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heat, the galvanic current and the effluence from the stormcloud, the medium of instantaneous communication between distant continents; and that which conveys sensation to the brain and volition to the limbs, all as mutually covertible forms of one and the same force. There can be among them no system of mutual check and balance. When one of these forms of force exceeds its wonted limits, so far from being repressed by the others, it tends, as is fully ascertained, to convert them to its own similitude, to sweep them into its own vortex. Thus the spontaneous result of every partial excess would be increased and still increasing derangement, so that heat, electricity, or magnetism, once overleaping its normal bounds, would reign ascendant over a devastated universe. This result can be arrested only by him who can say to every else untamable power of nature: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further."

I pass to another ground of argument. Pantheism infers the spontaneousness of natural phenomena from the unity of the universe; from its harmonious working, like that of a machine operated by internal forces, without those breaks and variations that would imply a discretionary will; from the mutual fitness of part to part, as of one body in which each member bears a fixed and unchangeable relation to every other. But the mutual adaptation of the various parts of the universe may be regarded in two entirely different aspects. One of these aspects is well expressed in that Pantheistic couplet of Pope:

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body nature is, and God the soul."

If this be true; if all are parts of a symmetrical whole, fitted each to all the others, as every bolt, screw, rod, and pivot of a steam-engine is to every other; or if some parts are the natural and necessary products of others, as cloth is the product of the combined action of the spindle, loom, and dyeing-vat upon wool, it might be contended with some show of reason that the whole and all its parts are the result of inherent and self-executing laws; and if we could VOL. XXI. No. 84.

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only conceive of the beginning to be without an intelligent Creator, the Pantheistic hypothesis would account for things as they are.

But this view is not conformed to the facts of nature. The harmony, the mutual adaptation pervading the universe is not that of the parts of a machine, nor yet that of a machine and its products. There are numerous wholes, numerous microcosms, either entirely independent of one another, or acting on one another generally, not specifically; and these separate wholes and all the parts of each are mutually adapted to one another, as any number of clocks of different workmanship might keep time together, or as musical instruments of every variety of material, compass, and tone might be played in harmony, an adaptation, not of the joint-and-socket order, but (if I may use the term) of independent parallelism. Now adaptations of this order can be traced only to a designing mind, to a supreme intelligence, adapting the parts one to another, each to all, all to each.

But

Let me give one or two instances to illustrate my meaning. The eye is adapted to light, utilizes it, makes it a minister of health and joy to the dwellers in air, earth, and sea. the eye is not the consequence of light. Light could not, even though acting on an interminable series of generations, bore the orifice in the forehead, round the pupil, expand the retina, secrete the several humors, develop the eyelid and its fringe. There is manifestly between light and the eye no more connection of cause and effect than between light and the opera-glass, or of part and part than between the eye and a printed book. Physically, light and the eye belong to entirely different systems, to different orders of causes. Yet their mutual adaptation is as close and perfect as if light were a conscious and beneficent artificer, and had created the eye as a recipient for its joy-giving ministries.

To take another instance, the graminivorous, ruminating animals and the food which sustains them are mutually adapted, by the peculiar and complicated organism of

the teeth, stomach, and entire digestive apparatus of the animals, and by the chemical ingredients and the specific nutritive properties of the grasses. But neither can have been the cause of the other. The grasses could not have given shape to the animal organism, nor could the animals, being what they are, have modified the products of the soil. They belong to different systems, with no mutually causative relations; and yet they are as perfectly adapted each to the other as the parts and parts, or the parts and products, of a machine.

It is by adaptations of this class-adaptations without causation that "all are parts of one stupendous whole." Such adaptations grow constantly upon our research. Science does little else than to discover and verify them, and thus to trace in every realm of the universe tokens of the Creator's determined counsel and purpose. Now these adaptations imply a personal intelligence in their adjustment. I see not how the argument can be evaded. It has, to my own mind, all the clearness and constraining force of a mathematical demonstration. These multiform, yet perfectly accordant harmonies-myriads in number, with never a jarring note

cannot have been evolved by chance, by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, by automatic forces of nature, by law without a lawgiver, by a (so-called) God who awoke not to self-consciousness till the last, the master chord of the universal lyre was stretched and strung. They can have been struck only by a living, conscious, omniscient, almighty Author; and the ceaseless burden of their melody, the sound that goes out through all the earth, the anthem-note that vibrates through the universe is, "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."

You may think it strange that, at a moment when all hearts are moved by alternate hope and fear for our beloved country, I should have chosen for this evening a subject of abstract thought, rather than one derived from the engrossing interests of our land and age. I reply, that had I chosen my theme with express reference to the present state of

our public affairs, I would have chosen that on which I have discoursed-the divine personality. It is because we, as a people, have not recognized it that we are now involved in this fratricidal war. But Atheism and its equiv alents in science and in political life have one essential point of difference. Science claims for eternal law the sceptre which with impious hand she would snatch from the Eternal God; political tacticians ignore God by denying the supremacy of his law. We, as a people, have grown atheistical in our politics. We have scoffed at the assertion of a higher than human law. We have refused to believe that God rules among the nations. We have dared his retributive providence. We have vainly imagined that we could build our prosperity on concessions of the right and true, of justice and humanity. We have exalted expediency above principle, the voice of the majority above the will of God. We have claimed for inveterate wrong the prescription which is due only to the ordinances of Heaven. We have sown the wind, and not believed that we should reap the whirlwind.

But now the law which we would not honor by our obedience is vindicating itself in our division and desolation. It is the sword of the Righteous Judge before which our young men have fallen in the field. It is the retribution of violated law that has multiplied the widows and the childless in our land. We are now to learn what we would not learn while we dwelt in quietness, that law is co-eternal and co-omnipotent with God, and that neither men nor nations can defy it with impunity. Happy will it be for us, if this heavy chastening bring us back to a living faith in Him who alone ruleth in the kingdoms of men.

Brethren, scholars, students and alumni of this university, you are to be, not only leaders in science and literature, but, by virtue of your superior culture, guides in opinion and action in the great concerns of the state. While in the laws of organized being you recognize the supreme will of himby whose pleasure they are and were ordained, see that you equally own his sole sovereignty as the harmony, hope, and joy of living souls.

ARTICLE III.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.

BY SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, D.D., PROFESSOR IN CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

(Continued from page 550.)

2. WE pass to certain negative objections, which may be briefly despatched.

(i.) It is asserted that a Mosaic authorship is discountenanced by some striking omissions, indicating that documents or trustworthy reminiscences were wanting to the author. Among these are mentioned that no occurrences at the eighteen halting-places between Hazeroth and Kadesh are recorded; that no account is given of the descent or the death of Hur; that the accounts of Jethro are evidently fragmentary, and that there is a blank in the history respecting thirty-eight years in the wilderness. So reasons Dr. Davidson.

This style of objection scarcely calls for serious refutation. (1) There is no end to such demands. Why not fuller narratives of the immense lives of Adam, Methuselah, and other patriarchs; further accounts of Enoch, of Lamech, of Cain, and of Seth; more about Noah and his sons, the early life of Abraham, the pedigree of Melchisedek, additional events in Isaac's life, the history of Jacob and his family while Joseph was in Egypt, and of the four hundred years in Egypt? And so on ad infinitum. (2) It is in all cases preposterous to prescribe to any historian how he shall foreshorten his narrative. (3) The very omissions complained of are proofs of the unity and distinctness of the one writer's plan. He writes the history of God's revelation to his chosen people, and the proceedings preliminary. He carefully excludes foreign matter; and, from the necessity of the case, he gives that history in its salient features, essen

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