so dread the accusation of anthropomorphism, if we are made in the image of God in a sense that is not true of the animal, must not that higher intelligence so given be the only means of arriving at any idea of God, however imperfect. Of course, our words and ideas are imperfect, our best expressions are derived from imperfect analogies and necessarily imperfect. And as for the certainty of science, the expressions we use are just equally imperfect and bear etymological analysis even worse than those of Theology. And the ideas they express are incessantly varying. What are atoms, what is ether, what is light, what is force?

Mr. MARTIN ROUSE, B.A., said: Blind nature is represented by one of its greatest forces; the ocean, although at work for ages, produces no organism or mechanism, but only a few rounded stones; a single man by his intellect thinks out and builds up a clock. A tree is a machine far excelling a clock, in that every year it winds itself up and makes fresh wheels, in the shape of leaves, flowers, and fruit in and by means of which its sap is drawn up and rotates; so a tree must have taken a far superior intellect to design and construct it. How infinitely superior, then, must have been the intellect which has stored within every such machine a large number of like machines, ready after a few years to do the same work, and within each of those machines a large number more, and so onward to a thousand generations.

At the completion of the house in which God's glory was to abide, Solomon exclaimed, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee." Yet in the same prayer he appealed to Jehovah for both present and future help in the words, "Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and when thou hearest forgive and do." It is clear, then, that the Heavenly Father is said to be everywhere, because His knowledge of all that goes on in His universe is perfect, and His power perfect to deal with all, but that there is one part of the universe remote from us in which He sits to control every part. And His attendant spirits do not, as some men imagine, move from one part to another with the rapidity of thought; for Gabriel, whose usual station is before His throne,* being commanded "at the beginning" of Daniel's long prayer and confession to bring comfort

* Cf. Luke i, 19.

at

to the prophet, and being "caused to fly swiftly," touched him " the time of the evening sacrifice,"* evidently a good while later. With the rapidity of light is a far likelier estimate of an angel's progress; and perhaps we may venture to think that of God's own movements. †

It has been suggested by Mr. R. W. Newell, the American preacher, on the strength of several allusions in Holy Writ, that God's dwelling-place lies within the circle of the pole stars, to which the earth's axis always points, slowly rotating around it in 26,000 years he cites Ezekiel i, 4, where the glory of God with its attendant cherubim is seen coming from the north; he also cites Psalm lxxv, 6, where we read, "Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, but God is the judge; He putteth down one and setteth up another"; and he cites Isaiah xiv, 13 (R.V.), where to Lucifer the inward thought is ascribed, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; And I will sit upon the mount of congregation in the uttermost parts of the north." And to these evidences one may perhaps add from Job xxxvii, 22 (R.V.), "Out of the north cometh golden splendour; with God is terrible majesty."

Whence comes the present day aversion to anthropomorphism? In Genesis i we read that the triune God said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness," and this could hardly have referred to the intellect of man, since not to speak of its finite character it did not include the knowledge of good and evil which God possessed; and again in the description of Jehovah's glory, given in Ezekiel i, we read, that above the cherubim and their crystal canopy was "the likeness as the appearance of a man seated upon a throne.

After the melting points of rocks had been ascertained Lord Kelvin reduced his estimate of the earth's age to twenty-four million years.

Lieut.-Colonel MACKINLAY said: I am sure we all unite heartily with our Chairman in thanking Canon Girdlestone for his excellent and suggestive paper.

The reign of law seen in nature is also to be recognised in the political world. A kingdom grows in power until it becomes

paramount for some time in all the earth, but after a while it waxes old, as does the individual, and another takes its place. Laws have ruled these changes.

But the history of the Jews is a standing marvel; long dispossessed of their land they have remained a scattered people, many of them endowed with very great powers of intellect in statesmanship, business, arts, and sciences. Who can doubt that they have a great future? But why are they thus preserved ? In the Bible we are told that they were divinely selected, and their present condition was long ago prophesied.

In the Scriptures we meet with grand unities. All creation and rule is ascribed to one God. No local god, or gods of the different forces of nature are recognised. In its spiritual teaching also a grand unity pervades the Book, written as it was in different ages; for instance, it is explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the arrangements of the ancient Tabernacle refer again and again to the Lord Jesus Christ. Consistently throughout the Bible it is taught that all men have sinned, that one Saviour died for us, one Mediator between man and God is pointed to throughout. A grand unity pervades the whole.

In Heb. i, 2 and 3, the One by whom the worlds were made is spoken of as the One who made purification for our sins. A grand Unity, supreme in both the physical and spiritual spheres.

