INTRODUCTORY.

BY D.W. WHITTLE.

To recognize God's existence is to necessitate prayer to Him, by all
intelligent creatures, or, a consciously living in sin and under
condemnation of conscience, because they do not pray to Him. It would be
horrible to admit the existence of a Supreme Being, with power and
wisdom to create, and believe that the creatures he thought of
consequence and importance enough to bring into existence, are not of
enough consequence for him to pay any attention to in the troubles and
trials consequent upon that existence.

Surely such a statement is an impeachment of both the wisdom and
goodness of God.

It were far more sensible for those who deny the fitness and necessity
of prayer to take the ground of the atheist and say plainly "We do not
pray, for there is no God to pray to," for to deny prayer, is practical
atheism.

So in the very constitution of man's being there is the highest
reasonableness in prayer. And, if the position of man in his relation to
the earth he inhabits is recognized and understood, there is no
unreasonableness in a God-fearing man looking to God for help and
deliverance under any and all circumstances, in all the vicissitudes of
life. The earth was _made_ for man. One has said "there is nothing great
in the world but man; and there is nothing great in man but his soul."
With this in view, how absurd to talk about "fixed laws" and
"unchangeable order," in a way to keep man in his trouble from God. It
is all the twaddle of the conceit of man setting himself up to judge and
limit his maker. "To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal?
saith the Holy One." The Creator is greater than his creation; the law
giver is supreme over all law. He created the earth that it might be
inhabited by man, and He governs the earth in subordination to the
interests, the eternal and spiritual welfare of the race of immortal
beings that are here being prepared for glory and immortality.

Laws, indeed, are fixed in their operation and results as subserving the
highest good in the training and the disciplining of the race, giving
them hope in their labor and sure expectation of fruit from their toil.
But as set in operation for _man's good_, so, in an exigency that may
make necessary their suspension, to secure his deliverance from peril
and bring man back to the recognition of the personal God, as above,
law, is it unreasonable to believe that God has power thus to suspend