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ECCE CCELUM;
OK,
PARISH ASTRONOMY.

SIXTH! EDITION".

SUPPLEMENTARY EXTRACTS.
From the Theological Eclectic, {Edited by Professor Day, Schaff, etc.]
" The style is remarkably graphic and elastic, and the matter is
so skilfully grouped and lucidly stated as to be level to all classes
of readers. The writer has a rare gift at popularizing science,
and his book deserves the wide welcome it has received."
From the New York Observer.
" We have never yet seen a volume on Astronomy that seemed
to us to explain more intelligently, to ordinary minds, the visible
phenomena of the heavenly bodies."
From the Congregationalist.
" We advise all our readers who have not yet read the book
entitled ' Ecce Coelum,' to embrace their earliest opportunity to
do so, — a book which certainly has been surpassed by nothing
of this general line, for many years, if ever. There is a grandeur
of conception — an easy grasp of great facts — a clear apprehen
sion of deep and subtle relations — a power to see, and make
others see, the nature and extent of the heavenly movements,
such as are altogether wonderful. Many works have been writ
ten from time to time to popularize astronomy — to bring its
great leading features within the compass of unscientific minds.
But we do not know of a work in which this has been so finely
done as in ' Ecce Coelum.' Six lectures of about an hour each,
tell the story, and the reader feels, all the while, as if he were
upon a triumphal march. He is upborne and sustained by his

guide, so that he has no sense of labor and weariness on the
journey. The last chapter, on ' The Author of Nature,' is a
most worthy and fitting close to the book. We wish it could be
read by that great host of so-called scientific men, who are delv
ing away in the mines of nature, with thoughts and purposes
materialistic and half atheistic. They need the tonic of such
Christian thinking as this." From Hours at Home.
" This little book, from the pen of Rev. E. F. Burr, D.D., has
already been noticed extensively and pronounced a ' remarkable
book 'by our best critics. The author first delivered the sub
stance of it to his own people in familiar lectures. It presents a
clear and succinct resume of the sublime teachings of astronomy,
especially as related to natural religion. The theme is an in
spiring one, and the author is master of his subject, and handles
it with rare tact, and succeeds as few men have ever done in
giving an intelligent view of the wonders of astronomy, accord
ing to the latest researches and discoveries. It is indeed an
eloquent and masterly production."
From Harper's Monthly.
" The title page of ' Ecce Coelum ' is the poorest page in the
book. We have seen nothing since the days of Dr. Chalmer's
Astronomical Discourses equal in their kind to these six simple
lectures. By an imagination which is truly contagious the
writer lifts us above the earth and causes us to wander for a
time among the stars. The most abstruse truths he succeeds in
translating into popular forms. Science is with him less a study
than a poem, less a poem than a form of devotion. The writer
who can convert the Calculus into a fairy story, as Dr. Burr has
done, may fairly hope that no theme can thwart the solving
power of his imagination. An enthusiast in science, he is also
an earnest Christian at heart. He makes no attempt to recon
cile science and religion, but writes as with a charming ignor
ance that any one had ever been so absurdly irrational as to
imagine that they were ever at variance."
From the Evangelist.
" We have had many inquiries in regard to the authorship of
'Ecce Ccelum,' the volume noticed somewhat at length two

3
weeks since. To save writing a number of letters, we may say
here, that the Country Pastor, who is the author of these six
Lectures on ' Parish Astronomy,' is the Bev. E. F. Burr, D.D.,
of Lyme, Ct. The book is an 16mo of about two hundred
pages, but in that small compass it comprises the results of long
study, and will be found as instructive as it is eloquent. The
grandest truths are made level to the plainest understanding.
We took it up, expecting little from its humble pretensions, but
soon found that it was all compact with scientific knowledge,
yet glowing with religious faith, and were not surprised that Dr.
Bushnell should say he ' had not been so fascinated by any book
for a long time — never by a book on that subject ' — and that it
had given him ' a better idea of astronomy than he ever got be
fore from all other sources.' We don't know if they have many
such ministers ' lying around ' in the country parishes of Con
necticut, but if so it must be a remarkable State.
" While the impression of this fascinating volume is fresh in
mind," etc.
From Rev. G. W. Andrews, D.D., President of Marietta College.
" The author has succeeded admirably in his attempt to pre
sent the great facts of Astronomical Science in such form as to
be intelligible to those who have not gone through with a
thorough mathematical training, and to make them intensely in
teresting to all classes of readers. I cannot express more strong
ly the interest the volume excited than by saying that I read
through at once. I can hardly remember when I have done the
same with another work."
From Rev. Edwin Hall, D.D., President of Auburn Theological Seminary.
"I received it last night, and have read it through with intense
interest and delight It is a worthy book on a mighty theme.
I wish it might be in every household, and read by everybody.
And I am sure it will be read with admiration and wonder long .
after the author shall have been gathered to his fathers."
From Rev. Prof. E. W. Hooker, D. D.
" The book is an admirable argument from the discoveries of
modern Astronomers, for the existence of God; and indirectly
for the truth of the Gospel. It is an honor to his kindred, to the

Church and the place of his birth, and, above all, to Him
whose gospel he preaches.''
From an Obituary of Rev. S. L. Pomroy, D.D., late Secretary of the
A. B. C. F. M.
" He was a man of extensive information, a ripe scholar, and he
retained his scholarly habits and tastes to the last. A few weeks
since he read ' Ecce Coelum' with great pleasure and satisfaction.
When he returned it he remarked, 'I have read it all twice,
parts of it three times, and have noted down certain passages.'
He was specially delighted with the arrangement of the work —
the grouping of the different systems so as to give us something
like a comprehensive idea of the grand whole."

^.3Sr3SrOTJ2SrOE3yCE3STT.

PATER MUNDI ;

— OR,-

MODERN SCIENCE TESTIFYING

— TO THE—

FATHER IN HEAVEN,
IN TWO VOLUMES,

— BT THE —

AUTHOR OF "ECCE CCELUM,"
will soon be published.

PATER MUNDI;

OR,

MODERN SCIENCE TESTIFYING TO THE
HEAVENLY FATHER.

IN SUBSTANCE
LECTURES DELIVERED TO SENIOR CLASSES IN
AMHERST COLLEGE.

BY
REV. E. F. BURR, D. D.,
AUTHOR OF "ECCE CCELUM."

Hj/iri &' ovtic Ka/mav iciroWkvTai, rjiniva ttojUo?
Aaol ittn/u^ovoi- Qeoc vi rvc iarl ml avrrj. Hesiod.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

BOSTON:
NICHOLS AND NOYES,
No. 117 Washington Street.
1870.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
Nichols and Noyes,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

•V

fcC

6

3^V

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

PATER MUNDI.

A NEW BOOK
BY THE AUTHOR OF "ECCE CCELUM."
The thousands who have been fascinated by the " brilliant pen
photographs of the Wonders of the Heavens," as presented in
" Ecce Ccelum," will eagerly welcome a new and equally attrac
tive volume from the same source. The new work is entitled : —
PATER MUNDI;
—OR,—
MODERN SCIENCE TESTIFYING
— TO THE —
HEAVENLY FATHER,
IN TWO TOLUMES.
The First Series is now ready. Tinted paper, 300 pp. 12mo.
Price, $1.50.
The Publishers solicit general attention to this new work.
The claims of atheism to the name of Science are becoming ex
ceedingly frequent and bold, and are industriously pressed on
the attention of all classes. Let those who would see for them
selves how little ground there is for such claims, read these
volumes : and let all who wish well to the popular faith, and our
holy religion, and the safety of society, aid their circulation to
the utmost. Though written for a College and with scientific
thoroughness, they are believed to be easy and luminous reading
for all the people. So let all the people have them.
It is believed that the present wide-spread and increasing interest
in the subject, together with the signal ability, clearness and force
with which it is presented in the present work, cannot fail to
attract all classes of readers.

To give a fuller idea of the scope of the work, the following
extract from the preface is here given.
" The speculations of scientific men are one thing, Science itself
is another. While the former are just now noticeably adverse
to religion, the latter is at all times full of proofs and illus
trations of a Divine Author of Nature. Especially is this
true of the more recent Science. It does homage to God. It is
His brighteyed and eloquent interpreter. It stands and points
at Him with a thousand straining index hands. Instead of being
that bold-faced and victorious antagonist which some choose to
claim, it is His most leal and serviceable subject. So much I
propose to show in these volumes.
The general object is sought in two ways— first, by scientifi
cally reconstructing the form of natural theology to meet ihe
wants of the age; second, by deriving the material of the new
form from the more modern and valuable branches of Natural
Science. — The currents of unbelief have changed their directions,
The wind sets from a new quarter. The assault that once came
from the right now comes from the left. Objections once put
forward with triumphant air have ceased to be mentioned, and
objections once brought against one point are now brought
against another. So a readjustment of the theistic defences has
become necessary. It is proposed in this work to make such re
adjustment. But this is not all that is proposed. It were an
unnecessarily meager undertaking — that of enabling Religion to
make good the defensive. She is able to do amazingly better.
Her arsenal is full to overflowing, her forces are many and
mighty, and she is able to go victoriously forth from her inex
pugnable stronghold on a hundred easy highways which Mod
ern Science has cast up for her benefit. As never before, the
time has come when ' the invisible things of Him are clearly
seen, being understood from the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse.' "
The substance of these new volumes has been delivered as
lectures to successive Senior Classes in Amherst College; also,
in part, before the Scientific Department in Tale College. They
have already elicited favorable criticism from most eminent

From the Congregationalist.
The author of " Ecce Coelum" has, during the year, delivered
a course of lectures to the Senior Class at Amherst, on the Gela
tions of Science to Beligion. They have been most warmly re
ceived both by Professors and Students.
From the Boston Traveller.
The Trustees of Amherst College, at their recent session,
passed a vote of thanks to Kev. E. F. Burr, D. D., Author of
" Ecce Coelum," for his " admirable Lectures on the Scientific
Evidences of Beligion."
From Rev. Prof. C. S. Lyman, of Tale College.
All whom I have heard speak of these lectures have expressed
for them the highest admiration. In thought and diction they
are worthy of Chalmers. ,
From the Rev. W. A. Stearns, D.D., L.L.D., President of Amherst College.
I have heard them with the deepest interest. They ara so
clear, so logical, so rich in illustration, so unexceptionable and
beautiful in style, and so conclusive in the argument attempted,
that I have profoundly admired them. Those gentlemen who
heard them when delivered here, would, I am sure, from the
comments which they made upon them, agree with me entirely
in the judgment I have expressed. May the Great Being whose
existence these lectures so nobly defend from the attacks of the
foolish, though calling themselves scientists and philosophers
spare the life of the author and enable him to complete the full
course of thinking on which he has so triumphantly entered and
advanced. Sent post-paid on receipt of the price, by
NICHOLS & NOYES, Publishers,
117 Washington Street,
I@ST@N!8 MASS.

TO THE
HEAVENLY FATHER,
TO WHOM WE DEDICATE OUR SABBATHS, OUR SANCTUARIES,
AND OURSELVES,
ffiljcse Volumes,
IN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS BEING AND GREATNESS,
ARE REVERENTLY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS.

I. Experimental Method.
i. ILLUSTRATIONS  ,
z. APPLICATION TO RELIGION . . . . . . ii
3. RELIGIOUS VALUE  Ig
II. Argumentative Method.
j. POSSIBILITY . .  29
z. PROPRIETY  . . 3S
3- PROFIT  38
III. Application of the Argumentative Method.
1. PRINCIPLES  S3
2. THESIS  59
3. FIRST OBJECTION — NATURA SUFFICIT . . . .64
4. SECOND OBJECTION — MACULiE  67
IV. Macule.
1. SECOND OBJECTION CONTINUED  81
2. PATERNAL ANALOGIES  83
3. LAW OF THE INFINITE  99
4. LAW OF CONSCIENCE  101
5. LAW OF PATERNITY  .103
6. LAW OF CHARITY  106
7. LAW OF THE GENERAL RULE .... .108
8. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT ."  114

IV CONTENTS.
V. In Tenebris.
i. THIRD OBJECTION  IIg
a. NARROW INTELLIGENCE  n9
3- FRAIL BODY  I2I
4. FRAIL REASON  ,23
3. FRAIL SENSIBILITY  I26
6. DEPRAVITY  ,32
7- TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  ,38
VI. Harmonies with Nature.
1. vastness 
2. VARIETY IN UNITY  l6l
3- FINISH OF MINIMA  l66
4- WISDOM  ' l6g
S- DYNAMICS 
6. RELATION TO LAW  l8o
7. RELATION TO TIME AND MOTION  l86
8. MYSTERY 
9. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  I96
VII. Need of God.
«. POLARITIES OF CHARACTER  203
*. PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF FAITH  208
3. DIRECT DIVINE ACTION  • • ZZ3
4. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  22g
VIII. Theism as a Scientific Hypothesis.
1. PERFECTLY SUFFICIENT .
z. AS CREDIBLE, A PRIORI  2 g
3- SIMPLEST .... 2S
""¦•••• 261
4- SUREST 
5. SAFEST 
6. SUBLIMEST ....  2?I
7. SUITED BEST TO HUMAN CONVICTIONS AND TRA- '"
DITIONS 
8. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT ' 2?5
 286

PREFACE.

The whole plan of the author looks beyond the
present volumes. It proposes to defend and illus
trate both Theism and Christianity from the side of
Modern Science. This accounts for the structure
of the first two lectures.
In the second volume the appeals to the Sciences
will be found more direct and full than even in
this — especially as negativing that Law Scheme
which is the only present competitor of Theism as
an explanation of Nature.
These lectures were designed to be spoken to
College Classes on the eve of graduation. Hence
some peculiarities. They speak to the ear. They
speak to the young. They speak to educated young
men who may be presumed familiar with general
classical as well as scientific knowledge ; and whom
it is of the last importance to have go forth into
the world richly assured of the exceeding breadth
of the Christian Foundations, and richly prepared to
manifest them to all unbelievers. So the lectures
are zealous for a side. They are anxious to carry

vi PREFACE.
a point. They appear not to have discovered that
one must be indifferent in order to be fair. They
affect no philosophic impartiality ; but. speak as a
Christian believer, to the sons of Christian parents,
and within a Christian college which has not yet
thought it necessary to teach neutrality (or worse)
between Christianity and Buddhism, from chairs rest- '
ing on Christian endowments.
The author states some things very strongly. But
he does not suppose himself to have stated them
more strongly than facts warrant. He feels very hos
tile to Atheism. He holds it the worst enemy of
mankind. Its recent attempts to shelter itself under
the great name of Science greatly move his indig
nation. He is amazed at its effrontery in claiming
that a single true science looks on it with favor.
At the same time he aims to be just, even to
Satan. What he would gladly destroy in the inter
est of humanity, he would only destroy by the lawful
use of lawful weapons.
The larger part the sixth lecture has been pub
lished before. But as it properly belongs to this
course of lectures, and as the omission of it would,
in the author's view, mar the symmetry of his gen
eral plan, he has thought best to insert it in its
proper place.
Lyme, Conn., Nov. 30, 1869.

I.
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD.
tyrjXcufyrJKraTe /xe x<« tSere.
KaAws av o-oi 6 ©tos Avros £uAAa/ij8aj'oi,. — Plato.

I. Experimental Method.
¦>. ILLUSTRATIONS  9
z. APPLICATION TO RELIGION  «
3- RELIGIOUS VALUE  19

FIRST LECTURE.

EXPERIMENTAL METHOD.
THERE are two ways in which men assure them
selves of the qualities of material objects. One
is the way of argument : the other is that of direct
personal experiment. A man of reputation tells
me that a certain sort of wood is tough, flexible, and
hard ; or I see it extensively used for purposes to
which these qualities are essential ; or the general
appearance and arrangement of the fiber, I find,
are the same as in other woods known to have these
qualities — these are so many arguments from
which in a way of inference my mind reaches a
belief in the toughness, flexibility, and hardness of
that wood. But, if I choose, I may reach the same
belief in another way. I may strike my own ham
mer on that wood, and see what resistance it makes
to indentation. I may take it into my own hands
anJ try to bend it. I may with my own fingers or
wedges attempt to tear it asunder. Thus by a
direct personal trial, and not at all in the way of

10 FIRST LECTURE.
argumentative inference,. I may convince myself
that the wood is what it is claimed to be.
In the same twofold way we may satisfy our
selves of the existence of certain spiritual qualities.
Is your acquaintance generous, is he honest, is he
capable ? You may argue out an answer for your
self, or you may obtain it by the personal applica
tion of certain practical tests. Honest? Yes, you
may say, for it is an honest family to which he be
longs, and I know that from childhood he has had
iustruction and training fitted to make an honest
man. Besides, he bears a good reputation for hon
esty. Those with whom he has had dealings speak
well of him. This is argument. A judgment is
reached inferentially from other judgments or facts.
But there is such a thing as your making a direct
experiment on the man which will settle the ques
tion of his honesty to your mind without help from
any other quarter. Put in his way an opportunity
of taking some small unfair advantage of you with
apparently entire safety, and see what he will do
with it. Try him again and again at a variety of
points, and watch how he carries himself under
the temptation. This will finally show you what
the man is — perhaps will show you that his
word is as good as a bond, and that you might ven
ture to trust him with every dollar you are worth.
You have personally experimented upon him in true
Baconian and scientific way, and found him trust
worthy in the last degree. With your own hands

APPLICATION TO RELIGION. 11
you have applied the acid to what men call gold,
and have found that gold it really is. See how the
metal shines under the nitric drop !
Suppose, now, that our inquiries, instead of relat
ing to attributes of matter or attributes of the
human soul, relate to that still higher plane of
thought, the attributes of God and His Word —
say the reality of the Christian God and the divinity
of the Christian Scriptures. Have we still the
same two ways of information that are universally
allowed in dealing with those questions of the lower
order ? Can we properly argue, and can we prop
erly experiment also ? The first question I re
serve to be answered in the next lecture : the sec
ond I propose to answer now, because I regard it as
primary in its character. I repeat, can we and
may we put things of such great names and au
gust claims as the Christian God and the Christian
Scriptures under substantially just such direct prac
tical tests as show us that a given wood is hard,
and a given man honest ? This question is an in
teresting one — for the reasons that the radical ex
perimental method is found so enormously powerful
and fruitful in the lower fields of inquiry, that we
need all the light on the alleged God and Revela
tion we can possibly obtain, and that there is more
or less current the idea that it is not possible, or at
least lawful, to deal with such great spiritual mat
ters in the way of critical experiment. The great
questions that stand before the world from age to

12 FIRST LECTURE.
age, and which make all others almost invisible, are
these. Is God real ? Are the Christian Scriptures
His message ? There are some in the world — we
suppose an ever-decreasing number — who to these
questions are prepared to say, " No,r' or are not pre
pared to say, " Yes " — disbelievers or unbelievers.
Then there is another class who truly believe in
God and Scripture ; but their faith is far from be
ing as large-limbed, and muscular, and majestic of
mien as they could desire. Lastly, there are those
who themselves believe almost as though they saw,
but who would like to communicate something of
their own full assurance of faith to the many around
whose condition is less happy, and on whom mere
argument seems so largely spent in vain. To all
these classes it is a question of very great moment
whether the field of religion, like every other field,
is open to the double-handed exploration of argu
ment and personal experiment — whether, after
having exhausted or, what is much better, before
touching the system of premises and inferences, they
may not bare their arms and go forth on the sub
jects of God and Scripture with such practical
tests as shall be to them what the hammer is to the
wood that asks to be considered hard, and actual
opportunities of safe cheating to the man who asks
to be considered honest. The idea of experiment
ing on God and .His Word may have at first quite
an objectionable look. It looks, perhaps, like irrev
erence and audacity and desecration. One gets his

APPLICATION TO RELIGION. 13
mind filled with the idea of coarse mechanical ex
periments and of the harsh, irreverent ways in
which they are sometimes played off on creature-
natures ; and when mention is made of religious
experiments, the gross old ideas still cling about the
new thought. It seems as if nothing of the kind
would be allowable out of the low realm of the
commonplace and profane world. How it sounds
to talk of trying experiments on God and Religion !
In answering this current, or at least not unfre-
quent, feeling, it must be admitted at the outset that
there are experiments on these objects of which we
may not entertain thought for a moment. They
would be extreme presumption and sacrilege. Our
instinctive sense of propriety would revolt from
them as putting dishonor on the conception of a
God and a Religion. When the Jews came to Jesus
on a certain occasion, saying, " Master, we would
see a sign from thee," what they proposed to do
was then and there to try a direct experiment on
His miraculous power. The proposal met a severe
rebuff. If one of you should rise in his place and
say, " If there is a God, let Him immediately show
Himself by casting yonder hill into the river," his
experiment would be a very wrong one. If one of
you should take it on himself to cry out towards the
heavens, " If the religion of Jesus is divine, let
rain this moment fall from a clear sky," his experi
ment would be a very wrong one. If he should
put Liberalism to a similar test, saying, " If it is

14 FIRST LECTURE.
really Scripture that God is Trinity and future
punishment everlasting, let a plumed angel at once
appear in that door- way, and say so," his experi
ment would be a very wrong one. All such tests
are plain irreverence and presumption. They set
up our wisdom as supreme, and presume to dictate
terms and methods to God. This will never do.
Let the rash man take the shoes from his feet as he
nears the place where perchance God is concealed :
why must a voice smite him with the information
that all such places are holy ?
Yes, there are many experiments on God and
the Scriptures which would be highly improper —
say, if you please, intolerable. But it would be a
great misfortune if, on glancing at some of these,
we should hastily conclude that everything of the
sort is contraband. You cannot properly put it
upon God, supposed real, to prove Himself, His
Word, or any of its doctrines by any given species
or form of argument, arbitrarily selected. We have
no right to instance Ontology, or Physiology, or His
tory, or Astronomy, and insist upon it that God
shall prove Himself by means of our favorite science
and under our favorite forms of reason. A God is
Himself best judge of what arguments it will be
best for us to have — assuming it best for us to have
some — and He is entitled to choose His own. It
would be quite as presumptuous for us to dictate to
Him in this matter, as it would be to dictate to Him
what experiments he must submit to for the in-

APPLICATION TO RELIGION. 15
crease of our faith. But because it would be im
proper for us to demand that God should prove Him
self to us by certain arguments of a class chosen
by ourselves, we do not conclude that all arguments
for that object are unlawful. We may be author
ized to desire arguments in favor of what we -are
called on to believe ; if so, we are authorized to
ask that they be sound and sufficient — only we are
not allowed to require that they be of this or that
sort, or that they come to us in this or that way.
So with these experiments. We cannot appoint to
God what arguments for Himself He shall allow us ;
nor can we appoint to Him what experiments He
shall allow us. Nevertheless, there may be good
and lawful arguing in that quarter to be done ; and
there may be equally good and lawful experiment
ing. There are direct practical trials of God and
Scripture which we can make for the benefit of
faith, which are no setting up of our own wisdom,
no presumptuous dictations to Him who may prove
to be the Most High, no familiar and irreverent ap
plications of as it were hammer and acid to the
Holy of Holies, to the ark of the covenant, and
even to Him who sitteth between the cherubim.
But they are such as Faraday and Brewster, rever
ent interpreters of nature, seemed to be making
when from a distance some disciple watched them
poring with shaded eyes and shrinking, half-re
treating attitude over a beam of light fresh from the
sun, or the keen elemental fire that leaps from the

16 FIRST LECTURE.
batteries of galvanism. And the doings may all be
in the manner of yon uncovered and hushed physi
cian. Is not that sick man of monarchs the great
est and best ? Is he not the great warrior and
statesman and father of his people ; and does not
his empire kiss at once sunrising and sunsetting,
sweep the breadth of three continents, swelter under
the golden suns of the Bosphorus and glisten in
perpetual whiteness beneath the frozen pole ? But
now he is prostrate ; and that medical adviser
enters with bare brow and muffled step. He places
his finger on that pulse as if rose and sank with it
the majesty of a nation's life, and of a dynasty
awful with the glory of a thousand years. In the
same spirit may we and should we deal with these
imperial questions relating to august God and Reve
lation. The God and Revelation of Christendom have
furnished their own practical tests. They have
shown us what experiments they are willing to
have us make on them. We are not to make arbi
trary and unauthorized experiments ; none what
ever in a spirit of lightness or audacity ; but such
as are actually furnished in the Scriptures we may
freely use, minding to do all with a modesty befit
ting the great conceptions with which we deal.
Among these lawful and actually furnished ex
periments are the following — which I offer, not in
the name of practical religion, but in the name of
Modern Science. The Scriptures make many,

APPLICATION TO RELIGION. 17
clear, and striking promises to liberality. Thus ;
" The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that
watereth shall be watered also himself. Honor the
Lord with thy substance and with the first-fruits of
all thine increase ; so shall thy barns be filled with
plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new
wine." " Give, and it shall be given you ; good
measure, pressed down, and shaken together and
running over, shall men give into your bosom."
And so on in wonderful profusion. Now, unbeliever
or weak believer, make an experiment. Be liberal,
and see whether these promises are not fulfilled to
you. See whether the property, or what you are
disposed to accept as its full equivalent, does not
accumulate. Then you will have put to a direct
practical test both God and the Scriptures — the
reality of the one and the divinity of the other. —
Again, it is written that if we pray for the Holy
Spirit and religious blessings in general with sin
cerity and earnestness, they shall without fail be
given. For blessings of this sort the language is,
" Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall
find ; knock, and it shall be opened to yon : for every
one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh
findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened." Now, unbeliever or weak believer, make
an experiment. Perseveringly put your heart into
prayer for these blessings, and see whether they do
not come. So will you put the alleged revelation
to a searching practical test, and, as it were, bring

18 FIRST LECTURE.
the reality of its God and of its inspiration within
reach of the senses. — Again, it is written that they
who follow conscience faithfully shall in so doing
come to something better than the light of nature,
namely, a written revelation — come to an assured
faith in Jesus and His doctrine. " If any man will
do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it
be of God or whether I speak of myself." Now,
unbeliever or weak believer, make an experiment.
Go to walking most carefully according to the light
you have on matters of duty, and see whether faith
in the Scripture and a scriptural God does not shake
a freer wing, and soar nearer the sun, than ever
before. So will you bring religion out of the hands
of Plato into the hands of Bacon ; will transfer it
from the dry world of tradition or logic into the
green world of actual personal experiment ; will, as it
were, put it where your hands can feel it, and where,
like the unbelieving apostle, you can even put your
finger into the print of the nails, and thrust your
hand into the side of both natural and revealed the
ology. Act on the Bible itself carefully as a rule of
life, and see whether it does not most palpably agree
with your constitution, as much so as delicious
water and bread do with your body — so showing
by a personal trial of your own that the two were
made for each other by the author of both. You
can safely make these practical trials. They are
not of your selecting and dictating. They are
furnished ready to your hand by the parties who

RELIGIOUS VALUE. 19
are to be tested by them. These parties not onlv
consent, but urgently request to be tested by them.
If this fair offer and manifold urgency be successful
— if you conduct the experiment with fitting rever
ence, gazing with shaded eyes, and stretching out
trembling, half-retreating hand toward the possible
Uncreated Light and Celestial Fire that condescend
to offer themselves to the criticism of your experi
ence — you can, so says the alleged and alleging
Religion, if you are without faith, get it ; if you
have small faith, you can increase it ; if your own
faith is strong like sight and you wish to impart the
like to the weak and the doubting and the disbeliev
ing around you, you can powerfully say to them,
" Sirs, the truth and excellency of the fundamental
religious doctrine, of the Theism and the Christi
anity, are to me not mere matters of tradition or
logic, but matters of direct personal experiment. I
have, so to speak, ' tasted and seen ' that God is,
is what the Christian Scriptures represent Him, is
the author of those Scriptures. Take my testi
mony, as you would if I should say that I have
smitten on this wood and found it to be hard, or
have put a drop of nitric acid on this metal and
found it to be gold."
This method is strictly scientific. It is just as
Baconian as the process that has built up our
chemistry and our other natural sciences into
such admirable splendor. It is the eldest-born of
the Inductive Philosophy ; and if any claim that

20 FIRST LECTURE.
its accent is that of the pulpit, I answer that it is
equally that of the laboratory. In my opinion, any
scheme for promoting an intellectual faith in God
and the Scriptures that does not include this Ex
perimental Method, is as much against the true
modern philosophy as against religion. More than
this — any scheme that does not place this method
in the foreground, as having supreme rank and as
vastly better than any argumentative method can
possibly be by itself, is a failure. What is com
monly called arguing, namely, the establishing and
putting together certain propositions, and then draw
ing a conclusion from them, is, no doubt, a very
useful thing — nowhere, as we have in due time to
make evident, more useful than in the field of
fundamental religious doctrine. At the same time
it ought to be distinctly professed that in this field
no possible argumentative proof can equal in some
main respects its elder sister, the experimental ; and
that no actual logic has equalled it in point of suc
cess. Such practical experiments as I have men
tioned can readily be made by men of the narrowest
leisure, capacity, and knowledge: their ordinary
pursuits need not be interfered with in the slightest.
Not so with a large portion of arguments on the
same theme. To be properly estimated, these re
quire talent, education, and studious leisure in no
small degree. But who cannot put God and the
Scriptures on the test of this actual experiment ?
Who so poor, so weak, so ill informed, so uncultured,

RELIGIOUS VALUE. 21
so busy that he cannot try these things by his liberal
ity, by his prayer, by his conscientious living? Such
a variety of easy practical methods enables all the
world to become critics in religion. And, in point
of fact, many times as many converts from unbelief
have been made by them as by all the exertions of
logic. I do not as yet say that logic has any proper
place within this field ; but it has been widely sup
posed to have, and so has been sent out in vast
masses and in every style of armament to conquer
the unbeliefs and disbeliefs of the world. It has had
its successes. Spolia opima have been won. Tri
umphs have been decreed. But never such tri
umphs as have been granted to the Experimental
Method — triumphs of the first order — not ova
tions, but triumphs — triumphs in which laurels
have waved like a forest, and in which chained
champions and monarchs have gone in long pro
cession after the captive wealth of empires and
races. The great body of Christian believers in all
ages have had no other rational faith than such as
they obtained and maintained by actually putting
the Christian Religion, with its God and inspired
Bible, to the test of practice : thus verifying in
their experience its adaptation to the human nature
and condition, its transforming power, and the
faithfulness of its promises. Moreover, an argu
mentative faith, as well as a traditional one, is
observed to have always a certain deadness about it
till it is supplemented and inspired by the faith that

22 FIRST LECTURE.
comes from direct personal experiment. The latter,
when acquired, becomes a soul to the former. It
paints its clayey cheek with speaking vermilion. It
lights up its lack-luster eye with the beautiful fires
of, thought, and feeling, and force. Oh, how that
poor mass of flesh and blood, by courtesy called
man, and which yesterday could not stand on its
feet or even scarcely fetch a breath as it lay with
glassy eyes by the wayside — how strongly to-day
heave the arches of its breast ; how buoyantly it
springs to its feet, and, with head uplift to heaven,
plants itself like a pyramid ; how swiftly now and
strongly it marches hither and thither, with every
feature alive, and every muscle strung for doing and
daring ! A soul has entered the clay. The form
now tabernacles a power. Welcome, O great,
beautiful, glorious Transformer ! No vinous life
art thou, no life galvanic, but true Divine Breath,
the mighty afflatus of actual personal experience
in religion : lo, thou hast wrought that wondrous
change, and made of the mock man a real one ! —
The proof of God and the Scriptures by personal
experiment has also this advantage over any possible
proof by argument ; namely, that it has an intrinsic
value of its own, apart from its character as a means
of faith. In general, an argument is worth nothing
beyond its tendency to produce faith. But the
course of beneficence, of prayer, of conscientious
living, is in itself always a mighty blessing, even
were no religious faith to result.

RELIGIOUS VALUE. 23
According to the Christian system of religion,
everything depends on possessing faith. We must
believe in God, in the Scriptures, and in their princi
pal doctrines ; and the broader and deeper our belief
is, the better it will be for us. If we have a sincere
faith, then we need to make it great ; if it is great,
we need to make it royal ; if it is royal, we need to
make it perfect ; if we could say it is perfect in our
selves, we should still need to originate or improve
it in a host of others as being the greatest favor we
can confer upon them. So that to all of us this
broad method, this scientific method, of faith by
means of personal experiment and induction, is a
matter of high moment. A plentiful use of it is
the great want of the times. And we may be sure
that quite too little account is made of it, even
among most of those who have been most indebted
to it for such measures of faith as they have. Even
these too often assume that all improvement in this
foundation grace must proceed in the way of argu
ment. If themselves need to be stronger believers,
they do not think of experimenting : it is either
waiting for what the winds will bring them, or it is
arguing. If others are to be rid of their doubts,
they are, primarily and perhaps solely, to be argued
with. Here is a profound mistake. What at the
most is secondary, is made primary. It is not the
reason that is so much at fault in cases of deficient
faith : it is the practical part of us. The remedy
is not so much syllogizing as it is doing. It is not

24 FIRST LECTURE.
argument and experiment that is wanted : at the
most it is experiment and argument. The one is
the lightning that unsolders and seams the masonry
of Doubting Castle : the other is more like the bil
lowy and thunderous air that rolls in afterward,
wave upon wave, to help in shaking the ugly
structure to pieces. The foremost great thing to be
done for our weak-faithed selves and our weak-
faithed neighbors is to send them to school in the
first department of the Inductive Philosophy.
They must be put up to that which in religion an
swers to the hammer of the geologist, the acid of the
chemist, and the prism of the optician. They
must personally try practical tests on God and
Scripture. They must take such tests as the Chris
tian Deity and Scriptures offer to be tried by, and
faithfully and reverently go into a sacred experi
ment. This I have felt bound to put forward as
the leading work to be done in favor of faith. Let
these men of scant faith all around us try God and
the Bible by their promises. Let them test these
great allegations by generous beneficence, by hearty
persevering prayer for spiritual blessings, by hon
estly endeavoring to go by the obviously just rules
of the Scriptures in all the every-day walks of life.
This will do more for them than libraries of argu
ment could do without it. It is a means universally
accessible, has done wonders in its day, and is wait
ing at the gate of every man who needs more faith
than he has, to do them again for his benefit. It

RELIGIOUS VALUE. 25
may not do them at once ; it may render its proofs
somewhat tardily and amid some discouragements ;
but it is according to experience that for any
given man this method will accomplish a quicker as
well as a stronger faith in God and the Scriptures
than any other method by itself could have done
for him. If the man is such in his natural turn of
mind and habits that it will take years at the Ex
perimental Method to convince him, he is such a
man as would hardly be convinced by a lifetime at
any other school. But the crowning tiling is that
the experimentalist is sure of great success in the
end. Whatever the adverse appearances and long
delays, the promise that he shall " know of the doc
trine," will at last come to fulfillment. He shall
not die till his faith lives. And though, in some
rare instance, he should be tried with as much de
lay and as great seeming adversities as Joseph had
while on his way to the fulfillment of his dreams
and the premiership of Egypt, still, the faith which
he shall surely reach at last shall be of that royal
kind that will plenarily pay for all. As with the
Hebrew, his De Profundis shall full surely become
his In Excelsis. To the pit- bottom he sank,
That poor Hebrew lad,
And the thirsty darkness drank
The light within him.
" Now all things go against me,"
Said that poor sunk lad,
Earth-eaten, waiting to be
Eaten of famine.

26 FIRST LECTURE.
Up through the earth-pit dreary,
Swung that poor sold lad
Into worse pit of slavery,
Arab, Egyptian.
" Still all things go against me,"
Said that poor slave lad,
As sun-scorched, thought-scorched, through i
Of sand he falters
To Misraim — to be bought,
(Ah, poor chattel lad ! )
And wrought with the lash for nought,
Like soulless cattle.
0 emir-sprung and petted,
Now sunk, sold, slave lad!
How is thy poor heart fretted
To cry, " Against me!"
" Against me ! yes, against me ! "
Not so poor blind lad !
Where pain plies red beak on thee,
Thy kingdom enters.
Fell pit and master anoint
Thee Pharaoh, lad!
Fell pit and master appoint
Thee chief sheaf — star prince
To sun, moon, and brother stars,
( 0 true dreamer lad ! )
And brighter stars whose rays are bars,
Ruling Osiris.
So judge not by the seeming,
Faithward fighting heart!
The rod that leaves thee streaming,
Will turn thy scepter.
If thou for true faith equipt,
Meet pit and master,
It shall sure crown thy Egypt,
Here and hereafter.

II.
ARGUMENTATIVE METHOD.
'Erotjuoi Se dc! 7rp6s airoXoyiav.
"Ek Toiovn7S, apa, 'Ap^s TJpnp-ai ^ (ftva-is. — Aristotle.

II. Argumentative Method.
i. possibility  "9
2. propriety  • 3S
3. PROFIT  3*

SECOND LECTURE.

ARGUMENTATIVE METHOD.
1HAVE spoken of the Experimental Method of
proving the Christian God and Scriptures — of
its nature, mode of use, strictly scientific character,
and paramount place in a wise scheme of religious
evidences. We come now to the Argumentative Method.
I ask your attention to remarks on its Possibility, its
Propriety, and its Possible Profit.
The possibility of logically proving God and
Scripture has sometimes been questioned on a pri
ori grounds. On such grounds some persons have
questioned the possibility of proving anything by
argument — skeptics, who have doubted not only
that anything can be proved, but that anything can
be known, even the fact that we can know noth
ing. The critical philosophers, so called, with Kant
at their head, without going so far as this, are still
decided that there can be no argumentative proof
of supersensible objects — that is, of objects not
directly cognizable by the senses, such as God

30 SECOND LECTURE.
and religion — and of course no logical proof of
the Christian Scriptures as being God's message.
Still others, bearing such names as Fichte, Shelling,
Hegel — the Anti-criticalists, Idealists, and Pan
theists, especially of Germany and France — declare
that there may be arguments to prove a God, but
none to prove such a God as the Christian Scrip
tures teach, namely, a personal God external to the
human mind and distinct from Nature. Well, a
God who is a mere idea, or the moral order of the
world, or the sum total of Nature, is no God at all
to a truly English mind, and can issue no message.
It would be impracticable, in such a course of lec
tures as I propose, to examine the grounds on which
these men rest their conclusions. Fortunately it is
not necessary. If a man should deny the possibility
of a good watch on abstract considerations, our
best method of dealing with him would be to show
him such a watch. If some Dr. Lardner should
deny the possibility of crossing the Atlantic by
steam, the most satisfactory reply possible would be
to embark him in one of the hundred steamers
plying between the two hemispheres, and actually
transmit him to England by the impossible method.
So the best way of dealing with such speculations
as deny or doubt the possibility of good arguments
for God and Scripture is actually to produce such
arguments. This is the way in which the Baco
nians effectively'answered the old philosophy. Said
that philosophy, " A true science cannot be built

POSSIBILITY. 31
up by experiment and induction : it must be done
by reasoning from general intuitions, and, " as some
said, " other general truths forming the original furni
ture of the mind." This doctrine stood unfalteringly
against ages of skillful dialectics. And it was not
till the true philosophers turned from wasting time
and strength in logically combating this position, to
the task of actually building up the natural sci
ences in the way pronounced impossible, that those
Platonists met their silencing refutation. What
could a Ptolemist say, with his eye at one end of
Galileo's tube and the phases of Venus at the
other? What could any philosopher of the old
stamp say, in the presence of* the actual Astronomy
or Chemistry ; which, rooted in observation and ex
periment, had risen in the course of a few years, by
mingled induction and mathematics, into such lofty
and wide-branching majesty of stature and fruit-
fulness as the old system had for some thousands of
years been always promising, and never even begin
ning to accomplish ? There was no resisting the
eloquence of such examples. Yes, experimental
and inductive sciences doubtless can be, because
they are ; and so the Platonists amended their doc
trine of the impossibility of such sciences into the
doctrine that they are a less noble and fruitful kind
of science than the German metaphysics. Let us
try to walk in the steps of those fathers of the In
ductive Philosophy. Let us attempt no answer to
those who deny or doubt the possibility of good

32 SECOND LECTURE.
arguments for God and Scripture, save the actual
presentation of such arguments. If from the be
ginning, and under the ablest hands, no such argu
ment has ever been constructed, it would do little
good at this late day to establish its abstract possi
bility ; if one such argument can be actually shown,
all the cloudy speculation against its possibility will
meet the most evident and signal annihilation pos
sible. Besides these professional metaphysicians — as
they were for the most part — some eminent Chris
tian theologians have denied the possibility of a log
ical basis for religion. Their ground has been two
fold. Some have said that God and His written
message are as plain facts as any of our first princi
ples, and consequently, according to well-known
law, can only be darkened by questioning and rea
soning about their reality. Others state themselves
in this manner. Reason in man is a shattered in
strument in shattered circumstances. It is so shat
tered within and around that no reliance can be
placed on its verdicts on fundamental religious ques
tions. Look at that seething chaos of opinions and
reasonings which from the earliest times has borne
the proud name of philosophy, and in which many a
great logician, " floating many a rood," has lain be
wildered — the puerile conceits, the muddy obscu
rities, the gross contradictions and self-contradic
tions, the stark absurdities, the terrible heresies, on
whose windy and yeasty bosom reputations and

POSSIBILITY. 33
schools and systems have tossed, and collided, and
gone to pieces! The adventurous voyager, "through
the shock of fighting elements, on all sides round
environed, wins his way ; harder beset and more
endangered than when Argo passed through Bos-
phorus, betwixt the justling rocks, or when Ulys
ses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the
other whirlpool steered." Behold what the boasted
reason can do for the world — especially in radical
discussions ! See — its very name has fallen into
contempt ! Is such a guide to have our confidence ?
No ! say these theologians emphatically ; and they
feel themselves confirmed in their strong negative by
the manner in which the Scriptures speak of cer
tain things called philosophies and wisdoms — de
claring that the world by wisdom knows not God ;
that the faith of christians stands not in the wisdom
of men, but by the power of God ; that men may
be spoiled by philosophy, and should avoid opposi
tions of science falsely so-called. Their conclusion
is that the reason which some men deify is at best
but a fetich — that the true guide within the field
of fundamental religious doctrine is faith ; mean
ing, not a belief in God and Scripture resting on
logical evidence, but one independent of such evi
dence and supernaturally given to those to whom
it is appointed, or who pray for it and honestly en
deavor to follow conscience. This faith carries
men to the Bible and to prayer for that guidance
3

34 SECOND LECTURE.
in opinions and practice which their dilapidated rea
son is not qualified to give.
Men professing such views have not been very
numerous among Protestants. Once in a while,
however, they make their appearance. And in al
most all our communities there is, I imagine, some
such vein of thought silently underlying a portion
of the casual reflection on this subject. But the
answer is easy. It is true that human reason is in
a fallen state, that it gives no absolute demonstra
tions in questions not mathematical, that many of
those who have worn its uniform and carried its
banners have left a very humiliating history, and
that some of even its most gifted sons have in its
name played off most extravagant quixotism and
errantry of speculation. But how does one know
that this mortifying exhibition is not due, partly to
the impracticable nature of some of the questions
discussed, and partly to the improper method and
spirit in which most of them were examined ? Is
not the cause adequate to account for the result ?
But these impugners of reason, as employed on the
fundamental religious theory, have their positive
refutation in the examples and precepts of the Book
which they acknowledge as the final arbiter of
every question on which it pronounces. The Chris
tian apostles argued freely with men in behalf of
both God and Christianity. Their habit was to go
into the temples, the markets, the synagogues, and
there argue for their cause with Gentile and Jew,

