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Thus we are brought face to face with a mighty operating 
personality, all whose work tends to the preservation, and 
development, and perfecting of the universe; of which, so far 
as this world is concerned, man is the head and the only 
being capable of understanding the Author’s purpose, and of 
employing the vast resources He has provided for our use 
according to that purpose. This greatly increases the range 
and the force of our responsibility. ‘The man who is placed 
at the head of a grand operative establishment, having a large 
capital and many subordinates under his control, is bound to 
greater carefulness, diligence, and fidelity than any one under 
him. By this rule, how truly boundless is our responsibility 
to the Creator and Upholder of all things. We can conceive 
of no capability of our nature, no relation we sustain to 
others, and no donation of His providence, for which we are 
not bound to answer. 
But is there a Creator? Have not all things come into 
being by the independent operation of matter, and from 
properties inherent in itself? Before we can answer this 
question, we necessarily meet another. How came the 
material substance of the universe into existence? It could 
not produce itself, because, if capable of acting, it could not 
act before it existed, and especially so mighty a work as 
creation could not come from a non-entity. But, in nearly 
all the discussions on the supposed action of matter, a hidden 
fallacy lies. Matter is spoken of as though it were one 
homogeneous substance, possessing unvarying and uniform 
properties and powers, and therefore capable of simple and 
immediate action. It is, however, well known that this is 
not its true character, but that the substance of the earth 
consists of sixty-three different elements, every one of which 
has a fixed and unchangeable nature, utterly incapable of 
transmutation, and some of them have an unalterable incom- 
patibility with others; so that united action, for any such 
purpose as the creation and arrangement of the substance of 
our earth, is simply inconceivable. We could as well suppose 
that lions, tigers, bears, sheep, deer, and cows could unite 
in any undertaking for the general good. And there is 
_ equal difficulty in supposing that one element could produce 
another. 
If hydrogen were the first which evolved itself from 
nothingness, how could it have produced gold, or iron, or 
carbon? If we suppose them all to have come into being 
spontaneously, who fixed the order of birth, and whence 
came the adjustment of proportions in the mass, so that 
