So much is sure, that in all true prayer we set spiritual forces in motion, to whose effects upon ourselves we can bear witness; and if their action in one direction is an ascertained fact, however mysterious and inexplicable, with what warrant shall we deny the possibility of their acting in another? Certainly we shall not argue that such action involves an "interference" with natural law; and if we have to admit our ignorance as to {210} _how_ such a force would operate and bring results to pass, let us remind ourselves that the ultimate "how?"--the bridge between antecedent and consequent, and why the former should be followed by the latter--always and inevitably escapes us. Why in the thousand and more observed forms of snow-crystals the filaments of ice should always be arranged at angles of 60 degrees or 120 degrees; why sulphate of potash and sulphate of alumina should crystallise in octahedrons or in cubes, but in no other forms; what is the real connection between molecular changes in the brain-substance and states of consciousness--all these, and a myriad more, are unsolved mysteries: we can only say that we are dealing with facts of experience. And as in these and countless other cases, so here also, in this matter of answers to prayer, the final and only test is that of experience. That a vessel in distress should be able to send a message to another vessel a hundred miles out of sight, and summon it to its aid, would have struck an earlier generation as a piece of wild romancing--but we know it is actually done; that a soul's earnest prayer may avail to enlist mighty energies in its help and so to bring about results which otherwise would not have come to pass, ought hardly to strike the present age as an inherently incredible proposition.