PROPRIETY. 35
with atheist and infidel. Especially was this the
habit of that princely logician Paul, who, wherever
he went, plied the sharp edge of his remorseless
logic ; now in caviling Jerusalem on the scholars
of Gamaliel, and now in sneering Athens on the
scholars of Epicurus and Zeno. Who instructed
Christians in the midst of a Godless and Christless
age to be always ready to give a reason of the hope
that was in them — also to prove all things, hold
ing fast that which is good ? The doctrine of the
first teachers of Christianity evidently was that
there is both a need and a reliable way of employ
ing reason for establishing the reality of God and
His message, and that the egregious follies and
blunders that sometimes occur in the course of the
logical process are to be set down, not against rea
son itself, but against its mismanagement.
Among some who allow the possibility of an
argumentative method, it is still a question whether
such a method can properly be attempted in behalf
of faith. Many plain Christians are of this class.
They have a strong feeling against any logical re
ligion. The sight of such a great body of it as
some European libraries show — thousands of vol
umes from Plato downward, and displaying an
amount of genius, culture, and research vastly
more considerable than their number — such a sight
would make on their minds an impression of prodig
ious waste, to say the least ; waste of time, money,
pains, faculty. They have never felt the need of

36 SECOND LECTURE.
such books. They are strong in faith — thanks to
early training and the experimental method —
without any help from such a quarter ; and it is
hard for them, with their very limited acquaintance
with the nature and extent of the attacks made on
Theism and Christianity, to realize that any persons
can require such help, or be at all the better for it.
Especially is their feeling strong against logical
Theism. They say that the Scriptures assume the
being of a God, and so should we ; that at heart
His reality is doubted by none, all show to the con
trary notwithstanding; that, if there is any such
thing as sincere atheism in the world, it uniformly
began and solely rests in a bad state of the heart,
and so will not be reached b}' any mere logic, how
ever conclusive and abundant. The same things,
mutatis mutandis, are alleged against logical Chris
tianity, though with somewhat less emphasis and
prominence. Do the Scriptures assume a God, and their own
binding authority as His message — at least so far
as argument is concerned ? In one sense, yes —
in another sense, no. It is not necessary to an
argument that it take the form of a syllogism, with
its major and minor and formally drawn conclusion.
It is enough that such facts and principles are
placed before the mind as seem to authorize, and
naturally lead the reason to make, the desired in
ference for itself. This much the Scriptures do —
in behalf at once of both God and Revelation. They

PROPRIETY. 37
attempt to show in themselves prophecies, miracles,
and supernatural adaptations of various kinds, from
which, if real, both Theism and Christianity are
directly inferable in one breath. In such informal
logic as this they may be -said to abound. Further,
the Scriptures claim that Theism is sincerely re
jected by " fools who say in their heart that there is
no God " — also, that Christianity is sincerely re
jected by such men as Paul, who " verily thought
he ought to do many things contrary to the name
of Jesus of Nazareth." Indeed, if any reliance can
be placed on testimony and observation and the
ordinary laws of evidence, the cases of real unbelief
and even disbelief in a God, as well as in the Scrip
tures, are by no means few. Many say they doubt
or disbelieve ; they do it with all facial show of
sincerity and self-knowledge ; above all, they'act as
if they disbelieved. What better proof could we
have ? As to such doubt and disbelief, supposed
real, always finding its origin and support solely in
a bad state of the heart, this may be admitted
without admitting the inability of logical religion.
The guilty heart must operate to produce and sus
tain the atheism and the infidelity by perverting and
blinding the intellect ; and all the light and just
impulses we give the intellect are so much natural
opposition to this effect, and may even work back
ward toward reclaiming the guilty heart itself.
Thus the oarsman works his way up the river
against the current ; thus some potent essence, or

38 SECOND LECTURE.
heat, or sound creeps backward through the atmos
phere against the wind; thus summer, beginning
at the lowest edge of the glacier, steals drippingly
and destructively upward till it reaches and melts
the very fount of the icy cataract and sows flowers
and perfumes around it.
Among those who admit the propriety of argu
ment in behalf of Theism and Christianity, there is
great difference of opinion as to the amount and
kind of advantage possible from it. The expecta
tions of some are enormous : the argumentative
method is both the " irov <ttS> " and the lever which
can move the world. The expectations of others
are exceedingly moderate ; indeed, so very moder
ate that they hardly find sufficient motive to give
any thorough attention to the believing logic, from
whatever source it may come. I have thought it
desirable at this stage to state my own views on
this point — partly as a key to my method of treat
ing my subject, and partly because I should deem
it equally unfortunate for any of you to come to the
actual arguments with expectations either extrava
gantly large or extravagantly small, as to the ad
vantages that may accrue from them. In the one
case you would be disappointed into discouragement
and an undervaluing of such utilities as may be
found belonging to the argumentative method;
in the other you would enter on the subject with
too little interest to give it proper treatment.
I am disposed to claim great utility for the argu-

PROFIT. 39
mentative method. But I do not suppose this
utility to lie mainly in quarters where many would
naturally first look for it. It does not lie mainly in
its power by itself to convert atheists and infidels
into believers. Nor can any stress be laid on its
value as a means of weakening the unbelief of such
persons in the way of disputation with them. We
cannot even claim for it that it is the leading means
of sustaining and strengthening faith in God and
the Scriptures where such faith exists. We have
large admissions to make against logical religion
at all these points. It is found in experience that
religion is seldom proved to the satisfaction of men
by any merely logical argument whatever. When
men become theists, they not only generally become
such by a sort of proof that accredits to them Jesus
and the Bible at the same time, but this compre
hensive proof itself is generally something besides
syllogisms, or what can be resolved into such. It
is the proof by the experimental method. It is
the proof by the experimental and argumentative
methods combined 'and interleaved — that com
posite method, like the student's classic, whose alter
nate leaves of a richer texture than the rest and left
blank for that purpose, give in his own hand his own
personal thoughts and results ; that composite
method, like the illuminated missal, whose every
other leaf is pictured in silver and gold with the
thoughts and feelings more dimly expressed in the
neighboring words. The man feels that his wants

40 SECOND LECTURE.
are not met, that his nature is not fed, by infidelity
and atheism. He knows it safe and reasonable and
hopeful to renounce his sins. He begins to read
and act on the Scriptures as being a practical sys
tem in at least general accord with his conscience.
He thus finds his way to prayer to a possible God.
And the result of all is that at length he discovers
himself to be in possession of a measure of faith.
Very likely he himself hardly knows how his mind
has reached this point ; very likely he has at
tempted no formal study of Theistic and Christian
evidences — nor even consciously given them any
attention at all ; but in some way, certainly not
purely argumentative nor even chiefly so, his diffi
culties and doubts have noiselessly thinned away
like the fogs and chills from some morning land
scape. It is in some such way as this that unbeliev
ers usually become theists and christians. — And
it is the great way, too, of preserving, and increasing
faith where it exists. The believer always intensi
fies himself far more by conscientious acting than
by logical arguing. A day's careful discharge of
duty will do far more to heighten his sense of the
reality of God and of a Divine Scripture than will
many a day's study of Paley, or any other writer on
evidences. Instead of being the great means of
producing, supporting, and increasing religious
faith of any kind, mere argument deserves no no
tice in comparison with the easier and universally
applicable practical method. And, further, we must

PROFIT. 41
confess that the mere argumentative method, when
applied in the way of disputation, not only seldom
removes, but generally strengthens unbelief in our
opponent. Gladiators may conquer, but must not be
expected to convince. A blow from a steel-glove
rarely makes a man feel more amiably toward
either the person or principles of his antagonist.
The breaking of lances may be a very fine thing
to lookers-on and the victorious champion : but it
is a very uncomfortable and wrathful thing to the
Templar, as he rolls in the dust amid the blare of
trumpets and the swarming glances of tier upon tier
of the valiant, the noble, and the fair. Will he
ever feel kindly toward the Disinherited Knight or
any of his belongings ? Do not expect it. Rather
expect to find him a more bitter Templar than ever.
And disputation with lips, no less than with lances,
whatever it may do for silent observers, may be
expected to confirm our opponent in his views, by
enlisting self-love and ambition and the ^passions
of conflict in their support — leading him to give
specially favorable attention to the plausibilities on
his own side, and specially prejudiced and carping
attention to the plausibilities on the other side.
These admissions must be made. But they are
by no means an admission of the small utility of
the areumentative method. Its uses are real and
great, though not such in kind or degree as some
claim. Granted that there are such things as
sound scientific arguments in favor of God and the

42 SECOND LECTURE.
Scriptures, there is a strong presumption, certainly,
that they can be made to serve some very valuable
purpose : and something of a presumption, too, that
what so many great and good men — bearing such
names as Newton, Locke, Clarke, Berkeley, Whate-
ly, Miller — have deemed greatly useful, not to say
necessary, and on which they have expended such a
wealth of toil and culture and genius as likens them
to that Jupiter who is said to have once showered
himself on the world in the form of gold, is far from
being a vain thing. And the presumption should
become a certainty to the christian when he finds
that his Scriptures teach him, both by apostolic ex
ample and by precept, to be " ready always to give
an answer to every man that asketh a reason for
the hope that is in him." But multitudes of chris
tians have very little faculty for suitably bringing
up from the depths of their own minds the reasons
for believing which they actually possess. They
sit on the well ; there is water enough in it to sup
ply Jacob, his children, and his cattle ; but they
have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
And it is very desirable that science and scholar
ship should come forward to put them into connec
tion with their own abundant waters ; so that they
may pour them out freely at the curb-stone to re
fresh, not merely themselves, but the weary and
thirsty men who are continually passing.
One use of the argumentative method is that it
will serve in many cases to withstand the decay and

PROFIT. 43
fall of faith, especially in the young. Ingenious
men have started numerous objections and woven
numerous sophisms against the Christian Scriptures
and their God. Many of these are well adapted to
perplex and deceive the young and incautious mind.
They are perpetually turning up, covertly or openly,
in books, magazines, newspapers, popular lectures,
conversation. Almost every community, even in
New England, has some one or more, who, to the
extent of their influence, are confessed perverters
of the opinions of the young ; and pride themselves
on retailing wherever opportunity offers, the sneers
and arguments of prominent infidels and atheists.
No guardians, however careful, can prevent their
wards, as they come forward in life, from meeting
with these anthropophagi. And it is very desirable
that what cannot be prevented, should be prepared
for ; that the faith which tradition, aided by in
stincts and casual observation and a certain uncon
scious logic, has already established in multitudes of
the young, should be fortified in advance with well-
considered grounds of reason against the sophistries
they will have to encounter ; certainly, that there
should be within their reach at the time of danger
the natural antidote to the poisonous error in the
shape of its logical refutation. Of course the pre
cautionary instruction is the best. And here that
great body of logical religion which scholars have
carefully digested and published to the world, com
prising reasonings of all sorts and in all the moods

44 SECOND LECTURE.
and tenses of thought and expression, will serve a
most valuable purpose. The Mentor of Telemachus
can go . to this roomy Panoplon of all the Greeks,
and obtain from its endless variety just the argu
ment adapted to the capacity and way of thinking
peculiar to his ward. And it will be received with
great freedom and held with great pertinacity;
for, as yet, ,the young man is a believer. The
consequence will be that when in course of life he
falls in with the cavils and sophistries of unbelief,
however ingenious, his mind will suffer no per
plexity and his faith receive no shock. It will not
become a leaning tower of Pisa. He will not be
the soldier brought to his knee by severe wounds
and loss of blood. His friends will have the satis
faction of seeing the assailing darts, however deftly
and forcibly flung, rebound harmlessly from the
armor of proof provided in anticipation of such at
tacks. Without such forearming they would have
seen him, not only in great risk, but actually
wounded, prostrate, and dead.
Moreover, it may properly be claimed that the
argumentative method will almost uniformly do
something to strengthen the Theism and Chris
tianity of practical believers who will give it suita
ble attention, especially those of the more intellect
ual cast ; and such will be likely to give it attention.
No christian, however brawny his faith, can say
that it is as strong as it is desirable it should be, and
as it might be. He has merely a good beginning

PROFIT. 45
of what admits and calls for indefinite improve
ment. The more nearly his faith likens itself to
sight, and the Christian God and Revelation stand
forth to his mind as do the oceans and mountains
and stars, in their massive and inexorable reality,
the purer will be the heart he will bear and the
life he will lead. How shall his faith receive this
needed enlargement ? I have repeatedly spoken
of the great method, that practical method, in com
parison with which no other deserves a thought.
But there is another, of considerable independent
value in its place ; that of familiarizing the mind
with that wide variety of logic in behalf of the
fundamental religion on which have been expended
so much of the best thinking and expression of the
world. If one is already a believer, there is noth
ing to prevent this sound argument from taking its
natural effect upon him ; he is predisposed to wel
come it, and to give it due weight. Under these
circumstances, especially if his mind is of the more
thoughtful and investigating character, he will find
his study of the logical evidences giving his faith
new outspread and foundation. The Thesaurus
of logical religion has become an exceeding great
Nineveh, of three days' journey — has become hun
dred-gated Thebes, able to send forth a myriad war
riors from each gate. One is sure to find, somewhere
within its wide precincts and amid its metropolitan
resources what is suited to his peculiarity of habit
as a thinker and as a christian. Who has the free-

46 SECOND LECTURE.
dom of the national Commissariat will be sure to
find, among the prodigious stores of necessaries and
luxuries that crowd its roomy depots, something to
suit his peculiarity of appetite and constitution ;
who has the freedom of the national Mint, where
are piled up, in glittering stacks, tons of coins of
every precious metal and every denomination, can
surely find both change and capital enough for any
personal expense or reasonable business crisis that
has come upon him ; who has the freedom of the
national Arsenal, and looks around on the weapons
offensive and defensive, ancient and modern, foreign
and domestic, for siege and battle, for land and sea,
for officer and private, whose burnished steel and
brass — not to say silver and gold — mix their terri
ble sheen from floor to ceiling, will surely be able to
generously accommodate his own idiosyncrasies of
enemy and campaign and strength and stature
and skill, whatever these may be.
It can also be said of the argumentative method
that, by itself, it may often weaken and occasionally
overthrow atheism and infidelity. I say occasion
ally. Observation seems to show that, while the
great experimental method must be chiefly relied
on to do this work, now and then a case of conver
sion to intellectual Theism and Christianity occurs
under the mere pressure of argument. Such were
the cases of Galen, Thorpe, and Nelson ; and the
latter, in his " Cause and Cure of Infidelity," gives
several instances additional. It is well known that

PROFIT. 47
the almost universal unbelief in Yale College at
the beginning of the present century was com
pletely overturned by the reasonings of its eloquent
president. So long as the unbeliever is disputa
tious, so long as the spirit of prejudice and rancor
is active, the soundest and most victorious of argu
ments will not take effect on him : but there are
certain opportune and critical moments, certain
Thermopylae-passages in his life, when conscience
and Providence have spurred up the mind to some
measure of candid thoughtfulness ; and, occasion
ally, at such times the religious logic succeeds in
getting such a firm hold of the roots of unbelief as
enables it to dislodge the evil upas finally from the
mind. It does not take many such achievements
as this to pay for all the labor that has been ex
pended in rearing and equipping the argumentative
method. These several uses will be served by that method
considered as an independent agency. But its
great use is rendered, not as an independent agency,
but as an auxiliary to the practical method. It is
true that in order to the success, in a very consid
erable degree, of this primary method, not a single
formal argument in behalf of God and Scripture
needs to be constructed. Every man is already,
informally, in possession of as much light from that
quarter as is necessary to the successful working of
the test by experiment. At the same time the
operation of this method will be greatly facilitated,

48 SECOND LECTURE.
and carried forward to much larger degrees of suc
cess than it could otherwise reach, if combined with
a patient attention to those arguments in which
many of the ablest thinkers of the world have given
the most apt and forcible expression to the rational
grounds of faith. Men generally need to be stimu
lated to the faithful and persevering use of the ex
perimental method. They are very reluctant, espe
cially atheists, to put themselves on a strict course
of conscientious living. But an increase of their
suspicion that they are in error will help them to
ward overcoming this reluctance ; and this increase,
as we have seen, a just consideration of the ample
logic is likely to give — a logic already ample,
but which may be made as much ampler as the
strata of Geology are ampler than your geological
cabinet. In the case of the atheist such just con
sideration will, in general, only be obtained in part
and with difficulty. But, if his well-wishers watch
their opportunity, they can find some time when the
spirit of prejudice and cavil is sufficiently inactive
in him to allow of his looking at the Theistic argu
ment with enough candor to greatly increase his
uneasiness and latent Theistic suspicions. And this
will be so much increase of pressure toward that
practical method with the aid of which, in all prob
ability, his atheism must ultimately be overthrown.
Judiciously handled, our logical religion may be
made the great dynamical feeder to that experi
mental method which is the world's main reliance

PROFIT. 49
for faith. It is worth far more in this capacity than
as an independent agent. It will serve religion
much better by recruiting forces for another gen
eral than by attempting to lead them itself.
The argumentative may also minister to the ex
perimental method in another way. Besides fur
nishing stimulus to use that method, it furnishes a
better measure of the material used in working it.
The conscientious acting goes to remove prejudice,
balance the judgment, rectify the purpose, suggest
love of the truth, and bring Divine assistance ; and
thus prepar.es the mind to take just and clear views
of certain facts and principles which are the ra
tional grounds of faith. A certain amount of these
facts and principles must be had under even the
experimental method ; and this amount will get
supplied in connection with it without any con
scious investigation. But it is desirable to have as
large an amount as possible : because the magnifi
cence of the faith, if not its existence, depends on
the extent of the material as well as on its quality.
A tithe of the shapely blocks of white marble that
make up the cathedral of Milan would make a
very solid "and beautiful structure ; but still nothing
to compare with that august temple whose pinna
cled and massive amplitudes now bear up three
thousand statues to gaze across the pictured plains
of Lombardy, up the white slopes of the everlasting
Alps. By means of the argumentative method,
ministering to the experimental abundant material,

50 SECOND LECTURE.
every one may have a templed faith like the Duomo
of Milan. Whoever faithfully uses the method by
experiment shall surely have a solid and beautiful
sanctuary : but whoever, in addition to this, takes
pains to put into the hands of this first of builders
such precious and profuse material as the argu
mentative method can quarry and hew from out its
vast Paros and Carrara, shall have a metropolitan
temple for his faith, a Te Deum in stone to which
angels shall delight to become pilgrims ; within
whose mountain of marble and beneath whose
dome sweeping grandly heavenward, he shall find
all climates equalized, and a secure and joyful home
as long as he lives.

III.
APPLICATION OF THE
ARGUMENTATIVE METHOD.
Kai SeCte SiEXEyx^SfiEv-
Se tov Avrocpwj, tov Trdvrayv <j>vo-iv ipyirXiiavB'. Euripides.

III. Application of the Argumentative Method.
i. principles  »
2. thesis  59
3. FIRST OBJECTION — NATURA SUFFICIT .... 64
4. SECOND OBJECTION — MACULffi  67

THIRD LECTURE.

APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENTATIVE
METHOD.
IN the last Lecture I called your attention to the
Argumentative Method of proving the Christian
God and Scriptures — to its possibility, propriety,
and possible profit. I now propose to begin the
application of the method.
Its successful application depends on the recog
nition of certain principles, which, however plain
and however generally acted on in other fields of
moral inquiry, are very largely treated with neglect
in this whole religious field on which we are now
entering. I shall therefore devote a small space to
their consideration.
What purports to be a moral truth presents itself
at our gate, and asks for admission. Of course we
have a right to ask for credentials. What sort and
degree of credentials ought we to be satisfied with
— at least so far as to grant the admission ? In
the first place, it is very plain that if we proceed to
demand anything of the nature of mathematical

54 THIRD LECTURE.
demonstration, a demonstration involving the im
possibility of the opposite of the thing demonstrated,
we shall demand too much. Proof of this kind is
not possible in moral fields. We have not a single
moral conviction that rests on such evidence, and
never will have. We are now dealing with a class
of ideas contradistinguished from those of quantity.
And yet almost every man who holds out against
a God — as well indeed as almost every man who
holds out against Christianity, or who, admitting
Christianity, holds out against any of the doctrines
commonly ascribed to it, or who, admitting these
doctrines, holds out against any of the duties it is
commonly supposed to enjoin — will insist on hav
ing it proved to him, not that he is probably in the
wrong, but that it is impossible he is in the right.
" Prove to me," he says, " that antitheism cannot
be true." "Prove to me," he says, "that anti-
christianity is necessarily false." " You say this
is my duty: prove now," says he, "that the con
trary is impossible in the nature of things." The
demand is preposterous. No moral truth can have
mathematical credentials.
Moreover, it is very plain that if we require in
behalf of such truth evidence that carries with it
moral certainty, we require altogether too much.
Not that such evidence is impossible or undesirable
within this field. Still it is too much for us to re
quire as the condition of believing. Has any master
of sentences, any standard of the art of reasoning,

PRINCIPLES. 55
laid it down as a maxim that we are at liberty to re
fuse belief whenever we can avoid believing ? Did
Newton, or Locke, or any other honest great thinker
since the world began, carry on his investigations
of a moral kind under such a rule ? Does any one
do it — save when he seems in danger of finding an
unpalatable truth ? Is this the rule men carry with
them into their politics and their business — reso
lutely refusing faith in anything till they have been
allowed to put their fingers into the print of the
nails, and to thrust their hand into its side ? By no
means. Their politics and business would hastily
come to an end if they did ; and their whole neigh
borhood would sneer at the impracticable men who
are forever insisting on moral certainties and dem
onstrations, and will yield assent to nothing till
absolutely compelled by Hercules and his club —
that is to say, by an overpowering stress of argu
ment. And yet almost every man who holds out
against a God, or against the Christian Scriptures as
His message — as well indeed as almost every man
who, admitting these, holds out against any of the
unpalatable doctrines or duties commonly ascribed
to them — will insist on its being proved to him, if
not that it . is impossible he is in the right, at least
that it is certain he is in the wrong. When
reminded that there are no mathematics in any
part of the moral field, he feels entitled to remem
ber that there are moral certainties. These are
what he wants. " Prove to me," he says, " that

56 THIRD LECTURE.
antitheism is surely false." "Prove to me," he
says, "that the Bible is surely true." " You say,"
says he, " that this is a scriptural doctrine, duty :
prove it beyond a doubt, and I will accept it as
such." This man, perhaps, is not to be blamed for
desiring evidence of the most convincing kind ; his
fault is that he must have this or none — that he
will only begin to believe at the point where he
should end, where faith, full-grown and fledged
like an angel, is in the act of becoming sight. It
would, undoubtedly, have been very pleasant to
the man who, for a mere trifle, had just purchased
an immense property in one of our Southern States,
if he could have had, in addition to the deed of the
recent owner, the fairly engrossed and broad-sealed
deed of the United States of America, flanked by
a certain constitutional amendment. But as he
could not have this, he was glad to take up with a
great deal less. He paid his half of one per cent.
on the value of that Chatsworth, and joyfully took
possession with nothing but that private deed in his
hand — hoping in time to have something better."
Further, it is plain that if we require for the
admission of a moral truth anything more than a
preponderance of evidence, we require too much.
What amount of evidence would be pleasing is one
thing: what amount puts us under obligation to
believe is another. Just as soon as, upon honest
inquiry, there appear more probabilities for than
against, then the foundation and obligation of faith

PRINCIPLES. 57
are laid. We have no right to delay believing one
single moment. No matter how small the apparent
balance of likelihood is — though the equipoise of
the scale is disturbed by only a single grain — we
must yield our assent just as truly as though that
grain were a mountain. We are not, indeed, bound
to exercise the strongest kind of faith on such a
basis ; but real faith, proportioned to the balance of
probability, we are bound to exercise. This is the
indisputable and undisputed scientific law of reason
ing — statute and common law. Logic is bottomed
on this. It is both the soil that feeds its root and
the air that waves its branches. It is that which
men universally act on in affairs of business and
all secular life. It is what we must act on in our
religious inquiries, if we would treat religion and
the mental laws fairly. When a man declares that
he does not regard Theism and Christianity as suf
ficiently substantiated, I say to him, " What is it
you mean ? Do you mean that they do not fairly
bristle with impossibilities of the opposite, like the
Principia of Newton and the Me"canique Celeste
of La Place ? " " Oh no," perhaps he replies, " Ido
not suppose religion to be a science of magnitude,
and thaft souls operate and moral ideas stand related
according to the laws of quantity." " Do you mean
that they do not stand forth to view and assent like
the solar orb in a cloudless day, so that none but
the stone-blind will fail to see the glory ? " " Oh
no," perhaps he answers, " I am not ignorant that

58 THIRD LECTURE.
blank certainties are the exception under the pres
ent scheme of life, that they properly end the
faith rather than begin it, that to make them its
indispensable conditions would ruin my present life,
and so might ruin my next, if there is such. No, I
am not so unreasonable as that. But this much I
do mean: I must have a broad, heaped, mass of
evidence ; the scale on the side of God and the
Bible must come down with a rapid and decisive
stroke ; my judgment ' must not be embarrassed
with a large array of counter-plausibilities. Is not
this reasonable ? " It would be reasonable for you
to be glad should moral truth happen to come to
you with such heavy and shining credentials —
broad-shouldered as an Atlas, and able on occasion
to bear up the very heavens ; but to say that it
must come thus or come in vain is playing the
tyrant with the first principles of a rational logic.
You may ask a preponderance of probabilities in
favor of God and His message as a prerequisite to
faith : this may be your due from scientific religion.
But if you insist on a jot more, you are unreason
able. And yet almost every man who holds out
against God and His message will insist on having
it proved to him, if not that it is impossible* that he
is in the right, if not that it is certain that he is in
the wrong, at least that he is in the wrong by a
manifold and overawing balance of probability.
" Prove," he says, " that the plausibilities of the
atheist and the infidel, though accumulated and

THESIS. 59
spread out to the utmost, can be covered and buried
fathoms deep by the plausibilities of the theist and
the christian — that while the idea of No-God and
No-Revelation has merely a hand-breadth of base,
that which underlies our current religion stretches
away over the whole rocky foundations of an empire
— and I will believe." It can be done ; but shall
one who knows what scientific logic means presume
to demand so much as the condition of believing ?
Such are the principles with which one ought to
approach the application of the argumentative
method. I have asked you to recollect them — not
because I wish to make the most of a little evidence,
but because I wish to make the most of a great
deal ; or, rather, because I wish you to do simple
justice to those Alps and Andes of evidence which,
almost uncounteracted, have, in connection with
the experimental method, bowed to the simple yet
majestic faith of children such minds as Boyle, and
Locke, and Newton.
Our first concern is with thb doctrine
of God. And, by the term God, let us mean
simply an Eternal Being possessing power
and intelligence beyond all conception
greater than the human.
Such a Being I affirm to exist. At present
nothing is claimed about His unity, or character, or
government. Nor is it claimed that His power and
knowledge are absolutely infinite ; only that they

60 THIRD LECTURE.
are practically shoreless to our thought. This nar
rowness of thesis, while it simplifies the discussion
to be undertaken, sacrifices nothing of result. .The
man who gets convinced that there is an Eternal
Person who towers above men in might and wis
dom further than thought itself can soar, passes easily
forward to a conviction of the Divine unity, the
Divine goodness, the Divine government, and the
strict illimitability of all the Divine attributes.
Enough momentum is acquired in going so far to
carry him much further. Really the battle is
gained for the entire Natural Theology. No in
telligent man of these days and countries would
think of making a stand at any other point after
this keep of his castle has been yielded. That high
central tower commands all the outworks. You
can sling a stone from it into every square foot of
the fortress. This is instinctively felt by the broad
intelligence of the nineteenth century. Accordingly,
there is not a theist in all Christendom who believes
in more th,an one God, or in a wicked God, or
in an ungoverning God, or in One whose natural
attributes are not substantially infinite. Whoever
believes in Him at all, confesses Him to be the one
infinitely great and good Author and Ruler of
Nature. It was not always so. There was a time
when theists were pluralists. There was a time
when men believed in Ahriman — nay, in both Ahri-
man and Ormuzd. There was a time when men
supposed that God wrapped Himself in His august

THESIS. 61
infinity, and stood contemptuously aloof from all the
affairs of men. But that time has long since passed.
Epicurus is dead. The Magians, and Manichees,
and Gnostics are all dead. To attack their opinions
is to attack corpses. To prove to a theist of this
late day that God is one, or good, or infinite, or
sceptered, is lost labor — save as it freshens an old
truth. The man admits it already. He is, at least,
" a modern deist." Whatever practical ignoring
of the leading Divine attributes as taught in the
Scriptures he may display, they are fully admitted
theoretically. So the task before us is simple. All
we have to do is to show that there is an Eternal
Person whose wisdom and power are indefinitely
greater than the human. Having this, as human
thinking now stands, we have all — we have the
unity, the goodness, the infinity, and the government
of God. Still it may be necessary to notice some
objections to these, as being in effect objections to
the Divine existence.
At the outset it is plain that God is intrinsically
possible. Personal beings are common objects : so
that if there is any insuperable intrinsic difficulty
in the way of the existence of a God, it lies in the
attributes of eternity and comparative infinitude of
power and knowledge which are ascribed to Him.
But at least one eternal and absolutely infinite
thing is known to exist, namely, space ; and there is
no more difficulty in conceiving of an eternal and
infinite Person as being actual than of eternal and

62 THIRD LECTURE.
infinite space as being so. Also, if there is no God,
there must be eternal matter with its eternal laws
— just as hard a conception as an eternal mind.
Also, on looking on one side of us down the long
line of animated nature, we find it occupied with
beings in perpetually descending and mutually
approximating types till we come to such as are
infinitesimally small and rude — mere monads trem
bling on the border land contested between the or
ganic and the inorganic, between something and
nothing: shall any say it is impossible that the
line extends on the other side of us upward and
away among perpetually ascending and mutually
receding types of being, till, at last, by one pro
digious leap, the geometrical series ends in a Being
inconceivably great and glorious? Who has the
right to say that, of necessity, himself is the last
term of the series, or even the middle of it — that
it does not go on expanding above him like an
inverted pyramid of Cheops till the base of all is
reached in infinite God and heaven? What if
some rooted gelatinous polyp should assume to
pronounce in this manner — as it looks around the
mud-hole where it stands facile princeps, and as it
follows downward with its nascent vision the graded
life that swarms through its sphere till it reaches
that infusorial mote which the microscope magnify
ing sixteen millions of times has only just brought
to light — what if that polyp should assume to pro
nounce in this manner ?

THESIS. 63
Next, I proceed to say that the God who is in
trinsically possible is on the whole probable. This,
according to the logical principles just stated, means
that whatever objections to the Divine existence
may be found are outweighed by the arguments for
it ; perhaps means that the arguments in the one
scale are zero, while those in the other are the entire
multiplication table. Let us see.
By far the greater part of atheists do not claim
that there is any positive evidence against a God ;
they only maintain the insufficiency of the evidence
for Him. Their attitude is that of doubters, not
disbelievers. Nor am I able to find that any ob
jections deserving of notice, besides the three follow
ing, are ever alleged or felt against the Divine ex
istence, as admitted to be intrinsically possible.
The objections are these.
First, The miseries and moral disorders of the
world, together with such natural objects as go to
promote these.
Second, The absence of all overpowering mani
festation of God in Nature and the government of
the world : or, at least, the absence of an irresistibly
universal faith in Him. "If there were a God,"
says or feels the objector, " He would so clearly
manifest Himself, or otherwise summon faith, as to
make doubt of His existence universally impossible.
But, instead of this, all is silence, invisibility, and
undemonstrativ.eness on the part of any such Be
ing ; and while some disbelieve His existence, more

64 THIRD LECTURE.
doubt it, and great multitudes have a faith trouble-
somely weak and unimpressive."
Third, The alleged fact that all things which
need to be accounted for can be accounted for as
surely and well by purely natural principles as on
the supposition of a God ; in which case we are
positively required by reason and all scientific usage
to ascribe the facts to Nature rather than to the
supernatural as their probable cause.
Here we have three objections. The last objec
tion, however, should be thrown out for the pres
ent. It really lies not against the existence of a
God — at the most only against a certain class of
evidences in His favor. What it means is that
certain material atoms, with their properties and
laws, will just as well explain the existence of, say
natural organisms, as will the hypothesis of a God.
In another place I shall formally deny this. At
present I have only to point out to you that were
the alleged fact incontestable, it would not lie against
the existence of a God — at the most, only against
a certain class of evidences in His favor, namely,
that from natural organisms. Allowing that these
organisms can be produced with perfect ease by the
economies wrapped up in certain natural elements,
it follows, if you please, that organic Nature cannot
be appealed to as direct proof of the Divine exist
ence ; but it does not follow that there is no other
proof to which we can successfully appeal — does
not follow, either surely or probably, that God does

FIRST OBJECTION.— NATURA SUFFICIT. 65
not exist, or even that He did not actually produce
Nature in all its glorious outspread. You, with
your young muscles and hearts, are perfectly com'
petent to ascend Mont Blanc, and place your feet
on the very crown of that Alpine monarch ; but
this fact does not even make it probable that you
were ever in his neighborhood even. You have
never set eyes on his mighty slopes. You have
never even dreamed of doing so. And even if it
could be proved that at some time you have really
done feats fully equal to scaling that snowy miracle
— have really ascended mountains as arduous —
this would have no tendency to prove that you
have ever struggled up those formidable Savoyan
steeps. Even so, were certain natural elements quite
competent to produce the noblest organic wonders
that ever took the name of solar system or of man,
it would be no probability that they were actually
produced by these elements. But suppose it were
— suppose it abundantly proved not only that cer
tain material elements are competent to organize
Nature as we find it organized, but that they ac
tually did thus organize it — what then ? Does it
follow that there is no God? At most, it only
follows that the organisms of Nature are not avail
able as proof of Him. We are cut off from a cer
tain class of evidences that have been much relied
on : that is all. Other evidences may exist. What
hinders that a God should make one of the coeter-
nities of Nature ; and, though not the author of its
5

66 THIRD LECTURE.
organisms, nor even of the primal elements from
which they proceed, stand among them and over
them from everlasting to everlasting as absolute
sovereign ? Nay, what hinders Him from being the
author of those very material elements whose won
drous properties for combination and organization
have naturally peopled the heavens with sidereal
systems and the earth with the glories of vegetable
and animal life? Absolutely nothing. We are
perfectly free to suppose that the whole verdant
tree of Nature roots itself ultimately in God — that
the famous questions of the origin of species' and
spontaneous generation, of which unbelief in these
days is trying to make so much, are really but
questions as to modes and times of a Divine oper
ation. Does God organize Nature with His own
hand through all these years and countries and
spaces, or did He, vast periods agone, launch into
being certain atoms dowered with all those subtle
affinities and laws which in process of time would
of themselves issue naturally in all the wondrous
mechanisms of nature — behold here the true di
lemma with which the Darwins and the Lamarcks
threaten us ! This the chief of them profess. They
profess that their views are perfectly consistent
with Theism. They shoot not a single arrow any
where in the direction of a God. Every shaft flies
exactly a quadrant away — neither for -nor against.
Grant them all they ask, and it still remains perfectly
open to proof that a God exists, and even that He

SECOND OBJECTION— MACULE. 67
created and governs the whole august total of
Nature. Setting aside, therefore, the last of the three
objections, as having no claim to be considered at
this part of our discussion, however much it may
have at another part, let us revert to the first ob
jection, that from the miseries and moral disorders
of the world.
Now, in regard to this objection, it ought to be
plain that, if it has any validity, it is not against
the existence of such a God as I now affirm, namely,
an Eternal Being of power and intelligence incon
ceivably beyond the human. At the most, it is
only valid against a good God. A state of the world
checkered by sin and sorrow and deformity, is
surely not inconsistent with the existence of a
wicked Deity. It would not be out of character
for such a being to neglect us, to afflict us, to abuse
us to any extent or in any manner. Were the
world one vast torture-house and pandemonium, it
would still agree perfectly well with the presidency
of one who hates, or cares not for the holiness and
happiness of his creatures. Looking around the
dungeons of the Inquisition has no tendency to
draw into doubt the reality of the Inquisitor-Gen
eral, whatever conclusions it may warrant as to
his sweetness and mercifulness. Looking around
on the dSbris of worn and crushed geologic peri
ods never induces geologists to think of calling in
question the presence among them of some enor-

68 THIRD LECTURE.
mous force : they only are put upon considering
whether that force is Plutonian or Neptunian.
This is my first answer to the objection from the
sins and sorrows and other macula? observable in
Nature. If it has any force at all, it is, at the most,
only against the goodness of God, not against His
existence. But really it has no force even against
His goodness. God may not only exist, but clothe
Himself with goodness as the sun does itself with
rays, notwithstanding the earth is confessedly
scorched and scarred with physical and moral evil.
I wish to show this for several reasons. It is well
to push the objection which has been so great a
trial to many still further from our thesis — so to
speak, out of sight of it as well as out of hearing —
and, as it were, make assurance of its invalidity
doubly sure. Does the son content himself with
merely turning off by the smallest possible angle
the arrow aimed at his sire ? Does he not rather
with forceful and indignant blow smite it a whole
semicircle away?
It may also be well to show the invalidity of the
objection as against Divine goodness, in order to
forestall a prejudice against accepting any God that
naturally arises from supposing, or at least fearing,
that the God, when accepted, will have to be ad
mitted to be a bad one. We all had rather have
no God than one destitute of goodness ; and this
feeling naturally stands in the way of the reception
of any logic, however conclusive, in behalf of a

SECOND OBJECTION— MACULJE. 69
God which may have this enormous want. Another
reason, perhaps the most important of all. There
are many to whom it seems that an Eternal Being
of inconceivably great intelligence and power log
ically implies a good God and abundant evidences
of Him, and that, consequently, any objection valid
against His goodness is really valid against His ex
istence. For the sake of such persons also — some
of them believers of the choicest kind — I desire
to go further, and show that the various evils, nat
ural and moral, of the world are not against even
the Divine goodness ; are not, under the circum
stances of the case, even the smallest presumption
on the whole that among the existences of the uni
verse there is not One whose eternal years of
might and wisdom are auroral with the glories of
a perfect virtue.
Notice the following things. First, if God were
not strictly almighty, the limitation of His power
would sufficiently account for the evil observable
about us ; we should be quite at liberty to suppose
Him perfectly good. Second, if He were not
strictly omniscient, the limitation of His knowledge
would sufficiently account for the evil around us ;
and we should be quite at liberty to suppose Hhn
perfectly good still. Third, if these two limitations
were existing together — and our thesis does not
assume the contrary — they would furnish us with
double the explanation required to meet the objec
tion without giving up one jot from a perfect Divine

70 THIRD LECTURE.
goodness. By giving up either the strict almighti-
ness or the strict omniscience, we can surely save
the goodness in all its entirety : by giving up both,
we can double, so to speak, the assurance of our
position. For my part, if compelled to choose, I
should prefer to allow that God is not quite meta
physically almighty, or all-wise, or even neither ;
that although powerful and intelligent beyond all
human standard and thought, better equipped in
these respects than Zeus or Brahma was ever fa
bled to be, His oceans of might and knowledge fall
somewhat short of being absolutely shoreless. But
this sacrifice is not necessary. A perfect Divine
goodness can be saved without it. And it seems
to me not hard to do it — especially in view of the
peculiar nature of virtue, and of the manifest fitness
of an outward condition of imperfection and sorrow
to a race of sinners. I ask you to emphasize this
last thought. Let it be the background on which
you project such facts as the following — not for the
purpose of exaggerating them, but for the purpose
of setting them forth in all the truthfulness of na
ture. Notice what the aspect of the world really is.
We do not see exclusively sorrows, and sins, and
shadows. By no means. We see, besides, a vast
deal of enjoyment — from mere comfort to rap
ture ; from the obvious gayety of the mote in his
sunbeam, up the long line of gamboling and singing
and smiling Nature, with its hundreds of thousands

SECOND OBJECTION. — MACULAE. 71
of known species, to the mighty joy of a man who
at least thinks he has gained the prize of eternal
life. In addition, we see an incalculable amount
of things fitted to give enjoyment — useful things,
delicious things, beautiful things, sublime things ;
things grateful to the touch, to the taste, to the smell,
to the ear, to the sight, to the soul ; pleasant lights
and shadows ; sweet perfumes and sounds ; golden
grains and fruits ; lovely features, forms, flowers,
gems, landscapes, motions ; glorious rivers and
cataracts and mountains and oceans and skies —
in thronging hosts which no arithmetic can com
pute. Further, mixed up with this natural good is
a great amount of such as is of a still higher na
ture. No one is warranted in saying or believing
that there is a particle of sin in any of the animal
races below man. But there are many fair and
noble spiritual qualities revealing themselves in
numberless ways through these humbler but wide
domains — fair instincts, affections, gratitudes ; no
ble endurance, courage, skill. And altogether,
within historic and our daily observation, there are
-. — generously sown through the world like star-
dust, and lighting up our atmosphere with all man
ner of lights, from the atomic phosphorescence of
the fire-fly to the gayest November star-rain —
comely orders and proprieties, generous impulses,
charming amiabilities, graceful affections ; beauteous
industries, usefulnesses, purities, aspirations, hopes ;
exalted patiences, fortitudes, heroisms, loves, mag-

72 THIRD LECTURE.
nanimities, moralities, consciences — above all, pure
solid Christian virtue in very many incontestable and
even glorious instances, the record of which thrills
us as we read ; also, in the case of every human
being, capabilities of a virtue of the most magnifi
cent description, and far loftier than any that ever
actually pictured and glorified the historic page.
Further, it is observed that virtue has in its favor
the suffrages of all consciences, and, confessedly,
the general current of natural laws and events.
Now, this I say, that if you hold God responsible
for the sorrows, moral disorders, and other disad
vantages of the world, it is but fair to give Him
credit for the happiness and virtue, and manifold
advantages of all sorts, that exist. If you debit
Him with those dark things, you should credit
Him witli these bright things. If the one class of
facts is allowed to argue against a good God, then
the other class must be allowed to argue in His favor.
And it is simply a question which party argues
loudest — the Red Roses or the White, the Guelphs
or the Ghibellines, the noes or the ayes. Who
is warranted in pronouncing that the noes have it ?
My ears have not discovered it, nor have yours,
nor yours ; least of all — those of the objecting
atheist. Confessedly, the happiness of the world
is far greater than its sorrow : almost every living
creature has a thousand moments of comfort to one
moment of pain. Existence, as it is, is almost uni
versally considered a blessing, and so much of a

SECOND OBJECTION— MACULE. 73
blessing that not one in a thousand but would a
thousand times prefer living on, with his average
lot as to happiness, to being dismissed into annihila
tion painlessly, or even by way of paradise. Con
fessedly, the noxious things, the deformed things,
the things that wound the senses and the sesthetical
nature, bear no sensible proportion to the useful, the
comely, the gratifying things that be-green and
be-blossom this beautiful world. Let every man
look about and judge for himself. Atheists not
only confess, but profess it. They are forward to
claim great things for Nature : she is to them the
one worshipful Alma Mater : they practically deify
her and her laws. Confessedly, there are through
the multitudinous races below man more orders
than disorders, more proprieties than improprieties,
more things that are comely and useful in disposi
tion and instinct and habit than there are things of
apparently the opposite character. I suppose no
naturalist of standing, whatever his religious views,
would for one moment think of calling this in
question. An open profession of it, on the con
trary, in terms enthusiastic and almost poetical, dis
tinguishes the chieftains of natural history. It is
true that when we come to man — if we take the
Bible-microscope and the Bible-micrometer for in
specting and judging the hearts of men, and not
otherwise — we find more sin than holiness ; but
then we find by the side of what goodness does ex
ist, and assisting most heavily to bear down its

74 THIRD LECTURE.
scale, this more than fairly offsetting great fact,
namely, that the general constitution of Nature,
and all human consciences without exception the
world over, are founded and immovably continued
from age to age in the interests of virtue. I say
this more than fairly offsetting fact, especially in
view of the essentially free nature of virtue. But
from the stand-point of the objecting atheists the
case is still clearer. These are the men who have
never accepted the Christian view of the corruption
of human nature, nor the Christian view of the
nature of virtue. These are the men who have
constituted themselves professors of the dignity of
human nature and of the innocence of childhood
— men with whom every amiable instinct and
graceful propriety and pleasing amenity passes for
solid holiness — or rather, men with most of whom
there is no such thing as sin, only misfortune or
contrariety to public opinion ; that is to say, no sin
but pain, and no holiness but pleasure. According
to these views, the world is just as fair morally as it
is physically and in its relation to happiness.
This, then, is the state of the case, especially ac
cording to the objector's own showing : on the one
side much, on the other side more — on the one
side ten suffrages, on the other ten thousand — on
the one side a good God negatived by a chorus of
tears and sighs from the night, on the other
affirmed by a much grander chorus of smiles and
songs from the day. What right has any man to

SECOND OBJECTION — MACULAE. 75
favor the vanquished night-side of Nature ; and
record judgment, not only in defiance of charity, but
in defiance of the logic of testimony ? What right
has he to balance the books against a good God,
when really there is a large balance to His credit,
according to the observation of all discerning men ?
He has none, and stands by the side of the man
who hearkens more to the spots on the sun than to
the sun itself.
Now, suppose a mind brought to this stage should
suddenly become clairvoyant as to the future of this
world, and discover a little in advance a golden
age unfolding itself in every land and among every
race of creatures — the new reign of Saturn, the
sabbath of geologic periods, the tenth avatar of
Brahma, and the millennium of Christ — say, if
you please, a thousand years whose every day is a
year, 365,000 years : and through all this mighty
era those three matchless graces, holiness, happi
ness, and beauty triumphantly and universally
reigning, and even the entire menagerie of Nature
bathing itself in the mellow glory. Suppose, still
further, that after he has sufficiently familiarized
himself with the vision of this earthly elysium,
and has just passed to and mastered the fact that,
with a slight and relatively altogether insignificant
break, this happy period shall everlastingly con
tinue — suppose that another and still higher clair
voyance succeeds. His view is no longer confined
to this earth. His eye has the freedom of the

76 THIRD LECTURE.
starry spaces. It sends glance outward and out
ward to find the voids peopled with worlds in such
prodigious numbers and magnitudes that, in com
parison, the great outspread of earth is but a _
point. What unspeakable legions, all cased in
golden mail, go wheeling and charging and storm
ing through the routed empires of Night and Noth
ingness ! What infinite, infinite armadas, with
flashing banners, bear down the reaches of that
endless ocean — and behold all, with scarcely an
exception, freighted to overflowing with beauty and
goodness and bliss, as some gushing sunset cloud is
freighted with the dolphin hues of the dying day !
And he sees that the whole area flecked with sin
and pain and various evils is comparatively but a
fluxion of the last order, a microscopic dot on the
white page of universal Nature. I say, suppose
some second-sight could discover to him all this —
should become the successful whipper-in of all its
roving members to that august natural parliament
in which the question of a good God is just now
pending — bringing up substantially all space and
all duration to add their voices to that large ma
jority which on the earth utter affirmative suffrage
— what would be the result ? Would not the seven
thunders of the ayes completely drown the noes
in his ear ? Ought they not ?
Now, who is authorized to say that an actual can
vassing of duration and space would not discover
substantially all this ? Not a man. Traditions favor

SECOND OBJECTION — MACULJE. 77
a golden age to come as well as a golden age past.
" Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna." The
rapidly advancing sciences and arts and comforts
of men point in the same direction. The magnifi
cent faculties for virtue and happiness which every
man consciously possesses — also actual examples,
sometimes found, of individuals, families, and com
munities already well-nigh bright enough in every
respect to enter into the composition of a paradise —
look the same way with still greater steadiness and
majesty. And then, what means the far superior
aspect of most of those foreign worlds which sail
so brightly and joyfully, and, many of them, with
such marvelous glory, through the field ofthe tel
escope ? Does that rainbow-bouquet of orbs in the
Southern Cross, or that great cluster in Her
cules which sails in such heavenly pomp across the
field of our telescopes, positively discourage you and
bid you think of abodes of sin and sorrow ? Oh,
no. They are a positive encouragement. They
suggest a fairer state of things than we have here.
They assert a possibility, they venture a prediction,
they turn their faces hopefully toward the sun-ris
ing ; and, as we dimly look upon them, we imagine
we see their features already beginning to light up
with the flush of coming day. It is not from such
facts that a Baconian infers discouragement. If he
does it at all, it is from the evils seen in this world.
But would a savage on the most barbarous South
Sea island, after looking about his narrow home and

78 THIRD LECTURE.
observing what obtains there, be warranted in say
ing that, on the whole, probably all the rest of man
kind are savages and cannibals, or that any of
them are ? Would a child living in the most dilap
idated hut in Ireland, after looking about on its
ruins and its rags, be warranted in saying that it is
more likely than not that all the other dwellings of
the world are as poor as his own, or that any of
them are ? Would a trilobite, after looking about
his native marsh, be entitled to say that, more
likely than not, nothing better than trilobites would
ever appear in the world, or even that a single true
trilobite would ever exist out of the Silurian ?
If I have accomplished what I attempted, I have
shown that the objection from the sins and sorrows
and other shadows of the world does not lie against
my thesis at all ; that it is at a threefold remove
from being pertinent even against the doctrine of
a good God ; that if it were intrinsically available
for this purpose, it would still be balanced, heavily
overborne, and, not improbably, completely sunk
below the horizon by the actual state of facts in
this beautiful and even gorgeous universe that sur
rounds us.

