en examined, prove
untenable. The difficulty, as it is most generally stated, arises from a
misunderstanding; answers to prayer are regarded as interferences with
the uniformities of nature, as arbitrary--and therefore
unthinkable--interruptions of the chain of cause and effect, for which
there can be no room in an orderly universe. This, no doubt, was what
Turgenev meant when he asked, "Does not all prayer mean _au fond_ a wish
that in a given case two and two may not make four?" That Turgenev's
aphorism quite illegitimately narrows down the meaning of prayer to
petition, may pass; it is more important for us to investigate his
implied challenge--the grounds upon which he expresses his absolute
disbelief in the fulfilment of such petitions.[6]

A simple preliminary reflection should come to our aid. God is surely
always bringing things to pass on condition that we first do certain
other things, and on no other conditions {207} whatsoever. The seeking
has to go before the finding, the knocking to precede the opening of the
doors. He will give us waving corn, providing the ground is ploughed and
sown; that is to say, He answers our request, if we will make it in the
right manner--He lays down certain rules on compliance with which we may
secure certain blessings. Is it objected that ploughing and sowing,
unlike prayer, are physical exertions made for the purpose of bringing
about physical results? That would be a very superficial view; it is
certainly truer to say that they are acts of will, and even acts of
faith; and in the ultimate analysis the power which has produced the
harvest is not the power of matter, but of mind--the mind of man acting
in accordance with the Mind of God. Man has asked, God has answered; and
would not have answered in that particular manner but for the particular
manner of that request.

Let us go a step further, still keeping to the obvious. Most visitors to
Geneva have made the short excursion to the _Forces matrices_, the great
power-station where the swift waters of the Rhone are pressed into the
service of man and made to light the streets, propel the tramways and
drive all the machinery of the {208} city. Now these vast powers were
always there--no law of nature was broken, nor any new one introduced,
when they were utilised to lighten man's labours and multiply his
energies; all that has happened is that man has discovered existing laws
and harnessed them to his use, and once