A RATIONAL VIEW OF THE DIVINE WORD 
 
 AND OF 
 THE DUAL NATURE OF MAN. 
 
£\br<xry of Che theological ^ewinarp 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •a@i> 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 3 Estate of the 
 . John B. inger 
 BL 240 .K37 1897 
 Katholikos, pseud. 
 The supernatural 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 H National tfliew of the Mvinc XKIlot^ t 
 
 AND OF 
 
 Ube Dual IRature of fl&am 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHOLIKOS. 
 
 V'v wh 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J, W. REYNOLDS, M.A. 
 
 Prebendary of St. Paul's. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1897- 
 
THIS HUMBLE ATTEMPT 
 
 TO BRING TRUTH HOME TO THE HEARTS OF 
 
 INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE GREAT HUMAN FAMILY 
 
 TO THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD'S 
 CHURCH IN ENGLAND 
 
 IN LOVING MEMORY OF 
 
 A FAITHFUL SOLDIER OF THE CROSS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The writer of this work is fully aware that the grave 
 subject which is presented to the consideration of 
 the reader might have been better handled by a 
 deeper thinker ; but the book may lead some to study 
 a matter which is often regarded as not in harmony 
 with the intellectual development of the age. It treats 
 of a subject which is of the very highest importance 
 to men, on account of its direct influence upon 
 character. The object of the author is to bring 
 before the rising generation, in as simple a form as 
 possible, the fact, which scientific writers are proving 
 by each new discovery they make, that there is not 
 a single thing in creation, great or small, which does 
 not, when rightly understood, show, per se, that it 
 was made by One who had all power, all knowledge, 
 and all skill ; and that this Maker is now, as in the 
 moment of creation, unchanged in His designs and 
 purposes. The same laws govern the universe to day 
 as governed it countless ages ago. The logical con- 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 sequence of this fact is too often ignored, even if it 
 is not openly denied. 
 
 When St. Paul said, as he stood on Mars' Hill, 
 1 Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye 
 are somewhat superstitious, for as I passed along 
 and observed the objects of your worship, I found 
 also an altar with this inscription, To the unknown 
 God : what therefore ye worship in ignorance, 
 this set I forth unto you,' he was but doing what 
 creation is doing continuously \ and scientific men 
 unintentionally endorse the proclamation by every 
 new fact which they discover and unfold. 
 
 It may be that as their love towards the Author 
 of their being has grown cold, He has withdrawn 
 from them for a time, and left them to substitute 
 Nature for Nature's God, if, as free agents, they 
 choose so to do ; but it will not be always so. The 
 Father of mankind is from everlasting to everlasting, 
 and He has said, ' For a small moment have I for- 
 saken thee ; but with great mercies will I gather 
 thee. In a little wrath I hid My face from thee for 
 a moment ; but with everlasting kindness I will 
 have mercy on thee.' Meanwhile, the men who 
 are working in spiritual darkness for a time, with 
 only the light kindled by themselves as their guide, 
 are doing a great work by unveiling the hidden 
 wonders of creation ; for each disclosure is a fresh 
 proof of the wisdom and almightiness of the eternal, 
 unchanging God. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 Two Bishops of the Church of England have 
 recently made the statement that ' the great want 
 of the age is a belief in the Supernatural.' That 
 it is so all thoughtful members of the Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church have long been convinced. To 
 help others to attain to a clearer knowledge of them- 
 selves, and in so doing to grasp the full meaning 
 of eternity and immortality, and the bearing these 
 must have, when duly realized, upon the life of 
 man in time, is an object worth aiming at, however 
 short of the mark the arrow may fall. 
 
 Should the atheist or the sceptic condescend to 
 open this book, the writer ventures to ask him to take 
 a really practical and unprejudiced view of its sub- 
 ject; and in order that he may do so, to place him- 
 self in the only logically fair position. That position 
 may be defined (i) negatively. No bias of the 
 mental nature must be allowed to have any weight. 
 No opinions of other men, whose theories may 
 have come under consideration, should be allowed 
 to have more influence over the mind than evidence 
 in a court of justice has on the minds of the jurors 
 until they have heard the counter-evidence. And 
 there must be no ' begging the question,' for that 
 is the coward's part. The brave man will look 
 friend or foe in the face, say what he thinks, do^ 
 what he believes to be right, and take the con- 
 sequences, whatever they may be. The really brave 
 and true man can afford to be beaten, and to 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 acknowledge that he is vanquished; because true 
 manliness tells him that no one can do more than 
 his best, and having done that, if failure come it 
 is not the result of his having left undone what 
 he ought to have done ; whereas the coward who 
 shuffles and evades questions, even if he succeed in 
 achieving anything, is never sure of the ground on 
 which he is standing ; and, if he fail, would rather 
 tell a lie than admit having failed through any fault 
 of his own. (2) The position that a brave, honest 
 man who is seeking truth must take may be 
 defined, affirmatively, in a few words — he must 
 confront Christ. As a son of Adam, and a lord of 
 creation, let him take the place of judge, and try 
 Christ, not after the fashion of Herod, or of Pilate, 
 but as a just and honest judge would try a person 
 who was accused by an avowed enemy of a crime 
 of which the life of the accused, so far as it was 
 known, rendered it impossible to believe him 
 guilty. The case would then stand thus — Jesus, 
 the Son of Mary, a daughter of the house of David, 
 claimed to be the only begotten Son of God, the 
 Maker of all things, visible and invisible ; equal to 
 the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior 
 to the Father as touching His manhood. He 
 claimed to be the second Person of the co-equal and 
 co-eternal Trinity. He claimed to be the Messiah 
 of whom the prophets wrote; the Redeemer of 
 fallen man ; the Royal Child who was to be born 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 at Bethlehem ; who was to be called 'Wonderful 
 Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
 the Prince of Peace,' and of whose kingdom there 
 was to be no end. Now Christ was all this, higher, 
 mightier, and holier than the mind can conceive or 
 words can tell, or He was — what ? One dare not 
 put into words what He, in whom His judges, 
 accusers, and murderers could find no fault at all, 
 must be, if He were not God Incarnate, the Saviour 
 of the world. 
 
 Let all honest doubters face the question — What 
 was the Man who went about doing only good, if 
 He was not the Christ of God? And then let 
 them try to prove that the sacred books of the 
 Jews are modern forgeries like the Isidore Decretals 
 of the Papacy ; that the life of Jesus of Nazareth 
 is but an interesting fiction. And let them try to 
 give adequate reasons — that will satisfy themselves 
 and others — for believing the history of the landing 
 of Caesar in the British Isles, and the occupation of 
 those isles by the Romans ; and for disbelieving the 
 Life, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. 
 The result would be a glorious triumph ; for out of 
 the darkness would shine a bright light, and in 
 that light they would surely find the Author of 
 Light. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ..... xiii 
 
 I. THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL . . I 
 
 II. THE GREAT SACRAMENT — GOD IN NATURE . 46 
 
 III. THE GREAT PROCESSION . . . .Ill 
 
 IV. THE GREAT KINGDOM .... 175 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH WILLIAM REYNOLDS, M.A., 
 
 Prebendary of St. Paul's; 
 
 Author of ' The Supernatural in Nature, a Verification by Free Use of 
 Science,' ' The World to Come. Immortality a Physical Fact,' etc. 
 
 This book is remarkable for historical illustra- 
 tions, felicity of expression, correct reasoning, and 
 truthful zeal. It is not a laborious, argumentative 
 treatise on a difficult subject ; but an intelligent, 
 well-reasoned explanation, pleasant and easy. A 
 large class of readers will find it not less interesting 
 than useful. Every thoughtful, honest reader will 
 derive benefit from the perusal. The four chapters 
 are as Gospels of the Supernatural. 
 
 Reality of the Supernatural. 
 
 The writer bravely, and with not less skill, 
 confronts the spirit of the age with just censure, 
 for being in doubt as to that very thing which 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 renders existence very beautiful, and of surpassing 
 wonder. 
 
 The realities revealed by Scripture, and of which 
 Creation is the natural veil, are those supreme 
 verities which awake our interest, while in the 
 body, as to future experience when out of the body. 
 Life, which gathers the particles of which our frame 
 is composed, has an inner light — the soul ; and a 
 spirit, with kindling from above, that gives a yet 
 higher essence. This higher essence not only 
 aggrandizes our mortality, but conveys everlasting- 
 ness. It renews body and soul at the resurrection 
 into the likeness of Christ in Glory. Events like 
 the Conversion of St. Paul are as stars in earth's 
 sky, smiling streamlets from the higher splendour. 
 
 Abuse of knowledge so thickens and darkens the 
 material veil that, to the natural eye, God is hidden, 
 not revealed in Creation. Advanced science comes 
 to our help, and reveals that Death is not a nothing- 
 ness, nor an empty space whither life after life, and 
 world after world, are carried and made desolate ; 
 but peopled with many sweet influences. These 
 influences, during the intermediate state, are the 
 seal set upon our completion. Whatever good 
 exists now will reappear sometime, somewhere ; 
 nothing is lost. 
 
 Present attainments are, as by a mountainous 
 ascent, achieved with cost and pain. Summits 
 attained are but steps to higher ascents. Some- 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 times mental weakness, evil appetites, make us 
 grovel. The superstitions and prejudices of a self- 
 satisfied unbelief, arising from the narrowness of 
 merely physical investigation, incapacitate not a 
 few for full completion, and achievement of life's 
 great honours. They lose the glory of a knowledge 
 that conquers. The great should emulate grand 
 old Abraham's faith. The lowly are to be pure 
 and devout, that even if taken from the rich man's 
 gate, they may dwell where are many angels. 
 
 We cannot rid ourselves of the Supernatural. 
 The standard within every man of right and wrong 
 is an impress from One who will judge. Our hope J 
 and fear show that there is more than to-day, more 
 than to-morrow, to be cared for ; a future demands I 
 and enforces consideration. In vain do a few 
 individuals, dreading that future, endeavour to stifle 
 the thought and feeling that remind them of it. 
 The difficulty and danger, the few cases in which 
 subterfuges are an anodyne, make certain the un- 
 naturalness, and failure, of trying to live without 
 regard to the Supernatural. We cannot help 
 believing in the unseen. It is that from which 
 Nature came. It is that to which Nature will return. 
 It is that wherein we shall be perfected. 
 
 Every thing, every force, is conserved : there is 
 an after-state for all. The nature of that hereafter 
 will be in analogy with that of which the present is 
 capable. The individuality of every kind of life, or 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 personality, is possessed even by the dead; molecular 
 motions are various as the differences of structure ; 
 and these naturally influence future conditions. If 
 there were no future state, we could not think of it 
 at all. Our thoughts of that state arise from our 
 noblest, and therefore our truest faculties. 
 
 The Great Sacrament : God in Nature. 
 
 The unity of matter and force in life and 
 sensation, in the mental and moral, are a sacramen- 
 tal mystery. The different elements, most different, 
 are made into the structure — man. He is an 
 epitome of the universe. Divine power, life, 
 thought, are writ small in him. 
 
 He, a living temple, is naturally furnished with a 
 sense of the Supernatural. This sense often rises 
 into a felt fulness of the All Great. When in dark- 
 ness he yet believes and says, ' One step enough 
 for me, if Thou, kindly Light, lead on.' The 
 conscious passage from Nature to Nature's God is 
 sacramental in linking the human soul in intimacy 
 and life with the Eternal Maker and Preserver. 
 The greatest and best of our race know and have 
 known by rapturous experience in thought, in 
 vision, in dream, by touch, by hearing, of Heavenly 
 things and of God Most High. For those who have 
 not had this experience to deny it is to assert a 
 fallacy : that the greatest thinkers were fools the 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 greatest ; and the most truthful men the worst of 
 liars. The character of Christ is itself enough to 
 brand all gainsayers with infamy. 
 
 Advanced science regards the visible glories of 
 Nature as relatives of the invisible powers making 
 them. The temporal present illustration is not the 
 first, nor is it the last : others will follow. The 
 past, in some form, is in the now. The now, in 
 some form, will characterize the future. We cannot I 
 think of Almightiness coming to weakness in any j 
 of His works; nor of the Eternal dying in any! 
 timely arrangements. 
 
 The Doctrine of Continuance links all variety to 
 some reality of existence. Eternal significance 
 impresses infinite results as the evergrowing signal 
 of that which seems even the very least in power 
 and meaning. What then can limit the destinies 
 of man, who is so magnificent ? His inner unseen 
 majesty is so marvellous that the brain of a few 
 inches in volume pictures, measures, scientifically 
 arranges all worlds. The sacramental grace is 
 Divine. 
 
 In many beautiful facts and thoughts, the writer 
 of this book so enforces the truth, that a child may 
 know a Divine achievement is around us ; that the 
 differences of form working variety, as they are in 
 relation to and governed by the whole, are under 
 Supreme Rule. All spaces, all times, all phenomena, 
 are for places, durations, structures, further on. 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 The greatest effort of advanced science is the giving 
 of this greatest proof. God is in all, and will not 
 lose a fraction of that all. 
 
 The Great Procession 
 
 Is the passage of the powers of the invisible 
 world into manifestation by the visible, and the 
 return, not with loss, but gain. Darkness and Light 
 are both emblems of the greater darkness and the 
 greater light : the invisible is immeasurably greater 
 and more wonderful than the visible. The proces- 
 sion has a benediction progressing to more and more 
 glory. Our fears, our hopes are an admonishment. 
 
 That which Christ was, and then became for our 
 sakes, and that which men are, show the tragedy of 
 life as represented in scenes of sin and death. War 
 in Heaven represents an earlier origin as to Sin than 
 the Temptation in Paradise. What we see in the 
 stars warrants the thought that some things in them 
 were out years before our earth was formed. The 
 One who makes the Great Atonement is so Great 
 that He recovers for ever and ever that which was 
 lost, and so puts every part to rights, that the whole 
 is carried on to renewal. Things and men are 
 entablatures with inscriptions of destiny, not as of 
 bondage —and there is the glory — but as of liberty 
 by the Spirit of God. 
 
 The trials the faith, the graces, the gifts, for 
 discipline and adornment of the Pilgrims; their 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 dwellings and laws, their physical and spiritual 
 parts, progress from the Eucharistic character to 
 that bodily union with Christ the Great Restorer, 
 manifest a Supernatural Power, making our man- 
 hood and all our affairs a part of that further Divine 
 transcendental coming of our Lord Jesus to accept 
 and welcome the great procession from earth to 
 Heaven, from Time to Eternity, that He may 
 glorify Himself in all things, and that all things 
 may be glorified in Him. 
 
 The Great Kingdom. 
 
 The inutility of whatever is done apart from God, 
 the Redeemer ; the devilish destruction wrought by 
 war for possession of the earth ; the painful trials 
 befalling good men, show that the way of the 
 Cross is our Highway, the King's Road to Heaven. 
 Creation all groaning, and men all enduring the 
 Cross, show how strongly the Evil Prince garrisoned 
 his usurpations ; but the drugging, the robbing, 
 the murdering of souls, are being put an end to. 
 The dawn-signs of the Kingdom appear. Even 
 those who teach science backward find that Eternal 
 Power, present everywhere, is a Supernatural Pre- 
 sence, filling noble souls, pure hearts, saintly lives, \ 
 with blissful rest and jubilant expectation. 
 
 Nations in their rise and fall, cities in building and 
 in ruins, tell of efforts and failures, of struggles by all 
 for the desired and permanent Kingdom. Mean- 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 while wheat and tares, good and evil, demons like 
 demagogues, grow and struggle ; but, alas ! evil 
 ones, their hearts failing through fear, and cursing 
 God, die. The Lord Jesus is yet, so to speak, in 
 
 ' humility with us. The great Kingdom is being 
 established in the hearts of those who are content 
 
 , to share His lowliness, and account the shadow of 
 His Cross, and the bearing the lighter part of it, a 
 glory — not shame. They know that the manifesta- 
 tion draweth nigh when they will be priests and 
 princes in the presence of God. Every natural 
 thing is the surface-form of that which is vaster 
 than time. Every token of the Holy Spirit in us 
 is part of a life that death cannot touch. All the 
 willing are being made by faith and prayer, by 
 sanctification, and by use of holy ceremonies to 
 partake sensibly of the Divine Nature. They enter 
 the Kingdom by the Kingdom entering them. 
 
 This work in individual hearts, the individuals 
 forming households — the family Church ; these 
 meeting in assemblies of the people — the national 
 — the country's Church ; these all of one essential 
 Faith preached unto all nations — the Universal 
 Church, are the Body of Christ in its members, 
 small and great ; the particular visible and in- 
 visible Church of which He is the Head; of which 
 He is the central Life, nearer to us than our own 
 soul, for He is the Life of that soul ; and so won- 
 derfully not only Saviour of the individual body and 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 Church, but of the great body, the great Church, 
 to be the Shekinah of the Divine glory in the 
 coming kingdom. Meanwhile as angels ministered 
 to Christ they are sent forth as ministering spirits 
 to children of the Kingdom. They bear souls to 
 Paradise. The Book of Revelation tells how these 
 spirits have new names ; receive a white stone as an 
 imperishable token of being in covenant, and their 
 songs seem to sound in our ears during those bliss- 
 ful moments in which we realize that already is the 
 kingdom within. Within some little time known to 
 the Lord there will be a wonderful manifestation to 
 the sons of God of the greatness and the everlast- 
 ingness of His kingdom and theirs. 
 
 Pleasant all through is this little book with men 
 beautiful in humility and glorious in exaltation, 
 with God supremely blessed and blessing : the 
 music of the spheres attuned, and everything that 
 hath breath giving praise. May the writer of the 
 book, and every reader of it, take part in all, and 
 dwell with the King of kings and Lord of lords ! 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 When the veil which seems to separate the seen 
 from the unseen is raised by a revelation from God 
 to man, or becomes more transparent by reason of 
 the light shed abroad by the Holy Scriptures, by 
 the discoveries of science, or by a study of man, 
 glorious visions of the world which is invisible to 
 that wonderful instrument the human eye are 
 spread out before us, clear as the sun. Those 
 visions are not, as some profess to believe, like the 
 mirage of the desert ; they are realities, more real 
 and enduring than the substantial things of the 
 material world in which we now live. 
 
 What is man? Let him stand forth as God 
 made him, with a halo around him of intense white 
 light issuing from the Source of light. We shall 
 see that he is a tripartite being, consisting of body, 
 animal soul, and spirit. The spirit, or spiritual 
 body, is the soul's indissoluble companion, and 
 
 i 
 
2 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 together they make the ' inner man.' In this lies 
 the man's personality, his individual identity, whether 
 in the natural body or out of it. When death sets 
 free the soul and the spirit from that part of man 
 which is subject to corruption, each man in his 
 distinctive personality, though under altered con- 
 ditions, goes forth into another stage of existence. 
 
 In the mantle of clay that has fallen from him, 
 there is, however, a germ which will at the appointed 
 time burst into life, and unfold into the etherealized 
 resurrection-body; and so in all points the risen man 
 will become like unto his Lord, who returned, after 
 preaching to the spirits in prison, to put on again 
 the body in which He had suffered on the Cross. 
 As that body was changed in its character when 
 raised from the tomb, so will the bodies of those 
 who sleep in Jesus, and the bodies of the saints 
 who are alive on the earth at the second coming of 
 Christ, be changed. 
 
 We must go to God's great book of Nature to 
 learn how what seems impossible to man is possible 
 to God; and how, by the working of His un- 
 changeable laws, the millions who have lived and 
 died as the ages have rolled on, and whose mortal 
 bodies have been resolved into their original 
 elements, will nevertheless be, throughout eternity, 
 their own identical selves as truly as those whose 
 bodies will be suddenly changed and caught up to 
 meet the Lord in the air. We drop an acorn into 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 3 
 
 the earth knowing that the life within it will 
 be cherished there, and find expansion in the 
 unfolding of the oak ; and so our bodies are com- 
 mitted to the grave in sure and certain hope of 
 a joyful resurrection. It is an old and beautiful 
 belief that each person has his own guardian angel, 
 and as we are told that the angels are ministering 
 spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be 
 heirs of salvation, it may be that to their care the 
 Great Father has committed the germ of the . 
 resurrection-body. Are they not the ' reapers ' at 
 the end of the world ? 
 
 It is often when hope grows dim, when health 
 fails, when a sense of lost opportunities brings a 
 dark shadow over the present, and when, as is 
 sometimes the case, a look back into the past 
 makes the spirit fear to look forward into the 
 future, that the veil is rent by the mercy of God, 
 and we see and feel that our life on earth is but the 
 beginning of our existence, and that all we can 
 learn here below — no matter to what heights we 
 may attain in the search after knowledge — only 
 enables us to see as through a glass darkly, unless 
 light from the Father of Light opens to us what 
 lies beyond the veil. Then it is that things tem- 
 poral find their true place in the estimation of man, 
 a being who was created for eternity. In this 
 world he is being moulded and trained; in the 
 next he will be what the deeds done in the body 
 
4 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 have made him, and he will occupy the place for 
 which those deeds have fitted him. 
 
 An illustration of the distinction between the 
 higher and lower parts of man's nature, as well as 
 of their close union, may be found in the narrative 
 of the conversion of St. Paul. When the great 
 light from the Sun of Righteousness shone upon 
 him, as he journeyed to Damascus, it blinded him. 
 The veil was then upon his heart, and he was 
 walking in darkness ; but the light that blinded 
 him to the things of earth, and closed his mortal 
 eyes to the familiar objects of sight, shone upon 
 the 'inner man,' and showed him that the Flesh 
 pierced by nails and lance on the Cross of Calvary 
 was the tabernacle of Deity — the veil which, when 
 torn and lacerated, opened to man 'the new and 
 living way consecrated for us.' 
 
 Nearly two thousand years have passed since the 
 veil that rested on the Old Testament Scriptures, 
 which prophesied of the Redeemer of mankind, 
 was raised by their fulfilment in the person of 
 Christ. He came, as the prophets of God said He 
 would, to His people Israel, to ' His own '; but 
 they 'received Him not,' for their materialistic 
 views were as a thick cloud before their eyes, and 
 they could not see their King behind the veil of 
 flesh which He took in order to live among them 
 as a man. They looked for an earthly monarch 
 who should raise them to honour and glory among 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 5 
 
 the nations, and make them rulers in the material 
 universe. They, like the materialists of to-day, 
 cared more for the visible world than for the 
 invisible. They lived for what they saw, and 
 what their hands could handle, and so they could 
 not then, even as men cannot now, see behind the 
 veil. 
 
 As time rolls on, man's knowledge seems to 
 make the veil grow thicker as well as broader, and 
 now, at this latter end of the nineteenth century, 
 the world will believe in nothing that is not on 
 this side of the veil, and within reach of man's 
 unaided intellect. Yet it is as true as it ever was, 
 that the 'natural man receiveth not the things of 
 the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto 
 him ; neither can he know them, because they are 
 spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual 
 discerneth all things.' Still the natural man walks 
 on, content with the light that his own intellect 
 has kindled. He gazes upon the things which are 
 'seen and temporal/ until he persuades himself 
 that the things which are ' not seen ' and are 
 eternal, are but 'myths' of the 'dark ages.' Un- 
 belief concerning things behind the veil, things 
 'supernatural,' is oftentimes an outcome of an- 
 tagonism to religion ; but such unbelief is as un- 
 natural as it is unscientific and illogical. It is 
 unnatural because the untaught savage has some 
 sense of spiritual things, however debased it may 
 
6 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 be; it is unscientific, because almost every new 
 discovery of science proves the existence of unseen 
 power and design ; it is illogical, because all that is 
 seen is deducible from, and controlled by, the 
 unseen. 
 
 A savant of this century has said, ' If men would 
 but give for one century the same amount of effort, 
 time, and labour to the moral sciences and study 
 of the soul, which for the last two centuries they 
 have bestowed upon the physical and natural 
 sciences and mathematics, what marvellous and 
 unforeseen results might be obtained ! If men did 
 but perceive ever so faintly, concerning the soul, 
 that which science is beginning to discover as to 
 the astronomical constitution of the universe — viz., 
 that it is a vast, invisible, central world, taking a 
 visible shape in some of its results, which sooner 
 or later will solve many an enigma — and were we 
 less superficial in our meditations, we might obtain 
 some insight as to what is to be found in the 
 depths of the soul, in those vast invisible depths 
 which we too studiously shun, into which we too 
 often refuse even to cast a glance. The farther 
 natural science advances, the more richness, beauty, 
 harmony, the more wondrous results, worthy of 
 God's hand, it discovers in the visible world ; and 
 surely there would be a like result in spiritual 
 science. They who seek to explore its depths will 
 assuredly find that those mental regions with which 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 7 
 
 we are familiar are shallow waters as compared 
 therewith.' 
 
 When, as is the case in these modern days, men 
 of high culture, who are gifted with unusual in- 
 tellectual capacities, and who lead irreproachable 
 lives, divorce religion from science, we can but 
 wonder at the power of evil. Those who have 
 eyes to see that there are two worlds which have 
 one supreme Ruler, stand aghast at the theory 
 promulgated in this age of the world's history, that 
 the universe may have sprung into existence without 
 a sentient Maker, and that reasonable beings, evi- 
 dently made to exercise dominion upon earth, are 
 without a reasonable Ruler. To compare great 
 things with small, we may say that the universe 
 without a God is what man would be without a 
 head. Man, minus a brain, what is he ? An idiot 
 asylum gives the answer. Creation robbed of its 
 God is truth eclipsed, a diamond suddenly become 
 dark, space without a pole-star; and man, the 
 crown of creation, a being without anchor, rudder, 
 or compass; a being endowed with free will, 
 dominion and power, yet a mystery to himself in 
 life, and in death a stranded wreck upon the shore 
 of time. That ignorance should lead to unbelief 
 in the existence and creating power of the ' un- 
 known God ' should surprise no one. That know- 
 ledge, acquired by studying a universe which in 
 every part bears proof of design, and of adaptation 
 
8 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 to the requirements of organic life, should fail to 
 recognise a Designer, is truly marvellous. In the 
 place of God, some great leaders of modern thought, 
 men of lofty intellect, would put a 'primordial 
 vapour.' They dethrone the Monarch and point 
 to a vacant throne. So men who do not look 
 behind the veil imagine a vacuum ; for them there 
 is no supreme good, no fixed standard of right and 
 wrong, no Governor, no infallible Guide ; they 
 choose to be a law unto themselves. Hence the 
 anarchy and confusion which are seen everywhere 
 in the world of human thought. As faith dies out, 
 and reason, no longer guided by the light of 
 conscience, is used only to prove that man is an 
 irresponsible being — when, in short, man becomes 
 the slave of his own intellect — he loses the freedom 
 which he might enjoy as a son of God, as made in 
 the image of God. But he does not know this. 
 He sees that his body is fearfully and wonderfully 
 made, noble in design, beautiful in form, and 
 perfectly adapted to all the wants and requirements 
 of his present existence, though it is but a clod of 
 earth when that which he calls 'life ' passes from it. 
 Rather than believe in what he cannot see, he is 
 content to let death be, as it were, the coping-stone 
 of the structure which he has raised. 
 
 The failure to recognise an intelligent Ruler of 
 reasonable beings is doubtless one cause of the 
 increasing difficulties with which statesmen have to 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 9 
 
 deal, and of the growing evils which perplex the 
 philanthropist. The agnosticism of the present 
 age, in casting the dark shadow of unbelief over the 
 revelation which God has given to man, is sapping 
 the foundation of all social and moral order ; and 
 the crude theories of men are set up in the place 
 of eternal truth. In all this is seen the fulfilment 
 of prophecy, which ' sure word ' predicts the increase 
 of knowledge ' even to the time of the end.' The 
 New Testament tells of love grown cold, of faith 
 eclipsed in the latter days, and of the second 
 Advent of Christ; just as the Old Testament fore- 
 told the falling away of the Jews, their fate among 
 the nations, and the first advent of Christ. The 
 veil that hid the Messiah from the eyes of the 
 Jews, and prevented their seeing in Jesus of 
 Nazareth the fulfilment of prophecy, is the veil 
 that now prevents the great mass of mankind from 
 discerning the 'signs of the times,' and from be- 
 lieving in the reality of the unseen world. It is 
 strange that knowledge which accomplishes such 
 great things, and soars so high, should fail to pierce 
 the veil through which wisdom sees so clearly. 
 Angels might weep when science, which should be 
 the handmaid of religion, severs the bond that 
 unites them ; for then the veil becomes so dark 
 that even when the materialistic astronomer rises 
 above the earth, and makes the stars prove the 
 inspiration of the Bible, he fails to realize the 
 
io THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 significance of his own intellectual achievement, 
 and knows as little of what he has done as did the 
 Jews when they crucified their Messiah. 
 
 Alcyone, the supposed centre of gravity of our 
 solar system, and the brightest of the seven bright 
 stars which form the group called by the Greeks 
 'the Pleiades,' still rolls on, exercising the tre- 
 mendous force which draws our system around it, 
 at the rate of 422,000 miles a day, in an orbit 
 which it will take thousands of years to complete. 
 This, science may by-and-by proclaim as an ascer- 
 tained fact, and thus unconsciously teach what is 
 involved in the simple question put by the Creator 
 and Ruler of Alcyone to His servant Job : ' Canst 
 thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades [Cima] ?' 
 That old Chaldean word Cima, meaning a hinge, 
 axle, or pivot, is, like all original words, full of 
 meaning. Suns and worlds revolve around that 
 cluster of stars, whose rising and setting indicated 
 to the sailors of ancient Greece when they might 
 undertake a voyage with safety, and so they called 
 the Cima of the Chaldees the ' Pleiades.' If no 
 other question had been put to Job to impress 
 upon him the difference between the finite under- 
 standing of man and the infinite mind of the 
 Creator, the light which science has cast upon 
 the vastness of God's power as declared in this 
 sentence would have been enough to make 
 man feel his own nothingness, and bow down 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL u 
 
 and worship Him whose ways are past rinding \ 
 out. 
 
 The wisest and most cultured men of this age, 
 who hold that creation has an intelligent Creator, 
 regard every new discovery of science as a sacred 
 thing — a part of the Temple of Truth. Every 
 new fact that is elicited by patient investigation is 
 received as an important addition to the building, 
 for the simple reason that there is so strong an 
 affinity between science and religion, such an in- 
 timate union of the spirit and the body, that 
 sooner or later the material and the immaterial 
 will be recognised as one harmonious whole, at 
 least by those who do not allow their theories to 
 override facts. The value of the bodily senses in 
 investigating truth cannot be over-estimated ; and 
 it must always be borne in mind that it is on the 
 evidence of the senses, as well as through revela- 
 tion, that the belief in the ' supernatural ' is 
 maintained. It may be an easy thing for a man 
 to deny the existence of things which he has 
 never seen, but it is not easy to convince a man 
 who has looked through a telescope that there are 
 no stars in space but those which can be seen by 
 his naked eye. How much, it may be asked, 
 would the great mass of mankind know on any 
 subject if they only received what should be 
 demonstrated to each person individually? One 
 who knew nothing of chemistry would deny the 
 
12 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 presence of any solid substance in two perfectly 
 clear fluids ; but a chemist might convince him 
 that solid matter was there by mixing the two 
 fluids, and these, acting upon each other, would 
 cause the solid matter held in solution to be pre- 
 cipitated, and form a dense substance. In that 
 case the evidence of the bodily senses would put an 
 end to incredulity ; and why should not the evi- 
 dence of those senses be received when they 
 testify to supernatural appearances and incidents, 
 which honest and critical observers believe to be 
 as real as any natural object ? On other subjects 
 there would be accorded, by those who did not 
 feel able at once to believe, a deferred judgment, an 
 exhaustive inquiry, and at least a provisional ver- 
 dict ; but in the case of the supernatural, evidence 
 that would be deemed conclusive in relation to 
 any other subject is set aside as illusive ; there is a 
 contemptuous dismissal of the whole matter, with 
 a condemnation of its advocates. When a clever 
 man of science announces the results of his study 
 to the world, all who are ignorant of the subject, 
 and who have neither the talent nor the opportunity 
 to acquire the necessary knowledge, agree to receive 
 his statements, and they bow down before the 
 might of his intellect. A geologist does not dis- 
 pute the correctness of the calculations of an 
 astronomer; nor does an astronomer doubt the 
 truth of a geologist's statements. Both know and 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 13 
 
 admit that each must understand the subject which 
 he has made his special study better than one who 
 has been seeking knowledge of another kind, in a 
 different part of the great field of the universe. 
 In days when the increasing light of knowledge 
 should cause prejudice to disappear as stars before 
 the rising sun, those who have made psychology 
 their study ought to be met on the same ground. 
 Ignorance of a subject which gives man higher 
 hopes, clears away some of the mists and vapours 
 that hang about him in this lower stage of exist- 
 ence, and raises the veil that obscures the know- 
 ledge of his tripartite nature, is to be deplored, if 
 only because such ignorance must keep men on a 
 low level, from which clearer light and advancing 
 knowledge would raise them. 
 
 It would be deeply interesting to know the 
 source of the truths that Homer and Virgil em- 
 bodied in their verse, and whence they derived 
 their ideas of the spirit world. Later on Dante 
 takes up the theme. Through all the dreams of 
 the writers of the classic epics there is to be 
 traced the one key-note. The foundation-stone 
 of the elaborate column which each great poet 
 has raised is the same, and it is the same as that 
 found in the sacred poetry of the Jews. It is 
 more clearly developed in the words and acts of 
 Him who was crucified on Calvary, and still 
 further elaborated in the Pauline Epistles. Around 
 
i 4 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the one mysterious truth which enters into all 
 mental superstructures there have clustered an 
 ever-increasing number of related truths. They 
 come from the unseen world — they testify to the 
 reality of that world. Thus has faith been kept 
 alive and strengthened ; and thus, from time to 
 time, have the minds of men been led towards 
 the borders of the spirit-land, where, resting for 
 awhile, they have learned much that, in the rush 
 and hurry of the world, they could not have 
 otherwise learned. 
 
 It is a great mistake to think, as so many 
 appear to do, that but little is revealed to us 
 in the Holy Scriptures of the invisible world and 
 its inhabitants. All that anyone, who regards 
 man's short life on earth as a preparation for a 
 higher state of existence, can want to know is 
 plainly stated. He is told that the invisible part 
 of his nature is immortal, clothed for a time with 
 a mortal body, which he is to care for and keep 
 undefiled until the moment arrives when he must 
 leave it, and go to the place for which the deeds 
 done in the body have fitted him. He is told that 
 good and evil are in the world, and that, having 
 been made in the image of God, he is capable of 
 knowing what is right and what is wrong, and that he 
 is free to choose the good and to refuse the evil. 
 He is told that there are evil spirits under the 
 dominion of a great fallen archangel, and that 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 15 
 
 these tempt men to sin. Also that there are good 
 angels ever ministering to him, influencing his 
 thoughts, protecting him in the midst of unseen 
 dangers, and warding off evil. Incidents illustrat- 
 ing these truths are to be found in all parts of the 
 inspired writings, and anyone who will open his 
 Bible, and, with the help of a concordance, care- 
 fully read, cannot fail to apprehend something of 
 that invisible world in which man is a great central 
 figure. He belongs to two worlds — two, yet one — 
 the visible and the invisible, the material and the 
 spiritual. Such an earnest and sincere reader will 
 find himself in the position of a mountaineer who, 
 after toiling up a steep ascent from some low land, 
 reaches a plateau on which he can rest awhile, and 
 study the wonders and glories of the hitherto 
 unknown region that is spread out before him. 
 There he may learn that the inhabitants of the 
 'unseen world' have organisms like his own. The 
 nature, the office, the duties, and the character- 
 istics of the holy angels are minutely described 
 by an unerring guide, who shows him how, when 
 the first Adam fell, angels barred the way back 
 to Eden with their flaming swords ; how they sang 
 when the Second Adam took our flesh and dwelt 
 among us ; how they ministered to Him in the 
 wilderness and in the Garden of Gethsemane ; and 
 how they rolled away the stone from the mouth 
 of the sepulchre when He rose victor over death 
 
i6 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 and the grave. Angels were entertained by 
 Abraham, took Lot out of Sodom, and carried 
 the poor man who lay at the gate of Dives to 
 rest in the bosom of Abraham. At the last 
 great day angels are to go forth, as reapers, to 
 separate the tares from the wheat, and they are 
 to accompany the Son of Man when He comes 
 to sit upon the throne of His glory. 
 
 Of the angels that sinned it is written, that they 
 were cast down to hell, and delivered into chains 
 of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment ; and 
 of those evil spirits that possessed man in the 
 olden time the student learns enough to know 
 that their subtle organisms enable them to enter 
 into man and dwell in him, tempting him to evil, 
 torturing him to madness, and afflicting him with 
 bodily disease. 
 
 The starting-point for each individual is his 
 natural birth. Before him are two roads. Evil 
 cannot harm him, or soil his garments, unless he 
 stretches forth his hand and takes it to his bosom, 
 and makes it his own; neither is good forced 
 upon him against his will. He is free, and by 
 his own act stands or falls. Heaven and hell are 
 set before man as the termini of the journey he 
 has to take. 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood for the good or evil 
 side, 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 17 
 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the 
 
 bloom or blight, 
 Puts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the 
 
 right, 
 And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and 
 
 that light.' 
 
 But, besides heaven and hell, there is an inter- 
 mediate state, called Hades, into which man enters 
 when death sets him free from the body. Thither 
 the Lord Jesus went after His decease ; and in that 
 part of Hades which is known as Paradise the 
 penitent thief met his Redeemer. It is the place 
 where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were located, 
 for of them Jesus said : ' God is not the God of 
 the dead, but of the living.' It is the place where 
 the spirits of just men made perfect rest from their 
 labours ; and where the souls of the martyrs, robed 
 in white, wait until the number of the elect is 
 made up. It is the place to which the daughter 
 of Jairus went when death touched her, and 
 whence her spirit came again when He who con- 
 quered death called her back to earth. It is the 
 place where the spirits of Lazarus, and of the 
 widow's son, dwelt for a time until the commands 
 ( Arise !' ' Come forth !' were given by Him who 
 holds the keys of Hades. It is the place where the 
 beggar Lazarus was when the rich man, from his place 
 of torment, prayed for a drop of water to cool his 
 tongue. During his trial time on earth Dives had 
 not given, out of the abundance of his wealth, 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 even the crumbs which fell from his table to feed 
 the hungry. He was clothed in purple and fine 
 linen, but he did not clothe the naked ; he lived 
 for this world only, and when he had to leave it he 
 found himself far away from the rest and the peace 
 of those who are pronounced 'blessed.' The 
 parable of Dives and Lazarus teaches much more 
 than superficial readers imagine, and it furnishes a 
 most important link in the chain that stretches 
 from the throne of God to His footstool. There 
 is a very general belief — idea would, perhaps, be 
 the better word to use — that there is a sudden 
 change in man at the moment of death. No 
 greater sophism was ever propounded, for, as Bishop 
 Butler says, 'Our organized bodies are no more 
 ourselves or part of ourselves than any other matter 
 around us.' The material body drops off; the 
 dress in which man fights the battle of life wears 
 out and falls to pieces, but the man himself goes 
 forth, in full consciousness and activity, his identity 
 preserved in the spirit frame that environs his soul, 
 with all his senses expanded, and retaining all his 
 old memories. The parable, or, as is very com- 
 monly believed, the narrative of two actual lives 
 thus given by Christ, indisputably teaches all this. 
 St. Paul was caught up to the third heaven while 
 his natural body was on earth. On the Mount of 
 Transfiguration Moses and Elias were seen talking 
 to Jesus of His death, which was shortly to be 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 19 
 
 accomplished; and to the dying martyr, St. Stephen, 
 extended power of sight was granted, so that he 
 was enabled to see Jesus 'standing at the right hand 
 of God.' 
 