IV.
MACULAE.
Uoo-(o fiaXXov 6 Harrjp 6 i£ ovpavov.
Os toXX' a-navTa Sevrep' riyeirai TlaTTjp Zev$. Sophocles.

IV. MACULiE.
i. SECOND OBJECTION CONTINUED  8i
2. PATERNAL ANALOGIES  83
3. LAW OF THE INFINITE  99
4. LAW OF CONSCIENCE  101
5. LAW OF PATERNITY  103
6. LAW OF CHARITY  106
7. LAW OF THE GENERAL RULE  108
8. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  "4

FOURTH LECTURE.

MACULE.
TN the present state of religious thought, all ob-
¦*¦ jections to the goodness of God make directly
against His existence. On this account I have
taken pains to show that the maculae of various
kinds observable in Nature, are very far removed
from being a valid objection to the Divine goodness.
This subject is so extremely important — the idea
of possible malevolence in a Being of substantially
infinite powers operates so powerfully to prejudice
the mind against admitting His existence — that I
propose to enlarge my answer still further. I pro
pose to show that, despite all stumbling-blocks, the
state of facts is such that, if we assume God to
exist as the Author and Ruler of Nature, we are
bound by Baconian science to admit not only His
loving-kindness but a loving-kindness that is in the
highest degree paternal. If He is at all, He is
tenderness itself. If He is at all, never did sire so
yearn over son as God yearns over all His crea
tures. Let us, then, temporarily assume a God who is
6

82 FOURTH LECTURE.
the source of being to all other beings. Lo, the
All-Father ; lo, the Pater Mundi ! More broadly
and fundamentally than ever was man the father
of a human child, is God the Father of all things,
small and great, unintelligent and intelligent, life
less and living, that people with their countless
swarms the universal round of space — Father of
the very primary elements, and basal substance of
all things — Father of all natural chemical and me
chanical combinations of thfese — Father of all nat
ural structures ; of the man ; of the brute ; of the
plant ; of the stone, whether as a jewel, a stratum,
or a world. Everything in Nature belongs to His
family. Stars and souls are His children ; the
veriest insects and motes as well. You are His son,
and so is the woriri under your feet, as well as that
atom of dust which the worm crawls over. There
is not a thing which has not occasion to send
heavenward its Pater Noster.
Let this be admitted. Then you are to observe
that human beings are mere infants relative to this
Heavenly Father. The greatest specimens of
adult human nature ever seen ; the men of broad
est faculties, of widest information, of highest cul
ture ; the most famous scholars, statesmen, philos
ophers, geniuses — even such men as these are
merest infants relatively to their Infinite Father.
Compared with His faculties, what are those of a
Newton or a Pascal ! Compared with His knowl
edge, what is that of a Leibnitz or a Humboldt!

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 83
Compared with His accomplishments and feats of
many names, what are those of admirable Crichtons
and Sidneys and Cids ! Mere nothings, surely.
When I say that they are infantile, when I liken
these so-called great men to the little children that
creep and totter about our human homes, I cer
tainly may be considered to speak with great mod
eration. We all know it an under-statement of the
truth. So far from being hyperbole, it falls wonder
fully short of expressing the actual facts.
Men are God's infants. And we ought not to be
stumbled at finding them receiving from their Great
Father what is found in our common household
experience to be wise treatment for little children.
I mean that such treatment as a wise human father
finds necessary for or adapted to his very dear lit
tle children, it should not stumble us to find allotted
by God to these very little children of His, adult
men. See how He treats us !
See, first, that we do not have all our wishes
granted. How well do we know this ! Why, it is
only here and there one, among the multitude of
our cravings, that God suffers to be gratified. Man
is " a bundle of wishes," but he neither receives
nor expects the fulfillment of the thousandth part
of them. Let us confess it ; had a chronicle been
carefully kept of all the crude wishes that have
flitted through our minds from day to day, we should
not only be mortified at the quality of many of

84 FOURTH LECTURE.
them and astonished at their number, but we should
also be both mortified and astonished at the very
small proportion of these blossoms which have
ripened into fruit. — Well, it is but the case of the
very little child in the hands of a wise and tender
earthly father. Does he give his children every
thing they want — the little tottering, unreasoning,
inexperienced, visionary things ! He knows better
than to do that. He has too much good sense and
regard for his children to do that. He allows them
to wish in vain for many a pernicious indulgence
which he could easily give them if he thought best ;
even stoutly withholds such things from their tears
and prayers. And when they have grown up. they
will be thankful to him, for his wise and kind ob
stinacy. Is not God wise and kind after the same
manner ? Though we are men as compared with
children, we are children, infant children, as com
pared with God. And not one in a thousand of
our crude fancies as to what would be good for
us is He disposed to fulfill. Perhaps He loves us
too well. Perhaps He is too wise to do so foolish
a thing, though our hearts cry bitterly unto Him
for it.
See, second, that we are positively stricken as well
as denied. Not only do we fail of having all that
we wish — we also receive positive correction, chas
tisement, stripes. What man that lives is without
his trials ? What man that lives does not die — such
is the hard word we use — driven out very painfully,

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 85
perhaps, into the cold and dark ? Losses, crosses —
who has not looked many forms of such things in
the face ; nay, taken them firmly by the hand ;
nay, most reluctantly embraced them as men em
braced the thorny Mater Dolorosa of the Inquisi
tion ? Is God therefore unpaternal ? Is our case,
after all, so very unlike that of other children?
What son is he whom the judicious father chas-
teneth not ? Does any wise parent neglect to
act on that old-world injunction, " Correct thy son
while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his
crying ? " Nay, the rod is not spared in any well-
ordered household, in order that the child may not
be spoiled. Sometimes, even his home is broken
up, and he is sent out, sorely against his will, into
what he considers the stormy cold and dark. He
weeps, he wails, he suffers — suffers apparently as
much as the man with his manly troubles. It is
most touching, those distressful tones and features
and contortions with which the little one shrinks
back from what the parent decides must be done.
" Poor child ! " says the heart of the bystander.
" Poor child ! " say much more the softer hearts of
sisters and mothers ; and the moisture gathers fast
in their eyes as they look on. It would be hard
to show that yon yearling, drenched in tears and
piteous exclamations, is not suffering as much as
most dying men. Yet his father is firm. He carries
through his plans as a business man, his plans as a
household providence, his plans for training that

86 FOURTH LECTURE.
particular child, without bating one jot. He trans
fers him from one school to another, from one physi
cian to another, from one home to another ; albeit
it must be through a night of lowering looks, a sharp
east wind of expostulations, and a free rain of tears.
Is this treatment anything against the affection of
the parent? Does any reasonable person conclude
that firm father to be either cruel or injudicious?
Perhaps every sensible, experienced man would
think him cruel and injudicious if he should neglect
that, for the present, painful discipline. — Now what
are these grown-up men about us but merest chil
dren before God ? And when we find the Heavenly
Father correcting them after the manner of earthly
fathers — a manner that we justify and even confess
to be required by an enlightened and wise tender
ness — why do we lift our eyebrows with complain
ing wonder ? Is it any more than the usual treat
ment of well-loved and wisely managed little ones ?
See, third, that we have tasks and burdens put
upon us which, doubtless, Grod could spare us, so far
as mere power is concerned. Cares, watchfulness,
painful inquiries, various true work of body and
mind, personal sacrifices of strength and time and
property for the good of others — such things are
imposed, sometimes very largely, on all our men,
and women by the present scheme of Divine Provi
dence. — Well, is not this the way little children
are accustomed to be treated by wise and tender
fathers ? Do not such fathers aim to accustom their

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 87
children gradually to effort of body and mind —
to think, plan, take care, conquer obstacles, bind
themselves to diligence and order, task themselves
at schools, ply various odds and ends of manual
work about the house or the farm or the shop
— true tasks and burdens, all of them, to child
hood? These little burden-bearers are warmly
loved. Pecuniarily, perhaps, their parents could
afford to allow perpetual holiday. But they are
too sensible and experienced and intelligently
affectionate to do any such thing. Those children
must have character. They must be prepared for
a useful and honorable maturity. So they must
bear the yoke in their youth. And those kind
parents, without hesitation and with the high ap
proval of all experienced lookers-on, proceed by de
grees to impose that yoke according to the day and
the strength of the little children. — Now, what
are these grown-up people about us but so many
merest children before God? And when we find
their Heavenly Father laying upon them — laying
upon us — tasks to do and burdens to bear which
His almightiness could well spare us, in case it
were good for us to be spared, shall we behave as
though we have fallen on a very mysterious and
stumbling state of things, a state of things that must
be laboriously cleared up by besoms of both logic
and faith before we can admit our God to be wise
and kind ? He, too, has the character of His chil-
' dren tp look after. He, too, has their honorable

88 FOURTH LECTURE.
and useful and happy future to provide for. Are
we any better than little children in His presence ?
Why should He not give us the usual treatment of
well-loved and wisely managed little ones ?
See, fourth, that we are always required to obey,
often without reasons assigned. Persons of ripe and
even hoary years are not allowed to have their own
way. The laws of the land say, No. Above all, the
laws of God say, No. Bearing down most compre
hensively on the lives and even the thoughts and
feelings of the oldest and best developed among us,
the laws of Nature, with their-penalties, bring us the
Divine wishes in unmistakable accent of command.
Ye shall — ye shall not. No matter if we are
kings, we must obey. No matter if we are sages,
we must obey. No matter if we are venerable
patriarchs, we must obey. Nor are reasons in full
always given us for these commands. Sometimes
there is only the simple expression of the sovereign
Divine will. It is purely a case of unexplained
and unexplainable authority. We cannot see why
the law was established. So God has chosen ; this
is all we can say of the matter. — Well, in this re
spect we are treated like little children ; as we are,
before God, though our locks are silvered with age
and wisdom. Are not wise and kind parents wont
to insist on obedience from their little ones ? Are
they always careful to give intelligible reasons for
their biddings? Obedience is the fundamental
principle of all thrifty rising households. Rever-

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 89
ence for parental authority, as such, is required.
The narrow intelligence and experience of child
hood cannot always have matters explained to them,.
but must learn to do things simply because the
parent wills them. Do I bring certain strange
things to your ears? On the contrary, are they
not things that have been generally understood
among thoughtful persons from the foundation of
the human world? Do we blame these parents
who insist on being obeyed ? Do we pity these lit
tle children who must submit to authority ? Not
at all. We blame the parents and pity the chil
dren if other principles are allowed. We know
that both parties are in a fair way to ruin. And
when God, our Heavenly Father, puts us who are
called adults, but who are nothing more than little
children before Him, upon a regimen of obedience,
and strenuously insists upon it that, instead of doing
as we please, we shall go by rules of His providing
— sometimes unexplained rules — shall we wonder
as if we had never heard of such things being done
before by the kindest and wisest of parents ? Shall
we feel aggrieved and sore as to rights and liberties,
as though we have not been heartily approving and
commending, every day of our lives, just the same
treatment of other little children by their earthly
parents ? What are we, grown up-men and women
as we are — what are we but merest children before
God? See, fifth, that we are kept in a state of close de-

90 FOURTH LECTURE.
pendence on Crod, and under a necessity for daily
appealing to Sim for support, information, and guid
ance. You know how the Christian Scriptures put
our case. It is God who really provides for us
everything we have. He gives us our daily bread.
He clothes us, as well as the grass of the field.
Our education, our substance, our enjoyments, our
honors ; in short every good and perfect gift, is from
above, from the Father of lights. What have we
that we did not receive ? All things come of Thee,
and Thou givest meat unto all : and unto Thee
shall all flesh come ! So we are to go to Him for
everything we want — for the daily bread, the wis
dom that we lack, guidance in the path we tread ; for,
0 Lord, it is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps ! Absolute and perpetual dependence on the
Heavenly Father for everything, and a daily look
ing to Him for everything — this is the law of life
to all of us, even the strongest and highest and
proudest and most self-contained of our men and
women. Now suppose this Bible account of our
dependence to be the true account. What then ?
Is it a very stumbling matter, even to freedom-
idolizing Americans? See how the little child
hangs on his father's hand for everything ! Every
thing is provided for him. Hector takes care in-
all directions ; and whether the puny Astyanax is
to be fed or clothed or instructed, it is the parental
forethought and busy ministering hand that oppor
tunely meet the needs of every passing day. The

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 91
child has nothing that is strictly his own. For what
ever he wants he has to go to another. So from
morning to night he is saying in fatherly ears, " I
am hungry; I am thirsty — what is it; may I have
this or that ; may I not do this or that ? " In short,
the father is the treasury to which the child looks
and from which he draws, under such limitations as
that father chooses to impose, every hour of the day.
No property in stock is put into his hands from
which to supply himself. . From hour to hour he
must appeal to the judgment and bounty of the sire.
This is the law of our households, of the wisest
and kindest of them. Is there any thing unreason
able in this, considering what little children are ?
Anything oppressive, harsh, unduly exacting, unnat
ural, considering what little children are ? To be
sure, there is not very much liberty, independence
— as men sometimes use these words — in it ; not
very much of the principle expressed in such words
as, " I do not care for you," " I am as "good as any
body : " but there is fitness, order, safety, and a
chance for happiness, usefulness, and religion in it.
Who thinks the worse of a father for binding up
his ignorant, inexperienced, incautious, and way
ward child in such a system of daily dependence
and appeal ? You think the better of him for it.
You would heartily condemn his lack of judgment,
were he to take a different course. Is the man in
sane ? Does he know anything whatever of the
nature, tendencies, and interests of little children ?

92 FOURTH LECTURE.
— Well, what are we, grown-up people, but little
children Godward ? And why is it not in the
highest degree reasonable that our Heavenly. Father
should make our narrowness and inexperience hang
daily and hourly on His wisdom and goodness for
supplies, and should require us to go to Him with
our asking for whatever we want? If .this is a
bondage, it is such a bondage as sensible men know
is natural and necessary to the condition of little
children. Little children cannot do without it.
Their liberty has to be sacrificed to their safety.
See, sixth, that we are not told of all the Divine
affairs ; that those we are told of are often allowed
to seem inexplicable, unwise, and even unrighteous,
especially to first glances. Men sometimes complain
because the Christian Scriptures are so silent on
many points of curious and interesting inquiry.
Much more show of reason have they to complain
of the silence of Nature. Well, it is true that God
does not see fit to answer all our questions, even all
our theological questions. Some of His matters He
keeps wholly to Himself. Others, of which we
are allowed glimpses, are far from being well
cleared up as to either the meaning, the wisdom, or
even the righteousness of them. And many of
His dealings and statements — for natural laws and
providences are His statements — we are obliged to
take altogether on trust. Does not the explanation,
in part, lie in the fact that we are little children —
our old men,, our great men, our statesmen, our phi-

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 93
losophers, and all — merest infants relative to the
Heavenly Father ? We are treated as all earthly
fathers of average discretion are in the habit of
treating their offspring during their tender years.
Which of them tells himself and his affairs to the
child of four or even twelve years, absolutely with
out reserve ? Some things he keeps back because
they cannot be understood, some because they
would be misunderstood, some because they would
be flagrantly hurtful to that early age. And
such things as he does talk freely about — does he
undertake the hopeless task of clearing up their
every aspect to that as yet s,canty intelligence?
When it fails to see, as it often does, the full mean
ing of his conduct, or the good judgment of it,
or the right of it, does he foolishly consume his
time and strength on the impossible task of ex
plaining and justifying his comprehensive and far
reaching plans and movements to that glow-worm
understanding? He knows better. However affec
tionate, he declines to do so foolish a thing. And
may not God, though tenderness itself, decline to do
the like ? What are our maturest understandings
in the presence of His great plans ? What living
man has breadth of view enough to take in any
thing more than the smallest angle of those Divine
schemes and movements all of which embrace the
universe and fill eternity ? It is a matter of invin
cible necessity that sometimes Divine conduct, which
really is fair and glorious as the day, should bear to

94 FOURTH LECTURE.
us as mere gazers a very different aspect : it is only
as believers that either the children manward or the
children Godward can do full justice to their father,
human or Divine. The man-father accordingly
asks and expects his children to trust him where
from the nature of the case they cannot judge of
his conduct ; and everybody says the demand is
reasonable. And may not the God-Father also
put His children on trusting Him in similar cases ;
and everybody be bound to say and feel that His
demand is reasonable ?
Such are sample maculae. They fully represent
the scope and weight of the whole class of nat
ural shadows, umbrae and penumbras, human and
extra-human, for which God may be thought re
sponsible. He is not to be thought responsible for
the sad moral condition of mankind — as I shall,
almost immediately, attempt to show. Assuming
this for the moment, we have in those stern-featured
Ways of Divine Providence just cited the gist and
essential variety of all those maculas in Nature
which seem to cast interrogation points toward
Heaven. They are the gravest of all. In their
scope they sweep the whole field of natural evil —
at least this side of the essential constitution of
man. If these do not mean anything as against
even a paternal regard in God for all His creatures,
there is nothing in the whole night-side of Nature
that does. But they do not mean any such thing.
See how much they are like the shadows of our

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 95
childhood. The kindest of fathers make these :
why may not a Kindest of Fathers make those ?
Surely we ought not to lift our eyebrows in com
plaining wonder, when, being little children God-
ward, we find ourselves treated as little children by
Him ; treated as wise and loving earthly fathers are
wont to treat their children with the general ap
proval of mankind. Even the children themselves
do not, in general, suspect either want of judgment
or of knowledge or of love to themselves in such
treatment. They may do it for a moment in a pet :
but in general they possess that instinctive sense of
their own narrowness as to faculty and experience
which forbids their concluding against the father on
such grounds. They trust and love him notwith
standing. They mutely say to themselves, " He
knows best." They silently hearken to the filial
instinct of trust within them which says, " He
means it for good ; it is the best that can be done
under the circumstances." If a little child should
be found habitually suspicious and sour toward his
father on such grounds, every beholder would con
demn the Phenomenon, and would not hesitate to
pronounce him very unreasonable, very foolish,
very unamiable, and very unnatural. It is felt at
once that such conduct is the fault of a perverse,
unfilial heart, rather than of a stumbled under
standing. And why should not we condemn our
selves — we adult persons, and yet mere children be
fore God — and say it is the fault of our wayward

96 FOURTH LECTURE.
hearts, if we look with coldness and distrust on our
Heavenly Father on account of such treatment as
He gives us in common with all wisest and best of
this world's fathers? We ought to know better.
The consciousness of the mere nothingness of our
powers, of our stark childhood and even infancy, as
offsetted to the Divine plans and ways, should make
these adverse seemings go for nothing. Shall we
presume to be stumbled at the Heavenly Father for
doing what is specially characteristic of the best
class of earthly fathers, in proportion to their wise
affection and solid greatness ? Indeed, the maculaa
are really faculas ; torches to illustrate the true
paternal character of God. The harmonies, induc
tions, and Baconics of Nature interpret its shadows
into lights.
But, thinks one, there is this great difference
between the case of the earthly father and that of
the Heavenly. The one has to accept and deal
with human nature and its fundamental conditions
as he finds them : the other had the making of this
nature and its conditions. The human father is
himself a creature, with very limited powers : the
Heavenly Father is the Almighty Creator, to whose
greatness nothing is impossible nor hard. That
great Father could, with the greatest ease, have
prevented the necessity for such unpleasant deal
ings by giving us a different nature, or by omnipo
tently manipulating that nature at the promptings
of an infinite wisdom. Would any wise and kind

PATERNAL ANALOGIES. 97
earthly father subject his children to such unpleas
ant features of treatment unless he were compelled
to do so ? Is the Infinite Father compelled ?
My friend, do you know what the word "Al
mighty " means ? Do you not know that it means
physical power? Compelled — yes, I reverently
answer, compelled, in a sense and under the cir
cumstances ; compelled by His own wise and right
eous heart. For, just consider. The nature which
God has given man is the noblest style of nature
known. It is even the noblest conceivable. It is
a moral nature ; capable of knowing, admiring, lov
ing, freely choosing, and magnificently possessing
and enjoying God and virtue in apparently ever-
increasing degrees. No other nature is capable of
so high an order of enjoyment as this. No other
can glorify the Maker so much. The intelligent
appreciation and voluntary homage of such'a being
must be the most precious and dear thing on which
the Eternal Father looks down. What is the music
of the spheres compared with that of a free, intel
ligent, loving soul ! What are the glories of the
day or of the night compared with the beauties and
majesties of virtue ! No, O Pyrrho, there is no
kind of created nature so noble as that we possess.
You cannot conceive of another as noble — with
such glorious possibilities. Where is the man who
is prepared to come forward and prove, I do not
say to a demonstration, but to a probability, that
God could have done a wiser and better thing than

98 FOURTH LECTURE.
give us such a nature as this? Who knows it?
Who will presume to say it ? Indeed, are not the
probabilities all the other way ? — Well, if we are
to have a moral nature, it must receive from the
Creator a treatment in harmony with that kind of
nature — must it not ? It must have moral treat
ment ; it cannot consistently be treated as a stone
on a system of pure physical force. To what ex
tent physical power can enter into the best system
of moral treatment is evidently no easy problem.
Where is the reasonable man who will pretend that
the problem is easy, and is ready with his proof that
probably physical omnipotence can enter that best
system so largely as to make the case of the Heav
enly Father with His children essentially unlike
that of earthly fathers with their children? On
the contrary, the cases must be essentially alike;
because both contemplate, moral beings under what
is essentially moral treatment. Whatever minor
differences exist, the treatment must in either case
be, in the main, suited to the nature acted on. It
must be genuinely moral.
So it appears that there is nothing in the Heav
enly Father's way of dealing with His children but
what should be allowed consistent with the largest
measure of tenderness on His part toward them.
Indeed, this way of dealing is, under the circum
stances, a positive evidence of such tenderness.
This on the one side. On the other, behold, bed
ded in the constitution and course of Nature and

LAW OF THE INFINITE. 99
as solid as any science that ever was studied, five
Great Laws, which we have only to set in the light
and breathe upon, in order to bring out on each in
lustrous characters these words hidden in them
from the beginning: Sacred to the fatherly
love of God. Laus Deo.
The Law of the Infinite. We reverently ap
proach the Divine Nature. We look at its knowl
edge, and lo, it is omniscience. We look at its
power, and lo, it is almightiness. We look at its
duration, and lo, it is eternity. If we proceed to
look at its moral character, shall we not continue
this finding of immensities — shall we not find its
moral traits laid out on the same grand scale as its
natural? It is to be presumed. Proportionateness
and equilibrium are the habit of Nature.
The Divine Nature is eternal. This means an
eternity of moral practice — good or bad. And
this, according to the way of all the moral natures
we happen to know, means in God a present good
ness or badness as colossal as that Past through
which it has been exercising. It has .acquired an
infinite momentum in moving down that long and
mighty slope. It has the habit, the inveteracy, the
solidarity, the amplitude of innumerable chronolo
gies. And, to-day, by virtue of that amazing prac
tice, God stands at the head of the universe, either
the best Being in it or the worst. He burns toward
His creatures with an awful malevolence or with
a benevolence more glorious than the brightest of
His myriad suns.

100 FOURTH LECTURE.
His infinite reason and conscience imply the
same thing. He sees with unbounded clearness
the unbounded beauty and majesty of virtue, and
its unbounded importance in a Being clothed with
such powers and occupying such a position as Him
self. It is in the very focus of His omniscience
that He is under infinite obligation to gloriously
love His creatures and do for them according to
His splendid opportunities. Their very helpless
ness in His hands is itself a piteous appeal for gen
tleness and tenderness. He meets that appeal and
fulfills that obligation, or He does not. If He does
not — if in this blaze of manifestation He neglects
to play His magnificent role in all its entirety, not
withstanding it involves not the slightest difficulty
to Himself — He incurs an infinite guilt. To perse
vere in this course, on through the measureless
stretches of Forever, despite the beseechings of
such an intelligence and of a universe whose every
need is always before Him — what a stress and
audacity of depravity it requires! From the na
ture of the case it must be stupendous ; from the
nature of the case it must be incalculable. Such
another sinner the universe does not hold. He
deliberately sacrifices, age after age, in the face of
infinite light, an infinite good in virtue itself and in
all the glorious results which perfect virtue, armed
with omnipotence and omniscience, could secure.
So He is infinitely righteous or infinitely unright
eous, infinitely benevolent or infinitely malevolent.

LAW OF CONSCIENCE. 101
Which is it ? This moral character which, what
ever it may be, harmonizes in its proportions with
the other parts of His nature — is it that glorious
goodness which insures toward all His creatures a
grand paternal tenderness, or is it that appalling
badness which insures to them the government of
an infinite demon ? Look about you. Is it such a
government you and I are living under ? Is the
state of this world as bad as almighty malevolence
could make it ? Suppose a fiend, panoplied in om
nipotence and omnipotent subtlety, to set himself
to make the universe as corrupt and miserable as
he could ; would he get no nearer his object than
such majestic heavens as those, and such fair and
on the whole, happy world as this ? Preposterous.
So we must take the golden horn of the dilemma.
God is as much the best as He is the greatest.
The Father is the best of fathers. He is tender
ness itself toward His children : and all His shaded
measures with us are as truly conceived in an ex
quisitely benignant spirit as are those other meas
ures whose radiant faces pour delight on all eyes.
The Law of Conscience. One part of the
law of conscience is that pain shall follow conscious
wrong-doing, and pleasure conscious right-doing.
Another part is that the father who hates or is
indifferent to his little children shall be deemed
cruel and monstrous. The pressure of this law is
universally felt. The Maker has evidently framed
it into the constitution of mankind. Make your

102 FOURTH LECTURE.
inductions; you shall, in the regular way, find it
as much a law of Nature as is the law of gravita
tion. You can overcome gravitation and go away
aeronautically from the earth, instead of going to
ward it. So you can overcome remorse for known
sin and make it a remorse for holiness ; so you can
overcome your horror of the man who hates and
tortures his own little children and perhaps con
vert that horror into a liking. But, for all that, the
horror is as natural to man as gravity is to matter.
So is the connection of pain with conscious wrong
doing. Both are cosmopolitan. Both belong to
human nature. No clime nor country nor class
nor culture nor capacity nor condition where they
are not at home. How came this ? Did God give
these things to human nature because He could not
help it ; because He could not have a human nature
without it ? Nay ; there are just enough triumphs
over the law to show well the possibility of dispens
ing with it. Men do sometimes succeed in revers
ing the poles of conscience, and come to feel only
pleasure in vice and pain in courses that look
toward virtue. What individual men do for them
selves sometimes, God might have done for the
race always. He might have set the needle of the
entire human conscience astray from the begin
ning. Had He so chosen, He might have made
the universal moral sense of the world sing jubi
lees over sin and dirges over holiness. Why did
He not? Doubtless because He wanted to have

LAW OF PATERNITY. 103
men virtuous. Natural laws tell God's wishes as
plainly as any speech can do. When we are
benevolent, He says sweetly in our ear, " Well
done" — more sweetly than Orpheus or Apollo
ever sang. When we are malevolent, He says bit
terly in our ear, "111 done" — more bitterly than
ever rue or wormwood spake to the tongue. It is
because He greatly wants men the world over to
love rather than hate. This shows what He is.
Of course His own character is congruous with His
wishes. He who profoundly wishes all men to
love each other, Himself profoundly loves all men.
He has Himself the virtue which He so earnestly,
persistently, and universally wishes others to pos
sess. He loves it, after the fashion of a Divine
Nature. He lays Himself out for it and its affili
ated felicities, in all this human domain, after the
fashion of a Divine life. He is a true Father. His
good- will to men is splendidly paternal.
The Law of Paternity. Look about you
among human parents. Do^ they not, almost with
out exception, tenderly love their little, dependent,
helpless children ? Is not that person considered
almost a monster who approaches a state of heart-
lessness toward those who lisp toward him the
name, father? Is not parental love an instinct
through all the graded parentage of the brute king
doms? The birds, the quadrupeds, the fishes —
animals, domestic or wild — how the feeblest and
most timid of them will flame forth in reckless self-

104 FOURTH LECTURE.
exposure to defend their young ! Even the philos
opher who is parent of an ingenious theory, the
author who is parent of a creditable book, the
inventor who is parent of a useful machine, the dis
coverer who is parent of an important science or
fraction of a science, the artist who is parent of an
excellent statue or painting, the statesman who is
parent of a wise measure of national policy, the
mechanic who is parent of a beautiful ship or
house or watch — all such persons find themselves
having an affection for the things toward which
they sustain this relation of paternity. They are
the root from which that beautiful greenness has
come : their image is on it ; their life is in it ; their
body, their soul, their genius, their patience, their
knowledge, their character, is diffused through it;
in short, they have in all those green leaves and
yellow fruits so many promising little children of
their own. And they almost invariably conceive
an affection for them as such. The abuse of them
is the abuse of themselves; the praise and beauty
of them are the praise and beauty of themselves.
Such is the law of paternity everywhere within
the range of our observation — the parent loving
its offspring. Among all the animal tribes, in earth
and air and sea — whether the child be flesh and
blood ; or only the cell of the bee, the nest of the
bird, the dam of the beaver, or the hand-work,
mind-work of the ingenious man — it is loved by
its author. And now we have to ask, Is God the

LAW OF PATERNITY. 105
sole exception to this sweeping law of paternity ?
Is the Being who established this law, and armed it
with flails of remorse — is He Himself out of har
mony with it ? Does He, too, not love His chil
dren, whether their name be men or oxen or
birds or flowers or oceans or stars? The induc
tion, the science, is overwhelmingly against it. It
is, in fact, against much more than this ; against
that parental regard in God being anything short
of a most exalted and permanent principle. For,
looking around, you observe that in all cases such
a principle lasts as long as there is occasion for it;
as long as the care of the parent can really be of
service to the child. How long, pray, can the care
of eternal and almighty God be of service to man
and the other creatures ! Looking around, you ob
serve that the higher the grade of the parent, the
more elevated and enduring his attachment to his
offspring. In man it shows its noblest quality, and
in man it lasts indefinitely. Surely, in the supreme
God we should look to see the principle shine di
vinely and shine eternally. Looking around, we
observe that the higher the grade of the offspring,
and the more completely it springs from and de
pends on the parent, the greater the affection
which that parent expends upon it. The more
valuable the discovery which a man has made, or
the machine which he has invented, and the less
he is indebted to other sources than himself in the
production of it, the stronger his regard for it.

106 FOURTH LECTURE.
Well, we should accordingly expect that man, who
is chief of God's works and children in this world,
so far as they are visible, and whose whole nature,
body and soul, substance and organization of sub
stance, had its origin solely in Him, and hangs
totally on His hand — we should expect that man
would be favored above all the other visible chil
dren of God with His fatherly regard. It is, in
fact, but another example of the use of that famous
Baconian induction which has built up our modern
sciences. Are these sciences good for anything ?
The Law of Charity. This law is, As
sume a person innocent till he is proved guilty.
For example, assume a man honest till you have
positive evidence that he is dishonest ; assume that
a man is not a murderer till you have positive
ground for believing that he is a murderer ; assume
that a father is paternal in his feelings, till some
positive reason is found for believing him unpater-
nal. It would be monstrous to go on the principle of
treating a man as guilty till he is proved innocent ;
to treat him as possessed of all the vices till he has
proved himself possessed of all the virtues. It would
be bare justice to withhold positive condemnation,
and treatment to match, from the man till he is
proved guilty. It would be charity to consider and
treat him as innocent till he is proved otherwise.
On the one hand, till such proof is brought, justice
requires us not to decide against him ; on the other

LAW OF CHARITY. 107
hand, till such proof is brought, charity requires us
to decide for him. Where conduct is equally well
explained by two hypotheses, we are to take the
most charitable one, instead of taking the least
charitable, or instead of holding ourselves neutral
between the two. We are to do as the spirit of
kindness would prompt.
Such is the law of charity — a law that has
forced itself into recognition and supremacy in all
decent judicial proceedings the world over ; a law
on which the theory of social intercourse has come
to found itself without contradiction in all well-or
dered and enlightened countries ; a law which the
humblest among us knows of, and, on occasion,
claims the benefit of as a matter of commonest
right rather than of charity ; a law which is the
natural prompting of a kind and friendly heart ;
a law born of the Golden Rule, Do to others as
ye would that others should do to you ; a law found
in practice most convenient, safe, fruitful, necessary
— saving a world of vexation, mischief, and cruelty
— in fine, a law which, while not against justice, is
sublimely beyond it ; something gloriously higher
and completer ; in fact, righteousness.
Now this great law requires us to postulate the
paternal love of God. We are not to withhold
from Him the benefit of that generous principle
which we concede, at least in theory, to all our fel
low-men. We are to give Him credit for being
paternal in His feelings till He is proved unpa-

108 FOURTH LECTURE.
ternal. Can He be proved so? The attempt
has been made ; but we have seen that the most
unpleasant features of His dealing with us, so far
from being of the nature of an attack on His char
acter as a Father, are not only perfectly consistent
with but even suggestive of a wise tenderness on
His part. Under these circumstances, the law of
charity steps in and demands of us that we put a
favorable construction on appearances ; that we
take a friendly and generous view of the case ; that
instead of judging our Maker and Father from the
side of harshness, or from the side of indifference,
we judge Him from the side of good-will ; that we
say to ourselves, " He shall be esteemed innocent
till He is proved guilty." " He shall not be sus
pected even, till there is made out positive ground
for suspicion." " We will do to Him as we would
that others should do to us." If this is more than
just, it is not more than righteous.
The Law of the General Rule. A child is
in such close and constant dealing with his earthly
father that he cannot well hold himself in a state
of suspended judgment as to whether his father
loves him. He must decide. Well, if he must
decide, a very natural consideration to present
itself is, Does he treat me as if he loves me ? And,
in case some facts apparently look one way and
some the other, it is very plain that he ought to
decide the case, not according to the exceptions of
treatment, but according to the general rule. It

LAW OF THE GENERAL RULE. 109
would be plain absurdity, if a decision must be come
to, not to base it on the general tenor of the treat
ment received. If this is found to be as if his
father loved him — if he finds that, in general, his
father treats him as though he were a dear son —
he ought to admit that such is really the fact,
though he cannot explain in consistency with it a
few facts that have a contrary look. He is to go
by the rule, not by the exceptions. Suppose, then,
he finds this to be the state of facts. He hears his
father say that he loves him — not unfrequently.
Not unfrequently he finds the parent directing to
wards him kindly and tender looks, smiling upon
him, and even embracing him. He looks around
and finds himself sheltered in a beautiful home, and
sees specially assigned to him his own beautiful
rooms filled with conveniences and beauties. He
finds himself wisely and abundantly fed and clothed
and instructed by his father ; especially finds him
self taught by him carefully and well on moral and
religious matters, including the reciprocal duties of
parents and children ; finds that his father tries to
keep him from all. evil ways, and to give him those
principles and habits which are fitted to secure him
a happy, useful, and prosperous manhood; finds
that he so deals with him that he is actually, on the
whole, happy, and would be vastly more happy if
he conformed as carefully as he might to all his
father's laws and hints — indeed in such a case
would surely become a most happy, useful, and no-

110 FOURTH LECTURE.
ble man ; in addition, as I have already partly said,
finds him from time to time calling him by every
manner of endearing name and epithet, nursing his
sickness, comforting his sadness, saying that he
loves him, assuring him that on occasion he could
and would freely die for him, promising him that if
he will try to do well the abundant ancestral riches
shall provide more magnificently for his mature
life than he can now possibly imagine ; finds that
such things express the general drift of his experi
ence as a child. Ought he to be at a loss how to
decide his problem, though he is at a loss how to
explain occasional severities of dealing on the part
of his father ? But if he is at no such loss — if he
plainly sees that these things of exceptional aspect
are or may be, after all, but the natural expression
either of an invincible necessity or of a wise tender
ness in the father — much more readily should he
accept a conviction of that tenderness. Under
such circumstances the child always does accept it ;
indeed, always does so with merely a vague notion
and instinct of these facts. Does he not do rightly ?
Would he not be universally condemned were he
to do otherwise ?
To apply the illustration. Situated as we are, we
cannot avoid taking up some positive attitude as to
the question, What is the feeling toward us of God
our Heavenly Father ? We must make a judgment.
And, in order to do it, a natural question is, How
does He treat us, in the main — is the general drift

LAW OF THE GENERAL RULE. lift-
of His dealing with us kind and tender ? Allow
ing that, here and there, unexplainable facts of ad
verse appearance exist, it were monstrous to decide
according to these in defiance of the mighty ma
jority. Better to defy the pitiful minority. Dark-
browed and resolute as these exceptions may seem,
if we go against anything, let us go against these in
their weakness and' scantiness. These are a few
stragglers; the others a compact and disciplined
host. For, look at them ! First, the Great
Father professes to love us. To lay no stress on
hundreds of written declarations, " I love you, I
love you," professing to come from Him ; the flow
ers, the songs, the golden fight, the precious per
fumes, the delicious tastes, all grace and beauty of
form and feature and motion abroad in Nature —
these are so many loving words, smiles, caresses of
the All-Maker and All-Father toward the intelli
gent creatures who are aware of them. Who does
not know it — vocal speech is not the only language,
the lighting up and wreathing of a face is not the
only smile, the pressure of an arm of flesh is not
the only embracing ! O bright-faced sky, O smil
ing earth, O scented and singing and festival springs
and summers, O innumerable anthems and poetries
of delightful Nature — ye also are God's tender
looks and words and sacred kisses to us ! Next,
see what a beautiful home He has fitted up for
us ; ceiled with sapphire, floored with emerald,
walled and curtained with sunsets and sunrises,

112 FOURTH LECTURE.
upholstered and garnished superbly and almost
unboundedly for our shelter, our convenience, our
dignity, and our delight. Then see what stores of
heathful and pleasant food he provides for us in the
manifold grains and fruits ; of suitable and comely
clothing in the bolls of cotton, the fleeces of flocks,
the moils and spoils of the silk- worm ; of useful and
exalting knowledge in the eyes and ears and other
organs by which He puts us in communication with
the wonders of this wonderful universe. Espe
cially, see how careful He has been to furnish every
man with a conscience to inform him and reform
him on matters of right and wrong ; and even to as
sure him that the Creator ought to love, and would
be greatly guilty were He not to love, and, to the
extent of His power, bless His creatures. See how,
by means of conscience, and the laws of Nature, and
the general strain of providence — to lay no stress
on the written laws with their impressive sanctions
which claim to have come from Him — He seeks to
influence us virtue-ward and shape us to good
principles and habits ; for, let it not be forgotten, all
intelligent observers admit that the general flow and
pressure of nature and experience are in favor of
goodness. See you that most men are actually
secured by His care so much happiness that they
had greatly rather continue to be than cease to be,
though annihilation were made painless or even
pleasurable. See you, also, that it is consciously in
the power of every man to be vastly more happy

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 113
and useful and noble than he is, by carefully im
proving the opportunities furnished him and care
fully conforming to such- Divine laws as he can dis
cover ; indeed, in his power to be gloriously happy
and noble. See the Great Father dowering us
with imagination and hope that kindle and expand
in a course of well-doing, and — while conscience
says, " Dear one," and sacredly fondles you in God's
name ; and the Scriptures say, " He has loved you
enough to die for you " — see how that wonderful
fancy and hope, conscience - prompted, begin to
prophesy in vaguely magnificent speech of unspeak
able glories that flush and span with their triumph
ant arches your ascending way. See such things
making up the general rule of treatment from our
Heavenly Father. Oh, if we could say nothing in
explanation of the occasional somberness of the pa
ternal Heaven that bends over us — if it were thick
ly beclouded beyond all falcon glances of our wisest
and best — still our judgment should refuse to be
ruled by the poor and scanty exceptions, and should
bow instead to that kingly rule whose crowded con
gregation of voices proclaim in sonorous harmony a
loving Father in heaven ! But since these excep
tions are explainable and explained — since it ap
pears that they only show a dealing common to and
characteristic of a wise and tender human father
hood over moral beings — we yield ourselves with
redoubled cordiality to the law of the general rule,

114 FOURTH LECTURE.
and say fervently, God our Father does love His
little children.
Altogether and law upon law, I discern an Un
limited Love and Righteousness outbeaming from the
heavens. An unlimited righteousness ! This attri
bute completes in God a perfect and glorious com
petency to govern. Wisdom, power, and duration
without measure — surmount this cathedral struc
ture with the superb roofing and dome of a perfect
goodness, and you have a wondrous palace from
whose golden gates may fitly issue the edicts of a
universal monarchy. Behold a God who is abun
dantly able to manage the affairs of a universe, and
fill its august throne to infinite advantage ! That a
system of things made up of blind matter and fallible
intelligences and depraved hearts should go on as
well, or a millionth part as well, by itself, as under •
the scepter of such a complete Being, is incredible
and impossible. So He ought to govern. So it
would be an unspeakable wrong to His creatures
should He neglect to govern. So, gloriously per
fect Being as He is, He surely occupies the supreme
throne over all, as His magnificent duty and their
magnificent necessity ; giving to the different sorts
of things in the universe the kind of government
suited to each ; giving to blind matter the govern
ment of physical omnipotence, and to moral beings,
with their mixed constitution, a mixed government
of physical force and moral law. In which case
the actual state of the world, with its lights and

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 115
shadows, its smiles and its tears as well, is through
out the expression of a grand Divine love.
This on the supposition that God exists and is the
Author of Nature. The scientific corollary of this
supposition we find to be a fatherly love of Divine
proportions beaming on the world. And the maculae
of all sorts, properly attributable to God, so far
from making against His goodness, are themselves
parts of a broad and consummate scheme of love
by which the Heavenly Father ministers to His
great family.

