FAITH IN PRAYER.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 174, 9 November 1877, Page 6

FAITH IN PRAYER.

The Calcutta Englishman relates th*» following extraordinary story : — •' Here is a story (hat may have interest for Professor Tyndall — so far as it has gone. It is alleged that the police in Guzerat arrested four priests of the Jain persuasion for the grave offence of praying against the ' public interest How the magistrate before whom these ■mischievous men of too much faith were, or ought to have been placed, framed a charge against them we cannot say ;' hut we can specify the form taken by their designs against the public weal, It was s mply this. The c mercenary saints hm\ agieed, for mor.ev to be naid them by certain grain merchants, to pray very haid that rain should not fall in the province until after the month was ou f . What does Professor Tyndall say to this unbounded faith in the efficacy of prayer? What can be stronger proof of such faith than I this bribe whereby Heaven was to he constrained to pinch a whole population in order that a sordid speculation miifhr succeed 1 It is much to be regretted that the choice specimens of " forestall ers and regrators" who had thus corrupted die sleek gi/mnosophists of the temple were not brought up and placed at the bar along with their tools and ' creatures in the conspiracy against the public good. But the worst oi it is, the rascals won. The rair. that has fallen in Guzeraf. since the mercuMry prayers were put up, or paid for, has been nothing" to speak of— only a paltry inch or two. in a word, the impious bargain has been successful."