•^^x**vi 
 
 ^l Wit ®l»w%tar ^^ 
 
 «% 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J- 
 
 % 
 
 BS 650 .M32 1885 
 
 "f^'?il^an Hugh, 1833-1903. 
 
 Bible teachings in nature 
 
 S/iel/.. 
 
BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE 
 
BIBLE TEACHINGS 
 IN NATURE. 
 
 / BY 
 
 HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ministry OF NATURE," "THE TRUE VINE," &C. &C. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 iSSr;. 
 
 The Right of Translalion and Reproduction is Rese)~ved. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 Richard Clay and Sons, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL, E.C. 
 
'■ — -<»- — . * 
 DEC 7 lSu5 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 One of the most distinctive features of the present 
 day is the general taste for grand and beautiful 
 scenery. Nature is now loved for her own sake, 
 apart from all her uses to man. Not only poets 
 and painters, but society as a whole, recognise the 
 fact that the world owes its picturesqueness to its 
 waste places. It has been discovered that a moun- 
 tain is something more than a mere huge heap of 
 earth and rock — and that a lake mirrors in its 
 waters other and greater beauty than that of the 
 surrounding landscape. The terror of the volcano, 
 and the grandeur of the snow-peak, when mingled 
 with the smiles of warm regions flushed with corn 
 and wine, are now felt to make a Divine harmony. 
 Only an age like ours, amid all its Utilitarianism, 
 could find with Ruskin its highest ideal of an 
 earthly paradise on the slopes of a great snow 
 Alp, bright below with the green of torest and 
 pasture, and sublime above with the purple of 
 beetling precipice, and the silver of virgin summit. 
 seven times purified in the fires of Heaven. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Closely connected with this general love of 
 scenery is a wide-spread appreciation of nature — 
 not as a mere frame-work of circumstances — hut as 
 " a chamber of imagery," as a system of types 
 and symbols for the education of the immortal 
 spirit. Scripture and science, after a severe and 
 prolonged contest, are now happily reconciled ; and 
 both are found to be mutually helpful in illustrat- 
 ing the works and ways of God. This fair earth 
 is recognised to be a mighty parable — a glorious 
 Shechinah. Its manifold forms and hues are the 
 outer folds, the waving skirts and fringes, of that 
 garment of light in which the Invisible has robed 
 His mysterious loveliness. There is not a leaf, nor 
 a flower, nor a dewdrop, but bears His image, and 
 reveals to us far deeper things of God than do 
 final causes or evidences of design. The whole face 
 of nature, to him who can read it aright, is covered 
 with celestial types and hieroglyphics, marked, like 
 the dial-plate of a watch, with significant intima- 
 tions of the objects and processes of the world 
 unseen. The Bible discloses all this to us. It not 
 only gives us ^le knowledge of salvation, but re- 
 veals to us the spiritual source of the physical 
 world ; shows to us that the supernatural is not 
 antagonistic to the constitution of nature, but is 
 the eternal source of it. The miracles of the Bible 
 are not only emblems of power in the spiritual 
 world, but also exponents of the miracles of nature 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 — experiments, as it were, made by the Great 
 Teacher in person, on :\. small scale and within a 
 limited time, to illustrate to mankind the pheno- 
 mena that are taking place over longer periods 
 throughout the universe. All creation is a stand- 
 ing wonder ; but it needs other wonders to reveal 
 it to our careless eyes and insensible hearts. It 
 needs the sudden multiplication of the loaves and 
 fishes at Capernaum to explain to us the mystery 
 of the harvest of the land and the sea. It needs 
 the miracle of Cana to show to us who it is that 
 is gradually converting water into wine in every 
 vineyard. It needs the virtue flowing from the hem 
 of Christ's garment at the touch of faith, to dis- 
 close to us the source and the meaning of the 
 medicinal virtue stored up, for bodies blighted by 
 the curse, in many a soothing anodyne, and many 
 a healing balm. It needs the destruction of the 
 walls of Jericho by the trumpet-blast to convince 
 us that the seen is governed by the unseen — that 
 the mountain must yield to the action of cold and 
 heat — and the stable rock and massive castle, in 
 the course of years, be weathered away and dis- 
 mantled stone by stone by the subtle invisible 
 forces of the air. It needs the calming of the 
 stormy waters of Gennesaret to satisfy us that the 
 powers of nature — which seem so arbitrary, so de- 
 structive, so purely physical — are held in leash by 
 Him who maintains the constant beneficent circula- 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 tion of the elements. The philosophy of miracles is, 
 therefore, just the revelation of the living God as 
 the God of nature ; the revelation of God, not as vio- 
 lating, but as maintaining the order of His world ; 
 a revelation sudden and startling, to show to us 
 what could not be shown so effectually in any 
 other way — what His hand is daily doing for the 
 beautifying and glorifying of the earth and of life. 
 As Mr. Westcott says in his thoughtful work on 
 Miracles, " The order of the universe has a spiritual 
 root. The purpose of love which changes is also the 
 purpose of love which directs it. He who can bind 
 and loose the forces of nature has thus revealed the 
 eternal purpose in which they originate." 
 
 As the miracles thus teach us the significance of 
 the forces of the universe, so the parables teach us 
 the meaning of the forms of creation. The one 
 may be regarded as experiments in sacred natural 
 philosophy ; the other as lessons in sacred natural 
 science. The one " strikes again the key-note of 
 the world's order, and tunes again the concords of 
 the lower spheres ; " the other joins again, in a 
 Divine harmonious union, what man has put asunder, 
 and shows that these twain — the natural and the 
 supernatural — are one. The parables of Jesus are 
 not, as some suppose, mere arbitrary illustrations of 
 nature, but actual translations, literal interpretations, 
 of nature's own language. In them He does not give 
 us ideas new and fresh from heaven ; but expounds 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 and enables us to understand the old ideas which 
 nature has been endeavouring, in her own dumb inar- 
 ticulate language of signs, to teach us since she was 
 created. Just as in His Hteral discourses Jesus rather 
 expounded the Word than added to it, rather eluci- 
 dated former prophecies than uttered new ones ; so 
 in the parables He rather removes the veil from the 
 material universe, than gives us a new revelation — 
 rather enables us to apprehend old symbols, than 
 supplies us with new ones. He could say in regard 
 to His explanations of both the Bible and nature — 
 " My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." 
 He shed light upon nature, as He shed light upon 
 the Bible — upon the works as upon the Word of 
 God ; and proved that every natural fact is a symbol 
 of some spiritual fact ; that every object of creation 
 is the shadow of some important moral truth. 
 
 In the incarnation of the Son of God we have the 
 connecting link between the seen and the unseen ; the 
 ladder set upon earth whose top reaches to heaven. 
 St. John represents Emanuel as seated on the throne 
 in the midst of the four cherubim or living creatures 
 — full of eyes before and behind. These are the 
 symbols of creation present in the holy place on 
 earth, and in the holiest of all — in heaven ; and the 
 eyes before and behind look forward and look back 
 to Him as types of the Great Antitype, to whom 
 all nature had a reference, from the first atom that 
 appeared in the mineral kingdom up through all the 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 stages of organization and life to man. Every object 
 in nature speaks of Him. The mineral kingdom 
 reveals His stability, for " He is the Rock of our 
 salvation" — the Foundation of our hope; the vege- 
 table kingdom exhibits His beauty, for " He. is the 
 Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the valley ; " the 
 animal kingdom shadows forth His strength and self- 
 sacrificing innocence, for " He is the Lion of the tribe 
 of Judah, and the Lamb of God which taketh away 
 the sin of the world." The sun declares His glory, for 
 " He is the Sun of righteousness ;" the stars proclaim 
 His effulgence, for "He is the bright and the morn- 
 ing Star." All the objects of nature have but a sym- 
 bolical or concealed meaning ; they are, in the words 
 of St. Paul, (TKia Twv /jbeWovToiv dyadcov — a shadow of 
 good things to come — while the a&fia, the body, is 
 of Christ. He is the very (verus) or true (o dXrjOivo'q) 
 Bread ; He is the very or tnie Vine ; He is the very 
 or true Light which lighteth every man that cometh 
 into the world. The vine, the bread, the light, as 
 we are familiar with them in daily life, are but sub- 
 ordinate realizations, partial and imperfect anticipa- 
 tions, of the " truth that came by Jesus Christ." These 
 are imperfect types ; He is the perfect reality : these 
 are shadowy outlines ; He is the substance and the 
 body. He realizes in the deepest, fullest, widest 
 sense all that the vine, and the bread, and the light 
 imply. He is their highest ideal — their truth in its 
 highest form, in its ripest and completest develop- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 nient. The utilitarian purposes which bread, and 
 light, and the vine perform are thus secondary and 
 subordinate to their spiritual purposes ; or rather their 
 uses in the economy of nature and man help to com- 
 plete their typical significance, as emblems of Him 
 who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, 
 and to give His life a ransom for many. The grand 
 idea of all creation is, therefore, the glorifying of the 
 Son of God and the Son of man, by whom creation 
 came into existence. "All things are gathered to- 
 gether in one in Christ ; both those which are in the 
 heavens, and those which are on the earth, even in 
 Him." All things are but uttering one prophecy; 
 all are but one grand united type of Him who is 
 the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 image of His person, and yet the firstborn of every 
 creature, for He is before all things, and in Him all 
 things consist; for in Him "creation and the Creator 
 meet in reality and not in semblance ;" and in Him 
 all the fulness of the Godhead and the fulness of 
 creation dwell bodily.* 
 
 Such, then, is the meaning of Nature as revealed 
 by Christ. Science has done much in these days to 
 convince us of the reality of an unseen and eternal 
 world. Its various discoveries are so many stepping- 
 stones, as it were, from the visible to the invisible. 
 The Bible precept which commands us to " look not 
 at the things that are seen, but at the things that are 
 
 * See Dr. Balfour's admirable "Typical Character of Nature." 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 not seen ; for the things that are seen are temporal, 
 but the things that are not seen are eternal," — a pre- 
 cept which, from its very familiarity, has lost much of 
 the power of truth, — is confirmed by the abundant evi- 
 dence and the striking illustrations of modern science. 
 The discovery that our forests, cornfields, and coal- 
 beds are the solid precipitations of unseen carbonic acid 
 gas in the atmosphere ; that the work of the world 
 is carried on by the unseen force of steam, and the 
 messages of the world delivered by the fleet-footed 
 but invisible Mercury of electricity ; that our bodies 
 are the visible tabernacles of unseen elements, con- 
 tinually going and coming in the waste and repair of 
 our tissues; that the "everlasting" mountains "change 
 their shapes, and flow from form to form," being the 
 mere ephemeral embodiments of forces and substances 
 which circulate in an unseen state throughout the 
 world ; that in the very light which makes all things 
 visible there is an invisible soul, as it were — a colour- 
 less ray — most powerful in its eff"ects, and yet, 
 strange to say, only to be detected by the sense of 
 touch ;— the discovery of all these things is surely a 
 most striking proof of the truth of the lesson con- 
 veyed by the Bible on almost every page: that the 
 objects of faith are the only realities ; that the unseen 
 is the true; that "the essence and meaning of all things 
 are hidden from our natural sight." The revelations 
 of the microscope at the one extreme of life's chain, 
 and the revelations of the telescope at the other, by 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 immeasurably extending the realms of the invisible, 
 add their own wonderful emphasis to the Scripture 
 injunction, to seek behind and beyond the visible 
 and the tangible the secret of our being — its true 
 aim and end ; to walk by that faith which is the 
 substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
 things not seen ; and to endure as seeing Him who 
 is the invisible. So, too, poets and artists teach us 
 by their beautiful idealizations that the objects around 
 us are not mere objects of sense, but are impressed 
 with a spiritual glory and life. Poetry anoints our 
 blind eyes with its own wonder-working eye-salve, 
 and shows us "men, as trees walking;" shows us 
 the beautiful Daphne, transformed in the fragrant 
 Mezereon of spring, and the vain Narcissus in the 
 graceful lily that bends admiringly to see its own 
 lair form in the stream ; shows to us the Hamadryad 
 in the birch-tree, combing its perfumed tresses with 
 milk-white hands ; and the Naiad, laughing in the 
 sparkle and murmur of the blue-eyed fountain ; and 
 in everything something superior to itself and akin 
 to our own nature — something to love as well as to 
 admire. It brings back to our material age the 
 " fair humanities of old religion ; " teaches us that 
 the mythologies of Greece and Rome were the dis- 
 torted shadows of something purer than themselves 
 — that they demonstrated the existence of a spiritual 
 v-'orld which is not a falsehood, but a solemn and 
 enduring reality. And by thus connecting the objects 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 and scenes of our daily life with that invisible world 
 of which our spirits are the inhabitants even now, 
 Poetry gives us that partial enlightenment, which 
 it needs the miraculous touch of Christ's own hand 
 to complete, enabling us in His light to see light 
 clearly. So, too, agriculture, though the most mate- 
 rial of all our pursuits, is teaching us truths beyond 
 its own direct province. The drained morass, the 
 reclaimed waste, the conversion of the thorny wilder- 
 ness into the fertile meadow or the golden cornfield, 
 speak of God's husbandry in the sphere of soul. The 
 sources of security that are multiplying every day 
 against famine, in the varieties of climate, soil, and 
 altitude that are being cultivated all over the globe, 
 and whose produce is widely disseminated by trade 
 and commerce, are not only materially useful, but 
 have also a spiritual design in preparing the way of the 
 Lord upon the earth. " Then shall the earth yield her 
 increase ; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. 
 God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth 
 shall fear Him." In short, everything preaches to us, 
 and convinces us, that the more our eyes are spiritu- 
 ally opened, the more clearly shall we discern in all 
 things the tokens of a glory which is not all of earth. 
 In every sunset we shall see the vision of the New 
 Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, 
 prepared as a bride adorned for her husband ; its 
 jewelled walls and golden streets shining in the mar- 
 vellous shapes and far-stretching vistas of the radiant 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 clouds ; and its light — like unto a stone most precious, 
 even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal — in that 
 pure, unsullied gleam that lingers on the vv^estern 
 hills when all the sky has grown cold, and all the 
 earth dark and dumb, and that seems like an open- 
 ing in the narrow rim of our horizon into infinity. 
 In every spring we shall have a mysterious fore- 
 shadowing of the resurrection of the body, and the 
 life everlasting. Its bursting buds and quickening 
 roots will speak of the awakening after death ; and 
 the unspeakable yearnings — the thoughts too deep 
 for tears — all the sadness of the past, that come to 
 us in the long ethereal gloaming, when the spring- 
 day is lingering with half-closed eyes amid its nei^'- 
 found treasures, loth to leave them, will be like the 
 fiutterings of the spirit's wings within us, anxious, 
 yet unwilling, to flee away to its true home and be 
 at rest. 
 
 In the following chapters I have endeavoured to 
 show that the teaching of nature and the teaching 
 of the Bible are directed to the same great end ; 
 that the Bible contains the spiritual truths which 
 ai'e necessarj' to make us wise unto salvation, and 
 the objects and scenes of nature are the pictures by 
 which these truths are illustrated. I have here only 
 plucked a few stray ears from a rich and golden field 
 of promise ; brought back only a few clusters to 
 show the abundance of the land. I present them 
 in this form in the hope that others may be in- 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 duced to study a department of knowledge which is 
 calculated to yield much true enjoyment, to refine 
 and purify the nature, and to exalt our conception of 
 God, as revealed both in His Word and works. 
 
 I may observe that the lessons of nature in this 
 volume have been gathered at random in different 
 fields of natural science. There is no apparent unity 
 or coherence between the chapters. This arises from 
 the fact that they were originally written at intervals, 
 and without any intention of publishing them in a 
 collected form. Though the subjects treated, how- 
 ever, are diverse, the objects and design of them all 
 are the same. In this humble temple, made with 
 feeble hands, doth every one speak of His glory. 
 And this circumstance will, I trust, give the various 
 papers that artistic, if not organic, unity and con- 
 gruity which, as a mere collection of miscellanies, they 
 would lack. 
 
 The book may be said to be divided into two 
 parts ; the first more distinctively objective : the 
 second more distinctively subjective. In the first 
 section the objects of nature are described for the 
 sake of their own beauty and wonder, and for the 
 evidences of Divine wisdom, power, and love which 
 they display. In the second section they are viewed 
 entirely in their typical aspect. The first eight 
 chapters describe, as it were, the exterior appearance 
 of nature's temple — the gorgeous, many-coloured 
 curtain hanging before the shrine. The last seven 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 chapters bring us into the interior — the holy place, 
 where is seen the very core of symbolical ordinances, 
 and the mercy-seat is put above, upon the ark, and 
 in the ark is the testimony that God hath given. Let 
 me hope that the porch and the adytum to which it 
 leads will be found to be homologous, both alike 
 declaring the workm.anship and the glory of the Great 
 Architect of heaven and earth. 
 
 The texts prefixed to the chapters are but a few 
 specimens of many unfamiliar Bible-words that are 
 full of suggestive thought. They are not treated in 
 the form of textual expositions, but in the form of 
 illustrative meditations ; and this mode of treatment 
 warrants a greater exercise of fancy and a freer 
 use of the law of association than would be proper in 
 pure sermons. Texts such as have been thus selected 
 from the inexhaustible mine of truth remind us of 
 those singular formations which often occur in rocks, 
 called Drusic Cavities. You pick up a rough, ordi- 
 nary-looking stone, of a somewhat round shape ; there 
 is nothing specially attractive or interesting about it. 
 You split it open with a hammer, and what a mar- 
 vellous sight is displayed ! The common-place boulder 
 is a hollow sphere, lined with the most beautiful 
 crystals, amethysts purple with a dawn that never 
 was on land or sea. And so it is with many a 
 familiar Bible text, when we examine it prayerfully 
 and diligently. Its interior aspect, when broken up 
 by study and experience, is widely different from the 
 
 b 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 appearance which it presents outside to the careless, 
 superficial reader. May we so prove God's Word by 
 prayer and meditation, and holy living ; that it may 
 be to us that wisdom which cannot be valued with 
 the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the 
 sapphire ; whose price is above rubies ! And may 
 we so study God's works in the light of that Word, 
 that they may be to us not " as is a landscape to 
 a dead man's eye" — seeing, and yet not perceivings 
 hearing, and yet not understanding — but delightfully 
 suggestive of the Unseen and Eternal In the heavens I 
 
 " How best unfold 
 The secrets of another world, perhaps 
 Not lawful to reveal ? Yet for thy good 
 This is dispensed ; and what surmounts the reach 
 Of human sense I shall delineate so, 
 By likening spiritual to corporeal forms, 
 As may express them oest ; mougn what if eartli 
 Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
 Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ? " 
 
 H. M. 
 
 February, 1S67 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 PLEIADES AND ORION X 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ICE-MORSELS 27 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 GRASS , ^r 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TREES OF THE LORD 65 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 CORN 50 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BLASTING AND M 1 1,DEVV > . . »o8 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE LEAF . . . . 130 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH .... ,,,,.. I52 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE iTINE AND ITS BRANCHES 174 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FADING LEAVES , . . . , . IQI 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ROOa" OUT OF A DRY GROUND , . .210 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AGATE WINDOWS . 232 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS 25 1 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES 269 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "NO MORE sea" . . 291 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY, OR RETROGRESSION AN ESSENTIAL 
 
 ELEMENT OF PROGRESS 312 
 
BIBLE TEACHINGS 
 IN NATURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PLEIADES AND ORION. 
 
 '■' Canst thou bind the stvcct influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands 
 of Orion] " — Job xxxviii. 31. 
 
 It is impossible for those who have never visited the 
 o-lowing East to form an adequate idea of the exceed- 
 ing beauty of an Oriental night. The sky — which 
 bends enamoured over clusters of graceful palm-trees 
 fringing some slow-moving stream, or groves of dark 
 motionless cypresses rising up like Gothic spires from 
 the midst of white flat-roofed villages — is of the 
 deepest, darkest purple, unstained by the faintest film 
 of vapour, undimmed by a single fleecy cloud. It is 
 the very image of purity and peace, idealizing the 
 dull earth with its beauty, elevating sense into the 
 sphere of soul, and suggesting thoughts and yearnings 
 too tender and ethereal to be invested with human 
 language. Through its transparent depths the eye 
 wanders dreamily upwards until it loses itself on the 
 threshold of other worlds. Over the dark mountain 
 ranges, the lonely moon walks in brightness, clothing 
 the landscape with the pale glories of a mimic day ; 
 while the zodiacal light, far more distinct and vivid 
 than it is ever seen in this country, diffuses a mild 
 1/ ^ 
 
2 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 pyramidal radiance above the horizon, hke the after- 
 glow of sunset. Constellations, tremulous with excess 
 of brightness, sparkle in the heavens, associated with 
 classical myths and legends which are a mental in- 
 heritance to every educated man from his earliest 
 years. There the ship Argo sails over the trackless 
 upper ocean in search of the golden tieece of Colchis ; 
 there Perseus, returning from the conquest of the 
 Gorgons, holds in his hand the terrible head of 
 Medusa ; there the virgin Andromeda, chained naked 
 to the rock, awaits in agony the approach of the 
 devouring monster ; there the luxuriant yellow hair 
 of Berenice hangs suspended as a votive offering to 
 Venus; while the dim misty track formed by the 
 milk that dropped from Juno's breast, and which, as it 
 fell upon the earth, changed the lilies from purple to 
 a snowy whiteness, extends across the heavens, like 
 the ghost of a rainbow. Conspicuous among them 
 all, far up towards the zenith, old Orion, with his 
 blazing belt, meets the admiring eye, suggestive of 
 gentle memories and kind thoughts of home ; while 
 immediately beyond it is seen the familiar cluster 
 of the Pleiades, or Seven Stars, glittering and quiver- 
 ing with radiance in the amethystine ether, like a 
 breastplate of jewels — the Urim and Thummim of 
 the Eternal. 
 
 We can imagine the patriarch Job gazing on this 
 magnificent spectacle at midnight from some lonely 
 spot on the plains of Chaldea.* Sorrow has banished 
 
 * The locality of Uz is uncertain. Spanheim, Rosenmiiller, and 
 other eminent authorities place it in the region of tlie Euphrates; and 
 I am inclined to adopt their decision. 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 3 
 
 sleep from his eyes ; doubt and despondency, arising 
 from the seeming inconsistencies of Providence, have 
 driven him forth from his dwelhng to seek the calm 
 solace of Nature. He feels himself enclosed as it 
 were in a blind glen, from which no way of escape 
 appears, surrounded on every side by dark frowning 
 mountains of mystery, with no golden gleam of hope 
 in the western horizon ; and, thus disquieted, he is 
 tremulous like an aspen leaf to all the influences of 
 the hour and scene. The night-wind moans in the 
 acacia-trees beside him, and bathes his hot brow with 
 its refreshing coolness. The Euphrates, mirror-like, 
 glimmers far away, reflecting on its unquiet waters 
 the steadfast stars, and filling the drowsy air with its 
 monotonous murmurs. All around him stretch the 
 boundless Mesopotamian plains, clothed with the 
 strangest lights and shadows from the m3'stical moon- 
 light. Suddenly his sad meditations are disturbed by 
 an extraordinary appearance. The sky in the east 
 becomes lurid and heavy ; the moon loses its splen- 
 dour, and assumes a violet colour ; the stars disap- 
 pear; the whole desert seems to move ; clouds of sand, 
 impelled by the fury of the deadly simocm, rush past. 
 A voice issues from the bosom of the tempest, which 
 thrills his soul with dread and awe. It is the voice 
 of God. In gracious condescension, the Sovereign 
 and Judge of the universe appears, to admonish the 
 querulous mistrust and resolve the painful doubts of 
 His servant. He passes His varied and wonderful 
 works in review before the patriarch ; and challenges 
 him to answer His questions concerning the common 
 appearances and processes of nature before attempting 
 
 b 2 
 
4 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 to fathom the secrets of Providence, or object to the 
 wisdom and goodness of its Upholder. From the 
 mysteries of animal and vegetable life, from the 
 phenomena of inorganic nature as displayed in this 
 world, He directs Job's attention to the glorious page 
 of heaven unfolded overhead — alive with clustering 
 constellations, whose bright destinies move at an infi- 
 nite altitude above the petty waves of time, and whose 
 passionless purity and eternal peace seem to mock 
 the fever of his soul. Often, perchance, while tending 
 with his shepherds his numerous flocks on the plains 
 where science was born, had he gazed on these mag' 
 nificent orbs — watched their mysterious movements — 
 their risings and settings, as they indicated on the 
 great dial of heaven the hours of eternity, and lost 
 himself in conjectures as to their nature, their dis- 
 tance, and their use. But never did he gaze upon 
 them with such interest as now ; for the Spirit of God 
 has invested them with a new and profounder mean- 
 ing. They become hieroglyphics of the moral as well 
 as the physical world. They not only speak to him 
 of the power and faithfulness of God, but they also 
 show to him in a figure — enable him to see as in a 
 glass darkly — the design and uses of affliction. They 
 symbolize to him the great truth that, as the beams 
 of the sun which reveal distinctly insect and leaf 
 blind us to the countless orbs of heaven, so the day- 
 light of prosperity, while it shows us clearly the 
 trifling and perishing things of the earth, conceals 
 from our view the glories of the spiritual and eternal 
 world ; and if light can thus obscure and deceive, 
 why may not the night of trial and death which we 
 
1.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 5 
 
 so much dread ? They teach him silently, but elo- 
 quently and impressively, that in all the darknesses 
 of the human sky, in sleep, in night, in sorrow, and 
 in death, starry glimpses may be obtained of a Divine 
 light and love so great that the darkness mercifully 
 covers it in its fulness from weak mortal eyes. And 
 thus, soothed into a better frame by the gracious teach- 
 ings of the stars, the Divine question, " Canst thou 
 bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the 
 bands of Orion ? " needs no answer. The patriarch 
 has felt in his inmost soul the full power of the rebuke, 
 " Be still, and know that I am God ; " and now lies 
 quiet and hushed like a weaned child in the Ever- 
 lasting Arms. 
 
 The isolated group of the " Seven Stars." from the 
 singularity of its appearance, has been distinguished 
 and designated by an appropriate name from the ear- 
 liest ages. The learned priests of Belus carefully 
 observed its risings and settings nearly two thousand 
 years before the Christian era. By the Greeks it was 
 called Pleiades, from the word plecin, to sail, because 
 it indicated the time when the sailor might hope to 
 undertake a voyage with safety ; it was also called 
 V^ergiliae, from ver, the spring, because it ushered in the 
 mild vernal weather favourable to farming and pastoral 
 employments. The Greek poets associated it with that 
 beautiful mythology which, in its purest form, peopled 
 the air, the woods, and the waters with imaginary 
 beings, and made the sky itself a concave mirror, 
 from which came back exaggerated ideal reflections 
 of humanity. The Seven Stars were supposed to be 
 the seven daughters of Atlas, by Pleione — one of the 
 
6 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 Oceanides — placed in the heavens after death. Their 
 names are Alcyone, Merope, Maia, Electra, Taygeta, 
 Sterope, and Celeno. They were all united to the 
 immortal gods, with the exception of Merope, who 
 married Sisyphus, king of Corinth, and whose star, 
 therefore, is dim and obscure among her sisters. The 
 "lost Pleiad," the "sorrowing Merope," has long been 
 a favourite shadowy creation of the poetic dream. 
 
 But an interest deeper than any derived from my- 
 thical association or classical allusion, is connected 
 with this group of stars by the use made of it in 
 Scripture. I believe that in the apparently simple and 
 passing allusion to it in Job, lies hid the germ of one 
 of the greatest of physical truths — a germ lying dor- 
 mant and concealed in the pages of Scripture for ages, 
 but now brought into air and sunlight by the disco- 
 veries of science, and developing flowers and fruit of 
 rare value and beauty. As an eminent Professor has 
 well remarked: "There are glories in the Bible, on 
 which the eye of man has not gazed sufficiently long 
 to admire them ; there are difficulties, the depth and 
 inwardness of which require a measure of the same 
 qualities in the interpreter himself There are notes 
 struck in places, which, like some discoveries of science, 
 have sounded before their time, and only after many 
 days been caught up, and found a response on the 
 earth. There are germs of truth which, after thou- 
 sands of years, have never yet taken root in the world." 
 The question at the head of this paper contains a 
 remarkable example of one of these far-reaching and 
 anticipative truths. If our translators have correctly 
 identified the group of stars to which they have given 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 7 
 
 the familiar name of Pleiades — and we have every 
 reason to confide in their fidelity— we have a striking 
 proof here afforded to us of the perfect harmony that 
 exists between the revelations of science and those of 
 the Bible— the one illustrating and confirming the 
 other. We know not what progress the Chaldeans 
 may have made in astronomical discovery at this early 
 period ; but it is not at all likely that the great truth 
 in question was known to Job— unless, indeed, specially 
 revealed to him, in order to enlarge his apprehensions 
 of the wisdom and power of the Creator. So far as 
 ne was concerned, the question, " Canst thou bind the 
 sweet influences of Pleiades?" might have referred 
 solely to what was then the common belief— viz. that 
 the genial weather of spring was somehow caused by 
 the peculiar position of the Pleiades in the sky at 
 that season ; as if God had simply said, " Canst thou 
 hinder or retard the spring .?" It remained for modern 
 science to make a grander and wider application of it, 
 and to show in this, as in other instances, that the 
 Bible is so framed as to expand its horizon with the 
 march of discovery— that the requisite stability of 
 a moral rule is, in it, most admirably combined with 
 the capability of movement and progress. If we 
 examine the text in the original, we find that the 
 Chaldaic word translated in our version Pleiades is 
 Chiviah, meaning literally a hinge, pivot, or axle, 
 which turns round and moves other bodies along with 
 it. Now, strange to say, the group of stars thus 
 characterised has recently been ascertained, by a 
 series of independent calculations — in utter ignorance 
 of the meaning of the text— to be actuallv the hinge 
 
BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 or axle round which the solar system revolves. It 
 was long known as one of the most elementary truths 
 of astronomy, that the earth and the planets revolve 
 around the sun ; but the question recently began to 
 be raised among astronomers, " Does the sun stand 
 still, or does it move round some other object in 
 space, carrying its train of planets and their satellites 
 along with it in its ordit ,'"' Attention being thus 
 specially directed to this subject, it was soon found 
 that the sun had an appreciable motion, which tended 
 in the direction of a lily-shaped group of small stars, 
 called the constellation of Hercules. Towards this 
 constellation, the stars seem to be opening out ; while 
 at the opposite point of the sky their mutual dis- 
 tances are apparently diminishing — as if they were 
 drifting away, like the foaming wake of a ship, from 
 the sun's course. 
 
 When this great physical truth was established 
 beyond the possibility of doubt, the next subject of 
 investigation was the point, or centre round which the 
 sun performed this marvellous revolution ; and after 
 a series of elaborate observations and most ingenious 
 calculations, this intricate problem was also satisfac- 
 torily solved — one of the greatest triumphs of human 
 genius. M. Madler, of Dorpat, found that Alcyone, 
 the brightest star of the Pleiades, is the centre of 
 gravity of our vast solar system — the luminous Jiitige 
 in the heavens round which our sun and his atten- 
 dant planets are moving through space. The very 
 complexity and isolation of the system of the Pleiades, 
 exhibiting seven distinct orbs closely compressed to 
 the naked eye, but nine or ten times that nuuibtr 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 9 
 
 when seen through a telescope — forming a grand 
 cluster, whose individuals are united to each other 
 more closely than to the general mass of stars — indi- 
 cate the amazing attractive energy that must be con- 
 centrated in that spot. Vast as is the distance which 
 separates our sun from this central group — a distance 
 thirty-four millions of times greater than the distance 
 between the sun and our earth — yet so tremendous 
 is the force exerted by Alcyone, that it draws our 
 system irresistibly around it at the rate of 422,000 
 miles a day, in an orbit which it will take many 
 thousands of years to complete. With this new expla- 
 nation, how remarkably striking and appropriate does 
 the original word for Pleiades appear ! What a lofty 
 significance does the question of the Almighty receive 
 from this interpretation ! " Canst thou bind the sweet 
 influences of Pleiades .''" Canst thou arrest, or in any 
 degree modify, that attractive influence which it exert'-; 
 upon our sun and all its planetary worlds, whirling 
 them round its pivot in an orbit of such inconceivable 
 dimensions, and with a velocity so utterly bewilder- 
 ing.'' Silence the most profound can be the only answer 
 to such a question. Man can but stand afar off, and 
 in awful astonishment and profound humility exclaim 
 with the Psalmist : " O Lord my God, Thou art very 
 great ! " 
 
 In accordance with this higher interpretation, the 
 influences of the Pleiades may be called szvcct, as 
 indicating the harmonious operation of those great 
 laws by which our system revolves around them. In 
 this vast and complex arrangement, not one wheel 
 jars or creaks — not a single discordant sound disturbs 
 
10 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the deep, solemn quietude of the midnight sky. 
 Smoothly and silently each star performs its sublime 
 revolutions. Although our system is composed of so 
 many bodies — differing in size, form, and consistence 
 — they are all exquisitely poised in space in relation 
 to one another, and to their common centre ; their 
 antagonistic forces are so nicely adjusted as to curb 
 every orb in its destined path, and to preserve the 
 safety and harmony of the whole. Moons revolve 
 around planets, comets and planets around the sun, 
 the sun around Alcyone, and Alcyone around some 
 other unknown sun, hid far away in some unexplored 
 depths of our galaxy ; and grand beyond conception, 
 this cluster of systems around the centre of ten thou- 
 sand centres — the great white throne of the Eternal 
 and the Infinite ; and all with a rhythm so perfect, 
 that we might almost believe in the old poetic fable 
 of "The Music of the Spheres." What vast and 
 almost infinite consequences depend upon that little 
 star, that gleams out upon us from the midnight sky, 
 among a cluster of diamond points, itself scarcely 
 larger than a drop of lucent dew ! What profound 
 interest gathers around it ! It is a blessed thought 
 that it is not a capricious, changeable Being who 
 holds the helm of our universe, but the just and 
 merciful Jehovah — " the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 for ever" — the Father who pitieth His children, know- 
 ing the frailty of their frames. In this vision of orbits 
 and revolutions, more awful and stupendous than 
 Ezekiel's vision of wheels within wheels, we see seated 
 on the throne above the firmament, not a blind 
 chance or a passionless fate, but one like unto the 
 
i.l PLEIADES AND ORION. 1 1 
 
 Son of Man — He whom John saw in Patmos, holding 
 the mystery of the seven stars in His right hand — 
 possessed of infinite love as well as infinite power — 
 binding the sweet influences of Pleiades solely for 
 the order and good of His creation. 
 
 Man's lifetime is a mere moment ; nay, the past 
 history of our race, with all its great and varied 
 events, is but a handbreadth compared with the 
 orbit of our solar system. During the period of our 
 existence on the earth, we have traversed thousands 
 of millions of miles ; and yet all that time we have 
 obtained no new view of the heavens. All things have 
 continued as they were ; the same stars and constel- 
 lations, in nearly the same positions in the sky, gleam 
 down upon us which appeared to the shepherds on 
 the midnight plains of Chaldea in the time of Job. 
 So vast is the orbit of our system, that from the 
 creation of man to the present day, we have described 
 but an infinitesimal arc of it. Our annual progress, 
 though expressed by a hundred and fifty millions 
 of miles, would appear, if viewed from the nearest 
 fixed star, as little more than one-third of a second 
 of space. We know not how long our race may 
 exist in this world ; but if it be destined to outlive 
 the completion of this vast course, strange and un- 
 irnagined glories will be revealed to future generations. 
 The heavens of our time will wax old and disappear ; 
 constellations with which we are now familiar will 
 give place to unknown combinations; and ever as 
 our system rolls on through space it will pass into 
 new collocations ; new suns and systems will advance, 
 open out their splendours, and fill the sky with their 
 
12 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 glory, and then recede : so that, as time advances, 
 the human race, in the retrospect of this vast aerial 
 journey, will have a higher conception than is now 
 possible, of the boundless domains and the inex- 
 haustible riches of the Infinite God. 
 
 Having described the Pleiades, let us now turn to 
 the beautiful antithesis of the text, — "Canst thou loose 
 the bands of Orion ?" This cluster of stars — the Kcsil 
 of the ancient Chaldeans — is by far the most magnifi- 
 cent constellation in the heavens. Its form must be 
 familiar to every one who has attentively considered 
 the nocturnal sky. It resembles the rude outline of 
 a gigantic human figure. By the Greek mythologists, 
 Orion was supposed to be a celebrated hunter, superior 
 to the rest of mankind in strength and stature, whose 
 mighty deeds entitled him after death to the honours 
 of an apotheosis. The Orientals imagined him to be 
 a huge giant who. Titan-like, had warred against God, 
 and was therefore bound in chains to the firmament 
 of heaven ; and some authors have conjectured that 
 this notion is the origin of the history of Nimrod, who, 
 according to Jewish tradition, instigated the descen- 
 dants of Noah to build the Tower of Babel. The 
 constellation of Orion is composed of four very bright 
 stars, forming a quadrilateral, higher than it is broad, 
 vi^ith three equidistant stars in a diagonal line in the 
 middle. The two upper stars, called Betelgeux and 
 Bellatrix, form the shoulders ; in the middle, immedi- 
 ately above these, are three small, dim stars, close to 
 each other, forming the cheek or head. These .stars 
 are distinctly visible only on a very clear night ; and 
 this circumstance may have given rise to the old fabk 
 
I.l 
 
 PLEIADES AND ORION. 13 
 
 that CEnopion, king of Chios— whose daughter Orion 
 demanded in marriage — put out his eyes as he lay 
 asleep on the sea-shore, and that he recovered his 
 sight, by gazing upon the rising sun from the summit 
 of a neighbouring hill. The constellation is therefore 
 represented by the poets, as groping with blhided eyes 
 all round the heavens in search of the sun. The feet 
 are composed of two very bright stars, called Rigel 
 and Saiph ; the three stars in the middle are called 
 the belt or girdle, and from them depends a stripe 
 of smaller stars, forming the hunter's sword. The 
 whole constellation, containing seventeen stars to the 
 naked eye, but exhibiting seventy-eight in an ordinary 
 telescope, occupies a large and conspicuous position 
 in the southern heavens, below the Pleiades ; and is 
 often visible, owing to the brightness and magni- 
 tude of its stars, when all other constellations, with 
 the exception of the Plough, are lost in the mistiness 
 of night. In this country it is seen only a short space 
 above the horizon, along whose rugged outline of 
 dark hills its starry feet may be observed for many 
 nights in the winter, walking in solitary grandeur. It 
 attains its greatest elevation in January and February, 
 and disappears altogether during the summer and 
 autumn months. In Mesopotamia it occupies a posi- 
 tion nearer the zenith, and therefore is more brilliant 
 and striking in appearance. Night after night it 
 sheds down its rays with mystical splendour over the 
 lonely solitudes through which the Euphrates flows, 
 and where the tents of the patriarch of Uz once 
 stood. 
 
 Orion is not only the most striking and splendid 
 
14 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap- 
 
 constellation in the heavens ; it is also one ot tlie 
 very few clusters that are visible in all parts of the 
 habitable world. The equator passes through the 
 middle of it ; the glittering stars of its belt being 
 strung, like diamonds, on its invisible line. In the 
 beginning of January, when it is about the meridian, 
 we obtain the grandest display of stars which the 
 sidereal heavens in this country can exhibit. The 
 ubiquity of this constellation, may have been one of 
 the reasons why it was chosen to illustrate God's 
 argument with Job, in a book intended to be read 
 universally, wherever the human race should extend. 
 When the Bible reader of every clime and country 
 can go out in the appropriate season, and find in his 
 own sky the very constellation, and direct his gaze to 
 the very peculiarity in it, to which the Creator alluded 
 in His mysterious converse with Job, he has no longer 
 a vague, indefinite idea in his mind, but is powerfully 
 convinced of the reality of the whole circumstance, 
 while his feelings of devotion are deepened and 
 intensified. 
 
 The three bright stars which constitute the girdle or 
 bands of Orion never change their form : they preserve 
 the same relative position to each other, and to the 
 rest of the constellation, from year to year, and age 
 to age. They present precisely the same appearance 
 to us which tliey did to Job. No sooner does the 
 constellation rise above the horizon, however long 
 may have been the interval since we last beheld it, 
 than these three stars appear in the old familiar 
 position. They afford to us one of the highest types 
 of imnmtability in the midst of ceaseless changes. 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 15 
 
 When heart-sick and weary of the continual altera- 
 tions we observe in this world, on whose most 
 enduring objects and affections is written the melan- 
 choly doom, " passing away," it is comforting to look 
 up to this bright beacon in the heavens, thac re- 
 mains unmoved amid all the restless surges of time's 
 great ocean. And yet in the profound rest of these 
 stars there is a ceaseless motion ; in their apparent 
 stability and everlasting endurance there is con- 
 stant change. In vast courses, with inconceivable 
 velocities, they are whirling round invisible centres 
 and ever shifting their positions in space, and ever 
 passing into new collocations. They appear to us 
 motionless and changeless, because of our great dis- 
 tance from them ; just as the foaming torrent that 
 rushes down the hillside with the speed of an arrow, 
 and in the wildest and most vagrant course, filling 
 all the air with its ceaseless shoutings, appears from 
 an opposite hill frozen by the distance into silence and 
 rest — a mere motionless, changeless glacier on the 
 mountain side. Mysterious triplet of stars, that are 
 ever changing, and yet never seeming to change ! 
 How wonderful must be the Power which preserves 
 such perfect order amid all their complex arrange- 
 ments, such sublime peace and everlasting perma- 
 nence amid the incalculable distances to which they 
 wander, and the bewildering velocities with which 
 they move ! What answer can Job give to the question 
 of the Almighty .? Can man whose breath is in his 
 nostrils, and who is crushed before the moth, unclasp 
 that brilliant starry bracelet which God's own hand 
 has fastened on the dusky arm of night } Can ;:ian 
 
16 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 separate these stars from one another, or alter their 
 relative positions in the smallest degree ? What is it 
 that controls all their movements, and keeps them 
 united together in their peculiar form ? It is the force 
 of gravitation, which is not a mere mechanical agency, 
 unoriginated and uncontrolled, but the delegated 
 power of the Almighty — the will of Him who has 
 the keys of the universe, and " shutteth, and no man 
 openeth : and openeth, and no man shutteth." How 
 sublime the thought, that the same Power which binds 
 the starry bands of Orion, keeps together the par- 
 ticles of the common stone by the wayside, — that 
 those mighty masses are controlled by the same 
 Almighty influence, wdiich regulates the falling of the 
 snow-flake and the gentle breath of summer, that 
 directs the motions of the minutest animalcule, and 
 weaves the attenuated line of the gossamer ! 
 
 If we look with the naked eye at the star Rigel, 
 which forms the right foot of the constellation, we 
 observe nothing remarkable about it, except its beauty 
 and brightness, for it is a star of the first magnitude. 
 If we apply a good telescope to it, however, we find 
 that it is a double star. This is merely one example 
 of a binary arrangement which prevails to a great ex- 
 tent througriout the heavens, upwards of 6,000 double 
 stars having their positions measured and laid down 
 in our catalogues. These binary stars revolve round 
 each other, or round a common centre ; and thus 
 exhibit to us, in the depths of the heavens, the extra- 
 ordinary spectacle, not ot planet revolving round sun, 
 as we are accustomed to in our solar system, but of 
 sun moving round sun. The striking thought is thus 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 1 7 
 
 brought home to us, that the tiny ray that comes to 
 us at twilight from some timid twinkling orb, almost 
 fainting in the pale blue sky, is in reality a miniature 
 sunbeam ; and the feeble pearly glimmer of starlight, 
 which covers the midnight heavens as if with a trans- 
 parent veil, is the daylight of other worlds, and is 
 woven of the scattered glory of thousands of suns. 
 Strange to say, the double and multiple stars shine 
 with differently-coloured light. All the tints of the 
 rainbow have been found in them ; so that sidereal 
 chromatics have become a distinct branch of study. 
 A double star in the constellation of the Whale, is 
 composed of a fine orange-coloured primary and a 
 blue companion. A triple star in Andromeda is 
 formed of one red and two emerald-green stars. Some 
 stars are scarlet, others intensely blood-red, others 
 golden yellow, and others brilliantly blue. In some 
 cases, however, the colours are variable, having under- 
 gone a complete change since they were first ob- 
 served : Sirius, for instance, is described by the ancient 
 astronomers as a red star; whereas now it is bril- 
 liantly white. It does not always require the aid 
 of the telescope to distinguish the colours of stars. 
 Some of them are distinctly visible to the naked eye. 
 The beautiful star called Betelgeux, forming the left 
 shoulder of Orion, is of a bright red colour ; so also are 
 Aldebaran and Arcturus. Capella and Procyon are 
 yellow, and Castor green. Smaller stars do not exhibit 
 this peculiarity in so striking a manner ; but the appli- 
 cation of the most ordinary telescope reveals it im- 
 mediately. Through the clear transparent atmosphere 
 of a Syrian night, without any optical aid whatever. 
 
 C 
 
18 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 one star is seen to shine like an emerald, another like 
 a ruby, a third like a sapphire, and a fourth like a 
 topaz, — the whole nocturnal heavens appearing to 
 sparkle with a blaze of jewels. How strange and 
 inconceivable to us, must be the appearance presented 
 by these double and parti-coloured suns, shining simul- 
 taneously in the sky. " It may be easier suggested 
 in words," says Sir John Herschel, " than conceived 
 in imagination, what a variety of illumination two 
 stars, a red and a green, or a yellow and blue one, 
 must afford a planet circulating round either; and 
 what cheering contrasts and grateful vicissitudes a red 
 and green day, for instance, alternating with a white 
 one and darkness, must arise from the presence or 
 absence of one or other or both from the horizon !" 
 
 The cause of the different colours of the stars, and 
 of the changes which they undergo, is not yet satisfac- 
 torily explained. Some attribute it to differences in 
 the chemical qualities of the meteoric fuel consumed 
 in these orbs ; others to the differences in the velocities 
 with which they revolve round each other, causing 
 differences in those undulations of light which are 
 constituent of colours. " It must be left to time and 
 careful observation," says Arago, " to teach us if the 
 green or blue stars are not suns in process of decay, 
 if the different tints of these bodies do not indicate 
 that combustion is operating upon them at different 
 degrees." The spectroscope, in the hands of Huggens 
 and others, has recently made the most astonishing 
 discoveries. Dr. Miller, by placing a prism within 
 the tube of a refracting telescope, has analysed the 
 iiglit of Sirius, Capella, and Aldebaran ; and although 
 
i.J PLEIADES AND ORION. 19 
 
 the light experimented on left one of the stars tv/enty, 
 and another sixty years ago, it was still so powerful 
 as to produce a photograph of its own spectrum. 
 When spectrum-analysis is therefore more perfect 
 and better understood, we shall be furnished, in all 
 likelihood, with the most accurate information regard- 
 ing the chemical substances which enter into the com- 
 position of even the remotest stars and nebulce, and 
 have the problem of their colours and changes satis- 
 factorily solved. In the meantime, it is extremely 
 interesting to observe the same variety and harmony 
 of colour prevailing on a stupendous scale, among 
 the orbs of heaven, as among the coloured petals of 
 the lowliest wayside-flower ; both, though separated 
 so widely from each other by size, distance, and imi- 
 portance, belonging to one grand system, all whose 
 parts are perfect ; the rainbow-flowers of the foot- 
 stool, as well as the starry flowers of the thione, 
 proclaiming them to be the work of one all-wise and 
 all-powerful Artist. 
 
 There is one object of surpassing interest connected 
 with the constellation of Orion, to which I must briefly 
 refer in conclusion. On examining the middle star in 
 the sword, on a clear frosty night, it appears, even to 
 the naked eye, invested with a kind of haze or inde- 
 finiteness not usually observed about stars of similar 
 magnitude. The application of the smallest telescope 
 reveals at once the cause, and shows instead of a 
 single star, four bright stars along with numerous 
 smaller ones, with a background of diffused misty 
 light. We are gazing on the far-famed nebula of 
 Orion, the most stupendous and magnificent object 
 
 C 2 
 
20 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 in the heavens. By that faintly luninous speck we 
 are brought to the very outskirts of creation, to the 
 remotest point which human vision has been able to 
 reach amid the awful profundities of space. Though 
 visible to the naked eye, and connected with one of 
 our nearest constellations, it lies immeasurably far 
 off For a long time the most powerful instruments 
 of the astronomer, anxiously directed to this celestial 
 hieroglyph under the most favourable conditions for 
 observation, and even in Southern climes, where the 
 skies are incomparably clearer than ours, could not 
 decipher its real character. It assumed, with higher 
 optical powers, an appearance of greater magnificence : 
 its light became far more brilliant, and its form ex- 
 panded into gigantic proportions, but still it showed 
 not the faintest trace of stellar constitution ; it became 
 only the more mysterious and indescribable. Fan- 
 tastic arms of silvery light — streamers of luminous 
 mist, branching inextricably away — thinning off into 
 the most delicate gossamer films, and finally fading 
 into darkness almost imperceptibly ; " isolated patches 
 of more vivid brilliancy, lying as it were on the shore 
 of night, with huge caverns of absolute blackness and 
 emptiness dug out through the phosphorescent mass:" 
 these were the strange features which this splendid 
 shield of sky-blazonry presented to the finest tele- 
 scopes of the past day. The Isis hidden behind the 
 mysterious web could not be unveiled. It provoked 
 a profound curiosity which it refused to gratify. So 
 unaccountable did it seem — so utterly unlike any 
 other object in the heavens — so different from all 
 that had hitherto been known of collections of stars — 
 
1.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 21 
 
 that some of the most eminent astronomers did not 
 hesitate to assert, that it was merely an accumulation 
 of self-shining nebulous fluid, akin to the cometic, 
 or matter in an extreme state of rarefaction. Here, 
 they imagined, they were conducted to the very 
 source of matter, existing at first in a gaseous diffused 
 condition in space, gradually concentrating and be- 
 coming solid, until at last stars and worlds were pro- 
 duced capable of supporting organic life. This, they 
 thought, geological testimony warranted them in sup- 
 posing was the history of our own earth's construc- 
 tion ; and if so, why might not other bodies of the 
 solar and stellar systems be even now going through 
 a series of similar changes ? The nebula of Orion 
 might be the primary germ-substance of new worlds, 
 gradually shaping themselves from the thin formless 
 matter around them, and developing themselves by 
 virtue of some unknown law of nature. 
 
 This hypothesis is not in itself necessarily atheistical 
 for the world might as well have been formed by God in 
 this way as in any other. Indeed I am free to confess 
 that, could such a theory be established, it would 
 tend to exalt, instead of lowering, my ideas of God as 
 a God of order, and of the creation as a gradually 
 developed and slowly unfolded artistic production. 
 But when employed to dissociate the Creator from 
 PI is creation, and to prove the spontaneity or eternity 
 of matter, the nebular hypothesis then becomes athe- 
 istical : and, unfortunately, it has been too often used 
 in this way. Some infidels tried to make the most of 
 it, but it did not answer the object they had in view. 
 It might trace back the mass to an anterior state, 
 
22 ^ BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 "which," as Laplace says, "was itself preceded by 
 other states in which the nebulous matter was more 
 and more diffuse, and in this manner we arrive at a 
 nebulosity so diffuse that its existence could scarcely 
 be suspected ; " but even here the question would 
 arise, "Whence came that primitive state of matter?" 
 Carry our speculations as far back as we may, we 
 shall only arrive at proximate beginnings of previous 
 conditions — the idea of a primary beginning being 
 still beyond our conception. The truth is, that all 
 our scientific investigations will never conduct us to 
 the ultimatum — the commencement of matter. As 
 a recent writer admirably says, " Even if permitted 
 to gaze on the primordial elements of things, science 
 of itself could not be certain of the fact. If, while 
 the astronomer was searching the depths of space 
 with his instrument, a nebulous body was to be 
 strictly originated under his gaze, his science could 
 not assure him that the body had not come wander- 
 ing thither from some distant quarter, where it had 
 existed under other conditions. The fact that it 
 must some time have had a beginning might be 
 instinctively felt by him as a truth of reason, but 
 in the nature of things the fact could be made known 
 to him only as an authoritative announcement, and 
 that announcement could come to him only from 
 another and a higher source — from the Divine Origi- 
 nator Himself" All that we look for at the hands 
 of science is to admit the analogical evidence, which 
 geology affords of a real and true beginning ; and 
 to satisfy the intellectual necessity, the imperative 
 requirements of reason by admitting that such a 
 
I.] PLEIADES AND ORION. 23 
 
 commencement there must have been, preparatory to 
 the due reception of the sublime affirmation of inspi- 
 ration — " In the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth." 
 
 When the magnificent telescope of Lord Rosse was 
 directed to the nebula of Orion, in circumstances 
 favourable for the employment of its highest powers, 
 the luminous haze became resolved into myriads of 
 sparkling particles, small as the point of a needle, and 
 close as the grains of a handful of sand. The con- 
 clusion was therefore eagerly adopted, that it was 
 not matter in an extreme state of diffusion and rare- 
 faction, but a vast assemblage — a very blaze of stars 
 — clusters upon clusters — systems upon systems ; the 
 molecules double stars ; the ultimate particles, suns 
 with planets perchance revolving around them. Here, 
 it was thought, was a triumphant refutation of the 
 arguments, drawn by some from this nebula, against 
 the existence and providence of God, and the truth of 
 the IMosaic cosmogony. So the matter rested until 
 very recently ; and now spectrum-analysis has again 
 brought back the old opinion that the nebula of Orion 
 is, after all, merely an enormous gaseous system, 
 maintaining permanently its general form by reason of 
 the continual movements of its denser portions, which 
 appear under the telescope as luminous points. But 
 whatever support it may thus give to the nebular hypo- 
 thesis, it docs not on that account, as I have said, come 
 into antagonism with the first verse of Genesis, which 
 ascribes the creation of the heavens and the earth — 
 although it does not say how — to Jehovah God. 
 
24 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 But though the nebulae proper are probably mere 
 accumulations of luminous gas, there are numerous 
 other so-called nebulae which have been resolved into 
 clusters of stars. They present the strangest forms, 
 many of them more fantastic than the clouds that 
 float on a breezy summer sky, and so distant from 
 each other that light must travel a thousand years 
 before it can pass from one to another. Some of 
 these clusters, lying on the very verge of infinity, baffle 
 the curiosity of the astronomer, and continue mere 
 films of light even in the telescope of Lord Rosse, or 
 the Cambridge and Pulkova refractors ; but analogy 
 leads us to conclude that they are resolvable into stars, 
 and appear as nebulae only because of their great 
 distance. All the countless stars that glitter singly 
 in our heavens belong to the Milky Way ; our solar 
 system is one of its central stars ; Arcturus, Orion, the 
 Pleiades, and all the brilliant constellations which we 
 see on a cloudless night, form its spangled interior; 
 while the broad irregular zone of filmy light which 
 girdles the heavens, called by the American Indians 
 the " Road of Souls," the path of the good to Paradise, 
 is its dim and distant outskirts. And this magnifi- 
 cent universe spreading immediately around us on 
 every side, would probably appear, if viewed from the 
 cluster of Andromeda, a mere filmy cloud, hardly 
 distinguishable in the depths of the heavens. Many 
 of the hazes that float in space are thus distinct 
 universes — galaxies of suns and planets — worlds, per- 
 chance, peopled with life and intelligence like our own. 
 I\Iany so-called nebulae are firmaments of stars, heavens 
 
1. 1 PLEIADES AND ORION. 25 
 
 of constellations, rising tier above tier — stratum above 
 stratum — vast beyond the utmost stretch of imagina- 
 tion ; some so remote that the light by which we see 
 them left them ages ago ; nay, their dim illumina- 
 tion may be but the fitful glow of their gorgeous 
 funeral pyre, shooting across the awful void, and 
 informing us, though long lost, that they had fulfilled 
 their destiny millions of years before Adam came 
 into existence. We thus behold on the page of 
 heaven, — inscribed in everlasting characters which 
 we, however, cannot read, — the annals of the past 
 eternity. The visible picture of all the successive 
 events that have been transacted on our earth, is still 
 travelling by means of light through the regions of 
 space, and might be discovered in different stars 
 placed at the requisite distances, by a being possessed 
 of sufificient optical power. The Omniscient alone 
 possesses this power; and before His eye is spread 
 out, in star after star, the records of the universe. 
 These are the books sealed to us with seven seals, 
 held in His hand, open to His eye, which contain 
 what we imagine has perished — which reveal what 
 we imagine He has overlooked, in which every event 
 of the universe of mind and matter is self-regis- 
 tered, and naked before Him with whom we have 
 to do. 
 
 Who then can gaze upon Orion and the Pleiades 
 without feelings of the deepest emotion ? While many 
 things connected with them bafifle our curiosity, they 
 increase our awe and reverence by immeasurably 
 exalting our conception of the universe — by giving 
 
2() BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. i. 
 
 a new and profound significance to the solemn appeal 
 to man, which issued from the invisible shrine of the 
 All-encompasser, — the All-sustainer — "Hast thou 
 an arm like God ? or canst thou thunder with a voice 
 like Him?" "Canst thou bind the sweet influences 
 of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Oriou \ " 
 
C PI AFTER II. 
 
 ICE-MORSELS. 
 
 ''' He castdh forth His ice like morsels." — PsALM cxIviL 17. 
 
 There are hours that form epochs in one's Hfe — - 
 that pass not with the shadow upon the dial, but 
 remain an inseparable part of the present. Such 
 an hour I spent last autumn near the Couvercle on 
 the side of Mont Blanc. After a most toilsome 
 ascent from the Montanvert, over the yaM ning cre- 
 vasses, the crumbling moraines, and the frowning 
 precipices of the Mer de Glace, I came late in the 
 afternoon to this elevated spot, more than 3,000 feet 
 above the level of the sea. My intention was to reach 
 the famous "Jardin," a rocky oasis rich in Alpine 
 plants amid a wilderness of snow and ice — a relic of a 
 long-forgotten summer left blooming on the lap of 
 eternal winter; but excessive fatigue and the lateness 
 of the hour prevented me from carrying out my 
 object. I stopped short at this point, and before 
 going back, I sat down on a piece of beautiful green 
 sward to rest a little ; while my guide went in search 
 of crystals, and left me alone. Never shall I forget 
 . the terrible sublimity of the scene which then spread 
 around me, and the thrilling emotions with which I 
 
28 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 gazed upon it I was in the very heart of the icy 
 solitudes of the Alps, in the innermost shrine of one 
 of nature's most stupendous temples ; and my soul 
 knelt, humbled and hushed in awe and reverence, 
 before those majestic footstools of God that seemed 
 to lead far up to the great white throne itself Weak 
 and cold are all words to picture such a memory. 
 Behind me rose up thousands of feet into the clouds, 
 like gigantic cathedral spires, those sharp, precipi- 
 tous Aiguilles, which are perhaps the most unique 
 and wonderful features in the scenery of Ciiamouni. 
 In front of me were the vast precipices and serrated 
 ridges of the Grandes Jorasses, and the perpendicular 
 rocks of the Aiguille de Charmoz ; every ledge and 
 crevice that afforded the slightest resting-place flecked 
 with snow; while through an opening between the 
 peaks, the colossal shoulder and summit of Mont 
 Blanc burst into view, like a vision of heaven, its 
 majesty increasing as I gazed, until at last it filled 
 soul and sight, and completely absorbed each awe- 
 struck sense. A golden cloud rested above its highest 
 point, like a diadem with which the setting sun had 
 crowned it monarch of European mountains. The 
 reflection of the rosy hues in the western heavens 
 upon its stainless snow was exquisitely beautiful. It 
 looked like an enormous, intensely illuminated crimson 
 flower held up in nature's white fingers for the sun's 
 dying blessing ; while the sky overhead wore a soft 
 violet hue, blending away towards the zenith, by the 
 most delicate gradations, into zones of orange-red and 
 primrose-yellow. The whole scene seemed an awful 
 white realm of mystery and death, " placed far aloft in 
 
II.] ICE-MORSELS. 29 
 
 a sphere above human interests and feelings ;" and the 
 sunset, instead of making it more familiar, imparted 
 to it a weird wild splendour which scarcely seemed of 
 earth. 
 
 But the feature that struck me most in the land- 
 • scape was not stupendous precipices, or lofty spires of 
 rock, or towering dome of everlasting snow, catching 
 the radiance of ruby, topaz, and amethyst from the 
 gates of heaven ; — it was the glaciers, those silent, 
 motionless cataracts " that heard a mighty voice and 
 stopped at once amid their maddest play," which 
 filled with their rigid ghastly masses every gorge 
 around. There is no sight among the Alps so calcu- 
 lated to impress the mind ; and even the most apa- 
 thetic spectator cannot come into contact u'ith them 
 for the first time without emotions of the profoundest 
 astonishment. Nowhere could a grander view of them 
 be got than from the spot where I halted. No less than 
 three great tributary glaciers — the Glacier d?i Geant, 
 the Glacier de Lcchaitd, and the Glacier dn Tale/re — 
 came pouring down in the v/ildest and most tumultuous 
 confusion, from so many ravines into the great central 
 basin of the Mer de Glace. This accumulated mass 
 of ice, about twelve miles long and from one to two 
 wide, extended right before me, as far as my eye could 
 reach, down towards the valley of Chamouni. Its 
 surface was like that of a sea which had been suddenly 
 frozen, not during the height of a storm, but when the 
 billows had partially subsided ; and these blunted 
 waves, broken and disjointed in the roughest manner 
 by transverse crevasses, ran parallel with the whole 
 length of the glacier. In some places the ice was 
 
30 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 black and discoloured with long lines of moraine 
 matter ; while in others it was pure and greenish 
 white, like the hyaline pavement which John saw in 
 vision stretching away into shining distance before the 
 throne of God. 
 
 Along the brink close beside me there was a bright 
 little garden of Alpine wild flowers. Clinging to the 
 loose verdureless debris of the lateral moraine, nurtured 
 by the cold drip of the melting ice, exposed to the 
 combined effects of a scorching sun by day and the 
 keenest frost at night, of the deepest calm and the 
 wildest storm, and frequently snowed on and sunned 
 in the same hour, these flowers were yet, strange to 
 say, among the loveliest of nature's productions. 
 Golden gciims and potcntillas gleamed like miniature 
 suns ; gentians, veronicas, violets, and forget-me-nots, 
 formed an earthly firmament of deepest blue in which 
 they shone; while moss-campions and aretias braided 
 their soft clouds of richest crimson, imitating those 
 aerial ones which at that moment were sailing in all 
 their sunset glory overhead. These flowers, blooming 
 on the very borders of the ice, eloquently spoke to me 
 of the life and death, the joy and sorrow, the blight 
 that destroys and the blessing that renews, which are 
 so mysteriously blent on this earth of ours= On the 
 one hand was Nature ruining her own creations ; on 
 the other hand she was restoring and beautifying 
 them. The glacier was grinding down the mountains, 
 and the Alpine flowers were healing the scars which 
 it inflicted. The mercy and the judgment were here, 
 as they ever are, if we could only see it, side by side. 
 
 How solemn was the stillness which brooded over 
 
IT,] ICE-MORSELS. 31 
 
 everything ! A dread voice had gone forth, " Let all 
 the earth keep silence," and the solitude was like the 
 presence of God. My soul was burdened with " the 
 power of the hills ; " each sense was strained, by the 
 sublimity around, to its utmost tension. And yet the 
 glaciers were far from being mute and • inanimate. 
 Every ten minutes or so, the breathless pause of 
 nature was broken by the muffled roar of a distant 
 avalanche. Everything seemed on the point of 
 moving, and waiting but a whisper from heaven. All 
 that looked most solid and permanent, turned out to 
 be most treacherous and unstable. The force of gravi- 
 tation and the action of the sun caused the glaciers 
 continually to crack and strain over their rocky beds ; 
 and huge stones and pinnacles of ice that seemed 
 motionless and steadfast as the peaks overhead, were 
 in a single instant hurled headlong with a noise like 
 thunder down a steep abyss, or into a wide crevasse, 
 and ground to atoms in the fall. Each sight and 
 sound proclaimed the incessant tendency of material 
 lorces towards the equilibrium which is yet unattain- 
 able ; the longing of matter for that rest which cannot 
 be reached ; the constant attractions and repulsions 
 of nature's frame, which, were they to cease, would 
 result not in the order and perfection of life, but in 
 the stillness and chaos of everlasting death. Never 
 before did I hear the voice of the Eternal, in the 
 sounds of earth, so unmistakeable, so impressive, as in 
 these utterances of the glaciers. Never before did I 
 realize the weight of meaning in these apparently 
 simple words of the Psalmist, " He scattereth His hoar 
 frost like ashes ; He casteth forth His ic" like morsels ; 
 
32 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 who can stand before His cold ?" These mighty glaciers 
 were no more to Him than the feathery flakes of 
 falling snow which the child catches in its tiny hand. 
 By the simple process of abstracting a few degrees of 
 heat from the vapours that floated, light and airy as 
 shapes in a dream, on the mountain summits, these 
 morsels of ice were formed, before whose silent con- 
 centrated power the hardest granite crumbles into 
 dust, and the proudest mountains are ultimately 
 brought low ; and it thrilled me with unspeakable 
 awe to recognise in the " signs and wonders " around 
 me the same Almighty Arm which piled up the 
 waters of the Red Sea in crystal walls, and opened up 
 for the chosen people a way of escape. Miracles of 
 nature such as these made the most wonderful miracles 
 of Scripture intelligible and easy of belief 
 
 The feeling of astonishment and dread which these 
 " ice-morsels " produce at a distance, is greatly in- 
 creased by a closer acquaintance with their physi 
 ognomy. Everywhere their surface is broken up into 
 rents or fissures called crevasses. These are largest 
 and most numerous at the edges, and are caused by 
 the motion of .*:he glacier over the inequalities of its 
 bed. They aie sometimes very deep, the plummet 
 failing to find bottom at a depth of six or seven 
 hundred feet ; and they vary in width from a narrow 
 crack, over which a child can step, to yawning chasms 
 three or four hundred feet across. It is no easy task 
 to thread one's way among their slippery labyrinths. 
 So tortuous is the maze into which the traveller is led 
 that escape often seems hopeless ; while so narrow is 
 the neck of ice that separates the one from the other, 
 
II.] ICE-MORSELS. 33 
 
 that there is often hardly standing-room between 
 them, and the unconscious dangers behind have to be 
 g-uarded aeainst as well as the obvious ones before. 
 During a fall of snow many of the crevasses are con- 
 cealed by a treacherous covering of it ; and the surface 
 of the ice looks uniformly smooth and white. In 
 these circumstances a single incautious step may be 
 attended with the most fatal consequences ; and no 
 traveller should cross a glacier so coated without care- 
 fully sounding his way, and being tied with a rope to 
 his guides. In the higher ice-regions the crevasses 
 are on a vast scale ; but even on the more disturbed 
 parts of the Mer de Glace they present a spectacle of 
 great grandeur. In crossing the glacier on my way 
 homewards from the Couvercle I had often to retrace 
 my steps, or take a long circuitous route in order to 
 avoid them. Some of them were fringed with icicles 
 of the most fantastic shapes, and others had smooth 
 perpendicular walls of glittering ice. I had the curi- 
 osity to descend into one, which happened to be 
 choked up at a depth of thirty or forty feet by huge 
 boulders of granite ; and the appearance which it 
 presented was most magical. It was like a fairy- 
 palace of sapphire ; the walls of ice around me being 
 of the loveliest and most vivid blue colour, radiating 
 a soft cerulean light throughout the whole place. 
 There was a coldness and unearthliness about it, 
 however, which repelled and prevented me from fully 
 enjoying its exquisite beauty ; and I remember well 
 the involuntary shudder that crept through my frame 
 as I looked down, through the vacant space between 
 the boulders, into the blue gloom of the fearful abyss, 
 
 D 
 
34 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 hundreds of feet below, and listened to the hollow 
 all-pervading murmurs of the subglacial streams, that 
 came up to my ear like the groans of tortured 
 spirits. 
 
