THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.

hand, as if lifted up with senseless importunity to the raving elements themselves. Yet nature would strongly prompt the aspiration; and, if there be truth in our argument, there is nothing in the constitution of the universe to forbid its accomplishment. God might answer the prayer, not by unsettling the order of secondary causes-not by reversing any of the wonted successions that are known to take place in the ever-restless, ever-heaving atmosphere-not by sensible miracle among those nearer footsteps which the philosopher has traced; but by the touch of an immediate hand among the deep recesses of materialism, which are beyond the ken of all his instruments. It is thence that the Sovereign of nature might bid the wild uproar of the elements into si lence. It is there that the virtue comes out of Him, which passes like a winged messenger from the invisible to the visible; and, at the threshold of separation between these two regions, impresses the direction of the Almighty's wil on the remotest cause which science can mount her way to. From this point in the series, the path of descent along the line of nearer and proximate causes may be rigidly invariable; and in respect of the order, the precise undeviating order, wherewith they follow each other, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. The heat, and the vapour, and the atmospherical precipitates, and the consequent moving forces by which either to raise a new tempest or lay an old one all these may proceed, and without one hairbreadth of deviation, according to the successions of our established philosophy; yet each be but the obedient messenger of that voice, which gave forth its command at the fountain-head of the whole operation; which commissioned the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth, and made lightnings for the rain, and brought the wind out of his treasuries. These are the palpable steps of the process; but an unseen influence, behind the farthest limit of man's boasted discoveries, may have set them agoing. And hat influence may have been accorded to prayerthe power that moves Him who moves the universe; and who, without violence to the known regularities of nature, can either send forth the hurricane over the face of the deep, or recall it at His pleasure. Such is the joyful persuasion of faith, and proud philosophy cannot disprove it. A woman's feeble cry Inay have overruled the elemental war, and hushed into silence this wild frenzy of the winds and the waves, and evoked the gentler breezes from the cave of their slumbers, and wafted the vessel of her dearest hopes, and which held the first and fondest of her earthly treasures, to its desired haven.

And so of other prayers. It is not withont instrumentality, but by means of it, that they are answered. The fulfilment is preceded by the accustomed series of causes and effects; and preceded as far upward as the eye of man can trace the pedigree of sensible causation. Were it by a break any where in the traceable part of this series that the prayer was answered, then its fulfilment wauld be miraculous. But without a miracle the prayer is answered as effectually. Thus, for example, is met the cry of a people under famine for a speedy and plenteous harvest-not by the instant appearance of the ripened grain, at the bidding of a voice from heaven-not preternaturally cherished into maturity in the midst of storms, but ushered onwards, by a grateful succession of shower and sunshine, to a prosperous consurmmation. An abundant harvest is granted to prayer; yet without violence either to the laws of the vegetable physiology, or to any of the known laws by whic the alterations of the weather are determined. It must be acknowledged by every philosopher, how soon it is that we arrive in both departments, on the

