Is Prayer approved by experience? It seems necessary here to refer to the experience of some, who say that they have found Prayer strengthen them to meet a trouble which they had dreaded, or to accomplish a duty for which their own ability was insufficient. This appears to be very probable, but the reason is not far to seek, and as the explanation of the increased strength may be purely natural, it seems unnecessary to search for a supernatural cause. Prayer, when earnest and heartfelt, appears to exert a kind of reflex action on the person praying, the petition not piercing heaven, but falling back upon earth. A duty has to be done or a trouble has to be faced; the person affected prays for help, and by the intense concentration of his thoughts, and by the passion of his desire, he naturally gains a strength he had not, when he was less deeply and thoroughly in earnest. Again, the interior conviction that a olivine strength is on his side, nerves his heart and braces his courage: the soldier fights with a tenfold courage when he is sure that endurance will make victory a certainty. But all this is no proof that God hears and answers Prayer; if it were so, it would prove also that the Virgin Mother, and all the saints, and Buddha, and Brahma, and Vishnu were alike hearers and answerers of Prayer. In all cases the sincere worshipper gains strength and comfort, and finds the same "answer" to his Prayer. Yet surely no one will contend that all these are "Prayer-hearing and Prayer-answering" Gods? This fancied answer is not a proof of the truth of the worshipper's belief, but is only a proof _of his conviction of its truth_; not the soundness of the belief, but the sincerity of the conviction, is proved by the glow and ardour which succeed the act of Prayer. All the dormant energies are aroused; the soul's whole strength is put forth; the worshipper is warmed by the fire struck from his own heart, and is thrilled with the electricity which resides in his own frame. So far, Prayer is found to be answered, just as every strong conviction, however erroneous, is found to confer increased strength and vigour on him who possesses it. But, excepting this, Prayer is not proved to be efficacious when tested by experience. How many Prayers have gone up to the Father in heaven from his children overwhelmed in the sea, and drowning in floods, and encircled by fire? How many passionate appeals of patriots and martyrs, of exiles and of slaves? How many cries of anguish from beside the beds of the dying, and the fresh graves of the newly-dead? In vain the wife's wail for the husband, the mother's pleading for the only child; no voice has answered "Weep not;" no command has replied, "Rise up;" the Prayers have fallen back on the breaking heart, poor white-winged birds that have tried to fly towards heaven, but have only sunk back to earth, their breasts bruised and bleeding from striking against the iron bars of a pitiless and relentless fate.