TWO PATHS, ONE GOAL. ] 1 7 



llow different the knowledge of the private soldier from that of 

 his cliief leader ! 



In July, 1870, one evening Bismarck, with Moltke and 

 Koon, were dining together in Berlin in gloom and anxiety, 

 when the famous and fateful telegram from Ems was received. 

 The suhtlo statesman saw that the moment for which he had 

 prepared his nation had come. He amended and expurgated 

 the sentences of the telegram so that they should explode the 

 train he had been preparing, with the result of precipitating 

 that war which was to change the map of Europe and weld the 

 States of Germany into an Empire. How far removed from the 

 deep calculations of the statesman was the understanding of 

 the telegraph operators who transmitted to the Embassies of 

 Germany the words of this telegram ! 



Such illustrations might be greatly multiplied, but enougli 

 has been said to show the line of argument. 



We see, then, in regard to the conception of purpose among 

 the inhabitants of this planet, that two facts stand out — 



1. Purpose is displayed in all ranges of living beings, from 



a bacterium at one end of the scale to a man at the other 

 end, the gradations in the upward development being 

 almost imperceptible. 



2. Degrees of purpose in the various human agents concerned 



in any of the great works of man are numerous, and the 

 extremes great. 



The bearing of these two aspects of purpose upon the 

 question of a Divine Jntelligence which forms and guides the 

 universe is very clear, and it constitutes one of the main con- 

 verging lines of proof of the truth of Theism. If the highest 

 intelligence of the highest of earth's creatures be led to trace, 

 as knowledge grows from more to more, a measure of purpose 

 in tlie creatures beneath him, till the lowest of all is reached ; 

 if he sees in them not only the purpose of their production, but 

 the purpose ceaselessly displayed in their life-processes : if he 

 be forced by the necessities of thought to refer all this wealth 

 of life and purpose to a Great First Cause, it becomes impossible 

 to deny to that Cause a purpose and plan such as the highest 

 human mind can in part comprehend. As modern man studies 

 the book of nature, the course of human history, and the 

 workings of human mind, he comes to the irresistible con- 

 clusion that he is reading, in hieroglyphic characters it may be, 

 but with growing certainty, some pages of tlie great plan and 

 purpose which a benevolent and intinitely wise Being is unfolding. 



