174 EEV. CANON R. B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., ON THE UNIVERSE. 



Canon GiRDLESTONE, in replying, said : T have to draw your 

 attention to three points which have been mentioned. A suggestion 

 was made by Dr. Withers Green concerning the development of the 

 spiritual over the physical, and it will be an interesting topic to 

 work out. With regard to Lord Kelvin, I believe the passage as I 

 have it on page 161 was taken accurately from a paper in his life 

 (p. 1162). The' only other point is Professor Orchard's charitable 

 hope that the word "apparent" was left out of page 164 by 

 the printer. I am afraid I must acknowledge that it was not the 

 printer but the author. Obviously, the word " apparent " should 

 have been put in to show that what seems a failure is not a failure. 



The Rev. J. J. B. Coles writes : — The ai^nKeCpaXaiwo-aa-eai ra 

 TTuvTa TO) l^pLO-TM, TO, €7ri TOts ovpavoi<s Kal ra eTTL T^s ry^s of 



Ephes. i, 10, gives us, as we know, the Purpose of God with reference 

 to Christ and the Church in connection with the whole created 

 Universe, and is a fuller revelation than that which is contained in 

 those Scriptures, the scope or range of which does not go beyond 

 matters relating to a "New heaven and a new earth." As a single 

 solar system or local star-cluster is but a very small portion of the 

 entire stellar universe or universes — so the scope of those scriptures 

 which relate only to this earth and its immediate heavenly sur- 

 roundings (and their future renewal) is but a very limited one in 

 comparison with the scope of the later Epistles of St. Paul, which 

 have a range transcending human thought. No philosophy which 

 aims at a unification of knowledge relating to " God, Man and the 

 Universe " can ever surpass or even attain to the comprehensiveness 

 of that system of Truth which is revealed by the Spirit of God, in 

 Ephesians and Colossians. The future glory of the Eisen and 

 Ascended Christ as " Prototokos " of the whole created Universe of 

 God is as difficult to apprehend as are the vastness and sublimity of 

 the realms of space revealed by modern up-to-date telescopes and 

 star maps. By the death of Christ on the Cross God was glorified 

 before the whole created Universe, in all His attributes, both absolute 

 attributes and relative ones, and by that Cross sin was morally put 

 out of His Universe, as it will be actually before long, both from the 

 " heavenlies " and from this world, by the exercise of Divine Power, 

 Might and Majesty. Christ, by the sacrifice of Himself, accomplished 

 this eternal purpose of God. We, who in the riches of His grace 

 have been redeemed by that finished work of the Cross, are now in 

 possession of a synthetic philosophy which includes the otherwise 

 insoluble problem of moral and spiritual evil, the origin of which is 

 traced back, as we know, to a higher order of created beings than man. 



