us indissolubly bound
up with the question whether the prayerful consciousness be or be not
deceitful. The conviction that something is genuinely transacted in this
consciousness is the very core of living religion." [3]

Is there, then, or is there not, something "genuinely transacted" in the
experience of prayer? A transaction, _ex hypothesi_, can only take place
between two parties; it implies two volitional centres. And,
furthermore, what is it that is transacted? Is prayer only a very noble
form of auto-suggestion--are its effects merely subjective, or are they
also objective? These are problems which could hardly be said to exist
for an earlier age; to the modern mind they are intensely real, and press
for answers. It must be recognised at once that the idea of God as
immanent in nature, expressing Himself in those observed uniformities to
which we give the name of natural laws, creates difficulties of its own
in regard to this subject; for if these laws show forth His will, is it
even thinkable that our formulated desires could move Him to depart from
what we might speak of as His original {197} intention? His will is
either the absolutely best or it is not; if it is, why pray that He may
modify it? If it is not, is He not less than perfectly good, since His
design admits of improvement? Can we conceive of Him as doing something
in answer to a human petition which He would not do apart from such a
petition? Can we think of Him as being prevailed upon by our assiduities
and importunities to alter His decrees--is not this whole notion rather
paltry and derogatory to His dignity? Everybody is familiar with these
questions and arguments; let us see in what proportion truth and error
are combined in them.

(1) A good deal of unnecessary difficulty arises in the first place from
the habitual failure of many people to bear in mind that though God is
immanent in the cosmos, He is not _only_ immanent; as soon as His
transcendence is realised, it is seen that there exists no _a priori_
reason against the possibility of what from our point of view would look
like Divine interpositions in the ordinary course of nature. We have, it
must be remembered, not the slightest grounds for assuming that there can
be no departures from the uniformities of nature, nor are we in a
position to state dogmatically that no imaginable conditions would ever
furnish an adequate reason for such a departure. Admitting that the
reg