 This is but a small part of what may be gathered 
 from the pages of Revelation on a subject which is 
 of vast importance and supreme interest, but it is 
 more than enough to prove to all who believe that 
 the Bible contains a revelation from God to man, 
 that man's career is a progressive one from the 
 beginning ; that he is not left in ignorance of his 
 future condition after his so-called death ; that he 
 is, when absent from the body, a conscious, active 
 being, with the same organisms as when in the 
 body, but those organisms so spiritualized that he 
 is not subject to the laws of matter (according to 
 our present knowledge of those laws), and there- 
 fore can traverse space, and become visible to 
 mortal vision, and even speak so as to be heard 
 by mortal ear, whenever the Lord wills or permits. 
 Whoever receives the testimony of the Scriptures 
 must admit that what has been in one age, may be 
 in another, and that all the supernatural events 
 recorded in later times have their prototypes in 
 Scripture narratives. 
 
 The elevating effect of a belief in the reality of 
 the supernatural can only be understood by those 
 who have gone to the Fountain of Truth, or have 
 looked beyond the veil; but let any intelligent 
 
20 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 thinker ask himself, What is left to us when the 
 supernatural element is eliminated ? There would 
 then be the material universe, without any great 
 sovereign mind to set each star in its orbit, and to 
 order its course. There would be our planet 
 Earth in motion without any sentient controlling 
 power j and its myriads of human beings coming 
 into existence, to suffer, to sin and to die — to drop 
 into the grave, and in a little while crumble into 
 dust. Many only live to endure toil, poverty and 
 disease; and if there is no ground for the belief 
 in something better and nobler and more enduring 
 than the present life and its surroundings, by what 
 principle of supposed right and wrong can any man 
 be blamed for saying that he has as much right to 
 the good things of this life as his neighbour has ? 
 
 It may be broadly stated that even the vague, 
 shadowy belief held by the masses, that there are 
 such things as 'ghosts,' 'haunted houses' and 
 1 warnings,' and that when they die they will be- 
 come angels, and go to some place where cold and 
 hunger will not be felt, where they will be able to 
 rest, is an incalculable good. All this hazy faith, 
 varying in degree according to the weaker or firmer 
 grasp which each individual mind has of the funda- 
 mental truth — that there is one great, loving Father 
 of all, who will make the crooked ways smooth, 
 and put all straight some day — maintains things as 
 they are. Eliminate all that the Bible and the 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 21 
 
 Church have taught ; all that theologians have 
 believed, and those who have lived holy and useful 
 lives, who have done most good for the poor and 
 for their country, whether as priests, as statesmen, 
 or as soldiers ; blot out all superstition, and with 
 it the deep truths which underlie it ; and in place 
 of all this give to mankind the creed that some men 
 hold, and a state of chaos would be the result, of 
 which it makes the brain reel to think. The men 
 who believe in nothing but what they see and 
 understand, or think they understand, and whose 
 idea of immortality is that their own knowledge 
 will live on in the minds of those who shall come 
 after them, are comparatively few in number. 
 Their ideas of morality, justice and truth (whence 
 are they derived ?), their intellectual pursuits and 
 their cultured tastes, may keep them on a high level ; 
 but without their knowledge, and also without the 
 faith and hope of the Christian, what must the 
 condition of the masses be? The only logical 
 sequence of unbelief in the supernatural is anarchy 
 and rebellion, each man for himself, the strongest 
 to the fore, the weak to the wall ; in a word, the 
 fate which befell old Rome when her citizens lost 
 their faith both in man and in the gods. 
 
 It has been the fashion of the nineteenth century 
 to speak of mediaeval times as the ' dark ages,' but 
 as a belief in the supernatural lies at the root of 
 all belief in the Christian faith, and as to under- 
 
/i 
 
 r 
 
 22 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 mine the one is to destroy the other, future gene- 
 rations will perhaps find, when weighing cause and 
 effect, that the age in which belief in the super- 
 natural degenerated into superstition, formed a 
 brighter epoch in the history of man than the age 
 of reason, which, with all its knowledge and oppor- 
 tunities of finding Truth in the light that knowledge 
 kindles, grew morally dark as Faith became eclipsed. 
 As soon as man closes his eyes to all save material 
 things, he is as a caged bird, and the loftiest in- 
 tellect will not enable him to soar beyond the 
 material network by which he has surrounded him- 
 self. Thus he becomes, unconsciously, a living 
 illustration of what Bacon calls ' the apotheosis of 
 error.' 
 
 It is admitted by all that a good solid foundation 
 is essential to every building. If the shaft and 
 capital of a column are to stand, the plinth must be 
 immovable. This is a law which admits of no 
 variation in the material world, and it will be found 
 to hold also in the spiritual world. The man who 
 attempts to build up any hypothesis upon other 
 foundation than unalloyed Truth, will sooner or 
 later discover that he has been building upon sand. 
 The superstructure may be beautiful to the eye, 
 and look well in the spring-time of life; it may 
 last while summer lasts, and the slanting rays of 
 the autumnal sun may gild its stones, and cause 
 them to seem what the builder thought they were 
 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 23 
 
 when he fixed each in its place ; but when the 
 winds of winter blow and beat upon it, and rain 
 descends from above, and the floods come, the 
 building falls. A tree is known by its fruit, and it 
 would seem that many who have, during past years, 
 been sowing the seeds of knowledge have not sown 
 in the right soil, for in the rank luxuriance of leaves 
 and blossoms there is an almost universal indica- 
 tion that the fruit will not prove to be good. The 
 seed sown may have been good of its kind, but, 
 lacking the support it needed for its perfect 
 development, its end is withered leaves and 
 cankered blossoms. To drop metaphor, just as 
 man must have a standard by which to measure 
 distances, and to weigh quantities, and as without 
 such a standard there would be no possibility of 
 defining the true and the false, so in morals there 
 must be a fixed standard of right and wrong. 
 That standard can only be fixed by one who is 
 omniscient. Those who know that they are liable 
 to err, even when striving to do what is right, know 
 also that no standard of right and wrong which they 
 could set up would stand the test of being ex- 
 amined and dissected by other men ; for however 
 exalted the standard might be in the eyes of him 
 who originated it, of others like-minded, or of those 
 on a lower moral and intellectual level, it would fall 
 far short of perfection when the rays of light from 
 a clearer conscience, and a loftier intellect crowned 
 
24 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 with humility, fell upon it. No man can set up 
 an infallible standard for his fellow-man which all 
 must acknowledge to be the true one, and by 
 which all must be judged ; this the God-man alone 
 can do. 
 
 All Christians would, of course, receive this pro- 
 position without hesitation ; but if those who are 
 not Christians would, for the sake of argument, 
 receive it hypothetically, and then work out the 
 problem honestly, Faith and Reason would be found 
 by many of them to be twin stars, each reflecting 
 the light derived from the Source of light. Assum- 
 ing, then, that there is an unassailable standard of 
 right and wrong, where is it to be found? The 
 answer is, ' In the life of Jesus of Nazareth.' As 
 the accusers of the adulteress disappeared when 
 the words were spoken, ' Let him that is without 
 sin among you first cast a stone at her,' leaving, as 
 St. Augustine says, 'two things alone together, 
 misery and mercy,' so, one by one, each noble soul, 
 no matter what creed is held, must bow down and 
 confess that there is, and must be, something far 
 higher, and purer, and nobler than himself or 
 things around him ; something or someone which 
 all that is good and great in his own nature is 
 yearning after. In the history of a world ruined by 
 sin, only one perfect Man has appeared. Pure and 
 undefiled He stands forth, perfect in holiness. 
 While gentle and obedient to man's law, He yet 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 25 
 
 appears on the Mount of Beatitudes as the unerring 
 Lawgiver. From the sepulchre He comes forth 
 as the Victor of Death ; and from the heaven to 
 which He has ascended He calls upon his 
 brothers and sisters to follow Him. He is the I 
 standard for man, and men will look in vain for 
 another. 
 
 When the outlook over the whole civilized world 
 is gloomy, and the dawn of a revolutionary epoch . 
 is discernible everywhere ; when inch by inch the 
 standard of morality is lowering to suit the tastes 
 and habits of the two extremes of the social scale ; 
 when what is expedient in legislation is substituted 
 for what is right ; when knowledge that will enable 
 a child to ' get on ' in the world is compulsory, and 
 the teaching is withheld which would enable the 
 young and plastic mind to realize that truth is 
 better than falsehood, and honest labour is more 
 honourable than what is designated ' sharp prac- 
 tice,' the primary cause of retrogression is not far 
 to seek. It is found in the fact that man has sub- 
 stituted a lower standard, the outcome of his own 
 knowledge, for the higher standard fashioned by 
 the wisdom of God. The lowering of this standard 
 is but the natural consequence of the non-recog- 
 nition of the supernatural ; for, as has been well 
 said, ' In some sense of the supernatural, in some 
 faith in the unseen, in some feeling that man is 
 not of this world, in some grasp on the Eternal 
 
2 6 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 God, and on an eternal supernatural and super- 
 sensuous life, lies the basis of all pity and mercy, 
 all help, and comfort, and patience, and sympathy 
 among men. Set these aside, commit us only to 
 the natural, to what our eyes see and our hands 
 handle, and, while we may organize society scien- 
 tifically, and live according to "the laws of nature," 
 and be very philosophical and very liberal, we are 
 standing on the ground on which every savage 
 tribe stands, or indeed on which every pack of 
 wolves gallops.' 
 
 No one who thinks seriously on this momentous 
 subject can fail to see, that the ultimate issue of the 
 conflict between Christianity and unbelief must 
 turn on the admission or denial of the super- 
 natural, and that such a denial is also a denial of 
 God. But the prayer, ' Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do,' has never ceased, 
 and never will cease, until the last man who is to 
 be saved is saved ; for the purpose of God is un- 
 changeable, and is unaffected by the ebb and flow 
 of man's belief. That purpose is that ' all men 
 shall be saved, and come to the knowledge of the 
 Truth,' as it is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Those 
 who believe in Him who said, ' All shall know Me, 
 from the least even unto the greatest,' look with 
 confidence and joy beyond the present evil days 
 of ignorance and unbelief: they look on to the 
 time of the restitution of all things, knowing that 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 27 
 
 1 Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 
 And the grave is not its goal ; 
 Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
 Was not spoken of the soul. ' 
 
 They know that although they ' see but dimly 
 through the mists and vapours, amid these earthly 
 damps,' that life beyond the grave is a great 
 reality, and that for man, made in the image of 
 God, 
 
 1 There is no death, what seems so is transition ; 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
 Whose portal we call death.' 
 
 They know that the time will come when God 
 shall wipe away all tears ; and there shall be ' no 
 more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
 shall there be any more pain.' They look for the 
 new heaven and the new earth ; and for the holy 
 city that will have no need of the sun, neither of 
 the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God will 
 lighten it, and the Lamb will be the light thereof. 
 And so, even while walking through the ' Vale of 
 Tears,' they can lift up their heads and cry : ' O 
 Death, where is thy sting ? O Grave, where is thy 
 victory ?' 
 
 The man who realizes that he is an immortal 
 being, immortal because he is the son of Him who 
 is without beginning or end ; and that this im- 
 mortal Father has willed that man shall work with 
 Him in carrying on His great designs in His 
 
28 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 universe, and has environed him with a body fitted 
 for the work appointed for him to do in this 
 material world, that man knows what he is ; he 
 grasps his position, and feels its responsibilities ; he 
 recognises the self-evident fact that, just as every 
 child should be trained for the position in life on 
 earth which he or she has to occupy — and this life 
 is the school-life, during which the training for 
 higher work takes place — so upon the right use 
 of his own free will, and the cultivation of the 
 talents bestowed upon him, must depend a man's 
 fitness for a more exalted or a lower position 
 in the next stage of his existence. He who 
 aims high, and who allows humility to safeguard 
 his aspirations, brings his body into subjection, 
 fights against sin, wills that the higher part of 
 his nature shall rule the lower, and in so doing 
 brings himself into conformity to the perfect will 
 of God and conquers ; yet not in his own strength 
 alone, for the will to work, to obey, and, if need 
 be, to suffer, being also the will of God, is the 
 power of God in man : so that all good is of 
 God. 
 
 By making use of ' every good and perfect gift 
 that comes down from the Father of Lights, with 
 whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
 ing,' man conquers and is crowned ; by the disuse 
 or misuse of those gifts and of the opportunities 
 vouchsafed for their employment, he loses his 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 29 
 
 ■ 
 crown ; if not entirely and for ever, still there must 
 
 be loss, because the jewels which can be found 
 and polished only on earth in the strait path of 
 duty will not be set in it. The wisest and best of 
 God's children love to think that the school-life 
 does not end when the worn-out instrument which 
 fitted them for learning and working in a material 
 world is laid aside, and the spirit is set free ; for 
 man does but leave the lower form for a higher 
 one, if in this natural life he has been a diligent 
 student. But what will happen if the lessons on 
 the lower form have not been learned ? Can they 
 ever be learned ? It is a solemn thought. Ele- 
 mentary truths are not taught in the higher school, I 
 and so it seems that there must be loss. A lost 
 moment is lost for ever ; a lost opportunity can ; 
 never be won back ; the past cannot be recalled. 
 The margin of the great river of Death is reached 
 at last, and whatever the spirit of man has failed to 
 gather up, and place in safe-keeping, will be lacking 
 on the other side of the river. Where there is 
 no sickness and sorrow, no cold and hunger, no 
 nakedness and want, there can be no opportunity 
 for learning many of the lessons taught by the life 
 of Christ on earth. We cannot tell, we do not 
 know, how the neglect of learning lessons here 
 below will tell upon the future. Christ endured 
 the ills and sorrows of life on earth that He might 
 be like us, and teach us how we may be like Him. 
 
3 o THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 Poor, and despised, and rejected, He went about 
 doing good ; and if men do not follow in His foot- 
 prints, they cannot be like their Lord in that respect. 
 Dives did not learn that lesson in this world ; and 
 the veil which by infinite wisdom is cast over one 
 part of creation is raised by the God-man, to show 
 men of future generations the result in the next 
 stage of man's existence of not obeying the com- 
 mands of the great Teacher, and not learning the 
 lessons which the Holy Spirit has always been ready 
 to teach man. 
 
 Study of the visible universe, and of the mysteries 
 of the kingdom of Nature, even apart from what is 
 revealed to us of the unseen world, leads the mind 
 almost irresistibly to the conclusion that there 
 must be an Author and Maker of all, from whom 
 all is derived, and in whom is infinite wisdom and 
 power to create, and also to govern and frame laws 
 for the universe. Those laws being the evolution 
 and expression of infinite knowledge, and designed 
 to work in unbroken continuity, must be in perfect 
 harmony, not only with the will of the Lawgiver, 
 but with each other. They must be uniform in 
 their working as applied to both spirit and matter. 
 In man we see the blending together of the 
 material and the immaterial ; the body and the 
 spirit that animates, directs, and controls the body. 
 We can clearly discern how any principle which 
 did not work harmoniously with both, would create 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 31 
 
 confusion and disruption. This the sin of man 
 has done. God made man upright ; an enemy has 
 caused him to fall from his uprightness. But 
 God's law remains unchanged and unchangeable ; 
 and as surely as ' in Adam all die, so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive,' and restored, in God's own 
 time, according to His eternal purpose in Christ 
 Jesus, and by the working of His unchanging law, 
 to the image of God in which man was originally 
 made. The time when the prophecy, ' All shall 
 know Me, from the least unto the greatest,' shall be 
 fulfilled, seems to be very far away, yet it may be| 
 nearer than we imagine. We live at a period of 
 the world's history when the spread of knowledge, 
 and with it the estimate of the vastness and power 
 of man's intellectual possibilities, apparently induce 
 men to overlook the fact, that as they never reach I 
 a point beyond which there is not a higher, there 
 must be a 'starting point' quite beyond their 
 present grasp ; there must be the Origin and l 
 Moving Power of all, the Author and Enlightener 
 of intellect ; ' the Great First Cause, least under- 
 stood.' One leader of modern thought has said 
 that ' religion is evolved by a process of naturalistic 
 development, the first term of which was a primi- 
 tive man's shadow, and the last, God, the Maker of 
 heaven and earth, and Judge of all mankind.' 
 This, however, is unsatisfactory, even from the 
 writer's own point of view ; for there is the fact of 
 
32 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 sin, and the phenomena of conscience; and, face to 
 face with these, the theory of the evolution of 
 religion by a process of naturalistic development 
 breaks down, for it has no base, no starting-point. 
 The ' inner man ' has at once to confront two facts 
 which cannot be accounted for, save by the acknow- 
 ledgment of a revelation from some higher power. 
 That power has always been felt by man. God 
 has never left man without a witness, though He 
 only revealed Himself fully in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. Pilate asked the question, 'What 
 is Truth ?' The answer he received was not 
 in words, but in the silent, majestic presence 
 of ' The Truth ' in its fulness. But truth is a 
 many-sided thing, and man, who sees only in part, 
 grasps one phase or another, and then, giving the 
 reins to his imagination, fashions a religion of his 
 own ; in this way it comes about that there are 
 many 'faiths' in the world. Or a man closes his 
 eyes to all but the creations of his own brain, and 
 puts altogether away from him the revealed Truth. 
 For these persons the Christian can only feel in- 
 finite pity, which — when combined with admiration 
 for the splendid talents that so often accompany 
 scepticism and infidelity, and for the unfailing per- 
 severance with which these students of nature 
 pursue the course on which they have entered — 
 deepens as the thought comes home to the believer 
 that ' the things which are seen are temporal ; but 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 33 
 
 the things which are not seen are eternal ' ; for he 
 knows that when the Angel of Death sets him free 
 from his earthly tabernacle, the light of an unsetting 
 sun will shine upon him, and he will ' know even 
 as he is known ' ; whereas the unbeliever in God 
 and immortality leaves doubt, and the shadows of 
 time, for the deeper shadows of Hades, where the 
 knowledge will come to him, as it came to Dives, 
 that he had missed the mark of his high calling, 
 and must pay the penalty for despising his birth- 
 right, and making no use of opportunities which, 
 once lost, are lost for ever. 
 
 The more deeply we meditate upon the effect 
 which loss of faith in the reality of the unseen world 
 has upon the character of man, the more important 
 it appears to be to use every effort to bring back 
 into the world the clear, firm faith of an earlier age, 
 and to show to all who are seeking truth that visions 
 of the unseen, and so-called immaterial, world are 
 not myths and delusions, but realities, more lasting 
 than the things we see around us, for they perish in 
 the using : matter is resolved into its primary ele- 
 ments ; spirit is not subject, so far as man knows, 
 to laws which govern the material world. Hence 
 it is that the witness of God's truth on earth — the 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church — lives, and lives to 
 render its witness. The Church lives, because the. 
 Spirit that giveth life dwells in it, and abides with | 
 it for ever. Man may mar the outward and visible ■ 
 
 3 
 
34 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 form, but he cannot rob the Church of that inward 
 and spiritual grace which is its own, by reason of 
 union with the Head, and which gives and sustains 
 that inherent power which renders it invulnerable. 
 Man may seem to wound and crush it, but he 
 cannot destroy its vitality. With the world against 
 it, and the powers of darkness leagued together to 
 destroy the Church, it is safe, and stands secure 
 amid the storms of time, a monument of its 
 founder's power. It may appear to be rent asunder 
 by the heresies and sins of men, but being one 
 with the Lord, and one in ' the faith once for all 
 delivered,' which is summed up in the Creed of 
 the Universal Church, and sealed by the last (Ecu- 
 menical Council, it is, as it has been, and as it 
 ever will be, one and indivisible ; its members sons 
 and daughters of the great universal Father, 
 brothers and sisters of the ' Word that was made 
 flesh, and dwelt among us.' 
 
 When Christ took our nature upon Him, He 
 united the material and the immaterial, the natural 
 and the spiritual, even as God in the beginning 
 united them, when He made man. It is difficult 
 to understand how those who believe Christ to be 
 God Incarnate can regard the Church as merely a 
 human institution. If Christ be God as well as 
 man, the Divine and the human in one Person, 
 His Church must also be divine and human, not 
 mly as being one corporate body, but divine and 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 35 
 
 human in each individual member of that body. 
 When man fails to realize this fact, he cannot see 
 the Holy Spirit sanctifying the waters of baptism, 
 or the hidden God of the Eucharist on the altars 
 of His Church, because these things are spiritually 
 discerned by that higher part of his being which, 
 to all who do not intelligently believe in the reality 
 of the Unseen, is simply something that they cannot 
 understand. They see a brother die. They know 
 that the body lying cold and stiff and motionless 
 will soon crumble to dust ; but what has become 
 of all that made the man ? Gone somewhere. 
 "What was the something that animated the clay 
 image, soon to be laid in the grave ? Alas ! all 
 behind the veil is shadowy and unreal to him who 
 has not an intelligent grasp of the duality of his 
 own nature. One who has that grasp, when he 
 sees the head bowed or the knee bent at the name 
 of Jesus, sees only an evidence of spirit moving 
 matter— the unseen controlling the seen. When 
 he sees the sign of the Cross made, he regards it 
 as an outward sign of the willingness of the ' inner 
 man ' to be as his Master, and to take up his cross 
 and follow that Master. When he sees a brother 
 or sister kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, he 
 knows that in body and in spirit worship is offered 
 to the Creator and Saviour of both. With the 
 heart man believeth ; with the mouth he confesses 
 his belief. When the heart is merry, a smile plays 
 
36 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 about the lips and gladness is heard in the voice ; 
 when it is sad, tears glisten in the eye and a sigh 
 or a moan is breathed forth. One man who has 
 much knowledge of the material universe deems it 
 wisdom to ignore one part of his being ; another, 
 who knows himself, knows also that what is behind 
 the material veil is of more value than the mortal 
 environment, which does but enable him to work 
 here on earth, and falls from him when the earth- 
 work is done. 
 
 The hazy faith, if faith it may be called, which 
 prevents so many professing Christians from seeing 
 anything clearly that is beyond human sight, causes 
 them to regard themselves as mere denizens of 
 earth, and the Church as a valuable teacher of 
 ethics. She is to them a good and useful institu- 
 tion, and she is nothing more. They see that part 
 of her which is on this side of the veil, and dream 
 not of what lies on the other side. They see the 
 base of the ' pillar and ground of the truth,' and 
 a certain portion of her shaft, but her capital is 
 beyond their ken. The dense atmosphere of this 
 world hides the light and life of the Church from 
 all who only regard the surface of things, but those 
 who look below the surface see the Church on 
 earth battling with the powers of evil — sorrowful, 
 yet always rejoicing ; persecuted, afflicted, tor- 
 mented, yet overcoming evil with good ; returning 
 blessing for cursing; beaten back from point to 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 37 
 
 point, but never yielding ; her flagstaff sometimes 
 broken, but her colours never taken. Her members 
 fight against the god of this world and his hosts, 
 and the world deems them powerless, because it 
 does not see the One, far above all rule, and au- 
 thority, and power, and dominion, who is their- 
 strength and their leader, to whom they are in- 
 dissolubly united. The world thinks that the 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church, in her divine 
 aspect, is a myth, and that the faith of the Church ' 
 is a delusion; but her members know that their 
 hopes are fixed upon a building not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens, and based upon 
 the 'Rock of Ages.' They know that the centre 
 of their faith is the Alpha and Omega of the 
 Church — the, at present, invisible Head of the 
 mystical body, which He has purchased for Him- 
 self, and which He and His co-workers are direct- 
 ing and controlling, just as the spirit of man directs 
 and controls his body. This fact, taught by revela- 
 tion, received by faith, and confirmed by reason, is 
 enough for those who can distinguish 'truth and 
 error.' If, in a general sense, Pilate's question, 
 ' What is truth?' is asked, the answer is plain. It 
 is what science is, accurate knowledge, the opposite 
 of falsehood, which is the denial of truth. It 
 follows, therefore, that there can be no falsehood 
 where there is no truth — there can be no denial of 
 what is not. 
 
38 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 It would not be easy for an unbeliever in the 
 unseen world, and its spiritual inhabitants, to give a 
 satisfactory reason for all the rhetoric that in these 
 days is employed to stamp out belief in the super- 
 natural, or to explain why men spend time and 
 employ their talents to destroy a nonentity. They 
 must admit the universality of the belief in super- 
 natural power and manifestations, for it has always 
 existed, in every age and in every clime, as it exists 
 to-day among all nations, and it is as much a part of 
 the creed of learned men of the nineteenth century as 
 it was of men who saw the dead raised by Him who 
 'brought life and immortality to light,' and who told 
 them of their home above, and the many mansions 
 in His Father's house. The thought of immortality 
 elevates the mind, and he who meditates on the 
 meaning of the word ' eternity,' is not likely to con- 
 fine all his aspirations to time, or concentrate his 
 thoughts upon earth. He who is content to be ' a 
 giant ' on earth must be also content to see nothing 
 but the sphere around him. He cannot, from his 
 own point of view, raise himself or others ; and we 
 cannot but believe that there are moments when our 
 greatest materialistic teachers would give all their 
 boasted knowledge for an unwavering faith in im- 
 mortality, when in their inmost being they feel what 
 the late Poet Laureate has embodied in the pathetic 
 words, 
 
 ' Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 The sound of a voice that is still !' 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 39 
 
 They would welcome the faintest gleam of light from 
 the world they ignore, if it showed them that the 
 loved and lost to mortal sight were only behind a 
 veil, safe for ever in the hand of a God of love. 
 
 The position taken by men who reject Revela- 
 tion, and with it dogmatic theology, appears to the 
 ordinary mind as untenable as it is illogical ; for 
 while treating any allusion to the supernatural 
 with supercilious contempt, they have themselves 
 gathered from the region of metaphysics all the 
 power that enables them to unlock the mysteries 
 of the kingdom of Nature, to understand the work- 
 ing of the laws which govern it, and to adapt its 
 treasures to the use of man. There is also a very 
 important, because practical, bearing which the 
 non recognition of the supernatural has upon the 
 lives of men. It is impossible for any deep 
 thinker, who is an observer of the present condi- 
 tions of social and political life in these closing 
 years of the nineteenth century, not to feel that a 
 crisis in the history of the world is approaching — a 
 crisis evolved out of the actions of men, those 
 actions being but the embodiment of all the brain- 
 power which is exercised so freely for good or evil 
 in this age of reason. It is also impossible to 
 avoid coming to the conclusion that the ground on 
 which previous generations have stood, or thought 
 they stood, secure, is crumbling away beneath their 
 feet, and that they must slide down the steep grade 
 
4 o THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 with the multitude, or they must climb to higher 
 ground, and find some rock on which they can 
 feel safe, and live for nobler ends than the great 
 majority dream of. 
 
 There is a general longing for a better and 
 higher life than has been realized by man on earth 
 since the fall, and this is evidenced by the work of 
 those whose lives prove that they deem no sacrifice 
 too great, if, by immolating self, they can raise 
 their fellow-men from the depths of sin and suffer- 
 ing into which they have fallen. But the lost 
 sheep are many and the shepherds are few — so few 
 that if we had not the great historical drama of 
 Christianity shining out of the darkness, and the 
 Author and Chief Actor in the drama standing 
 alone in a world arrayed against Him, we should 
 marvel at the work which they accomplish. The 
 secret of their success is to be found in the fact 
 that, having followed in the steps of the ideal man, 
 Christ Jesus, of Him in whom His bitterest enemies 
 could ' find no fault/ their work is based upon a 
 sure foundation, that foundation being absolute 
 truth. This unquestionable fact accounts for the 
 triumphant march of Christianity. Its Founder 
 died the death of a malefactor. He was rejected, 
 reviled, crucified, and yet came off more than 
 conqueror. So it is with His servants, and the 
 adversary has no more power to overthrow them 
 and their work than he had when he tempted 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 41 
 
 Christ, and was foiled by Him. If we take a 
 practical view of the principles upon which the 
 social and political life of nations and individuals 
 rests, it will be seen that the foundation which 
 supports Christianity is not the base on which the 
 world's principles are built. Therefore the actions in 
 which the world's principles are embodied are always 
 shifting, and the history of the world, as illustrated 
 by the rise and fall of nations, is not a record of 
 steady growth, but of alternating progression and 
 retrogression. Everywhere men are clamouring 
 for change. There is no fixity of purpose, no co- 
 hesion of the conflicting elements which every year 
 increase the gigantic warlike armaments that are 
 necessary, it is said, to preserve peace among nations. 
 That statement is in itself a proof that 'there is 
 something rotten in the state of Denmark.' Truth 
 has a coherent power in itself ; it is steadfast and 
 immovable, and all that is based upon it makes for 
 peace and not for war. It creates order, not con- 
 fusion, and the light that radiates from it dispels 
 the mists and vapours which in every age have 
 gathered round the false. 
 
 If proof were needed of the imminent danger of 
 elevating a false standard, we have but to glance at 
 the history of democracy on the one hand, and of 
 autocracy on the other ; for both are subversive of 
 the golden rule, ' Do unto others as you would 
 have others do unto you.' The two extremes meet, 
 
42 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 and the autocrat and the democrat are scarcely 
 divided in principle by a hair's breadth. The social 
 democrat would lower everything to his own level, 
 and the autocrat would do the same. Each would 
 be guided by the same principle — that of subju- 
 gating all to his own will. The problem to be 
 solved is not an easy one, unless in answering the 
 question, 'What is to be done when all men are 
 agitating for change ' ? we go back to first prin- 
 ciples, and start afresh on the basis of truth. In 
 order to make this possible man must be taught to 
 know himself, and to realize that he is something 
 more than that which he seems to be; and that there 
 is a purpose for his being, and a work for him to do, 
 for which this life is preparing him. The moment 
 a human being faces the questions, ' Whence came 
 I?' 'What am I?' 'Where do I go?' he is compelled 
 against his will to admit that, apart from Revelation, 
 his only answer to the first and last questions must 
 be, ' I do not know.' To the middle question the 
 only answer he could give would be, ' I am a man.' 
 Then arises the question, ' What is man ?' The 
 Holy Scriptures, which agnostics regard as fables, 
 tell us what man is, whence he came, why he is 
 placed in this great earthly school, and whither he 
 will go when his lessons are learned. Again, if the 
 question, ' What is man ?' is asked of history, the 
 answer is given by pointing to Christ ; to His 
 words, His works, His life from the cradle to the 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 43 
 
 cross. He is the perfect Man, the express image 
 of the Father, and because He is Man, He claims 
 us for His own, and, fallen as we are, He calls us 
 His ' brother,' and ' sister,' and ' mother.' Nay, 
 more, his ' bride,' for whom He laid down His life. 
 Ask of one who never heard of Christ, or who, 
 having heard, has rejected Him, 'What is man?' 
 and he can but point to himself, to his wonderfully- 
 made body, which is soon to be resolved into the 
 elements out of which it was framed. There is no 
 past, no future. He is what he is for a moment of 
 time. He may be a giant in intellect, a model of 
 morality, a lover of all that is great and good ; he 
 may be a favourite of fortune, a king among men, 
 or he may be the opposite of all this, born into the 
 world only to suffer. What in either case does 
 it matter when the decree goes forth, 'Ashes to 
 ashes, dust to dust ' ? If no part of man is immortal, 
 it is better for him never to have been. 
 
 If man would learn to know himself first, and 
 that part of the universe which is within reach of 
 his limited faculties next, there would be less 
 agnosticism and more wisdom, less pride and more 
 humility ; for knowledge of self, while showing man- 
 his transcendent greatness and his limitless capa- 
 bilities, as made in the image of God, also teaches 
 him his infinite littleness in his fallen state, and 
 shows him what the higher part of his nature, the ] 
 'inner man,' has to do during the school life of | 
 
44 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 earth, before he can recover all that for him Adam 
 lost. To do this he must keep up a continual war- 
 fare against sin, for though Christ, by the sacrifice 
 of Himself as man, has redeemed man, and opened 
 for him a new and living way to heaven, man has 
 ' now, as in old time, to choose the good and refuse 
 the evil ; in short, he must work out his own salva- 
 tion in God's appointed way. It is man's high 
 privilege to be a worker with God, not a machine 
 worked by God ; otherwise man would be little 
 more than a pen in the hand of the writer, or the 
 clod beneath his feet. The great need of the 
 present day is a realization of the fact, that what is 
 called ' the supernatural ' is as real as the natural, 
 and that the visible universe is but the embodi- 
 ment of God's mind, just as music and painting 
 are the embodiments of man's thoughts. Words 
 are, after all, but clumsy things, but we have to 
 use them. They serve our purpose well as long as 
 they treat of the visible and material world, but the 
 moment we touch the great unseen world, words 
 fail us. We only know what electricity is by its 
 effects ; we make use of what we cannot see, we 
 grasp what we cannot feel. We live and move and 
 have our being by a power of which we know 
 nothing — a power or principle which we can con- 
 trol and subjugate to our will, and so far it is our 
 own. We know that it is; but the cause is known 
 to God only. It is an extension of His own life- 
 
THE REALITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL 45 
 
 giving and creative power, and the fact that it is of 
 Him, and from Him, making us one with Him, 
 constitutes our greatness. The knowledge of this 
 fact must tend to make man feel that he is a re- 
 sponsible being, created not for time only but also 
 for eternity, and until men and women are taught 
 to know themselves, and to realize their position 
 in creation, individuals and nations will live and act 
 for this world only. The ruler of the powers of 
 darkness knows well that he can best succeed in 
 deceiving man by leading him to ignore and to 
 deny the unseen, and to believe only in what he 
 can see and understand ; thus losing sight of who 
 and what he really is. As sons of God men belong 
 to two worlds, the material and the so-called, by way 
 of distinction, immaterial. While incarnate they 
 have to do with the material world in which for a 
 few years they live and work ; and if they realized, 
 as God would have them do, that the ' inner man ' 
 controls and regulates the outer man, and lives on ] 
 when the other dies, they would soon cease to scoff 
 at the supernatural as but a phantasy of the diseased 
 brain, and at the belief in it as only a deteriorating 
 superstition. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GREAT SACRAMENT — GOD IN NATURE. 
 
 A great sacrament is a great mystery. When 
 God willed the union of spirit and matter, He em- 
 bodied His creative power in countless organisms 
 during the successive ages which are referred to in 
 the first book of Holy Scripture. Through those ages 
 each chapter of the Book of Nature was developed 
 from the minutest particle of which matter is 
 composed until the work of creation was finished, 
 and was declared by the Creator to be ■ very 
 good.' Order had taken the place of chaos. 
 Earth, and sea, and sky were fashioned after the 
 mind of the great Artificer. Suns and stars were 
 set in the firmament. The fowls of the air, the 
 fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the earth were 
 made ; and then the Council of the Trinity decreed 
 that man should be created in the image of God, 
 and that he should be lord of creation, and have 
 dominion over all the earth. When the heavens 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 47 
 
 and the earth were finished, and all the host of 
 them, and God saw that all was good, and that His 
 work of creation was ended, He rested from all 
 His work which He had made. It was all perfect 
 then, and all His work is perfect now ; for God is 
 as unchangeable in His works and purpose as He 
 is unchangeable in Himself. Every page of the 
 Book of Nature tells only of perfection — perfection 
 in the smallest as in the greatest things. Man 
 speaks of things as being ' great ' and ' small,' but 
 when he finds in the minutest atom which the 
 most powerful microscope can show him a perfect 
 adaptation to place and use, and sees in the 
 smallest organism as much design as in what man 
 calls the ' noblest works in creation,' he can but 
 feel that there is nothing really great or small in 
 God's sight. God made and sustains everything. 
 The smallest crystal in the granite rock, the mote 
 seen in the sunbeam, are as truly maintained in 
 their position by Almighty Power as are the stars in 
 their orbits ; and man is taught that, as concerning 
 his body, the hairs of his head are numbered, and 
 as concerning the divine part of his nature, that he 
 can be enlightened and guided by the Holy Spirit. 
 ' Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
 and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are 
 His judgments, and His ways past finding out.' 
 1 Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, 
 and the son of man that Thou visitest him ? For 
 
48 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, 
 and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 
 Thou madest him to have dominion over the 
 works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things 
 under his feet.' 
 
 God had sown good seed in the field of the 
 universe, but an enemy sowed tares among the 
 wheat. Evil entered the garden, and the trail of 
 the serpent blighted the fairest flowers. From the 
 moment that God breathed life into the human 
 frame which He had made, man became a living 
 soul ; and then evil, the opposite of good, strove, 
 and has striven through the ages, to prevent the 
 union of spirit and matter, and to break off the 
 relations between man and his Maker. Evil has 
 so far succeeded as to make the history of man on 
 earth appear to be a series of damaged links, though 
 \ the golden chain of Divine love still binds the 
 creature to his Creator. 
 
 When contemplating the material universe as the 
 outward and visible sign of the Creator, man 
 begins to know himself. He may learn, in the 
 presence of the ' Great Sacrament,' what he is, as 
 the crown of creation and the son of God. His 
 mortal body is a temple in which the Holy Ghost 
 may dwell. It is the Spirit of God which enables 
 man to rejoice in the glories around him in nature, 
 and causes a thrill of pleasure to pass through his 
 being when some harmonious chord is heard. 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 49 
 
 Man may realize that though disease and death 
 destroy the material part of his nature, they cannot 
 touch the divine part. Nevertheless the spirit of, 
 man is often cast down, for while feeling that he 
 has within him infinite capacities for acquiring 
 knowledge, and attaining noble things, the limita- 
 tions of time, and the hindering circumstances of 
 his natural life, stay his onward march, fetter his 
 hands, and put a drag on his loftiest imaginations 
 and aspirations. As St. Paul says, he does but 
 ' see through a glass darkly.' And the man who 
 knows himself feels that it is best for him, so long 
 as he has to live in a mortal tabernacle, and fight 
 against the powers of darkness, not to have the 
 perfection of the unseen universe laid quite bare 
 before him. If it were, how could he look upon 
 the world which sin has defiled, and upon the lives 
 of the majority of men and women, without loath- 
 ing and despair taking the place of faith and good 
 works ? 
 
 As human, man falters, and often falls ; he slips, 
 his heart fails, clouds obscure his mind, the atmo- 
 sphere around him is hazy, and he can scarcely see 
 his way. Then it is that the divine part of his 
 nature asserts its supremacy, and comes to his aid ; 
 and with the prayer on his lips : 
 
 1 Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 
 Lead Thou me on,' 
 
 he perseveres ; he knows that he is 'far from home,' 
 
 4 
 
50 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 but he knows also that the narrow way of the 
 Cross leads straight to the Golden City ; and he 
 prays the more earnestly : 
 
 * Lead Thou me on. 
 Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me.' 
 
 It may be that the ' one step ' will lead the mind 
 from Nature up to Nature's God ; or it may enable 
 man to fix the eye of the soul upon God as He 
 was in the beginning, when the Son was ' in the 
 bosom of the Father,' before the ' Spirit moved 
 upon the face of the waters,' and the decree went 
 forth, ' Let there be light.' The eye involuntarily 
 closes for a moment, and the whole man is bowed 
 down with a sense of reverential awe, as he realizes 
 that a created being can be drawn so near to the 
 Eternal as to be able to concentrate thought upon 
 Him, ' whom no man hath seen or can see,' save 
 only the God-man, who has declared Him and 
 manifested Him unto the world. God has said : 
 ' I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also 
 that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive 
 the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of 
 the contrite ones.' When, in the 'fulness of time,' 
 the Hypostatic Union of God and man was con- 
 summated, and the ' Light that lighteth every man 
 coming into the world ' was manifested in the 
 person of Jesus Christ, great boldness of access 
 was given to man ; now he soars like the eagle, 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 51 
 
 and from resting on the Saviour's breast, he ascends 
 in spirit; stands before the throne of the Alpha 
 and Omega, and hears again the old and familiar 
 words, ' Fear not.' Now, as in earlier days, the 
 man whose soul is divinely illuminated penetrates 
 to the presence-chamber of God, and there learns 
 to know Him better, and to love Him more. 
 
