Let us think a little clearly just a moment; and I imagine I can make it plain. We no longer think of God we cannot think of him as outside the system of nature, and as possibly interfering with it to produce a result that would not otherwise take place. Why? Because God is the soul, the mind, the heart of nature. The forces of the universe, acting according to their changeless and eternal laws, are simply God at work. And, when I pray to God to interfere, I am praying him to interfere with himself, I am praying him to contradict his own wisely and eternally and changelessly established methods of controlling the world. The question is sometimes asked, but a man can interfere with the course of nature, and produce a result that would not be naturally produced without it? Certainly, because man does not stand in this relation to natural forces. But man, however, does not change any law, he does not interfere with any law. He simply discovers some law and obeys it, and in that way produces a result that would not otherwise be produced. But man does not stand, I say, in this vital relation to the forces of the universe and their laws. When you remember that these forces working, as I said, changelessly, eternally, after their methods, when you remember that these are God in his ceaseless and wise and loving activity, then do you not see that he cannot contradict or interfere with himself? Here is the great difficulty in regard to this old method, this old conception of prayer which confronts the intelligent, the educated, the thoughtfully devout man. When I was first struggling out into the light? as it seems to me now from my old theological training, I met another difficulty that I think will appeal to you. It seemed to me an impertinence for me to be telling God, as I heard so many people on every hand, all sorts of things that he knew before. I reconsidered the words of Jesus, You are not to give yourself to much speaking in your prayers, for your Father knoweth what you have need of before you ask him. And then there was another difficulty which troubled me more than any of the others, a delightful, splendid difficulty it has seemed to me since those days. It was connected with the thought of God's goodness and love. There are heathen, they tell us, who have got a glimpse, from their point of view, of this fact about God. It is said they do not bring any offerings, except some flowers, to the deities they regard as good, because, they say, they do not need to be persuaded. They bring all their costly offerings to the bad gods, the ones they are afraid of; and they attempt to buy their favor or buy off their anger.