The ministry of nature

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BS 650 .M33 1885
Macmillan, Hugh, 1833-1903
The ministry of nature

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■■^*'%A»*'/ y)S

THE

MINISTRY OF NATURE,

THE

MINISTRY OF NATURE,

BY

HUGH^MACMILLAN, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E.,

AUTHOR OF

Bible Teachings i)i NaUire" " The True Vine," ''Holidays on High Lands.

NEW EDITION.

ITottbon :
MACMILLAN AND CO.

1885.

The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.

Richard Clay & Sons,

bread street hill, london, e.g.

Artti at Bungay, Stijffolk.

INTRODUCTION

In the Nineteenth Psalm it is said, " The heavens
declare the gloiy of God ; and the firmament showeth
His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and
night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no
speech nor language, where their voice is not heard."
Much of the beauty and force of these words is lost
by the interpolation of the word where — printed in
italics — to show that it is not in the original. By
leaving it out, and adhering to the literal translation
of the Hebrew version, the whole meaning of the pas-
sage is altered, and instead of a commonplace truism
— or a mere tautology — we have the most significant
poetry. " There is no speech nor language ; their voice
is not heard." The universe of visible things has no
faculty of speech — no articulate language; and yet it
has the power of declaring the glory of God, and con-
veying instruction to every age and country. It is a
silent witness appealing to the mind of man in a way
not less — but, when understood, even more forcible
than written or spoken language — viz. by objective
signs and pictorial representations. Age after age the

INTRODUCTION.

sunlit and starlit pages of this older testament — this
Bible of pictures — have been unfolding their open
secret, and imparting their solemn lessons to the human
world. All nature is a language appealing to the senses
— the " God said " of creation. We understand the
silent words, because He who formed the worlds created
our minds in the image of His own. Although its
voice is not heard, nature is nevertheless the universal
interpreter — the older creature that first heard and
learned the speech of God, and therefore mediates
between God and man, and between man and man.
All human language is the reflection of nature ; its ar-
ticulate words — the most prosaic as well as the most
metaphorical — were originally borrowed from natural
sights and sounds. We cannot utter a single sentence
without drawing upon objective nature; we cannot
converse with one another till nature steps in to give
us the alphabet of conversation, and to interpret our
mutual thoughts and feeUngs. We cannot pour out
our souls before God in prayer unless nature says to
us, as it were, "Take with you words, and turn to the
Lord." Nature is the interpreter of the Bible, not only
because it explains what is specincally metaphorical in
it, but because it explains all its language; it is the
mould in which its thoughts are cast — the basis upon
which its sublimest revelations rest ; not only its em-
broidery, but the very warp of its substance.

St. Paul says that " the invisible things of God from
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under-

INTRODUCTION.

stood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead." In confirmation of this it may
be mentioned that the phenomena of nature enable us
to understand, so far as they can be understood by the
human mind, the omniscience and omnipresence of God.
Popular astronomy has made us familiar with the fact
that the ray of light sent forth from each star in the
firmament does not reach our eye at the same instant,
but after an interval longer or shorter, according
to the distance of the star ; and that, as a consequence
of this, we do not see the star as it actually is, but
as it was at the moment when the ray of light was
transmitted. Thus we see the moon as it was a second
and a quarter before ; the sun as it was about eight
minutes before ; Jupiter as it was fifty-two minutes pre-
viously ; the principal star in the constellation of the
Centaur as it was three years ago ; Vega as it was twelve
years ago ; Arcturus as it was twenty-six years ago ; the
Pole Star as it was forty-eight years ago ; Capella, as
it was seventy years ago ; and so on to a star of the
twelfth magnitude, which appears to us as it looked four
thousand years ago. All these orbs may have been
extinguished during the interval, and yet we continue to
see them shining still. It follows from these wonderful
facts that an observer gifted with the necessary optical
and other powers, might place himself at distances in the
starry firmament so graduated as to recall all the past
history of our world, and see it actually going on before
his eyes. From a star of the twelfth magnitude he would

INTRODUCTION.

see the earth as it appeared in the time of Abraham,
and in Vega as it existed twelve years ago. Passing
swiftly from the one to the other, the whole history
of the world from the time of Abraham to the present
day would glance in rapid succession before him.
Indeed it is conceivable that this transition might be
made so swiftly that the whole wonderful panorama
would pass before him in an instant of time. Thus we
see how the universe still retains all the pictures of the
past — which spread out farther and farther into space by
the vibration of light — and may be made visible to eyes
endowed with the necessary powers, and placed at the
proper points of observation. By means of these actual
suppositions, we are able to conceive of the omniscience
of God regarding the past as a material all-surveying view.
We can comprehend in some measure how space and
time are to Him identical ; how " the beginning and the
end coalesce, and yet enclose everything intermediate."

" To your question now,
Which touches on the Workman and His work.
Let there be light, and there was hght : 'tis so ;
For was, and is, and will be, are but is;
And all creation is one act at once.
The birth of light : but we that are not all.
As parts can see but parts, now this, now that,
And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make
One act a phantom of succession ; thus
Oui" weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time."

The omnipresence and yet distinct personality ot God
is furcner illustrated to us in a striking manner by

IN TROD UC TION.

Dalton's law of the diffusion of gases. This law re-
veals to us that though gases gravitate like other
forms of matter, and exhibit among themselves even
greater differences of weight than either solids or liquids
- -yet nevertheless when they meet, each acts as a void
or a vacuum to the other, and they intermingle com-
pletely, while at the same time preserving their indi-
vidual identity, coalescing and coexisting, and yet
continuing separate and distinct. It is by means of
this beautiful law that our atmosphere is rendered fit
for respiration, that clouds are formed, and rain and
dew descend to nourish the life and beauty of the
earth. It is the one exception to the most universal
of all physical influences. The law of gravitation
acts everywhere else, but here it is suspended, and its
place supplied by another. Does it not therefore show
to us a glimpse of a Great Designer, overruling all
things for the good of His creatures? Behind this
wonderful physical fact, do we not see the spiritual
truth that is enshrined blazing forth? It is more
than a proof of beneficent design; it is a reflection
in material form of the image of God Himself. It
enables us to understand in some measure how in the
personal Jehovah we can live and move and have our
being ; how He forms — if I may use a term so much
abused by the Pantheist — the universal medium of all
spiritual existences, and yet loses nothing of that distinct
personality which He presents to each.

The great advances of natural science in these days

IN TROD UCTION.

have placed in a much clearer light the symmetry and
ordei of external nature^ and invested the idea of law
with an absolute majesty inconceivable at an earlier time.
A more perfect botany and zoology have taught us that
the grand characteristic feature of God's work in the
world of life is unity of type with variety of develop-
ment. The exceptional formations — of which vegetable
teratology takes cognizance — formerly regarded as
monsters to be shunned, as lawless deviations from
the ordinary rule, or at best as mere objects of curio-
sity, have now been found to be more in consonance
with typical structures than the normal formations
themselves. They are beautiful tendencies in the direc-
tion of the archetype, and are therefore great helps in
the study of morphology. For example, the fuchsia,
the woodruff, and the evening primrose have usually
only four petals and four sepals; but not a season
passes without many specimens of these flowers pro-
ducing five petals and five sepals. These so-called
monstrosities are in reality clear indications that the
plants in which they occur are striving to attain the
higher and fuller character of the rosaceous or quinary
type, and are in ordinary circumstances prevented from
doing so by some unknown law of non-development. "
It is by these malformations, and not by the common
structures, that the plants in question are linked
with the plants above them. Thus the very exceptions
and deviations prove the law of vegetable life, and ap-
proach nearer to normal types instead of departing from

INTRODUCTION.

them. They show as truly as in the moral world that
where there is no law there is no transgression. So also
we find in zoology that there is no distinction save of
degree, between the laws regulating normal organization
and those by which so-called abnormal formations are
regulated. Virchow has referred all morbid products to
physiological types, and mentions that there is no new
structure produced in the organism by disease. The
cancer-cell, the pus-cell, and all other disease-produced
cells have their patterns in the cells of healthy structure.*
In the higher forms of animal life, the typical forms and
members observed in lower animals meet and are per-
fected ; and parts of their economy which exist but as
symbols in the lower orders, acquire use and significance
in the higher. The Darwinians, therefore, have seized
upon the wrong end of a great truth, expressed ages ago
by the Psalmist in these words — " My substance was not
hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did
see my substance, yet being unperfect \ and in thy book
all my members were written, which in continuance
were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

An improved study of chemistry and mineralogy has
also added its confirmation of the doctrine that there
are no abrupt transitions in nature, and that distinctions
of class are never absolute. The late Professor Graham
has beautifully shown that the same matter may exist in
a colloidal or gelatinous, and in a cr>'stalline state. In
* See Dr. Maudsley's "Body and Mind."

INTROD UCTION.

the former condition matter has latent energy, and is
" the probable primary source of the force appearing in
the phenomena of vitality ; " in the latter condition
matter is purely statical and inert. And yet minerals,
such as the hydrated peroxides of the aluminous class,
may exist in the colloidal state ; while a!nimal structures,
such as Funke's blood crystals, and animal substances,
such as the silicic acid of sponges, may pass into the
crystalline condition. Further, a more perfect geology
has abandoned the old ideas of convulsions and cata-
clysms, in favour of a theory of slow gradual develop-
ment of the earth's crust by forces similar to those
which exist at present ; and has enabled us to form a
grand conception of a life of the universe — of a general
law which unites and directs the successive forms of
all organized beings.

All this exaltation of law in the natural world has had
a most beneficial reaction in the spiritual world. Evo-
lution, development, are the great doctrines of modern
science, containing a large measure of truth, though
pushed to an unwarrantable length ; and religion is
beginning to realize more and more the continuity and
unity of God's dealings with men in all ages. We see
that every part of the Bible witnesses in behalf of order
and gradual progression ; and that, as in the progressive
history of the earth, all that has been modifies all that
is, and all that will be, so in the whole of sacred history,
the more we can discern of connection and preparation,
the more we enter into God's true method of revealing

INTROD UCTION.

Himself. Our conception of God's character as the
unchangeable Jehovah — who has no parallax, no
shadow of turning — has also been exalted by this dis
cipline of natural study. We no longer believe that
He acts arbitrarily and capriciously. We see that there
is a reason in the nature of things for all that He does ;
that no blind fate has any place within the bounds of
the wide universe, but a stern and inflexible, because
immutable law, having its highest expression in the
death of the only-begotten Son of God. Our ideas
of heaven, too, have been greatly modified by the cor-
rectives supplied by the discoveries of science. We no
longer admit, like our ancestors, an abrupt transition
between this world and the next. We believe that
heaven lies latent in the present as the full-formed
flower in the bud of spring — that heaven will be but
the perfection and full unveiling of the glory of the
earth. In the light of this idea we see a new meaning
in the words of the Apostle — " For this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality." We apply them to all nature, as well
as to man, the microcosm of nature. Our ancestors
looked upon matter as sinful, and upon nature as
accursed ; and therefore we cannot wonder that they
should have pictured heaven as a world having no con-
nection with this. But our investigations have taught
us to reverence nature more and more as the expression
of God's heart and mind to us — to call nothing in it
which God has cleansed, common or unclean. Our

INTRODUCTION.

conceptions of matter have been greatly exalted and
idealized. We know more of its beauty and perfection,
and therefore we cannot believe that its marvellous
scenes and objects, of which the wisest and the best
of us know so lamentably little, shall pass away from
us for ever, after this brief and tantalizing glimpse of
them. There is nothing in nature that would parallel
such a waste. We cannot but cherish the hope that one
of the highest joys of the future state will be communion
with God in the more perfect comprehension of the
works of His hands ; and that as the earth has passed
through so many changes already, fitting it for a higher
and yet higher type of life, so it will pass safely
through the final change, and be revealed in all its
glory as the final home of the redeemed.

We should have expected that our Lord in coming to
our world would have employed images the most remote
from nature and human life ; that He would have given
to men a revelation from heaven — something extra-
ordinary and altogether unknown to earth. But in
His teaching we find the things of God represented
by the simplest things of nature, and by the ordinary
occurrences of life. "Consider the liHes how they
grow " — " Behold the fowls how they are fed," were the
words with which He began His ministry, drawing
attention in them to the common things that ever since
the creation were uttering their unheeded lessons to the
world showing to us that it is not a revelation that
<NQ. need, but eyes to see — that the revelation is every-

IN TROD UCTION.

where around us, if we would only care to look at and
understand it. In the parables of the lily and the fowls,
the seed and the tree, the vine and the fishes, He dis-
closed to us the great fact which we are constantly for-
getting— that Nature has a spiritual as well as a material
side — that she exists not only for the natural uses of the
body, but also for the sustenance of the life of the soul.
This higher ministry explains all the beauty and won-
der of the world, which would otherwise be superfluous
and extravagant. As the servant of common household
wants, giving us bread to eat and water to drink, and
raiment to put on, and air to breatne, and soil to stand
and build upon, nature might have been clothed with
homely russet garments girded for toil; but as the
priestess of heaven, ministering in the holy place, ap-
pealing to the higher faculties of man, she is clothed like
Aaron with temple vestments ; and Solomon •■n all his
glory is not arrayed like her. Her ultimate purposes
are grander than her ordinary uses. Her forms are
evanescent, but her ministry is everlasting. Her grass
withereth and her flower fadeth, but the word of the
Lord that speaketh through her endureth for ever. The
truth which she teaches, and the beauty which she forms,
are a part of the everlasting inheritance of the soul, and
become incorporated with its life for evermore. It
was a true instinct which made Manoah's wife exclaim
when her husband said — " We shall surely die, because
we have seen God " — " If the Lord were pleased to kill
as. He would not have received a burnt-offering and a

INTROD UCTION.

meat-offering at our hands, neither would He have showed
us all these things, nor would as at this time have told
us such things as these." And surely it is a true instinc-
tive belief in the human heart that God does not mean
to destroy us for ever — when He clothes the earth with
so much beauty, and permits us to gaze upon scenes,
and study objects, whose wonders and glories appeal
to the highest wants and capabilities of our nature.
Surely by the glory of perishing nature He is training
our souls for the excelling glory of immortality. It
would be well for us if we understood this more, and
felt it deeper, for then the glory of nature would not
be wasted upon us, as it too often is, by reason of
our sordid pursuits ; and instead of emptying every-
thing of God, and banishing Him from His own creation
by our scientific studies, we should see everything re-
flecting His image, and hear the whole earth chanting
His praise. Wise men of science would be led by
their star, and shepherds and rustic labourers by their
toil, to the feet of the Divine Child, in whom are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and in
whose spirit alone can any human being hope to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE SOWER 1

POETRY. — PALINGENESIS , 22

CHAPTER II.

FRAGRANCE 24

CHAPTER III.

LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS - 4S

CHAPTER IV.

STONES CRYING OUT 76

h

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

PAGE

rHORNS THE CURSE OF ADAM AND THE CROWN OF CHRIST 97
I'OETRY. — PREVENTING MERCIES 121

CHAPTER VI.

TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE ... , , . . I24

CHAPTER Vn.

FEEDING ON ASHES I42

CHAPTER VHI.

SPIRITUAL CATHARISM 166

CPIAPTER IX.

THE ACTION OF PRESENCE IQJ

CHAPTER X.

WINTER LEAVES 213

POETRY. — A GRAVE BESIDE A STREAM ... . . 239

CHAPTER XI.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS 24O

t'OKTXV —A vVATKRhALl 265

CONTENTS. xix

CHAPTER XII.

PAGE

SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING 266

POETRY. — ORIZABA 286

CHAPTER Xm.

LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES 289

CHAPTER XIV.

REJUVENESCENCE 32I

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SOWER.
" I'ehold a sower went forth to sow." — Matthew xiii. 3.

'T^HE parable of the Sower is the pattern, fundamental
■^ parable, which furnishes the key to the right
understanding of all the rest. " Know ye not this
parable ? And how then will ye know all parables ? "
Like the illuminated initial of an old chronicle, which
illustrates the text, it appropriately introduces our Lord's
new method of instruction, and discloses in its own
features the type upon which that peculiar instruction
is modelled. The teaching of the parables was in
itself the sowing of seed, the diffusion of truth in its
seed-form, of brief pictorial sayings, compact and full
of meaning, suggesting much that it would take long
to tell, constructed for ordinarj' memory and common
use, and fitted, when falling into susceptible hearts, to
grow and develop their germinating fulness. The
f)arable of the Sower brings us back to the beginning

l\ B

THE MINISTRY OF NA TURE, [chap.

of life, to the seed-condition in which the organic
reahn and the kingdom of heaven ahke originate. As
in nature it is through the dispersion of seed that
the first form of life is established upon the basis
of dead inert matter, so it is by the diffusion of
spiritual truth that spiritual life is established upon the
basis of human nature. In both cases the sowing of
seed must be the first process towards a higher state
of things. Man's natural life depends upon the sowing
of corn. His whole civilization springs from it. His
spiritual discipline is carried on, as one of its primary
conditions, through the cultivation of the soil in the
sweat of his face — which from first to last is an acted
parable, a great visible picture of the most true and
intimate connection between the outward husbandry of
the ground and the inward husbandry of the soul.
We see a beautiful illustration of Divine wisdom in the
first fiat of creation being " Let there be light ; " seeing
that there is no element in the constitution of the earth
of such paramount importance as light, or radiant force,
developing and arranging its materials, modifymg its
natural features, forming its climate, and supplying the
physical power needed for the maintenance of all life
and organization. We see an equally beautiful illustra-
tion of the same Wisdom which made the world, in the
first parable being that of the Sower ; seeing that upon
the process of sowing, man's capacity of improvement
and capability of receiving spiritual instruction, and
consequently all the revelations and experiences of the
kingdom of heaven, depend.

[.} THE SOWER.

In order to bring out the full significance of the few-
simple words with which the parable opens, I shall
proceed to consider, very briefly, five things which seem
to me to be implied in them.

(i) Let us look, first of all, at the functioii of the
sower : " Behold a sower went forth to sow.'^ In the
natural world, sowing is not the first agricultural pro-
cess. The ground in its natural state is not adapted
for the reception and growth of the seed. It is covered
with primeval forest, with the tangled native growth of
the wilderness, and this must be cut down and rooted
out. Huge boulders and the debris of rocks strew its
surface, and these must be removed. Marshes, with
their rank, noisome vegetation, occupy and disfigure
valuable space, and create a pestilential atmosphere,
and these have to be drained away. The soil, thus
reclaimed, must further be trenched, and exposed to
the influences of the weather. And then the ploughman
comes, and draws his straight and uniform furrows, in
which all the seed sown may have the same conditions of
growth, and produce an equally abundant harvest. But
it is a most significant circumstance, that our Saviour
does not commence His paraboHc teaching with any of
these preparatory processes. The kingdom of heaven,
in its first announcement to men, He likens, not to
the pioneer in the pathless, homeless wilderness, — not
to the woodman going forth with the axe, and cutting
down the primeval trees, in order to clear a space for
cultivation, — not to the ploughman going forth to tear
up the soil,- -but to the sower going forth to sow. He

B 2

4 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

presupposes a fixed and settled state of things, — civilized
habits, a quiet scene of human industry and success.
The negative radical processes have already been com-
pleted. The voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare
ye the way of the Lord," has been heard and obeyed.
The crooked places have been made straight, and the
rough places smooth, by the preparatory ministry of
Christ's witnesses in previous dispensations. The axe
of all the Prophets and godly men of old has been laid
at the root of, and lifted up upon, the thick obstructive
trees. The Forerunner, by his baptism of repentance,
has ploughed up the wild unproductive soil thus cleared.
The season of grace is further advanced : the fulness of
time is come. " The winter is past, the rain is over and
gone, the flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in the land."

It is in these circumstances that the sower goes
forth to sow ; and most beautifully does our Saviour in
this figure symbolize the character in which He Himself,
the great Sower, appeared on earth. The function of
the sower is not destructive, but constructive. His
mission is not to remove anything from the soil, to
tear it up, to destroy anything in it or on it; but to
cast into it something which it does not itself possess,
something that has life and will impart life. The sowing
of seed is the link by which dead mineral matter may
be raised up to form a part of the noble vesture of
life, by which the grain of sand may become a living
cell It is, so to speak, the mediator between the

1.] THE SOWER.

organic and inorganic kingdoms, the clasped hand in
which matter and Hfe meet, and by means of which
they exchange mutual services. In the process of
growth the seed takes up the substances and forces
of the soil, imparts to them a higher character, stamps
them with the impress of vitality, and converts them to
nobler uses. By the development of the seed, the
wilderness is converted into a garden, the bare barren
soil covered with beautiful and varied forms of life which
minister to the wants of higher creatures. Thus was
it with our Lord. The analogy applies to Him in the
most perfect way. He went forth not to destroy, but
to save ; not to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might have life. He came to impart to
our dead inert world, what it had lost out of it, — the
seed-principle of righteousness, the germ of eternal life.
The human world had become divorced from the
kingdom of heaven. Losing its connection with the
higher spiritual realm, it had lost all its spiritual beauty
and organization. It had retrograded into the condition
of a barren, blighted wilderness, incapable of bringing
forth any fruit pleasing to God, or profitable to man.
It had become a waste of lifeless sand, where there was
ao principle of cohesion or elevation ; and the selfish
passions of men, like storms of the desert, whirled the
separate units about at their pleasure, with destructive
violence. All man's cultivation of this barren soil by
efforts of his own, in the absence of heavenly principles,
was as if a farmer should content himself with con-
tinually ploughing and harrowing the same field, witliout

6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

putting any seed into it. Jesus came to sow, in this
dry and parched land, the seed of holiness and
happiness. He Himself, the Sator et Sejuen, the Sower
and the Seed> was sown in our earth as the Seed of
lieaven, concentrating in Himself all the fulness of
heaven, all the new future growth of the world. He
was the great Archetype which the germination of the
first seed sown on our earth typified, the explanation
of the mystery hid from the beginning. " Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He
that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that hateth his
life shall keep it unto life eternal." By His life on earth
He united earth to heaven, formed a new and better
creation upon the purified framework of the old. By
His growth in the midst of earthly conditions, and in
the mould of human experience, He spiritually organized,
as it were, what had fallen away from the order and
grace of God, what had become vitiated and disintegrated
by sin, what was fast going down to join the inert
kingdom of darkness and death, and made it capable
of receiving a higher character and doing a nobler
service. As St. Augustine says, " Christ appeared to
the men of a decrepit and dying world, that while all
around them was fading, they might through Him receive
a new and youthful life." His history was a mighty
expansive force, working outwardly from within, rege-
nerating everything which it touched, assimilating the
inner feehngs of the mind and the outwaid relations ol
life. He did not seek by His v/ords or works to uprooi

I.] THE SOWER.

what was already existing; He did not destroy the forms
of society which prevailed at the time; He did not
remove the Jewish institutions, — on the contrary, He
sanctified and renewed them. He conserved and amal-
gamated all that was simply human and homogeneous
with Himself. He would have gathered Jerusalem like
a brood of chickens under His protecting wings. He
would have saved the chosen people, if they would have
accepted His salvation. He was indeed the true Re-
former, making all things new by sowing in the world the
seed of heaven, and thus raising in it a heavenly growth ;
imparting to it a principle of spiritual power and beauty,
which by its development would counteract the decaying
tendency of the world, choke out its evils and abuses, and
so change its nature as to render it henceforth incapable
of reproducing the old evils.

And this was the function which our Lord assigned to
His disciples. He sent them forth not to uproot, but to
sow ; not to cut down, but to save ; not to destroy the
idolatries and superstitions of the surrounding nations,
but to preach the Gospel to every creature — the new
power of the resurrection which had come into the world.
From the empty tomb of the Crucified One they took of
the corn of wheat that had died there, and brought forth
much fruit, and sowed it broadcast over the field of the
world, in fulfilment of the prophecy, " There shall be an
handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the moun-
tains : the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon ; and
they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His
name shall endure for ever ; His name shall be continue^

8 THE MINIS TR Y OF NA TURE. [chap.

as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him ; all
nations shall call Him blessed." And assuredly this is
the function which our Lord assigns to all His servants
still. They are sowers going forth to sow. To the
wicked, which is His sword, He commits the task of
cutting down and extirpating evils and abuses ; but His
own people are to be ministers of salvation, not of de-
struction : to build up, and not to pull down ; to plant,
and not to uproot. They are to contend against evil and
error, not by using the weapons of the cynic and satirist,
but by sowing the peaceable fruits of righteousness. If
they confine themselves to testifying and protesting
against the ways of the world, they will inevitably fail.
The fate of Elijah's mission will be theirs. By the earth-
quake, the whirlwind, and the fire, he sought to destroy
the worship of Baal in Israel; and in deepest despon-
dency, under the juniper- tree in the wilderness, he be-
wailed his utter failure : '* Take away my life, for I am
not better than m.y fathers." The ministry of Elisha, on
ihe other hand, was a wide success, because he employed
the still small voice of life and love. Thus it always is :
the effect of destructive means of good is great and start-
ling at the time, but it is not enduring. Such agencies do
not supply anything to occupy the place of that which
they take away ; and that nature, which abhors a vacuum,
hastens to fill up the blank with the old and habitual.
The soil that is cleared of thorns and thistles by fire and
sword, speedily covers itself with the old weeds again.
The evils cut down to the ground have deep tap-roots,
that go far beyond the reach of hoe and axe, and put

r.] THE SOWER.

forth new shoots when stimulated by fresh temptations.
Only by the expulsive power of a new life can the old
evil growth be effectually and permanently destroyed.
The sowing of the seed of goodness even among the
rank growths of evil, will do in the spiritual world what
the growth of the wild flowers of England is doing at this
moment among the rank vegetation of New Zealand, and
what the fire and hoe of the settler have failed to do. We
are told that the common clover of our fields, tender as
it looks, is actually rooting out the formidable New Zea-
land flax, with its fibrous leaves and strong woody roots.
By the law of natural selection, as it were, in the spiritual
world, the stronger growth of heaven will extirpate the
feebler growth of earth. The godliness that is profitable
unto all things, having promise of the life that now is as
well as of that which is to come, will overcome in the end
the worldliness that is profitable only for a few things and
for this life. Let us learn then from this feature of the
parable our duty as Christ's disciples. While manifesting
righteous indignation, as He manifested it, when occa-
sion requires, our office in the main, as Christ's sowers, is
to overcome evil with good : not to abuse what we do
not like, but to show a more excellent way ; not to utter
woes against error, but to eliminate and construct the
measure of truth that may be mingled with it. We are
not to be busy in party antagonisms, but in building up
truth ; not to be striving under religious names to gain
adherents, but to win mankind to the love of Jesus. By
going forth to sow the Divine seed, we are to raise up, by
this new force, a world lying in the arms of the wicked

lo THE MINISTRY OF NATURE [chap.

one, into the higher and nobler life of communion and
fellowship with God.

(2) But I pass on, to consider next the loneliness of the
sower. Our Lord, lifting up His eyes when uttering this
parable, may have seen a little way off on the fertile
shores of the Lake of Galilee, a solitary husbandman,
busy scattering his wheat-seed in the furrows ; and there-
fore He said, "^4 sower went forth to sow." The sower
before our Saviour's eye was alone ; there was no one to
bear him company \ he was doing the work unaided. In
the natural world there is no more striking contrast than
between the sociableness of reaping and the solitude of
sowing. It is with man's work as it is with nature's
work : as one seed yields thirty or an hundred-fold in
the harvest, so one man can sow a great breadth of land,
which it will require a large company to reap. Tlie
sower is always a lonely man ; he goes forth alone, he
toils all day alone, — marching from furrow to furrow,
scattering the precious seed ; while the reaper is ever a
social man, working in a gay group, amid sympathetic
and jubilant gladness. So is it in the human world;
thousands reap the fruit of what one man sows. The
thought of one brain, the words of one mouth, the work
of one life, minister to the wants of countless multitudes
in future generations. Innumerable illustrations of this
great law of life, from every department of human ex-
perience, will occur to everyone. The triumphs of our
modern civilization, whose benefits are so widely diffused,
are the long results of the thought and toil of a few
solitary individuals, whom the world neglected and

I.] THE SOWER.

forgot. The great Sower of our marvellous Christian
civilization was pre-eminently a lonely Man. From
the time when He said to His earthly parents in the
temple, who did not understand or sympathise with
Him, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business?" to the last hour of His life, when the ter-
rible desertion of His heavenly Father constrained Him
to cry out, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?" He trod the winepress alone, and of the people
there was none with Him. He was far in advance of
His own age, far in advance of all ages. He was
alone amid His disciples, even when they were nearest
to Him, even when St. John lay upon His breast. We
hear Him saying, "What I do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter ; " and again, " Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not
known me, Philip?" They were not with Him in the
wilderness, when He obtained for all who beHeve in
Him His victory over Satan ; they could not watch with
Him in Gethsemane, when drinking our bitter cup to
the dregs; they all forsook Him and fled when He
was brought a prisoner before Pilate, that His dis-
ciples might be set free ; they stood afar off, beholding,
when Pie was crucified — the Just for the unjust, — that
He might bring sinners unto God. And as with the
Master, so with all His servants. They go forth at His
bidding alone to sow the seed of Gospel truth in the
world. The dreary sense of isolation often sinks deep
into their souls ; they feel painfully at times the want of
harmony between their circumstances and their feelings.

12 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

How often has the bitter lament of Elijah at Horeb,
" And I, even I only, am left;" and the sad words of St
Paul, "I have no man like-minded, who will naturally
care for your state ; for all seek their own, not the things
which are Jesus Christ's," — been wrung from the desolate
hearts of God's servants in all ages. St. Columba came
alone to diffuse the light of Christianity in our dark isle.
Dr. Judson went forth alone to convert the heathen
Burmese ; Brainerd was a solitary pioneer of the Gospel
among the savage Indian tribes of the far West ; Martyn
laboured single-handed among the Mahometans of the
far East ; the martyred Williams sowed alone the first
seed of life in the virgin isles of the South Sea. And in
our own country hundreds go forth alone into the streets
of the city, and the lanes and waysides of the country,
to cast precious seed wherever God's Providence opens
a furrow in the hard and stony ground. And what is
the result? Lift up the eyes, and where these sohtary
sowers went forth we see fields white unto the harvest;
we see thousands in the joy of harvest reaping the fruit
of what they had sown. And what encouragement is
there in such examples to us too to go forth to do good,
even though we have none to aid or cheer us on ! I fear
that in these days we forget that the sower must be a
lonely man. We are apt to put the conditions of reap-
ing in the place of those of sowing. We make our sower
go forth not alone, but in a crowd of fellow-labourers.
We say, not " A sower," but " A band of sowers went
forth to sow." This is the age of associations ; indivi-
dual effort is in a large manner superseded by corporate

I.] THE SOWER.

action. We do nearly all our good by committees and
societies. Many, feeling unable altogether to escape
from the responsibility of doing something for the cause
of Christ, pay others to act as their substitutes : and
thus organizations are necessitated to accomplish me-
chanically, as it were, what can only be done effectually
by individual effort. Such organizations no doubt ac-
complish a vast amount of good, and it is not easy to
see how, in the present state of society, they can safely be
abolished ; but it must be acknowledged by all who have
thought deeply upon the subject, that Christian work has
been too exclusively directed into this channel, and that
it would be well if along with this concerted action there
were more of spontaneous and intelligent individual
exertion. What the world needs more than anything
else, — more than gifts of money, rules, speeches, theories,
organizations, — is the revival of personal agency; the
touch of a hand, the glance of an eye, the tone of a
voice, the sympathy of warm loving hearts, charged with
all healing influences, to sow the desolate wilderness
thickly with the good seed of the kingdom. We wish
the sower to go forth alone, and by individual contact
with the evil of the world, to remedy it by the influence
of personal faith and living love. Like Elijah, we want
the servant of Christ to lay his own living body, through
sympathy, upon the dead body of suffering and sin ; and
thus, by imparting warmth to it, prepare it for restoration
to spiritual life. Like a greater than Elijah, who identi-
fied Himself with the outcast of society, and said, "Zac-
cheus, come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house,"

14 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [Chap.

we want every Christian, who is a debtor to all men, to
go home with the poor and the ignorant, and make their
trials his own, that thus he may truly relieve and bless
them. It is required that there should be a real cruci-
fixion with Christ in the blessed labours of the cross.
Such sowing would do far more good than any other
agency. He that sows and he that reaps in such a case
would rejoice together in the harvest.

(3) The season in which the sower goes forth to sow is
bleak and desolate. There is no foliage on the trees, no
verdure on the meadows. The sky overhead, when not
covered with dark clouds, is of a cold stony blue ; the
sunshine has a brassy gleam, and shines mockingly upon
bare pastures ; and the spring breathes between her
hands, as it were, to keep warmth in the shivering
creatures she calls to life. Thus it is in the spiritual
world when the sower goes forth to sow. He labours
among the decay of nobler things, — the remains of
former beauty now withered and sodden into deformity.
He finds nothing congenial ; the world looks coldly
upon his efforts ; bitter blasts of persecution assail him.
So was it with the Apostles in the spring-time of Chris-
tianity. All old things were passing away. Irreligion
and sensuality among the heathen had taken the place
of belief in the old rites and superstitions. Pharisaic
trivialities and Sadducean scepticism filled the minds of
the Jews, instead of the bright hopes of the Messianic
kingdom which their fathers had cherished. The scythe
of change had shorn off all the flower and glory of
every system social and religious, and only its stubble

I.] THE SOWER.

was left rotting in the ground. On everything had
settled the "cold sad melancholy" which breathes in
the works of all the writers of the time. The climax of
Imman effort had been reached : nothing more could be
done ; and men had to rest behind the dreary conscious-
ness of failure in all that had been tried before. It was
in this chill pause of the world's progress, this bleak,
barren season of the world's history, that the Apostolic
sowers went forth to sow the seed of Gospel truth, and
begin a spring-time of grace, — a new course of develop-
ment, which has gone on ever since. And He who sent
them forth on this blessed mission of the world's reno-
vation warned them of what treatment they should
receive v/nile carrying it on. He told them that the
world's wintry winds would blow upon them ; that they
should be hated of all men for His sake. That peculiar
age can never return. The world can no more go back
or lose out of it the heavenly odours, the celestial con-
sciousness, the sense of other worlds, with which the
blossoming of Christ's life upon it and the preaching of
the Gospel have charged its atmosphere. We have
passed out of the stormy gloom of winter, and the day
is lengthening and brightening, but it is yet only the
winter solstice, and therefore the sower has stiii to
repeat within his narrower sphere the experience of the
Apostles. Christianity has yet effected but little. There
are vast spaces where its light has never penetrated ;
there are seething masses among ourselves who are
utter strangers to its heavenly grace ; and so long as
this state of things exists, so long will there be a bleak

i6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [Chap.

and desolate season to the sower. But he who, dis-
mayed by these cold ungenial circumstances, takes his
ease at home, and refuses to go forth to create an Eden
in the waste, will not share in the joy of harvest. How
striking the contrast between the sowing and the reaping
time, between the bleak skies of March and the mellow
autumn sunshine ! And yet the one prepares the way
for the other. It is because the sower goes forth to
sow in the cold and gloom of early spring, that the
reaper gathers in his golden sheaves when earth is at
her fairest, and the full and perfected beauty of nature
seems like a dream of heaven.

(4) Sowing is a soj-roivfid process. The sower goes
forth weeping, bearing precious seed. He sows in tears ;
his act involves self-denial. The farmer sacrifices a cer-
tain portion of his corn in order to gain a harvest. That
seed-corn may be all that he has, — all that remains of the
store which he had garnered up for household use. He
may feel tempted to withhold it, and to use it for his own
food ; but unless he casts it into the gi-ound, and leaves
it in the cold furrow in spring, he cannot expect to get
the rich increase in autumn. Self-denial is absolutely
necessary on the part of the husbandman in order to
success in his business. He must part with a certain
amount of present good in order to obtain a largei
amount of future good. And so it is with the spiritual
sower. If he would succeed in his blessed work, he
must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Christ.
He must give away what costs him trouble, what causes
him loss, what he will miss. He must hate his own life,

r.J THE SOWER. i7

surrender it as a fruit or seed to be sown and to die, in
order to become the beginning of a new and blessed
gro^vth in others. Not only does the law of vegetation
teach him this ; the law of his own natural life adds its
emphatic Amen. It is written on the fleshly tables of
his own body. He lives by self-sacrifice. Some parts of
his body must die, in order that other parts may live.
The amount of activity which his life displays is exactly
measured by the amount of interstitial death which he
dies. It is interesting to notice how, in the process of
digestion for instance, the death of one part of the body
ministers to the life of the rest. Digestion in man is a
somewhat analogous process to germination in the seed.
As in the seed sown the nutritive part dies, or undergoes
a chemical change, in order to feed the embryo, so in
the human body the gastric juice is on the descending
career, and is truly dying matter. It is a part of the
incipient decay of the body set aside to react upon the
food, and prepare it for replacing those parts of the
tissues that have become effete and are being removed.
Thus, in order that our bodies may be nourished, there
must be the vicarious sacrifice of some portions of their
substance ; so in the great corporate body of mankind,
those who wish to fulfil the law of Christ must give up
for the good of others what would contribute to their
own comfort and well-being, if spiritual life and health
are to be generally diffused. They must make self-
sacrifice the law of their existence, and willing suffering
for others the medium of their own perfection. For " the
paradox ot the cross is the truth of life."

c

i8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

But the process of sowing is also sorrowful because of
(the uncertainty of the result. The seed lies long out of
sight in the cold dark soil ; and when it springs up, it is
exposed to a thousand casualties. Blight and mildew
lie in wait to seize upon the blade to wither it, upon the
ear to make it abortive, and upon the full corn in the
ear to convert its nutriment into dust and ashes. The
sun may scorch it, the caterpillar may devour it, the rain
may prevent its ripening, the wind may thrash it when it
is ripe, and, after all, the crop may not remunerate for
the toil and cost expended upon it. All these uncertain-
ties call for the exercise of faith and patience, and tend
to make the farmer provident and earnest. And is it
not so with the Christian sower ? Under whatever cir-
cumstances, whatever may be the nature of our Christian
work, the best and wisest of us can know but little of
what we are really doing. We may so toil, that, like
Elijah, we may be tempted to think that we have lived
in vain. We ourselves may see the fruit of what we
sow ; or we may labour, and others may enter into our
labours. Our outward immediate results may be worth-
less ; our spiritual results, unknown and unsuspected by
ourselves, may be precious and enduring. And we can
understand the reason why there should be this large
variable element in the problem of Christian activities.
Our ignorance of results is fitted to teach us greater faith
and more implicit dependence upon God. By this is
fostered all that is most precious and vital in our work.
We have the assurance that we are toiling under the
guidance of an unseen Hand, and in the strength of a

I.] THE SOWER. 1 9

never-tailing promise, and this prevents our work from
becoming a mere game of chance. And, on the other
hand, there is a zone of uncertainties about our toil, — an
apparently capricious element in it : it is undertaken
amid conditions whose force we have no means of
calculating ; and this prevents our work from becoming
monotonous and mechanical, stimulates us to labour
faithfully and prayerfully, tarrying the Lord's leisure,
waiting patiently upon Him who can lift us above all
anxious care, for immediate or striking results. " In the
morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not
thine hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper,
either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike
good."

