“Or are there reasons for believing that these several systems came into existence, not by such an arbitrary fiat, but through the operation of law?” The shallowness of this philosophy the simplest can sound. As well might we speak of a nation or state springing into existence through the operation of those laws which are subsequently enacted for its guidance. Prayer and the possibility of miracles are equally assailed by Draper’s doctrine of necessary law. His argument against the former is very closely akin to J. J. Rousseau’s objection to prayer. “Why should we,” says the pious author of _Emile_, “presume to hope that God will change the order of the universe at our request? Does he not know better what is suited to our wants than our short-sighted reason can perceive, to say nothing of the blasphemy which sets up our judgment in opposition to the divine decrees?” The opposition of Draper and Tyndall to prayer proceeds exactly on the same notion--the absurdity, namely, of supposing that our petitions can ever have the effect of changing the fixed and unalterable scheme of the universe. Tyndall went so far as to propose a prayer-gauge by separating the inmates of a hospital into praying and non-praying ones, and seeing what proportion of the two classes would recover more rapidly. Those three distinguished philosophers evidently never understood the nature and conditions of prayer, else they would not hold such language. God changes nothing at our instance, but counts our prayer in as a part of the very plan on which the universe was projected. In the divine mind every determination of our will is perceived from eternity, as indeed are all the events of creation. But we admit a distinction of logical priority of some over others. Thus God’s knowledge of our determination to act is logically subsequent to the determination itself, since the latter is the object of the divine knowledge, and must have a logical precedence over it. Prayer, then, is compatible with the regularity of the universe and infinite wisdom, because God, having perceived our prayer and observed the conditions accompanying it, determined in eternity to grant or to withhold it, and regulated the universe in accordance with such determination. Our prayers have been granted or withheld in the long past as regards us, but not in the past as regards God, in whom there is no change nor shadow of a change. It is evident from this how absurd is Tyndall’s notion of testing the efficacy of prayer in the manner he proposed, and how unjust is Draper’s constant arrow-shooting at shrine-cures and petitions for health addressed to God and to his saints. Nor does the granting of a prayer necessarily imply a departure from the natural course of events. The foreseen goodness and piety of a man can have determined God to allow the natural order and sequence of events to proceed in such a manner as to develop conformably to his petition. In this there is no disturbance of the natural order,