difference in the risks run by missionary ships and by ordinary traders, nor do life insurance companies, before they accept a life, introduce into their 'confidential enquiries into the antecedents of the applicant' any 'such question as "Does he habitually use family prayers and private devotions?"' Neither are the funds of devout shareholders and depositors at all safer than those of the profane when entrusted to the custody of untrustworthy directors, not even though the day's work of the undertaking commence, as that of the disastrous Royal British Bank used to do, with solemn prayer.[52] Two or three minutes' attention to the grounds for, and the circumstances connected with, these statements, may assist us in appreciating Mr. Galton's notion of the difference between confusedly recollected experiences and experiences properly scrutinised and methodically selected. For the statement first on the list, some negative evidence is considered to be afforded by the absence of any 'single instance in which papers read before Statistical Societies have recognised the agency of prayer either in disease or in anything else.' The chief authority for it, however, is the eloquent silence of medical men 'who, had prayers for the sick any notable effect, would be sure to have observed it,' seeing that they are 'always on the watch for such things.' But are they really, in every case of recovery from illness that comes under their notice, so particular and so successful in their enquiries whether any, and, if so, how much, prayer has been offered on behalf of the patient, as to be qualified to judge whether prayer has had anything to do with the cure? If not, although they may be showing their discretion by not speaking on the point, the 'eloquence of their silence' must not be too hastily interpreted. For doctors, of all men, should be the last to deny, as an abstract proposition, the efficacy of prayer in disease, knowing, as they do, how great is the curative influence of prayer when addressed to themselves. How, they may naturally ask, is it to be expected that sickness should be cured unless properly treated? and how can it be properly treated without a doctor? and how can a doctor be expected to attend unless he be asked? Upon which very natural queries others naturally follow. What would be the good of the doctor's coming unless he prescribed judiciously? and will he not more certainly prescribe judiciously if his judgment be guided by special interposition of divine grace? and if prayer to himself has plainly been one condition of his coming, why may not prayer to God have been one condition of his judgment having been rightly guided? Will it be pretended that God's proceedings are abjectly submissive to inexorable laws from which those of the doctor are exempt, and that though the latter would certainly not have attended unless he had been asked, the grace of God, if given at all, must have been given equally whether asked for or not?