 Accidents in these crevasses have been very nume- 
 rous. Hardly a year passes, but one or other of them 
 forms the grave of some hapless traveller or moun- 
 taineer. About the end of last century, the innkeeper 
 of Grindewald fell into a deep crevasse in the upper 
 glacier which flows into that beautiful valley. Hap- 
 pening to fall gradually from ledge to ledge, he 
 reached the bottom in a state of insensibility, but not 
 seriously injured. When he awoke from his stupor 
 he found himself in an ice-cavern, with a stream 
 flowing through an arch at its extremity. Following 
 the course of this stream along a narrow tunnel, which 
 was in some places so low in the roof that he could 
 scarcely squeeze himself through on his hands and 
 knees, he came out at last at the end of the glacier 
 into the open air. A priest of the same district was 
 not so fortunate. Being an enthusiastic student of 
 natural history, he set out one day to explore the 
 higher regions of the same glacier, accompanied by a 
 guide. Late in the evening the guide returned to 
 the village alone, asserting that his companion had 
 fallen into a crevasse. Suspicion was excited that he 
 had been murdered ior the sake of the money and 
 valuables which he carried about with him ; and for 
 twelve days a diligent search was made for his body 
 without success. At last they came to an awful 
 chasm, which the guide identified as the scene of 
 the tragedy. A man was let down by a rope with 
 
II.] ICE-MORSELS. 35 
 
 a lighted lantern round his neck, and twice was he 
 drawn up in a state of exhaustion, but the third tim^ 
 he returned with the corpse in his arms. It was 
 horribly mangled, but all the property was safe, and 
 so this Judas turned out to be " not Iscariot." Jacques 
 Balmat, who was the first to set foot on the virgin 
 summit of Mont Blanc, a feat which he accomplished 
 all alone, terminated his adventurous career in one 
 of the most frightful crevasses in a glacier of Mont 
 Rouan. A most touching story is told of a Russian 
 gentleman who fell into a deep chasm in the St. 
 Theodule glacier about seven years ago. As his 
 guides looked over the edge, th-ey saw him far below, 
 wedged in between two walls of ice, "with his head 
 down, waving his right arm, which was free, for help." 
 They let down their rope, but it was not long enough 
 to reach him. One guide ran to the nearest habita- 
 tion, many miles off, to get a longer one, while the 
 other remained beside the spot. " Pray for me ; I 
 need your prayers," came in a faint voice from the 
 depths. For five terrible hours, that seemed as long 
 as centuries, the poor prisoner's hand was seen rising 
 and falling in dumb piteous entreaty. Slower and 
 feebler grew the motion, and at last the arm fell down 
 for ever in the stillness of death. When the guide 
 came with the rope, all was over. He called again 
 and again, but no voice replied. It is impossible to 
 exaggerate the horrors of such a fate ; and the ima- 
 gination shrinks from picturing the feelings of the 
 wretched man as minute after minute passed without 
 succour, and his life ebbed slowly away frozen in the 
 Medean embrace of the glacier. The mercilessness 
 
 D 2 
 
36 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of nature strikes one forcibly in such situations. It 
 ploughs its resistless way with equal carelessness over 
 palpitating human flesh and blood as over the insen- 
 sible rock, and engulphs in its icy bosom a warm 
 loving human heart with the same steadiness as it 
 does a boulder stone. Oh ! how weak and helpless is 
 man, when thrown forth from the social scenes and 
 comforts of civilized life, and forced to contend with 
 the stern energies of the physical world ! It is a 
 blessed thought, however, that we are not left in the 
 power of blind unsympathetic nature. There is One 
 who "casteth forth His ice like morsels," upon whose 
 infinite pity and fatherly love we can count, and whose 
 strength is made perfect in our weakness. The display 
 of His power is at the same time the revelation of 
 His heart : and the forces of nature, when connected, 
 as they ever should be by us, with His guidance and 
 control, are not reasonless, merciless forces, but the 
 kind servants of a Holy Will, the faithful messengers 
 of an Intellect that cannot err. 
 
 Besides crevasses, the surface of the glacier exhibits 
 many other strange phenomena. Great blocks of 
 stone, many of them tons in weight, rest on the 
 smooth and slippery ice, as lightly as sea-gulls on the 
 crests of the billows. They are sometimes so deli- 
 cately poised on the edge of a chasm, that a touch, a 
 sound, the slightest vibration of the air, sends them 
 into the abyss with a loud reverberation. Huge frag- 
 ments of rock by the score are seen lifted up on 
 slender pyramids of ice, ten or twelve feet high, only 
 to be hurled down again when these capricious columns 
 have melted. All these boulders are broken off by 
 
11.] ICE-MORSELS. 37 
 
 weathering from the precipitous rocks that towcr 
 above the flanks of the glacier and fall upon its 
 surface ; and it is one of the strangest things imagin- 
 able to see them day by day borne slowly onward 
 by the motion of the ice, until at last they are hurled 
 into the huge heap of mud and stones called moraines, 
 which the glacier deposits at its termination. It is 
 extremely dangerous to stand beside or beneath the 
 end of a glacier, on account of the volleys of stones 
 that are constantly discharged from it. Such boulders 
 are the moveable milestones by which the motion 
 of the glacier is made palpable to the eye. It is so 
 contrary to our usual observation and experience to 
 be told that vast structures of ice like these can move, 
 that we require a simpler and more obvious test of its 
 truth than the explanations of scientific men. There 
 is no ductility that we can see in the substance. It 
 seems as hard and inflexible as iron, flies in pieces 
 beneath the blow of a hammer, and cuts the flesh 
 like a knife. And yet, notwithstanding the evidence 
 of our senses, the onward movement of the stones 
 convinces us that " it moves still." Nor can the ima- 
 gination fail to be powerfully impressed when it con- 
 templates the slow and gradual but constant march 
 of these stupendous accumulations of ice. Every 
 particle of snow that falls upon the heights above is 
 pressed down into these glaciers, undergoes all the 
 changes to which in form and substance they are 
 exposed by the pressure of their own mass, and by 
 the irregularities of the rocky surface over which they 
 flow, and at last it arrives at the terminal moraine, 
 and there weeps its chill life away. The motion of 
 
38 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 glaciers varies in different parts — being more rapid at 
 the centre and on the surface, and slower at the 
 bottom and the sides. They have been calculated to 
 advance in general on an average at the rate of 500 
 feet a year. A very remarkable incident was the 
 means of shedding considerable light upon this diffi- 
 cult problem. In the year 1820 three of the guides 
 who accompanied Dr. Hamel, of St. Petersburg, in 
 his ascent of Mont Blanc, were swept by an avalanche 
 into a crevasse in the upper portion of the Glacier de 
 Bossons. In 1861 traces of them were found in the 
 Bhape of a knapsack, lantern, two skulls, and portions 
 of human limbs to which particles of flesh still 
 adhered, on the surface of the lower levels of the 
 glacier. Thus, after an entombment of forty years, 
 these bodies, by the unerring laws of nature, were 
 disgorged ; and the distance between the spot where 
 they perished and that in which they were found, 
 indicated the rate of motion of the most precipitous 
 and tumultuous of all the glaciers of Mont Blanc. 
 
 "He casteth forth His ice like morsels." The idea 
 in David's mind could not possibly have been com- 
 mensurate with the vastness of the subject. His ex- 
 perience of the wonders of the ice-world was necessarily 
 very limited. In a warm climate like that of Palestine, 
 all that he knew of the effects of cold was confined to 
 the perpetual vision of Plermon's snowy peak, to an 
 occasional snow-shower which scarcely whitened the 
 ground, and to a thin superficial freezing of the streams 
 in the hill-country of Judea during an unusually severe 
 winter. And when he speaks of God casting forth 
 His ice like morsels, he desires only to express his 
 
II.] ICE-MORSELS. 39 
 
 intense sense of the omnipresence of providential 
 energy. Frost and snow were to him not a study in 
 themselves — for he had not materials for such a study 
 — but a fleeting glimpse of the eternal Power. They 
 are used only allusively, as a kind of pictorial lan- 
 guage to shadow forth his higher thoughts of God, 
 And we too, though we live in a colder climate, and 
 have an annual winter of snow and frost binding up 
 and clothing in spotless purity the desolate face of 
 nature, know comparatively little of what the Psalmist's 
 words involve. It is only among the glacier regions 
 that their full significance begins to dawn upon us. 
 When face to face with these unmeasured fields and 
 mountains of ice, we feel " how dreadful is this place ;" 
 how terrible must be the Power which casteth forth 
 these enormous accumulations of thousands of winters, 
 like morsels ; how strong must be the Hand which 
 regulates the silent ceaseless flow of these frozen 
 cataracts, and controls one of the most potent and 
 awful forces of nature. There are no less than five 
 hundred and forty glaciers in Switzerland, of which 
 the mightiest mass is the Bernina, and the most 
 extensive the great Aletsch Glacier, fifteen miles in 
 length. The glacier domain extends from Mont 
 Blanc in Savoy to the Ortler Spitz in the Tyrol, 
 over an area of more than a thousand square miles. 
 And yet mighty as these " ice-morsels " are, they are 
 as nothing compared with the great glacier systems 
 of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Dr. Kane de- 
 scribes one in the far north which presents a con- 
 tinuous sea-clifi" of ice more than a thousand feet in 
 height, and seventy miles in breadth; and the terrible 
 
40 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 mysteries of frost and fire in tlie Antarctic regions are 
 rendered inaccessible by a glacier cliff called Victoria 
 Barrier, four hundred miles long, one hundred and 
 twenty broad, and upwards of eighteen hundred feet 
 in depth, descending into the sea from the frozen sides 
 of the burning volcano of Mount Erebus. It is from 
 these grim walls guarding the northern and southern 
 poles that ice-bergs are broken off, which serve to 
 modify the temperature of the regions between, and 
 whose vast size and fantastic shapes excite the curi- 
 osity as they appal the heart of the mariner. When 
 our imagination realizes, in some faint degree, these 
 wonders of the frost kingdom, we are overwhelmed 
 by the thought that He who " casteth forth His ice 
 like morsels " is the God with whom we have to do. 
 " Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow .-* 
 or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail .-' By the 
 breath of God frost is given ; and the breadth of the 
 waters is straitened." 
 
 And not wantonly or capriciously are these morsels 
 of ice cast forth. Theie is no waste of power with 
 the Almighty. There is an economy in Nature's 
 miracles as well as in those of grace. We are not 
 accustomed to think of frost and ice as affordin)<j 
 evidences of benevolent design ; on the contrary, we 
 regard them with dread as elements of destruction 
 and death. And yet for beauty and usefulness, for 
 ministering to the corporeal wants and the sesthetic 
 tastes of man, they yield to no other objects of 
 Nature. Examine undei the microscope one of the 
 flakes of snow that fall — so pure and white from 
 clouds so black — and no lily or snowdrop can be 
 
n.] ICE-MORSELS. 41 
 
 more beautiful than that blossom of cold. It is six- 
 leaved ; it radiates on every side in the most exquisite 
 crystalline forms, so ethereal, so spiritual, like the 
 ghosts of the flowers that perished in the summer, 
 coming back again from heaven to earth. Ice is but 
 a mass of starry crystals closely compacted together. 
 When the rays of the sun are directed, by means of 
 a lens, into a piece of pure ice, the most wonderful 
 change is produced in its structure, clearly revealing 
 the mode of its formation. Along the line which the 
 concentrated sunlight traverses in the interior of the 
 ice, hundreds of liquid flowers of six petals, some- 
 times isolated, and sometimes grouped in bouquets, 
 but all preserving with the utmost distinctness the 
 starry outline, flash back the light like burnished 
 silver, and form a spectacle of novel and entrancing 
 beauty. And what can be lovelier than the glittering 
 jewels with which the hoar-frost bedizens every leaf 
 and spray of the woodland ; or the translucent azure 
 of the glacier crevasses with their long pendants of 
 lustrous ice .'' There are beautiful things in winter as 
 well as in summer ; and we need the cold unearthly 
 splendours of the one, as much as the glowing living 
 charms of the other, to educate our sense of God's 
 greatness in His works. But beauty is everywhere in 
 Nature the flower of utility ; and in the realms of 
 frost this quality is most strikingly displayed. The 
 covering of ice which seals up our streams and lakes 
 prevents the water from being frozen to any con- 
 siderable depth, preserves its inhabitants from de- 
 struction, and places it at all times within reach of 
 man. 
 
42 BIBLE TEACHINGS lA NATURE. [chap. 
 
 The glaciers of Switzerland serve most important 
 purposes in the economy of nature. They are placed 
 where they are by a wise and benevolent arrangement. 
 They bring down the refreshing coolness of the Alpine 
 summits into the hot and stifling valleys ; they re- 
 press, in their calm and placid bosoms, the violence 
 of the avalanche and the rage of the torrent ; and 
 carry within reach of man, in tamed and measured 
 usefulness, forces which, if allowed to leap suddenly 
 from the mountain tops at their own fierce will, would 
 convert some of the fairest regions of Europe into 
 waste and howling deserts. From them all the great 
 rivers of the Continent spring ; and thus a constant 
 and unfailing supply of water, in summer's drought 
 and winter's frost, is provided for all the uses, com- 
 mercial and domestic, of the highest civilization. The 
 vapours that fall in the shape of snow on the Alpine 
 peaks are collected and frozen in these gigantic 
 reservoirs, and thus borne gradually and safely down 
 the mountain sides, until they reach a point, often 
 amid green fields and human habitations, where they 
 remain stationary, the supply above and the waste 
 below being exactly equal. At tliis point a full- 
 bodied arrowy stream, like the Arveiron from the 
 Mer de Glace, caused by the melting of the glacier 
 in the warmer temperature, issues from a cavern in 
 the ice, and flows down the valley, nourishing the 
 meadows along its course. Turbid with mud, ground 
 from the rocks by the glacier, it gradually, as it 
 descends and becomes more tranquil, deposits this 
 mud along its banks, which are thus continually shift- 
 ing ; and year by year new soil and new elements of 
 
TT.] ICE-MORSELS. 43 
 
 fertility are imparted as far as the stream extends. 
 The loss of the mountain is the gain of the valley ; 
 and from the ruins of the Alps, by this sublime 
 agency, many of the most luxuriant meadows in 
 Switzerland and Italy are formed. All this ought 
 surely to convince us that God "casteth forth His ice 
 like morsels," not aimlessly or at random, where it 
 may work ruin and death, but with that gracious care 
 and v/ise forethought for life and beauty, which ara 
 so conspicuous in all the physical arrangements of 
 Him whose " tender mercies are over all His works." 
 
 Yet more. These " ice morsels " have been power- 
 ful instruments in ages past in shaping . our earth. 
 They have been, as they still are where they occur, 
 nature's giant sculptors. The mountain ranges that 
 were ejected from the burning depths of volcanoes 
 into the freezing cold of the sky, were ground down 
 into smooth and flowing outlines by the sliding of 
 glaciers over them. In the Scottish Highlands we 
 can trace, by the unmistakeable signs which they have 
 left behind, the presence and operation of ancient 
 glaciers. Our valleys are made picturesque by their 
 moraine-mounds, our hill-sides are strewn with their 
 gray boulders, and our rocks are smoothed and grooved 
 by their powerful chisels. The soft and rounded 
 contour of our mountains, on which the effects of 
 light and shade at noon are so exquisite, and whose 
 quiet beauty steals into the heart and lifts it up to a 
 region of immortal peace like their own, has been 
 moulded by ice, passing from the high ranges of the 
 interior outwards and seawards ages and ages ago. 
 The glory of Lebanon itself was due to the ice- 
 
44 BIBLE TEACHINGS TN NATURE, [chap. it. 
 
 morsels which God once scattered on its summits. 
 The fragrant cedars had their roots in the moraines 
 deposited in the Kedisha valley by glaciers, that, 
 under very different conditions of climate, once 
 occupied the upper regions of the mountain. Reve- 
 lations like these, which modern science has made, 
 open up new vistas of marvellous thought in the calm 
 old Bible subjects ; and show to us how, by the most 
 unfavourable means in the field of nature, as in 
 the sphere of human life, the All-Wise brings order 
 out of confusion, and life out of death. Alpine 
 flowers are warmed by the snow ; the summer beauty 
 of our hills, and the autumn fertility of our valleys, 
 have been caused by the cold embrace of the glacier ; 
 and so by the chill of trial and sorrow are the outlines 
 of the Christian character moulded and beautified. 
 And we who recognise the loving-kindness as well as 
 the power of God in what may seem the harsher and 
 more forbidding agencies of nature, ought not to be 
 weary and faint in our minds, if over our own warm 
 huinan life the same kind pitying Hand should some- 
 times cause His snow of disappointment to fall like 
 wool, and cast forth His ice of adversity like morsels; 
 knowing that even by these unlikely means shall 
 ultimately be given to us too, as to nature, the beauty 
 of Sharon and the excellency of Carmel. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GRASS. 
 
 '* If God so clothe the grass, zvJiich is to-day in the field, and to-morrow U 
 cast into the oven ; how much more will He clotlie you, O ye of lililc 
 faith i " — Luke xii. 28. 
 
 We are told that " the invisible things of God, from 
 tlie beginning of the world, are clearly seen, being 
 understood by the things that are made." From 
 the very first, a spiritual significance was embodied 
 in the physical forms and processes of the universe. 
 Nature as a whole was meant to be for man the 
 vesture of the spiritual world. There are close na- 
 tural affinities between the things that we see around 
 us and the mysteries of our own life and of God's 
 relations to us. Our familiarity with these things, as 
 objects of use and profit in daily life, may hide their 
 higher meaning and importance from our view ; the 
 blinding effects of sin may so veil them that they 
 may suggest nothing to our minds ; but they are 
 nevertheless, by a necessity of their nature, continually 
 testifying to us of the unseen world ; and he who 
 studies them aright will be delighted to find in them 
 pictures of heavenly truth, shadows and reflections of 
 eternal realities. Our Saviour's parables lifted the 
 
46 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 veil from the face of nature, revealed to us the exact 
 relationship between the natural and the spiritual 
 world, and connected the things of sense with the 
 things of faith, from which sin had divorced them 
 And the analogies in what we usually call Christ's 
 figurative language are not really metaphorical, but 
 exhibit the perfect insight of our Saviour's mind into 
 the purposes and ends of that material world which 
 was created by Himself and for Himself, as a mag- 
 nificent diagram to illustrate His spiritual lessons, and 
 show forth His glory. 
 
 No natural object gathers around it so many scrip- 
 tural associations, and suggests so many spiritual 
 analogies, as the grass of the field. The wailing sibyl- 
 line voice, borne on every breeze, has never ceased to 
 echo over the earth, " All flesh is grass," This burden 
 of Nature's prophecy is true literally as well as meta- 
 phorically. It is one example among innumerable 
 others of what has been often observed, that the poet 
 is the real philosopher, and the truest language neces- 
 sarily what we call figurative. The lesson which the 
 perishable form of the grass teaches, is rendered more 
 impressive still by the enduring part which its struc- 
 ture performs in the economy of nature. It is the 
 first organized agency that extracts, by its living 
 energies, nutritious particles from the hard inorganic 
 Soil. In its tissues the dust of the earth first becomes 
 vital. Day and night, season after season, it is un- 
 ceasingly purveying for the wants of the animal 
 kingdom, gathering the materials of nourishment and 
 strength from the air and earth, reducing the impal- 
 pable and evanescent forces of light, heat, and mois- 
 
III.] GRASS. 47 
 
 ture, into solid and enduring forms, which can be 
 eaten and transformed into complicated organisms 
 and vital powers. Man cannot live upon grass, pro- 
 perly so called. He cannot derive a direct subsistence 
 from it. The experiment was once made in notable 
 circumstances, but it turned out a deplorable failure. 
 During the disastrous campaign of Napoleon's army 
 in Russia, the soldiers, in the absence of all other food, 
 were obliged to boil and eat the common grass of the 
 field, which they dug out from beneath its covering 
 of snow and ice; and in every case where this wretched 
 food was partaken of in sufficient quantity to allay 
 the intolerable cravings of hunger, delirium and rack- 
 ing pains were the results. But, though grass eaten 
 directly would prove injurious to man, inasmuch as 
 his digestive organs are not adapted for its assimila- 
 tion, it forms the support of domesticated animals, 
 which he rears exclusively for their use as human 
 food. The materials of his structure are first derived 
 from the air, earth, and water, by means of grass ; 
 they are still further organized and prepared by the 
 agency of graminivorous animals ; and they reach 
 him at last in a proper condition for his nourishment 
 in the shape of animal food. The grass of the field 
 is thus indirectly, but most truly, man's stay and 
 support. 
 
 But there is a way in which even directly grass 
 forms human food. The stem and blades, and other 
 inferior parts of the vegetation, are intended for the 
 support of the inferior animals ; but the fruitful ear, 
 the more highly-organized seed, the crown and con- 
 summation of the plant, the "flower of grass," into 
 
48 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 which its vital powers and nourishing qualities arc 
 drawn up and concentrated, is reserved for food to 
 man. We must not forget that the various kinds of 
 cereal grain — such as corn, wheat, rice, and maize — 
 are the produce of true grasses ; and that, while the 
 straw and fodder are given to the beasts of the field 
 the nobler structure of man is maintained by the noblei 
 part of the grass, which extracts virtue out of the sun- 
 shine and dew, and out of the intangible forces which 
 play beneath the varied skies of summer and autumn; 
 and presents it in the simple form and peculiar mode 
 of combination which is essential to healthy nutrition, 
 to glow within our veins and animate our nerves. 
 How strange to think that the most highly organized 
 of the inhabitants of the earth, created in the image 
 of God, should thus depend for his subsistence directly 
 and indirectly upon the lowest and simplest of all 
 herbs ! He is not nourished, as we should antece- 
 dently expect, by the palm-tree, or the fruit-tree, or 
 by plants which bear some relation in size, grandeur 
 of form, and complexity of structure, to himself — but 
 by the humble grass of the field, the first vegetable 
 which clothes the naked bosom of the earth. The 
 two extremes of creation are thus, as it were, brought 
 together, forming a remarkable contrast to each other, 
 and yet clearly proving the wonderful system of rela- 
 tions which unites together all parts of the universe — ■ 
 the highest with the lowest, the mightiest with the 
 most minute. Reflections like these give a new and 
 striking significance to the words of the apostle, 
 showing them to be not merely figuratively, but also 
 literally true — figuratively, because literally true — "All 
 
III.] GRASS. 49 
 
 flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower 
 of grass," All flesh fades like the bright green evan- 
 escent blades of grass, from which all flesh is formed ; 
 all the glory of man vanishes like " the flower of the 
 grass," out of which that glory sprang. 
 
 One of the most beautiful parables of our Saviour 
 is that in which He teaches the lesson of human 
 dependence upon Divine care : " If God so clothe the 
 grass, which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, 
 O ye of little faith .? " Nature in summer impresses 
 this parable upon our minds. The lesson of Jesus is 
 illustrated and enforced by the silent but eloquent 
 beauty of the May fields. An emerald rainbow of 
 mercy is then around the warm, quickened bosom of 
 the earth, assuring us that He who clothes the naked 
 soil will clothe us too. Nay, we see the very process 
 by which the Divine covenant is being fulfilled going 
 on day after day under our eyes. We see the flax 
 extracting from the earth the materials of those fibres 
 which are to be woven into garments for us. We see 
 in our pasture-lands the sheep converting, by some 
 mysterious vital action, the grass which they eat into 
 snowy fleeces to keep our bodies warm. Our food 
 and raiment come from the same humble source; and 
 the grass may, therefore, well be employed to teach 
 us our frailty and dependence upon God for our 
 temporal blessings. We know that the same law 
 which regulates and limits the supply of our food 
 from the grass, also regulates and limits the supply 
 of our raiment from the grass. We are apt to think 
 that, by aid of our vast mechanical appliances, we 
 
 E 
 
50 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 can produce the materials of clothing in unlimited 
 quantity, but the slightest reflection will convince us 
 of the fallacy of this idea. Wool and flax are in 
 reality as difficult to produce as corn ; nay, more so ; 
 for, while they are equally subject to the vicissitudes 
 of the seasons — to blights, and storms, and diseases 
 — they cannot, like the corn, be produced in every 
 country, being confined to certain regions and pecu- 
 liar climates. The annual stock of clothing materials, 
 like the annual supply of food, is sufficient only for 
 the annual consumption of the human race ; so that, 
 year after year, we have to work for our raiment as 
 we have to work for our meat. We can no more accu- 
 mulate and lay up in store our wool and flax than we 
 can accumulate and lay up in store our corn. Unless 
 immediately used, the moth will corrupt the one, as 
 the mildew will destroy the other. And in all this we 
 have a most convincing proof of the beautiful har- 
 mony that exists between the moral and the physical 
 laws of the universe. He who " causeth the grass to 
 grow for the cattle," and by this agency brings food 
 and raiment out of the earth for man, has commanded 
 us to " take no thought for the morrow." And the 
 limitations which He has imposed upon the produc- 
 tion and preservation of our food and clothing, the 
 only true riches of the world, teach us most impres- 
 sively that " by taking ever so much thought we cannot 
 make ourselves independent." We are brought back 
 from all our vain efforts and covetous desires after an 
 inexhaustible store of life's necessaries, from the faith- 
 less faint-neartedness which is too often the principal 
 motive in the pursuit " of the phantom independence," 
 
III.] GRASS. 51 
 
 to a simple, child-like trust in Him who hath pro- 
 mised to feed and clothe us as He feeds and clothes 
 the grass of the field. 
 
 Let us look for a little at this clothing of the grass, 
 which we are taught to regard as a pledge and gua- 
 rantee of our own clothing. The sacred writers did 
 not dwell directly on the beauty of nature. There 
 is no artistic painting in Scripture, no colouring of 
 drawing for the sake of the picture itself, rather than 
 for any purpose which it is to serve. Our poets never 
 weary of " the splendour in the grass, of glory in the 
 flower." The Hebrew poet, doubtless, perceived that 
 glory and splendour too ; but he uses them only in 
 incidental illustrations and allusions, to colour spi- 
 ritual thoughts. The grass and the flower are not 
 beautiful or glorious for their own sakes, but solely as 
 pictures of spiritual things, as hieroglyphics in the 
 alphabet of Divine language. It is right, however, 
 that we should regard the objects of nature with 
 interest for their own sake, as appealing to our love 
 of beauty, and affording to us proofs of heavenly 
 design and, while the Bible teaches us- that nature 
 must be interpreted by our knovvledge of God, we 
 shall find a most delightful and profitable sphere of 
 study in interpreting God by our knowledge of nature, 
 which He designed to be not a veil, but a revelation. 
 The grass of the field is well worth studying in this 
 way. It is said of the great Galileo — who had been 
 accused of infidelity because he asserted that the 
 earth went round the sun, in apparent contradiction 
 to the language of Scripture — that when questioned 
 by the Roman Inquisition as to his belief in the 
 
 E 2 
 
52 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 Supreme Being, he pointed to a straw lying on the 
 floor of his dungeon, saying to his accusers that, from 
 the structure of that trifling object, he would infer 
 with certainty the existence of an intelligent Creator. 
 And this is the welcome conclusion to which an 
 attentive examination of the grass of the field inevi- 
 tably leads. 
 
 No proof of the Creator's care in ministering to the 
 higher tastes and capacities of man is more striking 
 than the abounding and universal beauty of the grass. 
 How dull and uninteresting would the earth be with- 
 out its soft, bright verdure ! In every landscape it is 
 the most conspicuous object, the ground-colour on 
 which Nature embroiders her varied patterns, and 
 from the midst of which the gay hues of flowers come 
 forth in greater brilliancy, by the force of contrast, to 
 arrest the admiring gaze. What can be lovelier than 
 the meadows in May.-* The eye that has lately looked 
 out on the cold plain of snow or the leafless tree, gazes 
 with delight upon the " tender grass springing out of 
 the earth in the clear shining after rain," so richly, 
 delicately, transparently green. And when the season 
 advances, and the grass twinkles in the warm air, and 
 the daisies in thousands open their round innocent 
 eyes in wonder among it, and the buttercups spread 
 over it their cloth of gold ; and the bright sunbeams 
 and the light-footed shadows of the fleecy clouds 
 overhead chase each other in little rippling waves 
 over its surface, like smiles and thoughts over a 
 human face, — it seems as if a larger and a brighter 
 feeling of life came with the lovely spectacle, and as 
 if every tiny spear of grass bore the admiring spirit 
 
III.] GRASS. 53 
 
 upon it from the decays of earth nearer to the glory 
 and the fulness of heaven. No sight can be fairer 
 than a woodland nook, or a forest-glade with the tall 
 untrodden grass in its dewy freshness, waving under 
 the trees, intermingled with palmy clusters of fern- 
 leaves, and tipped on the top, like billows that break 
 into foam, with snowy wild-flowers ; or those round 
 fairy knolls, whose pillowy softness invites the dreamer 
 to repose in the noonday heat, and which offer them- 
 selves in mammary tenderness to feed the rabbit and 
 the wild deer. Beautiful is the grass when it covers 
 the decaying thatch of the cottage, making it look 
 more like a natural object than a work of man ; tender 
 it is, when it lays its rich carpet beside the threshold 
 of the poor, to soften unconsciously the heavy footfall 
 of toil, and refresh the weary eye of care, and remind 
 the lowliest, by its mute appeal, of their share in 
 nature's feast of simple gladness. 
 
 Nowhere is the beauty of the grass seen to so much 
 advantage as in our own country. Its exquisite ver- 
 dure makes the pastoral landscapes of Britain among 
 the loveliest spots of earth. The grass in Palestine, 
 owing to the dryness of the soil and the heat of the 
 climate, is neither universal nor perennial. In some 
 few favoured spots, where the air is moist and the sun 
 shaded by trees, it grows in rich profusion, and forms 
 a continuous sward. We are told that there was 
 " much grass " in the wilderness of Capernaum, where 
 the miracle of the loaves and fishes was performed, 
 and that the compassionate Saviour made the weary 
 and hungry multitude sit down on it. It fills up the 
 ground-work of the beautiful scenic pictures of Le- 
 
54 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 banon and Galilee ; it springs up In the lifeless deserts 
 of Judea to the music and the sparkle of the desert 
 fountain. But in general the face of the country is but 
 thinly clad with it. The bright showers and sunbeams 
 of spring stimulate it into rapid growth ; but in the 
 scorching glare of summer it speedily withers, leaving 
 the fields brown, and the hills bare and desolate. And 
 hence most of the images derived from it in Scripture 
 are sad and melancholy, and speak more of human 
 .vanity and decay than human hope and lifefulness. 
 Every traveller admits that an English meadow in 
 May is a far lovelier sight than the lily-covered slopes 
 of Tabor, or the oleander-wreathed shores of Genne- 
 saret. The exuberant vegetation of the East does not 
 sufficiently hide the cracked and parched soil, and 
 forms but a poor substitute for a bright elastic carpet 
 of silken grass, such as covers our lawns and fields 
 from summer to summer in perennial luxuriance. 
 The eye soon tires of flaunting flowers, but it never 
 wearies of the modest livery of the grass. Its simple 
 verdure is earth's chosen robe, the household dress of 
 our common mother, and none else becomes her half 
 so well. 
 
 Look at each single plant, and you will find that 
 the beauty of the mass is still more strikingly dis- 
 played in the individual. The finest ribbon of man's 
 manufacture cannot for a moment be compared in 
 richness and transparency of texture to its blades. 
 How graceful is the tall waving culm or stem, with its 
 knotted joints ! How light and airy are its silvery and 
 purple panicles, so modest and sober that few would 
 suspect them to be blossoms at all ! How delicately 
 
Ill,] GRASS. 55 
 
 fashioned is each part of the bearded plume ! A 
 model of symmetry, elegance, and strength, is each 
 little spear of grass that pierces the sod and shimmers 
 in the sunshine. Though formed to be cropped by 
 the beasts of the field, and trodden under foot of man; 
 though "to-day in the field and to-morrow cast into 
 the oven;" there is as much skill expended in its con- 
 struction as in the palm-tree destined to last for cen- 
 turies, and lifting up its head securely above the 
 ravages of man and beast. Ask the skilful artist to 
 construct for you a plant which will bear uninjured 
 the summer's heat and the winter's frost ; which will 
 rise elastic from the heavy footstep and the cumbrous 
 snow-wreath ; which will speedily re-form the parts that 
 have been broken off or injured ; which will wave with 
 the wind, and stand upright under the rain and hail ; 
 which will unite elegance with strength, slenderness 
 with beauty, and eminent usefulness with all ; — and 
 how vain and abortive v/ould be his attempts. And 
 yet all these opposite qualities unite in the lowly grass 
 which covers with countless fac-similes of itself a 
 single acre of meadow, and fit it admirably for the 
 purposes which it serves and the circumstances in 
 which it grows. 
 
 The structure of the grass exhibits interesting proofs 
 of design. The root, in proportion to its size, is more 
 fibrous and tenacious than that of any other plant. 
 In some instances it is so vital that, like Hercules' 
 Hydra, the more it is hacked and cut, the faster it 
 spreads itself; and it runs so extensively, each joint 
 sending up a new shoot, that it encloses a considerable 
 space of soil. In this way the grass clusters closely 
 
56 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 together, and covers the ground as with a carpet ; 
 while, in the absence of blossoms, which are often 
 prevented from forming by the cropping of animals, 
 the budding roots propagate the plant, so that the 
 effect of grazing pasture-lands is always to increase 
 the vegetation laterally, and make the verdure more 
 compact. The stem or culm is hollow, provided at 
 intervals with knots, and invested, as if by some mys- 
 terious process of electrotype, with a thin coating of 
 flint. It is constructed in this manner so as to combine 
 the utmost strength with its light and. elegant form; 
 and so efficient are these mechanical appliances, that 
 it rarely gives way under the force of the most violent 
 winds, unless when heavy and long-continued rains lay 
 it prostrate, and beat upon it until its elasticity is 
 destroyed. The leaves next exhibit an adaptation to 
 circumstances no less remarkable. They are spear- 
 shaped, and strongly ribbed with threads of flinty 
 fibre, thus forming wedges admirably fitted for forcing 
 their way with least resistance through the soil ; they 
 are long, narrow, alternate, and sheathing the stem for 
 a considerable distance, in order to present as small 
 a surface and give as light a hold as possible to the 
 winds ; they are destitute of branches, so as to qualify 
 them for growing together in masses without suffering 
 from want of air and light — the whole stem being suc- 
 culent and covered with spiracies or air-holes, thus 
 acting as lungs along with the leaves. And last of all, 
 the flower is a perfect miracle of design. It is produced 
 from the upper sheath, which encloses it altogether 
 v/hen young ; it is disposed in simple or branching 
 heads, each head consisting of two or more chaffy 
 
III.] GRASS. 5 7 
 
 scales, inserted the one above the other, like the plates 
 of a steel cuirass. From each of these scales three 
 slender white threads hang out, crowned with yellow 
 dusty knobs, playing freely about in every breeze. 
 These little threads or stamens are of the most vital 
 importance ; for without their agency the ears of corn 
 would not fill with the nutritious grain, and they are 
 exposed to a thousand casualties. Upon how slender 
 a thread, then, does human life — sustained by bread — 
 hang ? Upwards of three hundred genera and more 
 than five thousand different species of grass exist in 
 the world. But though presenting so many varieties, 
 the typical character is singularly strong in them all ; 
 the whole appearance, the general air, the manner of 
 growth, the peculiarities of structure, are in each 
 species so similar, that no class of plants can be so 
 easily identified. The Creator has repeated the same 
 pattern more frequently in the grass tribe than in any 
 other order of vegetation, as if in admiration of its 
 grace and simplicity. Its exquisite perfection enables 
 us to see some deeper aspect of the Divine character 
 than the mere intelligence of a contriver — enables us 
 to see God's care for helplessness and lowliness — His 
 care for beauty as an end, and not as a mere means. 
 It impresses us with the perfect wisdom of an Infinite 
 Spirit, and not with the limited ingenuity of a finite 
 mind. It displays intellect as well as intelligence, 
 purpose as well as design, character as well as con- 
 trivance, personality as well as law. In studying it, 
 we seem to get within the veil behind which the Crea- 
 tor works in secret ; we come into contact, as it were, 
 with His mind and heart ; we see Him who is the 
 
58 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [tHAP. 
 
 Invisible. Standing on the green sward, each blade 
 of grass whispers to the inner ear, " Take thy shoes 
 from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest 
 is holy ground ; " and the response of every devout 
 spirit must be, " Surely the Lord is in this place, and 
 I knew it not." 
 
 " He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." 
 The wild grasses are taken, as it were, under the 
 special providence of God. In their perennial ver- 
 dure in regions above the zone of man's cultivation, 
 we have a perpetual proof of God's care of the 
 lower animals that neither sow nor reap. The moun- 
 tain grasses grow spontaneously ; they require nc 
 culture but such as the rain and the sunshine of 
 heaven supply. They obtain their nourishment di- 
 rectly from the inorganic soil, and are independent 
 of organic materials. Nowhere is the grass so green 
 and vigorous as on the beautiful slopes of lawn-like 
 pasture high up on the Alps, radiant with the glory 
 of wild flowers, and ever musical with the hum of 
 grasshoppers and the tinkling of cattle-bells. Innu- 
 merable cows and goats browse upon them ; the 
 peasants spend the summer months in making cheese 
 and hay from them for winter consumption in the 
 valleys. This exhausting system of husbandry has 
 been carried on during untold centuries ; no one 
 thinks of manuring the Alpine pastures ; and yet no 
 deficiency has been observed in their fertility, though 
 the soil is but a thin covering spread over the naked 
 rocks. It may be regarded as a part of the same 
 wise and gracious arrangement of Providence, that 
 the insects which devour the grasses on the Kiih and 
 
III.] GRASS. 59 
 
 Schaf Alpen, the pasturages of the cows and sheep, 
 are kept in check by a predominance of carnivorous 
 insects. In all the mountain meadows, it has been 
 ascertained tliat the species of carnivorous are at 
 least four times as numerous as the species of herb- 
 eating insects. Thus, in the absence of birds, which 
 are rare in Switzerland, the pastures are preserved 
 from a terrible scourge. To one not aware of this 
 check, it may seem surprising how the verdure of the 
 Alpine pastures should be so rich and luxuriant con- 
 sidering the immense development of insect life. 
 The grass, whenever the sun shines, is literally swarm- 
 ing with them — butterflies of gayest hues, and bee- 
 tles of brightest iridescence ; and the air is filled 
 with their loud murmurs. I remember well the vivid 
 feeling of God's gracious providence, which possessed 
 me when passing over the beautiful Wengern Alp 
 at the foot of the Jungfrau, and seeing, wherever I 
 rested on the green turf, alive with its tiny inhabitants, 
 the balance of nature so wonderfully preserved be- 
 tween the herb which is for man's food and the moth 
 before which he is crushed. Were the herbivorous 
 insects allowed to multiply to their full extent, in 
 such favourable circumstances as the warmth of the 
 air and the verdure of the earth in Switzerland pro- 
 duce, the rich pastures which now yield abundant food 
 for upwards of a million and a half of cattle would 
 speedily become bare and leafless deserts. Not only 
 in their power of growing without cultivation, but 
 also in the peculiarities of their structure, the moun- 
 tain grasses proclaim the hand of God. Many of 
 them are viviparous. Instead of producing flowers and 
 
GO BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 seed, as the grasses in the tranquil valleys do, the 
 young plants spring from them perfectly formed. 
 They cling round the stem and form a kind of blos- 
 som. In this state they remain until the parent 
 stalk withers and falls prostrate on the ground, when 
 they immediately strike root and form independent 
 grasses. This is a remarkable adaptation to circum- 
 stances ; for it is manifest that, were seeds instead 
 of living plants developed in the ears of the moun- 
 tain grasses, they would be useless in the stormy 
 regions where they grow. They would be blown 
 away far from the places they were intended to clothe, 
 to spots foreign to their nature and habits, and thus 
 the species would speedily perish. 
 
 The m.ore we think of it, the more we are struck 
 with the wise foresight which suggested the creative 
 Fiat, " Let the earth bring, forth grass." It is the 
 most abundant and the most generally diffused of all 
 vegetation. It suits almost every soil and climate. 
 Wherever the conditions of vegetation exist — from 
 the icy plains of Spitzbergen to the volcanic scoriae 
 of the Antarctic islands ; from the sunny sea-shore to 
 the dreary Alpine snow-line — there in some form 
 or other it is sure to be found, struggling with adverse 
 circumstances, maintaining the dominion of life over 
 dead matter, incorporating in its frail tissues the 
 forces of nature, preserving the atmosphere in a state 
 of purity by feeding upon its noxious vapours, fring- 
 ing the limits of eternal barrenness with beauty, often 
 the only softening touch of tenderness beneath the 
 scowling heavens. It attains its maximum of ricli- 
 ness and growth in temperate regions, where the need 
 
III.] CJ^ASS. 61 
 
 for it is greatest As we go northwards, it becomes 
 short in stem and narrow in leaf, and forms a con- 
 tinuous closely-matted sward of verdure ; as v/e go 
 southwards, its stem becomes tall and its leaves broad, 
 and it grows in isolated tufts, generally in swampy 
 places or on river banks. It forms pastoral land- 
 scapes under the weeping skies of Europe ; it forms 
 bamboo forests and cane-brakes under the glowing 
 skies of the tropics. It ministers to the food of man in 
 mild climates ; it ministers to the luxuries of man in 
 hot climates. It may, however, be said to cover with 
 a uniform green mantle the whole surface of the globe. 
 And this mantle is not only ornamental, but emi- 
 nently useful. It protects the roots of trees and flowers 
 from the scorching effects of the summer's sun and 
 the blight of the winter's frost. By the decomposi- 
 tion of its tissues, when it has fulfilled the purposes of 
 its existence, it forms a layer of vegetable mould for 
 the reception and nourishment of higher tribes of 
 plants. When it grows upon the barren sands of the 
 sea-shore, its long, creeping, matted roots bind down 
 the particles which would otherwise be carried off by 
 the waves ; and thus it forms the best bulwark against 
 the encroachments of the ocean. It can lift up its 
 tiny spears against the crested billows, and say with 
 prevailing power: "Hitherto shall ye come, and no 
 farther." When it flourishes on the mountain-side, it 
 performs a similar service to the loose soil, which the 
 action of the elements has disintegrated from the 
 rock ; it binds it together by its roots and leaves, and 
 thus prevents it from sliding down in the form of land- 
 slips — whose effects in Alpine valleys are frequently 
 
62 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 most destructive. Indeed, the great primary object 
 which God intended to serve by the universal diffusion 
 of the grass, seems to be the protection of the soil. 
 Were the soil freely exposed to heaven without any 
 organic covering, it would speedily pass away from 
 the rocks on whose surface it was deposited. The 
 floods would lay bare one district, and encumber an- 
 other with the accumulated heaps. The sun would dry 
 it up, and deprive it of all its nourishing constituents ; 
 the winds would scatter it far and near, and fill the 
 whole atmosphere with its blinding, choking clouds. 
 It is impossible to imagine all the disastrous effects 
 that would be produced over the whole earth, were 
 the disintegration of the elements not counteracted 
 by the conservative force of vital growth ; and the 
 destructive powers of nature not kept in check by the 
 apparently insignificant, but actually irresistible, eme- 
 rald sceptre of the grass. The earth would soon be 
 deprived of its vegetation and inhabitants, and become 
 one vast desert catacomb, a gigantic lifeless cinder, 
 revolving without aim or object round the sun. 
 
 I began this paper with the assertion that man 
 lives, both directly and indirectly, upon grass ; I close 
 it with the inevitable antithesis, that grass lives upon 
 man. The melancholy w^ords of Scripture, " All flesh 
 is grass," are equally true whether we read them back- 
 wards or forwards. Strange mysterious circle of rela- 
 tions within which all organized nature is contained, 
 and in which man himself, in common with the beast 
 and herb of the field, has to perform his part and 
 exchange offices and duties ! The particles which 
 circulate through his system must be again reduced 
 
III.] G/^ASS. 63 
 
 to the inorganic state, out of which they were first 
 formed, and restored to the tissues of the grass from 
 which he derived them. The debt of nature must be 
 paid ; the obhgations which for threescore years and 
 ten had been accumulating must be discharged at 
 last. The body, that had been sustained in life by 
 the yearly produce of the fields, must return again to 
 the dust to fertilize and enrich the produce of future 
 fields, and keep the great vortex of life continually 
 in motion. Grass forms the beautiful and appropriate 
 covering of the grave. As it is the earth's first bless- 
 ing, so it is her last legacy to man, 
 
 " Whose part in all the pomp that fills 
 The circuit of the summer hills 
 Is — that his grave is green." 
 
 The body that it fed when living, it reverently covers 
 when dead with a garment richer than the robe of a 
 king. When all other kindness in food, and clothing, 
 and emblematic teaching is over, it takes up its silent 
 Rizpah-watch beside the tombstone, and forsakes not 
 what all else has forsaken. Gently does it wrap up 
 the ashes of the loved and lost, wreathing like a laurel 
 crown the cold damp brow with its interlacing roots, 
 drawing down to the darkness and the solitude the 
 warm bright sunshine and the soft dews of heaven. 
 If there be any place where, more than another, I love 
 to see its modest verdure, it is in the village churchyard, 
 whose swelling mounds have been trodden by the ten- 
 der footsteps of time into less painful prominence. At 
 the close of autumn, when the grass lies withered and 
 brown upon these quiet, forgotten resting-places of the 
 
64 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. hi. 
 
 dead, and the melancholy breeze wails over it, the 
 words of Holy Writ come home to the heart with a 
 deeply solemn and affecting appeal — " As for man, 
 his days are as grass : as a flower of the field, so 
 he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is 
 gone ; and the place thereof shall know it no more." 
 And if there be a place more than another where, in 
 the bright days of early spring, I love to mark the 
 bursting forth of its first tender leaves, it is also there. 
 Resurrection is preached to us by each of the bright 
 transparent blades, more convincingly than by the 
 most eloquent human sermon. It tells us that our 
 dead have not perished. It confirms the old Hebrew 
 faith which called the grave the "house of the living;" 
 and the exquisitely beautiful idea of Richter, that it 
 is " the green mountain-top of a far, new world." It 
 holds out before us the sure and certain hope that the 
 human seed, " faithful unto death," that is sown in 
 the furrows of God's acre, shall one day rise up to 
 newness of life, and blossom in glory throughout an 
 eternal spring. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TREES OF THE LORD. 
 
 " The trees of the Lord are full of sap ; the cedars which He hath 
 planted.'''' — PsALM civ. i6. 
 
 A PINE forest is one of the most beautiful features 
 of nature. Of all quiet scenes it is surely the 
 quietest. The harsh sounds of the busy human 
 world, and even the dreamy murmurs of summer, 
 are hushed there ; no song- of bird or hum of insect 
 disturbs the solemn stillness ; and only at rare intervals 
 the mournful coo of a dove, making the solitude more 
 profound, is heard in the deeper recesses. The weary, 
 '•careworn spirit bathes in the serenity of the silence, 
 and feels the charm and refreshment of its highest 
 life. The trunks of the trees have caught the ripened 
 red of many vanished summers, and are bearded with 
 long streaming tufts of gray lichen, which impart to 
 them a weird, savage appearance ; but they are 
 touched with grace by the wild flowers growing at 
 their roots ; childhood sporting in unconscious loveli- 
 ness at the feet of old age. They form long-drawn 
 aisles and vistas, like the pillared halls of Karnak, or 
 the Thousand Columns of Constantinople, which are 
 indescribably attractive, for they appeal to that love 
 
 F 
 
QQ BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of mystery which exists in every mind ; they reveal 
 only enough to stimulate the imagination, and lead it 
 onward to lonelier scenes beyond. It is the same 
 vague sentiment of expectation or hope that gives the 
 charm to every natural as well as to every moral 
 landscape. Life itself without these vistas of expec- 
 tation would not be worth living. When the sun is 
 shining brightly, and pierces here and there through 
 the dusky foliage, the effects of the chequered light 
 and shade, the alternations of green and gold, are very 
 lovely. Richly tinted mosses, that "steal ah noises 
 from the foot," palmy clusters of delicate ferns, starry 
 flowers of the Trientalis, waxen bells of the Pyrola, 
 and green and crimson leaves of the blae-berry, cover 
 every inch of ground not occupied by the boles of the 
 trees, and form mosaics more beautiful than those of 
 the Vatican. The dim, slumberous air is laden with an 
 all-pervading balsamic fragrance, strongly stimulating 
 that sense which is more closely connected with the 
 brain than any other, and suggesting numberless vague 
 but sweet associations and memories of the past ; 
 while through the pyramidal tree-tops may be obtained 
 glimpses of the quiet sky, which seems to come close 
 to the earth, as if in sympathy, and appears calmer 
 and bluer than elsewhere, by contrast with the dark- 
 grecn motionless foliage. Beautiful indeed is the pine 
 forest in all seasons : in the freshness of spring, when 
 the gnarled boughs are penetrated and mollified by 
 the soft wind and the warm sun, and, thrilled with 
 new life, burst out into fringes and tassels of the 
 richest green, and cones of the tenderest purple ; 
 beautiful in the sultry summer, when among its coo), 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 67 
 
 dim shadows the cheated hours all day sing vespers, 
 while the open landscape is palpitating in the scorch- 
 ing heat ; beautiful in the sadness of autumn, when its 
 unfading verdure stands out in striking relief amid 
 changing scenes, that have no sympathy with any- 
 thing earthly save sorrow and decay, and directs 
 the thoughts to the imperishableness of the heavenly 
 Paradise; beautiful exceedingly in the depth of 
 winter, when the tiers of branches are covered with 
 pure, unsullied wreaths of snow, sculptured by the 
 winds into curves of exquisite grace. It is beautiful 
 in calm, when the tree-tops scarce whisper to each 
 other, and the twitter of the golden wren sounds loud 
 in the expectant hush ; it is more than beautiful in 
 storm, when the wild fingers of the wind play the most 
 mournful music on its great harp-strings, and its full 
 diapason is sublime as the roar of the ocean on a rock- 
 bound shore. I do not wonder that the northern 
 imagination in heathen times should have invested it 
 with awe and fear as the favourite haunt of Odin and 
 Thor ; or that, in after times, its long rows of trunks, 
 vanishing in the dim perspective, should have furnished 
 designs for the aisles of Christian temples, and the 
 sunset, burning amongst its fretted branches, should 
 have suggested the gorgeous painted window of the 
 cathedral. It looks like a place made for worship ; 
 all its sentiments and associations seem of a sacred 
 and solemn character. Nature, with folded hands, as 
 Longfellow says, seems kneeling there in prayer. It 
 certainly reminds us in various ways of the power, 
 wisdom, and goodness of Him who thus spake by the 
 mouth of His prophet : " I v/ill plant in the wilderness 
 
 F 2 
 
G8 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the cedar, the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree 
 together: that they may see, and know, and consider, 
 and understand together, that the hand of the Lord 
 hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath 
 created it." 
 
 Of all kinds of forest vegetation, the pine tribe is 
 the most widely diffused, and the most generally 
 useful. Some species or other may be found from the 
 snows of Lapland to the hottest regions of the Indian 
 Archipelago, and from the level of the sea to the 
 highest limit of trees on the great mountain-ranges. 
 Figuratively it is said of the cedar that its branches 
 shall cover the earth ; literally we find its range of 
 distribution co-extensive with the surface of the globe. 
 But though thus mingling with the box tree and the 
 myrtle tree in their chosen haunts, and there beautify- 
 ing the place of God's sanctuary, and making the 
 place of His feet glorious, there are special regions 
 where the pine forms the sole arboreal vegetation. 
 As the palm is the symbol of the tropics, so the pine 
 is the symbol of the north temperate zone. The palm 
 flourishes in the summer of the world ; the pine tree 
 in the winter. Beauty and fruitfulness are represented 
 in the one; strength and patient endurance in the 
 other. The pine is eminently typical of a bleak and 
 Inhospitable climate. It is associated entirely in our 
 minds with the gray skies and the rude winds of the 
 North. It forms an essential element in the grandest 
 mountain scenery ; and enters into the composition of 
 some of the most magnificent scenic pictures, which 
 the great Artist has painted on the canvas of this 
 world, for the admiration of His creatures. In it we 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. G9 
 
 have the highest moral ideal of trees, which is de- 
 pendent on their right fulfilment of their appointed 
 functions amid the greatest difficulties. Not in rich 
 soil, and amid soft breezes and warm sunbeams, and 
 with the blue smile of unchanging skies resting upon 
 it day after day, does it grow up in pampered and 
 luxurious selfishness ; but on the bare steep sides oi 
 rocks, where the soil is of the scantiest, amid the racK 
 of gloomy homeless clouds, and the howling of bitter 
 winds, poverty-stricken, hunger-pinched, and tempest- 
 tortured, it maintains its proud dignity, grows strong 
 by endurance, and symmetrical by patient struggle. 
 It was intended and created by God for the covering 
 of those wild and lonely spots where no other tree 
 could live. " Its character and glory," as Ruskin 
 beautifully observes, " are not, therefore, in the glut- 
 tonous and idle feeding of its own over-luxuriance, at 
 the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and 
 rooted out for its good alone, but in its right doing of 
 its hard duty, and forward climbing into those spots 
 of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness of the 
 kindness and presence of the Spirit that cutteth out 
 rivers among the rocks, as it covers the valleys with 
 corn ; and there, in its vanward place, and only there 
 where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and 
 where nothing can take part of its honour, nor usurp 
 its throne, are its strength, and fairness, and price, and 
 goodness in the sight of God to be truly estimated." 
 
 To the offices which, in such bleak and elevated 
 situations, the piiie performs, may be traced much of 
 the beauty and fertility of the earth, and much even 
 of the happiness of man. Standing on the mountain 
 
'0 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 tops, its fringed forests catch and condense the passing 
 clouds, which distil from their branches into the shaded 
 soil, and, percolating through moss and grass into the 
 heart of the rocks, flow down by an appointed channel 
 — a rejoicing stream into the valleys. The pine is, 
 therefore, the earth's divining-rod, that discovers 
 water in the thirsty desert,— the rod of Moses, that 
 smites the barren rock, and causes the living fountain 
 to gush forth. When the pine forests on the mountain 
 heights are cut down, the springs and rivulets of the 
 low grounds are exhausted, and the climate is ren- 
 dered hotter and drier. The destruction of the grand 
 pine-woods that once clothed the Apennines, has 
 rendered the Papal States a region of poverty, 
 disease, and wretchedness. In Greece the traveller 
 looks in vain for the old legendary fountains, rivers, 
 and lakes, with which the classic poets had made him 
 familiar ; the water-nymphs have vanished along with 
 their sorrowing sisters the Dryads. Palestine has 
 become a parclied and sterile land, on account of the 
 disforesting of its mountains and hills. Not more 
 poetically than truthfully then did the old Chinese 
 philosophers say, that " the mightiest rivers are cradled 
 in the leaves of the pine." On the mountain heights, 
 too, in the united strength of its serried phalanxes, the 
 pine is a natural fascine or fortification against the 
 ravages of the elements. The ban forests of Switzer- 
 land stay the progress of glaciers, and arrest the head- 
 long fall of the avalanche, protecting the inhabitants 
 of the valley from the fearful ice-bolts of the moun- 
 tain. On the Noru-egian hills, the pine forests wage 
 successful war with the bitter winds of the Pole : and 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 71 
 
 in their sheltered rear the fruits of a milder climate 
 ripen, and the toils of a happier land are carried on. 
 Against the fierce storms of the Bay of Biscay, the 
 pines of the Landes offer an effectual barrier ; and 
 meadows and pastures, forming the support of an 
 industrious peasantry, now appear where sand-dunes 
 once filled the air with their choking clouds, and 
 spread desolation over the far horizon. The pine is, 
 therefore, necessary to the equilibrium of nature. If 
 ignorantly and wantonly removed from the situations 
 where God has so wisely and graciously placed it, 
 His beneficent arrangements for the good of man 
 Avould be completely frustrated. 
 
 And most admirably has God endowed the pine 
 with strength and capacities of endurance unequalled. 
 Every part of its organization bears testimony to the 
 favour with which He regards it. We see the presence 
 and hear the voice of the Lord God amongst the pine 
 trees — as amongst the trees of the garden of Eden. 
 Each tree is aflame with Him as truly as was the 
 burning bush. The peculiarities which attach to the 
 tribe, in their manifest intention and actual result, 
 plainly bespeak a plan or purpose in the mind of the 
 Creator. The whole framework of each species is 
 moulded to suit the unfavourable conditions amid 
 which it grows. Its roots adapt themselves to the 
 shallowness of the soil, which usually rests on very 
 hard rocks ; for, instead of going down vertically, like 
 the roots of other trees, they extend more in a hori- 
 zontal direction, under and over the ground, which 
 they clasp with an intricate network of extremely 
 strong knotted fibres, composed of thread-like cells. 
 
72 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 They thus make up for want of depth in the soil by 
 the extent of it which they embrace ; and by this con- 
 trivance the trees are securely rooted, and capable of 
 growing even in the bleakest situations — on the ledges 
 of precipices, and on the most barren mountain heights. 
 The trunk is protected from the keen cold to which it 
 is exposed by the thickness and roughness of its bark, 
 and by the resinous substances, richly productive of 
 caloric, with which all its parts are strongly impreg- 
 nated. And it is a remarkable circumstance that the 
 bark is always thicker and rougher in the direction of 
 the prevailing storms. On their northern sides the 
 trees are also covered — on the same principle as Arctic 
 animals are furnished with warm furs — with a thick 
 coating of gray lichens ; and a knowledge of this 
 curious provision of nature has often been taken ad- 
 vantage of, as a compass to guide the lost wanderer 
 through the pathless primaeval forests. 
 
 The pyramidal form of the pine is also admirably 
 adapted to its exposed and stormy haunts, as it gives 
 less resistance to the force of the wind than the round, 
 cushioned shapes of trees growing in sheltered places. 
 It is besides designed to catch the falling snow, and by 
 thus investing itself with an ermine robe during the 
 severe and long-protracted frosts, to prevent the very 
 rapid loss of heat which its dark verdure would other- 
 wise occasion. It has, moreover, an aesthetic signifi- 
 cance, reminding us of order in the midst of disorder, 
 and formality in the midst of the rudest chaos. Its 
 regular conical growth affords a pleasing contrast to 
 the wildness and irregularity of the scenery in whicn 
 it abounds, and introduces an element of education 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 73 
 
 and precision into those outer regions of Nature, 
 tliat seem to have got beyond, or overgrown, her 
 orderly control. Rising tall and straight, " in serene 
 resistance, self-contained," from the rifts of inacces- 
 sible peaks ; marshalled in stern and serried ranks 
 on the ledges of perpendicuiar precipices ; standing 
 lonely and unawed — like the W ettertanncii of the 
 Swiss Alps — in the midst of fearful horizons of snow- 
 mountain and glacier, over the far-off edges of which, 
 where the sunshine lingers behind on the green uplands, 
 the oak and the chestnut timidly peer, as if afraid to 
 venture farther : in such circumstances it speaks of 
 law where all seems lawlessness, and of a conserving 
 power where everything seems to yield to disintegra- 
 tion and ruin. Especially is the traveller struck with 
 the formal educated look of the tree in the Araucarias 
 that cover the wild slopes of the Chilian Andes, and 
 in the Norfolk Island pines, whose branches, all of the 
 same length, grow thickly out all round the trunk 
 from the root to the top, appearing like stately columns 
 resting on rifted rocks, perpetually dashed by the fierce 
 spray of the Southern Ocean. 
 
 The leaves of plants which grow entirely under 
 water are cut into long linear segments, in order that 
 the flow of the stream may pass through them without 
 injuring them ; so in like manner the leaves of the pine 
 tribe are exceedingly tough and narrow, in order that 
 the wind may blow freely amongst them without sepa- 
 rating them from the tree, or tearing them in pieces. 
 In aerial as well as in aquatic ctuTcnts, we find the same 
 modification of form and structure in the organisms that 
 grow in them. Though the leaves of the pine are thus 
 
74 BTBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 smaller and narrower than those of any other kind of 
 tree, they are compensated for this by their immense 
 number and persistent nature. They cling to the tree 
 through summer's sun and winter's frost ; and thus 
 each branch bears upon it always the accumulated 
 foliage of five or six summers. By this immense and 
 continuous multiplication of leaf-surfaces, working day 
 and night, summer and winter, those subtle processes 
 by which, through the agency of the leaf, air, dew, and 
 sunshine become changed into solid wood — are car- 
 ried on more rapidly in the pine than in trees whose 
 individual leaves are broader, but less numerous, and 
 liable to the interruption of winter's desolation. No 
 tree, for the reason above assigned, grows more rapidly 
 than the pine ; and, liable as it is to continual acci- 
 dents, such a provision is necessary to make up for its 
 losses, and to keep its ranks always unbroken on the 
 guardian battlem.ents and watch-towers of the world. 
 Such modifications are strikingly expressive of ideas 
 in the Creator's mind, embodiments of His thoughts 
 and purposes. In studying these, "the secret of the 
 Lord " is with us ; and we are filled Avith a delightful 
 awe when we thus obtain fleeting glimpses of the 
 personality of God, and see Him coming out from 
 behind the veil of nature, and revealing Himself to us 
 in schemes and contrivances, so like in kind to what 
 we ourselves might, any of us, have devised, that we 
 cannot help identifying them with mind and heart. 
 By these wonderful modifications of form and struc- 
 ture, then, have the pine trees been planned to flourish 
 on the barest soil, in the coldest atmosphere, on the 
 stormiest heights. Noble Gothic spires, they tower 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 75 
 
 up in arborescent music to heaven, and carry up the 
 rehgion of the landscape in unfading verdure, ami un- 
 ceasing fragrance, and untiring patience, to the throne 
 of Him before whom the mountains and the hills 
 break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field 
 clap their hands. 
 
 Of this great order of trees, honoured of God to 
 perform the most important services in the economy 
 of nature, and more useful to man than any other 
 kind, one group stands out in distinct and well-marked 
 prominence. " The trees of the Lord," says the 
 Psalmist, "are full of sap ; the cedars which He hath 
 planted." The cedars are indeed the trees of the 
 Lord. They are especially His planting. There is a 
 sense in which, above all other trees, they belong to 
 Him, and shadow forth in a higher degree His glory. 
 The peculiar expression of the text, however, must 
 not be limited to one particular species of cedar. A 
 careful examination of the several passages where the 
 term occurs will convince us that it was used in a 
 generic, and not in a specific sense. Qualities are 
 ascribed to it which are not true of the cedar of 
 Lebanon ; and it is mentioned in connexion with 
 localities where that tree could never have grown. 
 Encouraged by this Scripture usage, I shall use the 
 word in a somewhat wider sense than the conventional 
 one, to denote three remarkable examples which may 
 he selected from the conifcrce to show the power and 
 wisdom of God as displayed in the trees of the forest. 
 These are, the cedar of Lebanon, the cedar of the 
 Himalayas, and the cedar of the Sierra Nevada. The 
 epithet which the Psa.lmi.'^t applies to one, may mo.st 
 
76 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATL/f^E [chap. 
 
 appropriately be applied to ail of them ; and there 
 are various reasons why the Lord may be said to have 
 a special interest and property in each of them, to 
 a few of which our attention may now be profitably 
 directed. 
 
