136 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
derly a system as we have noted with reference to the 
leaves on a plant. |Any rational man on earth, finding 
an orderly system of materials arranged in such rela- 
tion by such means, would instantly conclude that it must 
be due to intelligence and not to mere chance, 
Now, it is a remarkable fact that in the so-called 
Periodic Law of the elements constituting matter the 
same relation is observed. Of the eighty elements, no 
two now known have exactly the same capacity to resist 
heat, and no two atoms of the same elements have the 
same weight as compared with an atom of hydrogen. 
sut these differences in resistance to heat and in weight, 
are not haphazard, but are so regularly progressive that 
they can be arranged in a series of regularly progressive 
increasing intervals. Most marvellous of all, however, 
when these differences in specific gravity are examined, 
we find that they bear a close resemblance to the ar- 
rangement of the planets in progressive distances from 
the sun. “There appears to be one law for atoms and 
for worlds.” 
Again we ask, when there is such orderly arrange- 
ment and plan throughout nature, should the orderly plan 
of plant and animal life be regarded as a proof of evo- 
lution? Certainly, atoms have not evolved from atoms, 
nor planets from planets. 
And again, since omnipotence alone can account for 
the “sweet influences of the Pleiades,” the “bringing forth 
of Mazzaroth”—the constellations of the heavens in their 
nightly revolutions,—why resist the conviction that om- 
nipotence, voiced forth in the beginning, accounts for 
the life on earth that now exists? 
One more consideration, and we have done. Life 
on earth exists only through a combination of very com- 
plex physical conditions. These conditions are such as 
cannot, in their combination, be referred to chance, 
