or for those Laws of Mind which the philosophic analysis of our consciousness reveals.

IV. But the special question is, in what reasonably conceivable way to represent to ourselves the ever-active, all-ordering intervention and control of Divine Providence in the universe of Matter and of Mind? The physical forces of the universe seem to be determined in their action by fixed, invariable laws; and its spiritual forces-its moral agencies are free, and can not be irresistibly determined by any external power, natural or supernatural. How then to frame a possible, reasonable conception of the way or method of Divine Providence?

Let us try to see whatever we may be able to see. Modestly and reverently, let us try to see.

(1.) As to the Physical forces of the universe. Some philosophers have said they are nothing but the direct and immediate action of the Divine Will, and so have made short work in solving the question of Providence in the sphere of Nature: God's will is the sole force.

I do not hold with such philosophers. I take the forces of Nature to be creations of God; distinct from Him, and coeval with the creation of matter.

And as to the laws of these physical forces—

what we call the laws of Nature-we must remember that our knowledge of them is empirical, the result of experience and experiment. They are, you know, mere generalizations from an observation of particulars which (however extensive, and constantly enlarging with the progress of science) is necessarily limited; and their invariableness is a mere assumption resting upon an induction which (however satisfactory) is necessarily imperfect. There is no necessary contradiction in supposing that any given phenomena may be the product of other forces acting under other laws than those which we now explain them by. And the progress of science is every day replacing old explanations by new

ones.

The forces of Nature being then the product of God's Creative Will, and the Laws of Nature being the expression of His Legislative Will, they are under His perpetual, absolute control.

But it is not to be thought that these laws, so replete in their myriads of special enactments with such marks of infinite intelligence and wisdom, such marvelous adaptations to purpose and function in their million-fold manifestations-it is not to be thought that such laws, established by such a Legislator, are liable to be capriciously repealed, suspended, or changed.

I do not wonder that, among those who have most profoundly studied the laws of Nature, there are some who invest these laws with a sort of autocratic, regal or vice-regal sovereignty, and make them "immutable" in such sort that God's hands are self-tied, so that He can not or will not interfere in the sphere of Nature by any special immediate exertion of supernatural power.

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But this notion is untenable. All that has any reasonable claim to be admitted is that God can not, will not, and does not interfere capriciously with the established course of Nature. It is not to be admitted that He can not, will not, and does not interfere with it in the way some men call a violation" of the laws of Nature, provided it seem good to Him to do so, for reasons known to Himself, which may or may not be known to us. It is absurd to say He can not, and impossible to demonstrate that He will not or does not act immediately and supernaturally in, among, and upon the laws of Nature to produce extraordinary and special results.

And herein lies the sufficient rational basis for the belief in a miracle-working God.

I do not now go into a particular discussion of the subject of the Christian Miracles. I content myself with signalizing its rational ground, and

have only further to observe that, in respect to any and every special case of alleged miracle, the question is purely a question of historical evidence. The Duke of Argyll tells us that this "seems now to be admitted on all hands," and Professor Huxley says, "denying the possibility of miracles seems to me quite as unjustifiable as speculative atheism." He means rationally "unjustifiable.”

But what we have to consider more particularly is the general or ordinary method of God's constant intervention in Nature-controlling it, yet without miracle.

And here it is to our purpose to observe that it is absurd to say, and impossible to demonstrate, that God can not, will not, and does not so act upon, manage, and control the forces of Nature as through their agency, and without any "violation" of the laws of Nature, to accomplish special effects in Nature which would otherwise not have been brought about.

And not only is it absurd to say God can not, and impossible to demonstrate that He does not thus act, but that, in point of fact, He does thus act is rendered credible by millions of facts of the same kind in the sphere of human action. All over the earth, in every age, every day and hour, human

intelligence and human will have been at work in controlling the forces and laws of Nature in subservience to human uses, combining, adjusting, and managing them, so as through them to produce results which the forces of Nature, left to themselves, would never have produced. Men have achieved these results, not by "violating" the laws of Nature, but by using them. And what marvelous results in our day! The most tremendous forces of Nature have been made obedient servants to man's will, and as easily controlled as the child's little go-cart. The steamers, that plow all waters and connect all lands; the railways, that bring all places together; the lightning-wires, that enable men to whisper to each other across continents and oceans; and the thousand other engines and machineries which the skill of man has set going in factories and in fields-all these are the product of man's will, working with and controlling the forces of nature, according to their laws.

You see the bearing of this. If man, by his intelligence and will, can thus bend the forces of Nature to his uses, how foolish to doubt but God may do the like, and to an infinitely greater extent, by as much as His knowledge of the forces of Nature, and His wisdom and skill and ability to manage and control them, are infinitely superior to man's!