ism of Bishop Berkeley, consistent with the Christian faith.

I wish also to say that in whatever concessions I may have made to the theory of evolution, I am not to be understood as an advo cate of any view which separates God, at any moment, from the phenomenal universe. The idea of the exercise of creative power, at the initiation of each species of life, does exclude God, to some degree certainly, from the intermediate periods. My view recognizes God as the First Great Cause, and beholds His working and immediate agency in every minutest change in the phenomenal universe. What is true of man is true of all existence: "In Him we live and move and have our being."

There is one more point to be considered. If there be such a process of evolution, what may we anticipate as its end? Is it to go on until there are beings as far above man as he is above the lower orders of animal life? In answering these questions, we shall be aided. by what is a scientific conception, and that is, that if the phenomenal universe has proceeded.

from Absolute Being, to Absolute Being it will return. But this is just what is presented to us in the fundamental facts and principles of the Christian faith. The tide of being which has flowed from God, and culminated at last in man, must return to God. This it does in the Incarnation, by which man is united to God, and God to man. The circle from Absolute Being back to Absolute Being is complete. Those who are familiar with nature, and see how one thing answers to another, and all things seek harmony and symmetry and completeness, will recognize the presence of a universal law in this linking together of man, as the final result of development, with God, in Christ. Christ then stands as the highest and final expression of this evolution, evolved from the bosom of humanity and yet coming forth also from the being of God. He is the highest expression of which the process is capable. It ends with Christ in God.

I have now completed the manifestly difficult and delicate task assigned me. Every word which I have spoken has been inspired

by an earnest desire to do what I could to allay apprehensions which have been excited by the supposed attitude of science toward natural and revealed religion. If the doctrine of successive and intermitted acts of creation should finally be abandoned, it will be replaced by a far higher conception of God, according to which every phenomenal change depends upon what is virtually a creative act, and the inconceivably vast development of nature springs forth at every point of space and every moment of time from God. The last thing in regard to which any fear need be entertained is the future of the historical faith of the Christian Church.

A poet of our time has represented Christianity in the likeness of a majestic angel, with helmet and sword, vainly attempting, in the presence of the Sphinx, to answer the problem of human destiny. The helmet falls from her head, and the sword from her hand, and she stands mute and powerless. The future, we may rest assured, will reverse the representation. The helmet will rest upon

more reverent.

the calm and serene brow of the angel; the sword will be held in her invincible hand, and the answer will be given which solves the mystery of our being. Science has reached a point in its investigations where it will become The Absolute Being which it already recognizes will be seen to be the Personal Creator and Governor of the Universe. The interpretation of nature will be more thorough and clear, and the testimony to the Infinite Being, the Moral Governor of the World, will be so overwhelming and decisive that there will be a universal acknowledgment that

"Earth with her thousand voices praises God."

DANTE.

THE foremost figure in the age in which he lived, and standing in the front rank of the great men of all time, is the Florentine poet, Dante. His greatness, like that of all worldteachers, lies in the clearness with which he discerned the true spirit and want of his age, and the accuracy with which he seized upon and applied universal principles to the problems which his own country and times presented. This kind of greatness is immeasurably superior to that of the poet who merely delights us with flights of imagination and exquisite refinement of style, for it is a greatness which addresses itself to all ages, and gives him who possesses it imperishable power over the thoughts and wills of men. Among those