once perfect intelligence, absolute goodness, and irresistible power. If I could imagine myself to stand in that presence at such a time, I should have felt that the fixedness of the course of nature is only an arbitrary and temporary constitution; and that it must be less constant than are those energies of love which are eternal. In the presence of Him whose volitions flow out into act without an interval, the difference between the natural and the supernatural, if it has not already vanished, seems to tremble upon the balance, for nothing can be more natural than that omnipotent compassion should have its way. What is this material universe in its vastness and its variety but the product every moment of the perpetual WILL of the Creator? If we believed ourselves to stand near to HIM in whom the perfections of the Infinite Being dwelt bodily, a sovereign volition of one kind would not be accounted more difficult or strange than volitions of another kind.-The Restoration of Belief, from pages 228 to 233. (3.) Further the miracles reveal themselves in a glorious light to the student, as not only the evidences for a revelation, but themselves constituting a revelation, of God. They are They are an Epiphany, "pledges of a redemption wrought, and foreshadows of a redemption realised." The following passage, from a work entitled "Characteristics of Gospel Miracles," by Rev. R. Westcott, will set forth this truth, and aptly prepare our readers for the conclusion: The wide and increasing differences by which we are separated from the last age invest the question of the Gospel miracles with a practical interest which touches us all most nearly. Every new position which men take up with regard to the world around them brings with it a change of feeling. Old relations are disturbed by wider discoveries. Isolated facts are seen as parts of some vast system. Familiar objects are viewed under strange lights; and the mental reaction which follows the shaking of an old belief is always proportioned to the intensity with which it is held. In nothing has the change of feeling during the last century been more violent than in the popular estimation of miracles. At the beginning they were singled out as the master proof of the Christian faith; now they are kept back as difficulties in the way of its reception. On the one hand, the proud advances of physical science, which place in a clearer light the symmetry and order of external nature, invest the idea of law with an absolute majesty inconceivable at an earlier time. On the other, a strange love for the vivid realization of every incident presented to us, which is attested by the scenic histories of the day, makes us impatient of the mystery which hangs over the acts of a Divine Sovereign. We try to individualise the special event which is presented to us. We follow the process of its accomplishment with every help of local illustration; and exactly in proportion as it eludes our apprehension, exactly in proportion as it is miraculous, we say, consciously or unconsciously, that we cannot believe the isolated fact. It is irreconcilable in idea with the existence of a supreme law; it is irreconcilable in detail by the fancy of the minute artist. In this way perhaps we pass from one record to another, and fail, baffled, before each. Piece by piece the historic groundwork of our faith is taken away, and what remains of the superstructure trembles at the mercy of the first storm. Such a result is not imaginary; it is natural, and even necessary. The feelings to which it is due are a part of our peculiar trial, for they are the product of our peculiar civilization. As long as men remain the same, fresh knowledge brings fresh doubts, for as yet we only know in part. But the balance of strength and temptation is equally poised. As we are not placed before our forefathers in spiritual advantages, so neither are we placed behind them. The thought which suggests the doubt will teach us to answer it. The same spirit of wide generalization which leads us to group the phenomena of Nature under great and simple laws, will aid us to contemplate the facts of the Gospel as parts of a complete whole. The same spirit of exact portraiture which leads us to seek for the test of truth in the rendering of the smallest details, will aid us to appreciate the characteristic marks by which they are distinguished. The miracles of the Gospel are not isolated facts; they are not vain repetitions. In meaning as well as in time, they lie between the Incarnation and the Ascension. They look back to the one event and forward to the other, now bringing God to man, and now raising man to God, as signs of the full accomplishment of Christ's earthly work. In this sense they are all one; and yet they are all different. Each has its proper lesson; each has its peculiar place. They speak to us in the various crises of life; they speak to us in the very presence of death; they speak to us in joy and sorrow-in the course of common duties-in the cares of home-in the house of God. And thus it is that they belong properly to the believer, and not to the doubter. They are a treasure rather than a bulwark. They are in their utmost sense instruction, and not evidence. And yet as the Christian rises to a clearer perception of their distinctness and harmony; as he traces their simplicity and depth; as he sees their comprehensive variety and infinite significance, they do become an evidence of his faith-an evidence of power and wisdom-which issues not in the silence of repressed doubt, but in the thanksgiving of grateful praise. Starting from this view of the miracles, as lessons of wisdom rather than displays of omnipotence, as types of the Lord's working and partial applications of the great mystery of His coming, it is my desire to indicate generally their extent and connection, in the hope that some one may carry on the inquiry thus rudely outlined, and in doing this the successive services of the season fix the great divisions of the subject. The miracles of the Gospels are most simply classified