Does not the parallel difficulty point to a parallel solution? What right have we to assume that in either case effectual prayer interferes with the regularity which seems to characterize Divine action? May it not be God's will that the prayer of faith should be a force that can influence other forces, whether material or spiritual, and that its influence should be according to _law_ (whether natural or supernatural) quite as much as the influence of other forces? A man who puts up a lightning-conductor brings down the electric current when it might otherwise have remained above, and brings it down in one place rather than another; yet no one would say that he interferes with the regularity of the course of nature. Is there anything in religion or science to forbid us from thinking of prayer as working in an analogous manner--according to a law too subtle for us to comprehend and analyse, but according to a law none the less? In the vast network of forces in which an all-wise God has constructed the universe a Christian will believe that one force which "availeth much," both in the material and in the spiritual world, is the earnest prayer of the righteous. It is better for us that we should be able to influence by our prayers God's direction of events than that we should be unable to do so; therefore a merciful Father has placed this power within our reach.[99] [96] In the _Dict. of Chr. Biogr._, I., p. 615, Tertullian's account of public confession is given at some length, and then the question is asked, "Is not this, clearly, the _exomologesis_ which St. James enjoins?" To this one replies that St. James enjoins confession, but says nothing about publicity. [97] The Council of Trent anathematizes any one "who denies that sacramental confession was instituted of Divine right, or that it is necessary to salvation, or who says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, _which the Church has ever observed from the beginning_, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention" (Canon VI. ii. 165). [98] Moreover, "shall absolve hym after this _forme_" was changed to "shall absolve hym after thys _sorte_," as if allowing another form in the Visitation of the Sick.