stand upon the basis of this statement with ample room, and neither will be required to yield any vital point nor make any aggressive encroachments. It cannot be denied without incurring difficulties. The sole difficulty in accepting it is in that. it transcends our comprehension, which fact if it be a bar in this case might as well be a bar to our acceptance of many familiar and accepted facts.

The distinction between necessity and certainty should be appreciated. It is essential. Certainty may be guided under freedom and wisdom. Necessity cannot. Any idea of necessity extraneous to God involves a limitation upon him, a subordination of him. All necessities as well as all certainties are of him and emanate from him.

But where does the being of God separate itself from his creatures?

Where does responsibility begin on the part of his creatures? Where does evil originate? Is there any freedom for his subjects?

All these questions arise under any other theory as well as under this.

The human mind asserts its consciousness of freedom with equal tenacity whether confronting the rule of a Creator or the dominion of law over it and over its material tenement, and its antecedents and environments. It is not probable that human reason and language can brush away the mist that obscures the coöperation of logical fatality and moral freedom. It is not probable that human penetration will detect the line that divides matter from spirit. The mind cannot express even if it can form a conception, at once, of the distinctness and of the unity of force and its product.

In the mind of a theist there is ordinarily the conception that at some point the energy of the Creator is in contact with something that is external to Him, below which he does not interfere. That point is located variously by different persons. One will place it at an acquiescent coöperation with the laws of nature. Another at the establishment of those laws. Another, at the creation of material things under the laws of nature. Another at such creation, independent of such laws. And another will let the sphere of the Creator's supervision

and control include the most universal and the most minute elements in which any effect or energy is perceptible. Either of these persons may find his conception varied or modified as he may have changed his point of view. Each conception embraces a part of the truth. One extreme looks toward atheism and the other toward pantheism. We may let our minds ineline toward one or the other of these extremes in view of such truth as we may gather, and yet not part altogether with a Creator. If we may choose, let us incline to that which shall keep us nearest to Him.

We e are informed that chemical atoms are so composed that one can be distinguished from another not only by its different effect, but also by its difference in quantity, or in its number of constituent physical atoms. For instance, chemical atoms, each of which is composed of eight physical atoms, have a certain rule or mode of action to produce certain effects, giving them a character by which they are distinguished from such as are composed of six physical atoms. And we are told that physical atoms of themselves have no rule of action, no law, no character. They are homogeneous. Without force and without character they originate definite activity and force of themselves, or else they are acted upon by a force that is foreign to them. As Theists with no other way to account for the beginning and the results of their action, we assume that they are acted upon by a free power that has intelligence, order, and benignity. We can conceive that the Creator's will works to combine in various numbers the physical atoms, and continues to direct them and give them their forces up through all their activities, evolutions and developments until they constitute and present the phenomena of the whirling worlds, or the blooming flower, and the living man. Also that the initial combinations do not in themselves constitue new potencies, but they are the signs of the presence of a potency not otherwise observed, and that onward and upward all the enlarged and multiplied combinations and effects, chemical and mechanical, are tokens of the presence and proposed direction, of a wise and beneficent power, inviting trust and coöperation, and giv ing notice to intelligent creatures with regard to the use they may or may not make of the materials and opportunities at

hand, and withal embodying the divine idea of fitness and beauty. In accepting these facts we do not thereby conceive of physical atoms nor of any phenomena constituted of them, as God.

In aiming at a statement that shall not involve the ejection of the Creator from any part of the universe, perhaps the above paragraph or something like it may approach the truth and be of practical service, admitting, however, that the beginning may be lower than the physical atoms named. Yet any statement that involves as this does, the notion that the Creator primarily works upon material that is exterior to himself, implies that there was something prior to him and not of him, the contra diction that there was something prior to the First, and independent of the All-cause. In creating all things he has constituted the elements of all things, not an atom excepted. Of him and by him they consist and continue to be, and in him they move, and without him they would not move nor be. Is this Pantheism with its chilling tendencies?

If we retain the ordinary notions of nature, with all that the name is used to cover, and conceive that every movement of it is a movement of God, then to our minds he is merged and lost in blind necessities and inexorable laws, and we all are drifting with the current of fate on fragile ice-floats, and the depths of a cold ocean is our destiny.

