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Let us come now to Scripture, and ask what it has to say. It announces that, as the works came successively from God's hand, he could proclaim them to be all very good. But it declares at the same time that a disturbing element has been introduced. And have not sincere men felt that in all this Scripture speaks truly, and that a false and flattering picture has been given by rationalism and sentimentalism? In the midst of the struggle, Christianity, under the ministration of the Spirit, appears as the latest power introduced into our world; and we see it repelling the evil, and gathering round it all the better elements as the magnet attracts the metals. When it is received, it stimulates the faculties, and calls forth new ideas, new motives, and new sentiments. It has been the mother of all modern education. John Knox was the first to introduce the universal education of the people in the eastern hemisphere, and the Puritans established it in the western world. The founders of all the older colleges in Europe and America were men of piety. Our religion has fostered all that is pure and ennobling in the fine arts, in architecture, painting, and sculpture, and has frowned upon the debasing forms which appeared in pagan countries. But, in fulfilling its mission, it meets with opposition, and has to engage in a terrible conflict with the powers of evil. We see the battle raging all around us in this city and in every city, in every dwelling and in every heart. Christianity thus appears in our world in analogy and in accordance with all that has gone

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.

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before a new power to contend with the evil, and overcome it. The history of our world is thus a unity from the commencement to the present time. The representation given in the Bible is of a piece with the view given by the latest researches of science and of history.

APPENDIX.

Art. I. GAPS IN THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT.

THERE is a floating idea among many, and often embodied in a very dogmatic assertion, that, given only bare matter, every thing may be formed out of it by a process of development according to natural law. It may be of importance to show what are the unfilled-up hiatuses in this process. In doing so, I feel that I must bear in mind myself, and ask my opponents to do the same, that it is not easy, or rather it is impossible, for us to determine what are the properties to be found in all matter. It may be assumed that it has mechanical power, the power of motion in accordance with the three laws of Kepler. Has it also essentially a gravitating power inversely according to the square of the distance? This is a point which cannot be settled, for it is not yet determined whether gravitation is a simple power or the result of other powers and collocations. Has it in its very nature the chemical properties? This also is undecided; for we know not whether chemical affinities are original or derivative, say, derived from other powers and dispositions of matter. As little can it be determined whether the powers of electricity, magnetism, and galvanism, or of emitting light and heat, belong essentially to all matter. The doubts and uncertainties on these points should lay an arrest on those who would dogmatize on the subject of development out of matter. Meanwhile it is certain that, at the present stage of science, there are processes which no man of science can perform, and which we do not see performed in the laboratory of nature, either in the geological or historical ages.

1. Chemical action cannot be produced by mechanical power. 2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized matter. Since Lecture I. (supra, pp. 27, 28) was delivered, Dr. Frankland has published the results of experiments on solutions sealed up in vacuous tubes and exposed to a temperature from 155° to 160° C., great care being taken to exclude organic seeds from the tubes. The liquid in the tubes became more or less turbid; but "there was not the slightest evidence of life in any of the particles." See “Nature,” Jan. 19, 1871. 3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.

4. Organized matter is made up of cells, and can be produced only by cells. Whence the first cell?

5. A living being can be produced only from a seed or germ. Whence the first vegetable seed?

6. An animal cannot be produced from a plant. Whence the first animal?

7. Sensation cannot be produced in insentient matter.

8. The genesis of a new species of plant or animal has never come under the cognizance of man, either in pre-human or posthuman ages, either in pre-scientific or scientific time. Darwin acknowledges this, and says that, should a new species suddenly arise, we have no means of knowing that it is such. (As to the Darwinian Theory, see Lect. II. and infra, Art. II.)

9. Consciousness

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that is, a knowledge of self and its operacannot be produced out of mere matter or sensation. 10. We have no knowledge of man being generated out of the lower animals. (See infra, Art. II.)

11. All human beings, even savages (supra, pp. 48, 138; infra, Art. II.), are capable of forming certain high ideas, such as those of God and duty. The brute creatures cannot be made to entertain these, by any training.

With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would derive all things out of matter by development is seen to be a very precarious one. I may add that development is in all cases a very complex process, implying a vast variety of agencies, mechanical, chemical, probably vital, — adjusted to one another and the surrounding medium. The evolution-school ridicule those who would explain the operations of water by

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