. HUMAN reason incompetent to deal with moral and 
 spiritual life - problems. Reason itself is as much the 
 creature and servant of consciousness or soul as the human 
 eye or ear. How consciousness has called into being all 
 our faculties. Illustration. Proofs from modern biology. 
 The soul created reason originally as its instrument for 
 life-preserving purposes. Action, not contemplation, rea- 
 son's raison d'etre. Mr. Balfour and H. Bergson quoted 
 in support of reason's inadequacy to cope with high 
 matters of life. This evolution of reason does not rob 
 it of its divine Hall-mark ; just the reverse. 
 
 " Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned," a scien- 
 tific and philosophic fact. "To find God, look within," 
 justified. Value of argument from personal, and especially 
 from universal experience. The ultimate criterion of truth 
 based not on observation or experiment, but on "inability 
 to believe otherwise." What this appeal to " moral sense " 
 involves. 
 
 B. Hypothetical nature of our plea admitted. Value of 
 hypotheses. Science, no less than religion and every-day 
 practice, is built on faith-ventures. 
 
 C. Our views not semi-Pantheism. Remarkable modern 
 scientific recognition of spirit or consciousness. How 
 science corrects its own mistakes, and is our best ally in 
 answering scientific objections, e.g. Science proves that 
 Nature (though and because oft " red in tooth and claw ") 
 does point to Nature's God ; also efficacy of prayer. For 
 its own sake, Theology must ever welcome science-dis- 
 coveries.
 
 CHAPTER VI. PART II. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS EXAMINED (continued}. 
 
 A. 
 
 T T ITHERTO we have tried to show that man is 
 more than a mere parcel of matter ; he is body 
 plus soul or consciousness. Consciousness is a factor 
 which science dare not ignore, yet call itself scientific, 
 for it is the creative and directive soul within man 
 which shapes his individuality in a way that no 
 merely natural or material analysis can explain. 
 Therefore we contend that the Laws of Nature and / 
 the doctrine of Evolution break down when mechani- 
 cally applied to the solution of the great problem 
 of life. 
 
 In this chapter we should like to attempt a bolder 
 flight, and try to prove that S. Paul's words " spiritual 
 things are spiritually discerned " is a scientific and 
 philosophical fact ; that neither God, man nor life 
 can be known with certainty by the natural light 
 of human reason. In other words, our plea is that, \ 
 absolutely competent as is the human intelligence 
 to deal with inorganic matter and to grasp the 
 physical laws of the world of matter, it is utterly 
 inadequate, completely outof_ its province, when it 
 attempts to deal with moral and spiritual life. 
 
 IT"
 
 178 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 "God is a spirit." Man is a spirit a . And by spirit 
 we mean the same thing as " consciousness," 
 "personality," "soul." Now just as it has often 
 been said that " No one but God Himself can know 
 God as He really is" and "the creature cannot 
 understand its Creator," so it is with the human 
 intelligence. Reason is as much the creature, the 
 product of our consciousness as is the human eye 
 or ear. It'isTtKe spirit or soul within us that has 
 called reason into being ; and we believe that the 
 whole trend of modern thought is daily more and 
 more endorsing S. Paul's words, " for what man 
 knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man 
 which is in him ? even so the things of God knoweth 
 no man, but the Spirit of God V 
 
 In a word, if we want to get a real knowledge 
 of man, if we wish to grapple with the great problem 
 which is now occupying all thinking minds, " What 
 is this consciousness human and Divine?" we must 
 arrive at our answer intuitively. The spirit within 
 us must supply that answer : and it is ever trying 
 to give us our cue; but our eyes are holden, and 
 our ears dull so that we only grasp here a little, 
 there a little of the message it gives us. 
 
 a A valued critic suggests "man has a spirit." But surely when 
 we say " man has a soul " we speak of a totally different relationship 
 from that implied when we say "man has a body." Our true self 
 is identical with the former, certainly not with the latter (our mere 
 clothing), and our language should express this difference. 
 
 b I Cor. ii. II, 12; cf. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 612, 
 art. "Spirit."
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 179 
 
 There is an immortal centre in us all, 
 
 Where truth abides in fulness. 
 
 All around, wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. 
 
 Pent in a finite body, the spirit within us ever 
 yearns to express, to realize itself, but it has got to 
 do it through us. Therefore, by its very nature 
 essentially creative, inventive, it has called into 
 being faculties through which it can realize itself 
 under its present bodily conditions, adapt itself 
 perfectly to its actual environment. So it has come 
 about that the organs of sight and sound, human 
 reason itself, the soul's most perfect instrument of 
 expression and self-realization, are the creations, 
 the inventions of the spirit of man within him. 
 
 Let us trjTand make our meaning a little clearer. 
 We know now that such sensations as sound, 
 luminousness, perfume are only vibrations. They 
 have no objective reality apart from the sensations 
 produced in us. In the words of a keen thinker : 
 " You hear the boom of a big bell, and you imagine 
 that the bell is making the sound. It is not. It is 
 only causing vibrations. It is yon who manufacture 
 the vibrations into sound. Vibrations of air and 
 ether existed millions of years before there was an 
 eye or an ear. These vibrations were an external 
 factor in developing these important organs ; but 
 only as the auditory nerve was evolved was there 
 sound ; only as the optical apparatus was evolved 
 was there luminousness ; only as the sense of smell
 
 180 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 was evolved, was there fragrance." Without con- 
 sciousness and the organs through which con- 
 sciousness is differentiated into sensations, there 
 would be no sound and no hearing; no luminousness 
 and no seeing ; no fragrance and no smelling. 
 
 Now how does consciousness bring this about ? 
 In precisely the same way as the heart, the " psychic 
 something," the consciousness, if you will, of a plant, 
 bird or any other organism acts under similar cir- 
 cumstances. Prof. Henslow so admirably expresses 
 what we mean that we venture to quote him at some 
 length : " The moment a striking change of environ- 
 ment occurs, at that moment the inherent forces in 
 protoplasm and the nucleus begin to adapt them- 
 selves by response to their new surroundings ; to 
 build up new cells and tissues quite different from 
 those made up to that moment. Thus, if a water- 
 plant be growing up submerged, but reaches the 
 surface of the water and then grows into the air, 
 the whole anatomy at once changes at the water- 
 level. Similarly, in animals, the wool of a sheep of 
 temperate regions becomes silky in hot ones ; and 
 the paddle-like limbs, adapted for swimming, of 
 animals that live in water are due to the same cause. 
 In the inorganic world we discover something of the 
 kind, but of a very different quality : in crystals, 
 for instance. But there the same results so mechani- 
 cally and uniformly follow, under the same con- 
 ditions, that a chemist can tell beforehand what 
 will be those results : whereas it is not so with the
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 181 
 
 results of the creative self-directing consciousness. 
 Its power not only of making the organic cell re- 
 produce a cell like itself, but of changing the form 
 according to requirement, has no parallel either in 
 the inorganic world or in the manufactories of man." 
 
 Thus it was that the creative consciousness within 
 us created the eye and the ear to enable it to 
 interpret the vibrations in the environment. And 
 this creative act consciousness works as intuitively 
 and naturally as a foot makes an impression of. itself 
 on wet sand. It is the instinctive result of the 
 soul's creative genius to realize itself by adaptation 
 in response to new surroundings. 
 
 So with the evolution of human intelligence. If 
 it is true, as Wallace, and, we fancy, most modern 
 thinkers maintain, that we are evolved from the 
 lower animals, then the whole of our bodily structure, 
 the brain included, is the creation of the self-directing 
 consciousness gradually realizing itself by adaptation 
 in response to environment. The animal, at first, in 
 its lowest form absorbs its food almost as automati- 
 cally as certain plants close their leaves over an 
 insect that has alighted thereon, and absorb it. But 
 as the body of the animal is developed in com- 
 plexity by the action of complex forces, certain grey 
 lumps of matter make their appearance within its 
 structure, and out of these the consciousness within, 
 which has called them into being, forms its best 
 instrument for its self-realization. Through these 
 grey cells or brain, it quickens into life the body
 
 1 82 Scientific Objections examined (continued). 
 
 which clothes the soul ; so that the animated parcel 
 of matter becomes aware that it is alive, has an 
 appetite, and that other animals have an appetite for 
 it. The mind is thus the handmaiden of the con- 
 sciousness, its creator. The reason is a faculty 
 subordinate to the soul, the instrument of the soul 
 which gave it birth. 
 
 This mind, though at first feeble and contracted, 
 gradually developed. There is an immense gulf 
 between the first glimmering of reason in the 
 lowest organisms and human intelligence, yet even 
 here we can draw no hard and fast line. Probably, 
 the greatest step in brain-evolution was taken when 
 one of our animal ancestors formed the habit of 
 assuming the erect posture. " This carried with 
 it not only modifications of structure, but what was 
 far more important, a consequent extraordinary 
 and unprecedented expansion of mental powers. 
 True, this was even yet only an animal intelligence, 
 but so keen and true did it soon become, as to fix 
 a gulf between this anthropoid ape and his fellows 
 and to place him in a position among them of 
 indisputable supremacy. He was now ripe for the 
 vast change which was to revolutionize his whole 
 mental and moral structure, and by which the great 
 upward step from brute to man was to be accom- 
 plished V 
 
 But what must be insisted on over and over 
 again is Tyndall's " between brain-action and 
 
 b Dr. Beveridge.
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 183 
 
 consciousness there is an impassable chasm." True, 
 the brain came into existence at the bidding of 
 consciousness by adaptation in response to external 
 surroundings, but these external surroundings would 
 of themselves never have produced it. 
 
 It was the vital effort, the elan, as Bergson well 
 calls it, of the soul within that created intelligence in 
 animals, the human reason in man, so that the soul 
 might interpret those vibrations of sound, luminous- 
 ness, perfume, and the other stimuli impinging on 
 that parcel of matter, the body, wherein it dwells. 
 Reason could naturally only come into being after 
 the other and lower faculties, for its raison d'etre 
 is to interpret their message. It is subsequent to 
 them in point of time, but as immeasurably above 
 them in quality and value as man is superior to an 
 anemone. The other faculties are its servants, but 
 it is itself the handmaiden of the soul. The soul 
 created reason as its instrument to enable it to 
 translate the things that are seen, and felt, and heard 
 into the reality that lies at the background of these 
 outward sensations. 
 
 Our whole plea lies here. Human intelligence 
 is necessary to the soul in its quest for the reality 
 that is ever behind the things that are apparent to 
 our senses ; it supplies all the requisite data for 
 the soul to interpret, but it is the soul and not 
 the reason which establishes for us the reality, 
 probes right down to the root of the whole matter, 
 and gives us the key to the Universe-problem. And
 
 184 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 this, we firmly believe, is what S. Paul meant by 
 his " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the 
 evidence of things not seen." These words of his, 
 together with his other saying, " what man knoweth 
 the things of man, save the spirit of man which is 
 in him ? " seem to prove that he already saw, by 
 the light of the Holy Spirit, what we are only darkly 
 feeling after even now. 
 
 To sum up. We have suggested that the con- 
 sciousness or soul is the helmsman within us with 
 his hand ever on the tiller ; that in this immortal 
 centre, which constitutes our true self, the log of 
 life is kept. Through all the changes and chances 
 of our mortal life our soul abides ever one and the 
 same. It, and it alone, binds all our experience 
 tightly together and makes our life-experiences 
 a connected whole. More than this, our soul is 
 a moral practical soul with an ideal of self-realization 
 ever present before it as its final goal. While in this 
 body pent, it knows itself as a possibility still un- 
 realized, a promise unfulfilled c . So long as it is 
 imprisoned in the house of the body, " the transpar- 
 
 c It is this very dissatisfaction 01 the soul with itself which con- 
 stitute? one of the chief arguments for its immortality. God is its 
 Source, God its goal. Man is now soul plus body, but a material 
 body is no essential part of man's true self. " If a man is shut up 
 in a house," says M'Taggart, " the transparency of the windows 
 is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not 
 be prudent to infer that, if he walked out of the house, he could 
 not see the sky because there was no longer any glass through which 
 he might see it." A Resurrection of the Body there will be. Some 
 vehicle or mode of manifestation we must have if we are to remain
 
 Scientific Objections examined {continued}, 185 
 
 ency of the windows " is an essential condition of 
 its seeing clearly things outside, therefore it has 
 created our senses' and faculties, and made reason 
 Its chief bodily eye, to enable it to realize itself. 
 
 We have said that the soul is practical, and it 
 created reason with a practical aim. In the first 
 instance, at any rate, the end of life is living, and 
 not thinking. Indeed, thinking is itself determined 
 by the needs of life ; so the main original purpose 
 of intelligence was a purpose of action, not con- 
 templation. In the struggle for existence, the 
 raison d'etre of intelligence was at first merely to 
 supply ways and means of self-preservation. The 
 same thing holds good even now. Human reason 
 is still mainly practical, for to-day " man's action 
 on the world is ultimately limited by the extent 
 to which he knows how to break it up into pieces, 
 move them about, and put them together again in 
 more convenient combinations. .His intelligence 
 is shaped for this sort of knowledge : it is truly 
 at home with the inert, the solid, the divisible, the 
 measurable. Its concepts are formed on this model : . 
 its logic triumphant only in Geometry " (Bergson). 
 
 If this is true ; if reason is but one of the faculties 
 or instruments devised and created by consciousness 
 
 our true real individual selves, and not be absorbed completely into 
 God. But, as Sir Oliver Lodge well shows, not one atom of the 
 material body will there be in the heavenly body in which we shall 
 be clothed. All material bodies imply resistance, and Christ passed 
 through closed doors after His Resurrection. S. Paul's words on the 
 subject point to the same conclusion.
 
 1 86 Scientific Objections examined {continued}. 
 
 for but one of its services ; if, moreover, its one 
 main purpose is a purely practical purpose, self- 
 preservation in the struggle for existence, how can 
 it possibly be adequate to cope with the reality 
 which lies behind the things that are seen ? The 
 things that are seen, the world of matter and of 
 action, this it can understand. This is what it 
 was created for, for this it was born. Reason can 
 sort and classify visible phenomena ; it can even 
 detect a certain uniformity of sequence between 
 certain antecedents and certain consequents, an uni- 
 formity which it calls the law of cause and effect. 
 But as soon as it quits its proper world of matter 
 and action, and, applying its mechanical categories 
 of causation to the problem of life, tries to dethrone 
 its master and creator consciousness, and usurp the 
 soul's true function, it hopelessly fails. 
 
 Reason is a good servant, but only a manual 
 servant after all. In its own sphere, it is a most 
 faithful and profitable servant. In the inorganic 
 world it is in touch with something akin to reality d , 
 and interprets this portion of reality more or less 
 truly, therefore its triumphs there have been im- 
 mense. Where human intelligence is at fault is in 
 
 d Strictly, matter has no reality. " If conscious life is a rolling 
 snow-ball, inorganic matter is a rolling-stone, a movement of failure, 
 decay, undoing ; a falling to pieces of the laborious products of 
 creative effort" (Tyrrell on "Bergson"). Really, all that is is the 
 self-utterance of Consciousness ; an organic whole, not a mechanical 
 mass; spiritual, not material; a "World of Thought-relations." 
 (cf. T. H. Green.)
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}, 187 
 
 endeavouring to leave the things that are seen, and 
 interpret the things that are not seen, to grasp the 
 supra-corporeal in terms of the corporeal. There it 
 is going far beyond its true province and capacity, 
 and its knowledge naturally becomes merely ap- 
 parent and relative. In Bacon's phrase : " it builds 
 a universal philosophy on a few experiments." 
 
 Mr. Balfour has laid stress on this point. In 
 his Congress address, he cleverly pointed out that 
 the materialist assumption that reason is an 
 evolved faculty is utterly inconsistent with the use 
 made of reason by naturalism. True, Mr. Balfour 
 insists on the Divine origin of reason, but his 
 logical argument, mutatis mutandis, supports our 
 contention. " If the naturalistic origin of reason 
 is true, then it is an utterly inadequate reason, 
 and its inadequacy must be evident, and most of 
 all to the man of science himself, for this reason 
 and on these grounds, that if reason be only the 
 product of irrational and mechanical causes going 
 back to some illimitable past, reaching forward to 
 some illimitable future, and accidentally, in the 
 course of that endless chain, producing for a brief 
 moment in the history of the Universe a few 
 individuals capable of understanding the world in 
 which we live, what confidence can you place in 
 reason if you use it for any purpose beyond the 
 merely life-preserving or race-preserving qualities for 
 which alone, on this theory, it was brought into 
 existence" (Address to Pan- Anglican Congress.)
 
