everything that is about to take place; and who by His power can guard us against those dangers, which by His wisdom He foresees?
"But"—it may be said—"He will do this without being asked: since He is a Being, all-good, as well as all-wise and powerful, from His own love He will take care of us, and therefore prayer is unnecessary." This does not follow: there is a break here between the premises and the conclusion. It does not follow, that because God is good, He will therefore protect us in dangers, and sustain us in trials and temptations, without being implored—without prayer. God, indeed, loves all His creatures, and desires to bless them all to the utmost degree possible. But all ends, even Divine ends, must be effected by means; and the man who will not avail himself of the means which the Divine wisdom has pointed out, cannot expect to attain the end. Now, one of the means, and a most effective means, by which man brings himself under the Divine protection, is prayer. The object of prayer is not to change God, but to change man. God is ever good, unchangeably so; but man is a finite, changeful being: he may be in one state, and he may be in another state, and in quite opposite states, at different times. In some states of mind, man is, as it were, with his back turned towards heaven; states, in which he forgets that there is a God, and rushes on in his own way after some phantom of good—as riches or power,—in the hot pursuit, breaking through all laws human and Divine, and trampling his fellow-men under his feet, regarding them as nought in comparison with the attainment of his own selfish ends. Now, can the Divine protection be with such a man? has he not
