giving, as it were, a blow, then cease to act. The motion thus produced is in a straight line and with a uniform velocity, and without some other force acting upon the mass in motion, the motion can never come to an end. The other kind of forces act continuously-like gravity, for example. The motion thus produced is, where there is no other force acting on the same mass, in a straight line and with a constantly increasing velocity.

With the two forces acting together on the same mass we may have motion in a curve line, and, under certain conditions, we have alternations, oscillations or vibrations, back and forth between limits or maximum and minimum points. We have examples in the planets revolving around the sun, the pendulum that vibrates, attracted by the earth, and in the piston in a steam cylinder, that is kept moving to and fro by the steam that comes in from outside. But there can be no mass of matter outside of the material universe to keep it moving between any two extremes. Materialism without God cannot produce or explain evolution.

I have admitted, for the sake of the argument, that oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen might of themselves unite in the formation of protoplasm, and that the substance thus formed might become a living being, a moner or an amaba. But I do not see how this could take place without something more than the agency of mere matter and the so-called "forces" of matter. Life, and the phenomena of life, seem to be something different in kind, and not in degree only, from what had ever existed before they made their appearance. It seems to me to exceed the nature of mere evolution as truly and as completely as a chemical analysis, or synthesis rather, that should produce a new element, as carbon or chlorine from any of the others that are totally unlike it, or iron from oxygen and silex, or phosphorus from water and carbonic acid.

Precisely so, of each of the three great periods in evolution, there must have been a change in the law and a new thing produced (1) at the beginning of chemical action, down to the origin of protoplasm, and the beginning of animal life, (2) at the beginning of animal life through all the geological ages, during which we have the origin of the successive species beginning with the lowest or nearly the lowest, and extending up, in zoological order, and down in geological time, to the advent of man. And the (3) begun with the entrance of Mind as an agent and a force in mundane affairs with men-if we do not find mind properly so called below man, or if we do find it below him, then whenever we first find

mind with real spontaneity of action, or freedom of choice and power of self control.

I have said of the word "Evolution" that it is but the name of a process, and that the process itself which the word denotes is no adequate explanation of anything. It may be used as a name for the Divine Method-the way in which God does things. But there can be no evolution that includes the whole process and system without God as a Supernatural Divine Agent, a Being acting as man does-freely, spontaneously, intelligently, with purpose and reference to ends or final causes. A First Cause necessarily presupposes, implies and proves final causes, as a part of the system of which He is First Cause.

It would be more proper to speak of evolutions in the plural, than of evolution, as if there were but one. For there must be, as we have seen, several successive states at the beginning and end of each of which there began a new order of things or progress towards something higher, and ever pointing to something yet future, which quite possibly can be fully accomplished and completed only when we shall have attained our final consummation and bliss in the eternal and glorious Kingdom that awaits those that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. In each of the successive stages there is a different law and higher agency, with a more complicated administration. First, only chemical and natural laws-then animal instincts, and finally reason and conscience; reason and conscience which point to and promise higher forms of spiritual life and a state of existence after this earthly life is ended, and earth itself shall have done all that it can do for us.

Evolution without God as the prime mover and everacting agent, is but a very superficial view. It is unsatisfactory and incomprehensible to any one who seeks a thorough understanding of what he professes to believe. But God is essentially a miracle-worker. He may have a constant agency in all things. He may be the one force that moves as all things that move and change regularly by law, without free agency and spontaneity of action. Where there is such agency and such action we have an originating, if not an original force, which may be, in the words of the apostle, a "worker together with God:" or a worker against Him, in which case the "work" is sin. But He must be a miracle worker.

Now, in a very important sense the works of man are miraculous as seen from mere inanimate nature. And the works of God, some of them at least, as seen from man's

point of view, and in reference to him, must be miraculous in the highest, strictest sense of the word. We can have no meaning for the word miracle more than acts like these will indicate and fulfil.

And such miracles must have occurred all along in the history of the past. A beginning of life, or living organism, was one. The introduction of man, by immediate creation or otherwise, must have been another. The introduction and the origin of Christianity, the beginning of "the regeneration" (Matt. xix. 28), was another in the same line. And these point to another still to come-the resurrection and the glorification of the body, preparatory to a final state. The history of the past, beginning with geological time, proves the first of our statements. History proves the third, and evolution, if we accept it as a law and method that has been manifested in the past, is our proof of the fourth. For I hold it to be incontrovertible that as certainly as the facts of nature prove evolution and give a meaning to the word, so certainly does evolution itself point to and predict a future of glory surpassing the present as far as anything in the present exceeds the past, something which no eye hath seen nor ear heard, and no heart can conceive.