(5) Lastly, I have to consider the nature of the seed
which the sower sows. The farmer sows the fruit of the
previous harvest. The end of one year of growth
becomes the beginning of a new year of growth. The
seed which he casts into the ground represents within
its living germ the result and reward of his toil and
patience for many a long month. It has cost him a
whole year of his life, — a whole year's expenditure of
much that is best and worthiest in him. Much of him-
self has grown with its growth, and is garnered up in its
life. Nay, more, the seed which he sows is the embodi-
ment of all the toil and patience of all the cultivatoi-s
of the corn, back to " the world's grey fathers." Its
existence would not have been, had not all the living
generations of men toiled in the sweat of their brow to
perpetuate and improve it. Now so is it with the seed
c 2

20 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

whidi the spiritual sower sows. It is Gospel truth,
quick with life, which has been handed down, with
enlarging significance and power, through the history of
kings and prophets and godly men of old, from the first
preacher of righteousness. It represents the cumulative
experience of all who at sundry times and in divers
manners revealed to their fellows the truth of God. It
represents all the spiritual growth and experience of the
sower himself. We cannot sow effectually in the spiritual
seed-field what is merely handed down to us, what we
merely buy with money, without any toil or trouble of
our own. We cannot go forth with the experience
of others to make it the seed of a spiritual harvest.
We must give our own life in our teaching, as the plant
gives its own life away in its seed — be at once the sower
and the seed. The word of truth must be the word of
life, — have our own life shrined in it, expressed by it, if
it is to become the means of life to others. The seed of
God's truth must have been sown in our own heart,
grown up there, gathered round it, and drawn up into
its fair expanding growth, from the soil and atmosphere
of our own being, our own peculiarities of spiritual ex-
perience; and from this fair plant of grace, that has
grown with our growth and ripened with our ripeness,
we take the seed that is to reproduce a similar growth of
blessedness in other hearts and lives. We sow what has
cost the toil and sweat of our own brow, what is the end
of our own discipline, what is the flower and fruit and
glory of our own life. It is only the seed that is thus
grown and ripened that will deeply influence those in

C.J THE SOWER.

whose hearts it is sown, transforming and renewing
them, — that, under the blessing of the Spirit, will prove
superior to all the powers of dead inert nature opposed
to it, — and in a more wonderful manner than even the
vegetable seed, pushing out of the way the strongest
obstacles, will find lodgment and room for growth, in
favourable soil, — in all that is deepest and most lasting
in human nature. And now, who will go forth under
these conditions, and, counting the cost, undertake this
blessed work ? God needs sowers ; for there are many
destroyers, — many who cut down and blight, and add to
the barrenness and desolation which the curse of man's
sin first produced in the world. Few there are who are
fellow-workers with God in restoring the withered beauty,
in bringing back the Eden blessing of fertility and abun-
dance. Every reaper should be a sower ; every subject
of Divine grace should be a medium of it ; every one
who has gathered a spiritual harvest, however slight,
should sow the fruit of it ; every one who has got good
should do good. The seed kept out of the soil will not
only abide alone, but it will part with the life that it has,
it will lose its germinating power ; it will rust and wither
and prove worthless : but if sown, it will preserve its life,
and be the parent of endless future life. "He that
loveth his life shall lose it ; but he that hateth his life
shall keep it unto life eternal."

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE.

PALINGENESIS.

" Foi , lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on
the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the.
turtle is heard in our land." — The Song of Solomon, ii. ii, 12.

The fretful April tears are shed ; the dead thhigs of the past,

Stirred by the cruel winds of March, are laid to rest at last.

Old memories nourish new-born hopes, as Autumn's withered leaves

Supply the warp on which the Spring its rich embroidery weaves,

And Nature's grand kaleidoscope discloses to the view

The broken toys of former joys restored with beauty new.

Once more has come the balmy May ; and by her magic spell

The shadows dark are charmed away that o'er my spirit fell.

I hear her low voice, as she lulls the lilies on her breast,

Or combs the pine-tree's flowing hair upon the mountain's crest.

I know her haunts in wood and wold ; for where her footsteps pass,

Springs up in Eden loveliness the radiance of the grass.

Each tree she kindles by her torch bursts into leafy flames.

And, like the sacred desert-bush, God's presence there proclaims.

The limes their foliage interlace along the lane's arcade.

And make a mystery of the place, with mingled light and shade.

The chestnuts spread their leafy palms in blessing on the air,

And from their minarets of bloom call all the trees to share.

With bridal blossoms, pure and sweet, the blushing orchards glow ;

And on the hawthorn-hedges lie soft wreaths of scented snow.

And where the amber clouds dissolve in raindrops brief and bright,

A world of fair and fragile flowers is born to life and light ;

Unnurtured by the care of man, they spring forth from the sod.

The free, glad offerings of the earth, — the precious gifts of God.

The grey-haired daisies, ever young, transfigure every field,

And to the old, world-weary heart the joy of childhood yield.

The primroses, with lavish wealth, their golden largess spread.

And on the dusty way-side banks a mimic sunshine shed.

The fairy wind-flowers cluster thick beneath the sheltering trees.

And shine amid the twilight shades, the forest Pleiades.

The wall-flowers on the ruined fane their fiery censers swing,

And where rich incense once arose, a richer incense fling.

PALINGENESIS. 23

Hid in their clois*;ered leaves, the nun-like lilies of the vale,

In fragrant ministries of love, their meek white lives exhale.

And dearer, stronger far than all the careworn heart to move.

The violets gleam among the moss, like eyes of those we love,

And speak to every lingering breeze, in voice of perfume low,

Of things that touch the soul to tears from days of long-ago.

Filled from the full cup of the hills, the free rejoicing streams

Are flashing down the long green vales, in showers of sunny gleams •,

And every little passing wave seems like a laughing tongue.

Revealing all the secret lore of Nature in its song.

From morn to night the air is bright with sheen of glancing wings,

And thrilled, like voices in a dream, with insect-murmurings.

The lark — a winged rapture — soars and sings at heaven's own gate ;

The blackbird tunes his mellow flute to cheer his patient mate.

And in the finvood's mystic shrine all day in ecstasy.

The thrush in tuneful chorus chants its "Benedicite."

While from the uplands far and faint, with spell all bosoms own.

Unchanged through changing ages comes the cuckoo's monotone.

God reigneth, and the earth is glad ! her lai-ge, self-conscious heart

A glowing tide of life and joy pours through each quickened part.

The very stones Hosannas cry ; the forests clap their hands ;

And in the benison of heaven each lifted face expands.

And day, too short for all its bliss, lingers with half-closed eyes

When every sunset cloud has paled, and moon and stars arise.

Awake and sing, ye in the dust that dwell ; for as the dew

Of herbs, a blessed dew from heaven our spirit shall renew ;

And with a quickened pulse, we'll gaze upon the bright love-looks

That woo us all day long, from trees and flowers and murmuririg

brooks ;
And see a beauteous, heavenly thought in everything around ;
And lessons learn of faith and hope from every sight and sound.
And, God ! our cold ungrateful hearts teach Thou to feel and know
How much Thy bovmteous hand hath blessed this world of sin and

woe, —
Kow deep 's the debt of thankfulness that unto Thee v/e owe !

CHAPTER 11.

FRAGRANCE.

" Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits ;
camphire, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron ; calamus and
cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; myn-h and aloes,
with all the chief spices."— Solomon's Song, iv, 13, 14.

C\^ all man's sources of enjoyment, none display
^~^^ more clearly the bountifulness of God than the
fragrant odours of nature. The world might have been
made entirely scentless, and yet every essential purpose
have been fulfilled. The vegetable kingdom, which is
the great storehouse of perfumes, might have performed
all its functions, and yet not a single plant exhaled an
agreeable odour. Fragrance seems so wholly superfluous
and accidental, that we cannot but infer tliat it was im-
parted to the objects which possess it, not for their
own sakes, but for our gratification. We regard it as a
peculiar blessing, sent to us directly from the hand of our
heavenly Father ; and we are the more confirmed in
this idea by the fact that the human period is the prin-
cipal epoch of fragrant plants. Geologists inform us that
ail the eras of the earth's histor}^ previous to the Upper

CHAP, ri.] FRAGRANCE. 25

Miocene were destitute of perfumes. Forests of club-
mosses and ferns hid in their sombre bosom no bright-
eyed floweret, and shed from their verdant boughs no
scented richness on the passing breeze. Palms and
cycads, though ushering in the dawn of a brighter floral
day, produced no perfume-breathing blossoms. It is only
when we come to the periods immediately antecedent
to the human that we meet with an odoriferous flora.
God placed man in a sweet-scented garden as his home.
He adorned it with labiate flowers, modest in form and
sober in hue, but exhaling a rich aromatic fragrance at
every pore. And so widely and lavishly did He dis-
tribute this class of plants over the globe, that at the
present day in the south of Europe they form one nine-
teenth part of the flora ; in the tropics one twenty-sixth ;
and even on the chill plains of Lapland, out of ever)'
thirty-five plants, one is a sweet-smelling labiate. In
our own country, the tribe is peculiarly abundant and
highly prized. Basil, marjoram, and lavender, balm and
mint, rosemary and thyme, are dear to every heart, and
are as fragrant as their own leaves with the sweetest
poetry of rural life. Banished now from the garden to
make room for rich and rare exotics, they still linger in
romantic, old-fashioned places, and are carefully culti-
vated by the cottager in his little plot of ground. In
quiet country villages the lavender-sprig still scents the
household linen ; the bouquet of balm or mint is still
carried to church with the Bible and the white pocket-
handkerchief, and mingles its familiar perfume with the
devotional exercises ; and the rosemary is still placed on

26 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the snowy shroud of the dead cottager, soothingly sugges-
tive of the sweet and lasting perfume left behind in the
dark tomb, by the Rose of Sharon, Mary's son, who once
lay there. All these are indeed "plants of grey renown,"
as Shenstone calls them. They came into the world
with man ; they were created for man's special gratifica-
tion \ and they have continued ever since in intimate
fellowship with him as ministers to some of his simplest
and purest joys. They were prepared, too, against the
day of Christ's anointing and burying ; for some of
the finest spices with which Joseph of Arimathea em-
balmed his dead body, were products of the labiate
family; and in this sacred use they have received a con-
secration which for ever hallows them to the Christian
heart.

No sense is more closely connected with the sphere of
soul than the sense of smell. It reaches more directly
and excites more powerfully the emotional nature than
either sight or hearing. It is an unexplored avenue,
leading at once, and by a process too enchanting to
examine, into the ideal world. Its very vagueness and
indefiniteness make it more suggestive, and quicken the
mind's consciousness. Its agency is most subtle and
extensive — going down to the very depths of our nature,
and back to the earliest dawn of life. Memory especially
is keenly susceptible to its influence. Every one knows
how instantaneously a particular odour will recall the
past circumstances associated with it. Trains of asso-
ciation long forgotten — glimpses of old familiar things —
mystic visions and memories of youth, beyond the reach

ii.l FRAGRANCE. 27

even of the subtle power of music — are brought back by
the perfume of some little flower noteless to all others.
]^ooks of long ago answer to our gazing ; touches of
hands, soft as a young trembling bird, lying in ours ;
words that were brimful of tenderness ; joys that had
no sorrow in their satisfying fruitage, come back with
the passing breath of mignonette, caught from some
garden by the wayside in the sweet, sad autumn eve.
Lime-blossoms, murmurous with bees in the shady
avenue — hyacinth-bells, standing sentinel beside some
sapphire spring — violets, like children's eyes heavy with
sleep, on some greenwood bank — each exhales a fra-
grance into which all the heart of Nature seems to melt,
and touches the soul with the memories of the years. It
is on account of this far-reaching power of fragrance, its
association with the deep and hidden things of the heart,
that so many of the Bible images appeal to our sense of
smell. It is regarded as an important means of com-
munication with heaven, and a direct avenue for the
soul's approach to the Father of spirits. The acceptance
of man's offerings by God is usually represented in the
anthropomorphism of the Bible, as finding its expression
in the sense of smell. When Noah offered the first
sacrifice after the flood, "the Lord," w^e are told,
"smelled a sweet savour." The drink-offerings and the
various burnt-offerings prescribed by Levitical law, were
regarded as a sweet savour unto the Lord. Christ, the
antitype of these institutions, is spoken of as having given
himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet-smelling savour. And the Apostle Paul, employing

28 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the same typical language, speaks of himself and the
other Apostles as "unto God a sweet savour of Christ in
them that are saved and in them that perish. To the
one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the
other the savour of life unto life." The Psalms and the
prophetic writings are full of the most beautiful and ex-
pressive metaphors, applied to the most solemn persons
and things, borrowed from perfumes ; while the whole of
the Song of Solomon is like an Oriental garden stocked
with delicious flowers, as grateful to the sense of smell as
to the sense of sight.

In the gorgeous ceremonial worship of the Hebrews,
none of the senses were excluded from taking part in the
service. The eye was appealed to by the rich vestments
and the splendid furniture of the holy place ; the ear was
exercised by the solemn sound of the trumpet, and the
voice of praise and prayer ; and the nostril was gratified
by the clouds of fragrant smoke that rose from the golden
altar of incense and filled all the place. Of these, the
sense of smell occupied, perhaps, the most prominent
place; for, as we have seen, the acceptance of the
worship was always indicated by a symbol borrowed
from this sense : " The Lord smelled a sweet savour."
The prayer of the people ascended as incense, and the
lifting up of their hands as the evening sacrifice. The
offering of incense formed an essential part of the
religious service. The altar of incense occupied one of
the most conspicuous and honoured positions in the
tabernacle and temple. It stood between the table of
shewbread and the golden candlestick in the holy place.

11.] FRAGRANCE. 29

It was made of shittim or cedar wood, overlaid with
plates of pure gold. On this altar a censer full of
incense poured forth its fragrant clouds every morning
and evening ; and yearly as the day of atonement came
round, when the high priest entered the holy of holies,
he filled a censer with live coals from the sacred fire on
the altar of burnt-offerings, and bore it into the sanc-
tuary, where he threw upon the burning coals the " sweet
incense beaten small," which he had brought in his
hand. Without this smoking censer he was forbidden,
on pain of death, to enter into the awful shrine of
Jehovah. Notwithstanding the washing of his flesh, and
the linen garments with which he was clothed, he dare
not enter the holiest of all with the blood of atonement,
unless he could personally shelter himself under a cloud
of incense. The ingredients of the holy incense are
described with great precision in Exodus : " Take unto
thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum ;
these sweet spices with pure frankincense : of each shall
there be a like weight : and thou shalt make of it a
perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary,
tempered together, pure and holy." This mixture was
to be pounded into very small particles, and deposited as
a very holy thing in the tabernacle, before the ark of the
testimony, so that there might be a store of it always in
readiness. According to Rabbinical tradition, a priest
or Levite, one of the fifteen prefects of the temple, was
retained, whose special duty it was to prepare this
precious compound ; and a part of the temple was given
up to him for his use as a laborat-or)% called, from this

30 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

circumstance, " the house of Abtines." So precious and
holy was this incense considered, that it was forbidden
to make a similar perfume for private use on pain of
death.

It has been supposed by some writers that incense
was invented for the purpose of concealing or neutral-
izing the noxious effluvia caused by the number of beasts
slaughtered every day in the sanctuary. Other wiiters
have attached a mystical import to it, and believed that
it was a symbol of the breath of the world arising in
praise to the Creator, the four ingredients of which it was
composed representing the four elements. While a third
class, looking upon the tabernacle as the palace of God,
the theocratic King of Israel, and the ark of the
covenant as His throne, regarded the incense as merely
corresponding to the perfume so lavishly employed about
the person and appointments of an Oriental monarch.
It may doubtless have been intended primarily to serve
these purposes and convey these meanings, but it derived
its chief importance in connection with the ceremonial
observances of the Mosaic ritual, from the fact of its
being the great symbol of prayer. It was offered at the
time when the people were in the posture and act of
devotion ; and their prayers were supposed to be pre-
sented to God by the priest, and to ascend to Him in
the smoke and odour of that fragrant offering. Scripture
is full of allusions to it, understood in this beautiful
symbolical sense. Acceptable, prevailing prayer was a
sweet-smelling savour to the Lord ; and prayer that was
unlawful, or hypocritical, or unprofitable, was rejected

II.] FRAGRANCE.

with disgust by the organ of smell. *' Incense is an abomi-
nation to me," said the Lord to the rebelHous Jews in the
days of Isaiah. We are told that when the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, on account
of the awful death of Korah and his associates, Aaron
took, at the command of Moses, a censer, and put fire
therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and stand-
ing between the living and the dead, swinging his censer,
he made an atonement for the people, so that the plague
was stayed. And Malachi, predicting the universal
spread of Jehovah's worship, sums up that worship under
the symbol of incense : " And in every place incense
shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering ; for
my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the
Lord of hosts." Doubtless the Jews felt, when they saw
the soft white clouds of fragrant smoke rising slowly
from the altar of incense, as if the voice of the priest
were silently but eloquently pleading in that expressive
emblem in their behalf. The association of sound was
lost in that of smell, and the two senses were blended in
one. And thi-s symboHcal mode of supplication, as Dr.
George Wilson has remarked, had this one advantage
over spoken or written prayer, that it appealed to those
who were both blind and deaf, a class that are usually
shut out from social worship by their affliction. Those
who could not hear the prayers of the priest could join
in devotional exercises symbolized by incense, through
the medium of their sense of smell ; and the hallowed
impressions shut out by one avenue were admitted to
the mind and heart by another.

32 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

The altar of incense stood in the closest connection
with the altar of burnt-offerings. The blood of the sin-
offering was sprinkled on the horns of both on the great
day of annual atonement. Morning and evening, as
soon as the sacrifice was offered, the censer poured forth
its fragrant contents ; so that the perpetual incense
within ascended simultaneously with the perpetual burnt-
offering outside. Without the live coals from off the
sacrificial altar, the sacred incense could not be kindled ;
and without the incense previously filling the holy place,
the blood of atonement from the altar of burnt-offering
could not be sprinkled on the mercy-seat. Beautiful
and expressive type of the perfect sacrifice and the all-
prevailing intercession of Jesus — of intercession founded
upon atonement, of atonement preceded and followed
by intercession ! Beautiful and expressive type too of
the prayers of believers kindled by the altar-fire of
Christ's sacrifice, and perfumed by his merits ! No
fitter symbols could the Apostle John find to describe
the services of the upper sanctuary, even though in his
day the symbolic dispensation was waxing old and
passing away. The temple opened in heaven was a
counterpart of the old temple of Jerusalem ; and the
four-and -twenty elders clothed in white, who sat around
the throne of God, and represented the church of all
time, held in the one hand harps, and in the other golden
vials full of odours which are the prayers of saints —
music and incense, audible sound, and visible vapour
and invisible fragrance — eye, ear, and nostril — mingling
together, and uniting in the fullest expression and

FRAGRANCE. 33

highest ideal of worship. Nor was this symbol alto-
gether an arbitrary one. There was a fitness in the nature
of things in incense being regarded as an embodied
prayer. Perfume is the breath of flowers, the sweetest
expression of their inmost being, an exhalation of their
very life. It is a sign of perfect purity, health, and
vigour; it is a symptom of full and joyous existence ; for
disease, and decay, and death yield not pleasant but
revolting odours. And, as such, fragrance is in nature
what prayer is in the human world. Prayer is the breath
of life, the expression of the soul's best, holiest, and
heavenliest aspirations : the symptom and token of its
spiritual health, and right and happy relations with God.
The natural counterparts of the prayers that rise from
the closet and the sanctuary are to be found in the deli-
cious breathings, sweetening all the air, from gardens of
flowers, from clover crofts, or thymy hill-sides, or dim
pine-woods, and which seem to be grateful, unconscious
acknowledgments from the heart of nature for the timely
blessings of the great world-covenant; dew to refresh
and sunshine to quicken.

But not in the incense of prayer alone were perfumes
employed in the Old Testament economy. The oil with
which the altars and the sacred furniture of the taber-
nacle and temple were anointed — with which priests
were consecrated for their holy service, and kings set
apart for their lofty dignity — was richly perfumed. It
was composed of two parts of myrrh, two parts of cassia,
one part cinnamon, and one part sweet calamus, with a
sufficient quantity of the purest olive oil to give it the

D

.U THE MINISTR V OF NA TURE. [chap.

proper consistency. Like incense, it was regarded as
peculiarly holy, and no other oil like it was allowed to be
made or used for common purposes on pain of death.
One of the sweetest names of Jesus is the Christ, the
Anointed One, because He was anointed with the
fragrant oil of consecration for His great work of
obedience and atonement. As our King and Great
High Priest, He received the outward symbolical chrism,
when the wise men of the East laid at His feet their gifts
of gold, myrrh, and frankincense in token of His royal
authority, and Mary and Nicodemus anointed Him with
precious spikenard and costly spices for his priestly work
of sacrifice. His name is as ointment poured forth; and
He is a bundle of myrrh to the heart that loves Him. But
not by the Jews alone were perfumes regarded as sacred.
All over the ancient world, hundreds of years before the
call of Abraham, the offering of perfumes formed a recog-
nized and indispensable part of religious worship ; and
the inspired writer alludes to this circumstance when he
says of the idols of the heathen, " Noses have they, but
they smell not." A practice so primitive and so universal,
like sacrifice itself, with which it was always associated,
must originally have been enjoined by Divine authority,
and handed down from the world's grey fathers to their
idolatrous descendants by oral tradition. Until very
recently the sweet-sedge was strewn on the floors of
some of the cathedrals of England, particularly Norwich
Cathedral; and exhaled when trodden a delicious fra-
grance, which filled the whole building as with incense.
In Norway I found several of the churches where I

ir.] FRAGRANCE. 35

worshipped, decorated in a similar manner with the fresh
leaves of the pine and birch, whose aromatic odour in
the crowded congregation was very refreshing.

Perfumes were associated with almost every action and
event in the life of the ancients. The free use of them
was peculiarly delightful and refreshing to the Orientals.
Their physical organization was more delicate and
sensitive to external influences than ours; like well-
strung harps, they vibrated to every impression from
without. Not as mere luxuries or evidences of an effe-
minate taste, however, were perfumes employed by the
Hebrews and Egyptians. The parching and scorching
effect of a burning sun rendered them necessaries. They
counteracted the excessive evaporation of the moisture
of the body, relieved the feeling of lassitude and irrita-
tion produced by the heat, and restored vigour and
elasticity to the frame. A bouquet of fragrant flowers
was carried in the hand, or rooms were fumigated with
the odorous vapours of burning resins, or the body was
anointed with oil mixed with the aromatic qualities of
some plant extracted by boiling, or scents were worn
about the person in gold or silver boxes, or in alabaster
vials, in which the delicious aroma was best preserved.
Beds, garments, hair, and articles of furniture were
perfumed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon ; and so indis-
pensable were perfumes considered to the feminine toilet,
that the Talmud directs that one-tenth of a bride's dowry
be set apart for their purchase. When entertainments
were given, the rooms were fumigated ; and it was
customaiy for a servant to attend every guest as he

D 2

36 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

seated himself, and to anoint his head, sprinkle his
person with rose-water, or apply incense to his face and
beard ; and so entirely was the use of perfumes on such
occasions in accordance with the customs of the people,
that the Saviour reproached Simon for the omission of
this mark of attention, leaving it to be performed by a
woman. And when death at last closed the scene,
odorous drugs were employed to check the progress of
corruption, and to express the affection of friends. The
body was embalmed in a costly and elaborate manner;
and even the cold noisome grave was made fragrant with '
the multitude of spices — symbols of faith which outlives
that perishing, and will therefore see its resurrection —
emblems of the self-sacrificing love of Him who makes
all our gathered flowers to give forth a richer fragrance
through dying. And it is a beautiful coincidence in con-
nection with this custom, that Smyrna, the name of the
old suffering Asiatic Church, is derived from myrrh, one
of the principal gums employed in embalming the dead.
The virtues and excellences of this bruised Christian
Church, like aromatic spices, were to preserve it from
spiritual decay, from the second death. " He that over-
cometh shall not be hurt of the second death."

The ingredients of the Hebrew perfumes were prin-
cipally obtained in traffic from the Phoenicians. A few
of them were products of native plants, but the great
majority of them came from Arabia, India, and the spice
islands of the Indian Archipelago. So great was the
skill required in the mixing of these ingredients, in order
i:o form ^heir most valued perfumes, that the art was a

FRAGRANCF.

37

recognized profession among the Jews; and the rokechbn,
translated " apothecary " in our version, was not a seller
of medicines as with us, but simply a maker of perfumes.
An immense quantity was annually manufactured and
consumed, of which we have a very significant indication
in the fact that the holy anointing oil of the tabernacle
and temple was never made in smaller quantities than
750 ounces of solids compounded with five quarts of oil,
and was so profusely employed that, as we are told in
Psalm cxxxiii., when applied to Aaron's head it flowed
down over his beard and breast, to the very skirts of his
garments. So admirable was the quality of the better
and more costly kinds of perfumes, that they lasted unim-
paired for hundreds of years, and many of the alabaster
boxes, dug up from Egyptian tombs from two to three
thousand years old, still retain fragrant traces of the
ointments once contained in them.

Fragrance is not always diffused uniformly over the
whole plant. Sometimes it resides in the blossom, as in
the rose, the lily, the violet, and the jasmine ; sometimes
it is extracted from the wood, as in the sandal and cedar;
from the bark, as in cinnamon and cassia; from the root,
as in the iris ; from the fruit, as in bergamot ; from the
seed, as in anise, caraway, and Tonka bean ; and from
the leaves, as in orange, myrtle, thyme, and mint. It
depends upon volatile oils, which are often so subtle as
to elude the analysis of the chemist, and cannot be
imitated by artificial means. These oils are usually
composed of carbon and hydrogen only ; and, strange to
say, these elementary bodies enter in precisely the same

38 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

proportions into the composition of scents that are
widely different. Thus, for instance, the oil of lemons,
of rosemary, and of the queen of the meadow, are
identical in composition with each other, and all of
them with the oil of turpentine; the wide difference in
the qualities of these isomeric substances being, perhaps,
caused by the different arrangements of the same ultimate
particles. The reason why one plant is fragrant and
another of the same genus utterly scentless is still
involved in mystery. Indeed nothing apparently can be
more capricious than the distribution of the odoriferous
principle. In most plants the odour disappears at death,
but some, like the rose, retain it long after ; a single leaf
of melilot or verbena will for centuries preserve and
manifest its sweet odour without any apparent diminu-
tion. Some are scentless until withered, like the wood-
ruff; others give out their odour only when . heated by
friction or burnt on the fire. Some evolve their fragrance
only when the sun is shining; others, like the melancholy
gilliflower and the night-blowing stock, give to the stars
and the dewy hours their soul of scent, and are therefore
favourite eniblems of virtue smelling sweet in adversity,
of sorrow fragrant with the beauty of holiness and the
consolations of grace. Some exhale their richest
perfume when the sun shines with strongest heat, while
others require the falling dew and the gentle shower to
call forth their sweetness. It has been found, on a com-
parison of all the members of the vegetable kingdom,
that plants with white blossoms have a larger proportion
of odoriferous species than any others ; next in order

FRAGRANCE. 39

comes red, then yellow and blue, and lastly orange and
brown, which are the least available to the perfumer, and
often indeed give a disagreeable odour. Thus purity and
sweetness are associated; and God has bestowed more
abundant honour upon that hue which is the universal
symbol of holiness and heavenliness. And this order of
colour and fragrance is also the order of the seasons.
The flowers of spring are white and highly fragrant ;
those of summer are red and yellow, but less fragrant ;
while those of autumn and winter exhibit the darker hues
of maturity and decay, and lose the freshness and perfume
of the early year. Of the natural families of plants, the
lily tribe comes first in point of fragrance, then the roses,
then the primroses, and lastly the campanulas or bell-
flowers. In warm countries the flowers are most highly
coloured, but in temperate countries they are most
odoriferous ; Europe having a larger proportion of sweet-
smelling species than either Asia or Africa. So volatile,
however, is the odoriferous principle, that it varies in
strength and delicacy according to soil and climate, so
that the same fragrant flower when grown in different
situations exhibits different degrees of perfume. The
lavender and peppermint of Surrey are far superior to
those grown in France, while the violet loses a large
portion of its scent among the orange and mignonette
gardens of Nice, and grows sweeter as we ascend towards
the slopes of the Alps.

Sweet-smelling flowers as a class are found in greatest
abundance in mountain regions. A large proportion of
the plants growing on the higli pasturages of the Alps

40 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [ciiAr.

are possessed of aromatic as well as medicinal properties ;
and I know nothing more delightful than, amid the pure
exhilarating atmosphere and the boundless prospects of
these lofty spots, to gaze upon the brilliant profusion
of blue, crimson, and golden blossoms that carpet the
ground, and to inhale their exquisite fragrance. On the
Scottish mountains we have several odorous plants — such
as the Alpine forget-me-not — blooming amid mists and
clouds on the highest summits, and breathing from its
lovely blue flowers a rich perfume. On the Andes we
have the Peruvian heliotrope, whose purple eyes turn
ever towards the sun, and give out an odour so sweet
and ravishing that the Indians regard it as a mystic spell
that opens to them the gates of the spirit world. On the
Sikkim Himalayas, the tiny Rhodode]idron nivale, which
grows at a loftier elevation than any other shrub in the
world, scents the air with its perfumed foliage when the
weather is genial. In the highest zone of the Peak of
Teneriffe, far above the clouds, amid the fierce drought
and unmitigated glare of that arid region, there grows
a wonderful bush — found nowhere else in the world — a
species of broom, called by the natives Retama. It is a
dull dingy-looking plant in autumn, harmonizing with the
dreary desolation around; but in spring it bursts out into
a rich profusion of milk-white blossoms, and fills all
the atmosphere with its delicious odour. Beehives are
brought up to it by the peasants from the valleys ; and
there for a few weeks the bees revel on the nectar, and
yield a highly-prized and fragrant honey. Mount Hybla,
in Sicily, is covered with an immense abundance of

IT.] FRAGRANCE. 4J

otloriferous flowers of all sorts ; and Hymettus, a moun-
tiiin in Attica, has always been celebrated in classic song
for the quantity and excellence of its honey, gathered by
the bees from the fragrant plants that luxuriate there.
The costly spikenard of Scripture is obtained from a
curious shaggy-stemmed plant called Nardosiachys Jata-
mcjisi, a kind of valerian, growing on the lofty mountains
in India, between the Ganges and the Jumna, some of
which are for six months covered with snow. All these
aromatic plants of the mountains require climatic circum-
stances for their growth, which art in most cases is inca-
pable of supplying ; and hence they cannot be cultivated
with any success. When brought down into the valleys,
they deteriorate, losing the brilliancy and fragrance of
their blossoms — in a kind of home-sickness for the purer
air and brighter light of the far-off summits.

An sesthetical link connects together sound and smell,
which has been noticed by the poets of all ages. There
are in all probability as many odours as there are sounds
— affecting different individuals in very opposite ways ;
and just as in music there are different notes blending
naturally and harmoniously with each other, so in fra-
grance there are different odours that unite together and
produce different degrees of the same effect. There are
perfumes in the same key as it were, forming chords and
octaves of fragrance, which produce a very delightful im-
pression upon the olfactory nerves ; and the skill of the
perfumer is displayed in making these harmonious com-
binations of different congenial odours, so as that no
d\scordant scent shall leave a faint and sickly impression

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [cha.i

behind, when the general perfume has died away. But
not only is there an aesthetic connection between the two
senses of smell and hearing ; there is also a physiological
one, as indeed there is between all the senses. The
range of action in hearing is said to be greater than that
of smell, but an object can be smelt much farther than a
sound can be heard. The diffusiveness of perfumes is so
great, especially in warm climates, and in the morning
and evening hours, that the "odour of the balsam-yielding
Humeriades has been perceived at a distance of three
miles from the shores of South America ; a species of
Tetracera sends its perfumes as far from the island of
Cuba ; and the aroma of the Spice Islands is wafted out
to sea."

The affinity of our senses — indicated even in our ordi-
nary mode of speaking of scenery, music, and odours, as
matter.s of taste, and applying the terms of one sense to
another — shows to us how wonderfully versatile must be
that power of the mind by which it apprehends all
external nature. It also demonstrates the unity and
simplicity of the mind, and convincingly proves that if,
through such imperfect avenues of knowledge as our
senses furnish, it can take in so large and true an idea of
the world, when provided, in a higher state of existence,
with an organization perfectly adapted to its capacities, it
will obtain its knowledge of surrounding things directly
and immediately — see no more through a glass, but face
to face, and know even as it is known.

Perfumes were at one time extensively employed as
remedial agents, particularly in cases of nervous disease.

n.l FRAGRANCE. 43

They are still used freely in the sick-room, but more
for the purpose of refreshment and overpowering the
noxious odours of disease than as medicines. How
important they are in the economy of nature we learn
from the fact that when the Dutch cut down the spice
trees of Temate, that island was immediately visited
with epidemics before unknown ; and it has been ascer-
tained that none of the persons employed in the per-
fume manufactories of London and Paris were attacked
by cholera during the last visitation. From the recent
experimental researches of Professor Mantegazza, we
learn the important fact that the essences of flowers
such as lavender, mint, thyme, bergamot, in contact with
atmospheric oxygen in sunlight, develop a very large
quantity of ozone, the purifying and health-inspiring
element in the air. And as a corollary from this fact, he
recommends the inhabitants of marshy districts, and of
places infected with animal exhalations, to surround
their houses with beds of the most odorous flowers, as
the powerful oxidizing influence of the ozone may
destroy those noxious influences. The beautiful and
world-wide custom of planting graves with trees and
adorning them with flowers, is for the same reason
attended with valuable sanitary results. Not only is the
eye cheered by their loveliness and the mind soothed by
their emblematical associations, but the atmosphere is
also improved ; and in this we have another illustration
of the great truth that what is practically wise is also
poetically beautiful. Many of the most delicious per-
fumes, however, are dangerous in large quantities.

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

Taken in moderation they act as stimulants, exhilarating
the mental functions, and increasing bodily vigour. But
in larger and more concentrated doses they act as
poisons. The odour of the queen of the meadow has
sometimes proved fatal to persons who have incautiously
. slept with a large bouquet of this flower in their bed-
i rooms. The peculiar odour of hayfields, due to a
narcotic substance called coumarin — delightful and re-
freshing as it is to most people — is supposed by some
medical men to be the cause of the hay-fever which
prevails when this odour is most largely developed
and diffused in the air ; while the otto of roses is to
many people sickening, . and some cannot smell a rose
without headache. This shows us that odours were
intended to be used very sparingly. If we pursue them
as pleasures for their own sake, they will soon pall upon
us, however delicious ; and if we concentrate them so as
to produce a stronger sensation, they become actually
I repulsive and sickening. God has given them to us to
' cheer us in the path of duty, not to minister to our love
of pleasure and self indulgence ; and in this respect the
laws of the unwritten revelation of Nature give their
sanction to the laws of the written revelation of the
Bible, indicating a common source and pointing to a
common issue.

From the observations I have thus made, it will be

;j seen that no sense has a monopoly in the things of

religion. Neither the ear nor the eye is exclusively

fitted to promote spiritual thoughts. Every means that

r^n reuse our emotional as well as our intellectual

fi.1 FRAGRA^JCE. 45

nature — for religion appeals to both, and comprehends
both within its sphere — is of great value, and was given
for that very purpose. Constituted as we are, we cannot
afford to lose even the least of the helps to devotional
feeling which have been given to us so abundantly in
the use of our external senses, and in the objects and
symbols of nature. But here a word of caution is
necessaiy. We must remember that, although the
fragrance of nature is an ?esthetical perception, it is
not necessarily a religious feeling. It excites pleasurable
sensations, but not pious emotions, in the unsanctified
heart. Minds of the darkest and hearts of the hardest
are found in scenes where every object is brimful of
beauty, and every breeze is laden with perfume. It was
in a region of remarkable richness and loveliness, where
the scent of aromatic shrubs, unknown elsewhere in
Palestine, made the air a luxury to breathe, that Sodom
stood. But although fragrance cannot of itself, any
more than beauty of form or colour, stir up all that is
deepest in the human heart, and purify and elevate
human life, it is nevertheless a powerful auxiliary to
moral influences. It is melancholy to hear those who
dislike the doctrines of the Cross, dwelling with fond
eulogiums upon the beauties of nature, and making a
gospel of them. " Consider the lilies how they grow,"
was the sermon of our Saviour, but it was preached to
disciples ; and if we are to profit by the teaching of tlie
field, it can only be when we make it, not a suhstiUite
for the teaching of grace, but an apjhendix to it. If we
have been taught by the Spirit, and have a living religion

46 TRR AIINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

in our hearts of the Spirit's kinclHng, then the study and
enjoyment of God's works will not be a carnal, but a
spiritual exercise. It will not fill our minds with
temporal, but with eternal things ; and the soft influences
and tender ministrations of sunny hues, fair forms, and
breathing sweets, will quicken instead of deadening the
soul, and inspire at once greater love to God, and hatred
of that sin which ruins and defiles a world so beautiful
and good.

It is assuredly not without some great rehgious as well
as aesthetic purpose that God has imparted fragrance to
objects which, so far as we can see, might have done as
well without it, and mvested almost every phase of rural
life with a perfume peculiar to itself. The toil of the farmer
is insensibly sweetened by the far-wafted odour of the
bean-field, and the rich honey-scent of the white clover
meadow, and the agreeable healthy perfume of the melilot
trefoil, the vernal grass, and the tedded hay j when he
reaps his harvest he cuts down at the same time the wild
mint that grows among the corn, and his sheaves are made
fragrant with it. The forester is cheered by the sweet-
scented woodruff, and the resinous aroma of pine and
birch woods \ the care of the shepherd is lightened by
the warm fragrance of the heather hills and the thymy
slopes ; and the gardener's labour becomes a pleasure
when perfumed with the loving breath of a thousand
beautiful flower-lips. Not without deep spiritual sig-
nificance to man does the honeysuckle blow from its
golden trumpets a fragrant music ; or the vesper
lychnis exhale its soul of sweetness in the dewy fields

II.] FRAGRANCE. 47

when twilight and peace descend hand in hand together
from heaven ; or the milk-white thorn load the air with
fragrant memories of the long summer days of child-
hood. All this Eden-breathing perfume of nature is
doubtless intended to lead our thoughts to God, and win
us from the earthly things that have bewitched us with
their sorceries. Jesus taught us to prize these beautiful
chalices of field and wood for the sake of the holy
thoughts, of which the heart is the interpreter, that
breathe from out their odorous loveliness. He renewed
the primeval blessing upon them. He consecrated them
with the oil of Plis own admiration, for the service of
Lhat temple where everything speaks of His glory. And
if life should be a perpetual sacrament since He brake
the daily bread of it in His hands, the fragrant breath of
nature should be to us a perpetual incense rising up on
the earth's great altar, reminding us of that marvellous
Love that so loved the world, that He gave His only-
begotten Son a sacrifice for it. Each odour should be a
tender voice calling to us from every blossom and leaf,
to join in creation's worship as represented in symbol
before the throne by the four living creatures : " Thou
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and
power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy
pleasure they are and were created."

" There's not a flower of spring.
That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied
By issue and symbol, by significance
And coiTespondence, to the spirit-world.
Outside the limits of our time and space,
Whereto we are bound,"

CHAPTER III.

LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS.

" When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give tc you for
a possession, and I put the 'plague of leprosy in a house of the
land of your possession : and he that owneth the house shall
come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as
it were a plague in the house." — Leviticus xiv. 34, 35.

" And if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in
the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of
skin ; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the
priest." — Leviticus xiii. 49.