 1 88 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 We need not point out to readers who have read 
 our pages thus far that, in principle, our own 
 view of the human reason and Mr. Balfour's tally, 
 though he would naturally dissent from our theory 
 of its origin. We do not degrade reason by making 
 it the child of the God within us. We do believe 
 in the evolution of reason, but our conception of it 
 has nothing else in common with what Mr. Balfour 
 rightly calls " the mechanical and irrational " theory 
 of its origin, as held by materialists. To us, as 
 the creation of God's image within us, the human 
 intelligence bears the Divine hall-mark. Here as 
 ever, our view of evolution is an Evolution which 
 has a God of Love as the driving-power behind it. 
 
 Our sole contention is that a faculty itself evolved 
 by consciousness, for one of the services of the 
 
 soul in its quest after self-realization, is and must 
 
 * ~ 
 
 be the soul's subordinate and cannot dethrone its 
 
 master or usurp its creator's functions. 
 
 As Bergson and Mr. Tyrrell forcibly express it : 
 " Intelligence cannot lift itself above itself by its 
 own waistband." fn dealing with inert matter our 
 reason reaches its maximum of clearness, even as 
 it finds its minimum at the opposite pole of the 
 . spiritual, the conscious, the living. It can, indeed, 
 deal with the living only so far as this presents 
 some of the aspects of the dying. 
 
 " But," it may be objected, " are you not proving 
 too much ? If human reason cannot understand
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued*}. 189 
 
 consciousness either human or Divine, do not your 
 premises, driven to their only logical conclusion, 
 land us in Agnosticism as our only reasonable 
 attitude ? " 
 
 Yes, if there were no alternative. But is there 
 none? Is it not possible to get a real knowledge 
 of the living, the conscious, the spiritual in another, 
 way ? " Spiritual things are spiritually discerned," 
 says S. Paul. " If you would find God, look within," 
 said a philosopher of old ; was it Plato ? This, again, 
 S. Paul echoes : " Say not in thine heart, who 
 shall ascend into heaven ? or who shall descend into 
 the deep ? For the word of God is nigh thee, even 
 in thine heart." 
 
 It is true that, constituted as we are, truth, the 
 truth which abides in all its fulness in the soul, 
 is not, cannot be true to us finite beings, half soul 
 and half matter, till our human intelligence has 
 ratified its conclusions, but it was not the human 
 reason that prompted this revelation of the Truth, 
 but the light of the spirit indwelling within us. 
 
 We believe that modern philosophy fully bears 
 this out u Intelligence cannot lift itself above 
 itself by its own waistband " : in other words, 
 reason can no more grasp consciousness than water 
 can rise above its own level. Philosophy demands 
 the whole field of consciousness fully to grasp 
 Consciousness. But are we not parts of the Uni- 
 versal Consciousness ? Do we not bear His image 
 and witness within ourselves ? Surely, then, there.
 
 190 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 in our own soul, in our true self and its spiritual 
 experience, must be our one point of departure. 
 
 May we found nothing on this testimony of the 
 soul ? Is its witness to the Source whence it came 
 and with Whom it is essentially at one, of no value ? 
 Both science and religion appeal to experience, is 
 the spiritual experience not of one person but of 
 tens of thousands to go for nothing ? Is such 
 evidence worthless ? " Yes ! " the scientist replies, 
 " it is worthless. It possesses nothing of scientific 
 objective value. These spiritual experiences of 
 yours may be of great personal value to you, but 
 they give you no warrant for stepping outside 
 your own feelings. They may be useful illusions 
 in their place, but you must outgrow them. All 
 so-called knowledge of the Universal Consciousness, 
 call Him God or what you will, must, like all 
 other knowledge, be submitted to the test of obser- 
 vation and experiment. If it is knowledge at all 
 it is capable of verification, and the verdict of 
 science must be final. If you fall back on your 
 own experience, you may land anywhere." 
 
 This sounds so plausible, and there are so many 
 religious people nowadays who have such a dread 
 of pietism, that this argument often carries with it 
 far more weight than it deserves. Accept it, and 
 in time we shall become the victims of that intel- 
 lectualism which, in the long run, means spiritual 
 atrophy to the soul. Such a theory as science 
 here advances is precisely that dethroning of the
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 191 
 
 soul and allowing the reason to usurp its place, 
 the subordination of the master to his servant, 
 against which both religion and philosophy are 
 bound to protest. 
 
 If S. Paul is wrong in insisting that the Truth is 
 in our own hearts, then all human knowledge is 
 a delusion. Trace our knowledge in any depart- 
 ment far enough back, and whence comes our ulti- 
 mate belief in the truthfulness of our convictions ? 
 When our intellect, or our moral sense, points to 
 a truth, why do we believe that it is a truth, and 
 not a mere figment of our own minds ? Is it not 
 because we feel, we know that there is something 
 within us, which intuitively apprehends the true 
 when it is presented to it, and impels us to accept 
 it as well by a force which we can neither evade 
 nor resist and yet remain true to ourselves ? 
 " There is apparently," says Prof. Goldwin Smith, 
 " no ultimate criterion of truth, either physical or 
 moral, except our inability, constituted as we are, 
 to believe otherwise." 
 
 This " something within us," which sets its seal to 
 the truth and thus makes it true for us, we call 
 the " moral sense " : it is really the verdict of our 
 soul or consciousness. There, in our immortal 
 centre, dwells the Truth. "It takes no rise from 
 outward things, whate'er we may believe ; " it is 
 because it lies there within ourselves in the soul, 
 that we believe in the truthfulness of our other 
 faculties, of reason itself, its servants. If its testi-
 
 192 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 mony is not true, then the whole of our super- 
 structure of knowledge and belief falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 Even granting that the spiritual experience of 
 any one individual man may not unreasonably 
 be called subjective, emotional, untrustworthy ; can 
 we speak thus disparagingly of the long list of 
 " saints and worthies " who assure us that in prayer 
 and a close walk with God their " soul athirst for 
 God " has slaked its thirst at the Fountain-Head, and 
 gained the fulfilment of its deepest spiritual needs ? 
 Is the argument from the universal experience of 
 countless multitudes of men in all ages and climes 
 also to go for nothing ? 
 
 Sceptics reply : " Yes ! They said, nay, they 
 believed that God had quickened their soul into 
 active life and guided them by His Holy Spirit 
 into all truth : but they were mistaken. It is 
 a beautiful dream, yet a mere delusion." . 
 
 Now to deny all weight to the argument from 
 universal experience places us on the horns of 
 a dilemma. Prof. Goldwin Smith's maxim, " there 
 is apparently no ultimate criterion of truth, either 
 physical or moral, except our inability, constituted 
 as we are, to believe otherwise," must be either 
 true or false. 
 
 If true, we cannot reasonably make our own " in- 
 ability to believe otherwise " the criterion of truth in 
 our own case, and yet refuse to recognize its
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 193 
 
 validity in the case of other men. This would 
 be to assume that we personally are unique among 
 men ; and we very much doubt whether any man 
 would adopt this conclusion when thus nakedly 
 stated. Yet the denial of all argumentative weight 
 to the general belief of mankind involves no less 
 than this. 
 
 On the other hand, if " inability to believe other- 
 wise" is no criterion of truth, then this view inevit- 
 ably lands us in absolute scepticism. If we deny 
 all significance to the fact of human belief, in- 
 dividually or collectively, we must deny all sig- 
 nificance to the fact of our own belief. We cannot 
 logically exclude ourselves from the verdict which 
 we pass upon mankind generally. 
 
 Some argumentative weight must, therefore, be 
 assigned to the universal experience of mankind 
 unless we are prepared to undermine the first prin- 
 ciples of all human knowledge altogether. The 
 only alternative is either dogmatic self-assertion 
 or absolute scepticism. 
 
 We are well aware that not unfrequently men give 
 an indolent assent to this assertion or that, they are 
 too ignorant or lazy to "buy the truth" for them- 
 selves at the cost of hard thought, so they get it 
 from others on authority, and follow a popular 
 leader like a flock of sheep. But when there is 
 a general agreement in times present and in times 
 past on a vital matter, when the question is of 
 such a nature that a right decision is of supreme 
 
 O
 
 194 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 importance, very few will venture to assert that 
 all those minds who accepted this common belief 
 blindly adopted it without carefully weighing both 
 sides of the question. 
 
 Therefore to be told that not one or two, but 
 hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of good men, 
 not of one age or temperament or clime, but in every 
 age, of every temperament, in every clime, have been 
 deceived, is to be asked to believe a wonder far more 
 incredible than any fairy-tale. More than this, if the 
 testimony of seers, prophets, psalmists, saints, con- 
 fessors, martyrs, and of the whole Church of God 
 is all to go for nothing, may God help us to share 
 their delusion, for it has been a glorious make- 
 believe, and the force by which most of the best 
 work of the world has been done. 
 
 This is why, when scientists tell us that " all 
 so-called knowledge of God must, like all other 
 knowledge, be submitted to the tests of observa- 
 tion and experiment : if it is knowledge at all, it 
 is capable of verification, and the verdict of science 
 on the subject must be final," we decline to accept 
 their statement as final. 
 
 " If I am not to be an absolute Pyrrhonist," writes 
 Dr. Forsyth, " if I am not to doubt everything, and 
 renounce my own reality, I must find my starting- 
 point and my practical certainty in that which 
 founds my moral life, in my own spiritual ex- 
 perience. The test of all philosophy is ethical 
 conviction."
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued'}. 195 
 
 " Pure and undiluted subjectivity ! " exclaim our 
 critics. Not so, if God dwells in us and in His 
 Universe at all. We may be sure that we derive 
 from Him whatever is good in ourselves, and, still 
 more, whatever is best. The stream cannot rise 
 above its source, nor the creature above his Creator. 
 " He Who reflects upon Himself," says Plotinus, 
 " reflects upon his own original, and finds the clearest 
 impression of the eternal nature aad perfect Being 
 stamped upon his own soul." 
 
 Therefore, in adopting as our motto " to find God, 
 look within," we are making not our own subjectivity, 
 but the Divine Consciousness within us speak. " The j 
 light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world" is our illuminating guide into all Truth, and' 
 this, we insist, must be our point of departure. Our 
 soul gives us, as it were, a flash-light picture of the 
 truth, a revelation of it, then, but only then, reason, / 
 the soul's handmaid, steps in and interprets its , 
 meaning. 
 
 So it is that, in a sense, man can know God even 
 apart from the Bible or the perfect Revelation of 
 God in Christ. God has not left Himself without 
 a witness even in the most benighted days of 
 heathen darkness, as S. Paul clearly points out. 
 We Christians maintain that we have a far greater 
 Light than this to lighten our darkness, that God 
 has manifestly revealed Himself to us as He actually 
 is. But if all appeal to the Bible is inadmissible, 
 then, it is to the soul within, and not to human
 
 196 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 intelligence that we must look for our guidance. 
 In our spirit and our spiritual experience we must 
 find our starting-point. 
 
 B. 
 
 It may be asked : " In your attempt to establish 
 Faith on a scientific basis, have you attained that 
 definiteness and certainty which the modern rigorous 
 methods, historical and scientific, you so often extol, 
 demand ? Have you not made many faith-ventures ? 
 In short, is there not much in your arguments which 
 is still in the twilight of pure hypothesis ? " 
 
 We readily admit the reasonableness of this plea. 
 So long as all appeals to Christ and the Bible are 
 barred, the foundations of our religion must rest on 
 a basis which may be shaken. Our clearly-defined 
 Faith as Christians, at one with God through Christ 
 and dwelling in the full light of the Holy Spirit, 
 is one thing ; the vague twilight of purely natural 
 religion is quite another. 
 
 But, even granting that hypotheses enter largely 
 into any solution of the Universe-Problem from the 
 religious man's point of view, is not the same thing 
 just as true of Science ? Is it not one of the chief 
 distinctions of the leaders of Science that year by 
 year, and generation by generation, they are ever 
 framing new and more adequate hypotheses to 
 account for the phenomena of the Universe, and 
 so bringing them closer and closer to the facts they 
 are intended to cover and explain ?
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 197 
 
 Behind these phenomena of the Universe, Science 
 and Religion alike recognize that there is a reality 
 in the background which ever remains the same, 
 through all the changes ; a reality which seems to 
 demand omniscience to interpret it. Science is 
 attempting to solve this problem, so is Religion. 
 Each side has framed many a hypothesis or plausible 
 guess. Each new hypothesis is, we believe, bringing 
 us nearer to the Truth, but the problem (if we put 
 Revelation out of court) is still far from solved. 
 Both Science and Religion have to confess that 
 "their little systems have their day, and cease to 
 be," yet the reality which we cannot fathom, but 
 of which both sides are ever giving a more and 
 more adequate account, abides unchanged. It is only 
 our present hypothetical and incomplete solutions 
 of the problem that are fluid and provisional. 
 
 Far from hypotheses being valueless, Science 
 itself cannot possibly dispense with them. They 
 are the indispensable pioneers of truth, clearly 
 pointing out in what direction the goal lies, though 
 they may not reach it themselves. So long as a 
 hypothesis acknowledges that its conclusions are 
 as yet avowedly based on insufficient evidence to 
 admit of absolute verification, its value is immense. 
 It suggests new lines of inquiry, and affords a clear 
 and connected view of known facts till a better 
 hypothesis uses it as a stepping-stone and leads to 
 a still clearer conception of the truth. 
 
 As rational beings we daily act, and must act on
 
 198 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 hypotheses or assumptions every hour of our lives. 
 We discard or retain them as our experience verifies 
 or refutes them. It is only by formulating hypo- 
 thesis after hypothesis that science has achieved 
 its triumphs and made modern civilization possible. 
 
 Huxley pointed out that the very'foundation-stone 
 of science, the Uniformity of Nature is a most 
 probable, yet an unverifiable hypothesis. Be this as 
 it may, the modern nebular theory ; and the assump- 
 tion that life, matter and solar systems existed from 
 all eternity, are confessedly mere hypotheses e . 
 
 The difference between religion and science is not 
 that one uses hypotheses while the other is able to 
 discard them. They both make large use of pro- 
 visional assumptions. Their difference lies in the 
 fact that the subject-matter of science is necessarily 
 more simple than that of religion. Therefore, the 
 verification of the postulates of religion is a very 
 much more complex and difficult problem. 
 
 Let us make our meaning clearer. The facts 
 of science are natural facts, e.g. that water will 
 seek its own level, that a stone falls to the ground 
 each successive moment with increased velocity ; 
 the facts of religion are moral facts, e.g. that man 
 is a moral being, with a purpose and a destiny. 
 
 Science deals with matters of fact, religion with 
 judgments of value : Science sees a " cosmos " or 
 ordered whole in the phenomena which fall within 
 
 8 cf. Supplemental Note to Chapter VI., Part I. (sub. /in.).
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 199 
 
 its province : we see a " cosmos " in the facts which 
 fall within ours, and we maintain that our moral 
 facts are as real every whit as the scientific facts. 
 
 More than this, we believe that as regards purely 
 scientific facts it is often possible to assume a per- 
 fectly sceptical attitude without any evil consequences 
 accruing to ourselves, e.g. " Is the nebular theory 
 true ? are atoms irreducible ? " But in moral ques- 
 tions we cannot act as if it did not matter whether 
 we believed or disbelieved. The question at issue 
 is too practical, fraught with consequences of vital 
 importance to our well-being ; e.g. "Is there a God ? 
 am I a mere ephemeral bubble or an immortal 
 soul?" 
 