There is one thing which the advocates of evolution have done for us, for which we may well be thankful. They have brought forward the doctrine of final causes, of working for results; or of events preceding events, and preparing the way for them; of all things working together as a whole, and for some one great result; so that hereafter it cannot be called in question-all that can be done is to pervert and caricature it. They have enabled us to see a new meaning in the words of our Blessed Lord. "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." "Hitherto" and up to this time. In the six "days" or periods and until man came in creation, and since man was created in history, in covenants and in revelations, in rites and ritual, by priest and by prophet, revealing Himself to those who would willingly receive His word and follow it, guiding the hearts of those who cared not for Him, so that they should also do the thing He would have done, though "it was not in their heart," and they "meant" no such thing (Isa. x. 6, &c.), until "in the fulness of time," and when all things were ready, Christ came in the flesh. Hitherto, since the creation, it was God in history. But now a new age begins; it is the "regeneration," and God works in His church to convert the world and prepare the people for that second coming, that glorious coming that awaits us—to come, no one

I can tell when or how soon. But in all, through all, God works. He does not the less make the sun to rise and set, or grass to grow, or the "birds to carol." He does not the less guide and control in the destinies of nations. But His work is more conspicuous and notable now in the hearts of those who through faith and obedience seek to be conformed to His blessed will. Hitherto God hath wrought, and now and from that date Christ works in His new way, and will work until, seeing the travail of His soul, His heart shall be satisfied and His blessedness and His glory shall have become complete in the number of the redeemed.

But the one great inspiring thought, made manifest and conspicuous above all else, is the thought that hitherto GOD worketh! in all things and everywhere, and not six days only in some way off time, as we have been taught. Without Him evolution is nothing; nature is nothing, and man could not have been. We may go so far as to say that He is the one force; which in its various forms we call heat, and light, and attraction and such like-and most certain it is that without HIM there could have been no such phenomena. I say we may affirm this doctrine, and I do not see how metaphysics can altogether disprove it. But it seems to me far more likely that He has created the atoms, and molecules, and masses, so that they attract, repel, and act upon each other in various ways, and in ways of their own, as man himself acts of himself spontaneously. But at any rate God IS and "is all in all." Without Him nothing exists that could have existed. Without Him nothing that has occurred could have occurred, and without Him there is nothing in the future to hope for or desire. So true, even from a purely scientific point of view, are those words of St. Paul, the soundest science, concurring in this with the profoundest theology. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

VI.-MILTON AND TENNYSON.

BY THE REV. HENRY J. VAN DYKE, Junr.

"Blessings be with them and immortal praise,
Who gave us noble lives and nobler cares,
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs

Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays."- Wordsworth.

Two rivers, 'rising in the same lofty region and fed by kindred springs, are guided by the mountain-slopes of their environment into channels which, though not far apart, are widely different. The one, deeper and stronger from its birth, after a swift and lovely course through fair uplands of peace, is shattered suddenly by the turmoil of a fierce conflict, lifting but one foam-crested wave of warning, is plunged into the secret and tumultuous warfare of a deep cañon, emerging at length with wondrously augmented current, to flow majestically through a land of awful, thunder-riven cliffs, towering peaks, vast forests, and immeasurable plains, a mighty land, a mighty stream. The other river, from a source less deep, but no less pure and clear, passing with the same gentle current through the same region of sweet seclusion, meets with no mighty obstacle, is torn by no wild cataract in its descent, but with ever-growing force and deepening, widening stream sweeps through a land less majestic, but more beautiful, not void of grandeur, but free from horror, a land of shadowy vales and gardens; mysterious cities hung in air, and hills crowned with ruined castles, a stream brimming and bright and large, whose smooth, strong flow often conceals its unsounded depth, and mirrors, not only the fleeting shores, but also the eternal stars, in its bosom.

Such is the figure in which I see the poetry of Milton and of Tennyson flowing through the literature and life of our English race. They are, without doubt,. the two great religious poets of England. I do not mean by this to say that they are equal or alike in their greatness. Milton is assuredly a poet of the first order. The world has but three, or at most five, names worthy to stand beside his. For Tennyson, his most ardent admirer will hardly dare to claim