SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



never lift a finger, or do a stroke of work, or even think, 

 but that we interfere and change the current of things. 

 Fire burns, but we do not let it burn at its own sweet will. 

 We control the burning, we imprison the burning, we turn 

 the burning to account. Water seeks its level, but we do 

 not allow it to keep its level. Are we helpless in the 

 presence of lightening? Once a tyrant, electricity is now 

 our slave. He sheds radiance on the midnight streets. It 

 is only a question of knowing how to do things. We can 

 do anything with nature if we only know how." Thus 

 man, in the measure in which he knows how, and under 

 the conditions in which he lives, is superior to nature's 

 order. His life, looked at in the history of the United 

 States or our own country, from the days of the primeval for- 

 est to the present time, is, to use the words of the writer just 

 quoted, *' one stupendous succession of interferences with 

 the order of nature." He has transformed the old order 

 into a new and higher. He is therefore, in a true sense, 

 above nature, in other words supernatural. In this sense 

 he is the conscious vehicle through whom the eternal 

 immanent Spirit is progressively transforming the order 

 of the world. 



The transcendent, or, in the sense explained, super- 

 natural work of man, is seen at home when we compare 

 the Canada of to-day with the Canada of four, or even one, 

 hundred years ago. The heart of the early settler some- 

 times sank when he stood with his hand on the heel of the 

 handle of his axe, looking round on the giant trees and 

 thinking of the long task before him ; but, by the 

 transcendent energy within his breast, he mastered his 

 feelings, and, having begun his great undertaking, he kept 

 at it till his "night came." But his sons were baptized by 

 his spirit, and so he and they have 



" slain the beast and felled 



The forest, and let in the sun, and made 

 Broad pathways .,...,,.** 



