He beholds all varieties, all degrees and differences of being; which yet put not forth the least shadow of difference in Him with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

We have reason to believe that the known course of nature is not the only course. There are different natures according to the various classes of progressive beings in the universe. Every heaven has a voice, every sun its splendour, every planet its nature. There are sports in plants, eccentricities in animals, anomalies everywhere, subordination of lower to higher, twosidedness and two-foldedness. There is the riddle of life, the greater puzzle of mind, the surpassing mystery of responsibility. Dead matter and blind force receive nobler nature and higher energy, until human consciousness receives, retains, reflects, a wonderful truthGod created the world "in gloriam suam" and "in salutem nostram." Cosmogony means the creation of worlds, and their investiture with changeable apparel of beauty. Men talk of laws that never fall into disuetude. That rightly means Divine maintenance of order by established, suitable, efficient, continuous, intervention of energy, to give rhythm and life-throb to worlds. This principle is vast and luminous, it fills and enlightens the universe;

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'Since God is ever present, ever felt,

And when He vital breathes there must be joy.'

THOMSON'S Hymn.

Truth is what God thinks-what God works. Happiness is the harmony, and rest, and use, of God's powers. Holiness is what God wills. As our intellectual faculties attain truth-we think as God thinks, we work as God

works. The measure of our happiness is that right use and legitimate development of our nature by which it finds satisfaction in evermore tending towards God AllGlorious. In the progress of our moral voluntary powers to holiness-we will as God wills, and are satisfied with His satisfaction. To aid us in this upward path to the Supreme, we have the miracle of Revelation to our intelligence. Other miracles are for the amendment of vitiated nature, and are proof that a regenerative force has entered the world by which we may overcome all evil and obtain all good. It is a glorious Supernatural progress, but blessedly natural!

THOUGHT IX.

ELIMINATION OF CHANCE FROM THE UNIVERSE.

"The grand and indeed only character of truth is its capability of enduring the test of universal experience, and coming unchanged out of every possible form of fair discussion."-SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, Discourse on Natural Philosophy, p. 10.

The gift by which Truth makes us free is "an axis of power testing, using, controlling equal and opposite forces."-A phrase altered from FARADAY.

NATURE in all its parts, so far as our science extends, is linked together. Every part is subservient to the whole, and held in unity by innumerable correlations and adaptations. Physical Science says nothing about the original or initial conditions of matter, nor is it concerned with anything other than that which is. It can only say, "Given matter in a given condition, at a given time, and certain consequences will follow, and not otherwise." Science, nevertheless, clearly reveals the impossibility of prolonging existence indefinitely backwards; and shows that the present constitution of things, because of the universal tendency, through dissipation of heat, to equilibrium of forces, is temporary; eternal neither as to the past nor as to the future; not self-devised, but

derivative from what had gone before. The scientific fact may be thus formulated: Everything exists in such form that it possesses no discernible powers to originate, to locate, to maintain itself, otherwise than as part of a whole a whole not merely made up of the constituent parts, but a whole so dominating the parts that they are not so greatly of use in and for themselves as for their use and relation to the whole. Now, if no part of the universe stands alone-as self-devised, and every part is derived from that which was before, it follows that the whole-consisting only of derivative and dependent parts-is not eternal whether as to the whole or the parts.

Now enter the region of metaphysics, and inquireWas the primordial configuration of the matter of the universe of fortuitous derivation, or did it originate by irrational fate? Not by irrational fate: for mere impulse, apart from volitional intelligent creative energy, does not sufficiently account, in any reasonably conceivable way, for the existence of a world of organized beings as a result of the mere laws of dead matter; or for the derivation of very different forms from that in which was no difference. Only by design, or purpose, does it seem reasonably possible to possess adequate cause for that intelligible and intelligent variety of form, life, organism, intelligence, which has been evoked from the formless-the lifeless — the inorganic — the unintelligent. Nor can the origin and continuance of worlds be by fortuity; for though it can be said"in the primordial condition of things, with which science starts, there may have been an infinity of chances against any one particular chance, chosen be

forehand, being the real one; so soon as that one or any other, became the real, probability ceased to have meaning "it is certain that the realization of any one chance by pure fortuity at any one moment could not ensure its permanency, nor render impossible the realization of any other chance at any other moment: for that which came, perchance, at any moment; not only could, perchance, pass away at any other moment, but would so chance- or chance were not chance. That chance should weave things into an intelligible whole, and give to every part useful and reasonable place and work, is an irrational and groundless assumption. In order that one chance may be permanent -rather, that chance cease to be chance-that which before was finite must become infinite, and throughout infinitude render it impossible for any other chance to be realized. Our reason cannot accept anything so irrational. It means that every one of the present localities, forces, conditions, beings, existences, adaptations, correlations, would have to be realized by one chance against other chances multiplied by all the moments in time, by all the localities in space, by all the actualities and possibilities of being. Hence, the fortuitous origin and continuance of a universe in which every part has fitness in various degrees for various purposes-fitness ranging from rudimentary states to most delicate and complex apparatus-fitness made and continued by processes of particular sets of conditions which render that fitness the only possible result, the conditions also being proved to have been given for that purpose, seeing that the frame of nature is what it is, nor can be either more or less—becomes, if chance is