The Development Theory. 191 



of a piece of limestone or of granite consists 

 in such a combination of atoms and forces in 

 nature as shall secure these resulting masses, 

 and that time, and often a good deal of it, 

 enters into such combinations, making their 

 existence itself a history of changes. 



Let it be remembered that the object here 

 is not to impress the hearer with a. fact in 

 chemistry or in mineralogy, but with the fact 

 of a creation through development accepted 

 throughout Christendom for the last hundred 

 years or more by the religious of all parties, 

 and without any known tendency to atheism. 

 It is not easy to see why the wider act of cre- 

 ation should have less need of a creator than 

 the narrower one, or that these general sys- 

 tems of nature should have any less need of a 

 plan and a designer than the more special 

 ones of our older thought. There is in both 

 the same need of a creator. The wider sys- 

 tems as well as the narrower ones will show 

 their missing links. What matters it where 

 these missing links occur? 



"From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 

 Tenth or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike." 



