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REV. G.. F. WHIDBOENE, M.A.^ P.G.S., ON 



reaching results which are distinctly in co-ordinate agreement. 

 The conception of nature, derived from the Biblical conceptiun 

 of God, corresponds in broad outline to a most remarkable 

 degree with the facts of actual nature as far as we are capable 

 of discerning tiiem. Hence we may be justified in using this 

 conception of God in working ouu the meaning and the 

 interrelationsliip of those facts of nature. We may not, of 

 course, use it lor the accumulation of new facts ; we must rigidly 

 exclude it from our scientific investigations ; but for discerning 

 the ultimate meaning of those facts, the goal of those investi- 

 gations, it assumes the first importance. Certainly we cannot 

 expect to arrive at any scientifically true explanation of them if 

 we neglect or ignore so great a factor in the problem. That is, 

 the knowledge of God is the key to the right understanding of 

 the science of nature. If we would see nature in its right 

 perspective, if we would view it from the point where all its 

 lines come straight, where cause and effect are in their proper 

 places, where there is no distortion from position, no confusion 

 from a cross-wise view, we must take our stand-point on our 

 knowledge of God, and view it, as far as may be, as it is viewed 

 by Him. 



12. Evolution, as a Metltod of Creation. 

 Let us in this liglit attempt briefly to examine the question 

 of evolution, regarded now as a method of creation. God's 

 presence is all-extensive and perpetual. He is not as one who 

 makes a thing and goes away. In all the course of nature, and 

 in every part of nature. He is a present active God. If divine 

 immanence* means no more than this it is a truism ; if it 

 implies anything different from this it is a misnomer. The 

 existence of nature in its every atom momentarily depends all 

 through upon the present life of God. But, on the other hand, 

 creation is the work, not the growth, of God. He is unchanged, 

 unchangeable, by the progress of nature. He is its independent 

 First Cause. He originated it all By His Will, and by that 

 alone, it came. He is the final antecedent source from which 

 the entire cycle of nature, material and otherwise, had its origin. 

 He is its continual governor. Its laws are by His ordaining 

 and are completely under His control. He is before all 

 things. He sustains all things. In Him all things consist. 

 How then would " Evolution " fit in as the method — the only 

 method — by which He worked ? It is now commonly 



" God's immanence in Nature" seems to be a statement inverted from 

 that of the profound truth of Nature's immanence in God" (Col. i, 17). 



