The Greatest Men are Believers. 13 seize the little savings only hoarded by self-denial for his benefit. Will the spectators applaud that act? Will they not instantly, passionately, without doubt, stigmatise it as wrong, wicked, base, abominable turpitude? Then place before them the life of Christ, good and gentle, promising to His own hurt and changing not; denying Himself, helping the unfortunate and unhappy, dying amidst the taunts and scoffs of His murderers; and praying, while He dies, that God will forgive them. The whole audience will admire and approve. In every language the voice of the multitude will be, "That man is a good man, He is a man of God.” While human nature remains the same, so long as common sense continues, virtue will have a sort of glorious pattern coming from God and returning to God; making speech flow to music, and all hearts beat as one. Notwithstanding, we are unwisely urged to abandon the Divine Record of this God-Man and of Creation. Mr. Herbert Spencer writes thus against the Bible doctrine of Creation :-" Many who in all else have abandoned the aboriginal theory of things still hold this remnant." Then, speaking of a man who has not abandoned it, he says— "Catechise him, and he is forced to confess that it was put into his mind in childhood, as one portion of a story which, as a whole, he has long since rejected. Why this fragment is likely to be right while all the rest is wrong, he is unable to say. May we not then expect that the relinquishment of all other parts of this story, will by-and-by be followed by the relinquishment of the remaining part of it!"1 If all other parts of the story had been disproved, then the narrative of Creation might be imperilled; but, as intelligence widens, piety deepens. Those difficulties in the Holy Word which appear contrarieties, accurate investigation so conciliates that faith is confirmed. They are like knots in the oak which strengthen it, as knots in the net which retain. So far from the aboriginal theory being all wrong, a really scientific investigation confirms the sacred truths, and makes our knowledge of them more accurate. Men of honourable name, world-heroes, historians, poets, the ablest students of Nature, are not atheists; nor are they secularists. The Newtons, Bacons, Boyles, Faradays, "Principles of Biology,” vol. i. pp. 335, 336. Harveys, Hunters, are Christians. If Materialists have lost the Spirit of Divinity, is there neither Spirit nor Divinity for other men? Take Socrates and Cicero, who lived and died before Christianity appeared; or Voltaire, who rejected it; or Napoleon, who regarded it with the genius of a statesman; all recognised Divine handiwork in the Creation. In every man, worthy of the name, there is a longing for higher fulness of life, a closer walk with God, which, whether formulated in the symbols of science or of Scripture, is the very essence of religion. It is not well known, but it is true, that a singularly large proportion of the leading scientific men of the day are devout Christians; and we may safely hold that religion which, in time past, by definite expression in creeds and ceremonies, preserved reverence and holiness of thought and feeling, will be preserved, not destroyed, by science. Good George Herbert said— "He who loves God's abode, and to combine With saints on earth, shall one day with them shine." Opponents are in part aware of it: "If Nature have in store a man of the requisite completeness-equivalent, let us say, to Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one-such a man, freed by his own volition from 'society,' and fed for a time upon the wild honey of the wilderness, might be able to detach religious feeling from its accidents, and realise it to us in a form not out of keeping with the knowledge of the time." 1 Another writes-"The army of liberal thought is, at present, in very loose order, and many a spirited. freethinker makes use of his freedom merely to vent nonsense. We should be the better for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us into cohesion and discipline; and I, for one, lament that the Bench of Bishops cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the 'Analogy,' who, if he were alive, would make short work of the current à priori infidelity." Now, in reality, scientific work is not so much for the priest as for the professor. Science, less than religion, can stand alone; but must freely combine with all right efforts for the betterment of our race. Men of science are priests of the material universe; why do they not, seeing that the 1 66 Fragments of Science," pref., 2nd ed.: Prof. Tyndall. Privilege of Scientific Men. 15 feelings of awe, reverence, wonder, worship, are woven into the texture of their nature, give reasonable satisfaction to holy emotion? Theirs is the privilege of removing the apparent antagonism between Science and Religion-the abiding terror of timid or superficial minds; theirs the high aim to unite moral power with intellectual achievement; and all the more because out of their province, from evil men of their companionship, comes the poison of unbelief which destroys the ignorant. The man, whether priest or professor, for whom the wedding-bells have to be rung at the union of Intellect and Piety will come: "I hope and believe, that when the world is older, and when the mutual relations of all branches of knowledge are as well understood as are now, for instance, the relation of chemistry to the theory of electricity, the scientific process which began by rejecting religion as the basis of science, will finally accept religion as not indeed the basis, but the summit and