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achieves. The physicist, as physicist, can know nothing concerning the true doctrine of Holy Trinity; nor can the chemist, as chemist, solve the salutary doctrine of redemption; these sacred verities are the other side, the spiritual view of things, which the natural man cannot discern so long as he will only see the near and physical. The perfect man possesses that scientific mind and that religious mind which, as two eyes of the soul, view both aspects of the universe. As an accurate thinker of widest range, his piety, chastened by actual knowledge of nature; and his science, elevated by more and more discernment of the spiritual in the secular; he is prepared to dwell in everlasting mansions with Him. whose visible garment is the beautiful life and glowing splendour of many worlds.

Shall we, whom religion and science unite to teach that creation is extending dominion over chaos, use light only to photograph Egyptian sepulchres? Shall we, while carrying it into subterranean depths, forget that spiritual phenomena are also a definite part of the organic manifestation? Are all high things explained by the lower? or, rather, shall the lower find true meaning in the higher? Space exists for matter, matter for life, life for spirit; is there no existence, no life, apart from matter? May there not be intelligences existing neither in space, nor out of space, but with eternity as home? Are not space and time two sides of the ladder, whose rungs are those grades of infinite organisms, those ascents of life, those elevations of human soul, by which intelligence travels up to heaven, and above heaven unto God? Holy Scripture speaks of angels, of archangels, and of bright abodes for the spirits of just men made perfect. Why not believe it all? Some maligners of Scripture seem to have lost all that divine magnetism by which the good and true are drawn heavenward? Are we, who possess it, to deny the blessed influence? If the internal structure of an atheist's mind, has, by continual denial of the Divine Spirit, become wholly material and sensual; shall we account the churl liberal, the unbeliever devout, and declare that we also are nothing but atomic arrangements containing certain mixed gases? Some critics call Shakespeare a wild genius without arrangement. Truer

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critics find that he is an artist of first order and accuracy; ever rising to that height which, as he cannot be followed by the feeble, nor the ascent be seen by the dim, is by them counted mystic and unreal. These are the men who find the Bible a common book, and complain of every part. What matter? despite wit and malice, perversion of learning and wickedness of unbelief, it guides the intellect and cheers the heart of the greatest of our race. It is the light of truth sent

out by the Almighty to lead them, and bring them into His holy hill.

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STUDY IX.

DAY II.-" GOD MADE THE FIRMAMENT."

"Was wär' ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse,

Im kreis das all am Finger laufen liesse !
Ihm ziemts', die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in sich, sich in Natur, zu hegen.

So dass was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist

Nie seine Kraft, nie seinen Geist vermisst."

GOETHE.

"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

ISAIAH.

THE second day's work was not praised for being good. We know not why, unless the work, being imperfect as to the earth until the third day, and not complete as to heaven till the fourth day, the blessing waited for the delicately formed plant and the cheerful sun, when it would be well seen that God filled the earth with the fruit of His works, and covered Himself with light as with a garment.

The sacred narrative of the earth's early state would naturally have that meaning applied to it by early and unscientific men, which the appearance of things suggested. Being told of a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below, they possibly thought of a transparent floor in the skies, on which the upper waters rested, and may have pictured "the earth standing in the centre of a hollow crystal sphere, in which the stars were fixed like golden nails;" but observation and reason soon showed that rain could not descend through such a floor, and that the waters above the firmament were, as St Augustine thought, in a state of vapour. Even a rustic would not think that the sky was a solid vault, nor call the stars bright nails fixed in to hold it up. The Hebrew people saw birds soar aloft, and the moon cross the

Ancient Poetic Phrases.

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sky; the intelligent knew of the connection between cloud and rain; none but the dullest would imagine that the sky was solid.

The phrases "windows of heaven" (Gen. vii. 11), “foundations" (2 Sam. xxii. 8), "pillars" (Job xxxi. II), "doors" (Ps. lxxviii. 23), have led unpoetic persons to imagine that Moses and the Hebrews really did think of the firmament as a solid vault in which fowls fly and winds blow. The ancient sages were not so simple. These poetic expressions, and others like that of Job (xxxvii. 18), "The sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking-glass," are sometimes a contrast, sometimes a comparison. Job meant that the sky, though rare, fine, and spread out, is established and strong as metal. Ancient worthies had a better understanding of things than our modern conceit gives them credit for. They knew that the earth was hung upon nothing (Job xxvi. 7), and when they spoke of it as firm and not to be moved, it was in the sense of being sustained by the Almighty. They knew of the sea as a fountain to water the whole earth (Amos ix. 6); of the rivers returning to it again (Eccl. i. 7); of the firmament as an expanse; of light existing apart from the sun; and of stars innumerable, or, as an astronomer would say, "Like grains of sand on the sea shore." They accounted the present as but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities, earning blessings or cursings for ever, according to man's efforts to do good and hate evil. They thought of the future as a home of rest from evil, a place of everlasting beauty, in which the whole creation should praise God. They saw living things and men in a vast procession, not urged by blind force, but guided by Divine Intelligence to higher activities and more glorious spheres.

The knowledge of ancient sages was indeed wonderful; it often pierced the outward form and natural aspect of things to discern their inner meaning and power. Inspired men regarded God as the One who bound up the thick clouds with strength, that the waters might not rend them (Job xxxvi. 8); who apportioned the atmosphere, made a balance for the winds, a decree for the rain, and a path for the lightning (Job xxviii. 24-27). Solomon, moreover, or whosoever it was that

wrote in his name, had understanding of the wind going toward the south, the turning about unto the north, and why. the fulness of the sea was not over-fulness (Eccl. i. 6, 7). Science, since those old-world days, has weighed the wind, traced its path, and found that it turneth about to the north, whirling in continual currents. We know now that an atmospheric pressure of fifteen tons is on every man, and that, if it were not so, our lungs could not well use the air. It is a physical fact, that the air, by a secret process, raises and suspends water, eight hundred times heavier than itself; and in quantity so vast that if it descended at once upon the earth, the world would be deluged; and by ascent so graduated that the earth be not unduly parched, nor animal and vegetable destroyed. Those ancients were not ignorants, and, great as is the advance of modern science, no man has exceeded Solomon in wisdom, or Job in patience, or convinced Moses of folly for saying, "God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament."

The genius of ancient worthies was not less marvellous than their knowledge. There were sparkles of spirit and gleams of genius which remind us of, while they surpass, the best and purest portions of the classic page. As a literary production, there is nothing in any ancient or modern book that equals in simplicity, or beauty, or grandeur, the account by Moses of creation. The Book of Job cannot be styled less than perfect; the Psalms are matchless; Isaiah is often sublime. The whole Bible remains ever fresh by the life that is in it; creates new interest in men of every age, not only by the letter, but specially by the spirit; for it is adapted to the various stages of history, and illustrates the great principles of moral government. It possesses a wider influence than when originally spoken, and the charm of novelty as were it newly found. It is rendered more romantic than the romance thrown into it by Divinity of origin, through the sacred, subduing sadness which pervades it; and the high art of embalming the spirit, the thought, the laws, the life of a whole nation. The words of graceful imagery with which patriarchs and prophets describe God and His works, and the ruin of beauty and glory by sin,

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