The Spirit of Universal Order Condemns Disorder The Process of Bringing Good out of Evil Nature, full of Surprises, under One Rule Reappearance of Departed Things and Present Judgment of the Evil 261 Assumed Survival of Lower Life The Greatest Purpose is the Real Purpose The Inner Man is the Soul's Body Thoughts as to God and Heaven are to be Disciplined Properties of the Glorified Body Complexity, Grandeur, Privacy, of our Personality Better Proof than Mathematical Demonstration Evidence of Life and of Nature at Large as to the Glorious Body There Have Been Worlds in the Past and Will Be in the Future The Universal Arrangement connected with some Special Scheme "Light, that from the dark abyss "Light that dost o'er all things reign; "Light, that makest manifest, Beautifiest, hallowest; Light, in Thy joyous strength at rest; Come to us: come. REV. E. B. BIRKS. THE WORLD TO RESEARCH I. OUR LIFE IS RUDIMENTARY. "Vital action everywhere is emphatically a means, not an end. Life is not given us for the mere sake of living, but always with an ulterior external aim; neither is it on the process, on the means, but on the result, that Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to entrust us with insight and volition." -THOMAS CARLYLE, Essays: Characteristics. "If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains; SCIENCE is of great use: correct application of it shows that all things tend to a future of greater knowledge than that we now possess; and fit us for that future, by a strange transforming force showing that we are not creatures of dull uniformity, but citizens of an advancing, a wonderful kingdom. Facts selected without principle are as a valley of dry bones. When, by apprehension of their meaning, we array them around a centre, or project the power of their light into the future, they are a daily profit, and B greatly brighten the time to come by continual elevation of our thought toward glorious sunrisings. Our eyes to see, and our ears to hear, belong to an enduring self, are connected with an essence which is more permanent, and deeper down than the phenomena which they observe and classify; a something from which they cannot be separated, which prepares them for greater uses. We acquire science in two ways: (1) by theories and deductions after the observation of facts-from effect to cause; (2) from theories and inferences by anticipation of facts-from cause to effect. Thus our standpoint of knowledge lies between two eternities-the infinite past, the infinite future. The thoroughfare is not closed anywhere. No voice is heard, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." Day by day, history, science, philosophy, enable us to obtain larger acquaintance with the past; and little by little we anticipate, prophecy of, and possess future states and things. All that we have hitherto done is small; our condition, our attainment, is rudimentary. We shall press on until we discern that as every human being is himself the personification of the principles which he puts into action; the overmastering Reality, the directive Power, in the universe, fashions, exalts, impersonates, our intellect with the enduring likeness of His own dominant sovereign will. In the Divine way, not the devil's, we shall be as gods. Science, obtained by observation, is not the limit of our knowledge. The actual experience of our whole race is but small, and that of any individual is trifling indeed. To obtain large views of nature, we carry our thought very far beyond actual experience. Reason, |