T^EW subjects have proved more perplexing to the
student of Scripture than the title of this chapter.
That human dweUings and garments should exhibit a
similar disease to that which infects the human body,
seems at first sight to be in the highest degree impro-
bable. Sceptics, taking advantage of this improbability,
have used it as an argument against the historical veracity
of the Mosaic record. They have regarded it as either
a mythical circumstance altogether, or as an ignorant and
superstitious exaggeration of some ordinary occurrence,
worthy only of ridicule or contempt. Commentators, in
their endeavours to meet these objections, have been

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 49

sorely driven to find some plausible explanation of the
phenomenon. All sorts of conjectures have been
hazarded, some of them very wide indeed of the mark.
Michaelis has suggested that the leprosy of the house
arose from a nitrous efiiorescence produced on the sur-
face of the stone by saltpetre ; and mentions, in corro-
boration of this idea, a case that came under his own
observation, of a house in Liibeck, whose walls were
covered with this substance, which bore a strong resem-
blance to leprous patches. This efflorescence, however,
did not exhibit the remarkable reddish and greenish
spots described by Moses ; and, therefore, the explana-
tion of Michaelis must be rejected as inapplicable. The
same writer attributed the leprosy of garments to the
appearances assumed by clothes woven of wool taken
from sheep which had died of a particular disease, and
worn and fretted into holes. But this explanation fails
short of the case, for not only woollen garments, but also
those made of linen and leather, as well as bottles and
any article made of skin, were subject to the same
appearances. Other authors, with more plausibility,
have supposed the phenomenon in question to be simply
the taint or contagion of bodily leprosy imparted to the
clothes of the patient. It is, indeed, an unquestionable
truth, that in contagious diseases infection is conveyed by
the garments of the diseased ; but in the case before us
we are not at liberty to suppose that the leprous garments
were actually worn by lepers • and even although they had
been so worn, the taint of leprosy could not have been
visible in greenish or reddish streaks. The opinion that

E

50 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. ]cn\v,

it was a chemical effect produced by some imperfection in
the process of bleaching or dyeing, or that it was the fester-
ing stain caused by damp and want of ventilation, which,
when fairly established, mouldered and ultimately reduced
the cloth to pieces, is equally untenable, because it does
not answer fully the conditions of the Mosaic description.
All these conjectures, instead of shedding light upon the
subject, have only made it darker and more mysterious.

We are indebted to the recent discoveries of the
microscope for the first intimation of the true nature of
the leprosy of house and garments. In this instance, as
in many others, the historical truth of the Bible is con-
firmed by the very circumstance that seemed to militate
most against it j and even in its minutest details and
accounts of subsidiary phenomena, we find that it is
wonderfully accurate not merely according to a popular
but even to a philosophical standard. The cavils and
objections of science, falsely so called, are removed by
the revelations of a more advanced science ; and the
truths of nature and of the Bible are found to be one, as
God is one, and therefore as incapable of quenching
each other as one ray of light is incapable of quenching
another. A careful examination of the Levitical narra-
tive in the light of modern science leaves no room to
doubt that the conclusions of Sommer, Kurtz, and other
recent authors, who attribute a vegetable origin to this
plague, are correct. The characteristics mentioned are
such as can belong only to plants. There are some
species of fungi which could have produced all the
effects described, and whose form and colour answer

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 5!

admirably to the appearances presented by the leprosy.
We aie therefore safe in believing that the phenomena in
question were caused by fungi. The language of Moses
is evidently popular, not scientific, and may therefore be
supposed to include not only different species, but even
different genera and orders of fungi as concerned in the
production of the effects described. In the following
pages I shall attribute the different appearances to what
I believe to be their specific causes, and arrange my
remarks under the two heads of — first, the leprosy of the
house ; and second, the leprosy of garments.

The leprosy of the house consisted of reddish and
greenish patches. The reddish patches on the wall were
in all likelihood caused by the presence of a fungus,
well known under the common name of dry-rot, and
called by botanists Meridms lachrymans. Builders have
often painful evidence of the virulent and destructive
nature of this scourge. It is frequent all the year round,
being in this respect different from other fungi, which are
usually confined to the season of decay. It does not
affect one locality or object, but is universal and indis-
criminate in its attacks. The situations where it occurs
most frequently, however, are the inside of wainscoting,
the hollow trunks of trees, the timber of ships, and the
floors and beams of buildings. The conditions favour-
able for its growth and development are moisture,
warmth, and stagnant air, and where these exist it is
almost sure to appear. Most people are acquainted with
the effects of this fungus, but its form and appearance are
familiar to only a few. At first it makes its presence

52 rilE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

known by a few delicate white threads which radiate
from a common centre, and resemble a spider's web.
Gradually these threads become thicker and closer, co-
alescing more and more, until at last they form a dense
cottony cushion of yellowish-white colour and roundish
shape. The size of this vegetable cushion varies from
an inch to eight inches in diameter, according as it has
room to develop itself and is supplied with the appro-
priate pabulum. Hundreds of such sponge-like cushions
may be seen in places infected by the disease oozing out
through interstices in the floor or wall. At a later stage
of growth, the fungus develops over its whole surface a
number of fine orange or reddish-brown veins, forming
irregular folds, most frequently so arranged as to have
the appearance of pores, and distilling, when perfect,
drops of water, whence its specific name of lachrymans,
or weeping. When fully matured it produces an im-
mense number of rusty seeds, so minute as to be invi-
sible to the naked eye, which are diffused throughout the
atmosphere, and are ever ready to alight and germinate
in suitable circumstances. If once estabfished, dry-iot
spreads with amazing rapidity, destroying the best houses
in a very short time. The law regarding it in Leviticus
is founded upon this property; seven days only were
allowed for its development, so that its true nature might
be placed beyond doubt. " Then the priest shall go out
of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the
house seven days : and the priest shall come again the
seventh day and shall look, and behold if tlie plague be
spread in the walls of the house," &c.

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 53

The precautions here adopted are in entire accord-
ance with the nature and habits of fungi. By empty-
ing the house of its furniture, shutting the doors and
windows, and excluding air and Hght, the very con-
ditions were, provided in which the dry-rot would luxu
riate and come to maturity. If the walls were completely
impregnated with its seeds and spawn, this short
period of trial would amply suffice to show the fact,
md the building might then safely be condemned to
undergo a process of purification. The effect which
dry-rot produces upon timber is to render it useless by
destroying its elasticity and toughness, so that it can-
not resist any pressure, and gradually crumbles away
into dry brown dust. So virulent is its nature that it
extends from the wood-work of a house even to the
walls, and, by insinuating itself between the bricks or
stones, vegetates through the whole structure, and reduces
it to a damp and mouldering state. There are no m.eans
of restoring rotten timber to a sound condition, and the
dry-rot can only be eradicated by removing the decayed
and affected parts, clearing away all the spawn, and
destroying the germs with which the plaster and the
other materials of the walls may have been impregnated.
For this purpose the processes of kyanizing and burnet-
izing have been recommended — that is, washing the walls
or the wood-work with a strong solution of corrosive sub-
limate or chloride of zinc. If the dry-rot is not fairly
estabhshed in a house, it may be removed with tolerable
ease by these processes ; should the disease, however,
have become wide-spread and deep-seated, no means of

54 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

dealing with the evil can be depended upon, except that
of removing altogether the corrupted and contagious
matter, and admitting a free circulation of air. This was
exactly what the Jewish priest was commanded to do :
" Then the priest shall command that they take away the
stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them
into an unclean place without the city : and he shall
cause the house to be scraped within round about, and
they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without
the city into an unclean place : and they shall take other
stones and put them in the place of those stones ; and
he shall take other mortar, and shall plaster the house."
It often happens, however, that even this severe opera-
tion proves ineffectual ; and after repeated repairs of the
same nature, it is found that the building is so hopelessly
ruined that it must be abandoned and dismantled :
"And if the plague come again, and break out in the
house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and
after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plastered ;
then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the
plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in
the house : it is unclean. And he shall break down the
house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all
the mortar of the house \ and he shall carry them forth
out of the city into an unclean place." In confirmation
of this Professor Burnet says : — " I knew a house in
which the rot gained admittance, and which, during the
four years we rented it, had the parlours twice wains-
coted, and a new flight of stairs, the dry-rot having
rendered it unsafe to go from the ground-floor to

fiT.J LEPROSY OF HOUSE AMD GARMENTS. 55

the bed-rooms. Every precaution was taken to remove
the decaying timbers when the new work was done; yet
the dry-rot so i-apidly gained strength that the house was
ultimately pulled drown. Some of my books, which
suffered least, and which I still retain, bear mournful
impressions of its ruthless hand ; others were so much
affected that the leaves resemble tinder, and when the
volumes were opened fell out in dust or fragments."
The ships in the Crimea suffered more from dry-rot than
from the ravages of fire or the shot and shells of the
enemy ; and many of the best and most solid-looking
houses are rendered year after year uninhabitable by it.
The wood is often deeply impregnated with its spawn
before it is used ; the green patches that frequently occur
in the grain of the wood piled up in the timber-yards
being indications of its presence. When exposed to the
elements, the spawn is prevented from developing ; but
when the wood in which it is seen is employed in
domestic buildings, and shut up in close ill-ventilated
places, it speedily reveals its true nature, and spreads
like wild-fire.

If the ravages of this plague are so great in this
country, where the climate is temperate, and the houses
generally dry, well-drained, and substantially built, what
must they be in Eastern countries, where the dwellings
are hastily constructed of almost any materials that come
readily to hand — of loose stones daubed with untem-
pered mortar — of mud and sun-burnt bricks mingled with
chopped straw — and where the climate, especially during
the rainy season, is very close and moist, developing

56 THE MINIS TR V OF MA TURE. [c i ia p.

every kind of cryptogamic vegetation in the utmost
luxuriance? Dr. Thomson, in "The Land and the
Book," mentions that the upper rooms of the houses in
Palestine, if not constantly ventilated, become quickly
covered with mould, and are unfit to live in. In many
cases the roofs of the houses are little better than earth
rolled hard, and it is by no means uncommon to see
grass springing into a short-lived existence upon them.
Such habitations must be damp and peculiarly subject to
the infection of fungi. During the months of November
and December especially, fungi make their appearance in
the wretched ephemeral abodes of the poorer classes;
and in the walls of many a dwelling at the present day
may be seen the same leprous appearances described by
Moses three thousand years ago. When the Israelites
entered Palestine, they occupie'd the dwellings of the dis-
possessed aboriginal inhabitants, instead of building new
houses for themselves. And in these dwellings, as the
Canaanites lived in the midst of moral and physical
impurity, and were moreover ignorant of all sanitary
conditions, the plague of leprosy would be very apt to
manifest itself The Bible speaks of it as sent expressly
by God himself: "When ye be come into the land of
Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the
plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your posses-
sion." It was so sent in mercy and not in judgment, to
show to them, by a palpable proof appealing to the eye,
what could not be so well revealed by other evidence.
It was the visible manifestation of a hidden insidious
unwholesomeness ; the breaking out, as it were, of an

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 57

internal and universal disease. It directed attention to
the unhealthy character of the house, and stimulated
inquiry as to how it could be remedied. Whereas if no
such abnormal appearance presented itself, the inhabit-
ants might remain unconsciously in the midst of condi-
tions which would slowly but surely undermine their
health, and in the end prove fatal.

In the Levitical narrative we read that in the walls of
the affected houses there were greenish as well as reddish
streaks. These greenish streaks were caused by a much
humbler kind of fungus than the Meruluis lachrymans^
or dry-rot, concerned in the production of the reddish
streaks. Every one is familiar with the common gree7i
mould, or Penicillmm glaucum of botanists. This fungus
is extremely abundant everywhere, and seems to have
been no less general in the ancient world, for we find
traces of it pretty frequently in amber, mixed with frag-
ments of Hchens and mosses. It grows on all kinds of
decaying substances, and is very protean in its appear-
ance, assuming different forms according to the nature of
the body or situation which it affects. To the naked eye
it is a mere greenish downy crust spreading over a decay-
ing surface; but under the microscope it presents a
singularly lovely spectacle. The little patch of dusty
cobweb is transformed into a fairy forest of the most
exquisite shapes. Hundreds of delicate, transparent
stalks rise up from creeping interlacing roots of snowy
purity, crowned with bundles of slender hairs, each like
a miniature painter's brush. Interspersed among these
hairs, which under a higher power of the microscope are

$8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

seen to be somewhat intricately branched, occur greenish
dust-like particles, which are the sporidia, or seed-cases,
containing in their interior the excessively minute and
impalpable spores or germs by which the species is per-
petuated. A more entrancing sight cannot be seen than
these Liliputian groves of fungoid vegetation spreading
over a decaying crust of bread, or a damp, mouldy old
shoe, or the surface of a neglected pot of preserves.
Often when coming home, wearied and surfeited by the
inexhaustible enjoyments of a summer ramble, has my
sense of God's power and love been revived and
quickened by the microscopic examination of a frag-
ment of rubbish thrown away into some dark corner ;
and I have felt constrained to acknowledge that the
glories of the outer world of sense and sight, illuminated
by the summer sun, sank into insignificance when com-
pared with the spiritiielle vegetation which bloomed
unseen beyond the reach of sunshine and dew, and
covered with its mantle of loveliness the unsightly
ravages of death and decay. I have gazed for hours
unweariedly upon such astonishing miracles of nature
wrought within the precincts of man's own home, finding
new proofs of design, new charms of hue and form and
grouping, disclosing themselves every moment. Many
of the strange weird-looking trees seemed to be growing
as I gazed, lengthening their stalks upwards and spread-
ing their roots downwards; here and there tree-stems
falling, and crushing others in their fall, opening up a
glade in the forest, and cumbering the ground with their
fallen trunks and old rotten-looking stumps ; while ever

Til. J LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 59

and anon the ripe capsules wliich grew on the summits
of the taller and more mature plants were bursting, and
sending their seeds like a tiny puff of white smoke into
the still air. There was an exquisite finish and perfec-
tion of detail in every part. Products of decay although
they were, each object was instinct with life, and busy in
the performance of life's functions. It was the fable of
the Phoenix more than realized — purity springing out of
cormption, and the shadow of death turned into the
morning.

The common mould-plant has wonderful powers of
adapting itself to circumstances the most diverse.
Though it grows most frequently in the air, it is no less
at home in the water. The vinegar plant which excited
so much attention in domestic circles a few years ago,
was an extraordinary development in saccharine solutions
of the vegetative system or spawn of the common mould.
Under the microscope, the peculiar gelatinous or leathery
appearance of this abnormal production was found to
consist of the threads of the mould closely interlaced and
greatly swollen; and whenever the vinegar in which it
was immersed was allowed to evaporate, and the s])awn
to become free from saturation, then the usual form of
the mould was produced. Similar examples may be seen
in the flocculent matter which forms in various effusions
when they become mothery; and in warm weather
every \mter is familiar with the tough mass that is so
often brought up on the point of the pen from the ink-
holder. Yeast, too, consists of the cells of this fungus.
When jjlaced in the juice of grapes or the juice of barley

6o THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [ckap.

these vegetable cells begin to grow and propagate, caus-
ing minute bubbles of carbonic gas to arise, and the
whole substance gradually to ferment. A single cubic
inch of yeast during the heat of fermentation contains
upwards of eleven hundred and fifty-two millions of these
primitive plants. When the sugar upon which they feed
is exhausted, and the water is all evaporated to dryness,
the yeast-plants return to their primitive form of common
green mould. We thus see that the same fungus which
grows- on the decayed grape in the vineyard, or the
mildewed barley in the harvest-field, converts, in the
form of yeast, the juices of the grape and the barley into
wine and beer. In both cases it is a process at once of
decay and growth. Nature by means of the growth of
the fungus is hastening the decay of effete substances ;
man steps in and arrests the decay and growth at a par-
ticular point, and employs the product as a beverage.

So also it is with leaven or the fermenting matter
which, in baking bread, is put into the dough to make
it lighter and more tasteful. It consists of myriads of the
cells of the common mould in an undeveloped state. If
a fragment of the dough with the leaven in it be put
aside in a shady place, the cells of the fungus in the
leaven ^vill vegetate, and cover the dough with a slight
downy substance, which is just the plant in its complete
form. The swelling of the dough, and the commotion
which goes on in the leavened mass, are owing to the
multiplication of the plant-cells, which takes place with
astonishing rapidity. By this process of vegetation, the
starch and sugar of the dough arc converted into other

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 6r

chemical products. But it is only allowed to go a cer-
tain length, and then the principle of growth is checked
by placing the dough in the oven and baking it into
bread. Leaven is thus a principle of destruction and
construction — of decay and of growth — of death and of
life. It has two effects which are made use of as types
in Scripture. On the one side, the operation of leaven
upon meal presents an analogy to something evil in the
spiritual w^orld, for it decays and decomposes the mattei
with which it comes into contact. On the other side, the
operation of leaven upon meal presents an analogy to
something good in the spiritual world, for it is a principle
of life and growth, and imparts a new energy and a
beneficent quality to the matter with which it comes into
contact. Hence we see why Christ, at one and the same
time, should bid Flis disciples beware of the leaven ol
the Scribes and Pharisees, and compare the kingdom ol
heaven to leaven hid in three measures of meal. The
Kingdom of Heaven, we must remember, has two as-
pects,— it is a principle of growth and decay, of construc-
tion and destruction ; it is life unto life in those who have
life, it is death unto death in those who are dead.
Nay, in the same person it is at one and the same
time a principle of life and of death, of growth and
decay, for the new man lives by the death of the old
man; the spiritual life grows while the carnal life decays 3
the outward man perisheth, while the inward man is
renewed more and more.

Common mould grows on every substance, whether
animal or vegetable, in a state of decay. It grows

62 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

even upon the human body when it is in an enfeebled or
disordered condition ; and many diseases of the skin are
owing to its efforts to develop and spread itself. The
thrush in children, the muscardine so destructive to silk-
worms, the fungoid growth which so often causes the
death of the common house-fly in autumn, are all differ-
ent forms of the common mould. Its germs or spores
are constantly floating in the air or swimming in the
water in incalculable myriads, so that it is difficult to
conceive how any place can be free from their presence.
The atmosphere of our houses is loaded with them; and
were we endowed with microscopic vision, we should see
them dancing about in the draughts and currents of our
rooms, or shining among the motes in the pencilled rays
of sunshine. The ubiquity of mould has given rise to
the theory of spontaneous generation, still held by a cer-
tain class of naturalists; but the immense profusion of
its seeds, and their wonderful powers of adaptability to
varying circumstances, and of entering through the finest
conceivable apertures, will easily account for its presence
in every situation, without being under the necessity of
admitting what has never yet been proved — that sub-
stances in a particular state of decay can, without seeds
or germs of any kind, generate low forms of life. Many
medical men are of opinion that various zymotic diseases,
if not originated, are increased by the presence of these
minute cellules in the blood, and by their deleterious
action in developing themselves. The subject has re-
cently been made popular by the discoveries of Professor
Tyndal and tlie fears excited by his theory of germs.

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS, 63

The injuries inflicted by fungi are indeed incalculable.
But we have nevertheless a grand compensation in the
benefits which they confer in accelerating, by their un-
paralleled rapidity of growth, the process of decay, and
removing from the atmosphere into their own tissues,
where they are innocuous, the putrescent effluvia of dead
substances. They also economize the stock of organized
material, which has been slowly and tediously gained
from the earth, air, and water, by preventing it from going
back through decomposition to the mineral state, and
preserving it in an organic form to be at once made avail-
able for the purposes of higher animal and plant life.
Mould, for these reasons, is not so much an evil in itself
as an indication of evil conditions in the world, and by
minimising these it renders an all-important service in
the economy of nature. Its great purpose is purely bene-
volent ; but, like the storm intended to purify the atmo-
sphere, it sometimes oversteps its limits, and proves
injurious in particular cases.

Light, indispensable to the well-being of all other plants,
is hostile to the growth of fungi. Wherever the sun shines
brightly, mould will not appear, or, at all events, flourish.
It is essentially one of the unfruitful works of darkness.
Hence those dwellings where the direct sunlight is ex-
cluded are peculiarly exposed to its attacks. However
clean the locality, and comfortable the external appearance
of a house, if the windows are small and the ceilings low,
and Httle light be admitted, this morbid vegetable growtli
will make its appearance ; and by its rapid spread indi-
cate very plainly that what is favourable to its develop-

64 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

ment is most -depressing and devitalizing to the inmates.
Eastern houses especially, owing to the jealous seclusion
in which the occupiers live, and the heat and glare of
the climate, are constructed to admit as little light as
possible ; and therefore we may well suppose that their
shaded rooms would be injurious to health and favour-
able to the growth of leprous moulds. God said, " Let
there be light ; " and He said it for a wise and benefi-
cent purpose : for purifying the atmosphere as well as
beautifying the earth. It helps on the life of the world ;
it is an essential condition of animated nature ; it is
the best and cheapest of nature's tonics ; and wherever it
is prevented from exerting its benign influence, the body
is weakened, the atmosphere is vitiated, the dwelling
becomes the scene of disease and decay, and the dark
haunt of noxious vegetation. Perfumes are also injurious
to fungi. It is a remarkable circumstance that mouldi-
ness is effectually prevented, at least during its incipient
stages, by almost any fragrant substance. It is well
known that books will not become mouldy in the neigh-
bourhood of Russia leather ; nor any substance if placed
within the influence of some essential oil. Turpentine,
Canada balsam, tar, and other resinous substances, have
not unfrequently proved effective when administered as
remedies in diseases of vegetable origin. Cholera has
never visited the extensive pine-forests of Norway and
Sweden ; and in the district of the Spey in Scotland,
where there are great woods of pine and fir, diphtheria —
which is supposed to be caused by the development of
fungoid germs — is altogether unknown. It is for this

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 65

reason probably, that cedar-wood occupies so prominent
a place in the list of articles to be used in disinfecting
the leprosy of the house. "And he shall cleanse the
house with the blood of the bird, and with the running
water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar- wood,
and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet ; but he shall
let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields,
and make an atonement for the house ; and it shall be
clean." Though the articles of purification here enu-
merated were employed on account of their typical or
symbolical significance, yet it does not follow from this,
that there was not a real fitness in the nature of things,
in the various applications. The resinous fragrance of
the cedar-wood, in cases where there was only a slight
mouldiness in the house, would act as a deodorizing
agent, apart altogether from its typical purport or spiritual
efficacy. It is important to notice that light and free
circulation of air, as symbolized by the living bird let
loose into the free sunlit sky, and sweet and healthy per-
fumes arising from thorough cleanliness, as symbolized
by the hyssop, the running water, and the cedar-wood,
form the rational basis of the spiritual typology of the
ceremony; and all this is not without profound signifi-
cance to us upon whom the ends of the world are
come.

The minute regulations for inspecting and cleansing
those houses where symptoms of leprosy appeared, indi-
cate how complete was the sanitary system under which
the ancient Israelites lived. God considered no part of
their domestic and social economy, however humble,

p

66 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. fCHAr,

beneath His notice. Cleanliness in person, in dress,
in dwellings, and in all outward appointments, was
enforced by statutes of a peculiarly solemn character.
All these ceremonial enactments were in the first in-
stance intended for sanitary purposes. God had respect
to the physical health and well-being of His people. He
wished them to be patterns of purity, models of beauty,
their bodies to be perfectly developed in the midst of
the most favourable circumstances; and therefore the
most admirable arrangements were made for securing
cleanly, orderly, and healthy habitations. In this re-
spect the ancient Jews were far in advance of us. In
too many of our dwellings, the truths of modern sana-
tive science are wholly ignored. A frightfully large
proportion of our population, not only in crowded cities,
but also in lonely rural districts, live in the midst of
conditions that are most pernicious to nealth and phy-
sical development. Fever never leaves certain localities;
and whole hecatombs of victims to epidemic diseases
are annually sacrificed through sheer ignorance of the
simplest laws of physiology. To remedy this wretched
hygienic condition of the masses of our fellow-creatures
is the great question of the day ; but it is one beset
with many and formidable difficulties. Still it is encou-
raging to know that, as a nation, we have begun in some
measure to address ourselves to an undertaking so
vitally important. We have now, fortunately, many
associations instituted specially for the prosecution
of it ; and eff"orts for the good of men's bodies are felt
to be as really and directly Christian work, as efforts

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. bi

for the enlightenment of the mind and the salvation
of the soul.

But not for purely physical purposes alone were the
Levitical laws regarding the leprosy of the house en-
forced. They had also a spiritual significance. God
dwelt among the Israelites : the tabernacle was His
visible abode. He had thus come down to earth ; and
the Israelites lived in His presence as it were in heaven,
under the conditions of earth. The state which is
future to us was present to them; and hence, all the
promises and threatenings addressed to them under the
theocracy concerned this life and this earth alone. The
solemn announcement was made to them, " The Lord
thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp to deliver
thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; there-
fore shall thy camp be holy; that He see no unclean
thing in thee, and turn away from thee." Physical
pollution was regarded as the symbol of spiritual pollu-
tion ; and everything connected with disease, decay, or
death, imparted a symbolical defilement to a spot
wherein nothing that defileth should be found. God
was to be known, not as the God of the dead, but of
the living ; and therefore every morbid substance, animal
or vegetable — everything that was hostile to health, and
bore upon it the impress of that curse whose course is
disease and decay, and whose end is death — must be
banished without the camp. He was, moreover, to be
known as the thrice Holy One, who cannot look upon
sin ; and therefore every unfruitful work of darkness—
every token in man's body and surroundings of the deep

F 2

68 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap

lying malady of sin in his soul — everything that bore
the image of corruption — must be excluded from the
precincts which He has sanctified by His own habitation,
and from the dwellings of the people upon whom He
has put His name. All experience tells us of the
mysterious connection, founded upon the constitution of
our two fold nature, between physical and moral evil^
between external and internal impurity. The proverb,
" Cleanliness is next to godliness," is truer even than it
is admitted to be. Physical filth has in innumerable
instances been the means of turning away the Lord from
the homes of those who endure it. For want of a little
more room and a little more purity in their dwellings,
the sublimest truths fall dead upon the ears of thousands.
The salvation of the poor, though to them the Gospel is
preached, is in very many cases rendered impossible,
humanly speaking, on account of the degrading con-
ditions amid which they live, and the deadening, hard-
ening influence which familiarity with noxious sights and
smells produces. How often are the spiritual instructions
of the district visitor thrown away on account of the
unhallowed effects of filthy surroundings ! Let our
efforts for the souls of our fellow- creatures, therefore, be
introduced and accompanied, like those of our Saviour,
by some measure of attention to their physical well-
being : remembering that the Gospel is universal, com-
prehending the whole man ; that Christ ; as the apostle
tells us, is the Saviour of the body; and that we are
now waiting for the adoption — that is, the redemption of
the body.

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 69

Sad it is to think of the leprosy of the house being
the type of the leprosy of sin which infects the earthly
tabernacle of this body. We bear about with us this
plague in all our members. From the crown of the
head to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness in us.
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. In
vain do we endeavour to check its spread, to diminish
its ravages, by efforts at self-reformation, by repairing
and altering this and that part of our structure which it
has corrupted and decayed. So virulent is its nature, so
inherent and deep-seated are its roots, that we cannot
altogether get quit of it. Even the holiest Christian
has a law in his members warring against the law of his
mind; and the bitter cry, "Oh, wretched man that I
am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ? "
often proceeds from the meekest and saintHest lips.
The earthly house of this tabernacle must be taken to
pieces, must crumble in the dust, and be resolved into
its native elements, ere the ingrained, fretting leprosy of
sin be completely eradicated, and it be in a fit condition
to be rebuilt, and made a pure and holy mansion for the
redeemed and glorified spirit. Blessed be God, our vile
bodies are yet to be fashioned like unto the glorious
body of our Redeemer ; and here and now the happy
work of purification and transformation may be going on
through the blood of the Lamb, the water of regenera-
tion, and the fragrant, sanctifying influences of Divine
grace. Be it ours to put our natures entirely under the
purifying power of God's Spirit, so that they may be
cleansed from all impure and unholy desires, all in-

70 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

ordinate indulgences of lawful appetite, all the fretting
leprosy of the flesh ; and grow up temples of the Holy
Ghost, habitations of God through the Spirit, fitted for
their sacred ministrations here and their glorious enjoy-
ments hereafter.

So much for the leprosy of the house. The leprosy
of garments may have been caused by the same fungi.
Precisely the same appearances manifested themselves
in the one case as in the other. I am disposed to
attribute the greenish streaks on the garments to the
common green mould ; for, as I have observed, it is
ubiquitous, and grows as readily on clothes as on
house walls, when left in damp, ill-ventilated, ill-lighted
places. The reddish patches, however, seem to me to
have been produced by the growth of the Sporendo-
nema, or red mouldy very common on cheese ; or of
the Palmella prodigiosa. This last-mentioned plant is
occasionally found on damp walls in shady places, and
on various articles of dress and food, sometimes ex-
tending itself over a considerable area. It is usually a
gelatinous mass, of the colour and general appearance
of coagulated blood, whence it has received the famous
name of Gory-dew. Though formerly ranked with the
algae, or sea-weed family, it is now ascertained, by more
accurate physiological researches, to be a species of
mould ; so that, under whatever names we may class
them, the plants which occasioned the strange ap-
pearances on houses and garments belong to the same
tribe. Instances of reddish patches suddenly investing
linen and woollen clothes, are by no means confined to

iTi.] LEPRuSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 71

the Levitical narrative. A whole volume might be filled
with similar examples. Along with other marvellous
prodigies, they abound in the mediaeval chronicles ; and
were they not authenticated by the most trustworthy
evidence, we should hesitate — from their very extraor-
dinary character — to accept them as true. It was by no
means rare to find, in the middle ages, consecrated wafers
and priestly vestments sprinkled with a minute red sub-
stance like blood. Such abnormal appearances were called
signaciila, as tokens of the Saviour's living body; and
pilgrimages were not unfrequently made to witness them.
In several cases the Jews were suspected, on account of
their abhorrence of Christianity, of having caused sacra-
mental hosts to bleed, and were, therefore, ruthlessly
tormented and put to death in large numbers. Upwards
of ten thousand were slaughtered at Rotil, near Frank-
fort, in 1296, for this reason. The bleeding of the host,
produced in consequence of the scepticism of the
officiating priest, gave rise to the miracle of Bolsena,
in 1264; the priest's garment stained with this bloody
looking substance being preserved until recent times as
a relic. This gave rise to the festival of the Corpus
Christi founded by Urban IV. Dr. D'Aubigne gives the
following extraordinary account of a similar phenomenon,
which happened during the Reformation. " On the 26th
of July, a widow chancing to be alone in her house, in
the village of Castelenschloss, suddenly beheld a fright-
ful spectacle — blood springing from the earth all around
her ; she rushes in alarm into the cottage . . . but, oh,
horrible ! blood is flowing everywhere, from the earth.

72 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

from the wainscot, and from the stones ; it falls in a
stream from a basin on a shelf, and even the child's
cradle overflows with it. The woman imagines that the
invisible hand of an assassin has been at work, and
rushes in distraction out of doors, crying ' Murder !
murder ! ' The villagers and the monks of a neigh-
bouring convent assemble at the noise; they partly
succeed in effacing the bloody stains ; but a little later
in the day, the other inhabitants of the house, sitting
down in terror to eat their evening meal under the
projecting eaves, suddenly discover blood bubbling up
in a pond, blood flowing from the loft, blood covering;
all the walls of the house. Blood, blood, everywhere
blood ! The bailiff of Schenkenberg and the pastor of
Dalheim arrive, inquire into the matter, and immediately
report it to the Lords of Berne and Zwingle." M.
Montague relates that a red parasite attacked all kinds
of ahmentary substances at the Chateau du Parquet in
July 1852. "The servants," he observes, "much as-
tonished at what they saw, brought us half a fowl roasted
the previous evening, which was literally covered with a
gelatinous layer of a very intense carmine red. A cut
melon also exhibited some traces of it. Some cooked
cauliflower which had been thrown away also presented
the same appearance." Before the potato-blight broke
out in 1846, red mould spots appeared on wet linen
surfaces exposed to the air in bleaching-greens, as well
as on household linen kept in damp places, in Ireland.
In September 1848, Dr. Eckard, of Berlin, while at-
tending a cholera patient, observed the same productfoE

III.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 73

on a plate of potatoes which had been placed in a
cupboard in the patient's house. All these instances—
and hundreds more might be enumerated — though some-
what exaggerated by the dilated eye of fear, were found
by microscopic investigation to be caused by the ex-
traordinary development in abnormal circumstances of
the red mould. Occurring, as most of them did, before
the outbreak of epidemics, which they were supposed to
herald, they obviously point to the conclusion that they
were developed by unhealthy conditions of the atmo-
sphere. In ordinary times, but few of the fungi which
caused these alarming appearances are produced, and
then only in obscure and isolated localities ; but their
seeds lie around us in immense profusion, waiting but
the recurrence of similar atmospheric conditions as
existed in former times, to exhibit as extraordinary a
development.

"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works; in wisdom
hast Thou made them all ! " is the thought that arises in
the devout soul at the contemplation of the wonderful
structure and history of these minute existences, which
live and die unknown to the great majority of mankind.
No one has a right to despise these objects which, by a
false human standard, we are accustomed to call insig-
nificant. Such an epithet is not applicable to anything
that God has made and adapted to His own designs.
Even a mould, requiring the highest powers of the
miscroscope for its examination, can become in His
hands a mighty scourge or a transcendent benefit. The
minutest organism which obeys His laws, tends to His

74 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

glory ; and the study of it fills us with adoring awe, as
well as enables us to improve our condition in the world.
Most important are the lessons which the humblest of
all plants teach us. They show us how hurtful things
can be rendered harmless, and natural mischief neu-
tralized. Their own appearance is an indication of the
law of purity which pervades all creation. Pure as the
snow-flake from the cloud so dark — ^pure as the lily from
mud so vile — pure as the duck-weed on the stagnant
ditch — their slender stems and graceful fruitage spring
from foul-smelling and decaying rubbish. They utilize
and convert into their own beautiful forms, the corrupting
substances that are defiling and destroying God's fair
world. They thus teach us that the only way in which
we can render the waste materials of life innoxious, is to
use them and make them serve us. The sewage of our
towns, and the refuse of our houses, will prove dele-
terious to us, and be the constant source of disease,
unless we make them subservient to the increase of the
means of life, the fertilizing of our fields, and the pro-
duction of our food. " Gather up the fragments that
nothing be lost," is a command in nature as in grace,
which we disobey at our own peril — for the only con-
dition of organic waste ceasing to be an evil is that it
shall become a good. The leprosy of garments speaks
to us too, like all the impurities of earth, of the defile-
ment of sin. Our own righteousness is as filthy rags.
Our own garment of good deeds and feelings is mouldy,
and ingrained with the greenish and reddish streaks of
uncleanness. The mildewed garment of the flesh clings

lit.] LEPROSY OF HOUSE AND GARMENTS. 75

to US like Dejanira's robe, and poisons all the springs of
our life. The righteousness of Christ alone is the pure
linen, clean and white, without speck of decay, or stain
of sin. He invites us to buy of Him white raiment that
we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness
may not appear; to wash our robes and make them
white in the blood of the Lamb. Fiittmg on the Lord
Jesus Christ first in justification, and then in daily life,
all our garments will smell of myrrh and cassia, out of
the ivory palaces, whereby they have made us glad, and
thus effectually hinder by their fragrance the morbid
leprous growtli of sin. And if, like the saints of Sardis,
we do not defile our garments of grace, which are so
easily stained by the pollutions of a world lying in
wickedness; if we keep ourselves unspotted from the
world, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, then
we shall walk in the heavenly mansions with Christ in
white, in garments of glory, which are incapable of
receiving a stain — which cannot be infected with the
leprosy of sin any more— being a portion of the in-
heritance which is "incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away."

CHAPTER IV.

STONES CRYING OUT.

'"' 1 tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would
immediately cry out." — Luke xix. 40.

/^UR Lord's rebuke to the envious Pharisees, who
^"'^ would have silenced the " Hosannas " of the
disciples during His triumphant entry into Jerusalem,
is, on the face of it, a mere metaphor, — a mere poetical
personification. It was simply meant to convey, in the
most forcible manner, the idea that it was impossible
for those whose hearts were filled with a new-born,
overpowering sense of the Messiah's glory, to restrain
the outward expression of it, — as impossible as it
would be for stones to speak. Doubtless in this sense
alone it was understood by the multitude. But the
words of our Lord have a deeper meaning than appears
on the surface, and a wider application than to the
immediate circumstance that called them forth. They
are the words of Him in whom are hid all the treasures
ot wisdom and knowledge. They open the door to
an almost infinite exegesis in the line of their own
thou£:ht When a subtle critic detects some hidden

CHAP. IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 77

beauty in the writings of Dante, Goethe, or Milton, we
are apt to say that the writer did not mean it — that it
is a mere reflection of the critic's own thought; but,
as Archdeacon Hare says, if the beauty is there, his
genius meant it, however insensibly to himself: for the
true poet, like the inspired prophet, always says more
than he means, more even than he understands.
Working in unison with nature and truth, he is sure to
be far mightier and wiser than himself; his words
have an assimilative power,— like the growth of a seed
which brings materials together from heaven and earth
for its development, or the gathering of beautiful
crystals, each to its own, round little specks or threads,
in a solution. Now what the poet does unconsciously,
our Lord did consciously. All that He said and did
connected itself with the wide universe by innumerable
associations, and, passing beyond its immediate purpose
and apparent purport, formed part of the absolute truth.
Taking this warrantable view of our Lord's words in
general, the particular hyperbolical expression uttered
by Him on the occasion referred to, seems to me to
contain a profound and far-reaching truth — to disclose
the true meaning and design of the inorganic world.
The Word who uttered the words in question was the
same Word who created the world, and without whom
was not anything made that was made. He must
therefore have fully known the utmost significance of
His own sayings, — all that the stones symbolized and
were made to express in their own mute language of
signs. And if we can find in His utterances hidden

78 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

analogies that are mutually harmonious and consistent
with the general scheme of nature and of grace, we
are at liberty, I think, to accept them as true inter-
pretations,— as meant, if not literally and directly by
our Saviour, at least by His infinite wisdom. If the
Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, the
inorganic substances which were the first created objects,
— which lie at the very foundation of all things, — must
testify of His redemptive work.

The stones which probably attracted our Lord's eye
as He rode over them in the pathway from Bethany
to Jerusalem, were more than usually suggestive of
thoughtful reflection. There were indeed sermons in
these stones which he who ran might read. The Mount
of Olives, in common with the greater part of Palestine
and Northern Egypt, is composed of cretaceous and
nummulitic limestone, abounding in caverns, and form-
ing the sources of numerous springs. This formation
is entirely of animal origin ; every grain of these vast
masses once passed through the tissues and formed
part of the structure of living creatures. The Mount
of Olives is but the sepulchre of myriads of curious
and often beautiful forms of life that formerly existed in
tertiary seas, of which the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean,
and the Red Sea are but isolated fragments. Its general
aspect forcibly suggests the theory of , the bed of an
ocean abounding with the remains of extinct shells,
gradually left dry, and by some slow and vast operation
upheaved in horizontal or slightly inclined beds, after-
wards worn away into mountains and valleys by extensive

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 79

denudation. Of the same material tne most famous of
the Pyramids is formed ; its characteristic fossils, called
by the Arabs " Pharaoh's beans," stand out in high .
relief on the weathered portions of the great Sphinx ^
and nearly the whole city of Paris has been reared out
of the consolidated remains of lime-producing animals.
Imagination is bewildered when it tries to picture the
abundance of life which piled up the mountains that are
round about Jerusalem, — which furnished the materials
of the grandest of ancient monuments and the most
beautiful of modern cities. Every stone which strewed
our Saviour's pathway spoke of worlds and systems of
life which passed away in ages for which we have no
reckoning, compared with which the antiquity of the
Pyramids is but as yesterday. Had they the faculty of
articulate speech, how eloquently would they disclose
the history of one of the most marvellous of the
geological epochs ! They would speak of the decease
which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem ; they
would testify of life given up for the benefit of other
life. The very site of the cross itself was the grave of
creatures that had perished in order that a foundation
might be provided on which man might rear his dwellings
and cultivate his fields. Their ashes entombed the
Lord's dead body even in that " clean place," that new
sepulchre, hewn out of the rock, "wherein was man never
yet laid." On the threshing-floor of Araunah other
sacrifices had been made, long epochs before the
destroying angel sheathed his sword beside the bumt-
oftering of David, or the dying cry of David's Son

? -J THE MINISTR Y OF NA TURE. [chap.

uttered the mighty pasan of redemption, " It is finished."
In the Mount of the Lord it is indeed seen that self-
sacrifice is the genius and history of the place. There
the rending of the rocks, the quaking of the earth, the
darkening of the sun, and the opening of the graves,
proved the sympathy of nature with her crucified Lord,
who suppHed the key of the one ruling symbol of nature,
— the universal law of sacrifice, the triumph not only of
life over suffering and death, but of life through suffering
and death. On the world's one holiest spot all the types
of the Old Testament, and all the types of the older,
unwritten testament, converge in the great Archetype.
It is seen that the scheme of redemption, so far from
being, as some allege, a discord in Nature's voice, a harsh
and grating note in her harmonious anthem, is " the
grand continuation, the divine climax of the system of
intervention and vicarious suffering, which not only
pervades the natural world, but without which merciful
alleviation the world would become a scene of hopeless
misery." The oldest and widest fact of nature, the
inmost experience of society, and the central truth of
Christianity, meet, and are one ; and man is '•' in league
with the stones of the field." It must never be forgotten,
however, that it is only the lowest — the self-sacrificing —
aspect of the atonement that can be typified by stones.
From the very limitations of its nature, the physical
world cannot symbolize the propitiatory character of
Christ's sacrifice. That is the unique revelation of the
Gospel, — what makes the Gospel indeed " good news "
to sinful, perishing souls.

