Note 416 — Chapter IX · SPECIAL PROVIDENCE AND PRAYER.

This is admitted even by those who regard prayer for physical change, as, for example, the averting of disease or the fall of rain, to be "irrational and unconsciously irreverent." "I repeat that no theory of the universe, no philosophy of human nature, and no conclusion of science can ever lay an arrest upon the instincts of the universal heart in the presence of calamity, and with the prospect of its increase. Let men philosophize as they will, and let science march where it will (conquering realm after realm, and reducing all under the rigor of law), the human spirit will always 'cry unto God' in times of crisis, and will find immeasurable solace in 'committing its causes' unto Him; for the instinct to pray for relief in times of anxiety or of peril is one which can never be exorcised from the heart of man. But it does not follow that it will always (or that it ought ever) to imagine that by so doing it can deflect the order of nature or induce God to alter his prearrangements. The relief obtained is in the act of submission and of filial trust, not in the notion of being able to persuade an infinitely powerful and sympathetic Listener" ("Prayer: 'The Two Spheres:' They are Two," by the Rev. William Knight, Contemporary Review, December, 1873, p. 35). Of course we have no reason to expect that Dr. Tyndall should yield his judgment to the authority of Scripture, but we may legitimately expect the Rev. William Knight, of the Free Church of Scotland, to defer in some measure to James v. 13-18.