LAWS OF GOD IN NATURE. 
3 
Natural History Societies. Tor each individual of such societies 
may, in his own sphere and in his relation to his fellow members, 
also usefully take these words as his motto, and, perhaps extending 
the scope of his work from the zoology, botany, geology, and 
meteorology of his district to the wider consideration of the forces 
which actuate and the laws which govern visible things, may 
materially aid in showing the world in what way the great 
decalogue’s first words, “Thou shalt have none other gods before 
me,” are written on every stone, leaf, and moving thing on this 
earth, on the water that fills its hollows as well as on the atmo¬ 
sphere that floats above its mountains, and on the nebulae, planets, 
and suns of the universe. 
So far, this address has only treated of the Laws of Nature. 
But the title of the address is the Laws of God in Nature. Now, 
reference to competent authorities will show that in the strictest 
sense ‘ law ’ relates to persons, and is a general decree by one 
intelligent being respecting another intelligent being, as, for 
example, what is usually regarded as a 1 law ’ of God in relation 
to the conduct of man, or a 1 law ’ obtaining in any state as 
between those who rule or govern and those who are governed. 
In a less strict sense, law relates not to persons but to things or 
phenomena, and is such a relationship of cause and effect as is 
more or less analogous to a decree between intelligent beings, as, 
for example, the * law ’ of gravitation. In both senses the term 
‘law’ is applied only to great leading truths, whether relating to 
persons or to things. But the title of this address includes, and is 
intended to include, not only the great relationship alluded to 
between one being and another being, and one thing or phenomenon 
and another thing or phenomenon, but between a being and a thing 
or phenomenon, and is designed to express the conviction of the vast 
majority of mankind in every quarter of the globe that the natural 
laws which relate to things and to phenomena generally are the 
decrees of a Being. 
From what has just been stated it will be evident that in no 
narrow spirit can we contemplate the Laws of God in Nature. 
Every sect in the Christian religion believes that “ in the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth ” ; but this God is not alone 
the God of the Christian. That in this belief in a God who is the 
creator of nature the Jew is one with the Christian, is obvious 
when we remember that the sentence just quoted is the first which 
occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures. The millions of Islam believe 
in the one God, their Koran, or Qur’an {chap, xlvi, ver. 32, Palmer's 
Trans.), teaching them of “God who created the heavens and the 
