^*^U ^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7^ // ^/ A re(;ious beyond all utterance ; and it is our high- est vocation as Christians, — from the very nature of Christian morality — to seek truth, and to receive it, come from whence, or lead to where it may. But in pursuing this quest we must forever remember its nature. It is not a physical enquiry, nor a mathematical enquiry, nor a problem of numbers. The methofh of science have no appli- cation to it, although the spirit of science has, profoundly. And, if m a s^earch for some visible and rational basis, for the most ennobling beliefs of our lives, we can make con- gruous and fair deductions from the deepest truths of science, it becomes our most elevated duty to do so. The Theologian, as such, forfeits all right to the ear of science, when he dares to usurp dominion over its facts, its deduc- tions, or even its hypotheses. But, on the other hand, science may fain listen patiently, when, claiming a higher authority than nature for its highest truth, theology yet, takes the deepest facts of science and, surrendering supremely to their truth, still deduces coincidence and support from them, with, and for, the highest beliefs held by our moral nature. It is on this line I enter upon, and shall prosecute, my enquiry. These scriptural passages then, suggest the Divine character, the lofty spiritual purpose, and the permanent object of Christ's advent to man. Without question, the appearance of Christ in human history has proved itself the advent of a new moral power, a new formative factor for the higher spiri- tual development of man. Was this interjection of a new energy into the moral movement of the human race, a sequence of the past, or a miracle for the ennoblement of the future ? Philisophically Christ is without doubt a In phenomenon. History is absolutely at fault in seeking to explain His appearance, the principles of His life and teaching, and the tremendous power projected into every succeeding age, following upon His igiijmino.:^ death. If the philosophy of history has no solution, is miracle — a great moral interposition for great moral ends — even conceivable ? We know that many deep, earnest truth- loving minds, masters of science, and others, declare, apparently by deduction, that any miraculous interposi- tion in the sequences of Nature is simply inconceivable ; in fact impossible. But it must ever be remembered that this is not an affirmation that there can be no miracle ; it merely declares that miracle does not happen, and so far as our observation and knowledge of it go, could not happen. All that we know of Nature, shows, that all the phenomena that do present themselves, or so far as we can see, that ever have presented themselves, are sequences in obedience to rigid law. An interrupticn of this at any point, it is urged, cannot be thought. But in all fairness note how much there is of physical law and mental action that we do not know. It is negation only I know, but we have learned that even negations should at times incite our modesty. But to those who insist on the existence of a personal Creator, this inability on his part to act beyond the prescriptive borders of known law has no actual men- tal standing place. The fact is admitted — all the pheno- mena of the universe is a chain of sequences ; but granted a Divine Creator as the Power that produced the Cosmos, it is asked, is it conceivable that he should so order, and cause, the laws of phenomena, that he could never more alter them V Can it be thought, that, if there were an Almighty Creator, He, by the very act of creating, would surrender His almightiness ? Is it thinkable that He planted the crown of infinite sovereignty on the brow of matter and force by the act of creation, and forever-more became a slpve — a sheer subject of His own laws ? — im- prisoned within the phenomena he has produced ? That it is difficult — almost infinitely difficult — to explain how a miracle could be wrought in the physical universe as we know it, without a disloc9,tion of the cosmos, is plain to all who think. Yet it is a difficulty of equal magni- tude to any Theist to think that he should have abdicated his omnipotence by the omnipotent act of creation. Now, what I shall endeavour to show is that certain scientific facts, involved in the modern hypothesis of the genesis of the earth and man, give the highest presump- tive probability to the divine advent of Christ as a moral uplifter of man. To pursue the argument we must follow science without fear or carping. At the outset the mo- mentous question meets us " Is there a God ?" a question which may have almost infinitely diverse meanings. We cannot at all fairly discuss it, and, if deductive evidence be required, I doubt if it can be given. The question eludes a demonstrative answer. But moral certainty, in its own domain, may be as absolute as the evidence of measurement, or weight, or quantative analysis, where thei/ apply. I can employ to-day but one chain of argu- ment out of hundreds, and that but brief and simple — look at it for a moment. The intelligence of man is the topF}ost wonder of all that we know ; conscious and thinking man is, in the midst of mysteries, himself the mystery that is deepest. But, nevertheless, man