DISCOURSE XIII.

GOD AND NATURE. ;

HAVING NO HOPE, AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.

Eph. ii. 12.

WERE you to exhaust thought in attempting to frame a fitting description of a rational being who has found his residence on our globe, and who is the living embodiment of moral gloom, unmitigated sorrow, and deep, unutterable woe, no language could you find more concisely expressive or more thoroughly complete than this thrillingly descriptive sentence, "without God and without hope." This is a description to which it must be trusted that no human being could be found to answer. Yet it should not be disguised, it cannot have escaped the observation of any close observer, that in not a few, in many instances, there appears a tendency towards such a condition of spiritual desolation. In our day, restless, indefatigable Science is extending her researches in every quarter, as if affording assurance of a literal realization of those Scriptural words, "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nothing hid that shall not be made known,"

bringing "to light the hidden things of darkness, and making manifest the counsels of the heart."

As with a thousand hands she is opening a thousand hitherto unopened pages in this stupendous volume of nature, discovering new facts, new operations, new laws, or, if not new, facts, operations, and laws hitherto unknown or unobserved. But wisdom does not always increase in a corresponding ratio with knowledge, as appears from the momentary exultation over every fresh development. With every slight discovery, some voices are heard echoing the Eureka! of the Greek philosopher. "I have found it! I have found it! The world's mystery is explained; the problem of the universe is solved." As if they had eaten of the tree in the Eden of the Mosaical cosmogony, they seem to be conscious of verifying the serpentine prediction in having become gods, knowing both good and evil; but unhappily for themselves, and sometimes unhappily for the world, they do not, as to their intellectual being, make that other discovery which the two occupants of Eden made, as described in this concise language: " They knew that they were naked." Though not always, yet the poet's apothegm is sometimes true, that "a little learning is a dangerous thing." But peril is the true element of progress, and every slight increase of knowledge, with all the dangers it may bring, is preferable to the most blissful security of ignorance. The sagacity, however, which in our day has detected a few of the latent properties of light, and heat, and electricity, and steam, fails in a just improvement of its discoveries, when it assumes a haughty and scornful attitude, and with a self

complacent pride affects to despise the paternal roof under which it was nurtured, and to which it is indebted for its present expansion and maturity. Contempt and ingratitude are as ungraceful features in the character of science, as they are in that of ignorance. Pride goeth before a fall, is not only a Hebrew proverb, but it is the expression of a fact which all history attests. Superstition, as she becomes proud, ambitious, and despotical, weakens confidence and awakens foes; and just in proportion as Science assumes an air of haughtiness, and scorns the steps by which she rises, she too will weaken confidence in her own worth, and retard her own advancement; for all experience testifies that men prefer old tyrants to new ones, and if it be only a change of masters they are to have, they will more respect the superstition which is hallowed by their earliest and tenderest associations, than the unwarrantable presumption of a new-born science, which rudely shocks all that their pure childhood has held dear and holy. Our human nature is indeed great in its capacities, but it is yet small in its acquirements. The wisest of our nature who have passed from earth, and the wisest of our nature who now live, are standing only on the sandy and wreckstrewn shore of the boundless sea of knowledge. Ever and anon a swelling wave casts up some weed or shell, unfolding to us some new beauty and suggesting to us some fresh thought, but the inestimable treasures which lie deep down in that ocean's bed are only intimated by the little we observe. And is it not often cited as an evidence of Newton's greatness, as the richest gem that sparkles in the

diadem that crowns his memory, that he deemed himself, even in the zenith of his fame, but as a little child playing with a few pebbles on the shore, while the illimitable sea of truth lay before him still undiscovered? I would not presume to say that this manly humility, this ingenuous spirit, which is not ashamed to recognize the boundaries which circumscribe its knowledge, I would not presume to say that this is no characteristic of our day. Indeed, the vast extent of elements still unexplored is not only admitted, but urged by the most unspiritual as a plea for the most unrestrained inquiry and incessant effort. Yet strangely incompatible with this is the degree of dogmatism which marks the infidelity of our time. In much of the scepticism of this generation there is an arbitrary positiveness, which is as repulsive as the authoritative claims of superstition. As to respect, I frankly confess that I respect as much the honest doubt of the sceptic, as I respect the honest faith of the devotee. But it is neither the doubt of the one nor the faith of the other that I respect, it is only the honesty of both; and if there be any merit, it is that only which has merit in one case or the other. When scepticism becomes intolerant and disrespectful, it is no more to be admired than superstition. A harsh and scornful infidelity can no more win our love, than can a threatening and domineering faith; - spiritual despotism is the same, whether an unbeliever or a fanatic sway the iron sceptre. The yoke of the superstitious ty rant is as easily worn as the yoke of the sceptical tyrant.

Man, with mind developed and with large acqui

sitions of science, stands at this day on this little speck of earth, and, raising his telescope towards the star-studded skies, through the vast space catches glimpses of faint light from worlds so distant that no ray of theirs has ever reached the earth. He gazes on, till conscious that he is standing only on the threshold of the great temple of the universe. Through the slightly open door he has caught some faint reflection of the ineffable splendors beyond the reach of mortal vision; and while his eyes are yet dazzled with the mere conception of the incomprehensible grandeur of countless worlds, he will venture without a qualifying syllable to pronounce the decision of his wisdom, and declares as with authority, "This is nature, and there is no God." Then he looks down into the slime and sand beneath his feet, and observes the ceaseless vicissitude of life and growth and decay and death; and with his proud positiveness confirmed, he contemns the world's ignorance, and declares, "Yes, I know this is law; there is no God."

Without a reproachful word, and without a tone. of harshness, but calm in the confidence that truth and love must triumph, must reign and be eternal, I would say, "Pause in your rash decision, child of earth! pause and ponder. If you can feel no reverence, at least exercise some humanity. In order to have God thrust from the universe, will you crush man to nothing? Will you rob man of trust in a beneficent Ruler, in order to gain trust in a theory which you can never prove? What conceivable advantage do you expect by attempting to deprive mankind of the solace which they find in recogniz