MODIFICATIONS IN THE IDEA OF GOD, ETC. 77 



insight into the idea of God ; and after all they will only know in 

 part, even as we. 



And may it not be that, even as scientific discovery is imperfect, 

 so is modern thought imperfect. May it not be that there is a 

 limitation in its ideas of God that shall melt away in the light of 

 fuller knowledge ? May it not be that the supposed antagonism 

 between " a power working from within " and " interferences from 

 without " shall prove unreal ? " Did not He that made that which 

 is without make that which is within also ? " If by " evolution " 

 be suggested any limiting of the ways of God, may not such limits, 

 to the limitless break doAvn ? Modern thought is our little atmo- 

 sphere ; its atmospheric effects are often most beautiful, sometimes 

 delusive. But there is a vast ether above it, and the ways of God 

 are there. Unexplored by human knowledge, unscanned by the 

 eagle eye of science, those higher walks of wisdom are the paths of 

 God alone. So what is supernatural with man is natural with 

 God. " The Breath breatheth where It listeth, and thou hearest 

 the voice thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither 

 it goeth."* 



Rev. L. G. BoMFORD. — With regard to the immanence of God, 

 which the learned author seems to consider the great lesson which 

 theologians have learned from modern thought and science, it may 

 be pointed out that theologians have long been well acquainted 

 with the words of St. Paul in Acts xvii, 28 — words quoted so 

 often by Christian evolutionists, quoted sometimes as though they 

 were the only words known to us of the great apostle, in their 

 apologies for their Christian faith — "for in Hira we live, we move, 

 and we exist." Meyer in his commentary, published, I think, in 

 1839, says : " Paul views God under the point of view of His 

 immanence as the element in which we live, etc. ; and man in such 

 intimate connection with God, that he is constantly surrounded 

 by the Godhead and embraced in its essential influence, but apart 

 from the Godhead could neither live, nor move, nor exist." Meyer, 

 however, points out that these words of St. Paul ai'e said " solely 



* In substituting " The Breath breatheth " for " The Wind bloweth," 

 does not Mr. Whidborne rather spoil the beautiful imagery of Our 

 Lord in his conversation with Nicodemus (John iii, 1), iUu.strating the 

 unseen influence of the Spirit of God on the heart of man ? — Ed. 



