But the idea of a grand plan from which God cannot be swerved by intercession and supplication is far from the thought of the usual level of religion. It is the creation of reflective thought, and does not find a ready welcome in the minds of people at large. For them, there is no such thing as complete determination of the course of events. God is a powerful agent who is able to bring to pass what he wills but he does not always {117} intervene in particular cases unless he is asked. It is this situation, in which God is only one of the forces at work in nature, that gives the setting for the idea of a special providence and the answer to prayer. Is it not evident that we have in these beliefs the expression of personal agency, an idea continuous with mythology? There are many examples of the appeal to a special providence which awaken the curiosity of the modern man. In cases of severe sickness, prayer for restoration to health is offered in the churches and homes. If God is a personal agent affected by the desires of his worshipers, this act is perfectly logical. Yet the nature of sickness is now so well known that we see in it a cause and effect relation of a definite sort. Knowledge of impersonal agency is undermining the faith in super-human agency. Perhaps the fact that such prayers have never stayed a plague, while active measures of a scientific sort have done so, has had something to do with the purely formal and traditional character of such prayers among civilized men. Another instance which has caused many cynical comments is the appeal to God to bring victory to the nation in time of war. Both combatants pray to the same deity with about equal fervency and, at the same time, make as careful preparations as possible for the actual warfare. The religious ceremonies appear to play the part of an emotional accompaniment for the grimmer proceedings on the battle-field. To the soldier, God stands for the element of chance; otherwise, the main precept is to keep the powder dry.