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 Presented b3^Y^V^^"\0\e^r^\^"^(7\-WoY^^ 
 
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 .M6 1887 
 
 
 Morris, 
 
 Herbert 
 
 W. 1818- 
 
 1897. 
 
 
 
 Natural 
 
 laws and 
 
 gospel 
 
 teachings 
 
 
M,-f^-% f/- fc--^ -^^ 
 
Natural Laws 
 
 AND 
 
 GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 BY 
 HERBERT W. MORRIS, D. D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SCIKNCE AND THE BIBLE," "TESTIMONY OF THE 
 AGES," ETC. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1SS7, 
 EY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 The Records. The Ordeals. The Weapons and Fields of 
 
 Conflict. The Objecfof the Volume 5 
 
 PART I. 
 
 NATURE'S RECORD AND THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES. 
 
 I. Coincidence as to Localities 12 
 
 n. Coincidence as to Vegetation 39 
 
 IIL Coincidence as to Living Creatures 48 
 
 IV. Coincidence as to Climate 57 
 
 V. Conclusion 60 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 I. The Subject stated 66 
 
 II. Miracles an Essential Part of Christianity 66 
 
 III. Miracles not Impossible 68 
 
 IV. Objections to Miracles 70 
 
 V. Evidence for Miracles in Nature ']^ 
 
 VI. Character of the Evidence for Christ's Miracles 93 
 
 VII. The Criteria of Christ's Miracles 95 
 
 VIII. Witnesses for the greatest of Gospel Miracles 97 
 
 IX. Historic Evidence for Christ's Miracles loi 
 
 X. The Character of Christ an Evidence for his Miracles.- 106 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND ANSWER TO PRAYER. 
 
 L Prayer a Duty and a Privilege 109 
 
 IL Objections Urged against Prayer iii 
 
 in. Prayer the Voice of Nature 114 
 
 IV. Prayer Answered by Influence on Minds 120 
 
 V. Prayer Answerable through Invariable Laws 130 
 
 VI. Answer to Prayer and the Conservation of Force 137 
 
 VII. Conclusion 143 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND THE RESURRECTION OF THE 
 DEAD. 
 
 I. The Resurrection a Doctrine of Revelation 146 
 
 II. Difficulties presented by the Doctrine 147 
 
 III. How the Body is built up 149 
 
 IV. How the Body is dissolved and changed 152 
 
 V. What becomes of the Material Body 154 
 
 VI. Scripture statements verified 157 
 
 VII. The Builder of this Earthly Tabernacle 159 
 
 VIII. The properties of the Body that shall be 164 
 
 IX. To every seed his own Body 169 
 
 PART V. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 I. The Subject stated 173 
 
 II. Tha Element that shall Destroy the World 175 
 
 III. Conflagration of other Worlds 183 
 
 IV. Past Destructions and Renovations of our Planet 185 
 
 V. The New Earth and New Heavens 18S 
 
 VI. The Dwellers of the New Earth 191 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 In the New Testament we have four distinct 
 narratives of the Life of the great teacher, 
 Jesus of Nazareth. These were written by four 
 different authors, each of whom professes to give, 
 to the extent of his plan and purpose in writing, 
 a true account of his birth and parentage, habits 
 and character, teachings and miracles, sufferings 
 and death. 
 
 No records, no writings of any character, an- 
 cient or modern, have been so closely studied or 
 been subjected to such varied and severe criticism 
 as have these four brief biographies. The ordeal 
 through which they have passed is without a 
 parallel in the history of literature. Nothing that 
 is embraced in them, nothing that is connected 
 with them, has escaped the most searching scru- 
 tiny. The facts which they relate, the doctrines 
 which they teach, the references they make to 
 social habits and civil rulers, the principles of 
 ethics and science and philosophy which they in- 
 volve, the dates and localities they name, together 
 with every item and incident they contain, have 
 all been subjected to the severest examination by 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 all orders of intellect for eiq:liteen centuries. No 
 means or method that can well be conceived has 
 been left unemployed by their enemies to disprove 
 their claims, to overthrow their authority, and to 
 oppose their influence. 
 
 The ground and method adopted to oppose and 
 undermine the gospel have ever changed with the 
 changes of time. Old fields having been found 
 untenable and old weapons having proved power- 
 less, others supposed to be more promising have 
 been taken up in their stead. This has taken 
 place again and again. In the last age the most 
 powerful assaults made were on the ground of 
 metaphysics. In our own day the battle is main- 
 ly waged on the field of the pJiysical scmices ; and 
 here the most specious and threatening attacks 
 that have ever assailed the gospel have been made. 
 On this field it is attempted to set the record of 
 matter against the record of the Spirit, to oppose 
 the laws of nature to the laws and miracles of 
 Christ, and to array the forces of nature against 
 the very foundations of providence and prayer 
 and hope of resurrection to a better life. And it 
 is to a consideration of these last attacks made on 
 the Christian faith that the following pages are 
 devoted. In them we hope to offer abundant proof 
 that the foundation of our faith still standetli 
 strong and to present facts that will enable the 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 7 
 
 Christian reader to give a scientific as well as a 
 Scriptural reason for the hope that is in him. 
 
 As a fitting introduction to what is to follow 
 and as affording an indisputable corroboration of 
 the truth and accuracy of the gospel narratives, 
 our first chapter shall be occupied with a pre- 
 sentation of the complete coincidence of the evan- 
 gelists' statements with those of recent explorers 
 in relation to the physical features, natural pro- 
 ductions, cities and villages, streams and routes, of 
 the land in which the scenes of the gospel were 
 enacted. The testimony which nature thus bears 
 can neither be gainsaid nor resisted, and the mi- 
 nute and perfect accuracy of the Scriptures as 
 thus tested confirms our confidence in their truth- 
 fulness where we have not the same means of 
 testing them. 
 
NATURAL LAWS 
 
 AND 
 
 GOSPEL TEACHINGS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 nature's record and gospel narratives. 
 
 Between history and geography, between 
 events and localities, there is always a real and 
 necessary connection, and the latter serve not only 
 to explain, but also to corroborate, the former. 
 Wherever a narrative or transaction is involved in 
 the conditions of a place or spot still accessible 
 and open for examination, there we have an ele- 
 ment of evidence for the narrative or transaction 
 which is substantial and not to be set aside. 
 "Facts," says Prof Stanley, "are stubborn, and 
 geographical facts happily the most stubborn of 
 all. We cannot wrest them to meet our views, 
 but neither can we refuse the conclusions they 
 force upon us. It is by more than a figure of 
 speech that natural scenes are said to have * wit- 
 
lO NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 nessed * the events which occurred in their pres- 
 ence. They are ' witnesses ' which remain when 
 the testimony of men and books has perished. , 
 They can be cross-examined with the alleged facts 
 and narratives. If they cannot tell the whole 
 truth, at any rate, so far as they have any voice 
 at all, they tell nothing but the truth." The 
 correctness of these observations is abundantly 
 exemplified in the to]30graphy of every land whose 
 ancient history has come down to us with any 
 degree of accurate detail, but in that of no country 
 more strikingly than in Palestine. 
 
 Palestine, the land of the Saviour's birth and 
 ministry and the scene of all the events and do- 
 ings related by the evangelists, within the last 
 fifty years has been visited by great numbers of 
 intelligent men, learned historians, and experi- 
 enced naturalists of every shade of faith and of 
 every type of unbelief. It has been studiously 
 explored again and again from one end to the 
 other; its ancient sites and ruins, its lakes and 
 streams and mountains, its climate and soil and 
 productions, have all been carefully studied, and 
 latterly its whole extent has been accurately sur- 
 veyed and mapped by a scientific corps sent out 
 from England, In short, not a spot of ground, 
 not a vegetable growth, not a living species of 
 beast or bird or insect, has been left unstudied that 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. II 
 
 is mentioned in either of the four Gospels. And 
 the result of all this has been that the harmony 
 between the simple statements and incidental 
 allusions of the evangelists and the present fea- 
 tures and products of the land is found to be so 
 striking and complete, that it stands now an ac- 
 knowledged fact that these writers must have 
 been citizens of this country and must have been 
 dwellers in it at the time of which they speak 
 and familiar with the scenes they describe. 
 
 Here, then, are evidences in support of the 
 gospel narratives which no theory or interpreta- 
 tion can controvert or deny. Nor is this all. 
 The warp and woof of a piece of tapestry are not 
 more closely related to the forms and figures dis- 
 played upon it than are the physical features of 
 Palestine to the events and doings of the gospel 
 history. Its journeys and discourses, parables and 
 miracles, are so involved in the conditions, sur- 
 roundings, or imagery of the localities where they 
 transpired that a glance at these as they still exist 
 is sufficient to carry conviction to all candid minds 
 that in those Gospels they are reading, not myths 
 or legends, but real history, and that they are fol- 
 lowing, not a phantom hero, but a living Man who 
 trod the ground on which they stand, heard the 
 murmur of the waves and streams which fall upon 
 their own ears, and looked upon the scenes on 
 
12 NATURAI. T.AWS AND GOSPKL TEACHINGS. 
 
 which their own eyes now gaze. To be convinced 
 of all this let us now follow the footsteps of the 
 blessed Redeemer as he went through the cities 
 and villages preaching and showing the glad 
 tidings of the kingdom of God. 
 
 I. COINCIDENCE AS TO LOCALITIES. 
 
 Bethlehem. — The gospel history opens with 
 the joyful announcement, "Behold, I bring you 
 good tidings of great joy which shall be to all 
 people; for unto you is born this day, in the city 
 of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the lyord." 
 This city of David (Bethlehem) still remains 
 with its name scarcely changed, being now 
 called Beit-lahm. It is situated some six miles 
 south of Jerusalem, on a narrow ridge, with creep- 
 ing vineyards along its slopes and cornfields be- 
 low. At the distance of about a mile east is a 
 little plain, now marked by the "Chapel of the 
 Herald Angel ' ' as possibly the place where grazed 
 the flocks over which the shepherds kept watch 
 by night. The site of Bethlehem and the whole 
 surrounding scene are in perfect agreement with 
 all we read of them in the sacred history. There 
 exists no doubt of its identity, nor has there ever 
 been a doubt. 
 
 Egypt. — Warned of the murderous design of 
 Herod, "Joseph took the young child and his 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 1 3 
 
 mother by night and departed into Egypt." From 
 Bethlehem Egypt was the nearest and most natu- 
 ral place of refuge to which they could flee. It 
 could be reached in three or four days; and once 
 on the farther bank of the winter stream which 
 marked its boundary, they would be beyond the 
 reach of Herod's jurisdiction. 
 
 Nazareth. — Informed of the death of Herod, 
 Joseph ventured to leave Egypt and to return to 
 the land of Israel; but, as he drew near, learning 
 that Archelaus reigned in Judaea in the room of 
 his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither, and 
 by divine direction "he turned aside into the 
 parts of Galilee and came and dwelt in a city 
 called Nazareth." And there, according to the 
 evangelists, was the home of Jesus from his in- 
 fancy to his manhood. And this place, like Beth- 
 lehem, has preserved his memory through all the 
 centuries and remains to this day a visible witness 
 for the reality of his person and the truth of his 
 history. In its present site and aspect every state- 
 ment and allusion of the evangelists finds its full 
 and clear confirmation. Its name, En-Nazirah, is 
 the same as that given it in Matthew 2:23. It is 
 built on a hillside, as described in Luke 4:29. It 
 is situated within the province of Galilee, as 
 stated in Mark 1:9. It is near to Cana, as inti- 
 mated in John 2:1, 2, 11. Behind and above it is 
 
14 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 a precipice, steep and forty feet high, correspond- 
 ing to that described in Luke 4:29, to which his 
 enraged fellow-townsmen led him, purposing to 
 cast him down thence to destroy him. Its site 
 stands nearly 1,500 feet higher than that of Ca- 
 pernaum, so that when he visited the latter place, 
 as stated in Luke 4:31 and in John 4:47, he lit- 
 erally "went down" to Capernaum. So correct 
 and definite are the statements of the gospel nar- 
 'ratives; yet all these topographical facts are men- 
 tioned merely incidentally therein ; the correspond- 
 ence, therefore, between the statements and the 
 facts as now found existing is all the more won- 
 derful and convincing. 
 
 Jerusalem. — According to the national cus- 
 tom, Joseph and Mary visited Jerusalem every 
 year at the feast of the Passover. Arrived at the 
 age of twelve years, when Jewish boys began to 
 assume the responsibilities of the law, Jesus ac- 
 companied his parents to celebrate this feast at 
 the great city. The existence of Jerusalem and 
 the identity of its site at this day are too well 
 known to require any proof. The observance of 
 the feast over, they set out in company with a 
 multitude of others to return, but "the child Jesus 
 tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his 
 mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him 
 to have been in the company, went a day's jour- 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 15 
 
 ney; and they sought him among their kinsfolk 
 and acquaintance. And when they found him 
 not they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking 
 him." * 'Among such a sea of human beings," 
 says Dr. Farrar, "how easy would it be to lose 
 one young boy. The incident constantly occurs 
 to this day in the annual expeditions of the pil- 
 grims to bathe in the fords of Jordan and among 
 the hundreds of Mohammedans whom I have seen 
 at Easter streaming southwards to the tomb of 
 Moses." "Went a day's journey:" this expression 
 implies that the entire journey would occupy sev- 
 eral days, and so it did, for the whole distance was 
 about eighty miles. The first day's journey by 
 caravan is often but a few miles. Here, then, again 
 localities, time, distance, and circumstances are all 
 perfectly coincident with the gospel narratives. 
 
 Bethabara. — From Jerusalem Jesus returned 
 home with his parents. After this nothing is re- 
 lated of him till he was thirty years old, when he 
 left Nazareth and went down to receive baptism 
 at the hands of John. This v/as ' ' at Bethabara 
 beyond Jordan, where John was baptising." In 
 the Revised Version this is rendered Bethany. No 
 visible mark remains to indicate the spot, but from 
 a consideration of all the facts mentioned in con- 
 nection with it, and especially from the significa- 
 tion of the name, which is " House of ford," it is 
 
l6 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 thought by some to have been at the upper ford of 
 Jordan, on the east side, and not far south of Lake 
 Tiberias. It was ' ' in the wilderness, ' ' we are 
 told, that John administered this rite, and the re- 
 tired solitude of that deep valley was and still is 
 truly such. It was on the banks of the Jordan 
 that Jesus joined the assembled multitude, and 
 that stream still flows between its banks as of 
 yore. The tall "reeds shaken with the wind" 
 are still there. And the bare "stones" still lie 
 around from which the Baptist said God was 
 "able to raise up children unto Abraham." 
 
 Scene of the Temptation — The baptism 
 of Christ was immediately followed by his mys- 
 terious temptation. ' ' Then was Jesus led up of 
 the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the 
 devil." He was now on the east bank of Jordan, 
 and from thence "was led up," that is, up to the 
 desolate hills beyond. "And he was therewith 
 the wild beasts:" the undisturbed thickets and 
 caves of that region to this day make it the favor- 
 ite haunt of such creatures. There the tempter 
 bade him "command that these stones be made 
 bread;" and at many a spot the ground is still 
 strewn with stones of every size and form. "And 
 the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high 
 mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of 
 the world;" and there, a little north of the Jabbok, 
 
PIIYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 17 
 
 just such a high mountain is found, from the 
 summit of which a most extended prospect of the 
 whole surrounding region is presented ; the heights 
 of Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, the plain of Es- 
 draelon, Mt. Carmel, the Mediterranean, and the 
 whole range of Judah and Ephraim are distinctly 
 visible. Prof. Palmer pronounces it the finest 
 view he ever saw in any part of the world. And 
 Dean Stanley says of it, "It is in all probability 
 the view which furnished the framework of the 
 vision of ' all the kingdoms of the world ' which 
 was revealed in a moment of time to Him who 
 was driven up from the valley below to these 
 mountains at the opening of his public ministry." 
 Cana. — The temptation ended, the Saviour 
 returned from the wilderness to the scene of his 
 baptism at the fords of Jordan. Seeing him ap- 
 proaching, the Baptist said to those that stood by, 
 *' Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
 the sin of the world !" In virtue of this memor- 
 able testimony two Galileans at once became the 
 disciples of Christ, and on the next day three more. 
 Accompanied by these he returned to Galilee, 
 ''x^nd the third day there w^as a marriage in Cana 
 of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 
 And both Jesus was called and his disciples to the 
 marriaofe." Here made he the water into wine. 
 This village still exists under the slightly altered 
 
 Natural Laws. 2 
 
l8 NATURAL LAWS AND G0SPE:L TEACHINGS. 
 
 name Keniia, and agrees in all the few particulars 
 given of the place where Jesus performed this his 
 first miracle. It is in the province of Galilee, as 
 stated in John 2:1; it is near to Nazareth, as in- 
 timated by the same, 2:2, being only four and a 
 half miles distant, and it stands on higher ground 
 than Capernaum, as is implied in the words, 
 "After this he went down to Capernaum." 
 
 Jacob's well. — A few months after the above 
 occurrence Jesus, it is related, went up to Jerusa- 
 lem to observe the Passover, and on his return 
 ' ' he must needs go through Samaria, and cometh 
 to a city which is called Sychar, near to the parcel 
 of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now 
 Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being 
 weary with his journey, sat thus on the well; and 
 it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a wo- 
 man of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto 
 her. Give me to drink," etc. John 4. This in- 
 cident, together with the conversation with the 
 woman, and the interesting and important dis- 
 course with the disciples to which it gave rise, as 
 related by St. John, -grew naturally out of the 
 local situation where the Saviour on his journey 
 found himself at the noonday hour; and all the 
 roots of the story, instead of springing from some 
 mythic or legendary brain, intertwine among the 
 very peculiarities of the place, which still remain 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 19 
 
 for examination and comparison. In passing from 
 Jernsalem to central Galilee, whither Jesns was 
 now going, the traveller still "must needs pass 
 through Samaria,'* and pass, too, "near to Sy- 
 char," or where Sychar stood, of which traces are 
 yet discernible. "Jacob's well " is still there, for 
 the most part hewn in the solid rock, but near the 
 surface incased in masonry. That ' ' well is deep ' ' 
 still, not less than seventy-five feet, though much 
 rubbish has fallen in and accumulated at the bot- 
 tom. Fragments also of the temple still remain 
 on "this mount" of Geri^im, in which the Sa- 
 maritans said "men ought to worship." The 
 rich "grain-fields'"' still spread in prospect from 
 the spot as when "he sat weary at the well." 
 In short, all the essential features of the scene, as 
 described by the evangelist, remain unto this day. 
 "On Sunday afternoon," says Prof H. B. Tris- 
 tram, " we mounted the edge of the old vault and 
 read together John 4. That chapter read by this 
 well brings vividly home the accuracy of the evan- 
 gelist. No other spot could so perfectly harmo- 
 nise all the incidents of the inspired narrative. 
 The very ruins are in keeping with it. ' ' The spot 
 is undisputed and indisputable; Jews and Samari- 
 tans, Christians and Mohammedans, are agreed 
 concerning it. 
 
 After a stay of two days at Sychar Jesus re- 
 
20 NATURAI. I.AWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 sumed his journey, preaching the glad tidings of 
 the kingdom as he advanced, until he reached his 
 home in Galilee. Being rejected with rage and 
 violence by his townsmen on the following Sab- 
 bath, he bade a final adieu to Nazareth and made 
 his future home beside the sunlit waters of the 
 I^ake of Galilee. 
 
 Basin of the Sea of GauleE. — '* Leaving 
 Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, 
 which is upon the sea-coast." The country bor- 
 dering upon this beautiful lake in the early part 
 of the first century, as we have abundant histori- 
 cal evidence, was widely different in its condition 
 and aspect from what it is at the present day. It 
 was then occupied by a large and busy popula- 
 tion. The soil was fertile and well cultivated 
 everywhere, and bore rich crops of grain and all 
 manner of delicious fruits. Every quarter exhib- 
 ited a scene of activity and thrift. Its shores were 
 adorned with numerous cities and villages. Some 
 of these stood out conspicuously on the clear 
 banks, and some lay half hid in the foliage of the 
 receding hillsides. Everywhere the beach spar- 
 kled with the houses and palaces of the Roman in- 
 habitants or with the dwellings and synagogues 
 of the Jews. At various points the arms and ar- 
 mor of drilling garrisons or standing sentinels 
 were seen elitterine in the sunshine. Alone the 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 21 
 
 water's edge were heard the resounding strokes of 
 the busy shipbuilders at every convenient sj^ot. 
 From the cities and villages fishermen went forth 
 by scores and hundreds over the lake, which 
 abounded with fish. With the boats of these 
 mingled many vessels of traffic and pleasure. In 
 a word, the basin of the Sea of Galilee was a focus 
 of life and activity. Nowhere else, except per- 
 haps at Jerusalem itself, could Jesus have found 
 such a field for his gracious ministry; from no 
 other centre could ''his fame" have so readily 
 spread "throughout all Syria;" and nowhere else 
 could he have drawn around him the vast multi- 
 tudes who hung on his lips, "from Galilee, from 
 Decapolis, from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." 
 In this populous region where the evangelists 
 place the Saviour everything is in perfect harmo- 
 ny with the gracious end of his ministry and with 
 all the localities and incidents they describe- 
 Here was the "Way of the Sea," the great cara- 
 van road that ran along its western shore. Here 
 were multitudes "sitting in darkness and in the 
 region and shadow of death," who stood in dying 
 need of "the great light" which he brought into 
 the world. Here were ' ' the publicans sitting at 
 the receipt of custom," Capernaum being the di- 
 vergent point of the roads to Tyre, to Damascus, 
 to Jerusalem, and to Sepphoris, the busy centre of 
 
22 NATURAL I.AWS AND GOSPKL TEACHINGS. 
 
 merchandise, and therefore the natural place for 
 the collection of tribute and taxes. Here were 
 ' ' the women who were sinners, ' ' drawn from 
 heathen cities or corrupted by heathen manners. 
 Here were Roman *' centurions under authority, '* 
 issuinor their stern commands to soldiers and ser- 
 vants. And here, too, were hardy "fishermen 
 toiling through the night" and "washing" or 
 "mending their nets" during the day. In a 
 word, here were found in actual existence and 
 living reality, to their minutest particulars, all 
 things that are described or named in the gospel 
 narratives. 
 
 In reading the gospel history of the Saviour's 
 ministry in this notable field, our first and last 
 and vivid impression is, not that we are tracing 
 the misty movements of a legendary or fictitious 
 character, but following the steps and witnessing 
 the deeds of a living Man in contact wdth living 
 men, and in close and immediate connection with 
 the localities known to have existed ther^. 
 
 Capernaum. — "He came and dwelt in Ca- 
 pernaum." Here, as the evangelists relate, he 
 taught the people and wrought many miracles. 
 The doom which our Lord pronounced against it 
 has been so signally fulfilled that its very site even 
 now remains a matter of dispute. The gospel 
 narratives state that it was a city, that it was sit- 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDKNCCS. 23 
 
 uated on the northern shore of the lake, that it 
 was on the west side in or near the land of Gen- 
 nesaret, and that it had a synagogue built by a 
 Roman centurion at liis own expense. In 1870 
 the English explorers, Capt. Wilson and his asso- 
 ciates, discovered, at a spot called Tell Hum, 
 ruins of walls and foundations covering a space 
 half a mile long and a quarter of a mile w^ide, in 
 which all the above conditions seemed to meet 
 and which they believed to be the site of Caper- 
 naum. Among the ruins were those of a syna- 
 gogue in a state of fine preservation, remarkable 
 for its elegant architecture and belonging to an 
 age at least as early as that of Christ. Speaking of 
 the work of excavation in and around this build- 
 ing, Capt. Wilson says, *'It was in this synagogue 
 that our Lord delivered the discourse recorded in 
 John 6, and it was not without a certain strange 
 feeling that in turning over a large block we 
 found the 'pot of manna' engraved on its face 
 and remembered these words in that discourse: 
 *I am the Bread of life. Your fathers did eat 
 manna in the wilderness and are dead.' " To 
 that engraved figure turned up by the English 
 explorer the very finger of Jesus perhaps w^as 
 pointed as he uttered these memorable words. 
 
 Chora^in. — This place is often mentioned in 
 connection with Capernaum and as being in its 
 
24 NATURAI. I.AWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 neigliborliood. And two miles nortli of Tell Hum 
 are found ruins answerinor all the demands of the 
 gospel history and still bearing the name Kho- 
 ra2;y, which, according to Dr. Thomson, is the 
 Arabic form of Chora^in. On visiting the spot, 
 "Here we are," says he, "among the shapeless 
 heaps of Chorazin, which attest most impressively 
 the fulfilment of that prophetic curse of the Son 
 of God. It is just where we might expect to find 
 it." 
 
 Bethsaida. — In the sacred narratives Beth- 
 saida is associated with Capernaum and Chorazin 
 as being a neighboring town and doomed to the 
 same woe. It is also said to have been the city of 
 Andrew and Peter, who were fishermen, and fish- 
 ing, as its name (House of Fish) implies, was the 
 chief occupation of its inhabitants. Two miles 
 east of Tell Hum and three miles southeast of 
 Khorazy, at the debouchure of the Jordan into 
 the lake, Dr. Thomson found a heap of ruins, 
 which in all the above particulars answers to the 
 Bethsaida of the gospel, and which therefore he 
 considered to be its true site. 
 
 Country oe the Gergesenes.— Our I^ord 
 on a certain occasion, being weary with inces- 
 sant labors in the populous neighborhood of the 
 above cities, took ship and sought rest on the 
 more quiet eastern side of the lake, in the district 
 
PIIYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 25 
 
 of the Gergeseiies. Here, it is related, Matt. 8: 28, 
 etc., immediately on liis landing he met and 
 healed two furious demoniacs coming out of the 
 tombs, and suffered the evil spirits that possessed 
 them to enter into a herd of swine, which, under 
 their diabolical influence, rushed into the lake and 
 perished. Now on that very coast Dr. Thomson 
 found a little prostrate town, called Gersa, whose 
 position and surroundings answer in all particu- 
 lars to the account given by the evangelists. This 
 is his statement: "The present name, as pro- 
 nounced by the Bedouin Arabs, is very similar 
 to that given by Matthew. It is within a few 
 rods of the shore, and an immense mountain rises 
 directly above it, in which are ancient tombs, out 
 of some of v/hich the two men possessed of the 
 devils may have issued to meet Jesus. The lake 
 is so near the base of the mountain that the swine, 
 rushing madly down it, could not stop, but would 
 be hurried on into the water and drowned. Take 
 your stand a little south of this Gersa. A great 
 heard of swine, we w^ll suppose, is feeding on this 
 mountain that towers above it. They are seized 
 with a sudden panic, rush madly down the steep 
 declivity, those behind tumbling over and thrust- 
 ing forward those before, and as there is neither 
 time nor space to recover on the narrow shelf be- 
 tween the base and the lake, they are crowded 
 
26 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 headlong into the water and perish. All is per- 
 fectly natural just at this point, and here, I sup- 
 pose, it did actually occur." 
 
 The Desert Place. — Some time after the 
 above occurrence, on receiving the news of the 
 murder of John the Baptist, saddened and wear>^, 
 Jesus with his disciples left Capernaum "and de- 
 parted thence by ship into a desert place apart; 
 and when the people had heard thereof they fol- 
 lowed him on foot out of the cities." They went 
 round the end of the lake and gathered about him 
 on the opposite side, and there, after delivering 
 to them various instructions, he fed five thou- 
 sand of them with five loaves and two fishes. And 
 here again we quote Dr. Thomson, who from years 
 of residence is perfectly familiar with this whole 
 region. " Here, at the end of the plain Bl Bati- 
 hah, this bold headland marks the spot, according 
 to my topography, where the five thousand were 
 fed. From the four narratives of this stupendous 
 miracle we gather, ist, that the place belonged to 
 Bethsaida; 2d, that it was a desert place; 3d, that 
 it was near the shore of the lake, for they came 
 to it by boat; 4th, that there was a mountain close 
 at hand; 5th, that it was a smooth, grassy spot, 
 capable of seating many thousand people. Now 
 all these requisites are found in this exact locality 
 and nowhere else, so far as I can discover. This 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 27 
 
 Batihah belonged to Bethsaida. At this extreme 
 southeast corner of it the mountain shuts down 
 upon the lake bleak and barren. It was doubt- 
 less desert then as now, for it is not capable of 
 cultivation. In this little cove the boats were 
 anchored. On this beautiful sward at the base of 
 the rocky hill the people w^ere seated to receive 
 from the hands of the Son of God the miraculous 
 bread. ' ' 
 
 IvAND OF GennESARET. — Immediately after 
 the above miracle and about sunset the disciples, 
 at their Master's command, set out to return in 
 their boat to Capernaum, but a violent wind 
 springing up in the night drove them out of their 
 course, during which Jesus joined them, walking 
 on the sea, and in the morning they reached the 
 shore in the land of Gennesaret at a point some 
 little distance south of Capernaum. The situa- 
 tion and features of this land, a rich and beautiful 
 little plain, are so definitely and clearly described 
 by Josephus and others as to identify it for ever 
 with what is at present called Kl Ghuweir. "Not 
 the slightest question can arise," says Prof. Tris- 
 tram, " as to the identification of Gennesaret with 
 the modern Kl Ghuweir. ' ' 
 
 MagdalA. — "Having sent the multitude 
 away, he took ship and came to the coasts of Mag- 
 dala." This was the home of Mary, whose brief 
 
28 NATURAL I.AWS AND GOSPKlv TKACHINGS. 
 
 but touching story is familiar in every Christian 
 land. It was situated in the southeast corner of 
 the plain of Gennesaret, and there its site is still 
 marked by ruins and a few miserable hovels. Its 
 present name is Mejdel. 
 