 So it comes about that not only is the subject- 
 matter of religion far more complex than that of 
 science, and, therefore, necessarily far more difficult 
 of solution, and offering a wider field for hypothesis,, 
 but it is far more real, more vital in its practical: 
 importance, and a decision of some kind we must 
 reach on the questions it sets before us. We cannot 
 afford to be neutral. Men's very lives depend upon 
 the answer they adopt for their guidance. 
 
 This holds true of all the practical departments 
 of human life. "In politics, medicine, business, 
 in every sphere of man's activity, man has to make 
 his faith-venture. If we were to wait until all pos- 
 sibility of a mistake has passed, before making 
 up our minds to act, we should never act at all. 
 This inaction would be the worst kind of action.
 
 2OO Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 It would be deliberately closing the doors of pos- 
 sible experience which our faith-venture might have 
 opened for us, and so precluding the possibility of 
 the very knowledge in the name of which our faith- 
 venture is invoked. Is man a mere passing phe- 
 nomenon, or is he an immortal Spirit ? Is there in 
 us a spark of the Eternal which links us to the 
 Unseen Source of all life ? Science cannot say. We 
 have to make our ultimate decision. There is no 
 positive evidence at hand clear enough to compel 
 assent. Religion, reaching forth into a sphere where 
 reason's vision cannot penetrate, makes her faith- 
 venture, lays hold by faith upon the object of her 
 hope, and by the power of her undying ideal, enables 
 us to live and die as those who are the heirs of 
 an immortal destiny. Such an attitude is not ir- 
 rational ; on the contrary, it is most worthy of a man 
 of reason, and thus far the faith of religion may be 
 justified at the bar of science." (Dr. Adams Brown.} 
 
 C. 
 
 We have little more to add. On its own merits 
 our argument must stand or fall. We know that we 
 do not ofifer'a system logically complete or always 
 uniform. No man can entirely escape from himself. 
 Try as he will to be free from prejudices, each one 
 of us has his idosyncrasies which for him gain their 
 attractiveness from his peculiar temper, his sur- 
 roundings, his occupation, his education, and un- 
 consciously cheat and bias his mind. We have,
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 201 
 
 therefore, more than a subconscious suspicion that 
 although we have conscientiously endeavoured to 
 meet scientific objections on purely scientific grounds, 
 we have nevertheless read much into God's Universe 
 which we should never have found there had not 
 our own spirit been steeped in Holy Writ and the 
 psychology of a S. Paul. 
 
 Acting on the principle that every writer should 
 fearlessly teach up to the level of his own convictions, 
 we have here ventured to express our own moral 
 and spiritual view of the Universe-problem. It is 
 the bounden duty of our critics to point out its 
 defects in the same spirit. Many will see in our 
 pages a semi-pantheistic philosophy. If so, the fault 
 is our own ; our feeble words have utterly and sig- 
 nally failed to express our heart-convictions. This 
 we certainly have in common with Pantheism, we 
 assure man, as it does, of his real union with the 
 source of his own and the universal life, and we 
 believe all true religion must thus far coincide with 
 the creed of the Pantheist. But here we once and 
 for all part company with Pantheism. Our God is 
 not merely a fine name for the Universe, but a 
 Transcendent as well as Immanent God, a real First 
 Cause, a Person, and the Divine Incarnation is for 
 us a supreme fact " I believe in God the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth : and in 
 Jesus Christ our Lord." We assert God's Presence 
 in His works: we do not identify Him with them. 
 Our one aim has been to preach on the text, "In
 
 2O2 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 Him we live, and move, and have our being. We 
 are His offspring," or, in the words we have so often 
 quoted, " the Universe is one whole and God is the 
 meaning of it." 
 
 We do believe that it is possible to co-ordinate 
 all the facts of human experience, all the phenomena 
 which the Universe presents everywhere to our view, 
 with the deepest truths of the human soul : we 
 believe that we interpret the Kingdom of Nature 
 truly only when we realize that it is the Kingdom 
 of God. " The Unity of Nature is but the scientific 
 expression of the Christian doctrine of the Unity 
 of God." Even Science is beginning to recognize 
 this. 
 
 In his sermon before the British Association 
 (Dublin, 1908), the Dean of S. Patrick's truly said, 
 " Truth is one : the avenues by which it is reached 
 are manifold. To-day, it is not too much to say 
 that the idola of a materialistic philosophy have 
 lost their attractiveness for the best minds amongst 
 us. It is beginning to be recognised that the 
 mysteries of Nature are not completely explained 
 by the researches of the laboratory, and that the 
 problems of human life and thought are not solved 
 when we have exhibited the history of man's origin 
 and of his development from humbler species. The 
 deepest problem which man has to deal with is 
 the problem of man's spirit, and this is beginning 
 to be recognized by the science of to-day V 
 
 f The text of this chapter was written many months before the
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 203 
 
 Even as early as 1873 Charles Darwin wrote: 
 " The impossibility of conceiving that this great 
 and wondrous universe arose through chance, seems 
 to me the chief argument for the existence of God." 
 Scientific thought has travelled far since then. At 
 one time it seemed as if science were seeking to 
 rob us of all that we had been taught to look upon 
 as sacred, and endeavouring to shatter man's Faith 
 to fragments. Then as now scientists were honest 
 seekers after Truth, and with eyes fixed upon their 
 ultimate goal, discouraged by no hostile voices, 
 patiently, painfully, self-denyingly they pursued their 
 way. Now it is we who reap the reward of their 
 long years of struggle and labour. 
 
 Truth is one and can never fail. It is only 
 a partial view of the Truth that can be shaken. 
 Science has corrected its own mistakes, and, if we 
 are to judge by the general trend of modern scientific 
 thought, even of science it is true that "a little 
 philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism ; but 
 depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about 
 to religion. For while the mind of man looketh 
 upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes 
 rest in them, and go no further ; but when it behold- 
 eth the chain of them confederate and linked to- 
 gether, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." 
 
 British Association met, but this sermon of the Dean of S. Patrick's 
 so exactly echoes the tenor of the views expressed in our pages that,. 
 in this section, we have inserted several extracts from his address 
 at the last moment.
 
 2O4 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 Science has not reached this final stage, its solution 
 of the problem is still too incomplete, its verified 
 evidence insufficient, but its conclusions are daily 
 pointing more and more in this direction. 
 
 We have said that science has helped us to correct 
 its own mistakes. One or two instances may help to 
 make our point clearer. 
 
 Time was, and this not long ago, when science 
 ridiculed the religious idea that Nature pointed up 
 to Nature's God, and revealed a God of Love. 
 Scientists laughed such views to scorn, and told 
 us that our theory of a benign God was flatly 
 contradicted by the earthquakes and catastrophes 
 of Nature. They assured us that those who believed 
 in a God of Love must deliberately close their eyes 
 to the facts of life, or garble the Universe to suit 
 their theory ; that we must judge a tree by its 
 fruit, and judge of the Maker by what He has 
 made. " Read Nature's Book," said they, " and 
 you will see that she reveals not a kind Father, but 
 a stern step-mother, and that there is, at least, as 
 much evil as good, as much cruelty as kindness in 
 the world of Nature." 
 
 Science spoke then in all honesty, on the strength 
 of the evidence that lay before her ; she has accu- 
 mulated a mass of further evidence since then, and 
 as honestly recants her former verdict. 
 
 True, now as ever, Nature is often " red in tooth 
 and claw " ; often uncompromising, imperative, ter- 
 rible ; knowing nothing of indulgence, making no
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. . 205 
 
 concessions to ignorance, folly or weakness ; insist- 
 ing on obedience to her laws and forthwith wiping 
 out all who dare to set themselves in opposition 
 to her arrangements ; a stern step-mother indeed. 
 Yet scientists themselves now assure us that Nature's 
 severity, everywhere discernible, is not malevolent, 
 but benign. Her action is to save, to heighten, to 
 perfect. 
 
 In our day, science, with her watchwords "evolu- 
 tion," " the struggle for existence," and " the survival' 
 of the fittest," has given us the key to the problem- 
 of " Nature's apparent severity/' 
 
 We can see now that the struggle, the fiery ordeal, 
 through which Nature makes her children pass, is at 
 bottom merciful ; that this apparent evil is a necessary 
 discipline in the training of character and the quest 
 for good. The student of nature knows well to-day 
 that a struggle for existence which demands con- 
 stant awareness, movement, tension, resistance,, 
 endeavour, is the Law of salvation and perfection 
 to the whole animal world. 
 
 We see it every day. Give a creature, with 
 a fine organization, an easy pleasant lot, and the 
 process of degeneration instantly sets in : let the 
 conditions again become severe, and the fallen 
 creature begins promptly to recover his glory, 
 provided that " we are not tried above that we 
 are able." 
 
 So it is precisely because the law of the world of 
 Nature is not mild and indulgent, but a stern law
 
 2o6 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 calling for exertion, courage, sacrifice ; a Law 
 avenging itself by the annihilation of whatever is 
 ignorant, incapable, weak, or disobedient, that the 
 fittest survive. It is the pull and push, the toil 
 and trial of the " whole creation groaning until 
 now" that has lifted this glorious world out of 
 the mud, filled it with a myriad splendid forms, 
 peopled it with millions of creatures capable of 
 maintaining life and enjoying it withal. The law 
 of life is truly severe which enjoins that man shall 
 eat bread in the sweat of his face, but in the struggle 
 of life our great antagonist is our great helper. 
 Thus alone can we leave barbarism behind us : 
 undergo a magnificent transformation : become 
 princes of God and heirs of all things. 
 
 Nature, even as Nature's God, may seem stern, 
 but it is the apparent sternness of Infinite Love. 
 
 This is one lesson Science has taught us, and here 
 is another. At one time Science frightened religious 
 minds with her bugbear, the Laws of Nature, assur- 
 ing us that these Laws were so fixed and inexorable 
 that not even God could alter them, and, therefore, 
 prayer was a waste of breath. 
 
 Here again Science has come to our aid, and helped 
 us to correct the false impression she had given 
 us. She had said that God's Laws were so eternally 
 fixed that He Himself was now their slave. Now 
 she has shown us that even man can control and 
 modify the Laws of Nature, and harness them to 
 do his bidding, thus working the miracle science
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 207 
 
 herself at first asserted God Himself could not 
 work. 
 
 To-day this is a miracle man is working every 
 hour. He rules Nature by obeying her. He has 
 made the lightning his servant and messenger, 
 compelling it to drive his machinery, flood his 
 streets and homes with light, carry his thoughts to 
 the ends of the earth. 
 
 At one time, science told us it was as foolish to 
 pray for rain or fine weather as to pray that the 
 sun might not rise to-morrow. Now, she herself 
 has taught us how to modify or increase the 
 rainfall artificially by the extensive destruction 
 or the equally extensive planting of forests. 
 She has taught us even more than this. She 
 has shown us that this planting or destruction 
 of forests has so changed the ground-temperature 
 and surface evaporation, that, over this particular 
 area, the climate is different from what it would 
 otherwise have been. Similarly, by the drainage 
 of the Fens, not only has man reclaimed an enor- 
 mous amount of land, created plenty where before 
 was want, but, there again, he has so modified the 
 climate that he has produced health and longev- 
 ity where ague and other ailments incidental to a 
 damp atmosphere previously tended to disease and 
 shortness of life. 
 
 So it is that science has answered her own objec- 
 tions to the efficacy of prayer in a way that we 
 never could have done without her aid. She has
 
 208 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 taught us that far from it being true that God cannot 
 answer our prayers for rain, health, harvests and 
 other material blessings, man himself can work this 
 miracle. God cannot be a slave to His own" Laws 
 of Nature when man, His creature, can so combine 
 and harness them as to make them do His bidding. 
 And it ceases to be the miracle we once thought 
 it to be when we see how simply it is done, without 
 in anywise cancelling, altering or suspending any 
 of Nature's Laws. 
 
 As with our prayers for material blessings, so 
 it is with our requests for spiritual graces. This 
 point we have already considered, so it need not 
 delay us long g . We have seen the immense influ- 
 ence that man's spirit wields on man's spirit by the 
 sheer force of will and character. The modern 
 science of psychology has clearly established this 
 fact. If in our own human experience, one man, 
 by his mere presence, acts upon us like a bright 
 ray of sunshine, while another blights us as an 
 East wind, cannot God's Spirit in the same manner 
 act on our spirit, and pour His sunshine into our 
 hearts ? 
 
 Before Science spoke, we instinctively felt that 
 Nature pointed to Nature's God, yet "though His 
 sunshine flashed around us, His storms at times 
 drew near," and in the face of Nature's groaning 
 we were perplexed midst hope and fear. Science, 
 
 8 v. sup., p. 79 sqq.
 
 Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 209 
 
 we have seen, has supplied us with one answer to 
 meet our need and calm our fears. 
 
 So, too, with the problem of the efficacy of prayer. 
 At the outset an immature science weakened and 
 overcast, even though it did not destroy, the faith in 
 prayer of some earnest minds who listened to the 
 confident assertions of men whom they rightly hon- 
 oured for their generous ardour and unselfish devo- 
 tion in the service of truth. Now, science itself, 
 which began by rudely pushing us from our bended 
 knees, brings us back again to the Throne of Grace 
 more firmly convinced than ever in the efficacy of 
 prayer. 
 
 This very discussion on the efficacy of prayer 
 and its reasonableness has been of the greatest 
 service to the Church. It has cleared our minds 
 of much confusion of thought on this important 
 subject, and given us a truer, broader, more spiritual 
 and Scriptural conception of Prayer. 
 
 These two instances may suffice to show our heavy 
 indebtedness to science. We should not accept every 
 new speculation as a new gospel, but what is really 
 true for science must be true for theology. God 
 never contradicts Himself, and He speaks as truly 
 in His Book of Nature as in His Bible. For our- 
 selves, we maintain that it is the Incarnation that 
 meets our utmost need ; It is the one perfect Re- 
 velation which makes life a lucid story, and solves 
 the riddle of the Universe. But gladly do we wel- 
 come the advancement of science in its every form
 
 2IO Scientific Objections examined (continued}. 
 
 for we firmly believe that, in the long run, it in- 
 variably advances the cause and promotes the King- 
 dom of Him. who is the God of Truth h . 
 
 h cf. Dean of S. Patrick's : " Until we have learnt to welcome 
 and not to disparage the investigations of modern science, we have 
 not recognized either the Unity or the Catholicity of Truth."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ALTERNATIVE CHAPTER TO 
 CHAPTER VI.
 
 A rgument. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC objections briefly recapitulated. Importance 
 of clear definitions in argument. Our God not the God 
 of Deism, i.e. the semi-materialism of eighteenth-century 
 religion; nor the God of Pantheism, i.e. pure materialism. 
 Theism defined and shown to be fatal to materialistic 
 objections to prayer. 
 
 Laws of Nature denned. Why human beings are both 
 subject and superior to the operation of these Laws. Man 
 can harness these Laws to do his bidding : much more 
 can God do so ; therefore prayers for material benefits are 
 reasonable. The Laws of Nature known to us are "second 
 causes," and themselves depend on superior causes beyond 
 our ken. Miracles defined. History of the " Hospital 
 Test " episode. Its value as a test, nil. 
 
 Arguments in favour of prayer : (i) The universal prayer- 
 instinct. Instincts more reliable than logic. (2) Argu- 
 ment from universal experience. (3) Argument from Scrip- 
 ture. (4) Argument from Fatherhood of God. Is emotion 
 a Divine attribute ? Importance of right views in practical 
 matters. Our views create our world and colour every 
 detail of our life. How Truth is to be attained. "The 
 pure in heart see God."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ALTERNATIVE CHAPTER TO CHAPTER VI. 
 
 [In this Chapter we propose to deal with the scientific 
 objections to Prayer in a less philosophic and academic style, 
 in a common-sense practical way that will probably be more 
 generally satisfactory and convincing. The arguments ad- 
 vanced are mainly such as have commended themselves to 
 believers at all times. At the same time, we have endeavoured 
 to embody much of our previous chapter in simpler language. 
 We have already stated at length the scientific case against 
 Prayer in Chapter V., which our readers are requested to 
 read, as well as the first part of Chapter VI. up to page 1 54. 
 We take tip the thread of the argument from that point in 
 what Jo I lows J\ 
 
 ORIEFLY recapitulating the scientific objections to 
 *-* Prayer, we find that they amount to this. 
 
