THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 247 



judged a madman ; and surely it can be called 

 nothing but moral insanity when men set them- 

 selves to expel from human beliefs the doctrine of 

 a loving Father Whose compassion for His creatures 

 is boundless, and Whose resources of grace for our 

 security from sin and misery are infinite. Wherever 

 the knowledge of God has been cast off, moral 

 degradation has been the result, and the human 

 heart has sunk under the fearful conception of 

 irresistible destiny. 



Not that we need fear that the world will ever 

 come to this. The consolations that spring from 

 trust in God in hours of woe and perplexity are 

 too many and too precious to be given up at the 

 bidding of a dreary Materialism. Many a dreaded 

 rival of Christianity, assuming the garb of truth 

 or philanthropy, has been found to contain nothing 

 but the marsh-born elements of an intellectual 

 ignis fatuus; a very slight examination has sufficed 

 to detect in it the exhalations of stagnant error and 

 a degraded moral life ; while this venerable belief 

 in a good, wise God has a firmer hold upon the 

 conscience and the heart of men to-day than ever 

 it had. " They are dead which sought the Child's 

 life;" the Child has continued to grow "in stature, 

 . . . and in favour with . . . man." 



III. But there is another and a worse error 

 against which we must be upon our guard the 

 notion that Nature is by itself a sufficient revelation 

 of God. Nature cannot answer all the questionings 

 of the human spirit, nor can the perturbations of the 

 conscience and the heart be lulled to rest by any 