can investigate and interpret the phenomena of nature. It is his intellect .nlone that does this. It is in this that man infinitely transcends the brute. The tender ripple of the ruddy dawn upon the margin of the eastern sky, and -the opulent interchange of gorgeous hues that glorify the WEST as the great sun goes down, awake no thrill — arouse no quiet joy — no suggestion of the infinite in the mental nature of the brute. Visually, these things are to man and beast alike ; but to the higher mind of man, the colour and the form and the spatial relations— image as it were the thought that lies behind creation, and kindle conceptions of sublimity and beauty. To illustrate this, remember there is no colour in the object that under the influence of light excites it ; the perception of colour is in the organ that perceives — it is a special affection of the nerve and brain. So the sense of infinity in the arch of heaven ; of beauty in the undulating earth, of majesty in alp and sea, and of repose in summer wood and meadow, are not in the objects ; they are in the synthetic power of the spirit who sees. The mind — the soul — in man, is responsive to, and recipient of, the thought that lies be- } ind matter and space, and which matter and space can only be made to embody by such an act of mind. There is no emotion evoked by nature's masses and heights and forms and colours and spatial extensions, in the mind of the ox. The same pictu'^ "^ upon the retina of the horse or the ape, or the beas jj, as is imaged on the retina of man ; colour, height and distance are presented to each, but they kindle no similar mental state. It is not the retinal picture, — the brain impression, that makes the sub- limity the beauty, the sense of awful power and greatness in the phenomena of nature ; it is the mind which perceives. Even to understand nature, to become in any sense per- cipient of its meaning and relations, requires a quick and strong intelligence. Then can it be, that that which re- quires mind to understand it, and to discover in any sense, its beauty and grandeur, did not require mind to produce it ? The profoundest mathematical knowledge and insight is required to interpret and express the related, but in- tensely complex movements of the moon about the earth and le sun. Then, can we conclude that it required no mind to devise these movements and adjust the bodies that were so to move ? We stand amid the heather in a sum- mer morning, and perceive without effort the prismatic beauty radiant in dew drop. That is an eminent act of mind. But to apply ourselves to the study of it until we 8 see why the dew-drop bends and opens out the light, caus- ing it to untwist its clustered radiance of hue — to invent means of doing all this iviihout the dew-drop — to cause the sun to send his shafts of light through the cunningly devised prism — to study the gorgeous spectrum that results ; and by that means, to mount transcendently above the facts of eaHhly chemistry and physics, to the facts of the chemistry and physics of the sun and stars ; that is surely one of the grandest acts of mind effected by man. But it has called forth all the forces of human intel- lect to discover — to understand — to perceive all these sub- lime relations of light to the physics and chemistry of the universe, the disclosure of the physical condition of suns and stars. Can it be conceived that they could have been devised, brought about and established in heaven, with- out mind ? without thought ? without cause ? If it be mind alone that can perceive the order and beauty of earth and heaven as established, could it be anything less than mind, that conceived and produced all this ? Verily this is an inevitable sequence in the normal human intellect —it is impossible not to think it. True, there is a conspi- cuous philosophy — po^v^erful and impressive — that seeks to account for all, including the mind of man, by sheer matter and motion. But Herbert Spencer, its great author, is compelled, with all students of modern science, to start with a beginning. But in the beginning what ? The homogeneous becomes heterogeneous, that is the formula ! Matter is assumed as existing as a limited, but still mea- sureless mass of unified inertness. The homogeniety is perfect and there are no external influences, and yet, lo ! the homogeneous becomes suddenly heterogeneous ! and that is the beginning ! Now, perfect homogeniety is in- finite stability ; more than once Spencer admits this, and there is nothing outside the homogeneous that can affect it ; this is the actual assumption. Yet somehow — the perfectly homogenous is not so — it is in unstable equili- 9 brium — its equilibrium breaks — and that is *' the begin- ning," — the first movement m the great wave of genesis that has reached its highest point in the heavens, the earth, and man ! But does this satisfy us ? Surely not. The ori- gin and the nature of matter and force I believe may never be known. But what are their relations ? Do not let us deceive ourselves by supposing that matter and force are inseparable. Force is not a necessary property of matter. The two are not inalienable. Matter may be complete without force. A bar of iron is hot ; it is possessed of the force or energy of heat. But it can