".. in their looks divine The image of the glorious Maker shone, MILTON, Paradise Lost, iv. 291. To Him was given lordship which received a ready homage from every living thing, and all around was paradise. Some noise aroused the thinker-the muser-the dreamer-whatever he was, from the pictured thought; and he saw, indeed, a tremulous vibration, many moving gorgeous colours, formed by light passing through a stained-glass window, where had been portrayed the image of Christ our Lord. The thinker had seen a wonderful truth: all nature, all life, of God: men of faith live, move, have their being in Him: "Edwкev avтołę ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα aurou" (John i. 12). つ I humbly state what and why I thought, that my brethren may trust God more, and profit by experience. Are we to doubt for ever? Science, alone, cannot content us. How pitiable is the condition of some who in science possess renown, but for whom shines no glorious immortality, whose best hope is-extinction! Culture, apart from piety, is not enough: the Chinese, in some respects, are most cultured people, with life and morals steeped in pollution. Some ancient nations possessed mental power, brightness of genius, skill in art, unto which we moderns have not attained-yet, serving the creature more than the Creator, they perished. We must listen to the Voice of Nature, to the Word of God. The Voice and Word are not silent: Nature's music, set to words in Scripture, form a melodious psalm of life. "Sæculi pulchritudo, velut magnum carmen cujusdam modulatoris, ducens in æternam contemplationem speciei Dei" (S. Augustine). Men of high capacity enter two regions of thought: in one, science, they are bold inquirers and sceptical reasoners; in the other, religion, they possess an inspiration and consolation, a beauty and power, which render them glad thanksgivers, obedient worshippers. They regard the outstretched sky as a canopy of love, and are sure that glories of every kind will illumine the Cross they bear on earth. Other men, of lower sort, unwisely make the doubt, meant for discipline, their constant portion. They go out weakened to meet life's sorrow, unarmed to earth's battle, and encounter utter defeat. They forget that the greater and more numerous the organic similarities between man and beast, the richer and more distinctive is the inner treasure with which men are endowed. The beast is capable of little growth, man of infinite improvement. "The dog is ashamed when caught thieving, that is, he is afraid of blows; man is ashamed of himself." The illuminating centre of self-consciousness in man is the persuasion of a purpose in his life, of a moral power in his being, which give priceless value and eternal meaning to his existence. Holy Faith has been proved again and again by the best, why doubt we with the worst? It is time that we listen to God, and listening obey; with thankfulness receive His gifts, with gladness use them; so shall we find a preciousness everywhere. "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" (Jer. xxix. 11). THOUGHT I. THE DENIAL OF MIRACLES IS UNSCIENTIFIC. "In my opinion profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of human reason, and it is the most superficial thinker who is generally strongest in every kind of unbelief. The deep philosopher sees chains of causes and effects so wonderfully and strangely linked together, that he is usually the last person to decide upon the impossibility of any two series of events being independent of each other."-DAVY, Salmonia. 'History without God is as Polyphemus without his eye.' THE position of Spinoza, maintained by materialists— "Miracles are impossible, there is no transcendental beginning; for God and Nature are one, from eternity to eternity"-must now, as we possess more accurate science, be abandoned. Miracles are creative acts of God, supernatural operations in Nature's domain, new things of which unaided Nature is incapable. A little consideration shows that the statement-" Miracles are impossible ❞— cannot be maintained: it is a guessing at the unknown, a pure negative extending over all time, space, circumstance, and incapable of scientific verification. The assertion-"There is no transcendental beginning"-assumes that Nature can maintain itself, that the primal matter potentially contains all forces and laws, is able to develop itself infinitely, and that, by some necessary process of involution and evolution, from those first germs were formed whence proceeded successive higher forms of life in vegetable and animal until man appeared. This further assumes that, even before evolution began, Nature was, in itself, eternally complete for want of completion in any part renders the whole, to that extent, imperfect, and every act of growth a partial beginning. Nature would move in a series of recurring cycles, in which is neither first nor last, beginning nor end; she would merely repeat herself. Such an assumption is incapable of verification. It guesses at the unknown material world by means of the known; confers, upon that unknown, powers which the known does not possess; and then denies to both that transcendental beginning without which the known, so far as physical science is concerned, could have no origination, nor development, nor change—no number of likes being able to produce an unlike. It professes to account for all past and future possible combinations by existing mechanical arrangements, though these mechanical arrangements are mathematically proved to have arisen from unlike former conditions, which they were incapable of producing, and to be now tending towards extinction. The two rash negatives are followed by a bold positive-" God and Nature are one from eternity to eternity." This positive is essentially weak on the negative side; that God was never a separate Existence, nor apart from Nature, does not, never did, never can exceed Nature, is utterly incapable of proof. "Non tam olim mundus quam olim Deus" (S. Augustine). God and nature may be one, in the sense that man and his work |