Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1872-09-18
IIuxley's PRAYER Cuage.


stand upon the inductive philosophy and ac-
cept its results without quailing Bacon
himself the great author Of It, affirmed that
it would necessarily fail in The realm Of spir-
itual things however it might hold in the
region Of the natural. lie did not hesitate
to declare the existence Of things beyond the
reach Of the senses, and that no induction
could be made with reference to the Divine
Being or the facts Of the spiritual universe.
Its laws were beyond induction.
But these discriminating scientists have far
outrun the great chief Of their philosophy
They have rejected final causes, On the ground
that no facts support their existence. No
induction can give us the idea Of God, and
therefore he is to be treated by human science
as an unknown or non.existent quantity
Hence, prayer is a nullity and can have no
possible effect. They have united in recon-
mending to the believers in prayer, of whom
there are not few, mechanical guaee to
test its efficacy. They propose to set up one
or two wards in a hospital, and put Christians
to praying especially for the patients in those
wards and ascertain the effect Of prayer by
the result upon the patients. Given the same
medical treatment, the same general care, the
same kind and violence Of diseases, and the
sick of the praycd-for wards ought to show a
larger proportion Of cures than in the UNI
prayed for wards, on the supposition that
prayer has any efficacy, or that there is God
who hears and answers prayer.
The obvious objections to this ghage to
measure prayer seem not to occur to these
eminent men. 1t is possible that natural and
spiritual forces are governed by laws utterly
dissimillr and that either will refuse to work
in the realm Of the other There are certain
purely spiritual elements, such as kindness,
mercy, gratitude, aspiration, anger, fear, faith
aud love, that cannot be weighed in scales or
measured by the ordinary tests Of dynnmics
1t is quite well to say that a steam engine
has forty horse power but to say that a man
loves or hates by so much horse power would
be the boldest possible figure Of speech. Now
we imagine that prayer, growing as it does
out Of the spiritual sentiments, its elements
being faith, gratitude, fear, hope and love,
could hardly be set naturally to any physical
or mechanical work A broken leg can be
set with spIints by skilful surgeon, when he
would utterly waste his breath in trying to
set it by prayer. We do not take natural
causes to produce spiritual effects, nor spirit
ual causes to produce natural effects. Spir-
itual causes may sometimes come in to aid
natural as when anger or love increase the
power of the body to destroy hated object
or to save beloved object But no man,
unless he is distinguished scientist, would
think of putting love and faith to do the
work of drugs and medicines, to binding
broken limbs, or curing tumors and fevers.
r Such a guage as that would be like using a
lactometer to ascertain the temperature of q
prayer meeting. 1t is barely possible that a
lactometer could accomplish its designed uses
when it would be utterly worthless for any
other purpose. So it is possible that the spir-
itual power of prayer might give motion to
the attributes of the Almighty in our behalf,
where the mere forms and mechanics of prayer
would be absolutely useless.
|, But we would suggest to these eminent
savanS an appropriate subject for their sci
enti6c tests. In the Able Hucs account OF
bis travels in China, Thibet and Tartary, there
is description of praying machine much
i1 vogue in thse regions. 1t is a cylinder
il which written prayers are placed, and with
every revolution of the cylinder, turned by a
hand crank, so many prayers are addressed to
the Deity. 1t is on the same principle, while
the form is different, with the beaded pater-
nosters of some devout Christians. Now the
test or guage that Huxley and Tyndal pro-
pose would exactly measure the efficacy Of
this machine. 1t is a mechanical guage for a
mechanical performance, and therefore there
is co-relation between the test and the thing
| W w NSoNNht NoiiNolohbNhNS bshNNNh AAN
guagc and the thing to be guagcd. We sug
gest to these gentlemen to set up one Of these
cylinders in one of the wards Of the hospital
make accurate observations and ascertain
whether it has any effect upon the patients
Its virtues can be readily contrasted with tn,
virtue of other physical remedies and if il
should be found that the death rate in tn,
wards that were soothed by these rotating
praying machines was sensiby diminished
science would have achieved another success
and the inductive philosophy would b,
crowned with another triumph But to pro
pose to test the prayer of faith by scientific
and material guages, is about as ridiculous as
to attempt to climb the Matterhorn by til,
exercise Of love- or to traverse the Mer d,
,, Glaze on the wings of a benediction. Still
no one doubts there are such things as love
and benediction. These followers of BacoG
: have transcribed the limits that he fixed t.
the nductive philosophy.
The ideas of God, of prayer, of faith ant
love- are not the fruit Of induction Science
may not recognize these priori conviction,
of the soul, but men everywhere have done
so, and will do so, to the end Of time. Wher
science runs its head into the ground, and
confidently declares the non-existence of facts
beyond its vision and induction, il will be
likely to get, by and by as Carlyle suggests
a terrible pOsteriori awaking. Naturaism
is good in its place, but doubtless there are
things not dreamt Of in its philosophy
NORTHERN PAcInc RAILRoAp.--Mr. Cass,
the new President of the road, and some of
its leading directors, as Mr.. William b. Og-
den, Of New York, and Mr. Frederick Billings,
, of Vermont with the chief engineer and