become colder, and colder, until it might reach an absolute zero. But we can only think of it as iron still. Then what is the relation of the force of heat to the iron ? It is simply an affection of matter. The force of heat affects the iron and makes it hot. So with all force or energy, it is not a property in matter, but an affection of it. Then if matter, homo- geneous or otherwise, is to be directed into rhythmic order, such as we see in this universe, is it conceivable that it could be done by any other influence than that which we can only think of as beyond, above, and out- side matter — in short — competent mind? There is a Minnie Rifle : there is a bullet ; there is some powder. The powder has potential energy ; the bullet has weight ; the rifle has adaptation. Leave them alone, let no direct- ing agent touch them, and what will happen ? Nothing — should they remain there forever. But put the powder with the bullet in the tube; complete the charge and direct the needful action, and in an instant you have evoked the spark — set free the energy within the powder, and the bullet flies forth with murderous power. There was force, there was matter ; but they could do nothing even to eternity, until the force was intelligently directed to affect the matter. Then look at a measureless expanse of homogeneous matter ; it is infinitely inert. It cannot alter itself; there is, we are told, nothing outside itself to 10 N alter it. Yet lo ! it alters ! " In the beginning" it throbs and pulpates itself into differences — it begins to segregate and change and take infinite varieties of form and pro- perty—and it goes on until it has produced all that we see and are conscious of ! — the infinite of heaven and the universe of earth. The homogeneous, in fact, causes the heterogeneous. Is it not hard indeed to think this Y Is it in fact thinkable V To the majority surely no. No doubt force operated on and affected matter in the first throb that stirred the stillness of the beginning ; but what directed the force ? There must be a direct relation be- tween the first thrill of force that stirred the matter of the universe, and the movement of a planet, or the formation of a lily, or the throat of a nightingale, and the love of a human mother. Then if the force affecting matter at the beginning were not directed, by what to us is thought of as infinite mental wisdom, how did these issues arise ? There appears to most men at least no answer. God, as the great mental cause, is the only solution of the problem. But some will ask, is even that a solution ? Why should Grod produce and not be Himself produced. If God made all things — if there must be a cause of all that we see — then must not God be caused ? And who caused Him ? That question is the primus amongst paradoxes. Study it. What is it that the human intellect is forever sub- jecting to analysis and experiment ? Finite phenomena. Finite facts, Conc^erning these, what is the universal inference of man — savage and civilized — and with no semblance of an exception ? Simply that every finite phenomena, every finite effect, must have had a cause, must have originated. This is a deduction which we can only make concerning the limited — the finite. Only that which has limits can be the subject of experiment and research. We cannot experiment on the infinite. Our deduction is, that whatever had a beginning must have had a cause. But by what right do we carry this deduc- 11 Ir |e tion over to the infinite ? Because I kncnv that the finite on which I can experiment must have been caused, have 1 any logical right to infer that the infinite on which no experiment can be made, and no experience obtained must have had a cause also '? Surely not ; a competent cause of all things is a final necessity of mind ; and is also of necessity inscrutable. 'Truly it is no explanation of how anything arose or was caused, to conclude from all that we see that their cause was infinite mind. This does not explain the mode of creative evolution. The mystery is as great as ever. But the mind is at rest in an infinite cause. The origin of matter none can ever know. We cannot clearly think of it as eternally existing ; and we cannot conceive how even limitless power could have called it into existence from nothing. But we are conscious that matter exists, and we know its various forms by their properties. Extension, impenetrability, and figure belong to it everywhere. Now we have the strongest and clear- est modern evidence, that all forms of matter, are, in ultimate structure, similarly composed. They are made up of inconceivably minute and indestructible par- ticles which, because they cannot be conceived of as admitting of further mechanical division, are called atoms- All matter is ultimately atomic. But also, various forms of matter have various properties. Hydrogen is light, and inflammable. Carbonic acid is heavy and adverse to combustion. Gold is malleable ; glass is transparent and brittle. But matter has these and all other differing pro- perties and qualities, because the ultimate atoms belonging to each is differently endowed. Chlorine is different in properties from phosphorous, because the atoms of chlorine are differently endowed — as atoms, possessed of wholly different properties — from those of phosphorus. Then it is to the endowment of the atoms that we must look for the properties of the various forms of matter. Now how did these atoms become endowed with or pos- 12 1 sessed of th Ar various properties. Either these properties must have been acquired by accident in a measureless past, or else they must have been imparted to the atoms by competent wisdom and power. If we may take so strong and deep a mind as Clark Max- well for our guide, the highest point made by modern mathematics and philosophy is, thad; the properties of the atoms could never have been acquired. With force (un- directed by mind) for one factor, and unlimited time for another, we yet, could never even conceive, that the atoms could have slowly acquired their properties. The splendour of the universe is its stability. Who doubts the unchang- ing certainty of the laws of heaven and earth ? The pro- perties of matter cannot alter. The sublimity of the material universe, in its farthest extension and its nearest area ; in its mightiest constellation and its minutest mote, is that the power that produced it — commanded and it stood fast. There can be no change. In living things there is genera- tion, variation, destruction. But in ultimate atoms there is no generation. No new atom is ever produced ; and no single atom can change or perish or disappear. Then, there can be no atomic evolution. Atoms cannot change and acquire new properties. They do not now — as the most accurate science affirms — and they never could have done in all the past. If atoms had ever been without perma- nence of property, matter of all forms would have been unstable in quality and relations. There could have been no law, no permanent phenomena. Instead of a Cosmos Time would have reigned over chaos. No property in any form of matter could have been unaffected by change. Properties acquired a thousand millenniums since, could have no existence now; and there could have been no certainty but the certainty of chaos, and no onward rhythmic movement from the higher to the lower — from the simple to the complex — which is the indispensible necessity of modern thought and science. The strongest ^ 13 mathematical mind of our century affirms that if the atoms had not possessed, at the beginning, all the properties they now possess, nothing now existing could be permanent, and nothing in the universe could be as it now is. From the first, then, the atoms must have been possessed of their properties. And what is that but an affirmation that the atoms were — to empi >y human language — made — endowed by creative power and wisdom with their forms and properties. The beginning, then, of this finite universe; was when creative power wrought the atoms, all the properties of all the matter that has built up heaven and earth, lay folded up in the created atoms. But with such atoms, so endowed, and by such a Power, there is no rea- son within the horizon of man's mind, to prevent us from believing that with time and law these atoms, by their inconceivable interactions and relations, could not be caused to evolve into the splendid majesty of heaven, and the beauty of earth. We can attach no more definite idea to tlie conception of creation by fiat, whatever that may mean, than we can to the idea of majestic and slow advance by evolution guided by law. But mark, the impulse of the beginning was from without. The atoms were wrought by G-od : — i. e. by a competent power — and this is interposition — it is miracle — it is the divine affection of matter from without, to make evolution by law possible. Here, then, is our first irresistible position. Divine, that is, competent action from without, was logically and, in fact, inevitably necessary to construct the atom before evolution was possible. This is the first great miracle. But was this group of atoms, so constructed, competent to evolve into living things ; into the teeming flora and fauna of the world, and ultimately into man ? — The strictest experimental science shall give the answer ; and it is No. The most accurate and most recent research definitely proves that to produce life and living forms other factors were wanting. The atoms of the not-living 14 i world did not contain all the properties of the world as we know it. Lif3 is not the function of any atom, nor is it the property of any combination of atoms, as such, that we know. The properties of that which has life transcend to infinity the properties of everything that is not-living. Life is always the property of a certain highly complex matter. It is called protoplasm. There is no life any- where apart from protoplasm. But we can analyse this compound ; and we know perfectly the elements that make it up. They are common elements of the not-living world — carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and the rest. But we further know, that none of the properties of these, separately or in combination, can give us the least sugges- tion of the properties of the living compound which they make. It is not a property of any of their combinations. Life is a new factor in the universe. No power now acting on earth — the latest science allows — can change what is not living into what lives. Only the living can perpetuate and produce the living. All