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.K-.''V*f?'''*?''y
^^^r^^^
^^^7^^^
II:,
'I
S E R MO N
AND
LECTURE
DELIVERED IN THE
ST. JAMES STREET CHURCH, and the JAMES FERRTER HALL,
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE,
DURING THE SESSION OF THE
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MONTREAL,
AUGUST, 1884,
BY THE
Rev. W. H. DALLINGER, LL.D„ F.R.S., F.LS.,
Pres. R.M.S. Governor of Wesley College,
Sheffield.
GAZETTE PRINTING COMPANY.
1884.
"X
'1
/
10-
SERMON
A/rhh ^
AND
LECTURE
DELIVERED IN THE
ST. JAMES STREET CHURCH, and the JAMES FERRIER HALL,
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE,
DURING THE SESSION OF THE
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MONTREAL,
AUGUST, 1884,
BY THE
Rev. W. H. DALLINGER, LLD„ F.R.S., F.L.S.,
Pres. R.M.S. Governor of Wesley College,
Sheffield.
GAZETTE PRINTING COMPANY,
1884.
2.
3.
4.
1.
dif
lin
an
th{
ma
the
sid
a o
blei
THB PROBABILITY OF A DIVINE MORAL MANIFESTA-
TION ON MAN'S BEHALF CONSIDERED
IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT
SCIENCE.
I select as preliminary the following passages from the
New Testament, viz. : —
1. Jno. XIII, 8-9. — Philip saith unto Him, Lord shew us the Father and
it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto Him, Have I been so long time
with you and dost thou not know me Philip ! He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou then show us the
Father ?
2. Jno. X, 29. — I and my Father are One
3. Jno. II, 10. — I came that they may have life and may have it abun-
dantly.
4. Jno. XVIII, 36. — My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should
not be delivered to the Jews : but now is my Kingdom not from
hence.
1. Cor. XV, 25. — So he must reign till he hath put all his enemies under
his feet.
These passages are not chosen as the basis or text of a
discourse, but are taken as expressive indices of the main
lines for reasoning and thought. I shall not argue from,
and for texts, as for foregone conclusions, but I use them
that I may discuss without bias the affirmations they
make. These passages suggest the broad lines of my
theme ; they shall bind me to nothing but the calm con-
sideration of the subjects they open. I desire to approach
a great moral question, as much in the spirit that enno-
bles science, as the nature of subject will permit. Rarely,
in any department of knowledge, are our loftiest move-
ments wholly accurate ; our highest attainments, in even
physical knowledge, are never unalterably , right. Then
we may well be patient with earnest truth-seekers in the
department of Psychology and Morals. Truth there, is
indeed i>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<wt him ?
/V"e will not venture to determine the period iu the his-
tory of David, when this lofty poem was composed. It
is at least redolent of memories of a shopherd of life, and
the unutterable calm of an eastern midnight, when " all
the stars shine, and the immeasurable heavens break open
to their highest," and in this lies the nucleus of its
grandeur. In the opening sentence of the Psalm, there
is a grammatical difficulty, it is contained in the expression
" who hast set Thy glory above the heavens." But the
authorized version has evidently caught the Spirit of the
profound est analysis. The Seventy render it more gorge-
ous : " For Thy magnifience is exalted above the heavens" —
but in both versions the power of the poet's insight is pre-
served, and presented ; which is that there is a glory in God
loo high for expression in matter : the essential sublimi-
ties of His Nature are above the heavens. The heaven of
heavens cannot contain Him. Few were ever interpene-
trated with a consciousness of the greatness of Nature
more deeply than David. But to-day our insight is
immeasurably greater. The vastness, the beauty, the
overwhelming majesty of creation opened to modern
thought, defies competent expression ; in the direction of
vastness alone how sublime is it ! Unnumbered worlds in
tireless motion ; a motion so beautiful that it is purest
music : — not to the ear, but to the soul. Suns, carrying their
dependent orbs with awful swiftness through untravelled
space; and isolated Universes of suns steered together
I
22
:
through uncharted solitudes. Firmament ^^^ firmament
of star suns, and out on the fringe of the v^ery infinite,
Nebulae beyond Nebulae curdling amain into new orbs, on
the dilating verge these are but the faintest outlines, of
but a portion, of that unspoken greatness which arrests
and kindles intellect to-day Then is not all this, in the
sweep of its vastness, and the spendour of its detail, a fit
portraiture of the Infinite God Himself? Has even He
any splendours which it cannot utter ? Without ques-
tion the Universe as known to-day compels the deduction,
that whenever or however it arose, it had its origin in a
POWER infinite in capacity and extending through all
extent. To the most atheous Science, the universe pro-
claims the presence of such power. But does the creation
that proclaims His presence, in the loftiest sense, proclaim
his character, pronounce the measureless sublimities of
his mind ? Do the grandeur of heaven and the beauty
of earth tell us all we long to know of their awful cause ?
