But the tendency to put prayer to silence is not merely thus indirect. The one idea which seems at present more forcibly to have grasped the popular imagination, is that of the universal and inexorable dominion of unchanging law. And the inference is not unnatural, “Then it is useless to pray.” The result is an awful silence—not of the flesh, indeed, but of the spirit. Men and women have come to feel themselves alone in a new and fearful sense—alone as in the valley of dry bones, with no expectation of any Divine breath to cause them to stand up upon their feet, a united host of living servants of the living God. I trust that I shall not be suspected of any intention of grappling with the problem of free-will and necessity. I know, at least, enough to be aware that there is at the end of every avenue of human thought an impenetrable mystery. But I also know that the region in which philosophers join issue upon the question of necessity lies far beyond the range of any such practical questions as I am engaged with. I know that the controversy is not decided, and, so far as we can see, does not visibly approach towards a decision; I know also that no conceivable agreement of philosophers as to the most accurate way of stating facts can alter the facts themselves with which we have to do. I do not hope to express myself with philosophical accuracy; but I can, and will, speak plainly and truly of my own experience in this matter of prayer. There was a time when I myself was silenced by the paralyzing influences of which I have spoken—when the heavens seemed as brass, and to ask for anything seemed like flying in the face of one vast foregone conclusion; as though a moth should dash itself against an iceberg. But I have come to believe that the truth against which I had thus, so to speak, stumbled in the dark, was not that prayer is unreasonable, but that my ideas of prayer were unworthy. That the will of God is unchangeable, is assuredly the very foundation of all reasonable trust in Him, and is recognized by saints and philosophers alike. But does not the imagination easily confound unchangeableness with immovableness? Are not the laws of motion as fixed as those of space? What can be more full of movement than the flames of fire? Yet are they less unchangeable in their nature than a bar of iron? Is it not through a reliance upon the unchangeable properties of material things that we are able to change the whole face of the earth? And should we not remember that the unchangeable order which all things, visible and invisible, obey, includes the mystery of perpetual “variation,” and even of life itself?