the powers of chemist'*y and physics are tried in vain. How, then, in the great past did matter, when it had reached the highest ^ pinacle of development as not-living matter, become en- dowed with the powers and properties of life ? Not by discoverable law — for none such exists — not by force for none such is anywhere acting. How then was it wrought ? Surely by the imminent action of a power competent to bring it about. And what is this but a second " interpo- sition," a second " interference," a second miracle in the on- ward movement of evolution ? But having obtained upon the earth by this means, that which was living ; — one or more primordeal masses of life — we ha\^e all that the great hypothesis of Darwin demands. And he suggests no other method of its production. To his profoundly logical mind life could not be accounted for by known and existing law, and it was no part of his mission to account for it. But, granted its existence by a competent cause, is there il! 15 d t. :e any difficulty in conceiving that, as the atoms might by the action of law roll oat into the splendour of heaven and earth without life; so this livitig matter, endowed with simply infinite powers of multiplication, might be caused by the same power, thiDUgh laws of variation, laws of r'hange of environment, and laws of survival, go on operating, and reaching higher and higher, until even man himself was by this process created " of the dust of the earth." Surely that is conceivable ? But note with care, it could never be man as he is as we now know him. Man is conscious of himself — he can look within all the outer mysteries of his life and see himself — know that he exists apart from all others. Is this conciousness ; this knowledge " It is I " a property or sequence of even living matter ? Verily not. No movement of atoms, no inter- action of molecular properties, can ever pass over into consciousness, or result in the knowledge "It is I." Listen to Prof Tyndall. He asks, " What then is the casual connexion, if any, between molecular motions and states of consciousness ? My answei is, he continues, " I do not see the connexion ; nor have I as yet met any body who does Does water think or feel when it runs into frost ferns upon the window pane ? If not, why should the molecular motion of the brain be yoked to this mysterious companion — consciousness ? " Again, he says, " While accepting fearlessly the facts of materialism, .... I bow my head in the dust before the mystery of mind, which has hitherto defied its own penetrative power, and which may ultimately resolve itself into a demonstrable impossibility of self penetra- tion." And finally, he says, " The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is inconceivable as a result of mechanics .... The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modem form as it was in pre-scientific ages." With equal force Prof. Huxley says : " But when the utetam 16 i. ^\ i I materialists stray beyond the borders of their path, and begin to talk about there being nothing but matter anvi force and necessary laws and .ill the rest of their Grena- diers, \ decline to Mlow them. . . . All our knowledge," he continues, " is a knowledge of states of consciousness ; 'matter' and 'force' are, so far as we can know, mere names for certain forms of consciousness." Manifestly, thon, if you identify mind and its activities with matter, you annul matter by the act ; in brief, you mentalize what we have hitherto looked upon as matter. The result is that all mental phenomena, beginning in consciousness, and ending in the largest thought, and the grandest moral action, transcends all the properties of matter, and cannot be formulated on any terms of law and force. The properties of life may produce a vital machine that can be impelled by hunger and thirst and desire, but never a conscious person — a self-distinguished ego — a con- sciousness, that can realize relations with, but also abso- lute distinction from, every other thing or being in the universe. But more than this, man, as we know him, is a moral being. The majesty of right, the baseness of wrong, are part of his knowledge of himself " I ought," " I ought not," is the woof, of which " I am " ie the web. Then, is there one amongst us can believe that all this is an outcome, or a sequence, of atomic structure and properties, or of molecular interactions ? Can any thrill or movement of even living nerve matter be believed to originate and account for all this ? If not, it must have been imparted. Just as the atom had to be omnipo- tently wrought ; just as the living matter had to be made vital by tlie mystery of a new potency in the com- pound that gave rise to its properties ; so this further " intrusion " into the rhythmic flow of evolution, this further miracle to consummate man — tne latest product of the slow majesty of creative evolution, had to be effected. IT Now, bv3 it remembered, I have made no departure from, or expansion of a single fact of science in all this. My inferen(!es have been made along a path of strict scientific deduction: and if these inferences commend themselves it follows that, granted that evolution is the means by which Grod created the earth and man, and all the vast circumference of heaven ; yet these