graphy?-than the mere speed of national intercommunication, and the facilities of commercial operations? Does it not demonstrate to us that mind will advance as well as commerce, that goodness may communicate with goodness between the ends of the world, that the souls of men are now put into nearer relationship, that all over the civilized earth whatever is noble, lofty in aim, benevolent, sympathetic, and Christian, can be sent forth from soul to soul; that the slender submarine electric wire can communicate a message of love which no intervening waters can cool, and that if any man has a God-like purpose of promise in one country, it may find even in a few hours, a welcome home in every receptive heart within the entire circle of nations.

There can be no question that one of the deepest desires of every high-minded student of Nature is to know its end, its relation to man in time and in eternity. The soul that strives to free itself from the baseness and paltriness of present human pursuits, earnestly seeks for every observable token of the presence-the allpervading presence of God in Nature—such a soul is not content with physical or utilitarian ends. These may be good, but they terminate

with the present life, and if there be nothing higher within human reach, then all this unfolding magnificence and endless complexity of Nature seem superfluous. Much less would have sufficed for man's ordinary wants; if he needed only food and raiment, light and heat, a little cradle, and an obscure grave, the world is too good and too grand for him. Nature is in such case, a richly-embroidered garment, wrought by royal hands for a beggar and an outcast. It does not suit him, it does not fit him; and it renders his very wretchedness the more conspicuous by its richness and its orna

ments.

True that no one can positively say what the entire relations of Nature to man actually are. Still many of these may be conjectured, discovered, and to a great extent gathered from a careful and reverent consideration of the antecedent history of our earth and our race, and from an examination of the emotions and courses of thought which Nature excites in the most cultivated and contemplative minds. If Nature should awaken similar emotions in many similar minds, if the wider the cultivation the greater the appreciation of her manifold characteristics, if souls seeking after

communion with God should frequently find in an enlightened communion with Nature that she lifts them up heavenwards as though on eagle's wings; if the successive discoveries of Science shall, when rightly regarded, be capable of arrangement into a series of altar steps stretching through space upwards towards the throne of the Invisible Almighty One, then Nature has a higher ministry than is known to the unreflecting, or cared for by the mere utilitarianism of this life.

It is the object of the present work to accomplish somewhat, however limited, in this direction, and it may suggest much more than it accomplishes. Thoughts of this kind, regulated by adequate knowledge, and chastened by due reflection, appear to be the least frequent of all associated with Nature. The poetical imagination, the pictorial, the æsthetic in general, discerns continually more and more in her, and appropriately depicts it, but unhappily our religious instincts and emotions do not seem to have been brought into an intimate relation with Nature. We do not habitually resort to her as a great teacher sent to us from God; we seldom think of her as a rarely and richlystored revealer of divine truths; we treat her

as dumb because we do not listen to her voice; we pass our lives in her midst and think she says nothing to us. We are like travellers who traverse a wood by night and are impressed by its awful silence, not knowing that in the morning every tree will be instinct with visible life, and every glade vocal with the sweetest song. A thousand singing birds are now roosting on a thousand branches. Darkness hides and hushes them, but he who in a few subsequent hours follows the present nocturnal traveller on the same path, will descry far-spreading green and brightly coloured foliage, and rapidly beating wings, and will find light in every woody interstice, and listen to love in every changeful lay.

The physicist or naturalist, simply as such, does not regard it as within his province to refer to this Ministry of Nature; he is engaged in questioning her about her physical properties, and when he has elicited what these are, he has performed his part. The anatomist is concerned only about structure, the naturalist about order and organization, the biologist about life, the geologist about stratification and origin and change of material, the paleontologist about the life that has been as the an

tecedent to that which now is on the earth and

in the seas. All these inquirers usually restrict themselves within their respective circles, and find more than enough to occupy them therein. Such men may treat the suggestion of a higher ministry of Nature in accordance with the structure of their several minds. Newton and Faraday derived from their scientific researches sublime conceptions of God, to which, however, they rarely gave public utterance. The number of religious students of nature is probably greater than anticipated, and probably greater than can be known, because many such are reluctant to give prominence to their opinions, or do not court opportunities to make them public. Thus not a few pious men pass away from the ranks of science, and none but their intimate friends know their religiousness. Turner the chemist, Dawes the astronomer, and several others almost unknown to survivors, might be named as examples of this class.

Others who have an incredulous cast of mind will either resent or disregard the idea of any higher ministry of Nature than that which she presents to them phenomenally. Some will deny it, and some ridicule it. Many will