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confines of deepest mystery; and, let the constancy of patent and palpable nature be as unaltered and unalterable as it may, God reserves to himself the place of mastery and command, whether among the arcana of vegetation, or the depths of meteorology. He may at once permit a most rigid uniformity to the visible workings of nature's mechanism, while among its invisible, which are also its antecedent workings, he retains that station of pre-eminence and power, whence he brings all things to pass according to his pleasure. It is not by sending bread from the upper storehouses of the firmament that he answers this prayer. It is by sending rain and fruitful seasons. The intermediate machinery of nature is not cast aside, but pressed into the service; and the prayer is answered by a secret touch from the finger of the Almighty, which sets all its parts and all its processes agoing. With the eye of sense, man sees nothing but nature revolving in her wouted cycles, and the months following each other in bright and beautiful succession. In the eye of faith, ay, and of sound philosophy, every year of smiling plenty upon earth, is a year crowned with the goodness of heaven. But to touch on that which more immediately concerns us, let us now instance prayer for health. We ask, if here philosophy has taken possession of the whole domain, and left no room for the prerogatives and the exercise of faith-no hope for, prayer? Has the whole intermediate space between the first cause and the ultimate phenomena been so thoroughly explored, and the rigid uniformity of every footstep in the series been so fixed and ascertained by observation, as to preclude the rationality of prayer, and leave it without a meaning, because without the possibility of a fulfilment? Where is the physician or the physiologist who can tell, that he has made the ascent from one prognostic or one predisposition to another, till he reached even to the primary fountain-head of that influence, which either medicates or distempers the human frame; and found throughout an adamantine chain of necessity, not to be broken by the sufferer's imploring cry? We ask the guardians of our health, how far upon the pathway of causation the discoveries of medical science have carried them; and whether, above and beyond their farthest look into the mysteries of our framework, there are not higher mysteries, where a God may work in secret, and the hand of the Omnipotent be stretched forth to heal or to destroy? It is thence he may answer prayer. It is from this summit of ascendency that he may direct all the processes of the human constitution; yet without violating in any instance the uniformity of the few last and visible footsteps. Because science has traced, and so far determined this uniformity, she has not therefore exiled God from his own universe; she has not forced the Deity to quit his hold of its machinery, or to forego by one iota the most perfect command of all its evolutions. His superintendence is as close and continuous and special, as if all things were done by the visible intervention of his hand. Without superstition, with the fullest recognition of science in all its prerogatives and all its glories, might we feel our immediate dependence on God; and, even in this our philosophic day, and notwithstanding all that philosophy has made known to us, might we still assert and vindicate the higher philosophy of prayer, asking of God, as patriarchs and holy men of old did before us, for safety and sustenance, and health, and all things.

And if ever in the dealings of God with the people of the earth, if ever science had less of the territory, and faith had more of it, it is in that undisclosed mystery which still hangs over us; which now for many months has shed baleful influences on your

sad state for many reasons, and for this among them, that such a mood of mind calls for trouble. Pil

grims were never intended to walk through the world as smoothly as along a bowling green. Tremble, ye that are at ease.' "Be troubled, ye careless ones." We may put it down as a certainty, that so sure as we are careless and at ease, so sure will trouble come upon us. I had rather not sleep than be unthankful for a good night's rest. I had rather sorrow for sin, than sin without sorrowing.

crowded city; and whereof no man can tell whether, in another day or another hour, it might not descend with fell swoop into the midst of his own family, entering there with rude unceremonious footstep, and hurrying to one of its rapid and inglorious funerals the dearest of the inmates. Never on any other theme did philosophy make more entire demonstration of her own helplessness; and perhaps at the very first footstep of the investigation, or on the question of the proximate cause, the controversy is loudest of all. But however justly of the proximate cause discovery may be made, or however remotely among the anterior causes the investigation might be carried, There is a desponding mood; and I need not ask never will proud philosophy be able to annul the if you have ever known it, for the proudest spirit, intervention of a God, or purchase to herself the the stoutest heart that is hooped with ribs, at times privilege of mocking at the poor man's prayer. gives way to despondency. It is not only in the Indeed, amid the exuberance and variety of speculaactual condition of his creatures, but also in the tion on this unsettled and unknown subject, there was one remote cause assigned for this pestilent moods of their mind, that God puts down the mighty visitation, which, so far from shutting out, rather from their seat, and exalts the humble and meek. suggests, and that most forcibly, the intervention of Before now I have been so shorn of my strength, a God immediately before it. "And it shall come to and left so desolate, that the heavens have been as pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly brass to me, and the earth as iron. I have felt mythat is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, self to be such a poor, forlorn, good-for-nothing creaand for the bee that is in the land of Assyria: and they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the ture, as to think that I should never hold up my head desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and again. In this weak-minded, God-dishonouring spirit, upon all thorns, and upon all bushes."-(Isaiah vii. I have written bitter things against myself, magni18, 19.) We hope to have made it plain to you, let fying my infirmities, diminishing my mercies, darkthis or any other cause be found the true one, that, ening my hopes, and heaping up, instead of clearing however high the path of discovery may have been traced, yet higher still there is place for the finger of away, the brambles in my path, It is hard to fight a God above to regulate all the designs of a special against, and still harder to conquer this mood; for providence, and to move in conformity with all the when it once lays firm hold of us, it drags us down accepted prayers of his family below. But among to the very dust. My advice to you is, to wage war the scoffers of our latter day, even in the absence or against it with all the powers of your mind; set the want of all discovery, the finger of a God is about something that requires energy of action, somedisowned; and it seems to mark how resolute, and at the same time how hopeless, is the infidelity of thing that will force your thoughts into another modern times, that, just in proportion to our igno- channel; and if, after trying your best to keep clear rance of all the secondary or the sensible causes, is of the Slough of Despond, you do tumble into it at our haughty refusal of any homage to the first cause. last, do as Christian of old did; he endeavoured to It is passing strange of this disease, that, after having struggle to that side of the slough that was farthest baffled every attempt to find out its dependence on from his "own house, and next to the wicket gate." aught that is on earth, the idea of its dependence on the will of heaven should, of all others, have been That is a precious prayer: "When my heart is overlaughed most impiously to scorn. The voice of de-whelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I." rision and defiance was first heard in our high places; and thence it passed, as if by infection, into general society. And so, many have disowned the power and the will of the Deity in this visitation. They most unphilosophically, we think, as well as impiously, have spurned at prayer.