have been direct and palpable interruptions, visible interpositions, miraculous movements upon matter, by an inscruitable power, out- side and above matter, without which matter could never have been what are now see. In the production of the original atoms, in the origina- tion of life, and in the engendering of mind and moral sense in man, we see fresh impulses, omnipotent move- ments, miraculous aots, giving higher and higher inertia to ^he splendid dilations and progressions of evolution. But having reached this point why may we not rise still higher? If three great interpositions of a competent power are necessary inferences from our latest and most accurate scientific knowledge, to account for all inclusive evolution from the beginning until now ; why, if need be, may there not be another, and even a vaster miracle ? The world with man in it, we have seen, embosoms a moral element. That element was as much Divinely caused as the shapes and properties of atoms. But it is an element that is not self balanced. It is the loftiest part of man's nature, but it is capable of the deepest degradation. Sin is the transgression of the law of conscience, even where that is a law unto itself, and is guided by no higher. Diviner Code. But Sin is co-extensive with man, in every age, and every area. We need not try to explain its origin, enough that we are all agreed that it is there. It involves man by his own action in pain sorrow and unrest, and blights him with conscious, as well as visible, degrada- tion. Now if an Inscrutable Power whom we call God, would move at the beginning to create atoms, if he would 2 I , 18 give new and vaster impulses to evolution by qui«;k- ening the not-living into the living, and if he would once more intervene to breathe into man's evolved physical nature the living soul ; need any philosophy be averse to see in Christ, God stepping in once more in a miracle Divine above all others to ennoble and bring to its pro- per aliitude the moral nature of man ? Should it surprise us, if in a Avorld of jihysical life, we find all needful arran- gements to support, adapt and improve it, that we find in the higher moral world, special means provided for its uplifiing in truth, and purity and freedom ? Then is not this what Christ is ? is not that otherwise inex- plicable moral factor in history thus explained? His l)urpose was to disclose Cxod — to show us The Father. But not on the side of his awful attributes ; only on the side of his moral splendour — his character. It was not Grod's infinitude he came to reveal ; the vast arch of heaven, the awful abysses of space lit up with con- stellations and galaxies, and streams of suns could do that infinitely better. It was not God's wisdom and power he sought to disclose, the dancing atom, the flying bird, the rolling planet, the forces of heaven and earth, and the rhythm of each with all had revealed, and would yet further reveal that. Nature is transparent to the glory and beauty of the mental light and power of God. But in all the star-lit heavens, in all the beauty and strength of the sunset and the sea, there is no moral radiance. Earth and heaven are opaque to the resplendent light of character. A star can speak of mind, but not of morals ; a solar system may tell of mental strength and greatness, but can utter no syllable of moral purity. A person alone can be moral. It is not, and cannot be, an attribute of things ; and a person only can give a moral revelation. Hence Christ, a spotless human person, becomes to man a revealer of otherwise unsearchable divine moral splendours. He and His Father were one. In I' 19 ying 3arth, , vrould » the God. and moral ndent ot of and (y. A be, an moral )erson, jhable be. lu their thirst for a vision of God in ghastly and unutter- able terrors men asked Christ to show them the Father. His answer was sublime : " They that have seen me have seen the Father also." His moral attitude, His spiritual character, His reality, His inflexible adhesion to truth, His yearning pity and love for man, these were the unseen Father's character shining through His son. He taught that the Infinite Father was a spirit — a righteous spirit — no^ God because He was omnipotent, but God because he wt good; and all this great Father's nature was love. It was to initiate a moral kingdom of God that Christ had come. God's mental dominion as a power was absolute through all the domain of being. But in the fullness of time to establish God's moral dominion Christ came. To give imperishable permanence to right, to goodness, and to truth, Christ came, affirming " My kingdom is not of this world," and therefore, once inaugurated, this king- dom should endure forever." This declares the ultimate victory of right ; the final enthronement of goodness and freedom, and truth. It is the proclamation of a principle — of what must be It is not a revelation of what shall be because God chooses it — it is not omnipotent elec- tion — it is the invisible Father disclosing to man the very basis on which rests his being as Eternal Godhead. God's mind is sovereign and supreme in mat- ter and its laws : God's heart — his character — shall be supreme in the dominion of moral life. Hence Christ was a king, and for God He established on earth an eternal