384 
them, but we are utterly at a loss to understand how those 
forces can have produced all this variety. By all means let us 
study the formation of stratified beds of sandstone or clay, and 
fathom if we can the mysteries of the chalk and coal formations ; 
but let ns not lose sight also of all the other less conspicuous 
chemical problems that must be solved before we can boast that 
we have grasped the whole mystery of the world around. The 
more we do this the more we shall be struck by the complexity 
of the problem, and the more we shall find to admire in the 
first cause of what we see. 
5. There will, I fear, be some who, realizing the marvellous 
nature of the result, will rest content to see the first cause in 
the forces of nature ; but if we in any measure fathom what is 
the result, we shall surely see that blind chance, or a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms, has not formed the world ; and I would ask 
those who still rest content in accepting the forces of nature as 
the causeless causes of the lvorld, if these forces are moie com- 
prehensible than a Creator, or if in denying the Creator they 
have diminished in the slightest degree the difficulty of the 
explanation of the creation. , 
6. Let us fully examine the globe, and the stages through 
which it has passed, and then see if a nebulous mass left to 
itself can be conceived as the origin of it all ; and let us fully 
realize all that the laws of nature have wrought, all that 
zoology and chemistry can teach us of the marvels of their 
ivork” before ive deny the conclusion, at once most natural and 
most , true, that such a creation has had a Creator, and that 
such laws are but the expression of the working of Him “in 
Whom we live, and move, and have our being.” 
7. Among the most brilliant discoveries of modern science is 
the application of the spectroscope, not only to the analysis of 
the terrestrial bodies, but also to the analysis of the sun and 
stars themselves. The presence of a large majority of those 
elements most familiar to the chemist is clearly shown in the 
sun. The same analysis applied to the fixed stars, however, 
gives most unexpected results ; the spectra they give make it 
plain that they are in a condition similar to the sun, but by 
no means identical in composition ; the black lines, which are 
the indices of the presence of volatilized metals, in the solar 
atmosphere are there, but they are not identical with those 
given by the light of our sun. Some of the most familiar lines 
are present in the light of almost all of the stars that have 
been examined, those of hydrogen being present in forty- 