 Great indeed is the ' Mystery of Godliness.' 
 The more lowly-minded a man becomes, the more 
 is he exalted ; and as he repeats the words of 
 saints and prophets, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the 
 Lord of Hosts : the whole earth is full of His 
 glory : Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, 
 which was, and is, and is to come,' he is not 
 utterly cast down • even in the depths of his 
 humility he can contemplate the ever-blessed 
 Trinity ; for the Third Person of the Triune God 
 has taught him that the high and lofty One is not 
 far from him, and that the Second Person of the 
 Trinity has effected an indissoluble union between 1 
 him and his Maker. In that presence-chamber he 
 learns that God is Truth, steadfast and unchange- 
 able ; and He has said that man shall one day 
 ' know even as he is known.' In that day each 
 immortal soul will see that from the grand centre, 
 glowing with the fire of love, the rays of truth 
 fell on men's minds and hearts as the Ruler of all 
 judged best, fitting them to do their appointed 
 work in the world. Just as certainly as a ray of 
 
52 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 light is decomposed into seven primary colours, 
 when it is refracted through a prism, so each phase 
 of truth, partially apprehended though it may be 
 by man, will, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, 
 become re-moulded and fitted in with other truths, 
 so that the whole truth will shine forth and appear, 
 even in this life, to him who seeks for truth with a 
 single eye and pure heart, one perfect whole, one 
 light-giving centre. That centre is the Holy 
 Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ; ' the 
 Father made of none, neither created nor be- 
 gotten : the Son of the Father alone, not made, 
 nor created, but begotten : the Holy Ghost of the 
 Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, 
 nor begotten, but proceeding : and in this Trinity 
 none is afore, or after another : none is greater or 
 less than another; but the whole three persons 
 are co- eternal together, and co-equal.' There 
 is none like unto this Lord God Almighty, who 
 'clothes Himself with light as with a garment,' and 
 1 dwelleth in the light which no man can approach 
 unto.' 
 
 Creation declares God to be omnipotent, and 
 lest the people whom He had chosen out of the 
 nations to be witnesses for Him, and to whom He 
 had said, ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
 and Him only shalt thou serve,' should forget the 
 Creator when contemplating creation, and rob God 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 53 
 
 of His glory when regarding the glories around 
 them, He warned them to 'take heed,' lest, when 
 they lifted up their eyes to heaven, and gazed upon 
 the sun and moon and stars, and on all the hosts of 
 heaven, they should be driven to worship them. 
 'I will not give my glory to another,' saith the 
 Lord. 'God is a Spirit.' Of that Spirit He has 
 imparted unto man, and ' in spirit and in truth ' 
 man must worship Him. It is derogatory to man 
 to worship any created thing, for God has said to 
 him, c Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends 
 of the earth ; for I am God, and there is none else. 
 I have sworn by Myself; the word is gone out of My 
 mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that 
 unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall 
 swear.' ' For thy Maker is thine husband ; the 
 Lord of hosts is His name ; and thy Redeemer the 
 Holy One of Israel ; the God of the whole earth 
 shall He be called.' Before this great and mighty 
 God, the man who realizes his birthright privileges, 
 and his wonderful tripartite nature, will not, if true 
 to himself, be content with less than worshipping 
 God with his whole being. He cannot cast a crown at 
 the feet of the King of Kings, as St. John saw the 
 elders in heaven cast their crowns before the throne, 
 when they worshipped Him who sat on the throne, 
 for man is not yet crowned ; but when he would 
 lift up his heart in prayer, he can, and he ought, 
 to fall down upon his knees before the mercy-seat. 
 
54 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 He cannot with his bodily eye see the Son of Man 
 in glory, as St. John did, when he fell at His feet 
 as one dead ; but he can and ought to prostrate his 
 whole being before the hidden God of the Eucharist ; 
 for there, on the altars of His Church on earth, the 
 Son of Mary is, under the forms of bread and wine. 
 1 This is the bread which cometh down from 
 heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 
 I am the living bread which came down from 
 heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live 
 for ever : and the bread that I will give is My flesh, 
 which I will give for the life of the world. Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the 
 Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life 
 in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My 
 blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at 
 the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My 
 blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, 
 and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in 
 him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I 
 live by the Father ; so he that eateth Me, even he 
 shall live by Me.' ■ Hath He said, and shall He 
 not do it ?' ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world,' was the Saviour's promise to 
 the early Church, and all true and faithful mem- 
 bers of His body believe that though heaven and 
 earth may pass away, His words shall not pass 
 away. 
 
 Few thinkers will deny that there is something 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 55 
 
 within them which is distinct from the evidences in 
 Nature that are apprehended by the senses. This 
 inward witness tells that God is, and, indeed, must 
 be. What is this inward witness? It is no part of our 
 material being. The natural body is but its environ- 
 ment. It is God's Spirit within man, testifying to 
 the union of God and Man, and of the reality of 
 the unseen. The recognition of this fact naturally 
 leads to the exercise of the human intellect in the 
 study of Nature; and in it, all who allow the higher 
 part of their nature to guide them, find not only 
 proofs of the existence of God, but revelations of 
 His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. 
 Science is but the unfolder and expounder of the 
 attributes of Jehovah. When science has measured 
 the distance which separates suns and planets ; 
 analyzed a flower or a crystal ; or explained the 
 nature of the laws which govern our world, what 
 has science done save show man more clearly the 
 Creator and Lawgiver who made all and orders all? 
 The thing that is made proclaims its Maker ; the 
 laws of Nature declare a Lawgiver ; but they can- 
 not take His place. God within ourselves is our 
 supreme Teacher. His still, small voice, which we 
 call conscience — that mysterious power within us 
 which directs and controls our apprehension of 
 what is morally right — reveals the Creator as dis- 
 tinct from creation. It is this inward light, illumi- 
 nating the ethical part of man's nature, which 
 
56 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 enables him to realize the darkness of evil, the 
 power of that free-will which he possesses, and his 
 consequent moral responsibility. Made in the 
 image of God, he can discern between good and 
 evil, and he knows that he has the power to choose 
 between good and evil. Just as light causes us to 
 apprehend what darkness is, so goodness demon- 
 strates what evil is. Man, enlightened by the Holy 
 Spirit, can know God apart from the teachings of 
 material nature. He who chooses the good part, 
 shrinks from evil, and yearns after that which is 
 good. His own spirit enables him to form true 
 conceptions of God's attributes, although those 
 conceptions are at best but shadows of the great 
 reality. Our first conception of God is that He is 
 perfect. What, then, is perfection ? It is that to 
 which nothing can be added, and from which 
 nothing can be subtracted. In a perfect being, 
 the attributes of justice, mercy, and love must be 
 co-equal, and not an atom must be allowed to pre- 
 ponderate in either so as to affect the perfect 
 balance of the three. Omniscience holds the 
 scales, hence the equal balance. When to omni- 
 science we add omnipresence and omnipotence, 
 and meditate upon the meaning of these words, 
 reason enables us to apprehend the perfection of 
 the Supreme Being, who permits us to address Him 
 as ' Our Father.' We find ourselves, as it were, 
 standing at the source of a great river. We see the 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 57 
 
 water issuing from the earth, bubbling up from its 
 unknown depths : we trace its course, and see it 
 widening and deepening as it rolls on towards the 
 ocean. At the meeting of the waters we lose sight 
 of the river, but it is not lost ; it has but united 
 itself with the sea. The man who, while sailing 
 down the stream of Time, contemplates the Divine 
 Author of both spirit and matter, feels that he is 
 gliding on towards the ocean of God's love, and 
 that his spirit is returning to the God who gave it, 
 to live for ever with angels, and archangels, and the 
 ' spirits of just men made perfect ' in the eternal 
 spheres. 
 
 Once more, let us go back to the time when man 
 was not, and learn, from what preceded his crea- 
 tion, the lesson that can also be learned from 
 every page of the history of man. It is a lesson 
 that each individual act of self-sacrifice illustrates, 
 and each illustration proves the power that is exer- 
 cised by spirit over matter, and testifies to the 
 reality of the supernatural. The logic of facts 
 suffices to prove that sacrifice is the offspring of 
 love. Enthroned in sublime isolation, the Eternal 
 Trinity held the first council. What was its sub- . 
 ject ? The creation of man. The Father, the Son 
 and the Holy Ghost took counsel together ere man 
 was made. Angels, principalities and powers were 
 willed into existence ; countless worlds were 
 created; and when the foundations of the earth 
 
58 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 were laid, the ' morning stars sang together, and all 
 the sons of God shouted for joy.' Why? When 
 this world was to become a great battle-field, a 
 great grave-yard, why should other worlds rejoice, 
 and the angels sing ? Only to the ' Three Persons 
 in one God ' could have been known Earth's 
 history ; but when its Corner-stone was laid, the 
 sacrifice of the Son was virtually made, and the 
 divine love in a sublime sacrifice filled all creation. 
 This ' mystery of God ' was hidden, until God's 
 own time for revealing came ; but, as it is written, 
 1 before they call, I will answer,' so, before man was 
 created or had fallen, the Saviour was ready, the 
 Sacrifice for sin prepared, and the ' Gloria in 
 Excelsis ' was sung in heaven long before the angels 
 were sent to sing it on earth. All was known to 
 the Holy Trinity : man's disobedience in Eden ; 
 all the sin and all the suffering caused by sin ; 
 the outer and the inner life of each human being 
 that should be born into the world, every thought, 
 word and deed of each was known ; all were seen 
 in the light which proceeds from the Author of 
 Light : and yet the creation of man was decreed. 
 
 We are not told that love is one of God's attributes, 
 but that ' God is love '; and this helps us to under- 
 stand how it is that laying the Corner-stone of what 
 was to become a battle-field of woe was the cause of 
 rejoicing throughout God's creation ; for, in that 
 world of strife, Love was to be sacrificed, in the 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 59 
 
 Person of Jesus Christ, in order that man might be 
 restored to the image of God, and live for ever with 
 Him. Christ took our flesh so that He might be 
 like us in all things, sin excepted ; and if we would 
 be like Him in glory, we must be conformed to 
 Him, and follow in His footprints through our 
 valley of humiliation. He is the ' Way, the Truth 
 and the Life.' From the cradle to the cross He 
 lived the life of ordinary humanity ; His divinity 
 was veiled, but it was not hidden, save from those 
 whom the ' God of this world had blinded.' Each 
 of His disciples is a living sacrament, as He was, and 
 still is, on earth, and all who are travelling along the 
 road their Saviour trod, manifest in their works and 
 conversation, in varying degrees, the same traits of 
 character as those which the God-man manifested 
 in perfection. Truth and equity in their dealings 
 with their fellow-men ; purity of life, charity to- 
 wards those who are in need ; courtesy and kind- 
 ness to all ; ' love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
 ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,' dis- 
 tinguish them from those who live after the flesh ; 
 and those fruits of the Spirit prove their sonship, 
 and their oneness with the Divine Son. They are 
 manifestations of the divine, indwelling Spirit, and 
 are no more of earth than the works of the flesh 
 are of God. All Christian virtues are consum- 
 mated in self-sacrifice, and in entire submission to 
 the Divine Will. So it is that we learn of God, by 
 
6o THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the presence of His free Spirit within us, and we 
 are led by the Spirit to study Nature and to find 
 God everywhere. 
 
 ' Thine, O Lord, is the kingdom, 
 Thine the glory and power ; 
 Thou hast kindled the starlight, 
 Thou hast moulded the flower. 
 
 ' All things live by Thy presence, 
 
 All things obey Thy will ; 
 As the waters the ocean, 
 Earth Thy glory shall fill. 
 
 ' Thou art the Father of spirits, 
 
 Thought is begotten of Thee ; 
 In Thine image begotten, 
 Glorious, boundless, and free. 
 
 ' When its freedom transgressing, 
 Out of Thy ways hath strayed, 
 Thou hast provided redemption, 
 Thou hast atonement made. 
 
 ' Rolls this universe onward, 
 
 Circling the foot of Thy throne ; 
 Matter, and life, and spirit, 
 Guided by Thee alone. 
 
 ' Righteous are all Thy judgments, 
 Perfect are all Thy ways. 
 Who shall worthily serve Thee? 
 Who shall utter Thy praise ? 
 
 1 Therefore in peril and sorrow, 
 
 Therefore in joy's bright hour, 
 Thine, O Lord, is the kingdom, 
 Thine the glory and power.' 
 
 Although God is everywhere present, man, from 
 his temporary home on earth, instinctively raises 
 his eyes to heaven when he prays to his Father, for 
 in the highest heaven, wherever that may be, is the 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 61 
 
 throne of God, and there Jesus of Nazareth now is. 
 When contemplating God in His works, one of 
 man's first thoughts concerns the glory of the 
 firmament ! In the deep blue vault of space are 
 the innumerable suns and planets which, in their 
 ceaseless movements, are ever telling the story of 
 Almighty power. The finite is lost in infinity as 
 the fact is borne in upon the mind that this grand 
 array of stellar worlds is only the outward and 
 visible sign of the unseen reality, the material 
 manifestation of the Creator. It is at such 
 moments that the Great Sacrament is seen to be 
 man's ultima Thule, as it is also his beginning. 
 The magnitude of the stupendous whole impresses 
 him when he reflects that this world is but a 
 small body in the solar system. That system, con- 
 sisting as it does of the sun with its attendant planets 
 and asteroids, and the satellites of those planets, is 
 but as a grain of sand upon the sea-shore, com- 
 pared with the illimitable universe. Then, too, it 
 is that he apprehends his own intellectual power, 
 as it is shown in the invention of instruments which 
 enable him to bring within his range of vision 
 legions of stars which cannot be numbered; for 
 when man has counted the 6,000 stars that are 
 visible to the naked eye, the telescope will reveal 
 to him myriads of other luminous orbs ; and he 
 will learn that the stars which we can see at night 
 are really suns, each the centre of attraction for a 
 
62 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 j whole galaxy of planets and satellites, which re- 
 volve around them. 
 
 The heaven-born genius that taught man how to 
 make the telescope, has enabled him also to calcu- 
 late the distance from the earth of those far-off 
 worlds which have been thus revealed to him. 
 Astronomers tell us that the distance between the 
 earth and the sun is 38,000,000 leagues; that 
 light travels 77,000 leagues in a second; therefore 
 light from the sun takes seven minutes and thirteen 
 seconds to reach the earth. Taking the distance 
 between the earth and the sun as a standard of 
 measurement, or unit, they compute the distance 
 of one of the stars nearest to us to be 55 1,000 times 
 our unit, and, supposing the light from this star in 
 the constellation of the Swan to travel 77,000 leagues 
 in a second, it would take nine and a half years 
 to reach the earth. The polar star being distant 
 from the earth 3,678,000 times that of the sun, 
 the time occupied in the transit of light from that 
 brilliant orb is fifty years : and when we consider 
 that these and other splendid suns are the nearest 
 to us, and are called stars of the first or second 
 magnitude on account, not of their size, but of 
 their brilliance, and then call to mind the fact 
 that man can estimate the distance of telescopic 
 stars of the fourteenth magnitude, whose light 
 would take 100,000 years to reach the earth, we 
 can account for man's power by believing what 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 63 
 
 revelation teaches, that we are made in the image 
 of God ; and, as His children, are endowed with a 
 portion of His own spirit of wisdom and know- 
 ledge. He who made the eye limited its power of 
 sight as, in His wisdom, He saw was best for man 
 on the whole, but, as if to prove to the wise that 
 the invisible is greater than the visible, and that 
 spirit reigns over and controls matter, He endowed 
 earnest seekers after truth with faculties which 
 enable them to extend the power of sight, so as to 
 bring within view 56 millions of suns; and as- 
 tronomers only stop at that inconceivable number, 
 because no telescope is powerful enough to enable 
 them to see smaller stars than those of the four- 
 teenth magnitude. Herschel, who examined the 
 whole extent of what is called the Milky Way, esti- 
 mated the number of stars in that vast nebula at 
 18,000,000. The length of the Milky Way has 
 been estimated to be from 700 to 800 times the 
 distance from Sirius to the sun, a distance which 
 is 1,373,000 times that from the earth to the sun ; 
 so that a ray of light from a star at one extremity 
 would take 15,000 years to reach one at the other 
 extremity. 
 
 The mind is bewildered by thus dwelling upon 
 what the telescope reveals. We see so far into the 
 boundless depths of infinite space that we begin 
 to understand what infinity means. We feel that 
 we are ' fearfully and wonderfully made,' when the 
 
64 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 thought comes home to us, that the human intel- 
 lect has enabled man to make an instrument which 
 discloses wonders that overwhelm the imagination. 
 He feels exultant, but his own greatness is an awe- 
 inspiring fact to the Christian Philosopher, and his 
 spirit bows down before the Giver of intellect in 
 lowliest self-abasement and adoration. We know 
 not yet what vaster fields for science to explore 
 may be opened out to man ; but we do know that, 
 in the highest sense, his faculty is infinite ; there is 
 no limit to his attainments, even during the period 
 of his mortal life. He may, and probably he will, 
 go on soaring higher and higher, if only as he 
 ascends he remembers his Creator, and keeps a 
 firm hold of that chain which anchors him to the 
 Rock of Ages. But if he let that slip from him, 
 he will, notwithstanding all his great power, be 
 but as a flashing meteor or a falling star. If man 
 forgets God, and will believe in nothing higher 
 than himself, then, however high-souled and lofty- 
 minded he may be ; to whatever height he may 
 build up his knowledge, and however firmly he 
 may fix each stone and set each jewel of his build- 
 ing by so-called facts and clear demonstrations, 
 he, having no inherent self-sustaining power, will 
 certainly fall like Lucifer at last, and have to learn 
 concerning God in the bitter experiences of another 
 stage of his existence. 
 
 Mighty as the power of God is seen to be in the 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 65 
 
 mystery of the million stars, we may gain a yet 
 more exalted idea of His creative power by a 
 study of the infinitely small. Each minute part of 
 inanimate nature testifies to the skill and design of 
 a Master-mind. The microscope demonstrates the 
 perfection of infinitesimal particles up to that point 
 where the microscope fails to disclose yet smaller 
 things, as the telescope fails at a certain point to 
 show us worlds beyond a measurable distance in 
 space. ' Be still, and know that I am God,' is the 
 voice of Revelation. All Creation echoes the 
 words from height to height, and from depth to 
 depth. Man's yearning to comprehend the incom- 
 prehensible cannot be satisfied in time. The ulti- 
 mate of the microcosm as of the macrocosm is at 
 present inconceivable. Man's investigations both 
 of the seen and unseen universe can only end as 
 they began, with God. 
 
 A geologist,* whose microscopic study of the 
 rocks has made him eminent in that department of 
 science, remarks, { It is only recently that micro- 
 scopical investigations have revealed the existence 
 of extremely beautiful objects in many of the 
 common rocks with which our country roads, and 
 the streets of our towns, are paved and repaired. 
 Black or dark gray stones of the most ordinary 
 and unattractive appearance are found to be en- 
 tirely composed of minute brilliant crystals whose 
 * S. Allport, Esq., F.G.S. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 forms and colours correspond precisely with some 
 of the larger specimens to be seen in our museums, 
 or other collections of minerals. These micro- 
 scopic crystals are, however, transparent, and ex- 
 hibit far brighter colours than the corresponding 
 larger and opaque specimens. The great beauty 
 exhibited by a thin slice of one of these rocks is 
 by no means confined to the minerals of which it 
 is composed ; in fact, the structure of the rock, as 
 seen in the way in which the constituents are 
 arranged and grouped together, is as interesting 
 and important as it is beautiful. In some rocks 
 three or four different minerals are seen to be 
 scattered irregularly throughout the mass ; in others 
 two intercrystallized on a definite plan : or again, 
 minute crystals of one kind only are grouped to- 
 gether in rosettes, or even aggregated in such a 
 manner as to form the most striking resemblance 
 to certain vegetable forms of growth. Doubtless 
 the form of each individual crystal is determined 
 by definite laws of crystallization, but the arrange- 
 ment of vast numbers of these minute bodies in 
 the well-defined symmetrical groups just mentioned 
 still remains an unsolved problem.' 
 
 There is not, perhaps, in the whole range of 
 science a branch that more emphatically proclaims 
 the existence of a Lawgiver than crystallography 
 does. Even a superficial knowledge of the crystal- 
 line relations of forms, and the classification of 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 67 
 
 crystals, or the most cursory examination of the 
 definite and symmetrical forms assigned to each, 
 leads to the inevitable conclusion that they are 
 moulded with mathematical precision, into the 
 various forms peculiar to certain substances, by 
 unvarying laws. A spirit of philosophical pagan- 
 ism may be satisfied that the working of unchang- 
 ing laws through unknown ages is the outcome of 
 fortuitous combinations, but the unbiased mind of 
 man recognises that laws are not, and cannot be, 
 self-executive, and that the existence of orderly 
 laws of nature proves the thought and the will of a 
 Lawmaker. To write even an elementary epitome 
 of any branch of science is not necessary in the 
 attempt which is here made to prove the reality of 
 the supernatural. The present purpose is to 
 demonstrate to those who have not, in these days 
 of fierce competition for the means of existence, 
 time to study and to think for themselves, that the 
 material world is but the casket which holds the 
 real crown of creation ; the mortal body does but 
 form an environment for the immortal soul. The 
 vital energy, which some men substitute for God, 
 is but the result of the active volition of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 A few illustrations may, however, be given of the 
 evident design, and the geometrical precision, which 
 are to be met with in the crystal world. 
 
 When looking over a collection of crystals, the 
 
68 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 first impression would come from their brilliance and 
 beauty ; the next feeling would be one of wonder 
 at the great variety of the forms j these, however, 
 according to the classification adopted by miner- 
 alogists, may be arranged in six well-defined 
 systems. The primary forms of all known crystals 
 are few, but the secondary ascertained forms of 
 crystals are so numerous that no limit can be 
 assigned to them. In one of the minerals, car- 
 bonate of lime, they amount to many hundreds ; 
 and mineralogists assert that ' thousands, and tens 
 of thousands, more might occur under the opera- 
 tion of known and definite laws, so that all the 
 alterations of figure which any given primary form 
 can undergo might be determined a priori, if the 
 extreme limits of the relative proportions of the 
 edges considered to be cut off in producing new 
 planes were known. Within well-ascertained limits, 
 however, many thousands of possible secondary 
 forms, belonging to each kind of primary, might be 
 determined with absolute precision. The exact 
 relations among primary and secondary forms may 
 be determined mathematically, sometimes from 
 measurement, and sometimes from parallelisms 
 between certain edges of the secondary figures ; 
 and the mathematical processes may be either those 
 of plane trigonometry, as applied by Haiiy, or 
 spherical trigonometry, as used by other authors ; 
 or analytical geometry, as applied by Professor 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 69 
 
 Whewell in a paper in the 'Phil. Trans.' for 1825 ; 
 or by referring the planes of the crystal to the sur- 
 face of a sphere, and denoting their positions 
 stereographically, as shown in a paper by Pro- 
 fessor Miller, of Cambridge, in the Lo?idon and 
 Edinburgh Phil. Mag. of February, 1835.' 
 
 These quotations on the formation of crystals, 
 proving as they do the continuous working of an 
 invariable law in the production of certain figures, 
 are interesting even if the mind pursue the subject 
 no further ; but when the extreme slowness of 
 natural crystallization is considered in connection 
 with the construction of early crystalline rocks ; 
 when geologists point to the marvellously beautiful 
 crystallized minerals embedded long ages ago in 
 rocks that were ancient in prehistoric time ; when 
 we fix the mind's eye upon the grand range of 
 basaltic columns, known as the ' Giants' Cause- 
 way,' or stand in imagination in ' Fingal's Cave,' 
 thought takes a wider and a higher flight, back 
 into the unknown past, forward into the unknown 
 future ; and the man of science who believes that 
 the God of the universe is His own eternal Father, 
 made strong by that belief, is in the attitude of the 
 commander of an impregnable fortress; his armour 
 is proof against any weapon that can assail it : he 
 has a fountain of living water within his citadel 
 which never fails, for its source is the same as that 
 of the 'pure river of water of life, clear as crystal,' 
 
70 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 which St. John saw 'proceeding out of the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb '; and he is able to hold 
 his own against a host of unbelievers : ' his place 
 of defence shall be the munitions of rocks ; bread 
 shall be given him, his water shall be sure.' There- 
 fore he takes his stand in the present age of ad- 
 vanced knowledge and atheistic tendency, with 
 firm, unwavering faith, assured that the laws which 
 the crystal has taught him were governing Nature 
 in the beginning and are everlasting laws, framed to 
 keep in order the works of God while time and 
 being last. There can be no alteration in perfect 
 laws which, since they were made for a universe 
 that is composed of spirit and matter, must work 
 harmoniously, and be efficient for the purpose for 
 which they are designed. Certain as we are from 
 actual observation that the invisible sustains and 
 controls the visible, we know but little in compari- 
 son with what we shall know ; for as Carlyle has 
 said, ' All visible things are emblems. What thou 
 seest is not there on its own account; strictly 
 speaking is not there at all. Matter exists spiritually, 
 and to represent some idea, and body it forth.' It is 
 so with human speech ; words are not our thoughts, 
 and oftener than not they fail to embody our 
 thoughts. And what are our thoughts ? Whence 
 do they come ? Do they originate themselves ? 
 We must wait before we can hope to understand 
 fully ; but Christ has given us light on this deep 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 71 
 
 subject. ' Yet a little while and ye shall know that 
 I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.' 
 On these words we can rest, for they tell us that 
 1 of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all 
 things ': and that man's home is his Father's house, 
 where he will learn lessons that cannot be mastered 
 here below, and understand mysteries which, with 
 his present opportunities of acquiring knowledge, 
 are quite beyond his grasp. 
 
 The Giants' Causeway, to which reference has 
 been made, is a striking illustration of the orderly 
 arrangements of Nature. The compact texture of 
 the basalt is a feature of the rock which is chiefly 
 interesting on account of its columnar structure. 
 The columns range in height from twenty to thirty 
 feet, and form colonnades for a distance of nearly 
 three miles. Some of these columns are penta- 
 gonal, others are three, four and six sided ; each 
 column is distinct from its neighbour, yet they are 
 so close together that it is difficult to insert a knife 
 between them. The most commanding series cf 
 columns, stretching out into the sea, is from twenty 
 to forty feet broad. There they stand, like sentinels 
 at their post, forming a grand breastwork, against 
 which the wild waves of the ocean in the succes- 
 sive storms of the ages have dashed in vain. The 
 ebb and flow of the tides have washed some of the 
 columns from their original position, but the stu- 
 pendous mass — which was believed in far-orT days to 
 
72 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 be the work of a race of giants that had once in- 
 habited the island — still remains. Travellers tell 
 us that the most magnificent instance of basaltic 
 formation occurs in the Oregon country, where the 
 Columbia flows through the Rocky Mountains. 
 There the explorer may see walls presenting ' suc- 
 cessive rows of greenstone and basaltic columns, 
 superimposed upon each other, divided by narrow 
 horizontal beds of different composition,' towering 
 above him from four hundred to one thousand feet 
 in height. 
 
 We now direct attention to specimens of the 
 crystal kingdom which are found in deep caverns.* 
 In those dark places, where no ray of sunlight can 
 find entrance, are the most wonderful varieties of 
 crystals and stalactites. The hidden recesses of 
 a range of mountain limestone have their arched 
 roofs decorated with glistening pendants, and their 
 walls covered with brilliant crystals, some pure 
 transparent white, others tinted with bright and 
 beautiful colours. There, too, may be seen huge 
 
 * These caverns, which occur in many limestone districts, 
 have been formed by the long-continued percolation of surface 
 water, which, by dissolving and removing portions of the 
 carbonate of lime, has gradually produced underground 
 channels and caverns ; and during the lapse of ages the 
 stalactites and groups of crystals, which now adorn the walls 
 and sides of the cavities, have been slowly formed by the 
 crystallization of the substances held in solution. The greater 
 part of the beautiful minerals found in veins and cavities have 
 crystallized out from various solutions, and have, therefore, 
 quite a different origin from those found in igneous rocks. 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 73 
 
 stalactites, forming pillars which are perfect from 
 floor to roof ; here and there is a screen, adorned 
 with Gothic tracery, or a pendant curtain, almost 
 transparent, and falling in natural folds. No words 
 can give more than a faint idea of the beauty of 
 these caverns ; and then, what a history each crystal 
 has ! What was it before it took a solid form ? 
 We are told that darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep before the ' Spirit of God moved upon the 
 face of the waters '; that the decree went forth, 
 ' Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to- 
 gether unto one p^ce, and let the dry land appear, 
 and it was so ' ; that on the fourth day, God made 
 two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, 
 and the lesser light to rule the night.' When the 
 time came that the Lord God caused it to rain upon 
 the earth, the sunbeams did their beneficent work, 
 drawing up countless drops from the ocean, dew- 
 drops from the moistened earth, and rain-drops 
 from the green things and flowers into the higher 
 realm of creation, where they expanded and became 
 ethereal, roaming through space with the winds, 
 and helping to build up clouds which the sun could 
 fringe with crimson and gold. Floating in the air, 
 flecking the earth with their shadows, they waited 
 until Nature's laws caused them again to fall in 
 gentle rain, or in glittering morsels of ice, or 
 feathery snow ; some, perhaps, to be drawn up and 
 etherealized by the sunbeams, some to trickle down 
 
74 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the mountain-side into narrow crevices, passing 
 through beds of limestone and other minerals until 
 they reached their final destination and were trans- 
 formed into crystals, causing the dark mountain 
 caves to become ' things of beauty,' which should 
 declare to man the unchanging nature of the laws 
 that govern matter. 
 
 From the mountain cave let us descend to one 
 of the deep sea valleys of ancient time, for there an 
 unattractive-looking piece of stone leads us. It 
 was broken off a larger piece, and left by the 
 stone-breaker on his heap. It is a portion of the 
 fossilized remains of the orthoceratite, a member 
 of an extinct family of cephalopodous mollusca. 
 This is embedded in the stone. The orthoceratite 
 lived in a many-chambered dwelling, each chamber 
 being skilfully walled in after the little animal had 
 left it to build a larger one ; and so the structure 
 grew, until its inhabitant had attained its full size. 
 Who gave the architect the skill to build, and the 
 material of which to fashion a well-nigh imperish- 
 able dwelling-place? The orthoceratite died be- 
 neath the deep waters ; its work remained, and 
 one day a delicate, fragile creature, named lingula, 
 and considered by geologists to belong to a class 
 of animals named brachiopoda, saw that the work 
 of the orthoceratite was a foundation on which it 
 could fix itself securely by means of the fibro- 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 75 
 
 gelatinous peduncle depending from the extremity 
 of the elongated bivalve shell in which it lived, and 
 it elected to stay there. Gently moving to and fro 
 by means of its slender pedicle in the still, deep 
 waters which no tidal waves disturbed, the lingula 
 lived its little life. Meanwhile other creatures of 
 the sea, of delicate, plant-like appearance, and so 
 low in the scale of animal creation that the 
 naturalists of earlier days believed them to belong 
 to the vegetable kingdom, commenced their work. 
 These are known as anthozoa or zoophites. 
 Myriads of them began to build, and soon they 
 raised a wall of coral around the lingula, their 
 foundation being the compact, hard work of the 
 orthoceratite. The finished work of these three 
 creatures of an ancient sea has been preserved in 
 Nature's treasure-house, and illustrates one of the 
 pages of her great book ; each part is as perfect as 
 when the architects built their own dwelling-places 
 according to the design of the Master-builder. 
 Time rolled on, and when the mighty forces up- 
 heaved the mountains, the oceanic valleys in which 
 the orthocera lived became dry land ; the strata 
 below the old red system revealed to man the 
 existence of this long-extinct family, which natural- 
 ists connect on one side with nautilidae and on the 
 other with ammonitidae. Of these latter ' twin 
 creatures of the sea,' a philosopher-poet has written : 
 
76 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 'The Nautilus and the Ammonite 
 Were launched in friendly strife, 
 Each sent to float in its tiny boat 
 On the wide, wide sea of life. 
 
 1 For each could swim on the ocean's brim, 
 
 And when wearied its sails could furl, 
 And sink to sleep in the great sea-deep, 
 In its palace, all of pearl. 
 
 'And theirs was a bliss more fair than this 
 ^ That we feel in our colder time ; 
 For they were rife in a tropic life, 
 In a brighter and better clime. 
 
 ' They swam 'mid isles, whose summer smiles 
 
 No wintry winds annoy ; 
 Whose groves are palm, whose air is balm, 
 Where life is only joy. 
 
 ' They sailed all day through creek and bay 
 
 And traversed the ocean deep, 
 And at night they sank on a coral bank, 
 In its fairy bowers to sleep. 
 
 1 And the monsters vast, of ages past, 
 They beheld in their ocean caves ; 
 They saw them ride in their power and pride, 
 And sink in their deep-sea graves. 
 
 ' And hand in hand, from strand to strand, 
 
 They sailed in mirth and glee — 
 Those fairy shells with their crystal cells, 
 Twin creatures of the sea. 
 
 ' And they came at last to a sea long past, 
 
 But as they reached its shore. 
 The Almighty's breath spoke out in death, 
 And the Ammonite lived no more. 
 
 1 And the Nautilus now, in its shelly prow, 
 
 As over the deep it strays, 
 Still seems to seek in bay and creek 
 Its companion of other days. 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 77 
 
 ' And thus do we on life's stormy sea, 
 
 As we roam from shore to shore, 
 While tempest- tossed, seek the loved, the lost, 
 But find them on earth no more. 
 
 1 Yet the hope, how sweet ! again to meet, 
 As we look to a distant strand, 
 Where heart finds heart, and no more they part, 
 Who meet in that better land.'* 
 
 It is difficult to condense even a part of the interest- 
 ing information that geologists have made known 
 about the nautilus and the ammonite ; but brief 
 extracts from their essays may be given, which will 
 teach the same lesson that the crystal taught, al- 
 though the one has to do with inanimate matter, 
 the other with sentient life. We may notice in 
 passing some remarks of Aristotle, who, after de- 
 scribing the naked cephalopods, says : ' There are 
 also two polypi in shells ; one is called by some 
 nautilus, by others nauticus. It is like the polypus, 
 but its shell resembles a hollow comb or pecten, 
 and is not attached. The polypus ordinarily feeds 
 near the seashore ; sometimes it is thrown by the 
 waves on the dry land, and the shell falling from 
 it, is caught, and there dies. The other is in a 
 shell like a snail, and this does not go out of its 
 shell, but remains in it like a snail, and sometimes 
 stretches forth its cirrhi externally.' The latter 
 was, no doubt, the true nautilus : the former the 
 beautiful argonauta, or paper nautilus, as it is com- 
 
 * Dr. Ick. 
 
78 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 monly called. The shell is spiral, involute, mem- 
 branaceous, and without chambers ; it serves the 
 creature that inhabits it for a boat, the membrane 
 of which he can extend at pleasure, using it as a 
 sail; his tentacula he uses as oars. Thus equipped, 
 his fairy boat, light as a feather and white as snow, 
 floats on the surface of calm waters, or, on the 
 approach of danger, or when a storm arises, by 
 absorbing a quantity of sea-water, he descends to 
 his native dwelling-place, the bed of the ocean. 
 The pearly nautilus has the same kind of tentacula 
 and membranaceous sail, and in its habits it re- 
 sembles the argonauta, but in the construction of 
 its shell there is an essential difference : that of the 
 argonauta is unilocular ; that of the pearly nautilus 
 is many-chambered ; the divisions are concave 
 towards the side next to the aperture, being per- 
 forated and connected by a syphon formed of a 
 thin, testaceous matter, lined with a membrane of 
 the animal. It has been well said of the shell of 
 the nautilus : ' It is a vessel which no human hand 
 has formed, guided by no human skill — a striking 
 proof, amid the terrors and wonders of the deep, 
 that, whilst nothing is too great for the controlling 
 power of Omnipotence, nothing is too humble for 
 His protecting care.'* 
 
 Of the origin of the fossil ammonite many a 
 
 * A most interesting account of this animal has been 
 given by Professor Owen in his * Memoir of the Pearly 
 Nautilus.' 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 79 
 
 fabulous story has been invented in earlier days. 
 One old legend tells of the snakes that infested the 
 convent of Whitby, and says that, at the prayer of 
 the saintly abbess, they were converted into stone, 
 or, in Scott's words, 
 
 ' How, of a thousand snakes, each one 
 Was changed into a coil of stone, 
 
 When holy Hilda prayed.' 
 
 But science has relegated all these old stories to 
 the region of fiction, and proved how nearly allied 
 the ammonite was to the nautilus. In Dr. Buck- 
 land's ' Bridgwater Treatise ' is described the various 
 arrangements which secure lightness and strength 
 to the shell, proving that no more perfect instru- 
 ment for affording resistance to external pressure 
 could be conceived. The Professor's summary is : 
 ' As the animal increased in bulk, and advanced 
 along the outer chamber of the shell, the spaces 
 left behind it were successively converted into air- 
 chambers, simultaneously increasing the power of 
 the float. This float being regulated by a pipe 
 passing through the whole series of the chambers, 
 formed a hydraulic instrument of extraordinary 
 delicacy, by which the animal could at pleasure 
 control its ascent to the surface or descent to the 
 bottom of the sea. To creatures that sometimes 
 floated, a thick and heavy shell would have been 
 inapplicable; and as a thin shell inclosing air 
 would be exposed to various and often intense 
 
80 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 degrees of pressure at the bottom, we find a series 
 of provisions to afford resistance to such pressure 
 in the mechanical construction both of the external 
 shell, and of the internal transverse plates which 
 formed the air-chambers. First, the shell is made 
 up of a tube coiled round itself, and externally 
 convex. Secondly, it is fortified by a series of ribs 
 and vaultings disposed in the form of arches and 
 domes on the convex surface of this tube, and still 
 further adding to its strength. Thirdly, the trans- 
 verse plates that form the air-chambers supply also 
 a continuous succession of supports, extending 
 their ramifications, with many mechanical ad- 
 vantages, beneath those portions of the shell 
 which, being weakest, were most in need of them.' 
 Who can read this description and fail to see 
 direct and conclusive evidence of an omniscient 
 and omnipotent Designer, who has been actively 
 engaged in the arrangement of every atom that 
 composed these beautiful creatures ? The Ammo- 
 nite is a perfect embodiment of the will of One, 
 who, perfect Himself, could not will the creation 
 of anything imperfect, and, as such, unfitted to 
 fulfil the purpose for which it was created. 
 