kingdom. But His dominion was alone the spirit, and the loyalty he sought was alone the obedi- ence of love. To all who call him King and Mas- ter, to all w^ho come under the influence of the lonely grandeur of His life and the unostentatious sublimity of His death ; in short, to all who feel the power of His char- acter — as an unseen and Divine friendship, — he becomes indeed the way to the Father, and lifts us into the noblest i/ftr 20 ii:l ' ! phases of a Divine Sonship. In all this I have uttered no theological shibboleth — no sectarian note. 1 have dealt with a great question bound up with the dearest hopes of most of us and intimately associated with the welfare of the world. I have relied, not on dogma, or even creed; but on what I am fain to think reasonable deductions from irresistible scientific facts. If a ray of helpful light shall have entered any mind as the result of our study, if any shall have been helped to see that there is no higher improbability of Divine interposition in the moral than in the physical, my fullest purpose will have been accomplished. Mill *■■ ■--H--'. PBa. VIII., V. 1-3-4.— O Lord, how oxoellent is Thy name in all the earth, who liaat set Thy K'lory above tho heavens • * * Wiien I consider Thy heavens, the work of Tliy tingors, the moon, and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him ? or the Son of Man tliat Thou visit, is the Grospel — the life, the character and the mission of Christ. He was the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of His Person. The otherwise unutterable perfec- tions of the Deitv spoken in a human life. He and His Father were one — He was the Word which nature could not articulate. And in what was the Revelation He brought us sublime and alone ? Was it in the flash of omnipotent attributes, a hitherto unapproached dominion over law and force, that distinguished Him in His solitary greatness ? No. Miracle there was, enough to attest His mission ; but His work was to utter the otherwise unutterable mind of Grod. The invisible glories shining above Nature, and to which the heavens and the earth were opaque, had taken form in His soul. He was illimi- table in power, but it was the power of holiness and love. He was a King, but His empire was the spirit. He was God's unsearchable splendour of character. " Mani- fest in the Flesh " — the glory that is above the heavens revealed. * IV. — Brethren, I have dwelt long on this, for it has a power and meaning in it. But I must lead you away from it now, that, furnished with other thoughts, we may approach it with an added meaning. It was a rare in- 80 sight that enabled David to proclaim it. Few seers have soared so high. But the delicate? poise which kept his spirit hi^h enough to see the glory that was above the heavens, was broken ; and he fell again to the more Inrid lustre of suns and stars and universes. That strangely divine insight »ould be but transient ; and when it van- ished, and the physical magnificen«^e of the Universe took its plac^e, one may not wonder that he fell to the human thought. " What — amid all this greatness — h man that Thou art mindful of him." David had enlarged and noble views of the physical universe ; he was oppressed with its awful greatness, the minuteness of the earth and the meanness of man Hashed vividly upon him ; a speck, in the measureless All, why should the ever-blessed One concern Himself with it ? What is man in the unmeasured complexities of this vast Creation ? This is intensely human ; it is the po t, not the seer, that speaks. Then nature flings sug- gestions of the Infinite across the soul this thought will come. The Almighty may concern Himself with moving universes, or with molding the plastic nebulae into new realms of being : but this puny earth, and man, what a 2 these " that He should be mindful of them ? " But brethren, knowing that the physical beauties around us are the product of a glorious mind ; learning it not first from nature, but from Grod Himself, we may go to the " work of His fingers " to learn if He does lock Himself up with the vatt : — to see if He does scorn the little and the lowly. Here and there, great and little, are not to Grod : and they certainly have no true place in the moral aspect of material things. Down to the uttermost verge of littleness the perfection of matter is absolute. The minutest objects in nature are those which are carved and chiselled with the most entrancing beauty. Nature's motes and atoms are more superbly finished than its masses. The lowliest living thing, which must be magnified 81 millions of times in area to be seen at all, is as perfectly adapted to its sphere as a swallow or a man. The great Power that wrought nature impressed tht^ evidences of His care as much upon invisible orgunisms as upon peopled <*onstellations. Could it be otherwise ? As if the Care and Sovereignty of the Infinite could cease where our poor eyes must cease to fellow^ ! As if He, whose glory is above the heavens, w^ould evolve (ni//tliin^- over which His dominion would not stretch or His infinite benevo- lence be diffused ! j No brethren, I turn from David to Christ in this matter ; — from the human poet in a human mood to the Divine Instructor. Stand by the margin of that sheltered slope in Gallillee, its verdure tinted with th(! hues of ilowers — and harken ! It is Christ that speaks : " Consider the lilies of the field how they grow, they toil not neither do I hey spin ; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these : whebekork if God so clothe the grass of the field . . . shall He not much more clothe you ?" Oh ! 