 I. They are "trees of the Lord " on account of the 
 pecidim'itics of their structure. In common with all 
 the pine tribe, they are exceptional in their organiza- 
 tion. They reveal a new idea of the creative mind. 
 They do not belong to either of the two great divi- 
 sions of the vegetable kingdom. They are neither 
 Phaenogams, or flowering plants, nor Cryptogams, or 
 flowerless plants. They form a separate order of 
 vegetable life. As regards the internal structure of 
 the stem, there is no distinction of woody and vascu- 
 lar tissue, as in other trees ; the wood consisting en- 
 tirely of an open, thin-walled network of cells, marked 
 by large disc-like elliptical plates, which are so entirely 
 characteristic of the pine family, that the smallest 
 fragment under the microscope is sufficient to identify 
 it with the utmost certainty. So far as their structure 
 is concerned, therefore, the cedars occupy a lower 
 position in the scale of organization than other trees ; 
 the cellular tissue which lies at the base of all plants 
 being in their case developed only into longitudinal 
 vessels, and stopping short of the higher form of 
 woody and vascular tissue, into which it is differen- 
 tiated in the palm and the oak. This conclusion is 
 further confirmed by the venation of the cedar leaves. 
 In common with the other members of the coniferae, 
 the veins branch but do not run together again. They 
 are identically the same as those of the fern.s, and 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 77 
 
 entirely different from tliose of the monocotyledonous 
 and dicotyledonous plants. The leaves of the cedars 
 do not show any venation, owing to their slender linear 
 or needle-like shape ; but there are several species of 
 pine — created, one would suppose, for the very pur- 
 pose of showing to us the true position of the coniferse 
 in the ranks of vegetation — that have broad leaves, in 
 which the fern-like arrangement of the veins is seen in 
 the most beautiful manner. The leaves of the Salis- 
 buria pine, for instance, are two or three inches broad ; 
 and if seen for the first time, apart from the tree, they 
 would be at once referred to some species of fern. 
 But there is still another evidence of the low rank of 
 the cedars to be found in the simplicity of their repro- 
 ductive system. Their fruit consists of an amentum, 
 the pericarps of which, instead of enclosing the seeds, 
 are imbricated woody scales, opening when ripe, and 
 allowing these to fall out. In this respect the fructifi- 
 cation resembles that of the club-mosses, which in this 
 country creep in elegant wreaths over the ground for 
 many yards among the heather, and bear their fruit in 
 scaly spikes, with the seeds contained in receptacles 
 hidden between the scales. There are several other 
 points of alliance between pines and club-mosses, which 
 it would lead me too far to notice. From what has 
 been already said, we may fairly regard the cedars as 
 both a connecting and an embryonic type. They are 
 allied to the noblest flowering plants in the general 
 structure of the wood, and in their arborescent form ; 
 they are allied to the noblest flowerlcss plants in the 
 venation of their leaves, and in the simplicity of their 
 structure and tissues. They combine the highest 
 
78 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 appearance with the lowest structure, and are thus links 
 binding together the two great orders of vegetation. 
 In them we have an example among plants of a com- 
 mon principle in God's moral procedure towards His 
 creatures, choosing the weak things of the world to 
 confound the things which are mighty, and giving 
 more abundant honour to that which lacked. Into the 
 earthen vessel of the humble organization of the cedars 
 He has poured the glory of the highest vegetable 
 development, that the glory may be seen to be all 
 His own. And in this wondrous combination of types 
 in the " trees of the Lord " we have a dim fore- 
 shadowing of " Him who dwelt in the bush ; " who 
 united in Himself the highest and the lowest — God 
 and man — in one person for ever; and who still, 
 though in the midst of the throne, dwells with the 
 man that is of an humble and contrite heart, 
 
 2. The cedars are " the trees of the Lord " on 
 account of the antiquity of their type. It was of this 
 class of trees that the pre-Adamite forests were prin- 
 cipally composed. Every glimpse of woodland scenery 
 which we obtain through the dim vistas of geological 
 history reveals to us a background of conifers on the 
 horizon. In every stratum in which arborescent fossils 
 occur we can trace this antique tree-pattern. The 
 cedars were the earliest planting in the newly-formed 
 soil of the earth ; the productions of the earth's " heroic 
 age," when Nature seemed to delight in the fantastic 
 exercise of power, and to exhibit her strength in the 
 growth of vegetable giants and monsters. They have 
 existed throughout all time, and have maintained their 
 characteristic properties, extensive distribution, age, 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 79 
 
 and consistency of habit, throughout all the changes 
 of the earth's surface. They form the evergreen 
 link between the ages and the zones, growing now as 
 they grew in the remote past, inhabiting the same 
 latitudes and preserving the same appearances in bulk 
 and figure. Universal in space, and universal in time, 
 they are indeed monuments of the unchangeableness 
 of the Ancient of Days — proofs indisputable that the 
 vegetable kingdom did not commence as monads or 
 vital points, but as organisms so nobie and complicated 
 that even the most bigoted advocate of the develop- 
 ment theory must admit that they could not have 
 been formed by the agency of physical forces. 
 
 The pattern of these cedars is indeed an antique one. 
 The cone is one of the oldest and best known mathe- 
 matical figures. The inhabitants of ancient Nineveh 
 and Babylon attached a mystical significance to it ; 
 for we find it occupying a most prominent place among 
 the sacred symbols sculptured on their monuments. 
 And as in human economy, so in the history of vege- 
 tation it is one of the oldest figures. The cedars, in 
 all parts of their organization, are moulded according 
 to this plan : from the seed to the perfect plant they 
 exliibit a continued development of the same cone-like 
 pattern. A wonderful unity runs throughout all their 
 parts. The cotyledons, or first-springing leaves, of 
 which there are from six to fifteen, are arranged in a 
 conical form, and every node and internode exhibits 
 the same mode of construction. The seed-vessels are 
 called cones on account of their shape; and the very 
 clusters or branches of stamens are made to assume 
 the same form. Each part represents the other ; and 
 
80 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 from the commencement in the seed to the termination 
 in the cone, we have in each organ a miniature of the 
 whole tree. " A pine cone," as Dr. M'Cosh well 
 observes, " will reward the study for hours together of 
 fhe highest intellect." 
 
 The conical is the primitive form of all trees. During 
 the earlier stages of their growth, they exhibit this 
 appearance, developing only in the direction of the 
 trunk, and putting forth few lateral branches. Gra- 
 dually, as the tree grows older, the conical form is 
 departed from, more branches are produced from the 
 sides, these are allowed to grow horizontally and in- 
 crease in size, until at last a beautiful rounded crown 
 of wood and foliage is perfected, and the branches 
 occupy almost as important and prominent a position 
 in the appearance and economy of the tree as the 
 trunk itself. The pine, however, preserves its conical 
 shape throughout its whole existence. At every stage 
 of growth the trunk is most conspicuous and all- 
 important, and the branches entirely subsidiary. Indeed 
 it produces but a very few of them, and these princi- 
 pally at the top ; and numerous individuals may be 
 found in thick woods and on solitary heights, where 
 only one or two ragged branches cling to the stem. In 
 relation to other trees, therefore, the pine at maturity, 
 and all its life, is what they are in their earliest years. 
 While they have outgrown their infant shape, it retains 
 it permanently — continues through all the ages and 
 the zones an eternal child — an undeveloped, over- 
 grown forest infant. And wisely has nature kept it 
 thus stunted in its organization — given it a giant's 
 strength in an infant's form; for this infant's form 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 81 
 
 is the most firm and stable in the universe. It was 
 bestowed upon the oak and the chestnut in their weak 
 childhood, until they grew too large to need it. But 
 the pine always needs it ; and not otherwise could it 
 possibly live in the bleak and stormy inheritance 
 assigned to it. The Great Designer has constructed 
 the mountain pine on the same strong enduring archi- 
 tectural plan, according to the same unerring principle 
 of shape and strength, on which He has built the 
 mountain itself. And, as some one has said, the 
 avalanche that tears down the side of an alpine peak, 
 carrying death and destruction in its train, receives its 
 fearful momentum from the same law that detaches 
 a withered leaf from the pine-bough, and carries it 
 silently and gently to the golden needle-strewn heap 
 at the foot of the tree. The avalanche and the faded 
 pine-leaf both fall from cones ; and thus the mightiest 
 and the most minute processes of nature are carried 
 on by the same simple laws, and the greatest and 
 most magnificent objects are linked together by the 
 same sublime and simple bond of unity. 
 
 During untold ages the cedars were the sole ex- 
 amples of forest vegetation. They afford an illustra- 
 tion of a general law of the deepest philosophic import, 
 running throughout the whole geological history of 
 the earth — the law, namely, that the first introduced 
 animals or plants of any class have been combining 
 types ; that is, have united in themselves the characters 
 of several families, now distinct and widely separated. 
 " The trees of the Lord " stood as the prophetic repre- 
 sentatives of the Cryptogam and the Ph^enogam, until 
 these two ideas of the creative Mind were separately 
 
 G 
 
82 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 and more distinctly expressed by the subsequent in- 
 troduction of the typical forms of the two classes. In 
 them Nature first sketched out her floral design, so to 
 speak, in general terms, and then in after ages elabo- 
 rated each subordinate idea — here, in the ascending 
 scale, in the exogen and the endogen : there, in the 
 descending scale, in the cryptogam. From the side, 
 as it were, of those pre- Adamite cedars God took the 
 ribs, of which He made the graceful palm-tree to yield 
 its welcome shade and fruit in the thirsty desert, and 
 the beautiful apple tree to clothe itself with its bridal 
 dress of blossoms under the smiling, tearful skies of 
 the northern spring : " wine that maketh glad the 
 heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and 
 bread which strengtheneth man's heart." And thus 
 the endless diversity of the garden and the forest — 
 the whole idea of that great work of art — was con- 
 tained in the first strokes of the Artist's pencil in these 
 " trees of the Lord ;" and the ceaseless working of the 
 Creator hitherto has been exercised only in the eternal 
 unfolding of the original conception. 
 
 We burn the relics of extinct cedars in our house- 
 hold fires. Microscopic investigation proves that the 
 plants of the coal formation were closely allied to this 
 class. Many of the fossil trees belonging to this epoch 
 were true pines ; and the more characteristic Lepido- 
 dendrons and Sigillarias were intermediate between 
 pines and club-mosses, though approaching more nearly 
 the former, of which, in all probability, they were the 
 earliest embryonic condition. And what a marvellous 
 vista is opened up to us by this fact, between the 
 Human period and a geological past so remote that it 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 83 
 
 seems almost mythical. Innumerable ages before the 
 heir of nature had been put into the garden of Eden 
 to dress and keep it, " the trees of the Lord " were 
 purifying the atmosphere, and rendering the earth a fit 
 habitation for him, and by the same wonderful process 
 storing up, in the vast quantities of carbon thus appro- 
 priated, a mechanical energy which, after a sleep of 
 millions of years, was destined to rise again as the 
 great physical regenerator of the human race. 
 
 3. The cedars are the " trees of the Lord," on account 
 of the majesty of their appearmice. Every one is fami- 
 liar by description or observation with the cedar of 
 Lebanon. It is the tree, par excellence, of the Bible — 
 the type of all forest vegetation. Religion and poetry 
 have sounded its praises so loudly and repeatedly that 
 it has become the most renowned natural monument 
 in the world. For untold ages it covered the rugged 
 slopes of Lebanon with one continuous forest of verdure 
 and fragrance, and formed its crowning " glory." The 
 ravages of man, carried on century after century in the 
 most ruthless manner, laid its proud honours low; 
 and now only a few scattered groves survive amid the 
 fastnesses of the highest valleys to tell of the splendour 
 that had perished. But what a magnificent relic the 
 one grove of Kedisha is ! Each huge trunk, scarred 
 and hoary with the elemental strife of hundreds of 
 years, still spreads out its great gnarled boughs laden 
 with emerald foliage and exquisite cones, " full of sap " 
 in the freshness of undying youth, so that we cannot 
 wonder at the superstition of the awe-struck Arabs, 
 who attribute to the cedars not only a vegetative 
 power which enables them to live eternally, but also 
 
 G 2 
 
84 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 a wise instinct, an intelligent foresight, by means of 
 which they understand the changes of the weather, and 
 provide accordingly. No temple of nature can be 
 grander than the interior of that grove, where the 
 natives of the neighbouring villages celebrate mass 
 annually in June. It is a spot unique on earth. The 
 sacred associations of thousands of years crowd around 
 one there. In the fragrance of the cedars comes up 
 the richness of Bible memories ; each sight and sound 
 suggest some incident alluded to by psalmist or prophet, 
 and a feeling of awe and reverence, such as few other 
 scenes can inspire, fills the soul to overflowing. There, 
 at an elevation of six thousand feet, with their roots 
 firmly planted in the moraines of extinct glaciers, with 
 their trunks riven and furrowed by lightnings, with 
 the snows of Lebanon gleaming white through their 
 dusky foliage, with the stillness of earth's mightiest 
 powers asleep around them, who can fail to feel the 
 force of the Psalmist's words, " The trees of the Lord 
 are full of sap ; the cedars of Lebanon, which He 
 hath planted " .'' 
 
 Another tree equally majestic, though not equally 
 celebrated, is the deodar. As the cedar is the glory 
 of Lebanon, so the deodar is the glory of the Hima- 
 layas, The one is the sacred tree of the Jews ; the 
 other is the sacred tree of the Hindoos, its meaning 
 being Deva-dara, or tree of God. The deodar grows 
 on the slopes of the Nepaul and Thibet Alps, at an 
 elevation of between ten thousand and twelve thousand 
 feet, and frequently attains a height of one hundred 
 and fifty feet, with a corresponding girth. It is a 
 splendid tree, with its beautifully drooping branches, 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 85 
 
 rich glaucous-green foliage, and fragrant wood ; and 
 nothing can exceed the grandeur of its forests hanging 
 on the precipitous sides of the highest mountains in 
 the world, with luxuriant thickets of rhododendrons 
 lighting up the green recesses with their gorgeous 
 crimson flowers, and the snowy sky-piercing peaks, 
 inaccessible to human foot, towering up in awful 
 sublimity behind them. It is so closely allied to the 
 cedar of Lebanon, that some botanists consider it to be 
 merely a variety. There are three grand monarchs of 
 the mountains — the Ccdrus Deodara oi Xht Himalayas, 
 the Cedrns Atlantica of the Atlas range in North 
 Africa, and the Cedrus Libani of Lebanon — which 
 resemble each other so nearly that they may be con- 
 sidered varieties of the same species. It is a remark- 
 able fact that they are all found in similar situations, 
 being restricted absolutely to the moraines of extinct 
 glaciers. The Indian cedar is associated with tht 
 grandest glacier phenomena to be seen in the whole 
 world. Not only does it flourish upon the mounds 
 produced by glaciers, but, near the spots where it 
 grows, large fossils of antelopes, rhinoceroses, and 
 other tropical fauna are found, thus proving that, 
 within a very modern period — a period closely trench- 
 ing upon the time when man made his appearance 
 upon the earth — the Himalaya mountains had been 
 thrown up into the sky to a height of eight thousand 
 or ten thousand feet. Of these wonderful cosmical 
 changes, the majestic "trees of the Lord " were in all 
 probability witnesses ; and, planted amid the wreck of 
 the volcano and the glacier, surrounded by the s-ab- 
 limest earthly objects, they may well awaken the 
 
86 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 veneration not only of the superstitious Hindoo, but 
 of every thoughtful mind. 
 
 But of all the cedars the most magnificent is the 
 Sequoia gigmitea, of the Sierra Nevada. Sixteen 
 years ago, a hunter was led by the chase, late in the 
 afternoon, to a secluded spot in a forest at a height of 
 four thousand feet on the western slope of this great 
 range. The sight which then presented itself to him 
 almost paralysed him with awe and amazement. 
 Enormous dark-red trunks, between eighty and a hun- 
 dred feet in circumference, rose up like great circular 
 watch-towers between three and four hundred feet 
 into the air, dwarfing all the surrounding forest, their 
 tops glowing in the golden lustre of the setting sun, 
 while the last beams had passed away from the dusky 
 pines below them. Like one enchanted, he hastened 
 to proclaim the discovery, but was not believed, until 
 repeated visits and measurements had familiarized the 
 world with the astounding fact. The bark of one of 
 the trees, called the " Mother of the Forest," ninet)'- 
 three feet in circumference, and three hundred and 
 twenty feet high, was stripped ofT to the height of one 
 hundred and ten feet, and was set up in the Crystal 
 Palace at Sydenham, where, until destroyed by the 
 recent disastrous fire, it gave the spectator a good 
 idea of the colossal size of the parent trunk. The 
 tree called the " Father of the Forest," lies prostrate, 
 half buried in the ground, as it fell centuries ago. 
 It is a most stupendous ruin, measuring in girth at 
 the base one hundred and twelve feet, and supposed 
 to have been originally four hundred and fifty feet 
 high. The inside of the trunk is hollowed out by fire, 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 87 
 
 and you can walk through the lofty charred vault for 
 upwards of two hundred feet with your hat on, and 
 emerge at last from a knot-hole. One of the largest 
 members of this family-group was cut down some 
 years ago after an arduous steady labour of six weeks, 
 and its stump now forms the floor of a ball-room. The 
 colossal trees number altogether about a hundred, 
 standing within an area of about fifty acres, inter- 
 mingled with giant pines, which appear slender sap- 
 lings beside them. Although the tree flourishes in 
 rich luxuriance wherever it is planted by the hand of 
 man, it is confined in the natural order of things to 
 three isolated spots in the Sierra Nevada, about fifty 
 miles apart. One of the groves near the head-quarters 
 of the Tuolomne, at a height of six thousand feet, 
 contains about four hundred trees. Another grove, 
 said to number three hundred trees, lies in the Mari- 
 posa valley. But the grandest and most impressive 
 in its character is that which was first discovered in 
 the Calaveros valley, about one hundred and fifty miles 
 east of San Francisco. Not a single tree of the kind 
 is known to exist anywhere else in a state of nature ; 
 it has never spread from its limited area ; and what is 
 very remarkable is, that several of the living trees, 
 between two and three thousand years old, have been 
 found to be planted astride of other trunks, entirely 
 covered by the gradual deposit of centuries of falling 
 leaves and cones. The wood of these ancient pro- 
 genitors of the present giants, for such they manifestly 
 are, is almost black, and has a dry metallic sound. 
 " It is evident," says Bayard Taylor, who records this 
 circumstance, " that eight, or perhaps ten thousand 
 
88 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 years have elapsed since this race of trees first ap- 
 peared on the earth." One is perfectly bewildered by 
 the reflections which this mammoth grove suggests. 
 Older than the pyramids, its immemorial trees are 
 equally sphinx-like in their mystery.* The secrets of 
 an irrecoverable past are whispered by every breeze 
 that sighs through their branches. Could they speak, 
 as in Jotham's parable of the trees, what revelations 
 would they give us of that mysterious race which 
 inhabited California and Mexico before the Deluge, 
 and whose remains are found in the loneliest recesses 
 of the forest, and in the sculptured ruins of Copan, 
 Palanque, and Uxmal ; what stories would they tell 
 us of the various Indian tribes, that in slow succession 
 for thousands of years lit their fires against their 
 trunks, and wantonly injured what they were too rude 
 to reverence ! Largest and oldest of living organisms, 
 they are indeed the offspring of the earth's fresh green 
 prime, when everything was on a gigantic scale, and 
 Megatheriums and Mastodons roamed through Brob- 
 dingnagian forests. They seem relics of " the reign of 
 the gymnosperms," a fragment of the ancient post- 
 glacial epoch preserved in this lonely solitude amid all 
 the cosmical changes elsewhere going on, keeping, in 
 their annual rings of wood, the imperishable record of 
 their growth, while human races and dynasties sprang 
 up and perished around them. And still, though the 
 
 * The Sequoia gigantea as a species is of very ancient origin; but 
 the individual survivors are supposed by some to be comparatively 
 modern ; the tree growing rapidly and attaining to large dimensions in 
 a short space of time. As this, however, is still a doubtful point — I 
 prefer to leave the preceding sentences as they were originally written 
 
IV.] THE TREES OF THE LORD. 89 
 
 shadows of forty centuries are sleeping under their 
 boughs, their vital processes are as active as ever, they 
 exhibit no signs of what can be regarded physiologi- 
 cally as old age. And in all this what a striking illus- 
 tration do they give of that precious Bible promise, 
 " As the days of a tree are the days of my people." 
 Like the indestructible cedars, chosen of God Himself 
 for the most sacred purposes, for the construction of 
 the holy places, and as emblems of the holy people, 
 Israel still exists, though a remnant scattered and 
 peeled ; and just as the " trees of the Lord," though 
 naturally confined to a few isolated spots, are now 
 being planted by the hand of man over all the conti- 
 nents of the earth, so the " people of the Lord " shall 
 also, by human instrumentality in conversion, send 
 out their boughs unto the sea and their branches 
 unto the river ; the branch of God's planting, the 
 work of His hands, that He may be glorified. 
 " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and 
 instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree ; 
 and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an 
 everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORN, 
 
 •* Thou preparest them C07-n, when Thou hast sy provided for it." — 
 Psalm Ixv. 9. 
 
 The harvest-time is the most deHghtful of all the 
 seasons of the year. It is the time of fulfilled hopes 
 and realized expectations, when the ruddy gleam of 
 the ripened fruit succeeds the lavish wealth of blos- 
 soms, and he who went forth weeping, bearing pre- 
 cious seed, returns with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves 
 with him. Some one has called it the sunset of the 
 year; and assuredly no greater halo of glory marks 
 the close of day than radiates around each sunny hour 
 of this precious season. Scenes of life and beauty 
 crowd upon each other with a seeming rapidity as if 
 there was no time to lose, each rendered more en- 
 gaging by its very changeableness, and by the forecast 
 of that desolation in which it will soon terminate. 
 Days, and even in this capricious climate, sometimes 
 weeks, succeed each other, so perfect in their character 
 of beauty, that they seem almost revelations of a 
 higher existence, and merely to live is a sufficient 
 happiness. The sky that broods over the landscape 
 is of the sweetest blue, and is fraught with an unut- 
 
CHAP, v.j CORN. 91 
 
 terable peace ; soft playful gleams breaking through 
 the fleecy clouds flit over wood and meadow, and give 
 a tenderer tone to the universal sunshine. The white 
 homesteads nestling on the hill-sides are still and 
 noiseless in the broad shadows of the trees that cluster 
 round them, and that are just beginning to be tinged 
 with the bright hues of decay ; and so pure and serene 
 is the air that the moon is seen like a pale phantom 
 at mid-day, and the faintest far-off sounds are heard 
 with surprising distinctness. The lowing of cattle and 
 the bleating of sheep come from the crimson moor- 
 lands mellowed to an indescribable pathos of loneli- 
 ness ; and down in the valleys the tinkling of the 
 scythes and the voices of the labourers seem like 
 sounds from another world. An ideal air breathes 
 around every object within the horizon ; and the uni- 
 versal frame of nature is stamped with the brightest 
 image of its Maker, and earth might well be taken for 
 a suburb of heaven. 
 
 Of all the many beautiful sights of this season, the 
 most beautiful and interesting are the corn-fields rip- 
 pling in light and shade, like the waves of a sunset sea, 
 away over valley and upland to the purple shores of 
 the distant hills. They are the characteristic features 
 of the season — the illuminated initials on Nature's 
 autumnal page, whose golden splendour is variegated 
 here and there with wreaths of scarlet poppies, corn 
 blue-bottles, and purple vetches. The landscape seems 
 to exist solely for them, so prominent and important 
 are they in it. Wherever they appear they are the 
 pictures for which the rest of the scenery, however 
 grand or beautiful, is but the mere frame. The earth 
 
92 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 looks like a table spread for this precious food which 
 God's own hand has furnished. A hungry world, whose 
 staff of life the corn forms, waits impatiently for the 
 feast ; and Nature, like a handmaid, seems to pause in 
 her varied operations, and to concentrate all her ener- 
 gies upon the one task of bringing it to perfection. 
 Familiar as it is to us, we greet it season after 
 season with the same fresh enthusiasm. We enter 
 fully into tlie old feeling which glowed in the great 
 child-heart of Luther, when he returned home through 
 the rich harvest-fields of Leipsic, " How it stands, that 
 yellow corn, on its fair taper stems ; its golden head 
 bent, all rich and waving there ! The mute earth, at 
 God's kind bidding, has produced it once again — 
 man's bread." The meanest and homeliest scene is 
 redeemed and hallowed by the presence of the corn- 
 fields in it. It is holy ground ; God has there made 
 the place of His feet glorious. The old miracle of the 
 multiplication of the loaves has been there performed 
 anew, in a more gradual and less startling manner 
 indeed, but not the less wonderful on that account. 
 In the one case the processes of germination and de- 
 velopment were suspended, and in a single moment a 
 mere morsel became a sufficiency for thousands ; in 
 the other case the processes of nature were allowed to 
 go on over weeks and months until the single grains 
 deposited in the earth became a waving harvest. The 
 miracle of the loaves was a sudden putting forth of 
 God's bountiful hand from behind the veil of His ordi 
 nary providence ; the miracle of the harvest is the 
 working of the same bountiful hand, only unseen, 
 fjivinpr nower to the tiny grains to drink the dew and 
 
V.I CORN. 93 
 
 imbibe the sunshine, and appropriate the nourishment 
 of the soil during the long bright days of summer. I 
 understand the one miracle in the light of the other. 
 That marvellous scene in the wilderness of Capernaum 
 comes to me as a revelation of a real but invisible 
 world which is working silently day after day around 
 me in this lonely Highland strath. It serves to open 
 my eyes to wonders more vast and awful than its own 
 outward phenomena. Paradoxical as it may seem, it 
 teaches me to look with more reverence upon the 
 ordinary ways of God's providence, and to receive 
 with even more of deep thankfulness the bread that 
 comes to me by what are called the common pro- 
 cesses of nature, than if it had been given to me 
 directly by the hand of Jesus with no toil or trust of 
 my own. 
 
 No one can gaze upon these golden corn-fields 
 without being influenced more or less by the pleasing 
 associations with which they are connected. They 
 strike their roots deep down into the soil of time ; 
 they are as old as the human race. They waved upon 
 the earth long before the flood, under the husbandry 
 of the " world's grey fathers." The sun in heaven has 
 ripened more than six thousand of them. Progress 
 is the law of nature, and everything else obeys it, but 
 the harvest-field exhibits little or no change. It pre- 
 sents nearly the same picture in this Western clime and 
 in these modern days as it did under the glowing skies 
 of the East in the time of the patriarchs. We see the 
 same old familiar scene now enacted under our eyes in 
 every walk we take, which Ruth saw when she gleaned 
 after her kinsman's reapers in one of the quiet valleys 
 
94 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. Ichap. 
 
 of Bethlehem, or which our blessed Saviour so fre- 
 quently gazed upon when wandering with His disciples 
 in the mellow afternoon around the verdant shores of 
 Gennesaret. The harvest-fields are the golden links 
 that connect the ages and the zones, and associate 
 together the most distant times and the remotest na- 
 tions in one common bond of sympathy and depend- 
 ence. They make of the earth one great home ; of the 
 human race one great family; and of God the universal 
 Parent, to whom day after day we are encouraged to 
 go with filial faith and love, not in selfishness and isola- 
 tion, but in a fraternal spirit which embraces the whole 
 world, asking not for ourselves only, but for all our 
 brothers of mankind as well — " OUR Father, which art 
 in heaven, give US this day our daily bread." 
 
 The most interesting and delightful association 
 which the harvest recalls is its connexion with the 
 great world-covenant. It stands imperishably asso- 
 ciated with that memorable summer evening after the 
 Flood, when Noah stood beside an altar of burnt- 
 offering, and through the smoke of the sacrifice floating 
 calmly upwards, and the misty exhalations rising from 
 the still reeking soil, and the dark thunder-clouds 
 melting and brightening in the unfamiliar sunshine, a 
 rainbow was seen to span the sky with its brilliant 
 arch, as God's signature to a new charter re-establishing 
 the peace and order of nature, which had been so long 
 and fearfully disturbed by the Flood. We can imagine 
 no position more terrible in its loneliness and insecurity 
 than that of Noah and his family at this time. They 
 stood amid the wreck and desolation of the world — 
 the sole survivors of the human race — uncertain whether 
 
v.] COR.Y. 95 
 
 the awful catastrophe from which they had so miracu- 
 lously escaped might not occur again, and, therefore, 
 naturally hesitating to cultivate the soil, or to provide 
 for anything beyond the most pressing wants of the 
 passing moment. In such a state of mind God gra- 
 ciously reassured them, and dispelled their fears and 
 forebodings by a direct interposition. He entered into 
 a new covenant with them as the representatives of 
 the human family, and consecrated the rainbow, the 
 offspring of the storm which had destroyed the world, 
 as the emblem and attestation of the covenant to 
 all generations. And now, whenever we see that gor- 
 geous blossom of light expanding its seven-coloured 
 petals from the dark bosom of the cloud, we know 
 that the storm, however long-continued and violent, 
 will not always last ; that the waters of Noah will no 
 more go over the earth ; that seed-time and harvest, 
 cold and heat, day and night, summer and winter, will 
 never cease. It was a beautiful superstition which 
 maintained that wherever the glittering feet of the 
 rainbow rested, there a hidden treasure would be dis- 
 covered. This fable contained more of reality than 
 we are apt to suppose. It is true that those who 
 foolishly set out in quest of this hidden treasure wan- 
 dered far and found only fairy gold, a glow of beauty 
 that vanished ever and anon the nearer they approached 
 it. But where the magic hues lay, there the dull soil 
 brightened into fruitfulness, and golden harvests, the 
 only true riches in the world, spring up and reward 
 him who seeks wealth not in idle superstitious wander- 
 ings, but by steady, trustful industry in those spots 
 where the feet of the bow of promise touch the earth. 
 
96 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 Our corn-fields grow and ripen securely under that 
 covenant-arch, whose key-stone is in the heavens, and 
 whose foundations are upon the earth. They afford 
 to us the most striking evidence, season after season, 
 of the integrity and stability of the covenant-promise. 
 Never once has the pledge, given four thousand years 
 ago, been violated. Never once in the whole course 
 of post-diluvial history, has the divine bow spanned a 
 scene of total desolation and death. Never once has 
 the real treasure been absent from the places where 
 its feet rested ; if not found within one horizon, it 
 was sure to be found within another. Dearths and 
 famines, grievous and long-continued, have occurred 
 again and again, but never simultaneously over the 
 whole world. While one region suffered from the 
 effects of blight, or storm, or drought, favourable con- 
 ditions developed an abundant harvest in another 
 region. Canaan was reduced to a howling wilderness ; 
 but there was corn in Egypt, though the application 
 of this compensation was sometimes rendered difficult 
 by natural or moral obstructions. But whether the 
 harvest be local or general, whether we be dependent 
 upon the produce of our own fields or upon the surplus 
 supplies of commerce, in either case it is to the covenant 
 faithfulness of God that we are indebted for the 
 blessing. 
 
 We are not accustomed, perhaps, to think of our 
 harvests in this light. We are apt to regard them as 
 things of course, as a necessary and inevitable part of 
 the constitution of nature, coming to us as the natural 
 result of our own toil and the proper reward of our 
 own industry. But it is well for us that they are 
 
V.J CORN. 97 
 
 secured by a higher law than the mere order of nature, 
 seeing how much depends upon them. Human hfe 
 now-a-days is so compHcated, the relations of trade 
 and manufactures in this country are so extensive and 
 intricate, the proportion of the population directly 
 engaged in agricultural pursuits is comparatively so 
 small, that we lose sight to a great extent of the primary 
 all-importance of the harvest. Amid the wealth and 
 luxuries procured in other ways, we fancy that we could 
 subsist without it. We lay out roads and railways, we 
 build ships and factories, we manufacture all kinds of 
 useful and ornamental articles, we institute banks and 
 insurance societies, and we say in the pride of our hearts 
 with the fool in the parable, " Thou hast much goods 
 laid up for many years, eat, drink, and be meriy," for- 
 getting that all these things are the potential means of 
 wealth, and not the wealth itself, and have no direct 
 relation whatever to the indispensable necessaries of 
 life. We toil and pinch and economize for years to 
 secure a fortune or a competency ; we have a feverish 
 longing and impatience to obtain that imaginary 
 elysium, an independence built upon the world's riches. 
 But a single unfavourable season will render all our 
 efforts nugatory, and prove to us how precarious is 
 the independence of the most independent. Well has 
 it been said that as we approach the season of harvest 
 we are within a month or two of absolute starvation 
 The barrel of meal is nearly exhausted, and no new 
 supply can be obtained except from the fields that are 
 slowly ripening under the patient heavens. Were the 
 winds permitted to thrash these fields, or the mildew 
 to blight them, or the caterpillar to devour them, or 
 
 H 
 
98 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the rain or the drought to prevent the ear from filhng 
 and ripening, not all the vast revenues and resources 
 of England would avail to stay the terrible conse- 
 quences. The rich and the poor, the needy and the 
 independent, would be overwhelmed with a common 
 ruin. All the other riches in the world — its coal, iron, 
 gold, and jewels, failing the riches of our golden harvest 
 fields, were as worthless as the dust beneath our feet. 
 It is not, therefore, without reason that I refer to the 
 uniform stability of nature and the security of our 
 annual harvests as one of the most remarkable evi- 
 dences of God's faithfulness to His covenant engage- 
 ment. And while external Nature thus declares that, 
 long for independence and pursue it with our whole 
 heart as we may, we cannot be truly independent — she 
 encourages us to place more implicit trust in God's 
 great harvest-covenant; and on the strength of that 
 engagement to offer up continually, so long as the 
 world endures, our morning supplication, " Give us 
 this day our daily bread." The promise of God is the 
 arch of the covenant rainbow ; the fourth petition is 
 the basis upon which it rests ; and the structure of 
 faith that is built upon God's promise and our prayer, 
 is more enduring than any fabric of independence that 
 man can construct for himself out of the silver and 
 gold, wood, hay, and stubble, of the world. 
 
 Corn is the special gift of God to man. There are 
 several interesting and instructive ideas connected with 
 this view of it. All the other plants we use as food are 
 unfit for this purpose in their natural condition, and 
 require to ha\^e their nutritious qualities developed, 
 and their natures and forms to a certain extent changed 
 
V.J CORX. 99 
 
 by a gradual process of cultivation. There is not a 
 single useful plant grown in our gardens and fields but 
 is utterly worthless for food in its normal or wild 
 state ; and man has been left to himself to find out, 
 slowly and painfully, how to convert these crudities of 
 nature into nutritious vegetables. But it is not so 
 with corn. It has from the very beginning been an 
 abnormal production. God gave it to Adam, we have 
 every reason to believe, in the same perfect state oi 
 preparation for food in which we find it at the present 
 day. It was made expressly for man, and given 
 directly into his hands. " Behold," says the Creator, 
 " I have given you every herb bearing seed which is 
 upon the face of all the earth," — that is, all the cereal 
 plants, such as corn, wheat, barley, rice, maize, &c., 
 wtiose peculiar distinction and characteristic it is to 
 produce seed ; " and to every beast of the earth, and 
 to every creeping thing, and to every fowl of the air, I 
 have given every green herb for meat," — that is, all 
 the species of grass and succulent plants whose nutri- 
 tious qualities reside chiefly in the stem.s and foliage. 
 The Word of God plainly tells us this, and nature 
 affords a remarkable corroboration of it. We cannot 
 regard it as an accidental, but, on the contrary, as a 
 striking providential circumstance, that the corn-plants 
 v/ere utterly unknown throughout all the geological 
 periods. Not the slightest trace of vestige of them 
 occurs in any of the strata of the earth, until we come 
 to the most recent formations, contemporaneous with 
 man. They are exclusively and characteristically 
 plants of the human epoch ; their remains are found 
 only in deposits near the surface, which belong to the 
 
 H 2 
 
100 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 existing order of physical conditions. They were 
 ushered upon the scene in the company of those 
 labiate and rosaceous plants, whose beauty, fragrance, 
 or fruitfulness, were especially fitted to minister to the 
 wants of a rational creature. The testimony of geology, 
 therefore, confirms unequivocally the testimony of 
 revelation, and shows that corn was not only specially 
 created for man's use, but was also got ready specially 
 for the appointed hour of his appearance on earth. A 
 table was spread for him in the wilderness by God's 
 own hands, richly furnished with the finest of the 
 wheat, and adorned with wreaths of roses and luscious 
 fruits, and rendered fragrant with mint and spikenard 
 and frankincense. 
 
 There is another proof that corn was created ex- 
 pressly for man's use in the fact that it has never been 
 found in a wild state. The primitive types from which 
 all our other esculent plants were derived are still to 
 be found in a state of nature in this or in other coun- 
 tries. The wild beet and cabbage still grow on our 
 sea-shores ; the crab-apple and the sloe, the savage 
 parents of our luscious pippins and plums, are still 
 found among the trees of the wood : but where are 
 the original types of our corn-plants } Where are the 
 wild grasses which, according to some authors, the 
 cumulative processes of agriculture, carried on through 
 successive ages, have developed into corn, wheat, and 
 barley ? Much has been written, and many experi- 
 ments have been tried, to determine the natural origin 
 of these cereals, but every effort has hitherto proved in 
 v^ain. Reports have again and again been circulated 
 that corn and wheat have been found growing wild in 
 
v.j CORN. 101 
 
 some parts of Persia and the steppes of Tartar}'-, 
 apparently far from the influence of cultivation ; but 
 when tested by botanical data, these reports have 
 turned out in every instance to be unfounded. Corn 
 has never been known as anything else than a culti- 
 vated plant. The oldest records speak of it exclusively 
 as such. Wheat grains have been found wrapped up 
 in the cerements of Egyptian mummies, which were 
 old before history began, identical in every respect 
 with the same variety which the farmer sows at the 
 present day. Charred fragments of bread, and large 
 quantities of carbonized barley and other grain, have 
 been dug out from beneath the alluvial deposits of the 
 Swiss and Italian lakes, where the lacustrine dwellings 
 of a singular people stood at the very least two thou- 
 sand years before the Christian era. And at the 
 present day, to the wild and roving savage in the 
 uttermost parts of the earth, corn is known only in a 
 state of cultivation. History and observation prove 
 that it cannot grow spontaneously. It is never, like 
 other plants, self-sown and self-dififused. Neglected 
 of men, it speedily disappears and becomes extinct. 
 It does not return, as do all other cultivated varieties 
 of plants, to a natural condition, and so become worth- 
 less as food, but utterly perishes, being constitution- 
 ally unfitted to maintain the struggle for existence 
 with the aboriginal vegetation of the soil. All this 
 proves that it must have been produced miraculously, 
 or, in other words, given by God to man directly in 
 the same abnormal condition in which it now appears ; 
 for nature never could have developed or preserved it. 
 In the mythologies of all the ancient nations it was 
 
102 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 confidently affirmed to have had a supernatural origin. 
 The Greeks and Romans believed it to be the gift 
 of the goddess Ceres, v/ho taught her son, Tripto- 
 lemus, to cultivate and distribute it over the earth, 
 and from her the whole class of plants received the 
 name of cereals, which they now bear. And we only 
 express the same truth when we say to Him whom 
 these pagans ignorantly worshipped, — "Thou pre- 
 parest them corn when Thou hast so provided for it." 
 Let me bring forward one more proof of special 
 design, enabling us to recognise the hand of God in 
 this mercy. Corn is universally diffused. It is almost 
 the only species of plant which is capable of growing 
 everywhere, in almost every soil, in almost any situ- 
 ation. In some form or other, adapted to the various 
 modifications of climate and physical conditions which 
 occur in different countries, it is spread over an area of 
 the earth's surface as extensive as the occupancy of 
 the human race. From the bleak inhospitable wastes 
 of Lapland to the burning plains of Central India, 
 from the muddy swamps of China to the billowy 
 prairies of America, from the level of the sea-shore to 
 the lofty valleys and table lands of the Andes and 
 Himalayas, it is successfully cultivated. The emigrant 
 clears the primeval forest of Canada or the fern-brakes 
 of New Zealand, and there the corn seed sown will 
 spring up as luxuriantly as on the old loved fields of 
 home. The heather that he brings with him from his 
 native hills may refuse to grow in the one place, and 
 the pine from Scottish woods may dwindle and fade 
 in the other, but the catholic corn will reward his 
 industry with the old abundant harvest, and surround 
 
v.] CORN. 103 
 
 his home in the wilderness, with pictures of nature so 
 like those of the land he has left, that exile is robbed 
 of half its sting-. Rice is grown in tropical countries 
 where periodical rains and inundations followed by 
 excessive heat occur, and furnishes the chief article 
 of diet for the largest proportion of the human race. 
 Wheat will not thrive in hot climates, but flourishes 
 all over the temperate zone at various ranges of eleva- 
 tion, and is admirably adapted to the wants of highly 
 civilized communities. Maize spreads over an immense 
 geographical area in the New World, where it has 
 been known from time immemorial, and formed a 
 principal element of that Indian civilization which sur- 
 prised the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru. Barley is 
 cultivated in those parts of Europe and Asia where 
 the soil and climate are not adapted for wheat ; while 
 oats and rye extend far into the bleak north, and 
 disappear only from those desolate Arctic regions 
 where man cannot exist in his social capacity. By 
 these striking adaptations of different varieties of 
 grain, containing the same essential ingredients, to 
 different soils and climates, Providence has fur- 
 nished the indispensable food for the sustenance of 
 the human race throughout the whole habitable 
 globe ; and all nations, and tribes, and tongues can 
 rejoice together as one great family with the joy of 
 harvest. 
 
 Corn, as the German botanist, Von Meyer, says, 
 precedes all civilization ; with it is connected rest, 
 peace, and domestic happiness, of which the wandering 
 savage knows nothing. In order to rear it nations 
 must take possession of certain lands ; and when their 
 
104 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 existence is thus firmly established, improvements in 
 manners and customs speedily follow. They are no 
 longer inclined for bloody wars, but fight only to 
 defend the fields from which they derive their support. 
 Corn is the food most convenient and most suitable 
 for man in a social state. It is only by the careful 
 cultivation of it that a country becomes capable of 
 permanently supporting a dense population. All 
 other kinds of food are precarious, and cannot be 
 stored up for any length of time ; roots and fruits are 
 soon exhausted, the produce of the chase is uncertain, 
 and, if hard pressed, ceases to yield a supply. In some 
 countries the pith of the sago palm, the fruit of the 
 bread-fruit tree, the root of the esculent fern, or the 
 lowly fungus, lichen, or sea-weed, supplied sponta- 
 neously by nature, serve to maintain a thinly-scattered 
 and easily-satisfied population ; but man in these rude 
 circumstances is invariably found greatly depraved in 
 body and mind, and hopelessly incapable of bettering 
 his ' condition. But the cultivation of corn, while it 
 furnishes him with a supply of food for the greater 
 part of the year, imposes upon him certain labours 
 and restraints which have a most beneficial influence 
 upon his character and habits. 
 
 The various species of wild grasses allied to corn 
 grow spontaneously without manure or culture on 
 the pampas of America, the steppes of the Kirghiz, 
 and the high pasturages of the Alps. " He maketh 
 grass to grow upon the mountains," to feed those 
 dumb, helpless animals that can " neither sow nor 
 reap." The wild grass is self-sustaining, self-diffusing_ 
 It is perennial, propagating itself year after year 
 
v.] CORN. 105 
 
 and century after century with unfailing certainty. 
 Prevented from flowering and seeding by the close 
 cropping of animals, nevertheless, by the wise com • 
 pensation of buds or lateral shoots, it is perpetuated, 
 and made more abundant and luxuriant. But it is 
 not so with the corn. It is an aniuial plant. It 
 cannot be propagated in any other way than by 
 seed, and when it has yielded its harvest it dies down 
 and rots in the ground ; self-sown, it will gradually 
 dwindle away, and at last disappear altogether. "It 
 can only be reared permanently by being sown by 
 man's own hand, and in ground which man's own 
 hand has tilled."* God gave it to him, in truth, 
 on the express stipulation that in the sweat of his 
 brow he should eat bread. The earth does not bring 
 forth double harvests ; a larger portion of its surface 
 is now cultivated than in former times, and by the 
 improvements in agriculture, two stalks of corn are 
 now made to grow where only one grew before, but an 
 increasing population has kept pace with the increasing 
 supply, and there is after all no excess of food. The 
 covenant promise bears this law of nature upon the 
 ve.ry face of it, — plainly intimates that while there shall 
 ever be an annual supply of corn, there shall ever be 
 an annual necessity for it. If seed-time and harvest 
 shall never cease, that surely implies that the annual 
 harvest of the world will only suffice for the world's 
 annual food. It is true, indeed, that in Egypt the 
 
 * For a most interesting monograph on this subject, see Professoj 
 Harvey's recently published work, "Man's Place and Biead Unique in 
 Nature." 
 
106 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap 
 
 produce of seven plentiful years was stored up for 
 seven years of famine. But this was an abnormal 
 state of things, divinely appointed for a special pur- 
 pose, and occurring only once in the history of man- 
 kind. In ordinary circumstances nature does not 
 permit such a storing of corn, but imperatively 
 demands that regularly, year after year, we sow our 
 fields and reap our harvests. " It is not probable that 
 there was ever a year and a half's supply of the first 
 necessary of life at one time in the world," and " that 
 starvation, which is often within a day's march of 
 countless multitudes of the human family, is once a 
 year within a month of them all." And wisely has 
 this been ordered ; well has it been so arranged, that 
 the terms upon which individuals and nations hold 
 their lease of life are unremitting labour from year to 
 year, for much wickedness is thus prevented which 
 idleness would be sure to produce ; much discipline is 
 thus afforded for powers of body and mind which 
 would otherwise rest in inglorious ease, or be destroyed 
 by vice. Man, as a tiller of the soil, as a cultivator of 
 corn — the bountiful and special gift to him of his 
 Maker — while he ministers thereby to his bodily 
 wants, raises himself in the scale of intelligence, exalts 
 and purifies his intellectual and moral nature ; and in 
 being a husbandman, becomes a little lower than the 
 angels, crowned with glory and honour. And in having 
 }ear after year to sow and reap his fields, and in thus 
 having his daily bread measured out to him, and his 
 daily bread only, he is taught in the most impressive 
 way the solemn lesson of his entire dependence upon 
 
v.] CORN. 107 
 
 God. " Thou visitest the earth and waterest it. Thou 
 preparest them corn when Thou hast so provided for it. 
 Thou crownest the year with thy g^ooJness, and thy 
 paths drop fatness. The pastures are clothed with 
 flocks ; the valleys also are covered over with com ; 
 tliey shout for joy, they also sing." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BLASTING AND MILDEW. 
 
 " / smote you with blasting and zvith inildnv and with hail in all the 
 labours of your hands." — Haggai ii. 17. 
 
 Summer's viewless boundary is past. The warmer 
 tints and softer outlines of the landscape ; the bright- 
 ening, through decay, of the sombre green night of 
 the foliage, like a strange dawn upbreaking through 
 the earth ; the deepening calm of the blue skies, and 
 the shortening beauty of the mellow eves, — all indicate 
 that the year has reached its golden summit, and that 
 henceforth its course must be down the western sunset 
 slopes in bleakness and shadow. The air is filled with 
 a tender sentiment of sadness, which makes the hectic 
 beauty of all things more touching. Nature now 
 empties her cornucopia of fruits, for the reign of the 
 flowers is over. Only a few late autumn ones linger 
 lovingly on the spots, where a fragile sisterhood of 
 beauty marked the long summer hours by the opening 
 and the closing of their petals. The blue-bells toll 
 their " Angelus " on the wayside banks ; the heather- 
 blossoms blush at their own loveliness on the lonely 
 moorlands ; and all the upland pastures are strewn 
 thick with myriads of the purple scabious, the earth's 
 last efforts to remember the fair skies of June. A new 
 
CHAP. VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 109 
 
 class of objects is now ushered upon the scene. In 
 the open glades of the woods, and in hidden nooks in 
 the fields, the mushroom tribe begin to appear, first as 
 solitary spies — the advanced guard of a large army of 
 invaders, destined for a brief season to carry every- 
 thing before them. True as the stork and the swallow 
 to their appointed time, they come as harbingers of 
 decay and prophets of desolation. Kept in check by 
 the luxuriant growth and overflowing, energetic life of 
 summer, — prevented from germinating by the dryness 
 of the air, and the heat and light of the sun, they now 
 take advantage of the feebler powers of vegetation, 
 and the damper and milder atmosphere, to put forth 
 their own claims to a share of the common earth. 
 The conditions that bring decay and death to other 
 plants are highly favourable to them ; and while the 
 flowers are fading and the leaves falling, under the 
 operation of a new, inexplicable law, they are rejoicing 
 in the possession of the fullest life and vigour. Where 
 the shade is deepest, and the soil most impregnated 
 with the products of corruption, they love, gipsy-like, 
 to pitch their tents ; and very picturesque they look 
 when seen in the dim green light of these silent haunts. 
 In every wood may be found a whole " Divina Com- 
 media" of mushroom forms, more fantastic than the 
 weird human forest which Dante saw in the invisible 
 world. They are plants in masquerade. The functions 
 of vegetable nature are reversed in these fungi. In their 
 appearance and structure they resemble animals. Their 
 substance is nitrogenous like flesh, and their pores inhale 
 oxygen, and exhale carbonic gas like animals. They 
 are in the vegetable kingdom what zoophytes are in the 
 
110 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 animal. As the sea-anemone reminds us of the wind- 
 flower in the woods, so the mushroom reminds us of 
 the jelly-fish in the sea ; and these connectmg links 
 between the creatures of two different elements, prove 
 the harmony of creation and the unity of the Creator. 
 Although bred only from the decay of higher organ- 
 isms, these mushrooms are not without their own 
 beauty of shape and colour. Their uncomely parts 
 have frequently more abundant comeliness. In no 
 class of plants are more vivid tints of orange and 
 crimson, scarlet and purple, to be found ; while the 
 exquisite contour of their caps, and the delicate 
 carvings of their ivory gills and stems, might form 
 studies for any painter. The splendour of their 
 colouring is in fine harmony with the solemn sunset of 
 the year ; and in the flames of crimson fungi, purple 
 flowers, and brilliant autumn woods. Nature yieldi 
 up her life as on a gorgeous funeral pyre. 
 
 Very useful and important are these fungi in the 
 world's busy household. They are working at 
 ■' chemical problems which have puzzled a Liebig and 
 a Lavoisier," converting the noxious products of cor- 
 ruption into comely forms and nutritious substances, 
 absorbing into living tissues effete matters, which are 
 fast hastening downwards to join the dark night of 
 chaos and death. Parasites, most of them, upon dead 
 plants, they economize the gases which would other- 
 wise escape into the atmosphere and pollute it ; and 
 conserve, for the use of nobler forms, the subtle forces 
 of life which would otherwise pass unprofitably into 
 the mineral kingdom. It is one of the strangest 
 things in the world, when we tliink seriously of it. to 
 
V I . J BLA S TING A ND MILDE IV. 1 1 1 
 
 see a vigorous life-full cluster of fungi springing, 
 phrenix-like, from a dead tree, exhausted of all its 
 juices, bleached by the sun and rain of many summers, 
 and ready to crumble into dust at the slightest touch. 
 Death is, indeed, here a new birth, and the grave a 
 cradle. It is one of Nature's many analogies of the 
 human resurrection. But the resemblance is super- 
 ficial and incomplete. The common analogies of the 
 corn-seed and the larva of the butterfly, imply a 
 development from a lower to a higher form of life 
 through the medium of death; but in the case before 
 us it is a process of degradation that takes place. The 
 higher organism decays, and rises again in the form 
 of a lower organism. The majestic oak of centuries 
 appears in the mushroom that, like Jonah's gourd, 
 springs up in a night, and perishes in a night. Not 
 thus shall it be in the resurrection of the just. " It is 
 sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption." "It 
 is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." 
 From the precious ashes shall rise up, not a body of sin 
 and death like this, but a glorious body fashioned like 
 unto Christ's, without spot or wrinkle, or any such 
 thing. There may, indeed, be some likeness, in the 
 autumnal resurrection of plants in fungi, to the resur- 
 rection of the wicked — the second death; for in this 
 case it will not be a transformation from dishonour to 
 glory, but a ceaseless retrogression from corruption to 
 \ deeper corruption still ; a dead life on earth, pro- 
 ducing an everlasting death-life in the world beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 Wisely have the fungi been provided, in the rapidity 
 of their growth, the simplicity of their structure, the 
 
112 BIBLE TEA C RINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 variety of their forms, and their amazing numbers, for 
 their appointed task in the economy of nature. Not 
 a leaf that falls from the bough, not a blade that 
 withers on the lea, but is seized by the tiny fangs of 
 some special fungus organized to prey upon it ; not a 
 spot of earth can we examine, where vegetable life is 
 capable of growing, but we shall find a vegetable as 
 well as an insect parasite, keeping its growth in check, 
 hastening its decay, and preserving its remains from 
 being wasted. Out of the eater, too, cometh forth meat. 
 The fungi raise from the lower soil nitrogenous sub- 
 stances, which, strewed on the surface by quick decay, 
 form food for higher plants than themselves. The 
 spawn of the mushrooms, which cause the mysterious 
 fairy-rings in our meadows, both consume putrescent 
 organized matter and manure the land. To the insect 
 world, all the species yield an inexhaustible store of 
 nourishment ; and though some kinds are virulently 
 poisonous, yet a large number are highly useful to 
 man. In many places on the Continent, they con- 
 stitute the staple article of food among the poorer 
 classes, during the summer and autumn months. In 
 this country, strange to say, they are sadly neglected ; 
 and while God is now showering this manna with 
 lavish profusion around the dwellings of the poor, and 
 offering it to them without money and without price, 
 they leave it thanklessly to rot on the ground, or turn 
 from it with loathing, longing for flesh-pots which the 
 plague has placed beyond their reach. 
 
 In carrying out the wise and gracious purposes for 
 which they have been designed, the fungi not unfre- 
 quently overstep the limits of usefulness, and commit 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 113 
 
 wholesale destruction. Like the storm that is intended 
 to purify the air, and in so doing incidentally destroys 
 life and property, the fungi are intended to hasten 
 decay, and limit the injurious influence of putrescent 
 matters ; but in so doing they are not unfrequently the 
 occasion of blight and famine. They purify man's 
 atmosphere, but they also destroy man's food. If their 
 ravages could be confined to useless plants ; if they 
 were employed solely in reducing weeds to decay, they 
 would be welcomed by man as among his greatest 
 helps and blessings. But nature knows no straight, 
 arbitrary line of demarcation, such as we draw, be- 
 tween what is useless and what is useful. To every 
 natural good there is a recoil of evil. The fungi are 
 indiscriminate in their attacks. They seize upon the 
 corn which strengthens man's heart, as readily as 
 upon the thorns and briers which cause him to eat his 
 bread in the sweat of his brow. The law impressed 
 upon them is to help in reducing all organic nature to 
 its ultimate elements ; and in obeying this law, they 
 know no respect of persons or things, no will save that 
 of Him "whose tender mercies are over all His works." 
 In this aspect they may be numbered, along with 
 thorns and briers, among the disorders of the original 
 beauty of creation, the various impediments to the 
 earth's bringing forth the needful sustenance for man. 
 In this our fallen condition, we must always count 
 upon the blasting and the mildew ; upon the years to 
 be eaten by the locust, the canker-worm, the cater- 
 pillar, and the palmer-worm, as surely as upon the 
 covenant faithfulness of Him who promised that seed- 
 time and harvest would never cease, and to whom we 
 
 I 
 
114 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 are encouraged to offer up the daily petition, " Give 
 us this day our daily bread." Nature with reference 
 to nature completely accomplishes her purposes ; but 
 nature with reference to man is not a perfect means to 
 an end. There is a want of adjustment between him 
 and his dwelling-place ; he has to work within a 
 machinery to which he is imperfectly adapted. Sin is 
 the cause of this want of harmony. It has thrown 
 everything out of gear, and subjected the creature to 
 vanity. All the blights and storms from which man 
 suffers, are but the echoes in the natural world of the 
 mischiefs wrought by sin in the spiritual. Every 
 phase of the evil within man finds some reflection in 
 the evil without him ; and everywhere we see a groan- 
 ing and travailing world, full of labour and sorrow, 
 because full of sin and guilt. This is the gracious 
 purpose of the Creator, in order that man may be 
 conformed to His will and moulded to His image 
 by the discipline of suffering. Blasting and mildew, 
 tlaorns and briers, had no place in the Divine ideal of 
 a pure and holy world ; they will have no place in 
 the restored Eden from which sin, and therefore its 
 shadows, have been banished. 
 
 Blasting and mildew were very frequent in Bible 
 lands and times. Along with war and pestilence, they 
 were the most common judgments inflicted by Gocl 
 upon His tmgrateful and rebellious people. He says 
 again and again by the mouth of His prophets, 
 " I smote you with blasting and mildew in all the 
 labours of your hands, yet ye turned not to me." So 
 terrible were the ravages committed by these scourges, 
 so sudden their appearance, so rapid their progress, so 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 115 
 
 mysterious their origin and cause, that they were 
 universally regarded not merely as a visitation of God, 
 but as a special product of God's creative poiver. The 
 cause and the effect were confounded. Fear prevented 
 the Israelites from investigating the nature of the 
 phenomenon. That it was divinely produced was 
 sufficient for them. Since that time, men have tried 
 to find out, in secondary causes, the rationale of the 
 pestilence that so long walked in darkness. It was 
 natural to seek in occult regions for the explanation of 
 an occult mystery ; and, therefore, it was attributed 
 to meteoric influences, to lunar eclipses, to certain 
 combinations of the planets. Modern science has 
 given the true interpretation of the riddle. Blasting 
 and mildew are now conclusively ascertained to be 
 produced hy plants — to be the diseases occasioned by 
 the growth of minute fungi. Ever since plants have 
 existed, these vegetable parasites have preyed upon 
 them. They appear in greater or less abundance 
 every year. They are fostered into excessive growth 
 by certain favourable conditions of soil and climate, 
 and checked in their development by certain un- 
 favourable conditions. They are not extraordinary 
 or exceptional phenomena of Nature, but the com- 
 monplace every-day products of her laws. They 
 are not special creations of God, but the ordinary 
 growths of the vegetable kingdom. And in the part 
 which they took in the ancient Divine judgments, the 
 only thing that could be regarded as supernatural or 
 miraculous, was their extraordinary development and 
 sudden appearance in immediate connexion with the 
 Divine threatenings. in ordinary circumstances they 
 
 I 2 
 
116 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 were produced in small quantity, and were so greatly 
 restricted in their ravages as to be scarcely noticed ; 
 but when employed by God to accomplish His designs 
 upon the children of Israel, they were so augmented 
 in quantity, and so unrestrained in their ravages, that 
 they gave rise to famine or death. It has been said, 
 that every step gained by science is a contraction of 
 the miraculous ; that as the one advances, the other 
 must recede. This applies to the superstitious inter- 
 pretation of nature, but not to the miraculous element 
 in God's Word. As science advances superstition 
 retires, and the phenomena attributed to supernatural 
 causes are found to have been produced by the opera- 
 tion of physical law. But the miracles of the Bible 
 are untouched by this principle. The advancement 
 of science may limit their extent, but cannot explain 
 away their nature ; may tell us that some of their 
 modes and circumstances were natural, but cannot 
 disenchant our minds of the belief in the special con- 
 nexion of Omnipotence with them. It may teach us 
 the economy of miracles, but it cannot persuade us 
 of their unreality and impossibility. While miracles 
 have a natural body, as it were, they have a divine 
 soul. While God employs the objects of nature 
 already existing, instead of creating new ones, to be 
 the ministers of His moral purposes. He transforms 
 and transfigures them in so doing, invests them with 
 attributes which they do not naturally possess, or uses 
 them in an abnormal way ; and thus, though the 
 means themselves are not divine, yet the agency by 
 which they are made effectual is divine. The blasting 
 and mildew that of old ravaged the fields of the 
 
VI.] BL/I STING AND MILDEW. 117 
 
 Israelites, were caused by an extraordinary growth of 
 fungi ; they were natural instrumentalities employed 
 in accordance with nature ; but they were true miracles 
 notwithstanding — true judgments of God, foretold in 
 connexion with certain sins, and inflicted as the special 
 punishments of these sins at the very time threatened. 
 The very fact that the progress of science makes us to 
 see more and more of the natural in the supernatural, 
 ought also, by parity of reasoning, to lead us to see 
 more of the supernatural in the natural ; to see the 
 miracle of the loaves and fishes in the growth of the 
 waving harvest from the handful of seed, and the 
 miracle of Cana of Galilee in the changing of the 
 summer dews and rains in the vineyard into wine ; 
 and thus a true and perfect science will ever 
 teach us that the ordinary and the extraordinary, 
 the natural and the miraculous, are but different 
 phases as it were of the same Omnipotence which, 
 paradoxical as it may seem, has power to alter, just 
 because from the very first it left nothing that needed 
 altering. 
 
 A brief glance at the nature of the fungi concerned 
 in the production of blasting and mildew may be 
 interesting and instructive. It will introduce many to 
 an unknown world of minute existences, unnoticed 
 amid the great bustling world of sense and sight, but 
 very wonderful to those who have learned to reverence 
 not merely the size of things, but the wisdom of their 
 idea. It will teach us the needful lesson, that nothing 
 is so weak and small that the strength and the wisdom 
 of God cannot accomplish great ends by its instrumen- 
 tality. It will reveal to us the astounding fact, that 
 
118 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN MATURE. [chap. 
 
 we are living in the very midst of organic forces pos- 
 sessed of incalculable powers of harm, which may at 
 any time be let loose and overwhelm us, and ought, 
 therefore, to excite in us a deep sense of our helpless- 
 ness and dependence. There are four diseases in corn 
 produced by fungi — recognised in the popular language 
 of the farm as simit, bunt, rust, and mildew. Sometimes 
 one, and sometimes another predominates ; but there 
 are few fields where they may not all be found in some 
 degree. Every one who has attentively examined a 
 corn-field about the beginning of July, w4ien the ear is 
 protruding through the sheath, must have noticed here 
 and there a black head among the green ones, covered 
 with a soot-like dust, which comes away freely, and 
 stains the hands. This disease has been long and widely 
 known among farmers under the name of smut, or dust- 
 brand ; but it is only recently that its true nature has 
 been ascertained. Under the microscope the black 
 powder is found to consist of a collection of spores, or 
 round seed-cases, containing sporules or seeds in their 
 interior. It is, therefore, not a mass of diseased cells, 
 as was formerly supposed, which obviously would not 
 germinate, but a parasitic plant — a true fungus, capable 
 of reproducing and extending itself indefinitely. Hence 
 botanists have given it the name of Ustilago segctiim. 
 The seed-vessels in this plant are exceedingly minute. 
 One square inch of surface contains no less than eight 
 millions ; and if the seed-vessels be so small, what 
 must the seeds theniselves be ! The highest power of 
 the microscope is only capable of resolving them into 
 an impalpable powder. Myriads of seeds are shed 
 from the smutted ears long before the corn is ripe, and 
 
VI] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 119 
 
 dispersed into the air, and over the fields, — most of 
 them to die, a few of them to reappear next summer 
 with the grain upon which they are parasitic. When 
 germinating, this fungus first attacks the interior 
 portions of the flower, and renders them abortive. It 
 then seizes upon the httle stalks of the florets, and 
 causes them to swell and become fleshy. At length 
 it consumes all the reproductive organs, and converts 
 the whole nutritious grain into vile dust and ashes : 
 thus affording a striking analogy of that transmutation 
 which the seed of eternal life undergoes, in . the case 
 of those to whom it becomes a savour of death unto 
 death. 
 
 Another species of " blasting," more destructive, 
 and therefore more dreaded, is known to the farmer 
 under the name of bwit, and to the botanist as Ustilago 
 fcetida, on account of the intolerable odour, like that 
 of putrid fish, which it exhales. It is one of the most 
 common diseases to which wheat is subject. Scarcely 
 a field is free from its attacks ; and in favourable 
 circumstances it spreads widely and proves very de- 
 structive. It confines its ravages entirely to the 
 grain. Externally, the infected ear presents no ab- 
 normal appearance. There is no black dust, no 
 stunted growth or malformation, by which the pre- 
 sence of the insidious foe may be recognised. On the 
 contrary, the infected ears continue growing, and 
 appear even plumper, and of a richer and darker 
 green, than the sound ones. The very stigm.ata of 
 the flowers remain unaltered to the last. Stealthily 
 and secretly the process of poisoning is accomplished; 
 and not, in many cases, till the harvest is reaped, and 
 
120 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the wheat ground for flour, is the discovery made, by 
 the odour and colour, that the produce is unfit for 
 human food. Under this external mask of health, all 
 fecundation is rendered impossible ; there is no de- 
 velopment of the parts of fructification ; no embryo 
 whatever can be detected ; the whole interior of the 
 seed when broken or bruised is found to be filled with 
 a black, fetid powder, which contains, on chemical 
 analysis, an acrid oil, putrid gluten, charcoal, phos- 
 phoric acid, phosphate of ammonia, and magnesia, but 
 no traces of starch, the essential ingredient in human 
 food. Under a high power of the microscope, this 
 powder consists of a mass of round spores or serd- 
 vessels, considerably larger than those of smut ; and, 
 instead of being plain and smooth, as in that species, 
 their surface is beautifully reticulated. They are also 
 mixed with a number of delicate branched threads, 
 called the mycelium, or spawn. The seeds contained 
 in the spore-cases are of a greasy, oily nature, and 
 consequently adhere to the skin of the sound, grains, 
 so that the disease may be propagated at any time hy 
 inoculation or contagion. One grain of wheat con- 
 tains upwards of four millions of spores ; but the 
 number of seeds contained in these is beyond calcu- 
 lation. When bunted wheat is ground accidentally 
 with healthy flour, it gives it an exceedingly nauseous 
 taste, and is no doubt injurious to the health in pro- 
 portion to the quantity introduced. 
 
