That there should be suffering at all in theuniverse is, no doubt, a mysterious thing; but the fact is evident, and certain benefits which flow from it are also evident. Indeed, we fail to see how a world of sentient beings could continue to exist, unless the penalty of suffering were attached to natural law. Further, all such penalties are, in consequence of the permanence of matter and the conservation of force, necessarily permanent, unless in cases where some reaction sets in under the influence of some other law or force than that which brings the penalty. Even in this case, the effect of any violation of any natural law is eternal and infinite. No sane man doubts this in the case of what may be called sins against natural laws; but many, with strange inconsistency, doubt and disbelieve it in the higher domain of morals. If we were for a moment to admit the materialist's doctrine that appetites, passions, and sentiments are merely effects of physical changes in nerve-cells, then we should be shut up to the conclusion that the effects of any derangement of these must be perpetual and coextensive with the universe. Why should it be otherwise in things belonging to the domains of reason and conscience? Further, if natural laws are the expression of the will of the Creator,and if these unfailingly assert themselves, and must do so, in order to the permanence of the material universe, would not analogy teach that, unless the Supreme Being is wholly bound up in material processes, and is altogether indifferent to moral considerations, the same regularity and constancy must prevail in the spiritual world?
This question is closely connected with the ideas of sacrifice and atonement. Nothing is more certain in physics than that action and reaction are equal, and that no effect can be produced without an adequate cause. It results from this that every action must involve a corresponding expenditure of matter and force. Anything else would be pure magic; which, we know, is nonsense. Thus every intervention on behalf of others must imply a corresponding sacrifice. We cannot raise a fallen child or aid the poor or the hungry without a sacrifice of power or means proportioned to the result. So, in the moral world, degradation cannot be remedied nor punishment averted without corresponding sacrifice; and this, it may be, on the part of those who are in no degree blameworthy. If men have fallen into moral evil and God proposes to elevate them fromthis condition, this must be done by some corresponding expenditure of force, else we have one of those miracles which would imply a subversion of law of the most portentous kind. The moral stimulus given by the sacrifice itself is a secondary consideration to this great law of equivalency of cause and effect. There is, therefore, a perfect conformity to natural analogy in the Christian idea of the substitution of the pure and perfect Man for the sinner, as well as in that of the putting forth of the divine power manifested in him to raise and restore the fallen.
The efficacy of prayer is one of the last things that a scientific naturalist should question, if he is at the same time a theist. Prayer is itself one of the laws of nature, and one of those that show in the finest way how higher laws override and modify those that are lower. The young ravens, we are told, cry to God; and so they literally do; and their cry is answered, for the parent-ravens, cruel and voracious, under the impulse of a God-given instinct range over land and water and exhaust every energy that they may satisfy that cry. The bleat of the lamb will not only meet with response from the mother-ewe, but will even exercise a physiologicaleffect in promoting the secretion of milk in her udder. The mother who hears the cry of her child, crushed under some weighty thing which has fallen on it, will never pause to consider that it is the law of gravitation which has caused the accident; she will defy the law of gravitation, and if necessary will pray any one who is near to help her. Prayer, in short, is a natural power so important that without it the young of most of the higher animals would have little chance of life; and it triumphs over almost every other natural law which may stand in its way. If, then, irrational animals can overcome the forces of dead nature in answer to prayer; if man himself, in answer to the cry of distress, can do things in ordinary circumstances almost impossible,—how foolish is it to suppose that this link of connection cannot subsist between God and his rational offspring! One wonders that any man of science should for a moment entertain such an idea, if, indeed, he has any belief whatever in the existence of a God.
There is another aspect of prayer insisted on in revelation on which the observation of nature throws some light. In the case of animals, theremust be a certain relation between the one that prays and the one that answers—a filial relation, perhaps—and in any case there must be a correspondence between the language of prayer and the emotions of the creature appealed to. Except in a few cases where human training has modified instinct, the cry of one species of animal awakes no response in another of a different kind. So prayer to God must be in the Spirit of God. It must also be the cry of real need, and with reference to needs which have his sympathy. There is a prayer which never reaches God, or which is even an abomination to him; and there is prayer prompted by the indwelling Spirit of God, which cannot be uttered in human words, yet will surely be answered. All this is so perfectly in accordance with natural analogies, that it strikes one acquainted with nature as almost a matter of course.