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 81

Belonging to the same formation as the stones of
Bethany is a material which perhaps more than any
other has had to do with the higher education of man-
kind. Marble must have been specially prepared by
God for the use of man, since he alone is capable of
turning it to use, and enjoying its beauty. It was the
prolepsis or prophecy of a being endowed with an acute
sense of the beauty of colour and form. By the use of
this flower and sublimation of the rocks in embodying
the ideas of genius, that toil in the sweat of the brow
which was the curse pronounced upon man because of
sin, becomes the means of raising him to a higher region
of life, and connecting him with the spiritual and eternal
world. In working out the conceptions of his imagina-
tion in the pure and stainless stone, he works truly,
though it may be unconsciously, after a divine pattern •
he sees the laws of order and harmony impressed by the
Almighty upon His creation, and is drawn into deepest
sympathy with them ; he is brought face to face with all
the refining effects of that communion with the King in
His beauty, whose image is truly mirrored in all the
beauty of nature. Thus the earnest and reverent artist,
sharing somewhat in the inspiration of Bezaleel and
Ahohab, rescues the ideals of creation from the lawless-
ness and chaos of sin, and shows what man's form was
in its original beauty, and what it may yet become in
the palingenesis of the creature, when all degenerations
and deforiaities are finally removed, and God shall say
again of the work of His hands, that it is all very good.
We see how the sculptor's art raised the ancient Grttk

G

S2 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

above the grotesque and gi'ovelling dragon-worship of
other pagan nations, and surrounded him with spiritual
embodiments of the highest beauty and grace. It is
true that by his worship of the statues of the gods,
changing the incorruptible God into an image made hke
to corruptible man, he speedily sank into the awfully
degraded state described by St. Paul. He had a higher
ideal than could be represented by his gross worship,
supplied to him by his own conscience ; but because he
put the lower nature above the higher, the lust of the
flesh obtained dominion over him. And yet it is a re-
markable fact, that whereas the deities of other nations
were represented in plant or animal forms of the lowest
kind, the statues of the Greek gods should have been
modelled on the highest ideal of the human form, — that
the Greeks alone should have believed, without revela-
tion, that the human was the most adequate expression
of the Divine. It looks as if this were a mysterious
longing and groping after the incarnation of the Son of
God, — as if these statues were, so to speak, the pagan
types and unconscious prophecies of it, — preparations
among the Gentiles for enabling them to believe in " the
Chiefest among ten thousand," " the Altogether Lovely,"
when He should be preached to them, — for enabling
St. Paul on the hill of Mars to say, " Whom ye ignorantly
worship, Him declare I unto you." It is a matter of
undoubted fact, that at the time of Christ the Greeks
were riper for the reception of the great mystery of the
Incarnation than the great majority of the monotheistic
Jews, who crucified Jesus because He claimed to be the

IV.] STOiVES CRYING OUT.

Son of God. May not the familiarity of the Greeks,
tlirough their mythology, with the appearances of the
gods in human form on earth, have had something to do
with this surprising result ? And may we not thus regard
the marble statues of the Greek gods as crying out,
" Hosanna ! blessed is He that cometh in the name of
the Lord ; " while the living lips of the covenant people
held their peace in unbelief?

There is one group of stones associated in kind with
those of Olivet, though not on the same geological
horizon, which also have had much to do with the pro-
gress of the human race. If marble is linked with the
aesthetic requirements of mankind, coal and ironstone
are connected with our industrial and social advance-
ment. These two minerals are generally conjoined with
limestone j and while they can be extracted and used
separately for their own important purposes, they are
combined to prepare one of their number for the service
of man. Coal supplies fuel to smelt the iron ; limestone
acts as a flux, promoting the speedy reduction of the ore,
and its purification from the other ingredients with
which it is mixed ; while the iron thus prepared in its
turn furnishes tools with which the coal and limestone
are dug up. We surely see in this beautiful correlated
grouping of the most useful of all natural productions,
not the result of a mere accident, but a remarkable
example of wise forethought and providential design.
There is not in any department of nature a more striking
proof of that prospective contrivance — which argues in-
tention, plan, and prevision, and therefore intelligence —

G 2

i4 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

than that which the history of coal furnishes. The suc-
cessive growth and submergence of the luxuriant primeval
forests which formed it, and all the elaborate processes,
chemical and mechanical, carried on for countless ages,
by which it was converted into fuel, and stored up securely
and conveniently under easily-workable strata of the earth,
practically formed one long continuous prophecy of the
advent of an intelligent being who, in the fulness of time,
was to " subdue the earth." We are impressed thereby
with the irresistible conviction that there is a God of
creation and a God of providence, who has thus made
provision, ages upon ages before man was born, for the
latest of his wants and the grandest of his achievements.
Nay, more : it involves even directly, the conclusion
that there is a God of redemption, whose eye runs
through man's prospective history at a glance, and whose
covenant is therefore ordered in all things and sure. It
reveals the fact that there was a system of types in
nature long before those of the Written Word. It is a
prophecy of the fall of man and the redemption from it.
Through the long aisle of intervening ages the altar of
the cross and the great Sacrifice upon it are seen.
If limestone, composed of animal remains, indicated
the self-sacrificing principle pervading the animal king-
dom, coal, composed of plant remains, indicated its
prevalence throughout the vegetable — disclosed the mys-
tery hid from ages and generations, and explained by
Christ : " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it \ and he

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 85

that hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal.' Each
stratum of coal, as it was deposited, cried out in its mute
but eloquent language of symbol, '''' Blessed is He that
cometh in tlie name of the Lord ! "

If this fuel was designed for the use of man, how could
he reach it, piercing through overlying rocks, and digging
into the bowels of the earth, without that " sweat of the
face " which we all know was a consequence of the curse
pronounced upon man's sin ? How could he make use of
it when obtained, in the commerce of nations, the multipli-
cation of manufactures, the diffusion of knowledge, the
progress of science and art, the facilities for travelling,
and the thousand and one purposes of our great modern
civilization, without toil of a .very different kind from
that which constituted the beneficent exercise of Adam
in Eden ? Regarded even in its lowest aspect as fuel
for creating warmth, the vast collection of combustible
materials stored up in the coal formation implied that it
was intended for the use of a creature, in whom alone,
of all the animals, the power of producing sufficient heat
internally, — the necessary adaptation to external con-
ditions of temperature by a physiological process, — is
wanting. This failure of adjustment as regards tem-
perature, like all the other failures of correspondence
between man and nature, was doubtless caused by the
fall, which deteriorated his whole physical as well as
spiritual condition. The apron of fig-leaves with which
our first parents attempted to clothe themselves, when
their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were
naked, indicates not only that they h.id lost the sweet

86 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

unconsciousness of innocence, but also the power of gene-
rating sufficient heat for their health and comfort ; for
we find no mention of clothing among the other pro-
visions for their animal wants in their paradisaical state.
And this conclusion is further confirmed by the fact, that
God Himself substituted the warmer and more enduring
skins of beasts for the insufficient protection of the fig-
leaves. Thus we have the curse and the blessing, the
evil and the remedy, united in the same prospective
arrangement of the coal-formation, as truly as in the first
promise made to Adam and Eve after the fall : " It shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." From
this circumstance the argument for the Divine prevision
of man's sin, and the Divine preparation for the remedial
scheme, derives additional force and interest. For what
is more likely, as it has been well said, than that He
who brought about this marvellous adaptation of process
to result and supply to demand in nature, incalculable
ages before the creation of the very being in whose
history they were yet to be exemplified, did also make
provision for the fatal effects of human transgression, by
resolving, ere yet the heavens and the earth were made,
to send forth His Son, in the fulness of time, to redeem
and renovate a lost creation ?

The iron ore associated with the coal and limestone
also testifies to the same great redemptive tnitha. It
speaks of the sweat of human toil ; and anticipates the
plough to break up the bare hard wilderness for the
sower, the pruning-knife to adapt the wasteful luxuriances
of nature to man's necessities, the sword to create order

IV J STONES CRYING OUT. 87

and peace amid anarchy and confusion. It foretells a
being who, instead of finding a garden ready made, and
everything furnished to his hand to dress and keep it,
has to create a garden out of the barren waste, by the
most strenuous labour — to make the very instruments
mth which he works ; who has to discover, to think out
theoretically, and reproduce practically, by the utmost
strain his faculties can bear, the thoughts and purposes
of God. By the powers and instruments with which iron
furnishes man, his higher education begins : he rises
from the savage to the civilized state. He is brought
into the closest contact with those laws by which God
maintains the order and life of the world, which he had
broken, and whose penalty he had incurred ; so that by
humble and absolute submission to them he may win
the blessings they contain ; so that his work may be
indeed "a readjustment of the lost harmony between
man and the outer world, blighted for his sake, which
expresses to him so much of the mind of God." He
becomes a fellow-worker with God in adorning and en-
riching the earth by cultivation, and carrying on his
work of mechanical contrivance on the same principles as
those on which the Divine Designer wrought of old, and
still works. He becomes a pupil in the school of God,
by taking the dust of the earth, the humble materials
of his microscopes and telescopes, and by their aid
studying the remotest and minutest glories of the uni-
verse,— the mysteries of the world unseen. And
through this discipline he is fitted to become God's
fellow-worker in the higher Scripture sense, in his own

8S THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

moral and spiritual development and that of others,
both in adaptation to the present, and preparation for
the future state.

Thus we see that iron, even while it lay embedded in
the rock through vast cycles of time, was an appointed
symbol testifying of the consequences of man's sin and
the deliverance from them, was foreordained to work out
the necessary natural preparations for the spiritual rege-
neration of the world. We know the mighty revolution
which it has already wrought in the affairs of man and
on the face of the earth ; and who can tell but that the
agencies which it has called into operation may continue
to enlighten and evangelize the world, until barbarism is
everywhere supplanted by civilization, and the darkness
of paganism by the light of Christianity, and thus the
earth be made ready for the coming and kingdom of its
Redeemer? It was a significant feature in the land of
Israel that its stones were iron, and out of its hills might
be dug brass j for the conservation of Divine truth, and
the spiritual education of the people to be the mission-
aries of the race, were closely bound up with these
material resources. And so it is an equally significant
fact of Divine Providence, that the countries which are
most thoroughly enlightened by the faith kindled in
Judaea, are precisely those whose stones are iron ; that
this precious gift is conferred upon those nations who
can best em.ploy it in preparing the way of the Lord
upon the earth, — making the crooked places straight,
and the rough places smooth, that all flesh may see the
salvation of our God.

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 8g

A large number of our medicinal substances are de-
rived from the mineral kingdom. Of these, iron and
magnesia, connected with the limestone system of rocks,
are among the most important and widely known. The
fact of these materials, admirably adapted to restore the
human system when disordered, existing in the very
foundation of our earth, entering into its formation from
the very beginning, indicates that, long beforehand,
man's fall was foreseen, and its consequences provided
for in a remedial scheme. We cannot suppose that these
healing substances were chance discoveries, applied by
man to purposes for which God did not intend them \
that the inferior ends which they subserve in the me-
chanical arts were designed, while their higher uses in
medicine were altogether undestined. He who believes
that every good gift is from above, will readily grant
that if these substances are indeed remedial, if they can
cure certain maladies of the human body which are the
corporeal effects of sin, they were created by Him who
healeth all our diseases and relieveth all our pains, for
that very purpose. Thus iron and magnesia, the very
stones under the feet of Jesus, cried out in the early
epochs of the world's history their " Hosannas " to Him
whose name was Jesus the Healer, and whose miracles
of mercy on mankind united the corporeal and spiritual
functions of the Great Physician. Truly the invisible
things of God, the deep mysteries of redemption from
the beginning of the world, were clearly seen, being
understood by the things which were made, by the very
rocks that form the foundations of the earth. This is no

90 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Tchap.

longer the guess of a fanciful hypothesis; it is the
splendid demonstration of modern science.

But passing from the particular kind of stone which
suggested our Saviour's remark and its typical teachings,
to a wider view of the subject, it may be said that the
fundamental truth of substitution is foreshadowed by
some of the phenomena of the mineral kingdom. The
chemistry that deals with the inorganic world may be
called the science of substitutions ; inasmuch as the
object of all its experiments is to replace in compound
bodies certain atoms, by certain other atoms, and
to determine what substances are capable of being
substituted for others, and the laws by which such
substitution is effected. Laurent's chemical symbolism
is founded upon this universally admitted fact of sub-
stitution in chemistry. " It consists," according to Dr.
Balfour, whose observations on this subject are exceed-
ingly interesting, "in employing the different vowels
for the different proportions of the vicarious element,
so that if we know the composition of the original
substance, we can at once tell that of the new one
obtained by substitution." For instance, in the case
of iodine, bromine or cyanogen may be substituted for
chlorine, and yet the general character of the compound
be maintained. Again, in the case of alum, for the
sulphate of potash, which is one of its elementary sub-
stances; soda, or magnesia, or protoxide of iron may be
substituted, and yet the typical character of the resultant
be unaltered. Numberless other examples might be
quoted, in which the type and chemical relations, the

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT.

fonn, colour, and taste of compound bodies are retained,
although one element may turn out another and take
its place in them. But this substitution has its distinct
and definite limits, beyond which it cannot be effected,
without modifying the compounds and obliterating their
original type. It is only the elements generically allied,
belonging to the same group, that are capable of this
vicarious arrangement. As in the oblique move of the
pawns in chess-playing, one pawn must be substituted
for another; so in the phenomena of chemistry, one
equivalent element must take the place of another, and
be moved according to positive rules. There is nothing
accidental in these substitutions : they are the result
of laws which have been through all time in active
operation, and to which they are bound by a mathe-
matical precision. The whole science of chemistry
makes us familiar with a system of order. Thus the
remarkable phenomena of substitution in the elements
of the stones under the feet of Jesus pointed to His own
substitutionary position and work, inasmuch as He was
partaker of our nature, bone of our bone, and flesh of
our flesh, our brother born, and thus qualified to take
our place, atone for our sins, and work out a perfect
righteousness for us. And as in chemistry the phe-
nomena of substitution bring out in full relief the un-
changing order of nature, showing that it is not a system
of chance and confusion, but of the most harmonious
arrangements ; so the substitution of Christ for the
sinner magnifies the moral law, and makes it honour-
able, maintains God's character and government in their

02

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Lchap.

glorious integrity, so that He is just, while the Justifier
of the ungodly who believe in Jesus.

The precious fundamental doctrine, that the sinner
who believes in Christ is saved, is symbohzed by the
remarkable, almost magical action of zinc upon its
associate metals. When strips of copper, iron, tin, and
silver, are placed in a vessel containing diluted nitric
acid, in such a manner that they do not touch one
another, the metals are gradually dissolved in the acid \
but when each of them is soldered to a piece of zinc
before placing it in the acid, they remain solid and
uninjured, and the zinc alone is dissolved. This pro-
tection from a destroying element wnich zinc affords
to the metals with which it is united, beautifully repre-
sents to us the deliverance which our Saviour has
wrought out for those who are united to Him by faith,
from the destroying effects of sin and death, at the
expense of His own suffering and death. " He saved
others ; Himself He cannot save." The elevation of
our nature by our Lord's assumption of it, may also
be illustrated from the mineral kingdom, by a pheno-
menon which not unfrequently takes place in our mines,
when crystals decompose under a change of conditions,
and form skeletons, within whose cavity others of a
different constitution and figure find nuclei and the
conditions required for their development. In the
mould left by the decay of the original perfect crystal
of our nature caused by the fall, our Saviour developed
the higher and more beautiful crystal of redeemed
humanit}% He Himself, in our form and name, filled

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 93

the sphere of purity and holiness from which we had
disintegrated by sin ; as the oxide of tin fills the
hollows left behind by the decomposition of the felspar
crystals in the granite rocks of Cornwall. Another very
striking example of the exclusion of a lower metal by one
of higher value, may be seen in the case of iron articles
left in the water of mines abounding in sulphate of
copper or blue vitriol. The sulphuric acid, by its
stronger affinity for the iron, separates from the copper,
and attacks and dissolves the iron, which as it gradually
disappears from its place, is filled, particle after particle,
by the copper ; and thus the very shape, down to its
minutest details, of the original iron article is retained
by the copper which has dispossessed it. The whole
subject of the formation of metals and crystals strikingly
typifies the ennobling processes of grace, by which the
Spirit of God changes the corruption of our nature into
the bright and beautiful simplicity of a heavenly life.
As the rude lump of coke may be crystallized into the
exquisite light-refracting diamond, and as the common
clay of the soil casts off its unattractive dress, and
appears as the brilliant silver-like aluminium, so the
sinner sunk lowest in the fearful pit and the miry clay
may be transformed in the renewing of his mind, and
become a new creature in Christ Jesus ; and we know-
that this body of our humiliation will be changed at the
resurrection, and fashioned like unto the glorious body
of our Redeemer. Then too the changing of the earths
into metals, through the disengagement of their oxygen,
by the mediation of a third element for which the

94 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [char

oxygen has a greater affinity; and the building up, say
of a crystal of salt, that has been crushed into powder,
by the mediation of water, so that out of the solution
the separate particles shall emerge, and unite and form
a new crystal, equal to the original in size, regularity,
and transparency, — are beautiful examples in the mineral
world of the great Mediatorial work of the Saviour, by
which we are reconciled to God and reconciled to
ourselves, so as to become one in Him. Further still,
the prevalence of evil in the world, even in things tha*
are good, is typified by the universal diffusion of that
poisonous mineral, arsenic — being found even in common
salt; while the moral correctives that exist side-by- side
with evil, are symbolized by the mineral tests that prove
the presence of mineral poisons, and possess the power of
neutralizing their effects. And it must not be lost sight
of, that it is owing to a process of the most refined
chemistry, and to the use of a material until recently
unknown, that the Bible can now be produced for an
exceedingly small sum, and be multiplied with marvellous
rapidity to any extent. The coincidence of this ma-
terial process with God's gradual natural method of im-
parting the revelation of His will to men, is surely a most
striking example of Divine prevision, and must be re-
garded as entering into that plan of redemption which
was foreordained before tne founaation of the wond.

But I must pause here, although I have only entered
on the threshold of my subject. It is commonly sup-
posed that it is only in living things that we can discern
evidences of design and types of the spiritual world. It

IV.] STONES CRYING OUT. 95

is thought that in the inorganic realm we come nearer to
the efficient than to the final causes of things ; or, if
mineral substances do shadow forth their design, that
design is entirely exhausted in adaptation to organic life.
But the previous observations will, it is hoped, show to
us that final as well as efficient causes may be traced in
the mineral kingdom ; that its phenomena are no other
than the economical laws of the moral world, and the
great truths of redemption in pictures and representa-
tions. Each stone, in a far higher sense than Paley's
watch, not only presents an example of a definite and
an intelligent design, but embodies some great thought
of God, and is a type or a prophecy of some truth of
redemption. Each stone is a medal of creation, and
bears the image and superscription of the Lord of all.
Each stone contains the spiritual signs impressed by the
finger of God, as truly as the tables of stone on which
were engraved the moral law. Not only does the vege-
table kingdom bring its frankincense and m}Trh; the
mineral kingdom also brings its gold to the feet of Jesus.
Not only are the palm branches strewn in His way ;
the very stones cry out " Hosanna." The mineral king-
dom is one string of the grand harp of creation, that
harmoniously shows forth His praise. As St. Augustine
says, '■'' Discite lapides (Bstimare negotiator es regni coelorum.^''
To no one department of nature is the task of imaging
spiritual tmth confined. Even the humblest shape
of inorganic matter has something to tell us of the
unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus, and can no more
be spared from the great typology of nature^ than tiie

96 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap. iv.

smallest type of the Messiah can be spared from the
Old Testament. The whole system of things around
us was constituted from the beginning with a view to
redemption. " When He appointed the foundations of
the earth, then I was by Him, as one brought up with
Him : and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always
before Him; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the
earth ; and my delights were with the sons of men." Not
in the good gold, the bdellium and the onyx stone of the
earthly Eden, do we realize the whole idea of God as
symbolized by the mineral kingdom ; but in the jasper
walls, and golden streets, and foundations garnished with
all manner of precious stones, of the New Jerusalem :
matter in its purest, highest, and least perishable form
constitutuig the home of redeemed man in his noblest
condition, transformed into the likeness of the Redeemer,
— the creation that groaned and travailed with pain ex-
alted in the redemption of man, for which it waited so
long.

*' As wheeled by seeing spirits towards the East,

where faint and fair,

Along the tingling desert of the sky,
Beyond the circle of the conscious hills,
Were laid in jasper stone, as clear as glass.
The first foundations of that new near Day,
Which should be builded out of heaven to God ;

'jasper first,' I said,

And second, sapphire ; third, chalcedony ;
The rest in order ; last an amethyst,"

CHAPTER V.

THORNS THE CURSE OF ADAM AND THE CROWN
OF CHRIST.

*' Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. "---Genesis
hi. 1 8.

''And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it
upon His head." — Matthew xxvii. 29.

TVT ATURE is a mirror in which we behold both the skill
and character of the Divine Artificer ; but the re-
flected image — owing to the peculiarity of the material, or
of the angle of vision — is not always a true one. While
innumerable objects display the very highest ideal of
beauty, and represent, we believe, the perfect form of
the Divine thought embodied in them, we not un-
frequently meet with objects that seem strange excep-
tions to the general rule, and impress us with a painful
sense of failure and imperfection j — useless rudimentary
teats of the males of mammalia ; wings of birds incapable
of flight ; the dart of the bee, the employment of which
causes its death ; the capsule of the poppy, and of many
of the Campanulas, whose dehiscence or opening occurs
near the summit, and renders dispersion of the seed

H

98 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap

difficult ; the downy tuft of many of the sterile seeds of
the Compositae, while the fertile seeds have none, or only
possess a plume which falls off the seed instead of
serving for its transportation ; the neuter flowers of the
hydrangea and the guelder-rose. In every part of crea-
tion, we find examples of wasted energy and frustrated
design; foundations laid, but the building never com-
pleted; the skeleton formed, but never clothed with
living flesh ; an unceasing production of means that are
never used, embryos that are never vivified, germs that
are never developed. Nature, as Tennyson has thought-
fully said, seems so careful of the type, but so careless
of the single life. Each species keeps in existence by
the sheer force of untold numbers, that are continually
brought into the field, and sacrificed in the fierce struggle
for life ; and just in proportion as an animal or plant is
exposed to destruction, is it endowed with the power of
reproduction. How little of all the boundless pro-
digality of young life that year after year cheers us with
its bright promise, comes to maturity ! Of the myriad
blossoms that make the apple or the cherry tree gleam
in the orchard like a white cloud caught among the
branches, by far the largest number soon fall in showers,
and chill the green grass beneath with that saddest of all
storms, the summer snow. Of the blossoms that actually
set, but a very few grow and ripen into mellow fruit ;
the rest almost as soon as they acquire shape begin to
shrivel, and are speedily pushed off the parent twig by
the growth of their stronger rivals. And of all the
healthful apple-seeds and cherry-stones, annually shed

v.] THORNS. 99

in our orchards, though each containing the germ of a
lovely and fruitful tree, not one in a thousand is
destined to take root, grow up, and accomplish what
might seem the purpose of its creation. This is but
one familiar example of what takes place everywhere
throughout the world of vegetation and the world of
animal life ; and it strikes us with an idea of incom-
pleteness— with a sad feeling of the apparent contra-
diction between the means and the ends of creation.

We cannot, however, in such things, measure the
Divine proceedings by our human standards ; for,
taking a larger view of the subject, we find that
the imperfection of particular parts is necessary for
the perfection of the whole scheme, and all instances
of failure are made to work together for the general
good. The lavish profusion of blossoms in spring, com-
pared with the limited supply of fruit in autumn, is a
beautiful spectacle for the education of what is most
spiritual in man, — an illustration of the truth that man
does not live by bread alone, but by every word tha<
Cometh out of the mouth of God — by beauty as well as
by utility — a symbol of the large-hearted, free-handed
goodness of God. who gives us all things richly to enjoy.
In the lavish profusion of seeds and embryos, we have a
striking example of a higher law superseding a lower, —
the law of sacrifice controlling the law of reproduction.
The increase of the individual species is rendered
subsidiary to the benefit of the whole economy of life.
The superfluous seeds and embryos which each plant or
ynimal produces are employed to minister to the

H 2

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

necessities of higher creatures. It is to this tendency
of Nature to overflow its banks, to attempt more than
she can execute, to begin more than she can finish, that
we owe our own daily bread. For if the corn-plant
produced only a sufficient number of seeds barely to
perpetuate the species, there would be no annual miracle
of the multiplication of the loaves ; and man, always at
the point of starvation, could neither replenish and
subdue the earth, nor accomplish any of the great
purposes of his existence.

Thorns are among the most striking examples of
failure on the part of nature to reach an ideal per-
fection. They are not essential organs, perfect parts,
but in every case altered or abortive structures. They
are formed in two different ways. When the hairs that
occur on the stem of a plant are enlarged and hardened^
they form rigid opaque conical processes such as those
of the rose and the bramble. The so-called thorns of
these plants are not, however, true thorns, but prickJes,
for they have only a superficial origin, being produced
by the epidermis only, and having no connection with
the woody tissue. They may be easily separated from
the stem, without leaving any mark or laceration behind.
True thorns or spines, on the contrary, have a deeper
origin and cannot be so removed. They are not com-
pound hardened hairs, but abnormal conditions of buds
and branches. A branch, owing to poverty of soil, or
unfavourable circumstances, does not develop itself; it
produces no twigs or leaves ; it therefore assumes the
spinous or thorny form, terminating in a more or less

v.] THORNS.

pointed extremity, as in the common hawthorn. In
some cases, as in the sloe, we see the transformation
going on at different stages ; some branches bearing
leaves on their lower portions and terminating in spines.
A bud by some means or other becomes abortive ; there
is a deficiency of nutriment to stimulate its growth; it
does not develop into blossom and fruit. Its growing
point, therefore, is hardened ; its scaly envelopes are
consoHdated into woody fibre, and the whole bud be-
comes a sharp thorn. Leaves are also occasionally
arrested in their development and changed into thorns,
as in the stipules of Robinia, of the common barberry,
and of several species of acacia. The middle nerve of
the leaf in a few instances absorbs to itself all the
parenchyma or green cellular substance, and therefore
hardens into a thorn; and in the holly all the veins of
the leaves become spiny. In all these cases thorns
are not necessary, but accidental appendages, growths
arrested and transformed by unfavourable circumstances;
and Nature, by the law of compensation, converts them
into means of defence to the plants on which they
are produced — not very effective defences in most in-
stances, but still analogous to the spines of the hedge-
hog and the quills of the porcupine, and typical of the
plan according to which Nature supplies some method of
preservation to every living thing that is liable to be
injured.

By cultivation many thorny plants may be deprived of
their spines. The apple, the pear, and the plum tree, in
a wild state are thickly covered with thorns ; but when

I02 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

reared in the shelter of the garden, and stimulated by all
the elements most favourable for their full development,
they lose these thorns, which become changed into leafy
branches, and blossoming and fruit-bearing buds. In
this way man acquires the rights assigned to him by God,
and Nature yields to him the pledges of his sovereignty,
and reaches her own ideal of beauty and perfection by
his means. But when, on the other hand, he ceases to
dress and keep the garden. Nature regains her formei
supremacy, and brings back the cultivated plants to a
wilder and more disordered condition than at first A
garden abandoned to neglect, owing to the absence or
the carelessness of the owner, presents a drearier
spectacle than the untamed wilderness; everything
bursting out into rank luxuriance ; stems originally
smooth covered with prickles, and buds that would have
burst into blossoms changing into thorns. It is a
remarkable circumstance that whenever man cultivates
Nature, and then abandons her to her own unaided
energies, the result is far worse than if he had never
attempted to improve her at all. There are no' such
thorns found in a state of nature as those produced by
the ground which man once has tilled, but has now
deserted. In the waste clearings amid the fernbrakes of
New Zealand, and iri the primeval forests of Canada,
thorns may now be seen which were unknown there
before. The nettle and the thistle follow man wherever
he goes, and remain as perpetual witnesses of his presence,
even though he departs ; and around the cold hearth-stone
of the ruined shieling on the Highland moor, and on the

\ .] THORNS. ro3

threshold of the cmmbUng log-hut in the Australian
bush, these social plants may be seen growing, forming
a singular contrast to the vegetation around them.

No country in the world, now that it has been
so long let out of cultivation, has such a variety and
abundance of thorny plants, as the once-favoured heri-
tage of God's people, the land flowing with milk and
honey. Travellers call the Holy Land "a land of
thorns." Giant thistles, growing to the height of a man
on horseback, frequently spread over regions once rich
and fruitful, as they do on the pampas of South America ;
and many of the most interesting historic spots and ruins
are rendered almost inaccessible by thickets of fiercely-
armed buckthorns. Entire fields are covered with the
troublesome creeping stems of the spinous Otionis or
rest-harrow ; v/hile the bare hill-sides are studded with
the dangerous capsules of the Paliurus and Tribulus.
Roses of the most prickly kinds abound on the lower
slopes of Hermon ; while the sub-tropical valleys of
Judaea are choked up in many places by the thorny
Lycium, whose lilac flowers and scarlet fruit cannot be
plucked owing to erect branches armed at all points
with spines. The feathery trees of the Zizyphus spina
Christie or Christ's thorn, that fringe the banks of the
Jordan, and flourish on the marshy borders of the Lake
of Gennesaret, are beautiful to look at, but terrible to
handle, concealing as they do, under each of the small
delicately formed leaves of a brilliant green, a thorn
curved like a fish-hook, which grasps and tears every-
thing that touches it. Dr. Tristram mentions that in

I04 " THE MTNTSTRY OF NATURE. [chav.

passing through thorny thickets near Jericho, the clothes
of his whole party were torn to rags. And in addition
to the immense variety of native thorns, for which there
are at least twenty different names in the Bible, several
prickly plants have been introduced from other countries,
as for instance the Opuntia or Indian fig, a species of
cactus that came originally from America, and is now
widely diffused over all the East. In short, thorny
plants, the evidences of a degenerate flora, and of
deteriorated physical conditions, now form the most con-
spicuous vegetation of Palestine, and supply abundant
mournful proof of the Hteral fulfilment of prophecy,
" Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns
and briers ; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the
joyous city."

This tendency of nature to produce a greater variety
of thorny plants in ground let out of cultivation, as
illustrated by the present vegetation of Palestine, throws
considerable light upon the curse pronounced upon
Adam when he had sinned : "Cursed is the ground for
thy sake ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to
thee." Many individuals believe that we have in this
curse the origin of thorns and thistles — that they were
previously altogether unknown in the economy of Nature.
It is customary to picture Eden as a paradise of
immaculate loveliness, in which everything was perfect,
and all the objects of Nature harmonized with the
holiness and happiness of our first parents. The ground
yielded only beautiful flowers and fruitful trees — every
plant reached the highest ideal of form, colour, and

THORNS.

usefulness of which it was capable. Preachers and
poets in all ages have made the most of this beautiful
conception. It is not, however, Scripture or scientific
truth, but human fancy. Nowhere in the singularly-
measured and reticent account given in Genesis of man's
first home, do we find anything, if rightly interpreted,
that encourages us to form such an ideal picture of it.
It was admirably adapted to man's condition, but it
was not in all respects ideally perfect. The vegeta-
tion that came fresh from God's hand, and bore the
impress of His seal that it was all very good, was
created for death and reproduction; for it was called
into being as " the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
bearing fruit, whose seed was in itself" We must re-
member, too, that it was before and not after the Fall,
that Adam was put into the garden to " di-ess and keep
it" The very fact that such a process of dressing and
keeping was necessary, indicates in the clearest manner
that Nature was not at first ideally perfect. The skill
and toil of man called in, presuppose that there were
luxuriant growths to be pruned, tendencies of vegetation
to be checked or stimulated, weeds to be extirpated,
tender flowers to be trained and nursed, and fruits to be
more richly developed. The primeval blessing consisted
in replenishing the earth and subduing it; and in no
other way could man subdue the earth than by culti-
vating it. But the process of cultivation of necessity
implies the existence of thorns and weeds. For in cul-
tivating any spot we have to contend against the great
law of Nature v/hich spreads every plant as widely as its

io6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chaf.

constitution will permit. We wish to rear one special
useful plant at the expense of all others ; but Nature will
not suffer this exclusiveness, and therefore she persists in
thrusting upon us the aboriginal vegetation of the soil,
which we regard as weeds. From this law of the
universal diffusion of plants arises also, of necessity, the
tendency to form thorns. For when plants are struggling
with each other for the possession of the soil, some
species must be so crowded that they cannot develop
themselves freely; and therefore, owing to the exhaus-
tion of the soil and the pressure around them, they must
produce abortive branches or thorns. We have every
reason to believe that this law existed in the pre-Adamite
world, and was in full operation before the Fall. Man's
sin produced no change upon the laws of vegetable
development; and the Flora of Eden exhibited the
same physiological tendencies which our present vegeta-
tion exhibits. The trees of the garden among which
the Lord God walked, needed then, as they do now, the
cultivation of man to develop their thorns into leafy
branches, and blossoming and fruit-bearing buds ; and the
thistles had then, as now, to be cleared away, in order
that only what was beautiful and profitable might grow.

What then, we may ask, is implied in the language of
the curse, " Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth
to thee " ? We are not, as I have said, to understand by
it that thorns and thistles were then for the first time
introduced — that there was a sudden arrestment then
and there made by the Almighty in the formation of
branches, and thus a blight passed on this part of crea-

v.] THORNS. 107

tion. If Adam had never seen any thorns previously, he
could not have understood the meaning of the curse pro-
nounced upon the ground, any more than he could have
understood the nature of the penalty threatened against
disobedience, unless there had been death in the world
before the Fall. The Hebrew form of the curse implies,
not that a new thing should happen, but that an old
thing should be intensified and exhibited in new rela-
tions. Just as the rainbow, which was formerly a mere
natural phenomenon, became after the Flood the symbol
of the great world covenant ; just as death, which during
all the long ages of geology had been a mere phase of
life, the termination of existence, became after the Fall
the most bitter and poisonous fruit of sin : so thorns,
which in the innocent Eden were the effects of a law
of vegetation, became significant intimations of man's
deteriorated condition. It is in relation to man, solely,
that we are to look at the curse ; for though the produc-
tion of briers and thorn-bearing plants may add to man's
labour and distress, it supplies food and enjoyment for
multitudes of inferior creatures, and especially birds
and insects. It seems, indeed, as if thorns, which are
most frequently produced upon trees and bushes that
have a dense habit of growth, were intended as an addi-
tional means of security to little birds that seek safety in
them from birds of prey — whose large size effectually
prevents them from penetrating through the thorn-guarded
hedges into the interior.

Man, in Eden, was placed in the most favourable
circumstances. It was a garden specially prepared

io8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

by God himself for his habitation, and stocked with
all that he could reasonably require. It was to be
a pattern after which his OAvn efforts in improving the
world were to be modelled — a coign of vantage, a
select and blessed centre, from which he was by
degrees to subdue the wild prodigality of nature, and
make of the earth an extended paradise. And, therefore,
though the native tendencies of vegetation were not alto-
gether eradicated, they were so far restrained that the
dressing and keeping of the garden furnished him with
healthful employment for all his powers of body and
mind, and conferred upon him the dignity of developing
the perfection, which potentially, though not actually,
existed in Nature, and thus becoming a fellow-worker
with God. But when excluded from Eden, he had to
encounter, with powers greatly weakened by sin, the full,
merciless force of Nature's untamed energies ; energies,
too, excited into greater opposition against him by his
own efforts to subdue them. For, as I have already
said, the very process of cultivation, while it removes the
thorns and briers of the soil, will, if it be given up, pro-
duce a greater variety and luxuriance of thorns and
thistles than the ground originally produced. The very
fertility imparted to the soil would, if allowed to nourish
its native vegetation, result in a greater rankness of
useless growth. And therefore the tiller of the ground
must never relax his efforts. In the sweat of his brow
he must not only ceaselessly dig the soil, but extirpate
the thorns and thistles ; for Nature, kept back by main
strength, is -ever watching her opportunity, and whenever

v.l THORNS. 109

man's struggle with her is given up in weariness or idle-
ness, she pours all her wild hordes of ravenous weeds
upon the deserted fields, to revel and luxuriate in their
fatness, and the last state of these fields is worse than
the first.

Although thorns therefore did exist before the Fall,
it is nevertheless an interesting and significant circum-
stanee, that they are peculiar, so far as we can judge
from negative evidence, to the human epoch. Among
the fossil remains that have been found in the various
strata of the earth, we have revealed to us types of
plants which had no tendency to produce thorns. We
have abundance of fossil animals furnished with spines
and quills, and other weapons of off'ence and defence ;
but not one indisputable thorn or thistle has been found
in the older rocks. The vegetation of the ages previous
to the carboniferous era was principally cryptogamic.
During the coal period the plants were almost exclu-
sively ferns, lycopods, and pines. In the secondary
formations we find only cycads and palms, which exhibit
no spiny forms. The fossil plants of the tertiary strata
indicate the commencement of new types of organiza-
tion, corresponding to altered circumstances. The
cryptogams, conifers, and monocotyledons of former
epochs are replaced by the higher order of the dicotyle-
dons, many of which are still existing, and merely
present specific diff"erences. Elms, beeches, maplc!\
hazels, alders, and others of our indigenous trees, begin
to appear ; and Vvith each succeeding period, a more
useful and varied vegetation is ushered upon the scene ;

no THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

until at last, at the eleventh hour of the creation day,
flower and fruit-bearing trees are produced — " good for
food and pleasant to the sight." Among the plants
directly and especially associated with man, and appa-
rently introduced only a short time previous to his
advent, are those of the Rosal Alliance ; an order of
vegetation not only among the most extensive that is
known, numbering upwards of ten 'thousand species, but
also one of the most important, whether as regards the
beauty and grace of its blossoms, the richness and nutri-
tiousness of its fruits, or its applicability to a thousand
useful purposes. It includes the large class of the
leguminous plants, such as the pea, the bean, the clover,
the lucerne, all staple articles of culture by the farmer ;
also the almondworts — such as the peach, the cherry, the
plum, the almond ; the apple worts — such as the apple,
the pear, the sorb, the medlar, the quince, the service ;
and the roseworts — such as the queenly rose in all its
endless varieties, the strawberry, the bramble, the rasp.
All these beautiful flowers, rich fruits, and useful vege-
tables, are of recent date ; their remains are found only
in deposits near the surface, and may be employed as
marks of the human period, in cases where no indication
of man or his works appear. Now it is a remarkable
circumstance, that it is to this great order of plants
specially connected with man, that thorns principally
belong. An unusually large proportion of its genera and
species exhibit an extraordinary tendency to produce
abortive buds and branches. All the previous floras
which appeared during the various geologic epochs were

v.] THORNS.

sombre and unproductive, could support no flocks or
herds, or yield employment for the gardener or the
farmer ; and therefore they were destitute of thorns or
spines, were unsusceptible of improvement or degrada-
tion at the hands of man. They had no relation to
man's food and enjoyment, and thus could have had no
relation to his labour and pain. But no sooner did the
beauty and fruitfulness of plants specially created for the
gratification of man's senses appear, than thorns and
thistles appeared along with them.

