is visible mind, and mind is invisible nature." Put it more scientifically—" the phenomenal universe is the manifestation of a Divine Power that cannot be identified with the vitality of phenomena." Professor Tyndall infers that Aristotle, praised as a physicist, was wholly unphysical; and says of Goethe-"He could not formulate distinct mechanical conceptions; he could not see the force of mechanical reasoning; and in regions where such reasoning reigns supreme, he became a mere ignis fatuus to those who followed him." All sceptical men, in pursuit of the merely mechanical, are greatly in error, neglect their best and greatest work, the establishment of intelligent enduring alliance between Religion and Science. Like Lucretius of old, they affirm-" Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself," when nothing of the kind is seen, for the energy that works is more wonderful than the phenomena. They pretend that God is the explanation of nothing: "Dieu est la cause de tout, mais il n'est l'explication de rien." 2 They profess that inorganic matter, unaided by God, contains the promise and potency of all life; yet of life, they only know-"it is the continuous equilibration of the organism with its environment," the art or power of living! They so express the law of conservation of energy as to bind the world in chains of fate, leave no place for God, no liberty for man, no soul for eternity. They claim regard as clear-witted men, who live in "the high and dry light of intellect," yet forget, for any pious purpose, that every meal we eat and every cup we drink, illustrate the mysterious control of mind over matter, and of higher law subordinating lower. They know that, even as to geometrical truths, more is required than axioms and definitionsthere must be intuition of the figures, and knowledge besides that of experience. In the Secular School, morality is identified with brute selfishness, and conscience is declared to be "a hoarded fund of traditionary utility." Shall we waste our time with these men, and try every way of going wrong? Life is too Religion satisfies a moral and spiritual yearning, which cannot be otherwise appeased. Intellect and Piety unite in worship of the Great Supreme, whom to know is 1 "Address before the British Association at Belfast, 1875." 2 M. Scherer. Revelation Approved by Accurate Thought. 29 eternal life. Brothers come, and escape the horrors of Richter's dream. He passed through unknown shadows, darkling around an empty altar. On the church dome was a dial-plate barren of figures, but a dark spectre pointed at it, and dead men sought to see and read. Be not men, vainly searching the figureless dial-plate of unrecovered centuries. Be not those blind, trying to read where nothing can be read; nor those deaf, listening where no voice can be heard. Gathering the threads of argument into some pattern of certainty, we find that those who pretend to divorce intellect from piety are in grievous error. The Tree of Knowledge, apart from Religion, is not a Tree of Life. Those neglecting the higher faculties of imagination and sacred emotion, fall into mental insanity and assert-"Behold, we know not anything!" Their light has gone out in darkness: whereas religious temperament enables the intellect to see I clearer and further. It makes the character wide, deep; and is in union with well-balanced cerebral development. The highest class of minds, the eminently spiritual and intellectual, which familiarise themselves with grand subjects, are of the Christly type. The great facts and doctrines of Revealed Truth are more and more approved by accurate thought. The light of Revelation illumines the invisible world; we not only look at various apartments of the material universe, but behold within them many forms of spiritual grace and grandeur. Our faculties enlarge in conscious existence, in impassioned emotion; and intellectuality increases every present enjoyment. New melodies and harmonies break in upon the soul with delicious refreshments and assurances of heavenly help. Intelligence unites with Piety in proclaiming that God is the source of all and the disposer of all; that the birth of a human being is not a less manifestation of Divine Power than is the exit of a human being in chariot of fire. The ordinary and extraordinary acts of Divine Government are relatively, not essentially, different. True scholarship is not sceptical, neither is higher thought. We rightly regard marvels and miracles as special messages and impressive signs-the Divine element in religion. Divinity is the very life and soul of Nature. Rational hold of historic evidence, due knowledge of physics and philosophy, attest the origin and continuance of Revelation. We disregard the petulant outcries of irreligious persons against all who know and believe more than themselves and dare to say they know. It is not so much that we consent to retain our faith in Holy Scripture, Scripture retains us. The inquiry, renewed again and again in different ages of the world, affords a consecutive accordance of innumerable affirmations. Book after book, chapter after chapter, verse after verse, word after word, have their own history, their own affirmative criticism. "The purer the light in the human heart, the more it will have an expression of itself in the mind of Christ. The greater the knowledge of the development of man, the truer insight as to the increasing purpose of Revelation." Intellect is not divorced from Piety, Piety is the crown of Intelligence. "Tis Reason our great Master holds so dear, Believe, and shew the Reason of a man ; Believe, and task the Pleasure of a God." Edward Young, LL.D., Night Thoughts, iv. STUDY II. THE SUPERNATURAL. "A Presence that disturbs me with the joy WORDSWORTH, Tintern Abbey. WE are apt to forget, in listening to denials of the Supernatural, that they enter a region where absolute demonstration, in a scientific sense, is impossible. When told by Renan that, not from one process of reasoning, but from the mass of all modern sciences, we have proof that there is no Supernatural,1 we cannot help saying, "Who hath searched out the Wisdom of Nature and found the depth of all her doings?" History and experience prove that love and belief of the Divine flourish in heathen, Christian, and scientific minds; that conviction of the existence and omnipresent operation of "the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise," is the universal thought of humanity-adapting itself, by inward evidence, as of something felt, to the history, the poetry, the speculation, the science of every age. We advance to the proof step by step. THE FIRST CAUSE. If a man who had searched the universe in every part were to say "There is no God," his statement would not 1 "Ce n'est pas d'un raisonnement, mais de tout l'ensemble des sciences modernes que soit cet immense résultat-il n'y a pas de surnaturel."-Renan, "Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse," p. 206. be worthy of credit; from such a search God might hide Himself. To assert-"The Absolute cannot be known in the strict sense of knowing: the essence of God is inaccessible and incomprehensible: God only can understand what God is in Himself." That is also true of ourselves, we only know the past; yet we know fairly well, and we know as well of God. Denial of the Supreme, founded on the fact of "not fully knowing, is irrational and unworthy of credit. Man is a riddle to himself, is baffled in every element, how much greater the Maker." The assertions" Matter alone is eternal and divine;" "There is no agency in the world other than physical agency;" "Nothing exists that is supermaterial, or supernatural," are sought to be justified by their unknowableness. Ignorance, which has nothing, gives nothing, concerning those things, presumes to deny their existence. We cannot accept the denial. Advanced science acknowledges Eternal Power as the Cause of all things. Investigation, carried to the furthest, brings us to the Eternal. He is the Master Fact. Change the argument. The eternal existence of matter is incomprehensible, and we cannot enter any inquiry concerning causation without eventually postulating some First Cause. We are forced to this from sheer inability to follow out an infinite series of causes. This First Cause is Infinite, for if not, we must think of another Cause. The Cause must likewise be independent, have no necessary, only voluntary relation to any other; for if the presence of anything else is necessary "quod Deo minus est, Deus non est," cause is dependent; therefore the First Cause is Infinite, is Independent, is Supernatural. "The consciousness of an inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena has been growing ever clearer, and must eventually be freed from its imperfections. The certainty that, on the one hand, such a Power exists, while, on the other hand, Its nature transcends intuition, and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the first been progressing. To this conclusion science inevitably arrives as it reaches its confines. . . . And, satisfying as it does the demands of the most rigorous logic at the same time that it gives the religious sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, is the conclusion we are |