e power that moves the arm that
moves the world??? Why cannot I consistently pray to God to heal my
disease or the disease of a friend, or to save the soul of some friend
who would otherwise be neglected by the divine care? Why cannot I any
longer pray to God to send his light and truth to the heathen world?
Why cannot I pray to him to insure my safety in mid-Atlantic, to do
something to prevent my colliding with a derelict, as the Van-dam has
done during the last few days? Do you think there was no one on that
ship that prayed? What is the difficulty in the mind of the
intelligent, modern thinker when he faces this conception of prayer?

Let us think a little clearly just a moment; and I imagine I can make
it plain. We no longer think of God we cannot think of him as outside
the system of nature, and as possibly interfering with it to produce a
result that would not otherwise take place. Why? Because God is the
soul, the mind, the heart of nature. The forces of the universe, acting
according to their changeless and eternal laws, are simply God at work.
And, when I pray to God to interfere, I am praying him to interfere
with himself, I am praying him to contradict his own wisely and
eternally and changelessly established methods of controlling the
world.

The question is sometimes asked, but a man can interfere with the
course of nature, and produce a result that would not be naturally
produced without it? Certainly, because man does not stand in this
relation to natural forces. But man, however, does not change any law,
he does not interfere with any law. He simply discovers some law and
obeys it, and in that way produces a result that would not otherwise be
produced. But man does not stand, I say, in this vital relation to the
forces of the universe and their laws. When you remember that these
forces working, as I said, changelessly, eternally, after their
methods, when you remember that these are God in his ceaseless and wise
and loving activity, then do you not see that he cannot contradict or
interfere with himself? Here is the great difficulty in regard to this
old method, this old conception of prayer which confronts the
intelligent, the educated, the thoughtfully devout man.

When I was first struggling out into the light? as it seems to me now
from my old theological training, I met another difficulty that I think
will appeal to you. It seemed to me an impertinence for me to be
telling God, as I heard so man