 Tiberias. — This in the time of the Saviour 
 was a city of royal magnificence, having been 
 built by Herod Antipas in honor of the Emperor 
 Tiberius. Its site is now occupied by the modern 
 town Tabariyeh, where abundant traces of its an- 
 cient grandeur may be seen in sculptured granite 
 and broken columns half buried in the rubbish. 
 
 Nain. — During his ministry in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Sea of Galilee our Saviour made sev- 
 eral excursions to the surrounding cities and vil- 
 lages. On one occasion he left Capernaum and 
 went as far as Nain in Galilee, twenty-five miles 
 distant. ''Now when he came nigh to the gate 
 of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried 
 out, the only son of his mother, and she was a 
 widow; and much people of the city was with 
 her. And when the I^ord saw her he had com- 
 passion on her, and said unto her. Weep not. And 
 he came and touched the bier, and they that bare 
 him stood still. And he said. Young man, I say 
 unto thee. Arise. And he that was dead sat up and 
 began to speak." The site of this village is and 
 always has been well known; it is on the north- 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 29 
 
 western edge of the hill called Jebel ed-Duhy. 
 Its name Nain, now Nein, means "fair," and its 
 sitnation, nestling picturesquely on the hill-slopes 
 of the graceful mountain and full in view of Ta- 
 bor and the heights of Zebulun, justify the flat- 
 tering title. The entrance to the village must 
 always have been up the steep and rocky ascent 
 from the plain; and here the Saviour with the 
 multitude that followed him met the sad proces- 
 sion issuing from the gate to bury the young man 
 outside the walls, as is still the custom of the peo- 
 ple. On the east side the rock is full of ancient 
 sepulchral caves, to one of which doubtless the 
 body of the young man was now being carried 
 for burial. The whole pathetic narrative is in 
 complete accord with the character of the place as 
 seen at this day. 
 
 Tyre and Sidon. — On another occasion we 
 read that Jesus, perhaps seeking both safety and 
 repose, ["withdrew into the parts of Tyre and 
 Sidon." The existence and the sites of these two 
 ancient cities of Phoenicia have always been too 
 well known to require proof. Their ruins still 
 remain and are familiar to the traveller. From 
 Capernaum the former is distant in a straight line 
 about 35 miles, and the latter about 47 miles. 
 The only incident mentioned in connection with 
 this excursion is the healing of the daughter of a 
 
30 NATUE.AI, LAWS AND GOSPE;!. TEACHINGS. 
 
 " Syroplioenician woman," or, as Matthew terms 
 her, ' ' a woman of Canaan. ' ' The terms Canaan 
 and Phoenicia had succeeded one another as geo- 
 graphical names of the same district of country, 
 and, as we learn from ancient authors, Phoeni- 
 cians were often called Canaanites. Thus the 
 gospel narratives are in perfect harmony with 
 both geography and history. 
 
 C^SAREA Phiuppi. — Towards the close of 
 his labors by the lake our Lord made his way 
 northward, preaching the gospel till he came to 
 *'the coasts of Csesarea Philippi." This city is 
 very fully described by Josephus and is spoken of 
 by others, so that it has ahvays been readily iden- 
 tified. Its site is indicated by Greek inscriptions 
 in the face of the rock that are not yet obliterated 
 and by the remains of a fortress which stood there 
 at the time of our Saviour's visit. Its original 
 name was Paneas, and at present it is called 
 Banias. Behind it rose the towering heights of 
 Hermon, whither "he led his disciples up into a 
 high mountain apart and was transfigured before 
 them." Descending thence he healed a lunatic 
 boy, and soon after returned again to Capernaum, 
 which was by the sea. 
 
 The Great Tempests. — In the course of his 
 ministry Christ and his disciples had frequent 
 occasion to cross the lake, and twice, we read, 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 3I 
 
 tliey were overtaken loy a sudden and perilous 
 storm. To sucli tempests, in consequence of its 
 physical situation and surroundings, it has ever 
 been and still is subject. This lake is situated in 
 a deep depression, its surface being 650 feet below 
 that of the Mediterranean, and in consequence its 
 climate a good part of the year is almost tropical. 
 Directly northeast and at no great distance are the 
 snow-capped heights of Hermon ; and in certain 
 atmospheric conditions the cold and heavy air of 
 that region sinks and rushes down through the 
 ravines to displace the heated and light air of the 
 lake basin, and in this way are often created sud- 
 den and violent squalls upon its surface. Many 
 modern travellers have actually witnessed its wa- 
 ters thrown into just such commotion as the evan- 
 gelists describe. " Small as the I^ake of Galilee 
 is, and placid in general as a molten mirror," 
 says Dr. Thomson, "I have repeatedly seen it 
 quiver and leap and boil like a cauldron when 
 driven by fierce winds from the eastern moun- 
 tains, and the waves ran high — high enough to 
 fill or ' cover ' the ships, as St. Matthew has it. 
 In the midst of such a gale calmly slept the Sou 
 of God, in the hinder part of the ship, until awa- 
 kened by the terrified disciples. ' ' 
 
 We have now seen that wherever the gospel 
 narratives place Jesus during his ministry in this 
 
32 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 peculiar region, their representations to tlieir mi- 
 nutest particulars are always in entire harmony 
 with what is known and seen to have been the 
 natural state of things there. His abode at Ca^^er- 
 iiaum and his visits to the surrounding cities and 
 villages, his teaching on the shores and in the 
 synagogues, his miracles in the towns and in the 
 desert, his intercourse with fishermen and tax- 
 gatherers and centurions, the multitudes that 
 thronged him in the streets and the storms that 
 overtook him on the waters, his journeys and his 
 voyages and retirements, are all not only in com- 
 plete agreement with every physical feature of the 
 region, but also stand so closely connected with 
 and often so completely involved in the conditions 
 of the localities as to offer visible and convincing 
 evidence in support of the truth and correctness 
 of the gospel history. 
 
 PER^a. — The Saviour's work being accom- 
 plished in Galilee, he bade farewell to that busy 
 theatre of life and set his face towards Jerusalem. 
 Opposed and harassed there by his persistent and 
 malicious enemies, the scribes and Pharisees, he 
 left and retired to Peroea, or that part of the coun- 
 try lying east of the Jordan. There, as in Galilee, 
 he labored to instruct the people and healed many 
 of their sick. After the lapse of some four months, 
 his time drawing nigh, he set out once more and 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 2i3 
 
 for the last time for Jerusalem. Some of tlie pla- 
 ces and several of the incidents connected with 
 this journey are mentioned, all of which are found 
 to be in perfect accord with what remains to be 
 seen at this day. 
 
 Jericho. — Having crossed the Jordan at "the 
 fords," where it has been crossed ever since, we 
 read that "he drew nigh unto Jericho." This 
 city, of which some faint ruins still remain, ^vas 
 then a place of wealth and grandeur, and in which 
 was que of the princely residences of Herod the 
 Great. It lay exactly on the Saviour's road to 
 Jerusalem. At this time, we are told, there lived 
 in Jericho one " Zacchceus, who w^as the chief 
 among the publicans;" and here, as Josephus in- 
 forms us, was "a colony of publicans" estab- 
 lished to secure the revenues accruing from the 
 large traffic in balsam, which grew more luxuri- 
 antly in that hot district than in any other place, 
 and to regulate the exports and imports between 
 the Roman province and the dominions of Herod 
 Antipas. Anxious to catch a view of Jesus, who 
 was encompassed by a crowd, ' ' Zacchseus ran be- 
 fore and climbed up into a sycamore-tree to see 
 him." The balsam and also the palm have utter- 
 ly perished from this plain, but of the sycamore a 
 remnant still remains. "We were gratified," 
 says Prof Tristram, who was there in 1864, "by 
 
 Natural Laws, -2 
 
34 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 the discovery that, though scarce, it is not quite 
 extinct in the plain of Jericho, as we found two 
 aged trees in the little ravine just to the south of 
 these ruins in illustration of the gospel narra- 
 tive." 
 
 The Ascent to Jerusalem. — I^eaving Jeri- 
 cho, "He went before, ascending up to Jerusa- 
 lem," and a rough and continuous '* ascent" it 
 was for some five or six hours. The site of Jeri- 
 cho is 650 feet below the level of the Mediterra- 
 nean, and the summit of the Mount of Olives over 
 which he must pass is 2,725 feet above that level; 
 hence the entire ascent in a distance of 14 or 15 
 miles was no less than 3,375 feet. 
 
 Bethany. — Having passed through the deep 
 and dismal gorge of Wady Kelt, along which the 
 road led, and climbed at length to the height of 
 its rocky ascent, "then came Jesus to Bethany." 
 This village, according to the sacred narratives, 
 was on the Mount of Olives, on the great thor- 
 oughfare from the Jordan valley to the capital, at 
 the head of the ascent above Jericho, and at the 
 distance of fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem. And 
 precisely at this well-defined spot there has been 
 a village through all the Christian centuries, and 
 there is a little village there still, which has been 
 visited and identified by scores of recent travel- 
 lers. Its name, however, has been changed into 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 35 
 
 El A2;ariyeli, in commemoration of Lazarus, whom 
 the Lord here called forth from his tomb. 
 
 Mount of OuvKS. — This lies immediately 
 east of Jerusalem, and there has never existed a 
 doubt concerning its identity. At Bethany, on 
 the eastern side of its summit, Jesus tarried on 
 this occasion over one night, and in the morning, 
 attended by a great multitude, he set out for the 
 holy city. The distance was only two short 
 miles, and his way lay over the heights of Olivet 
 and round its southern shoulder. " When he was 
 come to the descent of the Mount of Olives " the 
 whole multitude, we are told, began to rejoice and 
 shout, ' ' Blessed be the King that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord!" And it was at this precise 
 point on the road that the first glimpse vras caught 
 of the southeastern corner of the city — -just the 
 sight which would naturally inspire the people to 
 this, joyous and triumphant exclamation. 
 
 *'From this point," says Dean Stanley, who 
 carefully surveyed and studied the whole ground, 
 *'the road descends a slight declivity, and the 
 glimpse of the city is again withdrawn behind 
 the intervening ridge. A few moments and the 
 path mounts; again it climbs a rugged ascent, it 
 reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant 
 the whole city bursts into view. The temple 
 tower rises as from the earth, the temple courts 
 
36 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPKIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 spread out, and the whole magnificent city, with 
 its background of gardens and suburbs on the 
 western plateau behind, lies before the view. It 
 is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn 
 of the road, this rocky ledge, was the exact spot 
 where the multitude paused again, and ' He, 
 when he beheld the city, wept over it. ' Nowhere 
 else on the Mount of Olives is there a view like 
 this. And this is almost the only unmarked 
 spot — undefiled or unhallowed by mosque or 
 church, chapel or tower — left to speak for itself 
 that here the Lord's feet stood and here his eyes 
 beheld what is still the most impressive view 
 which the neighborhood of Jerusalem furnishes — 
 and the tears rushed forth at the sight." 
 
 KiDRON. — Again the procession advanced, and 
 descending from this brow of Olivet, Christ, with 
 the exultant multitude around him, in a few min- 
 utes reached "the brook Kidron," crossed it, and 
 then passed up into Jerusalem through one of its 
 eastern gates. The road still follows that shel- 
 ving descent, and still that channel of Kidron, 
 generally dry, must be crossed to reach and enter 
 the city. 
 
 GethsEmanK. — While at Jerusalem our Lord, 
 we read, often left the noise and excitement of 
 the city and sought rest and retirement in " the 
 Garden of Gethsemane." He did so on the very 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 37 
 
 last evening of his life. "When Jesus had spo- 
 ken these words he went forth over the brook 
 Kidron, where was a garden, into the which he en- 
 tered and his disciples. ' ' There, in the midnight 
 watch, he offered prayer "with strong crying and 
 tears." There he sweat "as it were great drops 
 of blood falling down to the ground." And there 
 too it was that his perfidious disciple betrayed 
 him into the hands of his enemies; "for Judas 
 knew the place, as Jesus ofttimes resorted thither 
 with his disciples." Now the gospel narratives 
 point to the Garden of Gethsemane as lying east of 
 Jerusalem, a short distance from the city wall, on 
 the other side of Kidron, and at the foot of the 
 Mount of Olives. And just here we find a spot^ 
 now marked by eight aged olive-trees, which, from 
 the middle of the fourth century at least, has been 
 uniformly pointed out and looked upon as the 
 very site of the "garden" in which the Saviour 
 of the world endured his mortal agon3\ After the 
 most careful study of the Gospels and examina- 
 tion of the place, this spot is found to fulfil all 
 the conditions of these narratives. Tischendorf, 
 the distinguished Biblical scholar of Germany, 
 tells us that he finds this traditional locality "in 
 perfect harmony with all that we learn from the 
 evangelists." And Prof. Hackett says, "We 
 may sit down there and read the narrative of 
 
38 NATURAIv LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 what the Saviour endured for our redemption, and 
 feel assured that we are near the place where he 
 prayed, 'saying, Father, not my will, but thine, 
 be done. ' " 
 
 We have now followed the footsteps of the 
 Saviour from the beginning to the close of his 
 eventful life; we have visited and contemplated 
 the place of his nativity, the refuge of his infancy, 
 the home of his childhood and youth, the place 
 of his baptism and of his temptation, the scene of 
 his ministry in Galilee, his visitations to surround- 
 ing cities, his retirement to the region beyond 
 Jordan, the road he travelled and the localities 
 through which he passed on his last return to Je- 
 rusalem to be offered up a sacrifice for the sin of 
 the world; and in all these different and widely 
 separated scenes we have found the most complete 
 agreement, in every particular instance, between 
 the statements and allusions of the Gospels and 
 what may be seen and examined at the present 
 day; and not only this, but also that the deeds 
 and discourses ascribed to the Saviour are closely 
 related to the very localities where they are said 
 to have taken place, and could not have transpired 
 anywhere else or among any other people or in 
 any other age. And in all this we have clear and 
 convincing evidence that in the four Gospels we 
 have a correct narrative of the movements and 
 
PIIYSICAI. COINCIDKNCKS. 39 
 
 doings of a true and living man, who sjookc and 
 acted and travelled as related in them. 
 
 II. COINCIDENCE AS TO VKO^TATION. 
 
 The teachings of Jesus Christ as related in the 
 Gospels abound in parables, figures, and similes 
 drawn from the soil, and scenery, the natural pro- 
 ductions and living tenants, of the country in 
 which he taught. And concerning these Dr. W. 
 M. Thomson, who resided in Palestine for a quar- 
 ter of a century, makes this general statement: 
 ' ' All the parables and illustrations and compari- 
 sons of Jesus are perfectly natural and appropriate 
 to the country, the people, the age, and every oth- 
 er circumstance mentioned or implied in the evan- 
 gelical narratives. We have the originals still be- 
 fore us. The teachings and illustrations of our 
 Lord would have been out of place in any other 
 country except this. They could not have been 
 uttered anywhere else. ' ' An examination of par- 
 ticulars fully sustains this statement, as we shall 
 now see. 
 
 lyiLiES OF THE Field.— Modern travellers 
 have often noticed the beauty and abundance of 
 spring flowers in Palestine. And it was at this 
 season of the year that our Saviour in his Sermon 
 on the Mount referred to the ''lilies." Variega- 
 ted tulips, purple and red gladioli, and scarlet 
 
40 NATURAT. I.AWS AND GOSPFJ. Tl^ACIIINGS. 
 
 anemones (to which the common name sJmsan^ 
 "lilies," was applied) abouneled on the plain of 
 Gennesaret and covered the hillsides around the 
 great Teacher and his listening throng. Plence 
 we see how natural it was for him to point to 
 these and say, "Consider the lilies of the field, 
 how they grow; they toil not, neither do they 
 spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon 
 in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'' 
 Wheat. — The first recorded parable of our 
 Ivord is that of the "sower," every word of which 
 is in perfect agreement with what may be seen in 
 the land to-day. "As I rode along the track un- 
 der the hillside by which the plain of Gennesaret 
 is approached," says Dean Stanley, "a slight re- 
 cess in the hill, close upon the plain, disclosed at 
 once in detail every feature of the great parable. 
 There was the undulating corn-field descending to 
 the water's edge. There was the ^trodden path- 
 way' running through the midst of it, with no 
 hedge or fence to prevent the seed from falling 
 here and there on either side of it or upon it, itself 
 hard from the constant tramp of horse and mule 
 and human feet. There was the ' good rich soil ' 
 which distinguishes the whole of that plain and 
 its neitjhborhood from the bare hills elsewhere de- 
 scending into the lake, and which, where there is 
 no interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. 
 
PIIYSICAT. COINCIDENCES. 41 
 
 There was the 'rocky ground' of the hillside 
 here and there protruding through the corn-fields 
 as elsewhere through the grassy slopes. There 
 w^ere the large bushes of ' thorns ' springing up in 
 the very midst of the waving wheat. The illus- 
 tration was complete." 
 
 Nor is the above to be regarded as a solitary 
 coincidence; the same has often been observed in 
 other parts. Travelling along the northern bor- 
 ders of Galilee, Dr. Thomson makes this observa- 
 tion: "Our path is leading us into the midst of a 
 very lively agricultural scene. The parable about 
 sowing has here its illustration even in its mi- 
 nutest details. ' Behold, a sower went forth to 
 sow.' There is a nice and close adherence to 
 actual life in this form of expression. The words 
 imply that the sower, in the days of our Saviour, 
 lived in a hamlet, and these people have actually 
 come forth all the way from yonder village to the 
 open country. Here there are no fences; the path 
 passes through the cultivated land; the thorns 
 grow in clumps all around ; the rocks peep out in 
 places through the scanty soil ; and hard by are 
 also patches extremely fertile. Now, here we 
 have all the four kinds of earth within a dozen 
 rods of us. Our horses are actually trampling 
 down some seeds which have fallen by this way- 
 side, and larks and sparrows are busy picking 
 
42 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 them up. That man with his mattock is digging 
 about the places where the rock is too near the sur- 
 face for the plough, and much that is sown there 
 will wither away because it has no deepness of 
 earth. And not a few seeds have fallen among 
 this bellan^ and will be effectually choked by this 
 most tangled of thorn-bushes. But a large por- 
 tion, after all, falls into really good ground, and 
 four months hence will exhibit every variety of 
 crop up to the richest and heaviest that ever re- 
 joices the heart even of an American fanner. 
 Certainly nothing could be more to the point than 
 this illustration. We doubtless are now looking 
 upon the very facts which suggested to Him who 
 taught in parables the instructive lesson of the 
 sower.'* 
 
 Tares. — The parable of the tares among the 
 wheat is equally true to nature. This sets forth 
 three natural facts, all of which are verified by 
 observation, i. That the soil of Palestine pro- 
 duces zizania^ or tares. For this we have the tes- 
 timony of unnumbered travellers. Tares abound 
 in that country and are a great nuisance to the 
 farmers at the present day. 2. That they are in- 
 jurious and therefore to be carefully weeded out. 
 The taste is bitter, and when eaten separately or 
 even diffused in ordinary bread they cause dizzi- 
 ness and often act as a violent emetic. It becomes 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 43 
 
 necessary, therefore, as implied in the parable, to 
 separate them carefully from the wheat or barley 
 where they are found. 3. That in the earlier 
 stage of their growth they cannot easily be dis- 
 tinguished from the growing grain in the midst 
 of which they are found ; but in the latter stage 
 the difference becomes apparent. ' ' Let me call 
 your attention to these tares," says Dr. Thomson, 
 * ' which are growing among the barley. The 
 grain is just in the proper stage of development 
 to illustrate the parable. In those parts where 
 the grain has headed out the tares have done the 
 same, and there a child cannot mistake them for 
 wheat or barley; but where both are less devel- 
 oped the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect 
 them. 'When the blade was sprung up and 
 brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.' 
 Even the farmers, who in this country generally 
 weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the 
 one from the other in the early stage of their 
 growth. They would not only mistake good 
 grain for them, but very commonly the roots of 
 the two are so intertwined that it is impossible to 
 separate them without plucking up both. For 
 this reason it is said, ' I^et both grow together un- 
 til the time of harvest.' " Dean Stanley, Capt. 
 Wilson, and other travellers relate that they saw 
 women and children busily engaged in picking 
 
44 NATURAI, I,AWS AND GOSPKI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 out the tares from the wheat in the grain-fields of 
 Samaria and other parts. So true both to nature 
 and the practice of the ]3eople is this instructive 
 parable. 
 
 Mustard Plant.— Several references to this 
 plant are made in the Gospels, and one express 
 parable is based upon it, in which also are three 
 natural facts introduced, i. The si^e of the seed: 
 *'the least of all seeds." It is a small seed, but 
 not "the least of seeds;" the words are hyper- 
 bolical. " Small as a grain of mustard seed" was 
 and still is a familiar and proverbial expression 
 among Orientals, and our lyord in popular teach- 
 ing adhered to popular language. 2. The size of 
 the plant: "when it is grown it is the greatest 
 among herbs and becometh a tree. ' * In compar- 
 ison with other garden growths it is said to be- 
 come a "tree;" at the same time it is expressly- 
 stated to be an "herb." In Palestine it attains 
 the form and size of a small tree. Travellers have 
 met with it in several parts of the country as high 
 as their heads on horseback. Prof. Hackett came 
 across a little forest of these trees in the neighbor- 
 hood of Mt. Carmel which measured from seven 
 to nine feet in height. 3. It is said to be a favor- 
 ite resort of birds: "so that the birds of the air 
 come and lodge in the branches thereof." We 
 are informed by numerous authorities that birds 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 45 
 
 are particularly fond of the seed and may often 
 be seen settling in great numbers on the branches. 
 Hence we see that the parable of the mustard- 
 seed, while it adheres closely to nature, is at the 
 same time an a|)t and forcible representation of 
 the growth of the Christian religion from its small 
 beo:inninQ:. 
 
 The Vine. — Frequent mention is made of the 
 vine in the course of the gospel narratives. And 
 Prof. Tristram, in his natural history, says, "Pal- 
 estine is the true climate of the vine. The rocky 
 hillsides, with their light gravelly soil and sunny 
 exposures, the heat of summer, and the rapid 
 drainage of the winter rains, all combine to render 
 it peculiarly a land of vines. The hill country 
 presents in combination all the features character- 
 istic of the choicest wine districts of the Rhine, of 
 France and Spain; and not only Judah, but all 
 the land from Lebanon to Beersheba, was once 
 clad on every hill with terraced vineyards, which 
 have left behind them the traces of their existence 
 in the wine-presses and vats hewn in the rocks." 
 
 The vineyard supplies the groundwork of an- 
 other of our Lord's parables: "There was a cer- 
 tain householder who planted a vineyard and 
 hedged it round about and digged a wine-press in 
 it and built a tower and let it out to husband- 
 men." One of the most striking features in the 
 
46 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 scenery of Southern Palestine at the present time 
 is the vineyard inclosure surrounded by loose 
 stone walls with a gray, square tower in one cor- 
 ner. ''These may be seen to-day," says Dean 
 Stanley, "as of old, on the slopes of Hebron, of 
 Bethlehem, and of Olivet." 
 
 Fig-tree. — This is one of the native fruit- 
 trees of Palestine and is found wild or culti- 
 vated in every part of it. It is mentioned in the 
 Gospels in different connections. Under the shade 
 of a fig-tree Nathanael sought seclusion, probably 
 for prayer, and thought he was screened from all 
 human observation, when the Saviour said to him, 
 "When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee." 
 And Tristram says, ' ' There is no protection against 
 the rays of an Eastern sun more complete than the 
 dense foliage of the fig-tree." 
 
 Our Lord speaks of " a fig-tree planted in a 
 vineyard" which proved fruitless, and reads from 
 it one of his most interesting and instructive par- 
 ables. And travellers tell us that nothing is more 
 common in Palestine to this day than fig-trees 
 and other fruit-trees planted among vines. "In 
 some parts," says Tristram, "the fig-tree is cul- 
 tivated as a sole crop, but more frequently it is 
 mingled with other orchard fruits, especially with 
 the vines, where the corners and irregular pieces 
 of ground are generally occupied by a fig-tree." 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 47 
 
 On a certain occasion we read that the Saviour 
 on his way from Bethany "saw a fig-tree in the 
 way and came to it and found thereon nothing 
 but leaves." And Dean Stanley, passing over 
 the same route, says, "The fig-tree still remains 
 here and there on the roadside.'^ Figs appear 
 before the leaves. 
 
 Palm-trees. — In the early ages palm-trees 
 were plentiful in many parts of Palestine. The 
 Mount of Olives continued to be graced by them 
 to the time of our Saviour, for on his last and tri- 
 umphant entry into Jerusalem we read that "the 
 people took branches of palms and went forth to 
 meet him." On the mount itself they have now 
 died out, but several fine ancient trees still wave 
 close by among the buildings of the city. 
 
 Sycamore. — This tree is repeatedly mentioned 
 in the Gospels. It is not to be confounded with 
 our commonly called sycamore, or plane-tree, 
 which resembles it only in the shape of its leaves. 
 The sycamore of the New Testament is an ever- 
 green and bears a species of figs. It is still found 
 in the mild climate of the maritime plains of 
 Phoenicia and Sharon, and also in the hot Jordan 
 valley. "In form," says Tristram, "it resembles 
 the English oak, with low spreading branches 
 and dark foliage. It is very easy to climb, with 
 its short trunk and its wide lateral branches fork- 
 
48 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACIIINGS. 
 
 ing out in all directions, and would naturally be 
 selected by Zaccliseus as the most accessible posi- 
 tion from which to obtain a view of our Lord as 
 he passed. There are still a few gnarled and 
 aged sycamores among the ruins by the wayside 
 of ancient Jericho and by the channel of the Wady 
 Kelt." 
 
 Thus we see that all the statements made by 
 the evangelists concerning the vegetable produc- 
 tions of the land in connection with our Lord's 
 ministry are perfectly natural and in complete 
 asfreement with what the traveller finds there at 
 the present day. Not a tree or a shrub or a flow- 
 er or a blade stands in disharmony with their nar- 
 ratives. On the contrary, so far as these can bear 
 witness at all, they attest their correctness and 
 truth in every particular and on all occasions. 
 
 III. COINCIDENCE AS TO LIVING CREATURES. 
 
 Many of the illustrations and parables em- 
 ployed by the Saviour in teaching the people 
 were drawn from the character and habits of the 
 animals inhabiting the country, animals with 
 which they were all familiar. And the living 
 descendants of those animals stand forth to-day as 
 so many witnesses for the accuracy and fidelity of 
 the four gospel histories. 
 
 Fishes. — From the earliest times the Sea of 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 49 
 
 Galilee was celebrated for its fisheries; and sev- 
 eral of our Lord's disciples were fishermen, who 
 pursued their vocation on that lake. The nar- 
 ratives of the evangelists represent this sea as 
 abounding in fish of various kinds. Thus we 
 read: "When they had let down the net they in- 
 closed a great multitude of fishes, and their net 
 brake." On another occasion it is said, '^They 
 cast the net on the right side of the ship, and now 
 they were not able to draw it for the multitude of 
 fishes." This lake still abounds in a great variety 
 of fishes. Prof. Tristram, who speaks from long 
 and personal observation, says, ' ' The density of 
 the shoals of fish in the Sea of Galilee can scarcely 
 be conceived by those who have not witnessed 
 them. Frequently these shoals cover an acre or 
 more of surface, and the fish, as they slowly move 
 along in masses, are so crowded, with their back 
 fins just appearing on the level of the water, 
 that the appearance at a little distance is that 
 of a violent shower of rain pattering on the sur- 
 face. ' * 
 
 Our Lord grounds a parable on the various 
 *' kinds" of fishes drawn up from these waters: 
 "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that 
 was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind, 
 which, when it was full, they drew to shore and 
 sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but 
 
 Natural Laws. A 
 
50 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 cast the bad away. ' ' A great variety of fishes, 
 *' clean and unclean," are still found in this lake, 
 and the same operation of sorting may still be 
 witnessed going on on its shore; and in proof we 
 again quote Mr. Tristram : ' ' We obtained four- 
 teen species from this lake, and probably the num- 
 ber inhabiting it is three times as great. The 
 greater number taken are rejected by the fisher- 
 men, and I have sat with them on the gunwale 
 while they went through their net and threw out 
 into the sea those that were too small for the 
 market or were considered unclean. This custom 
 brings out in great force the full bearing of the 
 parable, which is scarcely illustrated by any inci- 
 dent in our English fisheries. ' ' 
 
 Scorpions. — These venomous creatures are 
 spoken of by Christ as objects that were familiar 
 to his disciples: "Will he for an egg offer him a 
 scorpion?" "I give you power to tread on ser- 
 pents and scorpions." And, according to both 
 Thomson and Tristram, they swarm in every part 
 of Palestine, and the latter says that "in the 
 warmer parts of the country every third stone is 
 sure to conceal one." 
 