Observing then the thread of unity in God's world of nature, we naturally look for a similar harmony in His spiritual revelation, we are not disappointed in our expectation.

The Rev. E. SEELEY said: Both the last speaker and the Canon showed us that Christ's work glorifies the scheme that they see in the Universe. May I suggest that the Scriptures authorize speaking much more confidently than they have spoken.

St. Paul's epistles tell us of "the Eternal Purpose of God" (Eph. i-iii, Col. i, and I Cor. ii, 7).* This assures us that there is “a Scheme in the Universe," Divine and wonderful.

Why did Christ come? was it really to undo a failure of God's Plan, as many think?

Those who so regard it fail to see the grandeur of God's Scheme in the Universe.

* More fully treated by E. Seeley in a volume in the library of the Victoria Institute entitled The Great Reconciliation.

"Before

When did God plan the Atonement? St. Paul tells us, the foundation of the World." It was before the creation of man, and therefore before and not after the Fall.

The statements correspond with the acts of God: for after the Fall, instead of destroying the pair of sinners and beginning afresh, He let them live a mortal life and become the parents of a fallen race. From this we may infer that He intended that the human race should have the experience and discipline of conflict with evil.

"The Eternal Purpose" that included the creation of man and the incarnation of Christ that He might be the perfect Man and the true "Image of God," and the Saviour to raise up for God a people like Himself; included also Christ's conflict with evil, His sufferings and death, His victory, His atonement for sin, and His glory.

So it seems also necessarily to include the permission of the Fall and the subjection of the human race to "the bondage of corruption," in order that Christ's people may follow Him through suffering and conflict to victory and conformity to the image of Christ, and become sharers with Him in the glory of the perfect world hereafter; being not merely without actual sin like little babes, but experienced in conflict and victors over moral evil.

The recognition of this glorious future as the realisation of "the Scheme in the Universe" according to "the Eternal Purpose of God," may give us much comfort in the consideration of many moral mysteries that can only baffle and distress us if we try to unravel them without the aid of Divine Revelation.

Dr. WITHERS GREEN said: In the history of the creation in Genesis man became a living soul. It is particularly stated that they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. They were more spiritually minded than bodily minded. After the fall their natures were inverted, so that they became predominantly carnal. God's scheme in the universe is to restore man to spiritual excellency. The great means God has used are leaders, judges, and judgments, priests, and prophets, and last of all His eternal Son and the Holy Ghost. Man is tripartite-spirit, soul, and body. The soul or pysche is intermediate and does not change its place, being dominated by the uppermost of the trio, be it spirit or body. Education by enlarging the sphere of the psyche has militated against the strength of the body. Are not men acknowledging the spirit more in their daily lives. The artist becomes vegetarian,

and even fasts to some extent, in order that the spirit may be keener and less belaboured by the body, so that more of the spirit of the subject is seen in the picture. When Carlyle and Tennyson "had a fine time together," though in silence, was this not spiritual Folk are wanting more help for seeking advice for their spirits rather than their bodies. The increased leadings of evil spirits is seen in more lunacy, the greater power of good spirits in arbitration vice war. Do not these considerations make the promise of accord instead of discord in " a spiritual body" (1 Cor. xv, 44) less incomprehensible.

Professor ORCHARD said: I am sure we shall all very heartily second the thanks which the Chairman of Council has proposed to our learned and able reader of the paper to which we have listened. A paper thoughtfully suggestive and suggestively thoughtful which had one great demerit, which was that the quantity did not correspond with the quality. It was far too short. The philosophic author has quite proved his point, and shown that there are ndications of a scheme in the universe, that indeed the processes of nature are letters of a definite message, and it is our business to decipher that message. Undoubtedly that is so.

On page 164, I think, reference is made to the evolutionist doctrine, that every embryo, to whatever species it may belong, passes in a few days or weeks through stages corresponding with the whole. presumed course of ancestral evolution. Darwin himself admits that the picture of the supposed progenitor is more or less obscure. In point of fact it is more obscure than less. Several of the more important works are absent. Von Baer and Huxley both say that embryos are similar to one another, but do not say that they are identical in character. At the International Congress* held at Cambridge a few years ago mention was made of discoveries, by Professors Hill and Hubrecht, of differences in these embryos. There must be differences, because, if they are placed in one and the same environment, a different result occurs. A duck's embryo produces a duck, a hen's embryo produces a hen, though both embryos are hatched by the same bird. The one plausible argument for the evolution theory (besides structural resemblance) is thus destroyed.

On the third paragraph of page 164 we read of "the failure of God's

* At which the evolutionist, Haeckel, was present, and spoke.