Perhaps the details of created nature — carefully and broadly
studied — might lead us haltingly up to the conviction
that He was an Intellectual Unity. Perhaps to some mind he
might be thought of as a Person ; but created and evolved
nature could do no more. The universe cannot of itself re-
veal the glory of its Author. Only the pale shadow of
Grod's highest beauty flits among the stars. Lurainoub as
they are, they need a higher light to make them indubi-
tably declare the intellectual unity and grandeur of their
source. But there is a glory of God that is higher than
intellect ; and it is the moral splendour of His being.
The attributes of the Spirit cannot be displayed in
even the rainbow tints of sense. The subtleties of moral
beauty, matter has no power to utter. God's presence is
expressed in nature ; but not His character. The grandeur
of His mind is there, but not unequivocally the beauties of
His Heart. It is a truth forever profound, " His magni-
ficence is exalted above the heavens." I desire to engage
so
23
your minds wit^i this line of thought, then, viz : — Grod^s
supremest glory is moral. Physical nature cannot utter
this. But by revelation we have learned it. Then con-
sider the works of His hands — the product of His mind —
and see how profoundly He cares for, and is interested in
them. May we now, then, as moral beings infer that His
moral power would be equally exercised for the moral up-
lifting of our race ?
•I. There are many points in the physical nature of man
which in some sense link him with the brute. But the
empire of nature is his ; all its forces animate and inani-
mate, within the reach of his arm, or of his intellect, are
unresistingly tethered to his service. But is he in vital
attributes distinct from the realm he governs ? As living
organisms, are the highest and most differentiated brutes,
at an impassible distance from the lovrest man ? What
are the features of man's nature, as man, which are inalien-
ably his — of which the brute is no partaker, and which in
no sense are shared by the realm of life below ^ Many
such have been asserted, and the fiercest contests have been
fought around them ; many have vani hed, some still
remain ; but I know of one which no vicissitudes can
shake ; no n^ofoundities of research can alter ; it is that
man alone prays to the Infinite power that gave and that
sustains his life. It has been said that it is the glory of
man that he is erect ; that his free brow fronts heaven. It
may be ; but I yet aver that the distinguishing and imi)e-
rial attitude of man is on his knees. It is the lioyal condi-
tion on which he wears the crown of nature. Prayer is
universal. In every age, in every clime, savage or civilized,
man willingly or despite himself, has uttered, and does
utter, his anticipation or his anguish in prayer. Cure -o,
themselves, are but prayer inverted. In the written liter-
ature of the world's life prayer is an imperishable factor.
The great river of petition gathers up its waters from the
sobbing rills, and swelling rivulets of multiform prayer
I5S
S4
flowing out of every age and every clime. And it can
never cease to flow. The act of prayer is immortal in the
soul of man. Painting, Sculpture, Music, Poetry can never
perish while man perceives and loves the beautiful. And
prayer " uttered or unexpressed " can never cease to move
the soul, while man is conscious — forever — of an awful
and uplifted presence on which his very being is pillowed.
Foi the existence of such a being I shall not argue. He
cannot be found or demonstrated by reasoning. The
methods of Science, and the Positive Philosophy, are too
coarse to find him. We may penetrate into, and perceive,
the exquisite adaptation of the physical universe, but we
cannot push our way up to the splendid mystery of its
Cause. The hard methods of induction, are unsensitized
to the subtle chemistry of the light that is above the
heavens. The all-encircling plenum "God" reacts to no
method used in the thousand laboritories of science. You
must come to the facts of Nature with your soul smitten
into '* flourescence " by the light that is above the heavens,
before Grod is indubitably seen.
