and shall come forth." The moral and even the physical history of all Christian nations, that is, of the dominant and ruling part of the earth's population, has been determined and moulded by these two great facts, which the sceptic in his blind worship of the constancy of natural causes, would set aside as dreams of superstition.

The course of Nature may be said to be compounded of three elements: the fixed or permanent, the periodic, and the ever varying. Man's power of forecast depends on the second. The elements of change and variation outnumber and exceed those of fixity and permanence. The further we recede from present time, the more complete is the change, and the fewer are the unchanged and abiding elements. In less than a hundred years, the whole generation of living men will have passed away, and in a thousand years, only a few forest trees and the everlasting hills will remain, of all the objects that now meet the eyes of man on the surface of the earth. What is permanent and enduring is a very small fraction indeed of that which existed once, and will soon have passed away. For permanence and constancy we need to mount higher, and look to Him who is the Selfexistent and the Unchangeable, and to those elements of created being which partake most largely of these Divine attributes; to the spiritual being of man, in those who, by partaking of a Divine nature, are raised above the sphere of death and corruption, and the darkness of the grave, into a higher region of blissful hope and expectation of an immortal life to come. "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

CHAPTER XI.

THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT INVOLVED IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF NATURE.

A DOUBLE Confusion of thought with regard to the meaning of Nature, and of miraculous evidence, forms the basis of that monstrous tissue of sophistry, by which the author of "Supernatural Religion" seeks to blot out the light of the Gospel, and of the blessed Dayspring from on high, and to bury the whole world in midnight darkness once more. Let us examine the meaning of three cognate terms in connection with the whole course of Nature: the mysterious, the unusual, and the miraculous. Man's knowledge of the course of Nature, and of the universe around him, is a very small fragment of a vast and mighty whole. The little island of human knowledge is shut in and surrounded by a vast ocean of the unknown, and that unknown ocean is the home of infinite and unsearchable mysteries. The range of common and ordinary experience includes mainly two things: certain known objects or permanent existences; human beings, animals, plants, portions of the earth's surface, the atmosphere, the lights of the sky, the sun, moon and stars; and certain usual changes, of birth, growth and death, and of the circuits of the heavens, and that succession of the seasons, and of day and night, of which he has constant experience. Within these narrow limits, custom, indolence, and moral torpor weaken the sense of mystery,

and make it possible for men to forget the Author of their being, the great Cause on whom both they and all things around them depend. Our own existence, and that of the persons and things immediately around us, is itself a great mystery. Whenever we reflect upon it seriously, reason cannot pause, till it reaches the footstool of the throne of God. Since we and things around us exist, there must be self-existence somewhere, a First Cause of all things. Again, not only the existence of the things around us, but the ordinary circuit of changes which they undergo, is highly mysterious. To thoughtful minds "the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork." When the Psalmist considered the sun, moon, and stars, he was lost in admiration of the greatness and glory of the Creator, and of His condescending goodness towards the children. of men. "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou regardest him?” ́ The sense of mystery, though it may lie dormant for a time. while we abide within the narrow sphere of man's daily experience, wakens up afresh when his understanding returns to him, and he begins to reflect seriously on the wonders of the universe which surround him on every side. Even the known and familiar objects of Nature, and their customary changes, are full of mystery, and ought to lead the thoughts of men upward to the presence of God. Still more is this true of that immense abyss of unknown, undiscovered truth, by which the islet of our actual knowledge of Nature and outward things is shut in and enclosed on every side. The unusual and unfamiliar in Nature has a far wider range. than the familiar and the usual. As soon as men travel from place to place they become acquainted with fresh. groups of terrestrial objects; and the men, animals, and plants, of which any one has had a personal experience,

and gained a familiar knowledge, are a very small part of the whole range of earthly existence. Growing study of the skies opens a still wider range of celestial mysteries, of worlds and systems, wholly inaccessible to the footsteps of man in his present state. The unusual, the unfamiliar in Nature, is thus the appointed pathway, by which man is conducted out of the littleness of his own actual ignorance, into the contemplation of the infinite vastness of that universe which is on every side, and is raised to a growing apprehension of the wisdom, power, and goodness of the great Author and Parent of the whole. "All we behold is miracle, but seen so duly, all is miracle in vain." The unusual and unfamiliar, then, is that by which the deadening effect of custom and habit is overcome. It is God's surgical instrument for removing the scales and couching the cataract, by which the eyes of the soul are darkened; till men are content to live on in thoughtless unconcern, in a constant round of day and night, seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, forgetful of all the mysteries of human life, and of the wonderful world around them, never asking, Whence am I, and whither am I going? What means this gift of life, this "vapour, which appears for a little time and then vanishes away?" It is the unusual and unfamiliar which wakens man from the dull sleep of custom, to draw once more the conclusion of the wisest of men, "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole business of man." The awakened conscience will then soon pass on to accept the further truth, "God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

But this wide range of the unusual and unfamiliar in Nature, this Divine pathway, which leads man out of his own littleness into fellowship with the full grandeur and

magnificence of the universe, admits of a twofold distinction. It includes changes foreseen and anticipated, and changes wholly unforeseen, unexplained, and unexpected. These two classes of the unfamiliar and unusual are very dissimilar in their operation on the human mind. Changes however unusual, which man can foresee and anticipate, because he can trace them to some special concurrence of second causes in usual and daily operation, do not awaken in him the impression of witnessing an immediate operation of Divine power, a direct effect of supernatural agency; the tendency is rather to enlarge and enrich his impressions of the order and method that reigns in the universe, and of the wide range and complexity of those laws by which the Creator governs and regulates all the works of His hands. The phenomena of a total eclipse of the sun are impressive and startling in the highest degree; they must arrest and absorb the attention of all who witness them, and they even disturb the accustomed instincts of the lower creatures. But, when observed as a consequence of calculations made beforehand, which determine with the greatest accuracy the moment of its occurrence, and its short continuance, it can produce no such impression as it does amongst savages, on whom it bursts without any warning; an impression of the direct action of some malignant demon, blotting out the whole light of heaven in pure malice, and awakening a fear that this may never be restored. On the other hand, the strange occurrence, being foreseen, and referred to a specific combination of second causes, serves to crown and complete the evidence of the wide range of natural laws, and of the constancy of their operation, not only in the regular succession of day and night, and summer and winter, but in an immense variety of celestial changes that, on a superficial view, seem irregular and arbitrary.