V.
IN TENEBRIS.
Apurrepb. Kal oi ko.t&t)(OV, 8e£kx ko\ ovk o<po/xat„
TLoi-qo-ov 8' aX6pr)v, Sds 8' 6<p6aXix,ouTiv lhto-6ai. — Homer.

V. In Tenebris.
i. THIRD OBJECTION .  119
2. NARROW INTELLIGENCE. . . .... 119
3. FRAIL BODY  "1
4. FRAIL REASON  123
5. FRAIL SENSIBILITY  "6
6. DEPRAVITY  132
7. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  138

FIFTH LECTURE.

IN TENEBRIS.
ANOTHER objection to the existence of God
is drawn from His Obscurity.
It is claimed that a God would have made Him
self more apparent to men than He seems to be.
He would have so manifested Himself as to make
it impossible for men to doubt or to neglect His
existence. At least He would have done more in
this direction than is observed. A large class of
men find small difficulty in living with little or no
veneration for such a Being, or even thought of
Him ; the faith of many in His existence is trouble-
somely weak ; some have no faith whatever ; while
others positively disbelieve.
In gradual answer to this objection, I submit the
following considerations : —
1. A perfect revelation of Gfod to human intelli
gence would be impossible.
Of course, a finite being cannot fully understand
one who, relatively to himself, is infinite. Were God
to undertake the task of revealing Himself to me
in all His completeness, in order to succeed, He

120 FIFTH LECTURE.
would be obliged by the nature of things, to ex
pand my intelligence into dimensions like His own.
Even as only a philosopher can well understand a
philosopher, so only a God can fully understand
God. There is no help for it — to beings so narrow
as men, God must be, in large part, shrouded in
impenetrable obscurity.
This fact, of necessity, precludes men from the
most impressive view of God ; namely, that of His
whole nature, with its entire wealth of resources —
a view, of course, infinitely more magnificent and
memorable than that fractional view that is possible
to us. It also, of necessity, precludes men from the
best class of natural evidences and illustrations of
the Divine existence ; that is, those broader and
more complex plans and works on which He has
laid out the most wisdom and power. A perfect
Framer of the universe must have one plan that is
all-embracing ; in which each thing is so delicately
framed into every other thing throughout space
and duration as to make of the whole mighty com
plexity a glorious unit. Who but a God could
master such a scheme as this ? The problem of
the two bodies mathematicans have solved ; that of
three bodies yet bids defiance to analysis ; that of
the solar system, much more that of our galaxy,
much more still that of the stratum of nebulas in
Virgo, is one which we never expect to solve. But
how much further beyond us still is that universe-
system, in which every atom is to be considered a

FRAIL BODY. , 121
world, and every world is to be considered, not
merely in its mechanics, but in its metaphysics and
its morals ! But if we only could grasp this all-
comprehending system in all its detail of harmonies
and wisdoms, we should, no doubt, have such a
regal evidence of the existence of a Divine Mind as
would dwarf into invisibility any natural proof of
Him which may now be within our reach. Our
narrowness cuts us off completely from this grandest
proof. It can even make that proof seem in parts
positively ill proportioned, incongruous, empty, and
even noxious. We are like" the little child of a
statesman. Some of that father's smaller domestic
arrangements he understands — perceives them to
be right and wise. But those great national and
international schemes and movements are all nebu
lous and confused to the unfledged thinker. They
look inexplicable. He sees no wisdom in them. He
sees here and there things of apparently an oppo
site character. And yet this is the man with the
fame of whose statesmanship the country is ringing ;
and these the very works of his which shall entitle
him to his historic place among the astutest man
agers of empires. The child, because he is a child,
is compelled to miss what is really the best illustra
tion of his father's greatness.
Thus the very finiteness of our faculties suspends
a veil between us and God.
2. A revelation of Gfod much short of what mr
intelligence could grasp would consume us.

122 FIFTH LECTURE.
Suppose God should take as much of His nature
as we can understand, and bring it to us in the way
of adequate personal manifestation to the senses.
Could we endure the exhibition ? Why, we can
hardly bear such sights and sounds as we ourselves
can produce. We ourselves can kindle such glory
of conflagration, can detonate such might and maj
esty of sound, as shall destroy sight and hearing,
and even shock the weakly out of life. And surely
if God should come upon our senses with such im
perialism of sights and sounds as would appropri
ately represent the utmost power and knowledge
we can conceive — as would worthily express our
ideas of Eternity and Almightiness and Omnis
cience — that moment would be our last. Appropri
ate to the utmost power we can conceive — why,
we can conceive of a power that can take up the
isles as a very little, thing, poise a planet in its hand,
launch forth a nebula on the void as if it were an
atom, crush together instantly into one palpitating
pulp all known sidereal systems with as much ease
as you do the beaded cobweb of a summer's morn
ing ! We could, if need were, imagine a power
equal to still greater feats than this ; one, with
reference to our powers, properly called infinite.
And I say what a show it would have to be to
worthily express, not merely such a power as that,
but also a virtual Omniscience and an absolute
Eternity ! Could our senses or even our lives en
dure it? Even now, when the common lightning

FRAIL REASON. 123
shoots before our eyes, how they quiver back from
the blinding flame ; and when the common thunder
comes upon us in some great crash, how our ears
and hearts quail under the terrible bass ! And
were God Himself to come flashing and pealing on
the world in all that outward majesty that rightfully
belongs to Him, and fitly signifies to sense the pres
ence of a virtually Infinite Being, who of us would
see another moment in the body? We should
straightway be dazzled out of life. Our frighted
senses and hearts would give one leap, and then be
come motionless forever — and this though they
were a thousand-fold stronger than they are. The
men who ask that God should personally manifest
Himself to their senses as God, know not what
they ask. Do they want to be driven out of the
body by the fire and sword of intolerable discover
ies ? — After our finiteness has hung one veil be
tween us and God, our safety as embodied beings
would compel Him to interpose another.
3. A revelation of God such as would not consume
us, would yet so shake and derange the mental facul
ties as to prevent due use of the revelation.
Scenes not sufficiently rousing and awful to
shock men out of life, are often enough to shock
them out_of reason. How many have been made
idiotic or insane by appearances which took fierce
hold of their imaginations and astonishments, and
by them so shook the soul that it fell into dreary
ruin ! That terrible fire ; that fearful explosion ;

124 FIFTH LECTURE.
that awful storm or battle ; even that strange flight
of meteors ; that portentous comet ; that bloody sun ;
that crude marvel of the Spiritualist or expected
marvel ofthe Millerite ; that apparition of some sort,
from the airy colossus of the Brocken to the ghostly
form in the weird moonlight — how it shattered the
man ! His body survived, his senses escaped with
out harm, but the more delicate system of nerve
and brain and rational thought could not endure
the strain, and became a melancholy wreck. And
so we see that it is not enough for God to abstain
from such manifestations of Himself as would de
stroy the body. He must also abstain from that
lower manifestation that would break down' the
stamina of the soul, confound the power of rational
judgment, and paralyze our faculty for using a man
ifestation. Should a being of virtually infinite glory
and majesty come on our senses, or our thoughts,
with any but the most inconsiderable fraction of
His greatness, our feeble souls would infallibly go
into unhingement. I am now speaking of the most
compact and stoutly built souls. I would not have
trusted a single one of them, though bearing a
supreme name among hero-worshippers, in the
midst of even such phenomena as belonged to the
breaking up of the Paleozoic or Mesozoic Period.
Such outpour from above ; such heaving from be
low ; such rendings of the caves of Eolus and of
Neptune ; such tourneys and concussions of the
enfranchised winds and waves ; such thunderous

FRAIL REASON. 125
Marseillaise of the wrathful mob of volcanoes, earth
quakes, tornadoes, and oceans ; such an awful mael
strom of blackness, blaze, sound, and death ; such
wars of the Titans with the Gods — must have
twice exterminated every overt species of hearing
and seeing animal life ; first by affright, and then by
direct violence. Had man been there, though his
soul had been boned and thewed like Alcides,
he would have lost his reason. These delicate
nerves and brains of ours* that so bow and break at
the approach of what, after all, is mere Nature —
what would they not do at the approach of the Great
Supernatural in any fitting circumstance ! But
care must be taken not only for these few heroic
souls, but for the much larger number who are no
heroes — for the many frail ; the many sick ; the
many excessively timid, nervous, superstitious ; the
many ignorant, weak-minded, ill-balanced persons
scattered everywhere through the world. For the
sake of these — for the sake of those hundred neigh
bors of yours whose souls are greatly less firm in
texture — God must still further limit the public
manifestation of Himself to the senses. He does not
want to turn the world into a Mad-house any more
than into a Morgue. There are already enough
lunacies and unsoundnesses of mind in human
society. — So another veil must be interposed be
tween man and God. The man who asks that there
should be made to us a full discovery of God, knows
not what he asks. Does he want the world peopled

126 FIFTH LECTURE.
with Gods instead of men ? Does he want to be
come a handful of ashes, or at least to be dazzled into
corpsehood, by an insufferable brightness ? Does
he even want his reason and nervous system to fall
to pieces under a manifestation of the Eternal ?
If not, he must be content to have at least three
veils hang between him and God.
4. Such a revelation of God as would not derange
our minds, would speedily benumb the faculty of
astonishment and general sensibility, and so would
soon cease to be specially impressive, and could only
be resorted to occasionally.
If Deity is local — if His personality is not uni
versally diffused, but occupies a limited district,
such as Christians call heaven — then He could not
make a permanent personal manifestation of Himself
here without permanently depriving other parts of
the universe of a manifestation. The most He
could do"would be to supply some standing substi
tute for Himself; perchance some astonishing Form
to lighten through the sky and personate that Divin
ity which for the greater part of the time it does
not include. A sincere being cannot be supposed
to do this. The best He could do would be to make
an occasional personal appearance among us ; and
for the rest of the time supply such august messen
gers and other miracles as should testify of God to
human senses without purporting to be God, or to
include His actual presence. This is really the
best that could be done. But, if you please, we

FRAIL SENSIBILITY. 127
will suppose it is not — we will suppose that both
of these modes of revelation are permanently open
to Him : every day a mighty Form that really in
cludes God can send its dazzling pageant on our
sight, and every day the angels can fly and the
dead rise and Nature tremble in awful testimonial
to His being and greatness. How would such a
system as this work ?
As we have seen, the grandeur of the exhibition
must be greatly moderated, to make it safe for either
the senses or the intellects of men. But, within
the limits of safety, a very grand exhibition might,
doubtless, be made. We can be greatly moved and
astonished without any danger to reason. But we
cannot remain greatly astonished for any length of
time, especially by the same thing, not even by any
variety -of things. As men now are, a permanent
astonishment is impossible. No wonder can con
tinue a wonder save for a very brief period : and
the greater the first effect the sooner it will be over.
Can Niagara astonish and awe you indefinitely
long? Ask those who have lived out years by
the side of it. Try it yourself. As soon as you
perceive the effect decaying, pass to the ocean, and
you may in a degree renew your feeling ; but how
many months or even weeks will it be before the
sonorous majesty of the Atlantic itself will abate on
the familiarized senses ! Then take the traveler's
privilege, and go on as swiftly as steam can carry
you to another wonder, and then another. By a

128 FIFTH LECTURE.
timely passing from the cataract to the main, from
the main to the Alps, from the Alps to Latin mu
seum and palace and cathedral, plethoric with the
glories of genius and antiquity ; from these to the
astonishment of the Pyramids and Carnac and Lux
or, you may protract the interest very considerably ;
but at last, and that after no long time, the faculty
of wonder will become so numb that you can witness
the most remarkable object with as little movement
of soul as any commonplace object is wont to inspire.
You will turn your face homeward. Why should you
go on when your heart has become a mere clod —
when you would hardly turn a corner to see Ther
mopylae, or climb a hill to find Olympus in session !
Such is the common history of sight-seeing. And
I make no doubt that, were God to appeal to the
senses of men daily by astonishing revelations, it
would not be long before we would be as little im
pressed by them as we are now by the daily sun or
nightly dome of stars ; as the men were who once
actually supposed the sun to be God, and in many
a Heliopolis thought every thunder to be his voice,
every whirlwind his breath, and every earthquake
his movement ; as we theists are now by the con
stant advent of bodies and souls into the world
without any apparent cause that does not seem to
us infinitely inadequate. Variety in the form of
revelation would protract the first astonishment and
awe ; but despite everything they would speedily
come to an end. Those born and bred to such dis-

FRAIL SENSIBILITY. 129
plays — and such should we all have been had the
principle of a permanent display been acted on —
would never have any special impression at all from
the daily grandeur, any more than those who have
always lived at Chamouni or Eddystone, in daily
view of the highest majesty of the Alps or the high
est majesty of ocean. In order that any safe aston
ishing display in behalf of God may have the maxi
mum of effect, it must be only occasional.
As to just how frequent the exhibition could be
with the best advantage, it would be hard to say.
No theory of maxima and minima with which I
am acquainted solves the problem. But I am in
clined to think that the man who made the round
of the seven ancient wonders of the world once in
twenty years, got more impression from them than
he would have done by seeing them once in five.
And I know that the friend who made one voyage
on the ocean and saw it in all its moods, and then
was ever after left to his memory and imagination,
carried with him to his grave a grander sense of
the huge flood than his companion of equal native
sensibility to such things, whose whole after-life
was spent upon it ; or than that other equal com
panion who made his second and third voyage.
And what right have I, as a logician, to venture on
the affirmation that a single astonishing exhibition
in favor of God would not do as much with most
men toward placing Him in an impressive light as
any larger number of such exhibitions? Indeed,

130 FIFTH LECTURE.
as facts stand, I would not like to affirm that with
most a mere tradition of such an exhibition, well
told and well believed, and then committed to that
wondrous painter, the Imagination, would not, on
the whole, be more impressive and just and dura
bly influential than sight itself. Never such an
Apelles as the Imagination. She has colors on her
palette, and models in her eye, such as never enter
into pictures on the retina. She habitually out-
paints all the galleries. And she can, out of her
own resources, give a brighter picture of God and
miracles than could possibly, with any safety, burn
its way through the lenses of the eye and the laby
rinths of the ear. And let this picture have the
prestige of reality ¦ — let it be fully believed in as
expressing substantial fact — and it will surpass all
other pictures in impressiveness as well as bright
ness. It will also surpass all others in general
truthfulness — provided its outline is really fact.
No doubt sight is the truest painter of common
objects ; but not of such as have immeasurable
greatness and excellence. We cannot get too im
pressive a conception of these. The nobler the
conception, the truer. Let that supreme colorist,
the Imagination, lay out all her power and dip her
pencil in the sun ; it will be an incomparable pic
ture of God and astonishing miracle that she will
give, and as much juster than all others as it sur
passes all others as a mere picture. And, further,
a picture by the Imagination does not lose its im-

FRAIL SENSIBILITY. 131
pressiveness by repetition, as do the pictures of
sight. One hundred sights of Niagara will practi
cally abolish the wonder ; a hundred sights of a mir
acle would practically make it no miracle ; but not
so a hundred imaginations of these things. For,
unlike the senses and the nerves, the Fancy gets
more skill and power with every picture she makes.
Now, this greatest of painters, whose canvas is
so impressive, so true, and so durably efficient, can
only work to advantage under certain conditions.
A flood of light on an object, of course, takes it
completely out of her hands. Sight,- in any of its
degrees, restricts the freedom of her pencil. It is
only when an object is given in mere outline to
faith — and sight never gives an object in mere
outline — that she has the fullest scope and motive
for all the wealth and witchery of her art. She
then has the inspiration of faith stimulating the
highest freedom of invention. No, indeed — I would
not venture to say that the credited tradition of a
Divine manifestation would not, with most persons,
be better than the sight of it ; that, for most, to
read of Divine manifestations and miracles in per
haps distant times and countries, and believe in
them, and then to leave them in the wonder
working hands of that faculty that has built up the
world's great epics, would not fasten on the mind
the justest as well as the grandest sense of them,
and warrant the saying, "Blessed are they who
have not seen, and yet have believed ! " — Evi-

132 FIFTH LECTURE.
dently, we must consent to have another veil hang
between us and God. He neither wants to turn
the world into an Olympus, nor into a Necropolis,
nor into a Bedlam, nor into a Boeotia. Shall He
make men stare till they are stupid — make won
ders so familiar to them that they must cease to be
wonders ? Whoever asks for an unstinted revela
tion of God, knows not what he asks. Does he
insist on being himself a Divinity ? Does he want
his senses and his life to shrivel up before an intol
erable glory ? Does he want his frighted soul to
leap into the abysses of distraction or idiocy ? Does
he even want prodigies wasted by a vulgar fre
quency ; or by acting on the principle that, for
most, the great spiritual powers, Faith and Fancy,
with their sunset pencil and immeasurable canvas,
have less power to render the Infinite to the soul
than has the gross bodily sight with at least three
dense curtains before it ? If not, he must be con
tent to have four veils hang between him and God.
5. Such a revelation of God as could be perma
nent without benumbing our sensibility, must be still
further limited by our depravity.
If men were perfect in point of moral condition,
the preceding causes of obscurity would still act.
But men are not morally perfect; they are very
far from it ; their moral natures are. universally and
wretchedly broken down and corrupted. And this
fact cannot do otherwise than heavily becloud the
Supreme Being. Who expects a sick body to do

DEPRAVITY. 133
bodily work as well as a sound one can do ? Who
expects a muddy pool to reflect the sky as well as
the fountain of Helicon ? Who expects the astron
omer gazing at a heavenly body through a cracked
and unhomogeneous lens to see it as well as through
a Clarke or a Frauenhofer? It is not possible.
Nor is it possible for a sick, turbid, broken soul
to give as clear and just views of God as would
be natural to an unfallen being. Sinners can
see trees as well as if they were no sinners :
doubtless can see outward prodigies expressing God
just as well as they could with perfectly pure
hearts. But as to seeing God in these things —
this is quite another matter; and it is just here
where sin acts as an obstruction. Sin is naturally
averse to and afraid of a perfect Deity, naturally
unwilling to recognize Him, naturally glad to find
pretexts against the validity of any evidence of
Himself which He may furnish. It is disposed to
shut the eye and ear on such evidences, to look for
them anywhere but in the right place, to see what
it must see with the dead eves of statues or with
the dwarfing eyes of insects. In the presence of
such a disposition no Theistic illustration, nor argu
ment, nor even ocular demonstration, can pass for
what it is worth. In the presence of the higher
degrees of such a disposition the brightest Divine
credential — though its name be Alcyone, central
sun of the whole system of evidence — must be sad
ly blurred, and may be totally suppressed ; indeed,

134 FIFTH LECTURE.
is not unlikely to be totally suppressed. Why, the
man has only to say, " Beelzebub," " magic," " op
tical illusion," to set aside any miracle ! Why, the
man has only to say, " Nature," " law," " develop
ment," " endless series," " spontaneous generation "
— such high-sounding words, liberally and discreetly
used, are enough to explain away from such a man
the finest natural proof of God that could possibly
amaze a philosopher. Who needs be told it — while
it is notorious that men can doubt anything they
choose, and on occasion can persuade themselves
that fields and floods, hills and heavens, are nothing
but fictions of the brain ! Yes, there must always
be more or less haze between the sun and a marsh.
If the marsh is sulphurous and hot, the haze will
be a cloud through which shall not struggle the
faintest outline of an orb, or even of a halo.
But this is, possibly and not improbably, but one
fold of the veil which sin hangs between us and
God. Were God from a certain point to increase
the general evidence of Himself, He would be sure
to increase the responsibility of every human being.
But He would not be sure to increase the aggre
gate faith and virtue of the world. Indeed, would
He not be sure to do the contrary ? In some cases
a change for the better would be produced: as cer
tainly in many other instances the change would
be for the worse. The increased light would be
resisted — sometimes by unbelief and sometimes by
believing unrighteousness — and consequently more

DEPRAVITY. 135
guilt incurred and more damage sustained than
under the old state of things. That there would
be many on whom this sad effect would display
itself, no one familiar with life will doubt : that the
number of such persons would not be so great as
to outweigh with their disasters all the good done,
who has a right to affirm? Just bethink your
selves what multitudes daily manage to resist any
amount of evidence when their inclinations, preju
dices, habits, are against it ! Just bethink your
selves what multitudes fail to walk by the evidence
they accept; though accepted as proving at least
the possible truth of so heavily sanctioned a system
as the Christian religion ! Beyond a certain point
in the accumulation of evidence for a God, the
damaged multitude would surely become a damaged
majority. For, after a certain stage of revelation
has been reached, it is no longer want of evidence
that prevents faith, or want of motive that prevents
virtue ; it is disinclination and frowardness of heart.
Increasing the amount of proof does not touch the
seat of the trouble. Double the proof, treble it —
it makes no difference ; the men are unbelievers
still. With the mind made up, it is just as easy to
shut the eyes on a mountain as on a mote ; just as
easy to turn back on the north when it is flaming
with ruined rainbows as when bare of a single ray.
So there must be a point in the accumulation of
evidence for a God, when, while increasing as fast
as ever the responsibility of a wicked world, it

136 FIFTH LECTURE.
ceases to increase its faith and virtue. Here a per
fect God must break off His proofs. Sin has added
another fold to its veil.
But is there not yet another fold from this source ?
The necessity of not doing more harm than good
would limit the revelation to sinners : would not
the necessity of doing them as much good as possible
limit it still further ? It was once said of a certain
text-book in science that it was too simple and ex
planatory for the use of students in a college ; it did
not tax and discipline their minds sufficiently. No
one would have denied that the book was a good one ;
that a very valuable culture was derived from the
study of it ; that its advantages greatly outweighed
its disadvantages. But these facts did not establish
the propriety of holding the algebra to its' place in
the college. The question to be answered was,
not whether the treatise was on the whole useful,
but whether it was as useful as some other would
be that should throw the students more on their
own resources. And this question was answered
in the negative. It was decided that a less explan
atory book would serve the purpose of mental edu
cation better. So Stanley was substituted for Day,
as perhaps Day had been substituted for Euler.
Now, is any one competent to say that God has not
seen reason to make a similar decision in regard to
what is the best mode of teaching men theology,
the science of God ? As a good Being, His object
in revealing Himself to the world would not be

DEPRAVITY. 137
merely a good moral discipline and culture, but the
best possible. And it is conceivable that even as
the obscurer manifestation of algebra may do the
most for the crude and wayward intellect, so the
obscurer manifestation Qf God may do the most for
the crude and wayward heart. May it not be a
noble discipline of character to inquire after God
humbly, patiently, fervently, in the face of some
difficulties ? May it not be a noble discipline to
practice carefulness, love of truth, fairness of mind,
prayer for Divine guidance, as a requisite to suc
cess? And when success comes in this travailing
way, would not it and its results be all the more
highly prized for the pains taken ? These are sug
gestive queries. And they make it unsafe for any
one to declare it improbable that the veil which sin
hangs between us and God is not thick with the
necessity of securing the best as well as a good
moral training for a depraved world.
So add a threefold veil of sin to those four veils
which, from the nature of the case, must interpose
obscurity between us and God. He neither wants
to turn the world into an Olympus, nor into a Ne
cropolis, nor into a Bedlam, nor into a Boeotia, nor
into a Stonehenge, nor into a Pandemonium. An
unstinted revelation of God — the man who asks it
knows not what he asks ! Does he want the crea
ture to take on the full stature of the Creator?
Does he want such an exhibition as, with its ter
rible sheen and trumpet, shall blast his life away ?

138 FIFTH LECTURE.
Does he want Reason to start headlong from her
throne, and maunder out of the dust? Does he
want the faculty of astonishment calloused by daily
violence into an Ironsides which no marvel, though
catapult-hurled, can impress ? Does he want men
made with stocks and stones for souls, instead of
free moral natures ; or that God should content
Himself with something less than the good, or even
the best, in His method of dealing with sinners?
If not, he must be content to have the world look
toward God with at least five veils dimming His
majesty and existence.
At least this number of veils may or must de
pend between a God and this sinful world. And
now the question is, whether they will account for
as much obscurity on the Divine existence and
majesty as an objector may properly assume to
exist. How much obscurity is that ? How much
will intelligent theists admit? They will admit
that some persons have no faith in God ; that mul
titudes have far less faith than would be desirable ;
that still greater multitudes have an idea of God
that is troublesomely weak, unimpressive, and unin-
fluential. This is the obscurity we confess to exist
within men. As to the obscurity without them,
we confess something and claim more. We con
fess, of course, that the revelation of God is not
overwhelming in the amount and quality of its
evidence, so as to make unbelief and negligence im
possible to such beings as men ; nor do we know of

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 139
any evidence in earth or heaven, within the whole
realm of even ocular and mathematical demonstra
tion, that does possess such a character. We con
fess that the evidence is not such as to totally
exempt men from care and pains in order to receive
and retain its full force ; and we have yet to learn
that it would be desirable to have it so. Thus far
we confess. On the other hand we claim, and hold
ourselves ready to prove, that the existence and
majesty of God are supported by evidence that is
decisive ; evidence that is sufficient ; evidence that is
very great ; evidence that is greater by far than
upholds any other moral thing; evidence fully as
great as men seem disposed to improve ; evidence
great enough to secure, in every age, almost uni
versal faith in at least one Worshipful Intelligence
indefinitely superior to man in wisdom and power,
and quite universal conviction of the possibility of
such a Being (which, so far as the practical guid
ance of life is concerned, is almost as exacting a
principle as faith itself) ; indeed, evidence great
enough to give moral certainty and a renovated
character to every person from sunrising to sunris-
ing who will use it faithfully. We claim, and hold
ourselves ready to prove, that Nature and the Su
pernatural have not spared themselves ; that they
are generous witnesses for God ; that they vie with
each other in the richness of their testimony ; that
God has a shrine in every history, a temple in every
science, a stoled priest with his Novum Organon

140 FIFTH LECTURE.
in every bosom ; that the wide campus of matter
swept by microscope and telescope as far as yonder
picket nebula is everywhere covered with hiero
glyphics of Him which no Champollion is needed
to decipher, everywhere hung with His cartouches
and coats of arms which no college of heralds is
needed to explain, everywhere tracked with His
giant foot-prints vastly more scientifically intelligible
than any of these fossil scriptures of the Connect
icut which so nobly enrich your museum — further
and chiefly, that the supernatural evidence carries
itself still more regally in a God who has often
spoken audibly with men ; has often stood among
them in visible personal forms ; has dwelt for thirty-
three years on the amazed and panting planet in a
human body; has maintained for ages an oracle
whose Delphos and Dodona shone with miraculous
Shekinahs and infallible Urim and Thummim ; has
made the future visible, the dead to live, the earth
to tremble, the heavens to blaze, the angels to fly
singly or in armies along the sky in attestation of
Himself; indeed, has even personally come down
in presence of forewarned and expecting hosts, em
bosomed in a storm of miracles and with ineffable
pomp, as if to silence, once for all, the clamors of
such men as say, " Nay, father Abraham, but if one
went to them from the dead, they would repent ; "
and, finally, has scattered these direct manifesta
tions and these attesting miracles, with their diac-
onate of special providences, through the ages as

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 141
liberally as can be shown consistent with their best
effect, bridging the intervals between them with
well-accredited and well-believed traditions from
amid whose mighty arches and colonnades and pic
turing perspectives they can, not improbably, be
seen to better advantage by the majority of man
kind than from the portico itself.
Lo a Man of whom I have great things to say !
He had profound faith in God. He not only be
lieved in the Divine existence and perfection and
government ; but that glorious idea seemed to him
very much as did the ground which sustained him,
the air which he breathed, and the heaven which
rained on him from its azure cope the glory of sun
and stars. — Is God all about me ? Does He look
and work on my right hand and on my left, upon me
and within me ? Do I never go abroad but that His
providence paces along; never rest at home but
that His sleepless sovereignty watches at my bed
side ? While I am thinking, is He busy among the
thickly coming fancies and arguments ; prompting,
repressing, proportioning with a tireless hand?
While I am speaking, is there no slightest tone that
does not reach His quick ear ; and no hearer's
heart into which He is not looking, and where He
is not working in behalf of the truth ? The wind
that sighs under these eaves — is it true that the
pulse of almighty power is in it ? The cloud that
sails yonder — is it so that an omniscient thought
is riding on it, hither and thither, for its secret mis-

142 FIFTH LECTURE.
sion? Each ray of light that makes its way through
these windows — is it feathered with a Divine pur
pose, and is every minute reflection from wall and
seat and dust-particle presided over and governed
by a single personal agency as real as that which
turns over the leaves of this manuscript? — So
thought that man of faith. So was he convinced.
So, indeed, he almost seemed to see. Other eyes
than those of his body seemed to dwell behind and
look through those grosser orbs, and to see things
too subtle and essential for them. The common
world lay insphered in a supernatural. All things
were " living and moving and having their being in
God " — as says Euripides, Cl yrjs oxrip-a, Kairl yi}s
tX<»v eSpav — Chariot of the world and having
His throne above it. In the greatest national af
fairs, and in the obscurest domestic history as well,
played a Divine hand. Whatever befell, whether
sad or glad, was the providence of God. The
fields of earth and air and sea, instead of appearing
as so many platforms on which the machinery of
natural causes was milling out science and inevitable
results, seemed so many Fields of the Cloth of
Gold on which the Great Supernatural was accom
plishing in his own proper person the grand part of
King of Nature. As to him of Patmos, a shining
Infinite Presence seemed moving about among all
those ages and empires and ecclesiasticisms and
homes and individual joys, sorrows, virtues, sins —
above all, mingling freely with all his own affairs,

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 143
and pacing with unwearied step throughout body
and soul and all personal mysteries. Not more real
was yon mountain that half shuts out the day. Not
more real was yon ocean that awes so many lands
with its lordly voice. So temptations were cobwebs
to him. So dangers were no dangers. So trials
were a heavenly discipline. So life and death were
only different ways of spelling the same word. Re
proaches, ill-fame, martyrdoms — what recked he
even for these ? He endured as seeing Him who is
invisible. And all skepticisms, and philosophies
falsely so called, though pretentious and crested as
ever were ocean waves, broke harmlessly upon him.
If at some point that rooted continent occasionally
seemed to lose a few grains of its rocky substance,
it was only to more than add them to some other
part of its great coast. So all the while the Terra
Firma rose and grew and peopled itself — as Amer
ica is now doing amid the buffets of two oceans.
It was a grand sight to see — that great, immov
able, progressive faith ; and the profuse billows of
French unbelief breaking into smoke or ever they
touched its mighty sides !
JEow came this ? Was the man intelligent ? He
was a philosopher by nature and training, and such
an effulgent thinker had not been seen for many
a day. Was he practical ? No man managed his
common affairs with more sobriety and discretion.
Was he a victim of the unaccountable phantasms
of youth or of age ? He was at the noon of his

144 FIFTH LECTURE.
great and well-balanced faculties. And yet what
a triumphant believer ! How shall we account
for him ? I will tell you. Years ago that man was
wholly without faith. Somehow his skeptical read
ing and his puzzling speculation had by degrees
taken away the God of his fathers. Look where
he might, there were no satisfactory signs of the
supernatural. He could see nothing but great
Nature. And from out his logical fogs he looked
with mingled pity and contempt on men simple
enough to believe. But, as said Plato, without
a God no man is at rest. So one day he caught
the light from a new angle. He was startled.
An immense Perhaps stared him in the face. He
became at once an earnest inquirer. He set him
self to examine the fundamental religious question
with as much pains as reasonable men use in their
very important secular concerns. He thought that
much was plainly reasonable. He also thought it
reasonable to invoke the God who might be, and
who, if real, could easily and abundantly help. So
he called freely on the possible Divinity — as a
man lost in the forest will sometimes lift up his
voice in loud calls for helpers whom he can neither
see nor hear, but who, for all that, may be near
at hand. — Another thing he did meanwhile. He
freely consulted that Book which above all others
credibly purported to be a Divine message. He
found its aroma very peculiar. It was not that of
materialism. He found its ways not like those of

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 145
man. Nothing like them in science or history or
business. Every verse had its face turned God-
ward. Every chapter stood gazing upward, like
the Christian apostles on Olivet. Every section
cried God — "Him first, Him last, Him middle,
Him without end." The whole credible message
gravitated, pointed, and prayed toward this great
Center. Gradually the habit of the Book became
the habit of the man. Gradually, as he read, he
felt himself lifted into purer airs and clearer pros
pects. Gradually, as he read, he felt a new sight
quickening and reaching forth from the depths of
the old — especially as he went on to test the mes
sage, according to its own invitation, by a personal
experiment on its adaptations to human wants and
the faithfulness of its promises. — And so he began
to live in such a way as made the thought of a right
eous God full pleasant. Then his faith ripened fast.
The vintage grew heavy and purple every day be
neath beams so bright and genial. And at last
the, man came to have, if not a Divinity, at least
a Divine work going forward bravely within him.
Great reforms took place. Great reconstructions of
character occurred. A structure far nobler than
the proud baronial halls in which he dwelt, arose
within him. And, withal, his soul with its real
though spiritual ear caught the sound of great spirit
ual processes of rectification and repair and cleans
ing and enlargement going on within its chambers,
and became conscious of being touched and lifted
10

146 FIFTH LECTURE.
and wrought by a wondrous agency not of this
world. — When the builder is doing little or no
work in my house, I may sit quietly, and quietly
look out of the window, and scarcely ever think of
there being such a person, though he is busy
through the village from morning to night. But
let him come into my own dwelling, and begin ex
tensive repairs — let him drive the axe and the
plane and the hammer with the energy of a strong
man in the very room I occupy — let him lever
and screw up the whole building to rest on a
new and higher foundation — let him take out old
and decayed timbers and replace them by new
ones, dig down my walls of plaster and panel
others for me in immortal oak, put up addition
after addition, and so go on with infinite hewing
and carving and beating to transform my hut
into a palace — can I help realizing that builder
then ! He will scarcely ever be out of my thoughts.
When my eye does not actually rest upon him,
there will still be in my mind a vivid picture of
his doings, as matters very real and very near —
especially if they are never carried on independ
ently of me, but with hourly reference to my
judgment and assent. — So it was with that great
believer. As soon as a thorough moral transfor
mation came to be fully in process within him, he
became aware of a Divine Builder as never be
fore. Spiritual senses asserted themselves. There
were spiritual sounds and motions and touches

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 147
and thrills which could not be mistaken. The
chambers were perfumed with a heavenly breath.
The corridors echoed to a heavenly step. A
heavenly voice sweetly rang through the vaulted
halls. He felt that he was experiencing God.
Communion with God was established — lo, it had
been said, " We will come unto him and make our
abode with him." So while God was building up
the character, He was just as fast building up
the faith, and fulfilling the promise that whoever
does His will shall know of the doctrine. Thus
it was the man became continental in faith. Thus
did he reach moral certainty. Thus did he see
his cornucopia filled to overflowing, and passed
almost beyond the power of understanding how
men could think of complaining of the obscurity
of God. And thus it came to pass that when he
died, it was with a far more confident expecta
tion of waking on God than he ever had, when
falling asleep, of opening his eyes the next morning
on his own ducal domains of Broglie.
Such was the method by which a seeing faith
came to him. And it has come in the same way
to many another. I take it on me to affirm that
it might come in the same way to all — to all
these men who are complaining of the scant light.
Let them try this specific. Let them try it, if
they would have moral certainty on the most im
portant of all questions. They cannot claim that
the method is not reasonable, plausible, and essen-

148 FIFTH LECTURE.
tially philosophic — if there is a God. It is such
as a God would not be unlikely to put men upon.
And it is fortified by an experience that deserves
to be called scientific. It is a principle of science,
carrying with it the universal suffrage of modern
scientific practice, that any objection to an hypothe
sis is sufficiently met when a simple, natural, and
perfectly credible way of solving it, in consistency
with that hypothesis, can be stated. But in this
case we have more than such a natural statement.
We have that supported by a wide experience and
induction. Let every believer in experimental and
inductive science take notice — until he also is able
to join that unsandaled and elect company which
in every age has not failed to look upward and
around with awe-stricken faces, and to softly say
with the supreme confidence of sight these purifying
words, " Thou compassest my path, Thou besettest
me behind and before. Whither shall I go from
Thy Spirit!"
Does any one imagine that such obscurity on the
being and majesty of God as may belong to such a
system of revelation as this, is not sufficiently
accounted for by our five veils — one of them, at
least, of indefinite thickness? I hold that the situ
ation of mankind in respect to Theistic light is very
like our situation in respect to sunlight on some fair
day of summer. There are floods of rays abroad.
High hill-top and profound valley shine. But some
men are in less sunny places than others, some look

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 149
forth from northern aspects, some live in smoky
Birminghams, some are inclosed in curtained and
shuttered houses, some are busy in sewers and
pits and coal-caves, and some are blind. "Why
is it so dark?" say some of these men. "What
darkness do you mean ? " I ask. " Do you mean
the darkness in your cloistered houses, your fum
ing furnaces, your subterranean dens ? Why, your
shutters and smoke and ceiling of opaque earth-
strata sufficiently account for that. Ascend from
your pit ; go forth a few miles from your smoky
Birmingham ; make your shutters and curtains de
scribe a full semicircle in favor of the day, and you
will find a wonderful improvement in the bright
ness and salubrity of your surroundings. No Les-
lian nor Wollaston gauge will be needed to ascer
tain it. But perhaps you mean a darkness on the
general face of Nature ? If so, then I have to say
that I have not discovered any particular scarcity
of light there — there seems to me enough for all
practical purposes ; indeed, it seems to me that
the amount of light is exceedingly great. Still I
am willing to admit that it is not as great as might
be. Were the earth to cease reeking its vapors ;
were the cloddy fields to change into pure and bur
nished gold ; were each slant ray to become a per
petual perpendicular ; especially were the sun itself
to draw nigh till all heliometers are abashed and
the whole sky is filled with its flaming disk, we
should have still more light: the want of these

150 FIFTH LECTURE.
things is so many veils before the majesty of the
sun, and all the dimness — if you please to call it
such — which you perceive they will sufficiently
account for. Would you have these veils removed ?
Then prepare to perish in the blaze ; or to part
with senses and reason in the appalling effulgence ;
or to have all objects reduced to the same dead
level of commonness by the undiscriminating and
perpetual dazzle ; or, finally, to become less vigor
ous, manly, virtuous persons than you now are —
perhaps like yonder enervate and voluptuous trop
ical Asiatic, sweltering alike in his sun and his sin
— do this, or totally change your natures. With
such natures and tendencies as you have, I think
that this bright temperate zone and this golden sun
of a half-degree diameter is the very best thing for
you — wonderfully better than a sun whose fiery
shield fills the whole astonished one hundred and
eighty degrees. Who has a right to deny it?
And pray, who has a right to deny that this bright
though tempered revelation of God which theists
claim, with men only held responsible for such
measure of light as they have, is the very best
revelation which could possibly be furnished to
fallen beings !

