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answer, and is this in the main in accord with the an-
a clear and definite answer. Can Science also give an
swer of Scripture? Science can answer the question
life in the past and observing the goal toward which it
only by the historical method of tracing the history of
tends. If the evolution theory be true, the record
of human achievement and progress forms only one
short chapter in the history of the ages. If from the
records of man's little span of life on the globe we can
deduce laws of history
with how much greater confidence and certainty may
we rely on laws which have governed all life since its
earliest appearance ?-always provided that such can
be found.
on whose truth we can rely,

line of development through a few of its most charac-
Our first effort must therefore be to trace the great
teristic stages from the simplest living beings up to
lectures. And to these I must ask you to bring a large
store of patience. Anatomical details are at best dry
This will be our work in the three succeeding
form the foundation on which all our arguments and
and uninteresting. But these dry facts of anatomy

tomical facts, you will see in and behind them someBut if you will think long and carefully even of anathing more and grander than they. You will catch glimpses of the divinity of Nature. Most of us travel threescore years and ten stone-blind in a world of marvellous beauty. Why does the artist see so much more in every fence-corner and on every hill-side than we, set face to face with the grandest landscapes? Primarily, I believe, because he is sympathetic, and looks on Nature as a comrade as near and dear as

human sister and companion. As Professor Huxley has said, "they get on rarely together." She speaks to the artist; to us she is dumb, and ought to be, for we are boorishly careless of her and her teachings.

Nature, to be known, must be loved. And though you have all the knowledge of a von Humboldt, and do not love her, you will never understand her or her teachings. You will go through life with her, and yet parted from her as by an adamantine wall.

I do not suppose that the author of the book of Job had ever studied geology, or mineralogy, or biology, but read him, and see whether this old prince of scientific heroes had loved, and understood, and caught the spirit of Nature. And what a grand, free spirit it was, and what a giant it made of him. I do not believe that Paul ever had a special course of anatomy or botany. But if he had not pondered long and lovingly on the structure of his body, and the germination of the seed, he never could have written the twelfth and fifteenth chapters of the first letter to the Corinthians. And time fails to speak of David and all the writers of the Psalms, and of those heroic souls misnamed the "Minor" Prophets.

Study the teachings of our Lord. How he must have considered the lilies of the field, and that such a tiny seed as that of the mustard could have produced so great an herb, and noticed and thought on the thorns and the tares and the wheat, and watched the sparrows, and pondered and wondered how the birds All his teaching was drawn from Nature. And all the study in the world could never have taught him what he knew, if it had not been a loving and appreciative study.

were fed.

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father used to tell us that the Greek word now, rendered true, is usually employed of the genuine in

tinction from the shadow and image. Is not this perhaps the clew to our Lord's use of natural imagery? Nature was always the presentation to his senses of the divine thought and purpose.

There is one strange and interesting passage in

words of the ancient Scripture, he found the same words and teachings clearly and concretely embodied in the processes of Nature. The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower was no mere play of fancy to him; it was the genuine and fundamental truth, deeper and more real than the existence of the sower, the soil, and the seed. The spiritual truth was the sub stance; the tangible soil and seed really only the shadow. And thus all Nature was to him divine.

We all of us need to offer the prayer of the blind learn, too, from the old heathen giant, Antæus, who, man, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened." Let us after every defeat and fall, rose strengthened and vivified from contact with his mother Earth. You will experience in life many a desperate struggle, many a hard fall. There is at such times nothing in the world thoughts and encouragements which Nature pours into the hearts and minds of her loving disciples. strengthening, healing, and life-giving as She will set you on your feet again, infused with new life, filled with an unconquerable spirit, with unfalter ing courage, and an iron will to fight once more and win. your ears, and she will never fail you. In every battle her inspiring words will ring

We

not see her deepest realities, her rarest treasures of thought and wisdom; but if we will listen lovingly for her voice, we may be assured that she will speak to us many a word of cheer and encouragement, of warning and exhortation. For, to paraphrase the language of the nineteenth Psalm, "She has no speech nor language, her voice is not heard. But her rule is gone out throughout all the earth, and her words to

the end of the world."

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