crown.' Meanwhile the theologian and the student of Nature must ask each other"How readest thou?" For the books of Nature and Scripture are to be compared. God's truth can never be antagonistic: "altera posse docens, altera velle Dei." To search out wonders, trace consummate skill, is wisdom's path to God. Opposition to the Biblical manner of looking at things, is due to the fact that some prefer physical symbols to those which are human; forgetting that both are relatively inadequate, and both anthropomorphic: due, also, to the error of counting physical changes as nothing more than an undulatory displacement of molecules. Further, they make morality, even in the highest stages, nothing better than enlightened selfishness; and ignore this other fact, that only those who apprehend by faith the mysteries of revealed religion, are capable of reasonable, sufficient, accurate knowledge as to the life of God in the soul, and the work of God in Creation and Redemption. Lord Bacon observed-"The subtilty of nature far transcends the subtilty of the human understanding;" but professors of naturalism, forgetting that moral and religious faculties have higher authority and reality than those purely mechanical, interpret 1 "Scientific Bases of Faith," Introd.: Joseph John Murphy. only the material structure of things; use their mind to destroy mind, and while professing to live in the light of intellect, assert, Matter is king. "He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies: Cowper. Not so the coming man, "the Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one :" realising religious feeling "in a form not out of keeping with the knowledge of the time," and aiming at the highest possible culture of individuals and of the race, he will think in essentials as did Abraham, the Apostolic Fathers, the true Puritan, the Holy in Heart; not put his thought in the language of Nature's childhood, but go beyond the symbol, and teach our faith to rest on the spiritual principle. He will not explain Scripture as a Book which fell from Heaven, but as written by holy men who were moved of God; a Book, one side all human, one side all Divine— πάντα θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα πάντα. This coming man, “ Milton and Helmholtz rolled into one," will not deny the Father and the Son; nor, by subtlety and force, renew the old delusion that men can be happy without God. We expect clear proof that there are only two principles on which the system of the universe can be explained. 1. A Personal Intelligence creating, sustaining, ruling-this, the Christian hypothesis, will be preserved. 2. A supreme power, but no Supreme Being; an invisible principle, not a personal God -this atheistic, called the Pantheistic notion, will be destroyed. It will be shown that only two principles of government are possible in the world-1. Providence. 2. Law. Providence, foreseeing, arranging, applying. Law, ordering, subordinating, continuing. Providence, without law, would be uncertain and capricious. Law, without providence, is an absurdity providence ordains law. Providence requires interventions. Law adjusts varieties of motion and life. The two principles merge into one process; for there is a world of mind, besides that of matter, and our own mind Christ the Perfection of Humanity. 17 subordinates matter by acting upon the intelligible order in it, thus we have proof of a twofold mental action: our own, in ascertaining and using the intelligible order; another, as manifested in that order. Providence is the soul of law, and law is providence in action; God governs by law"Deo est Natura, quod fecerit." Intellect cannot be divorced from piety; and no scientific man should say— "There never has been, and never will be, any intervention in the operation of natural laws." 1 The origin and maintenance of law are by an ordaining Intelligence, who also acts by intervention. Take an illustration-the Divine Individuality of Jesus Christ. He lived 1900 years ago, the crown and perfection of humanity. He could not have been the product of an atheistic, or of a pantheistic system of the universe: for perfection, by either system, is only attainable as the ultimate outcome, the indefinitely remote completion, of an immeasurable evolution. The Perfect Man, therefore, must be regarded-not only on Scriptural, but on scientific grounds-as a Providential Manifestation of the Divine Personality. The early appearance of Perfect Humanity, and in an age, by itself, wholly incapable of producing such a type, was a miracle. Conceivable and practicable only on the supposition of a Personal Ruler of the universe; of a Law-giver higher than His own laws, manifesting Himself equally in the orderly sequence of Nature, and in those extraordinary Revelations which, as varying and enlarging that orderly sequence, we call miraculous. Life and Nature all merge in the full harmony of Being. We obtain the same truth from three opposing schools of thought: "The Life of Christ," by Dr. Farrar; "Ecce Homo;" and "Vie de Jesus," by M. Renan. They agree1. That primitive Christianity is the true religion. 2. That Jesus, by whom it was given, is the One around whom universal history gathers. It follows that the life of Christ was a real life. He undoubtedly lived and taught as-the New Testament substantially represents. Christ was the highest and purest Intellect the world ever possessed, example of purest faith married to highest reason. Calm, grand, sublime! Thank God, in Him we have something to be proud of. He gives heart and will that truly merit honour. 1 "Conflict between Religion and Science :" Prof. Draper. C |