HINTS BY "OLD HUMPHREY."*

I. ON THE VARYING MOODS OF THE MIND. THERE is hardly a better way of understanding mankind than that of narrowly examining our own hearts. Whatever we observe in others, we have the germ of it in ourselves. If, therefore, I speak of the varying moods of the mind with which I am familiar, it is most likely that I shall introduce to you some of your old acquaintance.

There is a careless mood-would that I could say with truth I have never known it; a mood in which we are neither melted by God's mercies nor affected by his judgments. Friends are carried to the tomb, Sabbaths pass over us, and time rolls on towards eternity, and still we are at ease. This is a

From "Pithy Papers," by Old Humphrey.

(Psa. lxi. 2.)

There is an anxious mood of mind, in which some are too often found, and now and then I have had a touch of it myself. It leads many to overlook their mercies; to be dissatisfied with such things as they have, and to imagine that the very bits and drops which support them are in jeopardy. I have known some, blessed with riches, who have looked forward in this anxious mood to poverty; and some inhabiting goodly mansions, who have trembled lest the workhouse should await them. Is this a suitable return to the Giver of all good for his abundant bounty ? Is it not enough to cause him to visit us with the very evil we fear? Like the disciples of old, we stand in need of the rebuke and the encouragement to "consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls!"—(Luke xii. 24.)

There is a proud and ambitious mood, and a bad mood it is. Sometimes-but this is not often the case-I catch myself musing on earthly honours and advantages, forgetting the brief tenure of worldly possessions, and that human life is "even a vapour,

HINTS BY "OLD HUMPHREY."

that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth heavy burdens; we have no apprehensions of evil, away."-(James iv. 14.) but look on the bright side of every thing. We go out with joy, and are led forth with peace; the mountains and hills appear to break forth, into singing, and the trees of the field to clap their hands. The very wilderness is glad, and the desert itself seems to blosson as the rose.

neys, in our visits, in the reception of our friends, or in the purchase of any article of dress, make the same hesitation in the expenditure of a half-crown or a shilling, as we do in the case of a collection? And is, after all, the ever-blessed gospel of truth, with all its consolations for time, and its glorious hopes for eternity, a thing of so little consequence with us as to be weighed in the balances against a shilling? Christians! Christians! let us take the matter more to heart, and not thus acknowledge to our. selves, and proclaim to others, what a trifling value we put upon the gospel.

The celebrated Dr Franklin was once listening to a sermon when he expected there would be a collection. His mind, however, was made up not to give a single farthing. He had in his pocket at the time five pistoles in gold, three or four silver dollars, beside a handful of copper money.

