In the answer I have given to the first question, I have confined myself to the difficulties suggested in the preamble by which it was introduced. It seemed to be said, that because God does not reveal any thing to man by his Spirit, in the present day, therefore, he does not answer prayer. But we have showed that this conclusion is more general than the premises, and that we can only logically conclude that God does not answer prayers which ask for a spiritual revelation. Still, the question will be asked in a different sense--How does God answer prayer? The question is, indeed, asked daily, and by thousands--not in all cases, I trust, irreverently, or with an unlawful desire to inquire into untaught questions. Think not, indulgent reader, that it is with a presumptive spirit that I venture to throw before you a thought or two on a subject so difficult, or that I would attempt, with unholy step, to invade the secret places of the Most High. No: it is because I see some who are feeling--I trust honestly--after God, stumbling over this rock, that I would try to remove it out of the way, that those whose prayers are hindered by it, may be induced, nothing wavering, to draw near to God, and, in the full assurance of faith, call upon him for "mercy and grace to help in their time of need."

      It can not be too distinctly noted, that, however God may have answered prayers in days past, he does not now answer them by a miraculous interference with the present order of nature. I do not [62] say a supernatural, but a miraculous interference, for no pious mind, who has thought much upon the ways of God, can hesitate to admit that He does always exercise an influence over the order of nature, which is supernatural, though not miraculous. Man can influence the laws of nature to a certain extent; he may direct them or concentrate them to a certain result; but he must work by them, and in accordance with them; he can not work without them, nor beyond them; hence, he can not work a miracle. But God can work by these laws, and in perfect harmony with them, to any extent; to a degree, therefore, and in a manner altogether supernatural; yet, so long as in harmony with them, not miraculous. God can also work without them, and beyond them, and against them, but in this he works miraculously. Let the reader bear in mind this distinction between a miraculous and a supernatural influence, and I shall proceed to inquire, What is the present course of nature?

      Whether we examine into the operations of the moral or the material universe, we shall find that, whilst there is a most definite system in each department, yet these systems do not work themselves. They determine the mode of operation, but do not furnish the primum mobile--the moving cause of their own motions. Like nascent atoms, they are ready to move in obedience to whatever force or influence may urge or attract them, but always in accordance with a law and an order of their own. I shall suppose that, under this system, or according to the present course of nature, certain things are necessary to the production of an ear of corn. These things nature furnishes; but there is a certain preparation, collocation, arrangement, and application of them, which she does not and can not make. In this respect she is inert. This is partly the business of the farmer. He pulverizes the soil; plants, at a suitable season, the grain; watches and nurses the expanding germ; cultivates the growing plant; and brings to maturity the ripening ear. He has thus controlled the energies of nature; he has concentrated and directed her powers, and led her to results which, without his influence, she never would have produced. But he has wrought no miracle; he has done nothing without the aid and use of the powers of nature, nor contrary to the system by which they operate. Yet he says, and with propriety, too, "I have made this ear of corn;" "I have produced this, that, or the other result:" nor do we cavil about the truth of his assertions, because all that he has done is sensible; that is to say, it can be and is presented to the understanding through some or all of the avenues we call the senses. But the thinking mind, searching higher than the mere phenomenal, strives to trace the chain of concurrent causes beyond the mere chemical laws and human agency which observation and experiment reveal to him. He struggles on and up to the mystery of life, and feels himself [63] lost. From out of the darkness, upon the verge of which he loses his way, he discovers a system of influences which he can not altogether control nor comprehend. Here are the "spirits of the vasty deep," which come not at his bidding. Electricity, magnetism, light--what are they? How do they operate upon matter and mind? Who moves them, and by whom are they directed in their invisible, wild, and restless journeyings? True, man can do some things with them; and with his cylinders, Leyden jars, and Franklin rods; his steel needles, U magnets and helices; his mirrors, his prisms and his lenses, build up plausible theories, whereby to give "a local habitation and a name" to his fancies; but how little is all this! When we have studied and learned it all, we must still exclaim with Job, "Lo, these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power, who can understand?" Yes! the profoundest science leads us to darkness or to God. The sceptic loses himself in a circle of reacting causes, with neither beginning nor end; whilst the man of faith, standing upon the confines of sensible demonstration, sees, in all beyond, the mystery of God, veiled not with darkness, but with glory.

      Now, what if we conjecture, that upon these outer media, these imponderable, and, despite of our familiarity, mysterious instruments, God may be always operating; will the thinking reader call it presumptive speculation? If so, then I shall ask, Where do the Creator and his universe touch? But I can not allow that God is banished from the world he has made; and if, over parts of it, he has given control to the being he formed in his own image, so that man can claim to be himself a creator in some sense, let it not be thought strange that, over these other portions that lie, for the most part, outside of our dominion, it hath pleased God to erect the throne of his providence, and thence to exert those influences, not miraculous, but supernatural, which, working in perfect accordance with all that we know of the course of nature, yet work with an efficacy and a subtlety which we can neither anticipate nor resist. Through these and other instruments, trembling under the Spirit of God, what effects may he not produce, without a miracle, in harmony with the laws of nature?

      It would be injustice, were any one to infer from these hints, which I have thrown out as merely suggestive to the mind of faith, that I have designed to prescribe the modus operandi of my Maker: the prime instrument or the causal sphere of his ever active and benevolent providence. An humbler purpose induced me to suggest that, if in perfect accordance with the present course of nature, man can and does control and direct some of her agents to the specific results of his own will, so it is reasonable to believe that God also [64] may and does, through the mighty working of his power, in like harmony with the laws of nature, educe results according to his will; and thus we may see how it is reasonable to believe that God, who has said that he will hear us, can grant our requests without a miraculous or immediate communication or revelation of his spirit. We have much more that I feel induced to say on the "reasonableness of prayer," but our last page is full, and, lest it should be deemed too speculative for practice, let it be reserved for our own meditation and comfort.

[W. K. PENDLETON.]      

[MHA2 62-65]