DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF. 



169 



We think of science as the discovery of the laws of nature. 

 The result is that we have formed a conception of nature as a 

 system completely under the domination of a rigid cast-iron 

 rule, a system which seems unalterable by human power, a vast 

 machine in which man himself is but an element. We have 

 forgotten the most important part of science, the practical part. 

 We have omitted to consider that the great purpose in tlie 

 discovery of the laws of nature is that we may control the 

 forces of nature for our own ends. And when we turn our 

 attention to this side of science we find to our astonishment 

 that we are able thus to control natural forces. Natural forces 

 are not the inexorable things we imagine. Thus all human work is 

 done. By his knowledge of the laws of nature and his using of 

 that knowledge for his own purposes, man has been able to sub- 

 due the earth, to alter the wiiole aspect of the globe. Instead of 

 making us the slaves of natural forces, the laws of nature are the 

 means by whicli these forces are mastered by the free mind and 

 will of man. Thus science itself yields us, when it is rightly 

 regarded, a magnificent demonstration of the reality and essen- 

 tial independence of the spiritual. Thus also is proved the 

 absurdity of imagining that the discovery of natural law implies 

 the banishing of the Creator from the universe. For, if it is 

 through his knowledge of natural law that man is able to 

 control the forces of nature, how much more must it be true 

 that these laws, and the forces which they rule, subserve the 

 purposes of supreme Intelligence. Thus it would appear that 

 the universality of law in the domain of nature is no argument 

 against the efficacy of prayer and the occurrence of miracle. 

 We cannot imagine that the Almighty is subject to a disability 

 from which his creature man is free — that His freedom of action 

 is bound by laws which do not bind the freedom of finite man. 



(2) Secondly, we have to consider the difficulties of belief which 

 arise from the tendencies of modern criticism. The higher 

 criticism, as it is termed, of the Old and New Testaments is no 

 new thing. But within the past twenty years its methods, and 

 many of the views to whicli they have led, have attracted public 

 attention and affected the popular imagination in a new way. 

 As we all know, higher critics are of many kinds and degrees. 

 Some are very distinctly and definitely negative and destructive 

 in relation to the Christian religion. Others represent what 

 may still be termed the broad school of religious thought. Some, 

 it must not be forgotten, are in the strictest sense orthodox and 

 conservative. It is well that we should remind ourselves that 

 the higher criticism is really a method, not a school. That 