VI.
HARMONIES WITH NATURE.
'Apare eh tov ovpavov tovs 5(p6aXp,ovs, kol ip-ftXaj/aTe eh
ttjv yrjv kotu).
Zeus, Uvdp.rjV •yat^s Te kol ovpavov doTEpoEvros. Orpheus.

VI. Harmonies with Nature.
.. VASTNESS  157
x. VARIETY IN UNITY-  161
3. FINISH OF MINIMA  166
4. WISDOM  169
5. DYNAMICS  175
6. RELATION TO LAW  t8o
7. RELATION TO TIME AND MOTION  186
8. MYSTERY   191
9. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  196

SIXTH LECTURE.

HAEMONIES.
IN the last lecture I mentioned some sources of
obscurity which must embarrass a manifestation
of God ; namely, the narrowness of our intelligence,
the frailty of our bodies, the frailty of our reasons,
the frailty of our sensibility, and the sinfulness of
our hearts ; and then endeavored to show that
these will easily account for all the dimness of
Divine manifestation that intelligent theists will
admit to exist. Their admissions will be scanty.
It seems to them that the light is that of broad
summer day — admirably broad and brilliant,
though capable of being suppressed to any extent
by the personal habits of mankind.
This concludes what I have to say in answer to
objections to the doctrine of a God. These objec
tions are few. Atheists are more accustomed to as
sail the proof of the doctrine than the doctrine itself.
In coming to the positive evidences for the
Divine existence, we are met by the fact that
theists and atheists agree as to the advantage
of approaching the question of a Divine Being

154 SIXTH LECTURE.
with a mind freshly steeped in the leading facts
and courses of nature. The atheist claims that
nature makes on minds thoroughly imbued with
her spirit an impression adverse to faith ; and
points in evidence to some eminent cultivators
of the physical sciences who have been as skep
tical as they have been scientific. So he is in
favor of the study of nature. On the other hand,
the theist is in favor of it for the very oppo
site reason. He denies the atheism of science.
He refuses to infer it from the unbelief of some
French and German philosophers — with here and
there a second-rate English disciple — whose
minds from childhood have been poisoned with
the writings of Voltaire and his school, who have
seen around them only a grotesquely corrupted
form of religion, and whose private lives for the
most part were such as to make it greatly for
their interest to have no God. To him the case
of such exceptional men only shows the exceed
ing force of native depravity, evil training, evil
surroundings, and evil habits, at withstanding
the natural tendency of their pursuits. This
tendency he regards as strongly theistic. He
thinks he sees premonitions, prophecies, presump
tions, and even proofs of Divinity in the great
universe that expands around him ; and believes
that, other things being equal, the more fully
one comes under the influence of the astronomy,
the geology, and the other branches of natural

AUTHOR OF NATURE. 155
science whose findings have amazed mankind,
the more easily he will admit and the more
strongly he will hold, the doctrine of a Divine
Being. What all classes think it well to do, let us at
tempt. We will attempt to place our hearts .still
more fully en rapport with nature. We will, if
possible, get them into yet closer communication
and sympathy with its great leading facts and
courses. These are chiefly astronomical. Yet I
shall not restrict myself to astronomical facts,
technically so called, but shall allow myself to
gather from the whole of that broad field of
science of which astronomy is the undisputed
and all-comprehending Chief. And I can not but
think that the effect will be to preclude objec
tions, to furnish presumptions, and generally to
dispose the mind to a mighty faith in God. I
am persuaded that any man who can be fairly
set down in the midst of nature, and thrown
honestly open to all its subtle inductions, mag
netisms, inspirations, will silently drink in theism,
as a fleece spread out under the stars drinks in
the dew.
Suppose it claimed that a certain veiled paint
ing is the work of Titian. If, on gradually lifting
the veil, we find exclusively trait after trait such
as might have been expected iii a work by that
great master, our disposition to think favorably of
the claim increases with every step : and if, when

156 SIXTH LECTURE.
the canvas is entirely exposed, every leading fea
ture seems Titianic and the whole worthy of
such an author, our minds are far advanced
toward faith — they are in a state of high prep
aration for any ulterior evidence, and only com
paratively little of it will be required to secure
full conviction. And this is reasonable. Pre
vious to examination, how could we be sure that
there were not lurking under that veil incompat
ibilities, or at least disagreements ? Now our
uncertainty is removed. We have found positive
harmonies. The facts match the claim. The
picture is such as might have been expected from
Titian — -such indeed as he would surely have
painted. His great characteristics are strikingly
here. And these are so many verisimilitudes, so
many presumptions in favor of the claim : and, in
the absence of all evidence to the contrary, at
least authorize the critic to stand at the very
verge of assent, facing it kindly and with foot
uplifted, ready to cross the border at the first
competent invitation. Let such an invitation
come in the shape of an assurance that the paint
ing is almost universally accepted as the work of
Titian, especially among the most intelligent and
fair-minded judges ; further, that the hypothesis
which ascribes the work to him is, as compared
with other hypotheses, altogether the simplest,
the least embarrassed, the most useful, as well as
the most historical — this would and should plant
his feet in the very center of faith.

VAST2TESS OF N AZURE. 157
Now it is claimed that nature is the work of
God. Let us, step by step, unveil its leading
features and see if they do not strikingly harmo
nize with the claim : and, as they may be found
to do so, let unbelief approach its frontier ; and,
when at last the general scheme of nature appears
characteristic and worthy of God, let the traveler
at least stand on the last boundary of his chill
and somber territory, all ready to cross with de
cisive and ringing step into a brighter land at
the-first summons of the positive evidence.
What I propose, then, in the present lecture, is
to illustrate the general harmony between nature
and the doctrine of a God. Of course, a few
specimen illustrations are all that can be offered.
One will do well to feel the pulse of nature still
more fully in the works of Ray and Good and
Paley, in the Bridgewater Treatises, and in later
works of the same character.
One of the most striking features of what we
call Nature is its vastuess.
I do not forget that I am speaking to those who
have become familiar with the wonders of physical
science. But neither do I forget that even the
scholar must refresh his impressions of things in
very much the same way with other men. So I ask
you to think of plains stretching to the horizon ;
of mountains piercing the clouds ; of roomy con
tinents anchored in roomier oceans ; of this whole
earth-sphere, with its huge baldric of twenty-five

158 SIXTH LECTURE.
thousand miles, covered with innumerable ve
getable products, peopled with men to the poten
tial figure of a thousand millions, swarming still
more potentially with the lower animals, and so
flooded with microscopic life that almost every
cubic inch of air and water and soil is panting
with an incalculable population, — some of whose
smaller individuals multiply themselves into
one hundred and seventy billions in four days ;
gather their five hundred millions in a single
drop of water ; and yet make up, with the stony
cerements of the merest- fraction of their fossil
ancestry, whole mountains and geologic beds.
Such is our world. Out in yonder vault, find
that millionfold world which we call the sun,
with its invisible retinue of a hundred earths;
out in yonder vault, wheir night falls, find a
thousand suns similarly attended ; with tube
Galilean, thousands more; with tube Herschel-
ian, millions more ; with tube Rossian, billions
more. Is this the end ? What astronomer for
one moment imagines that another enlargement
of the great speculum at Parsonstown would
show our vision to be already hard up against
the frontiers of nature ? Not even Darwin doubts
that successive improvements in the space-pene
trating power of our instruments would go on
indefinitely opening up firmaments at every step.
Where is the verge of the universe ? Who would
undertake the roll-call of its orbs ? Who dares

VASTNESS OF NATURE. 159
to say that he could count through the grand
total of its firmaments, even though he should
count a thousand years ? Figures go but a small
way toward expressing the dimensions of such a
universe — whether one considers the number of
its worlds, or the expanse of space through which
they are distributed. Our world spins round its
ellipse, of well-nigh two hundred million axis,
without ever having a neighbor nearer than
thirty millions of miles, save its own moon.
The interval between our sun and -the nearest
star of the same galactic nebula is twelve hun
dred thousand times this distance. And then
the distance from nebula to nebula — it is abso
lutely awful. Our telescopes sweep a sphere of
stars whose diameter is seven millions of years, as
light travels. Calculation covers its abashed face
with its great wings in the presence of these over
whelming amplitudes. And such is nature !
Certainly such a universe as this does not cry
out- against the existence of a God whose essen
tial attribute is immensity. On the contrary, it
is just such a universe as one would have ex
pected to come from such a being. Nay, given a
Deity who is practically at home in every point
of space, whose attributes are laid out on a scale
of unbounded vastness, to whom it is just as easy
to make and govern a trillion of worlds as it is a
grain of sand, and the imperial fitness of things
would demand that 1 e people vacancy with very

160 SIXTH LECTURE. .
much that profusion and breadth ,»f being that
we actually see. The work ought to express and
honor the workman. And when I am told of an
author of nature who is immense with a three
fold boundlessness of intelligence, might, and
years ; so that to him our great and small, our
far and near, our center and circumference —
though that circumference sweep around all the
expanses of modern astronomy — are practically
the same ; so that he can properly challenge, "Do
not I fill heaven and earth ? " — when I am told
of this, and I then place myself out under the
open dome of nature, amid its exuberant objects
and marvelous stretches, I feel myself silently
drinking in predispositions to faith as the fleece
spread out under the open heaven drinks in the
dew. I feel that the doctrine matches facts ; that
the theory has in its favor a comprehensive veri
similitude and presumption ; that Nature, instead
of saying, " There is no immense God," signifi
cantly asks, in a tone of encouragement and with
a look of incipient expectation, " Is there not such
a Being ? " In fine, I feel that our slight lifting
of the veil from the painting has disclosed a fea
ture strikingly characteristic of the great master
to whom the work is attributed — a feature which,
in the absence of all counter-evidence, naturally
sets our faces faithward — one, of several har
monies which, as successively presented, will war
rant us in looking faithward with evergrowing
kindliness of aspect.

VARIETY IN UNITY. 161
Notice with me the variety in unitj that char
acterizes Nature.
Some hundreds of millions of creatures on our
earth are so'much alike that we put them into a
class by themselves and call them men. They are
all alike in certain fundamental features ; and yet
each man differs materially, both in body and soul,
from every other man. So of every other class
of things — animal, vegetable, inorganic ; while
there is a sub-stratum of unity among the mem
bers of each, on account of which they are
classed together, there is not one which is not
very unlike, in many respects, all its fellows. All
animals have great points in common : but how
many, many sorts of animals ; and how great the
difference between the eagle and the microscopic
mote, between the cetus and the polyp, between
the most perfect man (body and soul) and the
rudest of the polypi ! All vegetables are similar
ly constituted : but whose memory can master all
the distinct kinds of vegetables in the wide intep-
val between the spire of grass and the huge tree
that wrestles victoriously with stormy centuries ;
and reckon up the great differences that exist, as
to shape and size and color and flavor and odor,
among fruits and flowers and leaves and grasses
and shrubs and trees. Great threads of unity
obviously connect all the forms of terrestrial
being, organic and inorganic ; but this we know,
that, if only single specimens of all the plainly

162 SIXTH LECTURE.
separated species were attempted to be brought
together into one Crystal Palace of a museum, we
should have to roof in empires, instead of acres,
in order to accommodate their mighty array : and as
our eye would run over the whole superb collec
tion, and at last bring together the two termini —
viz., the material man and the material stone
just crumbling into dust — our sense would be
that of a miraculous diversity efflorescing out of
the unity of our world. So with those other
worlds that shine or hide in the vault above.
They are all spheres, all have orbitual and prob
ably axial motions, all are governed by the same
principle and law of gravitation, all are lighted
and colored and warmed by the same mysterious
element or impulse ; but on such basal unity is
superimposed an almost infinite variety. Observe
our solar system. One member of it is self-lu
minous, and, relatively to the other members, a
nearly stationary body ; the others are dark, and
far-waudering planets. One is one hundred miles
in diameter, another nearly one hundred thou
sand, while still another contains more than
eight hundred times as much matter as all the
remainder of the system can boast. Some have
atmospheres and seas, others have neither. Some
have moons, others have none. Saturn rides
forth in the poop of three great equatorial rings,
as well as of eight moons ; no other planet is simi
larly furnished. These orbs of our system differ

VARIETY IN UNITY. 163
greatly in density — one is as lead, another as
cork, another still is mere vapor. One receives
seven times as much light from the sun as
we, another only a three hundred and sixtieth
part of as much. Neptune's year is equal to
one hundred and sixty-five of our years. Saturn's
day is only one-half of our day. Of course
the products and scenery of these worlds, as
well as the constitution of their inhabitants,
must differ exceedingly. But pass we on to
the region of the fixed stars. Have we es
caped into immeasurable uniformity out of im
measurable variety ? Lo ! we skirt systems, clus
ters, firmaments, and never two alike, while some
stand apart by whole universes of difference !
Lo, systems with several suns each, from one to a
hundred ! Lo, systems lighted, some with white
suns, some with ruby, some with emerald, and
some with suns of many different colors ! Lo,
suns differing exceedingly in size and amount of
light they shed : for the great Sirius that flashes
first magnitudes on all our charts as well as on
the dazzled retina of the savage, is not as near
to us as the little 61 Cygni, and its light must
be equal to that of two hundred and fifty suns
like our own ! Alcyone shines with a force
of twelve thousand suns. And then we have
suns themselves combined into systems of all
sizes and shapes — systems of two, of three,
of many, of millions, — firmaments which, un-

164 SIXTH LECTURE.
der the name of nebula?, are .he last gen
eralization and most stupendous variety of mod
ern discovery : sometimes rolled up into spheres :
sometimes gathered into circular or elliptic rings ;
now fan-shaped ; now like an hour-glass ; now
broad wheels of compacted suns, large, glitter
ing, and sublime enough to under-roll the chariot
of immeasurable God. There are not two leaves
or grass-blades perfectly alike in all this verdant
world ; not two worlds, nor systems of worlds,
accurately alike in all the prodigious realms of
astronomy. Now no one, to say the least, can claim that this
vast variety imbosomed in unity makes positively
against the idea of one Creator of boundless in
vention and executive faculty. On the contrary,
it is just what we should have expected from such
a being. Given just such a many-sided, versatile,
complete Deity as is affirmed — we should say
that, in case he should set himself to produce a
vast universe, he would be likely to produce one
in which great outlines of unity would be steeped
in immeasurable variation ; one in which resem
blance and diversity, both robed and featured like
goddesses, would hold each other by the hand
and go treading with wedded and festival step up
and down the whole quickened area. Nay, this
sort of universe one would make sure of finding ;
would be greatly disappointed if he should not
find. The eternal laws ol his own nature would

VARIETY IN UNITY. 165
demand it of the Great Builder. The invin
cible beauty and fitness of things would de
mand it. . Perfect uniformity, however piled up
in magnificent magnitudes — even a uniformity
only varied after so cramped and frugal a fashion
as would be perpetually suggesting poverty of re
sources — would belie the inexhaustible Divinity.
If he build at all, he must not misrepresent and
disparage himself in his work ; his fruitful na
ture, teeming with all imaginable fertilities and
seeds, must surely blossom into very much that
marvelous fruitfulness of product and pattern
which we observe. And when I am told of an
author of nature whose being swarms in resistless
force toward every point of the compass, nay of the
sphere ; who is both a unit and a polygon, facing
every desideratum and possibility with a flashing
side, both of thought and action, that out-dazzles
the sun — when I am told that such a being is
the author of nature, and I then put myself
forth under the open dome amid the glorious di
versities that root themselves in the glorious
unity of nature, and open myself freely to all
their subtle suggestions and magnetisms, I feel
myself drinking in predispositions to faith, as the
exposed fleece drinks in the dew. I feel that
again the doctrine matches facts, that again the
theory has a comprehensive verisimilitude and pre
sumption, that Nature instead of saying that
there is no God whose unity is arborescent

166 SIXTH LECTURE.
with endless varieties of beauty and power, sig
nificantly asks, " Is there not such a Being ? In
fine, I feel that our continued lifting of. the veil
from the painting has disclosed a second trait
strikingly characteristic of the Great Master to
whom the work is attributed ; a trait which, added
to the first, warrants our faithward look in taking
on new kindliness of aspect.
Another characteristic of nature deserving of
notice is the perfection of its details.
The exquisite finish of nature in its minutest
parts is about as wonderful as its vastness and va
riety. Scan that leaf. Examine the wing of that
butterfly. Let the tinted and polished antennae
of that moth glitter in the focus of your instru
ment. Subject to the skilfullest notice of science
and art the smallest veins of any animal or vege
table. Push the analysis just as far as possible,
and submit that last visible minimum of organi-
zationin the crystalline lens of the cod, with its five
millions of muscles and sixty thousand millions
of teeth, to the most searching criticism of the su-
perbest microscope. What exquisite details !
What elaborate refinement of workmanship ! It
is not as with some master-piece of human paint
ing — the main points only cared for, while all
the subordinate are too rude to bear close inspec
tion. Titian painted this landscape. Well, it is
worthy of him — the general effect is beautiful.
Yet, if you approach, and closely examine the fo-

FINISH OF MINIMA. 167
liage of the trees, the grass with which the can
vas is green, or even the limbs and features of
the animals, they will be found very coarsely and
incorrectly executed. The microscope turns the
most finished work of man into coarseness and
clumsiness — indeed, almost immediately carries
the' sight where traces of skill have totally disap
peared. Not so with the works of nature. A
real landscape you may analyze to your heart's
content, and inspect its details as critically as
eye armored with lens can do, without finding
the workmanship growing less exquisite the fur
ther you push inquiry. A real man — you may
descend to the minutest particulars of his organi
zation, and get as near its primary elements as
an Ehrenberg with his superb instruments and
practiced vision can carry you, without finding
the least falling off from that delicacy of execu
tion which appears on the larger masses and out
lines of the body. So everywhere among natural
objects — the great and the small, the outlines
and the minute filling-up, as far as utmost optical
resources can carry our observation, are wrought
with apparently the same overflowing outlay of
attention and skill. It is not so in a few instances
merely, nor in a thousand — it is so universally.
That there are any so preposterous as to think
that, this feature of nature makes positively
against the idea of a sparrow-watching, hair-num
bering, and thought-weighing God is, of course,

168 SIXTH LECTURE.
not to be imagined. Of course, it is a feature
that fully harmonizes with such an idea. A na
ture finished exquisitely down to the most infinites
imal of its details is just what one would have
predicted from a God of this description. An
nounced the fact that He was about to create,
and expectation would have stood on tiptoe to look
for just such a nature as we see. A God for whose
vision nothing is too small, who necessarily gives
as complete attention to the affairs of an atom as
to those of an empire, who can concentrate his
almightiness with as much freedom and accuracy
on a mathematical point as on a world, who is
embarrassed no more by unlimited multiplicity
than by unlimited minuteness of details, who can
with equal ease paint a landscape on the point of
a needle — say, if you please, forty thousand of
such landscapes at once, with all their innumera
ble and minima particulars, back of the reticu
lated eyes of a single butterfly — can with equal
ease do this, and roll a solar system on its tri
umphant path about the Pleiades ; do I not know
that a being with such a striking attribute as this
would surely give it expression in his works ? Do
I not know that he who is equally at home in
maxima and minima, and to whom beauties and
glories in the world of infinitesimals would be just
as apparent and practicable as they are in the
world of infinites, would lay himself out on the
one very much as on the other — would effulge

WISDOM OF NATURE. 169
himself into the microcosmos very much as into
the cosmos ? When, then, I am told that such a
being is the author of nature, and I proceed to
place myself out under the open dome amid the
exquisite elaborations that swarm on every hand
down through the veriest miracles of littleness
and detail, and to uncover myself candidly to all
their subtle whisperings and magnetisms, I feel
myself softly drinking in predispositions to faith,
as the exposed fleece drinks in the dew, I so feel
the force of a doctrine matching facts, and but
tressing itself again and again with comprehen
sive verisimilitudes and presumptions, that to
me nature becomes articulate, and, instead of
swearing with uplifted hand that there is no
wondrous God, significantly points upward, and,
with bated breath and expectant look, asks, " Is
there not such a Being ? " — in fine, I feel that
our continued lifting of the veil from the paint
ing has disclosed another characteristic of the
Great Master to whom the work is attributed, the
third of those several harmonies which, as suc
cessively presented, warrant us in looking faith
ward with ever-growing kindliness of aspect.
Another feature of Nature is what I shall call
its wisdom.
The world is full of what, if accepted as the
work of an intelligent being, would be called con
trivances — adaptations of means to ends — often
of the most complex and elaborate description.

170 SIXTH LECTURE.
For example, the birds — how admirably adapted
to flying ; in shape, feathers, bones, wings ! The
fishes — how adapted to swimming and life in the
water ; witness their shape, their smooth and
unctuous scales, their pairs of fins, their tails and
gills ! The land-animals — how adapted to walk
ing and running and feeding on the earth's sur
face ; to eat the grass or catch their special prey !
The trees — how adapted to stand firmly ; by their
roots, their perpendicularity, their balanced
branches, their moderate flexibility — how adapt
ed for shade, for abating the violence of winds,
for fuel ! Or, if you will consider particular or
gans of the organic tribes, .look at the bark of
trees as related to their nourishment, at the web-
foot in its double relation to land and water, at
the teeth and other preparers of food for the
stomach, at the stomach as a preparer of food for
the blood, at the lungs as purifiers of the blood,
at the heart as the engine for forcing the blood to
all parts of the system, at the hand as the general
servant of the whole body ; in short, at almost any
organ of either animal or vegetable structures.
The adaptations are wonderful. They are physi
cal miracles — the means are shaped and applied
to the ends so exactly, beautifully, triumphantly.
For example, no work of human ingenuity that
ever you saw is equal to that natural marvel, the
human eye — an organ having reference to an
element quite external to itself, whose chief source

WISDOM OF NATURE. 171
is millions of leagues distant ; and also to millions
of external objects which* compose our scenery of
earth and sky — an organ placed in the most ele
vated part of the body so as to command the most
extensive prospect ; placed in the front so as most
readily to preside over the direction in which we
habitually move ; placed in a strong bony socket
which defends it from the heavier external in
juries ; imbedded in a soft cushion, so that its del
icate texture can not be hurt by the bony walls
around it, as it rests on them, and turns swiftly
hither and thither at the bidding of the will ;
furnished with lids, like curtains, to close over it
iii sleep, to wipe it, to cut off the outer rays of
light that would confuse vision, to protect it by
their involuntary and instantaneous shutting
against the lighter kind of injuries ; furnished
with an apparatus of muscles by which it can be
rapidly turned at choice in any direction, so as to
vary the field of vision as the needs of life may
suggest ; furnished with a self-acting system of
appliances by which the ball is kept lubricated for
easy movement; furnished with a conduit to
carry off the superfluous moisture; furnished
with just that shape, out of ten thousand possible
shapes, which mathematicians have demonstrated
to be the only one which can refract all the rays
of light to a single surface, and thus afford dis-
t/'act vision, viz., that of an ellipsoid of revolu
tion ; furnished with a retina or natural canvas

172 SIXTH LECTURE.
on which its pictures of external objects can be
formed, of just the right size, and at just the right
distance behind the lenses of the eye ; furnished
with lenses of different substances having differ
ent refractive powers, thereby preventing the light
from being resolved into the prismatic colors, and
thus misrepresenting and uniforming objects ; fur
nished in front with a perforated membrane that
by self-adjustment adapts it to different degrees
of light, also with a system of pulleys and liga
ments that at a moment's warning alter its con
vexity and the relative position of parts so as
to adapt it to objects at different distances and,
what is more wonderful than all, provided in
some inscrutable manner with the means of ex
pressing the mind itself, so that one may look into
its crystal depths and see intellectuality and scorn
and wrath and love, and almost every spiritual
state and action. Now, if this is not an amazing
congeries of adaptations, there is and can be noth--
ing amazing. If found to be the work of a human
artist, it would be called a perfect marvel of in
genuity and wisdom. And yet some insects have
twenty thousand such eyes combined into one.
But the eye is only one among an infinity of
natural contrivances. Animate and inanimate
nature is mountainous and glittering with them.
Down into the regions of the infinitely small,
whither only the most searching microscopes car
ry the sight ; up into the regions of the infinitely

WISDOM OF NATURE. 173
large and far, whither only mightiest telescopes
lift our struggling knowledge ; among the mech
anisms of the atomic nations that people a sin
gle leaf, and among the mechanisms of those
swarming celestial empires whose starry banners
sweep our nightly skies — it is everywhere the
same ; exquisite adaptations crowding exquisite
adaptations, profound contrivances (so inven
tors and mechanicians would be tempted to call
them) heaped on profound contrivances, in such
endless amounts and varieties of wise structure,
as exhausts all human understanding and dwarfs
into nothingness all the products of human in
genuity. Does such a nature as this swear against a
Divine Contriver. Does it protest against him, or
testify against him, or breathe even a suspicion
against him ? • Many absurd things are done in the
world : but it will be hard to find the man who will
care to deny the positive and emphatic harmony
between the doctrine of an omniscient and omnip
otent God and a universe crowded with such
splendors of natural mechanics. A God of end
less invention, and whose powerful and skilled
hands can magnificently realize all that he has
magnificently- planned — we should expect that
such a being, iu case he should create a nature,
would set it all ablaze with the monuments of
his supreme intelligence and power — should be
disappointed to find no such monuments, but, in

174 SIXTH LECTURE.
their stead, mere stupidity or tameness of work.
We should call the work unworthy of the work
man. Nay, we should hasten to say to ourselves
that we must have mistaken him — He could
really be nothing more than such a petty divinity
as the poor heathen have fabled to themselves.
For we should be sure that one having unlimited
command of ways and means, both as a knower
and worker, would display it in his works. It
being just as easy for him to have exquisite
adaptations, and a gloriously endless variety of
them, as to have no adaptations at all — it is
plain what sort of nature he ought to make and
would make. Now let me be told of a framer of
nature in whom are hid all the treasures of wis
dom and knowledge, whose light has in it no dark
ness at all, whose smallest deeds have from the
hoary everlasting been pavilioned and charioted
toward being amid the glories of Almighty Om
niscience ; and I then place myself out under
the open dome mid the wilderness of wonderful
constructions and chemistries, and candidly un
cover myself to all their subtle sympathies and
magnetisms — I feel myself, all silently, drinking
in predispositions to faith, as the exposed fleece
drinks in the dew. I feel that the God who is af
firmed is just the God to match the nature which
I see — here the ball and there the socket, here
the foot Titanic and there its footprint, here the
shapely hand and there its glove, here the sover-

POWER OF NATURE. 175
eign sword and there the golden scabbard that just
fits it — that these noble adaptations and mechan
isms, spangling and blazoning all the fields of
matter, are in rejoicing sympathy with the idea
of a Creator who is wonderful in counsel and ex
cellent in working; that the alabaster-box of
precious wisdom that has been emptied, not only
on the queenly head and shining tresses of Na
ture but on her very feet, scents bravely of One
who is himself a " mountain of such spikenard ; "
that, in fact, the theory is again smiled upon
by a comprehensive verisimilitude and presump
tion ; that Nature, instead of swearing with
uplifted hand that there is no All-wise Creator,
with flushed cheek and upward-glancing eye of
expectation, significantly asks, " Is there not such
a Being ? " In fine, I feel that our continued
lifting of the veil from the painting has disclosed
still another characteristic of the Great Master
to whom the work is attributed ; has cleared up
another stretch of that vista at the end of which
is Titian at his easel — the fourth of those several
harmonies, which, as successively presented, war
rant us in looking faithward with ever-growing
kindliness of aspect.
Another striking feature of Nature is its power.
No contemptible degree of force resides in the
muscles of some men — the Samsons and Milos
of their time. Huge rocks are lifted, tough oaks
are riven, great structures are shaken down by

176 SIXTH LECTURE.
their hands. Many brute animals display still
greater muscular strength ; witness the elephant,
and those gigantic mammals which towered
and ruled over the post-tertiary savannas. A
combination of animal forces with what are called
the mechanical powers often generates measures
of force more striking still ; and when men stand
by such piles as the Egyptian pyramids, they are
deeply impressed, with the prodigious uplift that
must have put those mighty blocks in their high
places. But it is to inanimate nature that we
must go for our most brilliant examples of phys
ical force. What power in the wind, when, as a
tornado, it sweeps along at more than one hun
dred miles an hour ; demolishing mansions, up
rooting forests, and lifting ponderous ships far in
land 011 their eddies ! What power in the ocean-
swell as it tosses an entire navy to the skies with
apparently as much ease as if it were a single
cockle-shell ! — What is this that comes rushing
through the landscape with smoky breath and
thunderous step, dragging thousands of tons at
the pace of winds ? Within that flying iron cra
ter is imprisoned one of nature's brawniest forces,
steam — throwing off feats of toil with its vaporous
arms, which arms of flesh and blood have never
even been fabled to do. — What have we here ? A
few barrels filled with very simple black grains.
One has but to drop a spark among them to wit
ness a sudden development of power that shall

POWER OF NATURE. 177
deafen earth and heaven with its voice, and lift; a
city into mid-air. — Would you see a mightier
energy still ? It is the year 1755. An unwonted
trembling stirs the air and ground of Lisbon. In
a few moments the broad city is in heaps. The
plain around runs in waves, like the sea when
lashed by a tempest. See — the distant moun
tain-ranges themselves impetuously shake and
rend and topple ; Europe, to the Highlands of
Scotland, heaves ; heaves Africa ; heaves the
whole broad Atlantic, with all its huge gravi
ties, from the Pillars of Hercules to the New
World ! When oceans and continents are so
tossed and shot aloft, what stalwart shoulders of
gas and steam and fire are heaving at the mighty
burden ! Other forces among us are not small ; but
this of the earthquake is easy king over all these
terrestrial children of pride. Terrestrial, I say :
but there are forces not terrestrial which are of a
still huger and loftier pattern — celestial forces,
to which those of our earth are what the bubble-
globules of the children are to the globed worlds
of space. When such a planet as Jupiter is
moving at the rate of some thirty thousand miles
an hour ; when such a sun as ours is moving at
the rate of some three thousand miles a minute ;
when such a nebula as our Milky Way, with its
eighteen millions of suns, goes wheeling at the
same average speed about its center of gravity
— there is a momentum for you, a magazine

178 SIXTH LECTURE.
of force by the side of which earthquakes are
puny, and all the stormy winds that ever blus
tered and fought in their fabled caves mere zeros !
Some say that there is but one force in all nature
— none perhaps more apt to say it than the
rejecters of the supernatural — that the forces
which pump and assimilate and reject in every
blade of grass and leaf and animal fiber ; the
forces that throb in every ray of light and heat
and electricity and magnetism, the forces that
swell and toil in every atom of matter, the me
chanical forces, the chemical forces, the spiritual
forces, the forces here and the forces yonder to
the universe's last suburb — that all these forces,
with their incomprehensible sum-total of simul
taneous impulses, are, after all, but branches of
one great central force pushing outward in an in
finite variety of directions and forms. If this is
so — and who is competent to positively deny it —
what a single force that is which can diffuse itself
over so immense an area, and divide itself so in
finitely, and yet thunder away at special points
with such marvelous and terrible energy ! If
this is not so, still what a. wondrous hive of
swarming and independent dynamics in this wide
nature of ours !
Of course, no one could have the hardihood to
say that a nature stocked with such energies as
these makes positively against the doctrine of a
Creator who is himself an Almighty Force. On

POWER OF NATURE. 179
the contrary, there is a friendly harmony between
the doctrine and the fact. Were we to find in
actual existence a Personal Power to whom noth
ing is impossible, and learn that he is about to
produce a universe, we should expect to see pro
duced just such a wonderfully strong nature as we
actually have — a nature peopled with strengths,
momenta, brawny agencies of most imposing forms
and magnitudes. A weak system, a system that
is puny in its operations and trifling in its effects,
would misrepresent him — shall I not say, would
be unworthy of him ? Most persons would cer
tainly eall it unsuitable ; would say that his
very nature as an Infinite Power would demand
of him that he should produce a system that
would be continually turning out the greatest re
sults, and so must include forces of the greatest
efficiency. When, then, I am told that a Sublime
Force, who has Almighty for his name, is the au
thor of nature ; and I then proceed to place my
self out under the open dome amid the pulsings
and tossings of innumerable and sometimes im
measurable momenta, and so lay myself honestly
open to all their subtle hints and magnetisms; I
feel myself silently drinking in predispositions to
faith as the exposed fleece drinks in the dew — I
feel that the doctrine matches facts ; that the as
serted creator and creation fit each other as do
the die and the face of the coin which it has
stamped ; that the theory has at least the bene-

180 SIXTH LECTURE.
diction of yet another verisimilitude and presump
tion ; that Nature, instead of making oath with se
rene brow and uplifted hand, that there is no won
drous God, significantly asks, with abashed voice,
" Is there not such a Being ? " — in fine, I feel
that, as the veil continues to rise from the face of
the painting, it reveals still another characteristic
of the Great Master, clears up another stretch of
that vista which conducts the sight toward Titian
bending over his canvas — the fifth of those sever
al harmonies which, as successively presented,
warrant us in looking faithward with ever-grow
ing kindliness of aspect.
Another feature of Nature is its remarkable re
lation to law.
Notice law and its exceptions — the general
steadfastness of modes of being and action in na
ture, and the occasional breaches in that stead
fastness. On the earth's surface, in its dark interior, in
the air and vault above, in the instant present and
the ancient past — everywhere, law waves its
mighty scepter. Atoms and masses, the ponder
ables and inponderables, the organic and inor
ganic, the living and dead — all are evidently
subjected in their modes of being and action to
certain fixed rules, sometimes particular, but
more often covering whole classes of objects.
Not a particle floats at random or as a unit : not
a leaf grows or falls save according to rigid gene-

RELATION TO LAW. 181
ral principles of science. All chemical elements
have their modes and measures of combination to
which they steadfastly adhere. All heat, electri
city, magnetism, gravity, act according to abiding
methods which philosophers have gradually dis
covered and arranged into the sciences of natural
philosophy. The great processes of vegetable and
animal life proceed after the same forms and steps,
from age to age. The stone beds of the world are
formed and modified in certain set ways which
are the same now as in the periods anterior to
man. Even the weather, so often called fickle,
has its stable methods ; almost every year bring
ing to light some new general fact in meteorology,
or extending the application of an old one. Day
and night succeed each other, every twenty-four
hours, without variation. The seasons do not
change their order or general character. All of
Kepler's and Newton's laws are as operative to
day as they ever have been since their discovery.
The planets shoot round the sun and are circled
by their own moons, on substantially the same
elliptical orbits, in the same times, and with the
same principles of alternate retardation and accel
eration as of old. All known changes in the plan
etary orbits have been found to be bound in a
law of periodicity which is apparently invariable.
So beyond the solar system. Law still ; nothing
but law; law everywhere on ten thousand bla
zing thrones ; largely the same laws that prevail

182 SIXTH LECTURE.
iii our own system ! As far as we can observe—
and it is no little that has been observed — those
distant orbs reverence the various principles of
gravitation and mechanics, and keep as rigidly to
their behests, as when the earliest astronomy gazed
at them from its rude Uraniberg of a hill-top.
And every man of science is well persuaded that,
could his observation alight on particular orbs of
those remote and twinkling hosts, he would find
their minutest details bound up in the chains of
the same adamantine regularity that rules our
own globe.
So in general we speak. But we must not be
understood to speak with absolute precision of
language. In this wide scene of steadfast ar
rangements, there are outbreaks of anomaly —
ruptures and rents and dislocations in the habits
and ongoings of nature, like those in the strata
of the earth. It is a settled law of nature that
like shall produce like ; yet from perfect animals
and vegetables occur occasional monstrosities of
organization. It is a settled course of nature
that certain substances, called poisons, if freely
introduced into animal systems, destroy life ; yet
now and then a man is found who is even nour
ished by these agents of destruction. It is a fixed
mode of nature that frost withers flat foliage ; yet
the flat leaves of the wild laurel flourish out our
hardest winters. It is a fixed way of nature that
the heavenly bodies move in ellipses ; yet there

RELATION TO LAW. 183
is reason to believe that some comets have been
found moving on the curve called a parabola.
The steadfast habit of nature is against a general
planetary deluge, or conflagration, or glacier-
period, or destructive convulsion ; yet such disas
ters, if geology may be trusted, have several times
occurred, at immense intervals, in the history of
our own planet. Great exceptional events ;
phenomena without fellows through an astonish
ing stretch of ages ; what have the appearance
of broad fractures and dislocations of nature,
though in reality they may be the rare resultants
and accumulations of innumerable natural forces
and laws crossing each other in all directions ;
the entire destruction and rehabilitation of animal
and vegetable species — such events have taken
place on this globe again and again. Repeatedly
has the earth been drowned and torn in pieces.
It has been piled with snow and ice from pole to
pole. It has been all ablaze and fused. And is
it not on the idea of such a conflagration that wo
can best account for the new stars that have some
times flashed suddenly on the sight with all the
splendor of Venus at its brightest, and, after a
few months of changing color and gradual decay,
finally disappeared ? Thus in the bosom of a
general steadfastness are found occasional out
breaks of anomaly. It is as among the geologic
strata — where are found faults, dislocations, fis
sures, and even reversions of those great rock-

184 SIXTH LECTURE.
beds which in general are laid down on a plan of
utmost regularity. The course of nature is like
some great tlioroughfare, which advances through
great distances without the slightest solution of
its continuity, but at last finds a great river thrust
squarely across its track. On this side the thor
oughfare, on that side the thoroughfare, and here
the broad, deep flow of the bridgeless river —
a river worth to the public, it may be, many
times what the perfect continuity of the road
would be.
Now this much is certain. No one can say that
this characteristic of nature makes positively
against such a steadfast and yet miracle-working
God as is affirmed in the Christian Scriptures.
Instead of opposition, there is positive harmony
between the fact and the doctrine. Indeed, such
a nature as is observed is just what one would
have expected to come from such a Creator as is
taught. Nay, as general laws are necessary to
make science possible, to enable men to forecast
and profit by experience, to serve as a basis for all
comprehensive business and for all civil govern
ment — as the broader and profounder the intel
ligence, the more it is pleased with and tends to
work by general principles, we may say that the
very nature and circumstances of Deity would de
mand of him, in caso he should create, to create a
generally steadfast, law-abiding universe. At the
same time, a miracle-worker — one who sees acer-

RELATION TO LAW. 185
tain essential imperfection and intractability in
secoid causes, preventing their matching on all
occasions the perfection of his ideas ; who, more
over, sees it undesirable to allow mere nature to
hide its Maker altogether behind its swarming
screen, and give to the ideas of necessity and fatal
ity full sweep in human minds — I say, such a
being would be under a loud call to provide in the
constitution and course of nature such sugges
tions and prophecies of miracles as would gradu
ally, though perhaps unconsciously to them, pre
pare the minds of men for those crowning
abnormals of the system. He must have the
glory of his personal agency glimmer through
occasional rents in the uniformity of nature.
An anomaly-sprinkled, miracle-suggesting, as well
as stable, universe must proceed from his won
drous hand. He would be in conflict with
himself were he to produce any other. And
when I am told of one who is actually just
this sort of divinity — both law and miracle :
both giver and keeper to an almost infinite
extent of moral laws which shall not pass away ;
while his iron will, throned as supremely in
the realm of matter as of morals, yet launches
forth into special providences and miracles on
extraordinary occasions — when I am told of
him, and I then place myself out under the
open dome amid the massive but occasionally
rifted uniformities, and open myself freely to all

1 86 SIXTH LECTURE.
their subtle hints and magnetisms, I feel myself
softly drinking in predispositions to faith, as the
exposed fleece drinks in the dew. I feel that the
doctrine and the facts are at one ; that the asserted
Creator and the observed creation fit each other
as do the signet and the seal just stamped ; that
another verisimilitude spreads blessing, if trem
ulous, hand over the theory ; that Nature in
stead of sonorously swearing that there is no
Divine Being whose double name is Law and Mira
cle, significantly asks, with abashed and startled
tones, " Is there not such a Being ? " In fine, I
feel that, as the veil continues to rise from the face
of the painting, it reveals still another character
istic of the Great Master, clears up another stretch
of that vista which conducts the sight toward
Titian bending over his canvas — the sixth of
those several harmonies which, as successively pre
sented, warrant us in looking faithward with ever
growing kindliness of aspect.
Another feature of Nature is its wonderful re
lation to time and motion.
How long has our race existed ? The infidel
may choose to say a hundred thousand years ;
none will say less than six thousand. How long
has the earth itself existed ? The atheist may
choose to say, Forever. The geologist, thinking
of his coal beds and deltas and rocky strata sown
with the bones of extinct species, and of the time
requisite for their formation, is sure of severa]

RELATION TO TIME AND MOTION. 187
hundred thousand years. How long are the
earth and its confederates in the solar system
calculated to endure ? Geometry declares that
no element of decay within endangers the sta
bility of the system of the world. That year
which circumscribes our seasons is only three
hundred and sixty-five days ; but the earth has
another year to which this is a mere poiut — its
pole goes nodding through space in a circle which
it takes twenty-five thousand years to traverse.
What think you of a planet whose winter is more
than forty of our years, of a comet whose year is
more than thirty of our centuries, of a sun whose
year is more than eighteen thousand of our mil
lenniums ? All the planetary orbits pass through
cycles of changes varying in length from a few
centuries to nine thousand, to seventy thousand,
to even many million years ; but the greatest of
these planetary cycles are as nothing compared
with those enormous periods which bound the
perturbations and express the secular equations
of the sun and fixed stars — periods including
more years than imagination has ever succeeded
in realizing to itself. What amazing longevities !
What portentous numerals ! They are hiero
glyphics of the everlasting. They lift us among
the dizziest peaks of the sublime.
These immense periods, interspersed with others
exceedingly small, sometimes express an exceed
ingly slow movement among the powers of nature.