 If the fact were not proved beyond the possi- 
 bility of doubt, that men of great intellectual power 
 and acute observation do deny the existence of 
 God, and openly avow their unbelief, the mass of 
 mankind would not believe it to be possible that 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE Si 
 
 such a paradox as cultured reason and unbelief 
 in a Giver of reason could live in the minds of 
 men. Laplace, after observing that 'the curve 
 described by a single molecule of air, or any fluid, 
 is subjected to laws as certain as those of the 
 planetary orbits,' adds, ' there is no difference 
 between them, but what arises from our own ignor- 
 ance.' Unbelief can only be the child of ignor- 
 ance — that is, ignorance of fundamental truth ; 
 and we cannot doubt that the knowledge which 
 now usurps the place of reason will one day 
 crown itself by acknowledging its lawful Sovereign. 
 To the notes on the nautilus and the ammonite, 
 it will be well to add Dr. Buckland's concluding 
 observations upon the affinities of the chambered 
 shells of Cephalopods. He writes : ' It results 
 from the view we have taken of the zoological 
 affinities between living and extinct species of 
 chambered shells, that they are all connected by 
 one plan of organization, each forming a link in 
 the common chain which unites existing species 
 with those that prevailed among the earliest con- 
 ditions of life upon our globe ; and all attesting 
 the identity of the design that has effected so 
 many similar ends through such a variety of instru- 
 ments, the principle of whose construction is in 
 every species fundamentally the same. Through- 
 out the various living and extinct genera of cham- 
 bered shells, the use of the air-chambers and 
 
 6 
 
82 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 syphons, to adjust the specific gravity of the 
 animals in rising and sinking, appears to have 
 been identical. The addition of a new transverse 
 plate within the conical shell added a new air- 
 chamber, larger than the preceding one, to counter- 
 balance the increase of weight that attended the 
 growth of the shell and body of these animals. 
 These beautiful arrangements are, and ever have 
 been, subservient to a common object, namely, the 
 construction of hydraulic instruments of essential 
 importance in the economy of creatures destined 
 to move sometimes at the bottom and at other 
 times upon or near the surface of the sea. The 
 delicate adjustments whereby the same principle is 
 extended through so many grades and modifica- 
 tions of a single type show the uniform and con- 
 stant agency of some controlling Intelligence : and 
 in searching for the origin of so much method and 
 regularity amidst variety, the mind can only rest 
 when it has passed back through the subordinate 
 series of second causes to that great first cause, 
 which is found in the will and power of a common 
 Creator.' 
 
 We now direct the attention of the reader to the 
 coral insect and its work. One becomes almost 
 lost in thought when regarding the tiny polyps that 
 are still at work beneath the waters, adding to the 
 formations of ages, working by the same law, and 
 taught by the same Teacher as their progenitors. 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 83 
 
 Their work is one of the wonders of the world. 
 Each little builder lives and dies at his post. His 
 work being finished, he rests from his labour, and 
 another builds on the foundation he has laid : and 
 when man goes back into the past, and investigates 
 the work of the early Cyathophylloids in Paleozoic 
 time, and then visits the coral islands and reefs 
 that are now being raised above the waters, stretch- 
 ing for hundreds of miles along the shores of 
 continents, his pride in his material work must be 
 brought low. Man built great Babylon, and Rome, 
 and Heliopolis ; man raised the Pyramids, and set 
 the massive stones of Baalbec in their places ; but 
 what are these achievements when compared with 
 those of the coral insect ? 
 
 In order to give those who have not studied 
 geology, and other natural sciences, some idea of 
 the time during which these architects of the ocean 
 have been working, it will be well to give the 
 following summary of geological time from the 
 interesting work on ' Corals and Coral Islands,' by 
 James D. Dana, LL.D. 'Geological history be- 
 gins with what has been called Azoic time, Azoic 
 signifying the absence of life. But the rocks sup- 
 posed to be Azoic have been found to afford 
 evidence of the existence of the simplest kinds of 
 life during their formation ; and the era they 
 represent is, therefore, more correctly styled the 
 Archeozoic ; from the Greek for beginning and life, 1 
 
84 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 The other grand subdivisions of geological time 
 are as follows : 
 
 i. Paleozoic time (named from the Greek for 
 ancient life), in the course of which the earliest 
 corals, mollusks, crustaceans, insects, fishes and 
 reptiles existed. It includes three ages : (i) the 
 Silurian; (2) the Devonian, or age of fishes; and 
 (3) the Carboniferous, or age of coal-plants, when 
 the most extensive beds of mineral coal of the 
 world were originated. 
 
 2. Mesozoic time, or that of mediceval life. It 
 corresponds to the age of reptiles — being the era, 
 not of the earliest reptiles, but that of their climax 
 in number, size, and variety. This age is divided 
 into three periods : first, or earliest, the Triassic ; 
 second, the Jurassic, to which the Oolitic era 
 belongs ; and third, the Cretaceous, or that of 
 the chalk. 
 
 3. Cenozoic time, or that of recent life, as the term 
 signifies. It is modern in the aspect of its species, 
 compared with the Mesozoic, and still more so 
 compared with the Paleozoic. The highest and 
 dominant species were mammals. 
 
 Then came the creation of man in God's image. 
 These geological facts, clearly demonstrated by the 
 earth's crust, irresistibly lead the mind, as the 
 calculations of astronomers also do, to dwell upon 
 infinity. The latter proclaim that space is illimit- 
 able j the former, that the ages man can count are 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 85 
 
 but the moments of eternity. The slowness of the 
 formation of coral islands and reefs deserves atten- 
 tion, and this we will introduce with Dr. Dana's 
 explanations of the formation of coral. 
 
 ' Science, while it penetrates deeply the system 
 of things about us, sees everywhere, in the dim 
 limits of vision, the word " mystery." Surely there 
 is no reason why the simplest of organisms should 
 bear the impress most strongly. If we are as- 
 tonished that so great deeds should proceed from 
 the little and low, it is because we fail to appreciate 
 that little things, even the least of living or 
 physical existences in nature, are, under God, ex- 
 pressions throughout of comprehensive laws, laws 
 that govern alike the small and the great. It is 
 not more surprising, nor a matter of more difficult 
 comprehension, that a polyp should form structures 
 of stone (carbonate of lime) called coral, than that 
 the quadruped should form its bones, or the 
 mollusk its shell. The processes are similar, and 
 so is the result. In each case it is a simple animal 
 secretion — a secretion of stony matter from the ali- 
 ment which the animal receives, produced by the 
 parts of the animal fitted for this secreting process ; 
 and in each case carbonate of lime is a constituent, 
 or one of the constituents, of the secretion. This 
 power of secretion is, then, one of the first and 
 most common of those that belong to living tissues ; 
 and though differing in different organs according 
 
86 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 to their end or function, it is all one process, both 
 in its nature and cause, whether in the animalcule 
 or in man. It belongs eminently to the lowest 
 kinds of life. These are the best stone-makers ; for 
 in their simplicity of structure they may be almost 
 all stone, and still carry on the processes of nutri- 
 tion and growth. Throughout geological time they 
 were the agents appointed to produce the material 
 of limestones, and also to make even the flint, and 
 many of the siliceous deposits of the earth's forma- 
 tions. Coral is never, therefore, the handiwork of 
 the many-armed polyps ; for it is no more a result 
 of labour than bone-making in ourselves. And, 
 again, it is not a collection of cells into which the 
 coral animals may withdraw for concealment any 
 more than the skeleton of a dog is its house or 
 cell ; for every part of the coral — or corallum, as it 
 is now called in science — of a polyp, in most reef- 
 making species, is enclosed within the polyp, where 
 it was formed by the secreting process. 
 
 1 Coral is made by organisms of four very different 
 kinds. These are: i. Polyps, the most important 
 of coral-making animals, the principal source of the 
 coral reefs of the world. 
 
 1 2. Animals related to the little hydra of fresh 
 waters, and called Hydroids (a division under the 
 Acalephs), which Agassiz has shown form the very 
 common and often large corals called millepores. 
 
 1 3. The lowest tribe of molluscs, called Bryozoans, 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 87 
 
 which produce delicate corals, sometimes branching 
 and moss-like (whence the name, from the Greek 
 for moss-animal), and at other times in broad 
 plates, thick masses, and thin incrustations. Al- 
 though of small importance as reef-makers at the 
 present time, in a former age of the world — the 
 Paleozoic — they so abounded over the sea bottom 
 that some beds of limestone are half-composed of 
 them. 
 
 '4. Algae or sea-weeds, some kinds of which 
 would hardly be distinguished from corals, except 
 that they have no cells or pores.' 
 
 ' A good idea of a polyp may be had from com- 
 parison with the garden aster ; for the likeness to 
 many of them in external form, as well as delicacy 
 of colouring, is singularly close. The aster consists 
 of a tinted disc bordered with one or more series 
 of petals. And, in exact analogy, the polyp-flower, 
 in its most common form, has a disc fringed 
 around with petal-like organs called tentacles. 
 Below the disc, in contrast with the slender pedicel 
 in the ordinary plant, there is a stout cylindrical 
 pedicel or body, often as broad as the disc itself, 
 and sometimes not much longer, which contains 
 the stomach and internal cavity of the polyp ; and 
 the mouth, which opens into the stomach, is at the 
 centre of the disc. Here then the flower-animal 
 and the garden-flower diverge in character, the 
 
88 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 difference being required by the different modes of 
 nutrition, and other characteristics in the two king- 
 doms of Nature. The coral polyp is as much an 
 animal as a cat or a dog. 
 
 'The prominent subdivisions of polyps here 
 recognised are : 
 
 ' (i.) Actinoid Polyps.— Related to the actinia, or 
 sea-anemone, in tentacles and interior structure, 
 and having, as in them, the number of tentacles 
 and interior septa a multiple of six. The name 
 Actinia is from the Greek for ray. 
 
 '(ii.) Cyathophylloid Polyps.— -Like the- Acti- 
 noids in tentacles and interior structure, except 
 that the number of tentacles and interior septa is 
 a multiple of four. 
 
 " (iii.) Alcyonoid Polyps. — Having eight fringed 
 tentacles, and other characters mentioned beyond ; 
 as the Gorgoniae, and Alcyonia.' 
 
 Beautiful beyond the power of the mind to 
 conceive, or of words to describe, are these creatures 
 of the deep, and the architecture of some of them 
 surpasses themselves in beauty. With bodies of 
 brilliant colours which, in some species, are so 
 transparent that the organism can be seen through 
 the delicate texture of the outer envelope, they live 
 and work beneath the waters. Nature's economist 
 here puts the question, Why all this beauty, when 
 there were no eyes to enjoy it? But beauty exists 
 because, • In the beginning ... the Spirit of God 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 89 
 
 moved upon the face of the waters ;' and man finds 
 delight therein, inasmuch as he bears the image of 
 his Maker. 
 
 ' The Alcynoids,' Dr. Dana says, ' include 
 some of the gayest and most delicate of coral 
 shrubs. iVlmost all are flexible, and wave with the 
 motion of the water. They contribute but little to 
 the material of coral reefs, but add largely to the 
 beauties of the coral landscape. Not only are the 
 polyps of handsome tints, but the whole shrub is 
 usually of a brilliant orange, yellow, scarlet, crimson, 
 or purple shade. Dun colours also occur, as ash- 
 gray, and dark brown, and almost black. Some 
 kinds, the Spongiadiae, are too flexible to stand 
 erect, and they hang from the coral ledges, or in 
 the coral caves, in gorgeous clusters of scarlet, 
 yellow, and crimson colours. 
 
 ' The Actiniae vary immensely in size, from the 
 eighth of an inch and smaller in the diameter of the 
 disc to over a foot — though commonly between 
 half an inch and three inches. One species, from 
 the Panmotu Coral Archipelago in the Pacific, had 
 a diameter across its disc of fourteen inches ; and 
 it was also one of the most beautiful in those seas, 
 having multitudes of tentacles with carmine tips and 
 yellowish bases, around the open centre, gathered 
 into a number of large groups or lobes. 
 
 1 With rare exceptions, Actiniae live attached to 
 stones, shells, or the sea bottom, or are buried at 
 
90 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the base in the sand or mud. The attached species 
 have the power of locomotion, through the muscles 
 of the base, but only with extreme slowness. 
 The loose stones on a sea-shore near low-tide level 
 often have Actinia fixed to their under surface. A 
 very few species swim or float at large in the ocean. 
 These polyps have also the faculty of reproducing 
 lost parts ; and to such an extent that a mere frag- 
 ment, if it be from the lower part, and include a 
 portion of the base, will reproduce all the rest of 
 the Actinia, even to the disc, tentacles, and stomach. 
 Thus the mere forcible tearing of an Actinia from 
 the rock to which it is attached may result in starting 
 a crop of new Actiniae. 
 
 1 The general characters of the coral-making 
 Actinoid Polyps are the same as in the Actiniae. 
 Their more striking peculiarities depend on the 
 secretion of coral, making them fixed species, and 
 involving an absence of the base ; and, in the case 
 of the majority of the species, on the extent to 
 which they multiply by buds, in imitation of species 
 in the vegetable kingdom.' 
 
 The extreme beauty and variety of the corallums 
 of these polyps are known to all who study the 
 wonders of the sea, but we proceed to notice the 
 work of the Cyathophylloid Polyps. In it we find 
 abundant proof of the truth of Professor Sedgwick's 
 words, in his 'Studies of Cambridge.' 'The 
 geologist counts his time, not by celestial cycles, 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 91 
 
 but by an index he has found in the solid frame- 
 work of the globe itself. He sees a long succession 
 of monuments, each of which may have required 
 a thousand ages for its elaboration. He arranges 
 them in chronological order, observes in them the 
 marks of skill and wisdom, and finds within them 
 the tombs of the ancient inhabitants of the earth.' 
 
 St. John wrote — ' In the beginning was the Word, 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God. The same was in the beginning with God. 
 All things were made by Him, and without Him was 
 not anything made that was made. In Him was life ; 
 and the life was the light of man.' God is life, and 
 life, without which there could be no inanimate 
 matter, is God. The work of the coral insect 
 teaches us this great truth ; and man would do 
 well to study Nature more than he does, and learn 
 more from her teaching. The limestone rocks of 
 past ages were reared by the secretions of living 
 polyps ; and what mighty monuments they are of 
 the Great Sacrament, God in Nature ! The polyps 
 are ' the best stone-makers.' They are the agents 
 appointed by their Creator to produce the material 
 of limestone ; and the results of their working in 
 perfect obedience to law are truly surprising. But 
 man is the agent appointed to be lord of creation, 
 to work consciously for the glory of his God ; to 
 train himself for the higher life to which he is 
 destined ; and to raise on earth ' living stones, 
 
92 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 which are to be set in the eternal Temple of Truth. 
 When we realize what man was when created ; what 
 he ought to be, nay, what he is, notwithstanding the 
 degradations of sin ; and when we look around upon 
 the failure of man to reach his best, we almost 
 reverence the little coral insect for its perfect fulfil- 
 ment of its appointed work. We see, in the great 
 antiquity of the coral world, in the continuity of the 
 work of these builders, and in the strength and 
 beauty of their work, one of the grandest, and, in 
 its details, one of the most suggestive illustrations 
 of the way in which Divine Power can work by the 
 lowliest means which the material world affords. 
 
 We must go over the entire Pacific Ocean if we 
 would form an adequate idea of the extent of the 
 work of the polyps, for the reef- builders prefer 
 warmer waters than those which surround the 
 British Isles. 'An isothermal line crossing the 
 ocean where the waters through the coldest winter 
 month have a mean temperature not below 68° F., 
 one north of the equator, and another south, 
 bending in its course towards or from the equator 
 wherever the marine currents change its position, 
 will include all the growing reefs in the world ; and 
 this area of waters may be properly called the coral- 
 reef seas. 
 
 ' Through the torridregion, where the temperature 
 of the surface is never below 74 F. for any month 
 of the year, all the prominent genera of reef-forming 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT-GOD IN NATURE 93 
 
 species are abundantly represented. The Feegee 
 seas afford magnificent examples of torrid-region 
 productions. 
 
 'The rate of growth of coral is a subject but 
 little understood. We do not refer here to the 
 progress of a reef in formation, which is another 
 question complicated by many co-operative causes ; 
 but simply to the rapidity with which particular 
 living species increase in size. There is no doubt 
 that the rate is different for different species. It is 
 moreover probable that it corresponds with the rate 
 of growth of other allied polyps that do not secrete 
 lime. The rate of growth of Actiniae might give us 
 an approximation to the rate of growth in coral 
 animals of like size and general character ; for the 
 additional function of secreting lime would not 
 necessarily retard the maturing of the polyp ; and 
 from the rate of growth of the same animals in the 
 young state, we might perhaps draw some inferences 
 as to the rate in polyps of corresponding size. But 
 no satisfactory observations on this point have yet 
 been made.'* 
 
 After enumerating many distinct causes affecting 
 in greater or lesser degree the growth of coral, and 
 giving interesting details of careful observations 
 which from time to time have been made, Dr. 
 Dana remarks : ' Whatever the uncertainties, it is 
 
 * Dr. Dana published the second edition of his work on 
 'Corals' in 1875. 
 
94 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 evident that a reef increases in height or extent with 
 extreme slowness. If the rate of upward progress 
 is one-sixteenth of an inch a year, it would take for 
 the addition of a single foot to its height one 
 hundred and ninety years, and for five feet a 
 thousand years. Coral reefs and coral islands are 
 structures of the same kind under somewhat different 
 conditions. They are made in the same sea, by 
 the same means ; in fact, a coral island has in all 
 cases been a coral reef through a large part of its 
 history, and is so still over much of its area. The 
 terms, however, are not synonymous. Coral Islands 
 are reefs that stand isolated in the ocean, away 
 from other lands, whether now only raised to the 
 water's edge and half submerged, or covered with 
 vegetation; while the term coral reefs, although 
 used for reefs of coral in general, is more especially 
 applied to those which occur along the shores of 
 high islands and continents. 
 
 ' Coral reefs are banks of coral rock built upon 
 the sea bottom about the shores of tropical lands. 
 In the Pacific these lands, with the exception of 
 New Caledonia and others of large size to the west- 
 ward, are islands of volcanic or igneous rocks, and 
 they often rise to mountain heights. The coral 
 reefs which skirt their shores are ordinarily wholly 
 submerged at high tide ; but at the ebb they com- 
 monly present to view a broad, flat, bare surface of 
 rock, just above the water-level, strongly con- 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 95 
 
 trasting with the steep slopes of the encircling 
 island. 
 
 'Could we raise one of these coral-bound islands 
 from the waves, we should find that the reefs stand 
 upon the submarine slopes, like massive structures of 
 artificial masonry ; some forming a broad, flat plat- 
 form or shelf ranging around the land, and others 
 encircling it like vast ramparts, perhaps a hundred 
 miles or more in circuit. The reefs that were near 
 the water-line of the coast would be seen to have 
 stood in the shallowest water, while the outer ram- 
 parts rested on the more deeply-submerged slopes. 
 It is obvious that with a given slope to the declivity 
 of the land, the thickness of the reef resting upon 
 it may be directly determined, as it would be twice 
 as great two hundred feet from the shore as at one 
 hundred feet. The only difficulty, therefore, in 
 correctly determining the depth or thickness of any 
 given reef arises from the uncertainty with regard 
 to the submarine slope of the land. It is, how- 
 ever, admitted, as the result of extensive observa- 
 tion, that in general these slopes correspond nearly 
 with those of the land above water. Mr. Darwin 
 has thus estimated the thickness of the reefs of the 
 Gambier groups and some other Pacific islands, 
 and he arrives at the conclusion, as his figures in- 
 dicate, that some coral reefs at their outer limits 
 are at least two thousand feet in thickness. 
 
 ' Coral islands resemble the reefs, except that a 
 
96 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 lake or lagoon is encircled instead of a mountain- 
 ous island. A narrow rim of coral reef, generally 
 but a few hundred yards wide, stretches around the 
 enclosed waters. In some parts the reef is so low 
 that the waves are still dashing over it into the 
 lagoon ; in others it is verdant with the rich foliage 
 of the tropics. When first seen from the deck of 
 a vessel, only a series of dark points is descried 
 just above the horizon. Shortly after the points 
 enlarge into the plumed tops of cocoa-nut trees, 
 and a line of green, interrupted at intervals, is 
 traced along the water's surface. Approaching 
 still nearer, the lake and its belt of verdure are 
 spread out before the eye, and a scene of more 
 interest can scarcely be imagined. The surf, beat- 
 ing loud and heavy along the margin of the reef, 
 presents a strange contrast to the prospect beyond — 
 the white coral beach, the massy foliage of the grove, 
 and the embosomed lake with its tiny islets. The 
 colour of the lagoon water is often as blue as the 
 ocean, although but ten or twenty fathoms deep ; 
 yet shades of green and yellow are intermingled, 
 where patches of sand or coral-knolls are near the 
 surface ; and the green is a delicate apple shade, 
 quite unlike the ordinary muddy tint of shallow 
 waters. 
 
 1 The belt of verdure, though sometimes con- 
 tinuous around the lagoon, is usually broken into 
 islets separated by varying intervals of bare reef ; 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 97 
 
 and through one or more of these intervals a ship- 
 channel often exists, opening into the lagoon. The 
 larger coral islands are thus a string of islets along 
 a line of reef. These lagoon islands are called 
 atolls, a word of Maldive origin. In the larger 
 atolls the waters within look like the ocean, and are 
 similarly roughened by the wind, though not to the 
 same extent. The lagoon is in fact but a frag- 
 ment of the ocean cut off by more or less perfect 
 walls of coral reef-rock ; and the reef is here and 
 there surmounted by verdure, forming a series of 
 islets.' 
 
 What are man's mightiest breakwaters compared 
 with these coral reefs ? Man, when building up 
 his sea walls, has to wait for the ebb of the tide ; 
 and he has to protect himself in every possible way 
 that skill and forethought can devise against the 
 power of the unseen forces which are ever in 
 motion. The polyps build their walls amid the 
 waves of an ocean that is never at rest. Through 
 long ages they toil on unseen until their work 
 appears above the waters, and then those agents 
 of Almighty power, the winds and the waves, 
 deposit atoms of organic matter upon the upraised 
 coral, and living things of grace and beauty spring 
 up and grow beneath the skies of a tropical clime, 
 and crown the work of the polyp with the green 
 things of an earth on which the sunlight rests as 
 a gloria, and warms and cherishes them until at 
 
 7 
 
98 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 last man comes and dwells beneath their shadow. 
 These wonders of creation, ever growing and un- 
 folding new beauties through the energy breathed 
 into them by the Author of Life, are sufficient in 
 themselves to prove to man that he, while on earth, 
 is in his infancy. This planet is, first, his cradle ; 
 then his school, where he learns to read and to 
 think ; and his elementary lessons, if well-learned, 
 enable him to do much for the good of his own 
 and of succeeding generations, both from a material 
 and social, and also from a scientific and ethical 
 point of view. He builds cities, temples and palaces, 
 which stand for centuries; but they crumble be- 
 neath the ravages of time, and become ruins. As 
 ruins — time-worn and moss-grown — they stand 
 through many succeeding centuries, often more 
 beautiful than in their palmiest days, when they 
 were as perfect as man could make them. But 
 they crumble into dust at last. The natural man, 
 however, closes his eyes alike to the teaching of 
 Nature and to the results of his own labour, and 
 so fails to learn the lesson that all around him is 
 ceaselessly proclaiming — viz., that material things 
 in their present condition were created only for 
 time, but were set in perfect adaptation to the place 
 they had to occupy ; while man was made for 
 eternity, and therefore, all his real greatness is to be 
 found in another sphere— the sphere of the ' super- 
 natural.' 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 99 
 
 The completed atoll is thus described by Dr. 
 Dana : ' The atoll, a quiet scene of grove and 
 lake, is admirably set off by the contrasting ocean. 
 Its placid beauty rises to grandeur when the storm 
 rages, and the waves foam and roar about the outer 
 reefs ; for the child of the sea still rests quietly in 
 unheeding and dreamy content. This coral-made 
 land is firm, because it is literally sea-born, it having 
 been built out of sea-products by the aid of the 
 working ocean. And so with the groves : they were 
 planted by the waves, and hence the species are 
 those that can defy the encroaching waters, and 
 meet the various conditions in which they are placed. 
 The plants, therefore, take firm hold of the soil, 
 and grow in all their natural strength and beauty. 
 Only an occasional coral island has a completely 
 encircling grove, and is hence a model atoll. But 
 the many in which a series of green islets surround 
 the lagoon are often but little less attractive, 
 especially when the several islets present varied 
 groupings of palms and other foliage.' 
 
 The torrid zone has been well-called a ' coral 
 zone.' It is as a jewelled belt encircling the earth ; 
 for many of its coral islands are gems of rare beauty. 
 We have glanced at their surface ; their base lies 
 many fathoms deep. It is well known that the bed 
 of the vast Pacific Ocean testifies to periods of 
 elevation and subsidence of the earth's crust in 
 remote epochs, and of volcanic action on a gigantic 
 
ioo THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 scale. It was when the subterranean forces had 
 exhausted their strength, and the fires of the volcanic 
 peaks and mountains had become extinct, that a 
 gradual subsidence caused the mountains to dis- 
 appear below the waters, and then the polyps 
 began to build their coral structures. Age after 
 age, as the slowly progressing subsidence went on, 
 countless generations continued the work, which 
 in later days was to rise above the waters, and pro- 
 claim by its beauty and its power of resistance 
 to the stormiest waves, ' The Hand that made us 
 is Divine.' Dr. Dana gives an account of the geo- 
 graphical distribution of islands and reefs ; of the 
 changes in levels in coral regions, and of the sub- 
 sidence in Pacific coral regions ; and thus sums up 
 this interesting part of his subject. 
 
 1 The facts surveyed give us a long insight into 
 the past, and exhibit to us the Pacific once scattered 
 over with lofty lands, where now there are only 
 humble monumental atolls. Had there been no 
 growing coral, the whole would have passed with- 
 out a record. These permanent registers exhibit 
 in enduring characters some of the oscillations which 
 the " stable" earth has since undergone. 
 
 * From the actual size of the coral reefs and 
 islands, we know that the whole amount of high 
 land lost to the Pacific by the subsidence was at 
 the very least fifty thousand square miles. But 
 since atolls are necessarily smaller than the land 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 101 
 
 they cover, and the more so the further subsidence 
 has proceeded ; since many lands, owing to their 
 abrupt shores or to volcanic agency, must have had 
 no reefs about them and have disappeared without 
 a mark ; and since others may have subsided too 
 rapidly for the corals to retain themselves at the 
 surface, it is obvious that this estimate is far below 
 the truth. It is apparent that in many cases islands 
 now disjoined have been once connected, and thus 
 several atolls may have been made about the heights 
 of a subsiding land of large size. Such facts show 
 additional errors in the above estimate, evincing that 
 the scattered atolls and reefs tell but a small part 
 of the story.' 
 
 The foregoing notes of what has been gathered 
 from a few pages of the ' Book of Nature ' are but 
 illustrative. A student must search the deeps, and 
 soar into the heights, if he would read Nature's 
 records aright. Science sincerely studied can never 
 lead him astray, for the facts it reveals are but the 
 material manifestations of the will of the Divine 
 Maker. Theories that are based only upon what 
 some man or men have observed may lead some 
 scientific men to lose sight of God. But when they 
 have moved into the shadow of a cloud that 
 obscures the sun, what is there to take the place 
 of that guiding Light which they have lost ? Only 
 the ignis fatuus that is kindled by their own limited 
 
102 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 knowledge of created things. That very knowledge, 
 moreover, has been acquired by an ability which 
 man alone of all earth-born creatures possesses ; by 
 a power which, if not given to him by the Creator, 
 man cannot account for or explain ; a power which 
 is far above the laws which govern Nature, for it 
 enables man to understand those laws, and even, 
 to a great extent, to make them subservient to his 
 will. Yet he rejects the Lawmaker, and follows his 
 reason while denying the Giver of reason. But 
 do what he will theoretically, man cannot get rid of 
 two stern facts which are always confronting him : 
 (i) The present life of man with all its concomi- 
 tants ; with its involuntary commencement, and 
 its certain ending. (2) Consequent upon this fact, 
 the purposelessness of man's life, if there be nothing 
 beyond the shore of time — nothing but this ma- 
 terial world. ' Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' is the 
 motto inscribed by the finger of God upon all that 
 does not possess life — the life that knows no end- 
 ing, because it is the breath of Him who is the 
 fountain of life. 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning 
 hath laid the foundation of the earth ; and the 
 heavens are the work of Thine hands. They shall 
 perish, but Thou remainest ; and they all shall wax 
 old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt 
 Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed : 
 but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not 
 fail.' 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 103 
 
 Those who see in the fresh discoveries which 
 science is ever making, further illustrations of the 
 working of definite laws — which are in reality the 
 agents of the active will and purposes of a higher 
 Power — will see also in each new discovery an 
 additional proof of the necessary existence of one 
 Supreme Ruler, who must be all-wise and all- 
 powerful. Moreover, those who have the strongest 
 faith in God, the firmest grasp of his Almighty 
 Hand, the deepest love for Him, not so much for 
 what He has done for them, or in view of his 
 glorious works, as for what He is in Himself, have 
 the clearest perception of the fact, that all creation 
 has been brought into existence and is sustained 
 by One like unto themselves. With this difference, 
 however, — the One is the central Sun of the 
 Universe, and man but a ray of light emanating 
 from the Sun. 
 
 One like unto themselves ! Even so, because, 
 although God is on His throne in the highest 
 heaven, and man, at present, is leaning on His 
 footstool, man can see more clearly day by day, in 
 the material world and in the spiritual part of his 
 own being, evidences of design ; evidences of 
 direction and control ; evidences of fitness, corres- 
 pondence, and harmony ; evidences of adaptation 
 and co-operation. And when man was made in 
 the image of God, the attributes of God were 
 bestowed upon him in such measure as the Father, 
 
104 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 in His infinite wisdom, saw was best ; but the 
 measure is to be increased until they shall ' come 
 into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
 the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' 
 
 Such is man, and such is his destiny. If he were 
 less than he is, he could not be the image of God ; 
 if his destiny were less exalted, he could not be 
 one with the Son, and his body could not be the 
 temple of the Holy Ghost : nor, unless he were all 
 this, could he understand, even in part, and use to 
 effect his own purpose, the laws which govern the 
 seen and unseen universe. It is the union of 
 matter and spirit, life connecting created things — 
 in short, God incorporated in His works, which 
 establishes what science will doubtless one day 
 proclaim to be a scientific fact, namely, that the 
 same laws govern the seen and the unseen. There- 
 fore arises the value of ail true knowledge acquired 
 by man in the region of creation. All of truth that 
 he gathers and lays by in store, is but the founda- 
 tion on which he will build in the next stage of his 
 existence ; and when man is set free from his mortal 
 environment he will find that all he has gathered 
 here is his own for ever ; and that he is working 
 still on the old principles which have reached a 
 higher sphere of operation ; that the same laws were 
 in force under altered conditions, and that he is 
 just as much his same old self as when his body 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 105 
 
 kept him in the lower sphere. So our most blessed 
 Lord taught us, when He said to the penitent thief, 
 1 To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise ;' and 
 afterwards, to His terrified disciples — who, when 
 their eyes were opened so that they could discern 
 what we call spiritual existences, saw Jesus standing 
 in the midst of them, and were 'affrighted, and 
 supposed that they had seen a spirit ' — ' Why are ye 
 troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? 
 Behold My hands and My feet, that it is Myself ; 
 handle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and 
 bones, as ye see Me have.' 
 
 Does he who believes that the holy Scriptures 
 contain a revelation from God to man, and at the 
 same time disbelieves and ridicules all that is 
 commonly called ' supernatural/ ever bring reason 
 to bear upon the fact that the words recorded 
 were uttered by superhuman lips ? He who spoke 
 them had passed through closed doors, yet He was 
 none the less Jesus of Nazareth. The disciples 
 were not endowed with new senses in order to 
 enable them to see what, a moment before, was to 
 them invisible; to handle and feel what was 
 intangible : but their senses became capable of 
 discerning things not within range of their ordinary 
 power of sight and touch. That was all. No law 
 was broken, no new one made. That which man 
 calls miraculous will perhaps, hereafter, be scienti- 
 fically proved to be neither more nor less than 
 
106 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 evidence of the development, or unfolding, of the 
 esoteric working of Almighty power. We have 
 spoken of the senses of sight and touch ; but there 
 was yet another evidence which the risen Lord 
 vouchsafed — that afforded by the sense of hearing, 
 proving that it was He Himself, and not another, 
 who was still among those who sought for Him 
 and loved Him. The familiar voice, pronouncing 
 the one word, * Mary,' drew forth the exultant cry 
 of ' Rabboni !' 
 
 A talented lecturer, eminent for his scientific 
 attainments, has given a description of the common 
 1 nettle,' as it appears when seen through a powerful 
 microscope, and after stating that within its tiny 
 hairs currents of a limpid liquid, containing 
 innumerable and exceedingly minute granules, 
 might be seen in a state of ceaseless activity, 
 coursing swiftly in opposite directions within the 
 twenty-thousandth part of an inch of one another, 
 he remarks, ' Currents similar to those of the hairs 
 of the nettle have been observed in a great multi- 
 tude of different plants, and weighty authorities 
 have suggested that they- probably occur in more 
 or less perfection in all young vegetable cells. If 
 such be the case the wonderful noonday silence of 
 a tropical forest is, after all, due only to the dulness 
 of our hearing, and could our ears catch the 
 murmur of these tiny maelstroms as they whirl in 
 innumerable myriads of living cells which constitute 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD IN NATURE 107 
 
 each tree, we should be stunned as with the roar of 
 a great city.' 
 
 Here again, in the silent solitude of a great 
 forest, man, by the power of his own intellect, is 
 convicted of incompleteness ; the partially developed 
 state of his senses is brought home to him ; the 
 mystery of life is manifest in that part of the ' Great 
 Sacrament ' which is encircling him. He sees that 
 all the beauties of the vegetable kingdom are the 
 result of obedience to law. The continuous work- 
 ing of law caused the trees to grow, and year by 
 year it encircles their giant trunks with rings which 
 enable men to tell their age : but what gave law its 
 potent energy ? Who framed it to give strength to 
 the tree, whiteness to the lily, perfume to the rose, 
 and to the lowly harebell its slender stem ? No 
 other than He who said, ' Consider the lilies of the 
 field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they 
 spin : and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon 
 in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
 which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
 shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
 faith ?' 
 
 The lily, growing in obedience to law, ever 
 remains perfect, as when first fashioned by the 
 Divine mind. Man, through disobedience to law, 
 has lost his perfection, and Solomon's outward 
 splendour, fashioned by men, cannot compare with 
 
io8 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 that of the lily of the field. Nevertheless, what 
 saith the Lord ? ' Fear not ; for thou shalt not be 
 ashamed : neither be thou confounded ; for thou 
 shalt not be put to shame : for thou shalt forget 
 the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember 
 the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For 
 thy Maker is thine husband ; the Lord of Hosts is 
 His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of 
 Israel ; the God of the whole earth shall He be 
 called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman 
 forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, 
 when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a small 
 moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies 
 will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid My face 
 from thee for a moment ; but with everlasting kind- 
 ness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy 
 Redeemer.' ' Let not your heart be troubled : ye 
 believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's 
 house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would 
 have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again, and receive you unto Myself ; that where I 
 am, there ye may be also.' ' If ye love Me, keep 
 My commandments. He that \ loveth Me not 
 keepeth not My sayings.' ' I will pray the Father, 
 and He shall give you another Comforter, that He 
 may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of 
 Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because 
 it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him : but ye 
 
THE GREAT SACRAMENT— GOD JN NATURE 109 
 
 know Him ; for He dwelleth with you, and shall 
 be in you.' 
 
 ' He shall be in you !' Working in the ethical 
 world, invisible, except in results. Logically, cause 
 must precede effect. This is an axiom which no 
 man can gainsay ; and man, having fallen by an 
 act of disobedience to law, has to be restored to 
 the image of God by being brought into obedience 
 to law, the law of ethics. Why then does man 
 turn a deaf ear to his Father's voice in Revelation, 
 and refuse to recognise that Father's hand in 
 creation? 'Because,' he virtually replies, 'I can- 
 not see the necessity for anything higher than law, 
 and I will not believe in anything of the existence 
 of which there is no incontestable demonstration. 
 When we have solved a few more difficult problems, 
 and have improved our instruments, we shall know 
 more, and we shall have acquired greater power to 
 pursue our investigations, one result of which will 
 be that we shall be enabled to make more use of 
 the laws about which we already know so much.' 
 Quite true; but, all the same, it is the story of 
 Eden repeated through the ages ; the story of dis- 
 obedience to law, and of self-exaltation. Let a 
 man once realize that he is made in the image of 
 God, destined to live with God, and to work with 
 Him, and then the pride of man dies a natural 
 death ; for, knowing what he is by the will of his 
 Maker, while glorying, as he must do, in his un- 
 
no THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 speakable greatness, he will feel that he owes all to 
 the God who made him, and breathed into him 
 the breath of life : that Triune God who is his 
 Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. 
 
 The world is very evil, and ' strait is the gate, 
 and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and 
 few there be that find it' 
 
 ' Therefore, though few may praise, or help, or heed us, 
 
 Let us work on with head, or heart, or hand ; 
 For that we know the future ages need us, 
 And we must help our time to take its stand. 
 
 ' Each single struggle hath its far vibration, 
 
 Working results that work results again ; 
 Failure and death are no annihilation, 
 
 Our tears exhaled will make some future rain.'* 
 
 * R. A. Vaushan. 
 
CHAPTER III, 
 
 THE GREAT PROCESSION.* 
 
 In the ' Great Sacrament ' God is discerned in the 
 material world. In the ' Great Procession ' He is 
 manifested in the spiritual world. ' For,' as St. 
 Paul says, ' the invisible things of Him from thw 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are made, even His eternal 
 power and Godhead.' 
 
 The story of the creation of the material world 
 has been told by men whose minds were Divinely 
 illuminated. ' In the beginning God created the 
 heaven and the earth. And the earth was without 
 
 * As so many passages from Holy Scripture are given in 
 full at the commencement of this chapter, it seems desirable 
 to state the reasons for this arrangement : (i) They are the 
 strong foundation on which students of the ' Book of Nature ' 
 build the temple of truth, and learn the lesson that faith 
 and science uphold each other, and are strong only in their 
 union. (2) Many readers do not take the trouble to refer to 
 texts when they are only indicated by figures. The Bible 
 may not be at hand, or the time for reading may be limited, 
 so that a study of the ' foundation ' may be postponed until a 
 more convenient season, which oftentimes never comes. 
 
U2 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 form and void ; and darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep : and the Spirit of God moved upon the face 
 of the waters. And God said, Let there be light : 
 and there was light. And God saw the light, that 
 it was good : and God divided the light from the 
 darkness. And God called the light day, and the 
 darkness He called night.' This wonderful ' light ' 
 seems to have been the first glorious Epiphany, 
 the Alpha that was to light, not the material world 
 only, but also every man that cometh into the 
 world ; for, in later time, St. John wrote, * In the 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God. The same was in 
 the beginning with God : all things were made by 
 Him ; and without Him was not anything made 
 that was made. In Him was life, and the life was 
 the light of men. And the light shineth in dark- 
 ness, and the darkness comprehended it not.' When, 
 according to the command of God, c Moses 
 stretched forth his hand toward heaven, there was 
 a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three 
 days, so that the Egyptians saw not one another, 
 neither rose any from his place for three days, but 
 the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.' 
 And those who can receive Holy Scripture as the 
 ' Word of God ' — knowing that ' no prophecy of the 
 Scripture is of any private interpretation ; for that 
 prophecy came not in the old time by the will of 
 man, but holy men of God spake as they were 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 113 
 
 moved by the Holy Ghost ' — see in this ' darkness ' 
 which came over Egypt, and this ' light ' in the 
 dwellings of the Hebrews, not only the working of 
 Almighty power, but also emblems of the greater 
 darkness by which the spirits of the Egyptians 
 were surrounded when they bowed down before 
 the gods which they themselves had made ; and of 
 the light, kindled by faith in the God of their 
 fathers, which was ever burning in those Hebrew 
 slaves. They seem to hear the cry of Isaiah, 
 c Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of 
 the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the 
 darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness 
 the people : but the Lord shall arise upon thee, 
 and His glory shall be seen upon thee.' And St. 
 Paul says, ' God, who commanded the light to 
 shine out of darkness, is He who hath shined in 
 our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But 
 we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the ex- 
 cellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.' 
 
