ance.

We may call it "Nature's gift of tongues," and thus translate the speech :-Do not think that God is present only in startling acts, unexpected occurrences, wonderful agencies. He supports the millions with bread, refreshes them with water from the spring, brings the meridian sun, the cloud, the night, makes known His will and law, in all things. Be not wilderness-men, unmindful of the miracle of bread because it is a life-long gift; nor count the water less beneficent for flowing through the desert; nor deem that the cloud by day and the fire by night are less than pillars of God on account of their continuLet not the frequency of the gift, and the regularity of coming, cause you to forget God-the Giver. You cannot determine the precise kind, manner, time, of divine action; nor always separate it from that of nature, but whatever good nature gives He imparts. He is distinct from nature-controlling it, above nature-ruling it. You, yourselves, are voluntary mirrors to reflect His light; as rays from Him, the Source of light; and, in the purity of moral life and action, are His forces. Let not the light become darkness, nor neglected strength be your weakness. Remember the automatism of nature. For you it rises to rational and moral freedom in that part of the finite which is given for your possession by God who is absolutely free in the infinite. Present cosmical ordinances are by skilful prearrangements, and healing remedies exist by means of providence and government-acting rather by spontaneity from within than by coercion from without.

"Nullis hominum cogentibus ipsæ Sponte sua veniunt."

VIRGIL, Georg. ii. 10.

Miracles are not to correct blunders, not breakages of laws, not repairs of imperfect machinery, but by a free divine redemptive volition and act to meet, restrain, instruct, the freedom of intelligent creatures, and to establish special relations between man and his Maker.

THOUGHT XV.

SYMBOLS OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

"That which is spiritual clothes itself with what is natural, as a man clothes himself with a garment."—ANON.

"... What if all animated natures

Be but organic harps, diversely framed,
That tremble into life as o'er them sweeps

our intellectual breeze?"

IF our Thought of Nature's automatism and spontaneity, as the evidence of unconscious reason dwelling in every part, and attaining highest form in the sentient and intellectual life of man, be correct; automatism is Nature's work-day dress; miracles are that speciality of attire which Nature assumes when conscious of her Lord's nearer presence. At the marriage feast in Cana, modest water blushed when she saw her God—" Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit." In pursuing our inquiry, we may probably find likenesses in nature of supernatural things, hieroglyphical characters to be read by the light of reason.

Space is not finite: wherever we erect a boundary, we begin again to think of space beyond that boundary; thus, by continual dissolving of limits, we endeavour to form a less inadequate idea of infinitude-though every idea is inadequate.

Space is occupied in every part, to which our observation extends, by an all-pervading subtle medium, called æther, through which, or by means of which, acts the energy of gravity welding the universe together: so we enlarge our thought to attain conception, not comprehension, of omnipresence.

That all matter may not rush into one mass, the allpiercing attraction is counterbalanced by an all-pervading repulsion. By due adjustment of these opposing forces, we have not only the many starry worlds, but the separate individuality of every atom and molecule in the universe, with endowment-not of mechanical equality or equilibrium, but of varying and opposing energies, densities and figures, in connection with life, intelligence, emotion. By persistent, ever-enlarging reflections concerning these marvellous energies at work in space and matter, we obtain symbols of omnipotent operations.

In our Thought, as to Cosmical and Mental Analogies, we found a correspondence between natural and spiritual things; in our present conception, we obtain from space some notion of Infinitude; from æther an idea of Omnipresence; and by the vast energies at work on matter, in the æther, through space, a thought as to Omnipotence and Omniscience. It is hard to say whether our first thought of Infinitude, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, is vague, or abstract, or concrete. Certainly our own individuality and personality, possessed with a sense of responsibility, quickly lead to the conviction that personality is the highest mode of existence; and as we are able to act on matter, project force through space, be present by means of

thought and sight where our bodies are not, and know things before they come to pass, we soon attain ideas as to the existence of an Infinite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient Person, the Cause of all, to whom we are responsible.

Our consciousness of life, of physical and mental power, leads to that activity which ever seeks enlargement, continually aims at progress. Then, whether we have an idea of creation—as a going forth and manifestation of Divinity; or of a process by which Nature seeks, so to speak, to return to God-in order to possess Him more fully; we certainly strive for enlargement—as to ourselves, and soon discover symbols and capacities which portray that enlargement. Wherever we find a rigid envelope, means of liberty are sure to be at hand; amidst weakness, strength will spring; in the very expectation of death is some manifestation of life; so that we may invert the familiar words, and say, "In the midst of death we are in life." Iron is strong, water is weak ; "Quid magis est durum saxo, quid mollius unda? Dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua ;"

OVID.

encircle the water tightly on every side with an inflexible iron shell: the water, in crystallizing, will shiver the iron rim to pieces; it was enclosed as in a tomb, but it comes forth in lively liberty to run a new race. These are natural facts which represent a creation striving to be free from bondage, and to press into that which Scripture calls "the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21).

Everything in nature taken by itself, apart from all other things, is unnatural; nor can any account or