The principle that no other being but God is worthy of being addressed in prayer implies the belief that God can fulfil our petitions. We believe in the efficacy of prayer. It is true that when we communicate our wishes to the Most Holy, our just Lord and our loving Father, we are eo ipso reminded to examine our desires, whether they contain anything unholy, anything unjust or ignoble. Prayer to God has therefore the salutary effect of purifying, refining, and ennobling our heart. It banishes evil thoughts, and thus saves us much pain and sorrow. This effect may have been designed by the Creator, and it may be for this purpose that He has endowed us with a natural impulse to pray, and has taught us to pray in His Holy Word. But this cannot be the direct object of prayer. The immediate effect sought to be obtained by this act is the fulfilment of our wishes. Every such fulfilment implies a miracle, a deviation from the regular course of nature. We are not in the habit of praying for things which we expect as the sure result of the natural laws; we may praise and admire nature in its workings, but we shall never ask nature for the fulfilment of our desires. Only those things which we believe to be dependent solely on the free decision of the Supreme Being can form the substance of our petitions; and since we believe that everything, the regular working of the natural laws not excepted, depends on the Will of God, we include in the objects of prayer whatever concerns the well-being of individual man and society at large.