sides; but reason in animals is limited to senseobjects, while reason-thought in man in infinite, unlimited on all sides. This proves that Nature being in all its details the manifestation of the thought of God, universal gravitation must be in its essence spiritual.

THE PHYSICAL IS ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL

This agrees with the philosophy of Paul, for he says: "The invisible things of God are clearly seen (in the things that are made), because that which may be known of God is manifest in them (that is, in man's intellect), for God hath shewed it to them.' Thus man's intellectual capacity exalts him infinitely above all other created things. He, the Christian philosopher, sees in his own intellect the things of God in the things that are made-' even His eternal power and Godhead.' If I cannot know God's thoughts (in nature), I cannot know God, just as I only know a man when I know his thoughts, and as I only know any object when I know the thoughts it contains. The inorganic world is petrified thought. A rational existence necessarily requires a boundless variety in essential relation. The inorganic world is the lowest form of external thought and matter, to which the animal and vegetable worlds are related, and wherein each is dependent on the other.

Quality, as quality, is infinite; yet in this infinite quality everything has a specific quality of its own, for all things are only what they are by their own special and universal quality. So the various bodies constituting external nature possess in different degrees a repelling and attracting force according to their own peculiar and specific quality. It matters little, except for convenient and intelligent use, whether the connecting force be named cohesion,

attraction, or gravitation; the real power is thought. It is the same power working in all bodies in different degrees according to their density and vitality, whether on the earth, or in the free movement of the heavenly bodies. 'Freedom is, consequently, the truth of necessity,' and the truth of substance is the Ego. Apart from the inherent design in the various bodies, and the different degrees of density, of cohesion or adhesion, [all have a particular utility as well as a general utility for the life of plants and animals these qualities are in every case the thoughts of God addressed to man. To deny that the various objects and forces in heaven and earth are God's thoughts, is worse than to deny that a watch is the thought of a man. In both cases, the invisible things of God and man are clearly seen in the things that are made, for thinking-reason is evident in both forms of work. The material of the watch is God's thought, its make or special design is man's thought : both are spiritual.

NATURE THE VOICE OF GOD

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When the forces of Nature are properly understood, they are all seen to be spiritual. Nature in its infinite variety is the voice of God speaking in manifold tones to its foster-child, the soul of man, 'day unto day uttering speech, night unto night showing knowledge,' their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.' 'Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound, they shall walk in the light of God's countenance.' Sometimes this voice of God sounds somewhat harsh and terrible, so that even a Moses fears and quakes. 'His voice maketh the earth to tremble, that the nations may tremble at His presence.' The grand old Hebrew prophets were excellent interpreters of the voice of God in and through Nature. Their

intellectual vision was not perverted and blinded by a false science or by a false philosophy. With them, what are now called the forces of nature, were regarded as the manifestations of God, either of His favour or of His displeasure, or as a means of discipline and instruction in righteousness. It is now said that the progress made in scientific knowledge has altered all that, so that God, if there be a God, is only a helpless or indifferent spectator; He has nothing whatever to do with earthquakes or pestilent diseases. When Luke records that Jesus said, 'The same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all,' we are asked to believe that this is a mistaken record, or that Jesus accommodated His statements to popular beliefs, and that the record in Genesis about Sodom is false. It cannot, however, be proved that Sodom was not destroyed in the manner and for the reason stated in Genesis. The only reason for disbelief concerning it all is, that it is declared to be contrary to the established principles of science. As a matter of fact, such bold statements are not science at all, and have no better, if even as good, a basis to rest on as the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy. The accepted principles of this so-called modern science are derived from a false philosophy built on a spurious logic. It may be that there have been greater sinners than those who dwelt in Sodom (Christ Himself said as much), or than those Galileans whom Pilate slew, or than those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell; or it may often occur that in great calamities the most excellent perish with the worst, but all this does not prove that Nature is not under God's immediate control, nor does it prove that there are not, or never have been, special direct acts of God as manifestations of His righteous judgments

against sin. Indeed, a true philosophy of Nature proves the contrary, namely, that every act of nature is an act of God in the unity and harmony of a universal reason, in which necessity, contingency and freedom are perfectly blended. (Christ never taught that God did not in special acts directly punish sinners.) Any view of the universal and permanent reign of law in nature which regards it as impossible, or as unscientific for God to perform any special action out of the ordinary course of nature, is contrary to sound reason, and is therefore not scientific, because such a view excludes rational necessity, contingency and freedom, whereas these are essential elements of true reason. Even if this kind of modern science admits the existence of God, it relegates Him to some unknown sphere, which is an absurd conception. Persons who hold such views are deaf to the voice of God in Nature and in their own soul. This was the case with the bulk of the Jewish nation at the time of Christ; and it is the case with millions of professed Christians at the present time. While showing much zeal of a kind, they have eyes but see not, ears but hear not, hearts that do not understand; they know not the voice of reason, nor the true voice of Nature. To all such can strictly be applied the words which Paul addressed to the Jewish nation, 'They that dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers knew Him (Jesus) not, nor yet the voices of the prophets.' The Christian religion is more that what is named Christian Socialism and moral duties, it is God in nature, God in man-the life of God in man. The prophets knew the voice of God, but the rulers and the mass of the people did not, so they crucified Christ, as the so-called Christian world is doing to-day.

THE VOICE OF CHRIST IS THE VOICE OF GOD

The voice of Christ was pre-eminently the voice of God, in a fuller sense than that of any of the prophets, even Moses, though in all these the voice of God was speaking. Christ's voice, in all His miracles, was the voice of God in Nature, for Nature obeyed Christ's voice. He boldly declared, 'Ye neither know Me nor My Father; If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also; if God were your Father, ye would love Me, for he that is of God, heareth God's words.' With the prophets, God was a real presence everywhere; so the impossibility of miracles never entered their thought, nor the idea that a miracle as a special act of God in Nature was contrary to reason or to the perfect law of God; neither did they see the impossibility of a miraculous inspiration and vision in the inner logical consciousness of man, such as is recorded as having been given to Moses, Elisha, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, etc. They never imagined that God could not be a Person, or could merely be a kind of universal unconscious reason pervading Nature; they never supposed that Nature could exist apart from God as its Creator, even though they had not, in one sense, reached a philosophical explanation of the relation of God to His works.

It is certainly contrary to reason to try to explain away the miraculous visions and inspirations of the Bible on the two baseless assumptions that there is no God, and to say that this inspiration can only be regarded as an exaggerated and Oriental mode of speech. The old Hebrew prophets not only heard the special miraculous voice of God in them, but they heard and understood that voice speaking in the manifold operations of Nature.