The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-10
PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.


cussed the faith cure at length. The Congre-
gational preachers of the same city invited
Prof. Stacey Fowler TO read a paper on the
topic tho Monday following. The subject has
also been brought before the Baptist Minis
ters' Association Of New York city, as re-
ported in our Thursdays issue. The dis
cussion was general. Opinions were held
ranging from absolute faith in the power OF
prayer to affect the will of God, to absolute
condemnation of the faith-cure people and
practice.
Such meetings and discussions as these lead
naturally into an inquiry as to the relation
Of the Christian ministry to the scien-
tifc and progressive thought of the present.
The day has gone by when the church was
the repository Of knowledge and its ministers
the leaders in solid learning. Other forces
and other classes have ranged alongside, and
in many lines they overtop the ministers.
Preachers as class, are soundly educated,
and compare favorably with the other learned
professions but they are not looked up to as
the masters of knowledge, as of old The
community has grown up to the preachers
level by the larger and more liberal methods
of education, and through the influence Of
the press The pulpit is not supplanted by
these forces; it has not had its day. but the
rather stands at the dawn of its work and it's
future. The tendency Of liberal education
and the wide dissemination Of scientific
knowledge should only be to strike
out pride, and vanity, and unwarrant-
able claims, which the church is
better off without than with. The utterance
of the Boston and New York divnes is not the
last nor the first word on this subject. 1t has
been long before the world Job was led to
mediate OH what human freedom is, and he
laid his hand upon his mouth. The con-
illusions of science accord also with the belief
expressed by the Master, that the distribution
Of natural phenomena upon which health and
life depend, are not affected by moral or re-
igious causes. The sun rises on the evil and
the good, and rain falls upon the just and the
unjust, were his words. The absolute power
of free will is not granted to man by the eth
tcs of any Scripture, old or new. If natural
laws were ut the mercy of mans volition, the
conclusions Oh the assumed permanency of
these laws, which is the basis Of
action, would not be worthy of confidence.
1t is wholesome sign that the leaders of our
clergy act up to this view. They thus en-
courage conflict with the natural causes of
disease, misery and poverty in the world,
rather than delusive reliance upon super
natural aid when distress is at hand. The in
telligent clergy see in prayer an auxiliary to
the work for which the churches are estab-
hshed. Prayer is not to them simply an order
on the grocer, or the personal draft of man on
the bank of the universe for this or that
favor. 1t is the souls sincere desire, and its
effect is backward on the individual rather
than forward on the infinite, or at least it is
the one quite as much as the other The
thing we long for, that we are, or may ap-
proach. Prayer is reflex; it gives
man control over his own will
and spirit, aud then, secondarily, over
physical laws and forces. 1t is not in sound,
or in phrases, OF in places, or in attitudes that
prayer consists It is the conscious effort of it,
the silence of it, the thought in it, and the
will and action born Of it, that give power
unto prayer, and make it the spiritualizing,
civilizing and enthusing thing it may become.
The best praying is the best thinking, and the
thought that leads to the most reasonable
action comes nearest to swaying the universe,
and is the prayer of prayers, against which
the world, and the grave, and all the he'll of
ignorance and superstition cannot prevail
The old drama of human will contendinc
with necessity is the drama of dramas, and the
setting of the play is essentially the same
with every son Of man. 1t has been recast and
rewritten time and time again. There is the
version of Adam, of Homer, of Job, of Faust,
Of Jonathan Edwards. Of Hamlet. 1t is tho
burden Of literature, and the song of songs,
and the experience of everyone. There is no
better limitation Of this iaw---man against
nature; flesh against spirit; thought against
thing, idea and substance; microcos,n and
mocrocosm-than that of the mild and
meek-eyed pietists, who, intuitively and in re-
hgious ecstacy skip the rigid steps of the
logic, and exclaim: "Our Wills are ours to
make them Thine" Pope meant the
same when lie said, "Whateyer is,
u right" The scientist has the