 Sparrows. — Among the Jews these little birds 
 were used as a common article of food, as they are 
 still in the Bast; and our Saviour speaks of them 
 as being so abundant and so easily taken that two 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDKNCKS. 51 
 
 of tliem were sold '* for a farthing.'' And in few 
 countries of the world to-day are sparrows more 
 numerous than in Palestine. **The trees and even 
 the shrubs," says Dr. Thomson, "are stuffed full 
 of their nests." 
 
 Ravens. — Our Lord cites the raven as man- 
 ifesting the providential care of God : ' ' Consider 
 the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap, which 
 neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feed- 
 eth them. How much more are ye better than 
 the fowls !" Of the ravens in Palestine Prof. 
 Tristram says, ' ' They are present everywhere to 
 the eye and ear, and the odors that float around 
 remind us of their use. Their food is scanty and 
 precarious, as may be seen by their habit of flying 
 restlessly about in constant search for it." And 
 yet "God feedeth them." 
 
 Eagles. — Eagles and vultures of various spe- 
 cies have always been and still are numerous in 
 Palestine, particularly the griffons. These are 
 employed by our Lord to indicate the rapid gath- 
 ering and descent of the Roman armies upon the 
 corrupt body of the Jewish nation: "Wheresoever 
 the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered 
 together." No figure could be more true to na- 
 ture or more forcibly express the event than this. 
 The distinguished naturalist just quoted, in his 
 description of these raptorial birds, says, "The 
 
53 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 number of griffons in every part of Palestine is 
 amazing, and they are found at all seasons of the 
 year. These birds detect their food by sight, not 
 by scent. If an animal falls at night, it is not 
 attacked till daylight, but if it fall or be slaugh- 
 tered after sunrise, though the human eye may 
 scan the firmament for one in vain, within five 
 minutes a speck will appear overhead and, wheel- 
 ing and circling in a rapid downward flight, a 
 huge griffon will pounce on the carcass. In a few 
 minutes a second and a third will dart down; an- 
 other and another follow, till the air is darkened 
 by the crowd, thus verifying the words, ' Where- 
 soever the carcass is, there will the eagles be 
 gathered together.' " 
 
 Doves, — The dove is notably a gentle and in- 
 nocent bird. Our Lord refers to it as a type of 
 what the Christian's character should be: ^'Be ye 
 wise as serpents and harmless as doves." For 
 the same reasons it is employed as an emblem of 
 the Holy Spirit, ''descending like a dove." At 
 this day in Syria, as travellers inform us, the dove 
 is the invariable companion of man wherever he 
 has a settled habitation. "When travelling in 
 the north of Syria," says Dr. Thomson, "I no- 
 ticed in the villages tall, square buildings without 
 roofs, whose walls were pierced inside by num- 
 berless pigeon-holes ; in these nestled and bred 
 
PIIYSICAI. C0INCIDENCE:S. 53 
 
 thousands of these birds. They are reared by the 
 rich and the poor. ' ' 
 
 The: Hkn. — This fowl, as we learn from rab- 
 binical and other sources, was intimately con- 
 nected with the Jewish household, and her natural 
 habits, therefore, were familiar to all. One of the 
 most remarkable of her actions is the peculiar 
 note she utters to bid her chickens run and hide 
 under her wings at the sight of a bird of prey. 
 Hence we see how natural and how touching the 
 figure which Jesus employs to express his tender 
 anxiety to save Jerusalem from the swoop of the 
 Roman eagle: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how 
 often would I have gathered thy children together, 
 even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
 wings, and ye would not P ' 
 
 To the hen the cock is nearly related, whose 
 crowinof is mentioned more than once in the 
 Gospels : " Before the cock crow twice thou 
 shalt deny me thrice." The times of crowing 
 WTre reofarded as correct indications of the hour 
 of night. The regularity with which this fowl 
 crows during the night in the Bast has been no- 
 ticed by many travellers. Arundell says, ''I have 
 often heard the cocks of Smyrna crowing in full 
 chorus, with scarcely the variation of a minute. '^ 
 And Tristram: "We were particularly struck by 
 this in Beirut, where, during the first week of 
 
54 NATURAI, I^AWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 our stay, we were regularly awakened three times 
 every night by the sudden crowing of the cocks 
 on the roof of the hotel." 
 
 Sheep. — The principal characteristics of Pal- 
 estine sheep are set forth in the following passage: 
 *' He that entercth in by the door is the shepherd 
 of the sheep; the sheep hear his voice; and he 
 calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them 
 out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep 
 he goetli before them and the sheep follow him, 
 for they know his voice. -And a stranger will 
 they not follow, but will flee from him, for they 
 know not the voice of strangers." All this is 
 natural and true to the letter, as may be seen in 
 that country to-day. "The Eastern shepherd," 
 says Tristram, ''never drives, but always leads 
 his sheep." Hartley, in his ''Researches," re- 
 lates this incident: " Passing by a flock of sheep, 
 I asked the shepherd if it was usual to give names 
 to sheep. He replied that it was. I then bade 
 him call one of his sheep. He did so, and it in- 
 stantly left its pasturage and companions and ran 
 up to his hand with signs of pleasure." And Dr. 
 Thomson, in his " I^and and Book," has this pas- 
 sage: " It is necessary the sheep should be taught 
 to follow and not to stray away into the un fenced 
 fields of corn which lie so temptingly on either 
 side. Any one that thus wanders is sure to get 
 
PHYSICAI. COINCIDENCES. 55 
 
 into trouble. The shepherd calls sharply from 
 time to time to remind them of his presence. 
 They know his voice and follow on; but if a 
 stranger call, they stop short, lift up their heads 
 in alarm, and if it is repeated, they turn and flee, 
 because they know not the voice of a stranger. 
 This is not the fanciful costume of a parable; it is 
 simple fact. I have made the experiment repeat- 
 edly. '» 
 
 Goats. — In his discourse portraying the final 
 judgment our Lord represents goats and sheep as 
 forming one mixed flock: "He shall separate 
 them one from another, as a shepherd divideth 
 his sheep from the goats." Goats are still plenti- 
 ful in Palestine, and concerning them Tristram 
 has this passage: "The hilly district running up 
 through the centre of Western Palestine is well 
 adapted for goats, and in this country the sheep 
 and goats are always seen together under the same 
 shepherd and in company." 
 
 Wolves. — The name of these animals occurs 
 in several of the Saviour's discourses, but always 
 with reference to their fierce and treacherous char- 
 acter. "Wolves in sheep's clothing." "I send you 
 forth as lambs among wolves." "An hireling, 
 whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf com- 
 ing and leaveth the sheep and fleeth; and the wolf 
 catchetli them and scattereth the sheep." Wolves 
 
56 NATURAI. I.AWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 Still inhabit Palestine and still exhibit the same 
 character. Prof. Tristram, in his explorations of 
 the country, repeatedly met with them and relates 
 two encounters with them. "In the hill country 
 of Benjamin, about Bethel and Gibeah," he says, 
 "the wolves still raven. We found them alike in 
 the forests of Bashan and Gilead, in the ravines 
 of Galilee and Lebanon, and in the maritime 
 plains. Their boldness is very remarkable. The 
 wolf is now, as of old, the dread of the shepherds 
 of Palestine." 
 
 The Ass. — The most notable mention of this 
 animal in the gospel narratives is that in connec- 
 tion with our Lord's triumphant entry into Jeru- 
 salem: "And Jesus, when he had found a young 
 ass, sat thereon." This patient creature is to be 
 seen everyv/here in Palestine, performing the 
 same service at the present day. "In the Bast," 
 says Prof. J. G. Wood, "the ass is the universal 
 saddle-animal. It is fed and groomed like the 
 horse, and is ridden by persons of the highest 
 rank." 
 
 Thus we see that all the animals named or re- 
 ferred to in the Gospels still inhabit the land, and 
 not only that, but also exhibit the same traits of 
 character and habits as are there ascribed to them. 
 As with the topography and vegetation of the 
 country, so with its living tenants, there is the 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDKNCES. 57 
 
 most complete correspondence between what is 
 presented on the gospel page and what is seen on 
 the face of nature at the present time. There to- 
 day we behold unmistakably the originals of the 
 Saviour's parables and illustrations. Fish and 
 fowl and beast stand forth before us as so many 
 living witnesses, so far as they are concerned, for 
 the correctness and truth of wdiat the evangelists 
 relate. The testimony could not be more indis- 
 putable, the harmony could not be more com- 
 plete, and the lessons could not be more natural 
 or appropriate. 
 
 IV. COINCIDENCE AS TO CLIMATE. 
 
 The climate of Palestine in different districts 
 varies according to their altitude. The references 
 made to it in the Gospels are few and general, but 
 as far as they go they are found to agree perfectly 
 with modern observations as registered for years 
 at Jerusalem and other points. 
 
 Thunder and Lightning. — These meteoro- 
 logical phenomena are once and again mentioned 
 in the sacred narratives, but in a very general 
 way, yet with sufficient definiteness to indicate 
 that they were well-known occurrences: "As the 
 lightning cometli out of the east and shineth unto 
 the west." "The people that stood by and heard 
 it said that it thundered." In Palestine thunder, 
 
58 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 while rarely heard in summer, is not uncommon 
 in winter. Robinson, Porter, Tristram, and others 
 record that they witnessed severe thunder-storms 
 in different j)arts of the country. 
 
 Wind and Rain. — A storm of this kind is a 
 frequent occurrence during the winter half of the 
 year. Our Lord's quick and discerning mind saw 
 in the traces left behind by one of these the fol- 
 lowing striking and impressive illustration, with 
 which he closes his Sermon on the Mount: '' Ev- 
 ery one that heareth these sayings of mine and 
 doetli them not shall be likened to a foolish man 
 who built his house upon the sand. And the 
 rain descended and the floods came and the winds 
 blew and beat upon that house, and it fell ; and 
 great was the fall of it. ' ' Dr. H. J. Van IvCnnep, 
 who spent nearly a lifetime in Western Asia, says, 
 ''The rains here, though comparatively infre- 
 quent, are copious and heavy while they last. 
 The uneven surface of the country, presenting 
 steep hillsides furrowed by deep valleys, occasions 
 during a storm the rapid gathering of waters to a 
 single channel, so that mighty torrents suddenly 
 appear rushing along through gorges where not a 
 drop of water trickled an hour before. These 
 pour down with irresistible force, often tearing 
 away the ground and sweeping trees and all else 
 before them. Houses erected near their track are 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDKNCKS. 59 
 
 ill imminent danger of being' undermined and car- 
 ried away by these angry floods." Rae Wilson 
 gives a similar account of tliese heavy and sudden 
 rain-storms in Palestine. 
 
 C1.OUDS AND Heat. — Our Lord refers to these 
 in the following words: ''When ye see a cloud 
 rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There 
 Cometh a showier, and so it is." In Palestine the 
 westerly winds, or those passing over the great 
 Mediterranean, bring most of the rains that fall 
 there. '' In the forty-three days," says Tristram, 
 ''during which rain fell in 1863-4, the w^ind was 
 invariably west or southwest." "And wdien ye 
 see the south wind blow, ye say. There will be 
 heat, and it cometli to pass." The south wind, 
 or that sweeping over the arid sands and deserts 
 of Arabia, always brings the oppressive heat of 
 the sirocco, so stifling to man and beast. "The 
 south wind," says the authority just quoted, "is 
 always oppressive, at whatever time of the year 
 it blows. We had two days' sirocco with the 
 south wind in November; again on January 14 
 and 15, March i and 2, April 21 and 25, May 15, 
 16, 26, and 27. These were the only occasions 
 on which there was south wind, and on each oc- 
 casion the sirocco w^as most oppressive. " "Ye 
 hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and 
 of the earth, but how is it that ye do not discern 
 
6o NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 this time?" This reference to rain and heat could 
 be true in no other country than Judaea and the 
 adjacent region; this reproof could be applicable 
 to no other people than the Jews; and it could 
 have been administered by no other than one ac- 
 quainted with both. Taken as related by the 
 evangelist, all is consistent and all is true and 
 perfectly natural. 
 
 V. CONCLUSION. 
 
 Here we close our survey of the land, the 
 scene of the Saviour's life and ministry. We 
 have followed his footsteps through its length and 
 breadth and have examined and compared its fea- 
 tures and conditions as to its geography, localities, 
 vegetation, living tenants, and climatic changes 
 with the statements of the sacred narratives and 
 have found them in all these respects to be in 
 entire harmony. Not a hill lifts its head, not a 
 site exhibits a ruin, not a stream ripples in its 
 channel, at the faintest disharmony with the his- 
 tory they relate; not a tree or a vine or a flower 
 or a weed springs out of its soil in contradiction 
 to their statements; not a living creature cleaves 
 its waters or roams over its fields or flies through 
 its firmament at variance with their descrip- 
 tions; nor do even the flitting clouds or the shift- 
 ing winds exhibit any disagreement with their 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 6t 
 
 representations. There is absolntely no discrep- 
 ancy. 
 
 Wherever the gospel history places the Sa- 
 vionr, whether on the water or on the land, in the 
 city or in the desert place, the representations, to 
 their minntest details, are always in accordance 
 with what is known to be the natural state of 
 things there. All his recorded movements and 
 journeys, as we have seen, are in perfect agree- 
 ment with the geographical features and local 
 sites of the country. All his labors and wonder- 
 ful works are in harmony with the scene where 
 they are said to have been enacted. All his illus- 
 trations and parables are drawn from objects and 
 operations that may be still seen in the land. 
 I\Iany of his discourses are so involved in the con- 
 ditions and so intertwined with the features and 
 surroundings of the places where they are said to 
 have been delivered that they could not have 
 been spoken anywhere else. His comparisons and 
 figures and similes are as indigenous to the coun- 
 try as are its vines and lilies and fig-trees. His 
 very thoughts and expressions take their cast and 
 coloring from the scenes where the evangelists 
 place him, scenes that remain to this day beneath 
 the bright and broad sunlight. In a word, as the 
 engraved seal fits into its own impression in the 
 wax, so fits the gospel history into the form and 
 
62 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 features and conditions of the land in which its 
 divine subject lived and labored and died for the 
 salvation of men. 
 
 Prof. H. B. Tristram closes his journal of trav- 
 els throughout Palestine, undertaken in company 
 with a corps of scientific men, with special refer- 
 ence to the Geology, Physical Geography, Botany 
 and Zoology of the country, with the following 
 unqualified and decisive testimony: **The prima- 
 ry object of our journey was the investigation of 
 physical and natural history; not, however, to the 
 exclusion of other objects of interest. We passed 
 through the land with our Bibles in our hands — ■ 
 with, 1 trust, an unbiased determination to inves- 
 tigate fac^s and their independent bearing on 
 sacred history. While on matters of science the 
 inspired writers speak in the ordinary language of 
 their times (the only language w^hich could have 
 been understood), I can bear testimony to the 
 minute truth of innumerable incidental allusions 
 in Holy Writ to the facts of nature, of climate, of 
 geographical position — corroborations of Scrip- 
 ture which, though trifling in themselves, reach 
 to minute details that prove the writers to have 
 lived when and where they are asserted to have 
 lived, which attest their scrupulous accuracy in 
 recording what they saw and observed around 
 them, and which, therefore, must increase our 
 
PIIYSICAIv COINCIDKNCES. Ct, 
 
 confidence in their veracity where we cannot 
 have the like means of testing it. I can find no 
 discrepancies between their geographical or physi- 
 cal statements and the evidence of present facts. 
 I can find no standpoint here for the keenest ad- 
 vocate against the full inspiration of the scriptu- 
 ral record. The Holy I^and not only elucidates but 
 bears witness to the truth of the Holy Book." 
 
 The whole surface of the Juda:a, Samaria, Gal- 
 ilee, and Persea of to-day is inscribed with a record 
 that is indisputable. Even skeptics, after the 
 most thorough examination of the ground for 
 themselves, while they will not receive Christ 
 with the heart or yield their minds to the domin- 
 ion of the spiritual doctrines which he taught, 
 find themselves constrained to admit that the 
 gospel narratives are unquestionable records of 
 actual events — of the travels and deeds and suf- 
 ferings of the great Teacher of Nazareth. No 
 opposer of the divine claims and miraculous works 
 of Christ, now living, has more closely scrutinized 
 or severely tested every statement, fact, and cir- 
 cumstance embraced in the gospel histories than 
 Rcnan, the French skeptic. To prepare himself 
 for writing a * ' lyife of Jesus ' ' he studied everything 
 ancient and modern relating to the subject or 
 having a bearing upon it. He even went to Pal- 
 estine and spent years there to examine every- 
 
64 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACHINGS. 
 
 thing visible for himself. He left no spot unvis- 
 ited, no stone unturned. And of all this what 
 was the result? At what conclusion did he arrive? 
 It was this, and we give it in his own words: " I 
 have traversed in every direction the district 
 where the scenes of the gospel are laid. I have 
 visited Jerusalem and Hebron and Samaria. Al- 
 most no site named in the story of Jesus has es- 
 caped me. All this narrative, which at a distance 
 seems to float in the clouds of an unreal world, 
 thus assumed a body, a substantial existence, 
 which astonished me. The striking coincidence 
 of texts and places, the wonderful harmony of the 
 ideal of the Gospels with the country which served 
 as its frame, was for me a revelation. I had be- 
 fore my eyes a Fifth Gospel^ and thenceforth 
 through the stories of Matthew and Mark, instead 
 of an abstract being who one might say had never 
 existed, I saw in life and movement a human 
 form that challenged admiration!" 
 
 No intelligent man, at the present day, can 
 reasonably doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was a real 
 character, a true and living man, who labored and 
 taught in the age and country represented in the 
 Gospels. To quote again a thoroughly competent 
 authority, John Stuart Mill, whom no one will 
 accuse or suspect of being biased in favor of Chris- 
 tianity: "Whatever else may be taken away from 
 
PHYSICAL COINCIDENCES. 65 
 
 US by rational criticism, Christ is still left— a 
 unique figure, not more unlike all his precursors 
 than all his followers. It is of no use to say that 
 Christ as exhibited in the Gospels is not historical, 
 and that we know not how much of w^hat is ad- 
 mirable has been superadded by the tradition of 
 his followers. Who among his disciples or among 
 their proselytes was capable of inventing the say- 
 ings ascribed to Jesus or of imagining the life 
 and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly 
 not the fishermen of Galilee; and certainly not 
 St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were 
 of a totally diiferent sort. About the life and say- 
 ings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal original- 
 ity combined with profundity of insight which 
 must place him, even in the estimation of those 
 who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very 
 first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom 
 our species can boast. When this preeminent 
 genius is combined with the qualities of probably 
 the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that 
 mission who ever existed upon earth, w^e have the 
 ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor 
 even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliev- 
 er, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue, 
 from the abstract to the concrete, than to endeav- 
 or to so live that Christ would approve our life." 
 
66 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND THE MIRACLES OK CHRIST. 
 
 The New Testament Scriptures present Jesus 
 of Nazareth as a divine Person, and assert that he 
 was a Teacher sent forth from God, and that in 
 attestation of his divine commission he wrought 
 many notable miracles; and the object of this 
 chapter is to present, in a clear and concise form, 
 various evidences, natural and historical, which 
 render these miracles credible. 
 
 A miracle may be defined as. An act of God 
 which manifestly deviates from the ordinary work- 
 ing of his power according to what are called the 
 *'laws of nature." Of this character were the 
 miracles ascribed in the gospel to Jesus Christ. 
 
 miracles an essential part of CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Miracles are an integral and vital element of 
 the Christian religion. Indeed, the whole gospel 
 scheme is one grand chain of miracles. The birth 
 of Christ was a miracle, his sinless life was a mira- 
 cle, his teaching was interwoven with miracles, 
 his death was attended with miracles, his resur- 
 rection was a miracle, and his ascension to heaven 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 67 
 
 was a miracle. Miracles, therefore, are insepa- 
 rable from Christianity. Both must stand or fall 
 together. Christianity, in its origin and in its 
 provisions, claims to be a supernatural religion; 
 and it cannot be severed from miracles without 
 losing both its virtue and its authority. Take away 
 miracles from the gospel, and you take away its 
 foundation stones and reduce the whole spiritual 
 structure resting upon them to a shattered ruin, 
 to a meaningless heap. 
 
 Jesus Christ rests his claims to be received as 
 a teacher sent from God upon the miraculous 
 works which he performed. To these he perpet- 
 ually appeals as his divine credentials as an am- 
 bassador from the Father. Thus he speaks : ' ' The 
 works that I do bear witness of me that the Father 
 hath sent me." "The works that I do in my Fa- 
 ther's name, they bear witness of me." " Believe 
 me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, 
 or else believe me for the very works' sake." 
 " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me 
 not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe 
 the works. " " If I had not done amono^ them works 
 which none other man did, they had not had sin, 
 but now they have no cloak for their sin." 
 
 Upon the evidence of his miracles, to which 
 he thus appealed, many, we read, believed on 
 him. "Rabbi," said Nicodemus, "we know thai 
 
63 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can 
 do these miracles that thou doest except God be 
 with him." Others, we are told, blinded by pre- 
 conceived and erroneous notions concernino- the 
 promised Messiah, and by hatred of the pure doc- 
 trines he taught, rejected him. "Because I tell 
 you the truth, ye believe me not. And if ye be- 
 lieve not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." 
 To reject the miracles of Christ, then, is to re- 
 ject his teaching and to reject Him. A disbe- 
 liever in the supernatural works of Christ cannot 
 be a disciple of his, cannot, in any proper sense 
 of the word, be a Christian. The credibility of 
 the Saviour's miracles, therefore, is a subject of 
 momentous and vital interest to every man, and 
 demands his serious and candid consideration. 
 
 MIRACLES NOT IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 The miracles related in the gospel narratives 
 have in every age engaged much study and dis- 
 cussion, but in none more than in our own. They 
 involve much that is inexplicable, much that is 
 mysterious to man, and thus offend the wisdom of 
 the proud of intellect and not unfrequently per- 
 plex even the humble and honest seeker after 
 truth. Hence some are led boldly to deny their 
 verity, while others remain in painfiil doubts con- 
 cerning them. 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 69 
 
 Now, no man can consistently deny the possi- 
 bility of miracles but the absolute atheist; to him 
 there exists no being or power capable of produ- 
 ing such results; he, and he alone, therefore, can 
 deny their possibility without self-contradiction. 
 And as there is no ground for argument with such 
 a person, I part company with him at once, and 
 proceed to address those of a more rational and 
 hopeful creed. 
 
 If we believe that there is a God, infinite in 
 wisdom and power, we must believe, at least, that 
 such miracles as those recorded in the gospel are 
 possible to him; for nothing can be beyond the 
 power of him who is omnipotent or beyond the 
 skill of him who is omniscient. If we admit that 
 God is the first and efficient cause of the whole 
 system of nature, we cannot doubt that he could 
 have, in the beginning, set all its forces — light, 
 heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and 
 gravitation — to work according to other laws, 
 laws so different from those which prevail as to 
 produce by their mutual and combined operations 
 another sort of world, a world which would have 
 possessed not a single feature in common with 
 that we now behold. No intellio-ent theist will 
 question this. And does not the greater power, 
 which is thus adequate to determine and consti- 
 tute laws, include the lesser power that may be 
 
70 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 necessary to modify or suspend them so as to pro- 
 duce what we call a miracle? "Belief in mira- 
 cle," says John Stuart Mill, "is perfectly ra- 
 tional on the part of a believer in God." But 
 while all this is freely admitted, some there are 
 who see, or think they see, sufficient reasons to 
 doubt, if not to deny, the actual occurrence of 
 miracles at any time or place in our world. I^et 
 us glance, then, at the difficulties which are sup- 
 posed to forbid faith in the wonderful works as- 
 cribed to Christ. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO MIRACLES. 
 
 Of the objections and arguments urged against 
 miracles, the following are the most worthy of 
 consideration. 
 
 I. "Miracles are contrary to all observation 
 and experience." 
 
 Human observation and experience are limited 
 by both space and time. What may be unknown 
 to the people of one age, or of one country, may 
 be quite familiar to those of another age or of an- 
 other country. Hence the fact that we of the 
 present day have neither seen nor experienced a 
 miracle supplies no proof that those who, 1,850 
 years ago, assembled on the shores of the Sea of 
 Galilee were not both witnesses and subjects of 
 many miracles. 
 
MIRACI.es of CHRIST. 7 1 
 
 2. " Miracles are incompreliensible, and there- 
 fore cannot be reasonably believed." 
 
 Miracles are indeed incompreliensible as to the 
 mode in which they are accomplished, but not as 
 to the result produced. And this is equally true 
 of a multitude of the most familiar operations of 
 nature, which all men unhesitatingly believe. 
 We thrust a twig into the ground and presently it 
 sends forth roots, grows into a vine, and bears 
 grapes; but how the moisture of the soil in pass- 
 ing through the alembics of the vine is converted 
 into the luscious juice of those grapes is as much 
 beyond our comprehension as how the water in 
 passing through the water-pots at Cana of Gali- 
 lee was changed into wine. The multiplication 
 of the seed cast into the furrow is as great a mys- 
 tery to us as the multiplication of the bread in the 
 Saviour's hands to feed the multitude. The ori- 
 gination of life in the unborn infant is as much 
 beyond our comprehension as was its restoration 
 to the little daughter of Jairus after it had been 
 breathed out. To form and quicken a human 
 being is at least as great a marvel and a mystery 
 as to raise him from the dead. 
 
 3. " Miracles are infractions of the laws of na- 
 ture, and God cannot violate the laws which he 
 himself has established." 
 
 Miracles are nowhere represented in Scripture 
 
72 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 as violations, or even contradictions, of the estab- 
 lished laws of nature; they are not against or con- 
 trary to nature, but they are above and beyond 
 nature. In a miracle we have a superior force 
 overcoming an inferior, an occurrence which per- 
 petually takes place in every province of creation. 
 "Continually we behold in the world around us 
 lower laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic 
 by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral; 
 yet we say not, when the lower thus gives place 
 in favor of the higher, that there was any viola- 
 tion of law or that anything contrary to nature 
 came to pass." The principle of the counterac- 
 tion of force by force meets us everywhere in na- 
 ture. By it the earth and all the other planets 
 are retained in their orbits, the centrifugal force 
 being balanced by the centripetal. By it the 
 growth of every vegetable is carried on and the 
 actions of every animal are performed. Oxygen, 
 which composes one-half of the whole substance 
 of the globe, is one of the most powerful and vio- 
 lent elements in nature; but a small proportion of 
 hydrogen combining with it overcomes all its en- 
 ergy and renders it bland and harmless as the 
 water we drink, for water is formed by this pre- 
 cise combination: or let a certain proportion of 
 nitrogen embrace it and it becomes mild as the 
 air we breathe, for the atmosphere is just such a 
 
MIRACLES OF CIIRTST. 73 
 
 combination of these two ingredients. Again, 
 gravitation is a force that strongly pulls all ma- 
 terial substances on the face of the earth down- 
 wards towards its centre; but the vital force oi 
 plants overcomes it, and in spite of all its pull, 
 carries streams of liquid solutions upward and 
 with them builds a tree fifty or a hundred feet 
 high. Again, by gravitation my body, with all 
 its members, like everything else, is perpetually 
 drawn downward; but I can lift my arm and so 
 far overcome it, but when I do so the law of grav- 
 itation, as far as that arm is concerned, is not an- 
 nihilated or even suspended; it exerts its power 
 as much as ever upon it, but is overcome by the 
 higher law or force of my will. In the act of 
 lifting up my arm, therefore, there is no violation 
 of law. So when the will-force of Jesus so far 
 overcame that of gravitation as to enable him to 
 walk on the waves of the sea there was no viola- 
 tion, no interruption of law; gravitation all the 
 while might have exerted its full force on every 
 particle of his body as on the uplifted arm, but 
 v/as overcome by the superior force of his divine 
 will. So that in this astonishing miracle we do 
 but witness a weaker force overcome by a strong- 
 er or a lower law yielding to a higher, a fact in 
 entire harmony with the established government 
 of the whole physical world. 
 
74 NATURAL I.AWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 4. ' ' The stability and uniformity of nature are 
 against the admission of miracles. ' ' 
 
 The realm of nature is indeed a realm of es- 
 tablished order, and no book asserts the uniformity 
 of nature's laws more emphatically than the Bible. 
 But this, instead of being an argument for the 
 exclusion of miracles, is a necessary condition for 
 their display. If there had not been an established 
 order of nature, such a thing as a distinct and de- 
 cisive miracle could not have taken place, or at 
 least could not have been distinguished from its 
 occasional aberrations or obliquities. It is the 
 regularity of nature that proves an exceptional 
 event to have been a miracle. The prevailing 
 uniformity of natural laws, however, is no proof 
 that their action never has been and never can be 
 modified or suspended by a miracle. So far as 
 the observations of living men have extended, 
 they may pronounce positively that no instance, 
 no sign of departure from law, has been witnessed 
 by them; but this is quite another thing from 
 proof that there never has been such a departure. 
 Astronomers had long been telling the world that 
 among the heavenly bodies they observed nothing 
 but regular orbits and uniform motions, and that 
 any departure from this established order was for- 
 bidden by law; yet, to the astonishment of all, in 
 1846 there happened such a thing as a comet 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 75 
 
 Splitting into two, each having a distinct tail and 
 nucleus, and, after travelling far apart through 
 millions of miles, reuniting and forming one com- 
 et again as at first. Of this extraordinary occur- 
 rence the heavens gave no indication before and 
 retained no trace after; the phenomenon is known 
 to us only from the testimony of those who ob- 
 served it. And so it has been with the miracles 
 of the gospel; nature gave no sign of their coming 
 and has preserved no evidence of their accom- 
 plishment; we know that they were wrought only 
 through the concurrent testimony of those who, 
 like the observers of the comet, were eye-witnesses 
 of their performance. 
 
