320 THE NATUEAL THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE, [xm. 



demolition of the forests, to introduce a similar revolu- 

 tion into the Far West/' * 



As we proceed, we find nothing in the general tone 

 of Scripture which can hinder our natural theology 

 being at once scriptural and scientific. 



If it is to be scientific, it must begin by approach- 

 ing Nature at once with a cheerful and reverent spirit, 

 as a noble, healthy, and trustworthy thing : and what 

 is that, save the spirit of those who wrote the 101th, 

 147th, and 148th Psalms the spirit, too, of him who 

 wrote that Song of the Three Children, which is, as it 

 were, the flower and crown of the Old Testament, the 

 summing up of all that is most true and eternal in the 

 old Jewish faith ; and which, as long as it is sung in 

 our churches, is the charter and title-deed of all 

 Christian students of those works of the Lord, which 

 it calls on to bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him 

 for ever ? 



What next will be demanded of us by physical 

 science? Belief, certainly, just now, in the per- 

 manence of natural laws. Why, that is taken for 

 granted, I hold, throughout the Bible. I cannot see 

 how our Lord's parables, drawn from the birds and the 

 flowers, the seasons and the weather, have any logical 

 weight, or can be considered as aught but capricious 

 and fanciful illustrations which God forbid unless 

 we look at them as instances of laws of the natural 

 world, which find their analogues in the laws of the 

 spiritual world, the kingdom of God. I cannot con- 

 ceive a man's writing that 104th Psalm who had not 

 the most deep, the most earnest sense of the per- 



* Quoted from Schleideii's "The Plant, a Biography." Lecture 

 XL in fine. 