by their reference to Nature, to man, to the spirit-world; and in this order they are brought before us on this and the following Sundays. The very existence of such a division of the miracles marks at the outset the universality of their teaching. They are not confined to one object or to one sphere. They extend as far as the varied powers of man can venture, and open visions of hope in each of the cardinal points to which his thoughts are turned. In each direction they are charged with some peculiar message of hope, though all tend to the central truth of the redemption. Now they appear peculiarly as works of dominion, and Nature yields once more to man the pledges of his sovereignty. Now they are embodied in works of love, and man welcomes in his own person the types of his restoration. Now they are shown in works of judgment, and the great adversary announces, in the confession of despair, the advent of his hopeless ruin. Each of these aspects of the Divine working will occupy our attention in turn. Each has a direct bearing towards our age and towards ourselves. Each is needful for the complete representation of the life of Christ, in whom God united and reconciled all things that are in Heaven and upon earth. (4.) The more attentively the problems of history are examined, the more surely it is ascertained that the origin and spread of Christianity cannot be rationally accounted for, if the miraculous facts recorded did not really take place. Christianity does exist in the world. The problem of its origin is confined within that half-a-century of the world's history, when the structural unity of the Roman Empire was completed, and ancient civilisation was culminating. This subject has been successfully handled by many modern writers, but by none so ably as by Henry Rogers, in his "Eclipse of Faith Explained," especially in the chapter entitled "The Infidel Neophyte," from which we quote one extract, and close : "You ask me to believe that, at a juncture when all the world was divided between deep-rooted superstition and incredulous scepticism-divided, as regards the Jews, into Pharisees and Sadducees; and, as regards the Gentiles, into their Pharisees and Sadducees: i.e., into the vulgar, who believed, or at least practised, all popular religions, and the philosophers, who laughed at them all, and whose combined hostility was directed against this supposed new mythology-it nevertheless found favour with multitudes in almost all lands! You ask me to believe that a mythology was rapidly received by thousands, of different races and nations, when all history proclaims, that it is with the utmost difficulty that any such system ever passes the limits of the race that originated it; and that you can hardly get another race even to look at it as a matter of philosophic curiosity! You ask me to believe that the system was received by multitudes among many different races, both of Asia and Europe, without force, when a similar phenomenon has never been witnessed in relation to any mythology whatever! Thus, after asking me to burden myself with a thousand perplexities to account for the origin of these fables, you afterwards burden me with a thousand more, to account for their success! Lastly, you ask me to believe, not only that men of different races and countries became bigotedly attached to legends which none were likely to originate, which all were likely to hate, and, most of all, those who are supposed to have originated them; but that they received them as historic facts, when the known recency of their origin must have shown the world that they were the legendary birth of yesterday: and that they acted thus, though those who propagated these legends had no military power, no civil authority, no philosophy, no science, no one instrument of human success to aid them; while the opposing prejudices which everywhere encountered them had! I really do not know how tobelieve all this."-Eclipse of Faith, pp. 211-212. VII. POPULAR PHYSIOLOGY. BY DR. ELAM. IF self-preservation be the "first law of nature," there should be no subject of more permanent and absorbing interest than that of which physiology professes to treat, viz., the phenomena and laws of life, and the conditions under which it can be preserved to the greatest certainty and advantage. In these days also there can be but little excuse for ignorance, for in forms more or less true, we have the science brought down or diluted to the popular capacity and taste by writers great and small. We have handbooks, "elements," "popular expositions," "sketches and riddles," all physiological, until certainly it must be every man's own fault if he be not "his own physiologist." And inaccordance with this, as though the presence of a book on the shelf, or table, cut or uncut, would impart the necessary knowledge, few are not so ignorant as to be able to criticise and correct the conclusions of the laborious investigator-few so wise as to know their own utter ignorance of the great mystery of life-life that can resist for long years the wear and tear of existence, yet perishes with a breath-that VOL. V. G whole. The same spirit of exact portraiture which leads us to seek for the test of truth in the rendering of the smallest details, will aid us to appreciate the characteristic marks by which they are distinguished. The miracles of the Gospel are not isolated facts; they are not vain repetitions. In meaning as well as in time, they lie between the Incarnation and the Ascension. They look back to the one event and forward to the other, now bringing God to man, and now raising man to God, as signs of the full accomplishment of Christ's earthly work. In this sense they are all one; and yet they are all different. Each has its proper lesson; each has its peculiar place. They speak to us in the various crises of life; they speak to us in the very presence of death; they speak to us in joy and sorrow-in the course of common duties-in the cares of home-in the house of God. And thus it is that they belong properly to the believer, and not to the