188 SIXTH LECTURE.
In other cases, the movement with which they
are connected is exceedingly rapid. The times
consumed in the formation of the coal-beds and
rock-strata, and in the long perturbations of the
planetary and stellar orbits, are examples of the
first class of periods ; the years of the planets and
stars in their orbits are examples of the second.
In the first class, natural forces creep along to
their objects with miraculous slowness ; in the
other, they flash along with swiftness equally
astounding. Some orbits gradually lengthen
themselves, say an inch in a thousand years.
Some of the stars dart along their year of one
hundred and eighty thousand centuries at the in
comprehensible rate of one hundred and eighty
thousand miles an hour. Could we plant our
selves immovably at a certain point in the celes
tial spaces, and see our sun go sailing by with all
its glorious squadrons of planets and moons —
sailing down the abyss as if driven by ten thou
sand hurricanes — would not the sight of such
celerity almost irrecoverably daze both senses and
spirit ?
If, now, one should start up to say that these
great cycles, imbosoming unutterable extremes
of movement, makes positively against an Eter
nal God who is able to move to his purpose like
the light or at a rate so trifling as to be quite im
perceptible by human senses, we should laugh his
logic to scorn. We know better. These are facts

RELATION TO TIME AND MOTION. 189
that palpably agree with such a theism. Instead
of contradicting it, they express a state of things
that might have been expected from a being who
has both unlimited time and unlimited speed at
his disposal — who, if he chooses to wait, has
never occasion to haste ; or, if he chooses to haste,
has never occasion to wait — who is alike able to
dart on his purpose as if infinite whirlwinds were in
his wings, or to approach it at a rate so minute that
no human sense can discern the movement in the
lapse of generations. Suppose such a God to be
about to create a nature, could you not confidently
predict after this manner — " This Being of mighty
periods will establish mighty periods : this Being
who can readily proceed on his endlessly varied de
signs, at all imaginable and unimaginable rates of
speed, will diversify his works with all the veloci
ties." A God who himself has no duration to speak
of — if there may be such a God — would never
have stored his nature with such mighty cycles ; a
God who himself never did a swift thing would
never have set his laws to spurring on planets and
suns so astoundingly ; a God who himself never
did a slow thing would never have yoked such
slow-footed forces to events, as we observe actually
dragging at some of them. It is only a God who
has substantial forevers on his hands, and who on
occasion can lighten and on occasion can linger
ineffably along the highway of his purposes, who
is properly represented by such a nature. In case

190 SIXTH LECTURE.
he gives any nature at all, his character demands
of him to give just this — one expressing his own
attributes. So when I am told of one whose lon
gevity is eternity, whose orbit of existence has an
infinite axis, who reaches an Atonement after
slowly beating toward it for forty centuries, who
is ages and dispensations in establishing his king
dom in the world, who commonly approaches the
punishment of sinners with steps lingering through
numberless delays and forbearances, and who yet
sometimes yokes steeds of wind and fire and foam
to his car — as when some Korah and his com
pany go down quick into the pit ; or some Uzziah,
profanely grasping an ark, falls dead ; or some
Ananias and Sapphira, lying to the Holy Ghost, are
rushed to judgment in an instant's brief space —
when I am told of such a God creating nature ;
and I then betake myself abroad under the open
dome amid those swarming and wondrous orbits
of time, now scarred and smoking with the hot
hoofs of electric forces, and now pressed by the
velvety and trackless feet of forces horn of the
snail ; and frankly lay myself open to all their
subtle hints and magnetisms — I feel myself silent
ly drinking in faith, as the exposed fleece drinks
in the dew — I feel that there is a significant
matching of what we are taught with what we
observe ; that such theism is on most excellent and
embracing terms with Nature, which, so far from
saying with uplifted, oath-making hand, ' that

MYSTERIOUSNESS OF NATURE. 191
there is no Eternal God who, as an agent, is equally
at home in an instant and an age,' at least stands
tremulously querying, " Is there not such a Be-
mg ? " — in fine, I feel that, as the veil continues to
rise from the face of the painting, it reveals still
another characteristic of the Great Master, clears
up another stretch of that vista which conducts
the sight on Titian painting away sublimely at his
glowing and glorified landscape — the seventh of
those several harmonies which, as successively
presented, warrant us in looking faithward with
ever-growing kindliness of aspect.
Another feature — the mysteriousness of Na
ture. Who does not know it ? — terrestrial nature
is one huge sphinx. She vomits enigmas on us
in seas. Riddles too profound for the highest
science yet in our possession lurk in every ray
of light, in every blade of grass, in every rudest
stone. Only some of the coarser facts in rela-
tian to a few things here and there, have been
picked up and systematized ; and these are what
compose our boasted sciences. From surface to
center, the earth is choked with mysteries whose
stony rind has never yet received a blow, much
less a fracture, from the mallet of investigation.
Come now, ye great Computers, compute for us
how long it will be before the science, which loses
itself at the very threshold of the complexities
of this world, will be able to swoop down with

192 SIXTH LECTURE.
triumphant wing upon the surfaces and to the
fiery centers of those fellow planets that myste
riously weave and interweave paths across the
concave, and thoroughly solve the problem of all
their swarming contents ! A disorderly maze
are the apparent paths of the members of our
solar system ! But you say that the real paths
are not as intricate as the apparent. Take your
stand, then, at the sun, and observe planets and
comets going and coming at all distances and
rates of velocity and directions ; while around
most of the larger planets are similarly moving,
other systems of satellites — is it not an intricate
as well as a brave sight ? Can you see through
the mazy plan ? But you say that it has been
seen through, and planetariums have been made
that clearly represent the whole thing to us with
in a few feet of space. How many centuries
and philosophers, 0 Copernicus — Copernicus, I
say, away yonder in the depths of four hundred
years ago — did it take to make that orrery and
solve that riddle of the system of the world ?
Indeed, it is yet very far from solution. Astron
omers can only completely account for the move
ments of a system of two bodies. A system of
three is quite beyond them ; one of a hundred
and more bodies, like our solar system, immeasur
ably beyond them. There is not even a hope
that science, with all its dynamical calculuses,
will ever overtake this higher problem. But

MYSTERIOUSNESS OF NATURE. 193
there is a higher problem still. Solar system
revolves around solar system; a group of such
systems around a similar group ; a cluster of
such groups around a similar cluster; a firma
ment of such clusters around a similar firmament.
Indeed, as we have seen, the whole universe of
stars, with all the countless fleets of planets and
moons which they represent, must, according to
the law of gravity, revolve about a last center of
centers. Let us go to it. Standing at this
Heaven — for is not this the dazzling metropolis
where dwells the sublime Cesar of the creation —
standing at this wondrous point, and looking
forth on the countless nebula} coming and going
at all imaginable distances, speeds, and direc
tions— lo, what a glorious scene of bewilder
ment and unsearchable complexity! It fairly
takes away our breath to look. There is no
more spirit left in us. If a system of three
bodies is too much for the most subtle and com
prehensive science yet known, what can ever be
done by all coming generations and geniuses,
however imperial, toward mastering such laby-
rinthian immensity of involved orbs ?
Now hearken to the Christian. Scriptures —
affirming a Maker of nature who is himself the
mightiest of all enigmas. "Verily, thou art a
God that hidest thyself — Canst thou by searching
find out God ; canst thou find out the Almighty
to perfection — It is high as heaven; what canst

194 SIXTH LECTURE.
thou do : deep as hell ; what canst thou know ? "
Does the aspect of nature contradict this doc
trine ? Who will presume to deny that the in
comprehensible materialism about us, to say
nothing of the more incomprehensible spiritual
ism within us, is just what one would expect to
find issuing from the hands of an incomprehensi
ble Creator — a being mysteriously without a
beginning, mysteriously self-existent, mysteriously
able to make the greatest and noblest things out
of nothing by simple volition, mysteriously all-
knowing, mysteriously unfettered in the appli
cation of his power and knowledge by all con
ditions of space and duration and personal
presence, mysteriously Three in One — in short,
a being enveloped in a terrible pomp and majesty
of sunset-clouds, whose broken lines never per
mit the orb that glorifies them to appear, even
for a moment, in clear and golden contour on
our rapt sight. Such a being, setting out -to
create, would be likely to give us the present
enigmatic universe, nay — for why state the mat
ter so feebly — would be sure to give it. Like
every other copious author, he would reproduce
his own traits. An unutterable sphinx himself,
his creatures would be sphinxes. A nature from
the hands of God that I can comprehend, or
make any approach to comprehending — prepos
terous! A creation that to me, with my low
place and filmy vision and narrow orbit, is not

MYSTERIOUSNESS OF NATURE. 195
steeped in seas of mystery — preposterous ! If a
Jehovah build the temple of nature at all, he will
.found it on mysteries, frame it with mysteries,
cover and dome it with mysteries, pillar and
ballast it with mysteries, pave and ceil it with
a mosaic of mysteries — surely he will. And
when I am told of a being whose own nature is
an overwhelming problem ; whose attributes have
no horizon, no zenith, and no nadir; whose ends
respect all possible objects and interests, and
spread themselves out in plans of boundless \ ast-
ness whose merest corners and differentials only
are visible to men of the widest scope : when I
am told of him, and I then place myself out un
der nature's open dome, amid its Protean inscru-
tableness of leaf and star, of whole crowded earth
and circumventing heavens — the peopled heavens
where sweep in inextricable maze the hurricane
hosts of advancing and retreating orbs ; and open
my soul candidly to all their silent suggestions
and magnetisms — I feel myself drinking in faith,
as the fleece spread out under the stars drinks in
the dew — I feel that the facts give embracing
arms to the doctrine ; that the actual universe,
instead of swearing with decisive voice and hand
uplift to heaven that there is no inscrutable God,
significantly asks with panting whisper and color
that comes and goes, " Is there not such a Being ? "
In fine, I feel that our continued lifting of the
veil from the painting has disclosed another char-

196 SIXTH LECTURE.
acteristic of the great master to whom the work
is attributed ; has cleared up another stretch of
that vista which conducts the sight to Titian in
the act of glorifying his canvas into the Milanese
Coronation-Christ — another of those many har
monies which, as successively presented, warrant
us in looking faithward with ever-growing kindli
ness of aspect.
Such are the facts. I do not say, " Ex uno disce
omnes " — as does the naturalist sometimes when
he finds a bone. But I say, " Ex multis et maximis
disce omnes " — as does a Cuvier when he enthusi
astically discovers nearly a complete skeleton. The
vestiges we have been viewing are no scant minims.
They are no few, narrow, disconnected particulars.
On the contrary, they are great genera — the con
trolling outlines of the picture, the massive frame
of the edifice, the sovereign characteristics, the
leading facts and courses of Nature. As such they
give us, so to speak, an extensive taste of Nature.
They show us the grand whole, with what is a car
dinal, and seems to be an essential, flavor. But we
are entitled to assume the self-consistency of Nature,
especially in regard to leading features. None so
forward to insist on this self-cOnsistency as the
modern opponents of our natural theology. Indeed,
we only do what is the habit, and the unrebuked
habit, and, as we well know, the wondrously suc
cessful habit of all Baconian philosophers, when we
boldly proceed on the ground that Nature is one,

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 197
and that according to what has been discovered
of her features is what remains to be discovered.
So we are allowed to make broad our conclusions.
So we are allowed to say of the integer what we
have said of the fraction. Instead of contenting
ourselves with affirming that her wisdom, and her
vastness, and her power, and many another trait
sympathizes with the doctrine of a God, we may
go on to say that Nature herself sympathizes with
the doctrine. She smiles upon it. She smiles, not
as a multum, nor as a majority, but as a total.
The whole picture is Titianic. The whole Cos
mos is just as if made by God. We might go
on lifting the curtain from before her face ten,
twenty, never so many times, and always with
the same result. Never a break in the verdict.
Never a rise of the veil that says, " Lo, here the
facts are out of sympathy with the doctrine."
Never a trait of that queenly face comes drift
ing into view to say, " Lo, here is something that
looks as if there were no God." For now some
thousands of years our natural knowledge has
been advancing, and the envious curtain has been
rising, step by step ; and never yet, I am bold
to say, has the observer, after carefully looking
on the picture without and carefully listening to
the voice within, ever heard any other words than
these : " Just as if made by God — Just as if made
by God ! " Should we go on lifting the curtain
till it is looped up to the very ceiling of the utter-

198 SIXTH LECTURE.
most heaven, we should find all things in harmony
with that sonorous verdict that has already come
surging in upon us from the four cardinals, like so
many trade-winds : " Just as if — Just as if." Oh be
sure we may go on from speaking of the attitude of
parts of Nature to speaking of the attitude of Nature
herself! She, this modern goddess, is no enraged
Bellona, shaking her spear in the face of the doc
trine. She is not even adverse after the softest
and sweetest-tempered Cyprian fashion. Her ways
are most kindly and cordial. She embraces the
doctrine. As we see ourselves pictured in the
glad, beaming eyes of the long-lost friend whom
we hold in our arms, so the Theism sees itself pic
tured in the cordial eyes of embracing Nature.
Their voices chord. They are phone and anti-
phone. They are parts in the same rich chorus.
The doctrine is merely the shadow which Nature
casts on a book. And I think I am modest in my
asking when I ask that so many and great verisimil
itudes be considered as completely clearing the
ground for faith, and as standing at the open gate
of the judgment with bright and welcoming faces,
ready to grant possession at the first summons of
the positivo evidence. I think I might reasonably
ask much more. I might lay stress on a great
difference between our case and that of the sup
posed painting by Titian ; might point you to the
fact that whatever traits of that master are found in
that picture, are obviously such in nature and degree

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 199
as lie fully within the power of many a human na
ture ; whereas many of those traits of Nature which
we have just come from viewing are presumptively
and enormously impossible to any agency short of a
Divine. But let this be waived. Let me only claim
that with every new harmony which the rising
curtain has discovered, my mind has rationally
moved faithward : and that now, when these har
monies have been found many and potential enough
to give character to the whole magnificent Out
spread, my fleece, exposed through the long night
till full break of day, is rationally wringing wet
with the dew of predispositions to faith ; and that,
at least just as soon as the positive evidence pushes
its orb above the horizon, I may hold it fair and
scientific to allow each tiny drop to be trans
figured from the silver of a predisposition to faith
into the gold of faith itself — making, as I think,
the true golden fleece of Colchis for modern times,
for which all Argos should sail and all heroes strive.

VII. Need of God.
i. POLARITIES OF CHARACTER  203
z. PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF FAITH  208
3. DIRECT DIVINE ACTION  223
4. TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT  .228

' VII.
NEED OF GOD.
Ta ®ep.iXia tov ovpavov eo-Trapax&rjO-av.
Uavra Se AI09 KexjyqpA.6a iraVTES. — AratUS.

SEYEFTH LECTURE.

NEED OF GOD.
WE are not only beckoned toward Theism by
the harmonies between it and Nature, but
we are beckoned toward it even more strongly by
that crying Need of God which a little examina
tion will discover.
It is a very striking thing — the general wish for
a God that exists among virtuous men. We seem
to see that, from the beginning till now, there never
has been a person who has honestly tried to follow
his conscience who has not honestly desired to find
Him a^reality.. And, the more conscientious and
exemplary the man has grown, the more unwilling
has he become to part with the idea of such a
Being with His universal and glorious providence.
There are persons who would as soon be without
God as not ; nay, there are those who could hardly
hear pleasanter news than that the whole Theistic
argument has been fairly overturned from the
foundation, and the impossibility of a God proved
beyond all possibility of denial. Oh, how scoffing

204 SEVENTH LECTURE.
Voltaire and licentious Rousseau and bloated Paine
would have clapped their hands and shouted, could
they have fallen on some wonderful geometry
which by its rigid demonstrations could compel
even the most unwilling to give up their last plea
for Deity! Oh, how the high-handed evil-doers
of every name, sinning and impetuously bent on
sinning, would congratulate themselves, could it be
made as plain as day that such a machine as a
thinking, embodied man was created by chance;
that chance fitted up the earth as his convenient
home, and hung out the heavens above him with
the blazon of stars and suns ! But as soon as a
sinner has made up his mind conclusively against
sin, and has fully committed himself for endless
war upon it in all its forms, then he ceases to be
averse or indifferent to the Divine existence ; then
he begins to positively like the idea, as including
that of a righteous Divine government; then he
begins to cling to it, to bless it, to feel that he
cannot do without it ; and as he goes on to higher
and higher grades of virtue, the feeling in behalf of
God gradually deepens into a profound hunger and
thirst. He says, " My soul thirsts for God, for the
living God." To him an offer to disprove God
would be an offer to make the universe an awful
solitude and desert.
For, he looks around and sees all things waver
ing and changing like the baseless fabric of a vision ;
and even those things which seemed most solid and

POLARITIES. 205
stable, and to which multitudes had ventured to
anchor themselves as to so much eternity, quietly
or violently slip away and dissolve and leave not a
rack behind. And is there nothing stable in this
shifting scene ? Is there no rock that lifts its head
high above the fluctuations, and shakes not, trem
bles not, for aye, though all things rock and break
and die around ? Is there no one point of stability
around which poor man may gather his affections
and trusts and reverences and hopes without being
liable every moment to see his center vanish into
thin air ? At such a moment it is a great comfort
for him to look up and see, or think he sees, a God
of infinite goodness standing fast forever in the
wide sea of change — a still, green continent amid
the tossing ocean, under the lee of which the ship
may pass the night without fear of finding its shel
ter gone in the morning, like a bank of clouds — a
pole-star that is always there, though every other
orb at least rises and sets. Here at last is repose —
here at length something to build upon. Here is a
friend who will never die — here a glorious provi
dence that will never have done reigning — here an
unspeakable lover who will never grow cold — here
the perpetual overruler of his mistakes and sins ;
enlightener of his conscience ; eradicator of his
depravity ; educator of his incompetency ; support
and consolation under his trials, come when and
where they may. For, in the time of distress, he
can look away to the righteous throne of the In-

206 SEVENTH LECTURE
finite Disposer, and see stars seeding his darkness.
And when the hour is midnight, he is not unused to
say, " What should I do now without a God to go
to ? " He goes to God, and his heart is bound up.
And it is a gladness to feel that he can do this for
ever, could his sorrow last so long ; for his heart
sings amid its groans, " O Lord, Thy years are
throughout all generations." In fine, it is such a
comfort to have a God, that it would be day turned
to night were his Theism to become an atheism.
Now truth is kindred and polar to goodness ; and
so the desires of good men are most apt to harmo
nize with and point at the truth. The most virtuous
have most affinity with the truth; are most free
from prejudices and intellectual obliquities ; are
the most fair-minded, earnest, and laborious in their
inquiries ; and so their opinions and tendencies to
opinions are most apt to be correct. — Also, the
mind when virtuous is in its soundest and most nor
mal state ; and the" features which belong to the
whole class of virtuous minds, in proportion to their
virtue, are natural to the virtuous mind. But, on
observation, we find that there are, outside of this
case and two or three other mooted cases — such as
that ofthe desire for immortality — no desires natu
ral to a sound human constitution for objects which
do not ex'ist. Thus a desire for food, for friend
ship, for knowledge, for reputation, for society,
for liberty, for freedom from pain, is natural to every
sound human constitution ; and the object of each

POLARITIES. 207
of these desires actually exists. The food exists
to meet the hunger ; the beauty exists to meet the
taste for beauty ; there is knowledge, society, health,
to meet the natural relish for each of these things.
Indeed, you cannot point out a single desire natu
ral to a sound human nature to which there is not
an answering object somewhere ; but, on the con
trary, such answering object is certainly known to
exist, outside of the two or three disputed cases,
like that under consideration. Hence we must
conclude that the desire for God, which is natural
to virtuous or normal minds, has over against it in
the outward universe such a God to fulfill it. — But
what I am more particularly concerned with at
present is the strong testimony which the attitude
of virtuous men toward Theism gives to the need
of God. The utmost we can be asked to allow,
in regard to the disposition of such men to believe
in God, is that it comes from a desire for such a
Being. They wish a God, and this feeling natu
rally draws faith after it. The wish is father to
the thought. Supposing this to be so — supposing
that the whole case is reduced to one of desire
for a God — how comes such a desire to exist, to
exist in proportion to virtue, to exist in the most
virtuous as an intense craving ? Two answers can
be given. One is that such craving is the instinct
ive aching of a great vacancy for a great supply :
the other is that the craving comes from an intel
lectual judgment that a God is vastly desirable.

208 SEVENTH LECTURE.
In both cases we have human nature in its sound
est state testifying loudly to the need of God ; in
the one case by its natural instincts, and in the
other by its intellectual convictions. And the need
testified to is organic, because it belongs to essential
human nature in its most normal state — is generic,
because it belongs to a great class of beings — is
most important in kind, because it belongs to the
most important of earthly beings in their most im
portant relations.. Whoever has virtue is Agamem
non, king of men. When you see a fairly hung
vane straining away at the west as if a gale were
blowing from that quarter, make sure there sits the
wind. And when you see our best and truest na
ture pointing Godward with a snowy finger as de
termined and intense as was ever chiseled out of
marble, make sure that a broad organic need of
God is invoking that motionless digit
But the traveler may not only wish to be reliably
pointed in the direction of a great city ; he may
wish to advance, and see it with his own eyes. It
is thus his impression of it will become more cor
rect, vivid, and enduring. And we shall have that
Need of God which the polarities of good men
point at, directly under our eye, if we go on to con
sider the practical influence of Theism.
It has been usual for leading unbelievers to con
fess the excellent moral tendency of the doctrine of a
righteous Divine Ruler. And ask any man of ordi
nary sense and observation, putting him on his honor

INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 209
and conscience to speak frankly — ask him whether
he does not really think that a solid faith in such a
Being would, on the whole, be a greatly better
thing for his son and all connected with him than
disbelief or unbelief would be — what would be the
answer? He might not speak it, but ere a mo
ment could elapse he would think it. "Practi
cally," would he say to himself, " it is better that
my child should believe. Whatever may be the
abstract truth in the case, I cannot deny that
such a belief is likely to be followed by better re
sults to himself and to all within his sphere of in
fluence than the absence of that belief." And
could the ideas — perhaps exceedingly vague,
fragmental, and disordered — which form his rea
sons for this view be formally drawn out and ex
pressed, they might be found stated somewhat as fol
lows : — " Character is the great interest of a man.
An unprincipled and wicked life is low, disgraceful,
and destructive. And it does not admit of reason
able question that those believing in a righteous
Divine Ruler — that is, all who believe in God at
all — are under stronger moral restraints than
others; that the more profoundly society is im
pressed with the conviction of an Infinite One above
it who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and
will without fail hold men to account for their con
duct and the secret evil of their hearts, the more
orderly and virtuous it will be. The bare presence
to the mind of such an idea — of an idea so majes-
14

210 SEVENTH LECTURE.
tic and pure, so grand and lofty and thrilling, as
that of a God actually living and reigning, never
beginning and never ending, knowing virtually all
things and powerful to do virtually all things,
true and just and good in the highest conceiv
able degree, having for His sweet name Un
fathomable and Shoreless Love — must tend pow
erfully to educate the moral sense ; to expand, ele
vate, and purify the soul. It can be nothing less
than one of the greatest of moral cultivators.
And, besides its power as a great and pure idea,
the conception of God as an actual existence must
have vast power to restrain from evil and encourage
to good by the strong appeals it makes to the prin
ciples of hope and fear. A sinner cannot steadily
look at the thought of a just God without trembling ;
and even a shadowy impression of such a Being
leaves a voice in the heart. which says, ' Be warned:
if you are wise, you will cease to do evil.' A good
man cannot hold steadily before him the thought
of an Infinite Being taking account of every right
act and rejoicing over it, without brightly hoping : •
and even a vague, embryonic impression of such a
Being leaves words in the heart which say, ' Blessed
be thou of the Lord ; go on and prosper.' The one
is restrained, and the other is encouraged — greatly
and necessarily. Without such restraint and encour
agement, the water-line of morals in this world
would be far below its present level. Why, con
sider what a God this is who men say reigns in

INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 211
glory and righteousness everlasting ; and is he to
whom this mighty Personality is a solemn reality
under no greater pressure to virtue than he to
whom such a Being is a fable or an uncertainty ?
Sure we are that there are few thoughtful men
who would be so unreasonable as to think it. As
well almost might they think that objects on the
surface of the earth are just as likely to fly off
from it with as without the gigantic forces of
gravitation steadily drawing from all points toward
the center. No : from every point of view the
natural tendency of faith in such a God is toward
virtue, toward virtue only, toward virtue vastly.
And though it is true that moral beings, from their
very nature, are competent to so resist this natural
tendency as to make it the source of increased
guilt and misery, and often do so, yet in the ma
jority of cases it will not be done. The more faith,
the more motive against sin ; the more motive
against sin a man has, the more likely he is to re
strain it ; and, if the individual is more likely to
restrain it, the community at large will actually re
strain it better. Men universally act on the prin
ciple that if they can make persons believe vividly
that it is their interest to take a certain course, the
effect in that direction will be favorable in a major
ity of cases. These rational deductions are con
firmed by observation. Comparing together large
communities, one observes that thgse are the most
orderly and moral in which faith in a righteous

212 SEVENTH LECTURE.
Divine Governor prevails to the greatest extent.
We have on record only one instance of a nation of
atheists ; and what a frightful state of disorder, de
moralization, and terror accompanied the phenome
non, the world, and especially Paris, will not soon
forget. Milton's description of Sin is not too strong
to suit atheistic France of the Revolution:
' Seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting : about her middle round
A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing barked
With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal.'
No civilized people ever gave so bloody and foul a
chapter to history. May history never receive such
another ! Further, it is observable that individuals
with habitually very vivid and strong Theistic faith
are almost, if not quite, always veiy virtuous ; cer
tainly very much more free from misconduct than
other persons. Nearly all positive rejecters of God,
and indeed nearly all professed skeptics as to Him,
known to the reading public, have been public lep
ers both as to the principles and practice of common
morals — have fought against, not only the doctrine
of a God, but also the doctrine of moral distinctions
and all the ten commandments, both with their pens
and with their lives."
So might soliloquize almost any intelligent father.
On the basis of mere broken hints of such facts
he might well desire faith for his child. Which the

INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 213
more friendly to virtue, faith or its absence — how
can he for a moment be at a loss how to answer the
question ? There can be no comparison between
the two. As motive to virtue one is everything, and
the other nothing. On the one hand you have a
giant statured like the demigods of fable, clothed
in prodigious sinew and brawn, and making the
earth and its starry dome to shake at every step —
such a giant pushing us toward all open and secret
righteousness with might and main. On the other
hand you have a pigmy asthmatic skeleton, scarce
able to stand or breathe alone, laying on us the
feathery touch of a single skinny finger, which, ten
to one, is not noticed by us at all, save as a chill or
a paralysis on all virtuous endeavor. Sure we are
that, instead of giving the smallest pressure in the
right direction, it rather goes to chill off the soul as
with the damps of the grave from all excellent ac
tivities. When we see that for the leaders in unbe
lief to discard God is generally to cast off right
eousness, lose conscience, and unlearn the very
theory of obligation — when, in the only example
the world has ever seen of organized atheism, we
see it shaking society like an earthquake, and
crushing alike the sanctities of home, the rights of
the citizen, and the authority of law — when we
consider the instincts of parents, the confessions of
atheistic apostles, and the very nature of the case,
it is impossible to give any but the most gloomy
account of the practical influence of any system of

214 SEVENTH LECTURE.
living which does not positively recognize a Divine
government. Strike out the present almost uni
versal idea of such a government, and we are bound
to believe that the present level of morals in the
world would sink with startling swiftness and pro
digious ebb so as to show the very central sands.
If some misanthrope would turn the world into
such a state that, in comparison with it, the present
state should be an Eden-garden, let him find some
way to extinguish from the world all belief or sus
picion of a Divine existence. This would bring
upon us the briers and thorns of the wilderness as
nothing else would. If any father wishes to bring
up his family to be impetuous and bold for every
folly and for every crime, ready to trample on all
civil. and social and filial duties; sad tempests and
plagues always and everywhere — then let him
bring them up to think that there is no God above
to watch and deal with them according to their
works. In a word, Theism is the salt of the world.
We should be nothing but a putrefying corpse
without it. And, on the other hand, should all
men come to believe in God as they believe in
the oceans and mountains — as vividly and pro
foundly — the world would become a beautiful
life, and its present faded and hectic cheek would
so nobly round and flush with virtue's health that
one would hardly recognize it.
Thus faith in God is greatly favorable to virtue.
Being so, it is greatly favorable to happiness here

INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 215
and to prospects of it hereafter. Let one consult
the general admission of mankind ; let him consult
his own experience and observation ; let him con
sult the very definition of virtue, which includes
the idea of acting in harmony with the nature of
things ; and he must feel that the happiness of a
man in this world depends more on his relation to
virtue than on all other things put together. Be
yond a doubt, goodness is the great sunshine-maker.
There is a world of poetry and of truth — and not
more of one than of the other — in that antique
phrase, Sun of Righteousness. The kind of pleas
ure virtue gives is incomparably more pure, pene
trating, lasting, and elevated than any other. It is
sweet as the ambrosia and nectar of the gods. It
can make a little heaven in the absence of all things
else : all things else leave us but an empty and
pricking satisfaction without it. It- gives a quiet
conscience, governed passions, benevolent affections,
concord with natural laws, and generally sublime
hopes. While leaving us as fair candidates as others
for all forms of worldly good, it doubles our faculty
for enjoying them : while leaving us to no more
and greater trials than befall others, it provides us
with sevenfold consolations under them. Virtue
does indeed forbid us certain pleasures. It will not
allow us to drink of everything that goes by that
much abused name, or that really gives much pres
ent gratification — perhaps foamy, passionate, incar
nadined Falernian. But the gratifications which

216 SEVENTH LECTURE.
virtue refuses are well known to leave behind them
so many bitter tastes and pains as to make them, on
the whole scheme of life, sorrows. Our interest of
earthly happiness ought to thank virtue for cutting
us off from such apples of Sodom and grapes of
Gomorrah. — And is there another life beyond this ?
If so, the virtuous man stands by far the best chance
in regard to it. Should a Holy Governing God
prove real, such a man must be saved and glorified ;
should He prove but an empty name, such a man
can hardly be worse off than his unvirtuous
neighbor. Who believes that, Christendom being
searched through, a single intelligent man could be
found, who, looking merely at the chances for safety
and happiness after death, had not rather live and
die as a good man than as a bad one ? Every per
son is absolutely certain that his future state would
not be prejudiced by a virtuous character and ca
reer ; and he is not certain but that it would be
ruined by the want of these.
Then, as to the bearing of virtue on the useful
ness of a man. When we say that a certain man
is virtuous, we in effect say that he habitually dis
charges what seem to him his duties in all direc
tions. He stands nobly pledged to his family, to
his neighbors, to his countrymen, to his race, and
even to brute and inanimate nature. We may be
sure of his being, in the main and according to his
light, a good son, brother, father, employer, servant,
citizen, ruler, subject. Even the beasts and herbs of

PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 217
the field shall be the better and thriftier for him.
The very nature, as well as the history of virtue
assures all this. On the other hand, the unright
eousness which atheism fosters assures nothing of
the sort. It leaves the way open for every sort
and degree of trespass on the interests of others.
A man may plague his friends, and curse his neigh
borhood, and betray his country — may belch out
corruptions and injuries of every name on all around
him as stormily and profusely as ever did volcano
its destructive ashes and lava — and still be a capi
tal atheist. If he chooses to commit the grossest
possible outrage on society, and then assert that he
does not believe in God, we cannot say that his as
sertion and his deed are mutually inconsistent. Go
to that man in prison on charge of having murdered
his own loving, self-sacrificing, and beseeching
mother. Say to him, " Man, what think you about
this matter of a God ? " "Think!" he shall say,
" why I don't believe in Him — there is no such
Being." Would such an answer go to strengthen
any lurking idea of his innocence which you may
entertain ? Would you feel like grasping his hand,
and exclaiming, " My dear sir, it must be that you
have been unjustly accused ! You a matricide !
You an atheist, and yet do such a crime ! You
honestly convinced that there is no God to bring
the wicked to account, and yet lift murdering hand
on your own mother ! Incredible ! The friends
of justice must at once look to your liberation."

218 SEVENTH LECTURE.
How preposterous such language would sound to
even the prisoner himself! He would think you
dealing in severest irony. He knows, and is sure
that everybody knows, that the loss of that faith
which he had when a boy has done nothing for him
morally, and could do nothing whatever, save to
mightily lift the checks from his depravity. He
knows, and is sure that everybody knows, that god-
lessness is just the thing from which to expect all
sorts of harmful outgoings on the world around —
from men down to the dog that crouches at his feet,
and to the sapling that stands fearing the wasteful
axe. For the full scientific significance of these facts
we must wait a little. After gathering some further
particulars of the same general character, we will
proceed to question science in regard to the value
of the whole. But I will ask you to just notice in
passing that, in case there is a righteous Divine
Ruler, this immense utility to great classes of be
ings of faith in Him is just what we ought to find.
He would be likely to make a system to which He
should be the necessary complement ; a system
which should perpetually call for Him ; a system
which should find its highest repose, satisfaction, and
uses of all sorts in a cordial recognition of Him.
But, without a God, the fact would not be positively
likely to be as we find it : on the contrary, it would
be positively improbable. Is it not matter of uni
versal admission that it is in general best for even

PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 219
the individual to avoid error, that generally it is
best for him to see things as they are ? Much more
sure is the doctrine — much more does it square
with the convictions, experience, and proceedings
of mankind, that for a whole class it is substantially
never better to believe, especially permanently, in
a falsehood than in the conflicting truth. Indeed,
I am confident that not a single instance of the
kind can be discovered by any amount of research.
And if the class in question be the whole race of
men, then indeed it can be concisely proved that
such an instance is impossible — there cannot be an
instance of universal faith in a falsehood proving
vastly more serviceable to the public than faith in
the opposed truth. If it is extremely desirable, all
things considered, that men at large should hold to
a given error, then true benevolence requires you
to promote that false belief in yourself and others
to the extent of your ability — no matter though at
the outset you know it to be unwarranted by facts.
This being so, unless there is generic antagonism
between the dictates of general benevolence and
those of duty, between a useful course of conduct
and a righteous one — which is allowed by no cred
ible and tolerable theory of morals — it is your duty
to abuse your reason, to make and love a lie, to
employ prejudices and sophisms and all sorts of in
tellectual trickery to impose on yourself and others.
Samson must put out his own eyes and those of all
Israel besides. Who believes this ? Are we pre-

220 SEVENTH LECTURE.
pared to give up the most instinctive, universally
received, and fundamental principles of morals ?
If in any one case it is not merely right, but a posi
tive duty, to practice such moral jugglery, then
there is no radical and inherent distinction between
right and wrong, and one may carry his principles
along with his crops to market without compunc
tion, or run them up for his amusement to the side
of some highest vane, to bear it company as it turns
easily by a breath to. every point of the compass.
The doctrine is simply abominable. Get thee hence,
Satan ! Any campanile would be dishonored by
such a weather-cock. One cannot persuade the
human mind to accept falsehood as true on good
grounds. Just arguments never prove an error.
Natural, judicious, and honest processes of thought
have no tendency to carry us to wrong conclusions.
If one manages to escape the grasp of known truth,
it must be by pettifoggings, cheats, treacheries, false
swearings against his own reason and conscience —
it must be by shameful twistings, turnings, doub
lings, and even metamorphoses of his better nature.
Behold the struggling Proteus ! At last the god
becomes a swine. Is it his duty to do this ? Is he
at liberty to do it ? How dare he so debase his
divinity ? How can he help despising his ugly self
wallowing in that sty ? Avaunt Proteus, Machia-
velli, Mephistophiles — we will have none of you !
Away with such repulsive and destructive princi
ples — on the point of the longest and most non-

PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF FAITH. 221
conducting of spears ! It is as if one had grasped
the battery of a torpedo !
But — theory apart — a bad practical influence
is a noted characteristic of falsehood. I do not say
there may not be seeming exceptions. But I do
say, that, in general, it is unfavorable to our inter
ests to believe a falsehood, or to fail to believe the
truth. Otherwise, to say the least, we might as
well have one opinion as another ; mistake would
be as likely to be serviceable as just views ; and all
pains to investigate would be foolish — a thing that
nobody believes, and the contrary of which every
body assumes in the affairs of actual life. Witness,
ye sciences — sweating away at your observation
and experiment and induction! Witness, ye arts
and trades — straining away at the toil of in
ventors and adapters of inventions ! Witness, ye
sagacious business men of every name — knitting
your questioning, forecasting, anxious brows over
ledgers, markets, products ! What mean ye all —
unless it be that knowledge is better than igno
rance; that. facts are the mine out of which men are
to dig their prosperity; that he who best knows
things as they are, and best adjusts his conduct to
them, has advantage over every competitor ? This
is what all this circumspect and thoughtful activity
of the world means. And means wisely. For this
is only saying that the engineer who lays out his
road across the continent after copious and careful
surveys, and with eyes wide open on the correlations

222 SEVENTH LECTURE.
of hill and valley and marsh and river, will surely
do better by his company than if he had gone blind
folded to his work ; that the sailor who, with alert
hand on the wheel, watches closely compass and
chart and sea and sky, will be more likely to make
a prosperous voyage than if he had chosen to
sleep or to be drunken ; that a blind traveller who
paces at random about Switzerland is more likely to
come to harm than if, with eye like a sunbeam, he
were carefully noting every step he took among the
torrents and glaciers and chasms and terrible preci
pices. Civilization is better than barbarism. The
Nineteenth Century is better than the Age of
Bronze. The United States are better than Da
homey. And that truth, secular and religious, out
of the acquisition and use of which all this mighty
difference has slowly grown, is very profitable truth.
So generic utility as a trait of truth, and generic
hurtfulness as a trait of error, stand demonstrated
on an immense scale in the history of the world.
The conduct of the world admits it, the experience
of the world proves it, the very foundations of mo
rality demand it. And when we find the Doctrine
of God with this bright distinction shining on its
breast, like the jeweled star that betokens an em
peror ; when we find it so radically and vastly use
ful to the virtue, happiness, and usefulness of the
broad class of men, and so to the welfare of all the
dependent animal races with their still broader do
main — our heads instinctively sink upon our breasts,

DIRECT DIVINE ACTION. 223
and we do homage as in the august presence of that
unchallenged sovereign whose name is Truth.
I pass to another point. The polarities of good
men point toward a great need of God. The prac
tical influence of Theism places that need actually
under our eye somewhat in detail. A consideration
of the effects of a direct Divine action on the uni
verse will manifest the need still more fully and
impressively. This will show great Rome from the
summit ofthe Capitoline. The distant guide-boards
of the Appian have reliably pointed us toward the
city. Coming to the gate, we have caught partial
views of the interior. And now, at last arrived at
the city-heart and perched far above Rock Tar-
peian, we proceed for a moment to take the supreme
view. All the monuments are before us. On the
one hand is the old city, with its arches and tem
ples and Coliseum of the mighty past ; on the other
is the new city, with its palaces and basilicas and
Vatican of the mightier present. The most impresr
sive sight of all!
Conceive of a direct Divine action on the uni
verse. Hardly anything can be surer than that
such action cannot be the slightest harm to the gen
eral interest of the system, but must, on the con
trary, promote that interest infinitely by force of
infinite faculties acting through infinite years.
With One standing at the wheel who can at a
glance see through the whole system as related to
both space and duration ; who out of a loving heart

224 SEVENTH LECTURE.
wants to make out of that vast empire the best He
can, and who can on occasion instantaneously and
forever send out to its remotest extremities the help
of resources virtually immeasurable ; and who is
actually counteracting, guiding, propelling every
where in all that stupendous sovereignty — enlight
ening ignorance, comforting sorrow, restraining sin,
stimulating holiness, forcing brute energies and ele
ments along their appropriate channels by an over
mastering omnipotence — with such a Being the
system of Nature as a whole is sure to reach, not
only the highest destiny in the nature of things pos
sible, but also one infinitely in advance of what
would have been realized without Him. Individ
ual interests found in irreconcilable conflict with the
general interest will have to suffer ; but the general
interest itself, in all its huge proportions, will stead
ily have the benefit of a still huger wisdom and
power working endlessly in its behalf. And this
will be an immeasurable benefit.
According to the doctrine of chances it is morally
certain that without a God the issue of the universe
will not be the best possible. Further, without a
God there are as many chances of the issue being
bad as of its being good. Still further, it is possible
that the issue will be calamitous beyond expression.
On the ground of no presiding Deity we cannot
venture to predict the last or balanced result of any
thing. What is there whose history we can follow
through all the intricate workings and interwork-

DIRECT DIVINE ACTION. 225
ings and counterworkings of an infinite number of
independent agencies upon it, and so gather up its
general significance, whether fortunate or unfortu
nate, best possible or worst possible ? The web that
is being woven is so large, and such myriads of
shuttles shoot before our eyes in as many different
directions, that we cannot make out the pattern.
Here we see a bright thread, and there a dark one :
but what figure will come out in the end no mere
looking into endless mazes will tell us. But give
us the fact that there is an infinitely accomplished
Being at the head of the universe, and we can see
in a moment what sort of a pattern, with its parti
colored threads and swarming shuttles, the great
loom of existence is weaving. Behold the most per
fect picture the case admits of! Behold a tapestry
Gobelin whose precious threads spell out the sweet
ness of celestial landscapes — fit hangings for the pal
ace of the Eternal ! The system of things will turn
out happily, and as happily as, in the nature of things,
it possibly can. It cannot be a curse or a failure, as
without a God it may be. It must be a positive bless
ing, as without a God there is no positive probability
of its being. It must be the greatest blessing possi
ble, as without a God it is certain not to be. Nay,
this greatest possible blessing must be an infinite
one, as without a God it is certain to be at an infinite
remove from being. The perfect goodness of God
would never have allowed Him to bring into being
a system out of which He could not extract more
15

226 SEVENTH LECTURE.
good than hurt : once in being, that system cannot
but be gloriously advantaged by the eternal action
upon it for good of that glorious magazine of forces
and resources of which His name is the magnificent
cordon. Such forces cannot fail of effects commen
surate with themselves. All forces actually exerted
on an object are effectual, and effectual in proportion
to their degree. If they fail to produce a positive
movement in the direction in which they act, they
at least destroy so much force in the opposite direc
tion. Hence the resultant of a God on the well-be
ing of the universe must be unspeakably precious.
The difference between what it is with Him and
what it would be without Him, is solid infinity.
The two are as far apart as are the poles of Nature.
Just think of an infinite Being working with unde-
caying diligence through everlasting years for the
best good of His universal creatures — giving to the
great enterprise all the wealth of His loving heart,
all the resources of His unbounded intelligence,
all the energies of His almighty arm ! Is it in the
power of such minds as ours to compute the value of
such an agency as this ? Astonished Arithmetic re
fuses to undertake the problem. She refuses even
to seriously look at it. What have her puny multi
plication tables to do with such an optimism as this ?
To be without a God is for the universe to suffer an
infinite loss. It needs Him as it needs to escape an
infinite evil. Measureless Need ! Where is the
fathom-line that can sound it — where the ship or

DIRECT DIVINE ACTION. 227
the electricity that can log across its broad expanses
— where the aeronaut or the telescope even that can
shoot upward to the foamy crest of its ground swell ?
When you see a little orphan child — weak,
sickly, willful, destitute, tempted — you are touched
with compassion. How much he needs a father !
How much he needs a father to protect him, to coun
sel him, to govern him, to educate him, to provide
for his future in almost every respect ! Such is the
spontaneous feeling of every kind and thoughtful
man as he sees the poor boy wandering about in his
rags, able to do little or nothing for himself, full of
fears and ignorance, beset on all sides with great
dangers and miseries, prone by nature to almost
every kind of evil, and already showing the begin
nings of many bad habits and disorders in body and
mind. How much he needs a father !
So I feel when I look about on the fatherless
world which atheism presents to us. Ah, such a
world — let no one tell me that it does not need a
God ! It is weak and sickly ; and needs a strong
Divine arm to lean upon, a strong Divine tender
ness to nurse and shield it. It is a world in rags,
cold, hungry, thirsty, wandering about without
shelter under inclement skies ; it needs a Heavenly
Father to care for it, and give it home and fireside
and raiment and daily bread. It is a sorrowful
world — it needs a Heavenly and Omnipresent Con
soler ; a world full of temptations and dangers — it
needs a Heavenly and Omnipresent Protector ; a