 Another species of " blasting " is known to farmers 
 as rust or red-robin. It is called by botanists TricJio- 
 basis riibigo-vera. It is rare to find any wheat-fiek! 
 altogether free from it at any season of the year, and 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. I'll 
 
 it is sometimes so abundant, that a person passing 
 among the stalks is completely painted with its rusty 
 powder. It is found upon the wheat-plant at all 
 stages of growth. Early in the spring it attacks the 
 young blades ; later in the season it breaks out on 
 the glumes and paleae of the ear even after the grain 
 is formed. So long as it is confined to the leaf, it is 
 comparatively harmless. The grain continues to swell 
 in spite of it, and though the flag seems to droop and 
 wear a sear and yellow tint, a few bright sunshiny days, 
 by drying up the moisture in which it luxuriates, will 
 arrest its progress, and restore the healthy greenness 
 of the crop. A long continuance of warm damp 
 weather will cause it to propagate itself to a serious 
 extent, and in the end the quality and quantity of 
 both grain and straw will be very much deteriorated. 
 Strange to say, although in this country the least 
 alarming of all the blights of the wheat, it is the most 
 common and the most dreaded on the Continent, 
 where the settled sunshine which is so inimical to its 
 growth seems naturalized in the atmosphere. In ap- 
 pearance the corn-rust is a mere patch of reddish- 
 yellow powder, bursting like an eruption through the 
 skin of the leaves and culms of the growing corn. Its 
 microscopic character is somewhat different from that 
 of bunt and smut. Its spores grow from a mycelium 
 or spawn-thread like bunt ; but, unlike that species, 
 they are furnished at their base with a short thread- 
 like footstalk, attaching them to their matrix, which at 
 length falls away. They are exceedingly beautiful, 
 delicate objects, . and will amply reward the mo=t 
 careful microscopic investigation. 
 
122 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE [chap. 
 
 The fourth species of blight which I shall mention 
 is mildew. This term is very vague and unsatisfactory. 
 By the Hebrews it ivas employed in the most general 
 sense, to designate all the diseases of vegetables caused 
 by fungi, and often included very different plants. In 
 modern times the term is hardly better understood. 
 It represents no definite idea, or a v&ry different idea 
 to different individuals. The farmer, the vine-grower, 
 the hop-cultivator, the gardener, the housewife, apply 
 it indiscriminately to the effect produced by different 
 species, and even genera, of fungi upon the objects of 
 their care. Speaking with scientific accuracy, the 
 term " mildew " should be restricted to that disease of 
 corn which isicaused by the fungus known to botanists 
 as the Pticcinia graminis. It is derived from the 
 Saxon words Mehl-thaii, meaning meal-dew. Although 
 familiar to the tiller of the soil from the earliest ages, 
 it is only since the beginning of this century that its 
 true character as a vegetable parasite has been known. 
 Previously it was regarded simply a^ a meteorological 
 product, or a diseased appearance of the corn itself 
 It makes its appearance in the corn-fields in May or 
 June, and first takes possession of the lower green 
 leaves, which become sickly, and break out through 
 the skin which rises round them in blisters, into rusty 
 patches, as though the corn-stalk had been powdered 
 with red ochre. Examined under the microscope, 
 these red patches resolve themselves into dense masses 
 of round one-celled spores, rising from the midst of 
 delicate branched threads, which insinuate themselves 
 in a complete network amongst the cells of the dis- 
 eased leaf. At this stage of growth, mildew presents 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 123 
 
 so close a resemblance to rust that it is regarded by 
 some as a mere form of it. A month or two later, 
 however, it presents some differences. Not only is it 
 more abundant than before, but it changes its colour 
 gradually from a rusty red to a deep brown tint, and 
 under the microscope its spores become pear-shaped, 
 each tapering gradually into a stalk — and also two- 
 celled, each cell filled with granular contents. Finally, 
 when the corn is nearly or fully ripe, the straw and 
 the culm are profusely streaked with blackish spots, 
 ranging in length from a minute dot to an inch. This 
 is the fully developed mildew, and, once seen, is not 
 likely to be mistaken for anything else. It is very 
 common on all the cereals grown in this country, and 
 also on many of the grasses, and often proves very 
 injurious. Its effect seems to be to intercept the sap 
 intended to nourish the grain, which, consequently, 
 becomes shrivelled and deficient in nutritive matter, 
 yielding a superabundance of inferior bran. When 
 the fungus is abundant, a field which promises well 
 in the blossoming time, grievously disappoints the 
 farmer in the harvest and the threshing season ; 
 the reason of the deficit being often wrapped up in 
 mystery to him. 
 
 Such are the blights which afi'ect the cereal crops 
 in this country. They occur on all parts of the plants 
 infested. One is iound on the straw ; another on the 
 leaves and chaff; a third attacks the flower, and a 
 fourth the grain. At no stage of growth is the wheat- 
 plant free from some species or other. Season after 
 season, as regularly as the corn grows, so regularly 
 do these parasitic fungi appear with it. They have 
 
124 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap, 
 
 become at certain periods epidemic, like the plagues 
 and pestilences in human history. They have re- 
 peatedly caused famines in our own and in other 
 countries. In this form they were familiar to the Jews 
 and the Romans of old, and were common in the 
 Middle Ages. And though now, owing to an im- 
 proved system of agriculture, they seldom inflict wide- 
 spread suffering, yet they have become chronic, and 
 . every season duly levy a lighter or a heavier tax upon 
 the produce of the fields — without any hope of its 
 being repealed. The geographical range of these 
 parasites is co-extensive with that of the corn. They 
 have followed the march of cultivation into the wilder- 
 ness ; and wherever new ground has been broken up 
 for the growth of human bread, there they have sprung 
 up though unknown before. On the virgin soils of 
 new colonies, they spread with the same rapidity as 
 on the exhausted fields of old countries. They are 
 perfectly naturalized amid the fern-brakes of New 
 Zealand, and in the clearings in the primeval forests 
 of Canada. They are found conspiring with the in- 
 hospitable climate, against the scanty produce which 
 the Peruvian peasant wrings from the lofty table-lands 
 of the Andes ; and the Laplander regards their pre- 
 sence with dread amid the pitiable rye-fields, which 
 struggle into existence on the borders of the Polar 
 ocean. Every species of cereal has a parasitic fungus 
 of its own. The maize, or Indian corn of the New 
 World, is attacked by a virulent smut called Ustilago 
 Maydis; a kind of bunt commits great ravages among 
 the fields of Sorghum or durra, a grain extensively 
 grown in Africa and Asia. Rice and millet are 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW, 125 
 
 infested with several kinds of smut and rust, which 
 occasionally prove very destructive. Thus, every- 
 where these insidious parasites, possessing the power 
 of indefinite extension and localisation, lie in wait to 
 frustrate the goodness which is crowning the year, and 
 to disappoint the hopes of the harvest. 
 
 The cereals, however, are not the only food plants 
 which are exposed to the attacks of blasting and 
 mildew. Not a single plant which man cultivates 
 but is the prey of some species or other of fungus- 
 The produce of the garden and the field, luxuries and 
 necessaries, are destroyed and polluted by these 
 vegetable harpies. Some plants are more susceptible 
 than others, having no less than a dozen parasites ; 
 but on every cultivated plant two or three species 
 establish themselves. Onions, cabbages, turnips, beet- 
 root, peas, spinach, gourds, in short all the green crops 
 we raise, often suffer severely from this scourge. In 
 wet seasons and damp localities they spread like wild- 
 fire, and destroy everything before them. Leprous 
 mildews of different species are now and then fearfully 
 fatal to the coffee plantations of Ceylon, the orange 
 groves of St. Michael, the olive woods in the south of 
 Europe, the mulberry-trees of Syria and China, and 
 the cotton-fields of India. The leaves of these dif- 
 ferent plants, upon the produce of which the welfare 
 and industry of whole provinces depend, are clothed 
 on such occasions literally with sackcloth and ashes. 
 Vegetable epidemics have raged with fearful violence 
 over our fields and gardens. The hop, the vine, the 
 potato, the peach have been nearly extirpated by the 
 Oi'dium and the Botrytis ; and their cultivation is stili 
 
126 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 rendered exceedingly precarious in wet seasons from 
 the same cause. All the horrors of famine followed 
 in some places in the wake of these epidemics, and 
 the violent commotions which they stirred up in 
 society have not yet subsided. The fungi concerned 
 in these wide-spread plagues are different from those 
 of the cereal group. They are called moulds, and 
 consist of a web of delicate threads, penetrating the 
 tissue of the plants on which they grow, and producing 
 clusters of little jointed stalks bearing oval-shaped 
 fruit. A lovelier spectacle than these moulds present 
 under the microscope it is impossible to conceive. 
 No language can give an adequate idea of the forests 
 of crystalline vegetation, with their transparent trunks 
 and their wildering mazes of exquisite flowers and 
 beadlike fruit, growing in snowy purity on a fragment 
 of potato-leaf or a small bit of decayed grape-skin. 
 One can gaze at them unweariedly for hours, marvel- 
 ling at the inexhaustible fulness of glory which God 
 must possess, when He can afford to lavish so much 
 of it on objects so mean and insignificant. Beauty 
 such as theirs — beauty nowise essential to the per- 
 formance of their functions— is surely the stamp of 
 God upon all the works of His hands, by which we 
 recognise their excellency and perfection. 
 
 All these blights and mildews on the corn-crops 
 and the green-crops may well be called by God, " My 
 great army." Individually minute and insignificant, 
 by the sheer force of untold numbers they are 
 mightier for harm than storms and earthquakes. 
 They have been fearfully and wonderfully made for 
 their dread work. No less than four kinds of fructi- 
 
Vl.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 127 
 
 fication — spores, acrospores, zoospores, oospores — 
 have been discovered on the same plant, each capable 
 of reproducing it. When one mode fails, another is 
 developed to take its place, so that absolute failure, 
 even in the most unfavourable circumstances, is almost 
 impossible. The germs produced by these different 
 kinds of fructification are of various sizes and dif- 
 ferent powers of germination, so that, when a large- 
 sized seed fails to find a lodgement in the pores and 
 cells of plants, a smaller one is sure to succeed ; and 
 the conditions that prevent the growth of one kind ot 
 seed will prove favourable to another. Thus armed 
 at all points, provided against all emergencies, the 
 seeds of these moulds and mildews go forth on their 
 work of destruction. They are produced, besides, in 
 incalculable myriads. On one individual mould up- 
 wards of ten millions of spores have been counted. 
 One acre of mildewed wheat will produce seeds suffi- 
 cient to inoculate the whole of the wheat of the United 
 Kingdom. The atmosphere is charged to an incon- 
 ceivable extent with them ; the soil of every field is 
 sown thick with them. Almost every grain of corn, 
 or wheat, or barley, from the finest samples, is found, 
 under the microscope, to have one or more seeds 
 adhering to its husk. They effect an entrance either 
 through the roots or by the stomata or breathing- 
 pores of the plants they infest ; and hardly ever can 
 these organs perform their functions of inhalation or 
 assimilation, without taking in from the atmosphere 
 or the soil one or more of these sporules. It is indeed 
 a fortunate circumstance that they refuse to grow 
 generally except in stagnant ill-drained places, and 
 
123 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TUBE. [chap. 
 
 under peculiar conditions of warmth and moisture ; 
 for otherwise if, quick with Hfe as they are, they were 
 to germinate wherever they ahghted, the fig-tree 
 would not blossom, and there would be no fruit in the 
 vines, the labour of the olive would fail, and the fields 
 would yield no meat. 
 
 Solemn thoughts in the summer season arise in my 
 mind, as I go out, like Isaac, to meditate in the fields 
 at eventide. I see a rich table preparing for a hungry 
 world in the presence of innumerable enemies. I see 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman — the powers of light and dark- 
 ness — contending for the harvest; the sunshine and 
 the breeze quickening and ripening it, and baleful 
 parasites lying in wait under the shadow of the dark 
 cloud to convert its milk into poison. I seem to see, 
 in every dark head of smut and bunt among the corn, 
 the vision of the black horse of the third seal, and its 
 rider, holding the balances in his hand, proclaiming, 
 " A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures 
 of barley for a penny." It appears to me that God's 
 design in allowing these black fungoid ears to spring 
 up year after year among the healthy crop, is just to 
 show us the "hidings of His power;" to show us how 
 easily, if it so pleased Him, He could let loose these 
 destructive agencies to break the staff of bread and 
 cover the land with desolation and woe. And when 
 I find that, as the season advances, these ominous 
 heralds of famine disappear, and the golden harvest 
 fills, in all the beauty and fulness of its promise, the 
 emerald cup of the hills, I seem to hear the voice of 
 the Merciful One, in the midst of the four living 
 creatures symbolical of creation, restraining the 
 
VI.] BLASTING AND MILDEW. 129 
 
 ravages of the black horse, and saying to its blasting 
 and mildew, "See that ye hurt not the oil and the 
 wine." The destroying angel, whose waft is famine, 
 the tremor of whose plume is death, folds his wings 
 and stays his hand now, as of yore, by the threshing- 
 floor of Araunah. And there, where the plague has 
 been stayed and the shadow of famine dispersed, let 
 us rear an altar; and, besought by the mercies of God. 
 dedicate the threshing instruments and the first-fruits, 
 and yield ourselves a living sacrifice unto the great 
 Husbandman. And thus we shall fear no blasting or 
 mildew ; bread shall be given to us ; goodness and 
 mercy will follow us all the days of our life ; and we 
 shall at last rejoice in the great harvest-home of 
 heaven, and shall hunger no more, for the Lamb that 
 is in the midst of the throne shall feed us. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LEAF. 
 
 ' These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they 
 were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the 
 heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and 
 every herb of the field hefore it grew." — GENESIS ii. 4, 5. 
 
 Although Science is usually represented as tearing 
 the poetical veil from the face of Nature, and reducing 
 all her wonderful facts to dry mathematical formulas, 
 yet there are instances in which it has been greatly 
 indebted to the inspiration of poetry. One of the 
 most beautiful scientific generalizations was the result, 
 not of the patient, persevering researches of the natu- 
 ralist, but of the dreamy reverie of a poet On the 
 meditative mind of Goethe on one occasion dawned 
 the bright idea, that the flower of a plant is not, as is 
 commonly supposed, an added or separate organ, but 
 only the highest development, or rather transformation 
 of its leaves, — that all the parts of a plant, from the seed 
 to the blossom, are mere modifications of a leaf This 
 idea, at first, was founded on no observations of nature, 
 or accumulation of facts ; it was laughed at by scien- 
 tific men as the dream of one ignorant of science ; 
 and even by the kindred mind of Schiller it was re- 
 garded simply as a poetical fancy, though he acknow- 
 
CHAP. VII.] THE LEAF. 131 
 
 ledged its beauty and ingenuity. But as time wore 
 on, it began to attract more reverent attention ; it 
 was found to be a clear exposition of a somewhat 
 hazy presentiment of the great Linnaeus, and of a 
 theory, long buried in neglect, first propounded b>" 
 Wolff. Thus recommended by scientific authority, 
 men began to study it anew in the light of nature's 
 own revelations, and soon became convinced of its 
 scientific value. Jussieu and De Candolle, the eminent 
 French botanists, gave their unqualified assent to it ; 
 and now the poetry of the idea is lost sight of in its 
 prosaic reality, and it is taught as a fundamental 
 and all-essential truth in every text-book of vegetable 
 physiology. The beneficial effects which it produced 
 upon the study of natural history it is impossible to 
 over-estimate. It created a complete revolution in 
 the science of botany, changing it from a mass of con- 
 fused and discordant facts into a highly compact and 
 symmetrical system. It furnished a proper basis upon 
 which a solid and accurate theory of the vegetable 
 kingdom could be constructed. It supplied the key 
 of explanation for the occurrence of all those singular 
 metamorphoses which plants undergo, and which were 
 formerly utterly inexplicable. It lies at the root of 
 the arts of agriculture and horticulture; for without 
 the law involved in it, the simple wild plants of nature 
 could not possibly be converted into the magnificent 
 double flowers of our gardens, and the useful products 
 of our fields. 
 
 This one idea has done more to lift the veil of 
 mystery from nature, and to interpret the plans and 
 purposes of the Creator, than all the previous labours 
 
 K 2 
 
l32 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of botanists. It shows us order in the midst of 
 confusion ; simplicity in the midst of apparently in- 
 extricable complexity ; unity of plan amid endless 
 diversity of form. We read that there are nearly two 
 hundred thousand different species of plants ; and 
 we are bewildered at the thought of the countless 
 varieties of hue, form, and size, which such a vast 
 host must exhibit. We see around us in every walk 
 we take innumerable specimens of vegetation, from 
 the moss on the wall to the majestic oak-tree, dis- 
 playing every possible diversity of structure and 
 appearance, and we are lost in amazement at the 
 inexhaustible riches of the Infinite Mind. But when 
 we realize the fact that one principle of construction 
 pervades all this array of independent organisms ; that 
 the leaf-form and the leaf-structure are the primitive 
 models from which all this complexity has originated, 
 we obtain the clue which guides us easily through the 
 labyrinth, and makes us wonder at its simplicity. 
 Thoreau, watching the leafy expansions of frost- 
 vegetation on the window-pane and on the blades 
 of grass, declared that "the Maker of this earth but 
 patented a leaf" He traced the leaf-pattern through- 
 out all the kingdoms of Nature. He saw it in the 
 brilliant feathers of birds; in the lustrous wings of 
 insects ; in the pearly scales of fishes ; in the blue- 
 veined palm of the human hand ; and in the ivory 
 shell of the human ear. The earth itself, according 
 to him, is but a vast leaf veined with silver rivers 
 and streams, with irregularities of surface formed by 
 mountains and valleys, and varied tints of green in 
 forest and field, and great bright spaces of sea and 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 133 
 
 lake. This, however, is a mere transcendental idea 
 when thus applied to all the departments of nature ; 
 it is scientific truth only when confined to the 
 vegetable kingdom. But tJie ttnity of wJiicli, it 
 speaks may be traced everywhere. All the recent 
 discoveries of science, both as regards the forms and 
 the forces of matter, have an obvious tendency to 
 simplify greatly the scheme of nature, and reduce its 
 phenomena to the operation of a few simple laws ; 
 and in this respect they have a profound theological 
 significance. Amid these brilliant generalizations, we 
 cannot stop short until we have reached the highest 
 and sublimest generalization, and nature has led us 
 by such great altar-steps up to nature's God. I can- 
 not help regarding ail systems of classification, based 
 upon the great types ot nature — whatever may be the 
 religious views of their authors — as unconscious pro- 
 phecies of the living and true God, as instinctive 
 yearnings and gropings by the light of nature after 
 the Great First Cause ; and when species are arranged 
 under genera, and genera under orders, and orders 
 under one great division, I must regard the system 
 as incomplete, unless the next logical step be taken, 
 and this division in its turn be placed under the 
 supreme kingdom, where all lines of life converge — 
 of Him who is God over all, blessed for ever. An 
 infidel naturalist, according to this idea, is one who 
 shrinks from the inevitable inference of his own pre- 
 mises, and is therefore one of the most illogical and 
 inconsequent of all men. 
 
 The theory of the leaf, as lying at the basi? o^ the 
 vegetable kingdom, requires more particular explain- 
 
134 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 tion. All plants are produced from seeds or buds ; 
 the one free, the other attached ; the one spreading 
 the plant geographically, the other increasing its 
 individual size. Carefully examined, the seed, or 
 starting-point in the life of a plant, is composed of a 
 leaf rolled tight, and altered in tissue and contents, so 
 as to suit its new requirements. The real character 
 of a seed may be seen in the germination of a bean, 
 when the two leaves of which it is composed appear 
 in the fleshy lobes or cotyledons which first rise above 
 ground, and afford nourishment to the embryo. The 
 bud, or epitome of the plant, which is physiologically 
 co-ordinate with the seed, is also found to consist of 
 leaves folded in a peculiar manner, and covered with 
 tough leathery scales to protect them from the winter's 
 cold ; and in spring it evolves the stem, leaves, and 
 fruit, — in short, every structure which comes of the 
 seed. By some the stem is regarded as an essentially 
 distinct and typical part, but the study of plants in 
 which it departs from the normal form, will clearly 
 indicate its foliaceous origin. The leaf here is made 
 to assume a columnar shape, strengthened at the 
 joints and nodes for the support of the superstructure, 
 and elevated above the ground, in order to expose 
 all the organs which it bears most thoroughly to the 
 quickening influence of sun and air. Instances of the 
 resolution of the stem into a rolled and compressed 
 leaf may be seen in grasses and bulbous plants, whose 
 stems are visibly composed of sheathing leaves. In 
 plants that are altogether destitute of ordinary leaves, 
 or which shed them at an early period, and remain 
 ever after naked, the stems serve all the purposes of 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. . 135 
 
 leaves. In the cactus tribe, the whole plant consists 
 of jointed leaves, and in the common Butcher's Broom 
 of our own countny the stem becomes foliaceous — 
 that is, flattened and leaf-like. Stems produce buds 
 and flowers — so do leaves — as, for instance, those of 
 the Bryophyllum. Indeed every leaf is a modified 
 branch, and its toothed or serrated edges correspond 
 with the nodes of the stem. 
 
 Further, all the appendages borne on the stem — 
 such as scales, leaves, bracts, flowers, and fruit — are 
 modifications of this one common type. Flowers, 
 the glory of the vegetable world, are merely leaves, 
 arranged so as to protect the vital organs within 
 them, and coloured so as to attract insects to scatter 
 the fertilizing pollen, and to reflect or absorb the 
 light and heat of the sun for ripening the seed. 
 Stamens and pistils may be converted by the skill 
 of the gardener into petals, and the blossoms so 
 produced are called double, and are, therefore, neces- 
 sarily barren. The wild rose, for example, has only 
 a single corolla ; but when cultivated in rich soil, its 
 numerous yellow stamens are changed into the red 
 leaves of the full-blown cabbage rose. That all the 
 parts of the flower, the calyx, corolla, stamens, and 
 pistils, are modified leaves, is proved by the fact that 
 it is by no means uncommon for a plant to produce 
 leaves instead of them. There is a monstrosity to 
 which the garden rose is occasionally liable, in which 
 the stamens and pistils are converted into green leaves^ 
 and the plant begins to develop stem and foliage from 
 the bosom of the petals, just as though the blossom 
 were not the culminating point, but merely a stage in 
 
136 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 its growth. We can see the whole gradual process of 
 the metamorphosis of the common leaf into all the 
 floral organs, most beautifully displayed in the nor- 
 mal flower of the common water-lily. The outermost 
 circle of petals is greenish, approaching the herbaceous 
 texture and colour of the calyx ; the next circles are 
 purer and more succulent ; and the innermost ones 
 are snowy white, entirely cellular, and, strange to say, 
 begin to show rudiments of an anther at their points. 
 Gradually the petals become smaller and narrower, 
 while the anthers on their summits become more dis- 
 tinct, until at last the usual thread-like filaments and 
 golden, dusty anthers of perfect stamens, appear in the 
 very heart of the flower. 
 
 We come next to the fruit, which, in all its asto- 
 nishing varieties of texture, colour, and shape, is also 
 a modified leaf; and it is one of the most inter- 
 esting studies in natural history, to trace the corre- 
 spondence between the different parts of structures 
 so greatly altered and the original type. In the 
 peach, for instance, the stone is the upper skin of 
 a leaf hardened so as to protect the kernel or seed ; 
 the pulp is the cellular tissue of a leaf expanded and 
 endowed with nutritive properties for the sustenance 
 of the embryo plant ; and the beautiful downy skin 
 on the outside is the lower cuticle of the leaf with a 
 sun-bloom upon it, the hollow line on one side of the 
 fruit marking the union between the two edges of the 
 leaf. So also in the apple ; the parchment-like core 
 is the upper surface of the leaf, and the flesh is the 
 cellular tissue greatly swollen ; in the orange, the juicy 
 lips enclosing the seeds are the different sections of 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 137 
 
 the leaf developed in an extraordinary manner ; while 
 through the transparent skin of the ripe gooseberry, 
 we see the ramifications of the leaf-veins, conclusively 
 proving its origin. In all the parts and organs of 
 the plant then, from the seed to the fruit, we have 
 found that the leaf is the type or pattern after which 
 they have been constructed ; and those modifications 
 of structure, colour, and composition, which they ex- 
 hibit, are for special purposes in the economy of the 
 plant in the first place, and ultimately for necessary 
 services to the animal creation, and even to man him- 
 self, to whom the sweetness of the fruit and the beauty 
 of the flower must have had reference, in the gracious 
 intentions of Him who created them both. 
 
 On the leaf itself may be read, as unmistakeably as 
 on a printed page, its morphological significance. As 
 the architect draws on a chart the plan of a building, 
 so the Divine Artist has engraved on the leaf the plan 
 of the organism, of which it is the only essential typical 
 appendage. Each leaf in shape and formation may be 
 regarded as a miniature picture, a model of the whole 
 plant on which it grows. The outline of a tree in full 
 summer foliage may be seen represented in the outline 
 of any one of its leaves ; the uniform cellular tissue 
 which composes the flat surface of the leaf being equi- 
 valent to the round irregular mass of the foliage. In 
 fact, the green cells which clothe the veins of the 
 leaf, and fill up all its interspaces, may be regarded as 
 the analogues of the green leaves which clothe the 
 branches of the tree ; and although the leaf be in 
 one plane, there are many trees, such as the beech, 
 whose foliage, when looked at from a certain point 
 
138 BTBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of view, is also seen to be in one plane. Tall pyra- 
 midal trees have narrow leaves, as we see in the 
 needles of the pine ; while wide-spreading trees on 
 the other hand, have broad leaves, as may be ob- 
 served in those of the elm or sycamore. In every 
 case the correspondence between the shape of the 
 individual leaf and the whole mass of the foliage is 
 remarkably exact, even in the minutest particulars, 
 and cannot fail to strike with wonder every one who 
 notices it for the first time. Examining the leaf more 
 carefully, we find that the fibrous veins which ramify 
 over its surface, bear a close resemblance to the 
 ramification of the trunk and branches of the parent 
 tree ; they are both given off at the same angles, 
 and are so precisely alike in their complexity or 
 simplicity, that from a single leaf we can predicate 
 with the utmost certainty the appearance of the 
 whole tree from which it fell, just as the skilful ana- 
 tomist can construct in imagination, from a single 
 bone or tooth, the whole animal organism of which 
 it formed a part. Each tree has its own peculiar leaf 
 venation, corresponding to the peculiar arrangement 
 of its own branches ; and Dr. M'Cosh, in his " Typical 
 Forms," has pointed out a very interesting example 
 of the astonishing precision with which the most tri- 
 vial specialities of the one are repeated in the other, 
 in the case of the common beech, whose stems take a 
 turn at every node at which they send off a branch, 
 the mid-rib of the leaf having a similar zigzag appear- 
 ance. It has further been remarked that trees which 
 are feathered with branches down to the ground, have 
 leaves with very short footstalks ; while trees that 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 139 
 
 have long naked trunks have leaves with lengthened 
 footstalks, as may be clearly seen in the correspon- 
 dence between the bare, gracefully-tapering stem of 
 the aspen, and its remarkably long petioles, causing 
 that perpetual trembling of the foliage, even in the 
 calmest air, of which poetry and superstition have 
 made so much. Not only in trees, but also in shrubs, 
 grasses, and all herbaceous plants, we find the same 
 typical correspondence between the leaf and the whole 
 plant ; we find the plant-pattern repeated in the leaf- 
 pattern. Every individual plant furnishes a special 
 illustration of it ; and in some instances the resem- 
 blance is very extraordinary, placing it beyond doubt 
 that it is intentional and not accidental — design, and 
 not mere coincidence. The study of such curious 
 homologies is full of interest and delight to every 
 thoughtful mind. It gives a charm to the woods and 
 fields, over and above that which the beauty of their 
 forms and colours, or the richness of their fragrance, 
 produces. The pleasure is not merely sensuous, but 
 intellectual ; not only aesthetic, but religious. He who 
 understands the typology of plants, finds an eloquent 
 tongue in every leaf, and a suggestive sermon in every 
 tree and flower. He walks among continual and de- 
 lightful surprises, and never wearies even in the most 
 monotonous scene ; at every step he is arrested by 
 some new proof of his heavenly Father's wisdom, 
 which leads his mind out into far-reaching vistas of 
 thought. The works of the Lord are sought out by 
 him, because he has pleasure therein. He sees Him 
 who is the Invisible, walking among the trees of the 
 garden, and conversing with him by means of leafy 
 
140 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 types, just as he conversed with the Hebrews of old, 
 by means of Bible types. Considering the lilies how 
 they grow, and finding that all the "garments for 
 glory and beauty," in which these floral high priests, 
 that daily send up the incense of their fragrance to 
 heaven, are arrayed, have been designed by God him- 
 self, and woven in the same loom — he is taught an 
 impressive lesson of trust and faith. From the type 
 in the plant he ascends, in meditation, by the line of 
 unity in form and structure which runs throughout the 
 whole vegetable kingdom, to " Him who dwelt in the 
 bush," and who is the antitype to whom all the types 
 of nature and revelation point and with reverent and 
 awe-struck heart whispers to himself, " I have heard 
 of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye 
 seeth thee." 
 
 In connexion with this general typical character of 
 the leaf may be viewed its particular typical signifi- 
 cance, as representing the three great classes into 
 which the vegetable kingdom has been divided. That 
 it is possible to determine from the leaf alone, or even 
 from the smallest fragment of it, what position to 
 assign to any given plant in our systems of classifica- 
 tion, is surely owing to the fact, that the plan of the 
 leaf is the basis upon which all vegetation, as a distinct 
 kind of life, has been constructed. Classifying plants 
 according to the veins of their leaves, we find that 
 there are three great types of venation, each charac- 
 terising one great order, and each of paramount im- 
 portance, as indicating the internal formation of the 
 stem, and, indeed, the structure of the whole organism 
 If we exanjine the leaf of the elm or the strawberry, 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 141 
 
 we notice that a principal vein, which is a continuation 
 of the stalk, runs through the centre, dividing it into 
 two equal parts; and from this mid-rib several primary 
 veins branch out on either side towards the edges, 
 which in their turn divide into smaller ones, until the 
 whole surface of the leaf exhibits a perfect network of 
 fibres. This arrangement of veins is beautifully seen 
 in leaves whose green tissue has been eaten by insects, 
 or altered by decay, or which have been converted 
 into skeletons by artificial means. Slight differences 
 occur in different plants ; the veins in the leaf of the 
 common chestnut-tree, for instance, proceeding in 
 nearly straight lines from the mid-rib to the margin ; 
 whereas the leaves of most plants of the same class 
 exhibit a very tortuous and intricate venation ; and in 
 the vine, the currant, and the geranium, several equal 
 veins spring from the base of the leaf, instead of the 
 single prominent one which is usually the case. But 
 with these and similar slight variations, the peculiarity 
 of this kind of leaf is, that its veins branch all over the 
 surface and form a fibrous network ; so that, if torn, 
 its parts separate in an irregular manner with a jagged 
 edge. Now this type of leaf belongs to the great 
 class of plants called exogens or dicotyledons. It 
 is indicative of the highest development of vegetable 
 life. The complicated nature of the leaf is typical of 
 the complicated structure of all the parts of the plant* 
 The seed has two lobes ; the stem has concentric circles 
 of wood and bark, and medullary rays, and increases 
 in diameter by age ; and its appendages, in the shape 
 of branches, leav^es, blossoms, and fruit, are numerous 
 and highly developed. Whenever, therefore, we sec a 
 
142 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 leaf with branched veins, we may be sure that it 
 belongs to the most perfect type of vegetation. If, 
 on the other hand, we examine the leaf of a grass, a 
 lily, or a palm-tree, we find that the veins run parallel 
 to each other on the surface without branching or 
 interlacing, so that it can be torn from base to apex in 
 a regular manner along the course of any of the veins. 
 This arrangement of leaf-venation is characteristic of 
 the endogens or monocotyledons ; and its simplicity is 
 typical of the comparatively simple structure of the 
 whole class. The seed has only one cotyledon ; the 
 stem is unbranched ; the foliage is large in proportion 
 to the size of the plant, but scanty ; the flowers few 
 and simple ; and the wood has no rings, no separable 
 bark — but consists of pith or cellular tissue, with little 
 bundles of fibre placed irregularly throughout it, and 
 most abundantly towards the circumference. Besides 
 the leaves of these outside and inside growers, we have 
 another type of leaf in what is called the cryptogamic 
 or flowerless order of plants, comprehending ferns, 
 mosses, and sea-weeds. The herbaceous parts of those 
 plants, properly speaking, are not true leaves, though 
 closely resembling them in shape and colour. Dif- 
 fering widely in several important structural and 
 functional particulars, they have received the special 
 name oi fronds. In these fronds the veins are arranged 
 in a dichotomous manner — that is, they run in a fan- 
 like form from the base to the margin, and each is 
 divided and subdivided into two smaller ones. Ferns 
 display this mode of venation very clearly, and it adds 
 greatly to the beauty of some of the species. Being 
 the simplest of all kinds of venation, it is therefore 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 143 
 
 peculiar to the simplest of all plants, in which the leaf 
 is reduced to its true typical character as the basis of 
 all vegetation — performing its own proper functions 
 as a leaf, and also serving the part of bracts, cal)'x. 
 blossom, and seed-vessel. Dichotomous veins are 
 closely connected with the fructification, for the brown 
 dust-hke clusters of fern-seed are almost always found 
 at the termination of these veins. At the back of the 
 jagged green fronds of the polypody, the orange spores 
 are most beautifully arranged on the prominent black 
 veins like two rows of golden buttons, and make this 
 common fern one of the finest ornaments of our old 
 wails and ruins. These, then, are the three distinct 
 types of leaf-venation peculiar to the three great 
 classes of the vegetable kingdom : the reticulated, or 
 netted-veined leaves, representing the dicotyledons or 
 exogens ; the parallel-veined leaves, representing the 
 monocotyledons or endogens ; and the dichotomously- 
 veined leaves, representing the cryptogamia or cellular 
 order ; and under one or other of these three great 
 types of leaves nearly all the immense variety of 
 plants in the world must be classed. There are indeed 
 several very interesting exceptions. The arum or 
 cuckoo-pint, the beautiful calla or Ethiopian lily, and 
 the Liliwn gigantemn of Northern India, are mono- 
 cotyledons, and yet their leaves have reticulated or 
 netted veins; while, on the other hand, in Nerium, and 
 two or three other species belonging to the dicoty- 
 ledons, the leaves exhibit the parallel venation peculiar 
 to the monocotyledons. And there are a few species 
 of flowering plants that have the dichotomous veins 
 characteristic of the cryptogamic or flowerless order. 
 
144 BIBLE TEA C RINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 But these strange transitional forms, exceptions as 
 they are to the general rule, are exceedingly instruc 
 tive, inasmuch as they conclusively prove the propo- 
 sition of this paper, that a well-defined unity of form 
 and structure runs throughout the whole vegetable 
 kingdom, and that the leaf is the typical organ that 
 unites all its species and parts. 
 
 Some leaves consist of little more than veins, as in 
 the pine-tribe, in fennel and southernwood, and in the 
 barberry when its leaves become hardened and change 
 into spines, A very remarkable endogenous plant has 
 recently been discovered in the streams of Madagascar, 
 called the Otivirandra fenestralis^ whose leaves are 
 entirely without the green cellular substance, called 
 parenchyma, which fills up all the interspaces in other 
 leaves, and consist solely of an open network of veins, 
 like a piece of lace. The distinction of the veins 
 determines the general outline of the leaf. When the 
 mid-rib gives off all the chief veins, the leaf is long 
 and simple; when there is no mid-rib, but several chief 
 veins arise from the point of junction with the stalk, 
 then the leaf is broad, and more or less divided into 
 segments according to the number of chief veins ; 
 and in cases where the stalk is prolonged beyond its 
 normal length, it becomes an outside mid-rib, and the 
 leaf is compound, — that is, it consists of any number 
 of little distinct leaves arranged on either side of it, 
 either alternately or in pairs. And it is a noticeable 
 circumstance that in compound leaves — whenever the 
 number of the leaflets is odd — one little leaf is situated 
 at the extreme end of the leaf-stalk, to complete the 
 symmetrical outline ; whereas \i\X\<^ number of leaflets 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 145 
 
 be even, the stalk either terminates abruptly after 
 having given rise to the last pair of leaflets, or is con- 
 tinued beyond them, as in creeping plants, in the form 
 of a long wiry tendril. The gradual change from an 
 entire leaf to the extremely divided leaf, say of the Um- 
 belliferce., may be traced by means of intermediate tran- 
 sitional forms. The entire leaf becomes first toothed, 
 then lobed ; and the lobed leaf passes by various 
 stages into the compound, decompound, and supra- 
 decompound. Compound leaves thus differ from 
 simple leaves only in degree of development. The 
 veins of leaves are variously modified to suit the 
 requirements of plants. They become tendrils, as we 
 have seen, in order to support delicate trailing plants ; 
 they become spines, to defend plants that are pecu- 
 liarly exposed to injury ; and in the holly it is remark- 
 able that the leaves which grow nearest the ground are 
 thickly furnished with spines, while those above reach 
 gradually become smoother and smoother, until at 
 last, at the top of the tree, they are free from spines. 
 There is no end to the diversity of shape which leaves 
 display ; almost every species of plant having a differ- 
 ent kind of leaf. But it almost never occurs to us to 
 ask ourselves the object of this variation of shape. 
 We regard it as a thing of course, or refer it to that 
 boundless variety which characterises all the works of 
 nature, in accommodation, we proudly but foolishly 
 suppose, to man's hatred of uniformity. But obser- 
 vation and reflection will convince us that there is a 
 special reason for it ; that the shapes of leaves are not 
 capricious or accidental, but formed according to an 
 invariable law, the council of His will with " whom 
 
 L 
 
146 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 there is no variableness or shadow of turning." In 
 the first place there is a morphological reason for it. 
 The shape of leaves, as I have said, depends upon the 
 distribution of the veins, and the distribution of the 
 veins upon the mode of branching in the plant, and 
 the mode of branching in the plant to its typical 
 character as an exogens or endogens, and its typical 
 character brings us back again to the leaf. When the 
 leaf is simple, the branching of the stem and the 
 blossoms is simple ; and when the leaf is compound, 
 all the parts of the plant are also compound. Thus, 
 the single flower of the bluebell is connected with a 
 simple undivided leaf; whereas the foamy umbels of 
 the parsley or the caraway, consisting of an immense 
 number of florets, are accompanied with compound 
 foliage, very much divided. The common geranium 
 has five stems, five flower-stalks, five sepals, five 
 petals, and the stamens in multiples of five ; and this 
 symmetrical arrangement is associated with the five 
 parts into which each of its five leaves is divided. 
 Thus, then, the shape of the leaf is a part of that 
 wonderful series of relations which makes every plant 
 a unity — a repetition of similar organs. But besides 
 this morphological reason for the immense variety of 
 leaf-shapes, there are also teleological and geogra- 
 phical reasons. Leaves are adapted not only to the 
 typical character of the whole plant, but also to the 
 character of the situation in which it grows. They 
 are, moreover, exactly constructed to shade and shelter, 
 or freely expose to the light and air, the plants on 
 which they are found, and to transmit the dews and 
 rains which fall upon them to the young absorbing 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 147 
 
 roots. He who studies attentively and reverently the 
 numerous wonderful modifications in shape and struc- 
 ture which the typical leaf undergoes, to suit the 
 \'aried circumstances of plants, will be brought by this 
 study, more closely than by anything out of the Bible, 
 into the personal presence of Him who said, "My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work." When we con- 
 sider that the leaves of plants growing in high exposed 
 situations are narrow and rough, and those of plants 
 growing in low sheltered places broad and delicate ; 
 that in most European plants the cuticle contains but 
 a single row of thin-sided cells, v/hilst in the generality 
 of tropical species, growing under great differences of 
 temperature during the day and night, there exist two, 
 three, or even four layers of thick-sided cells, which 
 give the leaf an almost leathery appearance ; when we 
 see stings on the nettle and scurfy scales on the Alpine 
 rhododendron leaf, glands containing essential oils 
 and resinous matters in myrtles and mints, which 
 without these could not resist the cold, and lymphatic 
 hairs on the leaves of plants growing on dry soil, or 
 on the high mountains of hot climates,— when we 
 understand the significance of all these things, we are 
 placed face to face with a Divine contrivance of means 
 to ends, which may well fill us with reverence and 
 godly fear. 
 
 I have often had a train of reflections of the most 
 profitable kind awakened in my mind by simply look- 
 ing at the common water ranunculus, whose white 
 flowers cover the surface of many of our quiet rivulets 
 in June, and observing that the leaves floating on the 
 top of the water were round and broad, whereas the 
 
 L 2 
 
148 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 lower ones, immersed in the stream, were divided into 
 a vast number of linear segments, so as not to impede 
 the current or be torn by its force. Even in gazing 
 on the common gorse or whin of our hill-sides — a 
 plant, apart from the golden glory with which the 
 summer halos it, not very attractive to the lover of 
 beauty — I have been often struck with the same adap- 
 tation to the tempestuous currents of the air, in its 
 sharp needle-like leaves and stems — a proof of God's 
 care over the homeliest thing, giving more honour to 
 that which lacked it. But feelings of greater interest 
 still will be excited by the more wonderful adaptations 
 which we see in the tropical plants growing in our 
 conservatories. The mimosa, peculiarly exposed to 
 injury, sensitively drooping its leaves at the slightest 
 touch ; the pitcher-plant, holding up its leaf-goblets 
 filled with water to refresh it in the thirsty desert ; 
 the leaf of the Venus' fly-trap of North America, 
 closing together on its prey by turning on its mid-rib 
 as on a hinge ; the leaf of the cactus growing on the 
 dry plateaus of Mexico, fleshy and juicy, and having 
 no evaporating pores in its skin, so that the moisture 
 imbibed by the root is retained ; the gigantic leaf of 
 the royal water-lily of South America, furnished on 
 the under-side with outstanding veins of great depth, 
 acting as so m.any supporting ribs : these and a thou- 
 sand other instances almost equally remarkable, that 
 might be alluded to, attract the most careless eye, and, 
 in their strange variations from the typical form, 
 disclose abundant proof of beneficent design. 
 
 The colours as well as the shapes of leaves are 
 wonderfully diversified, though green is the prevailinj^ 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 14f) 
 
 hue, and every varied shade of that colour, from the 
 darkest to the hghtest tint, is exhibited — and very 
 beautifully, for instance, in the verdure of spring ; yet 
 the whole chromatic scale may be seen illustrated in 
 the foliage of plants. Indeed, were it possible to see 
 specimens of the whole vegetable kingdom growing 
 together, an autumnal forest would not exhibit greater 
 varieties of coloured foliage. In some plants the 
 leaves are as beautiful as the flowers of other plants ; 
 and these are now cultivated and grouped with great 
 effect in our conservatories. A greenhouse full of 
 beautifully-foliaged plants, is as attractive as one 
 stocked with gay blossoms. It is a remarkable cir- 
 cumstance, that when the leaves are dressed in bright 
 crimson, or golden, or silvery splendours, the flowers 
 are almost invariably sombre in hue, and insignificant 
 in form and size. What purposes such beautiful 
 leaves may serve in the economy of vegetation, we 
 cannot in every case find out satisfactorily. It may 
 be to absorb or reflect the light and heat of the sun 
 in a peculiar way, or to guard the vital organs from 
 injury by diverting attention from them. In orchids 
 and other plants, the blossoms are gorgeously coloured 
 and peculiarly shaped, in order to attract insects, with- 
 out whose agency the species could not be fertilized 
 or propagated. But in plants where the foliage is 
 large and beautiful, and the flower minute and sombre, 
 it seems as if Nature wished to conceal her vital pro- 
 cesses, lest they should be frustrated or injured by 
 animals. Probably, also, the same law of compensa- 
 tion may be illustrated in the case of coloured leaves, 
 as in the irregular corolla of flowers, where the odd 
 
150 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 petal has a different and much brighter colour, as in 
 the common pansy. Do not these curious plants, 
 that among their leaves of light have no need of 
 flowers, resemble those rare human plants, that de- 
 velop all the beauties of mind and character at an 
 exceptionally early age, and rapidly ripen for the 
 tomb ? They do not live to bring forth the flowers 
 and the fruit of life's vigorous prime ; and therefore 
 God converts their foliage into flowers, crowns the 
 initial stage with the glories of the final, and makes 
 their very leaves beautiful. By the transfiguration of 
 His grace, by the light that never was on sea or land, 
 lie adorns even their tender years with all the love- 
 liness which in other cases comes only with full 
 maturity. 
 
 In this paper I have said nothing regarding the 
 physiological structure of the leaf, or the functions 
 which it performs. A whole chapter might be written 
 upon these interesting topics alone. I have confined 
 my attention exclusively to the typical character of 
 the leaf and its meaning, and I have endeavoured to 
 show how a common plan regulates all the organs of 
 the plant, and that these organs are modifications of 
 the leaf — for special functional purposes in the economy 
 of the plant itself — and for wider beneficent purposes 
 in the economy of man and of the lower animals. 
 This is a department — almost unknown to Paley — 
 v/hich has been very successfully explored of late 
 years ; and it has supplied many very interesting and 
 instructive additions to the evidences of natural 
 theology. I would recommend all who read this 
 sketch, whose thoughts have not previously been 
 
VII.] THE LEAF. 151 
 
 directed to the subject, to examine for themselves 
 the typology of the leaf. Abundant illustrations may 
 be found ever3'where. Viewed in this light, every leaf 
 will become an eloquent teacher of the deep things 
 of God, and, like the famous Sibylline leaves of old, 
 utter oracles of far-reaching significance. Even in 
 the sad season of decay, the falling leaf, while de- 
 claring its own solemn parable and lesson of human 
 mortality, will only afford additional facilities for the 
 prosecution of the study. And the naked boughs 
 aloft, and the rustling golden leaves beneath, will 
 reveal more clearly and conveniently their unity of 
 type and pattern, and help us in their own manner to 
 understand how all things, the changeable and the 
 most enduring, hang together in one unbroken chain, 
 held in the hands of the Infinite and the Unchange- 
 able, of which we see a few links, but the beginning 
 and the end we see not, and never shall see„ 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE TKACHING OF THE EARTH. 
 " S/>tuA- to the earth, and it shall teach thee." — ^Jofc xii. S. 
 
 Man is not an independent unit; a self-centred, self- 
 sustaining /. If placed in blank space, he would 
 cease to exist. He requires a framework of external 
 circumstances, as well as a framework of flesh and 
 blood. His body must be enveloped by the earth, as 
 his soul is enveloped by the body. The boundless 
 and varied landscape, the illimitable blue sky, the 
 starry heavens, must all become parts of his being. 
 He must have relations with all the elements of nature 
 as close and intimate as those that exist betv/een the 
 various parts of his own structure. Even the spiritual 
 portion of his being is closely connected with and 
 dependent upon the material universe. The scenes of 
 earth are present with him in the most concentrated 
 mental effort, and in the highest state of spiritual ab- 
 straction, as well as in the mere sensations by which 
 the animal nature is sustained. There is a constant 
 process of analogy going on between the outer and 
 inner world, by which the mind acquires knowledge, 
 and expands its faculties and capacities. Creation 
 U reflected and idealized in the mirror of the soul. 
 
CHAP, viii.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 153 
 
 Sensation is the external world felt within ; thought 
 is nature made conscious in the mind ; language is the 
 symbolic representation of physical appearances. In 
 short, all the circumstances of earth may be regarded 
 as the oil which feeds the flame of thought, burning 
 continually in the secret shrine of man's mind ; and 
 countless affinities, mental and corporeal, earthly and 
 spiritual, verify the saying of the Greek poet : " O 
 earth ! earth ! how art thou interwoven with that 
 nature that first came from thee ! " 
 
 " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is 
 the origin and destiny of man's material part. The 
 first man was created directly from the dust of the 
 earth ; and the corporeal frame of every human being, 
 though derived by birth from a long succession of 
 ancestors, is composed of the same mineral substances 
 which form the crust of the earth. The common con- 
 stituents of the soil meet and mingle in the human 
 body, and are there amenable to the same physical 
 laws which operate in the wide field of nature. It is 
 a strange process by which the materials of the earth 
 enter into and build up this palace of thought. The 
 mountain rock, exposed to the disintegrating effects of 
 the weather, loses that peculiar chemical or cohesive 
 life which keeps it from changing or decaying, and 
 crumbles into dust, in which state it is borne down by 
 the storm or the stream to the plain. The soil thus 
 formed is taken up by the roots of plants, and elimi- 
 nated into the various parts of their structure. These 
 plants die, and form by their decomposing remains a 
 rich and fertile mould. Down into this stratum of 
 decay and death the grass strikes its roots, and foims 
 
154 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the support of those animals which man rears exclu- 
 sively for food. The particles thus organized become 
 endowed with the highest vitality, and are associated 
 with the immortal spirit in the closest and most inti- 
 mate relationship ; so that what is now bone of our 
 bone and flesh of our flesh, may have once formed 
 part of a granite rock protruding far up among the 
 clouds, on some distant mountain peak. But the body 
 that was thus derived from the earth, returns to the 
 earth again. The material particles, as well as the 
 forces, which, ascending by the various stages of vege- 
 table and animal life culminate in the human frame, 
 and receive their highest expression in its form and 
 action are again brought back to the bosom of the 
 earth, to mingle with the mass of its materials, and 
 again to ascend the ladder of life in other forms. 
 Nature claims her gifts with the most rigorous and 
 unsparing exactitude. We receive our bodies from 
 the earth only in loan, and for a fixed and definite 
 period. Throughout the whole course of our life we 
 are paying our debt by imperceptible in.stalments. 
 We are constantly returning to the earth the materials 
 we received from it. Every movement of our bodies, 
 every exercise of thought and will, every muscular 
 and nervous effort, is accompanied by a corresponding 
 change in the structure of our frames, — exhausts the 
 vitality of so much brain, and nerve, and muscle. 
 Every part of our body is undergoing a process of 
 constant disintegration and renovation ; constantly 
 throwing off old effete matter, and constantly receiving 
 deposits of new and living matter. Day and night, 
 sleeping and waking, this ceaseless dying and ceaseless 
 
viii.J THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 155 
 
 resurrection is going on with more or Jess rapidity; 
 the river of life flows on changing its particles, but 
 preserving the same form and appearaiice. In seven 
 years the whole structure is altered ; down to the 
 minutest particles it becomes essentially a different 
 body, though the individual still retains his original 
 form and his personal identity unimpaired. And 
 when the sands in the glass have run on for threescore 
 years and ten, the wonderful balance between life and 
 death is destroyed ; the soul that energized the mate- 
 rials of the body and controlled their ceaseless changes 
 departs ; there is no more compensating or restorative 
 force, and decomposition goes on unchecked, until 
 dust once more returns to dust, and ashes to ashes. 
 Astonishing process ! this circulation of matter and 
 material forces throughout all nature ! How it binds 
 indissolubly all the parts of creation to each other 
 by mutual sympathy and dependence ! The simplest 
 and minutest objects are related by this tie to the 
 grandest and most subhme ; the mountain depends 
 upon the moss, and the moss upon the mountain. All 
 nature is one great system of mutual accommodation. 
 All things are perpetually occupied in ministering to 
 the necessities of man ; and he returns the obligation 
 by ministering to their wants. He can most truly say 
 to the worm, " Thou art my mother and my sister." 
 He obtains dominion over the earth, to be again sub- 
 dued by it ; and the gardens that now yield to him 
 their beauty, and the fields which now pour out their 
 fruitfulncss into his lap, shall ere long exact from him 
 all that they bestowed, — be adorned by his beauty and 
 nourished by his fruitfulncss. The light of the stars 
 
156 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap 
 
 is on his brow, but the dust of the earth cleaves to his 
 feet. The breath of God animates his frame ; but the 
 ashes of the earth circulate through it. Bound so 
 closely then to the earth at every point of our corpo- 
 real and mental being, by a complex and wonderful 
 system of relations, at once our cradle and our grave, 
 at once the framer of our bodies and the teacher of 
 our minds, the inspired writer may well enjoin us to 
 " speak to the earth, and it shall teach us." 
 
 To the attentive ear all the earth is eloquent ; to 
 the reflecting mind all nature is symbolical. Each 
 object has a voice which reaches the inner ear, and 
 speaks lessons of wise and solemn import. The 
 stream murmurs unceasingly its secrets ; the Sibylline 
 breeze in mountain glens and in lonely forests sighs 
 forth its oracles. The face of nature is everywhere 
 written over with divine characters which he who runs 
 may read. But beside the more obvious lessons which 
 lie as it were on the surface of the earth, and which 
 suggest themselves to us often when least disposed for 
 inquiiy or reflection, there are more recondite lessons 
 which she teaches to those who make her structure 
 and arrangements their special study, and who pene- 
 trate to her secret arcana. She has loud tones for the 
 careless and superficial, and low suggestive whispers 
 to those who hear with an instructed and attentive 
 mind. She has beautiful illustrations to fascinate the 
 childish ; and solemn earnest truths in severe forms to 
 teach the wise. And those who read her great volume, 
 admiring with the poet and lover of nature the richly- 
 coloured and elaborate frontispieces and illustrations, 
 but not arrested by these — passing on, leaf after leaf, 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 157 
 
 to the quiet and sober chapters of the interior — will 
 find in these internal details revelations of the deepest 
 interest. As we step over the threshold, and pene- 
 trate into the inner chambers of Nature's temple, we 
 may leave behind us the beauty of the gardens and 
 ornamented parterres; but we shall find new objects 
 to compensate us : cartoons more wonderful than those 
 of Raphael adorning the walls ; friezes grander than 
 thosi of the Parthenon ; sculptures more awe-inspiring 
 than those which have been disinterred from the tem- 
 ples of Karnak and Assyria. In descending into the 
 crust of the earth, we lose sight of the rich robe of 
 vegetation which adorns the surface, the beauties of 
 tree and flower, forest, hill, and river, and the ever- 
 changing splendours of the sky ; but we shall observe 
 enough to make up for it all in the extraordinary 
 relics of ancient worlds, strewn around us and beneath 
 our feet. 
 
 If the earth was a wise and eloquent teacher in the 
 days of Job, and worthy even then of the most careful 
 attention, how much wiser is she now, when the expe- 
 rience and attainments of nearly four thousand years 
 have been added to her stores of knowledge ; and 
 when, in addition to all the information that has been 
 accumulated in regard to her external appearance and 
 physical laws, she has thrown open to our inspection 
 an entirely new department of knov/ledge, revealed to 
 us her inmost recesses, lifted up the dark curtain that 
 concealed the history of primaeval times, and permitted 
 us to study in her rocks and fossils the revolutions of 
 millions of years. So enlarged and illuminated, a 
 most wonderful book is the book of the earth ! Its 
 
158 BIBL E TEA CHINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 pen is the finger of God. Its leaves are the various 
 stratified rocks placed one above another which com- 
 pose its crust, and which represent the element of 
 time by their thickness, and remarkable events by 
 their dislocations. Its letters are the fossil remains of 
 plants and animals entombed in these rocks ; the en- 
 during traces left behind by the eruption of the vol- 
 cano, and the tranquil lapse of the waves on the beach; 
 shadowy memorials of life ; faint, but indelible foot- 
 prints of creatures which crawled over the soft mud, 
 whose very bones have perished ; ripple-marks of 
 primaeval seas whose murmurs passed into silence 
 countless ages ago ; circular and oval hollows produced 
 by showers of rain which no eye witnessed, and which 
 fell on no waving corn-field or flowery meadow ; 
 impressions caused by viewless and intangible winds, 
 indicating the strength of their currents, and the direc- 
 tions in which they moved ; smooth and polished, or 
 grooved and striated marks graven upon rocks by gla- 
 ciers which the sunshine of forgotten ages had melted 
 away. All these hieroglyphics, with which the stony 
 leaves of the earth's great book are crowded, thick as 
 the inscriptions on the buried bricks of Nineveh and 
 the mummy caves of Egypt, have been deciphered 
 with remarkable accuracy by the geologist. They are 
 to him as significant as the trail of his enemy is to the 
 American savage, or the camel's track in the sand to 
 the roving Arab. As the ancient civilization of the 
 great empires of Egypt, Nineveh, and Babylon, has 
 been recovered to us, and pictured in nearly all its 
 original grandeur and completeness from the relicc 
 'eft behind in the mounds of Khorsabad and the 
 
vin.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 15!) 
 
 temples of Memphis and Thebes, so from these 
 remains of the pre- Adamite world we can reconstruct, 
 in imagination, the successive scenery of its different 
 epochs. Before the eye of fancy, at the spell of some 
 fossil, or insignificant impression in a wayside stone, a 
 combination of landscape scenery with which there is 
 nothing analogous in the present condition of things, 
 passes in review ; and standing on this high vantage- 
 ground of time, we can survey, by the help of those 
 landmarks placed here and there for our guidance, 
 the whole history of our earth, the whole series of 
 creations which one after another appeared and 
 vanished. 
 
 There are two moments, according to an eminent 
 American savant, which stand out conspicuous above 
 all other moments in the intellectual history of our 
 race. The first of these moments was when Galileo, 
 with awe and ecstasy, gazed through the first con- 
 structed telescope, and the phases of Venus and the 
 moons of Jupiter suddenly revealed to him the ex- 
 istence of other worlds besides his own. Before that 
 sublime moment ine earth was supposed to be alone 
 in the universe ; sun, moon, and stars being but satel- 
 lites — fires to warm its hearth, lamps to light its dark- 
 ness. In an instant man's intellectual vision was 
 immeasurably extended, and the idea of infinite space 
 peopled zvith myriads of worlds like onr ozvn was first 
 realized by the human mind. We have all been 
 accustomed to look upon this as the grandest moment 
 in man's intellectual history. But there is another 
 moment, equally grand, though not equally well 
 known. A large quantity of fossil bones and shells 
 
IGO BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 was placed before the aged Bufifon for inspection. To 
 his intense astonishment, he found them entirely dif- 
 ferent from the remains of animals now inhabitinjy the 
 earth. In that moment, in the mind of the veteran 
 naturalist, suddenly sprang up, as if by inspiration, 
 the idea of infinite time peopled with other creations 
 besides our own. In an instant man's intellectual 
 vision was again immeasurably extended. Before 
 that sublime moment, the present creation was the 
 only one known or suspected, but by this discovery it 
 dwindled into a single day in the geological history 
 of our earth. Like Moses on the top of Pisgah, 
 Buffon beheld the whole future of geology in the 
 vision of that moment. " Filled with awe," we are 
 told, "the old man, then over eighty years of age, 
 published his discovery. In a kind of sacred frenzy, 
 he spoke of the magnificence of the prospect, and 
 prophesied of the future glories of the new science, 
 which he was, alas ! too old to pursue." 
 
 It must ever be regarded as a singularly fortunate 
 circumstance, that geology should be the youngest of 
 the sciences — that systematic researches into this de- 
 partment of knowledge should have been postponed 
 until the inductive philosophy was sufficiently estab- 
 lished to check their mischievous tendency. This, I 
 am persuaded, was not a mere accident, but a divine 
 pre-arrangement. From the earliest times, organic 
 remains, particularly marine shells, were found far 
 inland, and even high up the sides of mountains, and 
 many rocks were observed to be composed almost 
 entirely of fossils ; but, strange to say, they excited 
 no special interest or general curiosity, and only by a 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. IGl 
 
 few thoughtful men were they spoken of as conclusive 
 evidences of the universality of the Deluge. Geology, 
 it has been well said, as a heathenish or monkish pur- 
 suit, would have been a chaos of distorted facts ; and 
 the efforts of ages would have been necessary to clear 
 away the rubbish of classic conceits and mediaeval 
 legends, which would have gathered like foul weeds 
 around it. But fortunately it had no such ordeal to 
 undergo. There were no previous structures to de- 
 molish. The ground was new and unbroken. The 
 fathers of the science commenced their labours un- 
 obstructed by the ruinous foundations of previous 
 misdirected operations, or claims to previous posses- 
 sion. The moment their eyes were opened to see 
 things truly, the past history of the earth was opened 
 up to them, and they were permitted to look back, 
 with nothing to obstruct or cloud the view, to the 
 point where the horizon of time was lost in the mists of 
 eternity. They had none of the difficulties to contend 
 with which so long connected the other sciences with 
 occult mysteries — astronomy with astrology, che- 
 mistry with alchemy — no false theories to refute before 
 they could advance the true ones. They entered 
 upon their investigations at a singularly propitious 
 period in the history of human intellectual progress. 
 Ail the other departments of science, upon whose 
 testimony geology depends, had arrived at that state 
 ot exactness and efficiency in which they could render 
 her the most important service. A purer religion also 
 at the very moment of her birth conferred upon her 
 the most distinguished aid. Delivered from the cor- 
 ruptions of Popery ; freed by the Reformation from 
 
 M 
 
162 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the fetters which for many ages had proved fatal to 
 the progress of all truth — Christianity in its turn freed 
 the mind from those superstitions in which it was so 
 prone to indulge, stimulated it to active philosophical 
 research, and prevented it from resting in vague con- 
 jecture, and attributing to imaginary or supernatural 
 causes phenomena that were beyond its ordinary range 
 of observation. Being connected from the very first 
 with geological investigations, the testimony of the 
 rocks and the testimony of the Bible being brought 
 into apparent antagonism, a desire to harmonize their 
 conflicting evidences gave a deeper and wider interest 
 to the whole study, and created that eagerness to 
 become acquainted with its leading facts and theories 
 which at the present day is so general. 
 
 " On earth there is nothing great but man," was the 
 proud aphorism of the Middle Ages. Nature was 
 ignored ; landscape painting was an art unknown ; 
 poetry derived all its images from the seething world 
 of humanity; no scenery was admired save cultivated 
 fields and pastoral plains ; science was confined en- 
 tirely to the study of metaphysics ; the human mind 
 revolved round itself, and could see nothing but the 
 reflected light of its own glory. In these modern 
 times, on the other hand, nature occupies the highest 
 position ; physical science is more studied than mental 
 science ; landscapes form favourite subjects in our 
 galleries of art ; the pages of our poets radiate with 
 exuberant imagery derived from nature, like the rain- 
 bow hues that flicker on the neck of a dove; and a 
 love of wild and magnificent mountain scenery — of spots 
 where nature is all in all and man is nothing — fostered 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 1G3 
 
 by the facilities of travel, seems the fashion of the day. 
 This nature-worship of the nineteenth century, how- 
 ever, must be regarded as a transitional and not as 
 a permanent phase of modern civilization. Nature 
 should ever serve as the handmaid of humanity; and 
 the world, alike in its grandest and loveliest aspects, 
 ought to be looked upon merely as the setting for the 
 human picture; and I believe that when, by the study 
 of external nature, a true and solid foundation is laid 
 for philosophy, the human mind will again revert to 
 the study and contemplation of itself as the greatest 
 of nature's works. In the meantime, however, the 
 excessive nature-worship of these days must be re- 
 garded as a reaction from the unreasonable man- 
 worship of mediaeval times. It affords a striking 
 example of those great correctives which exist in the 
 moral as well as in the physical world for the removal 
 of errors and abuses, and the readjustment of the 
 balances of truth and rectitude. It was necessary 
 that man should be displaced from the lofty pedestal 
 upon which he had fixed himself for the admiration 
 of the universe. It was necessary that his arrogant 
 claims and proud pretensions should receive a check, 
 and that he should be brought to know his true posi- 
 tion in creation. And nothing has operated more 
 beneficially in this respect than the proper under- 
 standing of the great truths which the earth reveals — 
 the realization of the humiliating fact, that the whole 
 history of the human race is but a single day in the 
 immeasurable cycle of geological changes. ]\Ian 
 finds himself, while reading the lessons of geology, 
 shrunk in time, as by the revelations of astronomy he 
 
 M 2 
 
164 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 found himself shrunk in space. Not only is this 
 earth, his habitation, dislodged from its assumed cen- 
 trality of position, and thrust into a corner of creation, 
 a mere atom in the midst of infinite space, a compa- 
 ratively insignificant member in an innumerable family 
 of worlds ; but even of this obscure atom itself he is 
 dismayed to find that the whole human race has but 
 a late and precarious tenure, " a short and terminable 
 lease of an antiquated tenement." For incalculable 
 ages, previous to man's advent, the earth was tenanted 
 by other forms of life. Thousands of active creatures 
 — whole species and genera — lived and died before 
 he was formed out of the dust of the earth. Nature 
 exhibited her changing forms, her dissolving views of 
 cloud-scenery, and her revolving panoramas of land- 
 scape, without a single human being to admire or 
 enjoy them. Not an echo was sweetened by a single 
 note of instructed music. Not an eye glistened with 
 wonder at the strange weird aspects of the carboni- 
 ferous vegetation. Not an ear was there to catch 
 the solemn roll of the tide, the roar of the volcano, 
 or the gentle sigh of the wind through the forest. So 
 far as man was concerned, it was a world of silence 
 and desolation. The human race is indeed of very 
 recent origin, compared even with the latest of those 
 geological changes with which some scientific men of 
 the present day would fain connect its infancy. In 
 the language of Scripture, " we are but of yesterday, 
 and know nothing." 
 