But if we divest nature's laws of absolute necessity and of automatic power, so that necessities and laws shall appear, not as superior to nor as coördinate with, but as subordinate to God; and acknowledge without reservation his general and particular dominion with universal presence and activity, he then appears to our minds as the center and the dispenser of freedom, light, and life, and of law as well. Thus if there is any gold in pantheism we get it without the dross. Whether the relations of nature and created things to their Author as described, be named by the words intimacy, union, or identity, He nevertheless prevails and appears as a primal and active intelligence. Do we extinguish our individuality, and also that of all the substantial things we see? Our experience has given us the habit of distinguishing between the things we perceive and also between those things and the Creator, and no mental gymnastics will deprive us of the valuable habit.

We have no difficulty in perceiving a distinction for practical purposes between antecedent and consequent, cause and effect, force and product. Yet all that is in the product was in the force; and all that was given to constitute a product remains in it. We may take cognizance of things in their concreteness, and notice their relations and purposes, and give them their names; and we may do quite another thing in making an analysis of them to discover their constituent elements. In these processes there is no contradiction or inconsistency; and it is immaterial how deep and complete the analysis may be. If we shall find that no atom moves and no perceptible thing exists independently of the constructing, sustaining, and present power of the Creator; that He is universally immanent; we will avoid confusion and utter no contradiction if we nevertheless treat created things as distinct from the Creator. If in doing so we fail to convey or to conceive absolute truth, the failure is not peculiar to this case, and it does not occur on account of our choosing to use the word Creator rather than the word force or forces; or choosing the word person or God rather than the word power or protoplasm.

We want a basis which cannot be undermined and from which storm and tide cannot move us. Then let us firmly adhere to the verity of an Omnipotent and Omnipresent Intelligence. Like many familiar facts this great truth transcends. human comprehension, but it does not violate human reason. It is a foundation upon which all superstructure of phenomena may rest in stability and symmetry. It is a center toward which all facts of science and all systems of philosophy may converge and in which they may blend. It gives light upon both material and spiritual mysteries. It reveals the source of energy, purpose, method, intellect, and of matter and its developments. No other theory will afford so rational an interpretation of things visible and invisible. It elevates our physical tenements, and gives a response to the longings and an impulse to the aspirations of the soul.

Refusing to admit of even a delegated substitute for Him, we shall be prepared to accept whatever phenomena or potency may be disclosed whether natural or supernatural. While the ordinary courses of His works will be exalted as such, and

admired for their fitness, benignity, beauty, and permanence, yet it will not be inconceivable that a jar, a discord, a miracle may at some point hasten a beneficent process, illustrate the excellence of the ordinary, reveal the hand that moves it, awaken sluggish minds, and make a special call for awe, allegiance and trust. No new nor contravening power is introduced in a miracle. It is extraordinary but not extra-potential. The adoption of the theory of these statements may put aside. necessity, law, nature, and matter from the positions they now hold as false gods standing in front and obstructing the view of the Omnipotent One. Then it will be seen that He works perpetually, and not merely at initiation-that he works directly and consistently giving definite promises by established methods, not that he has delegated and surrendered his power to a blind substitute. Under this conception whenever the gentler term of natural consequence is used, it will signify all that is expressed by Almighty fiat, and when His decrees are spoken of it will be an allusion to the effects of causes in their ordinary relations. Whether by special and abrupt construction or by evolution and growth, whatever is produced will be perceived to be the direct effect of His will. We shall be prepared to admit, if true science shall claim it, that wherever conditions arise that are favorable for organism and life, they will appear, and it may be with or without tangible seed. If it be said He causeth the grass to grow for cattle and herb for the service of man-that not a sparrow is forgotten and that even the hairs of your head are numbered-that He maketh small the drops of water-that He made the world and all things therein, and in Him we live and move and have our being, then this will be no hyperbole, but His works will be so recognized and the conviction of His presence will be so vivid that it will not seem extravagant to say He will walk and converse with those who have clean hearts and who will look and listen to Him.