 5. "Miracles are contrary to the universal law 
 of cause and effect, and are therefore incredible." 
 
 The miracles of the gospel were not effects 
 without a cause, but were effects produced imme- 
 diately by the most efficient of all causes. To 
 this objection one of the masters of modern rea- 
 soning has returned this sufficient reply: "A mir- 
 acle is no contradiction to the law of cause and 
 effect; it is a new effect supposed to be produced 
 by the introduction of a new cause. Of the 
 adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be 
 no doubt, and the only antecedent improbability 
 which can be ascribed to the miracle is the im- 
 probability that any such cause existed." Grant 
 
76 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 the ^' cause," that is, God, and all improbability 
 vanishes. 
 
 6. "The universe is a complete and all-related 
 machine, and to interfere by a miracle with one 
 of its laws or forces would be to propagate distur- 
 bance through the whole; a miracle, therefore, is 
 incredible. ' ' 
 
 To this we might be content simply to reply 
 that the world is not a machine and God is not a 
 mechanic in any such sense as is generally at- 
 tached to these terms. But accepting the simile 
 for what it is worth, I deny that any such distur- 
 bance Vvould necessarily be spread through nature 
 by any of the Saviour's miracles. We often see 
 the materials and forces of nature, even by the 
 will of man, diverted or opposed in various ways; 
 we see him set inert and heavy bodies in sudden 
 and rapid motion, blow masses of rock into frag- 
 ments with his dynamite, cut down forests and 
 thereby diminish the amount of rain and increase 
 that of the solar heat, drain pestilential swamps 
 and convert them to healthful habitations, divert 
 the lightning in its fearful rush and send it 
 harmless into the ground; but the general work- 
 ings of nature are in no way detrimentally affected 
 by any or all of these. Why, then, should the 
 miracles of Jesus — his healing a leper, giving 
 sight to the blind, withering a fig-tree, or stilling 
 
MIRACLES OI^ CHRIST. 77 
 
 a tempest on the little Lake of Galilee — be sup- 
 posed to send such disturbance through the con- 
 stitution of nature ? And even if in the natural 
 course of things such an effect would follow, it is 
 sufficient to observe that, since all the forces of 
 nature, as scientists now hold, are but different 
 manifestations of one and the same force, and that 
 one force but the will-force of God, the will-force 
 of him who performs the miracle, it is manifest 
 that he could with infinite ease limit and confine 
 the effects of the most stupendous miracle on 
 record to the object or individual concerned in its 
 performance. 
 
 Such are the principal objections that have 
 been urged from the operations of natural law 
 against the gospel miracles. And all these, as we 
 have now seen, are without force; they present no 
 antecedent grounds, point out no fundamental 
 principle, offer no conclusive or convincing reason 
 for rejecting these miracles. They are but as 
 blank cartridges, making a noise indeed, but leav- 
 ing the object against which they are aimed un- 
 moved and unharmed. 
 
 EVIDENCE FOR MIRACLES IN NATURE. 
 
 The researches of natural science, though they 
 have succeeded in interpreting so many of the 
 laws and phenomena of the creation, can say 
 
73 NATUPvAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 nothing directly either for or against the particular 
 miracles related in the New Testament. The 
 field of science is confined to physical nature, but 
 these miracles belong to quite another field — a 
 field where her instruments cannot avail, where 
 her experiments cannot be made, and where all 
 her calculations are powerless ; their producing 
 Cause is above and beyond her means of investi- 
 gation. 
 
 But though science cannot be cited as a direct 
 witness for the miracles of Christ, yet it has ren- 
 dered one important service relative to this sub- 
 ject: it points out certain events in the history of 
 our planet which no physical laws or forces will 
 serve to explain ar account for and which, there- 
 fore, must be ascribed to a Power above nature. 
 The history of this globe, as deciphered by sci- 
 ence, presents indisputable evidence that God, at 
 successive periods, wrought miracles in our world. 
 Some of these we now proceed to notice. 
 
 I. We have a miracle in the origination of 
 MATTER. If we believe there is a God at all, we 
 must believe that he is eternal and before all 
 things. And if he was before all things, then all 
 things must have had a beginning. Matter, the 
 dead and inorganic matter, composing our globe 
 and all other globes, therefore, is not eternal; and 
 it is not self-originated, it could not of its own 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 79 
 
 accord begin to be, for that is inconceivable, is, 
 indeed, impossible, for that would be acting before 
 it had a being. Matter, then, must have been 
 created. And evidence of this it still carries in its 
 own bosom. Every elementary molecule of mat- 
 ter, science tells us, has its specific properties, so 
 that, as Sir John Herschel asserts, "these mole- 
 cules possess all the characteristics of manufactured 
 articles y And Pirof. Maxwell says, "No theory 
 of evolution can be formed to account for the sim- 
 ilarity of the molecules throughout all time and 
 space. These molecules are and ever have been 
 perfect in number and measure and weight. None 
 of the processes of nature, since the time when 
 nature began, have produced the slightest differ- 
 ence in the properties of any molecule. On the 
 other hand, the exact equality of each molecule 
 to all others of the same kind precludes the idea 
 of its being eternal and self-existent." Matter, 
 then, had a beginning and must have been cre- 
 ated, that is, must have been the product of a 
 miracle. 
 
 2. We have a miracle in the origin of motion. 
 In whatever form or condition matter was created 
 or originally existed, in that form and condition it 
 must have always remained unless disturbed or 
 put in motion by some external agency. Science 
 lays it down as a fundamental principle that 
 
8o NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 "matter is inert ^''^ and its first law of motion as- 
 serts that "a body of matter at rest continues in 
 that state except in so far as it may be compelled 
 by impressed force to change that state. ' ' Hence 
 whatever may have been the primordial condition 
 of the material universe, whether a cloud of dust, 
 according to Democritus, or a fiery mist, according 
 to the modern hypothesis, if not subjected to the 
 action of an Efficient Cause exterior to itself, it 
 must have remained for ever dead, motionless, 
 and unchangeable. To originate motion, to start 
 the revolutions of the earth and the other planets, 
 therefore, some external agency possessed of spon- 
 taneity must be inferred. And as the only spon- 
 taneous agent we know of is free-will^ the Will of 
 the eternal Being (for that alone was adequate) 
 must have been the first cause of motion, of inter- 
 action in masses, and of progression in space. Mo- 
 tion, therefore— all motion in the system of na- 
 ture—originated in the fiat of the Almighty, that 
 is, in a miracle. 
 
 3. We have a miracle in the institution and 
 coordination of the physical LAWS which actu- 
 ate and govern material nature. The laws of 
 gravitation and motion, the laws of light and heat, 
 of electricity and magnetism, of attraction and 
 repulsion, all these, always and everywhere, work 
 with mathematical and infallible exactness, and 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 8l 
 
 all are so admirably adjusted and combined that 
 they play into each other's hands as if each were 
 an angel of unerring sympathy and insight, and 
 thus out of infinite complexity of operations pro- 
 duce a world of divine unity, harmony, and beau- 
 ty. Such a system of perfect and all-related laws, 
 embracing and controlling all that takes place in 
 the earth, the ocean, and the atmosphere, could 
 have its origin in none other than the All-com- 
 prehending Mind. Law implies a law-giver and 
 a time when it was given. The institution and 
 coordination of the marvellous laws which govern 
 our w^orld, therefore, must have had a beginning 
 and must have been an immediate act of God, in 
 other words, a miracle. No sane mind will un- 
 dertake to dispute this. 
 
 4. Descending through undefined periods, we 
 have again a miracle in the introduction of planT- 
 LiFB upon the earth. That our globe was once 
 in a condition that allowed not of the existence of 
 vegetation and that it continued through long 
 ages without a single plantal growth upon its 
 whole surface, being a molten sphere, is a fact 
 admitted by all. With the first plant appeared 
 in our world a new thing, a new force, differing 
 essentially from all the physical and chemical 
 forces that had previously been in operation, and 
 governed by essentially different laws. Nay, 
 
 Natural Laws. f\ 
 
82 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 plant-life was so far superior to those forces that 
 it employed them as its servants to accomplish its 
 own ends. It possessed a power to overcome 
 gravitation and to exercise a chemistry peculiar 
 to itself. It seized upon and grouped the atoms 
 of inorganic matter to compose for itself an organ- 
 ized residence, such as had never existed before. 
 Whence, then, came this distinct principle, this 
 new and mysterious power, this vital force of 
 plants? Not from any combination of the pre- 
 viously existing forces, for it had nothing in com- 
 mon with them. Not from any quality or com- 
 position of soil, for to this day the most accom- 
 plished chemists have utterly failed to produce a 
 composition from which it can be elicited or even 
 a form in which it can be induced to take up its 
 abode; it rejects every habitation except that of 
 its own construction. Prof. Huxley vainly at- 
 tempts to account for this vital mystery by telling 
 us that every plant comes from protoplasm. Be it 
 so, but the protoplasm that will give birth to 
 plant-life must itself be the product of some pre- 
 vious plant, and such a thing is unknown and 
 non-existent except as produced under the influ- 
 ence of pre-existing life. This stands now an un- 
 disputed fact. Whence, then, we ask again, the 
 first plant that produced the first living proto- 
 plasm ? But one answer can be returned — it 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 83 
 
 must have been the product of supernatural Agen- 
 cy, or a miracle. "For these reasons," says the 
 profound author of " Habit and Intelligence," "I 
 believe that plant-life, like matter and energy, 
 had its origin in no secondary cause, but in the 
 direct action of Creative Power." 
 
 5. Coming down to a later period still in the 
 history of our globe, we witness another miracle 
 in the introduction of animal life. In this 
 event we have a marked upward step in the pro- 
 gressive work of creation. Whatever general or 
 particular resemblance may appear between some 
 members of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
 there exists an essential distinction between them ; 
 the one cannot be derived from the other. Plants 
 feed on inorganic matter; animals can feed only 
 on organic matter — on vegetables or vegetable 
 productions. "Vegetables," says Prof. Murphy, 
 ' ' form their organic compounds out of the mate- 
 rials of the inorganic world, and animals give 
 them back to the inorganic world again in the 
 form of waste material. Thus the relations of 
 vegetables and of animals to matter are opposite. 
 The dynamic function of vegetables also is the 
 opposite of that of animals. Vegetables take up, 
 animals give out, energy. In a word, vegetables 
 take up both matter and energy from the inor- 
 ganic w^orld, and the animals that feed on the 
 
84 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 vegetables give back the matter and the energy 
 again to the inorganic world," The animal dif- 
 fers from the plant not only in its cliemic and 
 dynamic actions, but also in its physiological 
 functions and capacities; it possesses powers of 
 sense and activity with which we can find nothing 
 to compare in the whole vegetable kingdom. In 
 animal life or vital power, then, we have a new 
 force and what may be characterized, in reference 
 to all that Vv^ent before it, as a stipcrnatiiral product. 
 In it we have a product above and beyond all that 
 nature had previously exhibited or owned, and 
 which, as the cause must ever excel its effect, 
 must have been brought into existence by a Powder 
 above and beyond all that nature possessed. 
 
 It was long a favorite notion w4th a certain 
 class of naturalists that life could be generated 
 spontaneously from inorganic matter, and it w^as 
 announced more than once that the feat had act- 
 ually been accomplished. But late and more 
 accurate experiments have disproved all this and 
 settled the question. " Spontaneous generation" 
 has now been given up by its most ardent advo- 
 cates. Even Tyndall has been compelled to say, 
 *'I affirm that no shred of trustworthy experi- 
 mental testimony exists to prove that life in our 
 day has ever appeared independentl}^ of antece- 
 dent life." And Huxley has made the frank ac- 
 
MIRACI.es of CHRIST. 85 
 
 knowledgment that the doctrine of ^'life only from 
 life is victorious along the whole line at the pres- 
 ent day." From whence, then, the first life but 
 from the living God? The origin of animal life 
 upon our planet cannot rationally be ascribed to 
 any other cause than a special and direct act of 
 the Creator. *' Geology," says Prof. Dana, ^'ap- 
 pears to bring us directly before the Creator, and 
 leads us to no other solution of the origin of life 
 than this— Dais fecit''' (God produced it). So 
 Prof. Murphy: " We have every reason to believe 
 that animal life, like matter, has had its origin in 
 the direct action of Creative Power." So Prin- 
 cipal Dawson: "Whatever theory we adopt, un- 
 doubtedly we must hold that a higher spiritual 
 Power or Creator is necessary to the existence of 
 life." And even Darwin himself ascribes the 
 beginning of life on our globe to a specific act of 
 the Creator. These are his words : ' ' There is gran- 
 deur in this view of life, with its several powers, 
 having been originally breathed by the Creator into 
 a few forms or into one. ' ' In the introduction of 
 animal life upon the earth, then, we have an un- 
 deniable, an admitted, miracle. 
 
 6. Descending still with the flow of time and 
 passing by the various "orders" of animals that 
 were successively introduced to inhabit sea and 
 land and air, we now come down to the close of 
 
6 NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPE)!^ TKACIIINGS. 
 
 the geological history of our globe; and here we 
 behold another signal miracle in the creation of 
 MAN. In intelligent and moral man we have a 
 being quite distinct from and immeasurably in 
 advance of all the living creatures that had pre- 
 viously occupied the earth— a being whose intro- 
 duction into existence cannot be rationally ascribed 
 to any agency but a special act of the Creator. 
 No forces or laws of the physical world and no 
 properties or functions or powers of animal nature 
 that had preceded him will serve to account for 
 his unique and preeminent nature and character. 
 In body and mind he is acknowledged, by com- 
 mon consent, to be unapproached by any living 
 thing that went before. His erect and symmetri- 
 cal form, his expressive countenance and com- 
 manding attitude, his sensitive and ingenious 
 hands, his voluminous brain and delicate nerves, 
 his self-consciousness and intellectual faculties, 
 his memory and imagination and reasoning pow- 
 ers, his capacity for language and social inter- 
 course, his affections and emotions and conscience, 
 his susceptibility for moral culture and refine- 
 ment, his genius for science, poetry, and music, 
 his ability to survey the scenes of nature and to 
 understand its laws, his conscious freedom of will 
 and accountability, his sense of right and guilt 
 and penitence, his innate j^i'omptings to look up 
 
MIRACI.KS OF CHRIST. 87 
 
 and appeal to a higher Power, his boundless as- 
 pirations and intuitions of immortality, his ability 
 to look backward into the abyss of the past and 
 forward into the eternity which is future — these 
 preeminent endowments prove him at once to 
 every unbiased mind to be a separate "order'' of 
 being, the product of a direct and special act of 
 the Creator. 
 
 I am well aware that a widely different view 
 has been put forth and is held by some. Every 
 reader knows that Lamark conceived the idea, 
 and that later Darwin and his followers have at- 
 tempted to prove, that all living creatures, man 
 included, have come into being by what is called 
 "Natural Selection;" in other words, by slow and 
 fortuitous variations beginning with the lowest 
 and simplest vitalized atoms and carried on no- 
 body knows through what myriads of ages. But 
 this theory, or rather hypothesis, at least so far as 
 mail is concerned, is beset by difficulties so numer- 
 ous and so great that they have perplexed and 
 staggered its stoutest advocates and compelled 
 them to make admissions that plainly show upon 
 what a flimsy foundation their assumptions rest. 
 
 Prof. Huxley, though among the foremost of 
 these evolutionists, finds himself forced to speak 
 thus: "No one is more certain than I am that, 
 whether man is from the brutes or not, he is as- 
 
88 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPKL TEACHINGS. 
 
 suredly not of them." Again he says, "The 
 divergence of man from the simian, or monkey, 
 race is unmeasurablE and practically infi- 
 nite." 
 
 Prof. Alfred Wallace, one of the originators of 
 and by far the best expositor of the theory of Nat- 
 ural Selection, confesses that he discovers in man, 
 in his body as well as in his mind, what compels 
 him to believe that a special interposition of di- 
 vine agency was concerned in his production. 
 He finds in "the peculiar construction of his hand 
 and foot," in the "wonderful power, range, flex- 
 ibility, and sweetness of the musical sounds pro- 
 ducible by the human larynx," in the "size of 
 his brain," in his "capacity to form ideal concep- 
 tions of space and time, of eternity and infinity," 
 in his "capacity for intense artistic feelings of 
 pleasure in form, color, and composition," in 
 those "abstract ideas of form and number which 
 render geometry possible," and in his "conscience 
 or moral sense" — in these he finds what convin- 
 ces him that man is to be set " apart" in the zo- 
 ological system, "not only as the head of organic 
 nature, but in some degrees 7iew and distinct order 
 of being. ' ' 
 
 St. George Mivart, also an evolutionist, and 
 who stands in the first rank of living naturalists, 
 makes this explicit statement: " The soul of man 
 
MIRACLES OE CHRIST. 89 
 
 was created, not by any preexisting means, but 
 by the direct action of the Almighty, symbolized 
 by the term brcatJdugy 
 
 Dr. Dawson, President of Montreal University, 
 speaking of the first man, says, "His Maker 
 breathed into him a spiritual nature akin to His 
 own, whereby he became different from all other 
 animals and the very shadow and likeness of God, 
 capable of rising to abstractions and general con- 
 ceptions of truth and goodness and of holding 
 communion with his Creator." 
 
 Arnold Guyot, Professor of Geology in the 
 College of New Jersey, makes this emphatic 
 statement: "That spiritual element which con- 
 stitues man a distinct creation can no more be 
 derived from the physiological functions of the 
 animal than life can be evolved from dead mat- 
 ter. There is between the two planes an impass- 
 able abyss." 
 
 Prof. Dana, of Yale College, America's most 
 distinguished geologist, gives his view of this sub- 
 ject in these words: "If, then, the present teach- 
 ing of geology as to the origin of species is for the 
 most part indecisive, it still strongly confirms the 
 belief that man is not of nature's making. Inde- 
 pendently of such evidence, man's high reason, 
 his unsatisfied aspirations, his free will, all afford 
 the fullest assurance that he owes his existence to 
 
90 NATURAIv I.AVv'S AND GOSPKIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 the Special act of the Infinite Being whose image 
 he bears." 
 
 If, therefore, any weight of authority or any 
 kind or number of decisive facts can prove any- 
 thing, then tliat man is the product of a special 
 and direct act of God, or a miracle^ is abundantly 
 established. 
 
 We have now seen that, at successive stages in 
 the progressive work of forming, furnishing, and 
 peopling the earth, special and direct acts of 
 divine power were put forth. The origination of 
 matter, the beginning of motion, the ordination 
 of physical laws, the origin of plant-life, the intro- 
 duction of animal life, and the creation of man — 
 are all indisputable mij'aclcs ; nothing else that 
 human science can point to or human philosophy 
 suggest will serve either to explain or account for 
 them. 
 
 Now these facts prove to us several important 
 truths: they prove that miracles are not impossi- 
 ble, that God has not tied and bound his own 
 hands by the ordinances which he has appointed 
 for the general government of the world, that the 
 "laws of nature" are subject to the will of the 
 supreme Law^zWr, and that he has in the course 
 of the world's history once and again interposed 
 among the workings of natural forces to accom- 
 i:)lish what they could not effect. And further, as 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 9 1 
 
 Ills plan concerning the world is continuous, with- 
 out a break, and still in steady progress of devel- 
 opment, they prove that what had taken place in 
 the past might take place again in the future; in 
 other words, they establish the probability that, 
 should occasion demanding and worthy of them 
 arise in time to come, miracles would be per- 
 formed again. And such an occasion, as we shall 
 immediately see, did arise. 
 
 It will be observed that each of the foregoing 
 miracles marked the beginning of a distinct and 
 important epoch in the world's progress and served 
 to advance and lift it to a higher plane — the cha- 
 otic to orderly material, the material to the vegeta- 
 ble, the vegetable to the animal, and the animal to 
 intelligent and moral man. And now, as the facts 
 of man's history abundantly prove, another advance 
 and lift became necessary; and analogy would nat- 
 urally lead to the expectation that this, as in each 
 of the preceding stages, would be accomplished 
 by a like interposition of miraculous power. And 
 so, as we are assured by credible witnesses, it 
 came to pass. 
 
 Man, the human race, the beings for whom 
 the world was made, early fell from the bright and 
 happy state in which their Maker had placed 
 them and sank into a condition of sin and misery, 
 subject to toil and disease and death. Infinite 
 
92 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 Wisdom had foreseen this and provided for it. 
 His plan, perfect and all-comprehending, em- 
 braced a system of means for their restoration and 
 elevation; and the nnfolding of that plan would 
 bring on a brighter day for lost humanity. Ac- 
 cordingly, when in the fulness of time this era, 
 the most wonderful and imj^ortant in the world's 
 history, was ushered in, it was, as aforetime, by 
 the intervention of miracles — now miracles of 
 grace. The occasion demanded them and was 
 worthy of them. Hence appeared in our v/orld a 
 divine Redeemer, *' Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
 proved of God by miracles and wonders and signs 
 which God did by him in the midst of the people; 
 he being delivered by the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God, was taken, and by wicked 
 hands was crucified and slain; whom God raised 
 up, having loosed the pains of death, because it 
 was impossible that he should be holden of it." 
 
 And why should all this be doubted or called 
 in question by any? Is it not in harmony with 
 the divine procedure from the beginning? If he 
 wrought miracles to produce a material kingdom, 
 why might he not do the same to institute a spir- 
 itual kingdom ? If he resorted to a miracle to set 
 in order physical laws, why might he not to estab- 
 lish the higher laws of truth and righteousness? 
 If he put forth a miracle to beautify the earth 
 
MIRACLES OK CHRIST. 93 
 
 with vegetation, wliy might he not to adorn it 
 with plants of grace and flowers of holiness ? If 
 he performed a miracle to bring man into being 
 in an earthly form, why not to elevate him to a 
 celestial state and sphere of existence? If he 
 wronght a miracle to people this lower world with 
 animal tenants, why not to people heaven with 
 immortal beings? In a word, why should it be 
 thought a thing incredible that the grandest epoch 
 in the moral world, involving the eternal welfare 
 of the last and highest race placed on this globe, 
 should have been inaugurated by this marked 
 demonstration of almighty power and unsearcha- 
 ble grace ! So far, then, as the science of nature 
 can speak, its testimony is clearly in favor and 
 support of the wonderful events and miraculous 
 works of which we read in the gospel. 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 That the miracles related in the gospel were 
 actually performed by Jesus of Nazareth is a 
 matter of fact, and is capable of being proved by 
 evidences such as prove any other facts or deeds 
 or historic events, namely, by the testimony of 
 competent and credible v/itnesses. Now for esti- 
 mating the value of such testimony the wisdom 
 and experience of judges and lawyers have laid 
 
94 NATURAL. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 down the following rules: i. Anything capable 
 of being proved by mere testimony is credible in 
 proportion to the opportunity which the witness 
 had of beiuQ; well informed concernino: it himself 
 and his freedom from any bias that might make 
 him wish to impose upon others. 2. The more 
 persons there are who relate the same transaction, 
 of which they are equally credible witnesses, the 
 stronger is the evidence for it. 3. The proper 
 mark or criterion of the truth of a story, being 
 related by a number of independent witnesses of 
 full credit, is their complete agreement in the 
 principal facts or arguments and their disagree- 
 ment with respect to things of less consequence, 
 or at least variety or diversity in their manner of 
 relating the same thing. 
 
 Now, judged by all these forensic rules, the 
 testimony that goes to prove the truth and reality 
 of Christ's miracles is the most satisfactory and 
 complete that can be given or desired, i. The 
 witnesses were present and had the most favorable 
 opportunity possible to see them performed and 
 afterwards to observe and test their effects; and 
 there existed no promise or prospect of any earth- 
 ly advantage to bias their minds or to induce 
 them to depart from the truth. 2. These wit- 
 nesses were not two or three only, but many, even 
 multitudes, including both sexes and every grade 
 
MIRACLES O^ CHRIST. 95 
 
 and office in society. 3. And tlie testimony of 
 all, as far as it has reached us, is absolutely one in 
 regard to the principal facts, while according to 
 their several points of view they vary more or 
 less as to the number and order of the mere inci- 
 dental circumstances which they relate; but even 
 in this variation there is no contradiction. Thus, 
 tested by the severest judicial rules, the evidence 
 w^e have for the miracles of Christ is such as would 
 decide the most momentous issue in the most 
 cautious and rigid court of justice. It would de- 
 termine every fair and impartial judge Vv^hether 
 he should give sentence for life or for death. 
 
 THE CRITERIA OF CHRIST'S MIRACLES. 
 
 The measure and kind of evidence that will 
 carry conviction in regard to any natural act or 
 event will not suffice, with many, to command 
 belief in that which is supernatural. Hence dis- 
 believers in the supernatural portions of the gospel 
 claim that an act or event, to be received and 
 credited as a true miracle, must possess all the fol- 
 lowing criteria, or characteristics. 
 
 I. A miracle, if performed, must be wrought 
 for an important end, and one worthy of its author. 
 
 The miracles of Christ were performed to at- 
 test his divine commission, to alleviate human 
 misery, and to illustrate sacred truths. 
 
9'J NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 2. An act to be accounted and received as a 
 miracle must be instantaneously and publicly per- 
 formed. 
 
 In tliis very manner the miracles of Jesus were 
 performed. He spake the word, and immediately 
 the sick were healed, the lame walked, and the 
 blind received sight, and this in the presence of 
 enemies as well as friends, at marriage and fu- 
 neral gatherings, in the synagogues, and at the 
 public festivals. 
 
 3. An act to be accepted as a miracle must be 
 such as the senses of men can clearly and fully 
 judge of. 
 
 And such were the miracles of Jesus Christ; 
 the eyes and ears and hands of those present could 
 test them; the leper cleansed, the paralytic nerved 
 with strength, and the dumb speaking were facts 
 of which the senses of all could judge and decide. 
 
 4. An act to be a true miracle must be inde- 
 pendent of second or natural causes. 
 
 The miraculous deeds of the Saviour were al- 
 together independent of such causes; to still the 
 tempest, to walk upon the sea, and to raise the 
 dead to life again were acts which no natural or 
 second causes were adequate to accomplish or in 
 any v/ay account for. 
 
 5. An event so extraordinary as a miracle 
 could hardly fail to be attested by some abiding 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 97 
 
 memorial or j)ublic monument of its performance, 
 dating from the time it took place. 
 
 The miracles of Christ are attested by just 
 such evidence. Many of the subjects^ or those who 
 experienced the benefit of them, long survived, 
 and thus remained among men living and public 
 monuments of their reality. The gospel narratives 
 of these miracles were also written and published 
 in the midst of the very people who had witnessed 
 them, and these have remained public memorials 
 of them through all generations since. The 
 Lord^s Supper^ likewise, was instituted in com- 
 memoration of his crucifixion, and as a sacred 
 memorial of his dying love has ever since been 
 devoutly observed in every land by all his follow- 
 ers. And shortly after his resurrection the sacred 
 day of rest was transferred from the seventh to the 
 first day of the week, as an abiding monument of 
 that, the greatest of all miracles. 
 
 Thus we find that the mighty works and signs 
 wrought by our blessed Lord are marked by every 
 criterion and possesss every characteristic which 
 even a skeptic can claim for what he would ac- 
 cept as true miracles. 
 
 WITNESSES FOR THE GREATEST OF GOSPEI. 
 MIRACLES. 
 Of all the miracles of the gospel the most re- 
 
98 NATURAL LAWS AND G03PKI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 markable and stupendous, as just observed, is the 
 resurrection from the grave of Christ himself. 
 This miracle being proved, all his other miracles 
 are proved and his divine mission and authority 
 for ever established. 
 
 That Jesus Christ was crucified, and that he 
 DIED upon the cross and was buried, are facts 
 which no intelligent person, whether a Christian 
 or an infidel, now questions. The evidence for 
 all this is too manifold and clear to be doubted, 
 for the chief rulers of the Jewish nation and the 
 Roman governor himself were parties concerned. 
 That he actually and truly died we have both 
 natural and official proof of the most conclusive 
 character. Not only did he hang upon the cross 
 in extreme agony through six long hours, but his 
 side was pierced with a spear, inflicting a mortal 
 wound which brought forth both blood and water. 
 The soldiers who guarded his cross were fully 
 convinced that he was dead already, and for this 
 reason they brake not his legs as they did those 
 of the thieves crucified with him. And Pilate, 
 not until assured by the centurion that he was 
 dead past all doubt would he allow his body to be 
 taken down. His enemies, too, the chief priests 
 and Pharisees, were fully satisfied that he had ex- 
 pired. And even his friends, who clung to him 
 to the last, knowin»g that he was dead, wound him 
 
MIRACI.es of CHRIST. 99 
 
 Up in linen cloth, as was the custom of their na- 
 tion, and laid him in the cold sepulchre, which 
 they closed with a great stone; and there, under 
 the seal and guard of the governor, he remained 
 from the evening of Friday until the morning of 
 the first day of the next week. That Christ died 
 and was buried, therefore, is an indisputable fact. 
 That he revived and ROSE again and showed 
 himself alive after his passion is also a fact estab- 
 lished by many and infallible proofs. Eleven 
 times, it is recorded, did he appear to the disci- 
 ples in various ways and at different times and 
 places. He was seen of them at all hours — early 
 in the morning, during the day, and in the even- 
 ing. He met v/ith them in localities widely 
 distant — in the garden, in the chamber at Jerusa- 
 lem, on the road to Bmmaus, on a hill in Galilee, 
 by the Sea of Tiberias, and on the Mount of 
 Olives. He ate and drank and conversed witli 
 them. He allowed them to embrace his feet and 
 pay to him the homage of their love. He exhib- 
 ited to them the print of the nails in his hands 
 and the wound of the spear in his side. He in- 
 vited them to examine and feel his person, and 
 even to put their fingers into his yet unclosed 
 wounds, in order to remove every shade of doubt 
 from their minds. Such were the numerous and 
 differing and abundant proofs he gave of his 
 
lOO NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 resurrection — proofs that rendered it impossible 
 that they should be either deceived or mistaken. 
 