 This lesson which the earth teaches, it may be said, 
 is a very sombre and depressing one. True in one 
 sense ; but it is also very salutary. Besides, there is 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 165 
 
 consolation mingled with it. The teaching of the 
 earth does not leave man humbled and prostrated. 
 While it casts down his haughty and unwarrantable 
 pretensions, it also enkindles aspirations of the noblest 
 kind. While it shows to him the shortness of his 
 pedigree, it also reveals to him the greatness of his 
 destiny. It declares most distinctly, that the present 
 creation exceeds all the prior creations of which the 
 different strata of the earth bear testimony, and that 
 the human race occupies the foremost place among 
 terrestrial creatures. It teaches unmistakeably that 
 there has been a gradual course of preparation for the 
 present epoch — that " all the time-worlds of the past 
 are satellites of the human period." There are a 
 thousand evidences of this in the nature and arrange- 
 ment of the earth's materials, so clear and obvious 
 that it is impossible to misunderstand them. The 
 nature of the soil on the surface ; the value, abund- 
 ance, and accessibility of the metals and minerals 
 beneath ; the arrangement of the various strata of 
 rock into mountain and valley, river and ocean-bed : 
 all these circumstances, which have had a powerful 
 influence in determining the settlement, the history, 
 and the character 'of the human race, were not fortui- 
 tous — left to the wild passionate caprices of nature — 
 but have been subjected to law and compelled to 
 subserve the interests of humanity. The carbonifer- 
 ous strata themselves, their geographical range, and 
 the mode in which they have been made accessible 
 and workable by volcanic eruptions, clearly evince a 
 controlling power — a designing purpose wisely and 
 benevolently preparing for man's comfortable and 
 
166 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. 
 
 useful occupancy of the earth. The destiny of par- 
 ticular nations was predetermined in the earliest geo- 
 logical history of the earth ; for almost all the true 
 coal of the world is found in the north temperate zone, 
 precisely in those regions where it is most needed, 
 and where it can be turned to the best advantage as 
 the aliment of industry and civilization. Moreover, 
 as all the previous arrangements of the earth's crust 
 have paved the way for the present arrangement, so 
 have all the previous forms of organization, adapted 
 to these varying conditions, pointed forward to the 
 human race. That there has been a regular order 
 and sequence, not in the nature of things, btit in the 
 plan of tlie Creator, and upon the whole a progressive 
 one, in the animal creation, is admitted by nearly all 
 geologists. Viewing the remarkable facts which have 
 been elicited during the last fifty years, progressively 
 and in the order indicated by nature itself, from the 
 lowest fossiliferous deposits upwards, we shall find 
 everywhere a succession of creatures rising from lower 
 to higher organizations, not by the law of develop- 
 ment, but by the law of substitution. All these point 
 to man as the apex of creation, and the top of the 
 earthly hierarchy. " All his parts and organs," says 
 Professor Owen, " have been sketched out in anticipa- 
 tion in the inferior animals " — in the successive races 
 of creatures that lived and died during the earlier 
 epochs of the earth's history. Step by step the ideal 
 exemplar, the divine archetype, first embodied in the 
 fishes of the earliest seas, was modified into higher 
 and yet higher forms of life, until at last it was 
 arrayed in that costly vesture of humanity that has 
 
via.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 1G7 
 
 been found worthy to clothe the incarnate Redeemer. 
 Thus man becomes "the centre of the universe of 
 time." Thus his dignity is restored, or rather dignity is 
 given in place of pride ; his history and position become 
 unique ; he can claim a noble, if not an endless gene- 
 alogy, and assert what no other race can assert, that 
 he is the " son of Adam, which was the son of God." 
 
 The " depths of the earth," as well as the surface 
 of the earth, teach us the solemn lesson of change, and 
 also the unchangeableness of Him who has these 
 depths in His hands. Each successive stratum, as we 
 penetrate downwards, reveals in language that cannot 
 be mistaken, a tale of wonderful changes. Each con- 
 vulsion and revolution, whether in wildest storm or 
 in calmest peace, has engraved its record as with a 
 pen of iron upon the rocks for ever. Here we find 
 that the ocean has been at work, exercising untiringly 
 its degrading influence, reducing the land to a lower 
 level, wearing down mountains, and depositing in one 
 place the sediment taken from another. There we 
 find in the upheavings of the earthquake, or the lava- 
 floods of the volcano, that fire has been the agent of 
 change, exerting its elevating influence — raising land 
 from the ocean-bed, and piling Ossa upon Pelion to 
 scale its native heavens. Never since the creation 
 have these grand agencies slumbered ; but have con- 
 tinued to display their resistless potency throughout 
 all ages of the earth's history. The solemn voice of 
 the ocean has never been silent since time began; the 
 earth is the altar of Vesta on which the sacred fire, 
 once kindled, has never been extinguished. Antago- 
 nistic in their nature and results, these two forces, fire 
 
168 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 and water, have ever battled for the possession of the 
 earth ; while a Power mightier than either has ever 
 sustained the balance between them, making the one 
 the repairer of the desolations of the other. Never 
 has the fire, rising victorious over the water, been 
 allowed to work its wild will, elevating the whole 
 earth into a billowy chaos of mountains, and imprison- 
 ing the sea in deep and narrow abysses. Never has 
 the water, released from the powerful grasp of the 
 fire, been allowed to go forth impelling its currents 
 and rolling its waves without hindrance, until every 
 island and continent had disappeared, and one shore- 
 less ocean girdled the globe. The earth tells, in 
 its mute language of signs, that the Almighty has 
 throughout all time set distinct and impassable bounds 
 to both ; that he has weighed the mountains in scales 
 and the hills in a balance, and measured the ocean in 
 the hollow of His hand ; and thus, by the nice adjust- 
 ment of these mighty antagonistic forces, secured the 
 permanence and peace of the earth. It was on tables 
 of stone that God's finger traced the unchanging moral 
 law ; the same handwriting may be recognised in the 
 masses of rock from which these very tables were con- 
 structed. We can trace the universality of divine law 
 throughout all the successive creations of the earth — 
 throughout all the time-worlds, as throughout all the 
 space-worlds, in geology as in astronomy ; unity of 
 force amidst diversity of phenomena — unity of plan 
 amidst diversity of expression. And thus, amid all 
 the varying operations of His hands and dispensa- 
 tions of His providence, we find Him to be without 
 " variableness or shadow of <^urning." 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 1G9 
 
 Some object that the teaching of the earth is delu- 
 sive and uncertain. This opinion is fostered by the 
 varied, and, in many cases, conflicting readings and 
 interpretations of the geological record. Theories 
 have been formed which more advanced knowledge 
 has demonstrated to be false and untenable ; and these 
 hasty conclusions have tended in some measure to 
 throw discredit upon the whole study, by giving it 
 a vague appearance. It was to have been expected 
 beforehand that a science, offering such great tempta- 
 tions to speculation, so fresh and young and buoyant, 
 with such boundless fields for roaming before her, 
 would have been excited to some extent by the 
 vagaries of fancy, and that individuals on the slender- 
 est data would build up the most elaborate structures. 
 But geology, upon the whole, has been less encum- 
 bered with these than perhaps any other science ; and 
 the researches of its students have been conducted in 
 a singularly calm and philosophical spirit. Every step 
 has been deliberately taken ; every acquisition made 
 to its domains has been carefully surveyed ; and 
 hence, we are at this moment in possession of a mass 
 of observations which, considering the very recent 
 origin of the science, is truly astonishing, and which 
 is entitled to the utmost confidence. Furthermore, 
 the teaching of the earth is not irreligious — is not 
 calculated to undermine our faith in the inspiration of 
 the Bible, and to nurture infidel propensities. This 
 objection has been frequently brought against it, and 
 urged with vehemence and rancour ; and a feeling of 
 repulsion, a strong and unreasonable prejudice, has in 
 consequence been raised against it in the minds of 
 
170 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 many .pious and estimable individuals. They look 
 upon the science with dread, and place the study of 
 it in the same category with that of the blasphemous 
 dogmas of the Rational school. It is true that it has 
 proved the old interpretation of the first chapter of 
 Genesis to be erroneous ; but its conclusions have 
 been found to be in perfect harmony with a correct 
 interpretation of the original text. The meaning which 
 geology attaches to the Hebrew words in which the 
 creation of the world is described, is fully substan- 
 tiated by philological analysis and Scriptural usage. 
 It is true that there are geologists of considerable 
 eminence who have prosecuted their inquiries into the 
 history of the earth with the avowed purpose of 
 throwing discredit upon the truths of Revelation, who 
 have sought in the disclosures made by the various 
 leaves of the stony book for proofs by which their 
 scepticism might be, not removed, but confirmed. 
 Such geological perverts there always will be ; but 
 their antagonism to Revelation is not derived from or 
 fostered by their geological studies ; it originates from 
 a deeper, though less apparent source — even from the 
 natural depravity of the heart, which is utterly averse 
 to the humbling doctrines of the Bible, and is the 
 fertile fountain of every species of infidelity, geolo- 
 gical and metaphysical. The seeming facts hostile 
 to the inspired Record promulgated with such proud 
 boasting by them, have, one and all, been found to be 
 mere hasty conclusions and unwarrantable inferences. 
 I believe that a careful study of the leading works and 
 accumulated facts of geology by any candid, unbiassed 
 mind, will result in the conviction that nothing con. 
 
Viii] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. I7l 
 
 ri acted with the procuress of science has ever yet truly 
 infringed the integrity of Revelation. On those points 
 where a discrepancy exists between the two records, 
 we may safely assert, from past experience, that there 
 is either a misunderstanding of the import of the 
 Bible, or a want of sufficient evidence to establish the 
 geological conclusion. If, on the one hand, theolo- 
 gians have been obliged continually to retreat before 
 the onward march of science, it is because they at 
 first took up ground which they could not maintain ; 
 and if, on the other hand, geologists have been com- 
 pelled to modify or alter their views, it is because they 
 were formed on data altogether insufficient, and by 
 an utter disregard of the principles of induction. But 
 while I maintain that Science and Revelation have not 
 been proved to be antagonistic, I feel at the same 
 time that no adequate theory of reconciliation has yet 
 been framed ; the theories which have already been 
 advanced being liable to numberless objections — 
 some of them being absolutely gratuitous ; the differ- 
 ences they were formed to reconcile being mere phan- 
 toms that had no real existence except in the minds 
 of their authors. I believe that hitherto there has 
 been too much grasping after mere reconciliation on 
 the part of all concerned ; too much effort, especially 
 by geologists, to bring the declarations of Genesis into 
 harmony not only with their facts, but also with their 
 inferences. Every candid and capable mind must 
 feel that the time has not yet come when a perfectly 
 satisfactory theory of reconciliation can be advanced ; 
 although by the accumulation of facts, and a cleai^er 
 perception of their bearings and relations, we are every 
 
172 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 day drawing nearer to such a consummation. There 
 are still several data essential to the argument on both 
 sides wanting ; several letters of the alphabet miss- 
 ing, without which the geological record is unintelli- 
 gible. For instance, our ignorance of the condition 
 of the earth immediately before the creation of man, 
 is like the loss of a most important link in the chain 
 of induction. That part of the geological record is 
 written in strange characters, and the whole is hardly 
 legible ; though recent writers have tried to decipher 
 it by the sparks of light struck from the flints of 
 Abbeville, the phosphoric gleam which hovers over 
 the skulls of Engis and Neanderthal, and the bone 
 contents of the English and German caves. Hence 
 any hypothesis based upon this part of the geological 
 testimony cannot be depended upon, and is liable to 
 be very considerably modified by subsequent observa- 
 tions and discoveries. Hitherto the attitude of Biblical 
 geologists has been conservative and apologetic. They 
 have been employed rather in removing difficulties 
 and destroying false theories, than in forming or 
 advancing a positive coherent theory of their own. 
 This position may have been necessary at one time, 
 but it is now no longer so, and should be abandoned. 
 All unreasonable jealousy of science must be disre- 
 garded, and truth must be sought after with honesty 
 and patience, irrespective of its ulterior consequences. 
 The Bible itself stimulates to such a course — places 
 no obstacles in the way of the most free and exten- 
 sive investigations — the most searching and compre- 
 hensive inductions — provided only that they be honest 
 and impartial. Nay, it inculcates "speaking to the 
 
VIII.] THE TEACHING OF THE EARTH. 173 
 
 earth" in this way as a duty, and brands with its 
 disapprobation those who neglect it. And I am per- 
 suaded that the more geology is studied, the more 
 will its dignity and religious tendency be acknow- 
 ledged ; the more will its claim to be considered the 
 chief handmaid of religion among the sciences be 
 vindicated. It will be found that though the truth of 
 God is one, it has two special aspects, as seen in 
 Nature and in Revelation; and that these two aspects, 
 like the two views of a stereoscopic picture, blend 
 together in the stereoscope of faith into one beautiful 
 and harmonious whole, standing out in clear and 
 glorious perspective. The teaching of the earth will 
 confirm and illustrate the teaching of the Bible ; and 
 both will fill the heart of the humble, reverent student 
 with adoring views of God's power, wisdom, and love. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 
 "I am the vine, ye are the branches." — ^JOHN xv. 5. 
 
 lllE vine is one of the most extensively diffused of 
 plants, and in this respect it furnishes a beautiful 
 emblem of the universal spread of the Christian 
 Church. Its early history is involved in obscurity. 
 It is as old as the human race. Its cultivation was 
 probably amongst the earliest efforts of human in- 
 dustry. It is first introduced to our notice as the 
 cause of Noah's shameful drunkenness, and as one of 
 the articles of provision hospitably offered by Mel- 
 chizedek to Abraham. It is believed to be originally 
 a native of the hilly region on the southern shores 
 of the Caspian Sea, and of the Persian province of 
 Ghilan. The Jews have a tradition that it was first 
 planted by God's own hand on the fertile slopes of 
 Hebron. Certainly, the climate of the hill-country 
 of Judaea suits it so admirably, that we may well 
 believe it to be indigenous there. It was from the 
 Judaean valley of Eshcol that the spies carried away 
 the gigantic cluster of grapes. Every traveller who 
 has visited this region testifies to the luxuriance of its 
 vines, and the large size and luscious taste of the 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. \ 75 
 
 grapes. Vineyards abound there more than in any 
 other part of Palestine ; and the earhest and latest 
 heraldic symbol of Judah, both in the prophetical 
 and evangelical records, is a " fenced vineyard 
 on a hill of olives." From this, its native region, 
 the vine has been gradually introduced into other 
 countries. Its progressive cultivation, and removal 
 by wandering tribes and conquerors from one part 
 of the earth to another, associate it in a very 
 remarkable degree with the history of the human 
 race. The great revolutions of society, it has been 
 remarked, may be traced in its gradual distribution 
 over the surface of the globe ; for wherever man has 
 penetrated, in that spirit of change and activity which 
 precedes or accompanies civilization, he has assisted 
 in the dissemination of this useful plant, much more 
 surely and rapidly than the ordinary agencies of 
 nature. And now the range of the vine extends from 
 the shores of the new world to the utmost boundaries 
 of the old ; its profitable cultivation in the open air, 
 however, being still confined to a zone about two 
 thousand miles in breadth, and reaching in length 
 from Portugal to India. In all this it affords an 
 appropriate image of the origin and diffusion of 
 Christ's Church. The commencement of that Church 
 dates as far back as we can trace the origin of our 
 race. It was coeval with Adam and Eve, and sprang 
 from that gracious promise given in Eden that the 
 seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. 
 It was first planted in the East. " God brought a 
 vine out of Egypt, cast out the heathen, and prepared 
 room before it, and caused it to take deep root, and it 
 
176 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, '[chap. 
 
 filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, 
 and its boughs were like the goodly cedars. It sent 
 its boughs into the sea, and its branches into the 
 river." For many centuries the Church flourished 
 exclusively in the Holy Land, sheltering God's pe- 
 culiar people withits foliage, and nourishing them 
 with its fruit, while the rest of the world was left a 
 moral desert. But when the fulness of time was 
 come, the spell of this exclusiveness was broken, and 
 it was transplanted and carried to other shores, no 
 longer trammelled by forms, nor chained to place, but 
 made free of all the countries of the earth. The wixrs 
 and conquests of kings, the ambitious schemes of poli- 
 ticians, have all been overruled by Him who maketh 
 the very wrath of man to praise Him, for the wider 
 extension and the more efficient establishment of His 
 own Church. The very colossal power of the Roman 
 Empire itself was made subservient to the process by 
 which it was to be broken up ; and the efficacy of its 
 laws manifested in favour of the religion to which it 
 was inveterately and specially hostile. Little did the 
 Emperor Titus imagine that, while laying waste the 
 Jewish kingdom, he was raising up from its very 
 ruins, a kingdom destined speedily to overshadow and 
 overthrow his own empire, and lay his proud re- 
 ligion in the dust. The Roman sword, intent only 
 on self-glorification and the pride of conquest, was 
 wielded by the Almighty arm to clear the way 
 for the triumphant march of Christianity over every 
 nation and kingdom ; and though that sword was 
 frequently turned against the Church, and wrought 
 sad havoc among its members, yet each pruning, each 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES, 177 
 
 shoot that it cut off, became a separate living vine, 
 extending to other regions the blessings of the Gospel, 
 — like that strange American plant which has been 
 recently introduced into our rivers and canals, every 
 joint and fragment of which, however minutely cut, 
 becomes an independent individual, thus diffusing the 
 plant by the very efforts made to extirpate it. And 
 in this way the Church grew and spread, until now its 
 range extends from sea to sea, and from the river 
 even unto the ends of the earth, though the region of 
 its most active life is still confined to the zone within 
 which the vine is profitably cultivated in the open air. 
 Christ and His disciples, like the vine and its branches, 
 may be found everywhere. 
 
 A beautiful theory' has recently been established in 
 vegetable physiology, which illustrates in a most 
 striking manner the nature of the union between 
 Christ and believers, as symbolised by a vine and its 
 branches. This theory proceeds on the assumption 
 that all plants, without exception, are strictly animal; 
 the only difference between the more fugitive and the 
 more permanent species being that the one kind is 
 propagated exclusively by seeds, while the other is 
 propagated by both buds and seeds. This notion is 
 opposed to the popular belief, and to the apparent 
 evidence of our senses. A tree, under which class 
 the vine of course is included, is generally supposed 
 to be a single plant, like a primrose or a lily, only 
 that it does not fade in autumn, and is possessed of 
 perennial growth. The common idea is that it is an 
 individual having the same kind of individuality or 
 personality that a man has ; the root, trunk, branches, 
 
 N 
 
178 ^IBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 leaves, and blossoms, being component parts of one 
 and the self-same single plant, just as the body, 
 limbs, and various organs are component parts of one 
 and the self-same human being. And this certainly 
 is the impression which at first sight it produces. 
 Recent scientific researches, however, have proved 
 this belief to be erroneous. A tree is now found to 
 be not a single individual, a single plant, but, on the 
 contrary, an aggregate of individuals, a body cor- 
 porate. The idea involved in a genealogical tree, is 
 exactly that which is involved in a natural tree ; the 
 former consisting of living and dead persons, as the 
 latter consists of living and dead plants. In its full 
 wealth of summer foliage and vigour, a tree is literally 
 a vegetable colony, propagating its individual plants 
 vertically in the air, instead of spreading them out 
 horizontally over the earth's surface, like herbaceous 
 plants. " It is neither more nor less," to use the 
 language of one who has written a special treatise 
 upon the subject, "than a collection of living and 
 growing, but separate and distinct, plants — the pro- 
 duction of the current year, and likewise of the dead 
 remains of a still larger number of individual plants 
 of the same kind or species, the production of a series 
 of bygone years." Each season new shoots or annual 
 plants spring up from the buds which crown the old 
 ones ; and these are the only living parts of the tree. 
 Each season, at the close of the year, these shoots or 
 annual plants, having fulfilled the purposes of their 
 existence, die completely — there being no provision 
 in vegetable as in animal economy, to repair wasted 
 tissues ; but though dead and composed of very 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 1 79 
 
 perishable materials, they escape decomposition, to 
 which all dead organic matter is liable when exposed 
 to the action of the elements, owing to the roots of the 
 new buds with which they are tipped growing over 
 them, enclosing them on every side, and throughout 
 their entire length. They are thus hermetically 
 encased in the tree, and serve to increase its size, 
 affording to the new plants that are to spring from 
 them a temporary soil and a permanent mechanical 
 support. A tree is thus like a cluster of coral — each 
 new generation of living organisms developing para- 
 sitically upon the remains of a past generation, living 
 and dead being built up into one compact corporate 
 organization. And just as there is no limit to the 
 growth and increase of coral structures, except the 
 strength of the waves and the absence of secreting 
 materials in the sea, so there can be no limit, on 
 account of this peculiarity of its construction, to the 
 size and age of a tree, except the limit imposed by 
 soil and external circumstances. Now, viewed in this 
 light, what a beautiful and appropriate type does the 
 vine afford of the mystical body of Christ — that 
 sacred and spiritual corporation composed of Christ, 
 and of all who have been united to Him by a living 
 faith as the living head — belonging to every age and 
 country, belonging to every class and denomination, 
 living and dead ! This spiritual body is one organiza- 
 tion ; but, like a coral cluster, it is composed of num- 
 berless distinct and separate individuals. This sacred 
 vine is a unity ; but, like a natural tree, it is made 
 up of countless separate plants. The union between 
 Christ and His people, and between each of thcm- 
 
180 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 selves, is of the closest and most vital description. 
 Each member has his own personality, his own indi- 
 vidual existence ; and yet, living or dead, he is re- 
 garded as a scion, or branch, of one common stock — 
 a component and integral part of one tree. The same 
 bond unites each to all ; the same sap pervades all ; 
 the same life animates them all. Christ is not the 
 trunk, nor the branches, but the whole vine ; they are 
 members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. 
 They are His fulness, in the same sense that all the 
 separate plants growing on a tree, and the remains of 
 those that are dead, make up the outline, and form, 
 and substance of that tree. 
 
 This sacred vine will live for ever. It has gone on 
 increasing in size from the days of Adam until now ; 
 and it will go on growing and enlarging until all the 
 elect and redeemed are grafted upon it, and it shall 
 cover the whole earth with its shadow. Individual 
 oelievers are mortal and perishing, but the mystical 
 body is immortal and everlasting. Generation after 
 generation of Christians pass away as the annual 
 shoots of the vine die, but the invisible Church 
 endures, as the vine itself endures. New individuals, 
 new races, succeed. Christ has a seed that serves 
 Him in every generation, that rises up to take the 
 place of the fathers and to keep this glorious vine green 
 and flourishing. " As the days of a tree, so are the 
 days of my people ; " as the days of one of those 
 giant cedars of California, whose infant shoots were 
 put forth when Adam was in Eden, and is still green 
 and flourishing as ever, and may yet last as long as 
 the pt'esent system of things The existence of God's 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES, 181 
 
 people in their individual capacity is threescore years 
 and ten, but in their corporate capacity they live for 
 ever. They shall endure when sun and moon shall 
 have perished, and the heavens and the earth shall 
 have passed away. Even though dead, the union of 
 believers with Christ is not dissolved or disturbed. 
 Just as the vine is a collection not only of living but 
 also of dead plants, the dead surrounded by and 
 enclosed within the tissues of the living, embalmed 
 and preserved inviolate within the growing tree, so 
 the mystical body of Christ is composed not only of 
 living, but also of dead believers, — only one generation 
 of living, but countless generations of dead. All the 
 saints that are on earth, and all the saints that have 
 departed this life, make but one great communion ; 
 they are all united to the same glorious Head, and 
 share in the same gracious love. Every other tie has 
 been dissolved. The most tender and endearing re- 
 lationships of earth fall from the departing spirit, as 
 withered festoons of flowers fall from the form which 
 they wreathed when the scorching sun has set. The 
 brother lets go, with a sad and lingering pressure, the 
 hand of his brother, whom he has accompanied on 
 the last journey down the dark valley ; the mother 
 resigns her child to a power stronger even than her 
 love ; the husband and the wife cling to each other to 
 the last moment, but the parting kiss must be given, 
 and the heart-broken farewell nmst be said ; and 
 there is no more marrying nor giving in marriage for 
 ever. But the union with the Lord Jesus and His 
 people, that union whose living links Christ's own 
 hands have clasped and riveted, is beyond the power 
 
182 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of the destroyer. Though Christians die, they are 
 still related — related to each other, and related to 
 Christ in the bonds of the everlasting covenant. The 
 separation between Christian friends is only temporary 
 and partial. They are all members of the same living 
 immortal body, parts of that whole person which is 
 inseparably one with Christ. Their death is precious 
 in His sight; their very dust is dear to Him. Nothing 
 that forms an essential part of their living redeemed 
 humanity is lost. Dead they are, but they have died 
 in the Lord — they are asleep in Jesus. Their life is 
 hid with Christ in God. They are bound up in the 
 bundle of life — hermetically sealed from all the de- 
 structive elements of the world, from the cares, the 
 sorrows, and the sins of time — in the living branches 
 of the Tree of Life. All the rights and privileges 
 which belonged to them when living are still theirs, 
 undiminished and unimpaired. Their Blessed Saviour 
 still represents them as their advocate, still watches 
 over their interests, still preserves His covenant 
 engagement inviolate ; and whatever is meant by 
 being "in Jesus," is meant of them now, even al- 
 though they are dead, and shall hereafter be fully 
 realized by them when God shall bring them with 
 Him. " Neither life, nor death, nor things present, 
 nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 From, the intimate and enduring nature of this union 
 there follows necessarily and inevitably another quality 
 which distinguishes Christ and His people, as sym- 
 bolised by the vine and its branches — viz., mutual 
 resemblance. If we examine a growing vine very 
 
TX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 183 
 
 minutely and attentively, we shall be struck with the 
 remarkable resemblance which exists between all its 
 parts. They all seemed to be framed after the same 
 pattern, and to be mere repetitions of each other. 
 Even in the minor part of the tree — the leaf, the 
 flower, the fruit, the seed — we find the same won- 
 derful general likeness. This mutual correspondence, 
 however, exists in a perfect state only when the 
 tree is fully and fairly developed. It is modified 
 by a great variety of circumstances, natural and 
 artificial. When the tree is placed in a thick 
 crowded plantation, pressed by others on every side, 
 and prevented from assuming its natural form and 
 proportions ; when it grows in poor and unsuitable 
 soil ; when it has not free access to the air and light 
 of heaven, — It will not exhibit this feature of mutual 
 resemblance between all its parts so distinctly. Some 
 parts will be stunted, others overgrown, and the 
 harmony and order of the whole will be deranged, 
 but the typical correspondence will still, to some 
 extent, be retained. Applying this quality of the 
 vine and its branches to Christ and His people, we 
 find that the same remarkable resemblance exists 
 between them also. Each Christian bears at every 
 stage of growth some likeness to Christ — to whom he 
 is united by a living faith. In the indistinct — the 
 unformed lines, sketched in the character of the 
 weakest believer, there are some traces of what will 
 be hereafter a full portrait of the altogether lovely 
 One, though as yet rude and comparatively unattrac- 
 tive. The vital change which he has undergone is 
 complete in nothing, but it has becjun in all the parts 
 
184 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. 
 
 of his nature. The leaven of regeneration is send- 
 ing its transforming power, silently and slowly per- 
 haps, but surely, throughout his whole being. The 
 image in which he was created, and to which he is 
 redeemed, is more and more restored in the soul. 
 Yes ! each believer is a type or miniature more or 
 less true and perfect of the divine Original ; and all 
 believers have a general family likeness ; they have 
 features of resemblance to each other and to Christ 
 which cannot be mistaken or concealed, and which 
 prove beyond the possibiHty of doubt their common 
 origin and mutual relationship. They are not, like 
 the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream, 
 composed of the most heterogeneous materials ; its 
 head of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its 
 belly and its thighs of brass, its legs of iron, and its 
 feet part of iron and part of clay. They are like the 
 vine and its branches, whose every part is typical of 
 the whole. " He that sanctifieth and they that are 
 sanctified are all of one." He is a partaker of their 
 nature, and they are partakers of His. " They are 
 not of the world, even as He is not of the world." 
 He whose name is the Branch requires that every 
 other branch that is grafted upon Him be of the same 
 species and moulded after the same pattern. '• Let 
 the mind which was in Christ be also in you." A 
 similarity of character to Himself is the badge and 
 test of discipleship. They must not only receive His 
 teaching, but imitate His example ; not only obey 
 His precepts, but imbibe His very spirit. The great 
 object of their union with Christ is to change them 
 into the same image — to make them pure as He is 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 185 
 
 pure, and perfect as He is perfect. By all the varied 
 dispensations of His providence, by all the dealings 
 of His grace and Spirit, this object is being more and 
 more accomplished. 
 
 Various circumstances, however, tend to retard the 
 full development of this resemblance. Unbelief, world- 
 liness, social dissipation, the pressure of cares and 
 anxieties, the luxuriance of earthly enjoyments spring- 
 ing up around, the chilling influence of others, all 
 have the effect of hindering the full transformation 
 into the likeness of Christ. But even in the most 
 favourable circumstances, the sinless perfection of the 
 Great Model cannot be copied entire so long as we 
 dwell in this tabernacle, and groan under this body of 
 sin and death. " Holiness and happiness — to be with 
 Christ and to be like Christ — that blessed consumma- 
 tion of our desires, is indeed beyond the grasp of 
 sinful, sufiering humanity." Hope itself cannot com- 
 pass it, for it knows not what it is. " It doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be, but this we know, that when 
 He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall 
 see Him as He is." 
 
 Each part of the vine, however, though a repetition 
 and miniature of the whole in its general outlines and 
 characteristics, has yet some special peculiarity of its 
 own. No two branches are precisely the same in 
 shape ; no two leaves are exactly similar in colour 
 and outline. And so with Christ's people. They all 
 resemble each other in general features ; they have a 
 family likeness ; they are all alike so far as they bear 
 the image of the heavenly Adam. Their faith, their 
 aim, their hopes are one. But they have each some 
 
186 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 special divergence from the general type to prove 
 their individuality. This fact is amply illustrated in 
 sacred history, and in the Church around us. In one, 
 Christian reverence predominates; in another, hope; 
 in another, faith ; in another, love : the piety of one is 
 retiring, that of another is bold and aggressive. Each 
 one illustrates some special virtue. The manifold 
 grace of God works in no two of them alike. The 
 characters which God's people exhibit ; the expe- 
 riences through which they pass ; the circumstances 
 in which they are placed, are in no two cases precisely 
 similar. And this diversity in unity presents in the 
 Christian Church, as it does in the field of nature, the 
 charm of a consistent variety, — each part relieving, 
 heightening, and setting off the rest, and contributing 
 to the harmony and beauty of the whole. 
 
 The vine is one of the most graceful of plants. Its 
 beauty is not of a glaring or self-asserting character, 
 but quiet and unobtrusive. It is not possessed of 
 showy-coloured flowers ; but is distinguished for the 
 grace of its foliage — the fragrance of its blossoms — 
 the exquisite symmetry of its fruit — and its full, over- 
 spreading luxuriance. Every leaf, in its shape, vena- 
 tion, and colouring, is a model of beauty; while 
 painters tell us that to study the perfection of form, 
 colour, light, and shade, united in one object, we must 
 place before us a bunch of grapes. In every country 
 where it is cultivated the vine forms one of the most 
 beautiful features of the landscape ; and the sunny 
 South has received the poetic name of " the land of 
 the vine " from the predominance of the vineyards in 
 the scener}^ There it festoons the wayside trees with 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 187 
 
 garlands of fragrant verdure, or covers the trellised 
 cottages with its luscious clusters of golden or purple 
 fruit. In this respect, too, how appropriate an emblem 
 is it of Christ and His people. " I am the vine," says 
 He, who was " the chiefest among ten thousand and 
 the altogether lovely," who reconciled in Himself the 
 extremes of universal excellence, and united the vari- 
 ously coloured rays of moral perfection in one glorious 
 emanation of holiness and love. "Ye are the branches," 
 says He of those whose character and conduct have 
 been moulded after His example, — who, besides the 
 virtue, the goodness, the amiability, the uprightness 
 which characterise the best worldly character, display 
 those higher and nobler spiritual qualities which are 
 the fruits of the Spirit's sanctifying power in the soul. 
 The spiritual vine is indeed pre-eminently lovely, 
 clothed with all its branches, " budding and blossom- 
 ing with all beautiful human affections " — adorned 
 with the full brightness of its summer foliage, and the 
 full richness of its autumn fruitfulness, standing forth 
 in the sunshine of righteousness — in all its graceful 
 and symmetrical proportions — a spectacle to the 
 world, to angels, and to men. Everywhere it forms 
 the fairest feature of the moral landscape — that which 
 beautifies and hallows all the rest. In the midst of 
 the lurid poison-plants of sin it displays its bland and 
 benign qualities ; in the midst of crooked thorns, that 
 pierce the feet, and entangle and bewilder the path, it 
 offers its smooth stem, and shadowing foliage, and 
 refreshing fruit. And even those boasted amenities 
 of civilization, which are usually considered to be the 
 natural fruits of human progress, are but the uncon- 
 
188 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 scions influences of Christianity — the modified reflex- 
 ions of Christ's character displayed by the Church 
 and the believer — the life of Christ influencing society 
 through the Christian community, and through each 
 of its members. Were it not for the healthful moral 
 influences exercised by the vine and its branches, the 
 world would speedily relapse into a howling moral 
 wilderness. 
 
 The vine is also distinguished for its fruitfulnesa 
 There are few plants that remunerate so largely the 
 labours of the husbandman. It bears fruit plentifully 
 jwhen three or four years of age, and continues to 
 improve in quality and quantity with every succeed- 
 ing year, often lasting to a great age. Christ was 
 indeed a fruitful vine, whose fruit has blessed, and 
 will continue to bless the world as long as it lasts. 
 While He sojourned on earth He went about con- 
 tinually doing good, instant in season and out of 
 season, in working miracles of mercy, preaching the 
 Gospel of salvation, and fulfilling the work which 
 His Father had given Him to do. And as the vine 
 was, so must the branches be. " Herein is my Father 
 glorified, that ye bear much fruit ; so shall ye be 
 my disciples." What Jesus comes to seek from His 
 disciples is not works, but fruits. Works may be and 
 often are the actings of a legal servile spirit. They 
 are done in obedience to rules and laws. They are 
 not parts of one's own nature as it were. They may 
 be performed perfunctorily, from unworthy motives, 
 through fear, or in order to gratify a love of display, 
 or quiet an anxious, or flatter a vain conscience. But 
 fruiti are signs of true life. Wherever they appear, 
 
IX.] THE VINE AND ITS BRANCHES. 189 
 
 they show that the soul has in deed and in truth been 
 united to Christ by a Hving and loving faith. They 
 are the spontaneous natural manifestations of the life 
 within. The soul that has the life and the love of 
 Christ in it cannot help producing fruit. It does so, 
 not by an outward arbitrary law, but by the sweet 
 inward, vital law of life and growth. And therefore 
 it is that the free, unconstrained outpourings of the 
 heart in a godly life — the natural, spontaneous, prac- 
 tical responses of the love of believers to the love 
 of Christ — are more frequently in the New Testament 
 called fruits than works. ** Let my beloved come 
 into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits." Fiuitful- 
 ness is the peculiar distinction and glory of Christ's 
 disciples. It is the result towards which all their 
 efforts tend — the ultimate and highest object of their 
 existence. They are united to Christ, quickened by 
 His Spirit, enjoy all the means and privileges of grace, 
 the dew of Divine love, the sunshine of Divine righte- 
 ousness, the showers and breezes of Divine mercy, in 
 order that they may bring forth fruit ; and that more 
 and more abundantly. Nay, the Husbandman does 
 not hesitate to dig about them and prune them by 
 His afflictive dispensations, in order that on the 
 branches which formerly yielded only leaves may 
 cluster thickly and heavily the peaceable fruits of 
 righteousness. A barren Christian is a contradiction 
 in terms — an anomaly in the spiritual vineyard. 
 Wherever there is life it must go on and on growing 
 from one stage to another ; not resting at any one 
 point of attainment, but advancing until it has covered 
 every branch and twig with fruit. P'ruitfulness is a 
 
190 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. ix. 
 
 necessity of its nature, without which it must become 
 dwarfed and stunted — must wither and die ; an indi- 
 cation of its growing perfection — for there is no plant 
 perfect until it has brought forth all the fruit it can. 
 Faith without works is dead ; as the blossom that has 
 become abortive and forms no fruit fades and falls off 
 the tree. There cannot be a worse sign of a vine 
 than when all its sap is expended in the production 
 of leaves and shoots, and of a Christian than when all 
 his grace evaporates in words, and all his faith in pro- 
 fession. Fruitfulness is the great object for which the 
 vine is cultivated ; and if it comes short of this, the 
 graces and beauties of its foliage will not be regarded 
 as a compensation — it will be rooted out and de- 
 stroyed ; and so diligence in adding to his faith know- 
 ledge, patience, temperance, brotherly kindness, and 
 charity, is the great object for which the Christian is 
 planted in the house of the Lord — rooted in the love 
 of Christ ; and if he fails of accomplishing this pur- 
 pose of his existence, the mere form of godliness 
 will not atone for it, or prevent the dread sentence 
 going forth, " Cut it down ; why cumbereth it the 
 ground .-' " " Every branch in me [that is, in Christ, 
 not by a real and vital union, but by a visible and 
 professional union — by an external alliance with His 
 Church, and by the use of His ordinances] that 
 beareth not fruit He taketh away : and every branch 
 that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring 
 forth more fruit. ... I am the vine, ye are the 
 branches : he that abideth in Me, and I in him, 
 the same bringeth forth much fruit : for without Me 
 ye can do nothing." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FADING LEAVES. 
 " We all do fade as a leap'' — ISAIAH Ixiv. 6. 
 
 In the late autumn days, the saddest of the year, 
 Nature is preaching to us a solemn sermon from the 
 most solemn of all texts. The divine voice is saying 
 to her, " Cry ; " and there is no need for the question, 
 " What shall I cry?" for the oracle is unmistakeable — 
 " All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as 
 the flower of the field : the grass withereth, the flower 
 fadeth ; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon 
 it. Surely the people is grass." This lesson is whis- 
 pered by every bleak wind that moans through the 
 waning wood ; it is proclaimed in melancholy murmurs 
 by every stream that wanders through the valley, 
 choked with the relics of former beauty and luxuriance; 
 it is painted in brown and sombre hues on every part 
 of the landscape. The burden of every sound we hear, 
 the moral of every sight we see, is the old, old truth, 
 which finds a ready response in every human bosom, 
 •' We all do fade as a leaf." That is the great common- 
 place of the world. It is so trite and true, that it has 
 lost in a great measure the power of truth ; and there- 
 
192 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 fore God is annually illuminating it to us by the many 
 coloured lights of autumn, and investing it, by the aid 
 of nature's touching pictures, with new power and im- 
 pressiveness. Every year, at the fall of the leaf. He is 
 spreading before us a great parable, in which our own 
 decay and death are pictorially represented in such a 
 plain and engaging way, that he who runs may read, 
 and he who reads must reflect and profit. And Nature, 
 like a loving mother, going before her timid and re- 
 luctant child, in some difficult task, to show it the way 
 and inspire it with confidence, is graciously ordained 
 thus to go before us in her decay every autumn, to 
 show us that we, too, must fade as a leaf, and to cheer 
 and encourage us amid the despondency of such a 
 fate by the assurance that, as with her by a physical 
 law, so with us by a law of grace, life comes by 
 death, and decay inevitably precedes a new and better 
 growth. 
 
 Leaves are beautiful objects. Rich in colour, grace- 
 ful in shape, simple in structure, they are among the 
 most exquisite productions of nature's loom. The 
 earth coyly veils her face with them from the too 
 ardent glances of the sun ; and through their silken 
 network of light and shade her homeliest features 
 possess a wonderful witchery. Wherever a green leaf 
 trembles against the blue sky, there the spirit of 
 beauty manifests its presence, and attracts our love ; 
 and there, too, like the olive-leaf in the dove's bill of 
 old, it is a token to us that Noah's flood will no more 
 go over the earth. Leaves speak of security and 
 peace ; for where they grow the sterner forces of 
 nature are unknown. Dov/n in the vallev, v»'here the 
 
FADING LEA VES. 193 
 
 wind lulls, and the storm raves less wildly, and the hot 
 sunshine has a core of coolness, they expand in a 
 genial atmosphere of quiet ; and from homeless moors, 
 and wind-swept mountain-ridges, and scorching deserts, 
 we enter their shade with a feeling of home-shelter 
 and rest. Summer owes much of the charm of its 
 music and poetry to them ; summer would not be 
 summer without them. They laugh in the sunbeams 
 and sing in the breeze, and make the wilderness and 
 the solitary place to be glad. Life under the green 
 leaves is a keeping of the feast of tabernacles ; the 
 troubles of the winter-wilderness are over, and the joy 
 and fruition of the harvest-home are nigh. Wreaths 
 for the brow of fame, chaplets for the tomb of love, 
 bowers of happiness for youth and innocence, leaves 
 have a wonderful human interest about them, and are 
 linked with many tender associations of joy and sorrow. 
 We need their mystery anvi secrecy amid life's naked 
 and garish troubles, ever since Adam and Eve hid 
 themselves from their fear among the trees of the 
 garden. The sight of them is a soothing medicine to 
 the soul's care and anxieties ; and when their freshness 
 and fairness fail to charm away the evil spirit, they at 
 least remind us of those blessed trees that grow on 
 either side of the river of life, whose leaves are for the 
 healing of the nations, and under whose shade God 
 shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. 
 
 As emblems of humanity, leaves are peculiarly 
 beautiful and expressive. Tongues of nature, they are 
 eloquent with divine teachings, which reach at times 
 the inner ear with a strange power. Man sees his own 
 fate reflected in their short-lived beauty. As light a 
 
 u 
 
194 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 hold as they has he of the tree of hfe. A leaf is the 
 type of a single person ; and the whole foliage of a 
 tree symbolizes a generation. The tree sheds its 
 leaves one by one, until at last it is altogether stripped, 
 and stands bare and desolate in the wintry blast, but 
 its trunk and branches remain ; so individual men and 
 whole generations die, but the race survives. The leaf 
 is annual, but the tree perennial ; and man is frail and 
 perishing, but mankind have an enduring existence. 
 The trunk and the branches of the tree are the abiding 
 works of the frail and transient leaf. All the wood of 
 the tree is formed solely by the leaf; and the size and 
 peculiarities of that wood, are owing entirely to the 
 amount and vital activity of the foliage. Slowly and 
 silently — year after year — generation after generation 
 — the leaf is elaborating from air and rain and sunshine 
 — those solid structures which are destined to outlive 
 it — and to remain behind — when it has fallen and 
 crumbled into dust, as its enduring monuments. And 
 is it not so with man .'' He is occupied all his life 
 with works that are to survive him. He contributes 
 to the progress of humanity, to the civilization and 
 Christianization of the race — to the subjugation of the 
 natural world ; and when he quits this scene, he 
 leaves these enduring things behind him as his me- 
 morials and monuments. Then, too, how graphically 
 the varied aspects of the leaf picture the various 
 seasons of man's life ! The tenderness of its budding 
 and blooming in spring, when that rich golden-green 
 glints on it, that comes only once a year, represents 
 (he bright beauty and innocence of youth, when every 
 sunrise brings its fresh glad hopes, and every night its 
 
X.J FADING LEAVES. 195 
 
 holy, trustful calm. The dark greenness and lush 
 vigour of the summer leaf portray the strength and 
 self-reliance of manhood ; while its fading hues on the 
 tree, and its rustling heaps on the ground, typify the 
 decay and feebleness of old age, and that strange 
 mysterious passing away which is the doom of ev'ery 
 mortal. The autumn leaf is gorgeous in colour, but 
 it lacks the balmy scent and the dewy freshness of 
 hopeful spring ; and life is rich and bright in its me- 
 ridian splendour ; — deep are the hues of maturity, and 
 noble is the beauty of success, but who would not give 
 it all for the tender sweetness and promise of life's 
 morning hours .'' Happy they who keep the child'? 
 heart warm and soft over the sad experiences of old 
 age, whose life declines as these last September days 
 go out, with the rich tints of autumn and the blue 
 sunny skies of June! Yes; we live as a leaf, and we 
 fade as a leaf. The inspired prophet says it in God's 
 own Word ; nature echoes it through all the longdrawn 
 aisles of the forest ; and human experience, from 
 Adam until now, adds its universal yet individualizing 
 illustration — each new case exhibiting some new 
 variety. Let us trace out this analogy, and see what 
 light the picture of nature sheds upon the Bible. 
 
 I. Leaves fade gradually. The whole foliage of a 
 tree does not fade and pass av/ay at one time. Some 
 leaves droop and wither even in spring, when the rest 
 of the foliage i? in its brightest and most luxuriant 
 beauty. Some are torn away in summer, while green 
 and full of sap, by sudden and violent storms. The 
 great majority fade and fall in autumn ; while a 
 few cling to the branches all through the cold and 
 
 O 2 
 
196 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 desolation of winter, and are at last pushed off by the 
 unfolding buds of the following spring. There is no 
 tree, however green and healthy, but has a withered, 
 discoloured leaf upon it, ready to drop off at the 
 slightest touch of the breeze. There is no group oi 
 flowers so perfect but one or more is faded. Watch 
 the blossoming of one of those plants whose flowers 
 grow in spikes or racemes, and you will find that the 
 lowest blossoms unfold and perish, one by one, as 
 those higher up the stem are beginning to expand ; so 
 that on the same stalk you have opening buds, perfect 
 flowers, and brown and withered ones — a mixed state 
 of things, surely deeply suggestive to every thoughtful 
 mind. Look at the foliage of a tree at any season, 
 and you will not fail to find the same thing — death in 
 the midst of life — sere and yehow decay streaking the 
 bright greenness and beauty of health. And is it not 
 so with every human generation ? Decay and death 
 everywhere and always reign. But all do not fade at 
 the same time. Some die in the spring of life ; some 
 are cut off suddenly, by accidents and fatal diseases, 
 in ripe manhood ; some fade naturally in the autumn 
 of old age. A few survive their generation, like the 
 last red leaves that rustle mournfully in the winter 
 wind on the topmost bough of the tree — the sole relics 
 of the luxuriant foliage that basked in the sunshine 
 and sang in the breeze of summer. Melancholy in- 
 deed is the lot of these aged patriarchs. Their tent 
 of life is a solitary object in a dreary and lifeless 
 desert. Pilgrims and strangers on earth, they linger 
 alone ; whilst all those who began the journey of life 
 with them have folded their tents and gone away, and 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. ]!)7 
 
 Ichabod, " the glory is departed," is written upon 
 everything. Many leaves have faded and fallen from 
 the tree of humanity since we first began to expand 
 our bud in the warm sunshine of life. Thousands 
 with whorr. we commenced our career have gone into 
 the silent land before us. The ground beneath is 
 strewn thick with golden relics of departed happiness. 
 The tree to us begins to assume a bare and wintry 
 aspect. Lover and friend hast thou put far from us, 
 and our acquaintance into darkness. We are now 
 related not so much to the living as to the dead. The 
 grave is no more the residence of strangers and 
 foreigners, but of kindred and friends. Eternity is no 
 longer a cold, bleak, outlying realm of shadows, be- 
 yond our sympathy and regard, but a portion of the 
 loved scenery of homiC ; for into it has gone so much 
 of what formed part of our very being — so much of 
 what was dearer than life, And we who still cling- 
 tenaciously to the branches must soon go over to "the 
 great majority." " Gradually do we pass from these 
 summer scenes, following each other in rapid suc- 
 cession." Friend after friend departs, family after 
 family disappears, until the mournful record shall be 
 written of us as it v^-as written of the Hebrews of old 
 — "And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all 
 that generation." A thousand millions of leaves are at 
 the present moment hanging on the tree of humanity ; 
 and all these in less than a century will fade and fall 
 off, and their places be occupied by a succession as 
 numerous, to share the same fate. Generation after 
 generation will come and go ; tree after tree will fall 
 and perish; forest airer forest will disappear ;— and 
 
198 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TURE. [CH A p. 
 
 thus it will continue until the cycle of man's existence on 
 earth be complete, and the angel shall come, and swear 
 that time shall be no longer, and death itself shall die. 
 2. Leaves fade silently. All the processes of nature 
 are silent and secret. It is God's glory to conceal a 
 matter. As He veiled His wondrous working for the 
 Israelites at the Red Sea with the cloud of night — and 
 the dawn only revealed the completed miracle — so in 
 the field of nature He reveals to us not processes, but 
 results. Spring steals imperceptibly upon the earth 
 and we are startled like men that dreamed, by the 
 sudden revelation of green leaves and balmy skies 
 almost amid the gloom and snow of winter. The bud 
 expands into the full-blown rose — but the unfolding 
 I is done in secret ; the star of evening sparkles like a 
 tear in the spot where the sunset died — but no one 
 marked its falling from the dewy eye of heaven. 
 And as with the glory, so with the decay of nature. 
 We know the passage of the seasons only by their 
 changes. The precise moment when nature has 
 reached its culminating point and must descend — 
 when her embroidered web has been woven and must 
 be unravelled — is shrouded in mystery. No boundary- 
 line separates the season of life from the season of 
 death — the full vigour and perfection of summer from 
 the feebleness and languor of autumn — at least none 
 that can be marked by the ordinary senses of man. 
 To-day the forest is green and luxuriant ; to-morroAV it 
 is faded and desolate. One by one the leaves become 
 discoloured and drop off; but we cannot trace the 
 insidious progress of the blight from its commence- 
 ment to its consummation, and the first notice we 
 
x.j • FADING LEAVES. 1.99 
 
 have of the change is the hectic hue upon their 
 surface. Some of them fade before others, but we 
 cannot tell why ; there is no mark to pohit them out ; 
 and when all the foliage is waving and murmuring in 
 the summer breeze, we cannot indicate which leaf of 
 all the rich, green crowd will be the first to wear the 
 impress of decay. Thus fades the leaf—and so 
 silently do we all fade. The king of terrors comes 
 with a noiseless step, shod with wool, stealthily, 
 silently, with bated breath ; he is not seen ; he is not 
 heard ; he is not suspected ; till all at once his cold 
 shadow falls upon us, and his dark form stands 
 between us and the light of the living world. We 
 die daily, but the bark still continues fresh and the 
 leaf green, and we know not the progress of the 
 hidden mortality. We bear the seal of death ere we 
 are conscious of it ; and we become aware of our 
 doom only when the gradual secret fading of the 
 bloom on the cheek, and the brightness in the eye, 
 and the vigour in the frame, has reached its final 
 palpable stage. No awful handwriting appears on the 
 wall, telling us in the midst of our rejoicings, as it 
 told Belshazzar, its "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin;" no 
 solemn message from the unseen world comes to us 
 as it once came to Hezekiah: "Set thine house in 
 order, for thou shalt die and not live." Before the 
 work of death begins, we know not which of our 
 friends and acquaintances will pass away soonest. 
 It may be the old and gray-haired, who have nothing 
 left to live or hope for in the world ; it may be the 
 sickj who have lingered long on the perilous edge of 
 death, and whose life has been endurance not enjoy- 
 
200 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 ment ; or it may be the young and healthy, to whom 
 death is a far-off cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, 
 casting no shadow on their sunny horizon. It may be 
 the fragrant rose or the thorny weed — the fruitful vine 
 or the barren fig-tree — the heavenly-minded Christian 
 or the worldly-hearted professor. Who is to be the 
 first to receive the message to pass hence .'' — we know 
 not ; an awful uncertainty rests upon that. The veil 
 that hides it from our view is woven by the hand of 
 mercy. But certain it is that some must go first. 
 The process of decay has begun in many already. 
 The seeds of disease have been sown in their frames, 
 and slowly, imperceptibly, but surely, they are spring- 
 ing up and ripening to the dread harvest. The gray 
 hairs, the feeble limbs, of some, show too plainly that 
 they are in the sere and yellow leaf; and at last, 
 silently, as a leaf falls in the hush of the forest, they 
 ivill fall from the tree of life, and pass away for 
 ever : — 
 
 ** Leaves have their time to fall, 
 And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath : 
 
 But thou all seasons — all ; 
 Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death ! 
 
 We know when moons shall wane, 
 When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, 
 
 When autumn hues shall tinge the golden grain : 
 But who shall teach us when to look for thee ? " 
 
 3. Leaves fade differently. The autumnal foliage 
 is very varied. It is this rich variety that gives a 
 witching charm to the calm landscapes of October, 
 and makes the progress of the month like the stately 
 march of an Orient army, with the splendour of 
 blazing banners, and the wealth and pageantry of 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. 201 
 
 olden story. No two species of trees exhibit the 
 same appearance. They all presented a uniform green- 
 ness in summer ; but decay brings out their individual 
 character, and shows us each of them in its true 
 colours. One tree, draped in dull and sombre foliage, 
 looks like a funeral pall. Its leaves are covered with 
 brown unsightly blotches ; and its whole aspect is 
 melancholy and dreary in the extreme. Another tree 
 looks as though the glories of the sunset had been 
 distilled into it. Decked with glowing hues of crimson, 
 and scarlet, and gold, it lights up the forest like a 
 pillar of fire. It is a picture of beauty, far more 
 exquisite than any it presented in its fresh, green, 
 summer prime. The eye loves to dwell upon it ; and 
 the mind forgets, in the enjoyment of its loveliness, 
 that the gorgeous display is but the prelude of death, 
 the last brilliant flash of the candle in its socket, 
 ere it goes out in utter darkness. And are there 
 not similar differences in the way in which men fade 
 and die } In the hey-day of life and happiness they 
 may seem all alike, uniformly fair and attractive. 
 But when death comes, it shows the true character of 
 each. Its approach makes some men gloomy and 
 sombre. It invests them with a dark and repulsive 
 aspect. It clothes them with despair. It discovers and 
 displays to them, in its red all-revealing light, the 
 errors and follies of their life in all their hard reality, 
 without one softening shadow. There is nothing to 
 save them from the sting with which it is armed by 
 sin. They are under the law and under the curse. 
 The righteousness of Christ is not theirs to justify 
 them ; His Spirit is not theirs to sanctify them. They 
 
202 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 have no title to heaven, and no meetness for it Oh, 
 there is nothing bright and attractive, nothing hopeful 
 and desirable, in the dying of the impenitent and un- 
 saved sinner! All is dark and despairing — a fearful 
 looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. It 
 \ is like the sun on a stormy evening going down in 
 gloomy thunder-clouds, leaving no ray of light behind. 
 It is like a green tree changing in autumn into the 
 most sombre and repulsive aspect of decay. But 
 how widely different is the dying of the Christian ! 
 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death 
 of His saints ; precious and also beautiful. It 
 is to them the most blessed of experiences. They 
 are never so well situated to glorify God, as in their 
 dying hours. Then they can display the tenderness 
 of His care, the truth of His promises, the supports of 
 His everlasting love, as they can in no other circum- 
 stances. While the eye of the body is closing to the 
 beauties of earth, the eye of the soul is opening to the. 
 glories that are to be revealed in them : while their 
 hold of all that life holds dear is relaxing, they cling 
 with a firmer grasp of faith, and a closer embrace of 
 love, to the things that are unseen and eternal in the 
 heavens ; while the outward man perishes, the inward 
 man is renewed more and more. The day of their 
 death is indeed better than the day of their birth, for, 
 rich with all their treasures of spiritual knowledge and 
 experience — the growth and accumulation of a whole 
 lifetime of discipline — they come to their last hour 
 like the mellow fruit that gathers into itself all the 
 life of the tree, and all the dew and sunshine of 
 summer, and at last bends and breaks the branch 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. 203 
 
 from which it hangs. The idea of death to them 
 has nothing death-like in it. That death which 
 men dread is to them swallowed up in victory. It 
 is but the passing shadow between faith and sight, 
 hope and full fruition, transient and transparent as the 
 last filmy cloud that veils for a moment the sunrise. 
 The chamber of death is none other than the house 
 of God and the very gate of heaven. Oh ! the dying 
 of the Christian is not a fading away; it is an apo- 
 theosis, a transfiguration, a bursting into blossom. 
 It is a triumph, and not a sadness. It is like the 
 setting of the sun on a calm summer evening, which 
 makes the western sky a-blaze with splendour, and 
 glorifies even the dark clouds that gather round his 
 descent. It is like the changing of the sombre green 
 foliage of summer into the gorgeous brightness of the 
 autumnal hues, investing even the sadness of decay 
 and death with an unearthly beauty. Who, on be- 
 holding such a marvellous proof of the transforming 
 and sustaining power of grace, would not exclaim 
 with Balaam's earnestness, and more than Balaam's 
 purpose of attainment : " Let me die the death of 
 the righteous, and let my latter end be like his"? 
 Our life is a vapour that appeareth for a little, and 
 then vanisheth away ; but this brief vapour life of 
 ours is laden with eternity, and is a fact so real and 
 grand as to strike the imagination with amazement. 
 We can make it very beautiful or very gloomy. Let 
 it not be to any of us the mere thick mist that broods 
 over the ceaseless machinery of toil and care, or the 
 foul exhalation that rises from the muddy pools of the 
 world's pleasures ; but let it be what God intended it 
 
204 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 to be, a cloud in the height of heaven, in the world, 
 but not of it ; brightened by the sun of righteousness, 
 and assuming fairer and more heavenly hues as it 
 nears the gates of the west ! 
 
 4. Leaves fade characteristically. The foliage that 
 is gloomiest in its unfolding, is most unsightly in its 
 decay; and the leaves that have the richest and ten- 
 derest shade of green in April, have the most brilliant 
 rainbow hues in October. The leaf of the sad and 
 sullen ash is the last to kindle its bud, and the first to 
 wither and fall ; and its colour, always sombre, becomes 
 blackened and disfigured in decay. The leaf of the 
 linden tree, on the contrary, is beautiful from first to 
 last ; softly green in spring ; fragrant in summer with 
 delicate frankincense, and musical with the hum of 
 bees, revelling in the honey-dew bloom ; and gorgeous 
 a.s a sunset-cloud in autumn. And so is it with 
 man. He dies as he lives. A life of godliness ends 
 in a saintly death ; and a career of worldliness and sin 
 terminates in impenitence and despair. The law of 
 life is, that the fruit shall be as the seed, and the end 
 as the beginning : unless, indeed, the higher law of 
 divine mercy interposes on a timely repentance. And 
 as the fading itself is cJiaracteristic, so also are the 
 results of the fading. The leaves of some trees when 
 they fall, leave no trace whatever behind. The scar 
 left by their removal heals immediately; and on the 
 smooth naked bark of the bough, in winter, there is no 
 mark to indicate that it was once covered with foliage. 
 There are other trees, however, on which the scars are 
 permanent. The leaf drops off, but it leaves a seal- 
 like impression behind on the stem, and no succeeding 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. 205 
 
 growth can obliterate it. Through summer's luxuri- 
 ance and winter's desolation, the memory of the 
 vanished leaf remains indelibly fixed on the tree, 
 engraved as if with a pen of iron upon the bough 
 which it once adorned. The tree may increase in size, 
 until it forms a grove by itself; but the signet-mark 
 left by the leaf, which fell from it when it was a mere 
 sapling, still cleaves to it in the grandeur of old age. 
 Many of the characteristic markings on the stems of 
 palm-trees and tree-ferns are due to the permanence 
 of these scars, when their leaves have decayed and 
 dropped off. And is not the lesson of analogy here 
 very clear and impressive } How many there are 
 who fade and drop off from the tree of humanity, and 
 leave no trace of their existence behind. They have 
 done nothing to keep their memory fresh and green in 
 the hearts of their friends. Neither by greatness of 
 mind, nor by goodness of heart, nor by pious deeds of 
 usefulness, have they left their mark upon their gene- 
 ration ; and when they die, society never misses them ; 
 matters speedily relapse into their ordinary routine ; 
 even their friends and acquaintances, when the first 
 shock of natural grief abates, never speak of them Or 
 recall their actions. Over the vacant space the grass 
 and the weeds begin speedily to spread, and the neigh 
 bouring branches to approach till they interlace at last, 
 and we miss no more from the unbroken forest the 
 tree that has been laid low, or perhaps decide that a 
 loss so easily repaired is rather a gain than the reverse. 
 Others there are, large-minded and large-hearted men, 
 who live not for themselves, but for the glory of God 
 and the good of their fellow-creatures, who toil unself- 
 
'206 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. 
 
 ishly and uaweariedly in the vineyard of the Lord and 
 in the market-place of Satan, striving in the one to 
 plant trees of righteousness, and in the other to redeem 
 those who are sold to sin and death ; these when they 
 fade and drop off the tree of life, leave behind them 
 an impression which time will only make deeper — an 
 empty space whose perpetual vacancy reminds the 
 survivors of an irreparable loss. The scar left by their 
 removal no future summer can heal, no subsequent 
 growth of beauty obliterate. It will remain to testify 
 to the large increment of all that is good and useful 
 which they have added to the tree of humanity. The 
 just shall be had in everlasting remembrance. Though 
 the place that now knows them may know them no 
 more for ever, yet those whom they blessed will arise 
 and call them blessed, and the undying moral power 
 of their character and life will produce a more lasting 
 impression upon men's hearts, tlian any words that fell 
 from their living lips. Their sunset leaves a long- 
 enduring after-glow in the heavens, which makes the 
 world fairer and richer, because such as they lived and 
 died in it. They fade, like all other mortals, as a leaf; 
 but the fragrance of their life still clings to their 
 memory as the scent of the rose lingers in its withered 
 leaves. Love and gratitude confer an immortality upon 
 them. Who would not seek to be so remembered } 
 
 5. Leaves fade preparedly. No leaf falls from the 
 tree — unless wrenched off suddenly and unexpectedly 
 in early growth by external violence — without making 
 due preparation for its departure. Before the slightest 
 discoloration is seen upon it, there is a secret ade- 
 quate provision made by nature for the inevitable 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. 207 
 
 hour of its passing away. Side by side with it, even 
 in its summer beauty and luxuriance, it carries the 
 memorial at once of its death and of a new birth. It 
 bears the young bud that is to usurp its place in its 
 bosom, and nourishes it with its own expiring life. 
 This law of the vegetable kingdom is one that knows 
 no exception. No leaf drops till a new one is prepared 
 to take its place ; no flower perishes till its house is 
 made ready and filled with seeds. Provision and pre- 
 paration for the future is the condition on which vege- 
 table life exists. Go to the forest or the field, and 
 examine every tree or flower in this sad season of 
 decay, and you will find to your surprise and delight 
 that " there is as much of life as of death in autumn," 
 — that the elements of future resuscitation and growth 
 are provided for, amid tokens of universal decadence 
 and corruption. Already " another year is hidden 
 along the bough " that hangs its dead discoloured 
 leaves in the frosty air ; already another sunnner is 
 secure among the pericarps of the dying flowers that 
 strew the desolate fields. The leaf and flower bud, 
 which appear to burst forth as the offspring of the re- 
 viving spring, are in reality the children of a previous 
 season. They are now formed ; and in these bleak 
 cold days they are wrapped up in swaddling bands to 
 guard them from the frost. Yes ! every leaf makes 
 provision for the future, and carries the prophecy of 
 the future in its bosom. Alas, how different is it in 
 human economy ! Provision for the future is with 
 man not the law but the exception of his conduct. 
 The great majority of mankind live for the passing 
 hour — make the passing world their portion, and have 
 
208 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 no hope or wish for anything beyond. They lead a 
 gay summer life, dance in the breeze and laugh in the 
 sunshine of pleasure, and their only object in existence 
 is to enjoy it, forgetful of the coming blight that is to 
 rob them of their beauty, and of the storms and frosts 
 that are hastening to lay them low in the dust. Vvell 
 may God appeal against such careless, godless ones, 
 so utterly ignorant of the object and end of their life, 
 to the forms of nature that so perfectly obey the divine 
 laws written upon them — " Hear, O heavens ; and give 
 ear, O earth. I have nourished and brought up chil- 
 dren, and they have rebelled against Me." Nature is 
 sent to teach us by her autumnal parables : and every 
 fading leaf on every tree, with its bud of future growth 
 hid behind it, becomes a solemn text, warning us to 
 " secure while the leaf is yet green, the germ that shall 
 live when the frost of death has destroyed both fruit 
 and flower." As surely as the leaf fades, so surely 
 shall we fade. We imagine that our fading is not 
 near. "We put far away the evil day ; and therefore 
 we are not duly impressed by the thought. But four- 
 score years are soon cut off, and we flee away ; and 
 how uncertain is our reaching that lonely verge of life, 
 where the flowery meadows and the golden corn-field? 
 slope gradually down into the bare and stony beach 
 that fringes the eternal sea. The coast of death to 
 most is an abrupt precipice; we are cut off in the 
 midst of our days. A thousand unforeseen foes, fatal 
 to life, line our path on either side, and we have to 
 run the gauntlet daily between them. We began to 
 die the moment we began to live. Our very life itself 
 is nothing else but a succession of dying; and every 
 
X.] FADING LEAVES. 209 
 
 day and every hour, in the changes within and without 
 which we experience, wears away part of it. Should 
 we not imitate, therefore, the example of the leaf, in 
 which the process of preparation for the future keeps 
 pace with the process of decay ? Should we not seek 
 to make daily, life-long preparation for the final, the 
 inevitable consummation of our daily, life-long death ? 
 Should we not so count our days that we may apply 
 our hearts to heavenly wisdom ? — the wisdom o^ 
 knowing, and loving, and serving Him who alone can 
 redeem our poor perishing life from its vanity, and 
 change it into the glory and blessedness of a life hid 
 with Christ in God. Apart from Him the industry of 
 a lifetime is but elaborate trifling, "the costly em- 
 broidering of a shroud." United to Him our labour is 
 not in vain in the Lord, our works shall endure and 
 follow us. Every leaf on the tree of humanity must 
 fade ; but if we are grafted by a living faith in Him 
 whose name is the "Branch," His own gracious pro- 
 mise becomes a living truth to us : "I am the resur- 
 rection, and the life : he that believeth in Me, though 
 he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth, 
 and believeth in Me, shall never die." 
 
 " On the tree of life eternal, 
 
 Man, let all thy hopes be stayed, 
 Which, alone for ever vernal, 
 
 Bears a leaf which shall not fade." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND, 
 
 " For he shall grow icp before him as a tender pi aiit, a7id as a root out of 
 a dry ground y — ISAIAH liii. 2. 
 
