His time, He calls a new organic world into existence. At the end of thousands of millions of years, He is struck with the happy thought of creating something like Himself, and man appears upon the scene, who gives the Creator so much to do that He is wearied no longer, and therefore need not undertake any new creation." But perhaps men's thoughts of God never reached lower point, than in the grotesque attempts which were made, during the middle ages, to account for the existence of fossils. It was, for example, seriously asserted that they were the rough models, which the Creator had first made out of mineral substances models which he afterwards copied in the living organisms of animals and plants!

And much later than the middle ages, down even to the present century, the relation of the Creator to nature was often conceived of, in a way that was nothing short of blasphemous. Nature was thought to be so imperfect a production, that the Deity could only make it answer His purpose by constant intervention and readjustment. He had not foreseen the end from the beginning. Circumstances were always arising for which no provision had been made. He was everlastingly changing the course of

nature; and, sad to say, He usually changed it for the worse. He was always seen in what was terrible and appalling. He had nothing to do with the beauty of an autumn evening, or the stillness of a moonlight night; with the merriment of youth, or the happiness of manhood, or the peacefulness of old age. In such cases things were but taking their normal course. But in agony, disaster, horror, men always recognised, as they thought, the finger of God. These were the unmistakable tokens of His presence. If the lightning struck a man dead, it was a sign that the Deity was angry. If an earthquake or a pestilence occurred, He was beside Himself with fury. Any peculiarly loathsome disease was technically called "a visitation from God." If a mother lost her darling child, it was because the Almighty was jealous that the poor little creature should have received so much of her love. The temper of this Deity, however, was fitful. You could never be certain what He would be at. Occa

sionally he forgot to be angry. In His ungodlike capriciousness He had favourites, for whose sakes He would sometimes work miracles of benediction. But this benediction generally involved disaster to those who were not His

favourites. The many were plundered that the few might be enriched. And the favourites, having been selected by caprice, were almost sure, sooner or later, to be by caprice rejected. He would by-and-by repent Him of His choice. Altogether, His position in the universe was that of an eternal curse! If He had but let the world alone, it might have been a pleasant place enough, and men might have lived a happy life. But He would not let things be. He was always interfering, and always doing harm. Wherever He went, He left ruin and misery in His trail. He assumed many names, but His real name was Hate!

Now that is the kind of Deity whose existence has been disproved by the evolutionists. They have shown, once and for ever, that our world is not governed, or rather misgoverned, by omnipotent caprice. And for the establishment of this important truth, rational theology will be for ever indebted to them. To believe in evolution, is to be saved at least from the degradation of mistaking for God a purely imaginary being, who, if he really existed, would excite the hatred and the scorn of every noble-hearted man. How was it that men who believed in the omnipotence of a fickle fiend such as I have described,

did not curse him to his face? It was because The falseness of their

they were cowards.

religion had so corrupted their moral sense, that, in order to keep out of hell, they were ready to barter their very souls. But never again, thanks to the evolutionists, will this terrible dilemma be repeated. Science has vindicated- -unconsciously it may be, but none the less reallyvindicated the character of the Deity from the aspersions which for ages had been cast upon it. And if now we believe in God at all, we find no difficulty in worship. The fact that in Him we live, and move, and have our being, is at once our deepest joy and our highest glory.

134

Agnosticism.

X.

PURPOSE VERSUS CHANCE.

WE

E have seen that the theory of evolution, as commonly understood and explained, leaves the mental half of the universe entirely out of account. In order to remedy this omission, Haeckel tells us to remember that matter always carries something mental along with it; and Tyndall suggests that we should recast our definition of matter, in recognition of the mental element it involves. We have, then, the authority of evolutionists for saying that the world has not been evolved from gas and gravitation-in the ordinary, vulgar acceptation of those terms-but from gas and gravitation plus something mental. And naturally, it occurs to us to inquire, whether that something