MAN THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.

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his stand, but at the end, which is nature's most manifest reality, the highest revelation of the creative power. And this reality is man, nature's only interpreter, nature's best interpretation. Can he be explained, can his history be written in "the terms of matter, motion, and force"? Whatever interprets him must interpret the institutions he has formed, the religions he has developed, the societies and states he has founded, the literatures he has created, the systems he has built, the arts he has discovered and perfected, the good he has achieved, the evil he has done, the progress he has made. Have these terms, "institutions," "religions," "societies," "states," "literatures," "arts," "evil," "good," "progress," "achieved," "made," done," any physical equivalents? Could they be translated into the speech of physics and it remain an intelligible and veracious speech? If such speech be applicable to man, then his history may know motion but not progress, may suffer or escape a breakdown, but not endure or cause evil. If the speech be inapplicable, how did evolution accomplish so extraordinary a revolution as by mechanical laws to change the primordial atoms with which it started into a being whose nature was at once moral and rational, whose conduct was regulated freely from within, whose acts had an ethical quality and were all liable to praise or blame? Can the terms good, righteous, wise, benevolent, be applied to men and nations, and be denied to the Power that has directed the ways of man and reigned over the nations? or, to vary the terms without changing the sense, can man be in any sense a moral being without having his development governed by moral laws? These are questions that go to the

root of the matter, that must be settled before we can determine the nature of that cause which is at once primal and ultimate. It is not to be discovered by observations like Mr. Darwin's, or experiments and speculations in physics like Professor Tyndall's, or abstract theories of creation like Mr. Herbert Spencer's; but only as we study nature in all her vast extent and purpose crowned and interpreted by man. Men can use evolution to disprove Theism only when they subtract man from nature; add him, and Theism only the more victoriously lives if the doctrine of evolution be true.

Rightly understood, therefore, evolution mightily strengthens the argument for the being and continued activity of God. It gives not simply a new and truer doctrine of the Creator, but a sublimer and diviner doctrine of Providence. We can no longer think of Him as a Spectator or skilful Mechanic, whose work is done when He has built the world; but as the eternal Presence or Energy or Will which works in and over, through and for us all. He is the first and last, and here the first makes the last, the beginning determines the end. Without the Eternal, time, with all it bears in its bosom, had never been; it rose in obedience to purposes that belong to the Divine reason and the Divine love. Nature, full as she is of living energies that ever struggle for more perfect forms of life, has not her end in herself. She is but a moment in the being of the eternal, but with a meaning and a mission for eternity. Mr. Darwin thought there was grandeur in the view which saw the life, breathed of God into "the few forms or one," evolve or be evolved into the rich and multitudinous forms and kinds of

THE GRANDER VIEW OF LIFE.

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But there is a grander view

being that fill our world. still, a view which lifts this home of ours into an eternity beside which the ages of geology shrink into moments, into an immensity before which the spaces of astronomy grow narrow and oppressive, and which sees in it the work and purpose of a Reason whose ends are all eternal and all harmonious, the product of a Will whose energies are infinite, and whose acts are righteousness and truth. Mr. Darwin conceived nature as most wonderful, but as most merciless, the paradise of the strong, but the hell of the feeble. Mere strength prevailed and ruled over all; the fittest, which meant the mightiest, survived, the struggle for life was the sort of Providence that is on the side of the big battalions, a God of war pitiless to the homes of gentleness and love over which he had to pass in his march to victory. If a state of conflict be the basis and beginning of order, the order can only be a state of conquest, where victory and dominion are to the strongest. But the theistic view of life is larger, more generous, has a soul of chivalry to the weak, a fit and beautiful place in its order for the gentle lives that enrich our universe with loveliness and love. The nature which knows Deity does not fear death; the life which comes from the eternal, is eternal life, the creation which rose out of infinite Love guided by infinite wisdom, love will not lose while wisdom will find a way to save. The grace of the eternal God becomes in time the graces of mortal man, and while scientific metaphysics may preach a doctrine that is the death of all intelligence in nature, all reason in man, all order in history, all morality in society, all light and chivalrous gentleness in civilization, let us stand fast

in the ancient faith which believes that God has been our dwelling place in all generations; and while rejoicing in the knowledge and wisdom and culture of the present, ceases not to pray," Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands, establish Thou it."

MAN AND RELIGION.*

"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be no far from every one of us."-Acts xvii. 26, 27.

I.

PAUL'S appearance on Mars' Hill is one of the most memorable moments in history. It is one, too, that may well touch our imagination now, as it evidently touched his then. The scene and the man formed a strange contrast. The city was Athens, the home of all that was wisest and most beautiful in the ancient world. The spot where the speaker stood was sacred to justice and to faith. Below him was the blue resplendent sea on which Greece had met and vanquished Persia beside which schylos had wandered, listening to the multitudinous laughter of the waves. Above him was the bright and gladsome heaven, where the gods dwelt who smiled in sunshine and frowned in storm; around him the crystal air through which the Greek went lightly tripping, as in the days of his heroism and fame. On the east of him rose the

* Preached before the London Missionary Society, at Christ Church, Westminster Bridge Road, on Monday, May 12th, 1879.