 That the disciples were thoroughly convinced 
 and fully believed that Christ died and rose again 
 there can be no doubt, for of this they gave the 
 most unquestionable proof in the power of human 
 beings to offer. Influenced by the most unshaken 
 confidence, they laid aside every other occupation 
 and interest and devoted themselves for life to 
 proclaim the interesting and momentous event to 
 the world. Voluntarily, and without hope or 
 prospect of any temporal reward or advantage, 
 they exposed themselves to toil and privation, to 
 hatred and reproach, to carry the glad tidings to 
 as many of their fellow-creatures as they could 
 reach. They hesitated at no sacrifice, they ex- 
 cused themselves from no labor or pains, they 
 shrank from no dangers or terrors, in doing this. 
 They persisted in their assertion that " Christ was 
 risen indeed," in the face of all manner of vio- 
 lence and persecution, and at last cheerfully sealed 
 their testimony with their blood. And in view of 
 all this who can question their full conviction and 
 unshaken faith ? 
 
 Hume, an English skeptic, having made the 
 assertion that no amount of testimony was suffi- 
 cient to establish such an event as the resurrec- 
 tion. Dr. Paley replied to him in the following 
 
MIRACLES OF CHRIST. lOI 
 
 striking words: "If twelve men, whose probity 
 and good sense I had long known, should seri- 
 ously and circumstantially relate to me an account 
 of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in 
 which it was impossible they could be deceived; 
 if the governor of the country, hearing a rumor of 
 this account, should call these men into his pres- 
 ence and offer them a short proposal — either to 
 confess the imposture or submit to be tied up to a 
 gibbet; if they should refuse with one voice to 
 acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or 
 imposture in the case; if this threat Vv^as commu- 
 nicated to them separately, yet with no different 
 effect; if it was at last executed; if I myself saw 
 them, one after another, consenting to be racked, 
 burned, or strangled rather than give up their 
 account; still, if Mr. Hume's rule be my guide, I 
 am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say 
 that there exists not a skeptic in the world who 
 would not believe them or who would defend 
 such incredulity." 
 
 HISTORIC EVIDENCE FOR CHRIST'S MIRACLES. 
 
 The history of Christ's ministry and resurrec- 
 tion, and of the labors and sacrifices of his disci- 
 ples in publishing it, comes down to us in the 
 writings of no less than sevefi different credible 
 authors— Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Pe- 
 
102 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPKIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 ter, and James. The narratives and epistles of 
 these were penned at different dates, in widely- 
 separated localities, and without any concert; yet 
 when brought together and compared they are 
 found to agree in every essential point. They 
 have been subjected to a severity of criticism and 
 scrutiny which have been applied to no other 
 historical documents in existence, and have 
 come out of the ordeal with their genuineness 
 unshaken and their veracity thoroughly estab- 
 lished. 
 
 For the atithenticity of these sacred books we 
 have an unbroken chain of evidence. From the 
 very time that they were written down to our 
 own they have been recognii^ed and quoted as au- 
 thentic narratives and epistles. Clement, bishop 
 of Rome, WTote an epistle to the church at Cor- 
 inth while the apostle John w^as yet living, in 
 which he makes quotations from the Gospels of 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and also from the 
 Epistles of Paul, Peter, and James. Barnabas, a 
 very few years later, wrote an epistle in which 
 are found quotations from the first three Gospels 
 and a reference to the fourth. Next we have the 
 Epistle of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, in which 
 he cites all the four Gospels and refers to Paul's 
 Epistle to the Ephesians. Polycarp, who was per- 
 sonally intimate with the apostle John, wrote a 
 
CHRIST'S MIRACLES. IO3 
 
 letter to the Phillppians, in which he refers to 
 Paul's Epistle to that church, quotes the first 
 three Gospels and refers to the fourth, and also 
 quotes passages from the Acts and from the Epis- 
 tles of Paul, Peter, and Jude. Irenaeus, a pupil of 
 Poly carp, cites passages from all the books of the 
 New Testament. Papias, a pupil of those who 
 had listened to the apostles, composed a Harmony 
 of the four Gospels. TertuUian, writing from one 
 hundred to one hundred and fifty years after the 
 Gospels had been published, with full access to 
 proofs of their genuineness, supplies us with a 
 brief abstract of nearly all the books of the New 
 Testament, which proves that those books are 
 precisely the same as those we now have. De- 
 scending further with time, corroborative author- 
 ities become too numerous to be named. Such is 
 a short summary of the historic evidence for the 
 genuineness and authenticity of the narratives of 
 the life of Christ and of the epistles of the first 
 preachers of the gospel. 
 
 It must be manifest hence to every unpreju- 
 diced and candid mind that, if we have any au- 
 thentic and reliable records of the past, those of 
 the New ^Testament are such; and that, if the 
 afCts or events recorded in any ancient history are 
 to be received, the acts and events related in the 
 Christian Gospels and Epistles are to be received 
 
I04 NATURAI. T^AWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 with unhesitating confidence. We cannot reject 
 these without also casting aside all history for the 
 same reason. But no man of sense does this or 
 thinks of doinsf it. 
 
 Secular history is read with general interest 
 because it is generally believed. The great events, 
 great actors, and great deeds which it relates are 
 regarded and accepted as unquestionable facts. 
 History tells us that there were such cities as Nin- 
 eveh, Babylon, and Tyre, and describes their ex- 
 tent, wealth, and grandeur ; and though every 
 vestige of their magnificence had disappeared 
 from the face of the earth twenty centuries ago, 
 yet we do not doubt that there were such cities. 
 Xenophon relates that Alexander conquered Per- 
 sia, Julius Caesar that he invaded Britain, and 
 Josephus that Herod reigned over Judaea; and we 
 never think of questioning the truth of these 
 events. History relates the fame of Demosthenes 
 as an orator, of Virgil as a poet, and of Cicero as 
 a statesman; and no scholar doubts either the ex- 
 istence or the celebrity of these characters. Pliny 
 mentions and describes a terrific eruption of Vesu- 
 vius in the first century, which overwhelmed the 
 cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and Ammia- 
 nas a fearful earthquake in the fourth century 
 that violently shook the greater part of the Ro- 
 man world; and no one disputes the truthfulness 
 
CHRIST'S MIRACLES IO5 
 
 of these statements. Tyclio Bralie relates that 
 one night, in 1572, he saw a star flash forth in 
 great brilliancy in the constellation of Cassiopeia, 
 which, after the lapse of some eighteen months, 
 ntterly vanished ; and Brunouski that, in 1606, 
 he observed a similar star in Ophiuchus, which 
 sparkled with an interchange of colors like a dia- 
 mond, and after shining for a whole year faded 
 and died away. Neither of these stars had b-^en 
 observed before and neither of them has been seen 
 since; and yet, exceptional as were these occur- 
 rences, none of our astronomers doubt the truth of 
 the account given of them. Such is the general 
 faith of men in secular history. 
 
 Now none of the historians who relate the 
 above facts, nor any other historians, ever gave 
 such decisive proofs of their truthfulness and hon- 
 esty as did the disciples of Jesus, none of their 
 works have been so closely and repeatedly stud- 
 ied, none subjected to such severe criticism, and 
 none have sustained such vigorous ordeals as the 
 Gospels and Epistles, and none of them are sup- 
 ported by corroborations so numerous and diversi- 
 fied as are these sacred documents. If, therefore, 
 any history in existence is worthy of faintest cred- 
 it, surely the history which has come down to us 
 from the pens of the evangelists and apostles, re- 
 cording the ministry, the miracles, and the resur- 
 
Io6 NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPKIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 rection of Jesus Christ, is entitled to our unquali- 
 fied confidence and faith. 
 
 TIIK CHARACTER OE CHRIST AN EVIDENCE EOR 
 HIS MIRACIvES. 
 
 If any further argument need be offered in 
 proof of the gospel miracles we have it in the life 
 and character of Him who wrought them. The 
 personal character which Christ sustained and the 
 divine doctrine which he taught were worthy of 
 the seal of the miracles which are ascribed to him. 
 That was a sound arsfument which Nicodemus 
 employed in his address to the Saviour, and all 
 the aofes have felt its force and reechoed its senti- 
 ment: ''Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher 
 come from God, for no man can do these miracles 
 that thou doest except God be with him." And 
 that God was with him as with no other is what 
 he claimed and what he abundantly proved. His 
 pure, wise, and sinless life, from its beginning to 
 its close, was a demonstration of it. Never man 
 spake and never man lived as he did. This stands 
 confessed alike by friend and foe. He was the 
 same in life as in doctrine — holy, harmless, and 
 undefiled. By his daily conduct as well as by 
 his words he rebuked all that was ungodly, im- 
 pure, and false among men. He was ever wise 
 and calm and consistent. He never had to retract 
 
I07 
 
 a word or regret a deed or to ask pardon of God 
 or man. Intellectually and morally, socially and 
 personally, in relation to his kindred or disciples, 
 to tlie friends or the enemies of his ministry, he 
 ever rose to the highest idea that we can form of 
 a perfect man. He was generous in the midst of 
 the selfish, upright in the midst of the dishonest, 
 pure in the midst of the sensual, and wise far 
 above the wisest of earth's sages or prophets. His 
 love for sinful man never wavered and his devotion 
 to the Holy Father never flagged or fluctuated. 
 At all times and in all places we find him the same 
 meek, pure, wise, and godlike Being. 
 
 But, to avoid all suspicion of bias or partiality, 
 we let those speak of his life and character who 
 cannot be charged with either, and of these the 
 competency of the following as judges will not be 
 questioned. 
 
 Goethe, who characterizes himself as a deci- 
 ded non-Christian, says, "The human mind, no 
 matter how much it may advance in intellectual 
 culture and in the extent and depth of the knowl- 
 edge of nature, will never transcend the height 
 and moral culture of Christianity as it shines and 
 glows in the person of Jesus Christ." 
 
 Rousseau: "I confess that the purity of the 
 gospel has its influence on my heart. Is it possi- 
 ble that a book at once so simple and sublime 
 
Io8 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 should be merely the work of man ? Is it possi- 
 ble that the sacred personage whose history it 
 contains should be himself a mere man ? What 
 sweetness, what purity, in his manners! What an 
 affecting gracefulness in his delivery ! What sub- 
 limity in his maxims! What profound wisdom 
 in his discourses ! What presence of mind in his 
 replies ! How great the command over his pas- 
 sions! Where is the man, where the philoso- 
 pher, who could so live and so die without weak- 
 ness and without ostentation? If the life and 
 death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life 
 and death of Jesus were those of a God.'^ 
 
 Strauss: "Jesus represents within the sphere 
 of religion the culmination point, beyond which 
 posterity can never go, yea, which it cannot even 
 equal. He remains the highest model of religion 
 within the reach of our thouo:hts." 
 
 Renan: "Whatever may be the surprises of 
 the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His 
 worship v/ill grow young without ceasing; his 
 legend will call forth tears without end; his suf- 
 ferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will 
 proclaim that among the sons of men there is 
 none born greater than Jesus." 
 
 Such being the character of Jesus, his enemies 
 being judges, we cannot but accept his word and 
 admit his miracles. 
 
answe:r to prayer. 109 
 
 PART III. 
 
 NATURAL LAWS AND ANSWER TO PRAYER. 
 
 Prayer is the appeal of weakness to strength, 
 of indigence to sufficiency, of guilt to mercy. In 
 other words, prayer is a sense of want addressed 
 humbly and devoutly to God in hope of relief. 
 The act of praying, therefore, implies three things: 
 belief in the presence and agency of God in the 
 world, confession of dependence on him, and faith 
 in his power to grant what is asked for. Hence 
 prayer is a most solemn act of worship. 
 
 PRAYER A duty AND A PRIVILEGE. 
 
 In the Scriptures we are taught that it is 
 God's appointment that men should pray for all 
 the blessings they need, temporal as well as spir- 
 itual, and that it is his good pleasure to grant 
 them in answer to their supplications. Prayer is 
 a prime doctrine of the Christian system and its 
 spirit an essential element in the Christian char- 
 acter. To every true disciple of Christ it is both 
 a duty and a privilege. Its unremitting exercise 
 insures to him the highest benefits. Accordingly 
 the Scriptures of the New Testament abound with 
 
no NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 precepts directing us to pray, with forms and ex- 
 amples teaching us how to pray, and with para- 
 bles and promises encouraging us to persevere in 
 prayer. No duty is more emphatically enjoined 
 than prayer, and no blessing or benefit is more 
 positively promised than answer to prayer. Thus 
 we read: 
 
 "Men ought always to pray." "If we ask 
 anything according to His will, he heareth us." 
 "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall 
 find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 
 "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, 
 believing, ye shall receive." "The same I^ord 
 over all is rich unto all that call upon him." 
 
 Broad and general as are these precepts and 
 promises, we are not to infer from them that every 
 petition, though offered in the right spirit, shall 
 be answered in the precise manner or measure or 
 time we ask. We may in our ignorance ask 
 amiss, and infinite wisdom may see that our re- 
 quest is not for our good, and infinite love, there- 
 fore, may choose to answer differently. They 
 who pray aright ever recognize this; they believe 
 that God is wiser than they and desire him to take 
 his own wiser way in bestowing what they need. 
 They defer all to his wisdom and love. To such 
 as pray in this spirit the answer is infallible: 
 they shall have either what they ask or that which 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. Ill 
 
 is better. If the desired good be not granted, or 
 if the deprecated evil be not averted or removed, 
 in virtue of prayer, the privations or afflictions 
 they are left to endure shall work in them spirit- 
 ual graces for which no amount of earthly suffer- 
 ing can be too great a price. And thus in the 
 end it shall be made manifest that no true prayer 
 has ever been uttered or breathed in vain. 
 
 OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST PRAYER. 
 
 Plainly as the duty of prayer is enjoined, and 
 positively as answer to prayer is promised in the 
 Holy Scriptures, there are found at the present 
 day a class of physical philosophers who do not 
 hesitate to deny both. Prayer, they tell us, can 
 produce no objective results, and its influence, if 
 it has any, must be purely a subjective one; in 
 other words, prayer, when it is sincere and fer- 
 vent, may work beneficial results in ourselves by 
 calling into activity various good feelings and 
 aflfections, but it can effect no change, produce 
 no good external to ourselves. This objection is 
 based on the conception that God, having created 
 matter with its various properties and forces, im- 
 pressed upon them once for all their invariable 
 laws; and that, having thus once set them in mo- 
 tion, they go on for ever grinding out their results 
 with the uniformity and precision of a machine, 
 
112 NATURAL, I.AWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 with the action of which he never interferes or 
 concerns himself. It is alleged that scientific ob- 
 servations and experiments prove that the forces, 
 laws, and order of nature are invariable and have 
 never once been interfered with by any act or vo- 
 lition of the Almighty. From this it is held to 
 follow that the prayers of men can exert no influ- 
 ence on the Being who created and established 
 the universe to induce him to suspend or vary or 
 modify any of its operations, and that therefore to 
 offer prayer, for any material good at least, is but 
 pious folly: the laws of nature are immutable. 
 
 On this ground it is asserted that human sup- 
 plications, however earnest or persevering, can 
 have no efficacy outside of ourselves, can have no 
 influence to procure any external benefits, can 
 bring no material good, can ward off no physical 
 evil; in brief, prayer can in no wise change or 
 aff*ect man's earthly lot. Prof Tyndall, speak- 
 ing with reference to the pious habit of the Tyrol- 
 ese in offering annual prayer for favorable weather 
 and a fruitful season, says, "Science asserts that 
 without a disturbance of natural law quite as seri- 
 ous as the stoppage of an eclipse or the rolling of 
 the St. Lawrence up the Falls of Niagara no act 
 of humiliation, individual or national, could call 
 one shower from heaven or deflect towards us a 
 single beam of the sun." Again, speaking of the 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. II3 
 
 cholera, the same authority says, "To alter by 
 prayer the consequences of this or any similar 
 fact, to deprive by petition a single molecule of 
 miasmatic matter of its properties, would, in the 
 eye of science, be as much a miracle as to make 
 the sun and moon stand still. For one of these 
 results neither of us would pray ; on the same 
 grounds I refuse to pray for either. ' ' Hence it ap- 
 pears that, in the estimation and according to the 
 teaching of this school of scientists, prayer for daily 
 bread or against famine, for health or against dis- 
 ease, for safety or against destruction, for prosper- 
 ity or against adversity, are equally fruitless and 
 can proceed only from ignorance or superstition. 
 
 If the view entertained and thus boldly set 
 forth by these objectors be correct, then the teach- 
 ings of Jesus Christ cannot be correct, cannot be 
 true, for he instructs and commands us to pray for 
 our daily bread, for deliverance from evil, for re- 
 covery from sickness, for protection amid danger, 
 and for the supply of all our wants. To which, 
 then, shall we listen? whom shall we follow? 
 Those who have slowly and painfully crept up to 
 an imperfect acquaintance with some of the work- 
 ings of nature's laws? or Him at whose girdle hung 
 the key of all knowledge? Those who by their 
 own confession have no practical or personal expe- 
 rience of prayer? or Him who was the purest and 
 
 Natural Laws. 8 
 
114 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPFX TEACHINGS. 
 
 loftiest mor.al character the world has ever seen, 
 and who could lift up his eyes to heaven and say, 
 '' Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, 
 and I know that thou hearest me always " ? 
 
 As the precepts and instructions of the Great 
 Teacher are in perfect harmony with the law of 
 morals, so will they ever be found with the laws 
 of nature when these are rightly interpreted. 
 What is in harmony with the former cannot be at 
 variance with the latter, for both have proceeded 
 from " the one Lawgiver. " 
 
 PRAYER THE VOICE O^ NATURE. 
 
 Nature throughout her animated domain is 
 constituted on the principle of prayer, and the 
 whole organisation of that domain clearly exhib- 
 its specific provisions made for answering prayer. 
 Without prayer and answer to prayer the course 
 of the animate creation as now established would 
 be deranged and fail of its most important ends, 
 as may easily be shown. 
 
 As already defined, prayer is the cry of want 
 or distress, whether articulate or inarticulate in 
 its expression. Now the animal world is full of 
 such prayers and full of provisions to insure im- 
 mediate answers to them. The young brood cry 
 for food or for protection from an approaching 
 enemy; the parent bird hears and understands 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. II5 
 
 that cry and is endowed with an instinct that 
 prompts it instantly to answer it. The lamb 
 bleats, and its cry not only brings its dam to its 
 side, but also causes a more rapid flow of milk 
 to answer that bleating. The lagging little calf 
 about to be pounced upon by a wolf bellows for 
 help, and instantly the whole herd by an impulse 
 of their nature rush to his defence. But for such 
 answers to animal prayers the races would soon 
 die out. Again, the little babe cries for nourish- 
 ment or for help, and instinctively the sympathies 
 and muscles of the mother are moved to respond 
 to the call in the most tender and loving manner. 
 A human being whose life is imperilled by fire or 
 flood cries for help in his distress, and his fellow- 
 creatures by a law of their being are roused to 
 exertion and to courage that brave all dangers to 
 rescue him. An exploring vessel with its brave 
 officers and crew is frozen up and imprisoned in 
 the distant and inhospitable regions of the Pole; 
 a whole year passes away without a word of 
 tidings from them; at length anxiety and alarm 
 are felt for their safety, and presently the suffer- 
 ers' prayers, though all unheard, move nations to 
 pour tens and hundreds of thousands from their 
 treasuries to send expeditions by sea and land for 
 their deliverance. Thus we find that prayer is 
 offered and answered in one way or another by 
 
Il6 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 an ordinance of nature among all animated be- 
 ings, from the lowest to the highest. And can 
 we suppose that the great Father of all, who has 
 instituted this benevolent arrangement among his 
 creatures and implanted in them this instinct to 
 answer prayer, is himself deaf to the voice of 
 prayer when appealed to by his earthly children ? 
 Assuredly not; for then the voice of nature would 
 contradict the voice of her Maker and belie his 
 character to the delusion of his creatures. 
 
 Man, by nature, is a religious being. ''Our 
 religious nature," says Prof. Le Conte, "is a fact, 
 an undoubted scientific verity. Even the materi- 
 alist must admit it." Prayer is a natural impulse 
 in man; he is born with it. Hence prayer has 
 been so general a practice of the race through all 
 the periods of its history, and is so universal a 
 practice now, that it may be safely asserted that 
 with mankind at large it is the rule and prayer- 
 lessness the rare exception. Possibly a few of the 
 lowest and most degraded tribes on the one hand, 
 and a few materialistic theorists on the other, may 
 never pray; but the mass of mankind recognize a 
 higher Being, or beings, with whom they seek 
 communication by prayer. Prayerlessness, like 
 atheism, is nowhere met with except in an erratic 
 condition. In all regions and in all ages the 
 great body of the earth's population have instinc- 
 
Answer to prayer. 117 
 
 lively looked up for relief in their distresses to the 
 Power, or powers, they conceived to be above 
 them. Erroneous and crude their conceptions of 
 that Power may have been, and sensual and grov- 
 elling the desires that inspired them, yet in one 
 spirit or another prayer million-voiced has ever 
 ascended from every inhabited quarter of the 
 globe. 
 
 Prayer, then, it may be truly said, is 'Uhe 
 voice of nature," the instinctive cry of creature 
 weakness and dependence. In pressing need, in 
 imminent danger or helpless suffering, the deep- 
 est and the strongest feelings of the human heart 
 prompt to prayer. When earthly comforts flee, 
 when help from man fails, when hope from the 
 V\^orld is vanishing, the mind of its own prompt- 
 ings rises above every creature relation and goes 
 out beyond all that is visible for the succor which 
 it needs. In such circumstances the innate reli- 
 gious sentiment of the soul is aroused and address- 
 es itself to God, and looks to him alone for relief. 
 This feeling is universal, is a general fact of na- 
 ture, as clearly recognizable as the action of heat 
 or the force of gravitation. In every region of 
 the earth, where the Bible is and where it is not, 
 man's heart in one way or another cries out for 
 the living God. 
 
 What has been thus so deeply and so univer- 
 
Il8 NATURAI. T.AWS AND GOSPEIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 sally implanted by the Creator in the heart of man 
 must be in harmony with His arrangements of the 
 world around him and with the principles of His 
 government over him; for there are no jars, no 
 gaps, no discordant or disconnected parts, in the 
 system of his creation. Inborn religious senti- 
 ment prompting to prayer is a veritable element 
 in that system, is an actual fact in the universe; 
 and therefore must be in harmony with the laws 
 of the universe. 
 
 If God has so constituted his creature man that 
 he naturally and instinctively turns to Him in his 
 wants and extremities, we may be sure that a due 
 provision has been made whereby his prayers may 
 be answered, unless we believe that this religious 
 instinct has been given to deceive and delude 
 him, given to excite hopes that must end in the 
 sadness of disappointment. But this would be an 
 aspersion of both the wisdom and the goodness of 
 the Creator. In all nature we find no faculty, no 
 organ, no appetite, for the exercise and gratifica- 
 tion of which due and fitting provision has not 
 been made. God had never implanted the cra- 
 vings of hunger and thirst had he not also provided 
 means to satisfy them; he had never formed the 
 lungs had he not likewise created the atmosphere 
 to fill them; and he had not formed the eye if 
 there existed no lieht to illumine it. So the all- 
 
ANSWER TO TRAYKR. II9 
 
 wise and loving Father of all would never have 
 implanted these promptings to prayer in the hu- 
 man breast had he not also ordained a way and 
 means to answer these prayers. To imbue man 
 with a religious sentiment that quickens him to 
 cry unto God, and then place him in a world un- 
 der the control of a set of unconscious forces and 
 inflexible lav/s that admit not of an answer to 
 those cries, would be as though the Creator had 
 implanted in the new-born infant the strong and 
 craving instinct which leads it to seek and to 
 draw the mother's breast, while he had so formed 
 that breast that not a drop of milk could ever flow 
 into it or out of it. Thus, nature herself not only 
 repudiates the charge that her laws forbid an an- 
 swer to the prayers of men, but also gives assu- 
 rance that the ear of their Father in heaven is ever 
 open to hear and his heart ever ready to answer 
 them as may be for their best welfare. 
 
 Leaving the evidence thus supplied by general 
 principles and the established order of nature, we 
 now advance to an argument of a more direct 
 character, and shall show that the fixedness or 
 uniformity of nature's laws, even as view^ed by 
 the materialist, offer no impediment to the an- 
 swering of the most important prayers offered by 
 the Christian in their full and literal import. 
 
I20 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACIIINGS. 
 PRAYER ANSWERED BY INFLUENCE ON MINDS. 
 
 The most important and most numerous class 
 of prayers offered by the Christian may be an- 
 swered by direct spiritual influence on the mind — 
 the mind of him who prays or the minds of those 
 for whom prayer is made. And all such answers 
 are independent of all physical laws and lie with- 
 out their sphere or dominion. 
 
 That mind can act upon mind and spirit in- 
 fluence spirit are facts that need no proof, for we 
 daily observe them between man and man. And 
 to such influence the laws of matter present no 
 hindrance; they neither affect it nor are affected 
 by it. When, for example, the gospel preacher 
 or the philosophical lecturer, by his presentation 
 of truths or facts or motives, so far influences the 
 minds of the whole audience before him as to 
 change their views and principles and actions for 
 all time to come, the laws of nature are in nowise 
 involved in this mental change. The laws of 
 matter and the laws of mind are essentially dif- 
 ferent and distinct, and the action of the latter 
 neither clashes nor interferes with that of the 
 former. 
 
 Now, the orator exerts such influence by open- 
 ing the mental eye of those who listen to him to 
 see things in a different light, and by transmit- 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 121 
 
 ting in some mysterious way his own emotions 
 and sympathies, his own spirit, into their hearts. 
 The speaker affects the hearer by sympathy as 
 well as by reasoning. And thus one mind has 
 often been observed to sway the minds of a whole 
 multitude as sways the wind a whole forest. 
 
 If then the finite mind of man can thus influ- 
 ence the minds of others, much more can the Infi- 
 nite Mind influence the minds of all his creatures. 
 And as the laws of the physical world do not 
 dominate in the mental and moral world, He can 
 do this without the slightest interference with the 
 established order of material nature. As he is 
 ever present wdth each human soul and intimate- 
 ly conversant w4th all its hidden springs of 
 thought and emotion, he can impart light or sug- 
 gest ideas or present motives or rouse feelings 
 such as may decide the judgment, influence the 
 heart, and determine the actions of any living 
 man, and that without in any degree forcing his 
 will or violating his free moral agency. Now^ the 
 bearing of this indisputable truth on answer to 
 prayer is very broad, much broader indeed than 
 many seem to apprehend. We shall here, there- 
 fore, by way of illustration, apply it to several 
 classes of prayer. 
 
 I. Prayer for purely spiritual blessings. These 
 are what occupy the foremost place in the Chris- 
 
122 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 tian's supplications: the pardon of sin, the growth 
 of faith and love, the increase of spiritual strength 
 to struggle successfully against temptation, wis- 
 dom to fulfil all duty, and grace to bring all in- 
 ward desires and propensities into conformity 
 with the will of God. These are the burden of 
 his prayers and hold the first and highest place in 
 his mind as he bends his knees before the Father 
 of mercies. Now, as all these are gracious bless- 
 ings proceeding from the Holy Spirit of God and 
 received into the waiting spirit of man, it is obvi- 
 ous that all prayers offered for them can be an- 
 swered without the slightest intervention with 
 any of the laws or forces of material nature. 
 
 2. Prayer for the conversion of sinners. This, 
 both in its nature and object, is the same as the 
 preceding; it is asking that the same blessings we 
 seek for ourselves may be bestowed upon others. 
 Answer to these prayers, therefore, involves no 
 more interference with natural laws than the 
 former; neither does it require any infringement 
 on the freedom of the will in those for whom 
 prayer is offered. As we, by instruction or per- 
 suasion, can influence the mind and change the 
 conduct of our friends without violating their free 
 will, so God, in answer to our prayers, can by his 
 Spirit enlighten the minds and move the hearts 
 of men, and thus influence them to pursue a course 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 23 
 
 of holy living without in any sense affecting their 
 freedom. And that such gracious influence has 
 often followed the prayers of Christians abundant 
 evidence might readily be given. 
 
