The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-06-17

rha araaahonnsr East.

Under the above heading the st. Louis
Republican INDUCES in some discussion OF
of Gov. Hardin's recent state prayer meet
ings to drive off the grasshoppers, from
which we extract the. following:
The question, then, to be discussed is
the proper sphere of prayer. Combining
ourselves to one branch of this question we
assert that prayer never can, and never
was meant to, override natural laws. Ev-
cry intelligent man now knows-what was
not known thousand years ago-that we
live in this world under reign OF law;
and that this law is universal in its apph-
cation, governing alike the animate and
inanimate creation. There is no such
thing as chance, no such thing as accident,
no such thing as breaking up the chain Of
cause and effect fixed by the Supreme
Architect. Every discovery of science
from the Copernician system to spectre
scopic analysis, from the first experiments
with amber to the Growing experiment, OF
Franklin, from the first guesses at geology
to the last investigations of Sir Charles
Lyell-all point in the same direction, and
all confirm the reign of law. Under the
old regime, which science has well-nigh
banished, nature was thought 10 have no
law; to be eccentric in'her movements, and
liable at any moment to change her course
into entirely new and unexpected channels,
Hence it is not strange that in those less
enlightened days prayer was resorted to by
good men and women in almost every con-
ceivable emergency. When the sun was
darkened by an eclipse, thousands of devo-
tees crowded the churches; when a comet
swept across the heavens, when an earth
quake shook the ground, when a volcano
belched forth its sulphurous fires, when
storms covered the ocean, with wrecks,
when pestilence and famine desolated the
land, when it rained too much or rained
too litue-prayer was resorted to with
an unquestioning faith which we
may admire if we cannot initiate.
Now all these and many others, the
grasshopper plague included, have been
stripped of their supernatural attributes
and classed among natural phenomena, and
therefore are governed by purely natura
laws. These laws have never been sci
aside or violated since man began to use
the reason which God has given him il
studying their operations. Unless, then
all reason and all science are founded il
falsehood the expulsion of grasshopper
from Missouri could no more be accom-
plished through the medium of prayer
than could the current Of the Mississippi
be made to run north instead of south b.
the same fundamentally. The one is q
much an interference with natural law a
the other. Mature does assert, says tn,
most distinguished of living scientists
that without disturbance of natural Law
quite as serious as the stOppage of al
eclipse, or the rolling of the st. Lawrence
up the Falls of Niagara, no act of humilia
ton, individual or national, could call on
shower from heaven, or defect toward u
a single beam of the SUM-"
The simple truth is that the domain o
prayer is exclusively spiritual, and no
physical. In that prayer of prayers whicl
Christ left as an example worthy of a
imitation. there is no mention of anythn
but spiritual blessings, save in the recogni
ton Of cur dependence upon the Fathe
for 'our daily bread" If there was
physical side to prayer would not He hav
shown it to his disciples and to us? Dew
ton was intended to, and does, when RICH
ly employed, draw the soul nearer to il
Creator; establish, as it were, a commun
cation with Him, and thereby purify th
thoughts, cnnoble the emotions, and give
higher and holier motive to human actor
Beyond that it does not go, and those wi
endeavor to push prayer outside Of
legitimate limits are only working in IL
interests of the scepticism they so much b
wall