In tracing these analogies, I do not desire to imply that natural science can itself teach us religion, or that it is to afford the test of what is true in spiritual things. I have merely wished to direct attention to obvious analogies between things natural and things spiritual, which showthat there is no such antagonism between science and revelation as many suppose, and that, in grand essential laws and principles, it may be true that earth is
"But the shadow of heaven, and things thereinEach to the other like more than on earth is thought."
"But the shadow of heaven, and things thereinEach to the other like more than on earth is thought."
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:[1]Epistle to Hebrews, xi. 3.[2]Those who wish to understand the real bearings of palæontology on evolution should study Barrande'sMemoirs on the Silurian Trilobites, Cephalopods, and Brachiopods.[3]Beckett,Origin of the Laws of Nature.[4]Refutation of Darwinism, Philadelphia, 1880.[5]It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish objection unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question.[6]Rather, "vertebral arches."[7]Story of the Earth,Origin of the World,Chain of Life in Geological Time.[8]The Ceylon elephant is by some believed to be distinct, but is probably a variety of the Indian species.[9]Fossil Men(London, 1880), Appendix.[10]The first continental period was that of the earlier Pliocene.[11]The precise date in years assignable to this event geology cannot determine; but I have elsewhere shown that the actual antiquity of the palæocosmic or antediluvian man has been greatly exaggerated.[12]AsPiloceras, for example.[13]I am indebted for these figures to my friend Dr. S. P. Robins of Montreal.[14]Belfast Address.[15]More especially inThe Origin of the World(London and New York, 1877).
FOOTNOTES:
[1]Epistle to Hebrews, xi. 3.
[1]Epistle to Hebrews, xi. 3.
[2]Those who wish to understand the real bearings of palæontology on evolution should study Barrande'sMemoirs on the Silurian Trilobites, Cephalopods, and Brachiopods.
[2]Those who wish to understand the real bearings of palæontology on evolution should study Barrande'sMemoirs on the Silurian Trilobites, Cephalopods, and Brachiopods.
[3]Beckett,Origin of the Laws of Nature.
[3]Beckett,Origin of the Laws of Nature.
[4]Refutation of Darwinism, Philadelphia, 1880.
[4]Refutation of Darwinism, Philadelphia, 1880.
[5]It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish objection unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question.
[5]It was scarcely necessary to refer to this childish objection unless the individual skeleton of Adam had been in question.
[6]Rather, "vertebral arches."
[6]Rather, "vertebral arches."
[7]Story of the Earth,Origin of the World,Chain of Life in Geological Time.
[7]Story of the Earth,Origin of the World,Chain of Life in Geological Time.
[8]The Ceylon elephant is by some believed to be distinct, but is probably a variety of the Indian species.
[8]The Ceylon elephant is by some believed to be distinct, but is probably a variety of the Indian species.
[9]Fossil Men(London, 1880), Appendix.
[9]Fossil Men(London, 1880), Appendix.
[10]The first continental period was that of the earlier Pliocene.
[10]The first continental period was that of the earlier Pliocene.
[11]The precise date in years assignable to this event geology cannot determine; but I have elsewhere shown that the actual antiquity of the palæocosmic or antediluvian man has been greatly exaggerated.
[11]The precise date in years assignable to this event geology cannot determine; but I have elsewhere shown that the actual antiquity of the palæocosmic or antediluvian man has been greatly exaggerated.
[12]AsPiloceras, for example.
[12]AsPiloceras, for example.
[13]I am indebted for these figures to my friend Dr. S. P. Robins of Montreal.
[13]I am indebted for these figures to my friend Dr. S. P. Robins of Montreal.
[14]Belfast Address.
[14]Belfast Address.
[15]More especially inThe Origin of the World(London and New York, 1877).
[15]More especially inThe Origin of the World(London and New York, 1877).
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious typographical errors were repaired. Hyphenation variants used equally were retained (back-bone and backbone, thread-like and threadlike).Original had chapter title pages before the start of each chapter, resulting in duplication of chapter titles. Those duplications have been removed.Original contents erroneously indicated Lecture VI began on page 217. This has been corrected to page 219.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious typographical errors were repaired. Hyphenation variants used equally were retained (back-bone and backbone, thread-like and threadlike).
Original had chapter title pages before the start of each chapter, resulting in duplication of chapter titles. Those duplications have been removed.
Original contents erroneously indicated Lecture VI began on page 217. This has been corrected to page 219.