Whatever may be the award of a thoughtless derision, we do not hesitate in saying that the proposition is an improper one, and can not be entertained. Especially because there is one party concerned in this matter for whom no human being is authorized to make any engagements, and that is "the Hearer and Answerer of Prayer." There is only one class of blessings for which He has given us any warrant to pray unconditionally, and these are spiritual blessings. For strength to resist temptation, to endure affliction, and perform well our appointed work in life; for grace to purify our nature, elevate our aims, conquer our selfishness and pride, and help us to form a noble character, God has authorized and commanded us to pray. But for the blessings of this life, for deliverance from danger and suffering, for restoration from sickness and for long life, we are taught to pray in submission to that highest wisdom which knows what is best for us, and to append to every supplication, however ardent our desire and intense our solicitude, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." This submission is the loftiest attitude of prayer.
At the same time we shrink not from the distinct avowal of the Christian doctrine that it is reasonable and proper to offer prayer for recovery from sickness, and that such prayer, offered in submission to the Divine will, may be answered. We are not ashamed of the good old faith—"the Aberglaube," or superstition, as some are pleased to call it—that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick." The calmness and serenity of mind which the prayer of faith supplies is favorable to recovery. In fact, as "the systematic excitation of a definite expectation and hope," it has a legitimate place in psycho-therapeutics, as Feuchtersleben has shown, and even as Dr. Tuke concedes in his work on the "Influence of the Mind on the Body."[434] This "definite expectation and hope" is not a mere illusion. We have the assurance of Scripture that there is a Divine blessing which "giveth wisdom to the wise and knowledge to men of understanding," and which may descend upon the head and the heart of the most skillful physician in answer to prayer. Furthermore, it is generally admitted by medical men that "as in health certain mental states may induce disease, so in disease certain mental states may restore health."[435] Now these "mental states" may be the subject of Divine influence. Science has not dared to shut out the Spirit of God from the realm of mind, and therefore restoration to health may be given, in this manner at least, in answer to prayer. But no man would propose to make the prevalence of such prayer the subject of statistical averages. Prayer for the sick can not always result in their recovery, for then they would never die. Our lives are in the hands of God, and we shall live until our work is done, or until we have clearly shown that we will not do our work, and our life is a failure and a defeat.
Finally, in the name of our holy religion, we repel with scorn the attempt of certain scientists to test the value of prayer, and with it also the value of a life of self-denial, purity, and piety, by merely temporal, secular, and visible results which may be weighed and measured and set down in statistical tables. Christianity teaches that the present life is a probationary scene. It is a state of trial and discipline with a view to the formation of moral character. Therefore our principles and our virtues must be put to the test. Temptation tries our fortitude; affliction ascertains our submission; suffering purifies our souls; doubt and mystery give energy to our faith. Amid the good and the evil of the present our character has to be developed and perfected. There is much to be encountered, much to be endured. But as Richard Winter Hamilton has said, "This discipline is salutary. The furnace heat purities the gold by its rigorous assay. The vine prunes until it bleeds that it may bear its richer clusters. A theatre is raised for lofty struggle and celestial dint." The end of all is to make us pure and noble and heroic souls.
The scientists of this age, who are so enamored of inert matter and insensate force, may have no eye to see, no heart to sympathize with, and no competent faculty by which to estimate the value of this blessed vintage; but there are souls to whom honor is dearer than life, and wisdom more precious than rubies, and purity more desirable than fine gold, who will continue to pray—"Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily magnify thy holy name."
So much for the argument against the efficacy of prayer from the experiential stand-point. We are compelled to pronounce it a failure. There seems good reason to believe that Dr. Tyndall regards it as a failure, for we do not find that he any where denies the efficacy of prayer for spiritual blessings. But, like a second Ajax Telemon, he makes haste to interpose his ample shield for the defense of his unfortunate friends; he is careful, however, to change the entire mode of warfare, and he opens the attack on the efficacy of prayer from the theoretical stand-point.
Dr. Tyndall begins by observing that "the idea of direct personal volition mixing itself in the economy of nature is retreating more and more" in presence of advancing science, and among educated and scientific communities there is a growing conviction that "nature is absolutely uniform," and that her laws are changeless and permanent. He takes the ground that all prayer for Divine interposition "to produce changes in external nature," such, for example, as "prayer for rain or for fair weather," is irrational, because the answer to such prayer would be "a violation of the order of nature," "a manifest contradiction to natural laws," and in fact "a miracle." "The dispersion of the slightest mist by the special volition of the Eternal would be as great a miracle ... as the stoppage of an eclipse or the rolling of the St. Lawrence up the Falls of Niagara. No act of humiliation, individual or national, could call one shower from heaven or deflect toward us a single beam of the sun."[436]
We have characterized this attack of Dr. Tyndall's as an attack on the efficacy of prayer from the theoretical stand-point: 1. Because he does not claim that the belief in the changeless uniformity of nature is a self-evident truth—a direct intuition, either of sense or of reason, which needs no proof. 2. Because he does not assert that the absolute uniformity of nature has been inductively proved, or is even capable of verification by experience, since all experience, whether of the individual or the race, is necessarily limited, and can not, therefore, give a universal truth. All that he can say of it is that it is "an assumption"—an assumption which all carefully conducted experiments have justified, and upon which all successful scientific research has been based. The majestic fabric of modern science has been reared upon this foundation.
But mark, it is still "an assumption,"[437] and the central question around which the battle must be fought is, What ground have we for the assumption that the order of nature is so absolutely persistent and changeless that it never has been and never can be interfered with by an act of intelligent volition?
Dr. Tyndall has attempted an answer to this question. We shall endeavor, first, clearly to comprehend his answer, and, secondly, to estimate its logical validity.