irrational, the product of fancy, or an heir-loom from tradition. Pseudo-philosophers have done this. He may profess to emancipate himself from these superstitious feelings. But if he succeed, he will only starve his heart; and, in the end, nature will prove too strong for him.* Religion is not a doctrine. merely; it is a life, an integral part of the life of the soul; and without religion, man is a poor deformed creature, more dead than alive. Every organ, deprived of its correlated object, feels after it. There is an effort, a nisus-from which there is no rest. So it is in a man who undertakes to live without God—at least until higher sensibility is paralyzed. In these ways does God give a witness of Himself within us, to disregard which is not less irrational than wicked.

Secondly, Atheism disregards the revelation of God in the structure of the world, the marks of design that everywhere present themselves to the unbiased observer. "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" The mind refuses to believe that the author —the cause of the eye and ear, is itself void of perception. The adaptations of nature exhibit on every hand a contriving mind. The thought of God springs up within us involuntarily, whenever we consider the human frame, or look at any other of the countless examples of design of which the world is full. There is proof of arrangement everywhere. The heart rises in thanks and worship to "Him who alone doeth great wonders;" "to Him that by wisdom made the heavens;" "that stretched out the earth above the waters;" "to Him that made great lights, the sun to rule by day, the moon and stars to rule by night." This evidence of God has impressed the greatest minds of the race-men like Socrates and Cicero-and the humblest minds alike. One would think that a man, knowing by consciousness and observation what the marks and fruits of intelligence are, must have put out his eyes if he fails to discern a plan in the marvelous order of nature. How can an invisible, spiritual being reveal Himself to other minds, if

* If the attempt were made to bring up a child without the exercise on his part of domestic affection, all the propensities and feelings that relate to the family being, as far as practicable, stifled, the experiment would be analogous to that which John Stuart Mill suffered, as regards religion, at the hands of his father.

the works appropriate to intelligence do not inspire a conviction of His presence and agency?*

Nor is the force of this evidence weakened by the doctrine of evolution, unless it is pushed into materialism, in which case it can be overthrown by irrefutable arguments. Suppose it were true that all animals-nay, all living things could be traced back to a single germ, out of which they are developed in pursuance of certain laws or tendencies. Then they were all contained in that germ. Nothing can be e-volved that was not before in-volved. What a marvel that gelatin-or protoplasm --or whatever it be called-in which are shut up all the living things that exist? Who made that germ? Who laid in it the properties the tendency to variation, the tendency to permanence, and the rest-by the operation of which this endless variety, and beauty and order emerge? You see that God is required as much as ever. This new doctrine, whether it be an established truth, or an unverified speculation, strikes at relig ion only when it assumes to deny the existence of mind in the proper sense, and holds that thought is only a function of the brain, perishing with it. That is to say, there is no free, contriving intelligence in man. What is called that, is only a pro

* The argument from final causes in nature is not weakened by our inability to discern, in many cases, what they are, or by mistakes made in presumptuous endeavors to point them out. The objection of Hume to affirming an analogy between works of nature and works of art, is futile, since in respect to design-the feature in both on which the argument turns-the analogy holds. The eye is an instrument employed by a rational being for a purpose; and when we see how it is fitted to this use, we cannot resist the persuasion that it was intended for it. The idea of the organ we discern, as Whewell well puts it: we have in our minds the idea of a final cause, and when we behold the eye, we find our idea exemplifed. This idea, then, governed the construction of the eye, be its efficient causes, the operative agencies that produced it, what they may. Every part of an organized being, also, displays design; for there is no better definition of a living thing than that of Kant, that in it every part is both means and end. Some talk of the "Unknowable," but they contradict themselves by admitting in the same breath that the Unknowable is manifested as the first cause. But this cause is further manifested as intelligent and holy, as a Person. Nothing can be more sophistical, than the remark of Spencer, that could the watch, in Paley's illustration, think, it would judge its Creator to be like itself, a watch. Could the watch think, it would be rational, and would then reason like other rational beings, and conclude that the artificer of such a product as itself must have designed it beforehand,—that is to say, must be a mind.

duct of the movement of a blind, unintelligent force. Then, of course, we cannot conclude that there is a free intelligence any. where. But materialism is not less fatal to morals than relig ion, for it annihilates responsibility. In truth, it is fatal to the higher life of man. It gives the lie to consciousness which testifies to our freedom, and our guilt for wrong choices. It destroys the difference between truth and error in mental perception; for both are equally the result of the molecular action of the brain. It destroys science, for the molecular movement by which science is thought out, may at any time change its form, and give rise to conclusions utterly diverse. There is no end to the absurdities of materialism; a doctrine which can be maintained only by a disregard of phenomena, the reality and proper significance of which no reasonable person can call in question. Let scientific exploration be carried to the farthest bound-it will never be able to dispense with God. It is plain that the world is a cosmos-a beautiful order. It came to be such by the operation of forces moving steadily towards this end; for anything like accident, or properly fortuitous events, science can never admit. The world is the necessary product of the agencies, be they few or many, near or remote, that gave rise to it. The time occupied in the process is a point irrelevant; were it a billion, or ten billions of years, a moment's thought transports us to the beginning, and the whole problem. stares us in the face. There is a plan; rational ends have been reached by adaptations and arrangements; and thus God is revealed.*

