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especial character of these laws to be rigid and inflexible, — to 

 be, and to remain, always and everywhere the same. In the 

 heavens, e.g., instead of the glorious canticle in which the 

 harmony of the worlds mounts to the ears of God, science can 

 only see, and study, what she calls the celestial mechanism; and 

 a French school-book but lately contained this expression : 



The heavens no longer declare the glory of God, they declare 

 the glory of Newton and Laplace/^ Even of those who 

 believe in God, how many only see in Him the first cause 

 which put all in motion, and who then leaves all to obey un- 

 varying laws. God gave the first impulse, or as Pascal with 

 fine irony has said, gave the first push, and the vast machinery 

 started in motion ; everything works in a fixed and prescribed 

 order. The worlds in eternal and majestic silence pursue their 

 stately march through the realms of space, and our little globe, 

 lost as a grain of sand, is but an atom in all this vast immensity. 

 On eartli^s surface, without a moraent^s cessation, are the same 

 laws in operation, laws of life and laws of death. There is a 

 law which ordains that a given number of beings die and dis- 

 appear and be replaced by others; that at each second, e.g., a 

 man should die and a man be born. All that takes place, all 

 that must take place, and as all is Fated as statistics show, 

 what use, says the sceptic, is there in our prayers, our groans, 

 the simplicity of our faith ? Especially, how can we think God 

 intervenes in each particular existence, and that there is a special 

 will, and a providential end, in all these inevitable and necessary 

 griefs and sorrows? 



But let us not deceive ourselves, these are not questions that 

 the man of science only puts to himself : the most ignorant is 

 met by them, and they chill his heart. He is met by them in 

 affiiction, when suff'ering and death come, and with, rude and 

 often seeming traitorous hand, strike down those he loves 

 the best, his children or his wife. He meets them when he 

 sees Nature hold on her course, peaceful and serene, when his 

 own heart is sad as death ; he meets them when he sees the sun 

 which shone so brightly on his path, when he trod it by the 

 side of some dearly-loved object, shine more brightly on her 

 tomb. Oh ! there is in Nature a fearful silence ; hers is a book 

 on many of whose fairest pages are inscribed the cruel teachings 

 of " Fatalism.'^ Here lies our temptation, doubtless a great 

 one, but one against which the Christian has a refuge. He 

 believes in a God, as Nature^s Master, a creating God. Creation 

 is the first word of the Bible ; how necessary an article is it of 

 our creed ! We open it and we see, " In the beginning God 

 created.^'' Thus above the laws which govern the world, we see 

 a Lawgiver greater still, who has made,, and who can as easily 