 Marvellously simple, as embodied in words in- 
 spired by Divine love, is this blending together of 
 the seen and the unseen, of spirit and matter, of 
 what is mortal and subject to change and decay, 
 and of what is immortal and changeless. 
 
 Very wonderful and beautiful is the harmony 
 which runs through Revelation. It appears won- 
 derful to us, whose every-day life is spent in a 
 
 8 
 
114 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 world where sin has brought confusion. Yet man 
 may attain to a suitable apprehension of it, if only 
 he will have faith in God : for as ' in the begin- 
 ning,' we are taught that life is light, and God the 
 source of all, so at the close of God's written reve- 
 lation to men, we read concerning the holy city, 
 new Jerusalem, that it ' had no need of the sun, 
 neither of the moon, to shine in it ; for the glory 
 of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light 
 thereof.' 
 
 The sun of our solar system was not created with 
 the ' Light.' Ages passed away during which eternal 
 Wisdom was fashioning the earth, and making it 
 ready to be the dwelling-place of man. Then God 
 said, ' Let us make man in our image ;' ' the Lord 
 God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and 
 man became a living soul.' Not until He had 
 created man, and given him dominion over the 
 whole earth, did God rest from all His work which 
 He had made : and then the great benediction was 
 pronounced, which seems to typify the blessing 
 which, from that day to the present, rests upon 
 finished work well done. The life of each indi- 
 vidual member of the human race, if lived as in 
 the sight of God, will be blessed by the Maker of 
 all j blessed with the rest of the seventh day ; 
 blessed with the ' rest that remaineth for the people 
 of God.' 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 115 
 
 1 Workmen of God ! oh, lose not heart, 
 
 But learn what God is like ; 
 And in the darkest battlefield 
 
 Thou shalt know where to strike. 
 
 • Thrice blest is he to whom is given 
 
 The instinct that can tell 
 That God is on the field when He 
 Is most invisible. 
 
 ' Blest, too, is he who can divine 
 
 Where real right doth lie, 
 And dares to take the side that seems 
 Wrong to man's blindfold eye. 
 
 ' Then learn to scorn the praise of men, 
 And learn to lose with God ; 
 For Jesus won the world through shame, 
 And beckons thee His road. 
 
 'For right is right, since God is God, 
 
 And right the day must win ; 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter would be sin.'* 
 
 God rested, satisfied with His last great work, 
 Man : a being who is endowed with a lofty intel- 
 lect, a mind that is capable of communing with his 
 Creator, and a heart that can love Him — love even 
 as God loved him ; for as all light is from God, so 
 is all pure love in man a flame from the fire of love 
 that is ever burning in the bosom of the Father. 
 God rested. He saw everything that He had made, 
 and behold, it was very good ; and God took Adam 
 and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and 
 to keep it, and gave to him all created good, with a 
 power of free will to choose the good and refuse the 
 * Faber. 
 
n6 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 only thing that could harm him — namely, the experi- 
 mental knowledge of evil. Evil existed before man 
 was created, and the spirit of evil soon glided out 
 of the darkness into the light, and the rest of God 
 was broken, and the peace of Eden fled. Earth, 
 henceforth, became a great battle-field; and through 
 the centuries is heard from time to time, above the 
 din of war, the piercing wail of the Divine Love, 
 1 What could have been done more to my vineyard 
 that I have not done in it ?' ' Return unto Me.' 
 ' Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of 
 the earth.' ' Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye 
 to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, 
 buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk, with- 
 out money and without price.' 'O my people, 
 what have I done unto thee ? and wherein have I 
 wearied thee ? testify against me.' ' O Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy 
 children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, and ye would not.' Sin 
 had come forth out of the darkness, and was cast- 
 ing its shadow upon what God had made so good. 
 The glorious creation became a ruin, and man, the 
 crown of creation, forfeited his inheritance, and 
 sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. The 
 dread sentence was pronounced, ' Dust thou art, and 
 unto dust shalt thou return.' It was but for a brief 
 space that the work of creation remained unsullied 
 in the light of God, and only while it was so could 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 117 
 
 God rest. Sin must be overthrown and destroyed; 
 and God ' put on righteousness as a breastplate, and 
 a helmet of salvation upon His head ; and He put 
 on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was 
 clad with zeal as a cloak.' The work of redemp- 
 tion must be begun ; and ' the Spirit of the Lord ' 
 lifted up a standard against the enemy that was 
 coming in like a flood ; and He said unto the ser- 
 pent, the father of lies, ' Because thou hast done 
 this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above 
 every beast of the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou 
 go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy 
 life. And I will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; 
 it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
 heel.' 
 
 The sentence pronounced by the holy and just 
 Judge on man, and on the adversary of man, caused, 
 as it were, an awful pause in the onward march of 
 the 'Great Procession.' Adam and Eve, the offspring 
 of united power and love, came next in order to 
 the Three Persons of the Trinity. As the son and 
 daughter of the King of the universe, children of 
 God, and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, no 
 created beings could excel them in dignity. In 
 this age of the world, when assumption takes the 
 place of truth, and the capricious lights of self- 
 assertion are substituted for the lights of Revela- 
 tion, of conscience, and of true philosophy ; when " 
 
n8 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 man looks around him and surveys humanity in its 
 fallen state, realizes its vileness, and hears so-called 
 Christians consigning the great mass of mankind to 
 the region of eternal torment — (where, in the words 
 of Calvin, ' myriads of children with their toothless 
 gums are crawling about the floor of hell ') ; when 
 men are taught that the greatest sinner has nothing 
 to do in order to be saved but to call upon the 
 Lord Jesus, which is in direct contradiction to the 
 teaching of the Divine Master, when He put the 
 question, ' Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not 
 the things which I say ?' — in such an age, and face 
 to face with the fact that man in the aggregate is 
 utterly indifferent to, if not ignorant of, his high 
 descent, his birthright privileges, his priceless in- 
 heritance, once forfeited, but now fully redeemed, 
 purchased by the Sacrifice once offered for the 
 sins of the whole world, it is only by asserting 
 the dignity of man, showing him what he is in 
 union with God, and what he has made himself by 
 departing from God, that man can be raised from 
 the depths to which he has fallen, and be put back 
 into the path that leads to the height from which 
 sin has drawn him. 
 
 The life of Jesus of Nazareth illustrates what 
 perfect man is. The lives of the great majority of 
 men give unmistakable evidence of what man has 
 become since he allowed sin to intervene between 
 him and his Maker. While he is content to rest 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 
 
 119 
 
 under the dark shadow instead of striving to sur- 
 mount it, and get once more into the sunlight of 
 God's favour, he must be taught that, even in ruin, 
 he is still a superhuman being, and that Christ died 
 to redeem every individual soul. He must be 
 made to realize that, in the sight of God, it matters 
 not whether the soul tenants for a few brief years 
 a body that is clothed in purple and fine linen, or 
 one that is clothed in rags. As long as the miser- 
 able belief that is embodied in the words : 
 
 1 Rattle his bones over the stones, 
 It is only a pauper that nobody owns,' 
 
 is allowed to prevail in place of the Bible story of 
 the poor man, who, when he died, was carried by 
 the angels to Abraham's bosom ; as long as the 
 nobility and high mightiness of open sinners are 
 engraved on marble, and praises are lavished upon 
 them by the world of sycophants, the false estimate 
 of man will prevail with the great mass of mankind, 
 and check all effort to realize man's high destiny. 
 
 The origin of evil is known only to the ever- 
 blessed Trinity. That it is the opposite of good 
 we know; and, therefore, as God is good it is a 
 departure from goodness ; the will of a created 
 intelligence opposed to the will of God. Any 
 divergence from a perfect law would be, like the sin 
 of Adam, a wilful act of disobedience if done by a 
 reasonable creature, who is endowed with free will ; 
 and the result would be the same, whatever form 
 
120 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the disobedience might take, because an element 
 of disorder would thus invade God's system. 
 
 The ■ war in heaven,' with the result that Satan 
 and his angels were cast down to earth, and the fall 
 of man, with the result that he was sent forth from 
 Eden, prove that the law of cause and effect is 
 constant, whether it is working among angels or 
 among men. ' Spiritual wickedness in high places' 
 had the same punishment awarded to it as spiritual 
 wickedness in this lower world. 
 
 A false note in music destroys harmony ; the 
 breath of slander may blight the fairest character ; 
 a lie causes what is false to appear true. The first 
 act of the great drama of human life enacted in 
 Eden was related to the ' war in heaven,' in which 
 1 Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, 
 and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed 
 not ; neither was their place found any more in 
 heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that 
 old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which 
 deceiveth the whole world : he was cast out into 
 the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.' 
 He fell, as the Lord Jesus tells us, ' like lightning 
 from heaven,' and his first recorded act on earth 
 was bringing the subtle influence of self-pleasing 
 to bear upon the fairest creation of God. The 
 tempter knew that he could reach the lord of crea- 
 tion through his wife, and so bring ruin and death 
 upon them and their children. His superhuman 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 121 
 
 subtilty enabled him to accomplish his design ; 
 but the mystery which the angels have desired to 
 look into was hidden from him. He did not know, 
 in the hour of his triumph, that God Himself would 
 come down from heaven to snatch the prey from 
 his hand, and redeem the human race : that although 
 in His justice He must punish the sin, He would, in 
 His love and mercy, and according to His prede- 
 termined purpose, save the sinner ; and eventually 
 cast sin and death into the lake of fire, the eternal 
 fire of God's wrath against sin. 
 
 Too often in these days of modern thought the 
 intellect of man attempts in various ways to 
 account for sin, and even to explain it away or 
 cast a veil over it, and make it appear less hateful 
 than it is; but the universality, and the dread 
 working of sin, changing as it does the sons and 
 daughters of God into slaves of self, cause all those 
 who are striving to overcome sin in themselves, and 
 who are helping others to fight against it, to regard 
 it as the most terrible reality of life. Everyone 
 may say with St. Paul, ' I find then a law that, when 
 I would do good, evil is present with me. For I 
 delight in the law of God after the inward man : 
 but I see another law in my members, warring 
 against the law of my mind, and bringing me into ' 
 captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 
 O, wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me 
 from this body of death ?' But he adds, ' I thank 
 
122 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 God through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is 
 therefore now no condemnation to them which are 
 in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but 
 after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin 
 and death.' This Christ was the seed of the woman 
 that was to bruise the serpent's head by the law of 
 sacrifice — the absolute and entire surrender of self. 
 The words, ' I came not to do Mine own will, but 
 the will of Him who sent Me,' epitomise the life of 
 Him who died on Calvary ; and that perfect Sacri- 
 fice secured the redemption of a lost world, over- 
 came sin and death, and opened heaven to man. 
 In like manner the yielding up of our will to God, 
 so that whether in sickness or in health, in storm 
 or in sunshine, we can say, ' Not my will, but 
 Thine be done,' gives us, in, through, and by Christ, 
 all power in heaven and on earth ; a share of 
 Christ's glory; a seat on His judgment throne; 
 and it ensures the welcome ' Come, ye blessed of 
 My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.' 
 Well may St. Paul say, ' For our light affliction, 
 which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while 
 we look not at the things which are seen, but at 
 the things which are not seen ; for the things which 
 are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not 
 seen are eternal.' 
 
 But before man can enter Canaan he has to pass 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 123 
 
 through the wilderness, as our ancestors did when 
 they left Eden. Even in its uncultured state it 
 was a beautiful wilderness. Thorns and thistles, 
 indeed, sprang up in their path, because the ground 
 was cursed for Adam's sin ; but the unchangeable 
 Jehovah having from the beginning loved the crea- 
 ture He had made in His own image, loved on 
 with patient pitying love ; and His smile was seen 
 in the sunlight, which caused the flowers to grow 
 wherever a tear of penitence fell. 
 
 Next in the long procession walked Cain and 
 Abel, inheritors of that gift of free will, by the 
 misuse of which Adam and Eve had fallen. Each 
 was capable of loving and obeying God, or of 
 turning away from Him and disobeying Him. 
 Each could walk through the wilderness in the 
 narrow path of obedience under the guidance of 
 the Holy Spirit, or could turn into the broad 
 plane that stretched out on either side, and there 
 be a law unto himself and the slave of his own self- 
 will. In the persons of Cain and Abel we have 
 typical representatives of the bad and good in all 
 ages. Each child of earth when he joins the great 
 procession has to choose under whose banner he 
 will march in the war ; for fight he must, either for 
 God or against Him. According to the choice 
 he makes will be his future weal or woe. ' A 
 good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
 bringeth forth good things ; and an evil man out of 
 
124 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.' And 
 so it was that when the brothers offered their sacri- 
 fices to the Lord the sacrifice of Abel was accepted, 
 and the sacrifice of Cain was rejected ; for we are 
 told that, ' the Lord had respect unto Abel and to 
 his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering He 
 had not respect.' The reason for the rejection of 
 Cain's offering is explained : ' If thou doest well, 
 shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not 
 well, sin lieth at the door.' Face to face with sin 
 stood Cain, free to refuse the evil and choose the 
 good. God would not keep him from opening the 
 door of his heart and taking sin in, because that would 
 involve an interference with the free will on which 
 the moral quality of human actions depends. In the 
 case of Abel sin was not 'lying at the door,' and thus 
 he was able to present a sacrifice that was acceptable 
 unto God; and he was pronounced 'righteous.' 
 
 So, from the beginning, we see the power of the 
 'invisible' controlling and directing the 'visible.' 
 Man sees only the outward acts ; God looks into 
 the heart. Wise men, in this era of free-thought 
 and moral declension, tell us that our offerings can 
 be of no value in the eyes of a purely spiritual God ; 
 that our gold, and silver, and precious stones, the 
 rich adornment of churches erected for God's glory 
 and the good of men, are but so many evidences of 
 aesthetic taste, and are a wasteful expenditure of time 
 and money. We would have them remember the 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 125 
 
 story of Cain and Abel ; the building of Solomon's 
 Temple in all its magnificent details, under the 
 directions of the Architect of the universe ; and 
 that touching episode in the life of one whose name 
 is written in the ' Lamb's Book of Life,' but who is 
 only known on earth as a poor widow who cast into 
 the treasury of God's house in Jerusalem all that 
 she possessed. God is a Spirit, and looks into the 
 heart ; and this fact is, as it were, the key that 
 unlocks the door of the council-chamber of Deity, 
 and enables us to see and understand a little of 
 God's ways, which are not as man's ways. His 
 thoughts are higher than man's thoughts, and so 
 He sees what is to Him the priceless offering of a 
 pure, loving intention where man sees only a sculp- 
 tured entablature. He sees an act of adoration to the 
 Lamb where man sees but a golden chalice. He 
 sees a longing desire to do something for His glory 
 and honour, where man sees only a costly edifice. 
 He sees the sacrifice of self, where man sees but a 
 widow's mite. Hence it was that Abel's offering 
 found favour with God, and Cain's was rejected. 
 The outward and visible sign of sacrifice was in 
 Cain's offering, but the inward and spiritual grace 
 was not there ; and both are required by God, as 
 Christ taught, when He said to the Pharisees : ' Woe 
 unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
 ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, 
 and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, 
 
126 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 judgment, mercy, and faith ; these ought ye to have 
 done, and not to leave the other undone.' With 
 the firstling of his flock, Abel offered also his heart. 
 Cain made the material offering, but not the 
 spiritual ; thus rendering the material offering of no 
 avail. As it was then, so it is now : each member 
 of the human family must follow after either Cain 
 or Abel. He must choose for himself whether, at 
 the ' end of the days,' he will stand on the right 
 hand or on the left of the Judge ; and whether, 
 while marching on through the wilderness, he will 
 keep in spiritual darkness, or walk in the light of 
 obedience, love, and sacrifice. 
 
 As men multiplied on the earth, the great pro- 
 cession lengthened, and one generation after another 
 passed out of sight , but the ranks of the army have 
 ever remained unbroken, and like the windings of 
 a mighty river, it moves on ceaselessly through suc- 
 cessive ages. ' Not lost, but gone before,' is what 
 we say of the vanguard who, no doubt, are con- 
 scious of the far-stretching column that is marching 
 in the way their steps have trod; and those who 
 are in the rear know that they too must one day 
 let go the material mantle, and join the advanced 
 guard. ' How long, O Lord ! holy, and true, dost 
 Thou not judge, and avenge our blood on them 
 that dwell on the earth ?' was the cry of the souls 
 that St. John saw under the altar, who had been 
 slain for the word of God, and for the testimony 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 127 
 
 which they held. ' And white robes were given 
 unto every one of thern ; and it was said unto them, 
 that they should rest yet for a little season, until 
 their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, that 
 should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.' 
 And then St. John, the beloved disciple — to whom, 
 doubtless, such great revelations of the unseen 
 universe were vouchsafed because of the great love 
 he bore to his Divine Master, and of his faithful- 
 ness to the Crucified One when all the other apostles 
 forsook Him and fled— he, the faithful and true 
 witness, tells of ' a great multitude which no man 
 could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and 
 tongues,' standing 'before the throne, and before 
 the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in 
 their hands;' and he heard them crying with a loud 
 voice, saying, ' Salvation to our God which sitteth 
 upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.' And one 
 of the elders which stood with the angels round 
 about the throne, told St. John that those who 
 were arrayed in white robes, were ' they which came 
 out of great tribulation, and had washed their robes, 
 and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' 
 'Therefore are they before the throne of God, 
 and serve Him day and night in His temple, and 
 He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among 
 them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
 any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
 any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of 
 
128 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
 unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall 
 wipe away all tears from their eyes.' 
 
 St. John also writes : ' I saw in the right hand of 
 Him that sat on the throne a book, written within 
 and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And 
 1 saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 
 Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the 
 seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, 
 neither under the earth, was able to open the book, 
 neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because 
 no man was found worthy to open and to read the 
 book, neither to look thereon. And one of the 
 elders '— one, it may be, of ' the noble army of 
 martyrs,' or of 'the goodly fellowship of the 
 prophets,' or of the long line of confessors — ' saith 
 unto me, Weep not : behold, the Lion of the tribe 
 of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to 
 open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. 
 And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, 
 and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the 
 elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having 
 seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven 
 Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And 
 He came and took the book out of the right hand 
 of Him that sat upon the throne. And when He 
 had taken the book, the four beasts and the four 
 and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, 
 having everyone of them harps, and golden vials 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 129 
 
 full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. 
 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy 
 to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: 
 for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God 
 by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, 
 and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our 
 God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the 
 earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of 
 many angels round about the throne, and the 
 beasts, and the elders : and the number of them 
 was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands 
 of thousands ; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is 
 the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, 
 and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, 
 and blessing. And every creature which is in 
 heaven, and on the earth, and such as are in the 
 sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, Blessing, 
 and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him 
 that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb 
 for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. 
 And the four and twenty elders fell down and wor- 
 shipped Him that liveth for ever and ever.' 
 
 Among that great multitude, we may feel sure 
 that Enoch, who 'walked with God,' was num- 
 bered ; also Noah, who ' found grace in the eyes 
 of the Lord,' when all flesh had corrupted his way 
 upon the earth, and the earth was filled with 
 violence ; for he was one of the three upright men 
 distinguished by God Himself, who, when the house 
 
 9 
 
130 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 of Israel had set up idols in their hearts, and 
 polluted the land by their iniquities, said to Ezekiel, 
 1 Son of man, when the land sinneth against Me by 
 trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out My 
 hand upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it : 
 though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they should 
 deliver but their own souls by their righteousness.' 
 The apostle defines faith to be ' the substance 
 (or ground) of things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen. For by it the elders ob- 
 tained a good report. Through faith we under- 
 stand that the worlds were framed by the word of 
 God, so that things which are seen were not made 
 of things which do appear.' ' Without faith ' — the 
 faith that overcometh the world and its temptations, 
 the faith of the Son of God — ' it is impossible to 
 please God.' ' By faith Abel offered unto God a 
 more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he 
 obtained witness that he was righteous, God testi- 
 fying of his gifts : and by it he being dead yet 
 speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he 
 should not see death ; and was not found, because 
 God had translated him : for before his translation 
 he had this testimony, that he pleased God.' ' By 
 faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen 
 as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the 
 saving of his house ; by the which he condemned 
 the world, and became heir of the righteousness 
 which is by faith. By faith Abraham, when he was 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 131 
 
 called to go out into a place which he should after 
 receive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went 
 out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he 
 sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange 
 country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and 
 Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise : 
 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, 
 whose builder and maker is God. Through faith 
 also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, 
 and was delivered of a child when she was past age, 
 because she judged Him faithful who had promised. 
 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as 
 good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in 
 multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore 
 innumerable. These all died according to faith, 
 not having received the promises, but having seen 
 them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and 
 embraced them, and confessed that they were 
 strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that 
 say such things declare plainly that they seek a 
 country. And truly, if they had been mindful of 
 that country from whence they came out, they 
 might have had opportunity to have returned. But 
 now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly : 
 wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their 
 God : for He hath prepared for them a city. By 
 faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac : 
 and he that had received the promises offered up 
 his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in 
 
i 3 2 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 Isaac shall thy seed be called : accounting that 
 God was able to raise him up, even from the dead ; 
 from whence also he received him in a figure. By 
 faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning 
 things to come. By faith Jacob when he was a 
 dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph ; and wor- 
 shipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By 
 faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the 
 departing of the children of Israel ; and gave com- 
 mandment concerning his bones. By faith Moses, 
 when he was born, was hid three months of his 
 parents, because they saw he was a proper child ; 
 and they were not afraid of the king's command- 
 ment. By faith Moses, when he was come to 
 years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's 
 daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with 
 the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of 
 sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ 
 greater riches than the treasures in Egypt : for he 
 had respect unto the recompense of the reward. 
 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of 
 the king : for he endured as seeing Him who is in- 
 visible. Through faith he kept the passover, and 
 the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the 
 firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed 
 through the Red sea as by dry land : which the 
 Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. By faith 
 the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were com- 
 passed about seven days. By faith the harlot 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 133 
 
 Rahab perished not with them that believed not, 
 when she had received the spies with peace.' 
 
 'And what,' adds the writer of this Epistle, 
 • shall I more say ? for the time would fail me to 
 tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and 
 of Jephthah ; of David also, and Samuel, and of 
 the prophets; who through faith subdued king- 
 doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
 stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence 
 of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weak- 
 ness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, 
 turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women 
 received their dead raised to life again, and others 
 were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they 
 may obtain a better resurrection ; and others had 
 trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, more- 
 over of bonds, and imprisonment : they were 
 stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, 
 were slain with the sword : they wandered about 
 in sheep-skins and goat-skins j being destitute, 
 afflicted, tormented ; (of whom the world was not 
 worthy :) they wandered in deserts, and in moun- 
 tains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And 
 these all, having obtained a good report through 
 faith, received not the promise, God having pro- 
 vided some better thing for us, that they without 
 us should not be made perfect.' 'Wherefore seeing 
 we also are compassed about with so great a cloud 
 of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the 
 
i 3 4 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run 
 with patience the race that is set before us : look- 
 ing unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; 
 who for. the joy that was set before Him endured 
 the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at 
 the right hand of the throne of God.' 
 
 St. John wrote, for the edification of the Church, 
 which is the body of Christ, of the state of the 
 blessed dead, who, with the Crucified, are alive for 
 evermore in a house not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens : and this author wrote of those 
 servants of God, who were remarkable types of the 
 varying characters of all who, in succeeding gener- 
 ations, should tread in their footsteps ; and by 
 their example of faith and good works, lead others 
 to live such lives on earth as would prepare them 
 for the life of glcry and happiness which was re- 
 vealed through St. John, in order that we may 
 know a little of what God has prepared for those 
 that love Him. 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard ; neither hath it entered into the heart of 
 man ' to conceive all the exceeding glory. 
 
 It is a comfort and a joy to know that the way 
 in which the soldiers of the Cross have to walk 
 now is no new or untrodden path. Though strait 
 and narrow, it is wide enough for all who choose 
 to walk in it. It is a royal road, and along it have 
 all the saints of God walked from the days of 
 1 righteous Abel ' unto the present time. On the 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 135 
 
 line of march, have been, and shall be seen, even 
 unto the end, prophets, priests, and kings; apostles, 
 confessors, and virgins ; a noble army of martyrs, 
 living as strangers and pilgrims. They turn from 
 the allurements of the world, as Moses did in old 
 time, and they endure the trials of life, as becomes 
 soldiers of the Cross, and as seeing Him who to 
 mortal sight is invisible ; but who to the eye of faith 
 is always a present help in times of adversity, as 
 near to each one who calls upon Him in the hour 
 of sorrow as He was to the sisters of Lazarus, when 
 He said unto them, ' Thy brother shall rise again.' 
 There are many battalions in the army, and as 
 the procession passes on, we see by the movements 
 of the soldiers, and by the device upon the banners 
 which they carry, the object which they are striving 
 to attain. At one period of the world's history, 
 men attempted to build a city, and a tower whose 
 top should reach to heaven. ' Let us,' they said, 
 ' make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad 
 upon the face of the whole earth ' ; and the 
 followers of those who began to build their tower 
 of fame on the plain of Shinar, still plant, and 
 build, and call the land after their own name, for- 
 getting that here they have ' no continuing city,' 
 and that the banner of worldly pride which they 
 vauntingly display is unfurled in an enemy's 
 country, and that at any moment the work they 
 have begun may totter and fall. 
 
136 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 Other divisions of the army are content to gather 
 the flowers, and the weeds with them, that grow in 
 their path • and so subtle are the attacks of the 
 great enemy of man that they often escape the 
 observation of these easy souls. Endowed with 
 all the knowledge and power of an Archangel, 
 Satan comes forth from the darkness armed with 
 various weapons. To all who range themselves 
 under the banner of the Cross, he transforms him- 
 self into an angel of light, using different devices 
 to turn them aside from the strait way in which 
 their Captain walked. 
 
 There are others in the Great Procession who 
 are content with present ease and luxury ; who 
 wander listlessly on into the future, without any 
 definite purpose; taking for their motto, 'Let 
 us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' No 
 need for the fallen archangel to transform him- 
 self into an angel of light in order to deceive 
 them. The sunlight of to-day is enough for 
 them, and in that light they stroll about, gather- 
 ing while the morning lasts all that pleases the 
 | senses ; but even at noon the light begins to grow 
 dim for them, and, with a sigh of regret that the 
 brightness of the early hours has faded, that all 
 has lost its freshness, or has perished in the using, 
 they begin to store up more lasting treasures, gold 
 and silver, and precious stones, or ' knowledge that 
 puffeth up,' without elevating. All earth's treasures, 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 137 
 
 gathered and used only for time and self, without 
 any recognition of the higher part of man's being, 
 with all its duties and responsibilities, are but 
 barriers which shut out the light from heaven ; and 
 all who are satisfied to rest behind those barriers , 
 are far away from the Source of light. It is only 
 when one of the sleepers is aroused, discovers that 
 he is groping in darkness, and raises his eyes to 
 catch a glimpse of a brighter world, that the evil 
 one draws near to tempt him to close his eyes 
 again, and take his rest. Such as these were the 
 people whom Moses led out of Egypt. By the 
 power and might of the Lord the children of 
 Israel had been delivered from a bondage that was 
 too heavy for them to bear. Their taskmasters 
 had been slain by the pestilence, or drowned in 
 the Red Sea, and danger was past. They had but 
 to walk through the wilderness of Shur, hearkening 
 diligently to the voice of God, who spoke by Moses, 
 in order to reach the land of rest and promise. 
 Stiffnecked and perverse, however, they soon proved 
 to be, and began to murmur — ' Would to God we 
 had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of 
 Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we 
 did eat bread to the full. ' Faithless, after all the 
 wonders which had been wrought for their deliver- 
 ance, they cried out to Moses and Aaron, and said, 
 ■ Ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to 
 kill this whole assembly with hunger.' And Moses 
 
138 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 said, ' Your murmurings are not against us, but 
 against the Lord.' Being merciful and gracious, 
 long-suffering, and full of compassion and pity, the 
 Lord answered their murmuring with a blessing, 
 1 Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, 
 and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.' 
 ' And in the morning the dew lay round about the 
 host ; and when the dew that lay was gone up, 
 behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay 
 a small round thing, as small as the hoar-frost on 
 the ground. And when the children of Israel saw 
 it, they said one to another, It is a portion ; for 
 they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto 
 them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given 
 you to eat.' 
 
 Thus has the great Father ever dealt with man 
 from the beginning, yet man still provokes Him 
 every day. Man is ever changing, but, in majestic 
 silence, the unchangeable God develops His will, 
 and unfolds His plan, for the salvation of man ; 
 and the records of the past, and a careful observa- 
 tion of the present, alike bear witness to the fact 
 that is embodied in the words, 'History repeats 
 itself.' There is the inevitable fate of nations 
 typefied in the individual life of each man ; the 
 rise and fall of one, the youth and old age of the 
 other. There is no standing still, even for a 
 moment, although there is often a seeming pause 
 in the working of the fixed, but ever active laws 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 139 
 
 which govern the universe. There is what is called 
 the prime of man's life, when the physical part of 
 his being has ceased to grow, and when the unseen 
 ripening of nature goes on until full maturity is 
 reached; and then, unseen, the slow, sure deca- 
 dence begins, the end of which is death. So also 
 it is with nations. They have small beginnings : 
 each rises as an oak does from the acorn ; each 
 increases in might and power, and knowledge, and 
 dominion, until the highest point is attained, and 
 then, as surely as a mountaineer when he has 
 reached the greatest altitude has to descend to 
 the common level, the downward course begins. 
 This law of progression and retrogression is uni- 
 versal ; but among ' all the changes and chances 
 of this mortal life ' God's servants have ever found 
 strength and rest, and peace, in the unchangeable- 
 ness of Him who fed His rebellious children in 
 the wilderness with the manna that was typical 
 of that bread from heaven, with which we are fed 
 in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. The bread 
 from heaven that was given to the Israelites 
 nourished the mortal body. The bread which God 
 gave in later days gives life to the soul. Just as 
 the bond between us and the first Adam is our 
 fleshly descent, so the bond between us and the 
 second Adam is in the two great sacraments of 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper. By Baptism we 
 are grafted into the Vine — the Living Vine — and 
 
 I 
 
i 4 o THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 thus, mystically, each becomes a living branch, a 
 child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of 
 the kingdom of heaven. By the Eucharist, our 
 union with Him who said, 'I am the Bread of 
 Life,' is sustained and strengthened, for when 
 Jesus said to His disciples, ' I am that Bread of 
 Life,' He added, ' Your fathers did eat manna in 
 the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread 
 which cometh down from heaven, that a man may 
 eat thereof, and not die.' 
 
 None will know, until the day dawns when all 
 secrets shall be revealed, what an increase of 
 spiritual vitality is given to each faithful worshipper 
 at the Eucharist : none can measure the extent of 
 the loss which all who will not receive the Bread 
 of Life must sustain. The unseen is not yet un- 
 veiled ; but when man considers the emblem, and 
 what were the results of not gathering the manna 
 in the wilderness — where no other food to sustain 
 animal life was to be had — to the Hebrews, he 
 cannot escape from the conclusion, that refusing to 
 eat the 'Living Bread,' that comes down from 
 heaven at every celebration of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, must have an awful effect upon his spiritual 
 and immortal life. In the strength which the Bread 
 of Life gives, man may make giant-strides in the 
 spiritual life; but without spiritual food how can 
 the spirit of man grow ? One of the saddest sights 
 the sun shines upon is that of a human being choos- 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 141 
 
 ing evil and refusing good ; living for the things of i 
 time, and giving no thought to the things of eternity. 
 The history of the children of Israel was written 
 for man's learning ; and from first to last it is, in a 
 general way, typical of national and individual life. 
 The descendants of Jacob became slaves and bond- 
 men in the land of Egypt, and burdens were laid 
 upon them which were greater than they could 
 bear. In the midst of all the wealth and glory of 
 Egypt, the sons and daughters of Israel were 
 trodden in the dust; and all the learning and 
 wisdom of the Egyptians only seemed to harden 
 their hearts against these Hebrew slaves. Never- 
 theless Israelites continued to multiply, according 
 to the word of the Lord, who had appeared unto 
 their forefather Abram, when he was ninety and 
 nine years old, and when Isaac, the son of promise, 
 was not, and said unto him, ' I am the Almighty 
 God ; walk before Me, and be thou perfect. And 
 I will make My covenant between Me and thee, 
 and will multiply thee exceedingly. As for Me, 
 behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt 
 be a father of a multitude of nations. Neither 
 shall thy name any more be called Abram, but 
 thy name shall be Abraham ; for a father of many 
 nations have I made thee. And I will make thee 
 exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, 
 and kings shall come out of thee. And I will 
 establish My covenant between Me and thee and 
 
142 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 thy seed after thee in their generations for an ever- 
 lasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy 
 seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to 
 thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojournings, all 
 the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, 
 and I will be their God.' And the word of the 
 Lord was fulfilled. As time rolled on the Israelites 
 increased abundantly, and 'waxed exceeding 
 mighty,' and the land of Egypt was filled with them. 
 And the king of Egypt saw that the children of 
 the captivity were more in numbers and mightier 
 than the Egyptians, and he ordered the task- 
 masters to afflict them : but the more they afflicted 
 them the more they multiplied and grew, until 
 Pharaoh in fear and wrath commanded that all 
 the men-children should be destroyed as soon as 
 they were born. Then it was that God Himself 
 came to their rescue. He heard their groaning, 
 and remembered His covenant with Abraham, with 
 Isaac, and with Jacob ; and He raised up Moses to 
 deliver them from bondage, and lead them forth 
 out of Egypt. 
 
 Marvellous are the revelations of superhuman 
 power, bringing about the fulfilment of prophecy, 
 and the accomplishment of God's designs, in the 
 history of the Hebrew nation. God's will is 
 supreme. His will was that Israel's children should 
 dwell in Canaan, and become a great nation, 
 innumerable as the stars, or the sand upon the sea- 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 143 
 
 shore. He did not show Himself unto Pharaoh ; 
 
 He worked through Moses : and so it came to pass 
 
 that one man, and he one of the captive race, 
 
 confronted the might of Egypt, and triumphed 
 
 gloriously. Well might Moses ask, 'Who ami, 
 
 that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should 
 
 bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt ?' 
 
 God had called him by name, and appeared unto 
 
 him on Mount Horeb, and said, ' I am the God. of 
 
 thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
 
 and the God of Jacob. I have surely seen the 
 
 affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and 
 
 have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters, 
 
 for I know their sorrows ; and I am come down to 
 
 deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians, 
 
 and to bring them out of that land unto a good 
 
 land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and 
 
 honey. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee 
 
 unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My 
 
 people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt' Who 
 
 would not fall down and hide his face, and be 
 
 afraid, and cry, as Moses did, 'Who am I that I 
 
 should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring 
 
 forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?' But 
 
 God answered him, ' Certainly I will be with thee.' 
 
 In the unseen presence of the Lord of Hosts with 
 
 Moses was all-sufficient strength. When His arm is 
 
 stretched out to save or to destroy, none can resist. 
 
 'Go,' said the Almighty to His chosen servant, 
 
144 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 1 Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and 
 say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the 
 God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared 
 unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and 
 seen that which is done to you in Egypt ; and I 
 have said I will bring you up out of the affliction 
 of Egypt unto a land flowing with milk and honey : 
 and they shall hearken to thy voice, and thou shalt 
 come, thou and the elders of Israel unto the king 
 of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord God 
 of the Hebrews hath met with us : and now let us 
 go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the 
 wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our 
 God. And I am sure that the king of Egypt will 
 not let you go, but by a strong hand. And I will 
 stretch out My hand, and smite Egypt with all My 
 wonders which I will do in the midst thereof : and 
 after that he will let you go.' Still Moses feared, 
 and said, ' But, behold, they will not believe me, 
 nor hearken unto my voice : for they will say, The 
 Lord hath not appeared unto thee.' And God, full 
 of love and compassion, vouchsafed signs to 
 strengthen His servant's faith. But again Moses 
 faltered, and said, ' O my Lord, I am not eloquent, 
 neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto 
 Thy servant : but I am slow of speech, and of a 
 slow tongue.' And the Lord said unto him, 'Who 
 hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the 
 dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? Have 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 145 
 
 not I the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will 
 be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt 
 say.' Even this was not enough, and once more 
 Moses trembled and feared, not realizing that he 
 was but the favoured instrument in God's hand for 
 accomplishing the great work set before him. And 
 he said ' O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand 
 of him whom Thou shouldest send. And the anger 
 of the Lord was kindled against Moses ; and he 
 said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I 
 know that he can speak well. And thou shalt speak 
 unto him, and put words in his mouth : and I will 
 be with thy mouth and with his mouth, and will 
 teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy 
 spokesman unto the people : and he shall be, even 
 he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou 
 shalt be to him instead of God.' 
 
 The king of Egypt withstood Moses ; for he 
 knew not that One greater than all the gods of 
 Egypt was present with him. Plague after plague 
 was brought upon the land, yet the king hardened 
 his heart, and not until all the first-born of the 
 Egyptians, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat 
 upon the throne, unto the first-born of the captive 
 that was in the dungeon, lay dead, did the proud 
 monarch of Egypt call for Moses and Aaron, and 
 bid them ' Rise up, and go forth from among the 
 Egyptians.' If no unseen Power had been direct- 
 ing and overruling all, why should a Pharaoh 
 
 10 
 
146 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 endure the presence of Moses, and parley with him 
 about his slaves and bondmen ? Slaves are always 
 unarmed, and, therefore, numerous as were the 
 Hebrews, they were, humanly speaking, powerless 
 in the land of their captivity, surrounded as they 
 were by their captors, the mightiest warriors in the 
 world, and unmatched in discipline and power. 
 
 It was a great deliverance that was wrought, 
 apparently by Moses ; as in after years another 
 great victory was gained by a youth with a sling 
 and a stone ; and as in modern days England owes 
 her greatness and her vast dominions to the genius 
 of her Saxon King, Alfred. And the world says 
 that ' chance,' or ' a favourable combination of cir- 
 cumstances,' or 'causes which could be easily 
 explained, if we had the means of ascertaining all 
 the facts, brought about these results which appear 
 to be so wonderful, but are in themselves only the 
 natural outcome of the exercise of man's power and 
 free will.' These are some of man's sophisms ; the 
 vague, unscientific propositions which are put forth 
 by men who pride themselves upon believing no 
 more than they can see and understand. Ask them 
 how they know that they are living men, and they 
 would probably say that reason assured them of 
 the fact. But we cannot reason about a thing that 
 is not ; we must have reason before we can use it ; 
 and the perception of that fact, a knowledge of the 
 possession of reason, is a passive act of faith. 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION \\7 
 
 Faith is the gift of God, we are distinctly told ; and 
 because it is His gift, and because of its inesti- 
 mable value, as the foundation on which all good 
 works must be built up in order to be acceptable to 
 God — for we must believe in Him before we can 
 love and serve Him — the author of evil uses all 
 these delusions to blind man to the truth. Well 
 he knows from his own experience how subtle is 
 the influence of the pride of intellect ; and how 
 easy and natural it is to man in his fallen state to 
 elevate reason into the place of Him who bestowed 
 it upon man : and, therefore, to minds of the highest 
 order, Satan hides from view the grosser forms of 
 evil, and works at undermining faith in the Author 
 and Giver of all good. But Hope, one of the / 
 brightest stars in the firmament of Earth, shines ! 
 clear and steady, and is more lustrous when the ! 
 night is darkest. 
 
