THE PHANTOMS BEHIND US 



tial laws and forces; matter, indeed, but matter in- 

 formed with spirit and intelligence; the creative 

 energy inherent and active in the ground underfoot 

 not less than in the stars and nebulae overhead. 



We look for the divine afar off. We gaze upon the 

 beauty and purity of the heavenly bodies without 

 thinking that we are also in the heavens. We must 

 open our minds to the stupendous fact that God is 

 immanent in his universe and that it is literally and 

 exactly true, as we were taught long ago, that, during 

 every moment of our lives, in Him we live and move 

 and have our being. 



Moreover, we are staggered by the element of vast 

 time that is implied in the history of development. 

 Were it not for the records in the rocks, we could not 

 believe it at all. All the grand movements and pro- 

 cesses of nature are quite beyond our ken. In the 

 heavens only the astronomer with his prisms and 

 telescopes traces them; only the geologist and palae- 

 ontologist read their history in the earth's crust. 

 The soil we cultivate was once solid rock, but not 

 in one lifetime, not in many lifetimes, do we see the 

 transformation of the rocks into soil. Nations may 

 rise and fall, and the rocks they looked upon and the 

 soil they tilled remain practically unchanged. Geo- 

 logists talk about the ancient continents that have 

 passed away. What an abyss of time such things 

 open ! They talk about the birth of a mountain or 

 the decay of a mountain as we talk of the birth 



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