e of a miracle when we do not intend
it. She does assert, for example, that without a disturbance of
natural law, quite as serious as the stoppage of an eclipse, or the
rolling of the river Niagara up the Falls, no act of humiliation,
individual or national, could call one shower from heaven, or deflect
towards us a single beam of the sun.

Those, therefore, who believe that the miraculous is still active in
nature, may, with perfect consistency, join in our periodic prayers
for fair weather and for rain: while those who hold that the age of
miracles is past, will, if they be consistent, refuse to join in these
petitions. And these latter, if they wish to fall back upon such a
justification, may fairly urge that the latest conclusions of science
are in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Master himself,
which manifestly was that the distribution of natural phenomena is not
affected by moral or religious causes. 'He maketh His sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.' Granting 'the power of Free Will in man,' so strongly claimed
by Professor Mansel in his admirable defence of the belief in
miracles, and assuming the efficacy of free prayer to produce changes
in external nature, it necessarily follows that natural laws are more
or less at the mercy of man's volition, and no conclusion founded on
the assumed permanence of those laws would be worthy of confidence.

It is a wholesome sign for England that she numbers among her clergy
men wise enough to understand all this, and courageous enough to act
up to their knowledge. Such men do service to public character, by
encouraging a manly and intelligent conflict with the real causes of
disease and scarcity, instead of a delusive reliance on supernatural
aid. But they have also a value beyond this local and temporary one.
They prepare the public mind for changes, which though inevitable,
could hardly, without such preparation, be wrought without violence.
Iron is strong; still, water in crystallising will shiver an iron
envelope, and the more unyielding the metal is, the worse for its
safety. There are in the world men who would encompass philosophic
speculation by a rigid envelope, hoping thereby to restrain it, but in
reality giving it explosive force. In England, thanks to men of the
stamp to which I have alluded, scope is gradually given to thought for
changes of aggregation, and the envelope slowly alters its