 The evil which we know exists, and which has 
 some mysterious connection with the exercise of 
 free will, is allowed by God to develop all its 
 hideous deformity and to injure mankind, not with 
 a view to its final destruction, but for its ultimate 
 good. God's ways are past finding out ; but His 
 plan of salvation has been declared. Sin, and 
 death which is the result of sin, are to be destroyed. 
 The sinner is to be saved by the power of the great 
 Sacrifice, God Himself taking our flesh as a veil, 
 and in that flesh dying for man. All this is matter 
 
148 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 of history to us. The salvation of man has been 
 accomplished. ' It is finished,' and in the light of 
 fulfilled prophecy, and of historical evidence, the 
 sinfulness of that want of faith which excited God's 
 anger against Moses is small, indeed, compared 
 with the sin of this age. When we read of the task 
 that was set before Moses, and think of its vastness, 
 and of the weakness of the instrument that was to 
 be used for its accomplishment : when we realize 
 that the work was to be done in an enemy's 
 country, and that all the power of the king and of 
 a great nation were arrayed against the one man 
 who was called by the unseen King of kings to 
 stand before Pharaoh, and demand the release of 
 the builders of the treasure-cities ; then — as we look 
 around and see the 'little faith ' which only seems to 
 flicker in this our day of grace — we cease to wonder 
 at Moses losing heart and entreating God to send 
 another to do the work. In a later period of man's 
 history another servant of God besought the Lord 
 for relief from pain, and he was told, • My grace is 
 sufficient for thee ; for My strength is made perfect 
 in weakness.' When Moses did ' put his hand to 
 the plough ' he became one of the most signal 
 . examples of the way in which the natural man can 
 be sustained by the Divine Power. The great 
 P exodus from Egypt, and all the wonders which pre- 
 ceded it, were wrought by the Divine Power work- 
 ing through Moses. The passage of the Red Sea 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 149 
 
 completed the deliverance of the Hebrews, and 
 then followed the forty years of wandering in the 
 wilderness. It is a sad and humiliating story, one 
 of murmuring idolatry and rebellion on the part of 
 man : one of patient forbearance, long-suffering 
 and forgiveness, with just, yet loving, retribution and 
 punishment of sin on the part of God. 
 
 We are all too prone to regard the lives of the men 
 and women of Holy Scripture as quite different 
 to our own lives ; the actors in the scenes that 
 are sketched do not seem to be really like the 
 men and women of all the ages. But surely the 
 men and women of old time would be such as 
 we are if they were living now ; and we should have 
 been like them, and have done very much as they 
 did, if we had lived in their time. God made 
 man upright. When by reason of sin man lost 
 his uprightness he became subject to changes ; 
 the conditions of his life were altered. The more 
 he allowed sin to reign over him the more confu- 
 sion and disorder prevailed ; the farther he de- 
 parted from the counsels of God the less able he 
 became to govern himself wisely and with due self- 
 control ; the less able he was either to obey those 
 who had the earthly rule over him, or to be content 
 with that state of life in which God had placed him. 
 The oldest records of the past, and the state of the 
 world at the present moment, demonstrate this fact ; 
 and if we follow the stream of history from its 
 
i 5 o THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 source until we reach the stormy sea on which man 
 is now sailing— talking of peace while preparing 
 for war; preaching righteousness and working 
 iniquity; boasting of civilization and refinement, 
 while the few have the wealth of Crcesus and the 
 many are starving and helpless, some dying like 
 dogs within a stone's-throw of gorgeous palaces — 
 we shall find that it has always been the same, and 
 that it will be so to the end of time ; for, as we have 
 seen, the laws which govern the universe are as 
 unchangeable as the God who made them. If we 
 bear in mind that man is man, and can be neither 
 more nor less than man, whether he be cultured as , 
 a Plato or degraded as a savage ; that he was made 
 a free-agent, and that evil has dogged his steps from 
 the beginning, we shall more clearly understand 
 the records of sacred and profane history, and the 
 life of the Hebrews in the wilderness. 
 
 During the centuries that elapsed from the time 
 when Joseph ruled in Egypt, the descendants of 
 Israel must (this is suggested by the episode of the 
 golden calves) have partly lost faith in the God of 
 Israel, and adopted something of the idolatrous 
 worship of Egypt. They received the law of God 
 from Moses as we receive it from the 'Holy 
 Catholic Church;' and, as many members of Christ's 
 body do now, regarding the Church as merely a 
 human institution, whose laws and teaching may 
 be accepted or rejected at pleasure, they failed to 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 151 
 
 see beyond the veil, and to acknowledge God in 
 Moses ; they did as men do now, condemned 
 His action and rebelled against His authority. The 
 result of all their sin and disobedience was that out 
 of the great multitude of free men who came from 
 Egypt, only two survived to enter the Promised 
 Land. All the others died in the wilderness. But 
 what an inglorious ending to the march that was 
 commenced in the land of the Pharaohs was the 
 death of one after another of that long procession 
 in the wilderness ! What a sad ending of life in 
 this world is indicated by the words, ' Many are 
 called, but few are chosen.' Only eight were 
 saved when the flood came, and the waters covered 
 the earth. Only one family escaped from the 
 doomed cities of the plain, the rest perished. 
 History tells of great nations, and of their kings 
 and mighty men of valour, who have long since 
 passed away ; and ruined monuments that were 
 raised thousands of years ago testify still to the lofty 
 conceptions of the designers, and the cultured skill 
 of the workmen, but remain only to attest the truth 
 of the saying, ' There is nothing new under the sun.' 
 The greatest empires and kingdoms of the world 
 have risen and fallen ; and the countless genera- 
 tions of men who thought and worked and toiled 
 as men do now, who gathered and stored vast 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge, or who fought 
 for their country and their king as bravely as 
 
152 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the sons of Britain fight for the honour of England 
 to-day, are all gone, vanished from mortal sight. 
 Through successive ages the verdict of history- 
 is the same — but few are ever found walking in 
 the narrow way ; the many are in the broad road. 
 Not ten righteous men were to be found in Sodom. 
 Not many righteous kings ruled over God's chosen 
 people. The true prophets of God who were sent 
 to warn men of coming punishment if they con- 
 tinued to rebel against the laws of God were 
 persecuted, imprisoned, and afflicted : others pro- 
 phesied falsely, and ' the people loved to have it 
 so.' Each great national history has its good king, 
 its Daniel, and its apostle of truth ; but of the 
 vast majority it seems to be written : ' they are 
 weighed in the balance and found wanting.' 
 
 There is no material difference, except that which 
 diversity of taste and changing circumstances make, 
 between the people of ancient Tyre, or Capernaum, 
 and the wealthy inhabitants of the cities of modern 
 Europe. There is the same costly magnificence in 
 their attire, and in the adornment of their palaces ; 
 the same pride of life ; the same careless ease and 
 love of the world ; and the same immorality. 
 Where one searches for and finds the ' Pearl of 
 great price,' and stretches forth hand and heart to 
 grasp it, thousands are content to possess a few 
 poor pearls of present self-pleasing. Where one 
 strives for the 'laurel crown,' thousands are con- 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 153 
 
 tent to wear wreaths of flowers that fade well-nigh 
 as soon as gathered. Where one soldier fights for 
 God and the right, thousands lay aside their 
 armour and live at ease. Is then, the vast army 
 lost ? Is the hand of the Lord shortened that it 
 cannot save ? Is the standard of victory snatched 
 from the hand of the Captain of our salvation in 
 the final loss of the great majority? If so, heaven 
 will be thinly peopled, and some of the many 
 mansions prepared for the children of men in the 
 kingdom of their Father will be empty : and the 
 God-man will have few of those whom He has 
 made brothers and sisters, by taking human flesh 
 and dwelling among them, with Him in His home 
 above. Has God cast off the great multitude of 
 those whom He delivered from Egyptian bondage 
 for ever ? Are the wanderers never to reach home, 
 never to find a place of rest ? Are all the Jews 
 who have lived with the veil upon their hearts 
 during the past nineteen centuries, thus demon- 
 strating the truth of prophecy, and proclaiming by 
 their continued existence as a separate nation, that 
 God rules on earth, and shapes the destiny of men, 
 to be lost? Are only those who shall be alive when 
 Christ once more stands upon Mount Zion to be 
 converted and saved ? The prayer of the dying 
 Saviour gives the answer. ' Father, forgive them, 
 for they know not what they do.' ' As in Adam 
 all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' 
 
154 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 1 At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of 
 things in heaven, and things in earth, and things 
 under the earth ; and every tongue shall confess 
 that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the 
 Father.' ' All that go down to the dust shall bow 
 before Him.' ' All the ends of the world shall 
 remember and turn unto the Lord ; and all the 
 kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him. 
 For the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the 
 Governor among the nations.' These are precious 
 promises ; most assuring to all who mourn over 
 the backslidings of men, and think of the millions 
 who are born into this world, and leave it without 
 having heard of a Redeemer. These promises are 
 so boundless and unqualified that faith grows 
 stronger, and hope brighter, as we meditate upon 
 them. Man needs hope as well as faith, to save 
 him from despair, and God has given both, as He 
 ever has given to His children all that is good for 
 them in the varying circumstances of their transi- 
 tory life. It is impossible for the finite mind to 
 realize all the evil that has sprung since Eve's in- 
 clinations developed into a deliberate act of re- 
 bellion. But that act and its consequences have 
 fixed on the hearts of men the convictions of the 
 infinite patience of God, who, century after century 
 bears with evil, and overrules it for the sinner's 
 highest and lasting good. Who that has sinned, 
 and suffered, and learned in the experience of 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 155 
 
 suffering to know himself, can fail to realize that, 
 but for the knowledge of evil, he could not have 
 realized what goodness is. The more the sinless 
 life of the Crucified is studied, the clearer all truth 
 becomes. The world, and the world's knowledge, 
 teach us nothing of the mystery of sin and suffer- 
 ing. Christ's life teaches us enough to enable us 
 to know that, in the end, greater good to mankind 
 will come through evil, than if evil had not existed. 
 This comes as a clear revelation to a believer in 
 Christ : while the atheist uses the existence of pain 
 and evil as his strongest argument against the 
 existence of God. The cruelty, hypocrisy, reck- 
 less waste, selfishness, pride, with their attendant 
 evils, allowed, perpetuated, transmitted from parents 
 to children : the innocent suffering for the guilty : 
 the souls and bodies of one generation after 
 another injured, marred, and distorted by the 
 sins of their forefathers — are proofs to the Atheist 
 of the truth of his theory : and if this world were 
 all, if there were no Incomprehensible, if the 
 atheist's premises were correct, his conclusion, as 
 a reasonable being using his reason, is inevitable. 
 Thank God, all false theories are to disappear 
 some day, as mist does before the rising sun. 
 
 No paean was ever raised in a world of sin and 
 death that was so welcome as this, ' Jesus came to 
 seek and to save that which was lost.' Not on 
 earth only was the proclamation made. Straight 
 
156 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 from the crucified body which Jesus had taken of 
 the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, to offer as a sacrifice 
 for the sins of the whole world, He went 'to 
 preach to the spirits in prison ' ; to all who had 
 failed by reason of sin to find the ' narrow way ' 
 on earth : to those of whom Christ said, ' It shall 
 be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of 
 judgment ' than for Chorazin and Bethsaida ; ' For,' 
 said the Lord, to the cities wherein most of His 
 mighty works were done, ' if the mighty works 
 which were done in you had been done in Tyre 
 and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in 
 sackcloth and ashes.' Those words give us clear 
 spiritual insight of the unseen world. When they were 
 spoken by Christ, He had not been seen in Hades, 
 therefore, ' the light of the knowledge of God as 
 seen in the face of Jesus Christ,' had not shined 
 upon its inhabitants. For long centuries the great 
 majority of the descendants of Adam had been in 
 Hades ; and from what St. Peter tells us of Christ, 
 that ■ He was put to death in the flesh ; but 
 quickened in the spirit ' (the human spirit), we have 
 sure ground for believing that when the soul of 
 man enters the spirit-world, there is an increase of 
 spiritual vitality ; and with the increase of spiritual 
 vitality, there must be a fuller operation of the 
 Holy Ghost. Hence it follows that the work of 
 the third Person of the Blessed Trinity is not con- 
 fined to earth, and bound by the measuring line of 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 157 
 
 time ; its sphere is the spirit-world, and it is He, 
 who is to abide with us for ever, who builds up 
 and enlightens the spiritual body in which we shall 
 dwell through eternity. There is but one Gospel : 
 and when the Lord Jesus had preached that 
 Gospel on earth, He went to preach the same in 
 Hades ; and, bearing in mind that the flesh wars 
 against the spirit, can it be doubted that the 
 Lord's teaching in the world of spirits had grander 
 immediate results than His teaching in this world 
 had ? ' And thou, Capernaum,' the blessed Saviour 
 said, ' which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be 
 brought down to hell : for if the mighty works 
 which have been done in thee had been done in 
 Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 
 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable 
 for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, 
 than for thee.' Yes, for justice and mercy are 
 equally balanced by the King of kings, and Caper- 
 naum sinned against clearer light than shone upon 
 Sodom. It is written, ' The truth shall make you 
 free,' and when the Son of God entered Hades, 
 He did not go to tell the prisoners that they were 
 lost for ever, and that on the awful day when each 
 one would be punished or rewarded according to 
 the deeds done in the body, the once lost soul 
 would not be received by the Father, when it had 
 become purified through the fiery chastisement of 
 God's wrath against sin. He had just laid down 
 
158 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 His life for the sins of the whole world ; and He 
 went to Hades to teach the wanderers and the dis- 
 obedient of earlier days the lessons which He had 
 been teaching on earth ; and to tell them of a land 
 of light, and love, and rest from sin, which He had 
 purchased for them ; and that He was 'the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life ' : the One who had come 
 down from heaven to seek and to save the lost : 
 who had uttered the omnipotent cry from the Cross, 
 ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do.' Not till the last man to be saved is saved 
 can those words cease to vibrate on the Father's 
 ear : never can they fail to give hope to the sinner ; 
 for heaven and earth may pass away, but God's 
 words shall not pass away. Nevertheless, all must 
 stand before the Judgment-throne, each to receive 
 the due reward of His sins ; and if for every idle 
 word ' man shall have to give account,' how much 
 sorer punishment awaits those who only did evil 
 continually during their mortal life ? 
 
 Just as one star differeth from another star in 
 glory ; just as every thought, and word, and deed, 
 leaves its impress upon the spirit of man, and, like 
 a good or bad mark in school, has its positive 
 result in determining not only reward or loss of 
 something but the amount of gain or loss — so 
 man's faith and works on earth decide his position 
 in the next stage of existence. 'Whatsoever a 
 man soweth, that shall he also reap.' He sows on 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 159 
 
 earth, as He moves on in the Great Procession 
 towards the border-land, where he is stripped of his 
 working dress, the material substance of his flesh, 
 which he leaves to be buried ; while he, in the 
 divinely-fashioned form in which lies his identity, 
 goes to the spirit-world ; it may be, to be at peace 
 in ' Abraham's bosom ' ; it may be to join the dis- 
 obedient, in the region where remorse, and the 
 recollection of lost opportunities and acts of wilful, 
 unrepented sin, will be his portion of torment ; or 
 it may be to join those who are to be beaten with 
 few stripes, because they knew not their Lord's 
 will. 
 
 The infinite pity of the Good Shepherd for His 
 lost sheep was manifested when He taught in 
 parables ; so that those who could not bear the 
 full light of truth should not see what, if rejected, 
 would increase their condemnation. But when 
 knowledge of the written word of God had kindled 
 light, which, but for wilful blindness, would have 
 enabled man to see in Christ the fulfilment of 
 Messianic prophecy, Jesus said, ' The men of 
 Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, 
 and shall condemn it ; because they repented at 
 the preaching of Jonas ; and, behold, a greater 
 than Jonas is here.' With what adoring love and 
 gratitude must the men of Nineveh have welcomed 
 Him of whom Jonas was a type ! What a wave 
 of light must have flooded Hades, when the ' Light 
 
160 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world ' stood among its expectant inhabitants. 
 
 And again Christ said, ' The queen of the south 
 shall rise up in judgment with this generation, 
 and shall condemn it : for she came from the 
 uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom 
 of Solomon ; and, behold, a greater than Solomon 
 is here.' What would He say to the world now, 
 and to those who, living under the dispensation 
 of the Holy Ghost, close their eyes to the light, and 
 live and act as if spiritual life and spiritual growth 
 were nonentities, and immortality — the long, un- 
 ending life beyond the grave — were not worth 
 thinking about ? The judgment upon such an age 
 has been foreshadowed : ' To whom much is given, 
 of him much will be required.' 
 
 An intelligent faith in what is called the c super- 
 natural' enables man to understand himself and 
 his history ; it accounts in a reasonable way for his 
 aspirations towards a better state of things than 
 exists in this world ; it gives him a clear apprehen- 
 sion of his origin and of his destiny, of his Creator, 
 and of the union in his own nature of the Divine 
 and human. Weak faith degenerates often into 
 mere superstition. Strong faith with sound reason 
 enable men to soar far above all visionary doubts 
 and mental hallucinations into a region where they 
 attain an absolute knowledge of the fact that man 
 is a superhuman being. That fact opens man's 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 161 
 
 eyes and heart to such an expansive view of Nature 
 and Revelation, that he realizes the universal 
 brotherhood of mankind, and its continuity from 
 the beginning ; he regards the ' great procession ' 
 as one family. What were sometime mysteries 
 become plain realities ; and they who find that day 
 by day the shadows of ignorance are growing less, 
 and the light of wisdom and the power of vision are 
 increasing, scarcely need the reappearance on earth 
 of those who have gone to the world of spirits to 
 assure them of their existence in another sphere. 
 Yet God permits them from time to time to revisit 
 earth. He remembers our many infirmities, and 
 our temptations to unbelief in the unseen, and He 
 vouchsafes to man whatever is needful to confirm 
 his faith in eternal verities. Samuel was permitted 
 to appear to Saul, and, as he had done when in the 
 flesh, he spoke to the king as a prophet sent by God, 
 telling him that, because he had not obeyed the 
 voice of the Lord, the kingdom had been rent from 
 his hand and given to David. The daughter of 
 Jairus was recovered from death. The son of the 
 widow of Nain was restored to his mother. Lazarus 
 entered again that mortal body which had lain four 
 days in the tomb. Tradition says that he was 
 never seen to smile after he was raised from the 
 dead. It may be so, for he was the friend of Jesus, 
 and it is written, ' Blessed are the dead that die in 
 the Lord.' He, like the beggar who lay at the rich 
 
1 62 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 man's door, may have been led by angels to a place 
 of rest and light and love ; so that earth, hence- 
 forth, could have no charm for him. He came 
 back at the bidding of his Lord, and again went 
 about among men, a living monument of the power 
 of God; but — so great is the wilful blindness of 
 fallen man — because his presence at Bethany proved 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was what He claimed to be, 
 God-Incarnate, ' the chief priests consulted that 
 they might put Lazarus to death, because, by reason 
 of him, many of the Jews went away and believed 
 on Jesus.' Well was it said unto them, ' Ye fools, 
 and blind !' as if He who had raised the dead once 
 could not put forth His Almighty power again, and 
 cause Lazarus to witness against their wickedness 
 and hypocrisy if He willed so to do. They who 
 sat in the seat of Moses ; who built the tombs of 
 the prophets and garnished the sepulchres of the 
 righteous ; who boasted that if they had lived in 
 the days of their fathers, they would not have been 
 partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, 
 were witnesses unto themselves that they were the 
 children of them that killed the prophets ; for they 
 were even then plotting against Him of Whom the 
 prophets wrote. 
 
 What but the supernatural at which the world 
 scoffs ; what but the vital force which pervades the 
 universe and sustains all, from the least to the 
 greatest, in the kingdoms of Nature and Grace; 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 163 
 
 what less powerful than this would account for the 
 fact that the haughty priests and pharisees of Jeru- 
 salem stood silent before the despised and rejected 
 Nazarene, when, with the dignity of a judge and 
 the authority of a king, He delivered His wither- 
 ing charge, and declared their condemnation ? The 
 day of sacrifice was near, but it had not dawned. 
 The hour when the Saviour of the world would 
 surrender Himself into the hands of His enemies, 
 and permit them to fill up the measure of their 
 iniquity, had not arrived ; and until then they could 
 do nothing : for it was God Himself who spoke to 
 them, God manifest in the Person of His Son. 
 
 It is an essential dogma of revealed religion that 
 God was from all eternity manifested by His only 
 begotten Son, the Word, who was from the begin- 
 ning ' in the Form of God ': and the sacred books 
 of the Old Testament seem to tell us very clearly 
 that that Form or embodiment was in the human 
 shape. Hence it is written that man was made ' in 
 the image of God.' Here, again, a marvellous 
 chord in the universal harmony of creation is struck, 
 and man can but wonder and adore while raising a 
 glad Te Deum because he is permitted in this lower 
 sphere to hear the music of heaven, and to feel in 
 his whole being the influence of its vibrations. 
 Thus he learns that the grand scale includes the 
 lower notes on earth as well as the higher ones in 
 heaven. When the invisible creations of God are 
 
1 64 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 spiritually discerned, and the reality of the unseen 
 is so impressed upon the mind that the objects of 
 sight and sense do not cloud or efface that im- 
 pression ; when faith by the teaching of the Holy 
 Spirit has become so strong, and reason so elevated 
 and expanded as to be one with faith, man does 
 not say, ' / believe ,' he says, ' / know, 7 as did the 
 patriarch Job in old time. Then he sees deeper 
 into the mysteries which surround him, and he is 
 able to connect the seemingly disjointed fragments 
 of sacred and profane history : the teaching of the 
 Holy Spirit shows him how to put them together, 
 as a skilful workman combines his kaleidoscopic 
 materials so as to form a beautiful mosaic \ and in 
 the light which is given without measure to those 
 who have the 'willing mind,' the fact gradually 
 becomes clear that with God there is no mystery, 
 and for us it is simply something that we cannot 
 at present understand. We must, however, still 
 use the term which our limitation of knowledge 
 requires. The harmony of creation we may rever- 
 ently call 'God's masterpiece.' With it revelation 
 begins and note by note is added, until at the close 
 there is the grand 'Amen.' It is a harmony that 
 gladdens the hearts of all who can hear it as they 
 go forward in the great procession ; and the more 
 they study the various parts the more perfect the 
 harmony is found to be. It is written, 'Thou 
 canst not see My face ; for there shall no man see 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 165 
 
 Me, and live.' 'No man hath seen God at any 
 time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom 
 of the Father, He hath declared Him.' It is the 
 Lord Jesus Christ who at His appearing shall show 
 ' Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King 
 of kings, and Lord of lords ; Who only hath im- 
 mortality, dwelling in the light which no man can 
 approach unto ; Whom no man hath seen, nor can 
 see.' Hence we know that when, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, it is said that the Lord appeared and talked 
 with men, it was the second Person of the Holy 
 Trinity who caused Himself to become visible to 
 mortals ; and that it was in the form of man He 
 communed with Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, 
 and blessed him, and stood before Joshua 'as 
 the Prince of the host of the Lord.' He did eat 
 before Abraham ; He touched Jacob ; He came as 
 the Captain of an army to encourage and strengthen 
 Joshua. We feel that we are approaching holy 
 ground as we meditate upon these records ; never- 
 theless, they were ' written for our learning,' and 
 if we fail to study them and gather from them all that 
 they were intended to teach us, we must suffer loss. 
 It would seem that the Son of God, who is the 
 'express image of the Father,' the 'brightness of 
 His glory,' and existing in 'the form of God,' was 
 also the model of God's last creation, man ; for it 
 is said, 'Let us make man in our image.' The 
 organism of the Divine Son was in some unique 
 
166 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 manner, even then, the same as man's organism — 
 the same though under different conditions. This 
 seems to have been confirmed when the risen Lord 
 appeared to His disciples and said unto them, 
 1 Peace be unto you.' ' But they were terrified and 
 affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a 
 spirit. And He said unto them, Why are ye 
 troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your 
 hearts ? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is 
 I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath 
 not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have. And 
 when He had thus spoken He showed them His 
 hands and His feet. And while they yet believed 
 not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, 
 Have ye here any meat ? And they gave him a 
 piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 
 And He took it, and did eat before them.' At the 
 institution of the Lord's Supper, when Jesus took 
 the cup and gave it to His disciples, saying, ' Drink 
 ye all of it : for this is My blood of the New Testa- 
 ment, which is shed for many for the remission of 
 sins,' He added, ' But I say unto you, I will not 
 drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that 
 day when I drink it new with you in my Father's 
 kingdom.' Three distinct epochs of our Lord's 
 life are here referred to: (i) Before His Incarna- 
 tion : (2) After His Incarnation and Resurrection : 
 (3) After His Ascension and the Resurrection of 
 the faithful. In each epoch the Lord is in the 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 167 
 
 form of man. When He became incarnate He 
 added to that form the material substance of the 
 flesh. After the Crucifixion He went to Hades, 
 leaving His mortal body in the tomb. On the 
 third day He returned to earth, entered the 
 sepulchre where that body had been laid, changed 
 it — even as we are told that those who are alive at 
 His second coming will be changed — and went 
 forth in His resurrection body as the Saviour of the 
 world and the Victor of death. 
 
 In that holy sepulchre we are reminded that the 
 Son of God took unto Him, to make His own for 
 ever, something that He had not when He 
 appeared to the patriarchs, something that He 
 had not when he preached to the spirits in 
 prison ; for when He was in Hades, the crucified 
 body was in the tomb, and guarded by soldiers. 
 When the stone was rolled away from the mouth 
 of the sepulchre, the body had disappeared. 
 May not this something be the ' wedding garment ' 
 in which all must be clothed who sit down at 
 the marriage supper of the Lamb ? It would 
 seem so, for we are told that 'when He shall 
 appear we shall be like Him ' ; and that before He 
 left His disciples, He said unto them, 'I go to 
 prepare a place for you.' It was the Bridegroom 
 preparing for His bride ; and He had prayed the 
 Father that the bride for whose sake He had fought 
 with the powers of darkness, and conquered, might 
 
168 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 be one with Him, even as He was one with the 
 Father. It was man's entire being that He came 
 to save ; and the essential oneness of God and man 
 which is thus proved may be beyond the power of 
 reason to comprehend, but it is not contrary to it. 
 This union of things seen and unseen is made 
 manifest in a remarkable degree by the fact, that in 
 each of the three epochs of Christ's life, He is 
 represented as eating material things as mortal man 
 does. When we know even as we are known, we 
 shall see how, in God's laboratory, Nature's laws 
 reorganize, and assimilate, and mould all things 
 according to the unchanging will of the Lawmaker. 
 It is as illogical to disbelieve what we cannot under- 
 stand, as it would be to deny the existence of things 
 that we have never seen. Words utterly fail, 
 and thought, though limitless in its capacity, fails 
 too, when we try to grasp all the harmony involved 
 in the revealed facts — the fringe of which is but 
 touched here — of the three epochs of the life of 
 the Son of God ; but the key-note of the wondrous 
 harmony is the absolute oneness of God and man 
 in Christ. 
 
 In respect of man's state in the future, it has 
 been clearly revealed that he is to live as man 
 through eternity ; and when restored to the Divine 
 image in which he was created, he will fulfil his 
 destiny by perfectly doing his Father's will. If 
 men only realized in part what they are, sin would 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 169 
 
 not be allowed to reign in their mortal bodies. 
 The glorious harmony of God's dealings with His 
 children would kindle a desire to live better lives 
 than most men and women dream of now. They 
 would feel that time is not given to be wasted ; that 
 man is not born into the world to live for himself 
 alone, nor for the world alone, for his life is divided 
 into two — a life in time, and a life in eternity, the 
 former being a preparation for the latter. If he 
 choose evil, and refuse to walk uprightly, he must 
 suffer loss ; for ' what a man sows, he must also reap.' 
 The Scripture says, 'Cast thy bread upon the 
 waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.' It 
 is only at the end of the ' many days ' that the result 
 of casting the bread upon the waters will be known ; 
 and the man of God is content to work and wait. 
 He knows that a few kind words spoken to a fellow- 
 traveller may be as leaves from the tree of life ; 
 and that a kind deed done heartily, as unto the 
 Lord, changes the feet and hands of man into instru- 
 ments of God's own handiwork. So powerful is 
 man, and so great is his dignity, that he should 
 never ask, What can I do ? but, What may I do ? for 
 what a man of willing mind can do for God in this 
 life is, in one sense, illimitable. A good man's 
 ways are ordered by the Lord. He distributes to 
 every man severally as He will ; He gives the time, 
 and the opportunity, and the talents to each, for the 
 work which He expects each to do ; and life's work 
 
170 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 well done always ends in victory. To the hardy 
 sons of toil, as to the rulers of kingdoms, the ' Well 
 done, good and faithful servant !' will be the greeting 
 of the King of kings. The Angel of Death, though 
 he seem to slay, only strikes off the fetters that bind 
 man to earth until his present task is accomplished, 
 or the time allowed for doing it has expired. 
 
 Not until the veil of mortality is rent, and the 
 spirit of man is set free, can he see clearly how 
 those things which seemed to be most against him 
 were working together for his good — not a mere 
 transitory good that ends when the last grain of 
 sand in Time's hour-glass has fallen, but the good 
 that lives and grows through eternity. When Nature 
 lies sleeping beneath the snow, she is gathering 
 up strength for the time when the decree of the 
 Spring-breath shall say, ' Let the earth bring forth.' 
 Then earth awakes from her wintry slumber to 
 fulfil her mission ; and in her summer beauty, and 
 her autumn glory, gives to man her fragrance and 
 her fruits. Even so it is that when some great 
 sorrow comes to us, and chills and blights our life, 
 we lie down beneath its shadow ; and in the cold 
 and the darkness we rest, lonely and sad, our eyes 
 and hearts alike closed to the small cares and 
 worries of life, which so often, like a moth fretting 
 the ermine, destroy the beauty of that which, if let 
 alone and hidden for a time, would come forth un- 
 harmed like gold from the crucible. And all the 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 171 
 
 while we are preparing for the work which follows 
 the long rest — for the day that comes after night, 
 for the life that follows the great final change which 
 takes place as each member of the great procession 
 passes out of sight. That change seems sudden, 
 but it is only the end of the school-term, when each 
 has to realize how much he has lost or gained by 
 using aright, or misusing, the time and talents 
 bestowed upon him. A grand career along a path 
 of light, in the world to come, is the portion of that 
 man who, here below, has proved himself a hero in 
 the path of duty — the man who, whether in great 
 things or small, has scorned ' to do less than his 
 utmost, or to be less than his best.' ' L'ouvrage 
 des homines sur la terre ne se mesure pas a la 
 quantit'e de leurs forces physiques, mats a la quantite 
 de leur volont'e? The noblest natures, by gradually 
 forgetting self in the pursuit of holiness, or in 
 labouring for the good of others, make unconsciously 
 the greatest sacrifice man can make. It is a sacri- 
 fice which is acceptable to God, for it is God-like 
 in its nature. ' My son, give me thine heart,' is the 
 call; and when that call is answered by the sur- 
 render of self, man has done all he can do, and the 
 Blood of Jesus washes away all dust of earth that 
 may cling to him, and the hero is brought into the 
 presence of the King, pure and holy, without spot 
 or wrinkle. Such men ' sow in tears,' for, as has 
 been truly said, ' suffering is an inevitable part of 
 
172 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the training of those who are to carry God's choicest 
 gifts of consolation to others ;' but, ' they reap in 
 joy,' and ■ service wrought for God and His people 
 is not arrested, not suspended by death, only trans- 
 ferred elsewhere ; only raised to a truer, higher 
 sphere, where the chill of disappointment and the 
 check of error can never come.' 
 
 As the mind tries to imagine the 'great pro- 
 cession,' and to learn some lessons from the lives of 
 individual soldiers as they march in their several 
 companies, we cannot fail to observe that the best 
 soldiers of the Cross are the hardest workers, and 
 the most untiring helpers of their fellow-men ; con- 
 sequently they are the most Christ-like in their 
 lives. Having fought the good fight, and finished 
 their course, the joy of youth comes back to them 
 in their old age, and the peace which the world can 
 neither give nor take away is the portion of all 
 who, nearly at the end of a long day's march, find 
 themselves in the ' narrow path,' ' so far from the 
 childhood which is transitory, yet so near to that 
 which is eternal.' 
 
 I once saw a portrait. It was of a young man ; 
 the prevailing expression was, I think, that of calm 
 gentleness. There were other characteristics, but 
 of those I need not write. About the same time 
 that I saw the portrait, I saw the original of the 
 portrait. He was then past the prime of life, but 
 full of energy, allowing himself no time for folding 
 
THE GREAT PROCESSION 173 
 
 his arms, and looking on, while those who were 
 under his command, and walked with him in the 
 procession, did the work for the Lord that was 
 needed. Often, indeed, he worked harder than 
 they did in that part of the vineyard through 
 which they were passing. He was then a Bishop 
 of the Church. The face was bronzed, and the 
 skin had lost the smoothness of youth. The weight 
 of the pastoral staff might then have begun to tell 
 upon his strength. The responsibility of office, the 
 care of the flock committed to his charge, and his 
 mental and physical labour had left their impress 
 upon the man. Careworn, was the verdict which 
 the face proclaimed. The portrait of the young 
 man was no longer a likeness of the Bishop; I 
 could see but a faint resemblance, even when, in 
 friendly intercourse, the weight of care was lightened 
 for a passing hour. Many years passed away, and 
 again I met the Bishop. The King had called 
 His servant to cease from his work, and to rest 
 awhile ere he passed on home. A quiet waiting- 
 time had come for the aged Bishop, and while thus 
 waiting he seemed to have grown young again. 
 The old face was lighted up by the spirit that never 
 grows old ; the lines which time had marked and 
 toil had deepened were softened, and the man of 
 four-score years and ten wore again the look which 
 the artist had caught and depicted on the canvas 
 so many years before. So it is in the kingdom of 
 
174 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 God. The morning and the evening are one day, 
 and in its light the young and the old meet, and 
 are seen to be one in spirit and in destiny. The 
 Lord has said, ' All shall know Me, from the least 
 unto the greatest '; and at the close of man's journey 
 upon earth, whether he be old or young, the know- 
 ledge of the one God stamps each with the same 
 likeness. Just as in the home-circle, the features 
 and character of the parents are discernible in the 
 children, so in God's children may be traced, amidst 
 endless diversity, the likeness to their great Father ; 
 the likeness impressed by Faith upon all who from 
 the beginning of time have walked with God. 
 
 Faith in God and immortality causes man to 
 look upward and onward ; and as the long pro- 
 cession continues to move on, we see in the stead- 
 fast, upward glance, and the unfaltering steps of 
 some of the pilgrims, that they are striving to obtain 
 some great prize ; it may be a crown of exceeding 
 glory, which can only be won by taking up, and 
 bearing patiently and bravely, and in the spirit of 
 a little child, a heavy cross ; or, it may be a place 
 of light within one of the innermost circles that 
 surround the throne of the Eternal ; and perhaps 
 that height can only be attained — by some who are 
 ' running the race ' — by means of that strong faith 
 which is, as it were, born of darkness ; the dark- 
 ness caused by intense light, as when the natural 
 eye is blinded for a time by gazing at the sun. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GREAT KINGDOM. 
 
 History tells of the rise and fall of nations ; of the 
 might and power and dominion of victorious kings. 
 Ruined cities testify to the wealth and the magni- 
 ficence of the people who once inhabited them ; 
 temples which, even in decay, excite the wonder of 
 men in modern times, by their stupendous grandeur, 
 are monuments, not merely of lofty conceptions 
 and of practical ability, but also of the devotion of 
 past generations. At the root of even the grossest 
 forms of idolatry, there ever has been a 'feeling 
 after God,' which does but find a misguided ex- 
 pression in idol worship. Belief in God is essential 
 to man's very being. He may deny the fact that 
 there is a God ; he may even persuade himself that 
 he believes there is no God : but the persuasion is 
 a delusion, for the impression of a primal source of 
 being belongs to his very nature. He may try to 
 destroy the ' image ' in which he was made, by 
 
176 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 heaping doubt upon doubt, and sin upon sin, but 
 he cannot succeed, for ' God is love,' and has a 
 desire to the work of His own hand. God is 
 powerful, man is weak, and the weak must fall 
 before the strong. Man may mar, and almost 
 deface, the God-like image that is in him, but as 
 long as there is life it may be said to him : 
 
 ' You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.' 
 
 Belief in God, taking one form or another, is 
 inseparable from man. We know but little here 
 below, yet who will venture to say that when the 
 Red Indian raises his eyes to the sky above him, 
 and gives the first whiff of his pipe to the ' Great 
 Spirit,' that act of worship is not accepted by the 
 one and only God ? And not only accepted, but 
 recorded in the Book of Life, as a loving offering 
 from one to whom little had been given on earth. 
 
 The kingdoms of the old world have passed 
 away, and their kings have gone the way of all 
 flesh. So will it be with the kingdoms and their 
 rulers of to-day. But there is a kingdom which is 
 not of this world, although it is in this world, of 
 which there will be no end, since it is an ' ever- 
 lasting kingdom '; and the glorious majesty of that 
 kingdom shall not pass away. It is the kingdom 
 of the Lord God Almighty, who is Governor among 
 the nations ; the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; 
 the blessed and only Potentate, by whom earthly 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 177 
 
 monarchs reign ; who upholdeth all things by the 
 word of His power. 
 
 He who said, ' By Me kings reign,' also said, ' I, 
 if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
 unto me.' Those blessed words were spoken by 
 human lips ; the same lips from which afterwards 
 came the seven last sayings of Jesus on the cross. 
 The cross was set up among the kingdoms of the 
 world, by order of the rulers of earthly power. He 
 who gave Himself as a Sacrifice for the sins of 
 the whole world, died upon it the death of a male- 
 factor. That Sacrifice was, as it were, the corner- 
 stone of the new spiritual kingdom. It seemed to 
 be laid in weakness ; but St. John tells of a great 
 silence in heaven,' and of seven angels, to whom 
 trumpets were given, standing before God, prepared 
 to sound. And after the six angels had sounded, 
 another mighty angel came down from heaven, who 
 stood upon the sea and upon the earth, and lifting 
 up his hand to heaven, 'he sware by Him who 
 liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and 
 the things that therein are, and the earth, and the 
 things that therein are, and the sea, and the things 
 that are therein, that there should be time no 
 longer : but in the day of the voice of the seventh 
 angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery 
 of God should be finished, as He hath declared to 
 His servants the prophets.' ' And,' St. John writes, 
 1 when the seventh angel sounded there were great 
 
178 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdom of our Lord, and of 
 His Christ ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.' 
 
 We have here set before us the result of the 
 sowing and the reaping — the day of seemingly small 
 things on earth, and the triumphant song of victory 
 in heaven, because the Victim of Calvary had 
 crowned His finished work by delivering up the 
 kingdom which He had won to the Father. 
 
 'The God of Our Lord Jesus, the Father of 
 Glory,' set the Son of Mary, after His glorious 
 resurrection and ascension, ' at His own right hand 
 in the heavenly places, far above all principality, 
 and power, and might, and dominion, and every 
 name that is named, not only in this world, but 
 also in that which is to come ; and put all things 
 under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all 
 things to the Church : which is His body, the 
 fulness of Him that filleth all in all.' There, in 
 His glorified humanity, the God-Man is seated as 
 King, 'For He must reign till He hath put all 
 enemies under His feet.' ' And when all things 
 shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also 
 Himself (as the Son of Mary) 'be subject unto 
 Him who put all things under Him, that God,' the 
 One Triune Lord of the universe, ' may be all in 
 all.' And the children of Christ's kingdom, made 
 like unto their Redeemer by the work of the Holy 
 Spirit in them, and having obtained an entrance 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 179 
 
 into the everlasting kingdom, shall be one with 
 Christ for ever, even as the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost are One. 
 
