a man is tempted to become either a shallow formularist or an infidel.

There are, I have no doubt, numbers here present, who are very much dissatisfied with many old forms of religious truth; but I believe there are few here present who would not be willing to believe in God, and willing, even eager, to believe in a certain communion with Him, if they could only discover any rational grounds for such a belief. People sometimes accuse me of sowing doubt broadcast; on the contrary, I sow belief broadcast. I acknowledge doubt; if I did not acknowledge it I could not root it up. It is of no use to go up and down the world and pretend not to see the weeds, yet this is what some religious people want us to do. Thoughts for the Times are not for them.

When the mind has once been thoroughly shaken in its simple reliance on traditional assertion, I see no way out of the difficulty but one; and that is, to take the facts of the world, to take the history of the world, to take the knowledge we have acquired about the world and human nature, and then to reason from these obvious standpoints to the Author of the world, and the relations which may subsist between that invisible and mysterious Author, Framer, Architect, Co-ordinator,— call Him what you will-and the intelligent beings by whom we are surrounded. St. Paul guides us to such a method when he says, 'the invisible things of Him from the creation are clearly seen'—that is, seen by the lowliest as well as by the most advanced intelligence-' the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world,

are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.' Thus we have an appeal from the visible universe to the mysterious invisible world, in order that we may get back again from the unseen to the seen, and grasp the hidden connection between this world and another.

156. Now I intend to speak to-day on "The Law of Progress,' because it is in grasping this fact, that all things progress and develop, that we infer the beneficent nature of God, regarded as the intelligent source of order and progress.

If I could believe that, although God's ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, nevertheless they are only dissimilar because they are so much more vast-not different in relations of thought and feeling, only immensely superior-then I should have no great difficulty in believing in a sympathy between God and man; or, in other words, in bringing intelligent and sympathetic man into contact with some boundless source of intelligence and sympathy. Supposing that I see around me principles of most profound intelligence, an intelligence not different in kind, but immensely superior in degree to my intelligence, then I say God is the seat of that intelligence; and supposing I perceive that intelligence, unfolding itself in a certain order of progress, tends towards the improvement of the human race; that such development tends also towards the multiplication of the objects of this progress, that it increases the wellbeing and elevates the felicity of those who are the

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subjects of it ;-may I not say I have got one step nearer to a Beneficent Principle, and may I not, by observing this sublime law of progress, come to some conclusion as to the intelligence, the beneficence, and the love of God? I think it will be seen before the conclusion of this discourse, that no great stretch of imagination is required, in connection with the constitution of our nature, and with the impulses of man's heart, and the aspirations of his whole being, to believe that God sympathises with man, and watches over his development, and guides his progress towards the land of everlasting life.

157. I will ask you then to fix your minds upon the Law of Progress. What do we mean by progress? What is the Law of Progress? Lend me your close attention. It is this principle, that from one simple cause come many changes, and that from each one of those many changes many other changes proceed.1 The Law of Progress is a procession from the simple to the complex; from what is homogeneous, i.e., from what is of the same kind, to what is heterogeneous, or, to what is of a different kind; complexity coming out of simplicity, heterogeneity coming from what is homogeneous. That is the principle of the Law of Progress. I will give an illustration; first, of organic progress. I take a little seed. I cut it open and find it is all over very much alike, the same kind of pulp or matter—it is homogeneous. This seed is planted in the earth, when

1 Herbert Spencer.

a change takes place in the seed a little germ comes forth. It is evident that there has been a differentiation or action of separation at work, and now the seed, but lately all one pulp, is seen no longer to be homogeneous, but heterogeneous. This seed grows, and so long as it grows it develops, let us say into the sap of the tree, the bark of the tree, the branches of the tree, the leaves of the tree, and the fruit of the tree; and so long as that goes on, this seed is progressing from the simple state to the complex state. That is the law of organic progress.

Now this law rules throughout the universe; and may I not infer the great, orderly and overwhelming intelligence of God, when I see one simple law like this running through the whole of the universe? It is my intention to-day to unfold to you in some further detail this thought, which I trust may make us sensible of the divinely active and intelligent beneficence of God, and give us a better hold over the principles of divine and human life.

I will now dwell upon (1) Progress, as it is seen in the stages of creation; (2) Progress, as it is seen in the fundamental developments of Human Nature; (3) Progress, as it is seen in the secular and religious aspects of society; (4) and Progress as it is seen in the individual developments of the human spirit.

158. Now try and carry your thoughts far back into the past, to a time when the whole of this universe which we see, these stars, these planets, this earth, formed

but one immense fiery mist. Astronomers tell us—and I believe the speculation is accepted by our best scientific men-that this universe was once nothing but a fiery homogeneous mass, or matter reduced to a state of vapour by intense heat. As time goes on this mass begins to cool, and as it cools, a motion, a rotatory motion is set up, and from that motion, the vapour condensing into solidifying masses, the planets are thrown off in rings; and thus, we have the planets, the sun being the centre of what is known as our solar system. This theory is called The nebula hypothesis.' Then, I say, in the first beginning of things, we find this law of progress -what is homogeneous, all of one kind, becoming complex; and so from this one fiery mist, we get the complexity of many worlds. That is one illustration of the law.

Let us now single out the earth. Go back to the world's beginning as described in the Book of Genesis. I am not likely to plead for the exact correspondence of the Bible, as a statement of scientific truth, with fact. I believe we may discover a great many important discrepancies in some parts of the Bible, between the Bible and Science; but for all that, I do not think sufficient justice has been done to the account given in Genesis, as unfolding practically the kind of order in which this world came to be developed. Substantially what do we read? We read of the earth being 'without form and void; a great mass of homogeneous pulp, or what

1 Mr. Capes has pointed this out in his Reasons for Returning to the Church of England.