162 REV. CANON R. B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., ON 



truth. Other writers, e.g., Professor Oliver Lodge, reduce all 

 material existence into electric ions, and thus as Mr. Balfour 

 said in his British Association address (Camb., 1904), " Two 

 centuries ago electricity seemed but a scientific toy, now it is 

 deemed to be the reality of which matter is but the sensible 

 expression, each atom being a store of intrinsic energy, and 

 matter itself not so much explained as explained away." 



This invisible, inaudible, impalpable, imponderable substance 

 was originally brought into existence by a higher Power in 

 sufficient quantities to people all space with worlds and their 

 inhabitants. To us it seems practically eternal, but it may be 

 the continuous product of mind-force, according to the grand 

 saying, " my Father worketh hitherto and I work " ; and conse- 

 quently it is still theoretically dissoluble. The elements of 

 which the universe is composed may still melt with fervent 

 heat, and as in the beginning God created, so in the end God 

 may destroy. Energy is conserved, but it is also dissipated. 

 The forces of nature may be locked up as if in a box of infinite 

 dimensions, but God has the key, and in Him all things consist. 



Our ideas of time and space are evidently at fault here. 

 Geological time and stellar space are as nothing. I must not 

 go into the controversy between Lord Kelvin and Professor 

 Huxley on uniformity in geology, in which the latter protested 

 against the limits laid down by the former, who held that 

 earth was fluid a thousand million years ago. It is more 

 important to affirm in Lord Kelvin's words uttered in 1906, 

 that " Science affirms creative power and makes everyone feel 

 a miracle in himself " ; he adds " we are forced by science to 

 believe in a directive power — in an influence other than physical 

 or dynamical or electrical forces." 



In all that I have been saying I have been appealing to your 

 mind. But what is mind ? Who can tell ? Confessedly " two 

 worlds are ours." Our researches into nature are incomplete 

 without an enquiry into the spirit world. Where is it ? 

 Wherever there is spiritual personality, human or superhuman. 

 It is vast in some sense, for it includes millions of beings known 

 and unknown to us, but the laws of time and space are not 

 fully applicable to it. To God, whose home it is, darkness is no 

 darkness, distance is no distance, and a day is as 1,000 years ; 

 He fills the celestial universe with His presence. All our 

 English prepositions involve locality, and we are obliged to use 

 such words as " up," " down," " within," etc., in reference to the 

 spirit world though only partly applicable. We look up to 

 heaven as Christ did, but this is not absolutely necessary, for 