B'ethren, I speak from no cursery knov; ledge when I
say, that foremost amongst the noblest truth-seekers on
this earth, are the leaders in the work and thought of
science to-day. And can there be any nobler work ? Is
it not better to follow Truth, though it lead to the grave
of our hopes, than to be cushioned lustful indolence upon
the Delilah-lap of falsehood ? Should any man under
heaven believe in the grandeur of truth more than they
who constitute the Christian Church ? Do we not own
her empire? Have we not circled her brow with the
rarest crown and laid at her feet the whole empire of
thought ? Then, as truth seekers, let us ask what are the
lessons to be derived from modern science ? What can it
teach us ? It has l{.c.en the world with a glorious herit-
age; its facts have made our age luminous with intel-
lectual beauty and promise. But says the anxious onlooker
^5
tossing on the trouk ed waters of doubt ; swayed by the
subtil and daring thought which distinguishes our times ;
" What does your splendid array of facts tell us of Grod —
what is disclosed by it concerning the power from whom
nature sprung V Can He — will He — care for us ? Is he
loving, just, pitiful ? Are we more to hira than [lowers or
atoms '^ What can science tell us it has found concerning
the character of Grod ? The answer is calm as it is fearless :
" Nothing." " We can nowhere demonstrate His presence ;
the method we have employed has led us to truths of the
loftiest order, and to mysteries of the profoundest kind.
But to a scientific proof of a personal God, we have nowhere
come. Indeed to our method He is non-existent." Such is
the answer of the latest searchers ; and need I say it is an
answer wb jh has shocked and roused to scorn the Theo-
logical thought of the world. And yet it is profoundly
true ; it is the testimony of science to the unalterable
power of the ancient question, " Canst thou by searching
find out God, canst thou find out the Almighty to perfec-
tion ?" No. The physical method is incompetent for so
sublime a work ; and the masters of resjarch avow it-
Science could never have discovered for us an adorable
Deity. Then may we not calmly ask ivhy should Theology
retort upon this confessed incompetence " then you are an
Atheist, — an infidel, — a materialist V" Such weapons I
am free to declare, are only forged in the armoury of pallid
fear. They were not fashioned at the forge of charity ;
nor made to take form by the stalwart hands of faith.
And the fear is absolutely groundless. Science is proving
the validity of your Holy Book ; it cannot find out God.
But that — even to the men who make the avowal — is no
denial of His being ; far otherwise. It is a simple declara-
tion that if you find the Infinite Father as a Unity — a
personality — an adorable Power, you must come upon
Him by other means than these. And it is not out
very lifework to establish and amplify this truth ? Is
26
U;
not the rock on which the pillars of Christianity are
based " no man — in spite of the tireless inquest of the
ages — hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son
which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed
Him V" Is not the completed Grospel — the Christ of his-
tory, the only true response to the despairing affirmation
of the latest Science, " We cannot find God ?" And does
not He, as the consummation of all that preceded, reply,
"Ye cannot ; but He has been authoritatively revealed to
you ; and I have come to disclose His character — I and
my Father are one ?"
Depend upon it if man could fathom the meaning of this
Universe it would be the work of a finite mind. And if by
the tireh^sness of research we could in very deed scientific-
ally demonstrate the nature of the Source of all things,
and by our methods prove Him to be there, He would be
not only ^mte, but physical The demonstration would
dethrone Him ! The diadem of sovereignty would fall
from His creature-brow, and verily the Universe would
be Godless !
It is true, by the study of Nature men have formulated
a conception, and called it God, — Spinoza's magnificent mind
did this ; but with what result ? Simply that God and
the Universe were one. The splendour of the heavens,
the beauties of the earth, and the soul of man were not
God's creatures, they were God Himself. And never did
naked intellect struggle so gi-andly with matter to find
its source as did this lonely Jew.
And there can be no other result ; when the scientific
student of nature has reached the outmost verge of human
knowledge, straining his eyes into the impenetrable dark-
ness, he is compelled to exclaim, "It is above, and beyond
and around all this that the true mystery of the Universe
is hidden."
II. And yet by a consent absolutely universal, — a con-
sent wide as the world, and far-reaching as history — man
27
has in sotne form acknowledged and adored the tinsearch-
able Power.
