64 



of dependence and moral obligation, as proofs of the reality 

 of a spiritual world. And thus, as Mansell says, " In the 

 universal consciousness of innocence and gilt, of duty and 

 disobedience, of an appeased and offended God, there is 

 exhibited the instinctive confession of all mankind, that the 

 moral nature of man, as subject to a law of obligation, reflects 

 and represents the moral nature of a Deity by whom that 

 obligation is imposed.'" * 



We now see the legitimate province of Science, in which it 

 reigns supreme, and beyond which it cannot pass. In this 

 province, in all its grand discoveries, we bid it God speed, for 

 it is the handmaid to a knowledge higher than it can reach. 

 Science shows the wondrous structure of vegetable and animal 

 organisms, and the evidences of design in them all. Science 

 unfolds the mechanism of the heavens, and the sublime 

 simplicity of the laws that guide the stars in their orbits. 

 Science reveals a harmony and a unity in all nature, adapting 

 each particle of matter — each insect, plant, and animal — each 

 planet, star, and constellation — to its own place, and making 

 it fulfil its own mission in the universe. Science shows that 

 there is nothing defective, nothing redundant. Science thus 

 leads us up, step by step, to the culminating point of man's 

 intellectual interpretation of nature — his recognition of the 

 unity of the Power of which her phenomena are the diversified 

 manifestations.* 



Here, however. Science leaves us, and Revelation perfects 

 our knowledge. Revelation solves the highest problems that 

 occupy human thought — the origin, duty, and destiny of man, 

 and the being and nature of God. The origin of intellect and 

 conscience, with all their conceptions of law, obligation, a 

 future state, and a holy God, is revealed in one pregnant 

 sentence: — '' God created man in His own image.'' And of 

 these sublime truths. Revelation is the sole and complete 

 exponent. Its expositions, too — whether of law, or morals, or 

 worship, or faith, or hope, or charity — find such a response in 

 our own profoundest feelings and loftiest aspirations, that we 

 instinctively bow before it as a message replete with the 

 infinite wisdom and goodness of God. While Science disap- 

 points our most momentous inquiries, while Philosophy leaves 

 an aching void in the human heart. Revelation fulfils all our 

 desires, and satisfies all our hopes. It enables us to look 

 through the dark vista of this life's labours and sorrows, to 



Bampton Lectures, p. 113. t Carpenter, Presi(h)itlul jiddrtas. 