I believe that the thorns and briers thus introduced in
connection with the human epoch, but before the Fall,
were anticipative consequences, prophetic symbols of
that Fall. We err greatly, if we suppose that sin came
into the world unexpectedly — produced a sudden shock
and dislocation throughout nature, and took God as it
were by surprise — that the atonement was a Divine after-
thought to remedy a defect in God's creative foresight
and natural law. He who sees the end from the begin-
ning, knew that such a mournful moral lapse would
happen — that Creation would fall with its king and high
priest, and had therefore made preparations for it, not
only in the plans of heaven, but also in the objects and
arrangements of earth. There are many things in the
scheme of Nature which had a reference to the fact of
sin before it became a fact; which remind us unmis-
takeably that God, in fitting up this world to be the
habitation of a moral being who should fall through
sin, and be restored through suffering, had filled it with
types and symbols of that fall and that restoration. In

112 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the previous chapter we have seen that the Lamb
was slain from the foiindatio?i of the worlds not only
in the counsels of the Godhead, but also in the types of
Nature — in the one ruling type of Nature, the universal
law of sacrifice ; and so equally the sin which rendered
that expiation necessary was also typified from the
foundation of the world, in the objects and processes
of Nature. The more we study this mysterious subject
in the light both of science and revelation, the more
we shall be convinced that the epic of Paradise
Lost was written on all the stony tablets of the geologist,
and that countless tokens of death and degradation sang
in eras long before his advent, " of man's disobedience,
and the fruit of that forbidden tree."

But passing from the purely physical aspect of the
subject, let us look at it in its symbofical significance.
When God said to Adam, " Cursed is the ground for th}-
sake; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to
thee/' He acted according to a plan uniformly pursued
^y Him in all His subsequent dispensations and deal-
ings with men ; by which in gracious condescension to
our twofold nature, and to the carnal and spiritual
classes of mankind, He associated the natural with the
spiritual, gave the outward sign of the inward spiritual
truth. He set the field of Nature with types of dege-
neracy and arrested growth, which should symbolize to
man the consequences upon his own nature of his
own sin. What then are the thorns, looking at them
in this typical aspect, produced by the sinful, accursed
soil of man's heart and life ? They may be classified

V ] THORNS. 113

under the four general heads of labour, ^am, so?'row,
and death.

Labour is one of the thorns of the curse. " All things,"
says the wise man, " are full of labour." Without it life
cannot be maintained. Unremitting labour from day to
day and from year to year — except in the case of a few
races into whose lap Nature pours, almost unsolicited,
her prodigal stores, and who therefore continue children
in body and mind all their lives* — is the condition upon
which we receive our daily bread. Much of this labour
is indeed healthy. In work alone is health and life ; and it
is for work that God has created faculties. But how much

* It is an interesting fact, showing the precariousness of a natural
spontaneous supply of food, and the necessity of man's labour for his
support, that even the bread-fruit tree is comparatively scai-ce, and
useful only as a cultivated plant. Its seeds, as Mr. Wallace tells us,
are entirely aborted by cultivation, and the tree therefore can only
be propagated by cuttings, which require considerable care and
trouble. The fruit of the wild variety, which spreads itself all over
the tropics by means of seed, is altogether worthless as food. In
proof of the same great law of life, that in the sweat of his face man
shall eat bread, Mr. Wallace further mentions, that the natives of
the Aru Islands, who have no staff of life, and depend upon any
wild roots and fi-uits they can find, are afflicted with terrible skin
diseases and ulcers ; while the Malays and the Hill Dyaks who grow
rice are clean-skinned. Cutaneous diseases are everywhere exceed-
ingly common among savages who do not cultivate the soil ; thus
emphatically testifying that man cannot make a beast of himself with
impunity, feeding like the cattle upon the herbs and fruits of the
earth, and taking no thought for the morrow. To maintain his health
and beauty he must cultivate the ground, and raise from it some
farinaceous product, such as corn or rice, which is capable of being
stored up for a tim° of scarcity, and so giving him a regular supply
of wholesome food

1 14 THE MINISTR V OF NA TURE. [chap

of it, nevertheless, is terrible drudgery, effectually hinder-
ing the development of the higher faculties of the mind
and soul, wearisome effort, vanity, and vexation of spirit !
How much of failure is there in it, of disproportion be-
tween desires and results ! How much of it is like roll-
ing the fabled stone of Sisyphus up the steep hill only to
roll down again immediately — like weaving ropes of sand !
How often does the heart despair amid the unprofitable-
ness of all its labour under the sun ! We plough our fields
and sow our seed ; but instead of a bountiful harvest to
reward us, too often comes up a crop of thorns and thistles,
to wound the toiling hand and pierce the aching brow.

Then there is the thorn .of /^2>2 — the darkest mystery
of life. Some maintain that pain exists by necessity,
that it has its root in the essential order of the world,
rt is the thorn that guards the rose of pleasure — the
sting that protects the honey of life. There can be no
doubt, indeed, that it is one of the chief incentives to
the performance of actions on which the maintenance or
security of life hangs ; that it exalts pleasure by the con-
trast which it supplies, that it enters as an essential ele-
ment into the enjoyments of sense, and into the highest
thoughts and emotions of the soul. It is true that it
performs the same beneficent purpose in the economy
of man, which the abortive thorny growth does in that
of the plant ; that were it not for the warnings of pain,
these fearfully and wonderfully constructed bodies of
ours would often be seriously injured, without our know-
ledge, unless, indeed, our attention were kept in a con-
stant state of distressina: watchfulness, worse almost than

v.] THORNS. 115

any pain. But ask any martyr to physical suffering if that
explanation satisfies him. Why, if the purpose of pain
is a purely benevolent one, should it be so excessive ?
Why should it rend and rack the frame with agony ? Why
should it last so long? Why should our sensibility be
more developed for pain than for pleasure, and a slight
pain destroy much happiness ? Why should some begin
to suffer tortures as soon as they begin to live ; and be
destined in their mother's womb to lives of lingering dis-
ease ? Why, as in the case of burning, should it exhaust
the system, and thus produce the fatal result it was in-
tended to prevent ? Methinks, if pain were meant merely
to warn us of the presence of evil, and guard us against it,
that a much less degree and a shorter duration of it would
suffice. All these explanations of pain as a benevolent
agency are so manifestly insufficient, that we are driven
to 'seek a deeper reason for its existence. The Bible,
and the Bible alone, tells us the cause and the origin of
it. It tells us that it is nothing else than a witness for
sin — the thorn which man's body, weakened and palsied
by sin, produces. Did that body continue in its primi-
tive condition of purity and perfection, its machinery
would have worked on unimpaired, perhaps, for ever ;
like the angelic body, or the body of Christ in heaven.
But the Fall put it out of gear, and made it unfit for its
original purpose. It therefore begins to die the moment
it begins to live, being never purely healthy. Man feels
in his body the physical consequences of the death which
his soul has died. He has the thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan to buffet him, that he may be

I 2

ii6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

reminded continually of his sin and mortalit), and be
induced to walk softly all the days of his life.

Then there is the thorn of sorrow. Every branch of
the human tree may be arrested and transformed by
some casualty into a thorn of sorrow. The staff of
friendship upon which we lean may break and pierce the
hand. The bud of love which we cherish in our heart,
and feed with the life-blood of our affections, may be
blighted by the chill of death, and become a thorn to
wound us grievously. For six thousand years man has
been assiduously cultivating the tree of human life, but
he has never, by all his science and skill, been able to
divest it of its thorns of sorrow. An old grievance has
here and there been removed, but a new one has in-
variably taken its place. That civilization which has
lessened physical troubles, has rendered us more sus-
ceptible to mental ones ; and side by side with its mani-
fold sources of enjoyment, are opened up manifold
sources of suffering. And why is all this ? Why is man,
so highly cultivated, the possessor of such vast resources
of science and art, still born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward ? There is no possible way of accounting for it
save by the primeval curse : " In sorrow shalt thou eat of
it all the days of thy Hfe."

And, lastly, as the climax of all life's evils, is deaths the
prospect and the endurance of it, from both of which our
whole nature, originally made in the image of God, and
destined to live for ever, revolts with the utmost abhor-
rence. Such are the thorns which man's nature, under
the withering, distorting curse of sin, produces. Cursed

v.] THORNS. 117

is the ground within, as well as the ground without, for
man's sake ; and in labour, in pain, in sorrow, and in
death, does he eat of its fruit.

From all these thorns Jesus came to deliver us. The
Second Adam in the poverty of His condition has re-
covered for us all that the first Adam in the plenitude of
his blessings lost. The Son of Man was tempted in that
wilderness to which sin had reduced the world ; and in
consequence of His overcoming the temptation, He has
obtained a pledge that the wilderness will become a fruit-
ful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.
His miracles were first-fruits of the world's restoration,
symbols of man's recovered dominion over nature. And
day by day, as the influence of Christ's great victory over
the tempter is more widely and deeply felt, the prophecy
is being fulfilled, that " instead of the thorn shall come
up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the
myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." The
Roman soldiers platted a crown of thorns and put it
upon the head of Jesus \ but they little knew the signifi-
cance of the act. Upon the august brow of man's surety
and substitute was thus placed in symbol, what was done
in spiritual reality, a chaplet woven of those very thorns
which the ground, cursed for man's sake, produced.
None of these thorns grew in the sacred soil of Jesus'
heart. But He who knew no sin was made sin for us.
He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for
our iniquides. He could, no doubt, by the exercise of
His almighty power, remove the thorns of man's life.

ii8 TBE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

He who created the world by a word, had only to com-
mand, and it should be done. But not in this way could
the necessities of the case be met. It was not mere
arbitrary power that called the thorns into existence ; it
was justice and judgment : and, therefore, mere arbitrary
power could not eradicate them ; it required mercy and
truth. And mercy and truth could be reconciled with
justice and judgment only by the obedience and sacrifice
of the Son of God. Jesus had, therefore, to wear the
thorns which man's sin had developed, in order that man
might enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness which
Christ's atonement had produced.

And who can tell what suffering the wearing of these
thorns occasioned Him ? The mere physical laceration
and pain of the material thorns were as nothing, were
altogether unfelt under the pressure of far heavier suffer-
ings in His soul. It was not outward thorns, but inward
spiritual thorns, that caused Him to sweat great drops
of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. It was not the
sharp sting of the crown of thorns upon His brow on the
cross, that bowed His head with agony, but the pressure
of that " sorrow's crown of sorrow," the mental anguish
of imputed sin so abhorrent to His high and holy nature.
Made a curse for us, Jesus was made liable to every sor-
row to which the curse has subjected us. Every thorn
which the sinful soil of man's heart has produced, was
woven into the crown of thorns which pierced His brow.
And what is the result? By wearing these thorns He
has blunted them, plucked them out of our path, out of
our heart, out of our life. By enduring them He con-

THORNS. 119

quered them. The crown of pam became the crown of
triumph ; and the submission to ignominy and suffering
became the assertion and establishment of a sovereignty
over every form of suffering. Evil is now a vanquished
power. Every woe bears upon it the inscription " over-
come." He bore the thorny crown of labour, and labour
is now a sacred thing, a precious discipHne, a merciful
education. It is the lowest step of the ladder by which
man ascends the Edenic height from which he fell. It
is the necessary physical foundation upon which his
education as a spiritual being is based ; standing in the
same relation to his growth in grace, as the work of the
coral zoophyte to the intelligent labour of man who in-
habits the island which it builds. There is no labour in
vain in the Lord. No disappointment mars or embitters
any work done in Christ and for His glory. He wore the
thorny crown of pain, and pain is now robbed of the
element that exasperates our nature against it. By His
own example He teaches us that we must be made per-
fect through suffering ; and knowing this, we do not feel
pain to be less, but we feel a strength and a patience
which enable us to rise superior to it. As the Prince of
sufferers, He wore the thorny crown of sorrow, and He
has made, in the experience of His afflicted ones, that
abortive thorn to produce the blossom of holiness and the
fruit of righteousness. Sorrow is no more to the Chris-
tian the curse of Adam, but the cross of Christ. It is the
crown and badge of his royal dignity, the proof of Divine
sonship. Wearing his crown of sorrow, the Christian is
a prince in disguise, and bears the marks of the Lord

I20 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

Jesus, and has a fellowship with Him in His sorrows \
a fellowship which involves unspeakable blessedness and
assured victory. And, lastly. He wore the thorny crown
of death ; and therefore He says, " If a man keep my
sayings, he shall not see death." He has indeed to pass
through the state, but the bitterness of death for him is past.
He has only to finish his course with joy ; to fall asleep in
Jesus ; to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
Wonderful love, stronger than death, overcoming death,
swallowing up death in victory ! Wonderful that by the
light and power of that love, the sharpest and deadliest
thorn on life's tree, should be developed into the im-
mortal flowers and fruits of the all-perfect paradise of
heaven !

Such, then, is the way in which our Saviour has borne,
and in bearing has removed, the thorns from the Hfe
of those who believe in His name. In all our afflic-
tions He is afflicted ; and therefore the angel of His
presence saves us. That thomy crown of His humilia-
tion and sufferings is henceforth the emblem of victory,
in whicn all His redeemed shall triumph. Jesus has
conquered for us, and we have conquered in Him. In
the endurance of the thorns of the primeval curse, labour,
and pain, and sorrow, and whatever else of evil may
be in our lot, let us seek then to be distinguished from
the world, and likened to our Lord, by the patient, trust-
ing spirit in which we bear them ! And let us use
them, under His blessing, as a discipline and a prepara-
tion for that crown of glory which is the purchase
solely of the Redeemer's crown of thorns !

V ■) PREVENTING MERCIES.

PREVENTING MERCIES,

'• Let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us." — Psalm Ixxix. 8.

The hawthorn hedge that keeps us from intruding-,

Looks very fierce and bare,
When, stripped by winter, every branch protruding

Its thorns that wound and tear.

But spring-time comes ; and, like the rod that budded,

Each twig breaks out in green ;
And cushions soft of tender leaves ai^e studded.

Where spines alone were seen.

And honeysuckle, its bright wreath upbearing,

The prickly top adorns ;
Its golden trumpets victoiy declaring

Of blossoms over thorns.

Nature in this mute parable tinfoldeth

A lesson sweet to me •
God's goodness in reproof my eye beholdeth.

And His severity.

There is no grievous chastening but combineth

Some brightness with the gloom ;
Round every thorn in the flesh there twineth

Some wreath of softening bloom.

The sorrows that to us seem so perplexing.

Are mercies kindly sent,
To guard our wayward souls from sadder vexing,

And greater ills prevent.

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap,

Like angels stem, they meet us when we wander

Out of the narrow track,
With sword in hand, and yet with voices tender,

To warn us quickly back.

We fain would eat the frait that is forbidden,

Not heeding what God saith !
But by these flaming cherubim we're chidden

Lest we should pluck our death.

To save us from the pit, no screen of roses

AV ould serve for our defence ;
The hindrance that completely interposes.

Stings back with violence.

At first, when smarting from the shock, complainmg

Of wounds that freely bleed,
God's hedges of severity us paining,

May seem severe indeed.

No tender veil of heavenly verdure brightens

The branches fierce and bare ;
No sun of comfort the dark sky enlightens,

Or warms the wintry air.

But aftenvards, God's blessed spring-time cometh^

And bitter murmurs cease ;
The sharp severity that pierced us bloometh.

And yields the fruits of peace.

The Wreath of Life its healing leaves discovers,

Twined round each wounding stem,
And, climbing by the thorns, above them hovers

Its flowery diadem.

The Last Day only, all God's plan revealing.

Shall teach us what we owe
To *^xts,Q preventing 77iercies, thus concealing

Themselves in masks of v.'oc ;

v.] PREVENTING MERCIES.

Shall tell what wrongs they kept us from committing,

What lust and pride they crossed,
What depths of sin they fenced, in which unwitting

Our souls would have been lost.

Then let us sing, our guarded way thus wending,

Life's hidden snares among.
Of mercy and of judgment sweetly blending ;

Earth's sad but lovely song.

CHAPTER YI.

TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE.

" Is there no balm {treacle in old version) in Gilead ; is there no
physician there ? why then is not the health of the daughter of
my people recovered ? " — ^Jeremiah viii. 22.

A/T UCH of late years has been done in what may be
called the geology of language. Philologists have
been diligently at work with their hammers, splitting
open dull and unpromising-looking blocks of words,
and finding many curious fossils within them, that tell a
tale of themselves as wonderful as any Oozoon or Old-
hamia, of the Laurentian or Devonian formations. In
some of the most familiar terms they have found a mine
of historical interest, bringing down to us the memory
of some obsolete custom or long-forgotten incident.
Among the most remarkable of the words derived from
ancient languages, and now naturalized in our English
tongue, which have brought with them some historical
association or memorial, is the subject of this chapter.
The word treacle is derived from the Greek word therion,
which meant primarily a wild beast of any kind, but was
aftervrards more especially applied to animals which had

VI.] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE, 125

a venomous bite. By many Greek writers the term was
used to denote a serpent or viper specifically. In this
sense it is employed in the last chapter of the Acts of
the Apostles, where we are told that " when Paul had
gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire,
there came a viper out of the heat and fastened on his
hand. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast
hang on his hand, they said among themselves. No doubt
this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped
the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he
shook ofi"the beast into the fire, and felt no harm." The
Greek word translated " beast," in the fourth and fifth
verses, is therio7i; and though the word rendered " viper "
in the preceding verse is different, being echidna, it never-
theless specializes the meaning of therion, and proves
that it refers to this species of serpent. But what con-
nection, it may well be asked, can there be between a
viper and treacle ? How came such a sweet substance
to have such a venomous origin? Here we are intro-
duced, in the way of explanation, to one of those strange
superstitions that were exceedingly common in ancient
times, when little else but foolish marvels filled the pages
of natural history. It was a popular belief at one time,
that the bite of the viper could only be cured by the
application to the wound of a piece of the viper's flesh,
or a decoction called viper's wine, or Venice treacle, made
by boiling the flesh in some fluid or other. Galen, the
celebrated Greek physician of Pergamos, who lived in
the second century, describes the custom as very preva-
lent in his^ time. "At Aquileia, under the patronage of

126 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, he prepared a system of
pharmacy, which he published under the name of The-
riaca, in allusion to this superstition. The name given
to the extraordinary electuary of viper's flesh was theriake,
from therioHj a viper. By the usual process of altera-
tion which takes place in the course of. a few generations
in words that are commonly used, theriake became
theriac. Then it was transformed into the diminutive
theriacle, afterwards triade, in which form it was used
by Chaucer; and finally it assumed its present mode of
spelling as early as the time of Milton and Waller.
It changed its meaning and application with its various
changes of form, signifying first the confection of the
viper's flesh applied to the wound inflicted by the
vipers sting; then any antidote, whatever might be its
nature, or whatever might be the origin of the evil it
was intended to cure. Dr. Johnson, in the edition of
his Dictionary published in 1805, defines treacle as "a
medicine made up of many ingredients," and quotes in
illustration of this definition a sentence from Boyle :
" The physician that has observed the medicinal virtues
of treacle without knowing the nature of the sixty odd
ingredients, may cure many patients with it ;" and another
from Fleger : " Treacle-water has much of an acid in
it." Afterwards, medical prescriptions came to be pre-
pared in some vehicle intended to cover their nauseous
taste or disagreeable look ; and this vehicle was generally
some kind of sweet syrup or sugary confection to which
the name of treacle was applied. When the viscous
substance known as " molasses " was imported from the

vi.l TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 127

West Indies, it formed a welcome addition to the old
limited list of vehicles for medicine ; and so completely
did it usurp the name of treacle, that very few are aware
that the word ever had any other meaning or application.
Throughout our English literature we find frequent
allusions to treacle in the symboHcal sense of an anti-
dote against evil \ allusions which, without the foregoing
explanation of the origin of the word, would be utterly
unintelligible to the great majority of readers. In one of
the early editions of the English Bible, the familiar text
in Jeremiah, " Is there no balm in Gilead ? " is rendered,
" Is there no treacle in Gilead ? " Sir Thomas More has
this expression, "A most strong treacle against those
venomous heresies." Chaucer says of our Lord, " Christ,
which that is to every harm triacle; " and Lydgate, the
"• monk of Bury," a poet whose writings are now all but
forgotten, has a kindred idea, which is expressed in
these lines : —

*' There is no venom^ so parlious in sharpnes,
As when it hath of treacle a likenes."

Waller wrote a poem on the occasion of the restoration
of Charles II., in which he speaks of the marvellous
change that would be produced by the event upon the
views and conduct of the former enemies of his royal
master. He thus addresses the king : —

" Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin
To strive for grace and expiate their sin ;
All winds blow fair that did the world embroil,
Your vipers treacle yield, and scorpions oil. "

.'Vs if he had said in plain prose, that even those who

128 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

had slain the king's father had now repented of their sin
and become loyal to the son, like vipers which had in-
flicted a painful wound, but now yielded by their flesh a
medicine to heal it. Milton, too, who made everything
subservient to his purpose, employed this curious old
legend to point his language, for he speaks of " the
sovran treacle of sound doctrine." Many other instances
might be quoted ; but these are sufficient to show how
familiar the early English writers were with the symbolical
use of treacle, and how admirably they extracted the
moral from the once popular superstition.

The fundamental principle that gave origin to treacle
was one that was extensively adopted and acted upon in
ancient times. Si?nilia si?nilibtis curanhir — " Like cures
like " — was the motto of nearly all the medical practi-
tioners from Galen downwards. What were called sym-
pathetic omtfnents, supposed to cure wounds if the weapons
that inflicted them were smeared with them, without any
application to the wounds themselves — were everj'where
greatly in request. Prescriptions as a rule were founded
upon some real or landed resemblance between the re-
medy prescribed and the organ diseased — almost never
upon the inherent curative property of the medicine.
Lichens, which lead a mysterious mesmerized or sus-
pended existence, and grow in curious situations where
enchanters might weave their unhallowed spells, were
favourite remedies for mysterious complaints. The lung-
wort, a kind of lichen which grows in immense shaggy
masses on trees and rocks in subalpine woods, was
highly recommended as an infallible cure for all diseases

VL] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 129

of the lungs, owing to the resemblance between its re-
ticulated and lobed upper surface, of a greyish brown
colour, and these delicate human organs. Hundreds
of similar instances might be given, in which the colour
and shape of a remedy w^ere everything, and its medi-
cinal virtue nothing. The object, whether animal, vege-
table, or mineral, that caused the disorder, contributed
the proper medicament for its cure. In the writings
of Paracelsus and Aldrovandus, who combined the study
of alchemy and other occult sciences with that of medi-
cine, we find constant reference to such nostrums ; and
numerous recipes are given for ointments, draughts and
applications, made up according to this rule of the
most extraordinary substances, which were sold for
very large sums, and were said to have effected remark-
able cures. In short, almost all the drugs of the me-
diaeval pharmacopoeia w^re selected and administered
entirely upon this principle of mutual similarity between
remedy and disease. A perusal of the medical treatises
of our ancestors leaves upon our minds a very decided
impression of the power of the human imagination,
and the strength of the human constitution, as well as
quickens our gratitude that w^e live in times when treacle
is given as treacle, and not as viper's flesh, or some
abomination more disgusting still.

There are traces in the Bible of the principle of treacle
as applied in the cure of disease, which are exceedingly
interesting and instructive. Some of the most remark-
able of our Lord's miracles were based upon it. We are
toid by St. Mark of the healing of a man deaf and dumb

K

130 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

in Galilee, by our Saviour putting his fingers to his ears
and touching his tongue with his own spittle. Saliva
jejuna was supposed by the ancients to possess general
curative properties, and to be especially efficacious in
ophthalmia and other inflammatory diseases of the eyes.
Pliny, in his Natural History, speaks of this therapeutic
virtue in high terms ; and both Tacitus and Suetonius
record the case of a blind man who was supposed to
have been cured of his blindness by the Emperor Ves-
pasian, through the application of an eye-salve made of
spittle. We are not, however, to suppose for a moment
that our Lord was misled by this popular notion, and
that He was here acting merely as an ordinary physician
acquainted with certain remedies in use among men. It
was not for its medicinal virtue that He made use of the
spittle. The apiDlication of it was entirely a symbolical
action, indicating that as it was the man's tongue that was
bound, so the moisture of the tongue was to be the sign
of its unloosing, and the means by which it would be
enabled to move freely in the mouth, and to articulate
words. And the use of Christ's own saliva in the cure
showed that the healing virtue resided in and came forth
from Christ's own body alone, and was imparted through
loss of His substance. A somewhat similar example of
the same principle may be seen in the opening of the
eyes of the man born blind. The use of clay as a healing
plaster was not altogether unknown. Serenus Samonicus,
a Roman physician in the time of Caracalla, who wrote
a poem upon medicine, says in it, " If an unwonted
tumour arise in empty pride, besmear thy swollen eyes

VI. J TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE, 131

all over with loathsome mire." But this healing power of
clay was limited to the mere alleviation of inflammations,
tumours, &c. It could have had no effect whatever in
giving sight to the blind. Our Lord used the clay made
of His own spittle as a conductor or channel, not in itself
needed, by which His power might be conveyed, and the
man's weak faith strengthened by something sacramental
or external. It is dust that most frequently hurts and
blinds the eye ; our Lord therefore took dust and moulded
it with His own spittle into clay, as a remedy for healing
the eye and restoring the lost vision.

But we must not confine the application of the prin-
ciple under consideration to the few cases recorded in
the Gospels, in which our Lord made use of an outward
remedy, having some analogy with the disease, as the
vehicle or treacle of His miraculous power. All Christ's
miracles, without exception, were in one sense illustra-
tions of the principle. The effects of the curse in the
diseases and disabilities of mankind were removed by
Christ bearing the curse while performing the miracles.
" Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses."
The evil that He cured He suffered in His owoi soul.
The sorrow that He alleviated cost Himself an equal
degree of sorrow. Virtue went out of Him in proportion
to the amount of healing virtue imparted. Gain to others
was loss to Him. By fasting and prayer He cast out un-
clean spirits ; by groaning in spirit and weeping He raised
the dead Lazarus to life. The curse that He removed
He came under Himself ; so that in this sense Chaucer's
words, already quoted, are wonderfully significant and

K 2

132 7'HE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

applicable — " Christ, which that is to every harm triacle.'*
So also in the miracle of healing the nauseous fountain
at Jericho by Elisha. The water was brackish and bitter,
and the prophet put into it the pungent and bitter salt.
This in ordinary circumstances would only have made
matters worse, and spoiled irretrievably instead of im-
proving the quality of the water. But in this case the
salt made the salt spring permanently sv/eet, and fit for
drinking or irrigation, and it was an emblem, as the great
preservative of nature, of purity and incorruptibility.

We see the principle of treacle, not only in the
miracles, but also in the parables, of Scripture, espe-
cially in those acted or dramatic parables of the Old
Testament, in which the prophets entered so deeply into
the spirit of their mission as to be identified with it.
Saul laid hold of the skirt of Samuel's mantle as he
turned indignantly away from him, and it rent, and the
prophet said to the unhappy king, " The Lord hath rent
the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given
it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou." Ahijah
the Shilonite rent his new garment in twelve pieces in
the presence of Jeroboam, and he said to him, " Take
thee ten pieces ; for thus saith the Lord, the God of
Israel, Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand
of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee." Jeremiah
concealed his girdle in a hole of a rock near the
Euphrates, and, digging it up again after many days,
found it marred and rotten and profitable for nothing —
as a token that thus the pride of Judah and Jerusalem
should be marred. Hananiah took the yoke from off

VL] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 133

the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it in the pre-
sence of all the people, as a proof that so the yoke
of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, should be broken
from the neck of all nations within the space of two full
years. Agabus took the girdle of Paul, and bound his
own hands and feet, and said, " So shall the Jews of
Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall
deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." But the
most striking and impressive form of these acted parables
was that exhibited by Isaiah, when he walked naked and
barefoot for three years, that by this symbol he might
show to the Israelites that the king of Assyria would lead
away the Egyptian prisoners and the Ethiopian captives,
young and old, naked and barefoot, to the shame of
Egypt. Of the same kind was the marriage of Hosea
with an adulteress, in token that by her expiation might
be shown the desolation and the restoration of Israel;
and also the death of Ezekiel's wife, for which he was
forbidden to mourn, as symbolical of the unlamented
destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, and the death
of the Jewish sons and daughters by the sword. The
names, too, of Isaiah's sons, Shear-jashub, or the remftant
shall return, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, or 7nake haste to
the spoil a?id hasten the prey, were for signs and for won-
ders in Israel, from the Eord of hosts which dwelleth in
Mount Zion.

In the economy of redemption we find many re-
markable examples of the principle of treacle. The rule
that "like cures like" is engraved on the very forefront
of our salvation. It is shadowed forth in type and

134 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

symbol ; it is foretold in prophecy ; it is clearly seen in
realized fact. The brazen serpent was lifted up by Moses
in the wilderness to heal those who were bitten by the
fiery serpents, as a prophetic symbol that the Son of man
would be lifted up on the cross to heal those who had
been deceived into sin by the old serpent, the devil.
And in this type there was a significant fitness. It was
not an actual dead serpent that was exhibited ; for that
would have implied that Christ was really sinful. It wag
a brazen serpent, formed of the brass of which the
brazen altar and the brazen laver were made, in token
that though Christ was our substitute, He was yet holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Through-
out the whole of our Saviour's propitiatory work, we can
trace this similarity between the evil and the cure; a
similarity indicated very plainly and emphatically in the
first announcement of the scheme of redemption to our
fallen first parents. The serpent's head could only be
bruised through the heel of the woman's seed being
wounded by the serpent's fang. By faithlessness and
pride, man sinned and fell ; by treachery, false witness,
and a cross, man is redeemed. It was not as God that
Christ wrought out man's salvation, but as man. " For-
asmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and
blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same."
It was in the Hkeness of sinful flesh that He condemned
sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. On the day of atonement. He was represented
by the scapegoat ; and this is the symbol of the wicked,

vi.J TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 135

who shall be the goats on the left of the throne on the
day of judgment. He who knew no sin was made sin
— yea, a curse — for us, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. He was made under the
law, that He might redeem us from its curse. Through
death He destroyed him that had the power of death \
that is, the devil. It is by His blood that our blood-
guiltiness is washed awa3\ It is by His poverty that
our poverty is enriched. It is by His humiliation that
our humiliation is exalted. It is by His stripes that our
stripes are healed. It is by His death that our death is
quickened into life.

So also, in order that we may lealize personally and
individually the benefits of Christ's redemption, we must
be identified with Him by faith ; there must be mutual
sympathy, partnership, and reciprocity of feeling — " I in
you, and ye in Me." We must be partakers of His nature
as He was partaker of ours. We must take up our cross
and follow Him. We must know the fellowship of His
sufferings. If we be planted together in the likeness of
His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrec-
tion ; if we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. To
the unbeliever there seems the same inadequacy between
cause and effect in this salvation from the curse by means
of the cross, that there appears to us in the old mediaeval
cures by the treacle which vipers yield. The men of
Jericho might have ridiculed the prophet's attempt to
heal the bitter fountain by his cruse of salt. The serpent-
bitten Israelites might have refused to look at the brazen
serpent, deem.ing it a foolish and impotent charm. Had

136 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

both of these allowed themselves to reason upon the
improbability of the desired result being accompHshed
by such means, had they been swayed by the opinions
or speculations of men, the fountain, in the one case,
would have flowed for ever in all its bitterness, and the
Israelites, in the other case, would have perished in their
torment. And so Christ crucified may be to the Jews
a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. The
salvation of God may not be suitable and adequate in
the eyes of man. "What special virtue," he may say,
" is there in the sufferings and death of a poor Jew
eighteen hundred years ago, to atone for my sins and
make my peace with God ? The whole system is just a
repetition of the mediaeval superstition, and is therefore
offensive, incredible, and impracticable." So have many
argued, and died in their sins. God says, " There is no
other name given under heaven among men by whom we
can be saved, but the name of Jesus." The deadly bite
of the serpent of sin can only be cured by looking unto
Him who is lifted up on the cross. The fountain of sin
and death can only be healed by the salt of Christ's
redemption ; and putting in the sugared sweets of our
own devices and plans of salvation and good works will
never change its bitterness ; but it will flow a fountain of
death for ever for us.

In medicine also the same principle may be found.
Homoeopathy was anticipated by the ancient use of
treacle. The essential character of Hahnemann's famous
system is that such remedies should be employed against
any disease, as in a healthy person would produce a

vr.] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 137

similar, though not precisely the same disease. The
method of administering remedies in infinitesimal doses
is not necessarily a part of the system, and it was not
originally practised, although in the end it was adopted
as a vital article of the creed. The fundamental principle
of homoeopathy is that " like cures like ; " and, to find
suitable medicines against any disease, experiments are
made on healthy persons, in order to determine the effect
upon them. Thus hooping-cough and certain eruptions
of the skin of a chronic nature are supposed to be cured
by an attack of measles \ inflammation of the eyes,
asthma, and dysentery, are homoeopathically cured by
small-pox ; arnica heals bruises because it produces the
nervous symptoms which accompany bruises ; camphor
cures typhus fever because in a poisonous dose it lowers
the vitality of the system ; wine is a good remedy for
inflammation because it inflames the constitution ; quinine
or Peruvian bark is the best remedy against intermittent
fever or ague because, when taken in considerable
quantity by a healthy person, it produces feverishness
and furred tongue j and so on over a long list of
medicines. The doctrine of homoeopathy has been held
up to ridicule and assailed with every conceivable argu-
ment by the disciples of the Hippocratic or allopathic
system. It does not lie in my province to judge between
the opponents. There are numerous analogies in medi-
cine— this every medical man will allow ; but whether
they are sufficiently numerous and exact to found a
scientific system upon them, is a question that is by no
means settled to the satisfaction of all. It is a fact dis-

138 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

puted by no one, that certain remedies resemble, in their
operation upon the healthy body, the diseases they were
employed to cure. Vaccination, for instance, is univer-
sally practised as a prophylactic or preventive remedy
against small-pox ; the vaccine disease being a local, less
dangerous and non-infectious form of small-pox. Many
of the febrile diseases have a mysterious and inexplicable
power of protecting, within certain limits, against a
recurrence of them. Those who take measles, small-
pox, typhus, yellow fever, and other complaints of that
class, very seldom indeed have another attack of the
same kind throughout the whole course of their lives.
Certain medicines are administered to produce one
disease or unnatural condition of the system, in order to
remove another. The evil that has deranged the body
in many instances can only be healed by another evil
that will temporarily derange it. A very popular mode
of taking the pain out of a burn is to expose the injured
part as long as possible to the fire ; and it is well known
that the only safe way of restoring animation to a frost-
bitten limb is by rubbing it with snow or putting it in
ice-cold water. Both the homoeopathic and allopathic
principles of medicine coincide in certain cases. Bromine,
introduced into the respiratory organs, causes false mem-
branes to be formed in the larynx of pigeons. In croup
and diphtheria it has therefore been found to act as a
useful remedy — first hardening the adventitious mem-
brane, and then reducing it to dust. Taking a mere out-
side general view of the healing art, like does to some
extent cure like. It is the bitter medicine that cures the

VI.] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 139

bitter disease. All medicines are nauseous, because all
illness is nauseous.

There is a profound philosophy in this principle of
treacle that applies to all the relations and interests of
life. In the sweat of a man's face does he take away
the curse that causes his face to sweat. Not by ease and
idleness and self-indulgence does a man remove the
remediable evils of the world ; but by the evils of toil
and trouble and care. It is the tear of sympathy that
dries the tear of sorrow; the salt of the grief that
springs from fellow-feeling that heals the salt spring of
the grief that flows from human bereavement. We all
know the relief to imprisoned feeling with which the
heart is bursting — when we can find one whose suscep-
tibilities can take it in as we outpour it all, who can
understand our emotions and take interest in our dis-
closures. There is no earthly solace like that ; and it is
only a higher degree of it that we experience when we
feel that we have '' a brother born for adversity," who is
afflicted in all our afflictions. That " Jesus wept," — that
He still sheds tears as salt and as round as ours — when
He sees us sorrowing ; this is the blessed homoeopathy
of suffering — this is the balm, the treacle to every heart-
wound. Then, too, why is repentance bitter ? Is it not
because sin is bitter? Those who have experienced it
describe the exquisite painfulness with which life and
vigour return to a frozen limb — or animation to a body
that has been nearly drowned, when the remedies used
have been successful. The pain of recovery is somev/hat
like the pain through which sensibility and consciousness

1 40 THE MINIS TR Y OF NA TURE. [ch ap.

in either case were lost. Thus it is in all moral
recoveries from sin. The soul yields to temptation with
pain, and reluctance, and much self-upbraiding at first ;
and it is only a long-continued course of evil that blunts
and deadens its sensibilities, so that it is beneath and
beyond shame. But when it comes to itself — when it
realizes, like the prodigal, what it is and what it has lost —
the revulsion of feeling is great. It revives to the con-
sciousness of the higher and truer life from which it has
degraded itself, with a keenness of remorse greater even
than it experienced when it first fell. The tides of better
feeling and heavenher impulse flow with difficulty and
pain through channels long empty, or clogged up with
base and sinful tendencies. Conviction and conversion,
whether on the lower levels of ordinary moral conduct
and worldly well-being, or on the higher heights of
spiritual life and Gospel experience, must always be
attended with acute sorrow; and the measure of the
pain in the loss of the soul must be the measure of the
pain in its recovery and gain. Look again at love.
What does it require ? Is it wealth, or rank, or fame,
or any of the outward possessions and glories of life ?
The Song of Songs says, and the experience of every
true loving heart echoes the sentiment, " If a man would
give all the substance of his house for love, it would
utterly be contemned." Love can only be satisfied with
love. And should not our own experience of this con-
vince us that the surpassing, ineffable Love that gave
up His own Son lor us, demands from us m return, and
can only be satisfied with, a love that will sacrifice self

VI.] TREACLE, OR LIKE CURES LIKE. 141

for Him? And finally, does not the principle in question
lead us by all these steps to the great universal Throne
itself? Does it not clearly indicate that, as God has made
us in His own likeness, so we can only be satisfied when
we awake with His likeness ? He has made us with a
nature so God-like that no creature — no gift that He
can bestow — nothing but God Himself, can fill the crav-
ing hollow of our being. The prayer of Philip, " Show
us the Father, and it sufficeth us," is the unconscious
longing of every soul. No other blessedness can suffice
us. This is indeed the sovraft treacle of sound doctrine ;
the perfect catholicon for all evils ; and blessed are
those who know in their experience the reality which
it expresses — who know the Father in the Son, whom
thus to know is life everlasting.