 3. Prayer for the prosperity of benevolent institn- 
 tions. This likewise may be answered by favor- 
 iuQf influence on human minds. Take, for exam- 
 l^le, a missionary society. Prayers for this may 
 be answered by influencing the minds of men to 
 contribute liberally of their substance for its sup- 
 port, by influencing the minds of its missionaries 
 as they deliver the message of the gospel, and by 
 influencing the minds of the heathen as they lis- 
 ten to it. So of seminaries, colleges, hospitals, etc. 
 
 4. Prayer for the defeat of the ptirposes and plots 
 of iniqttity. History abounds with instances where 
 such prayer has been signally answered by im- 
 pressions made on the minds of men. The inhu- 
 man purpose of Jacob's sons to kill their younger 
 brother Joseph, by an impression first on the mind 
 of Reuben and then on that of Judah, was not 
 only frustrated but made to pave the way for that 
 brother's high promotion in the land of Egypt. A 
 tender impression made, in answer to the prayers 
 of Amram and Jochebed, on the mind of Pharaoh's 
 daughter through the tears and beauty of the babe 
 Moses not only defeated the cruel edict that 
 doomed him to perish in the Nile, but secured 
 
124 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TOACHINGS. 
 
 for him a princely education, whicli fitted him to 
 become the future leader and lawgiver of Israel. 
 Haman's plot to cut off all the Jews throughout 
 Persia in one day, in answer to Esther's prayers 
 and fasting was foiled through a powerful impres- 
 sion made on the mind of King Ahasuerus, which 
 took from him even his sleep. Herod's murder- 
 ous design to destroy the infant Saviour was de- 
 feated by an impression made on the mind of 
 Joseph in a dream. The soldiers' counsel to kill 
 Paul together with all the other prisoners was set 
 aside by a friendly impression wrought on the 
 mind of the centurion. The "Gunpowder Plot" 
 to blow up the whole English Parliament was dis- 
 covered and defeated by a mysterious impression 
 made on the mind of lyord Monteagle. The life 
 of Howard, the great philanthropist, was saved 
 from the assassin's dagger by an unaccountable 
 impression which induced him to take a different 
 road to church from that which he usually fol- 
 lowed. Thus history is full of illustrations of the 
 truth that in answer to prayer the plots of the 
 wicked, the projects of ambition and resentment, 
 the rage of persecution, and the vindictive de- 
 signs of pride, envy, and jealousy may not only 
 be defeated, but turned to accomplish opposite 
 and even beneficent ends; and all this without any 
 disturbance of the laws of mind or matter. 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 25 
 
 5. Prayer for success in worldly business. This 
 is a lawful and fitting prayer to be offered by the 
 farmer and mechanic, the merchant and the man- 
 ufacturer; and it may be favorably answered by 
 guiding his mind in forming and carrying out his 
 plans, by inclining the minds of those he employs 
 to fidelity, and by inspiring the minds of those 
 with whom he deals with confidence in his truth- 
 fulness and honesty. How much all this may 
 contribute to a man's worldly success needs no 
 proof or illustration. And the public mind, how 
 easily may this be influenced for the making or 
 the ruining of men! The business mind of the 
 country is as sensitive to any rumor, good or bad, 
 as the thermometer is to heat or cold. What tri- 
 fles often serve to elevate or depress the markets, 
 to advance or reduce the price of stocks, to enli- 
 ven or dampen trade! A wdiisper of suspicion is 
 sufficient to create a panic that shall bring a 
 "run " upon a bank or distress upon a merchant- 
 house, and a breath of confidence may serve to 
 save and restore both. It is obvious hence that 
 prayer for success in business may be effectually 
 answered by mere influence upon minds. 
 
 6. Prayer for safety in travelling. This too is 
 an authorized and proper prayer, and an answer 
 to it may not require any infraction or suspension 
 of the laws which govern the winds or the waves 
 
126 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 or any other element. It may be answered simply 
 by an influence on the traveller's own mind, in 
 deciding when he shall start, in choosing his route, 
 or in selecting his train; or it may be answered 
 by an influence on the minds of those who have 
 the management of his train committed to their 
 care — the conductor, engineer, brakeman, switch- 
 man, signal tenders, and telegraph operators : 
 how much does the safety of every traveller de- 
 pend upon the fidelity and promptness of all these! 
 Or, take the voyager. He leaves the harbor to 
 cross the ocean with such a prayer on his lips. 
 That prayer may be answered through an insensi- 
 ble influence exerted upon the minds of those who 
 have the direction of the vessel in their hands, 
 deciding the commands of the mate, the watchful- 
 ness of the lookout, or the action of the steersman 
 in a critical moment; or it may be answered by 
 inclining the captain's mind at the outset to steer 
 a few points to the right or to the left of his usual 
 course, and thus sail clear of the iceberg envel- 
 oped in fog, or of the ship coming in the opposite 
 direction in the darkness of night, or of the spot 
 where shall descend the destructive thunderbolt, 
 or of the track of the cyclone that shall rush in 
 its fury over the deep. God is not shut up to the 
 performance of a miracle in order to answer the 
 prayer and insure the safety of stich as trust in him. 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 27 
 
 7. Prayer for protection in battle. An answer 
 even to sucli a pra3'er does not necessarily require 
 any interference with j)hysical laws ; influence 
 upon mind, the suppliant's own mind or that of 
 others, may be quite sufficient for this. Battles 
 are fought by the minds of men and not by their 
 bodies alone. The line of march and the position 
 to be taken are determined by some mind; every 
 movement and manoeuvre on the field of conflict is 
 ordered by some mind, the direction and moment 
 of firing every ball are decided by some mind, and 
 every step and attitude taken by the suppliant 
 himself is suggested by his own mind. And as 
 the Infinite Mind is present with all, with foe as 
 well as friend, and can by unfelt and unknown 
 influence quicken or retard or change any or all 
 of these decisions, or frustrate the execution of 
 them by haste or indecision, by dejecting the 
 hearts of the brave with sudden terror or render- 
 ing the hand of the strong weak and trembling in 
 the decisive moment — as all this is quite possible 
 to Him, it is obvious that he can with infinite 
 ease answer the prayer of the devout soldier and 
 bring him unharmed out of the hottest of the con- 
 flict without deflecting a ball or shivering a sword 
 contrary to the laws of nature. 
 
 Many well authenticated facts might readily 
 be adduced to show how an overruling providence 
 
128 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACHINGS. 
 
 influences and directs the minds of men when 
 they least think of it, but we confine ourselves to 
 a single instance. In our own Revolutionary 
 War, during the two days' skirmishing which 
 immediately preceded the battle of Brandy wine, 
 the following startling incident occurred: *'We 
 had not lain long," relates an officer in the Eng- 
 lish army, "when a rebel hussar, followed by an 
 officer dressed in dark green, mounted on a bay 
 horse, pressed within a few hundred feet of my 
 right flank, not perceiving us. I ordered three 
 good marksmen to steal near and fire at them ; but 
 the idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The 
 hussar in returning made a circuit, but the other 
 passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which 
 I advanced from the woods towards him. Upon 
 my calling he stopped; but after looking at me 
 he proceeded. I again drew his attention and 
 made signs to him to stop, levelling my piece at 
 him, but he slowly cantered away. I was within 
 a distance that I could have lodged half a dozen 
 balls in him before he could be out of my reach ; 
 I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant 
 to fire at the back of an individual coolly doing his 
 duty, so I let him alone. The next day I learned 
 through a surgeon who had been dressing the 
 wounds of some rebel officers that the individual 
 I had thus spared was none other than Gen. George 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 29 
 
 Washington himself. And I am not sorry that I 
 did not know at the time who he was."* How 
 remarkable is all this ! Here, by a mere mental 
 impression, a veteran officer is once and again led 
 to act contrary to the common usage of war and 
 to spare an enemy who was reconnoitring his 
 own position. But what issues hung upon that 
 unaccountable impression ! Had Washington then 
 fallen what had been the end of the Revolutionary 
 struggle, or what had been the subsequent condi- 
 tion of this country ? In all probability something 
 very different from what its actual history has 
 been. 
 
 8. Prayer for recovery in sichiess. The prayer 
 of faith in such a condition, the Scripture assures 
 us, availeth much, and, without "depriving one 
 miasmatic molecule of its properties" by a mira- 
 cle, may be answered in various ways. 
 
 In answer to such a prayer the physician's 
 mind, in the exercise of his professional knowl- 
 edge and experience, may be guided to a correct 
 judgment or diagnosis of the disease and to the 
 best remedy for it, and thus be enabled, through 
 the use of natural means, to restore his patient to 
 health ao^ain. 
 
 In answer to the prayer of the sick the Holy 
 Spirit may beget in him a trusting and hopeful 
 * Major Ferguson's " Piivate Letters." 
 
 Natural Laws. Q 
 
130 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACPIINGS. 
 
 frame of mind, which in the judgment of medical 
 authorities is always helpful to recovery. 
 
 In answer to prayer, when all symptoms are 
 discouraging, the divine Spirit may produce in 
 the sufferer a calm resignation to the will of God 
 which never fails to lighten and relieve his bur- 
 den, whatever his affliction may be. 
 
 In answer to prayer the Spirit of grace may 
 inspire the soul with faith in Christ which shall 
 enable the sick to rise superior to all the fears and 
 sufferings of dissolution, and thus triumph over 
 death itself. 
 
 Reviewing all the foregoing classes of prayer, 
 we see that the field where answer may be given, 
 independently of all natural laws, is very broad 
 and large; that the most important petitions that 
 we need or can offer may be granted by influence 
 on mind alone. And when all such prayers are 
 thus answered how little more is left for the 
 Christian to desire ! We see also to what narrow 
 limits the territory is reduced which the material- 
 ist can in any wise dispute; nor are we called upon 
 to yield him even this. 
 
 PRAYER ANSWERABLE THROUGH INVARIABLE 
 
 LAWS. 
 
 The Scriptures teach us both by precept and 
 example that we may pray for material blessings — ■ 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 131 
 
 for food, for favorable weather, for fruitful sea- 
 sons for protection from disease and from natural 
 calamities. And we now propose to sliow that 
 answer to such prayers may be granted in perfect 
 harmony with the workings of all natural laws. 
 
 This brings us face to face with the alleged 
 scientific difficulty. It is urged, as before stated, 
 that answer to such prayers would require a vio- 
 lation or suspension of the laws af nature, and 
 therefore is not to be looked for. As these laws 
 are established and immutable, no interruption or 
 suspension of them having ever been known, it is 
 asserted that human petitions can have no influ- 
 ence in procuring such blessings. The silent and 
 undeviating march of natural order, we are told, 
 leaves no room for such answers; physical laws 
 are unalterable in their action, and neither change 
 nor bend nor yield either to accomplish or defeat 
 any result in which the interests of mortals may 
 be involved. Prayers directed for such ends, 
 therefore, are equally vain and delusive. 
 
 The general constancy of nature in all her op- 
 erations is universally acknowledged and acted 
 upon. It is freely admitted that all the forces of 
 nature — gravitation, chemical affinity, light, heat, 
 magnetism, and electricity — act according to uni- 
 form and unvaried laws; that on sea and land, on 
 plain and mountain-top, each individual force acts 
 
1^2 NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 under the same mcasiires, weights, numbers, and 
 limitations at all times and under all circum- 
 stances. 
 
 All this is true, but it is only a part of the 
 truth. There is another general fact which is 
 equally well established, namely, that no one law 
 or force determines anything that we see take 
 place or done around us. Every change or prod- 
 uct or result that we witness in nature is the 
 effect of a combination of different forces. A shower 
 of rain, for example, is not the result of one force, 
 but of the combination of several forces — of heat, 
 electricity, chemical affinity, and gravitation^and 
 the action of eacli of these forces in such a com- 
 bination is modified by that of all the others; 
 hence we have showers more or less frequent, more 
 or less copious. And the wind: neither the speed 
 nor the direction nor the temperature of this is 
 determined by any one force, but by a combination 
 of causes — solar heat, electric currents, aqueous 
 vapors, etc. ; and as the one or the other of these 
 predominates in energy we have wind from this 
 or that quarter, strong wind or a gentle breeze. 
 A tree or a bush or an apple or an ear of wheat 
 is not the product of one force, but of the combined 
 action of many forces; and any variation in one 
 force caused by the other forces produces a greater 
 or less change in the result; hence our crops in 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 33 
 
 diflferent years vary both in quantity and quality. 
 So, then, while it is true that each law or force is 
 unvaried in its action, yet it produces the same 
 effect only when it w^orks under the same condi- 
 tions in reference to other laws or forces. When 
 these conditions are changed the effect likewise is 
 changed. And, as these conditions or combina- 
 tions are susceptible of endless variations, the re- 
 sults may be endlessly varied. 
 
 ''When scientific men speak, as they often 
 do," says the Duke of Argyll, "of all phenomena 
 being governed by invariable laws they use lan- 
 eua^e which is ambiguous, and in most cases they 
 use it in a sense which covers an erroneous idea 
 of the facts. There are no phenomena visible to 
 man of which it is true to say that they are gov- 
 erned by any invariable force. That which does 
 govern them is always some variable combination 
 of invariable forces. But this makes all the dif- 
 ference in reasoning on the relation of will to 
 law, of providence to physical affairs; this is the 
 one essential distinction to be admitted and ob- 
 served. There is no observed order of facts which 
 is not due to a combination of forces, and there is 
 no combination of forces which is invariable — 
 none which are not capable of change in infinite 
 decrees. In these senses— and these are the com- 
 mon senses in which law is used to express the 
 
134 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPKlv TEACHINGS. 
 
 plieiiomena of nature — law is not rigid, is not im- 
 mutable: it is not invariable, but is, on the con- 
 trary, pliable, subtle, and various."* 
 
 In illustration of these statements we here pre- 
 sent a few examples of the variable results pro- 
 duced by invariable laws acting in different com- 
 binations. "The course of nature," says John 
 Stuart Mill, "has not been uniform, but infi- 
 nitely various.." Variation and change are ob- 
 servable in every department of the creation. We 
 speak of the planets being governed by the im- 
 mutable laws of motion and gravitation, but so 
 manifold are the perturbations produced by their 
 mutual attractions that no planet in the system, 
 strictly speaking, ever twice describes precisely 
 the same orbit round the sun. We are told that 
 the action of the physical forces on the earth has 
 been uniform through all the periods of its geo- 
 logical history, yet how endlessly varied have 
 been the results produced by these forces, how 
 amazing the changes through which it is sup- 
 posed to have passed ! — in its beginning a molten 
 sphere enveloped in a dense atmosphere of steam ; 
 afterwards enswathed in a shoreless ocean; at a 
 later period exhibiting continents and islands all 
 clothed with a luxuriant vegetation; at a later 
 period still encased in ice and snow from pole 
 ^' The "Reign of Law," Chap. 2. 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 35 
 
 to pole; while at the present we find it enjoy- 
 ing every pleasing diversity of both soil and cli- 
 mate. Well might Sir Charles Lyell say, "Any 
 one who presumes to dogmatize respecting the 
 absolute uniformity of the order of nature is re- 
 buked by geological evidence of the changes which 
 that order has already undergone." Again, the 
 forces of nature, individually, operate uniformly 
 throughout the year ; yet by different combina- 
 tions of these forces we have the cold and barren- 
 ness of winter at one time and the warmth and 
 luxuriance of summer at another. The recurrent 
 order of the seasons is produced by invariable 
 causes; yet since the world began no season has 
 ever been exactly like another. The sun shines 
 uniformly and the gases and vapors composing 
 the atmosphere ever remain obedient to their re- 
 spective laws, but for all this the temperature has 
 often been known to change 20 or 30 or even 40 
 deofrees within a few hours. The Qreneral econ- 
 omy of physical nature continues the same, yet 
 one season proves eminently favorable to the de- 
 velopment and prevalence of cholera or yellow- 
 fever, while the next may forbid even the appear- 
 ance of these scourges; or one summer may be 
 marked by a damaging excess of rain and the 
 next by a protracted and withering drought; or 
 one year may be rendered memorable for its fre- 
 
136 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 quent tornadoes and earthquakes, while those that 
 follow shall witness none of these terrible phe- 
 nomena. In not one of these cases is any phys- 
 ical law violated or suspended or modified; all 
 are the results of different combinations of these 
 laws. 
 
 From facts such as these it is evident that the 
 earth and the sea and the air might be made to 
 pass through almost any imaginable changes, and 
 that the living inhabitants of the world might be 
 subjected to any sort or amount of physical evil 
 or be favored with any kind or degree of material 
 good — might be visited with a drought or a del- 
 uge, with fruitful seasons or blighted fields, with 
 an atmosphere that is salubrious or pestilential — 
 without the slightest interference with the uni- 
 form operation of any one law of nature. The 
 fixedness of physical laws, therefore, does not, as 
 the objectors set forth, necessarily exclude all an- 
 swer to prayer for material favors. All the an- 
 swers which the Scriptures promise and which 
 the Christian desires may be granted by adjust- 
 ment or combination of these laws. In the end- 
 less combinations of which the established forces 
 of the universe are susceptible God has ready to 
 his hand suitable and abundant resources to bring 
 about in answer to the prayers of the faithful 
 whatever change or result He may see in his in- 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 37 
 
 finite wisdom to be for their benefit without vio- 
 lating or suspending any one law of nature. 
 
 ANSWER TO PRAYER AND THE CONSERVATION 
 OF FORCE. 
 
 Here it may be asked, by way of objection to 
 all that has now been said, "But does God ever 
 interpose to produce such combinations? How 
 about the doctrine of the conservation of force? 
 Does not this exclude the idea of any divine agen- 
 cy being exercised in the system of nature for the 
 answering of such prayers?" 
 
 Well, and what is this doctrine of conserva- 
 tion? Simply that the stun of all the physical 
 energies of the universe is believed to be always 
 the same. Or, to express it more fully, that while 
 the various forces of nature are so related as to be 
 mutually convertible, that is, motion may be con- 
 verted into heat, heat into electricity, electricity 
 into light, etc., no one of them can make its ap- 
 pearance in a new or different form without an 
 equivalent expenditure of some other force, so that 
 the Sinn of all remains ever a constant quantity. 
 Hence it is inferred that the divine energy can 
 have no place or part in the workings of the uni- 
 verse, that "no personal volition can mix itself 
 in the economy of nature" at the call of any 
 prayer of man. 
 
138 NATURAIv I.AV\^S AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 This objection naturally and at once suggests 
 the question, Is this doctrine of conservation true? 
 has it been proved? "If true," says Balfour 
 Stewart, one of the foremost of living physicists, 
 "if true, its truth certainly cannot be j)roved after 
 the manner in which we prove a proposition in 
 Euclid; nor does it even admit of a proof so rigid 
 as that of the conservation of matter." This 
 doctrine rests altogether on indirect proof derived 
 from very limited and defective experiments, and 
 the evidence that can be obtained for it in this 
 way is only approximative. In all the experi- 
 ments ever made there has always been a certain 
 discrepance between the sum of the force started 
 with, in one form, and the sum recovered, in an- 
 other form. "Absolute equality," says Javon, 
 "is always a matter of assumption." Such is 
 the narrow and uncertain foundation upon which 
 rests the astounding assertion that the divine 
 agency can have no place or part in the operations 
 of nature. It is not without good reason, there- 
 fore, that Prof. Bowne makes the energetic re- 
 mark, "It is a vexatiously common error with 
 semi-scientific speculators to affirm the doctrine 
 of conservation to be absolute, and then to con- 
 clude that there can be no vital or spontaneous 
 agent in the system. The fallacy is evident, for 
 it consists in deducing the premises from the con- 
 
ANSWER TO TRAYER. 1 39 
 
 elusion, which in turn is true only on the pre-as- 
 sumed truth of the premises." 
 
 That the divine will can interpose to produce 
 any required combinations of the physical forces, 
 whatever of truth may be in the doctrine of con- 
 servation, is obvious from what the will of man 
 is able to effect among them. Will is an acknowl- 
 edged source of power, and it is an indisputable 
 fact that the will of man can counteract, modify, 
 and direct, to a certain extent, any of the various 
 forces of nature. Daily observation and experi- 
 ence prove that man, by the agency of his intelli- 
 o-ent volition, combines and directs these forces 
 every day, whereby he brings about results wholly 
 different from those which would have taken 
 place except for such combination and direction. 
 And how numerous and diversified are the com- 
 binations of these forces which he has been able 
 to effect, and how surprising the results produced 
 by them ! His steam engines, his telegraphs, 
 telephones, telescopes, spectroscopes, balloons, 
 diving-bells, musical instruments, electric ma- 
 chines, chemical retorts, and a hundred other in- 
 ventions—what are they? Simply contrivances 
 to produce special combinations and adjustments 
 of the forces of nature. None of these create 
 force in any sense or degree; they only combine 
 existing forces. And though by means of them 
 
140 NATURAL IvAWS AND GOSPEL TKACHINGS. 
 
 he lias been able to alter climate, to raise and 
 lower temperature, to increase and diminish the 
 fall of rain, to improve the soil, to multijDly food, 
 to banish disease, and to change the face of the 
 earth and the condition of its inhabitants, yet no 
 difficulty or check from the doctrine of conserva- 
 tion has been experienced in accomplishing all 
 this. Much less, then, can this doctrine present 
 any impediment to the divine will. 
 
 In illustration of this point we may go farther 
 than anything that man has actually accomplished 
 and yet remain within the limits of what is possi- 
 ble to him. If the waters of the Mediterranean, 
 as lately proposed, were made to flow in upon the 
 lower level of the Desert of Sahara and convert a 
 large portion of its surface into a lake, it would 
 produce such new meteorological combinations as 
 would change the wdiole aspect and condition of 
 the surrounding region for thousands of miles. 
 Or, what is not an impossibility, if a canal were 
 cut across the Isthmus of Panama of sufficient ca- 
 pacity to divert the Gulf Stream from its present 
 course and allow it to flow directly into the Pacif- 
 ic, instead of turning northward along the Amer- 
 ican coast, there would follow such a new combi- 
 nation of the elements as would change the pres- 
 ent eenial climate of the British Isles and North- 
 western Bnrope into one as rigorous as that of 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 141 
 
 Labrador. Yet were both these schemes accom- 
 plished, great as would be the changes that would 
 follow, a Tyndall or a Faraday, experimenting 
 and philosophizing on the forces of nature in New 
 Zealand, supposing he had received no informa- 
 tion of them, would never dream that such new 
 combinations had been formed or that the doc- 
 trine of conservation had been in any wise affected. 
 All things would continue to him as they were 
 from the beginning. So if the divine will saw fit 
 to effect certain meteorological combinations in 
 order to bring on rain or to ward off disease, in 
 answer to the prayers of a prostrate nation, no ex- 
 periment of man, no application of his doctrine 
 of the conservation of energy, would ever discover 
 that his volition had been concerned in brineine 
 about the result. 
 
 If the will of man, then, with his short insight 
 into nature and with his feeble powers to control 
 it, is able to do so much to direct and combine its 
 forces to bring about different results, what may 
 not the will of Him who is almighty and omnis- 
 cient be able to accomplish ? What combinations 
 and adjustments may He not be able to effect in 
 perfect harmony with the observed order of na- 
 ture ? All proper conceptions of God as an omni- 
 present, omniscient, and omnipotent Being bind 
 us to believe that He is present — present in all 
 
142 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 the fulness of his perfections — at each point of 
 space and through each instant of time; that He 
 momentarily stands in immediate and active con- 
 nection with every particle of matter in the uni- 
 verse — as immediate and active as in the moment 
 of its creation. He may therefore put forth an 
 influence among physical agents for their combi- 
 nation and direction beyond the reach of man's 
 vision or sagacity; may determine their balan- 
 cings where human science cannot trace nor hu- 
 man instruments detect the influence of his power, 
 where all energy and all laws known to man are 
 merged and lost in the divine volition whence all 
 laws and all forces are derived. From the inex- 
 haustible magazine of possible combinations the 
 Governor of the world can draw with infallible 
 skill the agencies of his dispensations towards 
 every human being and every living thing. All 
 the energy in operation or in existence in the uni- 
 verse being none other than energy derived from 
 his own omnipotent will, He can with infinite 
 ease, in answer to his people's cry, send or with- 
 hold rain, restore health or ward off disease, grant 
 favoring winds to the mariner or fruitful seasons 
 to the husbandman, in perfect harmony with all 
 the known laws of nature. And when we x^ray 
 for such favors we do not look for a miracle; we 
 do not ask God to violate or suspend or depart 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYER. 1 43 
 
 from any of the laws which he has established^ 
 but to direct their wonted operations so as to bring 
 ns whatever his infinite wisdom and love may see 
 best for us. 
 
 CONC1.USION. 
 
 The laws of nature, then, rightly understood 
 in their mutual influence and combined activity 
 and rightly aiDprehended in their relation to the 
 Great Ruler of all, present neither obstacle nor 
 discouragement to prayer even for material bless- 
 ings and temporal favors. And concerning the 
 attitude and spirit of those who represent them as 
 being such we can employ no language more 
 truthful or fitting than that of the distinguished 
 Dr. William B. Carpenter, in his masterly address 
 on retiring as the president of the British Associ- 
 ation for the Advancement of Science in 1872. 
 "To set up these laws," he says, "as self-acting 
 and as either excluding or rendering unnecessary 
 the Power which alone can give them effect ap- 
 pears to me as arrogant as it is unphilosophical. 
 To speak of any law as regulating or governing 
 phenomena is only permissible on the assumption 
 that the law is the expression of the modus operandi 
 of the governing Power. Those who set up their 
 own conceptions of the orderly sequence which 
 they discern in the phenomena of nature as fixed 
 
144 NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 and determinate laws, by wliicli these phenomena 
 not only are, but always have been and always 
 must be invariably governed, are really guilty of 
 the intellectual arrogance they condemn in the 
 systems of the ancients and place themselves in 
 diametrical antagonism to those real philosophers 
 by whose comprehensive grasp and penetrating 
 insight that order has been so far disclosed. The 
 order of nature is worshipped as itself a god by 
 the class of interpreters whose doctrine I call in 
 question. The real philosopher is one who al- 
 ways loves truth better than his system." 
 
 A few years ago it was proposed by one of this 
 class to reduce prayer to an experimental test by 
 selecting a certain ward in a hospital to be made 
 a special object of prayer and another ward for 
 which no prayer should be offered, and then at 
 the end of a specified period compare the results 
 in deaths and recoveries in these two wards as 
 evidence of the efficacy of prayer. We need not 
 stop to show that such a proposition clearly indi- 
 cates in its author an utter misconception of both 
 the nature and conditions of true prayer. To test 
 the efficacy of prayer is indeed perfectly legiti- 
 mate, not, however, in the skeptical spirit in 
 which this proposal was made, but with a hum- 
 ble and honest heart. Whoever shall tJuis make 
 trial of the benefit of j^rayer will find the most 
 
ANSWER TO PRAYKR. 1 45 
 
 convincing of all proofs in his own happy experi- 
 ence. It is good for me to drazv near to God has 
 been the testimony of millions in the ages past 
 and is the testimony of millions to-day, among 
 whom are numbered not a few of those who stand 
 in the foremost ranks of science. And in closing 
 I would say to my unbelieving reader, let him 
 make but the humble and honest trial and he will 
 not long stand in doubt. However inexplicable 
 may appear to him the divine agency in the gov- 
 ernment of the world and whatever seeming or 
 real contradictions, anomalies, or enigmas he may 
 witness in life, he will soon attain to a conscious- 
 ness that will brush all these difficulties aside as 
 so many cobwebs that had blurred his vision. 
 And henceforth, in whatever place he shall bow 
 his head in sincere worship, he will find it good 
 to be there. As often as in humble and earnest 
 prayer he shall seek light in the perplexities of 
 duty or help in the hard battle of life, there will 
 come from above a beam that shall illumine his 
 pathway and grace that shall strengthen and nerve 
 him for the conflict. *'They that wait upon the 
 Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount 
 up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not 
 be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.'* 
 
 Natural Laws. \Q 
 
146 NATURAI. I.AWS AND GOSrEL TKACHINGS. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 
 
 The resurrection of the dead is a doctrine of 
 pure revelation. Natural reason did not discover 
 or conceive it. The nearest approach to it ever 
 made by heathen sages appears to be the notion 
 of metempsychosis, or the passing of the souls of 
 deceased men into the bodies of various animals — 
 a condition which was to them not so much an 
 object of hope as of dread, being a state of indefi- 
 nite purgatory. Of resurrection proper they had 
 no conception; and when it was announced to 
 some of the wisest among them, they deemed it a 
 thing incredible and scoffed at it. 
 
 This doctrine is peculiar to the inspired Scrip- 
 tures. Intimations of it, and even some general 
 statements concerning it, are to be found in the 
 Old Testament. As on many other truths, more 
 and more light was given on this subject with the 
 progressive development of God's will and purpose 
 concerning men. Job, David, Isaiah, and Dan- 
 iel successively speak of it in terms ever growing 
 more lucid and definite. And towards the close 
 of that ancient dispensation we find that it was a 
 
THE RESURRECTION OE THE DEAD. 147 
 
 prevailing doctrine among the Jews. But its more 
 particular and full revelation was reserved to be 
 made by Christ and his apostles, who taught it in 
 positive and explicit terms, such as the following: 
 
 "The hour is coming in which all that are in 
 the grave shall hear his voice and shall come 
 forth; they that have done good unto the resur- 
 rection of life, and they that have done evil unto 
 the resurrection of judgment." 
 
