These special prayers are, perhaps, on the whole, the most childish of
all the childish prayers in the Church-book before us. A prayer "for
rain;" a prayer "for fair weather:" it is almost too late to argue
seriously against prayers like these, except that uneducated people do
still believe that God regulates the weather, day by day, and may be
influenced in His arrangements by the prayer of some weather-critic
below. Yet it is a literal fact that storm-signals fly before the
approaching storm, and prepare people for its coming, so that when it
sweeps across our seas the vessels are safely in port, which otherwise
would have sunk beneath its fury; meteorology is progressing day by day,
and is becoming more and more perfect, but this science--as all other
science--would be impossible if God could be influenced by prayer; a
storm-signal would be needless if prayer could stay the storm, and would
be unreliable if a prayer could suddenly, in mid-ocean, check the course
of the tempest. Science is only possible when it is admitted that "God
works by laws," _i.e._, that His working at all need not be taken into
account. The laws of weather are as unchangeable as all other natural
laws, for laws are nothing more than the ascertained sequence of
events; not until that sequence has been found by long observation to
be invariable, does the sequence receive the title of "a law." As the
weather of to-day is the result of the weather of countless yesterdays,
the only way in which prayers for change can be effectual is that God
should change the whole weather of the past, and so let fresh causes
bring about fresh results; but this seems a rather large prayer, to
say the least of it, and might, by the carnal mind, be considered as
somewhat presumptuous. In the prayers "in the time of dearth and famine"
we find the old barbarous notion that men's moral sins are punished by
physical "visitations of God," and that God's blessing will give plenty
in the place of death: if men work hard they will get more than if they
pray hard, and even long ago in Eden God could not make his plants grow,
because "there was not a man to till the ground;" at least, so says the
Bible. The prayer "in the time of war," is strikingly beautiful, begging
the All-Father to abate the pride, assuage the malice, and confound the
devices of some of His children for the advantage of the others. The
"most religious and gracious" Sovereign recommended to the care of
God has been known to be such a king as George IV., but yet clergy
and people went on day after day speaking of him thus to a God who
"searcheth the hearts." A quaint old Prayer-Book remarks upon this
prayer for the High Court of Parliament, that the "right disposing of
the hearts of legislators proceeds from God," and that "both disbelief
and ignorance must have made fearful progress where this principle
is not recognised." In these latter days we fear that disbelief and
ignorance of this kind _have_ made very considerable progress. The
Thanksgivings run side by side with the prayers in subjects, and are
therefore open to the same criticisms. None of these prayers or praises
can be defended by reason or by argument; reason shows us their utter
folly, and their complete uselessness. Is it wise to persist in forcing
into people's lips words which have lost all their meaning, and which
the people, if they trouble themselves to think about them at all, at
once recognise as false? All danger in progress lies in the obstinate
maintenance of things which have outlived their age; just as a stream
which flows peacefully on, spreading plenty and fertility in its
course, and growing naturally wider and fuller, will--if dammed up too
much--burst at length through the dam, and rush forward as a torrent,
bearing destruction and ruin in its course; so will gradual and gentle
reform in ancient habits change all that needs changing, without abrupt
alterations, letting the stream of thought grow wider and fuller; but
if all Reform be delayed, if all change be forbidden, if the dam of
prejudice, of custom, of habit, bar the stream too long, then thought
hurls it down with the crash of revolution, and many a thing is lost
in the swirling torrent which might have remained long, and might have
beautified human life. Few things call more loudly for Reform than our
hitherto loudly-boasted Reformation.