INDICATIONS OF A SCHEME IN THE UNIVERSE. 



165 



Now, no religion commends itself to our reason and conscience 

 which does not deal victoriously with evil. We could not 

 dictate time or means, but we ought to be able to recognize 

 the Conqueror if He came, and to appreciate His work when it 

 is finished. Only God could send Him, or shall I say, lend 

 Him, and appoint the programme. 



The Cliristian believes and knows that God gives us the 

 victory over evil through Jesus Christ. It is true, we do not 

 yet see all things put under His feet. Quite the contrary 

 But we see a beginning made in the life, death and resurrection 

 of Christ ? We see that He is practically now saving men^ 

 helping them by the gift of His Spirit to live a pure unselfish 

 life, bringing them to God, to self-respect, to hope. Thus we 

 have got a scientific test of the mission of Christ.* We have a 

 glimpse of the purpose of God in a reclaimed human race. We 

 have a prospect not of no heaven and earth, but of a nem 

 heaven and earth. A spiritual Kingdom is already set up 

 amidst physical and debased surroundings. The senses tell us 

 of these, but the God-sent Spirit gives us a share in the other. 

 Time and space, history. Providence, prayer, praise, conflict, 

 suffering, are all turned to account. Spiritual stones are being 

 fashioned for a spiritual Temple, and the problem of the 

 universe is, to the Christian, an open secret. It is described 

 by those who ought to know as " the bringing of many sons 

 unto glory " (Heb. ii, 10), or in other words, their being con- 

 formed to the mind and character of Christ, " that He might be 

 the first born among many brethren " (Eom. viii, 29). 

 We thus arrive at the followino- conclusions : — 



o 



(1) Judging the unknown by the (comparatively) known,. 



we have every reason to believe that the Universe is 

 One. 



(2) Interpreting the elaborate mechanism of Nature by 



* The appeal to Conversion as a proof of the mission of Christ is an 

 ancient one. Thus Origen (born c. a.d. 180) writes, "The whole 

 habitable world contains evidence of the works of Jesus in the existence 

 of these Churches of God which have been founded through Him by 

 those who have been converted from the practice of innumerable sins. 

 The name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of men, 

 and expel demons, and also take away diseases, and produce a marvellous 

 meekness of spirit and complete change of character and a humanity and 

 goodness and gentleness in those who do not feign themselves to be 

 Christians for the salie of subsistence or the supply of any mortal wants, 

 but who have heartily accepted the doctrine concerning God and Christ 

 and the Judgment to come." (Origen, 29, and Celsus, 1, 67.) 