 "The lyord himself shall descend from heaven 
 with a shout and with the voice of the archangel 
 and w^ith the trump of God: and the dead in 
 Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that 
 are left, shall together with them be caught up 
 into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and 
 so shall we ever be with the lyord." 
 
 Such are the clear announcements made in the 
 gospel concerning the wonderful change that is to 
 pass upon the living and the dead at the last day. 
 
 DIEEICULTIES PRESENTED BY THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 That the dead — all the dead of the human 
 race — should be raised to life aQ:ain at the final 
 day is an event so wonderful, and to natural rea- 
 son so improbable, that it has given rise to many 
 skeptical and perplexing questions. It has been 
 asked. When the body has been utterly dissolved 
 and its constituents scattered by winds and waves 
 
148 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACIIINGS. 
 
 to be mingled with a thousand other substances, 
 how is it possible that they should be re-collected 
 and reorganised again? When the materials 
 composing the body have gone to nourish plants 
 and trees and become parts of their leaves and 
 flowers and fruits, and when these again have be- 
 come food for beasts and birds and fishes and thus 
 been compounded into their bodies, how can these 
 materials be brought together again and be mould- 
 ed into a human frame as before? x\gain. If all 
 its particles could be found and collected, will 
 they be fashioned into a body of the same form 
 and features as that buried? Will the aged be 
 raised as aged, the youth as youth, and those who 
 died in infancy as infants? Again, Will all the 
 matter which at any time entered into its compo- 
 sition during life be employed to form the resur- 
 rection body, or only that which belonged to it at 
 the moment of death ? And again. If the same 
 particles of matter have at successive periods 
 formed part of two different bodies, as in the case 
 of a cannibal and his victim, how can those self- 
 same particles be given to each of these claimants? 
 These and other like questions will be best an- 
 swered by presenting the exact statements of Scrip- 
 ture concerning the resurrection body in connec- 
 tion with the physiological facts ascertained re- 
 specting the composition, growth, and decay of 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 149 
 
 the present body. This we shall now attempt to 
 do. 
 
 HOW THE BODY IS BUILT UP. 
 
 All the substances which enter into the com- 
 position of our frames come from without. The 
 body, admirable as all its parts and functions are, 
 can create nothing ; every ounce added to its 
 weight and every inch added to its dimensions, 
 from earliest infancy to full-grown manhood, are 
 produced by materials drawn from the external 
 world. And now let us glance at the several ways 
 in which these are obtained and employed to build 
 it up and to preserve it in health, vigor, and ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 The first and most obvious supply of materials 
 for building up the body comes from ih^food \\q 
 eat. This, after undergoing the chemical changes 
 produced in the stomach, is carried forward into 
 the intestines, and in passing through these the 
 nutritive parts are strained off by innumerable 
 minute orifices, called lactcals^ which, through 
 their hair-like pipes and by successive steps, unite 
 their contents and discharge them by the thoracic 
 duct into the jugular vein to mingle with the 
 blood, which is carried directly into the heart, to 
 be propelled by this through the arteries to every 
 member and portion of the body to supply the 
 material necessary for their construction and per- 
 
150 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TE:aCHINGS. 
 
 petual repair. Under the mysterious guidance of 
 the vital principle every particular part of the 
 body selects from this nourishing blood the special 
 chemical compounds which are required for the 
 formation of its own peculiar substance or for the 
 discharge of its special function. Thus the bones 
 specially select and appropriate phosphate of lime, 
 while the muscles take phosphate of magnesia and 
 phosphate of potash. The cartilages choose and 
 grow on soda; the teeth extract fluorine; the hair, 
 skin, and nails select and almost monopolize the 
 silica; the eye and the hair extract the iron to 
 form their pigment; the brain gathers largely of 
 the phosphorus. Thus to each part of the body 
 certain chemical substances seem to be most spe- 
 cially appropriate, and to each part a peculiar and 
 special power has been given of selecting from the 
 common source of supply those materials which 
 suit it best to work withal. 
 
 But what we eat and drink is not the only 
 supply; the atmosphere likewise furnishes a large 
 amount of the elements necessary to build up and 
 sustain the body. This we obtain by the act of 
 breathing. A man of average size, say weighing 
 154 lbs., with every inspiration draws into the 
 lungs about one pint of air; and taking the aver- 
 age of inspirations at 18 to a minute, he will thus 
 inhale 3,000 gallons of atmosphere every twenty- 
 
THK RKSURRKCTION OF TITR DI^AD. 151 
 
 four hours. The air thus taken in after a brief 
 interval is thrown out again directly from the 
 lungs and indirectly from the pores of the skin, 
 but from both these in an altered condition, now 
 containing a much larger amount of both watery 
 vapor and carbonic acid than when it entered. 
 The skin alone exhales in insensible perspiration 
 from one and a half to two pounds and the lungs 
 something over one pound of water every twenty- 
 four hours; and during the same period from one 
 to three pounds, according to circumstances, of 
 carbonic acid are given off from both the lungs 
 and the pores. These two processes, inhalation 
 and exhalation, go on without intermission both 
 when we are awake and wdien we are asleep. 
 
 From the air inhaled the lungs extract from 
 one-seventh to one-fifth of its oxygen, a quantity 
 equal in w^eight to about one-fourth that of the 
 whole amount of food taken, every twenty-four 
 hours. This oxygen combines directly with the 
 constituents of the blood in the lungs, and is then 
 carried with the ceaseless current of the arteries 
 to every portion and particle of the body to help 
 build up the solid substance of the muscles, car- 
 tilages, and skin. It forms a part of the material 
 of which they are necessarily composed, and there- 
 fore is real food, and to a certain extent we live 
 upon it. Only a part of the oxygen extracted by 
 
152 naturat. laws and gospkt. teachings. 
 
 the lungs, however, is thus used to build up the 
 body; the other and greater part of it is employed 
 for an opposite purpose, which we shall now de- 
 scribe. 
 
 HOW THE BODY IS DISSOI.VED AND CHANGED. 
 
 Particles of the substances composing the vari- 
 ous parts of the body continually wear out, so to 
 speak, and become effete; these the oxygen, by 
 combining with them, renders soluble, so that 
 they are easily removed by the proper channels 
 to give place to new and efficient particles. If 
 we could look into the substance of the body, we 
 should see that, throughout, its constituent parts 
 are in a state of perpetual motion and change. 
 No part, not even the most solid, is exempt from 
 this. Portions of the substance of the bones, of 
 the muscles, of the heart, of the brain, become 
 changed and unfit for the places they occupy and 
 are dissolved and carried away as waste matter 
 with the blood that flows through the veins, from 
 which it is eliminated by the kidneys and other 
 organs; in the meanwhile the places of these ef- 
 fete particles are continually supplied by new 
 matter extracted from the rich arterial blood. 
 
 The particles of our corporeal frame may be 
 likened to "the population of a great city, who 
 are ever in motion and in change, coming and 
 
THE REvSURRKCTlON OF TIIK DEAD. I53 
 
 going continually, weeded out and removed hour 
 after hour by deaths and departures, yet as un- 
 ceasingly kept up in numbers by new incomers; 
 changing from day to day so insensibly as to 
 escape observation, yet so evidently that after the 
 lapse of a few years scarcely a known face can be 
 discerned among congregated thousands. Thus 
 it is with the constituent parts of the body. So 
 rapid is the wear and tear of this animal machine 
 in consequence of its incessant movements that 
 the repairs which are constantly called for are 
 said to renovate the whole framework in a very 
 brief period. Every wheel in that short space is 
 removed and renewed. New materials are brought 
 in for the purpose, while the old are thrown away 
 and rejected. Scarcely has the gluten of the 
 plant been comfortably fitted into its place in the 
 muscle, the skin, or the hair, when it begins forth- 
 with to be dissolved out again — to be decomposed 
 and removed from the body. Restlessness beyond 
 our control is thus inherent in the very matter of 
 which our bodies are formed. ' ^ 
 
 A distinguished physiologist gives the follow- 
 ing analysis of the composition, losses, and gains 
 of the human frame: The body of a man weighing 
 154 pounds is composed of 88 pounds of water 
 and 66 pounds of solid matters. Such a body in 
 twenty -four hours throws off or loses of water. 
 
154 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 40,000 grains, or 6 pounds, and of other matters, 
 14,500 grains, or 2 pounds. These losses take 
 place through the lungs, kidneys, skin, and bow- 
 els, and amount all to 8 pounds. 
 
 A man of this weight, therefore, in order to 
 maintain his present condition or weight must 
 daily receive into his system of solid food 8,000 
 grains, of oxygen 10,000 grains, and of water 
 2)6^ 500 grains, which together amount to 8 pounds. 
 
 Thus there is a complete change of material 
 to the amount of 8 i)ounds taking place in the 
 body of such a man every twenty-four hours. 
 From facts such as these it has been inferred by 
 Profs. Johnston, Huxley, and others that the en- 
 tire body is changed and renewed in a period of 
 less than thirty days. This period, at first an- 
 nouncement, may appear altogether too brief; but 
 if we duly weigh the foregoing facts, it is not 
 perhaps incredible. But if, to make sure that we 
 are within the limits of truth, we allow a whole 
 year to complete the change, the rapidity with 
 which this earthly house is dissolved and rebuilt 
 will be sufficiently wonderful and serve all the 
 ends for which we mention the fact. 
 
 WHAT BECOMES OF THE MATERIAL BODY. 
 
 Here let us devote a moment to inquire what 
 becomes of the materials thus thrown off from the 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 155 
 
 body, materials which once formed parts of its 
 living tissues and fluids and which we regarded 
 and felt to be parts of ourselves. 
 
 The watcr^ of which some two pounds are 
 thrown off from the lungs and the pores every 
 twenty-four hours, floats through the atmosphere 
 in the form of vapor and is presently condensed 
 into dew or rain to nourish grass and plants, 
 which erelong serve to feed animals and men 
 once more. Thus this fluid, never at rest, goes 
 through the same circle of changes again and 
 again. What circulates in my system to-day a 
 few days hence may flow through the veins of 
 another. 
 
 The oxygen^ thrown off in various combinations 
 with the waste materials, soon regains its freedom 
 and its purity in the atmosphere, where, mingled 
 with the common ocean, it remains ready to be 
 inhaled by other lungs, to pass through a similar 
 round again. It is the common servant of all 
 that breathe or need its services. 
 
 The carbonic acid^ of which from one to three 
 pounds are daily thrown off, also floats in the at- 
 mosphere, to be absorbed by the green leaves and 
 grasses; and these, as before, sooner or later, are 
 largely taken into the stomachs of animals to be- 
 come parts of their living tissues. Thus the same 
 carbon may circulate over and over again, now 
 
156 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSrKL TEACHINGS. 
 
 floating in the invisible air, now forming the sub- 
 stance of the growing j)lant, now of the browsing 
 animal, and now of living man, and then return 
 to the atmosphere to pass through similar and 
 ceaseless rounds. What is mine of it this week 
 may be yours the next. 
 
 The ttrea and ttric acid^ into which the worn 
 and wasted muscles have been converted, passing 
 from the kidneys, return to the soil, from which 
 the nitrogen they contain originally came. There 
 they are gradually converted into ammonia, nitric 
 acid, and other substances, such as plant roots 
 originally took up, and which now, re-formed, are 
 ready again to enter into new roots and thus to 
 re-commence the same round of change. 
 
 The mineral matters embraced in the composi- 
 tion of the body — salts, lime, magnesia, etc., in 
 all about. 10 pounds — as they were at first derived 
 from the earth, so little by little they daily find 
 their way back to the earth again. From thence 
 they ascend into the substance of plants and grass, 
 thence into the substance of the bodies of animals 
 and men; and from these they descend, as before, 
 into mother earth to begin, like all the foregoing 
 substances, a new and similar career. 
 
 Finally, when the zvJiole body dies at once, its 
 leases soon disenQfao:e themselves and minQ;le with 
 the ocean of the atmosphere; its fluids become 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 157 
 
 absorbed by the soil and the dust of its more solid 
 parts is carried by percolating rains into the 
 streams and by the streams into the sea — all 
 sooner or later to enter into new chemical com- 
 binations in the general mass of the elements or 
 in the structure of vegetation or in the bodies of 
 living animals. A duty is laid upon every par- 
 ticle of matter composing our present frame to 
 prepare and hasten to new service as soon as its 
 commission with us is performed. How vain, 
 then, are the efforts of affection to cherish and 
 preserv^e the fading forms of the dead ! Do what 
 we may, they can never long be prevented from 
 returnincr to the ceaseless whirl of their natural 
 elements. Their destiny is inevitable. 
 
 SCRIPTURE STATEMENTS VERIFIED. 
 
 From all that has now been stated it is obvious 
 that the material elements which compose the 
 human body are in perpetual circulation and per- 
 petual change. Nothing that belongs to it is 
 permanent, nothing is fixed or abiding. All its 
 parts are in constant flux. It is not the same 
 during any two successive weeks or even on any 
 two successive days. It is not in all respects the 
 same on any morning when we awake as it was 
 on the preceding evening when we went to sleep. 
 It will be seen hence that the following state- 
 
158 NATURAL IvAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 ments of Scripture are in perfect harmony witli 
 the deductions of science: 
 
 1. That our bodies, though fearfully and won- 
 derfully made, are composed of the physical ele- 
 ments which exist around us: "The first man is 
 of the earth, earthy. ' ' 
 
 2. That portions of the living body are con- 
 tinually dying out and being replaced by others, 
 so that the apostle's words express a literal fact: 
 "The outward man is perishing — I die daily." 
 
 3. That we have already put on and put off a 
 greater number of bodies than we are years of 
 age, bodies fitted for infancy, for youth, and for 
 manhood: "God giveth to each a body as it hath 
 pleased him." 
 
 4. That neither form nor size nor sameness of 
 material is essential to personal identity; for, in 
 passing through our successive changes of body, 
 we have been conscious all along that we are the 
 selfsame individuals. Hence it is apparent that 
 we may be, and we shall be so still, when He 
 shall have changed this our vile body and fash- 
 ioned it "like unto his own glorious body." 
 
 5. That we have no standing or exclusive 
 claim or title to any of the particles of matter 
 which have served us as parts of our bodies, for 
 they have sustained the same relation and ren- 
 dered the same service to others before, and may 
 
THE RESURRECTION Oh' THE DEAD. 159 
 
 to Others still hereafter. They are neither mine 
 nor thine; nor need either of us regret this, for 
 they are not essential to "the body that shall be." 
 The Scriptures nowhere say that the resurrection 
 body shall be constituted of the identical particles 
 that composed the mortal body; on the contrary, 
 it is explicitly stated, "Thou sowest not that 
 body that shall be;" "flesh and blood cannot in- 
 herit the kingdom of God." 
 
 6. That the power that combines the elements 
 of earth and air into an organic plant, that con- 
 verts the substance of plant into the flesh of living 
 animals, and that transforms the flesh of animals 
 into the delicate tissues and sensitive nerves of 
 the human body, may carry on the ascending prog- 
 ress still higher and advance that mortal body to 
 an immortal, so that, "as we have borne the im- 
 age of the earthly, we shall also bear the image 
 of the heavenly." 
 
 THE BUILDER OK THIS EARTHLY TABERNACLE. 
 
 In organic nature the dominant force is that 
 mysterious principle we call life. This is the 
 formative and ordering power in both the vegeta- 
 ble and animal kingdoms. It is plant-life that 
 builds the plant, animal life that builds up the an- 
 imal frame, and it is this vital power within that 
 builds up and fashions our body. This is the pow- 
 
l6o NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 er that quickens into living substance and dispo- 
 ses into organic form the matter we receive as food. 
 Our food as taken into the stomach is dead matter, 
 and all its particles are dead even after they have 
 passed into the intestines; but when they have 
 reached a certain point in the circulation of the 
 system this vital power in some mysterious way 
 seizes upon these particles and infuses into them 
 its own living properties. And it is this vital 
 power, like an ingenious architect, that superin- 
 tends and directs the thousand builders who are 
 constantly constructing and reconstructing every 
 member and organ of our frame, selecting and 
 combining the proper materials for each particu- 
 lar part; here building up a bone, there forming 
 a tendon; here weaving the fibre of a muscle, 
 there the filament of a nerve ; here hinging a 
 valve, there glazing an eye — fashioning and fin- 
 ishing each with the most scrupulous nicety, and 
 combining all into one related and harmonious 
 system with a skill surpassing all admiration. 
 
 lyife, then (as God's agent), is the builder of 
 the present body. ' ' Organic form and structure, ' ' 
 says Profr J. J. Murphy, "are the result of this 
 formative principle; or, in briefer words, life is 
 the cause of organization ; organization is not the 
 cause of life. Organization is not essential to life. 
 There may be and there is life where there is no 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. l6l 
 
 organization." So the Duke of Argyll, in argu- 
 ing on this subject, says, "Let us never forget 
 that life, as we know it here below, is the antece- 
 dent or cause of organization and not its product; 
 that the peculiar combinations of matter which 
 are the homes and abodes of life are prepared and 
 shaped under the control and guidance of that 
 mysterious power which we know as vitality." 
 It is this vital power, this living principle, that 
 all along has given form and features and organi- 
 zation to the ceaseless current of ever-chaneine 
 materials which we have called our body. In 
 this vital principle we have the abiding and es- 
 sential force which forms and actuates the body, 
 the fashioning power that lies underneath and 
 permeates the outward phenomenon of corporeal 
 form, and which is the sole element of its iden^ 
 tiiy ; all else is in perpetual change. 
 
 In view of all this it is not inconsistent with 
 nature or Scripture to suppose that, after the sub- 
 stances of our present body shall have been dis- 
 solved and scattered by death, this vital and or- 
 ganic principle, life^ abiding still in connection 
 with the spirit in the presence of Christ — ''hid 
 with Christ in God" — may return with him in 
 union with the spirit at the final day, quickened 
 into higher and magnetic energies, capable of 
 drawing to itself from the same terrestrial ele- 
 
 Natural Laws. J \ 
 
l62 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 ments as before materials in conditions and com- 
 binations differing from anything we are now 
 acquainted with, and out of them fashion for itself 
 a new and superior habitation, "a spiritual body," 
 suited to its new and eternal condition of exist- 
 ence. Accordingly the apostle speaks of our being 
 "clothed upon" with "a house not made with 
 hands," which is to remain and abide "eternal 
 in the heavens." 
 
 Of this putting on of the new and spiritual 
 body we seem to have some intimations even in 
 nature. We see life in various animals building 
 for itself a succession of different bodies to suit 
 the different and advancing conditions of their 
 existence. The life that has been inclosed in the 
 egg of a butterfly presently forms for itself a more 
 spacious abode in the shape of a caterpillar; and 
 erelong it constructs still another, far more beau- 
 tiful, in the form of a winged butterfly, gleam- 
 ing with azure and gold. In the sitaris we see 
 life building for itself successively no less than 
 four very differently constructed abodes, suited 
 respectively to the four different conditions of its 
 existence. Again, some creatures there are which 
 are appointed to live in two different worlds, so 
 to speak; and life in these, as it passes from its 
 lower to its higher world, assumes to itself a cor- 
 respondingly higher and more perfect body. The 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 163 
 
 lihcUiila passes the first period of its existence be- 
 neath the water in the condition of an ignoble 
 larva, soiled with mud and filth; but the time 
 comes when it is to be an inhabitant of the upper 
 world, and we see it leave behind its first body 
 and construct another, furnished with brilliant and 
 irridescent wings of gauze, which bear it lightly 
 and happily through the air. The scarabceits also 
 spends its earlier period as a hideous subterranean 
 worm ; but, destined for a higher state, at the ap- 
 pointed time it undergoes a singular transforma- 
 tion, and we see it, with its emerald elytra, dis- 
 porting among the happiest of creatures in the 
 pure air and sunshine. The ancient Egyptians, 
 seeing in all this a svmbol of the transmii^ration 
 of souls, accounted this little creature as "sa- 
 cred. ' ' 
 
 These facts are presented, not as proofs of the 
 resurrection of man, but as marvels of nature that 
 should silence the cavils of incredulity; nor yet 
 are they oiTered as exact parallels to the resurrec- 
 tion, but as striking analogies, which render that 
 event credible and worthy of acceptance. If we 
 sec life in its lowest forms produce such wonders, 
 what may not life in its highest type effect? If 
 a humble worm, living in darkness and buried in 
 mud, is transformed as before our eyes into a beau- 
 teous creature, with feathers of silver and wings 
 
164 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 of gold, gliding through the air, revelling among 
 flowers, and exulting in the glowing sunbeams, 
 why should it be deemed incredible that intellec- 
 tual and moral man should know as great and 
 even greater change, and be translated into just 
 such form and constitution as the Holy Scriptures 
 promise and describe ? 
 
 THE PROPERTIES OF THE BODY THAT SHALL BE. 
 
 In the inspired Word we find not simply the 
 general announcement that there shall be a resur- 
 rection of the dead, but also a particular descrip- 
 tion of the bodies in which they shall be invested. 
 These, we are told, shall be widely different from 
 those we now occupy. "It is sown in corruption; 
 it is raised in incorruption." That is, the body 
 is laid in the grave a framework with an inevita- 
 ble tendency to disorganization and putrefaction; 
 but it shall be raised exempt from all liability to 
 disease or decay and remain for ever imperisha- 
 ble. ''It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in 
 glory.'' As soon as the vital spark has fled a 
 process of decomposition sets in, rendering the 
 body offensive and loathsome and making it 
 speedily necessary to hide it in the grave; but it 
 shall be raised in purity, beauty, and splendor, an 
 object worthy of admiration and honor. "It is 
 sown in weakness; it is raised in power." The 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF TllE DEAD. 165 
 
 present body is a feeble tabernacle, easily injured 
 and ever subject to weariness, languor, and ex- 
 haustion; but it shall be raised as the seat of 
 unwasting and untiring energies, capable of bear- 
 ing company to the immortal spirit, without fa- 
 tigue in all its services to God and in its ceaseless 
 excursions after knowledge over the broad areas 
 of creation. "It is sown a natural body; it is 
 raised a spiritual body." The present is an ani- 
 mal body, subject to all the laws of the animal 
 economy, the seat of animal appetites, passions, 
 and propensities; but the resurrection body will 
 be free from all these, a body constituted to be 
 in perfect accord with all the impulses and aspira- 
 tions of the sanctified soul dwelling within it, fit- 
 ted to live as spirits live, to move as spirits move, 
 and to act as spirits act. ' ' In the resurrection 
 they shall be as the angels." 
 
 Such is to be the resurrection body. But here 
 skepticism may be ready to ask. How can such a 
 thing be? How is it possible to constitute such a 
 body out of gross earthly materials ? Is not such 
 an idea in contradiction of all that we have ever 
 observed or experienced? Is not this doctrine 
 altoQfether incredible? To human is^norance it 
 may seem so and yet be true. We may not in- 
 deed be able to understand or even conceive how 
 this shall be done, but this argues nothing against 
 
l66 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSrEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 the doctrine. Our knowledge of the properties 
 and capabilities of matter as well as of the nature 
 and relations of the physical forces is as yet very 
 incomplete and very imperfect ; but we know 
 enough of both to meet and silence such cavils. 
 
 The play and transmutation of \\\^ forces which 
 actuate and control all nature are very wonderful 
 and past all human explanation; what now ap- 
 pears as motion may presently be converted into 
 heat, heat to magnetism, magnetism to electricity, 
 and electricity to light; or the reverse of all this 
 may take place, or the transmutations may follow 
 in any other order. The changes, combinations, 
 and transformations of which matter likewise is 
 capable are past all number and all knowledge. 
 What stands before us to-day as a solid block of 
 ice, to-morrow may be seen as a flowing stream or 
 a flying cloud, or it may exist as invisible steam or 
 in two different and distinct gases. What we han- 
 dle as solid gold or silver or copper or iron may 
 be transformed not only into molten fluid, but 
 into floating vapors or dancing molecules. The 
 elementary substance w^e call carbon may assume 
 the form of dull graphite or a lump of charcoal, 
 and the charcoal again that of the brilliant dia- 
 mond. Science tells us that the pending dewdrop 
 or the tear trembling on the lid may be charged 
 with a sufficient quantity of electricity to produce 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 167 
 
 a thunderstorm that shall shake a kingdom ; that 
 water may be frozen into a solid lump of ice in a 
 red-hot crucible; that a whisper can be rendered 
 audible at the distance of a hundred leagues and 
 the footfall of a fly as distinct as the tramp of a 
 horse. Science makes known to us the existence 
 of matter in conditions in which none of our senses 
 can take cognizance of it; oxygen, though it com- 
 poses one-half the substance of the whole globe and 
 is one of the most energetic elements in nature, 
 yet is colorless to the eye, tasteless to the tongue, 
 odorless to the nose, and impalpable to the hand. 
 Science asserts the existence of a material medi- 
 um, the luminiferous ether, and ascribes to it pow- 
 ers and properties which are as utterly incompre- 
 hensible to us as all that the Scriptures say con- 
 cerning the "spiritual body" of the resurrection. 
 It tells us that this ether is of so attenuated and 
 elastic a nature that the granite rock or the hard- 
 ened steel cannot exclude its presence or impede 
 its motions; that its power of resistance to pressure 
 is upwards of seventeen billions of pounds, and 
 yet we move through it constantly without feel- 
 ing it; that though it touches us perpetually on 
 every side, yet no touch of ours can detect it; that 
 its vibrations are so rapid that trillions of them 
 enter the eye in the briefest glance we can take at 
 any object; that it can convey a message to a dis- 
 
l68 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TKACIIINGS. 
 
 taiice equal to the circumference of tlie globe in 
 the seventh part of a second of time. In short, 
 science tells us that there is about us light to 
 which we are blind, sounds to which we are deaf, 
 heat and magnetism and electricity to which we 
 are insensible, that a thousand forms of force 
 strike us hourly which our dull nerves perceive 
 not, that a thousand objects and motions encom- 
 pass us which the narrow bounds of our organs 
 fail to take in. 
 
 With such facts as these laid before us, where 
 are the objections to a "spiritual body" based 
 npon the nature and properties of matter ? Who 
 is warranted to assert that earthly elements cannot 
 furnish materials to constitute just such bodies as 
 are promised to the saints at the resurrection day? 
 Who that knows the mystic transformations of 
 both matter and force which perpetually surprise 
 the chemist and the physicist will presume to say 
 what can or what cannot be wrought out by Infi- 
 nite Wisdom in the vast and complicated labora- 
 tory of nature? Do not these teachings of science 
 itself go to show that, for all we know, there may 
 be a world of spiritual existences, all clothed in 
 material bodies, around us at this very moment — 
 inhabiting this same globe, enjoying these same 
 scenes of nature — of whom we have no percep- 
 tion; that they may be in happy activity and vi- 
 
THE RESURRKCTION OF THE DEAD. 169 
 
 brating their angelic songs in ineffable harmony 
 on every side, all unseen and unheard by us? 
 Why, then, should it be deemed by any a thing 
 incredible that God should clothe his redeemed 
 with bodies incorruptible, immortal, and glorious, 
 according to the sure word of his promise ? Who 
 shall limit the Holy One, to whom all things are 
 possible ? 
 
 TO EVERY SEED HIS OWN BODY. 
 
 St. Paul, in describing the resurrection body, 
 employs this comparison and illustration: *'That 
 which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; 
 and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
 body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance 
 of wheat or of some other grain; but God giveth 
 it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed 
 his own body. ... So also is the resurrection of the 
 dead." In this passage we have three important 
 facts stated. 
 
 I. That wJiicJi tJioit sozvcst is not quickened ex- 
 cept it die. The grain of seed sown must decay in 
 the ground before it can produce other and new 
 grains. Its death is a necessary step in the order 
 of nature. So with man. His death, in the or- 
 der of grace, is a necessary break in the chain of 
 his corporeal existence that his renovation may be 
 perfect and complete. This break makes an ab- 
 
I/O NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPKl. TEACHINGS. 
 
 solute separation between the corrupt body of sin 
 that was and the new and spiritual body that 
 shall be; "for "corruption cannot inherit incor- 
 ruption." The old tabernacle, infected with sin, 
 must be dissolved, and a new mansion, " undefiled 
 and incorruptible," reared in its stead. And in 
 this way man shall be redeemed in body as well 
 as in soul from the last taint of sin. 
 
 2. ThotL sowcst not that body that shall he. The 
 seed produced is not composed exclusively of the 
 identical materials or particles that composed the 
 seed sown, for the former may be thirty or sixty 
 or a hundred fold greater in amount than the lat- 
 ter. New matter has been seized upon and em- 
 l^loyed. The seed produced, however, is the same 
 in kind and has been constituted out of the same 
 elements. So shall it be with man in the resur- 
 rection. A change will take place. The expres- 
 sion "resurrection of the body" or "resurrection 
 of the flesh" nowhere occurs in the Scriptures. 
 But the promise is that "this vile body shall be 
 changed," and man shall be "clothed upon" 
 with a "house not made with hands," a house 
 made out of the same earthly materials as before, 
 but constituted so differently that it shall be in- 
 corruptible, immortal, and glorious. 
 