 Prayer is irrational, for it is asking God miraculously 
 to interfere with the fixed order of His Universe ; 
 to violate His own immutable Laws of Nature ; to 
 suspend the invariable sequence of cause and effect. 
 Prayer is, in a word, an attempt on man's part to 
 force God's hand ; to induce Him constantly to 
 interrupt the once-established and perfect system 
 of His Government so as to show favour to this 
 man or that. It involves a request for repeated 
 miracles ; it also betrays a crass ignorance, a flat 
 denial of the uniformity and perfect wisdom of
 
 214 Alternative CJiapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 God's ways. Prayer turns a God of law and order 
 into a God of confusion and caprice. Prayer was 
 all well and good in the benighted days of human 
 darkness and ignorance, but now that the darkness 
 and ignorance of the middle ages have given place 
 to the light of twentieth - century knowledge, it 
 is as absurd to pray for rain, or health, or even 
 purity of heart, as to think of asking that the sun 
 may not rise to-morrow. These things we pray 
 for, rain, health and wealth, and even character 
 itself, are themselves the results of laws which 
 absolutely render them inevitable ; therefore prayer 
 is a sheer waste of breath. Such is the scientific 
 argument. 
 
 A very wise philosopher of old was so convinced 
 that moral and intellectual error of every kind was 
 mainly due to the lack of a clearly-defined grasp 
 of the question at issue, and a consequent mis- 
 application of general terms, that in every argument 
 he first insisted on a clear definition of the general 
 terms or words in question. " Define," was Socrates' 
 one motto. He anticipated Hobbes' mot : " Words 
 are the counters of wise men, but the money of 
 fools." 
 
 Now the whole matter at issue between materialism 
 and Theism resolves itself into this other question 
 " What do we mean by God ? What do we mean 
 by^ Law or Force ? " 
 
 Materialism pure and simple does not believe in a
 
 Alternative CJiapter to Chapter VI. 215 
 
 God. But in its dispute with Theists it insists that 
 God, if there be a God, once and for all at the 
 beginning of things set the world agoing ; that the 
 primordial matter then called into existence was so 
 perfectly constituted and subjected to such well- 
 ordered laws or forces that it henceforth has required 
 no interference on God's part. Man himself is but 
 a part of the great self-existent, self-developing 
 universe, a mere bubble on its surface, existing but 
 for a moment, while the great stream of life flows 
 on for ever. 
 
 It is only in deference to us that materialists, 
 for the moment and for purposes of discussion, 
 presuppose a God. They do not believe in Him 
 themselves. Their belief is that life, matter and 
 the solar systems existed from all eternity. To 
 examine the deep and abstruse question of the 
 existence of God is beyond the scope of this 
 chapter. For the time being, both sides take the 
 existence of God for granted, provisionally, and 
 the only point at issue is : " can God if there 
 be a God answer Prayer ? " 
 
 At the outset we refuse to accept the materialist 
 picture of the Christian God as a true representa- 
 tion of our God. It is a caricature, a libel of 
 Him, and not our idea of God and His Universe 
 at all. 
 
 The materialist's picture of the Christian God is 
 merely the God of the old Deism. Deism places God 
 before us as creating the world out of nothing by the
 
 216 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 fiat of His Will, and then deposes Him. God merely 
 sets the universe agoing, then leaves it to evolve itself, 
 surveying it afar off unconcerned. Any further 
 action on His part is unnecessary. His Providence 
 is superseded by a system of unchangeable routine, 
 that is to say, Nature's Laws, which have some- 
 how, after being made by Him, become independent 
 of God. 
 
 Clearly, this Deism is pure materialism all over 
 again. Deism is the natural offspring of a material- 
 istic eighteenth century. It is a form of religion 
 which just accepts such ideas of God and religion 
 as fit in with the accepted views of Nature cur- 
 rent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 that gave it birth, and discards from religion 
 as untrue whatever does not square with these 
 views. Deism came into being as the natural out- 
 come of the study of physical science and its 
 methods in the days of Bacon, and after. Bacon 
 laid down the principle of experience and observation 
 as the basis and gauge of all knowledge ; and though 
 Bacon himself was no sceptic in matters of faith, 
 others took up his premises, and, applying them 
 to religion, drove these premises home to their 
 logical conclusions. Thus Hobbes, " the Grandfather 
 of English freethinkers," and Locke insisted that 
 everything in religion that was contrary to reason 
 must go overboard. Now, as the knowledge of 
 Nature and of the laws supposed to govern it was 
 very crude in those days, Deism, or the belief in
 
 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 217 
 
 a God Who set the world agoing then left it to 
 work itself, became a popular creed ; but it is 
 almost an exploded creed nowadays. 
 
 If Deism is not our present creed, neither is Pan- 
 theism. Pantheism is also a new thing and a new 
 word in European religion. Till the eighteenth 
 century, all its ideas were called rank " atheism." 
 It is only with Schelling that it comes forward as 
 a religious theory, and, in order to defend himself 
 and his spiritual cousin, Spinoza, against the atheistic 
 reproach of pantheism, Schelling endeavoured to 
 confine the name to " the doctrine of the immanence 
 of all things in God." 
 
 Pantheism says : " God is everywhere and in 
 everything. God is the Universe. God is the one 
 eternal substance underlying and animating thought 
 and matter. From Him individual forms constantly 
 emerge and as constantly return to Him and are 
 absorbed again in Him." 
 
 Man is thus but a mere bubble ; and God is 
 neither a Person, cause or anything but a fine name 
 for the Universe itself. 
 
 The charm of Pantheism is that it satisfies a noble 
 aspiration. It assures man of his real union with 
 the Source of his own life and of the universal life. 
 It does in a way what the Incarnation does for 
 Christians, it makes men at one with the Divine 
 Nature. But apart from the Universe, God, in the 
 pantheistic creed, has no existence. " And how 
 can we yield love, obedience, worship, to a mere
 
 218 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 eternal substance underlying the universe, a mere 
 torrent of existence that flows onwards inexorably 
 beneath our feet ; we, the ripples, who do but rise 
 upon its surface to sink back again after our little 
 moment of undulation a ?" Even more than Deism, 
 Pantheism is materialism personified. It knows 
 nothing of the Deist's Transcendent God ; it knows 
 nothing of the distinction between virtue and vice, 
 good and evil. 
 
 " Who, then, and what is the God in Whom 
 Christians believe ? " it will be asked. He is a God 
 Who is all that Deism and Pantheism ever dreamt 
 of, but He is a great deal more besides. There is 
 a great truth in the Transcendence of Deism. " As 
 the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My 
 ways higher than your ways, My thoughts 
 than your thoughts." " Behold, God is great, and 
 we know Him not." " It is He that sitteth upon 
 the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof 
 are but as grasshoppers/' There is a great Truth 
 also in the Immanence of Pantheism. We do not 
 close our eyes to the Presence of God in His Uni- 
 verse. "If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there ; 
 if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there ; 
 if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the 
 uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy 
 hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. 
 Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or whither 
 shall I flee from Thy Presence ? " Both Deism 
 
 a Canon Liddon.
 
 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 219 
 
 and Pantheism emphasize a valuable truth, but it 
 is a one-sided truth, and Christianity, as ever, 
 combines, heightens, fulfils them both. Our God 
 is both Immanent and Transcendent. To assert 
 God's Presence in the universe is one thing, and 
 a right thing ; to identify Him with it is quite 
 another thing, and a blunder. Our idea of God is 
 that He is a living Person, a God Almighty and 
 All-Wise ; but more than this, He is a moral God, 
 a God of Justice ; still more, a God with a warm 
 Heart, a God of Love, our Father, even as Christ has 
 fully revealed Him to us. And He is a God "Who 
 worketh hitherto " ; no absentee God, but One Who 
 from moment to moment is ever guiding and sus- 
 taining His world. 
 
 We shall see that such a God, Who is at one and 
 the same time Immanent and Transcendent, is not 
 a slave to His Laws, any more than an earthly father 
 is a slave to the good and wise rules and principles 
 he imposes upon himself and his family for the 
 well-being and guidance of his household. Deism 
 naturally thought God was a slave to His laws : for 
 Deism itself was, as we have seen, the outcome of 
 materialism. Therefore it endorsed the scientific ob- 
 jections to prayer. Theism pulverizes these scien- 
 tific objections, for it gives us a God Who is ever, 
 like the helmsman with his hand on the tiller, 
 superintending His Universe ; ever guiding the so- 
 called Laws of Nature, even as He allows His 
 creature, man, to guide them for his welfare.
 
 22O Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 But what is meant by the " Laws of Nature," and 
 the " forces " which scientists are so constantly 
 holding up before our eyes? Here again, if, as 
 seekers after Truth, we want consistency and 
 accuracy of thought, we must clearly define our 
 terms. 
 
 Is a " Law of Nature " some " self-sustained in- 
 visible force of which we can give no account except 
 that here it is, as a matter of experience " ? Or do 
 we mean by a Law of Nature, " the observed regu- 
 larity with which God works; the principle according 
 to which God appears to govern His Universe " ? 
 
 If a Law of Nature means "a self-sustained in- 
 visible force," then, there is no God. We have not 
 only fettered His freedom, we have ceased to believe 
 in Him as the originating and controlling Source 
 of all things. If by Law, on the other hand, we 
 only mean that the same cause is always and every- 
 where followed by the same effect, or, in other words, 
 that God governs His world according to certain 
 regular, uniform and discoverable modes of action 
 which are, therefore, a declaration of His Will, then 
 we agree with this definition, and accept it. 
 
 But we must also remember that, to render justi- 
 fiable the application of this principle of Law to 
 any particular case, we must be sure of our ground. 
 When we say, for example, " In the world of Nature 
 this series of antecedents (or cause) always produces 
 this particular result (or effect), therefore this will 
 always be the case under any circumstances " ; we
 
 Alternative Chapter to CJiapter VI. 221 
 
 reply, " certainly, if the two cases are precisely 
 identical." The same antecedents will produce the 
 same result, if (but only if) we are sure that the 
 antecedents in each case are identically the same. 
 A single factor introduced into or subtracted from 
 the antecedents (or cause) will lead to a totally 
 different result. To give a rough illustration : I 
 walk twenty yards along a street and return home. 
 To all appearance I am exactly what I was two 
 minutes previously. But I have brushed against a 
 person just convalescing from small-pox or scarlet- 
 fever. A few virulent microbes introduced among 
 the millions of healthy microbes in me may pro- 
 duce all the difference between health and disease 
 or even death. 
 
 Now this is where we maintain that materialists 
 are at fault. Men of science assume that because 
 we are able to classify and arrange many of the facts 
 of Nature under certain physical laws ; because inert 
 inorganic matter invariably obeys these laws ; be- 
 cause the lower forms 6F life seem to do so too, 
 therefore these physical laws hold uniformly and 
 universally true. And, say they, as our knowledge 
 grows from less to more, all the facts of life will 
 eventually fall under the same category of mechan- 
 ical cause and effect. We admit that they are right 
 so far as the inorganic world is concerned, but we 
 deny it absolutely of the world of organic life b . 
 
 b " The constancy of results is the characteristic feature of the 
 phenomena under directivity in the inorganic world. Hut, with re-
 
 222 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 Wherever life enters into our calculation, a disturb- 
 ing factor comes in which we cannot afford to 
 ignore. The antecedents are no longer the same, 
 and therefore the result will be different as well. 
 
 Our argument may be clearer if we put it in this 
 form. In the inorganic world we have simply matter 
 plus the laws of Nature working upon it. In con- 
 scious human life we have matter (i.e., our bodies) 
 phis the laws of Nature working upon \\.,plus human 
 intelligence, plus will, plus emotion. It stands to 
 reason that whereas, in the former case, it is easy to 
 predict what the result will be ; as soon as you com- 
 plicate the problem by introducing three new factors 
 you render prediction almost a moral impossibility. 
 And experience bears this out. You can predict, 
 from observation and experiment, that the molecules 
 of crystals will always be attracted to each other, 
 and arrange themselves in an invariable way, and 
 that the angles between their facets will always be 
 constant. But as soon as you come to living 
 organisms, even in such low forms as plants and 
 birds (see p. 168), it is impossible to predict 
 how the organism is going to develope under 
 new surroundings. Still more impossible is it to 
 predict when we are dealing with highly conscious 
 personalities such as God and man. In God, and 
 also in man made in His likeness, we have a creative 
 
 gard to directivity in the organic world, the most characteristic feature 
 may be expressed by the phrase ' Infinite variability, as proved by 
 the results.' " Prof. Henslow.
 
 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 223 
 
 power within which guides and directs the Laws of 
 Nature to do its bidding ; and to deny man's free 
 will, his power (subordinate to God's Free Will) of 
 doing this or that, is to deny the obvious. As Canon 
 Liddon writes : " Man, in his entire freedom, is 
 absolutely dependent ; in his entire dependence, he 
 is absolutely free. This paradox is the literal 
 truth." Our environment does, in a way, bind us, 
 yet the self-directing soul within does enable us 
 to choose our own path. 
 
 We fully admit that in so far as man is a 
 body, as well as a soul, that is to say, in so 
 far as he is "an animated parcel of matter," man 
 is subject to the physical laws that obtain else- 
 where in the world of matter. This is why, so 
 long as we are in the body, our life is and must 
 be more or less conditioned by our environment. 
 But man is body plus soul, and, of the two, the 
 soul is by far the more potent factor, and con- 
 stantly enables man to rise superior to the most 
 unfavourable surroundings. Therefore we decline 
 to allow scientists to tie and bind us down to their 
 inelastic inexorable physical laws ; to determine not 
 only our actions but our thoughts and character 
 simply by our surroundings as if we were so many 
 crystals or corpses. 
 
 Far from blindly believing them when they tell us 
 that even God cannot interfere with His own Laws 
 of Nature, even if He would, we deliberately say that 
 He not only can but does do it daily. If this is a
 
 224 Alternative CJiapter to Chapter VL 
 
 miracle which God cannot work, then He must be 
 inferior to His own creatures, for we ourselves are 
 constantly working this very miracle. By planting 
 extensive forests or destroying them, we increase or 
 decrease the rainfall. We drain a fen -country and 
 thereby alter its climate, and so conduce to men's 
 health and longevity. We bring our own will and 
 the influence of our character to bear on those with 
 whom we associate, and make them more like our- 
 selves than they would otherwise be. Now if we, 
 weak men, can produce rain, introduce health where 
 disease previously dwelt, make our friends purer in 
 heart ; are we to deny to God a power which we, 
 His creatures, possess ? In our own actions to bring 
 about the effects described, we in nowise alter, 
 suspend or cancel the Laws of Nature. On the 
 contrary, we rule Nature by obeying her laws ; but 
 
 /i we do learn to guide and direct them into new 
 'i f [ 
 
 channels. May not God do the same ? Is it asking 
 Him to work a miracle when we pray to Him to 
 give us on a larger scale the spiritual and temporal 
 blessings which we ourselves can procure for our 
 own well-being in a smaller way ? We have dis- 
 cussed this more fully elsewhere (pp. 207-8), and 
 we must ask our readers to refer to those pages. 
 There we have also tried to prove that the very 
 uniformity of these laws is one reason the more why 
 we should confidently and boldly come to God's 
 Throne of grace in prayer.
 
 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 225 
 
 We believe that this is an adequate answer to the 
 scientific objections. If more is needed, it would be 
 easy to point out that the Laws of. Nature are not 
 only far too mechanical to be applied to moral and 
 spiritual conscious beings, but are in themselves 
 artificial abstractions^ and, at the best, only second 
 causes. Human intelligence is far too limited to 
 trace the chain of cause and effect beyond a very 
 short way. We probably understand God's Provi- 
 dential government of His universe very little better 
 than a clever dog can interpret his master's actions ; 
 yet we are for ever dogmatizing as if we carried the 
 key of the Universe in our pocket. Besides the 
 second causes which alone are plain to us, there 
 must be a large number of intermediate links in the 
 vast chain of cause and effect which we cannot see, 
 till we get to the ultimate and First Cause of all, 
 God. The apt illustration already quoted from i 
 Schaff (see pp. 166-7) shows how easily God by a 
 responsive touch, in answer to our prayers, at the 
 higher, and not at the lower part of the chain of 
 progressive causes, can produce the desired results 
 without introducing any miraculous interruption of 
 the so-called fixed order of sequence in the course 
 of things which we can alone see. 
 
