Under the old theory God had His favourites who were saved by hair-breadth escapes, in accidents that were fatal to persons who were not the objects of "special providences"; this was supposed to account for the fact that one man in particular found that somebody else {200} had taken the last berth in the ship he had meant to sail by, and so escaped the fate of the crew and passengers when it went down with all on board--no "special providence" saving them. It looks like a reflection of the pagan mythological tales about heroes rescued by the timely interference of gods and goddesses in battles where thousands of common mortals perish unheeded. It is the aristocratic idea of privilege carried up to religion. The newer view is more democratic, and it seems to agree better with our Lord's assurance that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father's notice, that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered.[4] All this has its direct bearing upon the subject of prayer. We may still be occasionally regaled with stories of one solitary sailor being saved--Providence looking after him in response to his mother's petitions--while every other soul on board was drowned; but these narratives, once irresistible in the impression they created, are to-day received with somewhat mixed feelings. The view of God's character which they inculcate is apt to strike us as unsatisfactory; that He should avert a great and presumedly unmerited physical calamity from one individual simply and solely because He has been asked to do so by some other individual, while allowing the same calamity to overtake numerous others no more deserving of affliction, does not fit in with our conception of Him. We are slowly learning to substitute for the notion of any kind of preferential treatment at the hand of God a belief in the unchanging goodness of His decrees, in the wisdom of His counsel, {201} and in the reality of His abiding and enfolding love; by Providence we mean something that is neither local nor personal, nor particular, but universal--the Providence of unchanging law--that living and loving Will which "knoweth altogether."