I do not doubt, in the smallest possible degree, that prayer is a comfort under certain circumstances. For example, my child may be seriously ill, and I may do everything which my medical knowledge enables me to do; but day by day drags wearily along, the fever seems to intensify, and it is clear that there is a struggle between the living force, and the agent which interferes with it. As hour after hour passes, and anxiety deepens into fear, I am like a hardy fellow under the lash: at first the stripes are borne with firmness, but as another and another falls, not only does-the pain seem keener, but the mental power which gives courage to bear the cutting agony diminishes, and the pent-up feelings are vented in a roar of anguish, or a groan of despair. Just so in the depth of my misery I may utter a prayer--a wish that in one way or another my torn and lacerated feelings as a father might be healed, and I may expect to receive solace thereby, no matter whether I address Jehovah, Brahma, Ishtar, or the Virgin Mary. To hear the sound of one's own voice, even the task of having to compose an intelligible sentence, relieves, for a time, the poignancy of grief, and thus helps one to bear it more patiently. That supplication thus brings relief I do not for a moment doubt, but that it has any influence in the result I deny. Entertaining this view, I cannot regard prayer as a duty. It seems to me to be a deliberate insult to the Almighty to be constantly urging Him to alter the course of nature--or as we may otherwise put it "to change His mind." To trust that prayer will obviate the necessity for action seems to me the height of folly. If a man uttered the words "Give me this day my daily bread" a hundred times over, and yet never sought to obtain it, we should regard him as a lunatic. Equally silly should we be if, when praying "Defend us in all assaults of our enemies," we did not prepare for battle--or if, after ejaculating "defend us from all perils and dangers of this night," we were to go to bed without seeing that our premises were as secure as forethought could make them. However much the theologian may believe in prayer, he cannot deny that it is less efficacious than action. Now Buddha preached action whilst Christ preached inaction, e.g., "take no thought for the morrow," &c. (Matt. vi. 25-34), consequently we are more disposed to give the palm for correct judgment to the Indian than to the Jew.