 Besides, who are we to deny the possibility of 
 Miracles ? What is a miracle but a very simple 
 (to God) variation of God's ordinary mode of self- 
 expression ? It is an ordinary manifestation of 
 God's activity in a way to which we are not 
 
 Q
 
 226 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 accustomed. " To me there is nothing but miracle," 
 said Walt Whitman, and most thinking men would 
 say the same. 
 
 Allusion has been made earlier in the book to 
 the famous " Hospital Test," and as the historical 
 controversy of 1872-3 brought the points at issue 
 between Science and Religion vividly before the 
 public, and the quarrel assumed a specially acute 
 phase, it may be well to discuss it here. The most 
 eminent men on either side took part in this con- 
 troversy. " It was proposed to take two wards of 
 the same hospital, to each of which the same class 
 of patients should be sent, great care being taken, 
 in the allotment of patients, to give to neither ward 
 any advantage over the other. Then it was proposed 
 to invite the Christian world, or a part of it, to pray 
 for the recovery of the patients in one ward, leaving 
 those in the other ward unprayed for ; and finally, 
 after the process had been continued long enough 
 for a sufficient induction, it was proposed to examine 
 the respective percentages of recovery, for the pur- 
 pose of discovering whether the ward for which 
 prayer had been made could show a more favourable 
 return. If so, the efficacy of prayer would be es- 
 tablished ; if not, it was contended that the principle 
 of the method of difference required us to reject 
 the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer as untrue." 
 (Jellett.) 
 
 The experiment was never actually tried, for 
 obvious reasons. As Dr. Jellett truly says : " Let
 
 Alternative Chapter to Cliapter VI. 227 
 
 us suppose that the experiment was made, and that v 
 the difference between one ward plus prayer, and 
 another ward minus prayer was nil. What would 
 this prove ? The inefficacy of prayer ? Certainly 
 not : but the inefficacy of prayer under the conditions 
 of experiment" Prayer under conditions of an ex- 
 periment is an impossible test, because in prayer 
 "motive" counts for everything, it is a sine qua non. 
 " Prayer, if it is to produce any effect, produces 
 it by acting on the Will of God, Who knows per- 
 fectly well by what motives the petitioner is actuated, 
 and here the motive would be wanting in the very 
 quality God requires of us, implicit faith ; we should 
 be putting God Himself to the test to satisfy the 
 curiosity of men." It is all well and good to urge: 
 " But is not the purpose in this particular experiment 
 a good one, a sincere desire to elicit the truth, and 
 convince unbelievers?" Plausible as this may sound, 
 "the success of the supposed prayer-experiment 
 would prove, not simply the efficacy of prayer, but 
 the efficacy of prayer witJiout faith or trust in God G " 
 
 We have dwelt more than long enough on the 
 objections to prayer, we shall conclude with a few 
 arguments in favour of it. 
 
 (a] There is, to begin with, the universal instinct 
 of prayer, an instinct so universal that we might 
 almost accept the phrase " man is a praying animal " 
 as a definition of man. Go where we will, and as 
 
 c Jellett, "Donnellan Lectures," pp. 60, 61, 94, 95, 96.
 
 228 Alternative CJiapter to CJuipter VL 
 
 far back into the records of the past as we may, 
 from the very beginning, in every land, so soon 
 as men could interpret themselves with even a ray 
 of intelligence, man has prayed. There has ever 
 risen the cry which we still hear as often as we 
 pause and listen to the voice of our own hearts, the 
 cry for God. It is the same cry, though not yet 
 articulately voiced, which afterwards found clearer 
 expression in the inspired writer's pregnant words : 
 " My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living 
 God " ; " My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for 
 the Lord " ; " My heart and my flesh cry out for 
 the living God." To our colder moods these words 
 may seem exaggerated and fanatical, yet they utter 
 not simply the experience of an emotional set of 
 Jewish singers, but one of the profoundest yearnings 
 and desires of every human heart, a yearning which 
 no words can adequately voice. 
 
 True, in the early stages of primitive man's civi- 
 lization, man's idea of God is low and crude. His 
 god is only a gigantic man, strong and cruel, and 
 we human beings his abject slaves. As a clever 
 sceptic, puts it : " To this god man prays, that is to 
 say, he begs ; he sings hymns, that is to say, he 
 flatters ; he sacrifices, that is to say, he pays tribute, 
 chiefly out of fear, but partly in the hope of getting 
 something better in return, long life, riches, and 
 fruitful wives." Clever and cynical as this may be, 
 it does not cancel the fact that at all times and 
 everywhere man is a praying creature. How else
 
 Alternative CJiapter to Chapter VI. 229 
 
 do you account for the spectacle of the ancient 
 heathen cities in which we are told there were 
 almost as many temples as houses, and a god for 
 every score of men ? If we can make no better 
 use of the idolatries of the world, let us at least 
 summon them as witnesses to man's craving for 
 God, a craving which is an inbred intuition of 
 universal man. Bishop Gore sees in this universal 
 instinct of prayer a proof of the existence of God. 
 " The faculty of prayer would not be thus universal 
 in man were it not a fact that there is a reality 
 outside us, God, with Whom this prayer-faculty 
 brings us into actual touch." We have already 
 stated our own belief that it is " the image of God 
 within us " crying for reunion with its Divine Source. 
 
 Disparage it as sceptics may, the universality of 
 the prayer-instinct, " O Thou that hearest prayer, 
 unto Thee shall all flesh come," is a significant fact. 
 As Prof. Max Miiller says : " we are so fashioned, 
 and it is no merit of our own that as soon as we 
 awake, we feel on all sides our dependence on 
 something else, and all nations join in some way 
 or other in the words of the Psalmist: 'it is He 
 that hath made us and not we ourselves.' " 
 
 There is far more than appears on the surface 
 in Pope's words : 
 
 " Father of all ! in every age, 
 
 In every clime adored 
 By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord."
 
 230 Alternative Cliapter to Cliapter VL 
 
 It may be urged: "but, after all, it is only an 
 instinct, and developed reason corrects it." We 
 should prefer to say that instinct is above reason, 
 passes our understanding, and invariably guides 
 us right. Is it not a common experience that in- 
 tuition is truer and safer than logic ; that a conviction 
 springing from the heart, or subconscious self, or 
 we know not where, is better than the most faultless 
 syllogism ; that the very deepest truths are precisely 
 those which cannot be proved by argument ? We 
 all know a great deal more than we can prove, and 
 many a vital guiding truth is the suggestion of the 
 God-soul within, acting independently of reason, its 
 servant. The longer we live, indeed, the less we 
 trust in logic ; the more we trust in the simple 
 primitive inspirations of the human heart. Christ 
 never discusses the reasonableness of prayer, but 
 He constantly appeals to our prayer-instinct, and 
 we feel and know that from the deeps of His Divine 
 nature He is calling to the deeps of our nature when 
 He bids us pray. " Ask, and ye shall have." 
 
 (b) And is the argument from the general ex- 
 perience of believers in God to count for nothing, 
 when they tell us that they have proved in them- 
 selves that our Father is a God Who answers prayer ? 
 Is this general personal experience as superficial, 
 emotional, worthless as many would have us fancy ? 
 Does it merely beg the question ? Is it not the 
 first principle, the very foundation of modern science 
 that " all knowledge is the result of observation and
 
 Alternative Chapter to CJiapter VI. 231 
 
 experience?" If this be true of the natural world, 
 why should this definition not hold good in the 
 spiritual world ? And the saints of God in times 
 past and times present assure us that always, every- 
 where, their experience has been that "they have 
 asked, and had ; sought, and found ; knocked, and 
 it has been opened unto them." 
 
 We need not elaborate this argument here, for 
 we have attempted to deal with it fully in our last 
 chapter (see pp. 192-5). 
 
 (c) Argument from Scripture. It seems absolutely 
 impossible to reconcile the teaching of the Bible 
 with any system that excludes prayer. From cover 
 to cover, Holy Scripture implies that God respects 
 the freewill of man as a moral being. God has, 
 in His Wisdom, chosen to surround Himself with 
 children possessed of intelligence, will, and feeling, 
 and, although, by His Holy Spirit, He purifies our 
 atmosphere to the utmost of His power, He refuses 
 to lay His finger on our wills and compel us to 
 be good or to do the right apart from our own 
 actions and determinations. God must obtain our 
 consent before He gives us His help ; prayer, or 
 the cry of the inmost soul to its God, is our consent. 
 Therefore, throughout the Bible, prayer is attached 
 by God as a condition to various spiritual and ma- 
 terial blessings. True, sacrifice largely replaces 
 prayer in the Old Testament, but the universal 
 instinct could not be thus repressed. Again and 
 again does prayer burst forth from the heart and
 
 232 Alternative CJiapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 lips of Old Testament saints, and both Old Testa- 
 ment teaching and example insist on the efficacy 
 of prayer as a point of vital importance. 
 
 When we turn to the New Testament, the case 
 for the efficacy of prayer is strengthened a thou- 
 sandfold. Christ, both by His teaching and ex- 
 ample, teaches the efficacy of Prayer by every 
 means in His power. We have already seen in 
 a previous chapter the immense value He Himself 
 attached to prayer, as the main source of His 
 strength. Constantly do we read that He went to 
 a quiet place to pray, or even : " He went out into 
 a mountain to pray, and continued all night in 
 prayer to God." 
 
 And in His teaching, not only does Christ enjoin 
 prayer on His disciples, both for spiritual and 
 material blessings : " Men ought always to pray, 
 and not to faint " : " Give us this day our daily 
 bread " ; but, so great a value does Christ lay on 
 prayer, that He teaches His disciples how to pray. 
 " After this manner, pray ye : Our Father." 
 
 More than this, the Bible forestalls all modern 
 objections to prayer, and brushes them asjde as no 
 barriers whatever in any way limiting the efficacy 
 of prayer. God foresaw all our scientific and theo- 
 logical difficulties, and, through His mouthpieces, 
 prophets and evangelists, answers them for us. 
 The uniformity and regularity of the laws of nature 
 are fully recognized in the Bible. God's Kingdom 
 is recognized in Scripture as a natural and universal
 
 Alternative Chapter to CJiapter VI. 233 
 
 kingdom or dominion absolutely subject to and 
 ordered by God. His dominion embraces all ob- 
 jects, persons, and events ; all doings of individuals 
 and nations, all the works and changes of Nature, 
 absolutely everything without exception : nothing 
 whatever is withdrawn from dependence upon Him. 
 He is King of all the earth (Ps. xlvii. 7) ; natural 
 agents are His ministers (Pss. civ. and cxlviii.). 
 
 The Bible anticipates not only scientific objec- 
 tions, but theological difficulties as well : " Our 
 Heavenly Father knoweth what we have need of 
 before we ask Him." The Bible knows too that 
 " man knoweth not what to pray for as he ought." 
 
 And yet God in His Bible commands us to pray. 
 His words to that effect are clear, precise, definite. 
 No possible system of interpretation can remove the 
 teaching of the necessity of prayer and of the effi- 
 cacy of prayer from the Bible. 
 
 (d} But even more decisive than any individual 
 text, or the collective chain of corroborative evidence 
 that may be welded together from the whole teach- 
 ing and Spirit of the Bible, is the inference to be 
 drawn from the supreme revelation made to us by 
 Christ when He unveils God to us as " Our Father." 
 This is not a mere word-picture. Christ's whole life, 
 and the whole tone of His teaching, show the 
 emphasis He lays on the actual Fatherhood of God, 
 with every single attribute that this intimate re- 
 lationship naturally and necessarily carries with it. 
 All that sense of fellowship, love, trust, of hope and
 
 254 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 confidence, of assured sympathy which we associate 
 with the words Father and child, these are here, 
 and in an intensified form. Christ meant us so to 
 interpret the Fatherhood of God. When Jesus, in 
 the story of the Prodigal Son, for example, says 
 that the Father watched and longed for His son's 
 return, and welcomed him with kisses and a joyful 
 feast, He meant us to take the essential truth home 
 to our hearts, that God is our Father in every sense 
 of the word that the best of earthly fathers is father 
 to his child, in actual kinship, in love, in sympathy. 
 
 We are too afraid to attribute emotion to God. 
 Is emotion a moral weakness and unworthy of God ? 
 Was Jesus weak when He wept at Lazarus' grave- 
 side ? Is a man who relieves sorrow and distress, 
 but is untouched by it, giving to misery all he has 
 but not one tear, is he our ideal of the perfect 
 man ? He may be very strong, and upright, and 
 almost superhuman, but such a man we never could 
 love. So " to endeavour to resolve God into in- 
 tellect without affections is Atheism under a new 
 name : for mere intellect is not an active principle " 
 (F. W. Newman). 
 
 To call God " Our Father," and yet to fancy 
 that He is a God Who does not hear and answer 
 His children's prayers, is a contradiction in terms 
 Think what it would mean if an earthly father said to 
 his child, " I have made once and for all the best 
 and wisest arrangements for your welfare. Every- 
 thing that could be done has been done for you.
 
 Alternative Chapter to Cliapter VI. 235 
 
 And now remember that whatever you need, whatever 
 trouble may assail you. you must not look to me for 
 help. Your only plan is to bring yourself back again 
 into conformity with the wise and self-regulating 
 arrangements I have laid down unchangeably for the ' 
 management of my household. I cannot alter them,/ V 
 for I am as much bound by them as you are/'| 
 Would not such a cast-iron system have a blasting 
 withering effect on a child, and should we not 
 rightly call such a parent an inhuman monster ? 
 
 Thank God ! this is not the picture Christ draws 
 of His and our Father. " If ye then, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
 how much more shall your Father which is in 
 Heaven give good things to them that ask Him." 
 "Ask, and ye shall have." 
 
 If this matter were a merely speculative question, 
 it would not be of such vital moment which attitude 
 we adopted towards our relationship to God, what 
 answer we gave to the problem : "Is there any 
 efficacy in Prayer ? " But there are some practical 
 questions which are not merely speculative truths, 
 but influence men's whole lives deeply, and this 
 is one of them. A writer in the Hibbert Journal 
 well expresses this: "If you follow, for instance, 
 J. S. Mill's view that ' love of virtue is love of 
 pleasure in disguise,' virtue is not now to you just 
 what it was before. The moment I understand 
 that what I am really aiming at is not virtue, as
 
 236 Alternative Cliaptcr to Chapter VI. 
 
 I previously supposed, but pleasure, all my delusions 
 about the supereminence of virtue will vanish ; and 
 the love of virtue, if I am true to my convictions, 
 will give place to an entirely different order of desire. 
 I dreamt previously that I was in a palace : you 
 have now awakened me to the truth that I am 
 in a sty ; and being awake you cannot expect me, 
 as a rational being, to play at believing that my 
 acorns are pearls, and my wash the nectar of the 
 gods. Assuming Mill's explanation of the love of 
 virtue to be true, my only chance of retaining the 
 higher love of it is to remain in total ignorance 
 of his explanation So, again, whatever theory you 
 set up of moral reponsibility Freewill or Determin- 
 ism must apply to you in every detail of your 
 daily life." 
 
 So it is that our questions : " Is there a God ? " 
 " Does He hear prayer ? " " Are we bound to the 
 Juggernaut-car of inexorable Laws of Nature ? " are 
 not the mere theoretical problems many would 
 have us fancy. The view we adopt on these subjects 
 is to us a matter of life and death, for it will 
 colour every single detail of our life. In purely 
 speculative hypotheses, a man may believe, dis- 
 believe, or suspend his decision with comparative 
 impunity. But in questions which are of vital 
 practical importance, it must be " Yes " or " No " ; 
 belief or disbelief. Here our theory creates our 
 moral world : our convictions formulate a principle 
 to which the whole length and breadth of our
 
 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 237 
 
 ^i_^u ,o mv. niagiv, xvaiiu w^.v-n SIVV..J ILO H u^, vciiu^ 
 
 to whatever it touches. " As a man thinketh in 
 his heart, so is he/' and, therefore, our responsibility 
 in arriving at a right decision is enormous. 
 
