e idea, the idea that ensouls
it--help is wanted, food is wanted; and it ranges the subtle world,
seeking. A charitable man desires to give help to the needy, is seeking
opportunity to give. As the magnet to soft iron, so is such a person to
the desire-form, and it is attracted to him. It rouses in his brain
vibrations identical with its own--George Mueller, his orphanage, its
needs--and he sees the outlet for his charitable impulse, draws a
cheque, and sends it. Quite naturally, George Mueller would say that God
put it into the heart of such a one to give the needed help. In the
deepest sense of the words that is true, since there is no life, no
energy, in His universe that does not come from God; but the
intermediate agency, according to the divine laws, is the desire-form
created by the prayer.

The result could be obtained equally well by a deliberate exercise of
the will, without any prayer, by a person who understood the mechanism
concerned, and the way to put it in motion. Such a man would think
clearly of what he needed, would draw to him the kind of subtle matter
best suited to his purpose to clothe the thought, and by a deliberate
exercise of his will would either send it to a definite person to
represent his need, or to range his neighbourhood and be attracted by a
charitably disposed person. There is here no prayer, but a conscious
exercise of will and knowledge.

In the case of most people, however, ignorant of the forces of the
invisible worlds and unaccustomed to exercise their wills, the
concentration of mind and the earnest desire which are necessary for
successful action are far more easily reached by prayer than by a
deliberate mental effort to put forth their own strength. They would
doubt their own power, even if they understood the theory, and doubt is
fatal to the exercise of the will. That the person who prays does not
understand the machinery he sets going in no wise affects the result. A
child who stretches out his hand and grasps an object need not
understand anything of the working of the muscles, nor of the electrical
and chemical changes set up by the movement in muscles and nerves, nor
need he elaborately calculate the distance of the object by measuring
the angle made by the optic axes; he wills to take hold of the thing he
wants, and the apparatus of his body obeys his will though he does not
even know of its existence. So is it with the man who prays, unknowing
of the creative force o