ii. THE ONENESS OF THE TABERNACLE. 23 



expect to find in it the same unity, the same oneness of 

 design and harmony of all parts, that we see in the 

 Jewish tabernacle ; and this is what we actually find. 

 This is the great lesson which modern science has 

 taught us so effectually. It has brought forward in- 

 numerable striking illustrations to impress it more 

 deeply upon our minds. It is finding out more and 

 more in this marvellous structure of the visible creation 

 that all the joints are well fitted, that the adaptations 

 are mutual and universal. Instead of looking at things 

 separately, it views them as parts of one great, articulate, 

 concatinated whole, and members one of another. In- 

 deed, science may be defined, in the w r ords of a French 

 philosopher, as "the incessant effort of the human spirit 

 after rest," a rest which can only be attained by the 

 reduction of all things to a unity. 



The forces of nature are mutually convertible. The 

 forms of nature have mutual likenesses. The whole 

 mineral kingdom is seen in the structure of a grain of 

 sand ; the whole vegetable kingdom in the form of a 

 single leaf; the whole animal world in the construction 

 of a single rib. Flowers are transfigured sunbeams; and 

 colour, heat, and sound are but modes of molecular 

 motion. That which we find in the whole we find over 

 again in every part. The climates, zones, seasons, and 

 products of the whole earth we find epitomized on a 

 single tropical snow mountain ; and the whole earth is 

 like two great mountains, set base to base at the equator, 

 with their tops at either end covered with the arctic and 

 antarctic snows. The climates and seasons, with their 



