must not be accounted Intelligent because all our notions of intelligence are limited, is equal to the absurdity of declaring that there cannot be one infinite space, because space, however extended, must lie within another space. It has been well said, "The undevout astronomer is mad." Why mad? Because he knows, and no one better, that the worlds in space are manifestations of a Power to which no limits can be assigned, either in time or space. This is the scientific, fundamental truth as to Godhead, and the astronomer, the man of science, knows, unless he is the fool of Scripture, that "the heavens declare the glory of God." To tell us we must not worship God because His essence, His energy, His infinity, His eternity, His omnipresence, are incomprehensible, draws forth the reply, "When our intelligence is baffled, when the Infinite confronts us, we worship." Not ignorantly, not measuring the Creator by the creature, we adore Him as that highest absolute Being in whom all possibilities of existence are comprehended. We consecrate memories of the illustrious dead-those who, under God, have made us what we We rejoice in that communion of saints, unseen yet real, whose heroic sufferings rise melodiously to heaven as a sacred prayer-whose heroic actions are a psalm of praise; and our enthusiasm grows into devotion, reverence, and majestic grandeur, when assembled myriads worship. We take facts as we find them. Butler said, "Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why, then, should we desire to be deceived?" The duration of life on our globe is but a single pulsation of the mighty life of the universe. Nay, the duration of the planetary system itself is scarcely more. Life, then, is a very small matter; yet, for life the whole scheme seems planned. Countless other systems, unless science is utterly at fault, passed through their processes and died out, that our sun and his family might be formed of their nebulæ; and countless others will be built when our habitation of life has fallen to ruin. The infinite universe is, and must be, so far as we can understand, without beginning and without end. The centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. Not suns only, but systems of suns, and galaxies of systems, are passing Life in other Worlds. 181 to higher and higher orders-connected with time intervals infinitely great and infinitely small. Infinitely small as compared with eternity in which they are lost. Infinitely great in comparison with the duration of our earth, and the yet smaller span of its existence as a dwelling for life. Nevertheless, it is at the least "probable that every member of every orderplanet, sun, galaxy, and so onward to higher and higher orders endlessly-has been, is now, or will hereafter be, life-supporting 'after its kind.'" It is therefore utter unwisdom to suppose that our earth is the only inhabited orb of the universe. Though, when we scan the sky, millions of lifeless worlds are found-for every life-sustaining star; and though the lifesustaining condition of stars and suns and galaxies is a period short indeed as compared with their duration; yet that lifeperiod is their flower and fruit time. 1 It seems, indeed, as if the support of life was nature's great purpose. Land, water, air, teem with life. In the bitter cold of arctic regions, with strange alternations of long summer day and long winter night, frozen seas, perennial ice, and scanty vegetation, life has its hundred forms. The torrid zone, blazing with heat, parched with drought, fierce raging hurricanes driving away oppressive calms, contains myriads and myriads of living things. Mountain summits, depths of valleys, midocean, arid desert, are all inhabited. So, likewise, in past ages there was abundant life. No trace remains of millions and millions of the primitive living creatures in the earliest eras; yet, from the remains of other eras we know that living creatures abounded in the sea-forming strata after strata; and that on the land multitudes of creatures fed. This incalculable multiplication of life on earth is due to solar agency; and physical laws, like those ruling our planet, are traced everywhere; the unbounded diffusion of sun and starlight warrants our faith that there is life in many worlds. The same physical laws operate wherever matter is, and we reasonably conclude that the same moral power exists in every abode of mind. Why may not the universe be aglow with the lamplight and hearth-light of many happy homes? The suns are not mere gilded shows, nor blazing points. They are sources 1 "Life in Other Worlds:" Richard A. Proctor. whence flow the physical power by which advances are made through low grades of being to high corporeity. The material universe is a palace of the King, vast in extent, great in duration, rich with varied existences of intelligent creatures. Our own home is only a hamlet on the side of a great mountain range; but the magnificent bodies of light, scattered over infinite fields of space; worlds and worlds suspended in heights and depths; are palaces lit up with splendour. We cannot but think that the Intelligence, at the very heart of things, is conducting many families in the paths of love. Life is not a continual struggle with brute irresistible force, but a process whose work is survival of the best. Our thoughts, when gone, are not dead; or if dead and buried in forgetfulness, recollection, the angel of memory, raises them, and they live again. Shall not all the dead be raised? Are we not as lasting on the spiritual as on the physical side of our nature? STUDY X I. DAY III.-CREATION OF PLANTS. "Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all in my hand, I could know what God and man is."-Tennyson. STUDY the Divine statement-"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." Plants are organized living beings, void of feeling and voluntary motion. All living organisms are continually receiving additions to their substances; and so long as these exceed in quantity the parts removed they grow. Growth is the power to receive nutritive matter, and add it to the structure: that is, integrating the surrounding elements with itself. The growth of a plant depends on the abundance and sizes of the masses of nutriment which it is able to appropriate. Growth has limits, but they are wide apart. At one extreme may be invisible organisms, for certainly there are monads so minute as to be but imperfectly visible even with microscopes of the highest power; at the other extreme are trees of four hundred feet in stature. High organization is not always accompanied by great size; nor is the ultimate maximum determined by the initial bulk; but the possible extent of growth, other things equal, depends on the organization. "Who would believe that, did not he every day see it; who can conceive how, although he seeth it, from a little, dry, illfavoured, insipid seed thrown into the earth, there would rise so goodly a plant, endued with so exact figure, so fragrant smell, so delicate taste, so lively colour; by what engines it attracteth, by what discretion it culleth out, by what hands it mouldeth, its proper aliment; by what artifice it doth elaborate the same so curiously, and incorporate it with itself?"1 This act of growth, not explainable on any known mechanical principles, is called "vital;" and the origin is thus stated in Scripture "God causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man" (Ps. civ. 14). The food necessary for this development, except carbonic acid-taken in by the leaves, is drawn from the soil by means of the root. The food substances are carbonic acid, ammonia, alkaline and earthy salts dissolved in water. Carbonic acid is dissolved by the rain in passing through the atmosphere, and produced by the slow decomposition of mould -the carbon of which unites with the oxygen of the air held by the water in solution. A little nitric acid may be formed by the direct oxidation of the air during storms. The ammonia is a product of decay. Carbon is to be specially distinguished: it combines with other elements in manifold relations of number and weight, and with oxygen, hydrogen, and specially nitrogen, forms that protein matter which is the staff of all life. The organized substances, formed in the plants, are generally ternary compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Carbonic acid, ammonia, soluble phosphates, and sulphates supply most of their materials. The alkaline bases, which play an important part in vegetation, reside in the rocks. -which must be decomposed and become arable soil for its nourishment. All living things respire, i.e. give off carbonic acid as the result of the wear and tear of tissues. The process is masked in plants by the taking in of a greater quantity of carbonic acid, and its decomposition. Fungi are, in some respects, like animals. They live on organic food, inhale oxygen and give out carbonic acid. The roots and leaves of the higher plants are widely different in their functions: the roots absorb water and mineral substances, the leaves take in and decompose carbonic acid. The excretion of plants is chiefly by the roots; but also by the leaves, glands, and bark. Thus, to 1 "A Defence of the Blessed Trinity:" Isaac Barrow, D.D. |