228 SEVENTH LECTURE.
world full of wrong tendencies and actual disorders,
willful and wayward and corrupt to a miracle — it
needs a Wise, Omnipotent, and yet Pitiful Heav
enly Governor; a world full of ignorance and
error — it needs a Heavenly and Omnipotent Coun
selor and Enlightener.
From what now is in this world, imagine what
would be in all worlds were Nature thoroughly
drained of a Divine existence and government.
It would be a most terrible state of things. My
account of it has not been too strong. From the
nature of the case it beggars description. An Infi
nite Force that lays itself out most unsparingly and
wisely and eternally for the best good of Nature,
could not be subtracted from it without infinite
damage. It could not be added to it without infi
nite gain.
We are now to ask carefully for the scientific
import of this Need of God.
It is a canon of modern science that whatever
is needed to complement a race of beings in any
constitutional respect, always exists somewhere, or
is attainable. Take, for example, the race of men.
Whatever is needed to match and make fully avail
able any of our natural mechanisms, faculties, apti
tudes, traits, so that there may be no waste — so
that we may have the full benefit of such powers
as normally belong to us — whatever is needed to
do this always exists, or, at least, can be made to
exist. Thus men need air. They need it to turn

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT 229
to some account the breathing mechanism of their
bodies. Accordingly air exists. — Men need light.
They need it to make some use of their eyes.
These organs were as good as thrown away with
out it. Accordingly light exists. — Men need odors
and sounds. They need them to turn to some
account the organs for smelling and hearing. Ac
cordingly odors and means of sound exist. — Men
need food and heat. They need these things to
sustain the action of every bodily organ. We
might as well not have the organs as to have them
frozen and strengthless. They would be sacri
ficed. Accordingly heat and food exist. — Men
need knowledge, friendship, government, virtue.
They need these things in order that the constitu
tional faculties and demands for them which human
nature possesses may not be quite useless and worse
than useless. We should be wretched with noth
ing or next to nothing to answer to these hungry
and thirsty parts of our nature. Accordingly they
do not hunger and thirst in vain. There is knowl
edge to be acquired ; love to be given and taken ;
government to restrain, direct, and compose the
social state ; virtue wherewith to exalt and felicitate
ourselves. — In short, Nature builds no reservoir
which she does not, sooner or later, use ; forges no
tool which she has never occasion for. She is self-
congruous and self-fulfilling.
Not only do such things exist as are needed to
prevent an entire waste of any constitutional fac-

230 SEVENTH LECTURE.
ulty or trait of mankind, but also all such things
as are needed to prevent even a partial waste of it.
Nature is thrifty. She is a great utilizer. She
abhors waste in all its degrees. She gathers up
the fragments that nothing be lost. And so pro
vision is made for the full use of everything that
really belongs to our nature. The best condition
of each part is made possible. A pendulum may
describe a very small arc, or a large one, or a whole
semicircle. An eye may see little, or much, or as
much as belongs to an eye of the soundest state
and wisest culture. It is this last measure of activ
ity and use that Nature provides for. She sees to
it that every part of human nature is provided with
the means of describing its full semicircle. For
example. Men need not only air, light, sound,
odors, food, heat, knowledge, friendship, govern
ment, virtue — without which certainly constitu
tional traits would be totally unavailable — but
they also need certain measures and varieties of
these things in order that those parts of our nature
to which they have respect may be available in the
fullest degree which their natures allow. Unless the
air has a certain density, the lungs begin to labor.
If the light has not a certain tone and intensity,
the eye is more or less crippled in its performance.
Unless the sounds and odors are tempered and va
ried to a certain extent, the ear and nostril cannot
do full service. Unless we have a variety of food
and certain limits of temperature, our bodies weaken

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 231
throughout, and every faculty walks with trembling
knees. If we do not have large measures and
many sorts of knowledge and friendship and vir
tue, the most possible is not made of our faculties
for these things — we are not suitably fed and
equipped for the best experience and service which
our powers allow — the oil does not fill the capa
cious bowl, the wick is too small for its large tube,
and accordingly the flame flickers on the high silver
socket where it ought to burn steadily, and the
photosphere is pale which ought to be flooded with
light. Such is the need. Nature has provided
accordingly. That density of air, that measure
of light, that variety of food, that range of knowl
edge and friendship and virtue, which best suits
our powers, is either actual or attainable. We
find that if much change is made in either of these
respects we at once begin to suffer. Our vitality
abates. The system becomes depressed. Strength
ebbs away at every pore, and every organ gives
sign of embarrassed action. We discover that our
circumstances stand well adjusted to our natures.
What the race needs to best utilize its various fac
ulties the race has. The stature of 4he supply
matches the stature of the demand. Nature builds
no reservoir twice as large as she can use ; nor forges
a tool twice as sharp and massive as she has occa
sion for. She is self-congruous and self-fulfilling.
These are a few examples of the law that what
ever is needed to turn to accpunt, and even the

232 SEVENTH LECTURE.
fullest account, the traits normal to any class of be
ings, exists somewhere or is attainable. Of course
it is not claimed that this law has been verified by
an actual examination of every single case of such
need in even a single department of great Nature.
But it is claimed that so extensive an examination
of particular cases has been made as to put the law
on the sure footing of inductive science. We have
had an immense experience. And all our experi
ence has been one way. It has been to the effect
that Nature, within the field stated, does nothing
by halves. She does not stop at fractions of enter
prises. She never forsakes a part till it becomes a
whole. Her works are often a process; not sel
dom the process is long ; but provision is always
made for finishing up in a congruous manner what
ever she has undertaken. Many human works are
finally forsaken at various stages of incompleteness
— schemes, machines, edifices, books. You cannot
infer from the unfinished tower of Cologne, or from
the unfurnished niches on the minster of Milan, that
it ever will or can be supplemented into complete
ness. Not so with the generic works of Nature.
She is no»Michael Angelo — leaving piles of unfin
ished productions. She is no Livy — certain chap
ters given, and then a hopeless " Csetera desunt."
All her parffs bid us look for wholes. Each fraction
of hers proclaims that its integer is come or com
ing. Have you found such a fraction ? Be sure
that all the things needed to round it out into

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 233
completeness exist somewhere, either in esse or in
posse — as sure as you are when you see the red
of the spectrum that its complementary colors are
not far distant — as sure as you are when you see
a crescent moon that the rest of the sphere is by
its side, though for the* present unilluminated.
Look more closely, and perhaps you will faintly dis
cover the old moon in the arms of the new. Look
more closely, and perhaps you will discover over
against yonder organic need in Nature that full
supply of the need which Nature has provided.
But whether you discover it or not, make sure that
the supply exists or is attainable. Nature does not
waste herself. She has no fondness for throwing
herself away, either wholly or in part. If you find
one of her reservoirs, make sure that there is some
thing to put in it, and as much as it will hold ; if
you find one of her tools, make sure that it has
something to do, and as much as it can do well. So
frugal is she with all her bountifulness ! So provi
dent is she, and so well does she husband her re
sources ! So good and careful a provider is she —
never liable to be reckoned worse than an infidel
because she does not provide for her own !
So well established is this principle in our ex
perience that scientific men are accustomed to as
sume it and build on it without ceremony in their
investigations, especially in physical science. As
soon as they discover a constitutional physical want
of any natural species, they at once receive a pow-

234 SEVENTH LECTURE.
erful suggestion of the existence, or at least of
the attainability, of an adequate supply. Nay, they
are profoundly convinced of such existence or at
tainability, and confidently assume it. If Cuvier
finds a bone, he at once reconstructs the whole ani
mal to which it belongs, find tells us how it looked,
and what its habits were when living. How ? On
the observed fact that whatever is needed to com
plement a given mechanism in Nature and enable
it to be turned to full account, at least in a natural
class, exists or has existed. He does not speculate
as to how this great fact came to be ; only it is mat
ter of plentiful experience that it is. — Mantell, in
digging deeply into the earth, discovers a strange
skeleton, and the round bony sockets where once
were eyes. " This class of animals," he says,
" though now lying five hundred feet below the
surface, once had life above ground." " And how,
my dear sir, do you know this ? " " Why, do you
not see that the animal had eyes, and needed to
live in the light ? " The philosopher would not be
confident that some individual of the class did not
spend all its days in darkness underground ; but he
is sure that it was not so with the class at large.
They needed life in the light, and he sets it down as
certain that they had it ; and not a naturalist in
Christendom will dream of disputing him. — As little
will Owen be disputed, when, on finding on the
surface of a field the bony frame of an animal which
plainly never had any eyes to speak of, but which

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 235
had feet and form and head nicely suited to living
and making its way underground, he just reverses
the former assumption. " This class of animals,"
he says, " needed life below the surface ; " and on
the instant he takes it for granted that the life which
they needed they had. — Miller goes far inland, and
there, on the top of a mountain, picks up the
bleached debris of a bird plainly once web-footed.
This class of birds needed, in part at least, a life
in the water ; and his mind at once rests unwaver
ingly in the conclusion that at the time when they
lived a water-life was accessible to them. — Or
Sedgewick, or Dana, or Agassiz finds a fossil with
both herbivorous and carnivorous organs : only to
be quite sure that the species to which it belonged,
needing both flesh and herb for its best develop
ment, lived in times when both flesh and herb food
could be obtained. Or, these eminent philoso
phers find a whole formation filled with fossil plants
and animals having special adaptations to an am
phibious life, needing a world of ponds and marshes,
not indeed to exist, but to exist after their most
flourishing manner: only to feel sure that those
amphibians by structure actually lived in a transi
tion period when the world of waters was just
giving way to a world of dry land. As soon as
they see the need, they believe in the supply.
And from east to west of the scientific world there
is no one to lift up a single sign of remonstrance.
"The whole earth is quiet, there is none that

236 SEVENTH LECTURE.,
moves wing or opens mouth or peeps." It is uni
versally felt that this is sound science — that no
sounder is to be had in all the Baconian realm.
And so on to a vast extent. Behold scientists
perpetually assuming and allowing that somehow
supply accompanies the generic needs of Nature
as shadow accompanies substance — sometimes be
fore it and sometimes behind it, sometimes near
and sometimes considerably removed, sometimes
easily seen and sometimes seen with difficulty or
not at all ; but always existing, as surely as there
is always more or less light on the earth even in the
darkest night, and always linked to its counterpart
substance by indissoluble though invisible bonds !
Now, this conduct in men of science does not
proceed from a traditional notion of a wise and
good God who will do nothing by halves or tan
talize his creatures, but from a sense of what is
the general course of Nature. It is observed that
somehow Nature has a way of finding her generic
wants supplied — tliat is the whole of it. It is
observed that somehow her parts are extremely
apt to orb themselves out into w holes — that is the
whole of it. It is observed, and profusely observed,
that somehow it is with her as with other kind and
wealthy mothers ; she does not send forth her chil
dren into the world without suitable outfit — that is
the whole of it. This is the secret of that high scien
tific confidence. It is all pure observation — not at
all traditional theology. Scientific investigations sel-

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 237
dom proceed on theological grounds, even among
religious men. Indeed, it has long been estab
lished law that special jealousy be used to prevent
anything of the kind. Besides, the conduct re
ferred to is as general among those who never
think of a God in any practical connection with
their employments — among atheists and antithe-
ists who are carefully and zealously on the watch
against any tacit assumption of the general Theistic
tradition — as among others. Even as the great
mass of farmers and merchants and other men of
affairs never go behind natural agents and laws in
the dealings and conceptions of their business, so
with the investigators of Nature as a class — they
deal exclusively with phenomena and natural
causes. They see on all hands the immense ten
dency to equilibrium. They see how the streams
and straws converge on every vacant spot. They
see that wherever there is a broad organic need
thither set gulf-streams and trade-winds freighted
heavily with relief-ships. They see that where
shines the Castor of a demand you may with proper
search find shining over against it the twin Pollux
of a supply ; and that where night appears there
appear also the festival-keeping stars. They see —
as they have always seen from the time when they
began to observe Nature at all — that she has a
happy faculty, say a genius, at getting her loud
calls affirmatively answered, her great hungers
and thirsts provided for, her hungry vacuums

238 SEVENTH LECTURE.
charged with fitting contents. They see — in
short, it is pure sight from beginning to end. Wit
ness almost all the men called philosophers, from
Comte upward. And from Comte upward, the
idea of a Framer of Nature who is far too wise
to frame useless things, and far too steady to His
purpose not to carry thoroughly through whatever
framing He has begun — this idea has nothing to
do with prompting the general philosophic convic
tion that the great polarities of Nature are every
where as faithful guides to explorers as when boxed
up in the mariner's compass ; and that when we
find her putting up at some corner of her thorough
fares a guide-board, with its striking index-hand
and great capitals saying " London " to all passers
by, we may assure ourselves that London exists —
more especially when she proceeds to plant her
own person by. that prophetic cross, and to glare
with the eye, and to point with the finger, and to
nod like Olympian Jove in the same direction,
and to exclaim " London " in every civilized speech
and with a voice that surges against the stars.
For see further. Physicists, on purely natural
grounds, not only give unanimous consent to the
principle that in their field Nature has an invet
erate habit of getting her generic needs supplied,
but they will, on the same grounds, unanimously
consent to a certain extension of the principle —
namely, the larger the need, the greater the mo
mentum and evidence with which Nature finds

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 239
the supply. There are four cases. Sometimes
a need is intrinsically larger than another need.
Sometimes several needs point at and demand the
same object. Sometimes the class to which a need
belongs is broader and more important than another
class. And the strongest case of all is when you
have a combination of these three cases into a fourth
— when you have great needs, many of them, and
all of these belonging to "a class of immense breadth
and importance. Then the aggregate need is very
great ; and the supply of that need is assured
after a most manifold and imperial manner.
Some needs are intrinsically greater than others.
And we observe that it is after the spirit and man
ner of Nature to give the most heed to the loudest
call. See with what peculiar care she guards such
vital things as brain and heart behind their bony
ramparts! Whatever it is that prompts her to
provide for a need rather than for a no-need, would
prompt her to provide for a great need "with more
care than for a small one. — Sometimes several great
needs point at and clamor for the same supply. As
we have seen, each of these is evidence of the ex
istence of that supply. And together they are so
many independent evidences of that existence, and
form an aggregate need of the largest dimensions.
The manifold call is extremely loud and pressing.
It must receive a correspondingly great attention
from Nature. For such is the way of her who pro
vides for a need rather than for a no-need, and for

240 SEVENTH LECTURE.
a great need rather than for a small one; — Some
classes, each having several great needs, are more ex
tensive and important than others. Make sure that
the same notoriously self-consistent Nature that is
everywhere more careful of a heart than of a hair,
of wholes than of parts, of classes than of individ
uals, is more careful of great classes than of small
ones. And if the class that clamors for a certain
supply with many loud mouths is enormously
broader than another class, then the sure testimony
of Nature to the existence ofthe supply is enormously
louder and more impressive. It is the voice of many
waters. It is the concurring affidavits of many in
dependent witnesses, each of which swears with a
steady and determined voice. Hence, if we find all
these cases combined in one — if we find very great
needs clamoring for a supply, and many such needs
all shouting for the same supply, and these all be
longing to a class of beings enormously large — then
we have a threefold assurance of the intensest and
broadest character that the object for which so many
brawny hands are stretched out, and so many brawny
voices call, is extant or attainable.
For example. The class of men need air. This
need is of a more crying and imperative kind than
that for air of standard density or purity ; and so
Nature is more careful to secure the former than
the latter. Also, it is not only the lungs of men
that imperatively needs air, but also the ear and
the nostril and the eye and the skin with its

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 241
adapted pores — to say nothing of other organs.
Neither of these can be turned to proper account
without air. So it is a chorus of loud calls that is
made for the same thing : and the whole is greatly
more loud and impressive than any single call would
be, and so proportionally surer of being heard.
Also, each call is an independent argument for the
existence of the supply. Further, it is not the class
of men only that has these various needs ; but the
greatly larger class of living beings — comprising
hundreds of thousands of animal and vegetable spe
cies, each on the average more numerous than
men. All these would be sacrificed without air.
This exceeding breadth of calling Nature gives ex
ceeding volume to her voice. It rolls on the ear
like tropical thunders. What place so remote as
not to hear ? What place so deaf? And every
distinct organic species that helps to make that
great invocation is a distinct proof that the invo
cation is not in vain. Altogether, the proof is im
mensely cumulative. It convinces like noonday
mathematics. It displays more cooperative banners
than Homer saw marching invincibly on Troy ; or
than Tasso saw waving and glinting above Godfrey
and his embattled Europe, on their way to Jerusa
lem Delivered. So that when we find in the fossil
realms of geology an immense amount and variety
of plants and animals, all of which imperatively
needed air, and all of which imperatively needed it
for many purposes, philosophers feel that they move
16

242 SEVENTH LECTURE.
a million strong on the conclusion that when those
races existed air existed for them. They would
laugh to scorn the man who should pretend to
doubt whether an atmosphere flooded the world
in the Silurian or any subsequent age. They
feel that nothing can be surer. And this, although
it is simply an inference from the vast need of air —
from the vast and varied waste that would be im
plied in case no air existed.
So in other similar cases. . Wherever in physics
we find many great needs calling for help in behalf
of a prodigious sweep of being, we have an anvil
chorus that does not fail of being heard. It com
mands like an emperor. It invokes like a mighty
magician. It dredges the whole abyss of the un
known for an answer, as with Briarean hands ; as
a river is dredged for some lost favorite by a whole
out-turning population ; as all the declinations and
ascensions of heaven have been dredged by our
later Astronomy for hidden planets and nebulas. 0
Polypheme, thou hast indeed a great and most suc
cessful voice ! How the shores and the distant hills
and the far, far away welkin ring as thy massive
lips part skyward, and thy huge" swollen chest
empties itself in gales and torrents arid cataracts
of sound ! And see how quickly the invoked help
swarms to his aid! Swart forms as huge as his
own, great voices as burly and earth-quaking as the
voice that calls, make prompt answer, and say, Here
we are ! The Cyclopean voice has found out the
Cyclops.

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 243
" Clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undse, penitusque exterrita tellus
Italia1, curvisque immugiit J5tna cavernis.
At genus e sylvis Cyclopuni et montibus altis
Exoitum ruit ad port us et littora complent."
Such is an uncontested law of Nature. Each real
need of a natural class of beings has over against it
in Nature the suitable supply, or the means of
it ; and the greater the need, the greater the mo
mentum and evidence with which the supply is
furnished. We have seen that modern science is
built on this law to a very large extent. We have
seen that even atheistic explorers of Nature would
be glad to build any amount of science on the same
foundation. And shall any complain as we now
proceed to build upon it what is of more concern to
the world than all the profane science that ever was
taught and cried up to the third heaven of fame —
even though it unravels the tangled mystery of the
stars, and provides all the dynamics of useful in
dustry, and probes the solid earth to where sleep in
their stony mausolea the secrets of her genesis and
hoariest history — I mean that sacred science, the
Doctrine of God !
For God is needed. I do not claim that He is
needed to keep the frame- work of Nature — its
mountains, plains, and seas ; its plants, brutes, and
men — from promptly falling into utter nothingness :
nor do I care to say that every particle of order and
comfort would at once drop out of the system were
an active Divine hand withdrawn from beneath it.

244 SEVENTH LECTURE.
Still God is a necessity to the universe. Human
nature in its soundest state hungers for Him. The
race at large needs to believe in Him. The total
system needs to have Him — as a Providence and
Government. Woe to the morals of mankind when
faith is wholly dead ! Woe to the happiness and
usefulness and all true greenness of mankind when
its morals have gone down into the Potter's Field
where faith lies scantily buried ! Woe to all earthly
Nature, animal and vegetable as well, when the
human life and character have both become offen
sive corpses ! Nay, woe to the universal Cosmos
when it has no God to guide and govern it ! An
infinite evil has come upon it. It has sustained un
speakable loss. For suppose God to be dead. He
has lived and wrought and governed as only a be
ing of perfect faculty can, through amazing a?ons.
But now He dead — dead. ' What means such an
event to the universe ? Manifestly it means some
thing very dreadful. The difference to the system
between the presence and the absence of such a
dynamic as God is plain infinity. And so I declare
that an unspeakable loss has been sustained. A
good that defies figures, and. even the fancy, has
been subtracted from the creation. It is not too
much to say that the creation became bankrupt at
that loss — became, at that stroke of doom, both
altar and sacrifice ; a holocaust sacrifice, whose
lurid flames make all space ghastly, and go on to
fill it with the charred and ruinous heaps of its

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 245
former fair self. Oh, how these dismal ruins hunger
and thirst for the old God ! Oh, how much these
black and cindered earths yearn and beseech after
Him through their innumerable fissures and gap
ing wounds, as the parched and chapped ground in
fiercest drought yearns and cries toward the heavens
for rain ! At last true midnight has come. And
from out its anguished bosom, indestructible though
ruined Nature sends forth groans on groans accented
with profound despair — broken with piteous protests
and pleadings for a God that cannot be spared.
There is not a scorched and scarred fragment
that does not, forgetting all other wants, join in
the mournful chime, Oh for a God, Oh for a God !
The state of things is such as to invoke the dead
God from His nonentity with almost the force of a
Creator. And should He, in answer to these ap
peals " creating a soul under the ribs of death,"
again suddenly make His appearance — appear no
more to die — Oh, what thrills would circulate,
what hallelujahs would go up, what jubilees of
shouts and songs would peal and re-peal, what an
ecstatic wave of sacred laughter would run and flash
in the new sunlight across the whole breadth of
being ! Nature would ring all her bells. She
would blow all her silver trumpets. Even demons,
methinks, would rejoice as they emerged from that
chaotic night into morning. Even they would be
glad at that greatest of Eurekas — the refinding
of One who knows how to goverii. Never before

246 SEVENTH LECTURE.
has such exulting Sabbath been kept — not even
when the morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted for joy. And it is but just.
So utterly measureless is the need of God. No or
dinary words of literal statement can begin to carry
a just sense of its greatness.
I saw a little child — wandering, wandering. A
strange place, new objects, fresh curious eyes peer
ing at everything— little one, where are you going ?
Suddenly she misses her father. Where is he ?
She looks round and round. Where is the familiar
hand that a short time ago held hers ; where the
familiar face that but just now was looking down
upon her so tenderly and protectingly ? A great
fear begins to steal upon her. She lifts up her voice.
" Father, Father." No answer comes. " Father,
Father, Father." Still no answer. Her alarm
increases fast. She begins to run about and to ask
of one and another, with flushed face and anxious,
questioning eyes, " Have you seen him — Have you
seen my father ? " No — no one has seen him ; and
the poor child's heart fails her more and more. Her
knees begin to tremble, she is all agitation, her
questionings "and calls become every moment more
hurried and tremulous ; at last a spasm of mingled
wails and calls pours out of her white lips, and she
breaks down into convulsive sobs which no sooth-
ings can allay. Poor child — she has lost her
father ! Will she never see him again ? God for
bid — if there be a God.

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 247
This partly expresses what every good man
would feel like doing on discovering himself to be
without a God — what all men, after a short expe
rience of doing without Him, would feel like doing
— indeed, what comprehensive Nature, could it
become personal, would certainly do. She would,
with a great fear at her heart, begin to call for the
lost Heavenly Father. She would go searching for
Him and asking for Him up and down all the lati
tudes and longitudes. And should she not succeed
in finding Him ; should no answer come to her loud
and urgent invoking ; should she nowhere meet
with any who could tell of having seen Him or His
like ; should at last the deepening gloom and silence
whisper He is dead — oh, what a heart-breaking
wail would go up that moment to pierce the very
heavens ! Drenched in sobs and tears, that poor
orphaned child, though bearing the great name of
Nature, would wish herself dead also. But hark —
what sound is that ? It comes nearer and nearer.
She has caught it. She lifts her streaming face and
breathlessly attends. On comes the strange sound
— deepening and widening and at last taking on a
perceptible accent of joy. She springs to her feet.
With parted lips and face pictorial with hope she
leans toward the advancing murmur. " He is
found," " He is found " — at last shapes itself dis
tinctly to her greedy ear. Lo, the day breaks like
noon over her beaming face. She springs forward,
she runs, she leaps, she meets Him afar, she clings

248 SEVENTH LECTURE.
about His knees, she casts herself into His open
arms and nestles in His bosom. Her sobs die away.
She looks up into His face and smiles and clings,
and clings and smiles. At last she is at rest. God
bless her — at last the poor child whom some call
Nature, is at rest. And the tears of by-standers —
the spaces and durations — fall in joyful rain. It is
all right — just as it should be. It would have been
such a dreadful orphanage ! Such rags, such hun
gers, such rooflessness and homelessness, such neg
lects and exposures and blows, such ignorance and
guilt and misery — never were seen the like. Poor
Nature would have died.
What is the scientific import of all this ? This
need of a God, so pronounced and mighty — what
means it in view of such science as forms the glory
and boast of this nineteenth century ? Why, it
means the same as every other case of natural ge
neric need — it means a supply of the need ; it
means an actual God. Nay, it means Him with an
emphasis more prompt and sonorous than ever came
from any other need whatever. For it is the su
preme need. It is the Labarum among standards,
and the Pontifex Maximus among priests. Indeed,
it is much more than this. It is not only a supreme
need but an incomparable one ; not only an incom
parable one but one which could not be greater.
How could a need cry more out of the very depths
and essential nature of finite things ? How could
it relate to more vital things than virtue, and those

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 249
forms of happiness and usefulness that naturally
follow in the wake of virtue ? How could it bear
on a greater variety of interests than Infinite Fac
ulty can reach and aid, or bear on them more heav
ily ? How could it spread itself over a wider area
of being than the enormous All ? So that it is not
enough to say that Nature aches after God more
than ever eye ached for fight, or lungs for air, or
wings for an atmosphere, or fins for waters, or
the babe for its mother. It is even not enough to
say that this Divine need towers out of sight above
all others; that it is indefinitely beyond rivalry;
that, toto orbe, there is nothing else for which Na
ture clamors so deeply, from so many mouths, with
such variety and breadth of voices, and in behalf
of so many classes of being. It is not enough to
say even this. We must go on to say with ple
nary voice that it is not within the range of possibil
ities for a need to be greater at any one of these
essential points. It is a maximum of maxima. It is
the eternity among the durations, the astronomical
abyss among the spaces, the God among living be
ings. The day that should see the universe va
cated of a God would begin to see it beggared to the
last farthing. And when we have said all this, and
truly said it; when all such secular needs as we have
been instancing appear dwarfed into nothingness by
its side ; I demand in the name of Science — Shall all
these little needs, without exception, be allowed to
argue a supply for themselves, and the same privi-

250 SEVENTH LECTURE.
lege be denied to this greatest ? Shall all these be
allowed to argue in proportion to their size, and
it be denied to this need to argue at all ? Science
protests against such strange proceedings. She will
not permit such huge inconsistency — especially as
done in her name. After we have taken indefinite
consecutive cases of organic and generic need, and
found them always balanced by supply with a
brilliancy and emphasis proportioned to their size,
shall we come to the next case — which happens to
be that of the Divine need — without expecting a
continuation of the law ? Who will be so unscientific,
unreasonable, and absurd ? Who will not feel able
to rest all his weight on that long chain of inductions ?
What scholar in the Baconian philosophy and the
philosophy of common sense will hesitate to declare
that this need, which transcends all others so im
mensely in magnitude, transcends them correspond
ingly in the force with which it argues for that
grand supply whose name is God ?
So the nisus predicts a God. The Being who is
needed to complement Nature into a whole really
exists. The great hunger for Him which belongs to
normal human nature is provided for; the great
vacuum that beseeches Him like a maelstrom can
be filled ; the great finger-post that points at Him
so steadily from all corners is not perjured ; the
great drafts and streams that set in from all quar
ters toward Him really have Him for their Equa
tor ; the great wheel whose radii are seen con-

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 251
verging on Him till they are lost in clouds really
has Him for its sublime Axis.
See how these flowers, and indeed all this abun
dant vegetation, have their generic slant sunward !
Do I need to have seen that attracting sun during
all these months and years in order to know that it
has existed and shone ? Nature is a heliotrope —
an enormous sunflower, turning its whole fruitful
bosom toward God ; and when I see that generic
bent, I do not need to see God in order to know that
He is. I see the obeisance which the creatures are
paying to their Creator. — See how these vines lean
and twine and cling and put forth their profuse
rootlets and tendrils ! Does one need to see the
firm trees and sturdy walls and century-defying
church-towers to which these epiphytes fasten
themselves, in order to know that such supports
may be had? Nature is an ivy — a leaner and
dinger by its very structure, with tendrils and
rootlets innumerable issuing from all parts, and
reaching for support and nourishment to something
indefinitely firmer and richer than itself; and I do
not need to see cathedral God in order to know that
this glorious support for Nature may be found.
The very structure and infinite tendrils of that
wonderful creeper proclaim Him. — See how mys
terious instinct draws the babe toward its mother,
the bee toward its cell-building and honey-making,
the silk-worm toward its spinning, the coralline to
ward its submarine architecture, and each species

252 SEVENTH LECTURE.
of living Nature toward its peculiar functions and
line of life ! Surely, if one could know these in
stincts apart from the things to which they point,
he would not need to actually see that mother with
his two eyes in order to know that she exists — or
that curious honey-comb with its plenum of mathe
matics and nectar ; or that cocoon wealthy with the
silks of Lyons and Cathay ; or that coral archipel
ago within whose harbors navies safely ride, and
on whose fertile bosom tropical harvests bloom and
empurple — these things are all implied and sworn
to in the very instincts themselves. Such, from
babe to coralline, is Nature ; and the true Mother,
the infinite Sweetness, the gorgeous Robe, the
tropical Paradise to which it instinctively reaches
forth and calls, is God. Why must I see Him in
order to know that He is ? The very instinct that
blindly draws and pushes everywhere toward utility
and beauty and goodness and worship announces
Him sufficiently.
See Uranus wavering and quavering on his Si
berian path. Must I put a telescope to my eye,
and descry perturbing Neptune, before I send in to
the Institute my account of the new planet ? It
alone satisfies the perturbations. Still look, O Ger
man Galle, and all ye whose faith in mathematics
and the law of gravitation is weak; look toward
Delta Capricorni, and optically find what is already
theoretically known. — See all the path-bits of the
solar system curved as for a common center, and

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 258
lo, some of the celestial pilgrims brightly smiling
toward the same point ! Who feels that he must
actually see that center blazing as a sun before he
can solidly believe in it ? Why, all the arcs of the
system, great and small, unite in affirming that pri
mate and metropolitan. — See Constellation Hercules
growing larger, year by year. Must you see, with
fleshly eyes, a flaming ellipse trending along the
abyss, and carefully take its hearing among the
stars with compass and sights, before you will con
sent to believe in it ? If so, alas for the Herschels
and Struves ! They are visionaries, and not the
men of science they have had the credit of being. —
See the proper motions of all Galacteal stars curved
as if for central Pleiades ! To know the reality of
that center, must I actually see it blazing like twelve
thousand suns, and actually see it brightly zoned
about by its eighteen millions of completed ellipses,
and actually hunt down, one by one, as many
shadowy foci till they are lost to view in thy efful
gent bosom, O illustrious and imperial Alcyone ?
Not at all. Forbid it, Dorpat and Pulkova — for
bid it, the fames of Maedler and Argelander and all
most signal astronomers ! Never do I need turn
eye on the neck of Taurus. Its famous cluster
might be as strange to my sight as the lost Pleiad.
And yet I must believe. It is enough for me that
I know the law of gravitation, and have noted the
general drift of our heavens. This settles the
matter. Every bit of star-path out in yonder

254 SEVENTH LECTURE.
vault contributes a voice to that euphemism which
tells me the brilliant story of the Central Sun. I
am assured of that august nebular heart, of that
astonishing center of force and revolution, as
plainly, if not as impressively, as I could have
been by near sight. No, I do not need to see it.
No more do I need to see God in order to know of
His existence. He is perturbing Neptune. He is
the Herculean Constellation toward which all things
sail. He is the metropolitan Alcyone around which
all things revolve. So I have no occasion to invoke
sight. The perturbations of Nature show Him.
Her orbits concave to Him proclaim Him. The
general drift of her firmaments announces Him like
a choir of trumpets and artilleries. Hail, Great
Center of revolving being — as real as if we saw
Thee on Thy throne sending forth Thy beams and
government to remotest space ! The nisus has re
vealed Thee ; and it was not in vain that we
adjured " Per magnos, Nisu, Penates
Assaracique Larem, et canse penetralia Vestas
Obtestor; qusecumque mihi fortuna ndesque est
In vestris pono gremiis : revocate parentem ;
Beddite conspectum ; nihil illo triste recepto." .

VIII.
THEISM AS A
SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS.
"Yi/foi&j vnep iraira, virepwp.iav Kal aravm.
Xpvo-eta TaXavra — Tpwav XW£S "i°°s ovpavov aepOev. Homer.

EIGHTH LECTURE.

THEISM AS A SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS.
I" ASK your attention in this Lecture to the su-
¦*- perior merits of Theism as an hypothesis for the
explanation of Nature. Notice that the hypothesis,
while perfectly sufficient, and, to say the least, a
priori as credible as any, is vastly the simplest, the
surest, the safest, the sublimest, and the most in ac
cord with the convictions and traditions of mankind,
especially of the most enlightened and moral part
of mankind. Some of these particulars may appear
at first sight to address themselves solely to the
taste and interest : I trust they will be found to ap
peal to the reason as well.
The Theistic Hypothesis is perfectly sufficient.
It is plain that a Being of power and wisdom
indefinitely beyond the human can completely ac
count for all the wonders of Nature. Nothing
could be plainer. A child can see it as well as the
sage. The most exquisitely fashioned man, the
noblest astral system, the aggregate of the amazingly
varied organisms that crowd the earth and spangle
the sky — a God is abundantly equal to the produc-
17

258 EIGHTH LECTURE.
tion of them all. There is absolutely nothing
which such a Being cannot do with the greatest
ease. He has skill enough to contrive the most
exquisite things, power enough to accomplish the
hardest things, and comprehension enough to tri
umph with these attributes over the largest fields
of being which observation has examined or thought
conjectured. As an explanation of Nature, the The
istic hypothesis could not be improved. The
hardiest assailant would scarcely dare question its
perfect sufficiency.
The Theistic Hypothesis is, to say the least, a priori,
as credible as any.
The various hypotheses to account for organic
Nature are as follows. First, natural organisms,
as individuals or races, are eternal. Second, they
were constructed by chance. Third, they were
constructed by law — that is, by blind material ele
ments acting in obedience to the eternal laws of
their natures. Fourth, they were constructed by
God. The first two suppositions are too openly in
conflict with observation and science to find any
supporters in this age. No one now supposes that
the individual plants and animals which he sees
about him have always existed as such. That tree,
that brute, that man — each of these individuals
self-existent, imperishable, eternal ! All the senses
of all men are against it. They protest in a thou
sand ways that such organisms begin and flux and

AS CREDIBLE, A PRIORI. 259
dissolve with every passing day. Equally plain
is it that the races began — as plain as the
igneous and metamorphic rocks, and the alphabet
of geology. — As to a man, or even a blade of
grass, becoming constructed by a strictly fortuitous
concourse of atoms, such epicureanism is now out
of date by many centuries. Chance — no person
of culture at the present day believes in such a
^thing ! Nor is it Argyle alone who believes in the
reign of law. The schoolboy or the schoolless
peasant does it as well as the cultured noble. All
persons among us now understand that every atom
has its essential properties and laws, which, together
with those of other atoms and agents, spiritual and
other, determine all its doings and experiences.
The very idea of hap-hazard died and was buried
at the incoming of modern science ; and every new
inquiry into Nature heaps new measures of dust
on the grave. So we may put aside the two
hypotheses first named. The comparison lies wholly
between the last two — between that of construction
by law and that of construction by God. Which
of these has the best claim on our favor?
Let it be observed, in the first place, that the
hypothesis of construction by God is, to say the
least, fully as credible, on its face, as its rival. Of
course a person is perfectly credible ; for we know
millions of such beings in actual existence. Of
course a person producing organisms, and very elab
orate organisms, is perfectly credible ; for we know

260 EIGHTH LECTURE.
millions on millions of persons actually doing as
much. An eternal and practically infinite personal
constructer of organisms is a more difficult concep
tion, and further removed from our experience ; but
not more so than the eternal and practically infinite
material constructer of organisms which the law hy
pothesis assumes ; for it assumes what is really a
material God — an eternal assemblage of blind atoms
with properties in the aggregate fully equivalent, so
far as production of results is concerned, to that
personal power and wisdom indefinitely greater than
the human which the Theistic hypothesis ascribes
to God. Indeed, the construction of organisms by
an intelligent agent is wonderfully more conformed
to experience, not to say reason, than the construc
tion of such organisms by mere blind matter. We
have no conceded instances of the latter construc
tion, while we have innumerable conceded instances
of the former. Men do plan and execute watches,
telegraphs, sewing-machines, pin-machines — ma
chines beyond count. This is matter of absolute
knowledge. It is universally granted among those
who believe in knowledge at all. But construction
by mere blind force, is not granted — especially
construction of intelligent and moral beings. Only
a very few imagine such a thing proved at all,
and they in only a few instances, and that rather
as a possibility or a presumption than as a demon
stration. And just think of it. A mist of blind ele
ments blindly shaping itself, not only into an infinity

SIMPLEST. 261
of useful and admirable objects — and such only —
like plants and animals, but also into intelligent
and moral beings ; into statesmen, philosophers, and
saints ; into Napoleons, Miltons, Newtons, Howards ;
in fine, into such books as the Principia or Paradise
Lost — for the author cannot be less wonderful than
his works. What says an unsophisticated mind to
the idea of matter, under blind forces and laws,
shaping itself into the Iliad, or the Mecanique Ce
leste, or the mosaic portraits of the popes that look
down so marvelously in long order in the Roman St.
Paul's ? Why, the very idea gives a shock to the
understandings of most men ! It seems like an
insult to their intuitions. It seems to defy their
common sense and knowledge of Nature. Blind
causation* do such things ! To say that the con
ception is hard, far-fetched, unnatural, is not
enough. It looks vastly preposterous. It begs
like Demosthenes to be considered a self-con
tradiction. The man who accepts it instead of
Theism, has wonderfully the appearance of one
swallowing a camel after straining at a gnat.
Blind causation do such things — it seems a feat a
hundred fold more wonderful than any ever attrib
uted to a personal God ! Really, the hypothesis of
construction by law is, on its face, greatly less
credible than that of construction by God.
The Theistic Hypothesis is vastly the simplest.
Each hypothesis, considered as an explanation of
Nature, consists formally of two parts — first, certain

262 EIGHTH LECTURE.
assumptions ; and, second, certain considerations to
show that these assumptions, in connection with
known principles, will explain Nature. In the case
of the Theistic hypothesis, the first part consists of
the supposition of an eternal Being with power and
wisdom indefinitely greater than the human, while
the second part is nil — no considerations whatever
being required to show that such a Being can
account for the whole hight and breadth of Na
ture. Not so with . the law hypothesis. Here the two
parts are much less simple, being in fact two very
generic and complicated schemes of suppositions
and arguments ; one called the cosmical hypothesis
for explaining the origin of worlds, and the other
called the physiological hypothesis for explaining
the origin of the living organisms on this world.
The leading suppositions of the general scheme are
as follows : —
1. An eternal substance, namely, matter.
2. An infinite number of eternal substances,
namely, countless material atoms having independ
ent existence.
3. An eternal and infinitely complex scheme of
exquisite relationships between these countless,
eternal, independently subsisting substances.
4. These exquisitely correlated atoms tenuously
diffused as a gas or mist.
5. This mist vastly larger than a solar system.
6. This mist on fire.

