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in order to the infliction of judgments or the answer of prayer. But in so far as we can trace the ways of providence, judgments are inflicted through means, and by the operation of the ordinary laws of nature, under which term must be included not only those which govern the material creation, but those also, not less fixed and stable, which govern the mental and moral world. It was not by miracle, but by manifest causes cooperating to produce their natural effects, that France, after having incurred fearful guilt by the persecution of the Protestants, was made to suffer the horrors of the Revolution. It is not by miracle, but in a perfectly natural way, that the licentious man is brought even in this world to pay the penalty of his vice, or that the drunkard comes to poverty. Yet in these things ought we, therefore, not the less to recognise the hand of God. În like manner, it is in a perfectly natural way that the pious, and virtuous, and industrious prosper and are happy, yet is their prosperity not the less to be ascribed to the favour and providence of God. That it is a result of the operation of natural laws, is no reason for thinking that it is not bestowed by him; for these laws are his laws, and all their operation, to the minutest particular of it, has formed part of his one great plan.

And this view of Providence gives ample room for the intervention of prayer, not as though prayer could change the decrees of God, nor as though it could check the operation of natural laws, but as one of the secondary causes which affect the whole course of things. The efficacy of prayer is itself a law established by God, as real as any physical law whatever.

The constant operation of fixed laws in nature has been much urged as an objection to prayer. How can we expect the operation of these laws to be affected by prayer? It is usually with reference to the laws which govern the material universe that this objection is urged; as by Mr Cranbrook of Edinburgh, in his sermons on Prayer and Providence, against the notion of prayer with reference to the cattle-plague and cholera. He directed attention to the natural laws concerned, and insisted on the duty of using the means appropriate for the removal or mitigation of the calamity in accordance with these laws. But there is no inconsistency between earnestness of prayer, with the utmost confidence in the efficacy of prayer, and the most strenuous efforts in the use of all means tending to the attainment of the object for which prayer is made. Earnest prayer and earnest working go together. The man who most earnestly implores the grace of sanctification, may be expected also most earnestly to watch against temptation, and to make use of all the means by which God has appointed us to purify ourselves even as Christ is pure. And so he who

prays for the removal of pestilence, ought also to bestir himself in all sanitary reform.

There can be nothing more unphilosophical than to make a distinction as to prayer between one class of benefits and another; allowing it to be proper to pray for spiritual benefits which come directly from the hand of God, or even for benefits which may come through a change in the will of a fellowcreature, and yet rejecting the idea of prayer where the laws of the material universe are concerned. The laws of the

material universe are not more stable than those which govern the realm of mind, nor, surely, are any laws more immutable than the purpose of God. The difficulty which meets us as to prayer, from the consideration of God's changeless purpose, is one which meets us also with regard to every purpose and action of our life. It is a difficulty which we cannot solve, but we do not permit it to affect our conduct in the ordinary affairs of life, nor ought it to interfere with our confidence of the efficacy of prayer. It is enough for us that God commands us to pray, and has revealed himself as the hearer of prayer. We may be utterly at a loss to see how prayer becomes effectual. We may find ourselves involved in speculation on things too high for us, and therefore full of difficulty to our minds, when we begin to think how prayer can prevail with God. But it is enough for us that he assures us of the fact; we have encouragement enough in his promises. We may be unable to discover how any of the forces of nature are brought into operation for the accomplishment of our desires; but we may rest satisfied in considering that they are all known and governed by him who has taught us to cry, Abba, Father.

However we may fail in our attempts to speculate or philosophise on the subject of prayer, however completely we may be constrained to acknowledge our inability to frame a theory in explanation of its efficacy, we cannot too decidedly reject the notion that it is beneficial merely by its reflex action on our own souls. Such a reflex action it certainly has, and in this the Christian often enjoys the first answer of his prayers; but in this he finds also encouragement to expect a further answer. God is true, and he has revealed himself as the hearer of prayer. "We find many men," says the Duke of Argyll, "now facing the consequences to which they have given their assent, and taking their stand upon the ground that prayer to God has no other value or effect than so far as it may be a good way of preaching to ourselves. It is a useful and helpful exercise for our own spirits, but it is nothing more. But how can they pray who have come to this? Can it ever be useful or helpful to believe a lie? That which has been threatened as the worst of all spiritual evils would then become the conscious attitude

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of our religion, the habitual condition of our worship."* represent prayer as of use to us only through its reflex influence, is indeed not to explain its efficacy, but to explain it away.

The difficulty which presents itself to the mind as to the efficacy of prayer is stated clearly and in all its magnitude by Dr Smith, in a passage which we cannot refrain from quoting, were it only as an introduction to his suggestion of the direction in which a possible solution of the difficulty may be sought :

