Prayer makes God a changeable being. It implies that he will grant any favor we ask, whether he had previously designed to do so or not. If we were privy to his designs, and knew what blessings he intended to bestow, we could ask only for such as he had intended to give us. In the absence of this knowledge we pray blindly for blessings which it may be, he has determined to withhold. This necessarily implies that he may change his designs. If the object pleaded for is a good one, such a change would be perfectly proper in an earthly monarch. In God it would be fanciful in the extreme. It would place his will at the disposal of a million fallible human beings. It would overthrow the harmony of his government, and replace it by the most reckless chance. Our reception of a blessing would depend no longer on God's goodness; it would depend on whether some other person of greater persuasive power, was or was not asking an opposite blessing at the same time. God would be in constant indecision, and we should be in constant doubt. Prayer, then, is based on the changeableness of an unchangeable being, and therefore valueless. Prayer, in theory, is based on the supposition of God's personality; prayer, in practice, assumes that God is omnipotent. It supposes that he can be in all places at all times. People are praying at all hours of the day and in all quarters of the globe. To hear them all God must be at such places at such times. To do this he must cease to be a personal being, he must cease to be God. He will then have no intelligence, no volition, for these depend on a personal organization. Prayer, therefore, logically annihilates the being to whom it is addressed. Prayer implies doubt of the wisdom of God. To pray is to ask for a certain blessing. We assume that such a blessing is best for us, and inform God of the fact. After insulting his goodness by asking for a blessing, we insult his intelligence by specifying what that blessing shall be. Prayers are rarely or never asked for general blessings alone. A person who asks for a blessing and leaves the choice of that blessing wholly to God, is liable to be considered a lunatic by all true believers. Yet to do otherwise is to deny God's omniscience. It assumes that God does not know what our wants are. If God is a rational being, he can only treat such an assumption with contempt. Prayer has been tried for two thousand years and with no result. No prayer has ever been directly or indirectly answered by God. On the contrary, he apparently delighted in mocking those who call upon him. When the Ville du Havre went down, over two hundred ministers were praying for their lives, but in vain. Two girls who trusted not in prayers, but in swimming-belts, alone were saved. ("Logic of Prayer," Charles Stevenson.)