mentary forms? Is there, not, indeed, between the inanimate ground and the acorn, between the acorn and the oak, a somewhat similar passage from the inanimate to the animate -a continual coming of life from the dead; which, though it does not seem to require the vital spark from heaven, as in the first operation, nevertheless maintains the light and heat in a manner not less wonderful than was the primal origination? If this be granted, then the manifestation of God in Nature is credible and scientific; and grades of life are steps on God's great altar-stairs by which life, onward advancing and upward ascending, approaches the ever-living One. ”.Let us make man in our image" נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ Job (x. 9) said,—“Thou hast made me as the clay." God gave the spirit of life to the frame which He had formed out of the dust, and so man became a living soul-of the earth, earthy, but of the soul and spirit, heavenly. When naturelife, as distinct from spirit-life, had attained the summit of opulence and intensity in animal-life, then was created a form for spirit-life. The vegetative life had been subordinate to the animal, now animal life is made subordinate to the spirit, and Adam comes-the up-looking one, and moving principle of the earth's history. We must not imagine that God's hands formed a clod of earth into human form, and, standing near to it, breathed into it from without the breath of life. The hand of God is the power of God, which, even in visible things, works invisibly. Man came into existence, as did also the other creatures, by Omnipotence acting invisibly; but, as to man, a solemn word of Divine self-determination and mysterious meaning preceded the creation. The Words of God, as we have said, represent the energy by which material is formed, fashioned, and vivified-beasts in their impersonality, man in his personality; beasts by a distribution of existing materials, man by God's immediate formation, and, as it were, by God's breathing; so that he is, in spiritual person, akin to God, and rules as the God-man. The Breath of God did not become a living soul, but made man to be a living soul-a candle illumined by the Lord. Image and Likeness of God. 123 This illumining we are not to apprehend as endowing with spirit, but rather a creating in the soul of spirit elements as man's true spirit-form. The Breath of God is that Divine energy which is the God-willed spiritual personality. Man in the "image of God" means the ideal, or sort, or kind. In the "likeness of God" means the relation or order of spirituality essentially distinguishing him from brutes. Man is neither, as to his body, the precipitate of the spirit; nor, as to his soul, the sublimate of matter. He is a combination of both in Divine origination as to the body, and by in-breathing as to the soul. The body, thus fashioned, is to receive at the resurrection a re-fashioning of glory; and the soul, now possessing not only the life which God wrought in matter when He made the brute, but that life in union of soul and spirit which was effected by Divine inspiration, receives yet higher blessing and energy through the incarnation of Christ; for Christ, the form of God in heaven, assumed the fashion of man on earth that He might fill the earthen vessel with heavenly treasure. Thus, the Word of God is a voice of good tidings bringing life and immortality to light. First the natural body, then the spiritual body. As glimpses of heaven become clearer, let us press onward, unfaltering, untiring, till we have our everlasting abode in the new land brightening in the smile of Christ our Lord. Materialists assert-"That which we call spirit disappears with the dissolution of the individual material combination."1 There is no proof of such positive statement, nor is proof possible. Matter is only known by mind; and while maintaining that the smallest particle of a grain of sand is utterly and for ever indestructible, we cannot think that our inner personal individuality, all that by which we understand the mechanism of worlds, is extinguished at death as by the extinction of a light. We do not know, and probably never shall know, how matter is able to assume consciousness; how, then, are we to believe that materialists know there is nothing more in the universe than matter. If we accept the words of Locke as to all our ideas depending upon the senses -"nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu "—we add 1 "Kraft und Stoff," p. 13: Dr Bückner. the correction of Leibnitz-"nisi intellectus ipse "—as to the independence of mind. As to Providence, God, and Creation, we are told-"What this or that man may understand by a governing Reason, a universal soul, a personal God, &c., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves." So we are to give up every hope as to the future, cast to the winds all reverence for God, and believe— not that God created all things out of nothing, but that all things created or evolved themselves out of something very little better than nothing. A man may as well say “There is nothing behind the door"-simply because he cannot see through the door; as deny the Divine act of causation, because he cannot detect the occulta vis the Hidden