'that is a pro founder insight ! No suggestion of imperial splendours that cannot stoop to atoms there ! David's wonder, is the flutter of a human feeling ; Christ's assurance is the placid utterance of a Divine truth, God cares for the lilies ; but ye are more than lilies; then fear not for God cares for t/ou. Study the power of that lesson ; look at the beauty and the force of the illustration. See Solomon in his glory. He is robed and crowned and canopied with the ri(?hest and the rarest from the farthest land and sea. How came that splendour there ? Did earth and air and sky combine, in unintelligent caprice to glorify the voluptuous King ? No ; it was the result of intelligence, wisdom, will, design. Then behold the ///;/ in its outer beauty and its inner life. Whence came it 1 Was it chance — the fortuituous concourse of soulless atoms smiting each other in their reckless onrush, — that produced the lily and preserves it? No — affirms the ilV'i '■W! 32 Christ — it is God. Then if there be no fear for the lilies need I fear ? No brethren ! We are pillowed on the bosom of the Everlastinfr and why should we fear ? Because He is infinite He cares for the lily : Then let not man dishonor llim by supposing that He does not care for him. v.— What then have we learned? (1) That God's supremest glory is His moral beauty, and (2) that the evidences of His sovereign care in material things are as supreme in the minute as in the vast. There is one higher lesson. The lilies are cared for ; but they know it not. Man — greater than the lilies — is cared for, and he may knoin it. He is in one respect above Nature ; he has been taught by Christ to call the everlasting God his Father. And what is the essence of fatherhood, but the imparta- tion of the parental nature to the child ? What is it but the giving of that which is purest and best in itself to its ofi'spring ? Then what is the glory and beauty of God. What is that which is best in the Infinite Father? His CHARAOT'iiR, His mornl beauty, His spiritual holiness. Then if He will stoop to the soulless lily, to nurture and to paint it, will He not watch and ennoble the soul of man ? Shall ifje commiserate the stricken, the fallen, the depraved, and He have no power to do so ? Shall He who wrought the capacity for love and pity in us be without love and pity Himself? Shall He w^ho planted the eye not see ? Brethren, can you care more for your house, and your vineries, and your pictures than you do for your child ? Have you more interest in your chinking gold than in the beating heart of your eldest born ? Then can you think that God cares more for passionless lilies than He does for the throbbing, yearning, sin- stricken soul of man ? Nay ! He cares more for men than for motes or mountains, or for the stars themselves. And if He cares for their physical good — their mental good — will He not care for their moral ? 38 '1 If II«» adjust li«^ht to the oyes and the oyo to tlic light — need it surprise us, if IIo uso moans to lift tht^ soul up ? If He clothe the grass of the field, shall He not meet the moral necessities of immortal men? God delighted iu all His creatures or He would never have made them. But how much higher must he His delight in heings radiant with his own image. Man w///.s/ Ik' nearer to God than the llovvers of the lield, or even tht' most exalted brutes. Nay more, a man of uhuis must be nearer to God than a man o f .Ny'//.sy///o//,s' only: and from the very nature of the Godhead a man of high moral purposes and great spiritual resolves miisl be dearer to the Divine natur*' than a man of the most brilliant intellect or the j>ro- foundest knowledge without this: Hence it is that the obscurest human being may arrest the attention of the angels of heaven ; nay, it may bring the infinite Father from the "housetop" of His glory to welcome and to kiss the soul stricken with great moral conviction and intense in the greatness of its spiritual resolve. Moral movement on earth is a power in heaven. The keyboard of moral purpose, stricken on earth, produces the loftiest music round the throne ; but the highest triumphs of our inlellect are surpassed where the angels are. Intellect in His creatures is precious to God who breathed it there ; artist, and poet, and sage — Handel and Raphai'l, Shakes[)eare and Homer, Spinoza and Plato — but there is to God a form that in the brightness of his beauty in- finitely " excelleth " these : it is the Saint — the soul who by moral and spiritual conquest has fought his bloodless way to the mind of Christ, the moral likeness of God. Then this is the victory that overcometh the world-even our faith. The heavens are very great, but God is greater than they. The heavens are very glorious, but God has an infinitely above that which is seen in them. Throughout all the Universe man alone can perceive and reflect that 3 :}4 glory. lUit th«» minor ol" niiui's soul is dim — a moral })liiKbioKs has smittcm him