CHAPTER Vir.

FEEDING ON ASHES.

" He feedeth on ashes." — ISAIAH xliv. 20,

/~\NE of the most extraordinary examples of depraved
^-^^ or perverted appetite is the use of earth for food.
This propensity is not an occasional freak, but a com-
mon custom, and is found among so large a number and
variety of tribes, that it may be regarded as coextensive
with the human race. From time immemorial, the
Chinese have been in the habit of using various kinds of
edible earth as substitutes for bread in times of scarcity ;
and their imperial annals have always religiously noticed
the discovery of such bread-stones, or stone-meal, as they
are called. On the western coast of Africa a yellowish
kind of earth, called caouac, is so highly relished and so
constantly consumed by the negroes, that it has become
to them a necessary of life. In the island of Java, and
in various parts of the hill-country of India, a reddish
earth is baked into cakes and sold in the village markets
for food ; while on the banks of the Orinoco, in South
America, Humboldt mentions that the native Indians
find a species of unctuous clay, which they knead into

CHAP. VII.] FEEDING ON ASHES, 143

balls, and store up in heaps in their huts as a provision
for the winter or rainy season. They are not compelled
by famine to have recourse to this clay ; for even when
fish, game, and fruit are plentiful, they still eat it after
their food as a luxury. This practice of eating earth is
not confined solely to the inhabitants of the Tropics. In
the North of Norway and in Swedish Lapland a kind of
white powdery earth, called mountain-meal, found under
beds of decayed moss, is consumed in immense quantities
every year. It is mixed by the people with their bread
in times of scarcity ; and even in Germany it has been
frequently used as a means of allaying hunger. All these
examples of the use of earth as food are so contrary to
our experience, that they might seem incredible were it
not that they are thoroughly authenticated. Such an
unnatural custom must in the long run prove injurious
to the constitution of those who indulge in it, although
it is wonderful how long it can be carried on by some
individuals apparently with impunity.

I have described this extraordinary habit so fully, be-
cause it affords an apt illustration of the inspired words
at the head of this chapter. Just as in the natural world
there are many whose perverted appetites lead them to
the use of earth as food, so in the spiritual world there
are many who, in the language of Isaiah, feed upon ashes.
The prophet is speaking of the idolater, and exposing the
senselessness of idol-worship. The poor devotee takes a
piece of durable wood, it may be of his own planting,
carves it into a human likeness, or into the resemblance
of some material object, and sets it up in a shrine in his

144 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

own house for adoration. With the chips and shavings
he makes a fire and cooks his food. He thus practically
proves his god to be identical in substance and essence
with his fuel. It is his own capricious choice, his own
handiwork alone, that determines the difference between
the part of the tree which he worships and the part which
he burns on his hearth. He satisfies his bodily hunger
with the food prepared by the glowing ashes of the idol-
wood. He feeds the hunger of his soul with the ashes
of his material idolatry. A deceived soul has turned him
aside from the knowledge and service of the living and
true God, who feeds His worshippers with the finest of the
wheat ; and he tries to find in the very same materials
with which he cooks his food what will appease the
cravings of his spiritual nature.

" He feedeth on ashes." Three topics for meditation
are suggested by these significant words : — ist, Who is
the idolater? — He feedeth on ashes. 2ndly, What is his
idolatry? — Yiz feedeth on ashes. And, srdly. How does
idolatry affect him ? — He feedeth on ashes.

I. In the first place, then, let us ask who is the
idolater — who is the " he " that is said in the text to
feed on ashes? The prophet Isaiah had a definite
audience before him. He was prophesying to the
children of Israel, whose proneness to idolatry was so
remarkable, that they are mentioned in the Bible as the
only people who voluntarily forsook their own God, to
cleave to the false gods of the nations with whom from
time to time they came into contact. Notwithstanding
the purity a.nd sublimity of their own monotheistic creed..

VII. 1 FEEDING ON ASHES. 145

and the awful threatenmgs and sanctions with which it
was guarded, we can trace throughout their entire history,
as a marked feature of their character, a propensity to
blend a theoretical behef in the true God with an accom-
modating reverence to the idols of the heathen Pantheon.
Except when under the immediate spell of some special
revelation of Jehovah, they craved for some visible shape
or outward sign of the divinity — a craving which was
satisfied for a time by the erection of the tabernacle and
temple, and the establishment of the worship connected
with them, but which soon overleaped barriers thus im-
posed upon it, and sought for novel sensations in the
tabernacle of Moloch and in the star of the god Rem-
phan — figures which they made to worship them. The
very priests and Levites, who were most concerned in
keeping the worship of Jehovah pure, were the leaders of
the various national apostasies. The grandson of Moses
himself assumed the office of priest to the images of
Micah ; and all the solemn feasts, sacrifices, and institu-
tions of the Mosaic ritual were copied in detail by Jero-
boam, and apphed to the worship of the golden calves
which he had erected at Bethel and Dan. Under the
patronage of royalty, idolatrous priests from time to time
multiplied in the land, and increased in wealth and in-
fluence. Images were set up in the threshing-floors, in
the wine-vats, and behind the doors of private houses ;
and intermarriages with the surrounding nations were, in
every case, the first steps to the worship of their gods.
Isaiah deeply deplored this national fickleness and
spiritual inconstancy. In the passage under considera-

L

146 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap,

tion he does not expose, as elsewhere, the heinousness
of idolatry as a political crime of the gravest kind against
Jehovah as the civil head of the State, or as the greatest
of social wrongs against Him with whom they had
entered into the marriage-bond. Instead of launching
the fiercest invectives of his wrath against it, he seeks to
ovenvhelm it with contempt. He shows in remarkably
searching language the degrading nature of the practice,
and its contrariety alike to right reason and true piety.

Were Isaiah addressing us in these days, his ideas
would be the same, though the form in which he would
present them would be different. Material idolatry, in
its literal import, has passed away among civilized
nations. The old worship of stocks and stones is now
impossible among a professedly Christian people. The
second commandment, so far as it refers to the worship
of graven or molten images, is unnecessary. But although
the outward mode has passed away, the essence of the
temptation remains the same. Human society is changed,
but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led
to idolatry is therefore as strong at the present day as it
was in the time of Isaiah ; and images are set up and
worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetish or joss.
The tender and solemn admonition of the Apostle John
is as needful as ever : " Little children, keep yourselves
from idols." The New Testament form of the second
commandment, " Be not conformed to this world," re-
quires to be frequently and urgently enforced. Idolatr)'
in its essence is the lowering of the idea of God and of
God's nature, and the exaltation of a dead image above

vu.] FEEDING ON A SIZES. I47

a man's own living spirit; and an idol is whatever is
loved more than God, whatever is depended upon for
happiness and help independent of God. And just as
there were different kinds of material idolaters of old, so
there are now different kinds of spiritual idolaters. Theie
were worshippers of Baal and Astarte, the gods of sen-
sualism ; and these are now represented by the multitudes
who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God — who
seek enjoyment in what is distinctively called pleasure,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of
life. There were worshippers of the golden calf; and
these are now represented by those who love riches, who
admire only worldly success in others, and exalt them-
selves on account of it ; who embark their whole soul in
their business, and make it their one chief solicitude.
There were nobler worshippers of the sun, moon, and
stars; and these are now represented by the lovers of
knowledge, by the devotees of Hterature and science,
who make Nature their deity, and this globe the temple
in which they adore her. But if I were to sum up all
spiritual idolatry in these days in one form, I should call
it worMi7iess, for everything else is but a phase of this.
Some modern idolaters exhibit one phase of worldliness,
some another, but all have it more or less ; and even the
children of light too frequently and fervently unite in the
worship, and require the reproof : " Love not the world,
nor the things that are in the world." In short, the man
to whom the words of the prophet are applicable nowa-
days, is the man who moulds his life and character, his
spirit and conscience, not by the high ideals of God and

L 2

148 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chak

heaven, but by the objects and pursuits of the world, by
things that are lower than his own nature. And this
worldly conformity leads speedily, in most instances, to
a low moral standard, and to a weak and corrupt form of
religion, and produces the same humiliating results which
flowed from the idolatry of ancient times. Even as they
do not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gives
them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which
are not convenient.

2. But I pass on to consider, in the second place, what
is idolatry. '''■IA.q fecdeth on ashes." Adopting the analogy
of the sacred writer, I should say it is a perverted spiritual
appetite. In certain diseased states of the brain there
is an unnatural craving for the most extraordinary and
unwholesome substances. Men and women under such
morbid influences have been known to eat cinders and
sand with apparent relish, and even to prefer them to the
richest dainties. In such cases it is not the appetite that
is at fault. That is sound and good. The digestive organs
exercise their functions naturally and healthfully. But
the controlling power of the brain which chooses the
proper food is impaired, and this healthy appetite is set
to work upon substances which are altogether unsuitable.
In like manner, idolatry arises from a natural craving of
the soul, which was made for God, for His worship and
enjoyment. It was formed to know, and love, and serve
a Being higher than itself. It finds that it must go out of
itself and beyond itself for the blessedness that it needs.
Not more eagerly does the plant, imprisoned in the dark
cellar, turn its blossom to the ray of solar light that reaches

VII. J FEEDING ON ASHES.

149

it through a crevice in the wall, than do the thousand ten-
drils of our spiritual nature stretch themselves out towards
a Being higher, holier, and more enduring than ourselves.
There is a thirst in us that dries up all earthly things, and
a hunger that craves for fuller joys. Now, this spiritual
appetite is a God-given instinct of our nature. It is the
soul seeking its highest good. It is healthy and natural.
But when, under the guidance and power of a deceived
heart, it seeks its gratification in earthly things to the
exclusion altogether of God, it affords a most melancholy
example of a perverted spiritual appetite. The longing
that makes us worship idols, whether it be molten or
graven images, or the more worthy and dignified idols
of the heart — the home, the world, the sanctuary, our
friends, our possessions, ourselves — is in itself a right, and
healthy, and natural instinct ; the sin of idolatry consists
in the perversion of this longing, in the worshipping of
the creature instead of, or more than, the Creator.
Originally the spiritual appetite was under an enlight-
ened moral control, by which it sought its gratification in
adequate and proper means. Man sought God in every-
thing, and everything in God. But when he sinned and
fell, while retaining the desire after God and the capacity
of enjoying Him, he lost the right direction of the desire.
His spiritual appetite became depraved and vitiated ; his
fine moral instinct became blunted, so that the happiness
he used to find in the infinite excellence and uncreated
all-sufficiency of God, he now sought vainly in the
vanities and pleasures of sense. He turned away from
the rich and nourishing provision of his Father's house

[50 THE MINISTR V OF NA TURE.

to feed as a prodigal upon the husks which the swine
do eat.

What is drunkenness? Traced to its source and
motive, we find that this degrading vice originates in an
unconscious craving of the soul after God. It is a per-
verted spiritual appetite, a feeding on ashes instead of
bread. Why does a man get intoxicated? Is it not
because he is dissatisfied with the mean life of world-
liness and carnaHty which he leads, and pants after a
higher life and a freer atmosphere ? It is only by
drinking the poisonous cup, he thinks, that he can escape
from the miseries of his position, from the cares and sor-
rows that dwarf his soul and wear down his nature to
their own low level, and live for a brief interval in an
ideal world. This is the motive, at least at first, although
afterwards the vice becomes a mere habit, and is indulged
in for its own sake. Drunkenness is a perverted spiritual
appetite, a seeking in the creature what God alone can
give, the longing of the soul for higher and purer happi-
ness than the hard round of daily life and the weary
sorrowful circle of the world can give. So, too, covetous-
ness, if analysed in the same way, will be found to
be a perverted spiritual appetite, a misdirected worship.,
Covetousness is identified in Scripture with idolatry :
" Covetousness which is idolatry," says St. Paul. " No
covetous man, who is an idolater, hath an inheritance
in the kingdom of God." The love of money, as it hai
been well said, is the love of God run wild, the diseased
action of a spiritual appetite, the aberration of a nature
that was made for God, and is still unconsciously seeking

FEEDING ON ASHES.

i5»

after Him. Mammon-worship is the semblance or coun-
terfeit of God-worship. Wealth is the mystic shadow
of God, which the soul is unconsciously groping after
and craving for. It presents some faint features of
resemblance to Him. It seems omnipotent, able to do
all things; omnipresent, showing signs of itself every-
where j beneficent, supplying our present wants,
providing for our future, procuring for us an endless
variety of blessings, and giving us almost all that oui
hearts can desire. And because it presents these super-
ficial resemblances to God, because it thus mimics His
infinitude, it becomes a religion to many, a worship
loud in praise and aspiration as any that ever filled a
church. The blindness of such devotion is equal to
its fervour. Even when most abject in his worship,
the idolater of wealth will tell you in excuse that the
throned deity which claims the homage of his knee " the
likeness of a kingly crown has on." And so is it with
every form of idolatry of which man in these enlight-
ened days can be guilty. It is the soul, in its restless
pursuit of happiness, mistaking the true object of which
it is in quest. It is the soul, with its healthy God-given
appetite, feeding upon ashes instead of upon bread,
seeking its food in created things instead of in the
Creator. God made man upright, w4th a healthy spi-
ritual appetite that sought its portion and fruition in Him
only. But, deceived by sin, man sought out many
inventions, prepared many idols, invented many plea-
sures which should be to him substitutes for God, which
should appease his deep longings for God. And thus

152 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the very wants and miseries, the very woes and vices of
man, proclaim the greatness of his nature — indicate that
he is too mighty a being for this perishable world.

3. But let us see, in the third place, what are the
effects of idolatry. How does idolatry affect the man
guilty of it ? There is a very striking and beautiful rela-
tion, as it has been well said, between the food of man and
his digestive organs. He is omnivorous. He is the ruler
of the world, and therefore the varied life of the world
must throb in his veins. Nature spreads a table for him,
richly furnished with everything that can please the eye,
regale the nostril, and satisfy the palate \ opens her
bounteous hand, and pours out for him the treasures of
every land and every sea, because she would give him a
wide and vigorous life co-extensive with the variety of
nature. But all the varied food which she presents to
him must be organic food. It must be prepared for him
by previous vegetable or animal life. It must not come
from the earth directly ; it must be organized by passing
through the tissues, and becoming endowed with new
properties in the structures of plants and animals. It is
true, indeed, that the human body requires for its proper
nourishment inorganic as well as organic elements.
Formed from the dust, it does not even in its most
sublimated processes utterly forsake the ground. " Phos-
phorus literally flames in the brain that thoughts may
breathe and words may burn ; lime gives solidity to the
bones; the alkaline salts promote the oxidation and re-
moval of the effete materials of the body. Common
minerals — iron, sulphur, soda, potash, and others — circu-

viT.l FEEDING ON ASHES. 153

late in the blood, or are garnered in the various tissues.
But all these inorganic materials are furnished, not from
the earth directly, but in the food ; the various vegetable
and animal products containing them in varying quan-
tities." Such being the law of man's nutrition, it will be
seen at once that if he feeds directly upon ashes, he is
feeding upon substances that are altogether incongruous,
and unfitted to nourish him. The plant can feed upon
ashes — the worm can feed upon earth — but man's life is
higher and more complex, and therefore he requires a
more complex food. His organs cannot digest or assimi-
late ashes. They remain unchanged in his stomach, to
impair its powers, and to cause it torture and distress.
If a healthy stomach be made to digest a mineral sub-
stance, it acts in the same manner as it would do in the
case of bread, — it exercises all its functions, and secretes
all its juices as naturally as if the foreign substance were
its appropriate diet, but its action is only a throe of
distress. And is not the analogy between spiritual and
natural things here very clear ? If man's spiritual appetite
can feed only on God — if God alone is the satisfying por-
tion of the soul — then if that appetite is set to work upon
the ashes of idolatry — if man seeks his portion only in
the things of the world, — what can you expect but spi-
ritual indigestion and misery ? And the healthier the
spiritual appetite, the more pain will be inflicted by this
perversion of it. It is true, indeed, that just as the
body requires inorganic elements — salt, lime, and iron —
as well as organic, for its proper nourishment, so man
requires the things of the world as well as the things of

154 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

faith for his spiritual welfare. Our heavenly Father
knoweth that we have need of these earthly things
even for our growth in grace. A soul nourished exclu-
sively upon spiritual things, would be as weak and worth-
less as a body nourished exclusively upon organized
materials, upon chemically prepared food. But then we
are to seek these temporal things — earthly enjoyments
and pursuits — not directly from the world, but through
the channel of communion with God, and living in Him,
just as the body gets its needful supply of earthy
materials, not directly from the earth, but through the
medium of the plants and animals upon which it feeds.
We are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righte-
ousness, and all these things shall be added thereto.

There are natures that, by a long course of feeding
upon ashes, have become accustomed to this unnatural
diet. Like the clay-eaters of South America, their
digestive organs become assimilated to their food, and
they are put to little inconvenience by it. We meet
with persons who are satisfied with their portion in this
world, who mind earthly things, and are contented with
the nourishment for their souls which they find in them.
But are such persons the truly great and noble ones of
our race ? Do we admire or love them ? Do we not
regard their contentment as a curse, as the proofs of a
low moral nature ? Is not, as one has said, the instinc-
tive feeling strong within us, that to be thus satisfied —
wanting nothing, craving nothmg but what can be found
in the pursuits and enjoyments of earth — is inhuman ;
that those whose horizon is thus all earth-bound are not

vii.l FEEDING ON ASHES. 155

above but below the level of humanity. But whatever
may be the case with such individuals, the great mass
of idolaters — the great mass of those who are seeking
their happiness in created good — are wretched because
they are feeding on ashes. They are trying to find
satisfaction for the longing of their souls for God in
things that are unfitted by their very nature to yield that
satisfaction. Their longing for God is a healthy appe-
tite ; and therefore the more misery and pain does it
inflict when it is set to work to digest the crude earthy
substances of the world. This is the true secret of the
unhappiness of the great majority of mankind. They
are without God, and, therefore, necessarily without hope
in the world. They are suffering from spiritual indi-
gestion. Their souls are crying for bread, and they get
a stone ; and in endeavouring to assimilate the hetero-
geneous substance, to find strength and satisfaction in
it, they are undergoing agonies of disappointment and
sorrow. "The ease of the simple shall slay them, and
the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

The debaucheries of lust and drunkenness and gluttony
to which so many flee to gratify the hunger of their souls
separated from Godj in whom alone they can live and
move and have their being, are ashes that fill them only
to torture them ; that allay for a moment the pangs of
hunger only to inflict pangs of disease a thousand times
worse. The cares and toils ; the constant changing of
plans and places ; the pursuit of wealth, honour, society,
fame, knowledge, fashion ; — these are all proofs of spi-
ritual dyspepsia, of the uneasiness which the soul feels in

156 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the digestion of food never intended for it, and therefore
utterly unsuited to its nature and wants. The perpetual
irritations ; the fits of anger, envy, jealousy, and re-
morse \ the gloomy, hypochondriacal fears ; the weary
carking anxieties ; the vanity and vexation of spirit
which disturb and distract the lives of multitudes, are
owing to the presence in their souls of foreign bodies
which they can neither assimilate nor reject. They call
the world ashes; they wonder at the meanness and
destitution of life ; they fret and fume at the dispen-
sations of Providence. But renewed pursuit ever suc-
ceeds deplored deception ; and the wretched experiment
is again and again repeated with increased results of
bitterness and woe. However well they get on in the
world, and amass fame and wealth and honour, they are
never pleased. Even amid the surfeits of earth's richest
feasts of joy, they are wringing their hands and crying
out, "Who will show us any good?" They spend their
lives in the pursuit of this and that outward good,
impelled by the insatiable longings of a deceived heart ;
"confessing all the time that they fail even when in
form they succeed, and showing by their symptoms of
disappointment and dissatisfaction that their objects,
whether gained or lost, have no relation to their wants."
They spend money for that which is not bread, and
labour for that which satisfieth not. Feeding on ashes
only, what can we expect but to see them miserable and
starving? How can a spiritual appetite be satisfied by
a material regimen ? How can an infinite hunger be
appeased by a finite good? The soul wants organized

VII. 1 FEEDING ON ASHES. 157

food; food that has spiritual Hfe in it; food that is
redolent of the sunshine and permeated with the light
of heaven; food that has drunk in all the impalpable
virtues and forces of the things unseen and eternal;
food that can gather up in itself these vitahzing influ-
ences, and transfer them to us to glow within our veins
and animate our nerves; and, instead of that, we get
ashes out of which all the glow and the virtue have
departed. Sooner or later, as Moses pounded the
golden calf and gave the Israelites the dust to drink
in punishment of their idolatry, will every worshipper
of false gods have to drink the dust of his idols.
Our sin will become our punishment ; our idols our
scourges. God is a jealous God; and every soul that
turneth aside from His love to the lying vanities of the
world, must drink the bitter water of jealousy, filled
with the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle — the
dust of the bruised and mutilated Dagons of spiritual
idolatry that have fallen before the ark of Jehovah ; and
it shall enter into him, and his belly shall swell and
his thigh shall rot, and he shall be a curse among the
people. " Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass
yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your
fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall
ye have at my hand : ye shall lie down in sorrow."

I have remarked that there are some who are satisfied
with their worldly portion — who, though feeding upon
clay, are not put to inconvenience by it. Such indi-
viduals, in the midst of their contentment, are in reality,
if they only knew it, more to be pitied than those whose

1 58 TTJE MINIS TR V OF NA TURE. [-map.

truer instincts are tortured by the unsuitable food by
which they endeavour to appease their spiritual cravings.
Oh, it is infinitely better not to have found satisfaction at
all — to be as miserable as the world can make us — than
to be feeding upon ashes contentedly! For we may rest
assured that such food is doing harm to our spiritual con-
stitution, making us more and more like what we eat — of
the earth earthy — and all the more surely that it excites
no symptoms of pain, and seems to agree with our nature.
The peasant women of St)n-ia are in the habit of con-
stantly eating a certain quantity of arsenic, in order to
enhance their personal charms. It imparts a beautiful
bloom to the complexion, and gives a full and rounded
appearance to the face and body. For years they per-
severe in this dangerous practice ; but if they intermit
it for a single day, they experience all the symptoms of
arsenical poisoning. The complexion fades, the features
become worn and haggard, and the body loses its plump-
ness and becomes angular and emaciated. Having once
begun, therefore, to use this cosmetic, they must in self-
defence go on, constantly increasing the dose in order
to keep up the effect. At last the constitution is under-
mined ; the evil effects cannot be warded off any longer ;
the limit of safety is overpassed; and the victim of foolish
vanity perishes miserably in the very prime of life. And
is it not so with those who feed upon the poison of the
world's idolatries ? They may seem to thrive upon this
insidious and dangerous diet. They may look as bloom-
ing upon it as Daniel upon his pulse, but all the time
it is permanently impairing their spiritual health, and

vu.] FEEDING ON ASHES. 159

rendering them unfit for spiritual communion. The
more they indulge in it, the more they must surrender
themselves to it ; and the jaded appetite is stimulated on
to greater excesses, until at last every lingering vestige of
spiritual vitality is destroyed, and the soul becomes a
loathsome moral wreck, poisoned by its own food.

There is such a thing as a wasting of the body from
insufficient nutrition, even when the appetite is satisfied
and the stomach content. A strange plant called the
7iardoo, with clover-like leaves, closely allied to the fern
tribe, grows in the deserts of Central Australia. A
melancholy interest is connected with it, owing to the
fact that its seeds formed for several months almost the
sole food of the party of explorers who a few years ago
crossed the continent. This nardoo satisfied their hunger ;
it produced a pleasant feeling of comfort and repletion.
The natives were accustomed to eat it in the absence of
their usual roots and fruits, not only without injury, but
apparently with positive benefit to their health. And yet,
day after day, Burke and Wills became weaker and more
emaciated upon this diet. Their flesh wasted from their
bones, their strength was reduced to an infant's feeble-
ness, and they could only crawl painfully a mile or two in
a day. At last, when nearing the bourne of their hopes,
the explorers perished one by one of starvation ; a soli-
taiy survivor being found in the last extremity under a
tree, where he had laid him down to die, by a party sent
out in search of the missing expedition. When analysed,
the nardoo bread was ascertained to be destitute of certain
nutritious elements indispensable to the support of a

i6o THE MINIS l^RY OF NATURE. [chap.

European, though an Australian sav^age might for a while
find it beneficial as an alterative. And thus it hap-
pened that these poor unfortunate Englishmen perished
of starvation, even while feeding fully day by day upon
food that seemed to satisfy their hunger. Now, is it
not precisely so in the experience of those who are seek-
ing and finding their portion in earthly things? They
are contented with it, and yet their hunger is in reality
unappeased. Their desires are crowned, and yet they
are actually perishing of want. God gives them their
request, but sends leanness to their souls. Oh, is it not
far more dreadful to perish by slow degrees of this
spiritual atrophy, under the delusive belief that all is
well, and therefore seeking no change of food, than
to be tortured by the indigestion of feeding on ashes,
if by this misery the poor victim can be urged to seek
for food convenient for him !

" He feedeth on ashes." Is not the very term most
significant ? What are ashes ? They are the last solid
products of matter that has been used up — the relics that
remain after all that is useful and nutritious has been con-
sumed. You burn a piece of wood or a handful of com,
and its grosser particles fall to the ground, while all its
ethereal parts — its carbon and hydrogen — mount tc the
skies and disappear. It is a sad thing to gaze upon the
ashes of the commonest fire ; for in them there is an
image of utter death and ruin — of something that has
been bright and beautiful, and is now but dull, cold,
barren dust. And what are earthly, created things, upon
which so many are feeding the hunger of their immortal

VII.] FEEDING ON ASHES. i6i

souls, but ashes ? They were once bright and beautiful.
God's blessing was upon them, and they were vory good.
But sin has consumed all their goodness and beauty, has
burned up all in them that was capable of ministering
to the spiritual wants of men, and left nothing behind
but dust and ashes. We can apply this truth to all the
world, so far as it is made the portion of the soul. As-
tronomers tell us that the earth was once a sun, its
interior still glowing with the primeval heat ; and that
the various materials which compose its crust — the
rocks, the earths, the seas — are the ashes of its conflagra-
tion— the dross that gathered on the surface of its liquid
fire. The clays, and sands, and salts of the soil are the
ashes of the oxidation or burning of metals. Every dead,
inert substance in nature is the cold ash of a former fire \
and the few active substances that have not yet mingled
with oxygen, and so become consumed — so trivial in com-
parison with the total store of which they are the residue
— constitute our main sources of heat and light and
motive power. In short, everything in the world that
will not burn, is something that has been already burned.
And so in a moral sense, the whole world, which was
once capable of ministering to man's spiritual wants, is
now a mere heap of cinders. Its beauty has gone with
its goodness, and its sufficing power with its holiness.
It has become spiritually oxidized by combination with
the all-devouring element of sin. The man that loves
the world now feeds on ashes \ not upon earth, for there
is a degree of nourishment in soil, owing to the remains
of /brmer life, and the worm and the plant feed upon it ;

M

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. .chap.

— not upon clay, for the clay which the American Indians
eat is found to consist of microscopic plants with silicious
envelopes, called Diatoms, containing a small portion of
organic matter sufficient to sustain existence ;---no \ but
on dry, white, dusty ashes, utterly destitute of any nutri-
tious element whatever, upon which no creature can
live, and upon which almost no plant can grow — the
refuse of everything that is good — salt that has lost its
savour, and is therefore good for nothing but to be cast
out and to be trodden under foot of man. Oh, could
the worthlessness of the world as a portion be more
graphically symbolized !

Poor worldly-minded man or woman ! it is indeed a
deceived heart that has turned you aside ; it is indeed a
deceiver that has seduced you to feed on ashes. The god
of this world hath blinded you. He brings the power of
the w^orld, with all its seductiveness, to bear upon you as
an antidote to the Gospel. He so dazzles your eyes
>vith earthly glory, that you are blind to the glory of
God which shines in the face of Jesus. The sentence
pronounced upon the old serpent who deceived our first
parents was, "Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy
life." Whatever may be the literal interpretation of that
sentence, it is true in a metaphorical sense that Satan
feeds upon dust. All his successes, all his enjoyments,
are bitter and unsatisfying, and yield him no true plea-
sure. His proudest victories won in the world and in the
heart of man are dry as dust, and utterly barren of enjoy-
ment. And as he is himself, he wishes to make all who
are led captive by him at his will. His own food he

VI [1.] FEEDING ON ASHES. 163

gives them to eat; that his own nature may be developed
in them. Satan attempted to make even our blessed
Lord eat this wretched food. He said to Him, when
fasting forty days in the waste wilderness, " Command
that these stones be made bread." Defeated by Him
who had meat to ea,t which the world knoweth not of —
who lived not upon bread alone, but upon every word
which Cometh out of the mouth of God — Satan has from
that time gone forth tempting poor hungry souls hi the
wilderness in the same way. Command that these stones
of pleasure, of wealth, of fame, of success, — command
that these stones be made bread, he says to every poor
worldling, to every idolater. And, alas ! how many obey
him, and prove themselves to be of their father the devil.
And so obeying him, they need not wonder that, when
they ask him for bread, he should give them a stone.
The pleasures he bestows are apples of Sodom — fair to
the eye, but in the mouth full of dust and ashes. The
honours and riches he confers are jewels of gold and
silver and precious stones, very valuable and beautiful, it
may be, but which have no relation whatever of nourish-
ment to souls perishing for want of the bread of Hfe.

Let us seek to be convinced of the folly and misery of
our idolatry ! Let our spiritual appetite, which has been
perverted to indulge itself in earthly vanities, return to its
appropriate nourishment. Why should we any longer
humble ourselves to so many perishing things that are
ashes, and call them bread? "Hearken diligently to
me," says our Saviour, " and eat ye that which is good."
tie communicates the spiritual reality of vrhich the feeding

M 2

1 64 THE MI NTSTRV OF NATURE. [chap.

of the body with food that perishes is a symbol. From a
merciful indulgence to that tendency of our feelings to
take their impressions from outward objects, which leads
to idolatry, God has become man, assumed our nature,
and addressed Himself personally to our affections by re-
demptive acts of loving-kindness. And thus incarnate in
our nature — living, and dying, and rising again for us —
Jesus is the provision of Zion, the true bread of the soul.
He is not only the possessor of the resources of the uni-
verse, but He is Himself better than all His gifts. This
is the food for which our souls were created, and in which
alone they can find righteousness and strength. It is
admirably adapted to all the weaknesses and wants, to
all the sins and sorrows, of our being. Its all-sutficiency
meets our insufficiency at every point, and it never loses
its relish. It endureth unto everlasting life. Feeding
upon this food, there will be no pain, no wretchedness,
but a peace that passeth all understanding — a joy un-
speakable and full of glory — a life growing fuller, and
richer,, and stronger, unto the stature of a perfect man in
Christ. And thus living, arid moving, and having our
being in our Saviour, we shall enjoy the world — so far
as it is fitted to minister enjoyment — in a way that no
idolater of it can ever know. It is only when the earth
becomes organized by a living agency that it can nourish
the body. It is only in the tissues of the plant — in the
ear of corn, in the form of bread — that the earth can feed
us. And so it is only in and through Christ, wJio only
hath life, that we can truly enjoy the world — that all
things become ours, ministering to our faith and to our

viT.] FEEDING ON ASHES. 165

growth in grace. If we go to the world first and fore-
most, if we seek our happiness in it directly, we must
necessarily feed on ashes. We are like the man who
seeks his food in the mineral contents of the earth — in
its clays and sands — instead of in the corn that groweth
out of the earth. But if we feed upon Christ, in the all-
fulness that dwelleth in Him bodily, we have stored up,
and concentrated, and organized for us all that our souls
need. The world, when sanctified and transformed by
Him, will become a teacher of heavenly wisdom, instead
of a deceiver — a rich and ever-varying banquet, instead
of a heap of ashes ; and all things will work together for
our good.

CHAPTER VIII.

SPIRITUAL CATHARISM.

" Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? or who shall stand in
His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." —
PiaALM xxiv, 3, 4.

nPHIS new term, derived from a Greek word signify-
ing purity, has been invented by Mr Tomlinson
to distinguish between ordinary and chemical cleanli-
ness ; for the two things are not by any means the same.
We imagine that our bodies, when we have thoroughly
washed them, are perfectly free from all impurity; but
the chemist proves to us by convincing experiments, that
though we wash ourselves with snow-water, and make our
hands never so clean — yea, though we wash ourselves with
nitre, and take us much soap — we are still unclean. We
cannot be made chemically clean by any process which
would not injure or destroy us. The slightest exposure to
the air — the great receptacle of all impurities — covers our
skin with a greasy organic film, which pollutes every sub-
stance with which we come into contact. It is well known
that the process of crystallization in chemical solutions is
set going by the presence of some impurity, in the shape
nf motes or dust-particles, which act as nuclei around
wliich the salts gather into crystals. But if the solution

CHAP. viiL] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. 167

be protected from all floating impurities b> a covering of
cotton-wool, which filters the air, it may be kept for any
length of time, at a low temperature, without crystallizing.
A glass rod that is made chemically clean by being
washed with strong acids or alkalies, such as sulphuric
acid or caustic potash, can be put into the solution with-
out exciting any change in it ; but the smallest touch of
what the most fastidious would call clean fingers, starts
at once the process of crystallization : thus showing that
the fingers are not truly clean.

Nature is exceedingly dainty in her operations. Unless
the agents we employ are stainlessly pure, they will not
produce the results which we naturally expect from them.
Thus, for instance, if we scrape a few fragments from a
fresh surface of camphor, and allow them to fall on water
that is newly drawn from the cistern-tap, into a chemically
clean vessel, they will revolve with great rapidity, and
sweep over the surface. But if the vessel, before being
filled, has been rubbed and poHshed with a so-called
clean cloth, or if the water has stood awhile, or if a finger
has been placed in it, the particles of camphor will lie per-
fectly motionless; thus proving that, however clean the
cloth, or the vessel, or the finger may seem, an impurity
has been imparted which prevents the camphor from
exhibiting its strange movements. Or to adopt a more
familiar experiment : if we pour a quantity of lemonade,
or any other aerated fluid, into a glass which seems to be
perfectly clean and bright, the lemonade will at once
effervesce and form bubbles of gas on the sides of the
glass. But if we first wash the glass v/ith some strong acid

1 68 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

or alkali, and then rinse it thoroughly with fresh water
newly drawn, we may pour the lemonade into it, and no
bubbles will be seen. The reason of this difference is, that
in the former case the glass which appears to us to be
clean is in reality impure with the products of respiration
or combustion, or the motes and dust of the air, which
act as nuclei in liberating gas ; whereas in the latter case
the glass is absolutely clean, and therefore no longer
possesses the power of liberating the gas from the liquid.
The cork or the spoon with which we excite renewed effer-
vescence in an aerated liquid that has become still, pro-
duces this effect not by its motion, as we should suppose,
but by its uncleanness. Were it possible to free it from
all impurity, we might stir the liquid a whole day without
raising a single sparkle.

From these examples we see the importance of a
chemically clean surface in the performance of many
experiments, and the influence of the slightest speck of
dust in modifying their results. They reveal to us the
universal presence of impurity in apparently the cleanest
vessels from which we eat and drink — in the snowiest
table-linen that we use — in our hands, however scru-
pulously washed — in short, in ourselves and in all our
surroundings, however careful we may be. Our utmost
purity is a mere relative or comparative thing. We may
be cleaner than others ; but the highest standard of
physical cleanliness we can reach comes far short of the
absolute chemical standard. So is it likewise in the
spiritual world. Our idea of purity and God's idea are
two very different things. Comparing ourselves with

viii.l SPIRITUAL CATHARISM 169

ourselves or with others, we have no sense of contrast.
We may appear to have clean hands and pure hearts,
but in the eyes of Him in whose sight the immaculate
heavens are not clean, and who chargeth the sinless
angels with folly, we are altogether vile and polluted. In
the mirror of God's absolute holiness, the purest of
earthly characters sees a dark and defiled reflection.
The prophet Isaiah, whom God commissioned, on
account of his sterling integrity, to be the bearer of his
message to Israel, was constrained by the vision of God's
glory in the temple to cry out, " Woe is me, for I am
undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." The much
tried patriarch of Uz, of whom the Lord Himself testified
to Satan, the accuser of the brethren, " Hast thou con-
sidered my servant Job, that there is none like him in
the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth
God, and escheweth evil," was, nevertheless, constrained
to say, as the effect of a clearer manifestation of God's
infinite purity upon his mind : " I have heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
Immeasurably greater than the difference between che-
mical cleanliness and ordinary cleanHness, is the differ-
ence between God's purity and man's purity. The
physical fact is but the faint image of the moral ; and
chemistry, in showing to us the wonderful purity of
nature's operations, gives a new meaning and a deeper
emphasis to the declaration of Scripture, that nature'?

170 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap

God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. He
cannot look upon sin.

There is no such aversion as this in the elements of
nature; there is no such repulsion in all physical law.
No illustrations from material things can give an adequate
conception of the attitude of the Infinite mind towards
moral evil. To all men God's infinite purity is the tritest
and most commonplace of truths, the most elementary
and obvious of first principles ; and yet the ideas which
diff"erent men, or even the same men in different moral
states, have of it, vary immensely. To one it may be but
a mere abstract logical proposition, exciting no emotion
in the soul, and producing no effect upon the life ; a mere
algebraic symbol, representing some unknown quantity ^
a mere scientific truth, like the chemist's talk of cleanli-
ness. To another it is the most intense of all experiences,
stirring up the deepest emotions and transforming the
whole nature. The same man, as was seen in the case
of Job and Isaiah, may have at one time a feeling of
complacency regarding the holiness of God ; while at
another time the same logical truth, with the same logical
significance, intensified by the strength and life of spiritual
emotion, overpowers him with awe and dread. Chemical
cleanliness is a scientific truth, which, when once com-
prehended, is the same for all minds at all times; but
the moral truth of God's infinite purity has a widely dif-
ferent meaning for different souls, or for the same soul
at different times. Or if there be a state in which this
great moral truth becomes like a scientific fact or formula,
the same for all minds at all times, it can only be at the

VIII.] SPIRITUAL CATIIARISM. 171

zero of spiritual life when the fool says in his heart, "There
is no God, and there is none that doeth good, no not one."
Impurity in natural things is caused by waste, disin-
tegration, or combustion. When objects have served
their purpose in one form, they become effete, and
therefore impure. Running water is living water, and
therefore is sweet and pure ; but whenever it becomes
stagnant it loses its life, begins to putrefy, and becomes
foul and unwholesome. A rock is called a live rock so
long as it is hard and sound in the quarry, " glistens like
the sea-waves, and rings under the hammer like a
brazen bell : " but whenever it is cut out of the quarry
and exposed to the air, it begins to lose the life that
kept its particles together, and crumbles into dust. In
its native bed the rock is pure, but when it is weathered
by exposure it forms the mud ot the highway, or the
dust that pollutes everything by its presence. The clay
and soil of our fields are caused by the oxidation or
burning of pure metals ; are, in fact, the ashes of metals.
The dirt that cleaves to our footsteps, as the emblem of
all impurity, is produced by the disintegration of the
brightest metals or the most sparkling jewels. We say
of a tree that it is living when it is growing and putting
forth foliage and fruit, and in this state it is pure and
beautiful; but whenever it ceases to grow it dies, and
decay begins, and it harbours all sorts of abominable
things, the products of corruption. Everywhere through-
out nature, impurity is caused by objects ceasing to
preserve the natural life that is in them ; ceasing to
serve the purpose for which they were created. And sc

172 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

is it with man. Impurity in him is caused by the loss
of spiritual life, by departing from the uprightness in
which he was created, and seeking out inventions of his
own. He has broken the order and law of his existence,
and his whole nature has disintegrated in an atmosphere
of sin. Passion has broken loose from the law of co-
hesion to God ; the will no longer responds to the
gravitation of conscience and reason ; the whole being
has become vitiated, disordered, and corrupt. And just
as mud is the foul product of the purest crystal when it
is broken down from the constitutive order and original
law of its creation, so all impurity in man's thought and
word and deed is the vile product — the rust as it were —
of a nature made in the image of God, through its
corruption — that is, as the word implies — the breaking
up together of it by sin ; through its losing of that life
of unity, simplicity, and order which results from abiding
in God. Man's nature has become a chaos, an irregular,
confused mixture of motives, feelings, and ends. With
his singleness of eye he lost his clearness of spiritual
vision. AVith his simplicity of aim and unity of object
he lost his purity and transparency of character. Sepa-
rating from God, the Rock of his salvation, he suffered
spiritual decay in all his parts, and sank into the fearful
pit and the miry clay. Ceasing to abide and grow in the
Tree of Life, he has been cast forth as a branch and :s
withered, the prey of vile lusts and morbid vanities.