SIMPLEST. 263
7. Currents in this mist, obliquely toward the
general center of gravity and nucleus of conden
sation. 8. Several minor nuclei of special condensation
distributed through the mass — each with its own
system of oblique currents.
9. All these nuclei such in size, place, and num
ber, as to harmonize with the conditions of stable
equilibrium in a solar system. I call particular at
tention to this last most voluminous assumption.
These are only a part of the assumptions included
in the law hypothesis — merely leading specimens.
You observe that the infinite and eternal enter
quite as largely into this scheme of explanation as
into the other — indeed, more largely — while there
is no comparison between the two Schemes as to
number of assumptions.
But, allowing these numerous assumptions, it
does not intuitively appear from them, as it does
from the assumptions ofthe Theistic hypothesis, that
they will explain Nature. Arguments are neces
sary. No small amount of them is necessary. The
arguments to show that the foregoing postulates,
with the help of known laws of matter and prin
ciples of science, are adequate to explain natural
organisms, may be arranged in three classes : —
First, certain arguments to show that all the
worlds composing our solar system, and the leading
features of each world, may be naturally derived
from the foregoing data. These arguments are

264 EIGHTH LECTURE.
long and intricate ; and when duly spread out, make
a volume. Second, certain arguments to show the possibility
6f spontaneous generation of the lower forms of or
ganic life. These arguments are long and intricate ;
and when duly spread out, make a volume.
Third, certain arguments to show the possibility
of transmutation of species by gradual natural de
velopment of these lower organisms into higher
forms, and at last into intelligent and moral beings.
These arguments are long and intricate ; and when
duly spread out, make a volume.
Now, granting that the two schemes of explana
tion are, in the last result, equally good at account
ing for Nature, you observe that one is a vastly
more complex"lplan of explanation than the other.
With elements fully as difficult, one consists of
many parts — the other of few. With elements
fully as difficult, one requires volumes to unfold it
self fully — the other requires only a few words.
Need I ask which is the more philosophical ? It is
an immemorial and indisputable canon of philosophy
to accept the simplest explanation of facts.
We have taken the law hypothesis in its usual
form. If any one thinks it may be made more
simple by supposing more and arguing less, let him
try. Let him reduce the second part of the hy
pothesis to zero by introducing the following com
prehensive supposition into the first part. Suppose
those eternally correlated atoms to have an efficiency

SIMPLEST. 265
practically infinite — to have forces and laws which
as a whole are fully equivalent, so far as results
are concerned, to that power and wisdom indefi
nitely greater than human which the Theistic hy
pothesis ascribes to God — to have forces and laws
which are of themselves able to bring the atoms
together into all the exquisite organisms that we
see, up to intelligent and moral beings.
Of course, to grant this supposition is to grant
everything. No need of any argument to show
that such an hypothesis will explain Nature. But
is such an hypothesis plainly allowable ? Does it as
sume only what is plainly possible ? All the assump
tions of the Theistic hypothesis are assumptions of
what in the nature of things are evidently possible —
an eternal person, this person indefinitely superior to
man in wisdom and power. But this last assump
tion of the law hypothesis is a very different matter.
To take for granted that a mist of atoms, by virtue
of any blind properties whatever, can arrange itself
into that infinite variety of exquisite organisms —
and nothing but exquisite organisms — that we see,
is taking for granted a great deal ; is taking for
granted what one may well be pardoned for doubt
ing. The possibility of such a thing needs mightily
to be shown. It needs to be shown that astonishing
solar systems can result from mere natural forces
and laws ; that spontaneous genesis of organic life
in some low form can occur ; that there may be a
natural development of this low form, through trans-

266 EIGHTH LECTURE.
mutation of species, into the most wonderful men.
The possibility of all this needs not only to be
shown, but to be shown to a demonstration ; since
all the assumptions of the rival hypothesis are pos
sible to an absolute certainty. It is self-evident
that there is some eternal substance, and .that an
eternal person is, in the nature of things, just as
possible as eternal matter — self-evident that there
is nothing in the nature of things to limit an eternal
intelligence to a given breadth of knowledge and
power — self-evident that there is nothing to pre
vent that intelligence from being as much greater
than men in these respects as man is greater than
a worm. Thus in the Theistic hypothesis. So
everything in the rival hypothesis must be put on a
basis of absolute certainty. That profuse argument,
drawn out through volumes, which undertakes to
show the possibility of a cloud of blind atoms doing
the work of an infinite God must be made as strong
as Euclid. Every link in that long chain of evi
dence must be forged by some Vulcan in the smithy
of geometry. On this plan of exhibition, the law
hypothesis will be quite as complex as on the other
plan. On both plans it is a most cumbrous machine
for its purpose — wheels within, wheels in most un
necessary and perplexing maze. It is the first rough
effort of the inventor compared with the instrument
when, at last, simplified into a tithe of its original
size and expense by the labors of many years and
many rival ingenuities. It is the long, rambling,

SIMPLEST. 267
tedious process of some unfledged geometer com
pared with the swift and laconic algebra of La
Grange. It is the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy
compared with the Copernican — the vortices of
Descartes compared with the Newtonian principle
and law of gravity. What manufacturer now uses
the first spinning-jenny of Arkwright ? What math
ematician now works at his daily investigations with
the ancient synthesis rather than with the modern
analysis ? What astronomer now explains the
heavens according to Ptolemy? Cycles and epi
cycles and deferents and eccentrics piled on each
other — who does not bless himself that he is well
out of this tangled wilderness into the grand sim
plicity of the Copernican theory ? With a true
philosopher, nothing but the clumsy manifoldness
of the old system, as compared with the new, is
needed to secure its emphatic rejection. Could it
explain all astronomical facts equally well with its
simpler rival, it would still fail of countenance for a
single moment, as being essentially unscientific. So
should fail of countenance that complex and cum
brous law hypothesis which is the Ptolemaic system
of natural theology. However successful it mav
prove in accounting for Nature — though it should
leave nothing to be desired in respect to clearness
and certainty of result — it ought to be summarily
rejected as being a tedious Chancery and Circumlo
cution Office. What traveller rides with a fiftieth
or even a fifth wheel to his carriage ? What Amer-

268 EIGHTH LECTURE.
ican, seeking merely New York, goes by way of
Pekin? The Theistic Hypothesis is vastly the surest.
It is perfectly certain — certain to the apprehen
sion of all mankind — that the hypothesis of a God
will account for all natural wonders.
Can as much be said in favor of the hypothesis
of construction by law ? Is its adequacy intuitively
certain ? Or has that adequacy been rigorously
demonstrated, level to the apprehension of all the
world ? No one claims it. No one dares to claim
it. Great effort has been made. Great ingt nuity
has done its best. Years of argument have piled
themselves on years, and still the argument rages.
With what result ? The great majority of think
ing men are as unconvinced as ever. They do not
even find a modest probability in the scheme so
laboriously commended to them. And even its
best friends hardly presume to call their own ar
guments a proof, much less a demonstration, much
less still a demonstration that can be universally
seen to be such. A certain amount of philosophic
credibility, or, at the most, probability, is all that
such men seem to themselves to have accomplished
by their long and intricate dealings in behalf of
spontaneous generation and transmutation of spe
cies by natural development; while to most per
sons the whole scheme is a hopeless fog-bank —
very picturesquely constructed perhaps, and dis
playing not a few showy battlements and pinnacles

SUREST. 269
and prismatics — but still mere unsubstantial and
uncertain air-castles, liable to change shape and
even disappear at any moment. And yet, to put
their scheme on as good footing as the Theistic, its
ability to explain Nature must be made a matter of
absolute and immeasurable certainty to the gaze of
all plainest understandings. For, from sunrise to
sunset, and round to sunrise again, there is not a
person capable of understanding the proposition
who does not know, to absolute perfection, that an
Infinite Person could produce with perfect ease the
noblest and all things that make up the beauty and
majesty of Nature. It is as much an axiom to the
child and the savage as it is to the sage. So a
heavy demand is made on the friends of the law
scheme. It is not enough, should we find ourselves
unable to prove positively that this scheme is insuf
ficient to explain Nature : its friends must show to
utter certainty that it is sufficient, and show it to
the complete satisfaction of all respectable inquirers.
A hugely contested probability, timidly accepted as
such by a few respectable reasoners, will not answer.
Euclid himself must not be more conclusive, nor
his axioms plainer. To secure this, all the parts,
scores in number, of the very complex scheme, must
be put on the footing of geometrical axioms. You
must do it for all parts of the cosmical argument.
You must do it for all parts of the physiological
argument — for the spontaneous generation, for the
transmutation of species, for the development of the

270 EIGHTH LECTURE.
oyster into the Newton. Not a single point in the
voluminous scheme must be left to rest on mere
probability. Should absolute demonstration halt at
a single one of these points, or at any one of them
fail to flash conviction like a sun on the most limited
of sound understandings that chances to glance
thither, the whole hypothesis would break down as
a demonstration. Of course such a Cesarean, all-
conquering proof, is not only unaccomplished, but
unaccomplishable. Not an instance of it can be
found in the whole kingdom of logic.
A man who, reduced to choose between two sec
ular hypotheses in other respects equal, should
choose the one whose adequacy to account for the
facts is, almost unboundedly, the most questionable,
would not be considered the wisest of men. Sup
pose you meet an English friend in yonder street.
" How came you here ? " you exclaim. He informs
you that he came either by steamer or by artificial
wings. Have you any difficulty in choosing be
tween the two explanations ? You can decide the
case swift as the flashing light, and with the mo
mentum of a planet. And why not ? You certainly
know, as does everybody, that a steamer is adequate
to bring the man across the Atlantic ; but you do
not certainly know that artificial wings can do such
a feat. Very far from it. What you know is that
the possibility of such a mode of transit for men is
extremely doubtful, to say the least. Some ingen
ious things can be said in its favor — witness Ras-

MOST SALUTARY AND SAFE. ¦ 271
se]as — but to most persons the very idea is very
ridiculous, and to none is it more than plausible.
So you have not a shadow of hesitation. Instanta
neously, your mind flashes its decision. Between
the hypothesis whose adequacy is perfectly certain,
and the hypothesis whose adequacy is, to say the
least, extremely uncertain, you have no occasion to
linger. You take the immeasurably surer hypothe
sis, immediately and as a matter of course. Your
friend did not, Daedalus like, transfer himself across
the seas by means of a pair of wings deftly fastened
to his shoulders.
The Theistic Hypothesis is greatly the most sal
utary and safe — salutary for the present life, and
safe as to another.
It is easy to see that the recognition of a God,
carrying with it, as experience shows it generally if
not always will, a recognition of His righteous gov
ernment — certainly of the possibility of it — has
greater tendency to restrain from misconduct and
to stimulate to virtue than has atheism. This from
the nature of the case. And experience accords.
It lies on the very surface of life and history that
Theism is better than atheism for the character,
the happiness, and the general outward prosperity
of communities and families and individuals. Such
has been the teaching of my own observation and
reading on this point, that I am free to say that I
had rather have my child worship in faith some re
spectable Brahma or fetich than to have him alto-

272 EIGHTH LECTURE.
gether without a God. So felt the ancients, though
with but a small part of our experience. Plato
would have atheists exported far from his republic
as being a public danger. He would have their
children taken from them, and brought up as orphans
at the public charge. And the words of Cicero to
the same effect have become famous. " That such
views are useful and necessary, who will deny, when
he reflects how many things must be confirmed by
an oath, how much safety there is in those religious
rites that pertain to the solemnization of contracts,
how many the fear of Divine punishment keeps
back from crime ; in short, how sacred and holy a
thing society becomes when the immortal gods
are constantly presented both as judges and wit
nesses." So spake classic antiquity. And modern
times, with their larger scope, venture to speak
still more strongly. To them Theism is like a cer
tain geode but recently found. To them Theism is
like a certain flower just now becoming naturalized
in our conservatories. The stone was broken, and
lo, it was lined with beautiful crystals, and in the
heart of that rich casket a still richer crystal in the
form of a cross ! Some delicate petals of the Flos
Sancti Spiritus are drawn aside, and lo, nestled in
that fragrant bosom, looks forth what seems a milk-
white dove ! Such are the contents and implica
tions of Theism — things most fair and wonderful
to see. Behold altars and homes and common
wealths — behold orders, proprieties, safeties, phi-

MOST SALUTARY AND SAFE. 273
lanthropies, steadfast consciences, regulated free
doms, and durable civilizations — behold usefulness
and happiness and hope and virtue in their most
snowy and effulgent forms — behold, as I think, the
Cross and the Holy Ghost ! All these are seminally
contained in the Doctrine of God. It travails in
birth with these for all the worlds.
Whichever hypothesis is honestly accepted will
be measurably acted on. If that of a God is ac
cepted, experience shows that with it, in general if
not always, will be accepted His character as a
righteous moral Governor. Supposing men to act
on the supposition of such a God, it is certain that
no grave harm will come of the action in any event,
while it may open on the soul the gates of eternal
life. But if men act on the supposition of No-God,
they may be ruined remedilessly in case there is
such a Being. Nearly all theists claim it will be
so : a very plausible revelation affirms and reaffirms
the claim in the most positive manner. And cer
tainly, very severe results are by no means improb
able. For, if there is a God, it is exceedingly im
portant that men should know it; and if He is
righteous — as certainly is not improbable — He
greatly desires them to know it, and has given them
suitable means for knowing, and so will be severelv
displeased with their atheism.
It would obviously be irrational to choose the
least useful and safe of two hypotheses in other
respects equal. No man in his senses would advise
18

274 EIGHTH LECTURE.
such a step in secular matters. It would be alike
an insult to interest and to truth. I say, it would
be a libel and outrage on truth — that Divine prin
ciple which is only inferior in beauty and majesty
to virtue itself, and which is universally allowed to
deserve the love and homage of mankind. Useful
ness and safety are near of kin to truth. They are
its natural associates. Where they are found truth
is likely to be found. They are the surface indica
tions of the gold mine — the Geology that divines
of it so strongly that men hopefully gather great
capital about the spot where trembles her rod, and
set to work. If observation shows anything, it is
that the most salutary and safe course is usually the
one accommodated to fact : and indeed such a
course cannot in general be that which is accommo
dated to a falsehood. From the nature of the case,
courses accommodated to a falsehood, and so in pos
itive conflict with the real nature and relations of
things, must in general be attended with more diffi
culty, expense, and damage than those in harmony
with such nature and relations.
The Theistic Hypothesis is greatly the fairest and
sublimest. Other things being equal, the fairest and sub
limest hypothesis has the best claim on us — on our
faith as well as on our affections. It has most the
aspect of a truth.
Soul — whether regarded as an immaterial sub
stance, or simply as the sum of certain qualities

SUBLIMEST. 275
occasionally found in connection with certain or
ganic forms — soul, with its will, feeling, intelli
gence, and capacities for happiness and virtue, is
universally felt by thinking men to be the highest,
as well as the most mysterious sort of known
being. Not the grandest masses of matter; such
as mountains, oceans, stars — not the most subtle
and forceful material elements ; such, for example,
as produce the phenomena of. light, electricity,
and gravitation — not any conceivable combination
of such elements, can compare in wonderfulness
and nobleness with the soul of a Newton. Much
less can any conceivable combination of such causes
compare in these respects with an Eternal and es
sentially Infinite Soul that devises and produces all
natural organisms, and is capable of governing
them and all things with infinite wisdom and good
ness. If, in addition, we suppose this great Being
crowned with the glories of an infinite arid ever
lasting actual felicity and virtue — as we are enti
tled to do for aught that appears to the contrary
— a goodness efflorescing into every imaginable
beauty of hue and form ; a goodness bathing the
whole Divine Nature in the rosy lights of an un
utterable tenderness and mercy and love, whose
warm floods overflow to the remotest terms of the
creation, and insure to it the utmost possible meas
ure of blessed results — what shall we say of such
an Object ? It makes the heart leap to look toward
it. Never such a scene blushed under eye of trav-

276 EIGHTH LECTURE.
eler or pencil of master — never such sumptuous
palace or cathedral reared its wilderness of comeli
ness and majesty on the sight or dreams of men —
never such mountain-range gathered clouds and
rainbows about its brow and blossomed o'er all its
mighty sides with the beauties of every clime —
never such central sun blazed and triumphed and
governed amid its coronet of rejoicing worlds ! 0
wonderful Vision, O Colossus of perfection, O
worthy and worshipful Emperor of Nature, O fair
est and sublimest Idea in the whole empire of
thought ! One may well be excused for preferring,
other things being equal, such an hypothesis as this.
It has the most claim upon him. What should we
think of a man who, being reduced to choose be
tween two hypotheses equal in every other respect,
should choose the meanest and hardest-favored of
the two ? It were an insult to truth. It would do
violence to the subtle instincts and proprieties of
Nature. It would affront the "beautiful and fit
ting " of science.
The Theistic Hypothesis is greatly the most in
accordance with the convictions ' and traditions of
mankind, especially of the most enlightened and
moral part of mankind.
You could almost count up on your fingers the
men who, leaving the attitude of mere doubters,
have come to positively arfirm and positively believe
that Nature was actually produced in conformity
with the law hypothesis. On the other hand,

ACCORD WITH TRADITION. 277
those who so positively and firmly believe in the
Divine origin of Nature that they could freely die
for their faith are almost innumerable. I would like
to see the man who could die for the law hy
pothesis ! — Further, the Divine origin of Nature is
the strong popular faith of whole nations and gen
erations, constituting the most intelligent and best-
behaved part of the race. Much of this faith, in
deed, is not that of martyrs ; but most of it is a
faith that shudders at the very name of atheist, and
at the very idea of a godless universe. And the
Jews, the Christians, the Mohammedans, the Hin
doos with their affiliated races — to say nothing of
smaller peoples — the believing nations covered by
these names include in their mighty circumference
nearly all the science and civilization and semi-civil
ization and respectable morals the world can boast.
— Further, the whole body of mankind, past and
present, with a few trifling exceptions, firmly be
lieve in at least one Great Intelligence of a grade
indefinitely superior to the human and worthy of
worship. Every nation has some divinity. There
is no country without temples, altars, priests. In
all climates, under all governments, through all
stages of society from the most barbaric to the most
cultivated, man humbles himself before great in
visible personal powers. The traveler into unex
plored countries about as much expects to find them
supplied with deities as he expects to find them sup
plied with men. The traveler into distant ages,

278 EIGHTH LECTURE.
whatever direction he takes, about as much expects
to find men worshipping as he does to find them
eating and drinking. Whether Livingstone or Hum
boldt — he encounters the supernatural at every
step. Whether Niebuhr or Muratori — at every
step he meets the immemorial traditions of the su
pernatural descending upon him like Amazons from
every point of the compass. The cultus is every
where. And whether it points at the fetich, or the
idol, or the star, or the Grand Lama, or Brahma,
or Boodh, or Odin, or Osiris, or Jupiter, or Allah, or
Jehovah — it expresses the faith of all nations and
ages in at least one Great Superhuman Intelligence
who holds sanctuary within such holy names, be
fore whose power and wisdom the greatest of men
should uncover, and from whose undefined and
dreamy greatness one should not be surprised to
see issuing any conceivable wonders. I use univer
sal language. It is because the dissenters from this
generic Theism are so few as to be absolutely inap
preciable in the presence of the empires and conti
nents and generations who hold it with a profound
and ineradicable faith.
What means this great Plebiscitum ? What
means this universal faith in at least one Worshipful
Superhuman Intelligence — this chain of such faiths
stretching away back into the mists of history and
even the adyta of primeval tradition — this chain
ever expanding toward Christian Theism as it
passes through the more enlightened times and

ACCORD WITH TRADITION. 279
lands ? If any man says that it means nothing, or
that it does not flex itself significantly in the direc
tion of God, my eyes dilate upon him with astonish
ment. Is he serious ? Does he mean what he says ?
It cannot be denied that universal and very an
cient beliefs have sometimes proved false ; but still
it is acknowledged in practical life that they are
generally true, and are always to be accepted as
true in the absence of all positive evidence to the
contrary. For example, if it should be the univer
sal speech in this community that a certain person
is dishonest, one would not, anterior to a thorough
investigation, trust him as quickly as though there
were no such common fame ; especially if that com
mon fame had existed for many years, and was fully
indorsed by his inost intimate acquaintances —
proving that it is viewed as of the nature of evi
dence. It is possible that the man has been belied,
for many instances of such belying have been
proved ; but still that universal faith against him
is one of the adverse probabilities needing to be off-
setted and overcome by other probabilities. In the
absence of all discoverable positive evidence to the
contrary, the universal and stable belief would be
considered decisive against the man for all practical
purposes, and ought to be so considered. Is there
any positive evidence that there are no superhuman
intelligences? On the contrary, are they not
rather favored bv the fact of numerous orders of
living beings below us in a long line of gradation

280 EIGHTH LECTURE.
down to microscopic life ? What authority has man
for saying that the long line in its ascent ends with
himself, or ends anywhere short of a Being of in
finite proportions as compared with ourselves ?
Further, there cannot be shown an instance of
dateless and universal belief which has maintained
its ground without abatement amid all advances of
knowledge and morals, and which has even been
enhanced by such advances, proving false. The
false belief that the sun moves around the earth
was universal at one time ; but as knowledge in
creased this sort of astronomy weakened and passed
away. The false belief in astrology, in the lunar
influence on the weather, is very ancient, and has
had almost universal acceptance ; but it has faded
before advancing intelligence. The false belief that
it is lawful to worship many deities," and to repre
sent deity under material forms, was for ages well-
nigh universal ; but wherever at any time knowl
edge and character have improved, polytheism and
idolatry have shown tendency to decline. See, for
proof, the French Positivists. But French Posi-
tivists were hardly needed to prove this to any
moderate reader of history. The chief Greek and
Roman philosophers seem to have always lived on
or within the verge of Monotheism, spiritual Mono
theism ; and the more learned and better class of
Brahmins at the present time, when drawn into ex
planations, take up very much the same position. —
On the other hand, this dateless and universal be-

ACCORD WITH TRADITION. 281
lief in at least one Superhuman and Worshipful In
telligence has not been injured anywhere by a com
bined advance in knowledge and character; but
the reverse. The Mohammedan nations, as such,
believe as strongly as the pagan — the Christian
nations, as such, as strongly as the Moslem — the
most advanced Christian nations as strongly as the
least advanced. So far, indeed, from this belief
declining with advancing intelligence and virtue,
it shows in such case a general tendency toward a
more refined and stupendous Theism. Osiris, Ju
piter, and Brahma, are far greater deities than any
worshipped by African or South Sea savages — the
Theos and Deus of such philosophers as Socrates,
Plato, Cicero, Seneca, far greater than the popular
Jupiter — Allah and Jehovah far greater than the
divinity of Plato's speculations — even Jehovah
as conceived by the cultured and saintly christian
is a far more glorious object than the average Jeho
vah of Christian lands. In such lands those com
munities which are the most eminent for intelli
gence and excellent living are also most noted for
both the strength and quality of their faith in the
supernatural. See that swearing, swindling, drink
ing, gambling, dissolute, and ignorant frontier set
tlement ! Which has the strongest and highest faith
in the supernatural — that, or yonder cultured and
virtuous New England village ! See that good man
of to-day ! Make sure that when, twenty years
hence, he has become a still better man — more sol-

282 EIGHTH LECTURE.
idly principled, more strictly conscientious, more loft
ily just, more tenderly and actively benevolent —
his faith in God will stand on a still broader base and
pierce the heavens with a still loftier apex. It is
simple experience. Never stood pyramid more sta
bly and sublimely than stood the faith of Sir Da
vid Brewster at the age of fourscore and seven —
a faith that had grown through the long years as
fast as his ever-growing intelligence and goodness.
Look at it. A dateless and universal belief in
at least one Great Intelligence of a grade indefi
nitely superior to the human — whence came this
mighty epidemic ? Did it spring naturally from a
low moral and intellectual condition of the race at
large — as fevers and ignesfatui do from marshes
— or from the selfish efforts of governments and
incipient priesthoods ; or from both ? Either ori
gin would be inconsistent with the fact that a com
bined advance in knowledge and morals is found to
affect the faith favorably. Did it spring from the
evident profitableness of the faith in the sight of all
mankind ? This were strongly in its favor as being
true. Did it spring from the fact that it is intrin
sically and universally palatable, if not profitable ?
Who can say that ? No-Religion makes no exac
tions whatever : the easiest religion known to men
makes great exactions, and makes them constantly.
Self-restraint and sacrifice are the common and
statute law of every religious system. Not a wor
ship but includes endless expenses, labors, cares,

ACCORD WITH TRADITION. 283
and fears. Codes of regulations must be carefully
studied out, and watchfully conformed to. Pil
grimages, penances, works from the twelve labors
of Hercules downward, must be accepted. Tem
ples must be built, altars fed, costly rites main
tained, priesthoods supported. In fine, to mere na
ture, a religion is a cramping formula for this
world ; while it offers for another world only what,
according to the atheistic theory, a man is equally
at liberty to expect without a God. So it would
seem to be intrinsically an unpopular system. That
such a system could have fought its way from noth
ing into virtually universal acceptance, and main
tained itself there unfalteringly from immemorial
antiquity to the present, without any real support
from either the reason, the experience, or the inter
est of mankind — could even have brightened and
ascended with advancing knowledge and morals,
and all as the product of the hideous incubation of
wickedness upon general ignorance and wickedness
— is, to say the least, far from being a plain matter.
It has a strong look of incredibility. It savors
mightily of self-contradiction. Plainly, it would
take more argument than most minds can compass
to give even plausibility to such an explanation.
As to demonstrating its adequacy, such a thing is
out of the question. The very idea is absurd.
But if we suppose a primeval revelation of God ;
that the doctrine was gradually lowered and cor
rupted to a great extent by the moral and intellect-

284 EIGHTH LECTURE.
ual lapses of the race ; that nevertheless it com
mended itself so mightily to their fundamental
instincts, essential reason, and great wants that
even such potent sources of error could never quite
overpower it among any considerable body of man
kind; and that, just as soon as these incubi are
lifted, the elastic and irrepressible doctrine proceeds
to expand toward its normal and original grandeur
— I say, if we suppose this, we have an explana
tion of the general faith in worshipful superhuman
beings, and of its obvious partiality for intelligence
and virtue, which is perfectly natural and perfectly
sufficient ; intuitively so. The adequacy of the ex
planation is perfectly axiomatic. Not a word need
be said in its defense. Especially in view of the
fact that all the most eminent mythologists of the
present day are agreed in the opinion that Mono
theism lies at the foundation of all pagan mythol-

No one who in these times and lands admits
wonderfully superhuman beings, but will go further,
and admit a God. As a matter of fact, those who
admit them do invariably admit a true God. And
it ought to be so. For this admission takes away,
on the one hand, the only serious appearance of an
objection to a God, and, on the other hand, vastly
intensifies the difficulty of accounting for Nature
without Him ; indeed, makes such an account im
possible, if we may trust the mathematical doctrine
of chances. The only apparent objection to a God

ACCORD WITH TRADITION. 285
that has much weight with most persons, is His fail
ure to manifest Himself in overwhelming appeal to
our senses and experience ; and this objection is
recognized as invalid just as soon as one admits any
invisible intelligences above man who mingle in hu
man affairs. And, too, just as soon as one admits
such intelligences vastly above man and yet not
eternal, he has introduced into the begun Nature
that needs to be accounted for a new element of
difficulty vastly greater than any it before con
tained. If it is somewhat hard to understand and
show how blind causes can produce an intelligent
man, it must be vastly harder to understand and
show how such causes can produce an Intelligence
vastly superior to man and able to make a man. In
fact, the mathematics of chances forbids our at
tempting to account for Nature by blind causes
after the admission of such a Being. La Place
states the following law. The probability that an
effect is produced by any one of given things is as
the antecedent probability of that thing, multiplied
by the probability that, if it existed, it would have
produced the effect. Now, in the case before us,
one agent is admitted as existing and able to pro
duce the effect. To get the entire probability that
it actually produced the effect, we must multiply
certainty by the probability that, if existent, it
would actually have produced the effect. Now the
latter probability is certainly greater than the prob
ability that a competing blind cause, if existent,

286 EIGHTH LECTURE.
would have produced it. It certainly is more likely.
that, of two causes, the one blind and the other in
telligent, the intelligent was the author of an intel
ligent being or even of the human body. We
know multitudes of organisms produced by intelli
gent beings, and not one certainly produced by
blind causes.
Such is the Theistic hypothesis as compared with
its sole rival. While perfectly sufficient, and, to
say the least, a priori as credible as any, it is greatly
the simplest ; the surest ; the sublimest ; the safest ;
the most salutary ; and the most in accordance with
the convictions and traditions of mankind, especially.
of the most enlightened and moral part of mankind.
In each of these respects it has almost infinitely the
advantage over the law hypothesis. And, accord
ing to the maxims and practice of philosophy in
other things, such an aggregate superiority as this
ought to cause the Doctrine of a God to be promptly
accepted and fully rested on as the true explanation
of Nature. Whatever secular hypothesis could claim
as much would be accepted without hesitation by
all impartial men. It would be considered triumph
antly established. To oppose it would be consid
ered altogether absurd. And no man of science,
with a reputation to lose, would for one moment
think of venturing on opposition. On the contrary,
an hypothesis so strongly fortified with verisimili
tudes and superiorities over all competitors would
ascend the throne of faith, and robe itself in the

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 287
purple of all her prerogatives, by unanimous accla
mation of the Baconian philosophy, of scientific
usage, and of the entire college of scholarly men.
After the painting has been found pervaded with
Titian's characteristics, you have only to observe
that, as compared with other hypotheses in regard
to its origin, that which attributes it to Titian is by
far the simplest, the surest, the fairest,- and alto
gether in accord with the convictions and traditions,
especially of the best judges — I say, you have only
to observe this in order to receive it cordially as the
work of that old master. If able, you will give
your thousands for it, on the strength of your con
victions. ¦
You believe that Canova made that statue, An-
gelo that cathedral, Herodotus that history. A
neighbor has chosen to say that each of these won
ders was made by a mollusk. This is his hypothe
sis. Another has chosen to say that each of these
wonders was maue by the great artist whose name
it bears. This is his hypothesis. Why do you ac
cept this last in preference to the other ? Have you
made out formal proof that the oyster cannot make
such wonderful things — that though inert-looking
things are sometimes found possessed of prodigious
power, an oyster could by no possibility ever have
wrought that shapely Venus, or swelled that sur
prising dome, or penned that immortal volume?
Nothing of the kind. You do not deem such proof
necessary. It is enough for you that the hypother

288 EIGHTH LECTURE.
sis which attributes St. Peter's to Michael Ahgelo
is on its face altogether reasonable, that it has in its
favor the whole current of tradition ; while, as com
pared with the only competing hypothesis, it is al
most infinitely the simplest, and surest as to ade
quacy. You have no occasion to inquire any fur
ther. It does not even occur to you to do it —
cautious Baconian though you are. In common
with the whole art-world, you instinctively accept
and rely upon the great Florentine with unlimited
boldness. The mollusk explanation is paraded be
fore you in all sorts of ingenious verbal magnificence
and logical forms without making the slightest im
pression on you. There is not a quaver in your
faith. It not only occupies you, but reigns — not
only reigns, but reigns indisputably.
So reigns to-day the Newtonian hypothesis of
gravity. It is everywhere supreme — in the books,
in the schools, in the innermost convictions of all
intelligent men. Nothing moves wing, or opens
mouth, or peeps against it. And yet do we see the
principle of gravity ? Not at all. Have we proved
by experience that each particle of matter, away to
the universe's last outskirt, atti'acts every other
particle with a force proportioned directly to its own
quantity of matter and inversely to the square of
the distance between the particles ? Not at all.
Has it ever been demonstrated that the vortices of
Descartes, or even the crystal machinery of Hip-
parchus and Ptolemy, cannot be so amended and ap-

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 289
pendixed as to explain all the astronomical motions
thus far known ? Not at all. Whence, then, that
triumphant acceptance of the Newtonian principle
and law of gravity? Simply from its superior
merits as an hypothesis. Newton started a bare
supposition. It was found to explain fact after
fact. It kept on explaining. It has gone on up to
the present time triumphantly explaining, in fields
so broad, in fields so various, in fields so numerous
and high, that our confidence in its power to ex
plain the whole round of astronomical motions is
quite complete. We deem it perfectly sufficient.
Besides, while, to say the least, as credible on its
face as the ancient Alexandrian or the modern
French hypothesis, it is vastly simpler, surer, fairer,
and more in harmony with the instinctive feeling
and judgment of cultured men. This is the whole
of it. This is the entire ground on which stand
the entire scientific world. Is it not enough ? Will
any one start up at this late day to reprimand the
entire scientific world for accepting and relying on
the great Newtonian hypothesis of gravitation with
unlimited boldness ? And shall any venture to
blame the theist for accepting and relying upon the
Theistic hypothesis for precisely the same reasons
somewhat intensified and enlarged ? Confident as
the astronomer may be that the clew which has not
failed him yet in his wide terrene and stellar wan
derings, would not fail him though his travels should
go on to cover all the fields of Nature with foot-
19

290 EIGHTH LECTURE.
prints, still what he feels is not such a confidence
as every sane man has that there is not a thing em
braced by space whose origin the hypothesis of a
God will not completely account for with infinite
ease. This latter is the confidence of absolute,
axiomatic, imrneasurable knowledge. The other is
merely the confidence of faith from a large induc
tion of particulars. It is vastly probable — I con
sent to say morally certain — to at least philosophers,
that this key of gravity will unlock the whole as
tronomical movement : it is mathematically certain
to the entire sweep of humanity that this key of
Theism will unlock and explain as to origin all the
latitudes and longitudes of Nature. Further, in
respect to simplicity, and sureness, and beauty, and
accord with the convictions and traditions of man
kind, especially the best part of mankind, the The
istic hypothesis has far more advantage over the
law hypothesis than the Newtonian has over the
Ptolemaic and Cartesian. And yet what a confi
dence the Newtonian displays ! He threads great
sciences on his doctrine like so many habitable
globes. He sails away on his doctrine through the
uttermost depths of heaven as on some voyaging
sun. I will neither praise nor blame him. But
this I say, that if he is warranted in founding him
self so mightily on that doctrine of gravity, we are
warranted in founding ourselves even more mightily
on the Doctrine of God. We have the best of coun
tenance in making Theism the basis of reasoning

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 291
and action to any extent. We have no reproaches
to fear from consistent science, though we proceed
to rest upon that Theism castles, palaces, cities, em
pires, heavens of inferences and interests, answer
ing to, but far nobler than, those which Astronomy
confidently reposes on her great hypothesis.
A word more. For what would a man reject
this vastly superior Theism ? What does he gain
by putting aside this account of Nature which car
ries itself so regally, and before whose sheaf all
other sheaves bow down — the account which,
while perfectly sufficient, and, to say the least, a
priori as credible as any, is greatly the simplest, the
surest, the sublimest, the safest, the most salutary,
and the most suited to the convictions and tradi
tions of mankind ? Is he afraid of a personal God
— lest that sharp-sighted Omnipotence should bring
him to account for his conduct? Pray, in what
respect would he be better off with a Nature con
structed by law ! Does the law scheme, neces
sarily, do away with sin ? Does it do away, neces
sarily, with responsibility for sin ? Does it, as a
matter of course, even lessen the avalanche of pen
alty which the sinner may have to encounter?
Not at all. All these things are just as possible,
and may be just as great, under the one system of
explanation as under the other. If a mist of atoms
can really make this wonderful Nature which no
man could make unless his faculties of wisdom and
power were infinitely expanded — that is, if this

292 EIGHTH LECTURE.
mist seethes practically with an infinite efficiency,
and its forces and laws taken together are fully
equivalent, so far as the production of results is
concerned, to that infinite power and wjgdom which
the Theistic hypothesis ascribes to God — then we
have, to all intents and purposes, a material God.
We have matter practically almighty and all-wise.
It can do whatever an almighty and all-wise Person
could do.
Now if men choose to call this wonderful thing
by the name of Law^ let them. If they choose to
say it is unintelligent, let them. But let them not
deceive themselves with names. What they actu
ally have is something that can do things after a
manner of unlimited wisdom and power. What
they actually have is something that can arrange
and adapt and exquisitely fashion just as if an in
finite intelligence and discrimination, as well as
force, presided over the work. .In short, it is prac
tically the equivalent of a God, if not God Himself.
Such a Dynamic as this, whatever name it bears, is
abundantly sufficient for everything. It can govern
men as well as make them — it can treat them ac
cording to character as well as give them character
— it can give us a glorious Bible in words as well
as a glorious Bible in worlds — in short, it can do
whatever Theism commonly attributes to God.
Which is the harder — to make the arithmetical
machine of Babbage, or to use it as it ought to be
used ? No, the Something that can make a man

TOTAL SCIENTIFIC IMPORT. 293
after a manner of infinite wisdom, can go on to deal
with him, when made, after a manner of infinite
wisdom. The potential Fog-Bank which is able to
make men who can treat other men according; to
character, can itself treat thein after the same man
ner of discrimination. So what do our atheists
gain ? What is their compensation for espousing
the hypothesis that is the most intricate and far
fetched and uncertain and hazardous and hurtful
and homely and hostile to the convictions and tra
ditions of mankind? Their costly scheme — for
the sake of which they are at the trouble and un
reasonableness of such holocaust sacrifice of philos
ophy and taste and utility and venerable traditions
— their costly scheme leaves men open to just as
formidable possibilities as does Theism. The sin
ner has just as much reason to tremble before that
astute Cauldron of mechanical and chemical forces
that can make such a universe as this as he has to
tremble before a personal God. Those are won
derful orbs yonder — this is a wonderful earth here
with its packed life — even this single humanity of
ours, body and soul, is an inexhaustible wonder to
the most dynamical philosophy — full well do we
know that the grandest man would have to de
velop into infinite proportions of intelligence and
power before he could produce such an astounding
universe as we behold — and, what I have to say
is, that the primal Fire-Cloud which can organize
such a universe as this which only an infinite man

2.94 EIGHTH LECTURE.
could organize, can, like such a man, practically
discriminate between our righteousness and un
righteousness, and can, like him, pursue that un
righteousness as an unutterable Nemesis through
all space and duration. Such a crafty Nebula is as
fearful as God ¦ — ¦ only it can neither love nor be
loved. It is as fearful as God to a sinner — though
the atheist will never believe it, but will, while
treating law as if almighty and all-wise for fash
ioning things, treat it as all-weak and all-foolish for
the purpose of moral government.

A REMARKABLE BOOK.

ECCE CCELUM;
OB,
PARISH ASTRONOMY.
By Rev. E. F. BUEE, D.D.
I vol. 16mo, 198 pp. njPrice, $1.25. New Edition. Sent prepaid by mail
on receipt of price.

NICHOLS AND NOTES,
117 Washington Street, Boston.

The Publishers request special attention to the following un
solicited testimonials, which hare been received from sources
worthy of regard.
From Rev. W. A. Stearns, D.D., LL.D., President qf Amherst College.
" I have read it with great profit and admiration. It is a grand
production, — very clear and satisfactory, scientifically considered ;
very exalted and exalting in spirit and manner ; and exhibiting a
wealth of appropriate emotion and expression which surprises me.
May the life and health of the author be spared to show still
further that God is and that His works are great, sought out of
them that have pleasure therein."
„ From Rev. Horace Bushnell, D.D.
" I have not been so much fascinated by any book for a long
dine, — never by a book on that particular subject. It is popu
larised in the form, yet not evaporated in the substance," — it
tingles with life all through, — and the wonder is, that, casting off
so much of the paraphernalia of science, and descending, for the
most part, to common language, it brings out, not so much, but sc
much more of the meaning. I have gotten a better idea of Astron-

Dmy, as a whole, from it than I ever got before from all other
sources, — more than from Enfield's great book, which I once care
fully worked out, eclipses and all.
" I trace the progress made, and the methods of the same, and
seize on the exact status of things at the point now reached."
From the Bibliotheca Sacra.
" This is a remarkable book, — one of the most remarkable
which has proceeded from the American press for a long time. It
lifts the reader fairly into the heavens and unveils their glories.
The presentation is very full though concentrated, very clear and
animating, — with a command of language and a glow of eloquence
which is quite extraordinary. The last lecture is hardly less than
a Te Deum. The only adverse criticism which, on reading the
preparatory lecture, we were inclined to make, was, that the almost
impassioned eloquence with which it opened would have bean
more impressive further on, and after the imagination had been
excited by the facts. But, after finishing the last Lecture, we
could not wonder that a mind so full of the great facts, and of the
emotion which they necessarily kindle, should, on seeing his own
parish charge assembled to listen, break forth in strains whichmone
but a mind fully roused by his theme and his audience would
have been able to utter. No person can read through this volume
without mental exaltation, and a conviction of the peculiar ability
of the author." From the New Englander.
" It presents an admirable re'sume' of the sublime teachings of
Astronomy, as related to natur.il religion, — a series of brilliant
pen-photographs of the Wonders of the Heavens, as part of God's
glorious handiwork. The first five lectures pass»the science in
rapid review ; the last treats of the Author of Nature, as related to
its leading features. There is not a dry page in the volume, but
much originality and vigor of style, and often the highes' elo
quence. It is, withal, evidently by an author at home in his sub
ject, not " orammed " for the task. It affords a fine example of
what an intelligent pastor can do, outside of his pulpit, towards
training an intelligent people, and by imparting to them Nature's

teachings, leading "through Nature up to Nature's God," — the
God of Revelation as well. To such a book the author need not
hesitate to affix his name."
From Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D., Preacher to Harvard University,
and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.
" Permit me to thank you for a work in which you have effected
a rare union of scientific accuracy, eloquent diction, and rich de
votional sentiment. It is attractive, instructive, and edifying. It
appears at a time when science needs, as never before, to be
redeemei and sanctified by faith in Him, in whom are hidden all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And, best of all, it does
not make Religion cringe to Science, but maintains her in that
queenly status which is the only position she can hold. The book
must do great good, and I heartily congratulate you as its author."
From Rev. S. H. Hall, D.D.
" Ecce Coelum is much more than a book-success. It will be
honored as a most timely and admirable treatise to put into the
hand of thoughtful young people, to ' turn off their minds from
vanity,' and lead them to God."
From the New- York Evangelist.
" This unpretending, though elegant little volume, gives a most
admirable popular summary of the results of Astronomical Sci
ence. The author has evidently mastered his subject, and he has
presented it in a most striking manner, adapted to the comprehen
sion of the common reader, and enriched with pertinent illus
trations. The book is perhaps the most fascinating treatise on the
science which has been published of late years, ranking indeed
in many respects with that of the late lamented and eloquent
Mitchell. One of its excellencies is that it does not hide God
behind his own creation.'" From the Religious Herald.
"A New Book, and one that is a book, worth its weight in
gold or diamonds, for it is full of gold and precious gems, — dia
monds of law and fact, — truths beaming with celestial light. I

upeak of 'Ecce Coelum,' from the pen of Rev. Enoch F. Bubr,
D.D., of Lyme, Conn., published by Nichols & Noyes, Boston, a
duodecimo of 198 pages. Mr. Burr modestly signs himself ' A
Connecticut Pastor,' but some college has rent the vail and written
out his full name, and added to it a D.D. So much the better for
Connecticut and for the world. Such light as the book contains
ought not to be under a bushel.
'' These six Parish Lectures are a masterly, vivid, easy, sub
lime presentation of the enchanting facts of Astronomy. They
are adapted to all classes, — the learned and the unlearned. The
astounding glories of the skies are tempered to our humble eyes.
" Let all read the book, old and young. Let it be found in
every school, in every library, and .in every home where wisdom
is invoked. Read it, and you will exclaim, what glorious light it
sheds from the throne of God upon the lonely pathway of man ! "
From C. H. Bahbaugh, of Pennsylvania.
"It is certainly a wonderful little book. How the world
shrinks into an atom as we follow the lofty soarings of the ' Con
necticut Pastor.' I never knew rightly what Dr. Young means
by saying, ' an undevout Astronomer is mad ; ' but I now see and
feel the power and beauty of the expression. Such a book cannot
be read without laying upon us the responsibility of a new charge
from heaven. After contemplating such grandeur, we instinctively
exclaim, ' What is man that Thou art mindful of him t ' "
From Hon. S. L. Selden, Late Chief Justice of New York.
" A beautiful book. I admire it for the elegance of its style, as
well as for the lucid and able manner in which it presents the
noblest of the sciences. It will prove, I think, very valuable, not
merely for the knowledge it communicates, but as suggestive of a
line of noble and elevated thought. And I am much pleased to see
from the numerous notices which have come under my observa
tion that my estimate is confirmed by many persons of the first
capacity for judging. To have written a work which receives
and deserves such very high praise from scholars and men of
science cannot but be a source of great gratification to the
author."

LIST OF BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
NICHOLS AND NOYES,
117 Washington Street,
Henbt P. Nichols. 1 RHQTOM
Henry D. Notes. J DUOIUI1,

Religion and Life. By James Reed. 1 vol. 16mo, pp. 85.
Price 75 cents. Contents.
Introduction.
How to think of God.
How to think of the Scriptures.
Our Eternal Homes. By a Bible Student. 1 vol.
18mo. Price $1.25. Contents.

The Way of Life.
The Life Hereafter.

V. Do the Departed forget us.
VI. Man's Book of Life.
Vil. Infants in Heaven.

I. What is Heaven.
n. Guardian Angels.
DX Heavenly Scenery.
IV. Death the Gate of Life.
" This is a charmingly written book, on a very important sub
ject. The chapter entitled ' Infants in Heaven ' is especially beau
tiful. To those who wish for strikingly original views on this
most Important of all subjects, verified constantly by appeals to
Bible texts, conveyed in clear and beautiful language, and in a
tone devoutly reverential, we confidently recommend this hand
some little volume." — English Paper.
Life : its Mature, Varieties, and Phenomena. By
Leo H. Gkindon, Lecturer on Botany at the Royal School of
Medicine, Manchester. 1 vol. 8vo. Price $2.25.
" To those who care for the illustration which physical science
casts upon the science of mind, and upon the truths of revela
tion, there will probably be much that is both novel and inviting.
. . - . Science without religion is empty and unvi tal. True

wisdom, finding the whole world expressive of God, calls upon us
to walk at all times and in all places in the worship and rever
ent contemplation of Him." — Preface.
Sex in Nature. An essay proposing to show that sex and
the marriage union are universal principles in physics, physiol
ogy, and psychology. By the same author. 1 vol. 12mo.
Price $1.25.
Phenomena of Plant Life. By the same author. Price
$1.00.
The Little Things of Nature, considered especially in
relation to the Divine Benevolence. By the same author. Price
$1.00. A New Book for Pastors and Sunday-school Teachers.
God's Thoughts Fit Bread for Children. By Rev.
Horace Bushnell, D. D. Price in paper covers ( by mail,
prepaid), 20 cents. Price in cloth (by mail, prepaid), 50 cents.
IS ordered in quantities, $2.00 per dozen ; $15.00 per hundred.
Pater Mundi ; or, Modern Science Testifying
to the Father in Heaven. By the Author of " Ecce
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series [in Press).
The Life of God in the Soul of Man. By Henry
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The Pastor's Wedding Gift. Containing a Marriage
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edition, bound in fancy cloth, gilt. Price $1.50.
The New England Tragedies in Prose. I. The
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