 Jesus sealed the work of Redemption by uttering 
 the words ' It is finished.' After His resurrection 
 He ceased to be seen by the world, though He 
 remained for awhile on the earth, and showed 
 Himself as a ' perfect God and perfect Man,' to 
 those who should be heirs of the kingdom which 
 He was about to found. Veiled in His changed 
 body, the King of Glory tarried upon earth to lay 
 the foundations of His kingdom which, like Him- 
 self, was to be spiritual and universal, and to last 
 for ever. Henceforth His kingdom, was to be 
 visible under the form of an organized body, which 
 is known as the Church ; and during the forty days 
 between His resurrection and ascension, we are 
 told that He was instructing His disciples concern- 
 ing the kingdom. 
 
 As the temple of Solomon, 'when it was in 
 building,' was built of stones made ready before 
 they were brought thither, so that there was neither 
 hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the 
 house while it was in building, so the Church of 
 Christ was begun in silence. Living stones were 
 chosen for the foundation of the great sacramental 
 edifice, which, St. Paul tells us, was to be built upon 
 the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
 Christ Himself being the chief Corner-Stone. The 
 
 
180 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 stones were taken from the common quarry : they 
 were lightly esteemed, and of no value in the eyes 
 of the world. Many of them were rough-hewn 
 stones : there was no beauty in them to be desired, 
 and they were despised and rejected, even as the 
 Corner-Stone was rejected. Had the great ones of 
 the earth been told that the living energy pervading 
 those stones was omnipotent, and that upon those 
 unpolished and seemingly insignificant stones a 
 mighty edifice would be built, against which the 
 united power of men and spirits could not prevail ; 
 that every weapon forged against it would be 
 powerless to overthrow it — they would have laughed 
 the prophet to scorn. The haughty Roman, once 
 master of the world, enthroned in pomp and power 
 in his seven-hilled city, little thought that the time 
 was not far distant when the pride of the Pagan 
 would be laid low, and his gods cast down to make 
 room for the Cross. The Emperor and the senate 
 at Rome knew nothing of what was passing in 
 Jerusalem ; and if they had known we may be sure 
 that the scenes in the Upper Chamber, in Pilate's 
 Judgment Hall, and round the Cross of Calvary, 
 would have been of no interest to them j even as 
 to the world now, they are nothing more than 
 events of the past, remembered by many for 
 reasons which the world does not care to dwell 
 upon, or try to understand. And why is it so? 
 When the longest life is so short, when man knows 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 181 
 
 that he must die, and leave everything behind him, 
 why does he not care to learn something of the 
 spirit-world, something of the future life, some- 
 thing of the purpose of the present life ? It must 
 be because the world with which he has cast in 
 his lot is spiritually dead. 
 
 Every man knows that ' It is appointed unto 
 men once to die ; nay, more, that death is the 
 most certain of all events ; and yet the majority of 
 human beings live as if there were no such thing 
 to fear. They live as if the social, moral, and 
 political state of the world would go on for ever as 
 it does now, and as it has done through former 
 ages. They never give themselves time to think 
 of or to learn aught concerning the spiritual part 
 of their being, and concerning the life beyond the 
 grave ; and so they do not realize that what belongs 
 only to the material world must come to an end. 
 It has always been so. Were not the men and 
 women of old time doing just as men and women 
 do now, when the flood came and swept them away 
 from the face of the earth ? Did Lucifer, when, 
 as a ' son of the morning,' he first conceived sin 
 and in the pride of his heart said, ' I will ascend 
 into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars 
 of God. I will ascend above the heights of the 
 clouds : I will be like the Most High ' ; did he 
 think that he should be brought down to hell ? 
 Did the inhabitants of Capernaum in the exaltation 
 
1 82 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 of their pride think that all they valued would 
 vanish like a dream ? Did the Pharaohs of Egypt, 
 and the monarchs of Persia, ever surmise that all 
 their regal power and glory would pass away ? Did 
 imperial Rome ever dream that her empire would 
 crumble into dust? Did the ancient nobility of 
 France believe that their brilliant, butterfly life 
 would end in the Reign of Terror ? Does Britannia, 
 who 'rules the waves,' ever think that the time will 
 come when her flag which ' has braved a thousand 
 years the battle and the breeze ' will be lowered, 
 because the hour has come when, by reason of the 
 inevitable changes of a changing world, and the 
 flight of time, she must take her place among the 
 shades of departed glory ? Does England realize 
 that her vast empire, on which, it is proudly said, 
 1 the sun never sets,' must in the natural order of 
 things share the same fate as other empires ; that 
 her sun must set, her power must wane, her strength 
 must change to weakness, and her world-wide fame 
 become a thing of the past ? Do her rulers realize 
 any more than the Pharaohs and the Caesars did 
 that their place as kings among men, and their glory 
 as stars of the first or second magnitude in the 
 illimitable universe throughout eternity, depend not 
 upon their material power and grandeur, but upon 
 the use they make of the wealth, and the talents, and 
 the opportunities that are bestowed upon them ? 
 All this blindness to the transitory character of 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 183 
 
 the visible world arises from the fact that the world 
 is spiritually dead; and yet as a great preacher* 
 tells us, ' No truth is more clearly revealed to us 
 than this, that spiritual life, whether given us at our 
 first new birth into Christ or renewed after peni- 
 tence in later years, is the free fresh gift of the 
 Father of spirits, uniting us by His Spirit to His 
 Blessed Son. Nature can no more give us newness 
 of life than a corpse can rise from the dead by its 
 unassisted powers. " That which is born of the 
 flesh is flesh." A sense of prudence, advancing 
 years, the tone of society around us, family in- 
 fluences, may remodel the surface form of our daily 
 habits. But Divine grace alone can turn the inmost 
 being to God ; can " raise it from the death of sin 
 to the life of righteousness "; can " clothe it in that 
 new man which after God is created in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness." ' Then the preacher bids 
 us reflect ' on the reality of spiritual death, linked 
 as it often is in one and the same man, as if by a 
 ghastly ligament to the highest animal and mental 
 life. The body is in the full flush of its powers ; 
 the mind day by day plays lightly over the surface, 
 or grapples earnestly with the substance of a 
 thousand topics. But the spiritual life is to all 
 intents and purposes dead ; and neither boisterous 
 animal spirits nor intellectual fire can galvanize it 
 into life. The spiritual senses do not act : the 
 * Dr. Liddon, Canon of St. Paul's. 
 
184 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 spiritual world is as if it did not exist. The eye 
 of the soul is closed ; it sees in spiritual truth only 
 diseased imaginations or needless scruples. Its 
 ears are closed : Christ and His apostles are to it 
 only like any other talkers in the Babel of human 
 tongues. Its mouth is closed : it never speaks to 
 God in prayer or to men in faith and love. Its 
 hands and feet are tightly bandaged in the grave- 
 clothes of selfish habit • it cannot rise ; it cannot 
 engage in works of benevolence and mercy for the 
 love of God ; it must lie on in the darkness and 
 putrefaction of its spiritual tomb ; while death, as 
 the Psalmist says, gnaweth upon it. And a great 
 stone has been rolled to the door of its sepulchre — 
 the dead-weight of corrupt and irreligious opinion 
 which bars out from it the light and air of heaven, 
 and makes its prison-house of death secure. How 
 is such a spell and encumbrance of death to be 
 thrown off, if no help, no motive quickening power, 
 come from on high ? Even if angels should roll 
 away the stone, how can life itself be restored unless 
 He who is its Lord and Giver shall flash into this 
 dead spirit His own quickening powers, and bid 
 it see and hear and walk and work, and feel and 
 rejoice in its returning life, and go forth to brace 
 its strength and assert its liberty ?' 
 
 It is this quickening power in the Head that 
 gives life to the members of the body and causes 
 the Church to live on through the ages, shining as a 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 185 
 
 bright light amid encircling darkness. In order to 
 meet the wants of a being like man, composed of 
 spirit and matter, it must needs be that the instru- 
 ment for the regeneration of humanity should be 
 one in touch with every part of man's being ; and 
 it is the knowledge that the Church is a Divine 
 institution, permeated with the life of its Founder, 
 that invests everything connected with her material 
 organization with such importance. The careless ■ 
 Christian little knows what he is doing when he' 
 thinks and speaks lightly of the Church; for she 
 is the instrument God has chosen for the regenera- 
 tion of mankind, and for transforming the children 
 of Adam into the image which they have lost ; to 
 make them again children of God and heirs of the 
 kingdom of heaven. If, owing to the circumstances 
 by which we are surrounded, and the extended 
 knowledge of the state of the modern world, it is 
 more difficult for us to maintain the faith of earlier 
 days than it was for our ancestors, seeing that 
 1 materialism,' if it existed to any appreciable 
 extent, was not then the power in the world that it 
 is now; still, the vast dominion of the new king- 
 dom and her impregnable position in the world, is 
 of itself sufficient to attest her Divine origin, and 
 to prove her possession of superhuman power. The 
 extensive outlook which knowledge of what is 
 passing in all parts of the world now gives us, 
 while showing the vast amount of evil which 
 
1 86 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 threatens to overwhelm the good, discloses also 
 to us an unseen power that keeps the evil within 
 bounds, so that it cannot really harm those faithful 
 subjects who choose to walk in the light, and be 
 governed by the laws of that kingdom. The spirit 
 of unbelief cannot prevent the man who thinks at 
 all from regarding the Church with wonder, as he 
 must regard the older Church of the Jews. The 
 Jews are a living proof of the fulfilment of prophecy ; 
 the sceptic cannot deny their existence, and he can 
 only ignore them and their past and present history. 
 But that is not exactly a logical or scientific mode 
 of solving a difficult problem, and cannot be satis- 
 factory to a reflective and cultured mind. He is 
 in the same dilemma as regards the Church. He 
 knows her history. He knows when, and how, and 
 by whom the new kingdom was set up. He 
 knows that the whole world was arrayed against her 
 at the beginning, and that through successive 
 centuries all that is adverse to her teaching and 
 her laws has been trying to destroy her. He 
 knows also that her members have held their own 
 through times of storm and sunshine ; and that 
 the fires of persecution have but purified and 
 strengthened her for the exercise of her influence 
 in every quarter of the globe. He sees that 
 her power is far above that of earthly kings 
 and princes ; and at the same time that her 
 subjects are the most loyal supporters of earthly 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 187 
 
 monarchies, and of national law. They see human 
 institutions spring up and fade away ; but the 
 Divine institution grows stronger as the ages roll 
 on. Yet the unbeliever in the Divine origin of the 
 kingdom is content to wonder and pass on ; but he 
 will have to learn, in another stage of his existence, 
 how much he has lost by neglecting to educate the 
 unseen and spiritual part of his being. 
 
 It has been shown in Chapter II.,' The Great Sacra- 
 ment, God in Nature,' that within all created things 
 there is an unseen Power at work. That Power is 
 the ' Life of the World,' and all creation reveals His 
 Presence. He clothes Himself with light as with 
 a garment : He moves upon the wings of the wind : 
 He orders the courses of the stars, and He feeds the 
 sparrows. All things great and small are cared for 
 by Him ; but His delight is with the sons of men, 
 and it is in His dealings with the children of the 
 new kingdom, the members of the Universal 
 Church, that His power and love are fully unveiled. 
 They are revealed to the heart and mind of man 
 in such transcendent forms, that to those who press 
 on towards the mark of their high calling — and in 
 doing so acquire ever- increasing spiritual insight of 
 the invisible things of God— the things that are seen 
 assume their true proportions. They see in the 
 changing world of Nature a material witness to 
 God, and to His unchangeable laws. The king- 
 dom of grace is His chosen dwelling-place, and 
 
1 88 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 there He abides for ever. It is there that man 
 learns to know his Maker ; it is there that the child 
 finds his Father ; it is there that the bride meets 
 the Bridegroom ; and it is there that the pilgrim' 
 weary of wandering in the wilderness, finds rest and 
 peace in the path that leads straight to one of the many 
 mansions which He is preparing for His followers. 
 
 When man, on whom the Almighty God bestowed 
 a portion of His own attributes, with the trust of 
 free-will, which rendered him responsible for his 
 thoughts and words, and deeds, chose evil rather 
 than good, God had to deal with the consequences 
 of that free-agency which He had Himself conferred 
 upon man. So great has become the power of self- 
 willed evil in man, that nothing short of the sacrifice 
 of the only-begotten Son of God could overmaster 
 it. Hence the glorious achievements in the spiritual 
 world far outweigh those in the natural world, for 
 material things shall ' wax old as doth a garment, 
 and as a vesture they shall be changed '; but man 
 remains man for ever : a never-dying soul clothed 
 with a material body here, and with an answering 
 spiritual body in the world to come. To measure 
 the value of the soul, we have but to meditate on 
 the words, ' What doth it profit a man, if he gain 
 the whole world, and lose his own soul ?' and to 
 realize the cost at which alone it could be ransomed. 
 
 It is God the Son who reigns over the new king- 
 dom, and also gives life to all those who enter the 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 189 
 
 kingdom, confess Him before men, and obey His 
 laws. The life that each member of the body of Christ 
 receives from the Head is a new life, a supernatural 
 life, altogether different to the natural life of man ; 
 for it is written, ' He that hath the Son of God hath 
 life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath 
 not life.' That new life is effective for resisting, 
 rooting out, and finally overcoming evil, since it is 
 Christ Himself dwelling in us. 
 
 In an inconceivable but most real manner He 
 gives Himself to all who will receive Him. He 
 sent the Holy Ghost from the Father to prepare 
 each child who enters the kingdom through the 
 waters of Baptism, for participating in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the Altar and so receiving Christ. 
 Man, therefore, however cultured and moral he 
 may be; however true his allegiance to the 
 Decalogue may be; and however irreproachable 
 his life may be, as judged from the world's highest 
 ethical standpoint, is not a Christian in the proper 
 sense of that word, unless he receives Christ. 
 ' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and 
 drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso 
 eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For 
 My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink 
 indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My 
 blood dwelleth in Me and I in him.' And St. Paul 
 writes, ' I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I 
 
 \ 
 
190 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' This is 
 not the vitality which Adam had, even before the 
 Fall : The new life is something more mystical 
 than that ; it is more than words can tell, or thought 
 conceive. It is enough that Jesus has said, ' I will 
 not leave you comfortless (or orphans), I will come 
 unto you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth 
 Me no more : but ye see Me : because I live, ye 
 shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am 
 in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you/ 
 
 Again, St. Paul says : ' We are members of His 
 body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this 
 cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
 shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be 
 one flesh. This is a great mystery : but I speak 
 concerning Christ and the Church.' 
 
 It is difficult for a Christian who has once grasped 
 the full meaning of the teachings of our Lord and 
 of His apostles concerning the union of the Divine 
 and human, ' not by confusion of substance, but 
 by unity of person,' to understand how anyone 
 professing Christianity can fail to see, that it is 
 impossible to exalt the Church higher than her 
 Lord has exalted her ; because if we believe the 
 Holy Scriptures to be the inspired Word of God, 
 then Christ and His Church are one, indissolubly 
 and for ever one. The Church cannot be severed 
 from her Head and live. ' I am the Vine, ye are 
 the branches : he that abideth in Me, and I in him, 
 the same bringeth forth much fruit,' for severed 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 191 
 
 from Me, ye can do nothing. But the Church 
 does live ; she lives to bear much fruit ; she lives 
 to work for her Lord, to uphold His kingdom, to 
 fight for Him against the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil ; she lives to suffer, and grow strong in the 
 path of suffering, for the everlasting arms are always 
 stretched out to help and defend her. She lives to 
 conquer and be crowned. 
 
 A failure to recognise the fact that Christ and 
 His Church are one is doubtless the main cause 
 of prevailing unbelief in the Church as a Divine 
 institution, and in her sacramental character. The 
 god of this world, knowing that the soul can only 
 live in the light of the Sun of Righteousness, is 
 content when he sees the great majority regarding 
 the Church as merely human, and fixing their atten- 
 tion upon her crumbling stones, her tottering walls, 
 her desecrated shrines, her broken altars ; traitors 
 among her self-styled members, and the blind, and 
 the deaf, the blasphemer, and the hypocrite within 
 her borders. But this is only one phase of the 
 visible Church ; there is another phase, which it 
 would be well for those who deny Divine life in 
 the Church to consider. That phase is her work 
 in the world. Her organization, her power, her 
 influence for good, and her works of mercy are 
 historical facts \ and they tell of superhuman power 
 which has ever been guiding and upholding the 
 weak human agencies employed. 
 
 It is the Church of Christ that has preserved the 
 
192 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 Scriptures, and, as has been said by a true son of the 
 Church, ' Well may she preserve her sacred deposit ; 
 for if to her we owe those Scriptures, without those 
 Scriptures she might have forgotten her own origin 
 and inheritance; for therein is contained the charter 
 of her Christian privileges, promises, and duties ; 
 there we read of the Incarnate Word, the great Head 
 of the Church, into whom we were grafted by Bap- 
 tism, in whom we live by Faith, of whom we partake 
 spiritually by Sacraments, who is our 'Wisdom, and 
 Righteousness, and Sanctification,and Redemption.' 
 If all the members of the visible Church realized, 
 as they ought to do, what they owe to the Church, 
 in preserving for them all the laws for the govern- 
 ment of Christ's kingdom, and all the lessons 
 which Christ taught, they would so love and 
 reverence her, and fight for her, that even in the 
 eyes of an unbelieving and scoffing world, she 
 would be 'terrible as an army with banners.' 
 Eternity will disclose — what Time would fail to 
 unfold — the blessed effect upon the hearts of 
 millions of human beings of the Church's echo 
 through the ages of her Lord's eight Beatitudes, 
 which ever fall upon the ear and heart like dew 
 upon parched ground, and cause joy and gladness 
 to spring up in the soul. Each is a petal of the 
 Rose of Sharon, wafted from the mountain-side to 
 fill the wide world with fragrance, and revive the 
 drooping spirits of men. 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 193 
 
 Strong contrasts are necessary to enable the 
 mind of man to realize the great gulf that lies 
 between two opposite things, or two opposing 
 forces. The gulf is usually bridged over by varying 
 ways of stating each of those opposites, so that 
 when they meet midway, it is difficult for even an 
 astute and profound thinker, and impossible for a 
 superficial observer, to determine the precise limits 
 of the statements on either side. As they approach 
 each other the settings become less marked in 
 character, more indefinite and uncertain. There 
 is also a commingling of the opposing forces by 
 reason of an existing state of imperfection ; but 
 there can be no union of things that are essentially 
 opposed to each other. From first to last light and 
 darkness, good and evil, health and sickness, truth 
 and falsehood are distinct things. Light dispels 
 darkness, and darkness overshadows light : good 
 overcomes evil, and evil allures and prevails over 
 good : health and sickness cannot exist together, 
 neither can truth and falsehood. At the opposite 
 extremes of good and evil there are Christ and 
 Satan, St. John and Judas, the mother of Jesus 
 and Herodias ; but between such extremes, the 
 sharp edges which distinguish one from the other 
 are gradually effaced by man. The vanishing 
 point, where good and evil cease to be, is clear 
 in the sight of God ; and St. Paul sets forth the 
 positive separation of the two forces when he 
 
 J 3 
 
i 9 4 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 writes, ' For I know that in me (that is, in my 
 flesh), dwelleth no good thing : for to will is 
 present with me : but how to perform that which is 
 good I find not. For the good that I would, I do 
 not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do. 
 Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that 
 do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a 
 law, that, when I would do good, evil is present 
 with me. For I delight in the law of God after 
 the inward man : but I see another law in my 
 members, warring against the law of my mind, 
 and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 
 which is in my members.' As in St. Paul, so in 
 each member of Christ's body, the two great 
 invisible forces confront each other, and war 
 against each other ; and the battle goes on as long 
 as this life lasts. Its progress is chronicled in the 
 lives of men and women ; in their words and 
 actions, and in the circles in which they move. 
 Well is it for those who, when the Angel of Death 
 touches them, can say with St. Paul, ' I am now 
 ready to be offered, and the time of my departure 
 is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
 finished my course, I have kept the faith : hence- 
 forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
 ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall 
 give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto 
 all them also that love His appearing.' This warfare 
 between good and evil cannot end until evil is 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 195 
 
 rooted out of Christ's kingdom utterly and for ever. 
 Until that day arrives the tares and the wheat must 
 grow together. Then, in the time of harvest, the 
 wheat will be garnered for the Lord of the harvest, 
 and the tares will be burned. 
 
 Again, the antagonism of good and evil, of the 
 Church and the world, are manifest in the fruits of 
 the cardinal virtue of love, and in its opposite, 
 hate. Christ loved the world, and gave Himself 
 for it. The world hated truth, and crucified the 
 Lord of Truth. St. Stephen bore witness to the 
 truth, and the world stoned him to death. Christ 
 prayed for His murderers, ' Father, forgive them 
 for they know not what they do '; and when His 
 work on earth was accomplished, He entered 
 heaven as the King of Glory. His disciple prayed, 
 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and when 
 he had said this, he fell asleep in the light of 
 heaven, for he ' saw the glory of God, and Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God,' before he left 
 his mortal body. Who can doubt that the first of 
 1 the noble army of martyrs ' lives in glory with 
 Him whom he confessed on earth in the last 
 moments of his mortal agony ? Who can doubt 
 that the first confessor of the faith, who sealed his 
 confession with his blood, and so won the martyr's 
 crown, is a prince in the hierarchy of heaven, the 
 higher region of the new kingdom which Christ had 
 founded on earth ? ' The blood of the martyrs is 
 
196 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the seed of the Church '; the path of suffering is 
 the way of the Cross ; and if we examine closely the 
 characteristics of the subjects of Christ's kingdom 
 in all ages, from the days of the apostles to the 
 present time, it will be found that they are un- 
 changed. It must be so, because their model is 
 their King, and He has willed that when He shall 
 again appear His disciples shall be like Him. The 
 new life given in baptism, and the free gift of grace 
 ever flowing from its Source to sustain that life, 
 causes them to grow like Him ; and the world sees 
 that the children of the kingdom are not like the 
 children of the world. With all their imperfections, 
 their failures, and their backslidings, the higher 
 and unseen Power that is forming their characters 
 and shaping their destiny, takes a visible form in 
 acts of self-denial, in acts of devotion, in works of 
 love and mercy, in heroic courage, in doing the 
 right when it would be more pleasant or profitable 
 to do the wrong ; and often in entire self-sacrifice. 
 The children of this world see all this going on 
 around them to-day, as former generations saw the 
 same things ; but, in these days of ease and luxury 
 and indifferentism, instead of using the aggressive 
 weapons of the older fanaticism — which had at 
 least the merit of reality — against the order and 
 usage of the higher life, men now do but look on, 
 wonder, or deride, and, as the modern phrase goes, 
 they ■ agree to differ.' So the tares and the wheat 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 197 
 
 grow together in the field of this world. The tares 
 far outnumber the ears of corn, so that the Church 
 is ever like a stronghold compassed about and 
 watched by enemies, who point to the disunion 
 of the soldiers who man the walls, to the in- 
 subordination and the shortcomings of individual 
 members of the garrison, and to deserters from the 
 Church Army, and they mockingly ask, ' Where is 
 the One Catholic and Apostolic Church of which 
 you boast ?' The answer is, Wherever, throughout 
 the whole world, ' the Faith, once for all delivered/ 
 is held — the truth, as it was summed up in the 
 last (Ecumenical Council of Nice ; wherever the 
 sacraments are administered by duly ordained 
 priests, according to Apostolic rule ; and wherever 
 the Word of God is preached in its entirety. The 
 Church, in her material environment, may appear 
 to be weak ; the branches of the Vine may seem to 
 have been wrenched from the stock, but they are 
 not really severed from the Vine; they live, and 
 are united invisibly, so as to form one indestructible 
 creation of Almighty God. 
 
 England was once called the ' Isle of Saints '; she 
 is now known as the ' workshop of the world.' 
 Has she then no saints left ? Yes, we reply, more 
 than in the olden time. Then, the people were 
 few in number, and each holy man who cared for 
 and taught the poor, and gave up his earthly in- 
 heritance to erect and endow churches for the glory 
 
198 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 of God and the benefit of mankind, was known to 
 all. Now things are changed ; millions of men 
 and women now occupy the land where, in other 
 days, there were but hundreds ; and the labourers 
 in the vineyard are oftentimes only known to their 
 Lord, and to those with whom they work. Many 
 a man and woman, especially during the last half 
 of the present century, has heard repeated to him 
 the cry of Cyprian to the Church of Carthage, 
 1 Rise to your birthright '; and uncounted numbers 
 have arisen from slumber, and in response to the 
 cry have put on the whole armour of God, which 
 is stored up and ever ready for use in the Church. 
 They have gone forth in the path of duty, proving 
 that in all ages, living stones, like unto those 
 which were chosen by Christ for the founda- 
 tions of His church, are to be found to add 
 to the building. They are polished by the same 
 means, and fitted by the same Master Builder for 
 the place which each is to occupy. The stake, the 
 fire, and the sword, are not the weapons which the 
 world now uses against those members of Christ's 
 body who try to walk in their Master's footprints. 
 Those deadly weapons did their work quickly and 
 well; but the world now thinks them barbarous 
 and cruel, and has substituted slander, contempt, 
 and mockery, which never kill, only keep the 
 victims writhing like a worm upon a hook. Some, 
 alas ! have not been strong enough to resist the 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 199 
 
 prolonged torture, and have left the Mother who 
 
 nursed them. They left the good old ship, which 
 
 had safely landed so many on the heavenly shore 
 
 — when she seemed most to need their help — 
 
 because they vainly dreamed that rest and peace 
 
 might be found elsewhere. 
 
 * They saw the ship by many a tempest toss'd, 
 Her rudder broken and her tackling lost ; 
 Left her to sink without their helping hand, ? 
 
 Looked to themselves, and basely 'scaped to land. 
 
 They did so to their own great loss, for in the 
 
 tempest-tossed vessel which they left God Himself 
 
 had placed them. True to their Captain, and 
 
 loving the old ship all the more because she seemed 
 
 to be in danger of losing more than had already 
 
 been taken from her, others have remained faithful, 
 
 echoing the words of one who himself fought a 
 
 good fight : 
 
 ' But shall I, too, the sinking ship forsake ? 
 Forbid, it, Heaven, or take my spirit back ! 
 No, ye diviners sage ; your hope is vain. _ 
 While but one fragment of our ship remain, 
 That single fragment shall my soul sustain : 
 Bound to that sacred plank, my soul defies 
 The great abyss, and dares all hell to rise, 
 Assured that Christ on that shall bear me to the skies. * 
 
 Since those words were first written, the old ship 
 has been righting herself; trimming her sails, 
 strengthening her bulwarks, opening her port-holes, 
 so that the sunlight of heaven, and the fresh, life- 
 
 * Charles Wesley. 
 
I 
 
 200 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 giving breezes of the ocean of truth may penetrate 
 to the innermost recesses, and purify and strengthen 
 her for the work she has to do. That work is 
 harder, and higher, and nobler than the world can 
 understand, or than most of her own sons and 
 daughters realize. It is co-extensive with God's 
 purpose, and man's necessities. 
 
 Has God given to England, or allowed her to 
 acquire and annex the vast empire over which she 
 now rules, only in order that she may increase her 
 worldly power and glory ? Has He permitted her 
 to extend her sway east, west, north, and south, 
 merely that her fleet may ride at anchor, with 
 England's flag flying at the mast-head, in all seas, 
 and her merchants trade unmolested with all 
 lands, only to enrich themselves and their country ? 
 Has God permitted the Imperial crown of India to 
 be placed upon the head of the sovereign of England 
 simply to make that monarch's name a greater 
 power among the millions of Orientals over whom 
 she reigns, and to set, as it were, the seal upon the 
 conquest of India ? Not for these things has the 
 King of kings given such world-wide power to 
 England ! Not for the accomplishment of these 
 transitory objects, save as means to an end, has 
 He given to the Anglo-Saxon race their keen 
 insight, their love of knowledge, their dogged per- 
 severance, their indomitable courage, their love of 
 freedom and adventure, their marked aptitude for 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 201 
 
 adapting themselves to surrounding circumstances 
 and varying climates, their physical strength, and 
 their power of endurance. Well may St. Cyprian's 
 cry, ' Rise to your birthright,' be proclaimed by the 
 Church, and by the senate, as the paramount duty 
 of every Anglo-Saxon. The Ruler of kings and 
 nations seems to have put England, with her 
 Church and people, in a position like that in which 
 Pharaoh placed Joseph, when he decreed, ' Only in 
 the throne will I be greater than thou.' No human 
 power could uphold and bind together the British 
 Empire, even for a day ; for human power is weak- 
 ness, unless it has with it that superhuman spiritual . 
 life which only the Divine Being can impart to 
 man. ' Rise to your birthright ' means, Man, learn 
 to know thyself, to understand (1) who and what 
 you are; (2) what you have to do, and to whom 
 you are accountable; (3) to 'quit you like men.' 
 The world needs you. God has set work before 
 you, and He has given dominion, and power, and 
 opportunity, and means to accomplish that work. 
 Do it well and thoroughly for the Master's sake. 
 As surely as man turns a deaf ear to that cry will 
 the sentence of the Judge be pronounced, ' Thou 
 art weighed in the balances and found wanting,' and 
 then England's power will wane, and her empire be 
 broken into fragments. 
 
 To every human being the words ' Give an ac- 
 count of thy stewardship ' will one day be spoken ; 
 
202 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 and when it is remembered that to whom much is 
 given of them much will be required, each subject 
 of the British empire who realizes, in however small 
 a degree, his individual responsibility and influence 
 may well tremble at the thought, that the Omni- 
 present One will measure his work with the in- 
 finite line of His justice, will scan his motives 
 and weigh his capabilities, means, and oppor- 
 tunities. Men should pause in their career to ask 
 themselves, Am I doing the work assigned to me ? 
 Am I doing my best? What use am I making of 
 my brains and hands ? Am I occupying the time 
 given to me, or am I letting it slip by, moment after 
 moment, hour after hour, day after day, with no 
 record that will bear the light of day or stand the 
 test of judgment ? If, as the light of the sun faded 
 daily in the west, each man and woman would ask 
 the question, 'What have I done this day for Him 
 who made me and redeemed me, and who gave me 
 all I have that is worth having?' what would be 
 the reply, even in the case of many professing 
 Christians ? 
 
 Man cannot rise to his birthright privileges until 
 he ceases to regard himself as a separate being from 
 God. As long as he chooses to consider himself 
 an irresponsible unit, and to believe that he has a 
 perfect right to live for himself alone, and to do 
 what he pleases, physically, morally, and intellec- 
 tually, without regard to the effect of his life upon 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 203 
 
 others, he cannot understand what his birthright 
 privileges are, and therefore he readily enough 
 casts the claim from him. If he be one of those 
 who are endowed with great mental and physical 
 gifts — with the wealth and rank which give him 
 more than ordinary influence, he, of necessity, in 
 casting the claim aside, reduces himself to a lower 
 level than that which those not so gifted occupy 
 in the sight of the just Judge. Someone has truly 
 said, 'We are nearer to wisdom when we stoop 
 than when we soar,' for there is real greatness in 
 true humility and much littleness in self-assumption. 
 The former is not appreciated by the world ; the 
 latter generally makes headway ; yet the force un- 
 derlying humility always exercises — unconsciously 
 to its possessor — great and lasting influence, where- 
 as the spirit of egoism passes along its self-chosen 
 path with a flourish of trumpets, little thinking that 
 the noise, and those who make it, will soon be 
 forgotten. 
 
 More than eighteen centuries ago it was said to 
 the Athenians by St. Paul, ' God hath appointed a 
 day in which he will judge the world in righteous- 
 ness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof 
 he hath given assurance unto all men in that he 
 hath raised him from the dead.' The Church year 
 by year repeats the solemn words to the men and 
 women of this generation ; and tells them that 
 when ' the Son of Man shall come in His glory, 
 
2o 4 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 and all His holy angels with Him ; and shall sit on 
 the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be 
 gathered all nations,' each individual of the human 
 race must give an account of his stewardship. 
 Then the faithful stewards will receive the due re- 
 ward of their labours, and the unfaithful will be 
 punished for leaving undone what they ought to 
 have done. Bearing in mind the inevitable effect 
 for good or evil which the life of every man exercises 
 on those around him — just as a pure or impure 
 atmosphere affects the material body — the influence 
 that the rulers of the British empire must exert in 
 the world approximates to the infinite : and the 
 position of England, her Church, her people, and 
 her language, involves so vast a stewardship that 
 even an imperfect realization of the responsibility 
 attaching to it would overwhelm the mind, were it 
 not for the fact which is revealed by God, and 
 proved by history, that in all ages when the Almighty 
 has given some man or nation a great and seem- 
 ingly impossible work to do He has always said in 
 effect, ' Obey \ go forward ; / will be with you.' 
 * My grace is sufficient for you.' Who that has a 
 spark of true manliness in him could read that 
 touching appeal of the Creator to His people in 
 the earlier days, * What could have been done more 
 to My vineyard, that I have not done in it ?' and 
 fail to realize that God might say those very words 
 to England at the present day ? And if He should 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 205 
 
 add, ' Give an account of thy stewardship,' what 
 could England answer ? She has taken possession 
 of other lands, and peopled them with her own sons 
 and daughters. She has introduced European 
 civilization, and with it the peculiar vices of civiliza- 
 tion ; but what, as a nation, has she done for the 
 original inhabitants of the territories that have been 
 added to her empire ? She has constituted herself 
 guardian of India, and has acquired untold wealth 
 and power in the East by her self-imposed pro- 
 tectorate of that enormous country ; but has she 
 made one single national effort to reach the heart 
 of India, to get in touch with the susceptible 
 nature of Orientals ? If, since England became 
 guardian of India, she had taken means to learn 
 more of India's past history ; if she had gathered 
 all of truth and all that is Christ-like in the various 
 forms of religion that prevail in that land, and had 
 shown the people that the English believed virtually 
 the same truths, India might now be all our own 
 in the truest sense of the word. India owns the 
 sway of the British sceptre because it is her interest 
 to do so, and because she prospers under English 
 rule ; but, except in a worldly sense, India and 
 England are strangers still. There is at present no 
 lasting bond of union, for the chains that link them 
 together are forged by interest and expediency. 
 
 Christ came into this world, and, as man, pre- 
 pared Himself during thirty years to be a Teacher 
 
206 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 of men, and then stood forth alone proclaiming 
 Himself to be 'the Way, the Truth, and the Life '; 
 and so men of Christ-like minds have left home and 
 country, and, in the strength of Christ, have gone 
 forth alone to distant lands and have done what 
 they could : and their testimony has converted foes 
 into friends, and aliens in blood, heart and creed, 
 into brothers, and made them heirs of the same 
 kingdom. What Christian can look upon the late 
 venerable Negro Bishop of Africa and read the 
 story of his life without feeling that in Christ all 
 men are brothers ? 
 
 England's glory is her Church ; the strength of 
 England, and the palladium of her ancient monarchy, 
 is the Church. The truest sons and daughters of 
 the Church know that it is so ; for, as members of 
 Christ's body, they must be loyal to their Head ; 
 and they know it is by Him kings reign. He 
 setteth up one and putteth down another. There- 
 fore they are ever the truest patriots. When 
 anarchy and rebellion threaten, their cry ' For King 
 and Country ' is always heard, and rarely, perhaps 
 never, do they fail in their loyalty, unless they are 
 ordered to do that which they believe to be con- 
 trary to the will of the King of kings. ' Render 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ; and unto 
 God the things that are God's.' Individually, the 
 hardest workers in the Lord's vineyard do what 
 they can to advance the new kingdom and bring 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 207 
 
 wanderers into the fold. The Holy Spirit calls 
 them to rise up, and go to some distant spot where 
 the people are still in darkness ; or into the far 
 darker places of great cities, where into the most 
 loathsome dens of infamy no ray of light has pene- 
 trated — except, perhaps, a flickering one from the 
 window of a gorgeous gin-palace hard by — and they 
 go. Still this is but the power of individuals, and, 
 as such, it is necessarily circumscribed in its sphere. 
 England, as a nation, has not risen to her birth- 
 right. The Church sends out her priests and 
 bishops to do their appointed work ; but England 
 does not stretch forth her arm of power to protect 
 the uncivilized races of the lands she has made her 
 own, against vices of which the aborigines knew 
 nothing until the white man came. The Church 
 will, we know, conquer in the end ; but woe to 
 the nation that hinders her work by not supporting 
 her with its might. 
 
 The world would, of course, scoff at the idea of 
 the Church being the strength of England ; but 
 that the idea is not a phantom but a great reality 
 is easily proved. Granted, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that the Church is only a human institution ; 
 since that is the only ground on which an unbeliever 
 in its Divine origin can stand. At the outset he 
 would find himself face to face with incontestable 
 facts. This is one— the Church is a Teacher. She 
 inculcates obedience to law and order and to all 
 
208 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 who are in authority. She directs subjects to sub- 
 mit themselves to the ruler who is set over them, 
 teaches children to be obedient to their parents, 
 servants to obey their masters, ' not with eye- 
 service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, 
 fearing God.' She enforces on men the necessity 
 of obeying the Decalogue. She builds schools for 
 training the young, because she believes in Him 
 who has said, ' Train up a child in the way he 
 should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it.' She builds alms-houses for sheltering 
 the aged poor, refuges for the penitent, asylums for 
 the blind and the deaf and dumb ; hospitals for the 
 sick ; in short, she, as a whole, working in and by 
 her members, maintains the whole social status of 
 England on its present level. The sovereign of 
 England has a solemn oath to take before the crown 
 can be worn, or the sceptre held. Blot out that 
 oath ; cast away the ancient ceremony of the coro- 
 nation as useless and unmeaning— which it is if 
 the sovereign is not responsible and accountable 
 to a higher authority ; remove the archbishops and 
 bishops from their thrones as being self-appointed 
 authorities, and claimants of power which does not 
 belong to them. Level every cathedral and 
 church to the ground, and turn all Church institu- 
 tions into places of amusement. Banish every 
 member of the Church who is teaching, nursing, 
 and helping the poor, and send out of the country 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 209 
 
 with them all those who, by their means, have been 
 turned out of the path of evil into a better way. 
 Destroy every vestige of Church art wherever it may 
 be found, from the masterpieces of Raphael and 
 Murillo to the engraving of the 'Good Shepherd.' 
 Suppress every note of music that has a Church 
 ring in it, from Handel's ' Messiah ' to Sullivan's 
 1 Lost Chord.' Sweep away every poem that treats 
 of immortality and of the higher life of man in 
 Christ ; and all literature that teaches man what he 
 is, or ought to be, and what he may be. Strike at 
 the root of every aspiration beyond the region of 
 materialism. Sap the foundations of belief in the 
 holy Catholic Church ; the personality and teach- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost ; the communion of saints ; 
 the forgiveness of sins ; the resurrection of the 
 body, and the life everlasting. Do all this and 
 what will be left? What would England be if it 
 were robbed of all these things ? 
 
 Let every cultured unbeliever honestly face that 
 question. He would be a bold man who would 
 venture to assert that the island -home of which 
 Englishmen are so proud would be other than a 
 pandemonium. And, with all else that the Church 
 has given, hope would depart; yet without hope 
 what is life worth ? The man who is without faith 
 and hope cannot rise above the dead level indi- 
 cated by the words, ' Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die.' Compared with such as these 
 
 14 
 
210 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 to what a height had the noble Hebrew woman, 
 mentioned in the Second Book of Maccabees, at- 
 tained when she exhorted her seven sons in turn 
 to resist the commands of a profane tyrant. She 
 knew nothing of the glorious revelation of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, nor the power of His resurrec- 
 tion ; but the faith of the Father of the faithful 
 enabled her to say, as each of her sons went forth 
 to his martyrdom, 'I know not how you were 
 formed in my womb ; for I neither gave you 
 breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the 
 limbs of every one of you ; but the Creator of the 
 world, that formed the nativity of man, that found 
 out the origin of all, He will restore to you again 
 in His mercy both breath and life.' 
 
