ever you like to call it, 'without form and void;' in fact, very much the state in which science tells us that the world has certainly been at some remote time. Then the next thing we read is, that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' Now the latest researches of science tell us that motion is the beginning of all progress, the source of all development. Then we find light and heat mentioned in connection with fertility and vegetation, differentiation of life, and we now know that heat and light are only modes of motion. I need not point out how the progress is traced up through the organisation of species, reptiles, fishes, birds, and beasts, culminating in man, and taking what are called so many days or ages, for we need not suppose ordinary days to be meant; just as when we speak of 'the present day,' we do not mean to-day, but the present age.

159. But at last we come to man. Again, modern science tells us that he was not the exalted creature who lived in a grand and perfect state, but that he was originally a naked savage. That was his first state. Nobody can read the first chapter of Genesis, without the glosses of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and the delusive myths of popular teaching, without seeing that what is described there is not the ideal creature which we have put together out of our imagination and devout fancy, but an uncultivated savage, of low intelligence and feebler will, giving way to the first temptation that crossed his path, worshipping a fetish in the form of a serpent, such as the lowest savages worship to this day. Adam, as

a man, was very much the kind of being which Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer have described. I do not lay any particular stress upon this correspondence between the Bible and Science. I do not think that the Bible is a repository of Scientific Truth, its value is of another description; at the same time it is only fair, when we hear the Bible held up to ridicule by men of science, to point out that the practical and substantial order of progress indicated in Genesis, is, after all, not so very far wide of the mark. We read there an account of human nature, as we know it must originally have existed; and we have there an account, and a very detailed account, given, of a progression from the simple to the complex, roughly similar to what we now know must have taken place.

160. Then I come to human society, and I am able to trace the same law of progressive development at work. Look over the surface of the globe, and you will see Agriculturists, Shepherds, Commerce, States, and Nations, a state of things very complex. How did all this come about? It came from a simple beginning. It was developed in accordance with the Law of Progress, by a differentiation taking place in the race. Men were first hunters. They spent their time in capturing and slaying animals for food-Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord,' and in procuring furs and skins for clothing: 'the Lord God made coats of skins and clothed them.' Then followed the domestication of certain animals. 1 See Mr. J. S. Mill's Representative Government, chap. i.

Men kept flocks and tended them. 'Jacob came into the land of the people of the east, and he looked, and behold a well in the field, and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for out of the well they watered the flocks.' That was a higher and more complex state of society. Then they learned the arts of agriculture, because their flocks led them a wandering life in search of pasture, and so they began systematically to cultivate the ground. 'Seed time and harvest' became of importance to them, and we find such injunctions as, 'Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds.' This was a much more complex state of society. Next people congregated together in towns. In Deuteronomy- we read of fenced cities,' as well as 'folds for sheep,' and from town life and country life we get commerce. 'Zebulon dwelt at the haven of the sea, and was a haven of ships,' and as early as Genesis xxxvii. 28, we read of 'the Midianitish merchantmen who passed by.' Life is growing more and more complex as time goes on, until we get the organisation of tribes into states, or whole bodies of people living in different parts of the world called Egyptians, Assyrians, Hebrews, all having spread and separated, apparently, from one centre, developing step by step under the law of Divine order, which is the Law of Progress.

161. When we have arrived at that point, what a grand, what a stupendous panorama, what a map of the world's history, opens before our eyes! Once get this wonderful human race so far advanced as to break up into

distinct nations, and you see the still more startling and definite action of an intelligent and beneficent principle at work. We have something very positive and simple to tell about the history of nations, and the more we know about their history the more we can see the marvellous intelligence that has presided over the development of the race, and the beneficence with which this has been conducted, through the Law of Progress, for the good of the world at large. I look abroad and see so many great names, Egypt, Chaldea, China, India, Persia, Greece, Rome. And what do these names stand for? In my mind, each one of them stands for some gigantic step in the progress of civilisation.

162.1 Egypt speaks to us from the past, and impresses itself upon the mind even now-by those great pyramids which we still see rising amidst the sands of the desert, she gives us the conception of material force; that is the one thing which mastered the Egyptian mind more than anything else. Now, material force is an important element in every stage of the world's history and civilisation. But to the Egyptians was given the power of realising, of elaborating, and of being thrilled by this vast conception. To this day we wonder at the masses of masonry erected by them, and speculate upon the sort of mechanical agencies which they must have had at their disposal.

If I glance at India, I find something quite different. India is the seat of intellectual speculation, the source of

1 See Professor Maurice's Moral Philosophy.

thought; and let me remind you that intellectual speculation has given many of the greatest and best things to the world. There is no important invention or discovery which does not owe much to the imagination and more to patient and deep thought.

In China I find the source of regulating action, and you all know the benefit of practical application. You know what a flimsy and hollow thing a sermon is, for instance, unless there is something to lay hold of, something practical, which helps us in the regulation of our lives.

To Persia belongs the perception of those mighty influences of good and evil, which in one form or another have fascinated and bewildered the world.

To Chaldea we must attribute the birth of astrology

and astronomy.

When I come to Phoenicia I see that spirit of commerce and enterprise-a thing the value of which we appreciate in England above all places in the world; and we should look back with awe and reverence to those who first taught men to feel at home on what we call our native element, the sea, and made commerce the great work of a great national life.

Later on in the history of the world, we find Greece the source of mind governing matter; Greece, the father and the mother of the arts; Greece, to whom was given that intense perception of the loveliness of the human form, and of all the artistic capacities in man. Το Greece belongs that, and from Greece comes that gift of seeing beauty to the whole world.