This description applies to every human being. Man's
pride may refuse the imputation, and he miy think that
'.lis experience refutes it. But the continuous testimony

Viii.] SPIRITUAJ, C A THAR ISM. 173

of the unerring Word of God, to which the witness of
every true church has been added, is that " we are all as
an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags." Every Christian whose eyes have been opened to
see the extent of his own corruption, who has seen his
own character in the light of God's law, and in contrast
with God's nature, feels the truth of the human portraiture
drawn by the Divine pencil : " Every one is gone back ;
they are all together become filthy ; there is none that
doeth good, no, not one;" and though his nature is
changed by grace, he can never forget his own assimi-
lation to the corrupted mass of nature, or deny the
application to him of the apostle's words : " You hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, and
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."
There is indeed such a thing as natural goodness and
virtue in the unregenerated heart. Benevolence, filial
and parental aff"ection, pity, gratitude, generosity of dis-
position, the love of justice, in themselves morally good,
are still parts of the nature which God has communicated
to mankind. Man's nature in its wildest aberration is
not without traces of its divine original, or fragments of
beauty and magnificence. All human beings are not
alike. Many feel incapable of the vices which they see
committed around them. Comparing the honourable
and generous character of some men with the sordid
viciousness of others, we cannot but feel that the world
has its good and its bad men, its pure and impure. But
such moral purity as we see in some individuals, causing
them to thank God in their hearts that they are not as

174 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

Other men, is like ordinary cleanliness as compared with
chemical cleanliness. We think our hands, or a glass of
water, or a table-cloth clean ; they certainly seem to be
pure and spotless ; our senses can detect no defilement
in them 3 and for the common purposes of life they may
be sufiiciently clean. But when we submit them to the
test of chemical experiment, we find out the hidden im-
purities, and understand how widely different our notions
of cleanliness are from the absolute truth. And so, we
have a warmth of indignation against injustice and op-
pression, and we think this is a hatred of sin \ we feel a
thrill and a glow of generous admiration when we see a
noble character or hear of a noble deed, and we mistake
this for an innate love of holiness. But when the Spirit
convinces us of sin, and makes upon us the great expe-
riment of grace which opens the eyes and the heart
together, we see the evil roots from which the seemingly
fair fruits proceed ; we know that these virtues flow from
a principle of earthliness, self-interest, and expediency,
and not from love of God or love of holiness. Our
depravity is shown to us as convincingly by the goodness
praised by all men, which disowns God and bears fruit for
other objects than His glory, as by the vices which all
men hate and repudiate. There may be much to love
and admire in us ; as natural men we may do right, act
honestly, and feel properly, just as in mud formed by the
disintegration of a micaceous rock, we see the mica scales
still sparkling pure and bright in the sunlight amid the
surrounding defilement. But as we call the mud impure,
even though it contain these remains of former purity,

viii.] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. 175

because it has broken away from its living cohesion and
unity in the rock, and become mixed up with all sorts of
substances ; so we call a natural man corrupt and impure,
although he may have many excellences of character and
conduct, because he has departed from the life and unity
of his being in God, and has become a law unto himself,
falling into mixtures of causes in all his actions. His
excellences do not form part of a living uniform prin-
ciple of conduct, a high moral state of being like mica
in the rock. They are capricious and uncertain — Hke
mica in the mud, mixed up with such a confusion of
motives and feelings that what induces him to act in one
way to-day may induce him to act in another way to-
morrow. Having no fixed rule of conduct or action, he
is the slave of interest and expediency, and his virtues
are determined by these. And therefore it is that the
man who stands justified and approved before himself
and the world, stands utterly condemned before God;
and all natural men are included under sin, and there is
no difference.

As chemical cleanliness is essential for the successful
performance of certain physical experiments, so spiritual
purity is an essential qualification for the enjoyment of
certain spiritual privileges. " Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God," said our Saviour in that
great sermon on the mount, in which he delivered to
those who were entering His kingdom the great principles
of moral righteousness. That purity which comes not
of ceremonial cleansings — scrupulous washings of cups
and platters, hands and vestments, or the mere outward

176 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

observance of the precepts of the law — but from having
a heart right with God, has a wonderful keenness of
spiritual insight, an all-penetrating spiritual intuition.
As the transparent atmosphere of a summer day brings
the most distant objects near, and reveals the minutest
details and outlines of the landscape, so the purity of a
heart filled with the love of God brings out with the
utmost distinctness and vividness the glories of the
heavenly world — reveals those deep things of God, those
mysteries of the divine life, which are wonderful to soul
rather than to sense. It looks through the superficial and
delusive appearance, and penetrates to the real inward
significance of things. It knows the eternal meaning of
facts, the Divine relations of persons, how they appear
before God, and are related to His purpose and kingdom.
It understands in some measure the secret of the Lord
in His works of nature and providence — the meaning of
those natural hieroglyphics which point us to heavenly
realities — the purport of those providential dealings which
disclose the Divine will — the design of every trial and
blessing. Wliile others are perplexed and in difficulty,
the pure-hearted see a plain path before them, and a
clear sky above them. God Himself is known by those
who are in some measure pure as He is pure, in a way
which others cannot conceive. As a lake mirrors the
sky in its bosom, making of air and water one beauteous
ideal scene, so the heart that is free from the defilement
and disturbance of sense and passion, and turned in
thought and affection towards God, realizes a junction
of heaven and earth, of God and the soul. In every

ViTT.] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. 177

pure and loving heart Divinity is united to humanity.
God is not far off; He dwells in the heart, and the heart
dwells in Him. The Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guile, sees heaven always opened ; and the mystic ladder
which binds the seen and the unseen is ever set up in
his heart. He has always freedom of access to the pre-
sence of God. " Who," says the Psalmist, " shall ascend
mto the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy
place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart."
The prophet Isaiah echoes the same reply : " He that
walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly, and shutteth
Ins eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high ; his
place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks ; his
eyes shall see the King in His beauty ; they shall behold
the land that is very far off."

Although there were no barrier save foulness of nature,
this of itself would be sufficient to prevent all fellowship
with God. The man whose hands are unclean, whose
heart is impure, cannot in the nature of things ascend
into the hill of God, or stand in His holy place. His
own moral condition would prevent his entering, although
the door were thrown wide open. His presence would
be as great a source of disorder and disturbance among
the pure elements of God's abode, as a speck of dust in
a chemical solution. He would feel out of keeping with
the place, and out of harmony with Him who is the light
and the glory of it. He would have no enjoyment there,
for the constitution of his nature is essentially a moral
one, and therefore a pure heart is necessary to his hap-
piness wherever he is. His character must be brought

N

178 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

into conformity with his conscience, for conscience is an
essential i:)art of his nature, and cannot be destroyed. So
long as it exists, it must protest against sin, which is a
disease of the moral nature — no matter how pure may
be the circumstances by which he is surrounded, how
glorious the place in which he may happen to be.
Where this antagonism between conscience and cha-
racter prevails, it is obvious that there can be no true
happiness even in the very presence of God. " There is
no peace, saith my God, to the wicked " anywhere.

Practically, impurity subjects a man to many losses and
evils. Not more thoroughly do the clouds intercept the
light and heat of the sun, and prevent the deposition of
dew, than do the impure exhalations of the soul intercept
tlie light and saving health of God's countenance, and
hinder the reviving influences of the dew of grace. As
in the process of cr}^stalhzation every speck of dust
becomes a nucleus, drawing to itself all the particles in
the solution ; so every sin becomes the centre-point of
other sins — takes to itself seven spirits more wicked than
itself, with which to pollute the whole nature. It is as
impossible to keep an impure soul from adding sin to
sin, as it is to keep a chemical solution exposed to the
motes of the air without crystallizing. It attracts to
itself all the hidden evil of its own being, and all the evil
that lurks in its surrounding circumstances, and with
these it builds up a dark, poisonous moral structure,
appalling from its compact symmetry and concentrated
power. Then, too, the strong hold which the love of the
world, and the heat and fierceness of passion, have over

VII.] SPIRITUAL CA THAR ISM. i-j^

us ; the grovelling of our imaginations among images of
vanity, lust, and earthliness ; the evil suggestions that
arise spontaneously in our heart, even amid the purest
scenes and in the most sacred employments j our little
knowledge of Christ, His person, character, and work ;
our little experience of God, as a presence manifested in
the soul ; our little sensibility to sin and appreciation of
the purity and saintliness of the Christian character ; our
little longing after heaven and heavenly-mindedness, not
because of the world's weariness and disgusts which all
men feel, but because of the heart's positive affinities for
what is holy and spiritual ; — all these losses and evils are
caused by our impurity — ^by the sin that stains and
darkens the soul, and destroys its spiritual life.

When the Psalmist says that the only man who can
ascend God's hill, and dwell in His holy place, is he
whose hands are clean and whose heart is pure, it is
obvious that he is chanting the praises of the Messiah —
shadowing forth the spotless purity of our ascending
Lord. To none else does the description apply. He
alone is the absolutely sinless One. Holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners, He fulfilled the work
which He came on earth to do, and with His Father's
perfect approbation He ascended the everlasting hill,
and now dwells in the holy place. In the absolute
sense, no mere man has clean hands and a pure heart.
Perfect, absolute purity cannot be realized in a world
lying in wickedness like this, and by fallible creatures
so full of corruption as we are. As we cannot be made
chemically clean by any process which would not destroy

N 2

i8o THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

us, so we cannot be made perfectly holy until the walls
of this tabernacle of flesh, in which the leprosy of sin is
so inherent and inseparable, be taken down in the grave,
and be rebuilt as an habitation of God through the
Spirit. " Sin is in this world the imperishable token of
humanity." It is not something which has penetrated
into our nature from without, and may therefore be ex-
pelled by a force within. It is rooted in the invisible,
inscrutable depths of our spiritual nature, and mingles
its poison with the very source of our being, with the
very first beginnings of our spiritual and natural life.
We were bom in sin, and conceived in iniquity; and
therefore we cannot altogether cast off this evil power,
or root it out, or reach its origin, by any expulsive power
or curative process that can be furnished on earth. The
purest saint that has ever lived cannot appear before
Infinite Purity, without carrying into His presence much
of that moral defilement which he hates, but which
still cleaves to him. If, therefore, absolute purity of
hands and heart be the only qualification, none can
follow Christ where He has gone ; not one of the human
race can ascend God's hill, or dwell in His holy place.
That shrine must be an unapproachable solitude — none
can be within save the great High Priest Himself,
girded with His spotless linen ephod, and clothed with
His garments of glory and beauty.

But though the highest condition of purity be thus
unattainable on earth, the process of purification can be
commenced here ; some degrees of it can be attained.
By every man a higher and yet higher stage can be

VIII.] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. i8r

reached ; there need be no limit to the process while life
remains. And access to God's presence by the new and
living way is open to purity that is very far indeed from
being perfect — that feels itself to be compassed about
with many infirmities, and is constrained to cry out, " O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this
bondage of sin and death ? " If we are seeking earnestly
spiritual cleansing, even though we have not obtained it
— if we are struggling so honestly and perseveringly
against impurity that we can say, '' It is no longer I, but
sin that dwelleth in me," in the midst of humiliation and
defeat, then no fetters of sin can keep us from God's
holy place, or take away from us His love. We shall
have a measure of insight and privilege proportioned to
the degree of our purity. The clearer our character, the
clearer our vision of God ; the purer our heart and
hands, the fuller and happier the enjoyment of com-
munion and fellowship with Him. And before this
growing purity is held out the hope of dwelling for ever
in that holy place where nothing that defileth can enter,
— a hope which of itself tends to purify the heart, and
raise its desires and affections above the world. For this
perfect purity of being and condition, the discipline of
life is a preparation, the religion of Christ is a sanctifying
power, so that he who yields to the will of God, which is
our sanctifi cation, and experiences the renewing power
of the Spirit, has not only absolute purity as his aim
and end, but has the assurance, in the midst of many
failures, that he will yet be presented faultless before the
presence of God's glory with exceeding joy. "These

1 82 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb."

Yes j blessed be God, the lost purity of man can be
restored ! The soul that has sinned and polluted itself
almost hopelessly, can be recovered and made purer and
holier even than Adam was before he fell — so pure that
he will be utterly inaccessible to all evil — as high above
the reach of temptation, the slightest suggestion of sin,
as God Himself. We are surprised to be told in the che-
mical manufactory, that the splendid mass of pure and
gorgeously-tinted crystals, which excites our admiration,
has been started into existence by the dirty /ia?ids of the
workmen. But the Gospel tells us of a far greater marvel ;
and we have seen it in our every-day life. From the
darkest human sin, by reason of the contrition and
humility and faith to which it has given birth and which
gather around it, may spring up the loveliest and most
transparent Christian life. God can raise up from the
lowest depths of depravity to which successful temptation
can reduce a human being, a purity that is higher and
grander even than the purity that has never fallen — that
is pure as Christ is pure. The mud that men trampled
under foot can be recovered from its mixture of foulness ;
and its particles, losing their attraction for foreign sub-
stances, and rejecting them all, may gather together and
form a crystal purer than that from whose destruction the
mud originated. And so the vilest human character can
be lifted out of the mire of sin, and so purged of its ac-
quired pollution — so recovered from its noxious mixture

vm.] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. 183

of fear, doubt, selfishness, and temptation, by being made
single-eyed and single-hearted — as that it will reflect much
of the glory of God from its transparent simplicity.

But what is this potent alchemy, more wonderful than
the fabled transmutation of lead into gold, more astonish-
ing than the brilliant dyes and crystals which modern
chemistry brings out of the vilest refuse ? Who or what
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? It is not
man's work or training, but the gift and the inspiration
of God. By no process of discipline or education, by
nothing that can act upon our outer conduct, or that can
reach us only through our senses, can impurity be trans-
formed into purity. As the power of sin is inward,
rooting itself in the very substance of the soul, so the
power of sanctification that is to extirpate it must also
be inward, and mingle with the secret fountains from
which our being issues. As sin is not a succession of
separate evil acts, but an evil principle of action, so
holiness is a state of being, and not the adopting of
certain maxims or the performance of certain deeds.
Purity cannot be attained by the works of the law, by a
system of rules and discipline, although these influences
which act upon us from without are excellent in their own
place and order, and necessary for the development of it.
It must be communicated by the same Power that first
made the soul itself, contending with sin in the very citadel
of its dominion. Our purification must come directly
from God Himself, and must begin with that which He
puts into us, with " that movement of the heart and con-
science which we call faith," and which is His gift. The

1 84 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

righteousness of Christ is the only nucleus around which
the human soul will arise out of its corruption and foul
mixture of motives and desires, and crystallize into a
pure and transparent character. His blood alone can
wash away our guilt, and make our sins which are as
scarlet white as snow. Christ dwelling in us by faith is
the living new-creating power that is the centre point of
all our purity. Not only does He purify us by investiture,
clothe us with His own spotless character when we are
justified by faith in Him and accepted of God for His
sake, and keep us in the mould, as it were, of this super-
induced character, but His Spirit works out purity in us
as the life and law of our soul. He brings every thought
into captivity to the obedience of Christ ; He brings the
broken, mixed, disordered chaos of our passions and
principles back to the regularity and simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus. He makes one principle to dominate us —
the love of God ; one end to determine our efforts— the
glory of God. And, in proportion as Christ is thus living
in us, and we in Him, so in proportion are the impurities
of our nature clarified, and the old affinities of sin extir-
pated. We become — by the righteousness of Christ
upon us for justification, and by the righteousness of
Christ wrought out in us by the sanctifying power of the
Spirit — gradually more and more like our Lord, pure
as He is pure, and perfect as our Father in heaven is
perfect.

Chemical cleanliness, I have said, is produced by
washing vessels and substances that are employed in expe-
riments in strong sulphuric acid, or with a strong solution

VI 11.] SPIRITUAL CATHARISM. 185

of caustic potash, and then rinsing with water. Analogous
to these powerful appliances are the means which God
often employs to produce moral purity, those chastenings
of the flesh and crucifixions of the spirit which are not
joyous but grievous. He sends sickness, that wears
out the body ; trouble, that racks the mind ; and sorrow,
that takes all the relish out of life. He mortifies self-
seeking by disappointment, and humbles pride by failure.
He makes lust its own scourge, and the idolatry of the
heart its own punishment. By all these searching and
terribly energetic purifiers, that corrode the soul as sul-
phuric acid does the body. He helps forward outvvardly
the Spirit's work of renewing in the heart. His will is
our sanctification j this is the great end to which all the
physical universe is subordinated, and even sacrificed, if
necessary, for which every movement and object on earth
are working together; this is the grand design and
crowning glory of the work of redemption, to accom-
plish which He spared not His own Son, but gave Him
up to death for us all. And, if He spared not His own
Son, most assuredly He wail not spare us, if scourging
and chastisement be needed for the purification of our
souls. Although judgment is His strange work, and He
has no pleasure in afPiicting the sons of men, yet vv'ill He
afflict us, and that more severely, the more He desires
'that we should yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
He applies trials and temptations as tests to our prin-
ciples and dispositions, as experiments to discover and
display the reality and the degree of the evil that is in us.
He has provided that the ordinary discipline of the soul

1 86 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

should be the discipUne of temptation, which makes
it inevitable that we should sometimes fall. He wishes
us, through sore grappling with the evils of life, and being
sometimes worsted by them, to feel our own weakness
and the strength that He brings ; He wishes us, through
darkness, sorrow, and death, to have within us the rich-
ness of our own experience ; our principles to be not
mere sentiments, but living powers whose strength we
have proved in many a sad night of wrestling with sorrov/,
legacies of blessing that the vanquished angel has left
behind to us. Ah, it needs the heat of severe and oft-
repeated and long-protracted trial, working together with
God's Spirit, to evaporate the incongruous elements of
sin and sense that make us impure, and build up with
the broken diverse fragments of our character, that stub-
bornly refuse to unite in harmony under any self-derived
power of man, the pure transparent crystal of Christian
simplicity \ — oneness of knowledge — " One thing I know ^
that, whereas I was blind, now I see ;" oneness of desire
— " One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek
after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the
days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and
to inquire in His temple ;" oneness of action — " This one
thifig I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press
toward the mark for the prize of the high calHng of God
in Christ Jesus."

And these trials of purity come to us on the great
crowded highway of life, and amid the common expo-
sures of the world's daily work. This is not the doctrine

VIII.] SPIRITUAL CATHaRISM. 187

of many who imagine, with the monks and hermits of
old, that spiritual purity, saintliness of soul and life, is a
star that dwells apart, associated only with seclusion and
meditation, with the solitude and celibacy of the cell, and
the stillness and inanition of the sick-room. We hear
constant complaints of the many and grievous obstacles
placed in the way of spiritual purity by the vile works
and ways of men. Such individuals would reverse the
Saviour's prayer for His disciples, and wish, in order to be
kept from the evil, to be taken out of the world. And
yet it is by the discipline of these very obstacles that the
lost chastity of the soul is to be restored. Nothing can
so cleanse and brace us up in uncorrupted vigour as
doing our duty, the work that lies to our hand, even in
the midst of the foul sights and sounds, the dark temp-
tations and sorrows of our ordinary sphere. The nature
that is allowed to settle on its lees in the midst of soli-
tude, with nothing to think of but how to attain purity,
retains a sediment of carnality which the least temptation
will stir up, converting in a moment the whole pellucid
fountain into a polluted pool ; retains, even in the absence
of all temptations, the scent and taste of its own lusts and
passions, which rage with greater violence because there is
nothing else to occupy the soul. We ought to be thankful
therefore that we have work to do in the mJdst of human
haunts, for thus alone can we escape from the infection'
of our own evil humours, and follow after "that holiness,
which is not separation from work or innocent recreation, ,
or any of those scenes and circumstances which are
lawful, but from whatever is unworthy of God's presence,

1 88 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

from the evil thoughts and actions which offend Him,
and which conscience feels to be profane."

Nor are we to confound the beautiful world of God
with that kingdom of Satan set up in man's heart and
in society — which the New Testament calls the world- -
and to which it forbids us to be conformed. Many do
this to their own great moral hurt. With an austere piety
they regard the physical beauties that abound on every
side of them as trials, and spurn them beneath their feet
in their constant looking away to heaven, and their long-
ing to get to a better world. But what does this world
itself require, but that they and their fellow-creatures
should be better than they are. In this earth of ours it
is only man that is vile. Nature hates all forms of im-
purity ; she speedily hides them from view, or works
them up into pure substances. The pollutions which
man causes by his works, the decays and corruptions of
her own objects, she transforms by her wonderful alchemy
into perfect and beautiful things. She hastens to crys-
taUize her rough rocks into diamonds and rubies; to
evaporate into golden clouds her polluted waters ; to
adorn with the glories of light the dark shapes of the
thunderstorm ; to cover all the deformities of her own
surface with a living robe of rainbow loveliness. How
transparent are her waters; how exquisite her verdure;
how clear and bright her skies ! The footsteps of God on
this earth are holy footsteps ; from the print of each of
them springs up the snow-white flower or the radiant
jewel. Every bush is burning with God ; and every spot
of earth is holy ground. Notwithstanding the miserable

VIII.] SPIRITUAL CATIIARISM. 1S9

disorder and ruin which man's presence and sin have
brought upon nature, we cannot but discern in it still
traces of celestial purity, recollections and memories of
Edenic hcHness. The forest can lift up its pure leafy
hands ; the flower-cup can swing its stainless censer ;
the stream can murmur with the blue of heaven in its
depths ; and the mountain, the religion of the landscape,
can raise its snowy peak to the near vicinity of the great
white throne itself; — and all can join in their own sym-
pathy of innocence and purity in the creation-song of the
four living creatures — " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Al-
mighty, which was, and is, and is to come." Did we feel
the holiness of that nature which is God's footstool, on
which the blessed feet of Jesus walked, on which His
precious blood was poured forth in consecration, we
should ever be putting off our shoes in reverence and
awe. We should feel that it is we who are unworthy
of nature, and not nature that is unworthy of us ; that
" this fair creation is more like heaven than we are like
angels." Instead of despising the world, therefore, in
our haste to ascend to a better, let us endeavour to
make ourselves more fitting inhabitants of it. The
purer we ourselves become, the purer will all things
become to us, — the more beautiful we shall feel the earth
to be. Nature is full of our own human heart, is a
reflection of our own nature 3 and the beauty we admire
in it is the sympathetic expression of the beauty of our
spirit. We act upon it, and it reacts upon us. Thus
the man of clean hands and pure heart, whose blameless
outer life tells unmistakeably what he is under all the

I90 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap. viii.

influences of the eyes of others, and who keeps sacred
to God that inner shrine of the soul hidden from the
most loving and intimate friend, feels that the tabernacle
of God is already with men, and that he is a dweller in
it. He sees around him the paradise which others
lament they have lost, and for which they can only seek
in another world by being disgusted with this ; he exor-
cises all the evil of earthly things by the name of Christ,
whom he serves ; and, not defiling his garments, keeping
them unspotted from the flesh, he realizes even now and
here the fulfilment of the promise, " They shall walk with
me in whitc^ for they are worthy."

CHAPTER IX.

THE ACTION OF PRESENCE.

"For none of us liveth to himself." — Romans xiv. 7.

j^NE of the most remarkable phenomena in chemistry
is that which is known as " catalysis," or the
" action of presence." It is called by the latter name
because the mere presence of a certain substance among
the atoms of another substance produces the most exten-
sive changes upon these atoms ; and yet the body thus
operating is itself unchanged. Thus, for instance, starch
is converted into sugar and gum, at a certain tempera-
ture, by the presence of an acid which does not parti-
cipate in the change. It has long been known that a
current of hydrogen gas directed upon a piece of
polished platinum will take fire — that is, unite mth the
oxygen of the atmosphere through the influence of the
metal ; and yet the platinum will remain completely
unaltered. So also gold and silver possess the power of
decomposing the binoxide of hydrogen, without any effect
being produced upon themselves. Modern discovery has

192 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [crap.

greatly extended the list of substances which possess
this extraordinary property of resolving compounds into
new forms, or chemically combining heterogeneous atoms,
by their mere presence — no action being detected on
themselves. The power of catalysis is found to be very
common both in the organic and the inorganic Avorld.
We see familiar examples of it in fermentation ; in the
change produced upon meal by the introduction of leaven
or yeast; in the process of germination, by which the
starch of the seed is converted into sugar and gum, and
thus rendered soluble, so that it may rise up as sap in
the young shoot ; in the secretion of the blood ; and in
the morbid effects produced in the human system by in-
fection from gases, miasma, or putrid matter. In short,
very many of the most important actions of growth and
decay, of life and death throughout the animal and vege-
table kingdoms, are produced by this catalytic power.

But it is not in the chemical world alone that we
find illustrations of the " action of presence." The at-
traction of cohesion, which unites the particles of every
substance together; and the attraction of gravitation,
which draws the lighter and smaller body to the larger
and heavier, and by which rolling worlds are kept in
their appointed orbits, are caused by something that may
be considered akin to this law. To what else can we attri-
bute the analogous fact that the external appearance of
many animals bears a definite relation to the appearance of
the soil on which they live, or the objects by which they
are surrounded ; the tree-frog being green like the woods,
the grouse brown like the moors, the skate tawny like

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 193

the sandy bottom of the sea, and the Arctic bear white
like its snow-clad haunts ? It is not inconsistent with
the simphcity of nature to suppose, that some mysterious
modification of the same law of chemical affinity and of
attraction, may produce the great empirical or regional
resemblance subsisting between all the plants and animals
belonging to one continent and its dependencies — a
resemblance so marked in general efiect, and often in
individual detail, that were an experienced naturalist to
be shown a new plant or animal, without its locality
being indicated, he would be able, from its typical
pecuHarities, to tell the country from which it had come.
Ascending higher, we find the influence of this principle
in the characteristic features of mental, moral, and
physical likeness which the inhabitants of a particular
district acquire ; and in the resemblance so often noticed
between the countenances of husband and wife who have
lived long together.

But it is in the social world that we see the most
striking examples of the " action of presence." Human
beings are unceasingly exerting unconscious influence
upon one another. Insensibly to themselves, they are
moulding each other's character, conduct, and destiny.
Without any thought, or intention, or even consciousness
of the fact, one man is stimulating or depressing another,
and producing results of the most vital and lasting im-
portance. How different are the effects produced by
intercourse with different individuals ! The very pre-
sence of some is like sunshine, brightening and cheering
all who come within their influence, stimulating mental

194 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

and spiritual growth, while the society of others acts
like a dark cloud, intercepting light and warmth, chilling
the feelings, and arresting the development of mind
and heart. We feel at once at our ease in the pre-
sence of some people ; we speak freely and naturally,
we are elevated by the unconscious influence that ema-
nates from them. On the other hand, we are ill at ease,
awkward and reserved in the expression of our thoughts
and feelings, depressed and unhappy, in the presence of
others. On a large scale we see the effects of the same
law of unconscious influence in the conventionalities of
life : in the arbitrary fashions which regulate dress, mode
of living, and all outward appointments ; in the enthu-
siasm of a crowd ; in the panics or social stampedes
which, with a strange periodicity, convulse trade ; in the
moral epidemics of the Middle Ages, which agitated a
whole generation, and seem fables to us; and in the
various forms of what may be called contagious frenzies
in later times. The instinct of imitation, based upon this
unconscious influence, is one of the most powerful in
human nature — moulding the form of society, and deter-
mining the kind and degree of civilization. Few indeed
possess sufficient strength of mind, or originality of cha-
racter, to resist the subtle and all-pervading influence
which makes a whole community conform to one
common standard of thought or action.

The hem of Christ's garment was instinct with healing
power ; and we read that the very shadoiv of the apostles
passing by shed silent virtue on the sick laid by the
wayside. And so in a manner is it with Chiistians still.

ix.j THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 195

The hem of their garment of -righteousness — the pure
linen, white and clean, of their example — imparts hea-
venly healing to all who touch it — often when the wearers
are themselves unconscious that virtue has gone out of
them. The shadow, as it were, of their bright virtues,
of their godly lives, falls upon those with whom they
associate, with inspiriting and sanctifying power. Such
individuals are called the light of the world ; and as
naturally as the sun shines on the face of nature, so
naturally do their lives shine upon society. Not by an
exercise of will, but by spontaneous effulgence, do they
illuminate, warm, and quicken the circle of their ac-
quaintances. But this nameless influence, which goes
out from their least conscious hours, is different in
different cases. Though Christ's disciples have a general
family likeness, they differ widely in the minor features
of their character, temperament, experience, and conduct.
The natural man often shines through the new man, and
produces an alien impression. One is morose, gloomy,
and bigoted ; his very presence acts like an acid, souring
the milk of human kindness and innocence. Another is
severe with a Pharisaic strictness that interferes with the
liberty of the Gospel, and makes sad the heart that God
has not made sad — "putting the mere dead rule above
the principle, and teaching that ceremonial observances
are of more importance than the true human impulses."
A third is morbid, shut up in himself, oppressed with
little fidgety difficulties and trials, imagining that God
desires sacrifice, not mercy. All these Christians are,
insensibly to themselves, producing an ettect upon others
o 2

196 THE MINISTR Y OF NA TURE. [chap.

quite contrary to what they wish : they are giving a
wrong idea of their religion to the world ; they are not
only hardening their own human feelings, but also those
of others, and creating a distaste, and even aversion, for
what is called evangeUcal goodness, which all the teach-
ing of their lips cannot counteract. On the other hand,
there are Christians whose faces are always lighted up
with a uniform calm and cheerfulness — whose feelings
are as warmly human as they are truly heavenly ; and
these Christians produce in others a sense of their close
relation to God, and breathe around them an atmosphere
as healthy and exhilarating as the air on a mountain-top.
To the world outside, they give a fair and adequate
representation of what Christianity is and does. By their
living in full-orbed harmony the human as well as the
divine ideals of the Gospel, they bring them nearer to
the sympathies of those who have not yet yielded to
their influence. To their fellow-Christians they are ex-
ceedingly helpful in the warfare in which they are
mutually engaged ; for, singing at their Master's work,
they encourage by their joyousness those who are tempted
to' flinch from duty, and contribute to make their work
easier for all around them.

There are three things connected with this spiritual
catalysis, or " action of presence," which demand oui
attention : first, its tj'uthfulness ; second, its constcvicy ;
and third, its responsibility.

1. This unconscious influence is eminently truthful.
We say of children that they instinctively know those
v/ho love them, and go to such at once ; while no kind

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 197

words or sweet looks will allure them to the side of those
who are not at heart and always lovers of the little ones.
What is this so-called instinct of children, but just the
impression which a true character is making upon a
guileless heart, made more susceptible, and gifted, by
virtue of its simplicity, with an insight unknown to the
wise and prudent ? So also every one has noticed the
fondness of animals for certain persons, and their aversion
to others. A dog will allow one person to fondle and
play with it in circumstances in which it will not permit
another to approach it ; and even an occasional harsh
word from one who truly loves it, will avail more with it
than all the tempting bribes of one who is indifferent.
And the reason of this is, that the plastic nature of the
dumb creature is affected by the real character of the
individual. For it man has but one language which it
can understand — the language of a kind and loving
nature. True heartfelt interest is recognized even under
the mask of temporary harshness, for love is justified of
love ; whereas callousness or hatred is detected under
any disguise of apparent warmth and interest assumed
for the occasion. In a sim.ilar way grown-up men
and women are affected, though not perhaps so strongly
and immediately, by the tme character of those with
whom they associate.

Every Christian is producing two sets of influences
Two currents of power issue from him, which set in
motion the wheels of life around him. One is the un-
conscious, involuntary influence of his real character;
the other is the voluntary influence of what he con-

198 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

sciously says and does — what he says and does for a
special purpose. Now these two currents that flow from
him may be opposed to one another. The one that seeks
to set in motion the wheels of life may be neutralized by
the one that comes in the opposite direction, and tends
to make them stand still. The character may be saying
one thing, and the lips and conduct another. A man
preaches love to Christ and to men ; but if his own heart
and life are not saturated with this love — if it is not an
experience in his own heart — he will preach in vain : for
the language of his nature will be opposed to the language
of his lips ; the influence of his character will contradict
the influence of his words. The power of character arises
from its truthfulness. It cannot be concealed or neutra-
lized by any profession or affectation, however plausible.
In vain does a man profess to be what he is not. His true
character shines out through the disguise in spite of him.
The mask worn for a purpose continually falls off or slips
aside, and reveals the natural face behind. It is impos-
sible, by any amount of ingenuity or contrivance, to keep
up a false appearance. The tone, the look, the attitude,
are continually betraying a man ; and in the sensibilities
of men he is at once unmasked — in the feeling of his
fellow-creatures he is known exactly for what he is.

There is a species of animalcule called Rotifera, living
in tufts of mosses, which, when placed under the micro-
scope, is found to be transparent as crystal. You see all
its internal organs, and the processes of life going on in
the inside of its body, as you see the works of a watch
through its covering of glass. We are like this creature,

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 199

for we inhabit tabernacles which are equally transparent ;
and our motives, our feelings, our whole mental and
moral economy, are showing themselves externally by
signs which have no ambigi:ous meaning. I may not be
able to tell why I think a certain person is not a genuine
character, but I have an instinctive feeling that he is not
what he pretends to be. So says every one of a false
friend : and we may depend upon it that our character
is truthful, and is producing its own proper impression,
whatever our words or deeds may be ; that it is what we
naturally are, and not what we pretend to be, that is
influencing others. In this way a man gets his deserts
as a rule. According to this principle, no one ever did
good or evil without hearing of it again — without finding
that there have been plentiful witnesses conversant of it,
however secret. The eye of God is on us always, and
the eye of man much oftener than the shrewdest of us
imagine.

2. But I pass on to consider the constancy with which
this unconscious influence is exerted. Not more con-
stantly is the sun pouring forth its beams, or a flower
exhaling its fragrance, than the Christian is radiating or
exhaling influence from his character upon those around
him. Wherever he is, whatever he does, this influence
never ceases. It underlies all his actions ; it runs side
by side with his words ; it goes on when action ceases
and words fail. What a man voluntarily chooses, says,
or does, is only occasional. He does not always think
or always act. From pure fatigue he must, perforce, be
silent and inactive at times. But what he is — that is

20O THE MIXISTR ] ' OF NA TURE. [cma p.

necessarily perpetual, and co-extensive with his being. I
cannot always spe:Jk a word for Christ, but I can always
live for him ; I cannot always do good actively — I may
not have the opportunity, though I have the inclination —
but I can always he good passively. The voluntary lan-
guage of what I say or do is spasmodic, and liable to
continual interruption ; but the language of my character,
of what I really am, is as continuous as my life itself,
and suffers no more interruption than the beating of my
heart or the breathing of my lungs. I can choose to do
good or evil, to say a kind or bitter word ; but I cannot
choose to exert or repress the influence of my character,
for it acts in spite of me — it produces its own proper
impression whether I think of it or not. I cannot live
at all without radiating this influence. " Simply to he in
this world is to exert an influence compared with which
mere words and acts are feeble." Just as the leaven, by
its mere presence, changes the particles of meal in the
midst of which it is hid, so does each human being, by
his mere presence, affect for good or evil those witl>
whom he associates.

3. For this unconscious influence that we thu.'
constantly exert upon one another, we imagine that wt
are not responsible. A man, we are apt to say, cannot
help the secret virtue that goes out of him to heal another,
or the depressing or evil effect of his presence, look, or
conversation, when he is not acting for a purpose, or
setting himself up as an example. We are responsible
for our voluntary words and actions, for the influence
that we desire to produce upon others ; but for the

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 201

unconscious, involuntary effect of our character and life,
we think we are no more responsibte than we are for
the involuntary beating of our hearts, or the involuntary
action of our lungs — no more responsible than the moon
is for producing the tides of Earth, or Neptune for
creating the perturbations of Uranus. A moment's
serious reflection, however, will convince us that we
cannot thus repudiate our responsibility in the matter.
For what is our character? Is it not the sum and
result of our thoughts, feelings, and actions? What is
our life? Is it not a structure built up of all that
we have said and done and experienced? This cha-
racter we ourselves have formed ; this life we ourselves
have built up, by the action and reaction of our deeds.
The character, when finished, passes beyond our control,
and exerts its own influence independent of our active
wishes and efforts. But we ourselves had the forming
of it, by a series of thoughts, words, and deeds, over
which at the time we had complete control; — ^just as
the drunkard, by a series of acts of indulgence, which
at first he can regulate or resist altogether, forms at last
a habit which makes him completely its slave. We
cannot help the silent influence which our character,
when formed, produces ; but we are responsible for the
formation of it. It lies with every man to determine,
under God, what his character shall be. True, there are
hereditary tendencies, different constitutions, tempera-
ments, and circumstances, that exert a modifying influ-
ence which no self-discipline can entirely counteract.
But, making all due allowance for the disturbing effects

202 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

of these natural or inherited conditions, it is a truth which
cannot be gainsaid, that there is very much in our
character that we ourselves have produced. Our very
accountability to God rests upon our ability to build
up a good character ; and if we are judged according
to the goodness and evil of our character itself, we
may certainly be held responsible for the good or evil
influence which, unknown to us, it produces upon others.
For that influence is the inevitable consequence of our
character, just as the happiness or misery of our fellow-
creatures is the true consequence of our good or bad
deeds. If we are responsible for the natural consequences
of our actions, we are in the same way responsible for
the natural effects of our character.

