46 



EEV. F. WHIDBOENE, M.A._, P.G.S.^ ON 



life most congruous with, and akin to, His own. If therefore we 

 found life advancing tliroughout creation, until it was crowned 

 by lii'e that was spiritual in character, and if further that 

 spiritual life could only be accounted for by the presumption 

 of its coming straight from Him, we should feel that the Mind 

 of the Maker was thus most evidently reflected in His work. 



(23) And lastly, as we have learnt on the highest authority 

 that God not only produces His creation as a whole, but knotvs 

 and numbers its minutest — as instances of this are 



expressly told us by divinest revelation — it would be expected 

 that the perfection of His creation would go down to its 

 extremest details, go down to the minutest textures that the 

 microscope could display and to the molecules and electrons 

 that can be only observed by means more delicate than sight, 

 go down beyond the utmost power of our ken or the acutest 

 perception of our minds. It would be expected that every 

 atom of it w^ould display the same order, beauty, and perfection, 

 that is displayed in its mass ; and that throughout it the 

 inconceivably little would as definitely bear the impress of its 

 wondrous Maker's hand, as does the majestically great. 



Here we might stop. The conception of God, given to us in 

 Scripture, would lead us to expect an ideal Creation. It 

 pourtrays to us a picture strangely and minutely resembling 

 the actual universe of nature, but yet as far above it as heaven 

 is from earth. Its vision is the poetry of Nature's prose. 

 The scene resulting is as sound to its conception as a scientific 

 deduction is to its data ; and yet we must confess that science 

 and even common knowledge show many dark lines in the 

 spectrum of actual nature, which are utterly unseen in this 

 picture it has drawn. 



10. Modification of it required hy tlie BiUiecd conception of Evil. 



But Scripture has other facts to present to us, besides the 

 knowledge of God. It reveals to us the existence of evil. The 

 Origin of evil is confessedly mysterious ; it is a thing explained 

 neither by Scripture nor by nature. Of the results of its 

 existence Science has much to tell. It has abundance to say 

 about the struggle for existence, and degradation and suffering ; 

 but when called to find their reason it stops dead. It admits 

 the facts, though it can offer no valid explanation of their cause. 

 It cannot, then, refuse any confirmation of its facts that may be 

 found elsewhere. Nor can it object, if from that other source 

 we are carried a step further back in the explanation of those 

 facts than it can go itself. Such an explanation is learned from 