 Owing to their geographical position, the central 
 and western regions of South Africa are almost con- 
 stantly deprived of rain. They contain no flowing 
 streams, and very little water in the wells. The soil 
 is a soft and light-coloured sand, which reflects the 
 sunlight with a glaring intensity. No fresh breeze 
 cools the air ; no passing cloud veils the scorching 
 sky. We should naturally have supposed that regions 
 so scantily supplied with one of the first necessaries 
 of life, could be nothing else than waste and lifeless 
 deserts : and yet, strange to say, they are distin- 
 guished for their comparatively abundant vegetation, 
 and their immense development of animal life. The 
 evil produced by want of rain has been counteracted 
 by the admirable foresight of the Creator, in provid- 
 ing these arid lands with plants suited to their trying 
 circumstances. The vegetation is eminently local and 
 special. Nothing like it is seen elsewhere on the face 
 of the earth. Nearly all the plants have tuberous 
 
CHAP. XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 211 
 
 roots, buried far beneath the ground, beyond the 
 scorching effects of the sun, and are composed of 
 succulent tissue, filled with a deliciously cool and 
 refreshing fluid. They have also thick fleshy leaves, 
 with pores capable of imbibing and retaining mois- 
 ture from a very dry atmosphere and soil ; so that 
 if a leaf be broken during the greatest drought, it 
 shows abundant circulating sap. Nothing can look 
 more unlike the situations in which they are found 
 than these succulent roots, full of fluid when the sur- 
 rounding soil is dry as dust, and the enveloping air 
 seems utterly destitute of moisture ; replete with 
 nourishment and life when all within the horizon is 
 desolation and death. They seem to have a special 
 vitality in themselves ; and, unlike all other plants, 
 to be independent of circumstances. Such roots are 
 also found in the deserts of Arabia ; and it was 
 doubtless one of them that suggested to the prophet 
 the beautiful and expressive emblem of the text, 
 " He shall grow up before him as a root out of a 
 dry ground," 
 
 Commentators usually connect these words with 
 the next clause of the verse, and regard them as 
 implying that the promised Messiah would have no 
 form or comeliness in the estimation of men, no out- 
 ward beauty, that they should desire Him. This, I 
 think, is a wrong interpretation. The words of the 
 text are complete and separate. They speak not of 
 the appearance of Christ to men, but of His growth 
 in the sight of God, They refer not to His attrac- 
 tiveness, but to His functions; and the point that 
 ;cems to be most insisted upon is, that His relation 
 
 P 2 
 
212 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TUBE. [chap. 
 
 to the circumstances in which He should be placed 
 would be one of perfect independence and self-suffi- 
 ciency. In the light of this explanation let us look 
 at the three ideas which the subject suggests to us : — 
 first, the living root ; second, the dry grojind ; and 
 third, the effect of the living root upo7t the dry groimd 
 
 I. The living root. This emblem is peculiarly 
 appropriate when applied to Christ. He is called 
 the " Branch," to show that He is a member of the 
 great organism of human life, bone of our bone, and 
 flesh of our flesh, our brother born, united to us by 
 blood-relationship, fashioned like as we are, touched 
 with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities, in all things 
 made like unto His brethren, yet without sin. He is 
 a branch of the tree of humanity, nourished by its 
 sap, pervaded by its life, blossoming with its affec- 
 tions, and yielding its fruits of usefulness. But He is 
 more than the Branch. " There shall come forth a 
 rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall 
 grow out of his roots," is the spiritual language of 
 prophecy relative to the coming of the Messiah ; but 
 the figure is speedily changed, and the Branch is also 
 called "the root of Jesse." This language is most 
 strange and paradoxical. It reveals the mystery of 
 godliness, God manifest in the flesh. Jesus is at one 
 and the same time the Branch and the Root, the root 
 of Jesse and the offspring of Jesse, David's Lord and 
 David's son, because He is Emmanuel, God with us, 
 God and man in two distinct natures and one person 
 for ever ; deriving His human life by natural descent 
 from man, and possessing Divine life in Himself, and 
 the author of spiritual life to others. 
 
XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 213 
 
 The root of plants growing in a dry ground is the 
 most important part of their structure. It hes at the 
 basis of, and involves the whole plant. The whole 
 growth of a lily, for instance, lies folded up within its 
 bulb. Its leaves and blossoms are only a develop- 
 ment, a revelation of what is in the root, only a mani- 
 festation of the fragrance and beauty — the spotless 
 purity and attractive grace that are hidden within 
 the apparently dry and unsightly scales of the root. 
 And so Christ lies at the basis of, and involves the 
 whole spiritual life. There is a Divine simplicity in 
 all the works and ways of God. As we can trace 
 the whole system of nature up to one or two simple 
 types and forces, so we can trace the whole gospel 
 scheme up to one form and one force. Christ created 
 the gospel by His work ; He preaches the gospel by 
 His words ; He is the gospel Himself. His person is 
 intrinsically superior to all the doctrines which He 
 proclaims, and all the blessings which He confers. 
 His individuality takes precedence of everything else. 
 He is the Way ; for no man cometh to the Father 
 but by Him. He is the Truth ; for the truth that 
 frees and sanctifies the soul is " the truth as it is in 
 Jesus." He is the Life ; for he that believeth in Him, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live, and to know 
 Him is life everlasting. He of God is made unto us 
 wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
 redemption ; and the believer is said to " put on 
 Christ," and not merely His salvation, to be made 
 " a partaker of Christ," and not merely of His gifts, 
 whether of grace or glory. In short, there are nu- 
 merous passages in the New Testament which declare 
 
214 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap, 
 
 Christ to be personally what, in the ordinary language 
 of life, we should say that He had done and taught 
 and communicated. All the individual life of the 
 Christian, with its blossoms of holiness and its fruits 
 of righteousness ; all the Christian life of society, 
 with its things that are pure, and honest, and lovely, 
 and of good report, is but a development and a mani- 
 festation of the life of Christ in the heart and in the 
 world ; a growth and unfolding of the power, the 
 beauty, and the sweetness that are hid in the root 
 of Jesse. And it is assuredly the most precious, as 
 it is the most distinguishing, feature of the Christian 
 religion, that it places the foundation of eternal life 
 in. living relations with a living person, rather than in 
 the profession of a creed or the practice of a duty ; 
 that under it the believer is " not a man who main 
 tains the doctrine of the Trinity, or who holds justi- 
 fication by faith, but the man who has come to Christ, 
 and is rooted and built up in Him." 
 
 One of the principal functions which the root per- 
 forms in the economy of vegetation is to attach the 
 plant to the soil, and prevent it from moving hither 
 and thither at the mercy of the elements. So Christ 
 is the living root of our spiritual life, connecting it 
 with the whole system of grace, the whole economy 
 of redemption. It is only when united to Christ by 
 a living faith that the soul can lay hold on heaven 
 and immortality. Apart from Him, it is like a weed, 
 sun-dried and wind-wafted, drifting about from place 
 to place — the facile slave of every fickle breeze of 
 doctrine and circumstance, walking through dry places, 
 seeking rest and finding none. In the arid deserts of 
 
XL] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 215 
 
 central South America there is a strange plant, the 
 Sclaginella convohita, a species of club-moss, endowed 
 with very remarkable hygrometric properties. In the 
 dry season, when every particle of moisture is ex- 
 tracted from the soil, it is detached from its growing 
 place, rolled up into a ball, and carried away by the 
 violent equinoctial gales which prevail at the time 
 in these regions, often to very great distances. It 
 remains coiled up in this form for a considerable 
 time ; but if carried to a marsh, or the margin of a 
 stream, or any other moist place, it begins slowly 
 to unfold, and spread itself out flatly on the soil, 
 assumes its former vigour and freshness, takes root, 
 develops its fructification, and casts abroad its seed 
 upon the air. When this new situation is dried up, 
 it resumes its old unsettled habits, and, like an ad- 
 venturous pilgrim, takes advantage of the wind to 
 emigrate to a more favourable locality. And is not 
 this plant an emblem of the man who is detached 
 from Christ, and who therefore wanders from one 
 broken cistern of earthly joy to another, restless, dis- 
 appointed, dissatisfied .-* He is wearied in the great- 
 ness of his ways, in his manifold journeyings hither 
 and thither in search of true satisfaction. Amid all 
 the resources .of modern science and art, there is still 
 the same old vanity and vexation of spirit. Jesus 
 knew well how deep and universal was the experience 
 He was appealing to when He said, "Come unto Me, 
 all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest." We are striving to attach outward 
 things — our possessions, our friends, our enjoyments 
 — to ourselves ; but where is our own fixedness ? 
 
216 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 How carefully does the lawyer draw up the contract, 
 the assignment, or the will, which is to secure to us 
 our portion in this world ! What precautions do we 
 take to guard against the changes, fluctuations, and 
 uncertainties of business ; but what is to make our- 
 selves secure ? How are we to save ourselves from 
 being drifted hither and thither at the mercy of the 
 v/inds and waves of circumstances ? All our efforts to 
 make ourselves centres and roots will be vain. Our 
 centre is Christ ; and until we are in Him, we shall 
 never know true peace. Our root is Christ ; and 
 until we are rooted in Him, we shall be helpless and 
 lifeless, overpowered by outward things, and dis- 
 quieted by their terrors. Attached to Him, we shall 
 not be moved. United to Him by a living faith, our 
 hearts are fixed and at rest ; we are united to God, 
 to eternal life, and to all the blissful and glorious 
 realities of the spiritual world. We are in Him, who 
 is the root of all life and the centre of all things ; 
 and therefore, in all conditions and circumstances, 
 however painful and trying, we enjoy the perfect 
 peace of the man whose soul is stayed upon God, 
 the very peace of God Himself, which passeth all 
 understanding. 
 
 Another purpose which the root serves in the 
 economy of vegetation is to feed the plant. Through 
 the spongioles of the root, the plant imbibes from the 
 soil in which it is placed, the needful sap by which it 
 is sustained ; and in this simple way the whole im- 
 portant and complicated processes are carried on, by 
 v/hich crude soil is converted into the needful con- 
 stituents of vegetable matter. For this purpose the 
 
XI 1 THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 21 7 
 
 root possesses certain structural peculiarities adapt- 
 ing it to its special functions. The tuberous or 
 bulbous root of a dry ground is provided with a 
 store of nourishment for the support of the plant 
 that is to spring from it. Just as there is provision 
 made for the growth of the germ in the starchy con- 
 tents of the seed, until it has attained an independent 
 existence; so there is provision made in the nutri- 
 tive tissue of the bulb or tuber for the support of 
 the plant which it produces. This function also the 
 Root of Jesse performs in the case of those who are 
 rooted in Him. He is the mediator of the New Cove- 
 nant ; the only channel by which spiritual blessings 
 can be communicated to us. In Him dwelleth all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily. He purchased all the 
 blessings of redemption by His obedience and death ; 
 and in Him they are stored up for the quickening and 
 growth in grace of all who are united to Him. All 
 the promises in Him are yea and amen. His fibres 
 penetrate, as it were, throughout all space, extend 
 throughout aU time and eternity, over heaven and 
 earth ; and He extracts from every source nourish- 
 ment that will feed the souls of His people, makes all 
 things to work together for their good. He converts 
 the common blessings of life into covenant mercies — 
 daily bread into shewbread, water into the wine of hea- 
 ven, ordinary bounties of providence into sacraments, 
 and makes our very senses minister to our faith. It is 
 only through union with Him that the soul can come 
 into contact with the true fountain of its life, with the 
 true sources of its nourishment and growth, that its 
 ever-expanding capacities and never-silent yearnings 
 
218 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TUBE. [chap. 
 
 can be satisfied. Separated from Him, man is an 
 incomplete creature, a poor blank fragment of exis- 
 tence, rootless, hungry, dry, and withered. United to 
 Him, rooted in Him, having His life circulating as it 
 were through our being, there is no imaginable bless- 
 ing that is not within our reach. We shall never lack 
 any good thing. So long as there is nourishment in 
 the root, the plant can draw it out ; and in this Root 
 there is an infinite and inexhaustible fulness. Possess- 
 ing Him, we possess all things ; for if we be Christ's, 
 all things are ours, the world, and life, and death, 
 things present and things to come ; " all are yours," 
 saith the apostle, "for ye are Christ's, and Christ is 
 God's." 
 
 2. The dfy ground. Having thus briefly sketched 
 out the nature and functions of Christ as the living 
 root, let me now glance at the nature of the relation 
 between it and the soil in which it grew up. He is 
 a root out of a dry ground. There is usually a very 
 intimate connexion between a plant and the circum- 
 stances in which it grows. Modifications of specific 
 character are produced by varieties of soil ; and the 
 wide dift"erence between a wild flower or fruit, and 
 a garden flower or fruit, is entirely owing to the 
 difference between rich cultivated soil and the poor 
 untilled soil of nature. The plants of a dry ground, 
 however, are less dependent upon the nature of their 
 soil than others ; they receive from it, in most cases, 
 mere mechanical support and room to expand in, 
 while their means of growth are derived entirely from 
 the atmosphere. Looking at the emblem of the text 
 in this light, we may in the first place suppose the 
 
XL] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 219 
 
 "dry ground" here to mean that huna)iity out of 
 which Christ sprang. There are many who regard 
 Jesus as the natural product of humanity — the high- 
 est development of human nature, the blossom, so to 
 speak, of mankind. But we look upon Him as a 
 divine germ planted in this wilderness, a divine Being 
 attaching Himself to men, wearing their nature, dwell- 
 ing in their world, but still not of them — as distinct 
 from humanity as the living root is distinct from the 
 dry ground in which it grows. The soil of humanity 
 is indeed dry ground. Sin has dried up its life, its 
 fertility, turned its moisture into summer's drought, 
 and reduced it to perpetual barrenness. The garden 
 of the Lord has become a desert, a dry and parched 
 land wherein there are no waters. Every virtue pleas- 
 ing in the sight of God has faded and disappeared 
 from off it; and instead thorns and briers have sprung 
 up. Such a desolate and sinful soil, scathed by God's 
 curse, could no more have produced the Saviour — He 
 who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from 
 sinners — than the thirsty sands of Sahara could pro- 
 duce the rich verdure of the river-side, or the frozen 
 wastes of the Pole could nourish the luxuriant vege- 
 tation of the Tropics. By the law of natural develop- 
 ment, mankind could never have given birth to a 
 character in every way so exceptional as that of 
 Christ. The degenerate plant of human nature could 
 never have produced the " true vine." It is true 
 indeed that a few individuals have ever and anon 
 emerged from the dark chaos of fallen humanity, 
 and exhibited a high type of intellectual and moral 
 worth ; but such individuals have been completely 
 
220 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 identified with the human race, and have shared in 
 its sins and infirmities. In Jesus, on the contrary, 
 there was a remarlcable remoteness and separateness 
 from men. His hfe ran parallel with man's, but it 
 was never on the same low level ; man's life was to 
 his what the asymptote is to the hyperbola which 
 it can never meet, however nearly it may seem to 
 approach. He was indeed born of a woman ; He 
 grew from infancy to manhood ; He assisted His re- 
 puted father in the trade of a carpenter ; and passed 
 in and out among His countrymen, to the eye of 
 sense, as a Nazarene, like any other. And yet there 
 was a mysterious something which from the very 
 first separated Him from the human race, and set 
 Him apart as a peculiar being. He proved by His 
 words and deeds, and the whole mode of His life, 
 that He had a higher origin than the human, and 
 more transcendent affinities than those of this world 
 — that He was from heaven while dwelling on earth ; 
 a being above mortality while in it ; a being sepa- 
 rate from sinners while united to them by the closest 
 ties of blood relationship and the profoundest hu- 
 man sympathies. " He lived out in the mould ot 
 human conduct and feeling the perfections of God." 
 He was independent of worldly circumstances, and 
 superior to worldly conventionalities. He had no 
 joys on earth save those He brought with Him from 
 heaven. He was alone, without sympathy, for no 
 one could understand Him ; without help, for no 
 mortal aid could reach the necessities of His case, 
 Like a desert well. He was for ever imparting what 
 no one could give Him back, slaking the thirst of 
 
xi.J THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 221 
 
 others, while compelled to quench His own in the 
 fountain of life which is with God within the veil. 
 He brought everything from above, He got nothing 
 from below. He was indeed a divine scion from a 
 worn-out, sinful, effete human stock ; a living root 
 out of a dry exhausted ground, receiving from man- 
 kind a body and a nature in which to carry out the 
 work of redemption ; but deriving all His life and 
 beauty and fruitfulness from the dews and the sun- 
 shine of heaven. 
 
 Further, we may understand by the " dry ground " 
 here, the expectations of the Jezvs regarding the 
 Messiah. There are scientific men who believe in the 
 doctrine of spontaneous or equivocal generation. They 
 believe that there is a living principle or self-creating 
 power in nature ; that the earth of itself, without 
 seeds or germs, brings forth the vegetable produc- 
 tions which clothe its surface ; that every plant is the 
 natural spontaneous product of the particular soil in 
 which it grows. And so there are theologians who 
 assert that Christ was merely the natural product of 
 the age and the circumstances in which He lived ; the 
 mere incarnation, so to speak, of the popular expecta- 
 tion of the time. In all their attempts to account for 
 His life, without admitting Him to be a divine person, 
 they bring prominently into view whatever there was 
 in Jewish history, belief, and literature, to prepare for 
 and produce such a personality and character as those 
 of Jesus ; they endeavour to show that the condition 
 of the Jewish world, when Christ appeared, was 
 exactly that into which His appearing would fit ; and 
 that all these preparatory and formative conditions 
 
222 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 did of themselves, by a kind of natural spontaneous 
 generation, produce Christ. In reply to these views, 
 it may be admitted as an unquestionable historical 
 fact, that the expectation of a Messiah ran like a 
 golden thread throughout the whole complicated web 
 of the Hebrew religion and polity. The whole chro- 
 nology and genealogy of the nation derived an intense 
 interest from this expectation. Every family hoped 
 to number the mysterious exalted personage, who 
 was to restore the kingdom to Israel, among its de- 
 scendants. As the ages wore on, the hope of His 
 appearance became stronger and more definite, until, 
 at the time of our Saviour's birth, it was generally 
 supposed that He would shortly manifest Himself 
 Accordingly, this universal longing and waiting of the 
 people for the Hope of Israel, was actually the cause 
 of many a false Messiah coming forward and claiming 
 to be the expected prince. We read in the Acts of 
 the Apostles of Theudas boasting himself to be some- 
 body ; to whom a number of men, about four hun- 
 dred, joined themselves ; who was slain, and all, as 
 many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to 
 nought : and also of Judas of Galilee, who rose up in 
 the days of the taxing, and drew away much people 
 after him, and who likewise perished. Unbelievers of 
 the school of Strauss and Renan assert that Jesus of 
 Nazareth was one of those false Messiahs. He was 
 fortunate for a while like them ; He drew multitudes 
 after Him, and was regarded as the wonder of His day ; 
 but in the end He too succumbed to the Roman 
 power. The astonishing success of His cause after 
 death, compared with the oblivion which enwraps 
 
XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 223 
 
 their names, is the only point of difference between 
 them ; and therefore He too may be fairly regarded as 
 the product of the popular longing of the time. It is 
 enough to say, that this doctrine of spontaneous gene- 
 ration is no more true in the case of the Plant of 
 Renown, than it is true in the case of any memoer 
 whatever of the vegetable kingdom. The expecta- 
 tions of the Jews did no more of themselves produce 
 the Saviour, than the soil and climate produce, of 
 their own accord, any particular plant. There was 
 nothing in the age, nothing in the people, nothing in 
 the influences by which He was surrounded, which 
 could by any possibility have produced or developed 
 such a remarkable character as He exhibited. He 
 was a root out of a dry ground ; and there was no 
 more relation between Him and His moral surround- 
 ings, than there is between a succulent life-full root 
 and the arid sandy waste in which it grows. To Him 
 alone of all men the apothegm of Goethe applies, 
 "Truth belongs to the man, error to the time." The 
 counterfeit Messiahs were not roots out of a dry 
 ground, but, on the contrary, mushrooms developed 
 from the decaying life of the nation. There was a 
 complete harmony between them and their moral 
 surroundings. They were really and truly the pro- 
 ducts of the popular longing of the time ; they agreed 
 in every respect with their circumstances. The pre- 
 vailing notions concerning the Messiah were worldly 
 and carnal. The Jews expected an earthly king who 
 should revive the decayed national glory ; and there- 
 fore these pretenders put themselves at once at the 
 head of an insurrectionary movement, assumed all 
 
224 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 the pomp and power of earthly monarchs, and appealed 
 to the force of arms against the Roman empire to 
 establish their claims. They fulfilled, or wished to 
 fulfil, all the carnal things that were expected of 
 them. But it was widely different with Christ. The 
 facts of our Lord's appearing and the popular expec- 
 ♦"ations of the time were diametrically opposite. His 
 origin was low and obscure; He wrought during His 
 early years at a humble business ; and when He began 
 His ministry, He refused to accept the homage and 
 political adherence of multitudes who were anxious 
 to make Him a king. He proclaimed constantly that 
 His kingdom was not of this world, that it was spiritual, 
 and consisted in humility and self-denial, and He 
 Himself gave an unparalleled example of meekness 
 and self-abnegation. Those who surrounded Him, not 
 only the simple and ignorant multitude, but His own 
 disciples whom He had taught and educated by doc- 
 trme and miracle for higher purposes, were continually 
 falling back into low and worldly notions regarding 
 His mission and kingdom ; and against these carnal 
 instincts and wishes He had to lift up an urgent testi- 
 mony throughout the whole course of His life. Surely 
 no candid mind that, reflects upon these things, can 
 conceive that such a character as that could have 
 been the mere natural product of the expectation of 
 the times, that such a kingdom as that could have 
 been the mere " natural result of the fermenting ima- 
 ginations of a fanatical people." So far from being 
 the spontaneous growth of Jewish soil, Jesus was 
 utterly antagonistic to it ; He had no vital relations 
 with it ; He was altogether independent of it. He 
 
XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 225 
 
 was distinctively and emphatically, in regard to all 
 the Jewish expectations of the Messiah, " a root out 
 of a dry ground." 
 
 But further still, we may understand by the dry 
 ground here the character of the Jewish people. No- 
 thing can be more marked and striking than the 
 contrast between the character of Christ and the 
 general character of the Jewish nation — between 
 the excellences which He displayed and those which 
 they held in most esteem. It is said that a man 
 represents the spirit and character of the age and the 
 race to which he belongs. He seldom rises above 
 their general level. The character of the whole com- 
 munity repeats itself more or loss strongly and clearly 
 in each individual member of it. But here we have a 
 man who not only rose high above the level of His age 
 and nation, but stands out, in all that constitutes true 
 moral manhood, in marked and decided contrast to 
 them. He was descended from the Jewish people, 
 but He was not of them. He was rooted in Jewish 
 soil, but His life was a self-derived and heavenly life. 
 Antecedently, Judsea would never have been singled 
 out as the birthplace of the great Benefactor of man- 
 kind. Long years of formality in religion, anarchy in 
 government, and corruption and bribery in the admini- 
 stration of law, had exhausted all the good qualities 
 of the people, drained their virtues dry, and left 
 behind a miserable sediment of meanness and hypo- 
 crisy. They were proverbial for their moroseness and 
 avarice ; they were contracted in all their views, and 
 bigoted and fanatical in their maintenance of them. 
 That from such a worldly, hypocritical, and exclusive 
 
 Q 
 
226 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap- 
 
 people, the Saviour of mankind could spring by the 
 natural laws of generation, is simply impossible. And 
 to me it is one of the clearest and most convincing 
 proofs that the scheme of salvation is divine, just 
 because " salvation is of the Jews ;" that Jesus is the 
 Son of God, just because He is "Jesus of Nazareth." 
 As a mere Jew, He would have lived and died a Jew, 
 imbued with His nation's narrowness and bigotry ; but 
 as God incarnated in the Jewish nature, He rose above 
 every religious prejudice of His people and time — ■ 
 above His training and education under the compara- 
 tively exclusive dispensation of Moses, and founded a 
 kingdom intended to embrace all nations and peoples, 
 and tribes and tongues, and raise the whole human 
 race from its moral degradation up to God. Is this, 
 can this be, a mere human development } Is it not, 
 on the contrary, the divine in the human — a living 
 root growing in a dry ground ? 
 
 This is a great and precious truth. Something has 
 come into this world which is not of it. A super- 
 natural power has descended into nature. A man 
 has lived on our earth who cannot be ranked with 
 mankind. A Divine Being has come from God, to be 
 incarnate with us, and to lift us up to God. A germ 
 of infinite eternal life has been planted in this dying 
 world, to make the wilderness and the solitary place 
 to be glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as 
 the rose. Around this most wonderful of facts, 
 groups the salvation of the world, all the ideas and 
 doctrines of redemption ; out of the incarnation of the 
 Son of God — this supernatural in the natural, this 
 divine in the human, this living root out of a dry 
 
XL] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 227 
 
 ground — springs up the tree of righteousness, the tree 
 of hfe, under whose shadow all who flee to it for 
 refuge are safe from the wrath of God and the curse 
 of sin ; whose fruit satisfies all the wants of humanity, 
 and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. 
 The seed-principle of holiness had been lost out of 
 human nature ; the germ of eternal life had been 
 withered in the soul by sin ; but into the dry ground, 
 that could bear naturally only thorns and briers for 
 the burning, a new principle of life and holiness has 
 been introduced from heaven, and now the aspect of 
 the barren moral waste is changed. The life which 
 man does not possess himself is got by a union of 
 faith with Christ. The righteousness which man 
 cannot work out by his own merits is stored up for 
 him in Christ, who made an end of sin, and brought 
 in an everlasting righteousness. The fruits of the 
 Spirit — holiness, goodness, and truth, which man him- 
 self cannot produce — are yielded as products of grace 
 when rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. 
 
 3. TJie effect of the living root upon the dry ground. 
 The roots of the desert, by their extensive ramifica- 
 tions, fix the constantly shifting sands, and prevent 
 them from being drifted about in blinding clouds by 
 every wind that blows. So the Root of Jesse binds 
 the dry ground of humanity by its endless fibres of 
 benevolence and love. The despised and apparently 
 feeble Jesus of Nazareth was lifted up on the cross, 
 and then followed — according to His own prophecy — 
 the drawing of all men to flim and to one another. 
 Sin is selfishness and isolation ; the love of Christ is 
 benevolence and attraction. When men ceased to 
 
 Q2 
 
228 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 have any spiritual connexion with the Source and 
 Centre of all minds, they ceased at the same time to 
 have any loving fellowship and communion with one 
 another. When the germ of holiness and love was 
 destroyed in the soul by sin, the world became at 
 once a dry ground, its inhabitants a series of inde- 
 pendent units, each selfishly seeking his own ends, 
 regardless of the wishes of others; there was no 
 principle of union to bind its different classes and 
 peoples together ; they became a mere heap of sand 
 with no coherence. The very first moment that sin 
 entered into the world, it produced this feeling of 
 repulsion. Adam hid himself from God among the 
 trees of the garden, and at the same time became 
 alienated from Eve ; for, instead of seeking to share 
 the burden of guilt, he became her accuser and 
 enemy. When the younger son in the parable turned 
 his back on his father, he wished also to separate 
 himself and his interests from his brother. " Give 
 me" said he, "that portion of goods that falleth to 
 me." But the Root of Jesse counteracts this selfish- 
 ness and repulsion. It binds the separate particles of 
 humanity into one brotherhood. Jesus unites us to 
 the Father, and therefore to one another. He recon- 
 ciles us to God, and therefore to man. He teaches and 
 enables us to love the Lord our God supremely, and 
 each other with pure hearts fervently. The whole 
 design of the gospel is to restore not only the indi- 
 vidual, but the race — to create not only the man of 
 God, but the society of God ; and for this end 
 Christians are now trained under Christ to love one 
 another. *''By this shall all men know that ye are 
 
XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 229 
 
 My disciples, if ye have love one to another." Without 
 love — practical love for each other — they are not 
 rooted in the love of Christ ; they have no other 
 bond of union than that which is merely external and 
 temporary. Those who have forsaken father and 
 mother, and wife and children, for the kingdom of 
 heaven's sake, find new and higher relationships in 
 Christ Jesus. Whosoever doeth the will of the Father 
 in heaven, the same is their brother, and sister, and 
 mother, as in the case of Jesus Himself. They are 
 all comprehended in love — a love utterly unknown in 
 the selfish intercourse of society — for their corporate 
 sensitiveness is so strong, that if one member suffer, 
 all the members suffer with it: if one member be 
 honoured, all the members rejoice with it. And so 
 close is the bond between them and the root in which 
 they grow, that an injury done by them to each other 
 is done to Christ, and a benefit conferred by them on 
 each other is conferred on Christ. " Inasmuch as ye 
 did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye 
 did it unto Me." At every step we advance, then, 
 let this love of the brethren gain ground over every 
 other preference. And this growing brotherly love 
 will be a growing proof of our renewed state and 
 advancing sanctification. " We know that we are 
 passed from death unto life because we love the 
 brethren." And it will also be a practical exemplifi- 
 cation to others of the supreme loveableness of the 
 religion of Jesus, constraining them to say, with an 
 admiration that will lead to imitation, " See how these 
 Christians Icve one another ! " 
 
 But those \A\o are rooted in Christ will extend the 
 
230 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 fibres of their love past the soil in which they them- 
 selves grow — out into the dry ground of the unloving 
 and unsaved world beyond. The love of Christians 
 is not to be confined to their own society and fra- 
 ternity. In Christ they have received expansion, not 
 limitation — universal benevolence, not mere party 
 spirit. Christ, the Root, Himself stretched out the 
 tendrils of His intercessory prayer on the cross over 
 His very murderers. Stephen's prayer took in Paul 
 while he was consenting to his death, and keeping the 
 garments of them that slew him. And the same 
 mind must be in all Christ's followers. Seek, while 
 rooted yourselves in Christ, to make others partakerT 
 with you of like precious faith. The principle of 
 fraternity in Christ includes those who are yet igno- 
 rant of the Saviour, but who may hereafter become 
 Christians. And what a wide field of usefulness is 
 here opened r.p for you ! What a stimulus to Christian 
 exertion ! " It is not the will of our Father in heaven 
 that one of these little ones should perish." 
 
 The Root in which you are rooted is all-sufficient. 
 Seek to derive all your supplies and endowments 
 from Him — to have in the Lord righteousness and 
 strength — to be complete in Him — to find in Him " the 
 enjoyment of all that you would possess, the realiza- 
 tion of all that you would become." The Root is 
 holy ; be ye also holy in all manner of conversation. 
 Let your godliness commend itself by its kindliness 
 and gentleness. It is common to hear, as an excuse 
 for the sour humours of too many members of 
 churches, that "grace may be grafted on a crab- 
 stock." But this is not true. The believer is rooted 
 
XI.] THE ROOT OUT OF A DRY GROUND. 231 
 
 in the love of Christ, and the fruit of that rooting 
 should be love. Even if the comparison be held as 
 true, the tree that is grafted is expected to yield fruit 
 not according to the stock, but according to \k\Q. graft. 
 It is not the fruits of man's old nature of depravity 
 that you as Christians are to produce, but the fruits 
 of the graft of the new nature ; and these fruits are 
 love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
 faith, meekness, temperance ; against such there is 
 no law. 
 
 Let all of us strike the fibres of our soul, which are 
 vainly striving to extract nourishment from, and find 
 rest in, the parched shifting sand of earthly persons 
 and things — deep down into this living Root out of a 
 dry ground. Let us seek to be rooted in Him. Let 
 us accept nothing else in exchange for that. Let us 
 seek to verify the promise : " I will pour water upon 
 him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground, 
 I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing 
 upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as 
 among the grass, and as willows by the water-courses." 
 And thus rooted in Christ, we shall, even in the dry 
 ground of this desert world, daily receive out of His 
 fulness, and grace for grace. The Lord Himself, in 
 the greatest droughts of affliction and temptation, 
 will be as the dew unto our soul, and we shall grow 
 as the lily, and spread forth our roots even as 
 Lebanon 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AGATE WINDOWS. 
 "• And I will make thy 7vindows of dilates. " — IsAlAH liv. I2. 
 
 Of all the images under which the Church is sym- 
 bolized, a building is perhaps the most suitable and 
 expressive. The growth of the Church is widely dif- 
 ferent from the growth of a vine — or the growth of 
 the human body, to which it is often compared. In- 
 stead of possessing, like an animal or vegetable pro- 
 duction, an inherent power of self-enlargement, and 
 developing by means of an external vital force from a 
 germ, favoured by the laws of nature and by external 
 circumstances, the Church has no internal power of 
 increase, but every addition made to it is wrought 
 entirely by the application of a heavenly force, irre- 
 spective of natural conditions. It is built up, stone 
 by stone, from the level of the earth with much toil 
 and anxiety, with sweat of brow and weariness of 
 brain. It is constantly employed in counteracting 
 nature's forces. The gravitation of sin is against it. 
 The watchful eye of the Architect has ever to be 
 upon it ; the builders build with a weapon in the one 
 hand and a trowel in the other ; the line and plummet 
 
CHAP. XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 233 
 
 of righteousness have ever to be applied to it to keep 
 the walls straight, and to prevent the wayward ten- 
 dencies of each individual stone, and the malignant 
 influences of Satanic agencies from marring the beauty 
 of the general design. Hence the subtle philosophy 
 of the connexion here between the promise and the 
 circumstances of the Church. It is by those very 
 afflictions and tempest-tossings which the Church 
 bewails, that it is built up a splendid habitation of 
 God through the Spirit. By the action of those very 
 antagonistic forces which it has to overcome, it acquires 
 shape and beauty. For, just as dull opaque matter 
 crystallizes into the exquisite forms and colours of 
 sapphire, ruby, and emerald, by fiery convulsions and 
 electric forces that threaten its very destruction, so 
 does the Church develop into a jewelled temple of 
 more than royal magnificence, by persecutions and 
 trials that seem ready to annihilate it. The promise 
 is, therefore, not an arbitrary and capricious one. It 
 is wisely chosen ; it is wonderfully suitable. It is 
 not an external addition, but an internal outgrowth. 
 Afflictions are not merely to be followed by an ex- 
 ceeding great and eternal weight of glory ; they are 
 to work it out for us. To none else, therefore, could 
 the Lord address these inspiring words, " Behold, I 
 will lay thy stones with fair colours, and make thy 
 windows of agates," &c. ; but to the afflicted, the 
 tempest-tossed and not comforted — 
 
 *' Knowledge by suffering entereth, 
 And life is perfected in death." 
 
 The passage in question is obviously written in tlie 
 
234 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 free and flowing outlines of poetry. Inspiration here 
 throws its rays upon the object described through the 
 prism of Oriental symbolism, and, therefore, it is seen 
 surrounded by a beautiful halo of prismatic colours, 
 not in the white light of naked abstract truth. I 
 agree, therefore, so far with commentators, that it 
 should not be regarded as a mere architectural plan, 
 with every part of the building laid out accurately in 
 mathematical order, but as a great symbolic picture. 
 I admit that in one sense its images are general images, 
 framed after the pattern of Eastern hyperbole, ex- 
 pressing the general glory of the Church made perfect 
 through suffering. But still, I cannot help thinking 
 that the significance of the whole picture is very much 
 owing to the significance of its details. I do not 
 believe that there is such a thing in the Bible as an 
 accidental symbol. In the works of nature, there is 
 not a tint in a flower, nor a streak of gold in a cloud, 
 but is expressive of a predetermined design and a 
 fixed law ; and I cannot for one moment suppose 
 that in the Word of God there is less perfection and 
 significance of detail The form of the truth moulds 
 all the outlines of its imagery, however minute; the 
 colour of the truth shines through every fold and fibre 
 of its drapery, however insignificant, and transfigures 
 it. At the same time, as it would be mere guess- 
 work to attach a precise moral and spiritual meaning 
 to each of the images of the context, I prefer regard- 
 ing the one that forms the subject of this paper more 
 as a motto than as a text, and shall, therefore, be at 
 liberty to treat it freely, — " I will make thy windows 
 of agates." 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 235 
 
 Agates are precious stones, partially transparent 
 and uncr}'stallized. They are mere varieties of quartz, 
 variously coloured by admixtures of different earths ; 
 although the neutral tints are the most frequent. 
 They generally occur in rounded nodules, or in veins 
 in igneous rocks, dropping out when such rocks de- 
 compose by the action of the elements, and being 
 washed down to the places where they are found by 
 mountain streams. They seem to be the product of 
 elements fused by fire ; and in this respect they carry 
 out most faithfully the analogy between the condition 
 of the Church and the nature of the promise, " O 
 thou afflicted, tempest-tossed, and not comforted, be- 
 hold, I will make thy windows of agates." Out of 
 those fiery trials precious media of spiritual vision 
 will be constructed for it. 
 
 I. Looking at the emblem in this light, we may 
 suppose windows of agates, in the first place, to mean 
 windows of faith. Agates are neither transparent as 
 rock cr}'stal, nor opaque as flint ; so neither is faith 
 dim as sense, nor bright as heavenly vision. In 
 spiritual things in this world we have not the clear 
 outlines, and vivid hues, and tangible forms of sight ; 
 we have the dim misty shapes of faith, sometimes ex- 
 aggerated, sometimes diminished, but always more or 
 less destitute of the bright charm and living beauty 
 of the reality. Faith is sometimes clearer than at 
 other times, but at the best it is only a semi-pellucid 
 agate window. Here, strive as we may, we cannot 
 have perfectly transparent windows ; we cannot have 
 perfect vision. The shadow of our ov/n selves clouds 
 
236 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 our view ; the breath of life dims the medium through 
 which we look out on the world. Earth mingles with 
 and tints our purest realizations of things. The very- 
 light itself obscures, hides the stars, the grandeur and 
 immensity of the universe. We see through a glass — 
 through windows of agates — darkly. Many things in 
 creation, providence, and redemption, are inscrutable 
 to us ; and the wider the circle of light spreads around 
 us, the wider does the dark line of our ignorance 
 extend also and touch it at every point. There are 
 numerous subjects where observation and experience 
 cease to be our guides, and where we grope blindly in 
 the mist. The smallest knowledge of physics soon 
 loses itself in metaphysics ; the slightest acquaintance 
 with the world in which we live brings us to deal 
 with other worlds, with astral conceptions which have 
 no objective reality in the world of sense. Objects 
 the most familiar have mysterious relations with 
 the remote and the invisible. Landscapes the most 
 common-place stretch beyond the horizon into the 
 illimitable unknown. Occurrences the most trifling 
 cast a shadow from eternity, or reflect a light from 
 heaven. We may ascend to a lofty standing-point, 
 and bring those purple mountains that on the plain 
 formed the boundary of our view, into the middle or 
 the foreground of our landscape; but it is only to 
 behold other and loftier mountains towering up on 
 the horizon, confining our gaze, and speaking to us of 
 unknown regions beyond. No Alpine peak is high 
 enough to let us see beyond the physical horizon ; 
 and no condor-like flight of reason or imagination 
 can enable us to see beyond the mental horizon that 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 237 
 
 bounds all beyond and behind it in the veil of mys- 
 tery. There must be an horizon everywhere ; and 
 " the explanation of one mystery would only bring 
 forward another mystery that had previously been 
 hidden beyond our view." Much that is to be believed, 
 much that is to be endured, cannot be explained. 
 There are things which even the angels desire to look 
 into in vain. And, considered aright, we cannot com- 
 plain of this dimness and imperfection of vision. Such 
 as it is, it is admirably adapted to our moral con- 
 dition. Were our eye endowed with microscopic 
 power, every spot would be a scene of terrors to us ; 
 we should be afraid to move ; we should lose sight of 
 the harmonies and relations of things ; we should lead 
 an insect life. And were our spiritual vision to be 
 made keener and clearer, we should be disqualified 
 for the labours and enjoyments of a life of trial and 
 probation. Many of our duties, if they do not actu- 
 ally result from our ignorance are greatly confirmed 
 by it. We do not know when the day of death shall 
 come, yet we are ever to prepare for it. We are igno- 
 rant when temptation may assail us, yet we are con- 
 tinually to watch and pray against it. Eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive what things God hath pre- 
 pared for them that love Him ; and yet we are to 
 wean our affections from the solid, substantial objects 
 around us, and to fix them upon these unseen and 
 unknown things. In regard to all mysteries there 
 should ever be an humble submission on our part, 
 whose whole life should be one continued act of faith, 
 to the will of Him who knowcth all things, and whose 
 
238 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap 
 
 guidance we are to accept in the darkness as well as 
 in the light. When the vision fails, and the path is 
 lost, and the torch is extinguished, it is better to wait 
 in faith and patience for the dawn, when the shadows 
 shall flee away, than to follow the ignis fatims of 
 fancy into the bog. And should the approach of day 
 seem to our waiting feverish souls to tarry long, it is 
 surely better in silent meekness to repose upon the 
 Saviour's promise, " What I do thou knowest not 
 now, but thou shalt know hereafter," than to snatch 
 the flints from the ground, and with sparks of our 
 own kindling strive to dispel the darkness. "The 
 secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the 
 things that are revealed belong to us and to our 
 children, that we may do all the words of His law." 
 And even of these secret things themselves, blessed 
 be God ! we see enough to regulate our conduct, 
 though not enough to gratify a prurient curiosity, — we 
 know enough to make us patient and hopeful, though 
 not enough to satisfy pride and paralyse energy and 
 expectation. Though we cannot have the clearness 
 and certainty of perfect knowledge in this dim and 
 misty lower world, we can still have the substance 
 and the evidence of faith. Though we cannot look 
 through windows of diamonds, we can look through 
 windows of agates. 
 
 Gazing through these windows we behold things 
 which we see nowhere else. We obtain such a real- 
 izing view of God's presence, such an evidence of His 
 perfections, as elevates and spiritualizes our minds, 
 while, at the same time, it humbles us low by the 
 contrast of our own imperfections and unworthiness. 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 239 
 
 We behold His glory as in a glass, and are changed 
 into the same image, saturated with the reflected light 
 of His holiness, permeated with the warmth and the 
 purity of His love. The " altogether lovely One" look- 
 eth forth at these windows, showing Himself through 
 the lattice in all the beauty of His person, the per- 
 fection of His righteousness, and the sufficiency of His 
 grace. We have a satisfying and transforming view of 
 His person, His atonement, His intercession. His ex- 
 ample, His commands and promises, His government 
 and kingdom, as revealed in the gospel ; so that we 
 can enjoy His own prophetic benediction, " Blessed 
 are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
 From these tipper windows of the soul we obtain the 
 widest view of the horizon around us, and see glorious 
 glimpses of the land that is very far off. Looking 
 down from that elevation, how small and insignificant 
 do the things that appeared great from their own level 
 appear ; how unworthy of the thought we bestowed 
 upon them, or the anxiety with which we regarded 
 them. From these lofty windows the pleasures, 
 honours, vain pursuits of earth form only a kind of 
 ideal world, a sort of splendid show, a species of cloud 
 land, fleeting and fair as the vapoury pageant that 
 gathers around the setting sun ; while spiritual things, 
 that seemed below aerial and unsubstantial, appear 
 great and glorious realities. From that standing- 
 point, the eye looks not at the things which are seen, 
 but at the things which are unseen ; for the things 
 that are seen are temporal, but the things that are 
 unseen are eternal. On these western windows of the 
 soul, too, the departing sun shines with concentrated 
 
240 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [shap. 
 
 radiance when all the rest of the horizon is wrapped 
 in twilight gloom. It is from thence that another and 
 a brighter world is discerned opening upon our view, 
 while this world is sinking in shadow. It is there that 
 we are blinded to everything around us by a sight of 
 the glory that is to be revealed. And the radiance de- 
 parts not from these windows, even when the gloora 
 of the dark valley — which obscures all earthly glories 
 — falls around. The lights in them are the last that 
 go out, paled and quenched, as firelight by sunlight, 
 by the cloudless light of the everlasting day ; for the 
 .sunset of earth is the sunrise of heaven. 
 
 II. "I will make thy wmdows of agates." We may 
 regard, in the second place, these windows as windows 
 oi feeling. By this it is meant, not that God will smite 
 the smitten, afflict the afflicted, but that He will make 
 those very afflictions which the Church already expe- 
 riences windows of agates — mediums of communica- 
 tion between the soul a.nd the unseen world — means 
 of deeper insight into, and richer experience of spiritual 
 things. The attiicted Christian is the only one who 
 has just views of life. It takes a long and painful 
 discipline to correct our early impressions, and show 
 us things in their true aspects and relations. We set 
 out at the beginning of our course with exaggerated 
 notions of our own consequence, and romantic ideas 
 of the world around us. We think of it as a paradise 
 made for enjo}'ment, and allow no serious thoughts or 
 duties to interfere with our pleasures. Imagination 
 crowns all . things with her flowery garlands, and 
 renders them fragrant with her own perfumes, and 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 241 
 
 sheds around them her rainbow light. We are lovers 
 of pleasure more than lovers of God. "Take thine 
 ease — eat, drink, and be merry," is the sum of our 
 philosophy and religion. When all goes well with us, 
 we seem to be looking out through windows of yellow 
 glass, and seeing everything invested with a golden 
 hue : there is perpetual sunshine for us in earth and 
 heaven. We become proud and haughty, cherishing 
 an ovenveening estimate of our character and position, 
 regarding success and prosperity as the chief and only 
 good, looking down upon those whose lot in life is less 
 favourable than our own. We burn incense to our 
 own net, and sacrifice to our own drag, and forget the 
 Hand that is feeding us. We are self-sufficient, self- 
 dependent, conformed to the world, living for the 
 present, cold, hard, unsympathising. There is a great 
 and glaring want about a uniformly successful man. 
 Fast-rooted in his own pride and forgetfulness of God, 
 and his want of sympathy for his fellow-creatures, he 
 misses everything most dear and precious to life. 
 
 But God in mercy and faithfulness interferes. If 
 we will not learn hy faith, he will teach us hy feeling. 
 " I will make thy windows of agates." Affliction, 
 commissioned by a loving Father who pities His 
 children, draws down the blind of sorrow over the 
 windows through which we have looked out so long 
 upon the passing and perishing things of the world ; 
 and we are thus compelled to fix our attention and 
 regard upon the things within, the things that belong 
 to our peace, which concern us infinitely more than 
 the vain show without. He places right in front of 
 us, between us and the light of the living world, the 
 
 R 
 
242 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 dark form of the angel of death — that awful Visitant, 
 of whom we know so little, and, alas ! know so much. 
 He baptizes us in the cloud and in the sea ; He leads 
 us down the dark valley ; He makes the curtains of 
 night to close around us. In numberless ways, by 
 personal, domestic, or relative affliction ; by griefs, 
 mental or corporeal, imaginary or real, invisible 
 or apparent ; by the disappointments, bereavements, 
 or losses of life, he withdraws us from the world 
 into the dark and lonely upper chamber of medi- 
 tation, and makes our life no longer an outward 
 bustling life of action and enjoyment, but a quiet 
 inner life of reflection and thought. And oh ! what 
 strange and startling disclosures are made when the 
 windows are darkened, and the gaze is turned inward ; 
 and the eye, accustomed to the light, dilates in the 
 gloom, and sees objects distinctly. Those things 
 that seemed innocent and harmless in the daylight 
 of health and prosperity, inspire fear and terror when 
 seen invested with the unearthly shadows of the night 
 of sorrow and death. Our outward life may have 
 been pure and blameless, and it may have been our 
 earnest desire to grow in grace and in likeness to 
 Christ ; but until we looked through the agate win- 
 dows of affliction we did not suspect that there was 
 so much self-seeking, self-admiration, self-dependence 
 mingling with and polluting our holiest services, our 
 costliest sacrifices. There may have been no outward 
 signs of spiritual declension apparent to our fellow- 
 Christians ; we may have been as diligent in the 
 discharge of every religious duty as ever ; but the 
 searching tests of affliction reveal to us how much of 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 243 
 
 the old leaven of corruption is still hid in our hearts 
 ■ — how cold and grey are the ashes on the once burn- 
 ing altar of devotion and love — how the damp air 
 of worldly conformity has rusted the once polished 
 mirror that gave back the image of Jesus only — how 
 the sight of evil has photographed its own dark like- 
 ness on our sensitive souls. Oh ! there are many 
 humbling discoveries made of secret, unsuspected, 
 unrepented sins ; and the painful conviction forces 
 itself slowly upon our minds that we have made 
 less progress in the Christian life, that we are less 
 spiritually-minded, less meet for heaven, than we 
 imagined. We are made a wonder and a grief to 
 ourselves ; and with deep self-abasement and self- 
 renunciation we bow down at the foot of the Cross. 
 
 And so is it also in regard to external things. 
 Through the dim windows of affliction how changed 
 is the aspect of the world, how cold, and grey, and 
 desolate ; all its radiant glow departed ; all its beau- 
 teous hues reduced to one dull leaden sadness. The 
 tears of sorrow are like spiritual lenses, showing us 
 the world in its true character as a poor, empty, 
 unsatisfying inheritance. One glimpse through the 
 agate windows of sickness, bereavement, or adversity 
 will impress us more with the vanity of the world's 
 portion, and of a life of sense, than all that the most 
 pensive poetr>' ever sang, or the most cynical phi- 
 losophy ever taught. But affliction brings its own 
 precious compensations with it. Rich issues unfold 
 from its seeming poverty ; the tearful cloud is painted 
 with a rainbow ; the waste lonesome night is made 
 cheerful with songs and radiant with stars ; amid the 
 
 R 2 
 
244 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 darkness and emptiness of earthly scenes the glories 
 of the New Jerusalem shine forth with a new and sur- 
 passing lustre. The outside of a stained glass window 
 looks dingy and unsightly; it has no beauty or attrac- 
 tion. And so the coloured windows of pain, sickness, 
 bereavement, to those who look at them from without, 
 from the busy street of the world's pursuits and plea- 
 sures, may appear gloomy and uninviting. But within, 
 to God's true children, worshipping in that most solemn 
 of temples — the temple of sorrow — where all earthly 
 clamours are hushed, and all hearts are awed into 
 earnestness and devotion, what a grand and radiant 
 sight is disclosed by these windows ! The blue sky 
 is concealed, but a golden glory floats around ; the 
 sunshine is dimmed, but dimmed into the radiance of 
 ruby and sapphire, of emerald and topaz ; the common 
 familiar sights of earth are obscured, but painted in 
 hues of living light on these windows — hues that 
 bathe the soul with their splendour — are the sublime 
 scenes of the life and death of the Redeemer — .scenes 
 well fitted to hide the world by their overpowering 
 glory. 
 
 " I will make thy windows of agates ; " not bright 
 and transparent, for our weak eyes, dimmed with pain 
 and weeping, cannot bear the strong sunshine ; not 
 dark and opaque, for the soul climbing up and strain- 
 ing to look out and see the light behind the cloud — 
 the beauty beyond the shadow — and baffled in its 
 efforts — would fall back upon itself morbid and de- 
 spairing. They are windows of agates — neither trans- 
 parent nor opaque — but mercifully tempered by Him 
 who best knows the requirements of each individual 
 
xn.] AGATE WINDOIVS. 245 
 
 case, and who in all our afflictions is afflicted. How 
 soft and subdued is the light they admit, inexpressibly 
 soothing to the soul which affliction has made tender ! 
 Through the smoked glass the most delicate eye can 
 look long without shrinking upon the Sun of right- 
 eousness. There is no garishness jarring with the 
 sorrow, no dazzling lustre scorching and bewildering 
 the. soul, but a mild moonlight radiance, exquisitely 
 harmonising with the loneliness and darkness within. 
 We draw down the blinds of our windows, when the 
 sun is shinmg in too strongly into our rooms ; and so 
 God modifies the sunshine of this world's beauty and 
 joy by those agate windows. How expressive an 
 emblem are they of the peace and content w^hich fills 
 the heart when all the wild questions that come 
 between our faith and heaven are silenced by the 
 voice of love, "Be still, and know that I am God ;" 
 that lying calmly, feeling that we are safe, under the 
 s/iadozu of the Almighty's wings ; that quiet inward 
 look of confidence to the Eternal Power that guides 
 and upholds us ; that child-like surrendering of our 
 capricious will, to the wise counsel of His will who 
 doeth all things well ; that chastened seriousness of 
 spirit ; that prayerful anxiety after increased spiri- 
 tuality, which in all cases are the blessed effects of 
 sanctified suffering. The character of the Christian 
 is beautifully mellowed ; and a sweet bloom of 
 humility and tenderness takes the place of former 
 sourness and harshness. His views of life are no 
 longer grand and ambitious. He is satisfied with 
 humble things. He is pleased to be without the 
 sunshine, if he has a quiet grey sky over him ; and he 
 
246 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 is content to resign the pomp and glory of summer 
 for the mystic dimness of pensive autumn. He feels 
 that he is not adapted for perfect happiness, for con- 
 tinuous joy in this world ; that it is too tropical a 
 clime for his spiritual health ; that he grows best in 
 the temperate zone of contentment. He regards the 
 world as a scene neither of joy nor sorrow, but as 
 a place of discipline for a better. Life is neither 
 bright nor dark to him, but " the evening of prepara- 
 tion " before the eternal sabbath. 
 
 HI. We may, in the third place, suppose agate 
 windows to be windows of spiritual character. In 
 admiring a piece of beautiful scenery, we find nothing 
 in it except what we ourselves brought to it. There 
 must be beauty in the eye before it can be seen in 
 the landscape. Nature wears the colour of the spirit ; 
 and her charms are reflections of charms within our- 
 selves. In vain does the grandest combination of 
 mountain and plain, forest and stream, appeal to an 
 eye and mind that have no appreciation of scenery ; 
 while to a lover of beauty, such an exhibition will 
 furnish the deepest and purest pleasure. It is so also 
 in moral things. To the pure all things are pure ; 
 while the polluted heart finds impurity in the most 
 innocent things. The highest moral excellence is lost 
 on him who has no corresponding quality in his own 
 breast ; and there can be no real companionship or 
 sympathy between the good and evil. So also in the 
 spiritual world. Its objects become real, tangible, 
 true, worthy of love, and capable of influencing us,, 
 only so far as we ourselves are spiritualised. There 
 
XII.] AGATE WINDOWS. 247 
 
 is deep significance in the words of our Saviour, 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see 
 God." " If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall 
 be full of light." There is no window so clear as 
 holiness of character, spirituality of mind, purity of 
 heart, singleness of aim. There is nothing more re- 
 markable among the experiences of every-day life 
 than the clear-sightedness, the freedom from painful 
 perplexity and distracting doubt, which results from 
 a pure spiritual character. The holiest saint has, by 
 virtue of his holiness, the closest communion with, 
 and the deepest knowledge of, God, — the clearest 
 insight into the nature and design of His providences, 
 which he can, not merely spell backiuard like a 
 Hebrew book, but even understand while they are 
 being accomplished. Truths in the Bible, doctrines 
 in the gospel, events and occurrences in daily life, 
 that are dark and mysterious to others, become irra- 
 diated with the light of his own spirit ; and the light 
 of his purity, like the light issuing from the glow- 
 worm, makes all things plain to him. 
 
 Agate windows are most expressive symbols of our 
 spiritual character. The purest agates, as I have said, 
 are not perfectly transparent ; they are only semi- 
 pellucid : while the great majority of specimens are 
 clouded with dim spots, and streaked with dark lines. 
 And so the purest spiritual character in this world is 
 imperfect, is stained with sin ; while the great majority 
 of Christians have many weaknesses and infirmi- 
 ties. They are really sanctified in every part, but 
 completely renewed in none. Divine grace has trans- 
 formed them in the renewing of their minds, but has 
 
248 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap, 
 
 not so thoroughly dissolved native selfishness and 
 worldliness as that they will not mar and mystify the 
 whole character. The remains of corruption still 
 sadly streak the purity of their nature and profession. 
 Their virtues are cloudy and indistinct ; their religious 
 views coloured by prejudice and passion. The flesh 
 lusteth against the spirit ; the law in the members 
 wars against the law in the mind. " Perhaps it is no 
 more possible that a son of Adam should exhibit 
 perfection, than that a crystal formed out of 
 mineral matter should transmit light without inter- 
 cepting some of its rays." The windows of our 
 spiritual character are agate windows, white and clear 
 through the reflected purity and inwrought holiness 
 of Christ, but dark and stained by admixtures of 
 earthliness and sin. The essential transparency re- 
 mains, but objects seen through it are dim, distorted, 
 and discoloured. Our indistinct and imperfect views 
 of God, of providence, of the scheme of grace, of the 
 eternal realities and transcendent glories of a perfect 
 state — are owing to the imperfection of our own 
 spiritual character, and the imperfect affinity of our 
 hearts for what is best and purest. And if we do 
 experience a growing enlargement in our appre- 
 hensions of Christ and of things unseen and eternal 
 in the heavens ; if the mists seem to be clearing away 
 from around us, we may be certain that the expansion 
 and brightening of our spiritual vision is the result of 
 an increasing purity of character, and will be the 
 cause of a purity more perfect still : until at last 
 when presented faultless before the presence of God, 
 without spot, or wrinkle, or any such tiling, we shall 
 
xii] AGATE WINDOWS. 249 
 
 see no more through a glass darkly, but eye to eye 
 and face to face, and know even as we are known. 
 We shall see Christ as He is, because we shall be like 
 Him, pure as He is pure, and perfect as He is perfect. 
 These windows of agates are of great practical 
 importance. The principal use and design of ordinary 
 windows in a dwelling is to admit light into the rooms, 
 so that the inmates may see to perform their various 
 household duties. And so, the use of these windows 
 of agates, whether they be windows of faith, of feel- 
 ing, or of spiritual character, is to let the light of 
 heaven shine in vpon our life, that we may discharge 
 our various duties as members of the household of 
 faith, that we may act our part as the children of the 
 day and the light. We are not to sit all day long 
 with folded hands at these windows, looking out 
 listlessly or sadly, in mere religious reverie, or in 
 despondent abstraction. The light which we get 
 through them is given to us to zvork, — to work out 
 our salvation with fear and trembling, — to work while 
 it is called, to-day, for the night of death soon cometh, 
 and " those that look out of the windows shall be 
 darkened." The light of heaven itself is given for 
 usefulness as well as for beauty. It warms and ferti- 
 lises the earth, and ripens the corn. So let the light 
 which streams in upon us through these windows of 
 agates — costly light obtained from faith tried in the 
 furnace ; lambent light gleaming from painful afllic- 
 tions, from the decays of nature ; sparkling light 
 struck from sore struggles with sin and self; light 
 coloured by the experience through which it has 
 passed ; let that light warm, and quicken, and ripen 
 
250 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap. xii. 
 
 our souls, and make us more meet for the inheritance 
 of the saints in light, — for the communion that shall 
 be eye to eye, and face to face for evermore. Let the 
 light that radiates from the Cross and the Throne 
 shine upon our joys and sorrows, upon our home and 
 grave, and make them holy. And let us ever re- 
 member that the reality of our belief in God, in 
 Christ, in immortality, in heaven, is proportioned to 
 the measure of earnestness and diligence with which 
 we live and prepare for them. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 
 
 " Behold, 1 will lay thy stones with fair colours." — Isaiah liv. ■8^ f\ 
 
 Nature's temple is not a hueless, monotonous 
 structure like the pyramids of Egypt. It is richly 
 decorated. It is overlaid with chaste and beautiful 
 ornamentation. Every stone is painted Avith fair 
 colours, accurately toned, and in perfect keeping. On 
 the top of every pillar is lily-work. Not a rock that 
 peers above the surface of the earth but is clothed 
 with the rainbow tints of moss and lichen, and 
 wreathed with the graceful tenderness of fern and 
 wild-flower. Every mountain is clothed with the 
 variegated verdure of forest and pasture, blending 
 gradually upwards into the sober gray of crag, and 
 the silvery -whiteness of snow, and the quiet blue of 
 the cloud-flecked sky. And when the living hues of 
 plants are absent, there is compensation in the rich 
 colours of the rocks, or in the bright reflections of the 
 heavens. The brilliant crimson of Sinai's granite and 
 sandstone cliffs makes up for their naked sterility ; 
 and if the mountain-ranges of northern Europe are 
 destitute of the emerald verdure of the Alps, they 
 are covered instead with purple light as with a robe, 
 
252 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 and gather out of the sky at sunrise and twilight hues 
 softer than the plumage of a dove, and more radiant 
 than the petals of rose and violet. Even works of 
 human art are decorated by nature with a picturesque 
 glory of colour and light, in harmony with her own 
 landscapes. Like a loving mother she takes back 
 into her bosom the building that man has abandoned, 
 and clothes its garish nakedness with a Joseph's coat 
 of many colours. The castle or the abbey, left un- 
 tenanted, falls into ruins ; but nature — whose profound 
 peace succeeds all strife of man, and whose passive 
 permanency mocks his false perishing creeds — steps 
 in to claim her reversion ; and wherever her soft finger 
 touches, there new beauties spring up and shame the 
 artist's proudest triumphs. His frescoed walls she 
 obliterates with brighter pictures and nobler lessons 
 of wall-flower and pellitory ; and over his sculptured 
 arches and leafy capitals she twines her ivy in sliapes 
 of living grace, and hues of lavish richness, such as 
 no art of man can imitate. 
 
 As Nature deals with the materials of her frame- 
 work, so the Divine Artificer deals with the living 
 materials of His spiritual temple. " Behold, I will 
 lay thy stones with fair colours," He says to His 
 Church, afflicted, tempest-tossed, and not comforted. 
 Every stone that is fit to be built into the walls of His 
 holy habitation is richly sculptured and decorated. 
 He leaves none in the meanness and vileness of their 
 natural states. He digs them out of the fearful pit 
 and the miry clay that they may be chiselled and 
 polished, so as to be ornaments of the structure in 
 which they stand. He makes the Sun of righteous- 
 
XIII.] ^ STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 253 
 
 ness to shine upon the dark vapour-cloud of their 
 nature, and thus paints it with the rainbow hues of 
 grace. Black in themselves, He makes them comely 
 in the reflected light of his love. From the moment 
 that the favour of God is restored to them, they are 
 wakened to a new existence and a better principle. 
 Righteousness is imputed to them that sanctification 
 may be wrought out in them. It becomes His task, 
 it becomes theirs, to restore in their hearts His oblite- 
 rated image ; to mould their lives in conformity with 
 the perfect Example ; to begin the transformation 
 which can be perfected only in eternity. 
 
 Believers are earnestly enjoined in Scripture to 
 adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour by a walk 
 and conversation becoming the gospel. But how .' it 
 may be asked. There are some things so perfect in 
 themselves that they are injured, not improved, by 
 any touch of man. Who can give a purer whiteness 
 to the lily, or gild the burnished gold, or make more 
 lustrous the sparkling diamond .'' We cannot improve 
 upon nature ; we cannot adorn it in the sense of 
 making it more perfect ; but we can explain it, we 
 can make use of it for spiritual imagery, we can ex- 
 hibit it in new lights, and display it in a thousand 
 ways before unknown ; so that in the exquisite setting 
 of the poet's verse it may shine with even more than 
 its native charm. And in the same way we can deal 
 with the doctrine of God our Saviour. We cannot 
 improve the gospel of Christ. It is all perfect — all 
 complete — wanting nothing. God said again and 
 again regarding Jesus, " This is my beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased ;" and He himself, looking 
 
254 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 back from the cross upon the whole course of His 
 obedience and suffering, said with His dying breath, 
 " It is finished;" indicating not merely the completion 
 of His work, but also its perfection. It is so ex- 
 quisitely fair and proportioned, that it stands in need 
 of no embellishment ; it is marred and destroyed in 
 its nature and effect by any additions that man may 
 make to it. But though we cannot improve the 
 doctrine of our Saviour, we can make its power upon 
 our own heart and life visible ; we can explain and 
 manifest it to others with such illustration and en- 
 forcement as may be in our power ; and crown it 
 with the history of what by it God has done for our 
 soul. We are to clothe the spiritual life of the gospel 
 — the precepts, the example, the atoning death, the 
 justifying righteousness of Christ — with an outward 
 conduct becoming its purity and dignity. We are to 
 embody the spiritualities of the unseen life in forms 
 of daily walk and conversation, such as will worthily 
 represent their glory and grace. A beautiful character 
 impresses itself upon the very features of the body, 
 so that looking upon the lines of the countenance we 
 can read the soul within, and are attracted to admire 
 and love it ; and thus should the life of faith within — 
 the reflex loveliness of Christ's character in the soul 
 — exhibit itself in the homely garb of- our outward 
 every-day life ; in order that those who cannot see 
 the seal of the Spirit — the inward evidence of the 
 doctrine of Christ, which no man knoweth saving he 
 that receiveth it — may see its outward luminous sign 
 in a living epistle, known and read of all men. Every 
 Christian's life should be like the opal, exhibiting in 
 
xiii.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 255 
 
 its pure transparency the beautiful hues of grace ; or 
 like a prism, refracting the clear bright light of heaven 
 into a seven-coloured spectrum of honesty, truthful- 
 ness, purity, kindliness, meekness, heavenliness, use- 
 fulness. 
 
 " Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours." 
 Three questions here suggest themselves : i. What 
 are these fair colours ? 2. What are their properties ? 
 3. How are they produced ? 
 
 I. What are the fair colours with which the Christian 
 character is adorned .-' Humility is one of the most 
 conspicuous of them. It is the soft purple hue of the 
 lowly violet, hid among its leaves, and known only by 
 its fragrance ; of the truit when it is ripest ; of the hills 
 when most saturated with sunset light, and most like 
 heaven. It is the ornament which, in the sight of 
 God, is of great price ; it is the secret of true refine- 
 ment and distinction in the eyes of men ; it is the 
 glory of the inner man renewed in sanctified self- 
 denial and self-forgetfulness. By nothing is the 
 genuine believer distinguished from the mere forma- 
 list and hypocrite more than by his humility. In 
 his unconverted state he saw only the weaknesses 
 and faults of his outward conduct, and was disposed 
 to treat them lightly, and to find a ready excuse for 
 them ; but now he looks also at the corrupt thoughts 
 and sinful feelings of his heart, and is full of shame 
 and self-reproach. Formerly he regarded others as 
 worse than, or only on the same moral level with, 
 himself; but now he is ready to esteem all others 
 better than himself. While to the eyes of the world 
 he seems the chief of saints, he can only think of 
 
256 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 what grace has done for him, and call himself " chief 
 of sinners." Like Moses on the mount, who " wist 
 not that the skin of his face shone," a glory radiates 
 from his life which is unknown to himself; and the 
 riper his Christian character, the richer is the purple 
 bloom of humility which spreads over it. 
 
