heavens declare the glory of God." The more we see of the creation, the grander, the more glorious, the more inspiring becomes our idea of its Creator in his perfections. We believe in God as a perfect Being, because we ourselves are imperfect beings. Out of our imperfection we reach up toward that which is perfect. Out of our knowledge that we ourselves are weak, faulty, sinful, ignorant, comes the conviction that there is a Being who is all that we are not all-powerful, all-righteous, all-holy, all-knowing-in short, a Perfect Being. It is the highest glory of man, that he is able to conceive of such a Being, and believe in him, and learn to love him more and more. give up one's faith in perfect righteousness, perfect justice, perfect knowledge, perfect love, is to give up our noblest trait. But to believe in these is to believe in God, who is the perfect One. Our little systems have their day, They have their day and cease to be; Το Alfred Tennyson. HE wonderful words of this ancient hymn might almost be taken as а summary of men's knowledge of the universe. Everywhere in creation are the signs of God's power and of his constant presence. It could not exist for an instant except for his life which is forever and everywhere poured into it. We are helped to an understanding of this truth by the common things of our experience. The sun's light is falling on all the people in the earth at the same time. Gravitation is restraining the worlds in their orbits at the same time that it is holding down every grain of sand on this globe. The electricity which darts through the solar system when the spots appear upon the sun is precisely the same energy that lights our streets and draws our trolley cars. All the great forces of the creation are everywhere in it. Still more marvelous is the story of the ether which transmits all these forces. It fills all space. It is everywhere at once; and a wave started anywhere in it affects the whole of it. It is the background of all the forces which dart and flash through the cosmos. But if the ether and all the forces of which it is the medium are omnipresent, then the Cause of which they are only the effects, the Power of which they are only the manifestations, must be everywhere, too. Everywhere that the work of God is, the power of God also is, and the wisdom of God and the love of God. All these energies are working for you and for me. God is filling the universe with acts of goodness for his creatures and for his children. Therefore, the universe is filled with the omnipresent love of God. And in every place and before every object we ought to be reverent and worshipful, because we are in the presence of Deity. We talk of those who are dying as "going into the presence of God." But we are wrong in this manner of speech. God is as truly present now as he will ever be, as surely present in things we see to-day as in anything we shall ever see. The Lord is in his Holy Place That stirs the fields of flowers, To hold him through the hours. W. C. Gannett. V. What are the works of God? Heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them. ACTS 17:24. HE Bible is full of reminders that all things visible are the works of God. Jesus pointed out the handiwork of God in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. The psalmist calls the heavens the work of his fingers, the moon and the stars the effect of his decrees, all living creatures works of his hands, and man himself the chief of all God's handiwork. He, therefore, who looks on these things with enlightened understanding, sees them as something that Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Love have combined to create. But with the larger knowledge which we have of these matters to-day, we are obliged to think of what we see as things which God is making before our very eyes. Creation is not something which God has made and done with and left to take care of itself while he goes on to do something else. It is a work which he is still doing. The flower, the tree, the eagle, the chick-a-dee, is a present thought and work of God, and when we look on each one of them we see, not something that God has done, but something he is still at work upon. Nature is God working, thinking, loving. When the sailor at nightfall sees the ray of the lighthouse beam across the waters, he knows that the faithful keeper is tending the flame; and as the light shines steadily or flashes at intervals all night, he knows that some one is watching in the tower incessantly. The light is the sign of a living, waking keeper. So when we look on any of the living things about us and all nature is alive we look on the signs that God is at work, the tokens of a living, thinking, loving Presence. Thou art, O God, the life and light Thomas Moore. |