Did you never give, to secure the good opinion of the plate-holder, what you would not have given to the advocated cause? In one word, have you, or have you not, over and over again, given that gladly to a human being, which you would have given grudgingly to God?

I am ashamed to propose such questions, and perhaps some of you would be equally ashamed honestly to answer them. Away then with all parsimonious pinching and contriving, fumbling and shuffling, grudging and withholding, in the Redeemer's cause. We have been mercifully dealt with: let us thankfully acknowledge that mercy, remembering that "the liberal soul deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand." God has been good to us, let us at least show that we set some value on his gifts; and, as the glorious gospel has been freely given to us, freely let us support it.

THE CHURCH IN DANGER.

BY THE REV. J. A. JAMES.

WE were never more in danger of forgetting the im

As the minister proceeded in his discourse, the doctor began to relent, and thought to himself that he might as well part with his copper. Soon after this he was so much affected by what fell from the minister's lips, that he considered his copper would be too small an offering; his silver dollars were thus placed in a dangerous position. On went the minis-portance and necessity of prayer than at the present ter, and in so eloquent and persuasive a manner, that by the time he had finished, the doctor was determined to do all he could for the cause which had been so ably advocated, so he poured into the collector's dish the contents of his pocket, copper money, silver dollars, and golden pistoles altogether.

I cannot tell whether, in the instance I have related, Dr Franklin was moved to act in the way he did because his judgment was convinced, or because his feelings were excited; but this I do know, that both our judgment and our affections, too, ought to prompt us to support the cause of the gospel. Now let me come a little closer to you in my remarks.

Did you never, when preparing to set out for the house of God, in recollecting that a charity sermon, or a collection, was appointed for that day, suddenly feel an unusual desire to be profited by the ministry of some servant of the Most High whom you had never heard, and who preached in a place of worship that you had never before entered?

Did you never actually, on such an occasion, "go farther, and fare worse than you would have done in hearing your own minister, returning home more than half dissatisfied with yourself for the course you had taken?

moment. Our institutions have risen to a magnitude and extension which are grand and imposing; it is an age of great societies, an era of organisation, when there is eminent peril of trusting to the wisdom of committees, and the power of eloquence, of numbers, and of money, instead of the power of prayer. We cannot, I know, do without organisation, and n makes one's heart throb with delight to see to what an extent it is carried. The annual list which is published of our May meetings is one of the greatest wonders of the age, the brightest glories of the Church, and the richest hopes of posterity. That one docu-! ment appears to my eye as the ruby-tinted clouds o. the orient sky, which announce the approach of the millennial orb. But then our glory is our danger;" this very organisation may seduce us, and I am afraid is seducing us, and has seduced us from our dependence upon God, till organisation is likely to become the image of jealousy, which maketh jealous in the temple of the Lord.

An eloquent speaker once said upon a missionary platform, "Money, money, money, is the life's blood of the missionary cause!" I would substitute another word, and say," Prayer, prayer, prayer, is the life's blood of the missionary cause!" I am no enthuDid you never, after putting yourself to much siast; I do not expect our cause to be sustained withinconvenience to avoid one collection, stumble upon out money; nor do I expect gold to be rained out of another, giving your money grudgingly, and resolv-heaven into our coffers. Money we must have in far ing never again to be caught by a trap of your own baiting?

Did you never, after having made up your mind to give a certain sum, settle down into the prudential belief that half the amount would be more consistent with your circumstances?

Did you never, after having been wrought up to unwonted liberality by the affectionate earnestness and pious fervour of a Christian minister, cool in your resolvings, approaching the plate shorn of your strength, and giving merely as another man?

greater abundance than we now have, and money will come at the bidding of prayer. If we had more fervent, believing supplication, we should have more wealth. The same spirit of sincere and importunate supplication which would bring down the treasures of heavenly grace, would call forth the supplies of earthly means. I repeat, what I think I have said somewhere else, that I could be almost content that for the next year not a word was said about money, and the Church he summoned universally to intense and believing supplication. Ministers of the gospel,

THE CHURCH IN DANGER.