Nothing need be said to deepen our sense of the importance of this issue. We all regard it as one of the vital questions of the hour, the most vital question for religious men, yea, the most vital question for scientific men, inasmuch as there are moments of sadness and sorrow, of doubt and mystery, when man feels that his only refuge is in prayer, and, science or no science, he must pray. But if there is no living God to sympathize with us in our sorrow and help us in our deepest need, or, which amounts to the same thing, if God is so completely environed by laws which He has Himself enacted, and so imprisoned in his own works that He can do nothing to aid us, then prayer is an illusion, and instead of being in any way beneficial to us, it inflicts a deep and irreparable injury upon our intellectual and moral life. If there is nothing in the universe but mechanical force and necessary law; if there is no freedom and no moral purpose, then prayer for help and succor and guidance is a conscious or unconscious deception practiced by the soul upon itself, and the sooner we are undeceived the better; for of all deception the most pernicious and depraving is that which a man practices upon himself. We could not even accept the cold apology for prayer which was made by David Hume, that it may have a wholesome reflex influence upon the mind of the worshiper, and be a good way of preaching to ourselves.[407] There can be nothing useful or helpful in the belief and practice of a lie. No accession of moral force or moral purity can come from doing any thing in which we do not believe. If there is any moral value and any real helpfulness in prayer, it must be based upon a _rational_ belief that the Divine mind is accessible to the supplication of his creature, and that the Divine will is moved thereby. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Humbly professing this belief without any reservation, and regarding it as a perfectly rational belief, we proceed to defend it against certain so-called scientific objections, and to consider certain difficulties which present themselves to the minds of scientific men. We have said that there is a _real_ issue between science and religion as to the efficacy of prayer. The statement is not strictly correct, and we amend it by saying that the issue is not between science and religion, but between certain men who study and teach science and certain men who study and teach religion. For, as Mr. Murphy observes, "The antagonism between science and religion themselves is purely imaginary. The antagonism between the men who study and teach science and the men who study and teach religion is unfortunately sometimes real, though it is the fashion [just now] to exaggerate it; but so far as it is real it is an accident of the present time, which will disappear, and indeed is already visibly disappearing."[408]