more the real _force motrice_
resides not in those silently-revolving engines that generate the
electric current, but in the mind that devised and controls them.

Thought, then--unseen, impalpable--is energy in its essence, the master
force which directs, subdues and uses matter; and in prayer we have
already seen that we place ourselves in communication with the Central
Force of the universe, acquiring power we should not otherwise possess,
and replenishing our emptiness from an inexhaustible store. But if
thought, mind, will, are that which lies behind all physical
accomplishment, from the simplest to the most wonderful; and if by an
exercise of the same faculty we may actually secure results of a
spiritual order, direct answering messages, from God: why should it be _a
priori_ unthinkable that we may by the same agency of prayer obtain more
"objective" responses, _viz._, the fulfilment of our petitions? Frankly,
we can discover no theoretical grounds on which such a possibility could
be merely waved on one side as not worth consideration. Shall we be told
that we cannot think that God would grant a certain wish only on
condition that we {209} expressed it to Him? But we have already found
that in the regular experience of life the Divine bounty seems to come in
response to human efforts which are ultimately efforts of the will. Once
more, everything depends upon our thought of God; if He is such as Jesus
taught us to regard Him, may it not well be that His Fatherly love goes
out to us in fullest measure when we call upon it with fullest and most
childlike trust? If it is urged that God would surely under all
circumstances grant His children whatever may contribute to their
happiness, we need only observe that every parent has had occasion to say
to a much-loved child, "You shall have this when you know how to ask for
it." The truth has been stated with characteristic simplicity and
insight by Dr. James Drummond, in the words, "If God has left certain
things dependent on the action of the human will, He may also have left
certain things dependent on human petition." [7]

So much is sure, that in all true prayer we set spiritual forces in
motion, to whose effects upon ourselves we can bear witness; and if their
action in one direction is an ascertained fact, however mysterious and
inexplicable, with what warrant shall we deny the possibility of their
acting in another? Certainly we shall not argue that such ac