have been, and the chaotic materials of worlds which shall be. In spite of wear and tear, worlds are extending their sway, and cosmos is conquering chaos. Thus science gives definiteness to our conceptions of creation, confirms or annuls those conceptions. We no longer look at the earth as a savage regards a steamship,-a something wholly beyond comprehension. The entire process is one of energy, but not of energy only. The external world, so far as we see the phenomena and their characteristics, is unquestionably the result of intelligent action; while the inner world, as seen in the instinct of animals, and in the morals, religion and intellect of man, has a voluntary capability of turning natural processes into other uses, of arraying energy against energy, and reducing nature to such obedience that the wind blows for us, fire burns for us, water becomes a mighty servant, and the electric fluid is our swift messenger.

Test, by means of one word, "Beginning," whether our knowledge of God's work does not enlarge and confirm our view of truth in God's Word. What does Beginning mean? It means the origination of things. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Until of late many of us had taken "beginning" to imply a comparatively modern time; but, in truth, time has no connection with it, except in meaning that before time was, when the Word was with God and was God, in that eternity, when the Son was, then were the worlds created. In that beginning, when the Son was with God, God, the Son, created all things. Now, God is eternally all that He is; there is nothing new, nothing by chance nor of caprice. If He is Creator, He is eternally Creator; for the power, the wisdom, the love are eternal; and the act of Creation, proceeding from them, must of necessity be eternal, though not eternally creating, or we impose on the Creator the conditions of time, and subject Him to the vicissitudes of the future.

We are not responsible for the difficulty growing out of this, and the difficulty seems-God has eternally created, but.the creation had origin, and that origin gave birth to time. The difficulty really lies in the inadequacy of language to express, and the imperfection of our understanding to know, Divine

Eternity and Infinity.

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things. It is certain that no number of creatures, vast as that number may be, no extension of space or ages, however grand that extension, can express the eternity and infinity of the Creator. We must, willing or unwilling, admit that to our consciousness, all duration is comprised within two series, a series of past infinite moments, and a series of future infinite. moments; we add these together, and they form relatively, eternity; but absolutely, time; one series is behind, another is before. As for God, to whom nothing is past or future, the two series exist under the same title, the one and the other are contained in the Now or Eternity of the Eternal. It may seem as if the idea of a created world, without commencement in time, and without limit in space, is one of those infinities which cannot be explained; in that case it is the best possible example of the Infinity and Eternity of the Creator (Gen. i. I; John i. 1-3).

Creation, to express the eternity, the infinity, the majesty, the wisdom, all the perfections of God, ought to extend to an eternity of ages, to an infinity of spaces, to an innumerable variety of existences in every degree, all finite in themselves, but, in space beyond space, and world beyond world, a symbol of Infinity; the absolute Infinity being figured by an infinity that is relative. The relative being duration, and extent without bounds, only contained by eternity and infinite space. Is not this pantheism? No; the Creator alone is absolutely eternal and infinite; but the creation, occupying all space and all time, subject to division and limit, does, in those innumerable divisions and exhaustless limits, represent to the utmost possible extent the operations of God. To obtain even a faint conception of this, we must deepen our notions both of eternity and time. Time is the law of everything that changes, Eternity is the incommunicable and unchangeable attribute of God. Plato says:-"Time is a movable image of immovable eternity." We cannot say there was a time when no time was; yet, as time was created, and the world was fashioned, we ought to say,-"There was no time without creation, the successive movements of which form time; therefore, time and creation have always been; nevertheless, they were created, and are not co-eternal with God;" for,

as St Augustine said "He was before them, although He may never have been without them; because He did not precede them by an interval of time, but by immovable eternity." In this sense, God, as eternal Creator, is eternal Saviour.

Reasonings of this kind, illustrative of our feebleness, and of the vast meaning contained in so many texts of Scripture (2 Chron. vi. 18; Job xi. 7, 8; Isaiah lxvi. 1; Col. i. 15-17) formerly seemed visionary, but are highly useful as proof that the utmost exercise of all our powers enables us to take only a few steps within the threshold of creation. The telescope has manifested the world to be infinitely vast, and the microscope has revealed worlds within worlds, infinitely small. Moreover, Divine attributes are not like the faculties or impulses of a human nature, separate and distinct qualities or powers, God is One. He is in every place, but the presence is incomprehensible. He is not here or there as a property or extension. His relation to place, time, and extension is peculiar to infinitude. Divine power is never put forth unaccompanied by Divine wisdom, nor apart from goodness and justice. No attribute is ever latent; for there is no parting nor divisibility in the Divine essence. His plan of the world, everlastingly present with him, had temporal realisation in that effectual interference by which the material universe became a segment of the infinity in which it was developed. There was first a direct personal self-operation, a putting forth of Divine energy, and, afterwards, the use of all natural means, so soon as they were called into existence. The action continues in that spontaneousness of nature by which she seems to do all things as of herself. The worldly structure rises storey above storey, nor are the chambers of uniform dimensions, embellishment, and furniture. We look through some of the courts, behold, from a distance, a thousand halls, grand and beautiful; and we take all this as a gauge of some vast, wonderful, and mysterious life, and the visible universe as a tent of sojourning for wayfarers to the eternal future.

Pass from argument to figure-God called a man from dreams into the vestibule of heaven, "Come thou hither,

The Vestibule of Heaven.

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In a

and see the glory of My house;" and to the angels round His throne, He said, "Take him, strip off his robes of flesh, cleanse his vision, put a new breath into his nostrils, but touch not with any change his human heart-the heart that weeps and trembles." It was done; and with a mighty angel as guide, the man stood ready for an infinite voyage. They launched without sound or farewell from the terraces of heaven, and wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes with the solemn flight of angel-wings, they passed through Saharas of darkness, through wildernesses of death, separating worlds of life. Sometimes they swept over frontiers quickening under prophetic motions from God. Then from a distance, measured only in heaven, light dawned through shapeless film, and in unspeakable space swept to them, and they with unspeakable pace to the light. moment the rushing of planets was upon them—in a moment the blazing of suns around them. Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left, mighty constellations built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways, seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. Within were stairs that scaled eternities around, above was below, and below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body. Depth was transcended by height insurmountable, height was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly as thus they rode from infinite to infinite; suddenly as thus they tilted over abyssmal worlds; a mighty cry arose that systems more mysterious, worlds more billowy, other heights and other depths were coming, were nearing, were at hand. Then the man sighed and stopped, shuddered and wept. His over-laden heart poured itself forth in tears, and he said, "Angel, I will go no further, for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from oppression. of the Infinite, for end I see there is none." Then from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice"The man speaks truly-end there is none." The angel solemnly demanded-" end there is none? Is there indeed

no end? Is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered, that he himself might answer. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands towards the Heaven of heavens, and said, "To the universe of God there is no end, lo! also, there is no beginning."1

1 Altered from De Quincey's Translation from the German of Jean Paul Richter.