would contain it all. I have thought that even a gentleman's portmanteau-possibly his snuff-box-might take it in." All things are comparative: to the greater, great is small. Ether-waves untie the bond of chemical affinity by striking against and breaking up gaseous and other molecules; in some cases, yield up their motion to these molecules; in others, glide round them, or pass through the inter-molecular spaces without apparent hindrance. Those waves of ether are copiously absorbed which synchronise with the periods. of the molecules amongst which they pass, and those are most copiously transmitted which do not synchronise. Transparency is due to inability to absorb luminous rays. Snow and ice are not dissolved by sunshine, but by the warm dark rays which are not luminous at all. The gases, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and the mixture of atmospheric air, are practical vacua to the waves of heat. Expound the whole of any one thing and soon you shall open all mysteries. The experiments on gases have been extended to the vapours of volatile liquids, which also possess different powers of intercepting calorific rays. Perfumes, diffused in the air, though their attenuation is almost infinite, produce a similar effect. Patchouly scent takes up thirty times the quantity of heat intercepted by the atmospheric air which. carries it. Patchouly acts more feebly on radiant heat than does any other perfume yet examined. These perfumes of Scripture absorb most: cassia, 109 times; spikenard, 355; aniseed, 372. The vapour of water is the most powerful absorber of radiant heat hitherto discovered. This vapour is almost infinitesimal in amount, 99 out of every 100 parts of the atmosphere consisting of oxygen and nitrogen; yet exerts from 100 to 200 times the action of the whole body of air as a heat-absorber, and is of the utmost consequence to the life of the world. It takes up the heatwaves, becomes warm, then enwraps the earth as with a garment to maintain warmth, and, at the same time, to exclude scorching heat. The radiant heat of the earth not being of power equal to that of the sun, is unable to pierce this vapour and escape into space; so that, in consequence of this difference in action, the mean temperature of our planet is higher than is due to its distance from the sun : nor is that all. The waves of ether, acting upon the molecules of matter in the firmament, break them up by giving Marvellous Co-operation of Phenomena. 159 their own motions to the component atoms—that is, these atoms, or some of them, begin to synchronise with the vibrations of infringing ether, and the rates of motion being made to vary, the molecules are decomposed. By this operation, carbonic acid gas, contained in the air, is fitted to become food for the vegetable world. Leaves of plants absorb the gas, and, when in the internal cells of the leaves, incipient loosening of the molecules by action of light enables the plant to seize upon and appropriate the carbon while the oxygen is discharged into the atmosphere. "A frequent similar effect argueth a constant cause." It is evident that the firmament contains a marvellous and harmonious co-operation of phenomena, but of so vast a nature that we cannot unravel the whole. Facts are at hand to a certain extent, but the encircling them with a perfect theory is beyond our power. Because we cannot do so and how should we, seeing that creative design extends to the whole of Nature ?—our assertion that wherever we find marks of purpose and contrivance, there must be corresponding will and design, is met by the humorous reply" If there be pepper in the soup, there must be pepper in the cook who made it, since otherwise the pepper would be without a cause." Mr. J. S. Mill was, we think, the author of this combination of pepper and soup, to puzzle our intellectual co-ordination of experiences. When, by a play upon words, we are to assume that God must be partly of iron and partly of clay, seeing that these materials are in the universe; otherwise we have no right to say, "the Supreme is wise, because there are marks of will and contrivance in the world;" the ingenuity of our opponents must be pushed to the furthest limits. Surely motion is a manifestation of energy; the causes of visible appearances are not the appearances; law is but an expression of positions and forms which substances assume under given conditions. We refuse to allow that the Eternal Power, of whom the web of phenomena is a visible garment, may be a necessary order, fate, physical property, mere strand in the web of phenomena. He is the Infinite, not a circumscribed intelligence, Christians are men than whom none go deeper, nor ascend higher, nor so pierce the dark, so occupy the light, yet they give to God both empire and diadem. The arguments generally used to divest the Infinite and Eternal of wisdom and will, applied in a like manner, strip volition and intelligence from human conduct. You take the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Belfast, in the year 1874, as a reasonable being. Why? For no other reason, though some doubt, than that he behaved as if he were reasonable. (The president of 1874 used the playful illustration in reference to the president of 1870.) Even suppose, taking his address, we cannot go further than the as if; still there is no other known method of accounting for his conduct than by saying, he had some portion of intelligence. If a man is insensible to the mystery of the universe; if the soul is that of an animal-unvisited by gleams of any brighter life, dead to the stirring sacred impulses of piety— how can he feel that of which he is incapable? Happily, no such man exists. Only souls most shrivelled, with narrow vision of life's realities and the world's vastness, entertain the notion that our human organism is limited to material mechanism. Encompassed by wonders, we are subject to influences of awe, tenderness, sympathy, which no words can express, no theories fully explain. Possessing moral and æsthetic instincts inclining us to the good, the pure, the beautiful; visited with convictions that there is a larger life than the visible firmament contains; we are not made creepers, nor beastly breeders of things unclean, we uprise and are mighty, deputy chiefs of creation, and will not cheat ourselves of the reverence due to reasonable beings. The great future is not far-off, the true man's journey thither is very wonderful, and the life is blissful. The world enlarges with our knowledge; shall we accept an atheistic system with quibbling statement—“There is no bridge," and thus lose our good portion in that glorious realm which is deeper and higher than all visible phenomena? Are we to stop as if already at the finality of existence, though alway having fresh experiences? We hope that we shall, ere long, possess the keys which unlock mysteries, and reveal what is and will be? 'Tis nicest touch of human honour-when the Almighty donor presents immortal blessings to our every sense, and makes the future alive with sparkles-thankfully to accept them. Is it not Duty to reveal the Unknown. 161 right for curses to alight on the heart of him who only lives half a life of cold, low aim, and misses the grand high state for such emprise, is it fatal as hell and false as Satan? Rise all be holy men, by faithful use of mental powers, bring into view and within the circle of spiritual knowledge, that which before was unknown. "Hold thou the good, define it well, For fear Divine philosophy Should push beyond her mark and be In Memoriam. M STUDY X. DAY III. THE HABITATION OF LIFE. "Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer, Before all temples, the upright heart and pure, Paradise Lost. By sacred geology we understand that the earth was made by the Almighty. He did not labour as an artificer who shapes every work by handicraft. Not every species of rhinoceros, every species of hyæna, nor the long succession of forms from earliest to present time, was separately constructed. God created by means of operations, which we define as natural order or law. He furnished space as the star-domed city of the great King; and now, through every star, every grass-blade, but most through every living soul, beams the glory of an ever-present God. Natural law is the symbol of Divine action. All creatures, living or unliving, are pensioners of the Almighty. Analogy may convince when mind heareth not argument as to the creative process. The passage of invisibles into visibles, as gas into light; the coming of unseen vapour into water; are one step. We think of germs growing into animals; of plants, great or small, developing in such minute progression that we are unable to say "now the seed ceases, now the tree exists." We observe that the origin of plants, animals, men, separated by wide intervals of time, is analogous to epochs in the formation of stars 66 |