 How then are we to arrive at a right decision 
 in this vital matter ? Where is the Truth ? Some 
 say it is here, others there : which are we to follow ? 
 
 We may accept the voice of Authority, and 
 borrow our opinions from others, and perhaps, 
 for some, this is the only way. Fortunately, He, 
 Who is the Truth, has spoken the last word on 
 the subject in Holy Scripture, and there we have 
 a safe Guide. 
 
 But, faith is never conviction till we have ourselves 
 trod the hard road of personal experience, and 
 by the light of the Holy Spirit within us, " the light 
 that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 
 probed right down to the heart of things for 
 ourselves. 
 
 He who said : " I am the Truth," also graciously 
 promised that " The Holy Spirit shall guide you into 
 all Truth," and this self-acquired truth is the only X 
 kind of Truth of which it can really be said, " The 
 Truth shall make you free." 
 
 Over and over again have we repeated : " There 
 is an immortal centre in us all where Truth abides 
 in fulness," and it is with the eye of the soul that 
 we see the Truth. Guided by the indwelling Spirit's 
 light, we must cultivate the Divine consciousness
 
 238 Alternative Chapter to Chapter VI. 
 
 within us ; we must truly open the door of our 
 inmost heart to God in prayer and consciously com- 
 mune and humbly walk with Him, for thus alone 
 shall we see the Truth. " Spiritual things are 
 spiritually discerned," and only he who has "the 
 grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of 
 God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost " 
 in his heart (consciously or unconsciously), he 
 whose soul is in touch with the Father-Soul, 
 he and he alone, " thinks the thought that is 
 highest, and earnestly strives to live the thought 
 he thinks." 
 
 But, here as ever, " each man must work out his 
 own salvation." Precisely as God will not make 
 us good, by mere mechanical pressure, apart from 
 our own actions and determinations, else the good- 
 ness, such as it was, would be His, and not ours, 
 even so, the Spirit of Truth, which guideth into all 
 truth, will not compel us to see the Truth, apart 
 from our own search, apart from our own active, 
 patient, courageous quest for it. By exercise, by 
 contemplation, by prayer, above all by serving 
 God in serving man, we must, even as Christ did, 
 develope the immortal centre where Truth abides 
 in fulness, just as we must suppress the sensual 
 and material lower nature, "the gross flesh that 
 hems truth in, wall upon wall, all around." Then, 
 indeed, shall Truth abide in us. " The pure in 
 heart," not only shall, but actually do " see God."
 
 PART III. 
 
 Devotional
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOME HELPS TO PRAYER, AND SOME 
 HINDRANCES.
 
 A rgument. 
 
 A. THE disciple's cry, " Lord, teach us to pray," echoed 
 by every human heart. We know prayer should be the 
 heart's spontaneous utterance, yet we crave for guidance ; 
 the prayer-ideal is too high for us, we cannot attain unto it. 
 
 Danger of rules. Distinction between principles and 
 rules. Where rules become a snare. 
 
 Yet there are rules of Prayer that are helpful if we keep 
 them as our servants, not masters : (i) A stated time 
 for prayer. (2) A stated place. (3) Seclusion. (4) "Watch 
 unto prayer." (5) Reverence in Prayer. (6) " Prayer in 
 faith," as distinguished from " faith in prayer." (7) Avoid 
 generalities. (8) " Where you cannot pray as you would, 
 pray as you can." 
 
 B. Hindrances to prayer. Wilful sin, selfishness and an 
 unforgiving temper.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOME HELPS TO PRAYER, AND SOME HINDRANCES. 
 
 A. 
 
 Rules and principles of Prayer. 
 
 "AND it came to pass as He was praying in a 
 f* certain place, when He ceased, one of His 
 disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, 
 as John also taught his disciples." 
 
 Now, we cannot suppose for one moment that 
 the disciple, who asked Christ to teach him and 
 his fellow-disciples to pray, had never prayed and 
 did not know how to do so. 
 
 He was a Jew, and all Jews were prayerful men. 
 But he had just witnessed Christ's devotions. He 
 felt, as we feel, the imperfection of his own prayers. 
 He knew there must be a more excellent way than 
 his own, and he desired to learn it. He only 
 echoed the cry of every human heart, longing for 
 a truer and closer communion with its God, when 
 he said to Christ, " Lord, teach us to pray." 
 
 When we ourselves kneel in private to pray, is 
 it not our constant experience that a dead weight 
 of dryness and languor seems to seal the fountain 
 of prayer ? Do we not instinctively crave for some
 
 244 Sonic Jtelps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 wiser hand to guide us, for some simple rules which 
 may help us in our hour of need ? 
 
 We know quite well that prayer, talking with God, 
 should be spontaneous, if it is to be worth anything. 
 It must come from the heart, and our heart in its 
 conscious converse with our Heavenly Father should 
 need no more prompting than does a child when 
 he speaks to a father whom he loves and trusts. 
 
 All this we know. Yet what is our actual 
 experience ? We kneel in prayer, and alas ! our 
 heart is often dumb. There comes over us a feeling 
 of depression, sometimes of darkness ; a spiritual 
 drought of soul : a strange wandering of our 
 thoughts ; our devotions lack life and interest. 
 And, at such moments, we yearn for some sym- 
 pathetic hand, some experienced guide to show us 
 the way in our hour of perplexity and discourage- 
 ment. The prayer-ideal is too high for us ordinary 
 mortals, we cannot attain unto it. Yet, surely, there 
 must be some road by which we may approach 
 nearer to this ideal, obtain a distant glimpse of it ;. 
 will not someone point us out the way, give us some 
 plain, simple directions that will bring us to this 
 road ? In a word, is there no answer to the human 
 heart's cry : " teach us to pray ? " 
 
 It is to this human cry we owe that best of all 
 prayers, " Our Lord's Prayer." It is in answer to 
 this earnest human appeal that we venture to offer 
 a few rules of prayer, which the long experience 
 of mankind has proved to be of some help and use.
 
 Some helps to Prayer ; and some hindrances. 245 
 
 One word of caution. " Rules, even holy rules," 
 says Dean Goulburn, " may be a snare, and prove 
 burdensome and entangling rather than helpful, if, 
 in administering them to ourselves, we do not 
 continually keep our eye on the Spirit and principle 
 of them." 
 
 From the very nature of the case, we vary so in 
 character, in position, in culture that no two of us 
 are alike. To lay down universal rules for our 
 universal guidance is an impossibility and an im- 
 pertinence. It is rather principles we want. Take 
 a rule, any rule? and there is only one way of keeping 
 it, the way of literal obedience, and this may often 
 prove a foolish and even a disobedient way. But get 
 a principle, and there are a thousand ways in which 
 we may apply it, all of which may be wise and 
 beneficial. Principles may be just all round, if they 
 are wisely acted on ; but definite inelastic rules 
 must be unjust, however fairly applied, simply 
 because they will not stretch and vary till they 
 answer to every man's need. They leave no scope 
 for discretion and judgment. Hence it is that Christ 
 gives us principles, not rules. More than this He 
 often states these principles, e.g. in His Golden 
 Rule, in a paradoxical form, precisely in order that 
 we may not degrade them into mere maxims and 
 rules. " Whosoever shall strike thee on thy right 
 cheek, turn to him the other also." 
 
 But men prefer rules. Principles tax thought ; 
 they involve personal responsibility, and for the
 
 246 Sonic helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 most part men hate the labour of thought, and 
 shrink from the burden of responsibility. They 
 would rather have a clear-cut, definite, hard and 
 fast rule. "God, I thank Thee that I am not as 
 other men are. . . . / fast twice in the week, I give 
 tithes of all that I possess" 
 
 It is so easy to scrupulously observe certain 
 prescribed forms and rules, and then to account 
 oneself the special favourite of Heaven : to go 
 through the formality of sundry rites and ceremonies, 
 and walk straight from such worship of God to rob 
 the widow and the orphan. This was precisely 
 Christ's quarrel with the Pharisees of His day. 
 Because they entered the gates of worship, because 
 they stood before the altar, because they tithed 
 even the herbs of their gardens, therefore they felt 
 that they had done all that God claimed of them, 
 and they expected their reward. 
 
 Of course, such a type of religion is a caricature 
 of religion, yet it is ever with us : it is so natural. 
 Men fast a little, they go to early morning service, 
 they practise small acts of self-denial, and, refreshed 
 by these godly exercises, with consciences satisfied, 
 they enter with tenfold vigour into all the excite- 
 ments of the season, feeling that it is easy to make 
 the worship of God and the love of the world walk 
 hand in hand. 
 
 Nowhere does God condemn religious forms as 
 such. They are essential. But religious obser- 
 vances must be the natural expression of the
 
 Some helps to Prayer \ and some hindrances. 247 
 
 heart, or else, being untrue, they beget habitual 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 This is why in the multiplicity of rules there ever 
 lurks the possibility of a grave danger to ourselves, and 
 a want of consideration for others. In placing upon 
 our shoulders needless burdens and restrictions 
 which sour our temper, narrow our vision, and 
 tempt us to condemn others who do not observe 
 the same strictness of rule, we are apt to forget 
 that our formalism is often little but a subtle form 
 of self-pleasing, and not the holy life within which 
 we imagine it to be. 
 
 Well says Bishop Wilkinson : " Do not attempt 
 more prayers or rules than your strength or time 
 allows. Beware of a fidgetty, fussy kind of religion." 
 A great saint was one day asked : " How can I live 
 the higher life ? " He answered, " My child, go and 
 live the lower one, and God will teach you the 
 higher." 
 
 With this caution against the snare and danger 
 of rules, there is a great deal to be said in their 
 favour, so long as they are our servants, not our 
 masters. 
 
 In Prayer, we cannot do without rules. Prayer 
 is a very serious matter. If we do not introduce 
 some method into it, set apart a certain portion of 
 the day for it, give it that earnest attention which 
 we readily bring to bear upon the most necessary 
 and important interests of our daily life, we can
 
 248 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 never hope to form that habit of prayer which is 
 the life-breath of our spiritual life. 
 
 Even Christ fences the serious business of daily 
 prayer around with definite broad rules : " But 
 thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner 
 chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy 
 Father Which is in secret, and thy Father Which 
 is in secret shall reward thee openly." 
 
 Christ here seems to lay stress on two, if not 
 three, essential requisites of private prayer. There 
 should be a definite place set apart ; we must 
 be alone ; and there should be stated times for 
 prayer. 
 
 (i.) A stated time. The passage quoted may not 
 seem to bear this out, for it only says, " when 
 thou prayest." But Christ was speaking to a Jew, 
 and we know from Daniel and the Psalms that the 
 Jewish rule in Old Testament days was : " In the 
 evening, and morning and at noonday will I pray, 
 and that instantly." 
 
 The Psalmist goes further : " Seven times a day 
 do I praise Thee," just as the New Testament 
 bids us pray without ceasing, and we know that 
 our Lord not only had His regular times of pray- 
 ing (S. Mark i. 35), but constantly sought other 
 opportunities during the day for secret prayer. 
 
 But ours is a busy age, where one duty treads 
 hard upon the heel of another, and a slavish ad- 
 herence to such counsels of perfection would be 
 a grievous yoke under which we should fret, be-
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 249 
 
 sides needlessly interfering with our other plain 
 duties. 
 
 We can, however, all devote at least five minutes, 
 morning and evening, to communion with God, and 
 God can do much in these five minutes of heartfelt 
 prayer. " In the morning and in the evening will 
 I pray, and that instantly." " Twice in the day," 
 says Stopford Brooke, "it has been for ages the 
 habit of the race to use this talisman, once for 
 the sanctification of the day ; once for the sancti- 
 fication of the night. Such prayer is the guard 
 of life." 
 
 Then we can go forth to our day's work, and 
 there " pray without ceasing." Our very work will 
 be active prayer. " What a blessed thing is active 
 prayer," said S. Francis de Sales one day to a friend, 
 "and by active prayer, I mean doing everything 
 in God's Presence and for His Service." 
 
 (ii.) A definite place of prayer. " Habit is a cable ; 
 we weave a thread of it each day, and it becomes 
 so strong we cannot break it." This is a truth that 
 holds good even in trivial matters, and perhaps we 
 do not sufficiently value the importance of associa- 
 tions. To many of us a certain chair, a certain 
 table, a certain pen, a certain paper are now es- 
 sential, from long habit, if we are to do our best 
 work. There are in every man's life certain spots 
 so steeped for him in a hallowed atmosphere all 
 their own, that he cannot do what he does there 
 either so well, so thoroughly or with the same touch
 
 250 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 of inspiration, anywhere else. So it is with the 
 place of prayer. " Daniel went into his house, 
 into his chamber, and knelt upon his knees, and 
 prayed, his windows being opened in his chamber 
 towards Jerusalem, as he did aforetime'' 
 
 Of course, we must not press this too far. Doubt- 
 less, when Christ bids us " enter into thy chamber " 
 and there pray, He only means to lay stress on 
 what we shall emphasize in our next point, quietness 
 and seclusion. Any place will do for prayer if only 
 we can find seclusion there. He who said " enter 
 into thy chamber," was often homeless during His 
 active ministry. His place of prayer was some 
 desert place, or mountain, or a solitary spot, but 
 it was always a quiet place, shut away from earth's 
 discordant sounds. 
 
 (iii.) Seclusion in prayer. The soul must be alone 
 in private prayer with its God. " The greatness of 
 this necessity is in proportion to the greatness 
 of the soul " (Farrar). We see the truth of this 
 remark when we remember how often our Lord, 
 even amidst the loneliness of desert places, dis- 
 missed His faithful and beloved Twelve that He 
 might be still more completely alone. 
 
 (iv.) We must " watch unto prayer" We do not 
 usually make this of enough importance. We must 
 store up matter for our prayers; take account of 
 the hours as they pass, watch our steps and thoughts 
 in the work-day ; note our defects and failures there, 
 in order that we may know what to pray about,
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 251 
 
 what to pray for, what to pray against, when the 
 time comes. 
 
 This is the best preparation, though there is 
 another that should always accompany it. We 
 have seen that it is the Holy Spirit that prompts 
 us in prayer, and, as a quaint old writer puts it, 
 " the Spirit rides most triumphantly in His own 
 chariot " (i.e. the Word of God). It is undoubtedly 
 a great help to us, before we pray, to prepare our 
 hearts by reading even a few verses of the Bible : 
 God's chosen means of enlightenment, comfort, 
 rebuke, quickening. George Miiller confessed that 
 often he could not pray until he had thus steadied 
 his mind upon the Word of God. 
 
 Preparation, and careful preparation, as Bishop 
 Hamilton said, is needed. We are well aware that 
 many saintly men protest against such preparation 
 for prayer. They maintain that it is making human 
 wisdom quench the Holy Spirit within us when it 
 offers to prompt us spontaneously and intercede for 
 us in prayer according to the Will of God. Our 
 prayers, say they, should not be addressed to God 
 in the carefully-studied words of human wisdom, 
 we should pray on the spur of the moment as the 
 Holy Spirit moves us. 
 
 True, our Lord told His disciples that there were 
 times when they should take no thought beforehand 
 how or what they should speak, for it should be 
 given them in that hour what they were to say. 
 
 But when they asked Him how they should pray r
 
 252 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 Christ did not tell them to rely entirely on the 
 inspiration of the hour. On the contrary, He 
 Himself gave them a model Prayer for their guid- 
 ance. " After this manner pray ye." We have 
 seen how our Lord's Prayer includes reverence, 
 praise, bowing to the Will of God, intercession and 
 supplication, and how carefully our Lord places 
 these in a certain order. Christ meant His dis- 
 ciples to study this pattern prayer, its structure and 
 method, and to prepare theirs on that model. 
 
 We have no right to ask God's help if we approach 
 Him without due preparation. Indeed, it seems to 
 us to border on irreverence. 
 
 (v.) Reverence in Prayer. On this subject we 
 have already spoken at some length in our second 
 chapter. Here we only wish to glance at a few 
 details which naturally flow from this broad principle 
 of Reverence. 
 
