delusion; the others, in professing to be mediums of supernatural influence from the spiritual world, do, either in pretence or reality, as did the Witch of Endor, consult familiar spirits; or are victims as the Damsel at Philippi; or as the mediums generally who gave responses in the oracles of the ancient heathen world. These modern departings from the faith, in a revival of diabolical arts, indicate the times when men will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, or demons (1 Tim. iv. 1); and, like Jannes and Jambres, resist the truth (2 Tim. iii. 8). Various other portions of Scripture (Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Cor. xi. 14; 2 Thess. ii. 8-10; Rev. xvi. 14) are equally clear. Turning to the Old Testament (2 Kings xvii. 17, 18; Deut. xviii. 9-12; Lev. xx. 6), it is not necessary to multiply references: for this working of Satan, with signs and lying wonders, is reckoned as the wickedness of adulterers and murderers, and the deceivableness of them that perish-a work of darkness; not because it attempts to foretell, to trace the inner connection of things, that may be a high aim; but because it levels those barriers by which our spiritual consciousness is guarded, and leads to unhallowed fellowship.

The Invisible World is revealed for a very different purpose that we may know of the reaping that follows our present sowing, that we may have fellowship with God, partake of His Divine Nature through the Incarnation of Christ, and be personally holy by operation of the Holy Ghost.

The New Jerusalem is as a city in that kingdom, spiritual gold paves its streets, and around the safe and blissful homes are a defence as of jasper walls. Earth holds no such city; nor sea such pearls, nor caverns the rubies and diamonds, that shall adorn the inhabitants of Heaven; and so many are the great men there that we shall know more of them than we do on earth. It is true that, here on earth, the leaves of every forest, the flowers of every garden, and the waters of every rivulet, contain worlds teeming with life; and we learn from them that, beyond and above all that is visible, are fields of creation immeasurably vast and gloriously beautiful. When the curtain that hides them from view is drawn aside,

we shall behold more wonders than astronomy has unfolded; and find that, as a universe may be contained in the compass of a point, our wonder-working God fills infinitude with so majestic a mechanism of worlds that the evidences of His glory may afford us, in their study, eternal blissful occupation.

STUDY XX.

VARIETY IN NATURE.

...

"See God's hand in all things. . . . believe that things are not set in such inevitable order, but that God often changeth it according as He sees fit."— GEORGE HERBERT.

"To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the Infinite may be seen."

THE general invariability of natural law must be taken as a fundamental fact without which no scientific interpretation of nature is possible. The same things will always happen under the same conditions. If gravitation acted sometimes at one angle, sometimes at another, instead of pulling in a straight line, the cry of " stand from under," would be a delusion and a snare. The most hidden and unaccountable movements, the fitful agitations of the weather, the waving of every leaf, the number of drops in a shower, and the shaping of clouds, are by a rule so wise and strong, that error, chance, or mischance, can never enter.

This natural uniformity is sometimes made to appear-not an order laid down by Infinite Wisdom for beneficent and effectual rule, but a chain of fate, blindly, rigorously, invariably binding all things with iron links of necessity. We agree with Mr. John Stuart Mill, that next to the greatness of the cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes one is their recklessness-they go straight to their end without regarding what or whom they crush on the road; but enlarged consideration shows that this seeming recklessness is beneficent, by calling upon intelligence to provide safeguards and remedies. It, in fact, enables the will of man to count for something in the world.

The uniformity of nature and the invariability of law are

not rightly understood, nor well interpreted, unless we know and act upon them as a platform for infinite variety. Laws are conservative, yet the untiring agents of change; and the ever-varying conditions of time, place, and material combination, render it certain that no two series of phenomena can ever be absolutely the same. If, on the one side, a man maintains law is uniform and universal; he may be met, on the other side, with the fact that it incloses infinite diversity and a series of surprises. Out of darkness we extract most brilliant light, and white light is analysed into all the colours. Who, looking at the field in winter, would predict, were it not for experience, the fruitfulness and glow of harvest? What man is able to prophecy why and how the caterpillar has a resurrection life of winged beauty? why and how the seed attains development in herb and flower, in shrub or tree? Nature is not one-sided, but all-sided. The student of physics carries the light of his private intelligence only a little way, and on one line, into the dark by which knowledge is surrounded; but nature faces us on all sides, carries on her work centripetally, centrifugally, and circularly, ever extending into wider regions of the all-embracing. What seem the wildest meteors of our imagination are sometimes proved to be brightest flashes of thought-with counterpart in the world of fact. Intellectual penetration of surrounding darkness, depends not so much on method as on spiritual insight; and the force carrying furthest is that of genius in the investigator. Our experiments constitute a body, of which purified intuitions are, as it were, the soul; "we can also magnify, diminish, qualify, and combine experiences, so as to render them fit for purposes entirely new." 1

This view of diversity renders it possible to establish conformity between the Scientific idea of Law, and the Theological idea of Will-Will exerting itself with a fixed purpose according to a predetermined plan. Of that plan, Revelation furnishes the moral scheme; and Science seeks to unravel the physical process. Divine actions are based on unerring knowledge as to the future; and creation, begun upon a plan, is sustained and governed by an all-embracing Providence. 1 "Scientific Materialism :" John Tyndall, LL.D., F.R.S.

It is evident that if Foreknowledge be Infinite, if Power be Almighty, and if Goodness be All-pervading, the Law or Rule will be so far perfect as to render any subsequent correction unnecessary-unless the action of free beings necessitates interference: all-provident and infinite Wisdom neither requiring nor allowing break or irregularity. Scientific men are so sure that the universe is the work of Intelligence, to be understood by intelligence, that they make their study an honest endeavour to unravel the laws which Wisdom has impressed upon matter. They find, or seem to find, a reason and purpose somewhat similar to, but infinitely greater than that which human intelligence could project, weaving the weft and warp of history with idea. The initial passage from the ideal to the actual being that moment of interference in which Nature began to realise and express Supreme Thought. This Thought embraces in one vast scheme all worlds, all time, and everything contained in them; and insures the liberty and responsibility of intelligent creatures by providing that means for interference and those agencies for readjustment which the good and evil wills of free intelligent responsible beings render necessary.

Our conception that natural uniformity is a chamber in which Divine Will displays variety, may be carried further. The unexpected conclusion has been drawn from certain recondite investigations that more than three dimensions in space are possible. In the career of the solar system we may be passing to regions in which space has not precisely the same proportions that we find here-where something will necessitate "a fourth dimension form of matter" for adaptation to the new locality. Nature, such as we know, possibly does not include all times, places and things. That which now concerns men, forming the natural parts of their experiences and analogies, may be but a small part of the Almighty's infinite dominions. Hence, when we are told of natural uniformity and invariability of law, we accept the statement, but confine it within the limits of our own experience; for that which seems utterly impossible here may be natural parts of other experiences and analogies. Consequently, that pre-arrangement which provides for every eclipse