The philosophy of this fact I do not attempt. How the
Ego, the I of human experience reached the Thou of
Infinite personality I may not consider. Enough that it
is an indisputable fact. But I am bound to ask what is
it in the unsearchable Power that the noblest spirits of
every age have bowed down to it and adored ? What is
it, that, in this age of thought and culture, impels
enlightened Christendom to lift its hands and bow its
knees to the Unseen? Not an intellectual abstraction
filtered out of the facts of Science ? As well might you
suppose that a tropical luxuriance could be called into
life by moonlight on the Arctic hills. Go into Nature
and find if you can an object of adoration. You must make
your own consciousness the foreground of the infinite
perspective of your quest ; but you may take with you
the method of the sculptor, and from the rude block of
your own intellectual life, you may, as taught by the
spirit of created things, cut into beauteous form the fair
ima^e they disclose ; or you may take with you the method
of the limner, and with the splendours of heaven and
earth for your pallet, you may depict in form and colour
a glorified abstraction. Look at it. Yes ! its features are
sublime. See how the forces of nature have stamped
themselves on the subtle pencilliugs. The swirl of suns,
the onward roll of countless Universe — the awful energy
in all things — this has depicted Poiver — calm, resistless,
insentient, defiant Power. Can you worship that ? No !
You may tremble at it, but you cannot adore.
Look at the passionless splendour of your picture : you
have been studying measureless activity — in invisible
atoms and inaccessible suns. And everywhere you have
seen the same impassible repose — the splendour of uncon-
scious and eternal calm. Can you worship it ? It awes
you : but it does not bend your knee.
a»
i
k
■
I can see traces in your mental picture that glow with
evidence that you were awed by proofs of unsearchable
wisdom, that you could find no limit to the greatness
around you ; while tints of benevolence gleam every-
where in your uplifted abstraction ; though they are
streak(^d and clouded ; for dark hues of death and lurid
shades of agony uHmId Hood your pallet. But there it
stands in its imperfect grandeur : the mind's picture of
the (fodhead painted in the tints of nature. Does it kindle
you into adoration V Does it fire you with a spirit of
self-surrender ? Do you feel for it " The speechless awe
that dares not move and all the silent heaven of love.'
No ! a thousand times, No !
111. — Then v)hut is it in the unseen Power that softens
us into adoration, and lifts us into trust V Ah, it is some-
thing that is not Ibund in pale planet, or in fiery sun. It
is something which light cannot reveal, and which all the
forces of Nature would combine in vain to symbolize or
disclose. It is tlie moral grandeur of the Infinite Nature. He
is holiness. He is truth. He is spiritual beauty. His
throne is justice, His dexter arm is righteousness, and His
heart is love. It is this and this only that the soul of
man can worship. But this is a magnificence above the
heavens. Your chemistries cannot find it ; your physics
cannot formulate it ; your mathematics cannot symbolize
it. Matter can take no form that will disclose it, in all
the radiance of Nature this supernal light is lacking. It
is a light above the firmament ; it is a glory above the
heavens ; it is a beauty seen from far ; — the shimmer of
that light in which He dwells ; and which no man can
approach unto.
And, sirs, this, and only this, is the reason why the
Almighty is thought of and known as ineffably happy ;
it is because He is good.
The enlargement of a quality to infinity does not alter
its nature. In Creator, or in creature it is not splendour
29
of circumstanre, not maguificenre of surroundings that
makes happiness. Grod is not happy because he is circled
by angels and throned amid stars. Happiness belongs
onlff to condition. He is ^ood; and thus He is liofipt/ ;, and
it is the soft radiance of this moral magniticcnce that
kindles our emotion and bends our knees.
How this inscrutable glory of the Almighty was first —
in the far past, discovered to all the diverse branches of
our race I know not. The morning rises on the night in
forerunning streaks of purple ; and in every age, amongst
every people born to think, there have been noble sjiirits
who have pillowed themselves upon a revealing God.
But the source and certainty of oitr knowledg«>, 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
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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 ?
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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
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glory. lUit th«» minor ol" niiui's soul is dim — a moral
})liiKbioKs has smittcm him <h»' world lioth in darkness.
Naiiit'h'ss degradations demoralized the God-like i)0SNi])i-
lities of the rare, some poriions of the human brother-
hood an^ in the nethermost djirkn«'ss of spiritual deeay.
But, brethren, God has interposed lor man's uplifting.
The everlasting Father has stooped down to save us. We
have been permitted to see its meaning and to feel its
power — God's method for the healing of the nations : and
to fts the mighty command and the awful responsibility
is given — " Go ye into all the world and preaeh the Gospel
to every «'reature." We are essential factors, in the moral
evolution to which we are indebted. The world's up-
lifting is dependent — spiritually — upon the Church. The
coronation day of Christ may be hastened by the holy
resolve and faithful labour of the churches. We have the
liffht for which the nations lonir.