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XIII

THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF NATURE

AND LIFE*

He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.-JOB xxvi. 7.

UCH is the sublime conception of the sacred

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poet touching the stability of the earth; it is

kept in its place by impalpable cords, a spiritual energy sustains all things. Hindu mythology supplies a different view; according to it the earth rests on an elephant, which in turn stands on a tortoise. These two ways of accounting for the stability of the earth prevail throughout the entire intellectual world, one school of thinkers assuming that all things rest on a spiritual basis, whilst another is equally confident that everything is established on material foundations. We gather here as representatives of the spiritual element, and we have no reason to be ashamed of our position.

I. Consider the teaching of the text as it finds expression in CREATION. "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." The ultimate factor in nature is spiritual. The phenomenal world originated in the spiritual, * Preached before the New York Ministers' Meeting.

"what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear"; the complex system is held together by invisible forces, and all things move to some far-off, divine event. Many, however, refuse to admit these positions; they will not recognize within nature any supernaturalism. Physical causes, laws, and sequences explain everything, and no place is found for the overshadowing Deity, the faithful Creator, the eternal Will and Purpose. We too believe in natural laws and sequences; in the unity of the vast universe; in the chain of universal being; in the interdependence of things, so that the last phenomenon hangs upon the first: but we believe also that God came before the physical universe, that He fixed its laws, established its order, determined its development, and that the essence and end of the creation are the glory and beauty of the Divine. To stop short of this is to stop with the elephant and the tortoise, and we refuse to postulate these mystic beasts at the critical spot and

moment.

The biologist traces back the complex animal life of to-day to a vital germ in the primitive slime; but we decline to accept that germ as the prime antecedent of the glorious organization and life which fill us moderns with wonder: it is a microscopic tortoise. The astronomer concludes that one star hangs upon another, and that the starry system depends upon a topmost star or central sun which ensures the stability of the whole; in our view any such supreme orb is a glo

rified tortoise, which does not satisfy the understanding or heart. The chemist assumes the atom, then the electron, then a strain in the ether as the fundamental fact; we cannot consent to the strained ether as the initial verity—it is an apocryphal tortoise. The geologist teaches that the Carboniferous age rested on the Devonian, the Devonian on the Silurian, and all of them on cosmical fire-mist; we demur to count the fire-mist as the primal fact-it is an elusive tortoise. "And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.” As Job in our text detected the aërial thread which sustains the earth long before Newton verified it; so Hosea was conscious of the interdependence, reaction, and evolution of things long before Darwin formulated the scientific basis for the truth. All things are linked together by a subtle bond; yet, declares the prophet, the last links of the golden chain are bound about the feet of God. The earth depends upon the heavens; the corn, wine, and oil depend upon the earth; Jezreel depends upon the corn, wine, and oil; and all depend upon Jehovah, the almighty One, the sovereign Ruler, the universal Father. Our study of second causes must not blind us to the Spirit who is the first formative causation, who is before all things, and by whom all things hold together.

Our age is subject to a singularly seductive tempta

tion. The glory of the material world is demonstrated now as never before. Our fathers, indeed, contemplated the magnitudes and magnificences of the universe with wonder and awe. They heard the heavens declaring the glory of God and the firmament telling of His handiwork. They knew the earth to be full of His riches. They dreamed of the treasures of the sea. The spectacle of the world filled them with amazement and delight. Our knowledge of the system of things is, however, far more exact and profound. The wonderful structure of nature, its exquisite articulations and adjustments, majestic laws, and unerring evolution, are understood by us as they were never comprehended before, and we are tempted to believe that such a perfect system must be throughout self-creating, self-sustaining, self-developing, self-regulating. The more complicated any organism may be, the more inclined are we to reckon it self-exacting, self-executing, self-sufficing. A barrow palpably requires a wheelwright to construct it and a labourer to work it; but a locomotive or chronometer, full of intricate mechanism, seems to explain itself, and to be entirely selfsufficient. Thus as the wonder of the universe grows upon us we are more and more persuaded that it contains within itself the secret of its existence and motion. An American journal recently reported that an electric plant ran all night with only a corpse in charge of it. It appeared that the night electrician of a Light and Power Company was killed whilst oiling the

engine. The machinery, however, continued to run until the day-men came to work the next morning. The body had evidently been dead since before midnight; but modern machinery has attained to such a human-like state of perfection that it will run all night by itself without the slightest mishap, attended only by a corpse. Thus the marvellous complexity and stately movement of nature seduce men into the belief that it is self-existent and self-sufficient-its action automatic, its results necessary and inevitable. Great Pan is dead, yet the music of the world is maintained. The Architect and Builder has become a myth, yet the temple stands and its glory abides. The Spirit has withdrawn from the midst of the wheels, yet they revolve all the same. Let the poets weave a purple shroud for the dead Deity; let the saints bewail Him and the theologians bury Him; still rational and practical men will rejoice in a self-sufficing universe! The fact is all the other way. The more involved and delicate the constitution of the world is found to be, the more imperatively does it demand an intelligent Source, an omnipotent Upholder, a superintending Guide. The Creator and Sustainer of all things is not, indeed, a mere metaphor for "force"; the only wise God, infinite in power and love, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, He, and He alone, can explain the existence of this wonderful world.

Let us, then, persist to emphasize the spiritual ele