"Let us first clearly apprehend what the difficulty is. I desire a blessing at the hand of God-a favourable season, for example, for the growth of my crops. But the fall of rains, the direction of winds, the variation of temperature, are dependent upon meteorological causes, which are themselves the effects of other causes, and these of others which went before, and these of others which preceded them, and so backward at least to the creation of the world, or perhaps backward to a period indefinitely remote in the unnumbered ages which preceded the creation of the actually existent heavens and earth. The causes which were then put into operation have produced their effects hitherto, and at the point of time where we actually are, the causes which are the present effects of a long train of prior causes are operating to produce their effects according to established laws. Now, I have no right to expect that God will, at my request, interpose betwixt the action of the existing causes and the production of their legitimate effects; for this were to expect a miracle; and it is admitted on all hands that this is what I have no right to expect. Yet in no other way, so far as it appears to me, has God left it open to himself to give a favourable answer, or any answer at all, to my prayer. Why, then, should I pray at all? Or, when I am entering a railway carriage, it occurs to me to conceive a prayerful wish, or to utter an ejaculatory petition, for a safe journey to myself and my fellowpassengers. But I reflect that our safety depends mainly upon two circumstances the strength of iron, and the prudence and skill of the men in charge of the train. Now, for aught I can tell, there may have been, some thousands of millenniums back in "geological time, some venturous insect that rashly attempted to crawl over a mass of melted ore in process of crystallisation, and paid the penalty of its presumption by being scorched in its transit, and the particle of ashes into which it was changed may have been incorporated in the mass, and may have produced an imperfect crystal, and that very crystal may form part of the boiler, or of some axle or some wheel, upon whose integrity my safety must depend; or, for aught I can tell, the engineer may have a woad-stained ancestor some three or four thousand years ago, who, by some act of intemperance, or some wound in battle, injured his constitution, and introduced an element of vitiation into the constitution of his posterity, in consequence of

which our engineer's watchfulness, or prudence, or skill, or coolness in danger, may fall short of the maximum by a minute but real degree. Can, then, any prayer of mine, conceived or uttered now, prevent that flaw in the crystallisation of the iron, or that flaw in the constitution of the engineer, both of which are facts accomplished, the one some millions, the other some thousands of years ago? But if my prayer can neither prevent the original flaw, nor interrupt the action of the natural laws by virtue of which the flaw in the iron will cause it to give way under a certain amount of pressure or strain, or the flaw in the man will cause him to be drowsy when he should be wakeful, what is the use of my praying at all?

"Now, is it not possible, is it not even in some degree probable, that the answer to these questions is to be found in the direction of the consideration of that great truth, which the Scripture expresses in the statement, that with God one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day? Is it not possible, is it not probable, that with him incalculable periods of time are comprehended in the instant of an eternal Now? That he takes in with one glance of his eye-to speak of him, as alone we can speak, after the manner of men-all the time betwixt the first operation of the first physical cause, and the moment when the impulse of prayer arises in my heart? This is somewhat different from, and, we think, more important than, the consideration, that in the remote past, in laying the train of causes on which the weather of this present year is dependent, or that on which the sufficiency of the iron, or that on which the qualifications of the engineer, depend, he has foreseen or fore-appointed my prayerfulness, and included that as an element to be taken into account in laying the train. It is more than that. It is the comprehending of what is to us an immeasurably remote past, with what is to us an actual present, in the one Now of his eternal being; so that it is not my prayer as foreseen or pre-determined, but my prayer as actually being offered, that is really before him, as a presently existing reality, when he effects the first collocation of things, and gives the first impulse to the operations of physical laws.”*

These are grand and elevating thoughts; and the more we ponder the suggestion here made, the more satisfactory does it appear. But for practical purposes, even for the highest of all practical purposes, that we may pray with the reasonable confidence, without which earnestness is impossible, and prayer indeed ceases to be a reality-it is not necessary that we should see our way to a philosophical or scientific solution of the speculative difficulty concerning the efficacy of prayer. similar difficulty presents itself when we reflect on the supremacy of law throughout the whole created universe of matter and of mind, as to the possible efficacy of any request made to a fellow-man. But no such difficulty hinders us from making requests to men; and why should we be so unreasonably in

*"Natural Laws," &c., pp. 35-37.

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consistent as to allow it to prevent our making our requests to God? In whatever way it may be that prayer becomes effectual, let us rejoice in the confidence that God is indeed the hearer of prayer, and that he is more ready to bestow his blessings on his suppliant children than the kindest earthly father. In this we may rest satisfied, although our speculations fail, and await the solution of our difficulties in another state of being, when we shall be capable of larger views, and shall see more of the glory of God.

IX.-GENERAL LITERATURE.

Poetry and the Religious Life.

Carmina Crucis. By DORA GREENWELL. London: Bell & Daldy. Miscellaneous Poems. By the late Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Vicar of Hursley. London: Parker.

Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse. By SARAH WILLIAMS (Sadie). London: Strahan & Co.

All embodiments of higher truth in outward forms proceed on the idea of a contradiction between the sphere of sense and the spiritual sphere. Yet, in this very contradiction, the possibility of completest unity and reconcilement is uniformly conceived to lie latent. Were it not so, human progress were mere despair. Man's imagination would, at every point, cross and cancel the outward facts presented to the senses, instead of springing forth to spontaneously meet and embrace them, as being already included in, and existing because of, a still higher spiritual consciousness, of which they are the broken and inadequate symbols. Is it not so even in the sphere of mere philosophy and abstract classification? By finding common qualities in different objects, and rigidly arranging them according to these, do we not abnegate the first and most stolid arrangements of sense, and set up before our mind's eye henceforth a set of qualities, spiritualised symbols, instead of the merely sensuous and apparent orders and relations that originally dominated? This is the first and lowest form of the contradiction; for, as the metaphysicians tell us, even this work of classification could not be begun without some exercise of the imagination. Now, it is the imagination which everywhere seeks to invert, truncate, and transpose the most outward and sensible in order to find deeper and hitherto hidden affinities. And as the great antitheses of existence, the burden and mystery of being; the terrible problem of the origin of evil, and its contest with good in the soul of men; and the hopes and possibilities of restoration, lie at the very root of the religious instincts, it follows that imagination cannot be banished from the sphere of religion, because it is at once the medium through which moral contradictions immanently emerge, and the medium by which new reconciling lights are cast upon them, as the spark elicited by the steel throws a gleam also over the flint that

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