design of God! There are some who object to the Biblical view of man, that it is degrading, that it makes no recognition of that dignity of which he is conscious, that it puts upon him no such honor as science accords to him in the creation. So far from this, it is the Bible that puts honor upon man in the record of his creation.

It is not the Bible that traces the origin of man back to the monkey or the trilobite;—this makes him the child of God, created in his image, for his companionship and his glory. True, the Bible represents man as fallen and degraded in character, but this by his own act, because God had made him a being of voluntary powers, which powers he perverted to his own degradation ;—but, nevertheless, by reason of these very powers, he is capable of recovery and restoration to his original place and destiny as the offspring of God. As the highest organization upon the globe he inhabits, he is the crowning excellence of the creation. But this organic perfection is a small part of the Creator's ideal in man. When, after all his other work, God said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness," He set him apart from all other creatures in a sublime pre-eminence, and put the seal of divinity upon him as an intelligent soul; and then, as if to represent Himself upon the earth, He crowned man with glory and honor, and set him over all the works of His hand. No theory of development, no speculation of philosophy, no dream of poet can place man upon such a pinnacle of honor as that where God set him at the first. He has thrown himself down from that position of dignity by self-will, self-worship, the love of the creature,-by knowing, willful, daring disobedience of God. Man is not a poor, struggling creature, just breaking away from the fellowship of brute beasts and making fitful endeavors after a higher life;-he is a fallen creature. The image of God, a little lower than the Elohim, he has

THE DIGNITY OF MAN.

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debased himself to the level of creatures of the earth and earthy. Take away sin from man, and he would no longer grope after an affinity with brutes, but feel again his fellowship with God. As Tholuck finely says, "We are feudal servants, holding our title over the lower creation by grant from the Creator and Lord of all. But, elated by arrogance, the feudal servant has rebelled against his feudal lord. We ought to consider ourselves servants, but set up ourselves as independent lords of creation. We ought to be the priests of God, re-offering to Him, and using for His glory, whatever His creation has provided for us; but have become idolaters, worshiping the idols of our own selves. It is one of the effects of that rebellion, that our royal scepter became broken, and that only a fragment of it remained in our hand; for our present knowledge and power are but poor fragments of the glory which we were originally destined to enjoy." That glory man can not regain by material means. No progress in the physical sciences can ever restore him to his forfeited position. The soul is the true seat of dominion, and his restoration must come through the renovation of the soul.

Suppose that, with infinite pains and daring risks, one climbs to the summit of Mount Blanc; he can not stay there, he must either perish with cold or die from the difficulty of breathing at that height. He finds himself encompassed also with clouds that intercept his vision, so that only by rare glimpses can he see farther than from many a lower peak. He can have only for a moment the vain satisfaction of having outclimbed his fellows, and must descend again from this chilling height, with no new dominion over Nature, to share the common lot of men.

*Tholuck," Commentary on Psalm viii."

But

with a soul renewed to holiness, he can rise to Alpine heights of vision and of glory, higher and yet higher, commanding at each ascent some wider prospect of truth, inhaling a purer atmosphere, gathering strength as he rises for yet loftier attainments, evermore rising toward God, his source, his center, and his all. Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen.

LECTURE IV.

Jan's Dominion Over Nature.

DOES Man belong to Nature as begotten of it, included in it, concluded by it? or does Nature belong to Man as his original birthright, his temporary habitat, his ultimate dominion? Is it true, as some physicists affirm, that Man is just the latest outcome of Nature's efforts at improving upon her own experiments in organic life-the treasured selection of some accidental variety of birth in a Chimpanzee family? or, as say others, that he is "but the last term of an innumerable series of organisms which has been slowly evolving under the domination of the same law?" or that Man, whenever and however he began to be, is "under the absolute control of physical agencies," cradled by Nature and molded at her will? Have we done with Personality, done with Consciousness, done with Liberty-except as a name to fight for-done with Progress, save in the fixed and narrow groove of phys ics and statistics-which, after all, is not progress, but the rotation of natural forces in an ever-returning cycle?-have we done with Spiritual Powers, and with Causes both intelligent and final?-have we done with the Deity save as impersonal fate or law, and having done with God have done also with Man, for whom there is neither dignity, worth, nor hope if there be no God? Quite otherwise would I seek the solution of the problem of life. I find in it three factors, co-operative but not co-ordinate:-God, Man, and Nature. What, then, is the normal relation of Man to Nature? or, if

you please, what are the mutual relations of Man and Nature, the two mundane factors in the problem of life?

Without question we yield to Nature precedence in the order of time. Nature was before Man. Through immeasurable æons the processus of her phenomena, in all their varied beauty, sublimity, and terror, had moved on with no human spectator to observe them. The upheaval of the continents; the slow subsiding of the seas; glaciers and icebergs, volcanic fires and steamy mists-hot, cold, moist, dry, striving for mastery "o'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;" gigantic flora blooming and decaying; monsters of reptile and animal life, the spawn of chaos and night; all these had been, and had left their record upon the surface of the globe; -inorganic nature, organic nature, life vegetable, insect, animal, all had passed on and on through timeless epochs of duration without one trace of Man.

And when we reflect with the geologist, that "from the inconceivably remote period of the deposition of the Cambrian rocks the earth has been vivified by the sun's light and heat, has been fertilized by refreshing showers and washed by tidal waves; that the ocean not only moved in orderly oscillations regulated, as now, by sun and moon, but was rippled and agitated by winds and storms; that the atmosphere was influenced by clouds and vapors, rising, condensing, and falling in ceaseless circulation," and yet that while Nature was thus established in her ordinances, through the long, long ages from the Cambrian to the Post-Tertiary there was no human organism, we are impressed not only with the recency of Man's origin, as compared with the whole duration of the globe, but with his physical insignifithe scale of the universe. In this view we concede the grandeur of Nature, in her antiquity, her forces, and her laws.

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