 " I often think," said a holy man, " that when the 
 angels watch us praying, with our lazy attitudes and 
 wandering thoughts, they must think us rude to 
 their God ; for all we read of them in their holy, 
 heavenly worship has a sublime intensity of reverence 
 about it" (cf. Is. vi.). 
 
 Like Isaiah, we also want a live coal from God's 
 altar to touch and cleanse our lips so that we may 
 truly " hallow God's Name." As we all know, our 
 Lord places these words in the very forefront of His 
 model Prayer, not only to caution us against holding 
 any views of God's character which are unworthy
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 253 
 
 of Him a ; but, more than this, if the words " Hal- 
 lowed be Thy Name " teach us anything, they teach 
 us this, that in every act, and thought, and place 
 where the reality of the Divine Presence is forced 
 upon us, the vivid sense of that Divine Presence 
 should fill our whole being, and hallow our thoughts. 
 The motive of reverence is the soul of all true 
 worship. 
 
 Even our attitude in prayer is a serious matter. 
 The Jews prayed most often standing, except in 
 times of humiliation, when they knelt or prostrated 
 themselves before the Lord. In the New Testament, 
 all Christians are represented as kneeling in prayer, 
 wherever the posture is mentioned. Our Lord knelt, 
 we are told, in the Garden of Gethsemane. 
 
 Whether we sit, stand or kneel when we pray, may 
 in itself seem a matter of no importance, yet those 
 who realize the influence exercised by body on spirit, 
 will clearly see that it is not a matter of indifference. 
 " Despise not thou the day of small things " has a 
 deep truth and principle underlying it, and this is 
 why God Himself lays stress on even such small 
 details as " take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
 ground whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
 
 a cf. Bacon, Essay xvii. "It were better to have no opinion of 
 God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him. For the one 
 is unbelief, the other is contumely ; and certainly superstition is the 
 reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose : ' Surely, 
 I had rather a great deal men should say there was no such man as 
 Plutarch at all, than that they should say there was one Plutarch 
 that would eat his children as soon as they were born,' as the poets 
 speak of the god Saturn."
 
 254 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 From constant habit and use, prayer is apt to 
 become automatic : and nowhere have we to be 
 more on our guard against the snare of that fami- 
 liarity which robs the spiritual life of its very heart, 
 and hardens and deadens the soul, than in the out- 
 ward things of religion, no matter what the special 
 form of approaching God may be, our Church-going, 
 our Bible, or our prayers. 
 
 (vi.) Prayer in faith. We know in Whom we 
 believe, an Almighty, All-wise God, Who is above 
 all else our loving Father. We know that our 
 Father, like all good and wise fathers, has framed 
 rules and principles for the orderly and happy 
 guidance of His household, principles by which He 
 Himself abides. We also know that because our 
 Father is wise and good, He is not a slave to His 
 laws, good and wise as they are. He is ready so 
 to modify and transcend them as to meet every 
 emergency that may arise, ever willing to supply 
 our real wants and thus promote our welfare. Our 
 idea of our Father is so high that we are sure that 
 His Love for us knows no limits but those which 
 Love itself imposes. When God's Love refuses or 
 resists our heart-requests it is because compliance 
 with our petition would itself be a violation of love. 
 Therefore, we come confidently and boldly to God's 
 Throne of grace, and, " in everything, by prayer and 
 supplication with thanksgiving, let our requests be 
 made known unto God," nothing doubting but that 
 He is a God Who gladly "heareth prayer."
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 255 
 
 But prayer in faith is something very different 
 from that faith in prayer which fancies that because 
 certain prayers are offered, therefore the results will 
 be exactly such as we asked. S. Paul prayed in 
 faith when he implored God thrice that his "thorn 
 in the flesh " should be removed ; but his faith in 
 prayer did not abate one jot because the actual 
 answer was not identical with his request. 
 
 This is the fallacy that lies at the root of the 
 suggested "hospital. test" of which we spoke in our 
 last chapter. It might imply faith in prayer, but it 
 would certainly not be prayer in faith. It would, on 
 the contrary, be the very reverse of faith, putting 
 God Himself to the test presumptuously, " seeking 
 for a sign," and refusing to be satisfied unless that 
 very sign is given us. 
 
 Someone has well compared prayer, and God's 
 answer, to the human voice and Nature's echo of it. 
 The echo which the mountain gives back to our cry 
 is calm and pure and musical, however harsh, or 
 dissonant, or strained our voice may be. Your cry 
 or shout may rise into a piercing scream ; but if you 
 wait and listen, it comes back to you with all the 
 discord and excitement strained out of it, and a 
 mystical force, sweetness and purity all its own. 
 
 S. Paul's case well illustrates this : " There was 
 given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan 
 to buffet me. Concerning this thing I besought the 
 Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And He 
 said unto me ; My grace is sufficient for thee, for My
 
 256 Sonic helps to Prayer, and sojne hindrances. 
 
 strength is made perfect in weakness." How much 
 more pure and comforting is the heavenly echo to 
 Paul's cry, than the passionate importunity of his 
 earthly scream. He at once realizes this ; " There- 
 fore I take pleasure in my infirmities." 
 
 Bnt often our own faith in prayer cannot stand 
 this severe strain. We pray, and God's answer is 
 so soft, and sweet, and low that we catch no echo, 
 and fancy our prayer has not been heard of God. 
 
 To carry the analogy still further ; in some cases 
 of echo, explained by Rayleigh b , " when the original 
 sound is a compound musical note, the octave of the 
 fundamental tone is reflected in a quite different key 
 than that tone itself." So it is at times with God's 
 answer to our prayer. God from the Mountain of 
 His Holiness seems to echo too loud. And this echo 
 is so different from our own cry that we do not 
 recognize it. We said " ease," and the God-mountain 
 echo answers " trouble " ; we said " rest," He answers 
 " toil " ; we said " peace," He replies " conflict." 
 
 Yet the echo faithfully repeats our cry. Our cry 
 "ease " brings back the echo " heavenly ease," the ease 
 that must first pass through many purifying troubles, 
 and in our ears we seem to hear " trouble." God 
 is really answering in each case the very prayer we 
 offered, only we do not remember that when we ask 
 
 b Sound, II. 296. Something of the same kind is to be noticed 
 in the whispering gallery of S. Paul's, and the still more remarkable 
 case of the Cathedral of Girgenti, in Sicily, mentioned by Sir John 
 Herschel.
 
 Some kelps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 257 
 
 for " rest," we must first get our work done ; when 
 we ask for peace, we must first have fought our good 
 fight and won our victory. Thus it is that to our 
 " ease," and " rest," and " peace," God really and truly 
 answers " Ease," Rest," " Peace." 
 
 (vii.) Avoid generalities in prayer. Here we cannot 
 do better than quote Mr. Ruskin's words: "When you 
 are confessing your sins to God, never call yourself 
 a 'sinner.' This is very cheap and vague confession, 
 and utterly useless. Call yourself a liar, a sluggard, 
 a glutton, &c., if you really find yourself to be one 
 of these in anywise. Then take steady means to 
 check yourself in whatever fault you have ascertained, 
 and justly accused yourself of." 
 
 (viii.) One word more. When we pray let us 
 not forget Walsham How's golden words : " In 
 prayer, when we look for sensations of fervour, and 
 peace, and joy, we are seeking self, not God. It 
 is necessary we should pray : it is not necessary 
 we should feel happy in praying. Our prayers are 
 not heard for their emotional fervour, but for Christ's 
 sake." 
 
 We shall add no words of our own, but merely 
 quote four other wise sayings to the same effect. 
 " Men ought always to pray and not to faint " 
 comes first and foremost, from our Lord's own lips. 
 " Where you cannot pray as you would, pray as 
 you can " (Goulburn). " Let it make no difference 
 to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if thou art 
 doing thy duty " (Marcus Aurelius). 
 
 S
 
 258 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 " Be not afraid to pray, to pray is right. 
 Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray. 
 Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay, 
 Pray in the darkness, if there be no light." 
 
 If. Coleridge. 
 
 B. 
 
 Hindrances to prayer. 
 
 At the opening of this chapter we said : we 
 kneel in private prayer, and a dead-weight of 
 languor, deadness, dryness seems to seal the fountain 
 of prayer. We pray, and ho answer comes. 
 
 Is there any flaw in our praying ? Not necessarily. 
 We have just seen that we do not always recognize 
 God's echo. We have also seen that sensations 
 of fervour, peace and joy in prayer are very far 
 from essentials of true prayer. We pray seeking 
 after God, not exclusively for our own comfortable 
 feelings. 
 
 But our languor, dryness, deadness may be due 
 to a serious flaw in ourselves. They may be due 
 to our own personal sins which are putting us 
 completely out of touch with God ; and it is our 
 bounden duty to cross-examine ourselves very 
 closely and severely in this matter. 
 
 " We know that God heareth not sinners." This, 
 of course, must not be taken absolutely literally, 
 for it would exclude every man on earth from
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 259 
 
 true and acceptable prayer c . But the words do 
 apply to all such as are wilfully and deliberately 
 following a course of action which they know to 
 be sinful, yet habitually pray without the least 
 intention of giving up their evil ways. Deliberate 
 wilful sin, so long as it is unrepented of, is and 
 must be a fatal barrier to prayer. We are, of our 
 own freewill and accord, breaking off our connection 
 with God, interrupting the electric circuit, " ground- 
 ing" or even "cutting" the mystic prayer-wire which 
 is our sole channel of communication with our 
 Heavenly Father. 
 
 Is this not precisely what God Himself tells us 
 in Isaiah (i., Iviii., lix.) ? " When ye make many 
 prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of 
 blood." " Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, 
 neither His ear heavy : but your iniquities have 
 separated between you and your God : and your sins 
 have hid His Face from you, that He will not hear." 
 
 We cannot make a commercial bargain with God, 
 or bribe Him to let us hug our sin and please Him 
 at the same time ; to serve Him a little and our 
 lusts a great deal ; to bow before his altar and 
 straightway go forth " to draw iniquity with cords 
 of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope." God 
 does not countenance such immoral formalism and 
 organized hypocrisy. If we act thus, no amount 
 of prayers will avail to place us in touch with our 
 
 c See supra, Chap. IV., Part II.
 
 260 Some Jiclps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 Father. We are crucifying Christ afresh, quenching 
 the Holy Spirit, and deliberately flying in the face 
 of God's Will, cutting ourselves away from God. 
 " We know that God heareth not sinners." 
 
 The three chief hindrances to prayer are wilful 
 sin, in any shape or form ; selfishness, the very root 
 of sin ; and an unforgiving spirit. 
 
 If sin " cuts " the prayer-wire, selfishness " grounds " 
 it. S. John had well learnt the heart of Christ's 
 teaching when he wrote : " Beloved, this is the 
 message that we have heard from the beginning, that 
 we should love one another : for love is of God. 
 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, 
 he is a liar. Whosoever hath this world's goods, 
 and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his 
 bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the 
 love of God in him ? " 
 
 This is the practical test of our being in touch with 
 God : " of what value are we to our fellow-men ? " 
 (cf. S. Matth. xxv. 35 sqq.). Let a man conscien- 
 tiously and honestly ask himself before he prays : 
 What am I doing here ? Whom have I fed ? or 
 clothed ? or comforted ? To which of my brethren 
 have I held out a helping hand ? What thought do 
 I take for others ? Which of my fellow-men is the 
 better for my being here ? or am I a mere cumberer 
 of the ground ? Am I living purely for my own 
 bodily ease, and pleasure and personal self-aggran- 
 dizement? I am my brother's keeper, nay my 
 brother's brother, how do I show it ? Am I, in the
 
 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 261 
 
 very least doing the one thing on earth Christ 
 wants me to do, " serving God in serving man ? " 
 
 And then there is the unforgiving temper. Christ 
 plainly warns us that it is of no earthly use to 
 approach God with prayers and sacrifices so long 
 as we remain selfish, uncharitable, ungenerous to 
 wards our fellow-men. "If thou bring thy gift to 
 the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother 
 hath aught against thee : leave there thy gift before 
 the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled with 
 thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." 
 
 God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men. 
 
 " We do pray for mercy. 
 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
 It is to bring this truth home to us that our 
 Lord, in His Prayer, makes us pray in these words : 
 " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them 
 that trespass against us." "Judge not, and ye shall 
 not be judged : forgive, and ye shall be forgiven : for 
 with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall 
 be measured unto you again." And the parable of 
 the Two Debtors tells us precisely the same thing. 
 
 We can easily see why this is so. The unforgiving 
 temper has its root in hatred, and " if a man say, 
 I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." 
 He is dwelling in utter darkness. Coming out of 
 an evil heart, this unforgiving spirit so defiles the 
 man, that he cannot possibly breathe the pure
 
 262 Some helps to Prayer, and some hindrances. 
 
 atmosphere of prayer, and this hateful temper, here 
 again, breaks the connection, cuts the man off from 
 all touch with the God of Love. 
 
 Wilful sin, selfishness, an unforgiving temper, this 
 is the vicious Trinity that hinders prayer and 
 separates us from God. Need this vile Trinity 
 remain in our hearts, when, if we will but follow the 
 indwelling Spirit's leading, we can enthrone there 
 instead "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the Love of God, and the fellowship of the 
 Holy Ghost," the Divine Trinity ? Then, indeed, 
 shall we truly pray that effectual kind of prayer 
 " which is the means by which our soul thirsting 
 after God obtains all the graces which rain down 
 upon us from the Divine Fountain of Goodness 
 and Love d ." 
 
 " We kneel, and all around us seems to lower ; 
 We rise, and all, the distant and the near, 
 Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear ; 
 We kneel how weak ! We rise how full of power ! 
 Why therefore should we do ourselves this wrong, 
 Or others, that we are not always strong, 
 That we are ever overborne with care, 
 That we should ever weak or thoughtless be, 
 Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 
 And joy, and strength, and courage are with Thee ? " 
 
 Trench. 
 d Scupoli.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 The Old Testament in the Light of Modern Research. 
 By Rev. J. R. COHU. Crown 8vo., 4$. net. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " Mr. Cohu knows the whole history of Old Testament criticism. 
 He is himself an ardent Old Testament critic. His book is the best 
 popular presentation in English of the results of the last fifty years' 
 study of the Old Testament, and of their reasonableness. It takes the 
 place on the one side of the controversy which Prof. Orr's book takes 
 on the other." Expository Times. 
 
 "It is rather the fashion nowadays to describe any significant 
 and outstanding event as 'a sign of the times,' and no doubt the 
 phrase is in danger of being overworked. Nevertheless, it is im- 
 possible to withhold it from the publication of such a book as that 
 now before us ; for it is assuredly a very marked sign of the times 
 that a priest of the Church of England should have the courage, 
 and, we may add, the wisdom, to face the conclusions of the Higher 
 Criticism in a thoroughly sound and critical spirit, and to strike 
 the balance between the old-fashioned doctrine of verbal inspira- 
 tion and the floundering despair of uninstructed scepticism 
 
 The author is the Rev. J. R. Cohu, and his book is a clear, succinct 
 and well-arranged epitome of the light which modern criticism has 
 thrown upon the literary history of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is the 
 confessed object of his book to set forth the fruits of recent research, 
 and then to consider how far these are compatible with the acceptation 
 of the Bible as a record defended by Divine sanction. This task Mr. 
 
 Cohu achieves with genuine skill and not a little eloquence 
 
 Such a book should do much to reconcile all thinking Churchmen 
 to the obvious conclusions which spring from an intelligent ex- 
 amination of the written documents of the faith." Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "For a compact and lucid statement of the modern view of the 
 Old Testament literature, Mr. Cohu's book may with confidence 
 be commended. It will be useful as a clear and unbiassed state- 
 ment of the present position of Old Testament research. While 
 accepting frankly the new view of revelation, the author is at the 
 same time a firm believer in inspiration, holding that to be un- 
 doubtedly proved by the unity of Scripture." Scotsman,
 
 11 
 
 " This volume may be read with much profit, though it will cause, 
 we do not doubt, some searchings of heart. Mr. Colin sees in the 
 Old Testament the indications of stages through which the conscious- 
 ness of the Hebrew people passed. This does not trouble him. The 
 divine patience, love and man's capacity are the hopeful lessons which 
 he draws. Our author goes through the Old Testament, and deals 
 
 with it, courageously indeed, but with moderation We would 
 
 specially mention 'The Old Testament view of Life after Death.' " 
 The Spectator. 
 
