uttered as {215}
"submissive aspiration"; it would be difficult to devise another form of
words equally brief yet containing so much of the essence of the matter.
Even short of actual fulfilment, it is an immeasurable privilege simply
to speak to God about all the things that weigh on our minds, assured of
His hearing, nor should the fact that He knows all about our troubles
before we open our lips concerning them restrain our utterance; for our
object is not to give Him information, but to place ourselves in
conscious communion with Him, and by viewing our affairs in His light to
see light.

This applies to all our petitions, and perhaps in an especial measure to
intercessory prayer, those touching requests which we send up for our
dear ones in sickness, peril, sorrow, need, or any other adversity. Of
course, all such intercessions ought to be mentally qualified by the
assurance that God will do what is best, even though we may be unable to
understand His decrees; but there is nothing unreasonable in the belief
that our prayers for others may be, and frequently are, directly
effective, setting energies in motion which might otherwise have remained
latent and inoperative. How these energies operate may be quite beyond
our power to ascertain or even to guess; but if--to say it once more--the
action of matter on matter, the "how" of chemical combinations, eludes
us, shall we complain because the action of mind on mind, spirit on
spirit, is no {216} less elusive? The final test--whether, _e.g._, a
mother's prayer that her absent son may be preserved from the snare of
some great temptation, is able to work a change in his mind--is, as we
said above, the test of experience; and unless we are dogmatically
determined to reject all testimony which bears on this subject, there
seems no escaping the conclusion that specific prayers have been
specifically, directly, and unmistakeably answered in instances too
numerous to admit of explanation by coincidence.[8] The volume of human
testimony bearing on this subject is too great to be swept aside by a
simple refusal to consider it; if there is no insurmountable logical
obstacle to the possibility of prayer proving objectively effective--and
we have tried to show that there are no such obstacles--we must examine
the alleged instances of such answers without prejudice; and if we do so,
then, after making all legitimate deductions, we shall still find a body
of residual fact which i