*The statements made above are corroborated, it would seem, by remarks of Professor Huxley, who says: "The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are, not necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are consequences; the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." Quoted in Jackson's Philosophy of Natural Theology, p. 136. On the Relation of Evolution to Theism and Teleology, see the excellent remarks of Dr. A. Gray, in his lately published work, Darwiniana-(New York: 1876), which I have read since this Sermon was written. The only refuge from teleology is in the doctrine of an eternal sequence of causes and effects, a notion which, as Dr. Gray says, แ no sane man" will perma

Thirdly, the folly of Atheism appears in its failure to discern the revelation of God in the history of mankind. It ignores, also, the God of Providence. The history of mankind is not a chaotic jumble of occurrences, but an orderly sequence where one set of events prepares for another, and where rational ends are wrought out by means adapted to them. There is a divine plan stamped upon history:

"-thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs."

And, irrespective of this plan, the records of the past, it has been well said, have little more interest for us than the battles of crows and daws. There is a design connected with history: it is not an aimless course of events—a stream having no issue —a meaningless succession, or cycle of phenomena. Now the Atheist shuts his eyes to the evident traces of a providential guidance and control of the world's affairs. It is chance, he says; or if there is law, it is law without a law-giver. That moral government which appears in the prosperity accorded to righteousness, and in the penalties that overtake iniquity

Dently hold. Such a notion is equivalent to a denial of all real causation, since the eternal regress can never bring us to the thing sought,—a real cause which is not itself an effect. The principle of causation, as a subjective conviction, or demand of the intelligence, involves the belief in the reality of such a first cause.

As to the question of the origin of man, it is evident, in the first place, that we are, on one side of our being, composed of matter. This is an undeniable fact. What is the origin of this material part? It may be supposed that it was created outright, in the organized human form, by a fiat of the Almighty, when the first man was called into being. This is one supposition. Another is that man was made out of the "dust of the earth"-out of pre-existing inorganic matter. This is the mode of conception in the Biblical writers. See Gen. iii, 19, Ps. xc, 3, civ, 29, cxlvi, 4, Job x, 9, Eccl. iii, 20. Or, thirdly, it may be supposed that man was made out of previously existing organized matter--developed from a lower class of animal beings, either by easy gradations (according to the Darwinian creed), or per sultum. If by slow gradations, the proposition amounts to this, that beings intermediate between man and the existing lower animals, once lived on the earth. This remains to be proved; it is an open question. Neither of these hypotheses necessarily denies the reality of the higher endowments of man. They impinge upon the Christian system only when they are connected with a denial of the distinctive qualities of man as a spiritual being-his free and responsible nature. Precisely how and when he received from the Creator this higher nature-the quomodo-is a question, however interesting, of secondary importance. It is only materialism—or, what is equivalent, a monism which identifies soul and bodythat cannot cohere with the truths of religion.

that sublime manifestation of justice through all the annals of mankind-declares the presence of a just God. The minds of men, when unperverted by false speculation, instinctively feel that God reigns, whenever they behold these providential allotments. It is necessary to stifle the voice of nature, and to resort to some far-fetched, unsatisfactory solution of the matter, in order to avoid this impression. In this way, the conscience of mankind convicts Atheism of folly.

Fourthly, Atheism discerns not the revelation of God in Christ. God is manifest in the flesh. I waive all discussion of the Bible, its authority, and inspiration. The character of Jesus disclosed in the Gospel record could never have been imagined; it vouches for its own reality, and thus for the history in and through which it is made known to us. In Christ there is a manifestation of God. The power that actuates him is not of the earth and not of man. The righteousness and love of the Father are reflected as in an image. The Father is known through the Son. In his face we behold the Invisible.* His soul is obviously in uninterrupted communion with the Father. When he quits the world, he says: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Was there no ear to hear that voice? Was it lost in boundless space, obtaining no response? Then, verily,

"The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

Then let us draw a pall over life, with its flickering joys, soon to be quenched in eternal night. All that is most elevated, all that is most consoling, all that raises our destiny above that of the brutes that perish, is built on illusion! There is no grand future, no serene hereafter, where the longing soul shall have its profoundest aspirations met in the fellowship of the spiritual world, and in the everlasting dominion of truth and righteousness. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The senses, at least, do not mock us. The pleasure that they give is real, as far as it goes.

* This impression was actually made on those most intimately associated with Him. See John i, 14, xiv, 9, Matt. xvi, 16.