186 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



racy to the one purpose of flying, but is there any- 

 thing here we can properly call design ? The wing 

 we know is the result of slow adaptation and modifi- 

 cation, and not of anything like deliberate contrivance. 

 God did not will that certain creatures should fly, 

 and so proceed to make them wings and feathers. 

 With disuse the wing disappears or becomes rudimen- 

 tary. Use therefore makes the wing. What makes 

 use ? Some mysterious impulse imprinted upon the 

 organization of which we know nothing. What I am 

 trying to say is, there is nothing like man's ways, 

 nothing artificial in nature — nothing in the finite 

 that is copied from the infinite. Will, design, pur- 

 pose, are partial terms. God is all will, all pur- 

 pose, just as the sphere is all form, that is, holds all 

 form, and yet is of itself of no form ! The circle 

 goes in all directions, and yet in no direction. 



VI 



Christianity amounts to little without something 

 to back it up, without integrity of character and 

 fealty to truth. You may put on a varnish of reli- 

 gion as thick as you please. If the stuff beneath is 

 poor, is shaky or full of knots, the result is poor. Our 

 final reliance is always upon the man himself and not 

 upon his creed. We care little what he believes or 

 disbelieves, so that he believes in sobriety, justice, 

 charity, and the imperativeness of duty, so that he 

 speak the truth and shame the devil, and I reckon it 

 is about so with God himself. What mankind in 

 their better selves love can hardly fail to be accept- 



