It regards prayer as an element which was taken into account at the original constitution of the world, and for which an answer was provided, as the result of natural laws or of angelic agency, employed for this express end by the omniscient foreknowledge and wisdom of God.

It is the solution that has obtained the sanction of some of the highest names in Science and Theology.
"I begin," says Euler, "with considering an objection which almost all the Philosophical Systems have started against prayer.

Religion prescribes this as our duty, with an assurance that God will hear and answer our vows and prayers, provided they are conformable to the precepts which He hath given us.

Philosophy, on the other hand, instructs us that all events take place in strict conformity to the course of Nature, established from the beginning, and that our prayers can effect no change whatever, unless we pretend to expect that God should be continually working miracles in compliance with our prayers.
This objection has the greater weight, that Religion itself teaches the doctrine of God's having established the course of all events, and that nothing can come to pass but what God foresaw from all eternity.

Is it credible, say the objectors, that God should think of altering this settled course, in compliance with any prayers which men might address to Him?
But I remark, _first_, that when God established the course of the universe, and arranged all the events that must come to pass in it, He paid attention to _all the circumstances_ which should accompany each event, and, particularly, to _the dispositions, desires, and prayers_ of every intelligent being; and that the arrangement of all events was disposed _in perfect harmony_ with all these circumstances.