of a series of eternally impressed consequences, following in some necessary chain of orderly causation, is read in all history, life, and spirit." Spiritual insight reveals the inadequacy of that statement: shows that physical antecedents and sequences are not always the same; but are capable of, and receive infinite variety and modification by law within law which is not yet tabulated. "Whether science be regarded from the point of view of its premises, its inferences, or the general relation of its parts, it is found defective . . . the ordinary proofs, which philosophers and men of science have thought fit to give of its doctrines, are not only mutually inconsistent, but are such as would convince nobody who did not start with an implicit and indestructible confidence in the truth of that which had to be proved" ("Defence of Philosophic Doubt," A. J. Balfour). Spiritual science appeals to law, divine and human, to experience, to consciousness, to history. It makes known the fact that physical strength and material well-being are accompaniments and consequences of moral purity and intelligent activity; that purity, whether moral or physical, cannot be lasting in an individual, or permanent in a nation, separated from the sacred reverence arising from a desire to be well-pleasing unto God. Considering the many lines of proof, every devout person rightly regards the Christian Faith as possessing even philosophic certitude, and accepts supernatural facts as arousing and solemnizing strong motive to serious action. and holy life.

κύριον μένει τέλος

δίκαιος ὤν

οὐκ ἄνολβος ἔσται·

πανώλεθρος δ ̓ οὔποτ ̓ ἄν γένοιτο.”

ESCHYLUS, Eum., 507.

Opponents of miracles speak of Moses' large serpent and the small ones of Jannes and Jamres; of great wonders by true prophets, and of lesser wonders by false prophets; of the transcendent works of Christ, and of operations by the Prince of Darkness; not in acceptance of any, but in utter denial of all. Inquiring for the quantitative difference, they assert all are true or none; if all are not demonstrative of goodness, Christ is none the better for doing works such as no other man was able to perform.

We reply "corruptio optimi pessima." The difficulty is not greater than that which accompanies gifts and uses of other powers. Men may be as angels of goodness, or as demons of darkness, every endowment can be rightly used, or utterly perverted; be brought to nothing, or be marvellously exalted. Goodness and badness depend upon the inward motive: the inner perfection of Christ is outwardly manifested and proved by works of purity and might in alliance with the Supreme. The moral depravity of the Evil One, and of all like him, is evidenced by passing into enormity and godlessness. No shadow of fiction is here, no empty abstraction; and, as ex nihilo nihil fit, the palpable reality is visible proof of the exciting cause. We present no solution of evil, it was not an essential part of the Divine Scheme; it is not an essential in anything, and is by all means to be driven away. The effects, as to our own world, were foreseen ere its foundation; and pro

vision made in Christ for our pardon and cure.

It came

in, we conceive, by the abused freedom of an intelligent creature or creatures; it is overruled so as to be unto us a peculiar means of discipline, and the procuring cause of a specially wonderful plan for our amelioration, and the taking away of all evil from faithful men, by the Son of God.

Physical evil is a growth out of, and in some respects the embodiment of, spiritual evil; and is material antagonism to God, corresponding with the inner spiritual resistance of human or Satanic will to the Divine Will. «Αλλ ̓ οὔτ ̓ ἀπολέσθαι τὰ κακὰ δυνατόν ὑπεναντίον γὰρ τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀεί τι εἶναι ἀνάγκη οὔτ ̓ ἐν Θεοῖς αὐτὰ ἱδρύσθαι, τὴν δὲ θνητὴν φύσιν καὶ τόνδε τὸν τόπον περιπολεῖ ἐξ ἀνάγκης” (Plato, "Theætetus," ch. 84). Both difficulties are explicable by mere physics; nor is our present sight, even aided by spiritual optics, sufficiently far-seeing and comprehensive to bring the whole within view. The only unerring attainable physical conclusion is— our world is not perfect; in some way or other, it and all it contains have been marred. This marring renders the creation, as subject to ordinary laws, incapable of manifesting and maintaining a perfectly true and fully convincing view of Divinity. Nature and

its laws are not everywhere beneficial: indeed, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain" (Rom. viii. 22). "La nature toute entière, n'ayant plus l'intelligence humaine pour l'élever vers Dieu, brisa l'harmonie de ses concerts, et ne laissa plus échapper de ses entrailles douleureuses qu'un gémissement immense."

Spiritual insight carries our view somewhat further. If God is God-a real God; not merely the contriver

1

of a physical organization, but of an organism suitable to the wants of responsible beings, He must be regarded as capable of voluntary action. "What is a Deity deprived of miraculous action, but a Deity deprived of action; and what is a Deity deprived of action, but an impersonal force which is no object of prayer?" (Mozley, "Bampton Lectures," iv. p. 84). Not only so, as our own personality cannot spring from impersonality-otherwise something can come from nothing-God must be Personal: worship, as a religious act, implies a personal object. A Personal God acting by Volition, is more than a Force; He is a moral being with will and power of action. "Causa omnium quæ fecit Deus, voluntas ejus est" (S. Augustine). Locke says, "It is as certain that there is a God as that the opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight lines are equal." That which we discover in nature is essentially rational. The unities which we call laws, which link together in order, system, intelligible relation, all parts of the universe, are a revelation of an Intelligence in whom absolute trust is to be reposed. Devout men know this. Love of the Supernatural is no fictitious feeling. We are living amid mighty and deep influences, which, originally set going by miraculous power, are now natural. “Does a miracle, regarded as mere prodigy or portent, appear to be a mean, rude, petty, and childish thing? Turn away from that inadequate aspect of it. Look at it as an instrument which has shown and proved its power in the actual result of Christendom" (Mozley, "Bampton Lectures," i. p. 21).

By spiritual insight, whether we view things from the human side, or the divine; or regard religion as the life

of God in the soul, or the surrender of the soul to God; we have more than a far-off vision of the supernatural and miraculous: the finite is elevated to the infinite, and the infinite is realized in the finite. By the very first spring of religious life, God-who was before a transcendental object, ever inaccessible becomes a present reality. The division and distance between the human spirit and the object of worship vanish, we rest in God. Ever after, as we continue to abide in Him, our heart is suffused with His presence and life. In the progress of religious life, growth in grace, attainment of the best gifts, is continuous, endless, approximation of likeness to God-the only real, and the highest possible destiny for man. This growth of the actual into the ideal, this possession of the Infinite as our Home, renders man an actual partaker of the power of Divine life.

Now take spiritual insight of a few natural facts. The optic nerve, passing from the brain to the back of the eyeball, spreads out there to form the retina-a web of cells, fibres, and filaments, to receive the images. of external objects. This nerve is limited to apprehension of the phenomena of radiation; not making all the rays visible, which are infinite in variety-only those forming the spectrum. These rays pass through space by a medium invisible, and beyond the reach of any of our senses. Space, though traversed by rays from all suns and stars, is itself unseen; but everywhere sky particles are strewn through the atmosphere, and often they swathe the mountain-peaks, spread a delicate gauze over slopes of pine, and so mingle heaven and earth that we are as men already with firm footing on the promised land. We feel that our destinies are in