Energy. Accurate investigation enables strong men to check naughty little ones, who count it a stroke of wit and genius to scoff at those things which greater minds worship. "The dogmatism approaching puppeyism" which places something infinitely less than a tadpole at one end of the series, and man at the other, and professes to know all about it, must be rebuked with calm and simple statement. One line of thought is sufficient. The Book abused by Secularists as of barbaric origin, rules the intellect, emotion, and conscience of the civilised world; and wherever intellect is enlightened by it, or morals are purified by it, or conscience is instructed by it, men live rightly for mutual welfare and the glory of God. Materialists, abusing the doctrine of Evolution, assert that an infinitesimal something, by imperceptible accretion and infinite variation during immeasurable time, became worlds of life and beauty, apart from God, and without any ordering of Providence. Writers of the Bible, especially Moses, connect the natural with the supernatural, man with God, state that the universe was originated and is maintained by the Diety, and that by Divine inspiration they give an account of the creative process. The whole matter is capable of disproof, or it can be verified. An unscientific age could not possess the knowledge of our own scientific time, nor 1 "Kraft und Stoff," p. 43: Dr Bückner. men styled "semi-barbarous " be adorned with the accuracy and genius of modern professors. The words written by one of these men have been studied in part, and will be further investigated. As yet, nothing has been found contrary to science; where science can effect research, there has been verification, and the recesses of nature have been found to contain counterparts of many spiritual truths. In further applying accurate modern tests to the Inspired Record, which most of us love and regard as true without and beyond confirmation, bear in mind that authoritative statements about facts or phenomena can only be found perfectly to agree with science in its final results, and this agreement must in no wise be hastened. We say authoritative, because due exception has to be made for accounts which are popular, or figurative, or poetical, and not meant to assert physical law. Not only so, we must allow that the word was spoken -not to anticipate discovery, not to render experimental and inductive processes of the human mind unnecessary to the attainment of knowledge, but to set up an authoritative teaching where experiment and induction are inadequate to explain and establish the relations between God and man, and between man and his neighbour; and to erect true foundations of the body politic on an immutable, because Divine, morality; and to train the individual for his probation in time, and for his future life in eternity. If, after most careful analysis, the record of physical facts be found sometimes scientifically inaccurate, not the less will Holy Scripture contain the Word of God. A diamond is not the less a diamond because of the rudeness of its setting, and the truths of Holy Scripture are not less Divine, because the frame-work partakes of human imperfection. If every effort fail, even then, human fallibility cannot affirm, as infallible dogma, essential contrariety: the angle of parallax, by which to measure the lights of God, may have its base in an existence which is wider than human life. 66 STUDY VII. INTERPRETATION OF THE DAYS. Cogitavi dies antiquos, et annos æternos in mente habui.”—Ps. lxxviii. 5. "Les jours de la création marquent la hiérarchie des êtres et des époques successives de leur apparition sur la face du monde ; mais l' action de Dieu ne se décompose pas en époques. Elle est une puisque elle est parfaite."-EMILE Saisset. We have considered the days of creation, well knowing that simple truths are often deep. What mean these days? Are they an enumeration and a separation of actual days and nights, before the earth and sun were so conditioned, each to each, that day was possible? Or do they mean that there were births, growths, and seeming pauses, in the progress of Divine work? The latter opinion prevails with many thoughtful men. They take the outward appearance as a garment for the spiritual reality. The letter is the body, the spirit is the soul. The letter and the spirit are held together by the real meaning. Endeavour to attain that meaning, as to days, by considering— The facts on which most men are agreed. 1. On scientific and scriptural warrant they believe that the origin of the world is very ancient; so ancient that the beginning, in which heaven and earth were created, is taken by St. John (i. 1) to prove the co-eternity of Christ with the Father. Placing, however, the beginning of things thus early (Gen. xlix. 26; Deut. xxxiii. 15; Job xv. 7, xxxviii. 4; Ps. xc. 2; Prov. viii. 22-31; Jno. i. 1-3, xvii. 24); neither lessens the marvel nor destroys the fact of creation. 2. There is no more matter now than was originally created, nature not possessing the power, in itself, of originating matter; but cosmic processes throughout the universe, and the "fact that God is daily and hourly creating those myriads of human souls which He infuses into the bodies |