doubter. They are a treasure rather than a bulwark. They are in their utmost sense instruction, and not evidence. And yet as the Christian rises to a clearer perception of their distinctness and harmony; as he traces their simplicity and depth; as he sees their comprehensive variety and infinite significance, they do become an evidence of his faith-an evidence of power and wisdom-which issues not in the silence of repressed doubt, but in the thanksgiving of grateful praise. Starting from this view of the miracles, as lessons of wisdom rather than displays of omnipotence, as types of the Lord's working and partial applications of the great mystery of His coming, it is my desire to indicate generally their extent and connection, in the hope that some one may carry on the inquiry thus rudely outlined, and in doing this the successive services of the season fix the great divisions of the subject. The miracles of the Gospels are most simply classified by their reference to Nature, to man, to the spirit-world; and in this order they are brought before us on this and the following Sundays. The very existence of such a division of the miracles marks at the outset the universality of their teaching. They are not confined to one object or to one sphere. They extend as far as the varied powers of man can venture, and open visions of hope in each of the cardinal points to which his thoughts are turned. In each direction they are charged with some peculiar message of hope, though all tend to the central truth of the redemption. Now they appear peculiarly as works of dominion, and Nature yields once more to man the pledges of his sovereignty. Now they are embodied in works of love, and man welcomes in his own person the types of his restoration. Now they are shown in works of judgment, and the great adversary announces, in the confession of despair, the advent of his hopeless ruin. Each of these aspects of the Divine working will occupy our attention in turn. Each has a direct bearing towards our age and towards ourselves. Each is needful for the complete representation of the life of Christ, in whom God united and reconciled all things that are in Heaven and upon earth. (1.) The more attentively the problems of history are examined, the more surely it is ascertained that the origin and spread of Christianity cannot be rationally accounted for, if the miraculous facts recorded did not really take place. Christianity does exist in the world. The problem of its origin is confined within that half-a-century of the world's history, when the structural unity of the Roman Empire was completed, and ancient civilisation was culminating. This subject has been successfully handled by many modern writers, but by none so ably as by Henry Rogers, in his "E·lipse of Faith Explained," especially in the chapter entitled "The Infidel Neophyte," from which we quote one extract, and close :- "You ask me to believe that, at a juncture when all the world was divided between deep-rooted superstition and incredulous scepticism-divided, as regards the Jews, into Pharisees and Sadducees; and, as regards the Gentiles, into their Pharisees and Sadducees: i.e., into the vulgar, who believed, or at least practised, all popular religions, and the philosophers, who laughed at them all, and whose combined hostility was directed against this supposed new mythology-it nevertheless found favour with multitudes in almost all lands! You ask me to believe that a mythology was rapidly received by thousands, of different races and nations, when all history proclaims, that it is with the utmost difficulty that any such system ever passes the limits of the race that originated it; and that you can hardly get another race even to look at it as a matter of philosophic curiosity! You ask me to believe that the system was received by multitudes among many different races, both of Asia and Europe, without force, when a similar phenomenon has never been witnessed in relation to any mythology whatever! Thus, after asking me to burden myself with a thousand perplexities to account for the rigin of these fables, you afterwards burden me with a thousand more, to account for their success! Lastly, you ask me to believe, not only that men of different races and countries became bigotedly attached to legends which none were likely to originate, which all were likely to hate, and, most of all, those who are supposed to have originated them; but that they received them as historic facts, when the known recency of their origin must have shown the world that they were the legendary birth of yesterday: and that they acted thus, though those who propagated these legends had no military power, no civil authority, no philosophy, no science, no one instrument of human success to aid them; while the pposing prejudices which everywhere encountered them had! I really do not know how tobelieve all this."-Eclipse of Faith, pp. 211-212. VII. POPULAR PHYSIOLOGY. BY DR. ELAM. Ip self-preservation be the "first law of nature," there should be no subject of more permanent and absorbing interest than that of which physiology professes to treat, viz., the phenomena and laws of life, and the conditions under which it can be preserved to the greatest certainty and advantage. In these days also there can be but little excuse for ignorance, for in forms more or less true, we have the science brought down or diluted to the popular capacity and taste by writers great and >mall. We have handbooks, "elements," "popular expositions," sketches and riddles," all physiological, until certainly it must be very man's own fault if he be not "his own physiologist." And inaccordance with this, as though the presence of a book on the shelf, or table, cut or uncut, would impart the necessary knowledge, few are not so ignorant as to be able to criticise and correct the conclusions of the laborious investigator-few so wise as to know their own utter ignorance of the great mystery of life-life that can resist for long years the wear and tear of existence, yet perishes with a breath-that VOL. V. G |