for the sake of impressing their
own minds through the medium of a sort of conscious hypocrisy! We are
told that David Hume, "after hearing a sermon preached by Dr. Leechman,
in which he dwelt on the power of prayer to render the wishes it
expressed more ardent and passionate, remarked with great justice, that
'we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and
entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have an influence.'"
This intermediate ground, therefore, is plainly untenable, and we are
shut up to one or other of two alternatives: either there _is_ an
"efficacy" in prayer as a means of averting evil and procuring good,
such as may warrant, and should encourage, us in offering up our
requests unto God; or, there _is no_ such efficacy in it, and no reason
why it should be observed by any of God's intelligent creatures, whether
on earth or in heaven.

The principles which are applicable to the decision of this important
question may be best explained, after adverting briefly to some of the
particular objections which have been urged against the "efficacy of
prayer." Several of these objections evidently proceed on an erroneous
view of the nature and object of prayer. When it is said, for example,
that God, being omniscient, does not need to be informed either of the
wants or the wishes of any of His creatures, the objection involves a
great and important truth,--a truth which was explicitly recognized by
our Lord when He said, "Your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have
need of before ye ask Him;" but that truth is grievously misapplied when
it is directed to prove that prayer is either superfluous or
ineffectual, since the objection virtually assumes that the object of
prayer is _to inform God of what He did not know before_, and that His
omniscience is of itself sufficient to show that prayer from men or
angels must needs be unavailing. When it is said, _again_, that God
being immutable, His will cannot be affected or altered by the
"petitions" of His creatures, this objection, like the former one,
involves a great and important truth,--a truth which is also explicitly
recognized in Scripture when it is said that "He is without variableness
or the least shadow of turning;" but this truth, too, is grievously
misapplied when it is directed to prove that there can be no efficacy in
prayer, since it might as well be said that the Divine dispensations
must be invariably the same whatever m