PRAYING FOR RAIN.

Patea Mail, 21 April 1882, Page 3

PRAYING FOR RAIN.

Science and religion have come into conflict at Melbourne, in this way. During the long draught, in which livestock were dying by thousands on some Victorian runs, an appeal was made to the Bishop of Melbourne to instruct the clergy to offer in the churches a prayer

for rain. The example of the Archbishop of Canterbury . was. thought to be. a sufficient precedent in modern times-. But the Bishop of Melbourne refused, and he stated his reasons thus:

“The question is, have we any right to entertain an expectation that God will send us rain by a variation from the course of nature in answer to prayer? Experience says no ; and Scripture, fairly interpreted, does not say yes. Where, then, is ray right to encourage an expectation that God will do this thing ? I repeat what I have said before —-that the issuing of such a prayer as was desired would have encouraged that expectation; and in the absence of any authority for it, and with the voice of scienc and experience against mo, I dare not incur such a responsibility,' ; It,is easy for gentlemen who are not bidden to summon a nation to prayer to make light of such, a responsibility, but had they to incur it they might feel differently. Ido not object to pray for my daily bread, for by so doing I acknowledge that law does not give it me, but God through law. Such prayer ;biings me into my true filial relation to Him, and bumbles mo before Him as a little child. Ido not object to prayers for temporal blessings offered in private, as onr Lord offered the prayer in Gethsemane. They cast all care on God, they ease the heart, they express onr entire resignation to the Divine will, and above all,, which is the principal thing, they do.not- encourage an expectation that God will work a miracle to supply onr bodily needs.