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Glimpse of the Transcendental.

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held this flower in his hand; and when through the churchwindow, he saw the heaven, and the clouds wandering over it; when every place in the cool vault was full of sunlight, and reminded him of the shadows on the grass from the overflying clouds. Great God! Thou scatterest satisfaction everywhere, and givest to everyone joys to impart again. Not merely dost Thou invite us to rest and exciting pleasures, Thou givest to the smallest an exciting perfume.'

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No psychologist will deny that plant life affords glimpses of the transcendental. It combines many principles, brings into concert many powers; and the delicacy of its parts, the complexity of its construction, the special and elaborate adaptation of function to function, denote high art in form and colour; and are, in some respects, an epitome of all being. We have in plants a mirror of the adaptation of the general properties and affinities of the inorganic world to the purposes of life. In the several members, organs, and functions of the plants, we possess the first lodgment of the spirit of life wrought into nature by the creative energy of the Eternal. Plants, endowed with life, are not self-living. The general spirit of life is in them, but they have no soul; not even that brute-soul which is attributed to beasts. The psychological fact, for symbolical refraction is that in every human soul is first formed a tree of life, rooted in the heart, attaining summit or crown in the spirit. "Thus, as by the tree of life, the kingdom of plants is represented in the soul. There are formed in it also, by strong spiritual operation, lifeless forms, more strongly or more weakly stamped as animal, which encamp around our heart; and these, even though they have no life of their own, are stirred at the heaving of the passions."1

The thought, even though it be visionary or poetical, is worth enlarging, and in another direction. Try to conceive of a spirit, in its initial period, secluded from contact with the material universe, acquainted only with mind. Such a spirit, awaking to consciousness of the properties of matter, would become, so to speak, new born; and take possession of another nature. He would find the various substances which

1 "System of Biblical Psychology :" Prof. F. Delitzsch.

are furnished by the soil, compounded, by modes transcendental, into other specific substances. The mechanical adjustment of parts, root, stem, and leaves, in absorbing, respiring, and expiring, in secreting, accreting, and excreting, containing, in a mystery, the animal system-that harmony of a thousand elements. Taught by this material knowledge, that spirit would begin to reflect upon its own nature. Thus the genesis of matter, and the introduction of natural life, possibly enlarged the knowledge and power of the spiritworld. Consciousness of the natural world, we infer, may impart to spirits an experience somewhat akin to that which spirit imparts to the human soul. Passing things more recondite, there would be the fact of solid extension, the mechanical properties of hardness, softness, roughness, weight; the chemical properties in their varieties of pungencies, flavours, perfumes; and the vibrations of sound in melody and harmony; so refined, numerous, and complicated as to double all former powers of enjoyment. The boundary is not yet attained of sensitive existence: more light would break in, and the universe stand revealed in all its beauties and glories. The great contriving Mind would be viewed, ever and ever starting from and to a higher point; not only in effecting delicate and complicated mechanism, but in so adapting the elements of the material and spiritual systems that eternity calls time to walk in nature's wonderful avenue. More mys

terious still, spirit enters flesh; then, wonder of wonders! in fulness of time, the Infinite and Eternal, who incomprehensibly manifests Himself in space and time by all phenomena, dwells in that holy human form, Jesus.

Language fails in utterance of thought. Who can put into words the deep truths which underlie our consciousness of those vast substantial spiritual realities on which are based the glorious things of Revelation. The commonest facts which lie ready to our hand, in their essence, have relations with infinity; nor can we understand how moments of time are linked by consciousness into the chain of our life; but still, though with darkling rather than glimmering knowledge as to possible instruction of angels by the creation of our own world, the symbols used may be fairly taken as indications

Enlargement of Knowledge.

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that our own knowledge and faculties of enjoyment will enlarge in the future according to the measure of Divine things attained in this life, and that these seeds of wisdom will not only grow into flowers of thought, but yield glorious fruit in some paradise of God.

STUDY XII.

DAY IV. THE SUN.

"There are men who, seeing the great power this sun hath, are secretly enticed in their heart; and with their mouth have kissed their hand to him."-JOB xxxi. 26, 27.

Two dangers are to be guarded against in handling any science touching Holy Scripture: (1) an unwise adoption and adaptation of discoveries which seem to confirm the sacred statements; (2) an unworthy fear that any truly scientific result can be adverse.

These dangers may be turned into deliverances. It is not long since the sciences were mere aggregations of empirical knowledge. Astronomy could hardly be called a science in the days of Hipparchos, seeing that physics did not begin, as a science, till Galileo discovered the law of falling bodies. Chemistry began two hundred and seventy years later, when Lavoisier, discovering the true principles of combustion, overthrew the doctrine of phlogiston. At the end of the eighteenth century biology began, Bichat pointing out the relations between the functions of organs and the properties of tissues. Sociology is not yet a science. Scientific religion will not be completed until the whole physical and psychical nature of man, physics and metaphysics, history and revelation, the natural and preternatural, are regarded from the highest point attainable by human nature. Meanwhile, assured as we are by the co-ordination of all our faculties, that the religious sentiment will find as great, or even greater satisfaction in the future than it has in the past, and because the recognition of a Power which is beyond humanity, and upon which humanity rests, will become, by the advance of science, a scientific verity; it is well to remind the fearful that religion is not "a polity de

Scientific Difficulties.

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novo," but built on the concrete facts of past ages. It views the individual in his relation to the Supreme, who is manifested in creation, revelation, providence, history. It sanctions, sanctifies, and renders possible, the true morality which ought to govern men in relation to their fellow-creatures. Not only so-religion and morality united condemn whatever hinders or mars physical and spiritual completion of life; give the aspiration--the noblest we can entertain-for complete fulness of life; and yield philosophic explanation of the marvellous range of human sympathy, and of irrepressible yearnings after the divine. Hence, concluding that the divines and sages of the past were neither knaves nor the dupes of knaves but genuine philosophers; that they not only made the best use of such implements of research as they possessed, but embodied in the spiritual organization of creeds that alone, of all the things in the world, which was found capable of holding society together in troublous times, or of giving consolation to men in their affliction; we are preserved from hasty and unwise use-even as we have no servile dread of scientific discovery. The soul or life of this religion and morality is faith in a guiding and beneficent God, who inaugurates a better state of society here as preparation for a more glorious future by effecting not merely change of opinions; but, specially, change and improvement of heart.

St. Augustine cried in amazement, "Wondrous depths of Thy words! whose surface, behold, is before us inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth." The amazement of Christians is not less in these days: as the Book grows more venerable in antiquity it becomes more reverend in authority. The consideration of physical truths proves that Moses-living in barbaric time, as to science-was certainly wise; and that the message which he received from God is undoubtedly true. Scientific difficulties, far from casting doubt on the faith in which we were nurtured, confirm, in their explanation, its Divinity. If the science of one age could fathom all depths, the Book, revealing those depths might be wholly of man-a production of the land of Egypt and house of bondage; but knowledge opening new domains

1 Conf. lib. xii.

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