 Patience is another of the fair colours of grace. 
 It is the tender green of the grass, which, through 
 summer's heat and winter's frost, remains unchanged, 
 which may be trampled under foot and injured in 
 every way, and yet retains its vitality unimpaired. 
 The world, in its loud bustle and ardour of action, 
 has no appreciation of this quiet and retiring grace ; 
 but it is especially valuable in the estimation of Hin; 
 whose own kingdom was won by patience — patient 
 enduring, patient suffering. It is most difficult of 
 acquirement, because most opposed to the proud 
 rebellious nature of man, impatient of all restraint 
 and mystery, eager for present enjoyment, sensitive 
 to every injury and disappointment. To subdue the 
 angry risings of nature when wronged ; to bear long, 
 weary sufTering uncomplainingly ; to keep a calm 
 serenity of spirit amid trying circumstances ; to lie 
 meekly behind every difficulty and mystery that our 
 reason cannot surmount ; to " rest child-like on the 
 one visible arm of our Heavenly Father, though we 
 cannot see distinctly where the other and outstretched 
 arm is pointing ;" in short, to wait for the salvation of 
 our God — this is hard for flesh and blood, even to the 
 holiest saint that has been longest under discipline. 
 But when in these things the grace of patience is 
 exhibited, we regard it with a wondering admiration, 
 
XIIL] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 257 
 
 as we do the patch of green grass that struggles for 
 existence on the naked rock, or the wan flower that 
 grows on the chill edge of the melting glacier; and 
 it exercises a powerful though unconscious influence 
 for good upon all who come within its sphere. 
 
 Benevolence is another of the fair colours of grace. 
 It is the quiet blue of the sky, which shines upon the 
 just and the unjust, which sends down rain and dew 
 upon the evil and the good. This is the virtue which 
 counteracts the natural selfishness of the heart, and 
 takes us out of ourselves. It is by the uniform and 
 enlarged exercise of it that the disciples of the Lord 
 are distinguished from the people of the world, who 
 are ever intent only upon their own interests and 
 pleasures — that they make their light so to shine 
 before men, that others seeing their good works may 
 glorify their Father who is in heaven. It is by their 
 benevolence that they are assimilated to the Universal 
 Giver, whose tender mercies are over all His works, 
 and are never exhausted — to the compassionate 
 Saviour, who though He was rich yet for our sakes 
 became poor, that we through His poverty might 
 become rich, and whose meat and drink on earth 
 was to go about continually doing good — to the holy 
 angels, whose happiness is increased by seeing sinners 
 repenting on earth, and by being sent forth to minister 
 to the heirs of salvation. This blue air by which the 
 spirit lives, without which it becomes asphyxiated, 
 does not reach beyond the confines of earth. It is a 
 grace, a privilege unknown in heaven, and therefore 
 the more diligently to be cultivated here. 
 
 Zeal is another of the fait colours of grace. It is 
 S 
 
258 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TUBE. [chap. 
 
 the ruby hue of the blood which circulates through 
 the veins, and animates the whole body with life and 
 vigour. It is the crimson heat which energises or 
 melts everything before it, and pervades all with its 
 own glow. It stimulates to the performance of every 
 duty, infuses life into every experience, fervour into 
 all devotion, spirit into all work, and overcomes diffi- 
 culty as fire overcomes every resisting object. 
 
 Moderation or temperance is still another of the fair 
 colours of grace. It is the golden mean between 
 two extremes — the safe though narrow path between 
 opposite evils that come very close to each other. 
 It is the soul's centre of gravity ; the ancient Delphic 
 precept firjBev dyav — " Not too much of anything." 
 Many of the faults of the Christian character are 
 " virtues overflowing their crystal basins and running 
 to injurious waste," or graces run to seed, that, amid 
 their own unsightliness, remind us of the beauty they 
 have overpassed. Moderation or temperance keeps 
 everything in its proper place — preserves the even 
 balance of the sanctuary between feeling or doing too 
 little and feeling or doing too much — between being 
 in the world and yet not of the world. 
 
 All these and other graces are summed up in 
 charity. As every lovely hue is light, so every lovely 
 grace is love. This is the rainbow which gathers up 
 and harmonises all other qualities, and bends its 
 divine beauty over the whole life of the Christian. 
 It is the genus of which all the Christian virtues are 
 the species. Patience is the attitude of love, zeal is 
 the energy of love, humility is the aspect of love, 
 benevolence is the acting of love. Faith worketh by 
 
XIII.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 259 
 
 love, the fruit of the Spirit is love, the end of the 
 commandment is love, God is love, heaven is love. 
 Wherever charity — supreme love to God and sincere 
 love to man — operates, it is a sensible proof to every 
 Christian of the reality of his faith ; and wherever he 
 sees it operating in others, moulding their character, 
 elevating and purifying their life, he sees a reflection 
 — faint, indeed, and blemished by reason of the earth- 
 liness of the material, but still faithful — of the Divine 
 image, and " has a vivid emotion enkindled in his 
 bosom, as if the great Original of all perfection stood 
 dimly revealed before him." 
 
 These, then, are the fair colours with which God 
 lays the stones of His spiritual temple, and by which 
 the Christian adorns the doctrine of his Saviour, and 
 makes it attractive to others. The fair colours of a 
 patient spirit, a humble mind, a useful, consistent life, 
 have an irresistible fascination, which often leads 
 from admiration to imitation. When the Christian's 
 spiritual life blossoms out into whatsoever things are 
 pure, and honest, and lovely, and of good report, it 
 proves its divine origin, and adds conviction and force 
 to his testimony and commendation. Men see what his 
 religion has done for him, and what it will do for them. 
 
 2. What are the properties of these fair colours .'' 
 They should be Jiarmonioiis. They should be deve- 
 loped proportionally, so that each, instead of detract- 
 ing from, may add lustre to the other. When the 
 apostle Peter exhorts all believers to add to their 
 faith, virtue, knowledge, patience, godliness, brotherly- 
 kindness, and charity, he employs a word in the 
 original Greek {kinxop'q'yrjaaTe) which signifies to lead 
 
 S 2 
 
260 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 a chorus or band of imcsicians. The idea involved in 
 the expression is, that perfect harmony should exist 
 between all these virtues, as between the notes of a 
 piece of music, each enhancing the effect of the other. 
 There is harmony in colours as well as in sounds ; we 
 see an example of it in every object of nature ; and 
 when the proper hues are associated together, the 
 complementary ones contrasting and harmonising 
 with one another, the effect is exceedingly pleasing. 
 And as in the field of nature, so in the Christian 
 character, all the graces should blend in such a way 
 that the effect of the whole may be to the eye what 
 sweet melody is to the ear. Were this the case, no 
 more beautiful or convincing exhibition of the work 
 of the Spirit could be given to the world. Like the 
 four rows of precious stones in the breastplate of the 
 Jewish high-priest, each jewel shining by its own 
 coloured light, and yet contributing to the brilliancy 
 of -the whole, this breastplate of righteousness worn 
 by the Christian would invest him with a sacred 
 character, make him an interpreter of the oracles of 
 God, and an instrument of salvation to men. But, 
 alas ! how rare is such a symmetry of the graces in 
 the Christian 'character ; how seldom are the stones 
 of the spiritual building laid with colours that har- 
 monise with one another. Graces that charm us by 
 their beauty lie close by the side of defects that repel 
 us. The good qualities are overshadowed by glaring 
 weaknesses. The blue of love may be placed side 
 by side with the sickly green of envy and jealousy; 
 the purple of humility with the red and angry glare 
 of passion. What virtue is there that does not at 
 
XIII.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 261 
 
 times sin against its fellows ? What Christian is there 
 so perfect, that we have not to say of him as our 
 Lord said of the Asiatic churches, after enumerating 
 a long list of their good works, " Nevertheless I have 
 somewhat against thee." As faults, alas ! are more 
 observed in this censorious world than graces, the 
 inconsistencies inherent in such a character go far to 
 neutralise our esteem for its excellences ; and even 
 the best and most devoted Christian, owing to some 
 disagreeable peculiarity, may be useless as an ex- 
 ample, and shunned as a friend. How often do we 
 hear with pain the taunt, for which there is too much 
 occasion, " Your religious people are no better than 
 others." How often do we see in the people of the 
 world, who make no pretensions to religion, a dig- 
 nified uprightness, a polished amiability, a noble self- 
 denial, a generous liberality, very strikingly contrasted 
 with the sour humours and defective conduct of some 
 of the children of God ! This strange mystery has 
 puzzled and proved a stumbling-block to many a 
 one. " Woe unto the world because of offences." 
 How careful, then, should the Christian be to give no 
 cause of offence except what is inseparable from the 
 Cross of Christ, to cultivate and exhibit the harmo- 
 nious development of all the Christian virtues ! 
 
 But though the graces are thus possessed by the 
 believer in various degrees of perfection, yet in every 
 person some one or other is predominant, becomes so 
 conspicuous as to colour the rest, and give the whole 
 character its prevailing hue. " The elementary prin- 
 ciple of faith," as Isaac Taylor well remarks, " common 
 to all believers, receives a diversity of colour from its 
 
262 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap- 
 
 combination with the peculiarities of the individual 
 mind in which it lodges." Flowers grow in the same 
 sunshine, but how different are their hues. Stars 
 shine with the same light, but one is blue and its 
 companion is yellow ; one is green, and another red. 
 Crystals are created by the same electric forces, and 
 are frequently composed of the same primary sub- 
 stances, but their colours and values are different. 
 And so among Christians, placed in the same circum- 
 stances and exposed to the same influences, there is a 
 similar variety. Each individual is so constituted as 
 to reflect some one or other of the rays of the Sun of 
 righteousness more strongly than the rest, and by the 
 virtue thus produced he is distinguished. The mani- 
 fold grace of God creates in some patience as the 
 predominating quality, in others humility, in others 
 benevolence, in others zeal, in others love. And it is 
 for this reason that we are commanded to prefer one 
 another in honour ; to esteem others better than our- 
 selves, for the sake of those qualities which they 
 possess, and in which we are lacking. The ideal 
 type of perfection is to be found in no individual 
 character, but in all God's saints collectively, each 
 contributing to the harmonious whole the quality 
 that distinguishes him, and all united together by 
 charity, the bond of perfectness. The New Jerusalem 
 above will be a glorious city, because iJiere shall be 
 gathered together, in varied but harmonious splen- 
 dour, the brightness of the diamond, the ruddy flame 
 of the topaz, the deep green of the emerald, the 
 shining gold of the jasper, the milk-white filminess 
 of the onyx, the heavenly blue of the sapphire, the 
 
XIII.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 2G3 
 
 lovely violet of the amethyst, the burning changes of 
 the opal, and the soft beauty of the pearl ! 
 
 The fair colours with which God lays the stones of 
 his spiritual temple are not superficial. God abhors 
 and man despises the fair colours of a religious pro- 
 fession that stand out, as it were, above the surface of 
 the nature like the appliqiiee of the embroiderer, 
 instead of being interwoven with the stuff so as to 
 become a part of it. Mere outward decorum and 
 religious decency are not what God requires, though 
 they are too often, alas ! what is presented to him 
 in lieu of the beauties of holiness. It is easy to as- 
 sume the character of God's people, to imitate their 
 manners, to use their language, to conform to their 
 habits. It is easier to paint a flower than to grow one. 
 The lustre of the glass can be produced in a few 
 minutes by man's agency ; but the radiance of the 
 diamond takes unknown ages to develop in the bowels 
 of the earth, under the subtle action of Nature's most 
 powerful forces. The fair colours of grace are of slow 
 growth. They do not spring up quickly, but are 
 wrought out through long weary days of discipline, as 
 the flower grows a long time in dull uniform greenness, 
 through storm and sunshine, before it is crowned 
 with the rainbow blossom. Disease and death often 
 assume beautiful hues. Consumption's cheek wears a 
 brilliant hectic flush ; autumn's fading woods are gor- 
 geous in their loveliness ; and a phosphoric gleam, 
 seemingl)' most ethereal and unsullied, hovers over 
 matter in a state of decay. But the fair colours of 
 grace are not the iridescence of spiritual corruption 
 and death, but the iridescence of spiritual health and 
 
264 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 life. All is thorough and enduring. There is no 
 plating, or enamelling, or veneering. Grace works 
 from within outwards, renews the heart, and thus 
 tranforms the life. The righteousness of God is not 
 only upon his people for justification; it is also in 
 them for sanctification. 
 
 3. How are these fair colours produced 1 God is 
 their author. It is He who says, " I will lay thy 
 stones with fair colours." They are not the sponta- 
 neous products of our own corrupt nature, nor even 
 the forced growths of our own careful cultivation 
 Man is by nature vile and polluted ; and can darkness 
 originate light, corruption purity, evil good ? It is 
 the sun that gives light to the flower, and paints it 
 with all its bright and varied hues. The chemical 
 processes which its rays set in motion form the leaves 
 and blossoms, and so arrange the surfaces that they 
 reflect various hues from his light shining on them. 
 And so is it wuth the believer. It is the same Sun of 
 righteousness which raised him from the dead and 
 animated him with the power of a divine life, which 
 clothes him with the beauties of holiness. All evil is 
 from ourselves, and all good is from God. If holiness 
 comes into the nature of any one, it comes from above 
 and from without. There is no grace in us which has 
 not been formed by the Spirit. We have no true 
 spiritual life; we are incapable of performing one 
 good act, and exercising one spiritual faculty, apart 
 from his gracious influence. Without his new-creating 
 power there would be no life, no holiness in the soul 
 of man ; just as there would be no justifying right- 
 eousness without the obedience and death of Jesus. 
 
XIII.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 265 
 
 It is only when He comes and dwells in our souls, 
 and makes our bodies his temple, and fill our minds 
 with his light and our hearts with his love, that the 
 fair colours of grace are diffused over the whole 
 character and conduct. 
 
 The beauties of holiness are no mere fancy-sketch, 
 
 no original picture. They are a copy of the Great 
 
 Master. The Spirit unscales our eyes, and unveils 
 
 Christ before us ; and we thus see the standard we 
 
 should aim at, the character to which we are to be 
 
 conformed — the same mind that is to be in us. The 
 
 Spirit takes of the things that are Christ's and shows 
 
 them unto us, and as an artist sets before his pupil 
 
 some beautiful picture to copy, and instructs his 
 
 mind and guides his pencil while engage d in the 
 
 work ; so the Holy Spirit sets the perfect beauty of 
 
 Christ's righteousness and life before us as the object 
 
 of imitation, that by constantly beholding him with 
 
 the eye of faith and love, we may be transformed into 
 
 the same image, from glory to glory. 
 
 The work of the Spirit within is aided by God's 
 providential dealings without. It is to the " afflicted, 
 tempest-tossed, and not comforted," that Gods says, 
 " Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours." I 
 liave seen a literal fulfilment of these words in nature. 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that the most brilliant 
 colours of plants are to be seen on the highest moun- 
 tains, in spots that are most exposed to the wildest 
 weather. The brightest lichens and mosses, the love- 
 liest gems of wild-flowers, abound far up on the 
 bleak storm-scalped peak. One of the richest dis- 
 plays of organic colouring I ever beheld was near the 
 
266 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 summit of Mont Chenelettaz, a hill about 10,000 feet 
 high, immediately above the great St. Bernard 
 Hospice. The whole face of an extensive rock was 
 covered with a most vivid yellow lichen, which shone 
 in the sunshine like the golden battlement of an 
 enchanted castle. There, in that lofty region, amid 
 the most frowning desolation, exposed to the fiercest 
 tempests of the sky, this lichen exhibited a glory of 
 colour such as it never shows in the sheltered valley. 
 I have two specimens of the same lichen before me 
 while I write these lines, one from the Great St. 
 Bernard, and the other from the wall of a Scottish 
 castle deeply embosomed among sycamore trees ; and 
 the difference in point of form and colouring between 
 them is most striking. The specimen nurtured amid 
 the wild storms of the mountain-peak is of a lovely 
 primrose hue, and is smooth in texture and complete 
 in outline ; while the specimen nurtured amid the soft 
 airs and the delicate showers of the lowland valley is 
 of a dim rusty hue, and is scurfy in texture and 
 broken in outline. And is it not so with the Christian 
 who is afflicted, tempest-tossed, and not comforted .-* 
 Till the storms and vicissitudes of God's providence 
 beat upon him again and again, his character appears 
 marred and clouded by selfish and worldly influences. 
 But trials clear away the obscurity, perfect the outlines 
 of his disposition, and give brightness and beauty to 
 his piety : — 
 
 " Amidst my list of blessings infinite 
 
 Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled ; 
 For all I bless thee, most for the severe!' 
 
 But though the trials of life are well fitted to bring 
 
XIII.] STONES WITH FAIR COLOURS. 2G7 
 
 out the fair colours of the Christian character, there is a 
 sense in which the world may be said to be unfavour- 
 able to them. Its climate is not like the grlowing- air 
 and the clear sunny sky of Egypt or Italy, which 
 embalm architectural remains in imperishable beauty, 
 and present the temples erected ages ago as sharply- 
 defined in their sculpture, and as fresh and undimmed 
 in their colouring as if built only yesterday. It is 
 like our own misty climate. The sun shines seldom ; 
 the rain-cloud hangs low and dark overhead ; the 
 smoke hovers around ; and they weather the finest- 
 sculptured surface, and tarnish and begrim the bright- 
 est colours. It is difficult to preserve the beauty 
 of holiness in a world lying in wickedness, to keep 
 the garments unspotted from the flesh. The fair 
 colours of grace require to be constantly renewed, 
 polished, brightened. But as Christians, another Will 
 than your own has begun to work in you both to will 
 and to do of His good pleasure. Christ is in you the 
 hope of glory ; and therefore your holiness has begun, 
 not at its outward circumference, but at its central 
 point — in Christ. And it will surely spread in spite 
 of every opposition over your whole nature and life, 
 transforming you in the renewing of your mind, pre- 
 serving you from the pollutions of the world, and 
 preparing you for being presented faultless before the 
 presence of His glory with exceeding joy. 
 
 These fair colours of grace are within reach of all. 
 In nature there is hardly a stone that is not capable 
 of crystallizing into something purer and brighter than 
 its normal state. Coal, by a slightly different arrange- 
 ment of its particles, is capable of becoming the 
 
2G8 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [cHAP. xiil. 
 
 radiant diamond. The slag cast out from the furnace 
 as useless waste, forms into globular masses of radi- 
 ating crystals. From tar and pitch the loveliest 
 colours are now manufactured. The very mud on 
 the road, trampled under foot as the type of all 
 impurity, can be changed by chemical art into metals 
 and gems of surpassing beauty. And so the most 
 unpromising materials, from the most worthless moral 
 rubbish that men cast out and despise, may be con- 
 verted by the Divine alchemy into the gold of the 
 sanctuary, and made jewels fit for the mediatorial 
 crown of the Redeemer. Let the case of Mary Mag- 
 dalene, of John Newton, of John Bunyan, of thou- 
 sands more, encourage those who are still in the gall 
 of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Seek to be 
 subjected to the same purifying process ; lay yourselves 
 open to the same spiritual influences ; yield yourselves 
 up into the hands of the Spirit to become his finished 
 and exquisite workmanship. Seek diligently a saving 
 and sanctifying union with Christ through faith ; and 
 he will perfect that which concerneth you, and lay 
 your stones with fair colours. " Though ye have lien 
 among the pots, ye shall yet be as the wings of a 
 dove, covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow 
 gold." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FOUNDATIONS OF SArPHIRES. 
 *' And lay thy foundations with sapphires."" — IsAiAH liv. il. 
 
 Bv the sea-shore we find samples of many of the 
 rocks which form the crust of the earth. The ghs- 
 tening beach, ermined by the surf, is composed of 
 smooth rounded stones, whose beauty, when atten- 
 tively examined, is very remarkable. Wetted by the 
 retir-ng tide, bright tints and curious streaks appear 
 vivi(liy on their mottled surface. The commonest 
 specimen among them has something to commend 
 it either in colour or in form. We gather pebble after 
 pebble, until we are bewildered amid the rich variety ; 
 and the thought strikes us forcibly, if these water- 
 worn fragments be so attractive, what must the rocks 
 themselves be, from which they have been broken 
 off. It is assuredly not of worthless and unsightly 
 materials that the hidden parts of the earth are con- 
 structed. Unlike man's work, which is carefully 
 elaborated only where the eye is intended to see 
 it, God's work is the same throughout. Not only 
 is beauty lavished upon the superstructure — upon 
 the grass, and the flowers, and the trees, that are 
 to meet the gaze — but the very foundations arc com- 
 
270 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap 
 
 posed of onyx stones and stones to be set, glister- 
 ing stones and of divers colours, and all manner of 
 precious stones, and marble stones in abundance. 
 How massive, and yet how exquisite are the granite 
 and porphyry beds that underlie the huge masonry 
 of the hills ! How richly veined with gold and silver 
 are the pure white quartz rocks which form the but- 
 tresses of Alpine peaks, and the floors of extensive 
 valleys ! Far down in the dark recesses of the earth, 
 which no human eye has ever beheld, the process of 
 crystallization has been carried on, fashioning dull 
 inert matter into shapes of marvellous loveliness, sub- 
 liming the black bitumen of coal-fields into sparkling 
 diamonds, and transforming the unsightly clay of the 
 pit into brilliant rubies and sapphires. " The stones 
 of it are the place of sapphires, and it hath dust of 
 gold." From the very beginning, the Creator laid 
 the foundations of the earth in beauty as well as 
 in utility — in ornament as well as in strength. He 
 embraced both in the same harmonious design ; and 
 wrought them out, through every geological period, 
 by the same artistic means. 
 
 A similar principle appears throughout the spiri- 
 tual creation, of which the scheme of nature is only 
 the visible picture. In the moral works of God as 
 well as in the natural, beauty is combined with 
 utility — grace with strength. He lays the founda- 
 tions of the general Christian Church, and of the 
 individual Christian character, with sapphires. Those 
 hidden principles and motives upon which the grand 
 superstructure of faith and charity is built, are not 
 only strong and steadfast, but beautiful. They not 
 
xiv.l FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 271 
 
 only support the edifice, but contribute to its splen- 
 dour; are not only the source of confidence, but also 
 the cause of joy and blessedness. The roots of the 
 Christian life, though underground, are as fair as the 
 blossom and the fruit that appear in the sunshine. 
 The same marks of heavenly design may be seen in 
 them both. The tabernacle in the wilderness had 
 no foundation ; it was pitched in the bare and sterile 
 desert. Its floor was the shifting yellow sand. No 
 marble pavement or cedar boarding separated the 
 golden furniture and the costly curtains from the 
 naked ground ; and barefooted priests in splendid 
 vestments paced over it in the discharge of their 
 sacred offices. But it is not so with the spiritual 
 temple. There is no combination in it of beauty 
 and barrenness, preciousness and worthlessness, im- 
 perishableness and changeableness, glory and vanity. 
 It is all fair, all glorious. It is built upon founda- 
 tions of sapphires ; its priests are shod with the pre- 
 paration of the gospel of peace ; and the whole sub- 
 sequent structure is harmonious, and richly adorned 
 with the graces of the Spirit. The finished work, in 
 its surpassing beauty and splendour, is connected by 
 unity of design with the first stroke that created a 
 scene of order and loveliness out of a chaos of dark- 
 ness and sin. 
 
 The sapphire is one of t^ie brightest and most 
 valuable of those mysterious unfading flowers of the 
 inner earth which we call jewels. Born of darkness, 
 stranger to the light, it yet holds in its core of 
 focussed rays the blue of heaven. Gentians, violets, 
 forget-me-nots, calm lakes and summer skies, glacier- 
 
272 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 depths and living springs, have their passing and 
 perishing loveh'ness enshrined and concentrated in 
 its heart of rock. There is one variety, of a singu- 
 larly soft pure azure, which has the power of retaining 
 its lovely memory of heaven, even by candlelight, 
 when an ordinary sapphire looks black. It is some- 
 times found in masses of considerable size, and may 
 therefore appropriately be spoken of in connexion 
 with foundations. It formed the pavement, like the 
 body of heaven in its clearness, under the feet of 
 the God of Israel, as seen by the elders in Exodus ; 
 and the throne of glory which appeared to Ezekiel 
 in vision resembled a sapphire stone. It was the 
 fifth precious stone in the breastplate of the Jewish 
 high-priest, and had the name of Simeon engraved 
 upon it ; and the second foundation of the New 
 Jerusalem is a sapphire. The minute account in 
 Exodus and Revelation, of this and other jewels 
 that adorned the sacerdotal apparel and the walls 
 of the heavenly city, indicates the symbolic reverence 
 attached to their use by the Jews. And this belief 
 in their mystic qualities passed from India and Per- 
 sia to Greece and Rome, and after playing a con- 
 siderable part in the Gnostic systems of Alexandria, 
 became finally transferred to the Christian Church, as 
 we find Bishop Marbceuf of Rennes, in the eleventh 
 century, versifying their talismanic influences in his 
 curious " Lapidarium." Even St. Jerome praises the 
 sapphire for its use in " conciliating to its wearer the 
 favour of princes, quelling his enemies, dispersing sor- 
 ceries, setting free the captive, and even assuaging 
 the wrath of God himself'" 
 
XIV.] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 273 
 
 By its colour alone, the sapphire is distinguished 
 from the ruby and the Oriental topaz, as they are all 
 mere coloured varieties of the mineral substance 
 known as corundum, a pure crystallized alumina, the 
 oxide of the now well-known metal aluminium. Its 
 colour is therefore a very important point, and may be 
 the general reason why it is singled out in the passage 
 in Isaiah in preference to other precious stones. Blue 
 is an exceedingly lovely colour. It is quiet and sub- 
 dued, attracting without dazzling the eye, suggestive 
 of peace and repose. It is the most universally dis- 
 tributed of all hues. It forms the pleasing back- 
 ground of nature, on which the more brilliant colours 
 of tree and flower and held come forth to arrest our 
 attention, not only by their own beauty, but also by 
 the force of contrast. We see it in the boundless 
 expanse of the sky which bends over and idealizes 
 our dull cold earth, and forms, with its varied changes, 
 a part of the iaiidscape, not the mere empty space 
 that surrounds it. We see it in the distant hills, that 
 assume on the horizon the azure colour of the sky, 
 from sympathy of beauty and peace. We see it in the 
 far-stretching ocean that covers three-fourths of the 
 surface of the globe ; in the lake, the river, and the 
 stream, the mirrors which reflect and spiritualize the 
 changeable beauty of earth and heaven. We see it 
 in the blue-bell that rings out the pensive requiem 
 of nature's mutability on quiet autumn eves ; and in 
 the human eye, the most wonderful of God's works, 
 which reflects the world without and the world within 
 — which is at once useful as an organ of vision, and 
 beautiful as a spiritual and expressive window of the 
 
 T 
 
274 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 soul. And as in the temple of nature, from the view- 
 less air to the ethereal lustre of childhood's innocent 
 eye, the hue of the sapphire predominates, so in the 
 tabernacle and temple of old it was pre-eminent, 
 being always mentioned in connexion with gold in 
 the enumeration of the sacred furniture. " They shall 
 make the ephod of gold, blue, and purple." " Thou 
 shalt make the breastplate of gold, blue, and pur- 
 ple." Taches of gold were inserted into loops of 
 blue, connecting together the curtains of the taber- 
 nacle. Laces of blue, passing through rings of gold, 
 fastened the breastplate to the ephod ; and a lace 
 of blue bound the golden plate to the mitre of the 
 high-priest. The golden vessels of the sanctuary, 
 with the exception of the ark, were all covered with 
 a cloth of blue ; and a veil of blue separated the 
 holy place from the holy of holies. Every Israelite 
 wore a fringe of blue riband to his garments to remind 
 him of the commandments of the Lord, which the 
 Pharisees afterwards enlarged that men might praise 
 their scrupulous adherence to the letter of the law. 
 Jesus Himself carried this blue hem to His garments; 
 and from it the touch of faith, on one memorable 
 occasion, drew out healing virtue. As the gold was 
 emblematic of the glory and majesty of God, so the 
 blue combined with it, in the sacred appointments of 
 the tabernacle, might be aptly employed to represent 
 His love and grace. Such an interpretation would be 
 in strict accordance with the symbolism of nearly all 
 nations, among whom blue has always been associated 
 with ideas of love. 
 
 We may therefore understand the sapphire founda- 
 
XIV.] FOUA'DATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 275 
 
 tions of the Christian life which God lays, to be, in 
 general terms, the love of God in Christ ; His general 
 love in providence, and His particular and surpassing 
 love in redemption. It is on this beautiful and 
 serene background that all the great manifestations 
 of grace given to mankind are displayed. Heavenly 
 love inlays, as it were, all the moral pictures of earth. 
 It is on this precious sapphire foundation that all 
 the promises and declarations of the Gospel rest. So 
 inseparably is love attributed to God, that the Scrip- 
 tures affirm it to be His very nature — " God is love," 
 Love is not the mere transient mood or phase of His 
 character; it is, so to speak, His very life. It is not 
 an attribute so much as a manifestation of all His 
 attributes. It is supreme wisdom and supreme love 
 that are ruling and creating everywhere, throughout 
 all the universe, and throughout all eternity. And 
 love and wisdom are but two names for the same 
 thing, " We call love by the name of wisdom when 
 it acts ; we call wisdom by the name of love when it 
 thinks and feels." All God's perfections are but modi- 
 fications of His love; the offers of the Gospel are the 
 invitations of His love ; the threatenings of the law 
 are the warnings of His love; the afflictions He sends 
 are the chastisements of His love ; the incarnation 
 of Jesus is the richest illustration of His U^ve ; and 
 heaven is the seat and consummation of His love. 
 
 The temple of Solomon was built on the rocky 
 foundation of Mount Moriah, a place consecrated to 
 the work of redemption, from the time when Abraham 
 offered there the ram which the Lord had i)rovided, 
 instead of his son Isaac, and the destroying angel 
 
 'J' 2 
 
276 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 sheathed there, by the threshing-floor of Araunah, 
 the sword of judgment, on account of David's sacri- 
 fice. And so the spiritual temple is also built upon 
 the work of redemption as its sapphire foundation. 
 A fearful rite used to be performed in the dark ages 
 of pagan superstition. When a temple or other public 
 building was to be erected, its foundations were often 
 sprinkled with human blood in order to consecratf^ 
 them ; and not unfrequently was some poor slave or 
 prisoner of war put to death upon the foundation- 
 stone after it was laid, and his body built into the 
 wall, in order that his spirit might guard the edifice, 
 and terrify away all sacrilegious intruders. And do 
 we not see in this barbarous custom a faint illus- 
 tration of the self-sacrificing love of Jesus ! God laid 
 the foundations of the scheme of grace in His only 
 begotten Son. From the dark and degraded ruins of 
 the fall. He raised a glorious temple upon the death 
 and the body of His own Son. Its sapphire founda- 
 tions are sprinkled with atoning blood — the precious 
 blood of the Lamb slain as an offering for sin from 
 the foundation of the world. It is consecrated and 
 hallowed for ever by a self-sacrificing love such as 
 the world has never seen. Christ himself is the chief 
 corner-stone, which binds together and supports the 
 whole structure. And it is because the spiritual 
 temple is built as it were upon His body, because 
 its foundations are laid in His empty grave, that it 
 is so glorious and enduring, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it. 
 
 What beautiful emblems of Christ's love are the 
 two grandest objects of nature— sapphire sea and 
 
XIV.] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 217 
 
 sapphire sky ! The boundless extent of heaven's blue 
 field cannot be measured even by the astronomer, 
 so the length and breadth, and height and depth of 
 the love of Christ surpass all knowledge. We know 
 something of what is nearest us of the sky, the human 
 side of it, as it were. That part which lies imme- 
 diately above our earth is familiar to us, from the 
 offices of beauty and usefulness which it serves ; the 
 firmament in this respect shows forth the handiwork 
 of God in ministering continually to our wants. But 
 the profound abysses of blue beyond, the eternal, 
 unchangeable heavens that declare God's glory and 
 that seemingly have no relation to man, are utterly 
 incomprehensible to us ; the very stars themselves 
 only give us light to show the infinity of space in 
 which they are scattered. So the love of Christ in 
 its human aspect, as displayed in the work and bless- 
 ings of redemption, and in offices of care and kindness 
 to us, is so far comprehensible, for otherwise we could 
 not build our trust upon it, and St. Paul would not 
 speak of knowing it ; but its infinite fulness, its divine 
 perfection, its relation to the universe, is utterly 
 beyond our knowledge, and eternity itself, though 
 spent in acquiring larger and brighter views of it, 
 will fail to exhaust the wondrous theme. The bound- 
 less blue sky of Christ's love bends over us, compre- 
 hends our little life within it, as the horizon embraces 
 the landscape ; wherever we move, we are within that 
 blue circular tent, but can never touch its edges ; 
 it folds about with equal serenity and adaptability 
 the lofty mountain and the lowly vale, the foaming 
 torrent and the placid lake; the bold, rugged, aspiring 
 
278 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 nature, and the quiet retiring disposition, the man of 
 action and the man of thought, the impetuous Peter 
 and the loving John ; it softens the sharp extremes 
 of things, and connects the highest and lowest by- 
 its subtle, invisible bond, and yet stretches far aloft 
 beyond the reach of sight or sense into the fathomless 
 abyss of infinity. Or, to take the sea as the com- 
 parison, the sea touches the shore along one narrow 
 line, and all the beauty and fertility of that shore 
 are owing to its life-giving dews and rains ; but it 
 stretches away from the shore, beyond the horizon, 
 into regions which man's eye has never seen, and 
 the further it recedes, the deeper and the bluer its 
 waters become. And so the love of Christ touches 
 us along the whole line of our life, imparts all the 
 beauty and fruitfulness to that life, but it stretches 
 away from the point of contact into the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ, the measureless fulness of the God- 
 head, — that ocean of inconceivable, incommunicable 
 love which no plummet can sound, or eye of angel 
 or saint ever scan ; and the love that we cannot com- 
 prehend, that is beyond our reach, is as much love 
 as that whose blessed influences and effects we feel. 
 
 The lake of Geneva is one of the loveliest sapphires 
 which Nature wears on her bosom. I have gazed 
 unweariedly for hours at a time, upon the wonderful 
 blue of its deep transparent waters, permanent in all, 
 circumstances, unaffected by any atmospheric changes. 
 In its glorious mirror I have seen reflected a strange 
 harmonious combination of the grandest and humblest 
 objects. The cloud-marbled sky makes a brighter 
 sky in its azure depths ; the long line of the snowy 
 
XIV.] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 27i) 
 
 Alps, with the sovran crown of Mont Blanc, assumes 
 a purer and more spiritual grandeur in its tranquil 
 bays. And mingling \<\^\ these sublime objects are 
 the humbler scenes of the shore, the white shadows 
 of the graceful lateen sails, the drooping green tresses 
 of the Babylonian willow, the picturesque vine-clad 
 slopes, and painted chalets half hid amid bowers of 
 magnolia, walnut, and chestnut trees. It is a gorgeous 
 mosaic of lapis-lazuli, unsurpassed anywhere on earth. 
 No painter of fairy landscapes ever brought the details 
 of nature into such a magnificent focus. But lovely 
 as I felt it to be in itself, it seemed lovelier still as 
 a type of that wonderful love of Jesus, which is 
 unchangeable amid all circumstances, which reflects 
 and harmonizes in its depths of divine tenderness the 
 grandest and the humblest of human interests, and 
 makes by its sublime "reconciling to itself of all 
 things " a heavenly paradise even of earth's sinful 
 ruins. 
 
 These emblems are true even in their changes. 
 Dark clouds at times veil the sky ; storms ruffle the 
 face of the deep ; and their charm of blue serenity 
 is lost. But cloud and storm only intimate the pass- 
 ing commotion needful to purify the air and the 
 water; and compared with the azure depths above 
 and below, they are superficial and transitory. They 
 retire, and the beautiful blue of heaven reappears, 
 and the ocean again becomes a sapphire foundation, 
 on which the sun scatters his jewels of light with 
 regal lavishness. And so no dark trial, no grievous 
 judgment, can cross our sky without revealing some 
 spot of heavenly blue in the midst of it ; or, if con- 
 
280 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 cealed for a moment, breaking forth again with 
 greater brightness and beauty. No mysterious dis- 
 pensation can ruffle the surface of our peace, and 
 raise up agitating doubts and fears, without leaving 
 behind a purer joy, a calmer and deeper satisfaction, 
 that best and truest peace which is born of conflict 
 and trouble. Behind every storm of trial and every 
 cloud of sorrow, is the heavenly blue of Christ's 
 unchangeable love — a love stronger than death, a 
 love that follows us amid all our wanderings and 
 backslidings, amid all our changes of heart and cir- 
 cumstance, and remains steadfast and unwavering 
 even when our love is suspicious and cold. " I have 
 loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with 
 loving-kindness have I drawn thee ; " and every muta- 
 tion of earth passes away from before that love, as 
 the cloud from the sky, and the wave from the ocean. 
 As the Psalmist sublimely says, He maketh the blue 
 waters of the sea the floor of His chambers, and the 
 blue star-spangled sky the pavement of His dwelling- 
 place ; and He hath laid the sapphire foundations of 
 our life and hope, of all that is our earth, and all that 
 is our heaven, in His own love — unfathomable as the 
 one, and boundless as the other. 
 
 The Hebrew word sappir, translated sapphire in 
 our version, is derived from the same root as the 
 words that signify a book, writing, or engraving ; and 
 according to the Talmud, the two tables of stone, on 
 which the Law was written on Sinai, were formed of 
 sapphires. Blessed be God, it is not on the sapphire 
 foundations of the Law that we are now to build our 
 trust The obedience that can rest on these founda- 
 
XIV.] FO I WD A TIONS OF SA PP HIRES. 281 
 
 tions must be perfect in every jot and tittle, and 
 perpetual, v^ithout cessation or suspense, without 
 question or doubt, from the beginning to the end 
 of life. But such an obedience we cannot rear; our 
 best obedience is stained at once in the motive and 
 in the action ; it is faltering, unequal, irregular. We 
 cannot, therefore, be saved by the Law. It can only 
 display to us the essential holiness of God, and our 
 owTi innumerable and immeasurable shortcomings ; 
 it can only show us our need of another mode oi 
 acceptance, of some remedial measure. It is a school- 
 master that leads us to Christ. His finished work 
 is now our sapphire foundation. His obedience, per- 
 fect and perpetual, is now the ground of our justifi- 
 cation and acceptance. The salvation of the world 
 reposes exclusively upon the love of Christ as dis- 
 played in the work of redemption. That alone is 
 the basis upon which God builds the new heaven 
 and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 It is all perfect, all beautiful, a foundation of sap- 
 phires. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken " 
 away from it, without marring its exquisite symmetry 
 and adaptation. By one offering Christ hath per- 
 fected for ever them that are sanctified. That one 
 sacrifice stands alone ; it can never be repeated or 
 improved. All is perfect and prepared to make us 
 perfect. We have only to believe and live ; we have 
 only to build and inhabit ; for no other foundation 
 can any man lay save that is laid, which is Jesus 
 Christ. " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a 
 stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure 
 foundation." 
 
282 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATUFE. [chap. 
 
 " I will lay thy foundations with sapphires." The 
 structure of our faith is four-square, like that of the 
 temple of old. The chief corner-stone which binds 
 the whole together is the redemption-love of Christ ; 
 but connected with it as a foundation for the be- 
 liever's stability and hope, is the covenant of grace, 
 embracing every blessing from the first moment of 
 incipient peace in the soul to the consummation of 
 that peace in heaven, extending in its administration 
 to the most minute particulars, making ample pro- 
 vision for every evil that can possibly happen to us^ 
 and securing calmness in the prospect and in the 
 hour of death. This gracious covenant is the support 
 and comfort of the believer throughout his whole 
 life. The mountains may depart and the hills be 
 removed, but it will remain steadfast and unalterable ; 
 and in the end he, too, can chant the triumphant 
 swan-song of the dying singer of Israel — " He hath 
 made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all 
 things and sure ; this is all my salvation and all my 
 desire." The revealed truth of God is another sap- 
 phire foundation connected with the precious corner- 
 stone. Wonderfully is the Bible adapted to all the 
 varying circumstances and necessities of the believer's 
 life. There is a fulness in it which meets every want, 
 and yet can never be exhausted ; an interest ever 
 fresh, ever new. We can never outgrow its help, or 
 reach a stage of spiritual advancement when it can 
 no longer lead us. It ever goes before, drawing out 
 and educating every spiritual perception, satisfying 
 every spiritual need, and yet ever giving us a reuse of 
 infinite fulness beyond. The exi>erlence of the believeir 
 
XI V. ] FO UN DA TIONS OF SA PP HIRES. 283 
 
 is yet another sapphire foundation. The faith of one 
 who beheves to the saving of his soul rests not on 
 the shifting ground of reports and opinions ; not 
 merely on an outward manifestation and testimony 
 of the truth; but on the firm rock of personal and 
 spiritual experience ; on the rock of Christ's presence 
 m the soul, " which temptations have laid bare for 
 Him to build ,on." The objective revelation of the 
 Gospel has been followed by the subjective operation 
 of the Spirit. The outward teaching of inspiration 
 has become an inward divine illumination. The doc- 
 trine has become a living power whose strength has 
 been tried and proved ; the divine announcement has 
 passed into the form of a human experience ; the 
 creed is no mere formula of speech, no mystic incan- 
 tation, but " corresponds with needs of his soul, 
 which he has probed to the bottom in the hour of 
 difficulty." In short, Christ proclaimed by Old Tes- 
 tament types and prophecies, revealed in the Gospels, 
 preached in the Apostolic Acts and Epistles, has 
 become Christ formed in the soul the hope of glory. 
 And thus as face answers to face in a glass, do the 
 believer's spiritual perception and experience of divine 
 truth agree with its divine manifestation in the Word. 
 And it is this correspondence realized that renders 
 Christianity no longer an abstract theory, but a living 
 life-giving reality, intq which the soul has entered, 
 and against which no argument can possibly prevail. 
 Such are the four sapphire foundations of the Chris- 
 tian faith and life ; the foundations of the apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone. 
 The sapphire is one of the most precious jewels; 
 
284 BIBLE TEA CHINGS IN NA TURE. [chap. 
 
 ranking next to the diamond in value. It is precious 
 for its own beauty and rarity, and precious on account 
 of the labour involved in obtaining it. And who can 
 estimate the preciousness of the sapphire foundations 
 of our faith, the work of redemption which cost the 
 humiUation, suffering, and death of the Son of God 
 to accomplish ; and the experience of the truth in 
 the soul wrought out through much sorrow, through 
 doubts, and fears, and terrible struggles } There is no 
 carat standard capable of fixing their value. Utterly 
 inadequate were all the riches of the universe to pay 
 the ransom-price of one soul. " Ye are bought not 
 with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but 
 with the precious blood of Christ." 
 
 The sapphire is also one of the purest of the precious 
 stones. The ancient meteoric stone called the Kaaba, 
 built into the sacred mosque at Mecca, and still 
 pressed with devotion by the lips of every pilgrim, 
 may be taken to represent in its blackness and earth- 
 liness, the Mohammedan religion. But the founda- 
 tion of Christianity is a pure transparent sapphire. 
 It has no flaws, no dross, no earthy ingredients. The 
 truths of the Gospel are all pure and unsullied. There 
 is nothing in them of that admixture of error whichi 
 is to be found, more or less, in all human systems of 
 religion. They are crystallized into the most perfect 
 form. They are simple as the azure sky, transparent 
 as the blue water — like the light of day, clear them- 
 selves, and making everything else clear ; revealing 
 to us the mysteries of the world and life, and taking 
 us down to the very heart of things. They are easily 
 understood ; they appeal at once to the reason and 
 
XIV.] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 285 
 
 the judgment ; they make the simple wise ; they are 
 adapted to the meanest understanding. Indeed, the 
 simpler the mind, the more child-like the heart, the 
 easier of comprehension they are. It is this won- 
 derful simplicity and clearness which constitute 
 their unspeakable value to the poor and ignorant, who 
 have in most cases neither the power nor the leisure 
 to search out abstract philosophical truth ; to the 
 afflicted, tempest-tossed, and not comforted, whose 
 mental faculties have been weakened and relaxed by 
 suffering, and who are therefore indisposed to and 
 incapable of mental effort. Precious at all times, 
 these simple, transparent Gospel truths are doubly 
 precious in the season of trouble. Nay, the darker 
 the trial, the clearer does their sapphire-light shine 
 out. We can see as well as feel them beneath us. 
 The soul can repose unhesitatingly and without toil 
 upon them, even amid the decay of every mental 
 power ; and there are instances innumerable of great 
 theologians and men of science and philosophy 
 brought back from all their abstruse researches, for 
 comfort and hope in life's last hours, to the simple 
 old Gospel truths they had learned at a mother's 
 knee. 
 
 These foundations are steadfast and enduring. They 
 are not composed of perishable materials — not even 
 of rocks that weather and crumble away — but of 
 Sc.pphires, next to the diamond the hardest of the 
 precious stones. Jewels, as a class, are the most 
 lasting of all earthly objects — the most beautiful as 
 well as the most imperishable form in which matter 
 appears. Gold will wear away ; silver will tarnish ; 
 
286 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 wood will decay ; the granite stone itself will dis- 
 integrate ; but jewels will continue unchanged for 
 thousands of years. They are therefore expressive 
 types of stability and permanence. The sapphire 
 foundations of the Christian life are everlasting. 
 They are no vague hopes or shadowy dreams, like 
 the cloud-architecture of crimson and gold that rests 
 on some mountain-peak, but solid substantial realities, 
 more enduring than the everlasting hills themselves. 
 They are no mere illusions, like the pictured reflection 
 of the sky mirrored on the tranquil bosom of a lake, 
 which may be destroyed in an instant by the merest 
 trifle — a pebble thrown into the midst of the celestial 
 scene by an idle hand, the wing of a passing breeze, 
 or a withered leaf falling down from an overarching 
 tree — but truths which will last when these heavens 
 themselves shall be rolled up like a scroll and vanish 
 away. Delusions only aggravate the wretched reality. 
 The blue mirage makes the sandy desert more in- 
 supportable. What is not true and lasting, however 
 beautiiul, cannot, comfort or uphold us. Our founda- 
 tions may be lovely as sapphires, but, unless they are 
 hard and enduring as sapphires, they will not suffice 
 us. And were Gospel truths destitute of the seal of 
 certainty, they might retain their literary brilliancy, 
 but they would lose their consoling and saving power. 
 But such fears are utterly groundless. Not only 
 grace but truth came by Jesus Christ. The hope of 
 the Gospel is a hope that maketh not ashamed. Its 
 gold is gold tried in the furnace. The foundation 
 laid in Sion is a "tried stone" — tried of old by the 
 Apollinarian, F^utychian, Arian, and Nestorian con- 
 
XTV] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 287 
 
 troversies — tried by the vast advances recently made 
 in the acquisition of secular knowledge, by the tests 
 of sciences of which our forefathers knew not even 
 the names, by the hammer of the geologist, the cru- 
 cible of the chemist, and the discoveries of the phy- 
 siologist. The deep waters of modern thought anc 
 rational speculation have surged around it ; the bolts 
 of textual and historical criticism have descended 
 upon it ; but it has proved itself to be the absolute 
 truth after all. As Dorner says, "At no time has a 
 problem been proposed to Christianity which she 
 has not, though amid the conflict of the sharpest 
 antagonisms, been able to solve." The experience 
 of myriads in both worlds has tried it, and their tes- 
 timony confirms the words of the Apostle : " I know 
 whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He 
 will keep that which I have committed to Him 
 against that day." Amid the great mysteries of life 
 which lie around us unexplored, in hopeless confu- 
 sion, baffling all our feeble attempts at explanation, 
 we feel the everlasting Arms underneath us. Amid 
 the vain show in which we walk, v/ith nothing before 
 and nothing behind us, the steps of faith fall on the 
 seeming void, and find the Rock of Ages beneath. 
 Amid the perpetual mutations of earth, we can rest 
 in peace on the everlasting foundations against which 
 the waves of time and change shall beat in vain. 
 The paths of philosophy may seem to " interlace each 
 other, leading back to our own footsteps in the sand ;" 
 but in the Gospel we walk on sure ground trodden 
 and hallowed by our blessed Redeemer himself, and 
 beaten hard by the march of earth's wisest and best. 
 
288 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 Oh ! these sapphire foundations which God has 
 laid, are the only realities, the only sure and abiding 
 things. All else is passing and perishing. All earth's 
 circumstances and interests are but the temporary 
 scaffolding, destined to be removed when the struc- 
 ture is completed. We raise a home to ourselves, 
 and fill it with comfort, beauty, and love ; but we 
 are like the bird that builds its warm and tender nest 
 upon a rotten bough. We stand upon our worldly 
 possessions, joys, and hopes, and we imagine our- 
 selves safe and secure ; but we are like a man standing 
 on the heap of loose mould thrown up on the yawn- 
 ing brink of a grave. The heap crumbles away, and 
 yields beneath our feet, and we are suddenly preci- 
 pitated into the dark abyss. We build temples ot 
 happiness ; but they are like the castles of sand which 
 children, dear Babel-builders, . rear on the glistening 
 shore. Earnestly and toilsomely they are erected, 
 but the oozing water filters in, and wall and tower 
 and counterscarp shake and disappear in the advanc- 
 ing tide. Time's bitter wave washes away all the 
 labours of man. And even the external and subor- 
 dinate things of religion — such as forms of church 
 government, ordinances, creeds, and those intellectual 
 labours which are employed in their establishment 
 and defence, though so intimately associated in our 
 minds with the eternal world to which they refer, 
 that we are accustomed to think of them as sharing 
 in its immortality — are all destined to pass away. 
 " Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ; 
 whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether 
 there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." Only the 
 
XIV.] FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRES. 289 
 
 foundations of sapphires and the holy living structure 
 built upon them shall continue forever. There is no 
 force strong enough in the universe to move these 
 foundations, and the structure reared upon them. 
 The waters that would sweep them away must first 
 overwhelm the cross of Christ and the throne of 
 heaven. 
 
 Such are the foundations of sapphires which God 
 lays. Man's life is a ruin despoiled and defaced by 
 sin. We cannot build upon the old foundation 
 and with the old materials, for the structure to be 
 erected is a " Palace Beautiful," an habitation of God 
 through the Spirit. The rubbish must be cleared 
 away ; the dark, opaque, worthless stones of our 
 own good works encumbering the ground must be re- 
 moved ; and the Stone which the builders rejected — 
 disallowed, indeed, of men, but chosen of God and 
 precious, the sapphire-stone of Christ's finished work 
 — must become the head-stone of the corner. And 
 the foundation being thus laid, we must remember 
 that we have not materials for the construction ot 
 a palace of our own and for a spiritual building. We 
 cannot, like Solomon, build the temple of the Lord 
 and the house of the forest of Lebanon. If we build 
 the earthly house, it will be at the expense of the 
 heavenly ; and if we build the heavenly, we must 
 sacrifice the earthly. Let us not build on this founda- 
 tion, therefore, wood, hay, stubble, lest our work be 
 burnt and we suffer loss, and we ourselves "be saved 
 as b}' fire." But let us build a glorious structure of 
 gold, silver, precious stones — faith, hope, and charity 
 — the three things that abide. Let us learn, too, in 
 
 U 
 
290 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE, [chap, x: v. 
 
 our spiritual architecture, a lesson from the pearly 
 nautilus. As it grows older, it forms a series of new 
 and larger chambers in its spiral shell, until at last 
 it lives only in the uppermost and largest compart- 
 ment. So let us go on to perfection, not laying again 
 the foundation of repentance from dead works and 
 of faith toward God, but building, in the advancing 
 work of sanctification, nobler and heavenlier mansions 
 for our spirits, until at last the narrow earthly house 
 of this tabernacle is exchanged for the city which 
 hath foundations, garnished with all manner of pre- 
 cious stones, whose builder and maker is God. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "NO MORE SEA." 
 *' And there was no more sea." — Revelation xxi. i 
 
 The most beautiful features of the sea-shore are those 
 h'ttle pools that are left behind among the rocks by 
 the retiring tide. They are full of clear pellucid water 
 two or three feet in depth, which lies over the white 
 pebbles at the bottom, and the green and crimson 
 sea-weeds fringing the sides, like a sheet of pure glass 
 over a picture. If you look into one of these fairy 
 pools from a particular point of view and choose the 
 proper light, you can gaze far down into the deep 
 blue sky, and see the snowy and amber clouds over- 
 head, and the overarching trees, like long-fringed 
 eyelashes over a laughing eye, vividly mirrored in its 
 depths ; by the reflected glory the little basin over 
 which a child can step is made deep and capacious as 
 heaven itself, and filled with the brightest shapes 
 of aerial beauty. Whereas if you stand close to its 
 side, and look at it from another point of view, you 
 see neither sapphire sky, nor golden cloud, nor 
 shadowy tree ; nothing but the dull stones, and the 
 motionless tufts of dark sea-weed at the bottom. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 This picture of nature illustrates the twofold aspect 
 of divine truth. It has a natural and a spiritual side. 
 If you examine it by the eye of faith and from the 
 stand-point of heart-experience — it lies before you like 
 a bright transparent pool in which you see the things 
 above — the great and solemn realities of the eternal 
 world clearly reflected ; you see wonderful things in 
 God's law. But if you look at it by the mere carnal 
 eye, and from the stand-point of the intellect, which 
 is ever learning, but never able to come to the know- 
 ledge of the truth, it suggests no spiritual thoughts 
 and reveals no spiritual images, but seems of the earth 
 earthy. These remarks apply with peculiar appro- 
 priateness to that strange expression from the Apoca- 
 lypse, which I have chosen as a subject for meditation 
 during this season of outward storm and inward retro- 
 spection, — "And there was no more sea." I feel, in 
 selecting this text, like one trying to fill a cup from 
 the ocean. It seems an easy thing to do. There is 
 abundance of water. Billow after billow comes tum- 
 bling to the shore ; but while the white foam wets the 
 feet, and the dashing spray drenches the form, very 
 little water enters into, or remains in the cup And 
 so, like a mysterious, storm-vexed ocean, that wonder- 
 ful Book of Revelation, alternately barred with the 
 shadows of earth and the sunbeams of heaven, rolls 
 its waves to my feet ; but it is difficult from the huge 
 mass of watei, so indissolubly bound together, each 
 prediction blending and harmonizing with all the pre- 
 dictions that have preceded, and all that are to follow 
 after, to take up a compact and manageable portion. 
 In the drop, however, that remains in my cup small 
 
XV.] '' NO MORE SEA." 293 
 
 though it be, the celestial scenery glasses itself as 
 clearly, if not as widely, as in the great ocean of pro- 
 phetic truth itself, which holds in its blue horizon-arms 
 all the beauty of heaven as its own. 
 
 We know not whether there will be a literal 
 physical sea or not in the future world. To the 
 apostle John, who doubtless, in common with all his 
 countrymen, looked upon the sea with dread, the 
 absence of it in the heavenly vision may have been 
 welcomed as a relief. All the allusions to the sea in 
 the Bible, all the images derived from it, seem to be 
 tinctured with this national prejudice — for they refer 
 solely to its power or danger — never to its aesthetic 
 aspects ; and many, especially those to whom the sea 
 has proved cruel, may sympathise with this prejudice, 
 and rejoice to accept the announcement in all its 
 literality, that in heaven there shall be no more sea. 
 To others again whose earliest and sweetest associa- 
 tions are connected with its shelly shores and its 
 gleaming waters, who reside within constant hearing 
 of the two grandest voices of nature calling to each 
 other, one of the mountain and one of the ocean, a 
 world without a sea would seem a world without life 
 or animation, without beauty or attraction, a blank, 
 silent realm of desolation and death. If this soft 
 pearl should fall out of the terrestrial ring, it would 
 leave a dreary void behind, and lose all its value in 
 their eyes. At all events this much seems clear, that 
 if the future world is to be a physical world, some- 
 what like this, only purer and more glorious, and if 
 there is to be no more sea in it, then a new and to us 
 
294 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 altogether unknown and unimaginable series of com- 
 pensations must be introduced, for in this world the 
 sea is all-essential. It is the vital fluid that animates 
 our earth, as the blood animates the body ; and should 
 it disappear altogether, our fair green planet would 
 become, like the moon, a heap of brown volcanic 
 rocks and deserts, lifeless and worthless as the slag 
 cast out from a furnace. Into this far-reaching ques- 
 tion, however, I do not seek to enter. In all the 
 matters connected with the scenery of the future 
 world, we are left in uncertainty, free to indulge all 
 kinds of plausible conjectures and speculations. Scrip- 
 ture maintains a guarded and dignified reserve on the 
 subject ; it leaves such secrets in the stern keeping of 
 death, and repels all the approaches alike of natural 
 and prurient curiosity, by that most grand and cheering 
 declaration, whose openness, breadth, and universal 
 adaptation are surely infinitely preferable to any 
 details and descriptions of a particular mode of life, 
 however gorgeous and fascinating, "Eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, to conceive what things God hath pre- 
 pared for them that love Him." It will be observed 
 that most of the descriptions of heaven in the Bible 
 speak of it more as a state than a locality, more as a 
 condition than a place ; and this for an obvious reason. 
 Man's happiness is derived not so much from external 
 circumstances as from inward feelings. When our 
 first parents sinned, and lost in consequence their 
 peace of mind and purity of heart, Eden was to them 
 no longer the beautiful Elysium that it seemed 
 before ; and we read that Paul and Silas sang at 
 
XV. J '' NO MORE SEAr 295 
 
 midnight in the dreary prison, with their feet fast in 
 tlie stocks, uncertain of their fate, because of the 
 irrepressible spiritual joy that welled up in their 
 hearts like a fountain of fresh water in the midst of 
 the salt sea. To be with Jesus, and to be like Him, 
 will be heaven itself to the believer; and in com- 
 parison with this fulness of joy, all circumstances of 
 scenery and association sink into insignificance. And 
 anchored by this blessed hope that maketh not 
 ashamed, we can wait patiently amid the rising and 
 falling of speculation's troubled waves, for the full 
 disclosures of eternity, assured that what we know 
 not now we shall know hereafter. 
 
 Instead, then, of regarding the expression, "and there 
 was no more sea," as an Apocalyptic hieroglyph to be 
 slowly deciphered by the aid of physical facts, I shall 
 treat it as a comprehensive, celestial symbol, by which 
 spiritual things are shadowed forth. And viewing it 
 in this figurative sense, the sea seems to me to involve 
 tJirce ideas — separation, change, storm, which our cir- 
 cumstances at this time are well fitted to impress upon 
 our minds. In seasons like this, we naturally think of 
 those who are absent from our side, of the changes 
 that have taken place, and of the storms that rage 
 without. These are the ideas which I now wish 
 to illustrate in connexion with my subject, " And 
 there was no more sea." 
 
 I. The existence of the sea implies separation. The 
 sea, along with its accompanying lakes and rivers, is in 
 this world the great divider. It is the boundary of 
 kingdoms and continents, more impassible than moun- 
 
296 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 tain ranges, however lofty and extensive. In the 
 peculiar arrangements of land and water on the sur- 
 face of the earth, we have a clear and unmistakeable 
 evidence of God's intention from the very beginning 
 of separating mankind into distinct nationalities ; "an 
 intention remarkably fulfilled in the confusion of 
 language at Babel, and the consequent dispersion of 
 the human race. For this separation a twofold neces- 
 sity suggests itself It exercised a restraining and 
 a constraining influence. Had mankind been per- 
 mitted to remain for an indefinite period in one 
 narrow region of the earth, brought into close and 
 constant communication with each other, and speaking 
 the same language, the consequences would have been 
 most disastrous. They would have inevitably cor- 
 rupted one another. Family and individual interests 
 would have come into frequent and violent collision. 
 Their proximity would have been the occasion of 
 endless wars and deeds of violence and bloodshed. 
 We have a dark picture, painted for us by the inspired 
 writer, of the condition of mankind before the flood, 
 when they were crowded together within a com- 
 paratively limited area. " God saw that the wicked- 
 ness of man was great upon the earth, and that every 
 imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
 continually." Stimulated by mutual encouragement 
 and example, such a densely social life could not fail 
 to overcome the moral barriers raised against it, and 
 the reformatory discipline under which it was placed, 
 and break out and riot in fearful excesses. God, 
 therefore, mercifully interfered ; and by introducing a 
 wise element of confusion into the new social develop- 
 
XV.] '' NO MORE SEA." 297 
 
 ment after the flood, which was being constructed on 
 the old basis and according to the old plan, he sepa- 
 rated mankind into distinct nations, placed them in 
 different scenes and circumstances, and effectually 
 kept them apart by means of seas and trackless 
 oceans ; and thus the maddening passions of man 
 were rendered comparatively innocuous, or circum- 
 scribed within the narrowest possible limits. 
 
 Another reason for this separation of the human 
 race by means of the sea was that national charac- 
 ter might thus be formed and educated — that the one 
 type of human nature might develop itself into every 
 possible modification by the force of different circum- 
 stances and experiences. I have somewhere read that 
 " as the individuality of each man is that peculiar 
 influence with which he is entrusted for the good of 
 society, so the individuality of nations is that peculiar 
 influence with which they are entrusted for the benefit 
 of the world." If men had no individuality they could 
 not obviously influence one another; where every 
 member of the species was exactly the same the 
 monotony would be intolerable; we should lose the 
 sense of contrast, and with it very soon the feeling of 
 personality. And so also if there were no individu- 
 ality among nations, mankind could make no progress ; 
 all human societies would lose the mental activity, 
 the noble competition, the generous emulation which 
 distinguish them ; there would be no mutual instruc- 
 tion, nothing to keep in check local evils, and by the 
 better agencies of one region stimulate into action 
 similar agencies in another. By the sea, then, has 
 mankind been separated into different nations, and 
 
298 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap, 
 
 placed amid varied scenes of nature and circumstances 
 of life for these wise and gracious purposes. And it 
 is a remarkable circumstance that this barrier con- 
 tinued insurmountable while the infant races were 
 receiving the education, and undergoing the discipline, 
 that were to qualify them for enlarged intercourse 
 with each other. So long as they continued idolaters, 
 debased and depraved, struggling for subsistence and 
 warring with one another, no benefit could accrue to 
 mankind from allowing them to meet and mingle ; on 
 the contrary, the good of the world required that they 
 should be safely imprisoned, each within its own 
 domain, and that they should have little or no general 
 intercourse. When, however, the day appointed by God 
 to enlighten and emancipate the world approached, 
 the sea became all at once, through the improvement 
 of navigation and ship-building, the great highway of 
 nations, the great channel of communication between 
 the different and distant parts of the world. The 
 argosy of Christianity, freighted with a more precious 
 treasure than the golden fleece of Colchis — with nobler 
 heroes on board than the Argonauts — with songs 
 sweeter than those of Orpheus — cut loose from its 
 anchorage on the coasts of Palestine by the Roman 
 sword, and favoured by propitious gales, visited and 
 enriched every region of the earth. As the true 
 civilizer, its great design is to bring all mankind into 
 contact, and to make them interchange, in a state of 
 exalted unity, all the varied excellences which have 
 been developed in a state of separation. And this 
 design is being accomplished more and more every 
 day. Nations, by means of commerce and missionary 
 
XV.] ' "NO MORE SEA." 299 
 
 enterprise, are holding communion with nations, and 
 mutually enriching each other by the stores of know- 
 ledge, experience, and religious education which they 
 have each accumulated apart. Christianity is rapidly 
 melting the separate nationalities into one ; but the 
 fusion of these discordant elements into one glorious 
 harmony, pure as sunlight, inspiring as a strain of 
 perfect music, will never be accomplished in this world. 
 Much may and will be done to neutralise the effects 
 of the original confusion of language and dispersion of 
 mankind ; but the work requires a higher platform 
 than the present earth to complete and perfect it. So 
 long as the sea shall continue to bound kingdoms and 
 continents, and roll its waves between nations, so long 
 will there be numerous and great hindrances to inti- 
 mate and frequent fellowship between all the parts of 
 the world-wide Christendom, which no Atlantic tele- 
 graph or merchant fleet, no art or progress of man can 
 effectually remove. There will be tribes, and tongues, 
 and nations, and peoples. It is in heaven alone that 
 these distinctions will be abolished, and the confusion 
 of tongues repealed. There, where no separating sea 
 exists, they shall all be gathered together with one 
 accord in one place. They shall come from the north 
 and the south, and from the east and the west ; 
 " From Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral 
 strand ; " and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven. 
 They shall be around the throne a multitude which no 
 man can number, with peace on their brows and love 
 in their hearts ; singing in the same sublime language 
 the same new song of Moses and the Lamb, " Thou 
 hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every 
 
300 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." There 
 will be neither Scythian, Roman, Greek, nor Jew — 
 neither bond nor free ; none of the nationalities which 
 human sin first originated, and the great sea per- 
 petuated and confirmed ; but they all shall be one in 
 Christ — one, as God and Christ are one ! 
 