 " An able presentation from the point of view of the Higher 
 Criticism, the conclusions of which, in the author's opinion, have 
 proved an immense gain to faith, and opened our eyes to the intrinsic 
 value of the Bible message." Hibbert Journal, 
 
 " This book ought to commend a critical view of the Old Testament 
 to the thoughtful consideration of broad-minded readers : it is ad- 
 mirably adapted for that purpose." Dr. Driver. 
 
 " I have read the Assyrio-Babylonian cosmology : it is exceedingly 
 good." Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford. 
 
 "A readable and lucid popularisation of modern teaching by one 
 who, 'troubled and perplexed, has had a flood of light poured upon 
 the pages of his Old Testament by the Higher Criticism,' and whose 
 'one wish is to help others in their perplexities.' " Times. 
 
 "The book that has been brought to our knowledge to-day deals with 
 great subjects and momentous questions in a popular manner, and in 
 a style both robust and easy. It will probably and deservedly be 
 widely read. The author professes to follow in the footsteps of such 
 great masters in their art as Wellhausen, Reuss, Kuenen and others, 
 but we instinctively feel that, whilst professing to follow, he may 
 really be leading the way for those who know little of the celebrated 
 
 Bible critics, but their names Tolerant and open-minded his 
 
 book proclaims him to be The language is warm with a religious 
 
 fervour and breathes throughout an optimistic belief in ' a personal 
 living God of infinite love, wisdom, power and purpose, Who is guid- 
 ing the world and man, and Whose Hand can be clearly seen in reve- 
 lation and in history.' .... We cannot pretend to give anything like 
 a review of this clever and brilliant little volume, we would rather direct 
 our readers to its pages both for interest and instruction. The chapter 
 on Figurativeness of Bible language appeals to us very strongly ; also
 
 Ill 
 
 those dealing with the Semitic races and the Mosaic books Whilst 
 
 recognising that the author of the book is a sincere and believing 
 Christian, we venture to recommend its close perusal to our Jewish 
 readers ; the book is full of information very pleasantly imparted, 
 and deeply interesting." Jewish Chronicle. 
 
 " He has set out the answers that satisfied him and made things clear, 
 so that others and there must be many may profit likewise. It is 
 an excellent book for that purpose, and we would not alter it in any 
 way A study of it will do unlimited good in clarifying the con- 
 fused and inaccurate notions still too prevalent amongst religious people 
 concerning the origins and relative value of the books of the Old 
 Testament. It puts facts in a very lucid and intelligible manner." 
 Bristol Times. 
 
 "The author's excellent exposition of the results of the Higher 
 Criticism should find many readers, and is well calculated to give 
 much help." Oxford Magazine. 
 
 " The book has the advantage of covering the whole field of inquiry 
 historical, literary, religious, and doctrinal, and of dealing with it 
 in a simple, popular fashion, and so is specially fitted to be useful to 
 those who do not feel inclined to tackle directly the works of Wellhausen, 
 Davidson, Robertson Smith, Budde, Driver, Ac. Mr. Cohu's general 
 position is that of the conservative wing of criticism, as represented by 
 writers like A. B. Davidson and Driver." Glasgcnv Herald. 
 
 " A very lucid review and classification of the results of modern 
 Biblical criticism. Mr. Cohu is in full sympathy with, that criticism, 
 not, as so many modern writers are, because it undermines cherished 
 beliefs, but because in a large and deeper sense it is constructive, and 
 because it illumines and spiritualises beliefs and aspirations that have 
 
 grown with the growth of humanity His study of Babylonian 
 
 influence upon the Mosaic code, and upon Hebrew thought and 
 religion, shows an easy grasp of the subject. He is especially happy in 
 making use of Hebrew folk-lore to interpret Biblical imagery concern- 
 ing the Creation, the Flood, and the Fall of Man." Yorkshire Post. 
 
 "If we were asked to recommend a suitable text-book of the 
 Higher Criticism in convenient form and lucidly expounded, we 
 should certainly name The Old Testament in the light of Modern 
 Research, by Rev. J. R. Cohu. No better hand-book of the subject 
 could be desired. . . . On the whole, we repeat that if Old Testament
 
 IV 
 
 history is to be reset upon the basis of the Higher Criticism, the work 
 could not be better done than Mr. Cohu does it." Methodist Times. 
 
 " This volume is the result of a careful study of Scripture and the 
 views of scholars on the subject. ... It is a thoughtful book, and 
 does great credit to the author's clear and sound judgment." Perth- 
 shire Courier. 
 
 " The Rev. J. R. Cohu has done a useful bit of work conscientiously 
 and well." Review of Revieivs. 
 
 "The need for a clear and thoroughly informed, but devout and 
 reverential, presentation of the results of modern historical and literary 
 criticism in its relation to Old Testament Scriptures has long been 
 felt, and we are pleased to find that the demand has been met by 
 Mr. Cohu, a scholar of experience and culture. So far as we are 
 aware, no sympathetic statement, which is at the same time popular 
 and reliable, has been brought within the reach of the ordinary reader 
 in so satisfactory a form as the present volume. Mr. Cohu accepts all 
 the assured conclusions of criticism, and presents them in so readable, 
 moderate and reverential a spirit as to make it impossible to quarrel 
 even when we disagree with him. He is most convincing .... and 
 the Bible itself, instead of losing value, gains enormously from the 
 truly religious point of view. This book will be most heartily wel- 
 comed by all serious students of the Old Testament." Western 
 Mail. 
 
 " We know of no other work of the same size that presents the 
 results of modern criticism of Old Testament literature so clearly and 
 so convincing!}!." Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury. 
 
 "Mr. Cohu makes no claim to oiiginality, but he has nevertheless 
 given us a most brilliant work." Jfruish World. 
 
 "A clear, straightforward exposition of the results of recent 
 Criticism, giving the latest conclusions of Hebrew scholars. It is 
 well pointed out how the story of the growth and development of 
 religion is distorted and obsessed by the unchronological arrangement 
 of the books. There is an excellent chapter on the figurativeness of 
 Bible language." -Journal of Education. 
 
 "Mr. Cohu has mastered his subject thoroughly and states the 
 arguments in favour of his positions with sobriety and candour. Even 
 those of us who cannot adopt his conclusions must admire his 
 thoughtful and reverent tone." Baptist Times.
 
 "In this, his latest work, Mr. Cohu has apparently burnt his boats, 
 and definitely adopted the critical position of the extreme German 
 School. ... It must not, however, be assumed that there is no part 
 of his book to which we can turn with pleasure and profit. There are, 
 in fact, several chapters rich in suggestiveness, and of genuine value. 
 The archaeological student will find here a rich mine of rare information 
 and ingenious argument. The account given, likewise, of current 
 Jewish beliefs in tha time of our Lord, and of the Eschatology of the 
 same period, will be found most illuminating in their bearing on many 
 obscure or difficult passages in the Gospels. We agree in the main, 
 too, with the author's chapters on Revelation and Inspiration, while 
 the Introductory Chapter, and the two which follow are deeply 
 interesting and suggestive." Church of Ireland Gazette. 
 
 " We welcome it cordially as a sign of the growing desire on the 
 part of the clergy to bring their public religious teaching into closer 
 accord with the results of scholarship and the growth of knowledge." 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " A skilful and interesting account of the results of critical research. 
 Mr. Cohu shows a true instinct in giving his opening chapters a range 
 wide enough to include a view of the origin and development of religions 
 generally. This is, indeed, an indispensable preliminary to the proper 
 understanding of Israel's religion. Having laid so sound a foundation, 
 Mr. Cohu builds an excellent superstructure." Christian World, 
 
 "Works of this kind are by no means easy to write. The field 
 to be covered is wide, and there is a danger of sketchy generalization 
 and inexactness of statement. Mr. Cohu's book is not entirely free 
 from such defects : but otherwise it indicates briskly and pleasantly 
 the main results of modem research." Church Quarterly Review. 
 
 " In the minds of a vast number of people criticism of the 
 Bible has been equivalent to an attack on their faith, because 
 to them every word of the Bible was divinely inspired and equally 
 infallible. And a younger generation, finding many former views 
 erroneous or even absurd, are inclined to give up all belief. Some 
 are sensibly disturbed, and ask the old question, What then is 
 truth? Others simply pass to tacit agnosticism. . . . Therefore 
 we welcome a book which gives in short compass the main results 
 of the Higher Criticism from the standpoint of faith, by a student 
 of Wellhausen, Kuenen, Driver, and their school; who says that 
 criticism will not destroy the Bible's ' deep and abiding comfort
 
 VI 
 
 and help, for its spiritual message remains untouched.' In this 
 spirit Mr. Cohu treats of all the well-known difficulties, allegorical 
 stories, and folk-lore, &c. . . . The moral aspect of the so-called moral 
 difficulties of the Old Testament is carefully differentiated from the 
 direct revelation of God. Human sacrifices, the universal vendetta, 
 the regulations for blood-revenge, the appalling cruelty of the Judaic 
 laws, the ideas expressed in the imprecatory Psalms have (as he shows) 
 a place in the development of all religions. Hitherto the average 
 reader of the Bible has missed the great gulf fixed between the earlier 
 crude religion and the later ideals of the prophets and the Christian 
 revelation, because he has treated the Bible as one book, instead 
 of many writings spread over a period of at least 1,100 years in their 
 authorship. . . . Mr. Cohu's book shpuld go far to dispel the difficulties 
 which have arisen from that ignorant view which has treated the Bible 
 as a sort of infallible fetish every word of which was divinely inspired, 
 not only in a spiritual sense, but in all matters scientific and historical. 
 At the same time Mr. Cohu states clearly the modern theory as to the 
 true sense in which the authors of the Old Testament were inspired, 
 noting the remarkable unity of purpose which underlies the Divine 
 message throughout. . . . The book is not without inaccuracies, there 
 are many unnecessary repetitions, some clear comparative tables of 
 dates, and a good index are much wanted. These are matters for 
 a general revision, before a second edition (which we trust may be 
 called for) of this very useful little work." Academy. 
 
 "The Rev. J. R. Cohu gives a very instructive, earnest and readable 
 account of Biblical criticism. His book has in view the reader 
 ignorant of, or perhaps repelled by modern Biblical scholarship, and 
 its tactful and sympathetic tone should make it useful." -Journal 
 of Theological Studies. 
 
 "... Written in so excellent a spirit, with so much sound learning, 
 and with so pleasant a gift of lucid expression . . . ." Guardian. 
 
 " The writer stoutly maintains the inspiration of the Bible on its 
 spiritual side, and makes it a different inspiration from any other. 
 We imagine, however, that, personally, he would exclude Esther, 
 Canticles and Ecclesiastes from their place in the Canonical Scrip- 
 tures." Church Times. 
 
 OXFORD : JAMES PARKER AND Co. 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND Co.
 
 Vll 
 
 " The Sermon on the Mount.' 1 '' From the modern stand- 
 point. (Skeffingfon and Co.} 
 
 "Surprisingly full of new and unfamiliar thoughts. Not all will 
 assent to all the writer's critical conclusions. But all will welcome the 
 strong ethical teaching, and the many illuminating thoughts which they 
 will find in these discourses, and will recognize the learning which 
 underlies them." Church Times. 
 
 " One might have supposed that the last word, whether exegeticalor 
 hortatory, had already been said on the Sermon on the Mount. How- 
 ever, Mr. Cohu rather excited our curiosity by professing to give us his 
 impressions 'as viewed from the modern standpoint,' and it must be 
 owned that his book is considerably above the usual sermon volumes in 
 intellectual grasp of his subject and in its power of penetrating thought. 
 His guiding principle, which is to discover the sense in which Jewish 
 hearers would understand the discourse, frequently sheds a flood of new 
 light on several of its most vexed and debatable passages ; and it 
 strikes us that in the recognition of this principle lies the secret of 
 much that is otherwise obscure or inexplicable. . . . It is much to the 
 point to remember, as we are here reminded, that even S. Matthew's is 
 a highly condensed report of our Lord's actual discourse, and that our 
 accounts of it are very much at second-hand. . . . The " Bible Word- 
 Pictures" is a most delightful chapter. Of the treatment of the Great 
 Sermon in detail, it must suffice to say that Mr. Cohu shows the 
 critical skill and acumen of an accomplished linguist in his endeavour 
 to throw all possible light on obscure paragraphs or phrases. The 
 work, as a whole, is characterized by ripeness and suggestiveness of 
 thought, and will be found a useful commentary by all who desire 
 a clearer and closer knowledge of these wonderful words of the 
 Master." Church of Ireland Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. Cohu is an ardent disciple of the Higher Critics. The 
 practical parts of his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (which 
 he declares to be identical with S. Luke's Sermon on the Plain) are 
 excellent." Record. 
 
 " One cannot read the book without feeling in touch with a real and 
 helpful spiritual influence." Scottish Chronicle. 
 
 " The whole is a thoughtful comment on the deep teaching of the 
 Sermon. " Guardian. 
 
 " These are practical addresses." Church Family Newspaper. 
 (The Author has unfortunately mislaid many other reviews)
 
 vni 
 
 " The Ten Commandments'''' and " The Morning Service." 
 
 " Two series of sermons which the author himself modestly com- 
 mends only for their simplicity. They are more than simple ; they 
 are manly and outspoken, well calculated to impress any congregation 
 by their seriousness, and the preacher's aptness in illustration." 
 Yorkshire Post. 
 
 "If all our villages had such virile and practical teaching as this, 
 what a difference it would make in our land ! " Churchman. 
 
 " This is so useful a book that we are glad to hear its first edition is 
 practically sold out. The sermons are published exactly as they were 
 preached, but they read exceedingly well. The author draws from 
 many sources for his illustrations, which are always happily chosen." 
 Record. 
 
 "Two good courses of parochial sermons, which deserve to be 
 known and imitated." Guardian. 
 
 " Simple and effective. The book will be found very useful by 
 teachers and preachers as well as for general reading." Church 
 Family Newspaper. 
 
 " A set of simple, homely, straightforward addresses with admirable 
 hints and suggestions which cannot fail to prove useful to all who wish 
 clear and definite, straightforward teaching for their people." Church 
 Pulpit and Ecclesiastical Gazette. 
 
 " Every address is delivered with a calm vigour which carries con- 
 viction in its train, and with the lucidity which comes of ripe scholar- 
 ship. It supplies a widely felt want." Western Daily Mercury. 
 
 "The aim of this book, laudably and successfully striven after, is to 
 give the plainest possible interpretation to the Book of Common 
 Prayer, and to derive practical twentieth-century lessons from the Ten 
 Commandments. The author's mature scholarship has been turned 
 to the purpose of this volume with the happiest effect." Newcastle 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " The author has not the least need to apologise for bringing before 
 the public thoughts and ideas which are in a high degree instructive, 
 refreshing and invigorating, intellectually and spiritually. The subject
 
 IX 
 
 is treated throughout with a masterly simplicity of style which could 
 only be commanded by one who has fully grasped its deepest meaning. 
 The teaching is uncompromisingly definite and very interestingly and 
 convincingly put." Bucks Herald. 
 
 " From cover to cover, there is not a page in the whole book which 
 is dull or uninteresting. These sermons are just those earnest, plain, 
 simple, piquant addresses which are needed every day. No one can 
 read this book without being forcibly impressed, and made more 
 steadfast in the faith." South Oxfordshire Standard. 
 
 "Among the great multitude of books of sermons recently pub- 
 lished, one claims special notice. . . . Mr. Cohu's addresses are simple, 
 fresh, pithy, full of excellent matter, and very suggestive. After 
 reading them it will be difficult for any intelligent man to remain 
 ignorant of the Church's teaching." Western Mail.
 
 PRINTED 1!Y JAMES PARKER AND CO., 
 CROWN YARD, OXFORD.
 
 BY 
 
 210 
 
 C66eT 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 000 858 9
 
 ' : : :'' ' : .. ; .