 If the work of the visible Church can accomplish 
 so much that even her enemies are constrained 
 to admit that practically they could not ' get on ' 
 without her, and that somehow her influence helps 
 them to keep the existing conditions of life from 
 getting worse than they are, is it not marvellous 
 that men of deep learning and acute observation 
 do not try to solve the problem : ' How has the 
 Church come to acquire the power which has 
 established her in the world ; which sustains her, 
 and causes her to grow wherever she is planted, even 
 in the midst of adverse elements ; which has given 
 her such a mighty empire over the minds of men, 
 over minds of profound depth, expansive tendencies, 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 211 
 
 and intellectual faculties of the highest order?' 
 In science men have to work backward. They 
 have fact before them, and that is, necessarily, the 
 starting-point; as, for instance, in the force of 
 gravitation : its effect and ultimate result led to a 
 knowledge and study of the law. In the case of 
 that kingdom which is in the world, but not of it ; 
 the kingdom which is to be universal and everlast 
 ing — in other words, the Church of God— it is 
 different. Man may commence his study of the 
 question with the Founder, or work backward to 
 Him. The result will be the same ; there is clear, 
 historical evidence that all the good which Chris- 
 tianity has brought to mankind flows from its 
 Source — the Man who was crucified on Mount 
 Calvary. The men of that day, who knew not 
 what they were doing, mocked at and passed by 
 the Cross, as those who follow in their footprints 
 do to-day; for the centuries that have rolled 
 between what was then and what is now have not 
 changed the heart of man. The Church militant, 
 though a mighty power in the world, is no more to 
 that proud world than the Son of God was to the 
 blind, Pharisaical Jews and the haughty Romans, 
 when He went from city to city doing good and 
 reproving vice. 'As with the Head, so with the 
 members.' The sun of the Christian system set 
 to the world when the last words of the Saviour, 
 1 Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,' 
 
212 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 were uttered. It rose again, unseen by the world, 
 on the third day ; but the infant Church saw it, and 
 believed in its eternal glory. In all succeeding ages 
 her children have manifested their faith by their 
 works. They have laboured, and fought, and died 
 for her ; for her divine life is also their life. They 
 live here below as pilgrims seeking a better country, 
 and when they seem to die they do but close their 
 mortal eyes, to open the eyes of the soul in their 
 true home. Here they have to 'wrestle against 
 principalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
 the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked- 
 ness in high places, against the prince of the power 
 of the air.' Wordsworth says (in note on Eph. ii. 2), 
 ' Satan and his angels being cast down from heaven, 
 but not being yet consigned to hell, have their 
 empire in this lower air, and are therefore called 
 powers of the air and of darkness.' And St. Jerome 
 says, ' It is the opinion of all the Doctors of the 
 Church that the intervening air between heaven 
 and earth is full of adverse powers.' 
 
 The experience of God's children in every age — 
 not excepting the present age of reason — bears 
 testimony to the truth of Revelation on this subject. 
 Who is free from evil thoughts, which come sud- 
 denly from without, as if whispered in the ear, when 
 the mind is intent upon other things ; sometimes 
 they come in horrible dreams, when, perhaps, the 
 last waking thought of the sleeper was embodied 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 213 
 
 in the words, ' Father, into Thy hands I commend 
 my spirit.' Who has not sometimes felt tempted 
 to do the very thing he would not do, and which 
 his soul abhors ? The devil tempted Christ and 
 failed ; he and his angels tempt man, and too often 
 succeed. God's greatest saints are often the most 
 sorely tempted, as in the case of the patriarch Job ; 
 but God and His angels of light are looking en, 
 and when faith has been tried, when suffering has 
 done its work, when the fire has purified the gold, 
 then one of those ministering spirits sent forth to 
 minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, 
 snatches the gold from the crucible, and stores it 
 in God's treasure-house, leaving the dross on earth, 
 and the tempter foiled. That the path of suffering 
 is the one that leads to glory none can doubt, 
 because it is the one the Master trod ; but, as, 
 when the night was darkest with Christ, angels 
 came and ministered unto Him, so they come to 
 us ; unseen, it may be, by most of God's children, 
 but visible to those to whom is given extended 
 power of sight ; and such power comes not by the 
 working of some law, which man, perchance, might 
 call a miracle, but by the operation of the laws 
 already established, as these act upon what is made 
 ready to receive its impressions. Just as in the 
 kingdom of Nature there may be two rosebuds on 
 the same stem ; the sunlight falls equally on both, 
 and the one opens and blossoms into beauty, while 
 
214 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the other, by reason of less vitality, or of some 
 hidden blight, never unfolds its petals at all. When 
 men cavil at and argue about miracles, they forget 
 that words are coined by men ; and words in many 
 instances may be called necessary evils ; though we 
 cannot do without them. They are often quite 
 inadequate to convey the full meaning, or even a 
 partially correct idea, of what is in the mind of a 
 speaker, unless the person who is addressed is like- 
 minded. Words are constantly misunderstood, 
 and none more persistently than the word ' miracle,' 
 which simply means something wonderful, and 
 beyond explanation on ordinary human lines. 
 Miracle is the best word at man's command for 
 embodying in a concise form the expansive and 
 illimitable force of God's laws, whenever He sees 
 well to give visible signs of the subtlety and incon- 
 ceivable power of His will working by law. 
 
 Those who open their eyes to the light when it 
 shines upon them, who do not close their eyes to 
 the innumerable proofs in the visible universe of 
 the infinitely greater unseen creation of which Holy 
 Scripture tells us, see in the God-man that centre 
 of power and unity, which makes the visible and 
 the invisible one continuous act of Divine power ; 
 and to them the miracles of our Lord in healing 
 the sick are but proofs of His perfect knowledge 
 of what, in each case, was needed, and of His 
 almighty power to apply the remedy. He who did 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 215 
 
 such mighty works has told His servants to ' work 
 while it is day ;' that is, to do their duty in that 
 state of life in which they are placed, and by so 
 doing prepare themselves for that higher life which 
 is to come. Countless as are the members of the 
 human family, so are the kinds of sacrifice which 
 God requires of them ; for every sacrifice must be 
 the expression of the individual, and no two 
 persons are precisely alike in thought or feeling. 
 That which would be a great sacrifice to one person, 
 would be no sacrifice to another. It follows, 
 therefore, that man can only judge of the moral 
 influence of the law of sacrifice by observing that 
 certain causes lead to certain results ; that high 
 principles and faith in God shape themselves into 
 noble deeds. Father Damien and Chinese Gordon 
 are modern illustrations of self-sacrifice. 
 
 Those who in this world find and keep in 
 the narrow path of duty will form the Church of 
 the firstborn, of whom St. John writes, ' I saw 
 thrones, and they ' — the blessed ones called unto 
 the marriage supper of the Lamb — ' sat upon them, 
 and judgment was given unto them : and I saw 
 the souls of them that were beheaded for the wit- 
 ness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which 
 had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, 
 neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, 
 or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned with 
 Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead 
 
216 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 lived not again until the thousand years were 
 finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed 
 and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrec- 
 tion : on such the second death hath no power, 
 but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and 
 shall reign with Him a thousand years.' ' Write,' 
 said a voice which came out of the throne, saying, 
 'Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that 
 fear Him, both small and great.' 'Write,' said the 
 1 voice ' to Sr. John in Patmos, ' Blessed are they 
 which are called to the marriage supper of the 
 Lamb.' And he who spoke added, 'These are 
 the true sayings of God.' Then, the ' beloved dis- 
 ciple ' tells us, ' I fell at His feet to worship Him. 
 And He said unto me, See thou do it not : I am 
 thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have 
 the testimony of Jesus : worship God : for the 
 testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.' 
 Those inspired words raised the veil which in 
 part prevented even St. John from seeing clearly. 
 The 'voice' came out of the throne, and the holy 
 man thought it was the voice of God, and fell 
 down to worship Him that spake. St. John had 
 not then, in his deep humility, learned how en- 
 tirely the soul of redeemed man is one with God. 
 His mistake became the occasion for the glorious 
 revelation of the harmony in heaven, which will 
 be so perfect, that the voice of God and man 
 will be as one. Man's nearness to God is pro- 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 217 
 
 claimed by the ' voice ' proceeding from the throne 
 on which God was seated. Yet the revelation 
 vouchsafed to St. John was but a confirmation 
 of the words which Jesus spoke on earth of His 
 disciples, when He prayed to His Father for them, 
 and not for them alone, but for them also which 
 should believe on Him through their word : 4 The 
 glory which Thou gavest me I have given them ; 
 that they may be one, even as we are one : I in 
 them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made 
 perfect in one ; and that the world may know that 
 Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou 
 hast loved Me.* St. Paul, writing ' to the saints and 
 faithful brethren in Christ ' at Colosse, says, ' we 
 do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye 
 might be filled with the knowledge of His will in 
 all wisdom and spiritual understanding ; that ye 
 might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, 
 being fruitful in every good work, and increasing 
 in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all 
 might, according to His glorious power, unto all 
 patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving 
 thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet 
 to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
 light : Who hath delivered us from the power of 
 darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom 
 of His dear Son.' 
 
 In these passages of Holy Scripture, man's 
 character, his greatness, and his destiny, are plainly 
 
218 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 revealed. With evidences of the antiquity of the 
 Old Testament prophecies, and the proofs of their 
 fulfilment in the New Testament, and in secular 
 history, man is inexcusable if he fails to apprehend 
 that his composite nature is both Divine and 
 human. He is what God made him, whether he 
 knows it or not; and he is responsible for not 
 knowing and believing, because he is a free agent. 
 Why, then, does he not ' rise to his birthright,' and 
 maintain his position ? Simply because he wills 
 to do what Eve did in the garden of Eden : he 
 listens 'to cunningly devised fables.' The dark- 
 ness that has been gathering and increasing in 
 volume and density, century after century, around 
 this vital subject seems to be Satan's masterpiece. 
 As long as he can make man forget who and what 
 he is, he knows that his work is comparatively 
 easy ; since, apart from God and immortality, there 
 is nothing worth living for. It is a Satanic work to 
 cast the dark pall of unbelief in the supernatural 
 over the mind of man ; because, severed from the 
 supernatural, the world itself is but as a kaleido- 
 scope, and man one of its shifting particles. It is 
 only as a great fair, and men and women are the 
 puppets, dancing, singing, or working at some toy, 
 with head or hands, until the time comes when 
 they must go off the stage to make room for 
 others. 
 
 Some Christians feel that it is their duty and 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 219 
 
 privilege to pray for those who, because they do 
 not believe in the ' Hearer and Answerer of Prayer,' 
 cannot pray for themselves. They pray for the 
 living and for the departed, for in so doing they 
 know that they are following the example of their 
 Lord, since prayers for the dead are known to have 
 been a part of the services of the Temple, in which 
 He joined. They believe that ' if there is really 
 any organized connection between the present and 
 the future life, it follows that we who are alive and 
 those who are dead must constitute one organic 
 body, intimately united. This union must be a 
 union not merely in word, but in reality. It must 
 be the same kind of union as that which binds us 
 together in this life with the same obligations and 
 the same privileges. The brotherhood of humanity 
 extends beyond the grave, and is not limited by the 
 accidents of the temporal and corporeal senses.' St. 
 Paul says, ' If so be that we suffer with Him, that we 
 may be also glorified together.' Hence the practical 
 nature of prayer for one another, and the consequent 
 value of it. Human society, whether under its secular 
 or spiritual aspect, being so constituted that each 
 of us has it in his or her power to confer benefits 
 upon others by direct personal action, it follows, 
 as a matter of necessity, that as prayer for our- 
 selves ensures personal blessings, so intercessory 
 prayers are but the complement of our direct 
 activity of service on behalf of a brother. Why 
 
 
220 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 then is this intercessory prayer to be cut short at 
 the moment of death, as some believe it is? If 
 our brotherhood lasts beyond the grave, how can 
 we suppose that its spiritual privileges are suddenly 
 annihilated ? Christ on His mediatorial throne is 
 ever praying for us. St. John saw ' the four-and- 
 twenty elders fall down before the Lamb, having 
 everyone of them harps, and golden vials full of 
 incense, which is the prayers of saints.' Also, he 
 saw an angel come and stand before God at the 
 altar, ' having a golden censer ; and there was 
 given unto him much incense ; that he should 
 offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the 
 golden altar which was before the throne. And 
 the smoke of the incense which came with the 
 prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out 
 of the angel's hand.' 
 
 Here we are taught that glorified men and angels 
 present the prayers of the saints, the children of 
 Christ's Kingdom, to the Lamb. In Hades the 
 rich man interceded for his brethren with Abraham. 
 Are the members of Christ's body on earth to 
 be the only ones debarred from the inestimable 
 privilege of intercessory prayer for all who need it, 
 wherever they may be ? ' The liberal soul shall be 
 made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered 
 also himself.' * He which soweth sparingly shall 
 reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully 
 shall reap also bountifully.' ' Ask, and it shall be 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 221 
 
 given you ; seek and ye shall find ; knock and it 
 shall be opened unto you.' ' Pray one for another, 
 that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent 
 prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' These 
 words were spoken by St. James, one of the first 
 Bishops of the Church, who taught that men must be 
 1 doers of the Word, and not hearers only.' Doubt- 
 less, the words of his Master, ' Why call ye me Lord, 
 Lord, and do not the things which I say,' were still 
 ringing in his ears, when he wrote his 'General 
 Epistle.' That epistle is a model charge for Bishops 
 of all ages ; for it is so fully in touch with the 
 Divine and human parts of man's nature. In this 
 particular St. James is a remarkable anticipation of 
 some of the most successful teachers of men. His 
 were no faltering utterances. Expediency was no 
 part of his creed. Temporizing was no part of his 
 practice. He was far beyond the mere endurance 
 of the trials which fall to the lot of all who walk in 
 the way of the Cross when he wrote, ' My brethren, 
 count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations ; 
 knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh 
 patience. But let patience have her perfect work, 
 that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.' 
 His was the faith that could remove mountains ; 
 and of what God had given him he, as a faithful 
 steward, dispensed to others. But lest any should 
 pride themselves upon extraordinary gifts and 
 graces, he warns them, 'Do not err, my beloved 
 
222 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 brethren. Every good gift and every perfect 
 gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
 Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning.' Lest any should be 
 satisfied with the cloak of religion, he writes, 'If 
 any man among you seem to be religious, and 
 bridleth not his tongue, this man's religion is vain. 
 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
 Father is this : to visit the fatherless and widows 
 in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
 from the world.' No lesson was ever more needed 
 in the world, in any period of the world's history, 
 than this. St. James tells his readers of the fruits 
 of their fallen human nature ; of the hardness and 
 pride of the rich in their dealings with the poor ; 
 and then he appeals to their Divine nature. 
 1 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God 
 chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and 
 heirs of that kingdom which He hath promised to 
 them that love Him ?' When he has warned man 
 of the just judgment, ' For he shall have judgment 
 without mercy, that hath showed no mercy,' he 
 asks, ' What doth it profit, my brethren, though a 
 man say he hath faith, and have not works ? Can 
 faith save him ?' St. James answers the question 
 in an eloquent passage on the relation between 
 faith and works. As one reads it in the light of 
 the nineteenth-century teaching that is put forth by 
 some easy-going Christians, who believe that since 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 223 
 
 Christ has died for them, they have nothing to do 
 for Him or for themselves, the fact that the Holy 
 Scriptures were written for all time, and that holy 
 men of old wrote under the direct influence of the 
 Spirit of Truth, forces itself upon the mind. The 
 power of Truth embodied in the question, 'Wilt 
 thou know, O vain man, that faith without works 
 is dead ?' makes itself felt, as the words one by one 
 fall upon the mind, the heart, and the conscience 
 of man, as only absolute truth can. Then St. 
 James deals with that great gift of God to man, 
 the gift of speech, which distinguishes him from all 
 other creatures : and he shows that the organ of 
 speech has, through sin, become 'an unruly evil, 
 full of deadly poison.' Truly, the father of lies has 
 done, and is doing, his work in the world well ; for 
 everywhere now falsehood and its attendant evils 
 prevail ; even as they did when St. James wrote of 
 the sins of the tongue, and added, in the meek 
 and lowly spirit of his Lord, ' My brethren, these 
 things ought not so to be.' Again, he charges them, 
 'Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the 
 devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to 
 God, and He will draw nigh to you.' He tells 
 them, ' There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save 
 and to destroy,' and warns them of the uncertainty 
 of life. ' Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to- 
 morrow we will go into such a city, and continue 
 there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain : 
 
224 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. 
 For what is your life ? It is even a vapour, that 
 appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth 
 away.' The practical, searching words, ' To him 
 that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him 
 it is sin,' are followed by his withering condemna- 
 tion of the rich, who defraud the poor and condemn 
 the just j who heap up treasure, and are wanton. 
 St. James concludes with an exhortation to patience 
 and prayer, and urges his brethren to take 'the 
 prophets, who have spoken in the name of the 
 Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of 
 patience.' 
 
 As there is no such thing as chance in the 
 universe, we look for design in all things, and find 
 it everywhere. In the history of the Kingdom of 
 Christ, there is no more perfect bit of mosaic work 
 to be found than the account of the appointment 
 of the first Bishop of Jerusalem. 
 
 i. His name was James, a ' supplanter,' or 
 'underminer.' The Church was to act like leaven 
 in the world ; to undermine and change the existing 
 state of religion and morals ; in short, to supplant 
 all other religions as time rolled on, and in the end 
 to reign supreme. 
 
 2. The See of the first Bishop was Jerusalem, 
 'the vision of peace.' The seat of this Bishopric 
 was soon to be destroyed ; as if to teach men that 
 the Church was not a temporal, but a spiritual 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 225 
 
 organization ; and that, as she was born from above, 
 and set up on earth as God's witness for the 
 exposition of Truth, her visible aspect must make 
 it impossible for man to believe that her progressive 
 strength, her victorious march through the world, 
 and her ultimate triumph over the powers of dark- 
 ness, were due merely to the human energy of her 
 members, 
 
 3. As Bishop of the Mother of all Churches, St. 
 James presided at the first General Council at 
 Jerusalem ; and after St. Peter and others had 
 delivered their addresses, he pronounced judgment. 
 None questioned his authority. He said, 'My 
 sentence is,' and all present, from the least to the 
 greatest, submitted to his judgment : a simple 
 historical fact, recorded in Holy Scripture, which 
 nullifies the subsequent Petrine claim, that Christ 
 when on earth ordained St. Peter as Head of the 
 visible Church. 
 
 The only Head that the Church universal ever 
 has acknowledged, or ever will, is the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. It is the glory of the Church that her 
 Head is in heaven. We do not, when thinking of 
 the Head of the Church, realize as fully as we 
 ought to do that He is a Man : as man withdrawn 
 from mortal sight for a time, as God, ever with His 
 Church ; thus connecting heaven and earth, thus 
 uniting the Divine and human. 
 
 Profound in depth and marvellous in beauty is 
 
 15 
 
226 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 the character of St. John the Divine. He is an 
 illustration of those who fulfil their mission in the 
 kingdoms of nature and grace by diligently and 
 silently working out the purpose of their being, as 
 in God's sight. They live under the shadow of 
 the Cross with a halo of light around them ; and 
 though storms rage and the troubled waters which 
 dash upon the shore of Time often threaten to 
 overwhelm them, they are kept by the power of 
 God ; and those who look through the veil that 
 divides the visible and the invisible can see that 
 the halo of light is caused by a greater Light than 
 the sun of our solar system ; for the clouds which 
 darken the natural world cannot intercept it. 
 
 The Blessed Virgin Mary, who was pronounced 
 by an archangel to be ' full of grace,' and therefore 
 chosen to be the mother of Jesus, is His mother 
 still ; and in accordance with God's law must ever 
 be nearer to her Divine Son than any other human 
 being can be; but next to her seems to be St. 
 John, whose name signifies the grace or gift of God. 
 It is much to be able to touch but the fringe of the 
 garment of him who lay upon the Saviour's breast ; 
 for in doing this we know that some virtue will 
 flow into our souls. It is much to get within the 
 outermost circle of the glories which encircle the 
 1 beloved disciple,' for at once we have light enough 
 to discern the greatness of humility, which was so 
 conspicuous a trait in his character. Just as when 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 227 
 
 standing beneath the shadow of a lofty mountain, 
 with nothing but the far-off light of stars to dispel 
 the total darkness, we look up and see in the in- 
 finite vastness of the blue vault above us one 
 shining world after another revealing itself to our 
 mortal vision ; so as we study the character of St. I 
 John we see unfolded the attributes which bring 
 man into closest communion with his Maker, and 
 which enable him to soar on the wings of love from 
 the valley of earth to the heights of heaven, and 
 there see a vision of the glory that shall be here-' 
 after. St. John ever seemed to be nearest to his 
 Divine Master, and he was left on earth longer 
 than either of the other apostles : left, as it would 
 seem, because he was the apostle of love, and' 
 because the great God of love would have linger- 
 ing still on earth, in human form, the highest type 
 of His own immortal love for man. St. John 
 was the only apostle who stood with St. Mary and 
 Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross during 
 the three hours' agony ; and it is there that we must 
 all be in spirit if we would catch glimpses of 
 spiritual realities, and learn to understand in any 
 measure the visions that were vouchsafed to St. 
 John. What a typical group that was on Calvary ! 
 The God of the universe, incarnate, sacrificing 
 Himself for mankind, and making propitiation for 
 the sins of the whole world. At the foot of the 
 Cross Purity, Love and Penitence. God and angels 
 
228 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 looked on from above. The world looked on from 
 beneath, and mocked. The Christ of God looked 
 down from the Altar of Sacrifice on His mother 
 and on the disciple whom He loved, and gave 
 them to each other. As God, Christ loved them 
 both with the Divine love that was fully mani- 
 fested by the Incarnation. As perfect man He 
 loved His mother with a perfect human love. In 
 one sense she was all that He could call His own 
 in the world that He had created j and as such He 
 gave her to that disciple who remained faithful 
 when all the others had forsaken Him. St. John 
 had the spirit of power and of love ; and from the 
 moment when Jesus said to His mother, ' Behold 
 thy Son,' that disciple was to her in name and 
 reality the * gift of God,' and he took her unto his 
 own home. 
 
 Our Lord taught that as 'every good tree bringeth 
 forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth 
 evil fruit,' so it is with man, ' ye shall know them 
 by their fruits.' St. Paul tells us that ' the fruit 
 of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.' 
 That none of these fruits were wanting in the home 
 that was provided for the Blessed Virgin on earth 
 until the time should come when she would be 
 again and for ever with her Divine Son we may be 
 well assured ; but none may know — for it has not 
 been revealed — how widespread has been the in- 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 229 
 
 fluence of the lives of St. Mary and St. John : none 
 the less real and lasting, spiritually and practically, 
 because they are not recorded. Spiritual things 
 are spiritually discerned, and the Christ-like lives 
 of the Virgin and St. John would not be under- 
 stood by the world. Nevertheless, all who came 
 within their circle of influence, and gave heed to 
 the teaching of the Holy Spirit, became centres of 
 light and attraction to others ; and the last great 
 day will reveal the number of men and women who 
 through nearly two thousand years have walked in 
 the footprints of the ' Mother of Jesus ' and the 
 ' beloved disciple.' 
 
 No one can read carefully the Gospel of St. 
 John without being struck with its high spiritual 
 tone. It opens out to our view more of heaven 
 than either of the other Gospels, for Christ's inner 
 life, and His longing for the salvation of man, are 
 written as in letters of light. The great intercessory 
 prayer to His Father lays bare the heart of Jesus, 
 and draws every loving soul nearer to its God. 
 From beginning to end the Gospel of St. John is 
 superhuman. No wonder, then, that those who 
 close their eyes to the light that will alone enable 
 them to see the truth cannot understand it. No 
 wonder that controversy has raged round the sacra- 
 mental teachings of our Lord as recorded by St. 
 John. The followers of St. John know that his 
 testimony is true, and they bear witness to the 
 
230 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 truth : they ' love not the world, neither the things 
 that are in the world '; for they know that ■ all that 
 is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of 
 the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, 
 but is of the world. And the world passeth away 
 and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of 
 God abideth for ever.' 
 
 1 On champions, blest, in Jesus' name, 
 Short be your strife, your triumph full, 
 Till every heart have caught your flame, 
 And, lightened of the world's misrule, 
 Ye soar those elder saints to meet, 
 Gathered long since at Jesus' feet, 
 No world of passions to destroy, 
 Your prayers and struggles o'er, your task all praise 
 and joy.'* 
 
 St. Peter, another of the three most eminent 
 apostles, is an illustration of types of believers who 
 are more visible to the world than the types of St. 
 John. Disciples after St. John's pattern live in 
 shady walks untrodden by men of the world ; and 
 their work, like that of the coral-insect, goes on un- 
 seen for the most part by the eye of man. The 
 practical character of St. Peter is one which the 
 great mass of mankind can understand better than 
 the mystical character of St. John ; therefore, so far 
 as human judgment enables men to form a correct 
 opinion, the followers of St. Peter are likely to far 
 out-number those of St. John. The Founder of 
 the Church, as the Creator and Lawgiver of the 
 * Keble. 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 231 
 
 universe, knew precisely how the law of conformity 
 to type would work in the spiritual as in the natural 
 world, and He appointed agents to establish and 
 carry on the work of the new kingdom who should 
 be most precisely fitted for that work in its various 
 forms and relations. None can fail to see how 
 eminently the zeal that was a prominent character- 
 istic of St. Peter qualified him for the work which 
 he had to do. It also served another purpose. It 
 was the means by which he learned his own weak- 
 ness and imperfection ; for it led him into scenes 
 of trial and temptation where his boasted faith and 
 love and courage failed. Christ knew all that it 
 would one day be in the power of His disciple to 
 accomplish by reason of his strong will, and the 
 general force of his character ; but he had to be 
 disciplined for his work ; he had to learn that his 
 strength was weakness unless it was supported by 
 the Divine power that was in him. Whatever 
 lingering thoughts of self-sufficiency may have been 
 cherished by St. Peter after his many falls must all 
 have vanished when Christ said to him, ' When 
 thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.' 
 
 The life of St. Peter shadows forth the history 
 of that part of the Catholic Church which has 
 made St. Peter its patron saint. The same idiosyn- 
 cracies which distinguished St. Peter are to be 
 found in the Church which is called after his name, 
 and also in the individual members of that Church. 
 
232 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 The faith and the love of St. Peter were often 
 manifested, but before his conversion they as often 
 failed. He tried in his own strength to walk upon 
 the sea and failed. He followed our Lord into the 
 hall of judgment and in the moment of tempta- 
 tion failed. The zeal of St. Peter would have led 
 him to make three tabernacles on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration — one for Christ, one for Moses, 
 and one for Elias ; but his zeal was not according 
 to knowledge. 
 
 When tracing the life of St. Peter and the history 
 of the Roman Church the truth of the old proverb, 
 'Coming events cast their shadows before,' is borne 
 in upon the mind. The lie in Pilate's judgment- 
 hall is a prefigurement of a long series of lies and 
 forgeries endorsed by Roman authority to prop up 
 the claims of the Papacy to universal dominion. 
 Peter's striking with the sword symbolizes the 
 carnal weapons which Rome used so freely in the 
 Middle Ages ; his cursing, Rome's anathemas ; his 
 self-confidence, Rome's presumption ; his hasty 
 words, which drew upon him the stern rebuke of the 
 Saviour, ' Get thee behind Me, Satan.' prefigures the 
 arrogance of Rome, which has always impeded the 
 work of the Universal Church by making her 
 appear to the world less powerful than she is ; 
 because the world sees only her outwardly divided 
 state, caused by the sins of her members, and 
 naturally asks, 'Where is the one Catholic and 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 233 
 
 Apostolic Church which you Christians profess 
 to believe in ?' Her children know. She is where 
 Christ laid the foundation-stones ; she is in the 
 world, where she has fought and conquered, and 
 where she fights and conquers now ; for the arm 
 of the God of battles is her defence and shield. 
 She must fight to the end, until the Church Mili- 
 tant becomes the Church Triumphant. Meanwhile, * 
 she must give heed to the lessons of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, for they 'were written for our learning.' 
 
 Not without a sufficient reason did our Lord choose 
 Simon's ship, and sit down in it to teach the people. 
 Past, present, and future are one to Him. The 
 Church of St. Peter, with all its record of faith and 
 works, with its later exclusive pretensions to the 
 authority and infallibility which belong to the 
 Catholic Church in every land ; her history as a 
 National Church, her schismatical art in altering 
 the (Ecumenical creed of the Church and causing 
 the schism between East and West; the lives of 
 her primates and of her individual members, were 
 all known to the Church's Lord. The use which 
 the Popes of Rome would make of the fact that 
 He sat down and taught the multitude from Peter's 
 ship was not hidden from Him who knoweth all 
 things. Nevertheless, from that ship the Lord 
 taught, and ' when He had left speaking,' it was to 
 Simon Peter that the command was given, ' Launch 
 out into the deep, and let down your nets for a 
 
234 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 draught. And Simon Peter answering him said 
 unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night and 
 have taken nothing ; nevertheless, at thy word I 
 will let down the net.' Simon's words were fol- 
 lowed by an act of obedience which brought its 
 reward, for 'they inclosed a great multitude of 
 fishes.' Then we are told, 'their net brake.' It 
 brake, although Jesus was in the ship. Man had 
 made the net. And men now use, and in time past 
 have used, various humanly-devised means to catch 
 men, and Peter's net and Peter's ship, which are 
 types of Peter's faith and Church, were no excep- 
 tion to the law of imperfection which rules in all 
 earthly things. Then is given in the inspired 
 record what no member of the Catholic Church 
 should ever forget. When Simon's net brake 
 they beckoned unto their partners which were in 
 the other ship that they should come and help them. 
 And they came.' What was the result? Both 
 ships were filled with the draught of fishes. 
 Success followed the act of obedience to Christ's 
 command combined with united action. But what 
 followed? The ships began to sink. The Lord 
 was there, and His servants were acting in unison 
 under His command ; but, humanly speaking, the 
 work was too great. As a trial of faith the ships 
 were allowed to begin to sink, and simultaneously 
 the faith of Simon failed, for ' he fell down at Jesus' 
 knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 235 
 
 man, O Lord.' Here is a clear foreshadowing of 
 the career of the Roman Church. Simon's loss of 
 faith and his words, ' Depart from me/ seem in the 
 clearer light of fulfilled prophecy to anticipate the 
 fear that the Church of St. Peter was in danger 
 when the Isidorean decretals, which elevate the 
 Bishop of Rome to the throne of Christ, were 
 promulgated ; and the still existing fear that the 
 old ship may even yet founder; for the decretals, 
 though proved to be forgeries and admitted to be 
 so by Roman authority, are still quoted and used 
 by Rome to uphold the dogma of Papal infallibility. 
 We are not told that the faith of St. James and St. 
 John faltered, but we know that when Simon's 
 faith failed both ships began to sink ; and we know 
 also that when corruptions crept into that portion 
 of the Church which was established at Rome, and 
 additions were made to the ' faith once for all 
 delivered to the saints,' other portions of the 
 Church left their first love. To the world the 
 Church may seem to be sinking, but her children 
 have no fear for her. At the moment when the 
 waters of Genesareth seemed about to close over 
 the ships, the words fell from the lips of Jesus, 
 1 Fear not,' and the mountains that surround the 
 lake gave back the sound ; and on and on through 
 the centuries those words have been echoed, touch- 
 ing the hearts and reviving the faith of all loyal 
 members of the Church. And now that the 
 
 M 
 
236 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 shadows of evening seem to be gathering around 
 us, and watchmen are warning the unbelieving world 
 that night is at hand, and that the Judge is at the 
 door, we hear those words again and look up, 
 knowing that our redemption draweth nigh. 
 
 Some episodes of St. Peter's life must be classed 
 among the most painful ones of Holy Scripture. 
 They are recorded for the benefit of mankind, and 
 as warnings to those who are of like disposition. 
 The facts of history cannot be blotted out because 
 men refuse to acknowledge them, or remain wil- 
 fully ignorant of them ; and the greatest admirers 
 of St. Peter after his conversion and repentance, 
 are those who realize the disgrace of his fall, even 
 as he realized it himself. Nothing shows the 
 nobility of his nature more than the fact that the 
 Gospel of St. Mark was written at his dictation. 
 The penitent humility of St. Peter may have 
 been the reason for his suppressing his own name 
 and substituting that of his amanuensis. It was 
 the same spirit which led the great Apostle to 
 direct St. Mark to make precise records of his 
 grievous falls as a warning to future generations. 
 
 Regarded from the highest standpoint— which 
 none can doubt was St. Peter's own— his denial of 
 his Lord was a sin of deeper dye than the betrayal 
 of Judas ; and it must have touched the human 
 heart of Jesus, and caused a pang that would be 
 felt at its core. We have evidence in ourselves 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 237 
 
 that it was so ; for we know that the words ' What 
 thou doest, do quickly,' were spoken by Christ to 
 Judas with calm dignity; for the disciple then lying 
 on Jesus' breast tells us that ' no man at the table 
 knew for what intent He spake this unto him : for 
 some thought, because Judas had the bag, that 
 Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we 
 have need of against the feast : or, that he should 
 give something to the poor.' The base denial of 
 even a knowledge of his Lord, following so closely 
 upon Peter's self-glorification — ' Although all shall 
 be offended, yet will not I ' — was noticed only by 
 a look. ' The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.' 
 It was enough. Divine love touched his higher 
 nature, and ' he went out and wept bitterly.' How 
 well a true heart, though encompassed with the 
 imperfections incident to humanity, can understand 
 this ! In comparison with St. Peter, Judas had 
 ever stood afar off, while St. Peter was one of the 
 three most favoured disciples. The denial of 
 Peter was like a wife stabbing her husband ; the 
 betrayal of Judas was more like a servant deserting 
 his master, or a subject turning traitor to his king, 
 and for a paltry bribe delivering him into the 
 hands of his enemies. In the one case there was 
 remorse without repentance, and Judas went to his 
 own place by his own hand, and of his own free 
 will, and there he awaits his sentence. In the 
 other case, repentance immediately followed the 
 
238 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 sin ; and that the grace of final perseverance was 
 given to St. Peter we know from his after life and 
 martyrdom. A realization of the depth of his fall 
 can alone enable us to form an adequate concep- 
 tion of the height to which he attained. The power 
 of united repentance and perseverance is nowhere 
 more clearly demonstrated than in the case of St. 
 Peter, unless it be in the case of the woman who 
 came to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears. 
 She had been a great sinner ; but with her whole 
 being she had turned away from sin and clung to 
 the feet of Jesus ; and the full repentance and self- 
 sacrifice were rewarded. She loved much, because 
 He who first loved her had forgiven much ; and 
 love of God for Himself alone is a certain means 
 of securing God's greatest gifts and highest favours; 
 only, it must never be forgotten that no thought of 
 reward, as such, must mingle with that love, or its 
 perfection will be destroyed. Love for Jesus, as her 
 Saviour, was all the woman had in her heart. 
 
 1 Get thee behind Me, Satan,' was said to St. 
 Peter when he, in his mistaken zeal, would have 
 hindered the work of redemption. ' Touch Me 
 not,' was said to Mary Magdalen, when she would 
 have clung to the feet of the risen Lord ; not 
 because He shrank from the touch of mortality, as, 
 but a moment before, He had drawn her towards 
 Him by lovingly breathing forth her name, but to 
 teach her and future ages the lesson, that even 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 239 
 
 love must not interfere with duty, and bind Him to 
 earth, when His work henceforth was to be on His 
 mediatorial throne in heaven. He had already 
 told His disciples, ' Let not your heart be troubled : 
 ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My 
 Father's house are many mansions : if it were not 
 so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place 
 for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
 I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; 
 that where I am, there ye may be also. I will not 
 leave you comfortless. I will come to you.' ' Hath 
 He said, and shall He not do it ?' ' Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass 
 away.' * Touch Me not,' only meant ' Do not touch 
 me now.' In every Eucharist those who draw 
 near to partake of the living Bread which came 
 down from heaven, touch the risen Christ, in 
 accordance with His own command, ' Take, eat ; 
 This is My body : This is My blood.' ' He that 
 eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth 
 in Me, and I in him.' 
 
 The Church is passing through a fiery trial in 
 this latter end of the nineteenth century. The 
 world is bringing forth all her old weapons, and 
 forging new ones, wherewith to attack her. Un- 
 belief, in its most deadly forms, is gaining strength. 
 Indifference is degenerating into contempt; and 
 mere professors are persecuting the living members 
 of the Church. But the Lord says, ' Fear not '; * no 
 
240 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 weapon formed against thee shall prosper; My 
 kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall 
 the covenant of My peace be removed.' Now, as 
 of old, God is in His holy temple. He comes to 
 His Altar-throne, and gives Himself to all who will 
 receive Him. But when He, the Prince of Peace, 
 and lover of concord, comes to His Church, what 
 does He find ? Alas ! He finds discord where all 
 should be harmony ; estrangement where all should 
 be brotherly love ; controversy where all should be 
 of one mind. He hears the members of His 
 Church profess their creed ; He sees them bringing 
 the little children to Him through the waters of 
 Baptism, but He hears one say, * I am of the Greek 
 Church '; and another, 'I am of the Roman 
 Church '; and a third, ' I am of the Anglican 
 Church '; just as in earlier days some said, ' I am 
 of Paul ; and I of Apollos ; and I of Cephas.' ' Is 
 Christ divided ?' Surely not. He Himself has 
 said, ' I am the Vine, ye are the branches '; and 
 the Father of Glory gave His Son to be the ' Head 
 over all things to the Church, which is His body.' 
 As the Catholic Church is then one in Christ, the 
 members should confront the world as one mighty 
 army, fighting against the evil that is in the world, 
 instead of exhausting their strength and wasting 
 their precious time in warring against each other. 
 In the kingdom of nature every tree has its own 
 
THE GREAT KINGDOM 241 
 
 special characteristic ■ its mode of growth, its leaves, 
 its blossoms, and its fruits. By these each tree is 
 known from all others. There may be, nay, there 
 are, varieties of the same tree or plant, but the 
 essential character is plainly discernible in each 
 variety, so that the species is at once recognised. 
 It, ideally, is the same in Christ's Kingdom, and 
 as when we see an acorn we know that it grew 
 upon an oak, so when we see men who can prove 
 their claim to be successors of the Apostles, holding 
 the faith of the Apostles, teaching the Word of God 
 in its entirety, and dispensing the Sacraments in 
 accordance with primitive usage and the law of 
 the Church, we know that they are members of the 
 body of Christ, treading in the footprints of the 
 apostles, and obeying the command of their Lord, 
 ' Feed My sheep.' 
 
 For those who follow the Good Shepherd there 
 is prepared an ' inheritance incorruptible and un- 
 dented, and that fadeth not away.' By Baptism 
 they are made members of the ' One Holy, Catholic, 
 and Apostolic Church,' wherever they dwell through- 
 out the whole world. They are the stones which 
 St. Peter tells us are 'built up a spiritual house, 
 an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices 
 acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.' Their Lord 
 has promised to give to him that overcometh ' a 
 white stone, and in the stone a new name written, 
 
 16 
 
242 THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it ': 
 a name that shall never be blotted out of the book 
 of the everlasting Kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who is the ' King of kings and Lord of 
 lords.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. 
 
 NO 
 
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