 3. He giveth to every seed his own body; not the 
 identical body of the seed from which it sprang. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 171 
 
 but one that shall be to it, in all respects, what 
 that was to the original seed; and in this sense, 
 and in no other, it is called its "own body." 
 And as with the seed, so shall it be with man. In 
 the same sense he shall have his "own body." 
 Identity of matter is not implied in the expres- 
 sion, as applied to the one or the other. A man's 
 body is called Jiis from its union with his living- 
 soul and the mutual influence of the one on the 
 other. The constituent particles of the body, as 
 we have seen, are in perpetual change; but from 
 its belonging all along to the same soul and con- 
 veying feelings and perceptions to the same mind 
 and obeying the directions of the same will^ we 
 regard and call it the same body. So at the resur- 
 rection, if we shall be clothed with bodies which 
 we, in this way, perceive to belong to us and to 
 be ours, it will signify nothing of what particular 
 particles of matter they will be composed, wdieth- 
 er of those which belonged to it at some former 
 period or of others drawn from the same common 
 source. 
 
 The difficulties wdiich to some appear to beset 
 the doctrine of the resurrection arise, for the most 
 part, from strained interpretation of Scripture or 
 from pressing its general statements to express de- 
 tails and particulars they were never meant to 
 cover. The sum and the substance of the prom- 
 
I'] 2 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEI. TEACHINGS. 
 
 ise is that at the last day Christ will bring with 
 him the spirits of the faithful and clothe them 
 with bodies like unto his own glorious body, fitted 
 for the services and enjoyments of a righteous and 
 spiritual state of existence. And then shall be 
 brought to pass the word that is written, ''O 
 death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is 
 thy victory ? The sting of death is sin, and the 
 strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, 
 who giveth us the victory through our I^ord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. 1 73 
 
 PART V. 
 
 THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 The globe upon which we dwell in the course 
 of its prolonged and eventful history has passed 
 through many and great and surprising transfor- 
 mations. The investigations of science have 
 brought to light abundance of evidence that its 
 whole surface has been destroyed and renewed 
 again and again, and that all its living tenants 
 have again and again been swept away and re- 
 placed by others. And the Holy Scriptures inform 
 us that it is destined to be destroyed yet once 
 more, and aftewards to be renovated and beauti- 
 fied so as to be a fit abode for a population of right- 
 eous and happy beings. 
 
 The disclosures made to us concerning this 
 final destruction and the bright and blessed econ- 
 omy that is to succeed are, it is true, few and gen- 
 eral, yet such as must be contemplated with pro- 
 found and peculiar interest by every believer in 
 the sacred volume. No details are given, no 
 graphic or picturesque description is presented; 
 and the reserve thus maintained in the informa- 
 tion granted bids us maintain the same in our in- 
 
174 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 quiries. But while we are not to presume to be 
 wise above what is written, yet it is our privilege 
 and our duty to attempt to be wise up to the meas- 
 ure of what has been communicated in the Word 
 and what has been revealed in the works of our 
 Father in heaven; and it is with this view and in 
 this spirit that we now proceed to consider this 
 interesting subject. 
 
 Whcjt this great and final change shall be 
 brought about we are not told. We have no data 
 in nature from which we can calculate, nor any 
 statement or hint in Scripture from which we can 
 conjecture, when the end of the present economy 
 shall be. The times and the seasons the Father 
 hath reserved in his own power. All we are per- 
 mitted to know is that that day v/ill come sudden- 
 ly and unexpectedly, even as a thief in the night. 
 
 We are left in equal ignorance as to the pro- 
 cess or mode in which this amazing transforma- 
 tion will be effected. We have already seen that 
 the divine interposition was concerned in each of 
 the great upward steps by which our world was 
 advanced from its dead and chaotic state to its 
 present condition of order, life, and grandeur; and 
 hence it is reasonable to infer that the ha? id of God 
 will also be directly concerned in introducing this 
 stupendous and final change. But as to the mode 
 or course which Infinite Wisdom will adopt to 
 
THE FINAI. CONFLAGRATION. 1 75 
 
 effect it we have no information. It is for us 
 therefore to confine ourselves simply and reverent- 
 ly to what has been revealed. 
 
 THK KI.KMENT THAT SHAI.I. DESTROY THE 
 WORLD. 
 
 *'The heavens and the earth which are now, 
 by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto 
 fire against the day of judgment and perdition of 
 ungodly men. . . . The day of the I^ord will come 
 as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise and the ele- 
 ments shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also 
 and the works that are therein shall be burned 
 up." 
 
 That the world should finally be destroyed by 
 fire was an opinion commonly entertained by the 
 ancient philosophers, especially of the Greeks. 
 Heraclitus is said to have " discoursed much con- 
 cerning the conflagration of the world." Sopho- 
 cles taught that "a raging fire shall devour all 
 things earthly and above." Lucian put forth the 
 same idea. "Coming events in futurity," said 
 he, "are extremely lamentable; I mean the gen- 
 eral conflagration which will consume the uni- 
 verse." So also Cicero: "It will happen some 
 day or other that all this world will be burned up 
 with fire." And Ovid has these expressive lines: 
 
176 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 " Remembering in the fates a time when fire 
 Shall to the battlements of heaven aspire, 
 And all this blazing world above shall burn 
 And all the inferior globe to cinders turn." 
 
 This was the common idea entertained among the 
 stoics and epicureans. It is remarkable that none 
 of them fancied that it would be by water. What 
 the foundation of their opinion was it is impossi- 
 ble now to determine; but whatevei its origin, we 
 cannot but regard it as a remarkable coincidence 
 with the sacred announcement before us. 
 
 But to return to the apostle's words: *'The 
 heavens and the earth which are now are reserved 
 unto fire." By the " earth," of course, is meant 
 the material globe upon which we stand: this is 
 to be subjected to the action of fire, of intense and 
 dissolvinof heat. The "heavens" also are to be 
 involved in the same catastrophe; not, however, 
 the sidereal or the planetary heavens, for it cannot 
 reasonably be supposed that those distant and 
 magnificent spheres are doomed to share in the 
 fate of our isolated and revolted world, of which 
 alone the apostle here speaks, but the aerial heav- 
 ens, or the atmospheric ocean which envelops our 
 globe. The gases composing this shall be igni- 
 ted, and so pass away with a great noise or explo- 
 sion. " The earth and the works that are therein 
 shall be burned up." The whole vegetable and 
 
THE FINAL CONI^LAGRATION. 1 77 
 
 animal creation, together with all the most endu- 
 ring works of man — his towers, temples, palaces, 
 and monuments — shall be consumed and swept 
 away. ''The elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat;" that is, the constituents or component 
 parts of material things shall undergo this change. 
 "All these things shall be dissolved;" not anni- 
 hilated, but "dissolved." The substances com- 
 posing the atmosphere and the earth shall remain, 
 but shall undergo the natural change of aspect 
 and composition produced by intense heat; and 
 out of these materials, we are left to infer, will be 
 formed a renovated world. 
 
 Skeptics and scoffers in time past often asked, 
 Whence is to come the fire that is adequate to 
 effect such a dissolution of all nature, seeing that 
 three-fourths of the earth's surface is covered with 
 the ocean waters, and that to the depth of several 
 miles ? Our knowledge of the elements and for- 
 ces of nature at the present day enables us to re- 
 turn a final answer to this question and to show 
 that various and abundant means exist ready at 
 hand to bring about the destruction of our world 
 by fire at any moment, just in the manner foretold 
 in the Scriptures. A glance at a few well-ascer- 
 tained facts will suffice to prove this. 
 
 Heat or fire lies latent in all bodies, all earthly 
 substances, ready to be called forth at any instant 
 
 Natural Laws. I 2 
 
178 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 by mechanic and dynamic means; and as it is one 
 of the most energetic of the physical forces, so also 
 is it one of the most universally disseminated. 
 
 The earth carries abundant means for its de- 
 struction in its own bosom. It is supposed that 
 one vast and fathomless ocean of vtolten and glozv- 
 ing matter lies hidden beneath the very ground 
 upon which we w^alk. The whole solid crust of 
 the earth, which in thickness does not exceed the 
 1 60th part of its diameter, floats upon that ocean 
 as floats the ice on the bosom of the lake. Let but 
 the balance of pressure and upheaval by which 
 this crust is sustained be suddenly destroyed, and 
 a deluge of fire would overflow its surface and 
 utterly consume everything that grows or moves 
 or lives upon it. 
 
 The electric element which pervades the whole 
 atmosphere and all the solid substances of the 
 globe presents another agency adequate at any 
 moment to set on fire and consume all that exists 
 on the face of the earth. Both the prevalence 
 and the power of this element are appalling to 
 contemplate. Its energy is all but irresistible; 
 in an instant it rifts the oak into splinters, sets 
 the floating ship in a blaze, scatters the massive 
 tower into fragments, scathes and vitrifies the 
 rock, and melts to fluid the hardest metals. And 
 the ease and rapidity with v/hich this resistless 
 
the: final conflagration. 179 
 
 agent may be accumulated and excited render it 
 still more terrible. " Even in fair weather," says 
 Prof. Cooke, "its presence may be detected in the 
 atmosphere. During a storm, when clouds filled 
 with vesicular drops of water are hurried over the 
 surface, grinding against the hills and the trees or 
 against each other, the atmosphere becomes a vast 
 hydro -electric machine, whose sparks are the 
 lightning and the noise of its discharges the thun- 
 der. The wonder is, not that an occasional thun- 
 derbolt should kindle a conflagration or even cause 
 a death, but that every storm does not lay waste 
 the earth along its fiery track." Moreover, when 
 we appreciate the vastness of the scale on which 
 the electrical machine of nature is constructed, the 
 thunderstorm ceases to surprise us and only calls 
 our attention to those beneficent provisions by 
 which we and our race are saved by a constant 
 miracle from the fate of the Cities of the Plain. 
 Here, then, is another agency, which, should God 
 but remove his restraining hand, will be found 
 adequate to reduce to ashes all that we now be- 
 hold or admire on the face of the earth. 
 
 There is yet another element of universal 
 prevalence in nature which is capable of bringing 
 about the final conflagration in all its predicted 
 terror and destruction, and that is oxygm. To 
 borrow again the words of the able chemist just 
 
l8o NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 quoted, "The fire element in nature is oxygen; 
 this gas is the producer of flame and combustion, 
 and is the mightiest and most destructive of all 
 the elements. Mingled with and restrained by- 
 other elements in its natural and ordinary condi- 
 tion, oxygen is bland and harmless, without odor 
 or taste, and seems devoid of any active properties. 
 But beneath this apparent mildness there is con- 
 cealed an energy so violent that, when once thor- 
 oughly aroused, nothing can withstand it. A 
 single spark of fire will change the whole char- 
 acter of this element, and what was before inert 
 and passive becomes in an instant violent and 
 irrepressible. The gentle breeze which was wa- 
 ving the corn and fanning the browsing herds 
 becomes the next moment a consuming fire before 
 which the works of man melt away into air. 
 Now you may be surj^rised at the statement, but 
 it is nevertheless true, that between one-half and 
 two-thirds of the crust of this globe and of the 
 bodies of its inhabitants consists of oxygen. One- 
 fifth of the volume of the whole atmosphere is 
 composed of oxygen. No less than eight-ninths 
 of all water is formed of the same gas. It makes 
 up three-fourths of our own bodies and no less 
 than four-fifths of every plant and at least one- 
 half of the solid rocks. I^et, then, this element 
 but be released, let the mysterious affinities that 
 
THE FINAI. CONFI.AGRATION. l8l 
 
 now hold it in restraint but cease, and the hard- 
 ened rocks or even the very waters of the ocean 
 would supply the fire and fervent heat that would 
 consume the earth and the works that are therein. ' ' 
 
 The apostle states that at the final conflagra- 
 tion " the heavens shall pass away with a great 
 noise." This will attend the event as a natural 
 result. When chemical experiments are made on 
 a small scale with the natural gases they are often 
 attended with loud and destructive explosions. If, 
 then, on the final day, at the bidding of Omnipo- 
 tence, the oxygen and nitrogen which compose the 
 atmosphere be released from each other's embrace, 
 and the oxygen, according to its greater gravity, 
 sink into a separate layer along the surface of the 
 earth, it is not difficult to see how this part of the 
 prediction will be literally fulfilled. The moment 
 this separation takes place a spark will suffice to 
 set that oxygen in a blaze and envelop the whole 
 terraqueous globe in one immense flame, wdiicli 
 will necessarily be attended with a thousand con- 
 cussions and explosions, loud and terrific, as if the 
 earth burst asunder. 
 
 The predicted conflagration of the earth, then, 
 is not a thing impossible or improbable, as scoffers 
 were wont to assert. Science has now demon- 
 strated that the various elements of nature are 
 amply sufficient for this end; that their subtle and 
 
l82 NATURAI, LAWS AND GOSPElv TEACHINGS. 
 
 delicate combinations are invested with such tre- 
 mendous power that they require but the slightest 
 modification to insure a literal fulfilment of the 
 apostle's prophecy. In the light of the present 
 day we see these mighty elements, as it were, 
 stand waiting for God's command as so many 
 ministers of his pleasure, ready to carry out all he 
 has purposed or threatened against this world in 
 which we dwell. 
 
 IvCt not the reader, however, interpret the 
 foregoing statements to say that thus and thus it 
 will and must be. We presume not to say in 
 what way God will accomplish his work or which 
 of the instrumentalities now named Infinite Wis- 
 dom may see fit to employ. It may be one or it 
 may be another; or perhaps all of them will act a 
 part in the dread and terrific scene, and, if <?//, 
 then the poet's startling ap)Ostrophe will be more 
 than realised: 
 
 "At the destined hour, 
 By the loud trumpet summoned to the charge, 
 See all the formidable sons of fire, 
 Eruptions, earthquakes, gases, lightnings, play 
 Their various engines ; all at once disgorge 
 Their blazing magazines and take by storm 
 This poor terrestrial citadel of man. 
 Amazing period ! when each mountain height 
 Outburns Vesuvius ; rocks eternal pour 
 Their melted mass, as rivers once they poured ; 
 Seas boil, and final ruin fiercely drives 
 Her ploughshare o'er creation." — young. 
 
THE FINAL CONFI.AGRATION. 183 
 
 CONFLAGRATION OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 It will be of interest here to state, as having a 
 bearing on this subject, that the fiery catastrophe 
 which thus awaits this planetary globe has al- 
 ready, it is supposed, been the doom of some of 
 the celestial orbs. Astronomers have once and 
 again observed stars which seemed to be in an 
 actual state of conflagration. 
 
 In the year 1572, on the nth of November, 
 Tycho Brahe observed in the constellation Cas- 
 siopeia^ at a place where before he had only seen 
 very small stars, a new star of uncommon magni- 
 tude. It was so bright that it surpassed even 
 Jupiter and Venus in splendor and was visible 
 even in the daytime. At the end of a year, how- 
 ever, it gradually diminished, and at length, in 
 March, 1574, sixteen months after its discovery, 
 entirely disappeared, since which no trace of it 
 has ever been seen. When it first appeared its 
 light was of a dazzling white color; two months 
 after it became yellowish; in a few months more 
 it assumed a reddish hue, like Mars; in January 
 and February of 1574 it glimmered only with a 
 gray or lead-colored light, and then totally van- 
 ished. Laplace supposed that it was burned up. 
 
 A similar phenomenon was observed on the 
 27th of April, 1848. This appeared in the con- 
 
184 NATURAT. T.AWvS AND GOSPKIv TEACHINGS. 
 
 stellation OpJiiiLchiis ; its light was reddish in the 
 telescope, and Dr. Preston observed that the red- 
 dish color at times increased suddenly in in- 
 tensity and again as suddenly disappeared. Other 
 observers noticed these peculiar red flashes. Grad- 
 ually it decreased in brilliancy, till in June, 1850, 
 when it became extinct. 
 
 Not longer ago than May, 1866, the splendors 
 of another apparently new star in Corona Borealis 
 arrested the attention of astronomers. Anxiously 
 watched by competent observers in separate local- 
 ities, its changes were accurately noted and com- 
 pared. It rose in magnificent brilliancy; it slowly 
 waned; it disappeared. The astronomer royal of 
 Bngland expressed his belief in the burning of 
 that distant \vorld. Inflammable gases combi- 
 ning, it has been supposed, gave to it the appear- 
 ance by which observers were dazzled and im- 
 pressed. 
 
 All the above stars, as far as the observers 
 could judge, seemed to pass through all the stages 
 of a general conflagration. Their sudden outburst 
 on the view, their exceeding brightness at first, 
 their subsequent red and fitful flashes, their grad- 
 ual fading, and their final extinction, presented 
 all the appearances of burning worlds. And such 
 they are believed to have been by eminent astron- 
 omers, as these varied aspects, and all occurring 
 
THE FINAI. CONFLAGRATION. 185 
 
 within siicli brief periods, can be accounted for 
 on no other supposition. And if this has been the 
 doom of other worlds, why should we doubt the 
 sure word of prophecy that a similar fate awaits 
 our own ? 
 
 PAST DESTRUCTIONS AND RENOVATIONS OF OUR 
 PLANET. 
 
 The prophetic view given of the earth's future 
 destiny is in entire accord with the vicissitudes of 
 its past history, and the destruction and renova- 
 tion foretold by the apostle are scarcely more as- 
 tonishing than some of the transformations through 
 which our w^orld has already passed. And as it 
 may be to some an aid to faith in the sure word 
 of prophecy, we shall here just glance at a few of 
 these stupendous changes. 
 
 J If some spiritual intelligence, the denizen of 
 some orb in the distant regions of space, had set 
 
 \ out to visit our globe in its primordial condition, 
 
 according to the latest theories of astronomers 
 
 ^ he would have discovered it as a molten mass 
 
 enveloped in a dense and dark atmosphere of 
 
 ( steam. If, after the lapse of ages, he visited it 
 a^rain, he would have witnessed an astonishing 
 
 V change; its fiery heat and steamy atmosphere 
 have passed away, its form is now encased in a 
 
 ^ solid crust, its waters gathered into settled seas. 
 

 '1 
 
 l86 NATURAI. LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 and the sun and moon and stars shining npon it 
 through a comparatively clear sky. If, after other 
 ages had rolled by, he came back again, he would 
 have observed that it had undergone another and 
 an enchanting transformation; before him would 
 spread out the continents and islands, which he 
 had left on his former visit as barren and bare 
 rocks, now all clothed with a diversified and mag- 
 nificent vegetation extending from pole to pole. 
 If again, after the lapse of eons more, he returned, 
 he would have marked another astonishing change 
 and found that the tangled plains and mountain 
 forests, whose silence at his previous visit had 
 never been broken by the voice of beast or song 
 of bird, were now swarming and echoing with 
 living tenants of a thousand varied forms. If 
 again, after another long absence, he came back, 
 he would have looked down upon our globe 
 wrapped for the most part from pole to equator in 
 ice and snow accumulated to the depths of hun- 
 dreds and even thousands of feet, with huge gla- 
 ciers slowly moving down its mountain -sides, 
 grinding the rocks and ploughing out the valleys, 
 presenting altogether a scene of cold and cheer- 
 less desolation, yet one preparing the way for a 
 brighter era. And if, once more, other millenni- 
 ums having passed awa}^, he came back, he would 
 have found that glacial rigor had given place to 
 
THK I'INAL CONFLAGRATION. 187 
 
 a mild temperature and to pleasant scenes, and [ 
 that the world, which all along had been the ex- 
 clusive inheritance of mere brutes, was now in- /' 
 habited by myriads of intelligent human beings, ' 
 dwelling in j)leasant habitations amid fruitful 
 fields or congregated in large and splendid cities, ( 
 cultivating art, science, and literature. Now such 
 a being, who had thus witnessed these amazing 
 transformations in the condition of our globe, 
 would have no difficulty in believing that it might 
 undergo other and different changes still; that it 
 might even be subjected to the action of intense 
 heat as it had been to intense cold, in order to 
 advance it to a yet higher state of beauty and 
 perfection. Why, then, should we have any more 
 difficulty in believing the same? for all these 
 changes, in effect, are even now before our eyes, 
 having been laid bare by the labors of the geolo- 
 gist. If one order of things after another has 
 thus once and again given place for higher and 
 higher manifestations of the wisdom, power, and 
 goodness of God, why should we doubt the still 
 higher and grander and happier transformation 
 promised in the time to come ? This our earthly 
 abode has not yet reached a condition of perfec- 
 tion; neither have the resources of the Almighty 
 Creator been yet exhausted. He is abundantly 
 able to do fjreater tliinc^s than these. 
 
l88 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 THE NEW EARTH AND NEW HEAVENS. 
 
 *' Behold, I create new heavens and a new 
 earth; and the former shall -not be remembered 
 nor come into mind." Isa. 65:17. 
 
 ' 'As the new heavens and the new earth which 
 I will make shall remain before me, saith the 
 Lord, so shall your seed remain." Isa. 66:22. 
 
 *'We, according to his promise, look for new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness." 2 Pet. 3:13. 
 
 "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; 
 for the first heaven and the first earth were passed 
 away; and there was no more sea." Rev. 21:1. 
 
 Such are the inspiring announcements of 
 Scripture concerning the bright and happy econ- 
 omy which is to succeed the present probationary 
 and preparatory dispensation. Though the earth 
 and the atmosphere are to be subjected to fervent 
 and dissolving heat, yet we find nothing in these 
 prophetic revelations to indicate that the ele- 
 mentary substances of the earth or the air will be 
 annihilated, or that the earth as a planet will oc- 
 cupy any different place or relation in the solar 
 system from what it does at present. The terms 
 employed by the sacred writers lead us to infer 
 that its materials, though "dissolved," will re- 
 main, and that out of them is to be constituted 
 
THE FINAI. CONFI.AGRATION. 1 89 
 
 the '^new earth," which is to abide and continue 
 its revolutions in the great system of nature as 
 before. But its cosmical arrangements, we are 
 given to understand, will be widely different. 
 
 "We look for new heavens," that is, aerial 
 heavens constituted anew. What that constitu- 
 tion will be we are not informed. But we know 
 from actual experiments that the present consti- 
 tution of the atmosphere might be altered, and 
 greatly altered, in various ways. It might be 
 rarified or might be rendered more dense than it 
 is at present, and either of these changes would 
 also change its refractive powers as well as its 
 temperature. Or, the gase-s composing it might 
 be combined in different proportions, and in this 
 way be rendered more stimulating or more exhil- 
 arating and delightful. Or, it might be made 
 capable of suspending less aqueous vapor, and thus 
 render the celestial orbs, as seen through it, far 
 more brilliant and glorious. Or, it might be 
 made to intercept less and to reflect more of any 
 of the various colors combined in the sunbeams, 
 and thus clothe the face of nature in widely dif- 
 ferent and infinitely more beauteous hues. But 
 what the changes that shall be made will be we 
 know not. All that is said is that we are to look 
 for ' ' new heavens. ' ' 
 
 "And a new earth." This is all the informa- 
 
190 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPKL TEACHINGS. 
 
 tioii vouchsafed to us where our natural curiosky 
 would ardently crave for more. No description 
 of either scenery or climate or productions is 
 given. One hint, however, is dropped: "There 
 shall be no more sea." If this expression is to be 
 taken literally, then a new and, to us, altogether 
 imknown and unimao^inable series of arrange- 
 ments and compensations are to be introduced 
 into its physical constitution and moral adapta- 
 tions, for we cannot conceive how the world could 
 be fitted for organized existences without a sea. 
 But whatever may be the meaning of these words, 
 we are assured that this earth is then to be fash- 
 ioned and furnished to be a suitable and delight- 
 ful abode for innocent and righteous beings, and 
 that, therefore, nothing will be admitted into its 
 constitution or arrangements that will be liable 
 to inflict injury or pain or sorrow, and nothing 
 left out that will be essential to innocent enjoy- 
 ment, to intellectual progress, or to devout and 
 holy services. It will be a secure, peaceful, de- 
 lightful, and glorious world — a second paradise, 
 and such as shall exceed all our present hopes 
 and expectations; "for eye hath not seen, ear 
 hath not heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
 for them that love him. ' * 
 
THE FINAI. CONFLAGRATION. 191 
 
 THE DWELLERS OF THE NEW EARTH. 
 
 *' Wherein dwelleth righteousness." The new ^ 
 heavens and new earth, then, into which, accord- 
 ing to this interpretation of prophecy, the pres- \ 
 ent disordered and corrupt world shall be trans- 
 formed is to be the abode of righteous beings. And "^ 
 who will these be ? We have the answer in the 
 apostle's words; mark them: \ 
 
 " We look for" — that is, we wait and hope for; 
 a form of expression that clearly implies that Peter v. 
 and his fellow- Christians expected to be inheritors 
 of the new earth and new heavens. And upon ^ 
 this expectation he grounds this exhortation: 
 ** Wherefore, beloved, seeing \h2it ye look for swc\\ 
 things, be diligent, that ye may be found of Him 
 in peace, without spot and blameless." 
 
 It is obvious, hence, that the dwellers of the \ 
 new earth and new heavens are to be the risen ^ 
 saints of the Most High, all clothed in bodies like 
 unto the glorified body of the Son of God, all sin- 
 less creatures, living in free and full converse 
 with the Being who made and saved and sancti- 
 fied them, and enjoying the friendships and shar- 
 ing the delights of angels. 
 
 According to the Scriptures, then, we are not 
 to conceive of the redeemed in their final state as 
 mere spiritual existences, dwellers of an aerial 
 
192 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 » region mysteriously suspended upon nothing, but 
 
 / as having material bodies endowed with organs of 
 
 sense and perception, having solid ground beneath 
 
 them and a visible firmament over them, with 
 
 scenes of luxuriance and grandeur and delight 
 
 <5 encompassing them on every side, dwelling amid 
 all the warm and living accompaniments of so- 
 cial and kindly intercourse of loved and loving 
 f communion with associates, and rejoicing in the 
 sensible tokens of an ever-present and presiding 
 Deity. And it may assist our faith and aid our 
 conception as to how this can be in a material 
 
 ^ world to remember that all this was originally the 
 
 ' happy lot of the first parents of our race; and 
 above all, that the Son of Man, though clothed in 
 a material body and living amid material scenes, 
 yet ever enjoyed the ministry of angels and the 
 unclouded presence and communion of the Father. 
 And 2ve^ it is promised, ''shall be like him, for 
 
 ] we shall see him as he is." 
 
 Some seem to think that there is a grossness 
 connected with a material body and a material 
 abode that is incompatible with perfect holiness 
 or complete happiness; but this is an erroneous 
 idea and meets with a sufficient refutation in the 
 person of our blessed Redeemer. That he, the 
 divinity, should wrap his unfathomable essence 
 in a covering of flesh and blood and live among 
 
THE FINAI, CONFLAGRATION. 1 93 
 
 US in the palpable form and structure of a man, 
 and that he should not only have chosen such a 
 tenement as a temporary abode, but that he should 
 have borne it with him into heaven, the high and 
 holy place he now occupies at the right hand of 
 God — this assuredly is a sufficient attestation that 
 a material body and a material abode may con- 
 sist with perfect holiness and complete happi- 
 ness. 
 
 ' ' When once sin is done away, ' ' says the de- 
 vout and eloquent Dr. Chalmers, "it consists 
 with all we know of God's administration that 
 what is material shall be perpetuated in the full 
 bloom and vigor of immortality. It altogether 
 holds out a warmer and more alluring picture of 
 the elysium that awaits us when told that there 
 will be beauty to delight the eye and music to 
 regale the ear and the comfort that springs from 
 all the charities of intercourse between man and 
 man, holding converse as they now do and glad- 
 dening each other with the benignant smiles that 
 play on the human countenance or the accents of 
 kindness that fall in soft and soothing melody 
 from the human voice. There is much of the 
 innocent and much of the inspiring and much to 
 affect and elevate the heart in the scenes and con- 
 templations of that which is material ; and we do 
 hail the information of the Scriptures that after 
 
 KHtmal I.aws. J^ 
 
194 NATURAL LAWS AND GOSPEL TEACHINGS. 
 
 the dissolution of its jDresent framework it will 
 again be varied and decked out anew in all the 
 graces of its unfading verdure and of its unbound- 
 ed variety; that in addition to our direct and per- 
 sonal view of the Deity when he comes down to 
 tabernacle with man we shall also have the reflec- 
 tion of him in a lovely mirror of his own work- 
 manship; and that instead of being transported to 
 some abode of dimness and of mystery so remote 
 from human experience as to be beyond all 
 human comprehension, we shall walk for ever in 
 a land replenished with those sensible delights 
 and those sensible glories which, we doubt not, 
 will lie most profusely scattered over the new 
 heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. ' ' 
 
 Thus at last this earth, which through all the 
 ages of its sad history has been a blot on the fair 
 face of God's creation — the dark habitation of 
 fallen, sinful men, the theatre of iniquity and cor- 
 ruption and crime — shall be purified by a baptism 
 of fiire, and by the Creator's might shall be reno- 
 vated and beautified to be the blissful abode of a 
 virtuous and holy population, all sinless, all hap- 
 py, all Christlike in body and spirit! *' There 
 shall in no wise enter into it anything that defi- 
 leth." ''And there shall be no more death, nei- 
 ther sorrow nor crying" nor pain. And "they 
 
THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. I95 
 
 shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." 
 But "the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
 throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto 
 living fountains of waters. ' ' 
 

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