(2) But when this is clearly understood, it has on the other hand to be as frankly admitted--indeed, it is stating the obvious to say--that in modern times the idea of the uniformity of nature has obtained such a hold upon the general educated mind as renders any breach of that order far more improbable to us than it could have appeared to a pre-scientific generation. All physical science rests, broadly speaking, upon the assumption that nature acts uniformly; without saying that it must be so, we are well assured that it is so, because all observation and experiment are found to bear out the truth of the principle we have assumed. All we have learned concerning nature excludes the notion that there is anything haphazard or arbitrary in her ways. We do not feel at all as though the action of natural forces might be suspended or modified for our particular benefit, and hence certain ideas of the efficacy of prayer--_e.g._, for rain or fine weather--have become impossible for us to entertain with the ease of our ancestors. We start with a mental attitude--hardly {199} to be called a prejudice, since it is based upon a large body of experience--of profound assurance that in matters like these the will of God finds its expression in the unbroken operation of His ordinary laws, "without variableness or shadow of turning"; most people, moreover, would acknowledge that it is better that these laws should be stable and capable of being learned and depended upon than that the Divine will should be incalculable--_ondoyant et divers_--a matter of moods on His side and of importunity on ours. Tennyson's familiar lines represent the typically modern outlook with the utmost accuracy and conciseness:-- God is Law, say the wise; O soul, and let us rejoice[1] For if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His Voice. (3) And while the scientific temper of the present day could not fail to affect our thoughts concerning prayer in some directions, the same has surely to be said about the ethical temper of the age, as shown in our enlarged conceptions of God. To put it bluntly, much of the language about what used to be called "special providences" has become unreal and ceased to be edifying for us. On this whole subject some words of Principal Adeney's can hardly be bettered:--