 " And there was no more sea." Methinks these 
 words must have had a deep and peculiar significance 
 to the mind of the old fisherman, whose early life was 
 spent on the blue waves of Galilee, when we think of 
 the circumstances in which he was placed when he 
 wrote them. He was a prisoner in Patmos, a small 
 desolate island in the vEgean. A stormy and danger- 
 ous sea, seldom traversed by ships, separated him from 
 all the objects of his affections — from his friends and 
 kinsfolk according to the flesh, and from his brethren 
 in Christ. He lived for years in this island, the lonely, 
 weary, heart-sick life of an exile. A touching tradi- 
 tion pictures the aged apostle going day after day to 
 an elevated spot on the ocean-rock, to which, Pro- 
 metheus-like, he was chained, and casting a longing 
 look over the wide waste of waters — with his face, like 
 that of the captive Daniel in Babylon, stedfastly fixed 
 towards Jerusalem ; as if by thus gazing with all his 
 soul in his eyes on the open sea he could bring nearer 
 to his heart, if not to his sight, the beloved land and 
 the cherished friends for whom he pined. For weeks 
 and months nothing diversified the lonely surface of 
 the ocean, save the white form of some chance sea- 
 bird, whose wings he wished to borrow that he might 
 flee away and be at rest. The sea-breeze breathed of 
 freedom as it sighed past him ; the waves that broke 
 
XV.] " NO MORE SEA." 301 
 
 in white foam at his feet murmured of happier shores. 
 He felt himself like a wrecked and stranded ship cast 
 useless on the "wharf of Lethe," while other vessels 
 were nobly breasting the billows, and bearing far and 
 wide the glad tidings of salvation. The cause of his 
 beloved Master needed the aid of every faithful arm 
 and heart, but he could do nothing. Oh ! a feeling of 
 despondency must have often seized him when he 
 thought of all from which the cruel sea divided him. 
 And when the panorama of celestial scenery was 
 spread out before his prophetic eye, to compensate 
 him for the trials of banishment — visions of heaven, 
 like but more glorious far than the aerial landscapes 
 of sunset on the ^gean — with what joy, methinks, 
 must he have seen that from horizon to horizon there 
 was no sea there — nothing to separate — nothing to 
 prevent the union and communion of those whom the 
 grace of Christ had made free, and his power had 
 transferred to that " large place." 
 
 " And there was no more sea." Do not these words 
 come home to our own hearts with peculiar depth and 
 tenderness of meaning } For what family is there so 
 favoured that all its beloved ones are safely folded 
 under one roof-tree ? what home is there whose circle 
 of happy faces is complete, from which no wanderer 
 has gone forth to the ends of the earth ^ Alas for 
 that strange migratory instinct which robs the human 
 nest of its bravest when scarcely fledged ! Alas for 
 the river of human life so often overflowing its banks, 
 and compelled to search for fresh fields and pastures 
 new ! The homes and the graves of those who once 
 " prayed around the same fond mother's knee " are 
 
302 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 now severed far and wide by ocean's stormy waves. 
 At this moment there are hearts on the lonely deep 
 that have well-nigh broken in the desperate wrench 
 of parting from their native land ; there are eyes that 
 gaze through bitter burning tears on the purple hills 
 of childhood, as they grow dim and cloudlike on the 
 lessening horizon. We think of our friends in distant 
 countries almost as if they lived in another world, 
 and had no longer any part or lot in the common 
 everyday world in which we dwell. We hear from 
 them and of them at long intervals, but we scarcely 
 expect ever to see them again ; and however anxious 
 they may be to revisit the scenes of their childhood, 
 though they may have many a pang of home-sickness, 
 and cast many a yearning look across the blue waters, 
 still circumstances prevent their return ; new ties, new 
 interests, new associations spring up to chain them to 
 their adopted land, and to separate them from us for 
 ever. And how often in the solemn eventide, when 
 memories of the past come back with thrilling power 
 ■ — how often in gay and festive anniversaries like 
 these, when most we miss our absent and distant 
 friends, and imagination strives in vain to picture the 
 strange scenes amid which their lot is cast, and a 
 longing, all the stronger that it cannot be gratified, to 
 see the old familiar faces, and to hear the dear voices 
 we remember so well, takes complete possession of us 
 — oh ! in such hours as these, how do we yearn with 
 our whole souls for the place where there shall be no 
 more sea to divide the loving and the loved, and to 
 make life one long dreary exile. Heaven is the land 
 of eternal reunion. Thrice blessed thought ! The 
 
XV.] " NO MORE sea:' 303 
 
 friends who bade reluctant farewell to each other on 
 earth, and dwelt apart with wide seas rolling between, 
 shall meet on the eternal shore to separate no more 
 for ever. Those whom we shall never see again in 
 this world of partings and tears shall be restored to 
 our bosom in that land where the home-circle shall 
 never be broken, and the inhabitants shall go no more 
 out ; and where " the glorious Lord will be unto us a 
 place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go 
 no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass 
 thereby." And next to the bliss of enjoying our 
 Saviour's glory eye to eye and face to face, with no 
 sin coming between, this reunion of friends will be the 
 greatest happiness of the sealess heaven. 
 
 II. "And there was no more sea." These words 
 have still another significance. They imply that in 
 heaven there shall be no more change. The sea is 
 the great emblem of change. There is nothing in the 
 world more uncertain and unstable. It is one ele- 
 ment, but it is never monotonous. It is a unity, but 
 it is composed of a multiplicity of parts, and is sug- 
 gestive of ever-varying reflexions. You never weary 
 of gazing upon it, for it is never for two successive 
 hours the same. It is the facile slave of every fickle 
 wind, and every shifting cloud, and every sportive 
 sunbeam. It is the scene alternately of the softest 
 dalliance, and the fiercest rage of the elements. Now 
 it lies calm and motionless as an inland lake — without 
 a ripple on its bosom — blue as the sapphire sky above 
 • — golden with the reflexion of sunset clouds — silvery 
 with the pale mystical light of moon and stars ; and 
 
304 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 now it tosses its wild billows mountains high, and 
 riots in the fury of the storm. One day it steals softly 
 up the shore, kissing the shells and pebbles with a 
 gentle sigh as though they were gifts of love ; the 
 next it dashes its white crested waves, laden with 
 wrecks and corpses, against the iron rocks. Treach- 
 erous and deceitful it lures the mariner on by its 
 beauty, until completely in its power ; and then it 
 rises up suddenly in fury, and with an overflowing 
 flood carries him away. 
 
 And not only is it the emblem of change : it is 
 itself the cause, directly or indirectly, of nearly all 
 the physical changes that take place in the world. 
 Ascend the mountain summit, and there, amid the 
 crags where the eagle builds her eyrie, and the heather 
 grows in the blue immeasurable silence of heaven, you 
 tread the shores of a former sea, whose shells and 
 corals embedded in the rocks are still as perfect and 
 beautiful as when the last retiring wave rippled over 
 them. Descend into the stony chambers of the earth, 
 and there in the darkness of the quarry you will see 
 the petrified skeletons of fish that once swam in the 
 waters, and the sands that formed the shores of un- 
 known seas, and the undulating ripple-marks left 
 behind by the ebb and flow of long-forgotten tides. 
 We cannot name a single spot where the sea has not 
 some time or other been. Every rock that now con- 
 stitutes the firm foundation of the earth was once 
 dissolved in its waters, lay as mud at its bottom, or 
 as sand and gravel along its shore. The materials of 
 our houses were once deposited in its depths, and are 
 built on the floor of an ancient ocean. What are now 
 
XV.] "NO MORE SEA." 305 
 
 dry continents were once ocean-beds ; and what are 
 now sea-beds will be future continents. Everywhere 
 the sea is still at work — encroaching upon the shore 
 — undermining the boldest cliffs by its own direct 
 agency. And where it cannot reach itself, it sends 
 its emissaries to the heart of deserts, and the 
 summits of mountain ranges, and the innermost re- 
 cesses of continents — there to produce constant dila 
 pidation and change. Its own waters are confined 
 by the shore-line : but no voice hath ever said to its 
 fleet-footed winds and its viewless vapours, " Hitherto 
 shall ye come, and no further." They rise from their 
 ocean-bed, these messengers of the sea, and pursue 
 their flight along the sky until some lofty peak far in 
 the interior arrests them ; and they discharge their 
 watery burden into its bosom, forming the sources of 
 streams and glaciers, that carry on the work of change 
 where the roar of the sea itself is never heard. Where 
 do the clouds that cling to the mountain tops, and 
 sail in majestic processions of gloom, or in dissolving 
 glories of light along the sky, come from .-' Is it not 
 the sea .■* Where also the rivers and streams, that make 
 our homes musical with their murmurs, that animate 
 our scenery with their sparkle and motion, and attract 
 all that is fairest and loveliest of earth's productions 
 along their banks .-' Is it not the sea "> The dewdrop 
 that glistens in the eye of the daisy ; the green sap 
 that fills the delicate veins of the lily ; the soft spring 
 rain that fertilizes the earth, nourishing the seed in 
 the furrow, and the blossom on the tree ; the snow 
 that covers with its stainless shroud the dead things 
 of nature, — all, all come from the sea, the great source. 
 
 X 
 
306 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 in combination with the sun, of every force and move- 
 ment that the world displays. And what mighty 
 changes are all these complicated agencies, driven by 
 one motive power, constantly producing } They are 
 altering the features of our planet : wearing down 
 mountains in one place, filling up lakes and seas in 
 another, forming new lands here, and removing old 
 lands there. Well, then, may we speak of the sea as 
 the emblem and the cause of change. And viewed in 
 this light there is a striking appropriateness in there 
 being no more sea in the eternal world. Heaven is 
 the land of stability and permanence. Scripture in- 
 variably depicts it as such in striking and delightful 
 contrast with this changing sphere, upon all whose 
 persons and things is written the dreary doom, " pass- 
 ing away." This world was prepared expressly to be 
 not only man's habitation, but also his place of pro- 
 bation — his school of discipline ; and, therefore, all 
 its changes are necessary to educate the immortal 
 spirit for the glorious destiny that awaits it. But 
 once that education has been completed, and man 
 transferred to his final home, there will be no further 
 necessity for the constant shifting of scenes, and 
 changing of persons, and altering of circumstances, 
 amid which he spends his life on earth. The con- 
 ditions, the circumstances of existence in heaven will 
 be for ever fixed and unalterable. There will be pro- 
 gress, but not change ; growth, but not decay. The 
 saints in bliss will pass from glory to glory as here 
 they passed from grace to grace ; but they will bewail 
 no more the transitory character of their joys, and the 
 passing away of their possessions, and the changing 
 
XV.] '' NO MORE SEA." 307 
 
 moods of their friends, and the alteration of the scenes 
 around them. Their kingdom will never be moved ; 
 their crown of glory will never fade away ; their trea- 
 sure no moth will corrupt, nor thieves break through 
 and steal ; their friends will be united to them by ties 
 which nothing can break or disturb ; their pleasures 
 will be pleasures for evermore. There will be no ebb 
 and flow — no waxing and waning — no rising and set- 
 ting — no increasing and diminishing in the life of 
 heaven. There will be perfect fulness of rest in the 
 changeless land where there is no more sea. 
 
 III. The exif.tence of tlie sea implies the existence 
 of storms : the two ideas are inseparably connected in 
 our minds. And is not this life, even to the most 
 favoured individuals, a dark and rainy sea, with only 
 here and there a few sunlit isles of beauty and peace, 
 separated by long and troubled voyages } Time is 
 constantly tossing us aloout on its restless bosom ; and 
 even its smoothest waves are perpetually wrecking 
 something — either laying a fond hope low, or bearing 
 away some cherished form to the silent land, or 
 leaving the impress of disease upon our frames. To 
 many the wail of sorrow ebbs and flows over their 
 whole life like a wave that beats again and again on 
 the same part of the shore. 1 hey are driven up and 
 down, like Paul in Adria, under starless skies — 
 through unknown seas — by contrary winds — wishing 
 for the day — all the billows go over them one after 
 another — deep calling unto deep, and wave unto wave. 
 There are many outward storms that beat upon us in 
 this world, — storms of adversity arising from personal, 
 
 X 2 
 
308 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 domestic, or business causes ; as soon as one blows 
 past, another is ready to assail us. And there are 
 inward storms, — storms of religious doubt, of con- 
 science, of temptation, and, worse than any of these, 
 the raging of our own corrupt affections and unsub- 
 dued desires. Between these two seas many of us 
 are scarcely ever allowed to know what a calm means. 
 But amid all these storms we are strengthened and 
 consoled by the assurance that they are necessary, 
 and are appointed to work together for good. They 
 purify the atmosphere of the soul ; they dispel the 
 mists of sin and unbelief, and let in bright sun 
 glimpses of divine love and light ; they loosen our 
 hold of earthly things, and our attachment to earthly 
 friends and earthly spots ; they arouse us from our 
 sloth and stagnation, and keep us in the vigour and 
 freshness of spiritual activity. Yet still we long for 
 their cessation, and look forward with joyful hope to 
 the region of everlasting peace. In heaven there will 
 be no stormy winds or raging waters. Its sky will be 
 without a cloud, for sin and all its shadows of evil 
 will vanish for ever. The last billow of earth will die 
 away in faint far-off music on its shores. Through 
 the shoals and the breakers, and the sunken rocks of 
 those perilous worldly seas, the Christian voyagers, 
 some on boards and some on broken pieces of the 
 ship, will escape all safe to land — and there shall be 
 no more sea. 
 
 "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it." 
 These are the most precious jewels which it hides in 
 its depths. Every swell of the heaving storm shapes 
 a grave — a churchyard hillock on the surface of the 
 
xv.J "NO MORE sea:' 309 
 
 sea ; and could we still the waves and descend into 
 the deep, there might we see far down, pillowed on 
 the silvery sands, rows of sleepers who perished in the 
 storm, or, in the shock of battle, or dying of wasting 
 sickness far from land, were lashed to the rude plank 
 and heaved overboard when all was calm and fair. 
 There might we see loved forms for whom many a 
 fond heart has yearned for years with the hope that 
 keeps alive despair. There are no flowers to deck 
 their bier, no friends to come to their resting-places to 
 awaken sad memory, and open the fount of tears 
 afresh. The ocean alone decks their grave with gifts 
 of pearl and shell, and wreathes their brows with sea- 
 weeds rare. The ocean alone sheds the salt tear over 
 them, and murmurs their ceaseless requiem. Oh ! 
 what a scene transcending the power of human imagi- 
 nation will that be when the mighty sepulchre shall 
 be opened, and its waters shall vanish away and the 
 remains of the long lost, that it jealously kept in its 
 coral caves, shall be exposed to view ; where is that 
 vast valley — no more of vision, but of blessed reality 
 — there shall be a noise and a shaking among the 
 bones ; and they shall come together, and the sinews 
 and the flesh shall come upon them, and the breath of 
 immortal life shall animate them, and they shall stand 
 upon their feet an exceeding great army, and " there 
 shall be no more sea ! " 
 
 But while the stormy sea, that divides us here and 
 changes our scenes and circumstances, will vanish for 
 ever, there will be another sea in heaven — emblem of 
 the new condition of things, " I saw," says St. John, 
 " as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire ; and them 
 
310 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over 
 his image, and over the number of his name, stand on 
 the sea of glass having the harps of God." And what 
 a beautiful and expressive type is this of the blessed- 
 ness of heaven ! It is " a sea," emblem of the ful- 
 ness of peace, stretching away into the illimitable 
 distance — a boundless, shoreless ocean, filling all 
 eternity. It is " a sea of glass," type of the purity and 
 fixedness of that peace — no sin staining its clear trans- 
 parency, no billow breaking over it, no storm chafing 
 it into foam. It is "a sea of glass mingled with fire," 
 emblem of the glory of heaven reflected in its depths, 
 the burning splendours of the throne, the dazzling 
 lustre of the jaspers, topazes, and rubies of the New 
 Jerusalem. On that opalescent pavement, all who 
 pass triumphantly through the dark waters of Jordan 
 shall plant their weary feet, and shall stand for ever 
 fixed and secure in the everlasting love of their 
 Redeemer. 
 
 We are naturally and justly sad when we think of 
 this world as a place of change ; but there is a point 
 of view from which it appears a matter of thankful- 
 ness and rejoicing that it is so. It is a place of trial 
 and probation, in which the condition of no one is 
 fixed, but a boundless possibility of change for the 
 better is open to every one. For each — for all — 
 there is hope and room for becoming something better, 
 holier, and happier than we are. To the sinner there 
 is a way of escape from wrath — an offer of salvation 
 through Christ. To the Christian there is need for 
 greater growth in grace and meetness for heaven. 
 Soon this time of change will cease to all of us ; soon 
 
XV.] " NO MORE sea:' 311 
 
 this world of change will vanish from our view. Death 
 will soon come to close the chapter of our life with 
 these mournful words, " Arise, let us go hence," and to 
 seal our state and condition for ever. An eternal, 
 unchangeable world awaits us, over whose awful 
 portals is written these words, " He that is unjust, let 
 him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, let him be 
 filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be righ- 
 teous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy still," 
 "And there was no more sea." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY, OR RETROGRESSION' AN 
 ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF PROGRESS. 
 
 " One ge7teraiion passeth away, and another generatio7t comdh : the stin 
 also ariseth, and the sun gocth down, and hasteth to his place where 
 he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and tnrneth about unto 
 the north; it wkirleth about continually, and the wind returneth 
 again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea ; yet 
 the sea is not full ; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither 
 they return again. . . The thing that hath been, it is that which shall 
 be ; and that which is done is that which shall be done : and there is 
 no new thing under the sun." — EccLESiASTES L 4 — 10. 
 
 It is universally acknowledged that the circle is 
 the archetype of all forms, physically as well as 
 mathematically. It is the most complete figure, the 
 most stable under violence, the most economical of 
 material ; its proportions are the most perfect and 
 harmonious ; and therefore it admits of the utmost 
 variety consistent with unity of effect. The universe 
 has apparently been framed according to this type. 
 Nature attains her ends, not in a series of straight 
 lines, but in a series of circles ; not in the most direct, 
 but in the most roundabout way. All her objects, 
 organic and inorganic, have a tendency to assume 
 the circular form, and in the attainment of this form 
 
CHAP, xvi] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 313 
 
 consists their highest perfection. The lowly lichen 
 on the wall spreads itself out in a circle ; the mush- 
 room in the meadow, with its round cap and stem, 
 grows in fairy rings ; the moss-tuft on the tree — the 
 clump of fern in the shady bank — the plot of wild- 
 flowers in the wood — the trees in the forest, alike in 
 their individual and social state, exhibit this form in 
 endless and graceful diversity. The cell, which is 
 the ultimate germ of all life, is round, and every 
 increase which it makes by growth or reproduction, 
 preserves the same shape. The leaf, with all its 
 varied modifications in the different parts of the plant 
 — the stem, the flower, the fruit, the seed — are all 
 more or less circular. So also are the different parts 
 and organs of animals, from the simple primary cell 
 of the animalcule, barely visible under the micro- 
 scope, up through increasingly complex structures, 
 to the highly organized and wonderfully-formed head 
 of man — the apex of creation ; and though dead, 
 inert minerals may seem to offer an exception to 
 this law, crystallizing, or, in other words, attaining 
 the highest perfection of which they are capable, not 
 in circles but in straight lines, yet, when exposed to 
 the influence of natural agencies, they speedily assume 
 the circular form. Angular masses of rock from the 
 quarry, when disintegrated by the weather, or rolled 
 about in water, become smooth and rounded ; the 
 granite and the diamond become plastic under the 
 silent touch of the sunbeam and the breeze, and are 
 moulded into curves and spheres. Nay, may we not 
 regard the truncatures of their angles, and the bevel- 
 mcnt of their edges — by which crystals are distin- 
 
3i4 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 guished — as attempts to approximate as closely to 
 the spherical shape as circumstances will permit ? 
 The various forces of nature, and the properties of 
 the matter upon which they act, are so arranged and 
 balanced, that they invariably bring out curved lines 
 in the surface of the earth. The winds and the waters 
 produce undulating surfaces wherever they operate. 
 The sea and the lake flow in curving waves and 
 ripples to the shore ; the rivers and streams meander 
 in silvery links through the landscape ; the clouds 
 float in ever-varying curves of magical loveliness 
 along the sky ; the very winds — emblems of fickle- 
 ness and change — obey fixed laws, and blow over 
 the earth in cyclones and rotatory currents. In short, 
 look where we may, we see the surface of the earth 
 and its objects curving in every possible direction : 
 from the rounded form of the highest mountain 
 peak, to the little pebble at the bottom of the 
 stream over which the dimpled waters eddy and 
 ripple in ceaseless music, — from the snow-drift that 
 hangs in sweeping festoons far up the Alps, or the 
 cloud that lies cradled near the setting sun, to the 
 dewdrop that clings to the freckled ear of the 
 cowslip — everywhere we discern the operation of the 
 same striking law ; and most, if not all, of the beauty 
 of Nature, and the plfeasing effect which she produces 
 upon our minds, may be attributed to this cause. 
 
 And as our eyes behold the effects of this law in 
 moulding the forms of nature, so our minds furnish 
 us with evidence of its influence in the plan according 
 to which the different parts of creation have been 
 constructed. In the scale of being, the order of deve- 
 
XVI . ] THE LA J V OF CIRCULA RITY. 315 
 
 lopment is not represented by a linear series. Classes 
 and orders do not pass into each other by transmu- 
 tation — the lower into the higher — the simple into the 
 more complex — in a uniformly straight line, without 
 bend or obliquity, as the advocates of the develop- 
 ment theory assert. On the contrary, we find that 
 they approach each other in the lowest members of 
 each, and diverge as they ascend. Thus, it is in 
 diatoms and confervae — the very lowest orders of 
 plants, and not in flowers or trees, the highest — that 
 the vegetable kingdom makes an approximation to 
 the animal ; as we ascend the scale of being, these 
 two kingdoms become more and more widely sepa- 
 rated from each other, until at last in the highest 
 representatives of each we behold those vast differ- 
 ences which distinguish a man or an elephant from 
 a palm or an oak-tree. The common comparison of 
 organic nature to a chain admirably illustrates the 
 order of development. All the links are round and 
 complete, and yet are intimately connected each with 
 its neighbour by a tie formed out of its own sub- 
 stance. And so the various orders, families, and 
 genera of animals and plants, are each independent 
 of the others, but all of them have connecting 
 characters and typical resemblances, which are 
 necessary to fill up the plan of the Creator, so that 
 there may be no deficiency nor incompleteness, but 
 an endlessly varied and perfect whole. A chain is 
 a straight line, but it is composed of a number of 
 round links ; so there is a continuous advancement in 
 the order of being, but it is by a series of circles. We 
 find the same plan adopted in the order of time in 
 
316 Bini.E TEA CHINGS IN NA TURK. [cha p. 
 
 which species have been introduced into the world. 
 There is no gradual lineal scale of being, from the 
 lowest to the highest organisms, discoverable in the 
 rocks of the geologist. We do not find, as has been 
 asserted by the author of the " Vestiges of Creation," 
 that the lowest strata contain only the rudiments of 
 life — which life improves and develops as we ascend 
 — until in the most recent strata we behold fossils of 
 the highest and most complex structure. Whenever 
 a new order of creation was introduced by Divine 
 interposition, it did not originate from the highest 
 state of the order immediately beneath by a physical 
 or genetic power, nor did this new order of existence 
 carry on a process of development until sufficiently 
 advanced to constitute a still higher order; on the con- 
 trary, geological testimony is everywhere conclusive 
 of the fact, that some of the higher forms of life have 
 been among the first introduced, and that these, during 
 the cycle of existence allotted to them, degenerated 
 in size and number, or became differentiated into new 
 orders and species, until the Creator took a step 
 in advance by bringing another race upon the 
 scene. The Divine power successively introduced 
 higher and yet higher classes, and each, by the law 
 of development, continued to difierentiate itself, to 
 pass from simplicity to complexity, from unity through 
 diversity to a higher unity. Thus, while there has 
 been a great advance in creation as a system, there 
 appears to have been no advance in any particular 
 order ; while the great law which has governed the 
 introduction of successive animal and vegetable 
 species, is that of gradual progressive development 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 317 
 
 of the animal and vegetable kingdom as an organx 
 whole, the Divi'ne Classifier, in the elaboration and 
 unfolding of His great work of art, has followed the 
 principle of the morphologist, and not the dogma 
 of the Lamarckian or the pantheist. 
 
 The same law of circularity may be observ^ed in 
 the alternations of day and night, and in the vicissi- 
 tudes of the seasons. Each bright blue day of sun- 
 shine, with all its work and enjoyment, is folded and 
 shrouded up in its grave of darkness. N?!ght comes, 
 as it were, to undo the work of the day — to reverse 
 the processes and functions of life — to restore the 
 molecules of matter which the sunlight had kept in 
 incessant motion and change to their previous con- 
 dition, and by this recoil and rest to qualify for greater 
 exertions and further advancement on the morrow ; 
 and thus, with alternations of darkness and light, the 
 year progresses to its close. Spring clothes the earth 
 with verdure ; summer develops this verdure into its 
 highest beauty and luxuriance, and autumn crowns it 
 with ripeness and fruitfulness ; but winter comes with 
 its storms and frosts to mar and destroy the fair fabric 
 which it had taken so many months to perfect. The 
 web of Penelope, with its rich texture of silken green- 
 ness, and its beautiful embroidery of fruits and flowers, 
 is unravelled in a single day. And yet this apparently 
 wanton destruction, this retrograde movement, tends 
 more to advance the progress of nature than if summer 
 were perpetual. The exhausted soil is permitted to 
 rest, in order that it may acquire new elements for 
 increased production, and the forces of vitality are 
 suspended that they may burst forth again with more 
 
318 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 exuberant energy. Flowers die down to their roots, 
 yet it is no grave into which they have retired, but 
 the hiding-place of power, from whence they shall 
 start into greater beauty and luxuriance when stimu- 
 lated by the showers and the sunbeams of spring 
 The winter that strips the foliage from the tree forms 
 another ring of bark and wood around its stem, and 
 adds new growths of consolidated fibre to its extre- 
 mities ; and thus, by a serie- of forward and backward 
 movements, by a circuitous route of many summers 
 followed by many winters, the earth becomes more 
 and more clothed with verdure, and the fabric of 
 nature reaches a higher and yet higher stage of beauty 
 and perfection. Life is a ceaseless vortex, a perpetual 
 whirlpool, from the beginning to the ending, and from 
 the ending to the beginning. Every death is a new 
 birth, every grave a cradle. In the history of the 
 plant, we find that it springs from a seed, grows in 
 a regular cycle of leaves, culminates in flowers, and 
 at last its exhausted vitality again retires into the 
 seed. In the history of the animal, we find its origin 
 in an ovum, from whence it grows, and carries on a 
 deeply interesting and instructive series of life move- 
 ments, until, after the lapse of a certain time, its 
 mature powers reproduce the species, and exhaust 
 themselves in the ovum. In the history of the organic 
 and inorganic world combined, we find that matter 
 circulates unceasingly from object to object, and from 
 form to form, each thing being compelled at last to 
 pay back the debt due to nature, and to yield to the 
 earth and air those borrowed elements out of which 
 it originated. " The sun also ariseth, and the sun 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 319 
 
 goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. 
 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about 
 unto the north ; it whirleth about continually, and the 
 wind returneth again according to his circuits. All 
 the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; 
 unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither 
 they return again." And as the night rounds the 
 labours of the day, — as winter rounds the vicissitudes 
 of the year, — as life is rounded by the sleep of death, 
 — as every inequality of the landscape is rounded by 
 the horizon, — so the curve of the globe includes all 
 circular forms, changes, and systems, within one vast 
 and uniform sphericity. 
 
 Ascending beyond our earth, to the regions of the 
 astronomer, we find the same law in operation there 
 also. We know nothing of the forms and attributes 
 of extra-terrestrial existence ; but we know at least 
 that all the heavenly bodies are more or less cir- 
 cular, and move in more or less circular orbits. 
 The sun, the moon, the planets have this shape : 
 and we know that our earth revolves on its own 
 axis, and moves round the sun ; that the solar 
 system advances in space, not in a straight line, but 
 in a series of mighty revolutions round a central sun ; 
 and that this central sun in its turn — with all its 
 systems interweaving their respective orbits, speeding 
 their courses about one another, and conducting in 
 their several trains hundreds of worlds — circles round 
 the centre of ten thousand centres. The causes which 
 tend to destroy the stability of the solar system are 
 infinitely small, but by accumulating in tlie course of 
 ages, they become exceedingly important, and must 
 
320 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 change the present system of things, unless corrected 
 by some well-adjusted counterbalancing arrange- 
 ments. The precession, or the retrograde motion of 
 the equinoctial points, has probably been the cause of 
 those climatic changes upon our earth, indicated by 
 its geological records. The equinox performs an entire 
 revolution once in about twenty-six thousand years ; 
 and it is interesting to notice, that the period fixed 
 by Moses for the creation of man and the present 
 arrangement of the earth's surface, is found by astro- 
 nomers to coincide with the initial position of the 
 equinox, when the earth's seasons were of equal 
 length, and it was just starting on a cycle which it 
 would take so many thousand of years to complete. 
 The sum of the hours of night or cold, preponderating 
 over the sum of the hours of day or heat, or vice 
 versa, in either hemisphere, accumulating in the course 
 of several thousand years, have caused the succession 
 of general cataclysms, separated from each other by 
 long intervals of time, by which the earth has been 
 ravaged. The alternate elevation and depression of 
 the earth's crust ; the alternate victory of fire and 
 water, volcano and sea ; the ebb and flow of tides, 
 not merely those minor regular oscillations of the 
 ocean which occur in March and September, and 
 alternately flood and leave bare narrow but far- 
 spreading strips of shore, but also those grand secular 
 tides which have punctually recurred every ten thou- 
 sand years, when it was high water over one whole 
 hemisphere and low water throughout another, accom- 
 panied by awful and unimaginable devastation — are 
 the effects of the retrograde movements of the solar 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 321 
 
 system. Nay, gazing on the nebulae themselves, many 
 of which are firmaments of stars, placed at immea- 
 surable distances beyond each other, galaxy rising 
 above galaxy, and melting away in infinite space, 
 their spiral and circular shapes irresistibly suggest 
 the idea of vast vortices in which streams and tides 
 of stars are whirling on to some glorious, undreamt 
 of result. There is nothing fixed or final in the 
 heavens ; all things are passing through cycles of 
 decay or revivification, and these alternations hasten 
 on the final consummation of all things. 
 
 Passing from the physical world to the domain of 
 man, we find there also innumerable traces of the law 
 of circularity. " One generation passeth away, and 
 ^mother generation cometh." Human life is like the 
 wheel which Ezekiel saw in vision. Its aspects and 
 relations, external and internal, are continually chang- 
 ing ; one spoke of the wheel is always ascending 
 while another is descending ; one part is grating on 
 the ground while another is aloft in the air. The 
 circulation of blood in the veins, the circulation of 
 matter in the body, the circulation of impressions in 
 the nerves and impulses in the muscles, are all helps 
 and means of physical growth ; while the vicissitudes 
 of circumstances, the opposite conditions of prosperity 
 and adversity, health and sickness, joy and sorrow, 
 tend to develop the mental and moral character. 
 Action and reaction is the law of man's life. A 
 season of misfortune is usually followed by a season 
 of success ; and when circumstances are most pros- 
 perous, a time of reverses is not far off. It is in 
 accordance with the principle of circularity that we 
 
 Y 
 
322 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 naturally expect, that when things are at the worst 
 they will mend ; and it is this principle which affords 
 scope and exercise for the blessings of anticipation 
 and hope. 
 
 Nowhere, either in science or in morals, has a 
 straight line ever been drawn. There is no distinct, 
 definite line of demarcation between pain and plea- 
 sure, between joy and sorrow, between relative evil 
 and good. " Thus far and no further," is said to all 
 moral operative causes, as well as to the waters of the 
 ocean ; but the line along the coast is not uniformly 
 straight and unbending ; on the contrary, it winds 
 in and out, in gulfs and promontories, in capes and 
 bays, in the most charming and picturesque irregu- 
 larity. Regarding man from a physical point of view, 
 if, says a thoughtful writer, we only observe the daily 
 cycle of his body, wc might rationally assert the 
 stability of the human system, for at the end of every 
 twenty-four hours it comes back to the same point 
 from which it started ; at least, the variation is very 
 inconsiderable ; and yet it is the accumulation of this 
 same infinitely small variation which constitutes the 
 growth of the body. Regarding him from a mental 
 point of view, the same writer has remarked that, as 
 the human mind grows and develops, the opinions 
 and motives which determine the conduct of life con- 
 tinue to be modified and moulded, until about the 
 average age of forty, when the character becomes un- 
 changeable, opinions become prejudices, and the whole 
 mind is, as it were, petrified. Further progress would 
 be impossible were it not that another generation with 
 minds young and plastic comes forward, carries on 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 323 
 
 the work a few steps, and becomes petrified in its turn. 
 It is a fact of the deepest significance in the philo- 
 sophy of human progress, that no great step can be 
 taken in the intellectual or moral advancement of our 
 race except by the sacrifice of at least one generation. 
 There is not a single great truth that has influenced 
 mankind but has passed through a process of con- 
 tempt and injustice before it was established upon a 
 firm and lasting foundation of popular favour ; the 
 invention or discovery that one generation despised 
 is turned to profitable account by the next ; the 
 scientific creed that is persecuted in one age forms 
 an undoubted and essential part of the faith of the 
 succeeding age. 
 
 The general progress of the human race has been 
 marked by strange fluctuations. It has not advanced 
 steadily in one direction, reaching its present stage of 
 advancement by the shortest and straightest paths. 
 There are no more interesting and suggestive pages 
 in history than those which record the rise and decline 
 of great empires and states. Civilisation after civili- 
 sation advances from the dim horizon, reaches the 
 zenith of its prosperity, blazes for a while with un- 
 exampled splendour, then sets in darkest midnight. 
 The majestic procession has moved on from one 
 region and one age to another from the earliest 
 dawn of history, but its march has been over the 
 grave of nations. First appeared on the scene the 
 grand old monarchies of Assyria, Nineveh, and 
 Babylon ; but their haughty magnificence speedily 
 passed away, leaving behind only shadowy names 
 and a few heaps of uncertain ruins, over which the 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 unconscious Arab has pitched his tent for ages. Next 
 arose Egypt, that lotus-land of magic and mystery, 
 whose architects built as if for eternity ; but its glory 
 and power likewise speedily culminated and disap- 
 peared. Typhon conquered Isis ; the lyre of Memnon 
 was hushed and broken ; the Sphinx became the 
 solution of her own enigma ; and the whole land, with 
 its colossal ruins and effete civilisation, has lain for 
 ages in the sun an embalmed corpse, an unburied 
 skeleton, blanched by time, and yet beautiful in its 
 dismemberment and decay. Greece, with its light- 
 ning-like genius, interpreting and etherialising every 
 science, art, and philosophy, became for a time the 
 cynosure of the nations, and filled the whole horizon 
 of history with its dazzling radiance. But in the course 
 of a few ages, characterised in the end by anarchy 
 and corruption, it too vanished from view, yielding 
 the foremost place in the van of nations to imperial 
 Rome, whose iron sway extended from sea to sea, and 
 from the river even unto the ends of the earth ; until, 
 crumbling beneath the weight of its own vastness and 
 power, it became in its turn an easy prey to the savage 
 hordes from the wild hills of the north. All these 
 successive civilisations — like the successive animals 
 and plants which appeared upon our earth in different 
 geological epochs — had a definite course to run : an 
 origin, an increase, a point of culmination, a decline, 
 and an extinction. Within this course there occurred, 
 under the influence of extraordinary circumstances, 
 cycles of temporary increase and diminution, until 
 finally the entire machine -of the nationality ran down. 
 From the very first, one important branch of the 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 325 
 
 human family was stamped with the mark of degra- 
 dation — while another — the race of Shem — was privi- 
 leged to be the first partaker of the blessing, and to 
 be the originator of the world's civilisation ; yet the 
 nations of this stock were destined to displacement, 
 for " Japhet shall be enlarged, and shall dwell in the 
 tents of Shem." The prophecy of Noah has been 
 remarka'jl}'- fulfilled within the comparatively narrow 
 area of that region which stretches from beyond 
 Jordan to the shorus of the Levant. For eight hun- 
 dred years — so we are informed by the sacred records 
 — the sons of Ham, through Canaan, increased and 
 multiplied in this favourable region : founded mighty 
 cities, accumulated great wealth, and subdivided their 
 inheritance among different tribes and kingdoms of a 
 common descent. At length, however, the descend- 
 ants of Shem, through Eber, accomplished their 
 destiny. The promised land became their possession, 
 the remnant of the degraded Canaanites their bond- 
 servants. For eleven hundred years it became the 
 theatre on which was displayed the triumphs of 
 David, the glories of Solomon, the vicissitudes of the 
 divided nationalities of Judah and Israel, and the 
 sublimest of all events, the incarnation of the Son of 
 God, and the consequent redemption of the world. 
 Then came another displacement : the Hebrew race 
 was driven forth from the land, and for eighteen hun- 
 dred years it was alternately occupied and lost by 
 Roman and Saracen, by Turk and Arab, until now it 
 has become once more the heritage of the Canaanite, 
 as an appanage of the Ottoman empire. Thus, as 
 Professor D. Wilson has well remarked, the sceptre of 
 
326 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap- 
 
 that little realm has passed from nation to nation, 
 through the historical representatives of all the great 
 primary subdivisions of the human family ; and a 
 record of its ethnological changes would constitute an 
 epitome of the natural history of man. Although at 
 present bound by the visible restrictions of providence, 
 forbidden to spread forth its riches, ruled by strangers, 
 under whose helpless fanatical sway everything 
 withers,, inhabited by an alien race, of all others 
 most indifiterent to its holiest memories, and dese 
 crated by an idolatrous worship, numerous prophecies . 
 plainly intimate that it is " waiting solemnly, with the 
 life pent up in its bosom, till the call of God shall 
 wake it into more than the luxuriance of old," and 
 till the wandering Hebrew nation, the great pilgrim 
 of centuries, shall return from all lands and places 
 purified by trial, to take an enduring and enlightened 
 possession of it. 
 
 Casting our eyes abroad over the world at the 
 present moment, we find unmistakable evidences of 
 this process of displacement and extinction accom- 
 panying the progress of the human race. The colonist 
 of the new world only advances by the retrogression 
 of the red man ; and in Australia, in South Africa, 
 wherever the ofif-shoots of our civilisation have suc- 
 ceeded in rooting themselves, the aboriginal races, 
 incapable of absorption or amalgamation with the 
 superior race, are perishing rapidly and hopelessly 
 amid their primitive barbarism. This inevitable law 
 of retrogression would seem to suggest the humbling 
 lesson, that a time will come when even the Anglo- 
 Saxon civilisation, whose star is at present in tlie 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 327 
 
 ascendant, whose power is at present a conquering 
 power, and gives no indications of decay shall be 
 numbered among the things that were, and a grander 
 and nobler development take its place in new regions 
 and under more favourable heavens — perhaps in lands 
 now sunk in the depths of heathenism and barbarism. 
 It is not beyond the bounds of probability that the 
 " Briton of the south " may yet supplant the Briton 
 of the north, and that Macaulay's New Zealander 
 will actually stand and moralise amid the ruins of 
 London on the vanity of human greatness. The far- 
 east was the land of science and philosophy when 
 Europe was inhabited by savages ; and under the 
 influence of a Christian faith she may regain her 
 ancient supremacy, and "the fires of genius burn 
 again with purer splendour on the very spot where 
 first they were kindled." For instead of a light 
 shining more and more into the perfect day, every- 
 where light rises out of darkness, descends to darkness, 
 and breaks out of darkness again : " the morning 
 cometh as well as the night." 
 
 Such facts as these show us how hopeless is the 
 boasted gospel of natural progress ; how vain it is to 
 expect that humanity can develop itself by its own 
 unaided powers ; that any race or country is capable 
 of carrying on the process of improvement unin- 
 terruptedly and continuously, by the simple mother- 
 hood of nature. Man is, indeed, naturally progressive 
 to the fullest extent of his capacities ; and whatever 
 he is capable of becoming, the aspirations of his soul 
 are in themselves proofs and pledges, that he will 
 ultimately become. In the progress and revolutions 
 
328 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 of time he has steadily advanced to a nobler dignity. 
 Each civilisation that appeared on the stage of history 
 borrowed from its predecessor materials for a higher 
 range of advancement. The Roman civilisation was 
 a propagation of the Greek, and the Greek of the 
 Egyptian and the Hebrew. But this progressive 
 elevation was not attained by a natural process of 
 development, carried on in a uniform, undeviating, 
 straight line. On the contrary, wherever humanity 
 was left to its own unaided powers, unassisted by 
 supernatural means and influences, it has everywhere 
 in the end degenerated and declined, however long 
 and glorious may have been its heroic age. And 
 analogy would lead us to conclude, that as it has been 
 in the past, so it may be in the future, that again 
 and again may be exhibited the solemn spectacle of 
 civilisations "advancing in charmed circles," races 
 passing from hardihood to courage, from courage to 
 conquest, from conquest to power, from power to 
 wealth, from wealth to luxury and effeminacy, and 
 from thence to the last stages in the melancholy 
 drama — corruption, decline, and extinction. Again 
 and again may be seen the same sad sight presented 
 by the ancient monarchies of Assyria, Egypt, Greece, 
 and Rome, of nations passing into barbarism by " the 
 strange and unexpected path of a civilisation that 
 had not only spent its own force, but had exhausted 
 the race upon which it operated." " There is a good 
 time coming" is a pleasant and consoling refrain, 
 taken up by all the weary and the restless, and 
 accepted by the general human heart, under the 
 pressure of privation, hardship, or sorrow, with all the 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 329 
 
 ardour and earnestness of faith. But that palingenesis 
 of the earth, come when it may, will not be brought 
 about by the law of an infallible development, by a 
 principle of growth and progress, inherent in humanity, 
 as a consequence of that system of improvement, and 
 those processes of education, upon which the world 
 seems to be placing its reliance. It will be ushered 
 in, as " the good time " ever has been ushered in, amid 
 tokens of universal degeneracy and decay, and by a 
 total overthrow of the existing condition of things. 
 Who can tell what convulsions will attend the death 
 agonies of old systems and the birth throes of the 
 new era } The phoenix of new institutions can only 
 arise out of the conflagration and ashes of the old. 
 The sad burden of Dumah will be heard once more. 
 The night must reach its darkest point before the 
 glad, rosy light of morning will break upon the 
 horizon. But in the midst of it all, of nothing can 
 we be more certain than of this, that it is not a blind 
 chance which presides over the revolutions of states, 
 the rise and fall of nations and civilisations, but an 
 all-wise and all-powerful Providence, interfering to 
 prevent at every stage in the history of the world, the 
 final deterioration of society, by the introduction of 
 successively higher civilisations ; and that there can 
 be no hope of real and lasting progress in right lines 
 apart from supernatural interference, and the regene- 
 rative and new creative power of that divine grace 
 which transcends mere natural conditions and causes. 
 Over the wheels of history, as over the wheels in 
 Ezekiel's sublime vision, is " the appearance of the 
 likeness of the glory of the Lord." 
 
330 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 History is given to repeating itself. The per- 
 sistency with which forms of faith and aspects of 
 society appear age after age, is truly marvellous. 
 Fashions of dress, schools of art and philosophy, 
 theories and speculations of science and theology, 
 seem to have the same kind of periodicity which 
 marks the phenomena of nature. As regularly as 
 the same primroses bloom on the woodland bank 
 spring after spring, and the same roses blush by the 
 wayside summer after summer, so regularly and uni- 
 formly do the same modes of thought, and the same 
 type of manners, appear and reappear. Phases of 
 human error and folly are found occurring again and . 
 again, after long intervals. Delusions and deceptions, 
 religious and social, are seen manifesting themselves 
 in the world, long after it had been fondly hoped that 
 they were dead and buried ; springing up again, like 
 noxious weeds, from some tap root deep down in 
 the core of the human heart, when circumstances 
 favourable for their development are present. Amid 
 all the enlightenment of Christianity, religious sects 
 and systems — such as Mormonism, start up with 
 mushroom-like rapidity from the corruptions of 
 society, and bring back to us once more the exploded 
 beliefs and depraved practices of the middle ages. 
 Amid all the triumphs of art and science, when 
 mutual commerce and friendly political relations seem 
 to have melted all the separate nationalities into one, 
 and peace, apparently the most profound, unfurls her 
 blue banner over prosperous and contented kingdoms,, 
 suddenly- — when least expected — by a strange and 
 almost inevitable fatality, war arises, to destroy the 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 331 
 
 general happiness and harmony, and to put back the 
 progress of civilisation and humanity whole centuries. 
 In every department of human affairs, such instances 
 are easy to find, proving the truth of the trite apho- 
 rism, that " there is nothing new under the sun ;" 
 that the moral world, as well as the physical, revolves 
 '.n a circle, and tlius necessarily often comes back to 
 the point from which it started. These examples of 
 retrogression appear melancholy and disheartening to 
 those who believe in the uninterrupted development 
 of mankind in straight lines ; but rightly considered, 
 they are far from being perplexing and unintelligible. 
 The law of circularity is also a law of conservation ; 
 and every instance of retrogression may be regarded 
 as a brake upon the wheels of the car of progress, 
 absolutely necessary for its safe and steady motion. 
 The Bible affords so many illustrations of this 
 doctrine, that it is somewhat difficult to make a 
 selection. Almost the first event in the spiritual 
 history of the human race, was an act of degradation, 
 a retrograde movement. " God created man upright, 
 but he has sought out many inventions." By an act 
 of disobedience, he fell from the condition of holiness 
 and happiness in which he was created, into an estate 
 of sin and misery ; and as the result of that single 
 backward step, the whole world has been subject to a 
 curse which falls upon soul and body, and extends 
 through time and eternity. And yet, by a wonderful 
 interposition of divine love, this retrograde step, which 
 '"ssu'jd in so much disaster, has raised man to a higher 
 position than he could have attained, even had he 
 continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not 
 
332 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 merely brought forward to the point from which he 
 retrograded : he is advanced greatly beyond it 
 Schiller boldly says, " the Fall was a giant stride in 
 the history of the human race."' " I am come," says 
 Christ, "that ye may have life, and that ye may have 
 it more abundantly." If He endured and suffered so 
 much to clear away the rubbish from the foundation, 
 the greatness of His atonement and the divinity of His 
 nature are clear and incontestable proofs that He will 
 build upon it a glorious superstructure. 
 
 The Deluge affords another illustration of the 
 law we are considering. Whatever opinions may 
 be entertained regarding the superficial extent 
 of the flood, all authorities are at least agreed 
 as to the fact, that it destroyed all the inhabitants 
 of the world, with the exception of Noah and 
 his family ; and although it may thus appear a 
 retrograde step, reducing the world to a desolate and 
 solitary condition, it was productive of incalculable 
 good. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. 
 Wickedness of every kind had attained such a uni- 
 versal power and virulence, that it was better to 
 sweep off at once a whole infected generation, leaving 
 the population to be replaced by the purer stock that 
 survived, than to allow the moral disease to per- 
 petuate itself indefinitely. Another retrograde move- 
 ment, of scarcely less importance, occurred very 
 speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, 
 and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their 
 separation into distinct nations and races, seems at 
 first sight an unaccountable procedure — hostile to the 
 best interests and wisest processes of civilisation 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 333 
 
 and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently 
 helpful in forwarding the progress of the human 
 race, by the formation of national feeling or patriotism, 
 and the full, harmonious development of the " many- 
 sidedness" of human nature. 
 
 Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, 
 we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the 
 path to the highest honours of Egypt ; and that 
 the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped 
 of everything, was more prosperous than the be- 
 ginning. When the children of Israel had reached 
 the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome 
 wanderings in the wilderness, and the enterprise 
 which had been attended with so much trouble 
 and hardship, and from which they had hoped 
 to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being 
 accomplished, the divine command was given them to 
 return to the very point in the wilderness from which 
 they started. The immediate cause of this igno- 
 minious failure and retreat, was no doubt their own 
 obstinacy and unbelief. It was designed, in the first 
 instance, as a punishment for their want of confidence 
 in God ; but as circumstances turned out, it became, 
 in the end, one of the greatest national blessings that 
 could have befallen them. A wise and benevolent 
 purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and 
 severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded 
 and explained. The children of Israel, as their 
 conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit 
 state to occupy the land, and carry out God's in- 
 tention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous 
 tribes by "a peculiai people, zealous of good works." 
 
334 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 The marks of Egyptian bondage were upon their 
 souls, as well as their necks. Four hundred years of 
 degradation and oppression had made them a servile 
 and cowardly race. They had gradually been passing 
 from the nomadic to the agricultural life, and had 
 contracted much of the impure religious ideas and 
 licentious manners of the Egyptians. They required, 
 therefore, to be brought back to the simple religion 
 of their fathers — a religion without images^ hiero- 
 glyphics, dogmas, or mysteries, to corrupt and fetter 
 the minds of the people— and to a form of govern- 
 ment calculated to preserve them in the purity of 
 their faith. They needed the discipline of the 
 wilderness — the courage, devotion, and ardour which 
 communion with nature, in her sternest and most 
 savage aspect, seems, by a secret law of assimilation, 
 to infuse into the soul. One generation must fall in 
 the wilderness, and a new one must arise, free from 
 the corrupt prejudices and practices of Egypt, inured 
 from earliest infancy to hardihood, and taught and 
 exercised in the practice of every virtue, under the 
 immediate superintendence of God Himself. Thus 
 the wave which seemed to carry them farther from 
 the shore, and to make shipwreck of their dearest 
 hopes, returned, and raised them to a higher and 
 securer place on the beach of national greatness and 
 goodness. 
 
 In the New Testament we also find several striking 
 examples of this law. The salvation of the world is 
 accomplished through treachery, false witness, and 
 a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the 
 disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 385 
 
 express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes 
 and pursuits in which they were engaged when first 
 called to follow Him. The same circumstances were 
 repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first 
 occasion. This retrogression seems to have been 
 wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for rein- 
 stating them in that office from which, by their 
 shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had 
 fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the 
 old life, to the beginning of their course, he not only 
 gave them a significant symbol of his willingness to 
 overlook and forget all that had occurred during the 
 interval, but also placed them in more favourable 
 circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission 
 as Christ's witnesses and apostles to the world. He 
 gave them a fresh start, as it were, a new opportunity, 
 untrammelled by former hindrances, to run their 
 course; while their sense of guilt, instead of exer- 
 cising a depressing influence, as it inevitably w^ould 
 do, if left amid the awful associations of Jerusalem, 
 would stimulate them away from the scene of its 
 commission — to greater efforts to redeem the past 
 The careful reader will observe a close similarity 
 between the closing chapters of Revelation and the 
 commencement of Genesis. The objects that dis- 
 appeared from view after the Fall are once more 
 ushered upon the scene ; paradise and the tree of life 
 are restored ; the ends of Scripture history long and 
 widely severed are united, and the glorious circle ol 
 revelation is complete. But though the curtain falls 
 upon circumstances somewhat similar to those upon 
 which it rose, a great advance has been made during 
 
336 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap- 
 
 the interval. The garden, emblem of the spontaneous 
 natural beauty and innocence of mankind before the 
 Fall, has been transformed into a city, type of the toil 
 and suffering through which that lost innocence has 
 been restored, and one solitary human pair has in- 
 creased to a multitude which no man can numbet. 
 So also in the first chapter of John's gospel, and in 
 the first chapter of Genesis, we have not only a 
 striking instance of Scripture parallelism, but are 
 presented, to use the words of a recent ingenious 
 writer on geology, " with the magnificent spectacle 
 of immense creations travelling in a cycle and re- 
 turning to the source of their being." God begins 
 the work of creation, and in the birth of the God- 
 man the work is finished. Moses informs us of the 
 origin of man, the highest physiological form of life ; 
 John informs us of the return of that life, in its 
 highest psychological form, to its origin and source. 
 The Old Testament tells us that life went forth from 
 the " Word ;" the New Testament tells us that life 
 terminates in that Word becoming flesh and " dwell- 
 ing among us." To mention only one more instance : 
 in the destruction of Jerusalem, the religion of Judaism 
 reached its consummation and close ; the burning 
 temple was the funeral pyre on which its last obse- 
 quies were performed. This awful revolution, com- 
 pared by our Saviour to the dissolution of all things 
 at the last day, was overruled to usher in a dispensa- 
 tion of gospel peace, and love — a blessed religion un- 
 trammelled by forms, unchained to place — free of all 
 the countries and nations of earth. From the very 
 ashes of Jerusalem sprung up the most powerful and 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 337 
 
 universal of all kingdoms, before whose spiritual 
 might the proud monuments of pagan superstition, 
 consecrated by the worship of a thousand years, and 
 supported by the authority of the greatest monarchies, 
 fell one after another ; and to whose benign influences 
 and lofty sanctions, the foremost nations of earth 
 trace their prosperity and civilization. Titus de- 
 stroyed the centre and seat of the Jewish religion ; 
 the Jewish religion in its turn " has overthrown the 
 temples and monuments raised to his father and him- 
 self in their imperial capital ; and the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, is now worshipped before 
 every altar in Rome." 
 
 The first and most prominent doctrine which 
 Christianity teaches, is the doctrine of retrogression as 
 an essential element of progress. " Repent, for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand," was its watchword 
 when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and 
 mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal 
 bud of living Christianity. As Vinet says, the passage 
 from knowledge to possession, from belief to life, our 
 Lord has strikingly represented by the figure, so 
 singular at first sight, of a return from mature age to 
 childhood. " Except ye be converted, and become 
 as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of 
 heaven." And the beautiful profound truth hidden 
 under this paradox is, that not only are the spirit of 
 childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent 
 with each other, but their union is essential to the 
 highest spiritual culture. The human soul never is so 
 great as when it humbles itself in childlike meekness 
 to be a learner at the feet of divine v/isdom ; and 1 
 
338 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 believe that man requires the aid of the Holy Spirit, 
 not to enlarge his intellect and extend his knowledge, 
 but merely to reduce him to the simplicity, the igno- 
 rance, the faith of childhood. There is but one path 
 to the acquisition of divine truth ; the ignorant, the 
 simple, the poor are ready to enter upon it, and the 
 Spirit has only to open the gate; but a previous 
 process is necessiry for those who pride themselves 
 upon their knowledge and reason. " If any man will 
 be wise, let him become a fool." They must return 
 and enter by the same gate of child-like humility and 
 trust, and learn at the feet of Jesus without question 
 or dispute. The true Christian is not one who has 
 expelled one theory or system of truth from his 
 mind to give place to another; he is essentially a 
 man humbled, degraded in his own esteem, brought 
 down from the lofty pedestal of his self-righteousness 
 to depend upon the righteousness of another, brought 
 back from the self-sufficiency of his own way, to lean 
 upon the mercy that is no respecter of persons, but 
 is equally bestowed upon all who seek it irrespective 
 of their character or station. His whole life is a re- 
 nunciation of self, becoming poor in spirit, humble in 
 mind, contrite in heart. It is an unlearning of all 
 nis own wisdom, a foregoing of all his own reason ; 
 and by this process of self-abnegation, this discipline 
 of going backwards, the Christian becomes spiritually 
 ennobled. 
 
 The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian 
 low, contribute in the end to raise him to a higher 
 condition of heavenly-mindedness. They may be 
 regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assist- 
 
XVI.] THE LA W OF CIRCULARITY. 339 
 
 ances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual 
 character may be more successfully displayed. And 
 just as the earthquake that fills a wide tract- 'of 
 country with ruins, and the storm that -strews our 
 coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or 
 destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather 
 which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the ma- 
 teiials of health and vigour to all animated nature, 
 so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden 
 chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not 
 suffering tJien glory, but suffering tJierefore glory. Our 
 light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and 
 eternal weight of glory. Nay, the Christian's very 
 backslidings work together for his spiritual and eternal 
 welfare, and the very causes of his fall will point to 
 an improved existence. Every failure will administer 
 to him a lesson of future circumspection and humility ; 
 and of his sins and shortcomings he will construct a 
 defence to his soul against future lapses, just as the 
 farmer builds a wall to protect his field of the very 
 stones which he had gathered out of it. In short, 
 from the moment the Christian enters the strait gate 
 to the end of his course, he advances by a spiritual 
 recoil, he gains by loss, he is made perfect through 
 suffering, he makes progress through retrogression. 
 In this he follows afar ofT the example of his blessed 
 Lord, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes 
 became poor ; who, though the Creator and Pro- 
 prietor of the whole universe, condescended to the 
 lowest positions and offices on earth ; who, though 
 the Source of all wisdom and knowledge, the Ori- 
 ginator of all law and root of all authority, was made 
 
340 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap 
 
 under the law, that He might by His obedience and 
 sufferings redeem us from its curse. And for this 
 subhme self-abnegation, this voluntary humiliation, 
 God hath highly exalted him above every name, as a 
 pledge and guarantee that all who are thus conformed 
 to His image shall share His glory, that those who 
 suffer with Him shall reign with Him, that those who 
 bear His cross shall wear His crown. 
 
 Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and 
 most mysterious of all retrogressions. The wheel is 
 broken at the cistern ; the circle of life completes 
 itself, and returns to the non-existence from which it 
 sprung. " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 
 return," is the beginning and end, the source and 
 destiny of the material part of our being. Death 
 despoils us of all with which we were invested, termi- 
 nates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves 
 the body into its original particles, and scatters them 
 over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of 
 sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retro- 
 gression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a 
 keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an im- 
 measurable gain. The day of death is better than 
 the day of birth, because death is a higher and 
 nobler birth. The grave is an underground avenue 
 to heaven, a triumphal arch through which spiritual 
 heroes return from their fight to their reward, made 
 conquerors, and more than conquerors, through Him 
 that loved them ; the dressing-chamber in which the 
 believer puts off his sordid and polluted garments, 
 and puts on his beautiful wedding robes, to arise and 
 meet the Lord in the air. The attainments that have 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 341 
 
 been made in this life will be carried forward to the 
 illimitable future ; the holiness and knowledge that 
 have been acquired amid many an earthly scene of 
 trial and sorrow will be transferred to heaven, and 
 will form the starting-point, as it were, from whence 
 the soul will commence anew its onward course towards 
 infinite excellence and perfection. Nay, the continuity 
 of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and 
 unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at 
 death. The sacred employments of life will continue 
 without pause or interruption amid circumstances the 
 most favourable and congenial. The river that hides 
 itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a 
 distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, 
 does not sever its connexion with the former part of 
 its course. The same fountains that poured their 
 tribute into the parent stream continue to swell its 
 prouder tide ; the very flowers that were strewn on its 
 surface are borne upon its waves through the tempo- 
 rary darkness, and wafted along through fairer valleys, 
 and beneath brighter heavens. In the light of this 
 consoling reflection, it is a matter, not of regret, but 
 of congratulation, that life is rapidly rounding itself 
 to its close, "What a superlatively grand and con- 
 soling idea is that of death," wrote John Foster to a 
 frieud. " Without this radiant idea, this delightful 
 morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity 
 is about to rise, 'life would, to my view, darken into 
 midnight melancholy. Oh ! the expectation of living 
 here, and living tJius always, would be indeed a pros- 
 pect of overwhelming despair. But thanks to that 
 fatal decree that dooms us to die-, thanks to that 
 
342 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. [chap. 
 
 Gospel which opens up the vista of an endless life, 
 and thanks, above all, to that Saviour friend who has 
 promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred 
 trance of death into scenes of Paradise and everlasting 
 delight." How soon, in the experience of every one, 
 does the soul, too great for this passing and perishing 
 world, become dissatisfied with everything here, and 
 most of all with the wide disproportion between the 
 attainments it makes and its capacities and desires. 
 How soon does the heart weary of dragging itself 
 round the same monotonous circle, Ixion s torturing 
 wheel of desire and disappointment. Long before we 
 have reached the assigned limits of life, we have 
 looked around, like Monsieur Necker, and become 
 familiar with the whole scene, and though we are not 
 satisfied, we are sated. We feel our need of a new 
 residence, and a new sphere of activity. We long to 
 be placed on a higher vantage ground, to try the 
 untried, to know the unknown, and death kindly 
 comes to gratify this longing of the soul, to release 
 us from the narrow, confined range of being here, to 
 take us by the hand along the steep and narrow path 
 that winds up the mountain side and leads from our 
 valley out into the golden West. 
 
 One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and 
 the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our 
 gaze from the pages of revelation. When the earth 
 shall have served the purpose for which it was created, 
 as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the 
 education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, 
 we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. 
 " The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the 
 
XVI.] THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY. 343 
 
 earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up." 
 And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary 
 to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall 
 be unknown. The scene of probation passing through 
 this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoy- 
 ment ; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall 
 be transformed into heaven. Whether after this last 
 and grandest act in the drama of time there shall be 
 room or occasion for any more retrogressions, we 
 know not. It maybe that, in the physical arrange- 
 ments of the eternal world, the law of circularity may 
 be as necessary as it is in this world. But in the 
 moral world of eternity we cannot think, without 
 detracting from its perfection, that retrogression will 
 be any more an essential element of progression. 
 " All old things are passed away, and all things are 
 become new." The regenerated and glorified creation 
 will revolve as of old around the throne of the Most 
 High, and the saints in bliss will " pass into higher 
 circles of service, as they dilate from within to larger 
 capacities of blessedness ; " but there will be no recoil, 
 no backsliding, no retrogression. There will be no 
 losing of present advantages to gain greater, no going 
 back to the beginning in order to commence a new 
 and nobler course. Joy will no more be pur- 
 chased by suff'ering, victory by defeat, exaltation 
 by humiliation, life by death. There will be no 
 night with its rest and its relapses, no sun with its 
 alternations and vicissitudes, no sea with its changes 
 and separations. The life of heaven, illumined and 
 quickened continually by the immediate presence 
 and power of the infinite Jehovah, shall flow on an 
 
344 BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NA TURK. [ chap. xvi. 
 
 unebbing tide, higher, stronger, farther on with every 
 heave of the restless wave, never pausing to recover 
 strength, never turning back to gain increased mo- 
 mentum, but with resistless, uninterrupted, undimi- 
 nished volume, filling all eternity with the beauty 
 and the gladness of its perfection. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 K. CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAV. 
 
WORKS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, LL.D., F.R.S.E. 
 
 SEQUEL TO ''BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE." 
 
 THE SABBATH OF THE FIELDS. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Globe 8vo. ds. 
 
 "This book 13 a worthy sequel to Mr. Macmillan's admirable 'Bible 
 Teachings in Nature. ' In it there is the same intimate communion with 
 nature and the same kind of spiritual instruction as in its predecessor." — 
 Standard. 
 
 •* This volume, like all Dr. Macmillan's productions, is very delightful 
 reading, and of a special kind. Imagination, natural science, and re- 
 ligious instruction are blended together in a very charming way." — Drilish 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 In Globe 8vo. price 6j. 
 
 OUR LORD'S THREE RAISINGS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 "His narrative style is pleasant, and his reflections sensible." — West- 
 minster Review. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D, F.R.S.E. 
 
 (continued.) 
 
 Sixth Edition. Globe 8vo. ds. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. 
 
 " The author exhibits throughout his writings the happiest characteristics 
 of a God-fearing, and withal, essentially liberal and unprejudiced mind. 
 Of the Essays themselves we cannot speak in terms of too warm admira- 
 tion. " — Standard. 
 
 " We can give unqualified praise to this most charming and suggestive 
 volume. As studies of nature they are new and striking in information, 
 beautiful in description, rich in spiritual thought, and especially helpful 
 and instructive to all religious teachers. If a preacher desires to see how 
 he can give freshness to his ministry, how he can clothe old and familiar 
 truths in new forms, and so invest them with new attractions, how he can 
 secure real beauty and interest without straining after effect, he could not 
 do better than study this hoo\C' —Nonconformist. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Globe 8vo. 6^. 
 
 THE TRUE VINE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE ANALOGIES OF OUR LORD'S ALLEGORY. 
 
 "The volume strikes us as being especially well suited for a book of 
 devotional reading. " — Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Macmillan has thrown beautiful light upon many points of natural 
 symboUsm. Readers and preachers who are unscientific will find many of 
 his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful."— .5r//w/i Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 "It abounds in exquisite bits of description, and in striking facts clearly 
 slated."— Nonconformist. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LLJD., F.R.S.E. 
 
 {continued^ 
 
 Second Edition, Corrected and Enlarged. With Coloured 
 Frontispiece and numerous Illustrations. Globe 8vo. ds. 
 
 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
 
 The first edition of this book was published under the name 
 of " Footnotes from the Page of Nature ; or, First Forms of 
 Vegetation." Upwards of a hundred pages of new matter 
 have been added to this new edition, and eleven new illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 " Probably the best popular guide to the practical study of mosses, 
 lichens, and fungi ever written. Its practical value as a help to the student 
 and collector cannot be exaggerated, and it will be no less useful in calling 
 the attention of others to the wonders of nature in the most modem pro- 
 ducts of the vegetable world." — Manchester Exatniner. 
 
 Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged, Globe 8vo. 6s. 
 
 HOLIDAYS ON HIGH LANDS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 RAMBLES AND INCIDENTS IN SEARCH OF ALPINE 
 PLANTS. 
 
 " A series of delightful lectures on the botany of some of the best known 
 mountain regions." — Guardian. 
 
 " Mr. Macmillan's glowing pictures of Scandinavian nature are enough 
 to kindle in every tourist the desire to take the same interesting high lands 
 fur the scenes of his own autumn holidays." — Saturday Review. 
 
 "This is an attractive book for those of us who have no enthusiasm for 
 Alpine plants. Its pure style, and interesting excursion details, and the 
 beautiful descriptions of scenery, make it a winning book to general 
 readers, ' ' — Record. 
 
 "One of the most charming books of its kind ever written." — Literary 
 Churchman. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, LL.D., F.R.S.E. 
 
 (continued^ 
 
 In Globe 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE IN CANA OF GALILEE. 
 
 "Dr. Macmillan expounds the circumstances of this miracle with much 
 care, with a good sense and a sound judgment that are but rarely at 
 fault, and with some happy illustrations supplied by his knowledge of 
 natural processes." —Spectator. 
 
 In Globe 8vo. 6s. 
 
 TWO WORLDS ARE OURS. 
 
 " We have never met a more charming exjposition of the parables and 
 the figurative language of the Bible. There is an indescribable grace 
 in the style that fascinates the reader and keeps his attention fixed. Few 
 will take up this beautifully-written volume without reading it through, and 
 none who read it but will see the meaning of the parables more clearly than 
 he ever did before. " — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 " The ease and grace of style common to all Dr. IMacmillan's writings 
 are palpable in this volume." — Theological Quarterly Review. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.