We cannot live in the world and escape this responsi-
bility, because we cannot live in the world and not exert
a moral influence upon others. The radiation of heat
from one object to another, the equalization of tempera-
ture, is not more certain in the physical world than the
distribution of influence in the moral. It is impossible
to trace out the full extent and ultimate consequences
of this spiritual "action of presence." We are so bound
up together in society — the human race constitutes such
a comDact and sensitive brotherhood — that the power
which men insensibly exert over one another must spread
and widen, like the ripples from a stone thrown into a
pool, until all feel it. The ownership of sins is a very
solemn question, which in this view of the matter comes
home to every human bosom. " I ask the mountain,"
says the author of " Thorndale," " Why art thou suddenly

IX.] THE ACTIOiV OF rREShlyiCE. 205

SO dark? and the mountain answers, Ask the passing
cloud that overshadows me. I ask the ocean, Why art
thou so changeable ? and the sea answers. Ask the sky-
above, that showers down now sunshine and now gloom,
sends now calm and now stormy winds. I ask again, Why,
O sky, dost thou wrap thyself in gloomy clouds ? and the
sky answers, Ask the valleys of the earth ; they send
these vapours up to me — they are not mine." Every par-
ticle of dust comes from a mine long wrought : storms,
earthquakes, many geological revolutions, have been
concerned in its origin. And thus is it in human life.
No man stands isolated and circumscribed within himself
— full-orbed and self-contained. None of us liveth to
himself. The career of every single soul is wrought
out, and its moral elements are mingled by its immer-
sion in the social atmosphere, and its giving and
taking with other persons. And thus^ in judging every
single soul, it is the whole world we judge ; for every
individuality is but the power of the whole manifesting
itself in this particular form. I go to a criminal court. I
see a criminal standing up at the bar pale and anguish-
stricken ; I hear the judge pronouncing sentence upon
him. I know that he is guilty ; be himself acknowledges
his crime, and the judge, the jury, and the spectators are
convinced of it. He is justly taxed with his special
guilt ; he is reasonably treated as the sole originator
of what he has done. But still I cannot help seeing the
sins of other men mingling with that great sin which has
brought him to his doom. I speak not of the active
influences that were employed to seduce him from the

204 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

path of virtue ; for those who were guilty of this fearful
seduction knew it themselves, and on their head lies an
execration which they feel that they deserve. But I
speak of the unconscious influences which moulded his
character and paved the way for his downfall — influences
which proceeded from men without their wishing or even
knowing it. At the very dawn of life, Avhen his parents
and friends were unconscious of exerting any influence
upon him either for good or evil, he drew, by virtue of
the mimic powers so strong in children, secretly and
silently from them impressions of evil which no after
discipline could remove. Father and mother, by sheer
neglect, by their own ungodly life and irreligious cha-
racter, formed in him an irreligious tendency — careless
habits, which grew with his growth and strengthened
with his strength. Afterwards wicked companions tainted
his mind and heart, till the pollution on them grew thick
and rank as slime on muddy pools, even when it was not
in their thoughts to do him an injury. Further on,
others helped him in his downward career by the loose-
ness of their own lives. Their oaths, their sensual
habits, their falsehood, dishonesty, and cunning, all took
hold of his nature, and moulded it after the same pat-
tern. And now I behold in the crime of this man, and
in the dark character from which it sprang, the miserable
result of a thousand sins of omission as well as commis-
sion, of character as well as of conduct, on the part of
others j and the warning of Scripture comes home to me
with terrible emphasis — " Neither be partakers of other
men's sins." Never till the day of judgment shall we be

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 205

fully aware of our responsibility in each other's life and
action — shall we know how thickly interwoven is the
web of human influence. And oh, how this partaking in
other men's sins, not merely by what we do voluntarily
for a purpose, but by the secret, unconscious influence of
our character and actions, will complicate the decisions
of that day ! How the very victims of our thoughtless
indulgence will come to wield the scourges of our retri-
bution !

There are many whose only object in existence seems
to be to do no harm, who hide their talent in a napkin
lest it should come to evil, and to whose charge no man
can lay anything. Objects of the v/orld's indulgence on
account of their inoffensiveness, it may nevertheless be
true that they are plague-spots of humanity, centres of
moral death, breathing deadly infection upon all who
come within their sphere. All the time meaning well,
their character, their example, may be the cause of fatal
injury to many. A look, a word, a deed, insensibly to
themselves, may " turn the scale of some one's immor-
tality." Chemists tell us of substances whose inertia is
disturbed by the slightest motion, so that they rush into
permanent combinations. The touch of a feather will
cause the iodide of nitrogen to explode, and the vibration
of any kind of sound will decompose it. The scratch of
a pin will so alter the arrangement of the molecules of
iodide of mercury that their action on light is altered,
and the colour of the whole mass is changed at once
from yellow to bright red. Many other substances could
be named whose equilibrium is so unstable, whose afu-

2o6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Tciiap.

nity is so weak, that the most insignificant and apparently
inadequate causes will immediately change their proper-
ties, so that they become henceforth quite different from
what they were before. It is because the equilibrium of
the substance on which he operates is so unsteady that
the photographer produces his permanent pictures by
sunlight; and the greater the instability or sensitiveness
of the collodion, the shorter the time required to make
the impression, and the deeper and more lasting it will
be. Among the high Alps, early in the year, the traveller
is told in certain places to proceed as quietly as pos-
sible. On the steep slopes overhead, the snow hangs so
evenly balanced that the sound of the voice, the crack
of a whip, the report of a gun, or the detachment of a
snowball, may destroy the equilibrium, and bring down
an immense avalanche that will overwhelm everything
within reach in ruin. Applying these illustrations of the
physical world to the condition of society around us, are
there not many whose moral character is so unstable,
whose principles are so unfixed, who are so evenly
balanced between good and evil, that a word, a look,
may incline them to the one side or to the other, and
produce effects that will alter the colour and the nature
of their whole future existence? Are there not souls
around us hanging so nicely poised on the giddy slopes
of temptation, watching us, and ready, on the least en-
couragement to evil from us — of which we ourselves are
not conscious — to come down in terrible avalanches of
moral ruin, crushing themselves and others in their fall ?
Are there not earnest ones whose holier purposes may

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 207

have been quenched for ever by our levity and impro-
priety of conduct, at the critical time when the Spirit
was striving with them, and leading them from darkness
to light and from Satan to God ?

And for this unconscious evil that we produce, as well
as for the active evil that we speak and do, we shall be
held responsible by Him who has said, " Woe unto the
world because of offences ! It must needs be that offences
come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence
cometh ! " So common are such offences that, as Dr.
Temple has said, our Lord treats their occurrence as the
order of nature, the rule of society, a matter of necessity.
The offences are so sure to come that we must count upon
them. They are appointed to be the fire by which our
faith is to be tried, the test by which our truth and love
are to be valued ; and often, by God's grace and blessing,
the result is unexpectedly good — a recoil from sin, a
revulsion to holiness. But, notwithstanding this, there
is no excuse for the man by whom the offence
cometh. Woe to that man who makes difficult the
path of duty to a brother by his own misconduct ; who
tempts him aside, or puts a stumbling-block in his
way by his inconsistency ! Whatever the consequences
may be, it were better for that man if a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were
drowned in the depth of the sea. I know nothing
more painful to the Christian who has repented and
become a new creature in Christ — nothing that
saddens more even the enjoyment of God's for-
giveness— than the thought of the evil effects upon

2o8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

others of his example in his unconverted state ; friends
misled by his friendship — trusting souls ruined by his
love, following a steady course of sin in which he
helped them to set out, and perpetuating that sin in
widening circles in this world, on to another world, while
he is utterly powerless to check it. Surely the thought
that each man is in this sense his brother's keeper — that
God has reposed in each of us this terrible trust — that
we are responsible not only for what we choose and mean
to do, but also for what the character we have formed
does in spite of us and unknown to us — should induce us
Id be more careful in our walk and conversation. '* 11
thou knewest," says Richter, in his " Doctrine of Edu-
cation," " that ever}' black thought of thine, or every
glorious independent one, separated itself from thy
soul, and took root outside of thee, and for ages on ages
pushed and bore its poisonous or healing roots and fruits
— oh, how piously wouldst thou choose and think ! "

I cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning
very briefly another kind of spiritual " catalysis," or
"action of presence." I have shown that a man may
do good or evil to others by the power of his character
unconsciously^ without being himself affected. It might
also be shown that a man may do good to others by
wishing and exerting himself to do good, while he himself
is ignorant of and unaffected by the goodness. This
last is the kind of catalytic action referred to by St. Paul
when he says, " Lest that by any means when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."
The Apostle in these words implies that it is possible

fx.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 209

to do good to others, without being good oneself — that
it is possible to be the means of converting others, while
oneself is unconverted and unsaved. A lens of ice may
be employed to collect the rays of the sun into a focus,
and thus kindle a fire, while itself remains cold and
unmelted. And so there are many whose own hearts are
cold and hard as ice, who yet possess the strange power
under God of kindling the fire of zeal and love in the
hearts of others.

I have said that the influence of a man's character is
the true influence which he exerts — that it shines through
every mask, assumption, and profession — that it contra-
dicts often the power of the words and actions said and
done for a purpose. This is a great truth that cannot
be denied. But still there are cases where a man's real
character is not understood or found out ; and in such
cases his words and actions produce the effect for which
he spoke and performed them. We have not always an
opportunity of coming so closely into contact with people
— of so watching and knowing them — that we can judge
how far their true character and profession are in har-
mony. The preacher, for instance, who is seen only in
the pulpit, is surrounded with an atmosphere of mystery
haloed with the solemnity of his sacred work, and is a
voice crying in the wilderness ; and, known in this way
only, his preaching is a power which is not neutralized
by his private character. Besides, there are many guile-
less, simple-hearted, unsuspecting souls, who have faith
in human goodness, and take for granted that a man
is what he professes to be. In all such cases a man
P

2 1 o THE MINIS TR V OF NA TURE. [chap,

may do good while he is not good. Alas ! this is not
a matter of supposition, but of certainty. Hundreds
of instances could be given in which men have been
the means of quickening, comforting, and building up
souls in the Lord — while all the time they themselves
were strangers to the power of truth, and ignorant of
the love of Christ in their hearts. Ministers have
preached the Gospel for years, have had revivals in their
congregations, have been wise in winning souls — and
yet have themselves been castaways in the end. Mem-
bers of churches have been zealous in every good
work, and active in every Christian duty — and yet have
known nothing of godliness but the form. The very
commonness of this thing increases its sadness. It is
so very frequent that almost ever}' exceptional case of
sincerity is deemed worthy of a biography. That there
are so many religious memoirs of persons remarkable
for nothing save their piety and earnestness, is a proof
how little we expect every professor of Christianity to
be a true Christian, and how greatly we are astonished
when the profession and the practice are in harmony.
We think the case of Moses leading the Israelites to
the Promised Land, while he himself was forbidden to
enter, peculiarly pathetic ; but its pathos is in reality
far less touching than the case of the man who brings
others to the fountain of life, while he himself is
perishing of thirst — who is like a guide-post pointing
the way of salvation to others, while unable himself to
take a single step thereon.

Warned by such examples, let us seek in all our

IX.] THE ACTION OF PRESENCE. 21 1

efforts for the spiritual good of others, to be able to say
with the Apostle, " That which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled
of the word of life, declare we unto you, that ye also
may have fellowship with us." For though instances
have unquestionably occurred, in which signal beneficial
results have followed the preaching of the Gospel by
ungodly men, this is not the normal mode of Divine
procedure. It is personal experience of religion as
an inward life, a living power in the heart, that imparts
unction to active Christian effort — that adds conviction
and power to testimony and commendation. He is
the man to say to others, " Oh, taste and see that God
is good," who has himself tasted, and from his own en-
joyment can say, " Blessed is the man that trusteth in
Him." And this seems to be the chief reason why men
and not angels are employed by God to carry on His
cause in the world. Angels have never known, as they
have never needed, redeeming grace. Having never
passed through our spiritual experience, they cannot
s}'mpathise with our spiritual sorrows, or make their own
state an example and encouragement for us. And
therefore an angel visits Cornelius, but Peter must be
sent for '' to speak to him words whereby he may be
saved." An angel does not himself descend to preach
the Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch, but to commission
Philip to discharge that office. There is joy in heaven
in presence of the angels over repenting sinners, but it
is by men that God converts men. Let us seek, then, to
be made first the subjects^ and then the mediums of God's
p 2

212 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap. ix.

grace. And for this purpose let us endeavour to li-ave
such a character as will of itself communicate good — so
luminous with grace that it will as naturally radiate good
as the sun radiates light. And such a character can only
be formed by a complete unreserved surrender of self
to Christ, to be made by His Spirit a new creature, the
image of His goodness ; and it can only be maintained
by living in Christ and for Christ — by watching and
prayer, by fasting and self-denial, by the mortification
of easily besetting sins, and by keeping the appetites and
passions of the body in subjection. This is a painful
discipline, but a Power mightier than our own is with
us, to work in us all the good pleasure of God's goodness.
And the end is worthy of it all. To hear even one
soul saying to us, out of the great multitude which no
man can number around the Throne, that our general
Christian bearing, our consistent Christian uprightness
and devotion, had been the means, under God, of
saving him, will surely be a blessedness for which a
whole lifetime of self-denial would not be too great a
sacrifice.

CHAPTER X.

WINTER LEA VES.

" This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus." — Philippians iii. 13, 14.

A 17" INTER is called the leafless season. The boughs
of the trees are naked, and the herbage of the
fields is withered. The soft, green cushions of foliage
that in summer made every tree like its neighbour, have
disappeared, bringing out the individual shapes and the
fundamental peculiarities of the woodland. Nature
seems to lie at anchor in the harbour, with her sails
furled, and only her masts and rigging exposed to the
fury of the storm. And yet, amid this apparent uni-
versal death, the pulse of the earth has not ceased to
beat. Growth has not altogether stopped. Many
humble plants, such as mosses and lichens, which are
torpid in summer, now begin to vegetate, and come
into fruit. Even the trees themselves are not wholly
leafless. They have their winter as well as their simuner
foliage. The barest tree, whose boughs make fit harp-
strings for the fierce music of the blast, still possesses
true characteristic leaves, although they are 'very incon-
spicuous, and would not be known as leaves except by

214 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

those who have learned that seeing is one of the fine
arts, and requires cultivation. Every one is familiar
with the buds which tip the extremities of every branch
in spring. These are the growing points of the tree,
and contain within themselves the leaves and blossoms
of the coming year in an embryonic state. On the
outside they are covered with dry, glossy scales, lying
together like the tiles of a roof or the plates of
a suit of armour. These scales are true leaves of
the very lowest type, altered from the normal form to
suit their altered purpose and circumstances, and may
be seen not unfrequently passing into ordinary green
leaves at a further stage of advancement. They are
formed in spring, and continue to grow during the whole
summer, though very slowly and imperceptibly, owing
to the diversion of the sap from them to the foliage,
behind which they are hid. As the season advances,
however, the sap gradually ceases to flow to the summer
leaves, which therefore ultimately fade and fall from the
tree; and the last movements of it, at the end of
autumn, before it becomes altogether stagnant, are
directed towards the buds, in order to mature and
prepare them for taking at the proper time the place
of the generation of leaves that has just perished.

During winter the scales, or outer leaves of the buds,
afford protection from the weather to the next year's
tender miniature leaves and flowers wrapped up within
them ; and for this purpose they are admirably adapted
by their construction. They have no pores to let
out the internal heat and to let in the external cold ;

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 215

they are entirely destitute of that waxy substance called
chlorophyll, which forms the green colour of leaves;
their usual hue being a dark brown or pale yellow. In
many instances they are more or less densely clothed
with a fine silky down, as in the beech and willow ; or
covered with glands, which exude a resinous gum, as in
the horse-chestnut. Richly furnished in this way, the
winter leaves, or bud-scales, effectually fulfil their pur-
pose throughout the winter months. But in spring, the
buds, Stimulated by the unwonted sunshine, begin to
open at their sharp extremities. And as the young
green leaves within expand in the genial atmosphere, the
services of the bud-scales, or covering-leaves, are no
longer needed, and by and by they roll away, and fall
one by one from the tree, strewing the ground beneath
till it looks like a threshing-floor. Every one must
be familiar with the little heaps of brown withered
scales, lying at the foot of a beech or maple in iVpril ;
these are the winter leaves that have fallen from these
trees. Thus €very tree has a double leaf-fall every
year. The winter leaves, which are designed for
the protection of the bud during winter, are pushed
ofi" by the growtli of the summer leaves from the
bud in spring; and the summer leaves, which are de-
signed for the nourishment and growth of the tree
in summer, wither and fall off in autumn, owing to
the stagnation of the sap, and the maturing of the
winter leaves and their contents. Cold is fatal to the
summer leaves; warmth is fatal to the winter leaves.
Inactivity renders useless the summer leaves; and growtb

2 1 6 THE MINISTR V OF NA TURE. [chap.

supersedes the winter leaves. The conditions suited to
the existence of the one kind, are entirely unsuited to the
existence of the other; and thus the Creator has wisely
ordained that by the fall of the leaf in spring, and the
fall of the leaf in autumn, by the alternation of summer
and winter leaves, and the otfices which they both re-
spectively perform, the development of the tree should
be carried on during its term of life.

Scripture is full of allusions to trees and their various
parts and functions as symbols of man's life — as repre-
sentatives in the natural fleeting world, not arbitrarily or
fancifully chosen, but absolute and real, of the unseen
and eternal realities of the heavenly kingdom. Even the
physical construction of a leaf exhibits the germ of the
idea, which was wrought out perfectly in the human body.
They are both formed upon the same principle, and the
plant in its structure evidently foreshadowed or prefigured
the coming animal. The central vein of the leaf, for
instance, represents the spinal column of man ; the side
veins of the leaf correspond with the ribs of the human
skeleton, and they both perform the same purposes of
strength and protection; the multitude of delicate
vessels filled with sap, which ramify through the sub-
stance of the leaf, are exactly like the blood-vessels and
the nerves that carry the fluid of life throughout the
various parts of the body ; and lastly, over the whole
surface of the leaf, above and below, is spread a mem-
brane full of pores, which absorbs light, air, and moisture,
and enables the tree to carry on its functions, just as
over the whole body is spread an exquisitely organized

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 217

skin, full of pores, which performs all the operations
needed for man's health. Thus, resembling each other
so closely, as far as the type of their physical construc-
tion is concerned, is it not reasonable to suppose that
there are spiritual analogies between them as close and
intimate — that the leaf or the tree has qualities for the
imagination and the heart, for the mind and the soul,
eminently fitted to be useful and instructive if properly
understood? As Mrs. Browning says, —

" A tree's mere firewood unless humanized ;
Which well the Greeks knew . . .
. . . For us, we are called to mark
A still more intimate humanity
In this inferior nature."

To one of the most beautiful and appropriate of these
analogies, I now wish to direct the attention of the reader.
Christ said, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches."
Every branch that is united to Him by faith, and is
partaker of His life, is tipped with buds of growth.
These buds are composed of the living germ that is to
form the future foliage and blossoms of Christian ex-
perience, and of those means of grace by which it is
nourished and protected until it is placed in circum-
stances in which it can expand and act independently.
In every growth of the soul there will be found two
elements — one that is essential and permanent, like the
inner contents of the bud ; and one that is formative and
temporary, like the covering scales c/f the bud. They
both grow slowly together, and remain torpid together
during a season of spiritual coldness and inactivity ; but

2i8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. \cVLkt.

when a spring-time of revival and progress comes, the
formative and temporary element passes away, and the
essential and permanent element expands, and goes on
to perfection. St. Paul alludes to these two elements
of Christian growth, when he speaks of forgetting the
tilings that are behind, and reaching forth unto the things
which are before. The things that were behind were
the temporary winter leaves or bud-scales of his spiritual
life; the reaching forth unto those things which were
before was the vital essential germ of his spiritual hfe.
And in proportion as these winter leaves fell oif, so in
proportion did the summer leaves which they enclosed
expand and grow ; in proportion as he forgot the things
that were behind, so in proportion did he reach forth
unto those things which were before.

The Apostle's life affords many striking illustrations
of this fact. In his unconverted state, there were many
things on which he prided himself — the scenes and
associations of his youth, the eager sympathies of his
opening intellect, and his ardent affection for the polity
and religion of his fathers. He was "circumcised the
eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Ben-
jamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews ; as touching the law,
a Pharisee ; concerning zeal, persecuting the church \
touching the righteousness w'hich is in the law, blame-
less." Add to these supereminent excellencies, when
measured by a Jewish standard, the fact of his Roman
citizenship, as a native of " no mean city," his thorough
Hebrew education at the feet of Gamaliel, and his
general culture as a student of Greek philosophy and

X. ] WINTER LEA VES. 2 1 9

Latin thought Well might he congratulate himself
upon these possessions and acquirements, and boast,
" If any other man tbinketh that he hath whereof he
might trust in the flesh, I more." But all these natural
qualifications of the man belonged to the winter or
unregenerate state of his soul. They were winter leaves
that hid and confined the germ of spiritual life ; that
for a time overlay and hindered the Spirit's striving
and working within him. But although worthless as
grounds of justification in the sight of God, they had
their own value in training and fitting him for the posi-
tion which he afterwards occupied, and his work as the
great Apostle of the Gentiles. They subserved the same
purposes in the life of St. Paul which the bud-scales
or winter leaves perform in the economy of the bud.
They afforded protection and nourishment. All that he
had acquired in the schools of Tarsus and Jemsalem
was laid as a rich gift upon the altar of Christ, and
consecrated to His service. The modes of Jewish and
Greek thought became wider and clearer channels of
heavenly truth. His ardour as a persecutor made him
more ardent still as an Apostle. The same devotion
which impelled him to go to Damascus to vindicate the
Jewish faith, led him to preach the Gospel in the isles
of the Gentiles, and to the utmost limits of the known
world. The measure of his fierce zeal on the occasion
of Stephen's death, was the measure of that self-sacrificing
love which made him even wish that he himself were
accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake, his kinsmen
according to the flesh. And when the great crisis of

220 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

his life came — the spring-time of his conversion — and
he was brought face to face with the glory and the love
of that Jesus whose way he sought to destroy — blessed
airs from heaven blew around him, and a light exceeding
the brightness of the noonday sun shone upon him ; and
in this warm genial atmosphere of grace, the germ of
spiritual life unfolded itself within, and burst its wrap-
pings. Old forms ceased to have any hold upon his
affections and homage. He passed from Jewish bondage
to Christian liberty. He died to his former self and all
its experiences, and lived a new life in Jesus. Those
things that were gain to him before, he now counted loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.
Scales fell from his soul as well as from his eyes. The
winter-leaves of his natural possessions and attainments
having served their purpose of preparation, now dropped
off, and the summer leaves of grace — the blossoms of
holiness, the fruits of righteousness — had full liberty to
grow and develop themselves in the new world that
opened up before him. But we must not suppose that
the dropping, in the fulness of the new life awakened
in him, of those winter leaves that had been so beautiful
and precious to him, was without effort or pain. It
sometimes needs a severe gust of wind to shake off the
scales that still linger around the bud, although it has
expanded. And it was with a sore wrench that St.
Paul tore himself away from all his former cherished
associations. The three days which he spent at Damas-
cus, in which he was blind, and did neither eat nor drink,
afford a proof to us of the unspeakable mental anguish

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 221

through which the transition between the old and the
new man took place.

But even in his converted state there were many
" things behind " which St. Paul required to forget. The
branch of a tree puts forth bud after bud in its gradual
growth and enlargement. The bud of this spring opens,
drops its winter leaves, and expands its summer leaves ;
these summer leaves, having by their agency added a
cubit to the stature of the branch, pass away ; and the
added growth in its turn puts forth a new bud covered
with its scales or winter leaves, which drop off the follow-
ing spring, and allow the imprisoned summer leaves
once more to unfold themselves in the sunny air. And
thus the process of growth goes on by an alternate
contraction and expansion, as it were — by the life of the
branch being shut up in the bud in winter, and unfolded
in foliage and blossoms in summer. Winter leaves must
be formed at every stage of growth, in order that the
vital germ may be nourished and protected ; winter
leaves must be dropped at every stage of growth, in
order that the vital germ may develop itself into all the
visible glories of the tree. And so was it with St. Paul.
His spiritual life from the beginning to the end was a
series of fresh beginnings — a continual going back and
undoing the past and commencing once more anew. Not
once merely at conversion, but often in his converted
state, had he to form and to drop the winter leaves of
the soul in the process of spiritual groAvth. There were
many things by which his spiritual life was nourished
and guarded — that were helpful in forming his Christian

222 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

character and carrying on the work of grace in his soul — -
which had to be blotted out of his thoughts and put into
the background, if he would go on to perfection. There
were outward things apparent to all — such as his con-
suming and almost superhuman toil for upwards of
twenty years in the propagation of Christianity — founding
church after church in the various centres of the world's
civilization ; the hardships and privations of his numerous
travels by sea and land, that all men might hear the
tidings of the Gospel ; the frequent persecutions and
sufferings which he endured for the sake of the truth ;
his self-denial in giving up all pleasure, honour, and am-
bition to the one hope of serving the Master whom he
loved ; the disappointments and triumphs of that long
and chequered time which closed only when he became
a prisoner in Rome, and underwent the last brief agony on
the Ostian Road. There were inward and deeply personal
things beneath all this outward activity for others,—
such as the conflicts, the failures, and successes of his ovv^n
spiritual history ; the " self-masteries by which, one after
another, each faculty and power of his soul was brought
into subjection to the will of God ;" the mortification of
sin, the crucifixion of self, the following after holiness.
All these outward and inward things were essential for
the time being to his spiritual welfare. Through these,
by the blessing of the Spirit, he attained to a most remark-
able degree of personal sanctification — to a standing-place
in the Christian course so far above the ordinary level of
attainment, that imitation seems almost impossible. But
still, useful and indispensable as they might be, these

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 223

experiences were mere bud-scales — winter leaves, which,
if retained and cherished, would hinder his upward and
onward growth. He reached forth unto those things
which were before. He craved for a higher ideal. "Not
as though I had already attained, or were already perfect ;
but this one thing I do — I press toward the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus ;" — ■
this was his conviction, this was his resolve. To brood
over the failures of the irretrievable past would discourage
his hopes and paralyse his energies. To recall past
excellencies and labours would be to foster spiritual
pride and self-sufficiency. And therefore all those for-
mative processes — those preparatory means of his growth
and advancement — must be left behind — fall off his spirit
as the winter leaves fall from off the expanded bud when
their work is done. Free and unfettered by the past,
untroubled by the sad memories of failure, undated by
the remembrance of attainments already made, forgetting
the things that are behind, he must reach forth unto
those things which are before.

Are not the lessons of such a life very broad and
intelligible? We, too, are called upon to act in the
same spirit, and to follow, however feebly and remotely,
in the same footsteps. Forgetfulness of what was behind
was an essential element in the Christian progress of St.
Paul. It is also an essential element m the progress of
every believer. In our conversion, we must separate our-
selves, like him, from the associations of our unregenerate
state, and count those things v/hich were then gain to us
loss, in order that we may win Christ, and be found in Him.

224 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

There must be a forgetfulness of the ungodly excellencies
that distinguished us in our careless days — the natural
gifts and good deeds upon which we prided ourselves —
the things that caused us to have confidence in the
flesh. These winter leaves must fall off, when the vernal
season of grace has come, and we who were dead in
trespasses and sins are made alive unto God. The
work of grace cannot be carried on in combination with
the affinities of our former habits, and the memories and
conditions of our former life. Scripture repeatedly en-
forces this truth under the image of buying and selling.
We cannot have the blessings of salvation without seUing
all that we have in our possession and affections. In ex-
change for them there must be a letting go, not of former
faults and sins merely, but even of former excellencies.
And selHng to Christ what we have, is just a foregoing
and forgetting of it so far as we are concerned. Such
good qualities as we displayed in our unconverted state,
and for which Jesus, looking on us, might love us, as He
did the rich young ruler, may, as in St. Paul's case, have
contributed to form our Christian character, and give it
its peculiar individual stamp and bias. But having done
so, they have answered their purpose, and are no longei
to be dwelt upon for self-valuation. They belonged to a
past stage of our history, with which we can now have
no spiritual sympathy. And therefore we must be sepa-
rated from them, and all old things must pass away and
all things become new.

But not at this initiatory stage merely is there to be
a discarding of the things that are behind. At every

X.] WINTER LEA VES. 225

subsequent stage of our growth in grace there must be
the same winnowing process. We carry onward with us
in our spiritual progress the essential and the non-
essential— that which is temporal and subsidiary, and that
which is to be paramount and abiding, encased within
each other as the kernel is in the husk, as the germ of
the bud is encased in its external scales or covering
leaves. By a course of prosperity our souls are made to
unfold in gratitude to God and beneficence to our fellow-
men. In a season of sorrow and suffering we are made
more heavenly-minded. But the means which produced
these desirable ends are not to be cherished as if they
were the end and not the means. We are not to be
proud of our prosperity, or to brood morbidly over our
adversity. Rather are we to keep them in the back-
ground, and to prize the character they have formed
more than the means of its formation. So, also, a state
of spiritual elevation may have greatly contributed to
advance the tone of our spirits and raise us above the
world ; or a state of spiritual depression may have shown
us our weakness and insufficiency, and thus made us
grow downward at the root in humility. Through the
enjoyment of peace in believing, or through dissatisfaction
with ourselves; through- defeats and triumphs, failures
and successes, we have advanced nearer that perfection
which is our aim. For this result we are to glorify God,
but we are not to dwell with complacency upon the
means by which we arrived at it ; we are not to linger
fondly over, and boast to ourselves or others of, the
providential dispensations and the inward experiences,

Q

226 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap,

through which we have reached our present stage of
advancement. These winter leaves that cherished and
nourished our growth in grace must drop off from time
to time, with each new attainment that we make, in
order that, untrammelled by the joys or the sorrows of
the past, our faith may be sanguine and active, and take
possession more and more of the unseen and unimagined
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him :

*' That we may rise on stepping-stones
Of our dead selves to higher things."

But not the means of growth and formative processes
of the Christian character only, must be left behind and
forgotten ; the very ends, the growths themselves, must
also be superseded. In a certain sense each attainment
must be the bud-covering of a succeeding attainment,
and fall away when it is matured and unfolded. Each
new growth must prepare the way for another. TJiei^e
must be a double leaf -fall from the soul as well as from
the tree. The summer leaves that are cherished must
drop off as well as the winter leaves that cherished them.
The foliage, the flower, the fruit itself are not the ends,
but the means, the stages of growth of the tree ; and
therefore they all fall away, one after another, in order
that the tree may grow on, and reach past them to its
ideal of perfection."'^ And so the summer foliage, the

* All nature is deciduous. The branch is sacrificed that the blos-
som may be produced ; the blossom falls that the fruit may be
formed ; the fruit drops off that the seed may grow. Man's body
itself is shed like a winter leaf, in order that the body of the resur-
rection may arise from its germs. We have a striking instance of

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 227

beautiful blossoms of the soul, the very fruitage of grace,
must also be left behind, if the soul would grow and go
on to perfection. To be continually looking back upon
what has been done, — to rest satisfied wdth our attain-
ments at any point, is to forego our glorious privilege, is
to check our development, and mix up much of self, and
sin, and the world with our pure and heavenly growth.
It is amazing how soon, when we cease to forget the
things that are behind and remain stationary, we de-
generate. Self-sufficiency and self-righteousness become
cunningly veiled in the disguises of our sanctity ; our
prayers and expectations become rooted in presump-
tion ; our works of beneficence are associated with
pride and vanity; the very ministry of Christ itself
becomes an occasion of self-indulgence. The means of
our growth become our ends, and they encase us with a
hard covering which is impervious to the tender influences
of heaven, and shut out the Spirit of God, and render an
after access of growth exceedingly difficult. Hence it is
never at any time good for us to rest upon the past
or the present — to dwell with complacency upon our
experiences, our good qualities, our gifts of grace. We
may not plead that we have done much, for much is

onward growth, in the blossoms fonned within the blossoms of our
common garden polyanthus, familiarly kno\^Ti as "hose in hose,"
In the cowslip, the ordinary flower sometimes produces a stem which
bears upon its summit another cluster of flowers. This, which is a
monstrosity in our species, is the normal peculiarity of the Impe-
rial Primrose of the mountains of Java. This remarkable Alpine
plant produces several tiers of blossoms, one rising above the other
to the heieht of several feet liT<*> a Chinese pagoda.

£28 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

not enough, nay, is even prejudicial, as we have seen, if
we can do more. No growth can be carried on without
a discarding of the means of growth. The cotyledon
leaves of our nature must drop off, or give place to
the true leafy structures. At every stage, while some-
thing is acquired, something must be abandoned. While
the future expands, the past must contract. What is
most necessary to our growing sanctification and like-
ness to Christ through the means of grace, is ceasing to
depend upon these means of grace, and an honest con-
fession of the weakness and worthlessness of all our own
efforts. The future invites us with its endless capabilities
of progress. To the future, therefore, let us turn the
longings and endeavours of our souls ; and forgetting the
things that are behind — the things through which and by
means of which we have advanced thus far — dropping
the winter leaves of our past memories and experiences —
let us reach forth unto the things which are before.

St. Paul exhorted the Hebrew Christians to leave the
principles of the doctrine of Christ, and to go on to
perfection. And truly such an exhortation is still greatly
needed. Very many believers stop short at the very initial
processes of grace, and imagine that these are the final
ends — that nothing more can be desired or attained. Im-
puted sanctification is combined with imputed righteous-
ness, so that when a sinner is justified, he is supposed
without any change wrought in him to be sanctified
at the same time, and at once made holy and meet for
heaven. The whole spiritual history of the soul is ?o
contained and " epitomized in one act of sacrifice as to

X.J WINTER LEAVES. 229

make further longings and efforts superfluous." Conver-
sion is the whole of salvation, not merely a renunciation
of the past, but an insurance of the future beyond risk
of forfeiture. Pardon and peace, through believing in"
Christ, is all that they need obtain. Ignorant of the law,
that has no exception in the natural or spiritual world,
that life is never complete at first, they believe that they
are complete in Christ, and want nothing more to be
done in them or by them until they depart hence to a
better world. And thus they are perfectly satisfied with
tlieir condition. They have attained their ideal. They
go backwards and forwards on the same spot, like a
door on its hinges, conning their first principles, spelling
their alphabet of grace, and making no progress what-
ever. They have a narrow and low idea of the Redeemer's
work, and, in consequence, lead a spiritual life that has
no enlargement and little enjoyment in it. Their sins
sit so easily upon them, that they do not lament them :
or if they are sorrowful, their sorrow is v/ithout resolute
effort at amendment ; is, in fact, an acquiescent self-
reproach, which reconciles the mind to the culpability
which it deplores. Surely it needs no argument to ex-
pose such a palpable and foolish error. It is as if the
embryo that began to germinate remained always in the
seed, instead of spreading out its roots past the first
source of its nourishment into the wide soil around. It
is as if the life of the tree always remained in the bud,
instead of casting off its wrappings, and expanding into
summer foliage, blossoms, and fruit. Conversion is, in-
deed, all-essential, for while the heart is unchanged ar d

230 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the spirit unrenewed, there can be neither life nor
growth ; but it is merely the commencement of a course
that must be gradually pursued. Justification is in its
very nature perfect ; it is complete at once, and car.
never make any advancement. Conversion, justification,
pardon, and peace in believing, these are the first prin-
ciples of the doctrine of Christ. Under the shelter of
these winter leaves of the spiritual life, the changes and
developments of sanctification are carried on. We are
justified, that we may be sanctified. We are restored to
the favour of God, that God's image may be restored in
us. We have the title to a divine life, in order that v/e
may have the principle and the enjoyment of it. And
therefore, these first principles of the doctrine of Christ
should open and give place to the advancing work of
grace, instead of hermetically sealing the soul and pre-
venting its growth. They are not, indeed, to be dropped
as mere bud-scales, as mere means to an end — for they
are the basis upon which all the subsequent efforts of
the spiritual life are to be made. But just as in the
unfolding buds of the lilac and horse-chestnut tree, the
szales, or the covering leaves of winter, pass through
intermediate changes — in the one into the blades of the
leaf, and in the other into the leaf-stalks — so the prin-
ciples of the doctrine of Christ are to be carried on in
the growth, and their substance is to be used up and
modified, as it were, in the expansion of the soul. In
this sense the things that are behind are to be forgotten.
It is vain to tell the believer to forget the things that
are behind, to discard the preparatory means by which

x.j WINTER LEAVES. 231

he advances in piety, by a mere temporary effort of will.
He cannot do so. By wishing and striving ever so
much, he cannot divest himself of what he has found
to be an encumbrance. It is only by growing, by
going on to perfection, that he can get rid of the things
which are no longer essential, just as the child, by its
growth, forgets the milk of the babe, and the youth
forgets the sports of childhood, and the middle-aged
man outlives the dreams and illusions of his youth.
" When I was a child," says the Apostle, " I spake as a
child, I understood as a child ; but when I became a man,
I put away childish things." What the Christian cannot
remove, except by a violent destructive wrench, will fall
off easily and of its own accord, when superseded and ren
dered effete by growth. So long as he is torpid and
stationary, the things that are behind cleave to him, and
cover his spiritual life from sight and confine it witliin
the narrowest range — shut it in from the blessed rains and
sunbeams of heaven, as the natural bud is shut in by its
scaly coverings when in its dormant state in winter. But
when a season of revival comes, and the captivity of the
soul is turned, then the vigorous growth that ensues
pushes off the former things, with which it remained con-
tent, and unfolds itself towards completeness in Christ.
Thus we see that to forget the things that are behind
effectually, the only metliod is to outgrow them. To
this growth and development we should be farther
stimulated by the consideration that a bud whose
growth is arrested becomes transformed into a thorn.
If our winter leaves — the experiences that contribute to

232 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

form our character, and which are appropriate to the
various stages of our growth — be allowed to remain un-
changed and unforgotten, and to choke up our spiritual
life so as to arrest its advancement, they will be changed
into thorns. The peace that we trust in will vanish in
sorrow. The progress that makes us proud and self
complacent will become a retrogression, and pierce \\s
through with shame. The attainment with which ws
are satisfied becomes a thorn in the flesh, the messen-
ger of Satan to buffet us lest we be exalted above
measure. It is no unusual thing to see a branch of a
tree whose vital activity is so enfeebled that its growth
is arrested. Its terminal bud loses the power of throw-
ing off its winter leaves, because 7io summer leaves form
in its interior. The bud then dies, and the branch withers
and becomes fit for the burning. And so it is, alas ! no
unusual thing to see branches in Christ whose spiritual
life is so weak that their growth is at a standstill. They
lose the power of forgetting the things that are behind,
because they are not reaching forth unto those things
which are before. They are therefore in danger of perish-
ing. Only by growing can we be holy and happy — able
at once to forget the things that arc behind, and to reach
forth unto those things which are before. And for
constant, uninterrupted growth there is ample provision
in Zion.

There is a sense, indeed, in which we cannot forget
the things that are behind, strive as we may. The
winter leaves or bud-scales of a tree leave behind them
when they drop off, a peculiar mark or scar on the

X.] WINTER LEAVES. 233

bark, just as the summer leaves do when they fall.
On every branch a series of these scars, in the shape
of rings closely set together, may be seen, indicating the
points where each growing shoot entered on the stage
of rest. And so every experience through which we
pass, every act we perform, goes into the ver)' substance
of our being, and we can never be after it what we
were before it. We cannot undo our deeds, or alto-
gether escape the consequences that have followed
them. The past is indelible, and the memory of it
remains like a scar upon the soul.* Not more thickly

* Internally and externally there are marks on every tree, which
enable us to realize its exact vegetative condition during any one of
the previous yeai-s of its life. Cut a transverse section of an exoge-
nous tree, and you will find the record of every year that it has grown
faithfully preserved in the rings of the wood. The peculiarities of
every summer and winter that have passed over it, may be accurately
deciphered by one skilled in this kind of tree- palmistry. This large,
broad ring tells me that the summer was unusually wet ; this thin,
compact, and even ring indicates that the season in which it was
formed was very warm and bright ; and this other ring, rough and
scarred, alternately thin and broad, announces that the layer of tissue
was deposited amid storms of wind and rain, with alternate sunshine
and chill ungenial weather. The very fossil-tree, petrified into a hard
stone, and dug up from beneath hundreds of feet of solid rock, pre-
serves the most delicate of these cabalistic signs uninjured. Place a
thin transparent slice of the fossil-wood under the microscope, and
il not only shows at once that it formed part of a species of extinct
paira or pine-tree ; but it also reveals the kind of weather which
prevailed when it was green and flourishing thousands of ages ago —
the transient sunshine and the passing shower, and the wayward
wind of long-forgotten summers. It is strange to see, even in our
common articles of furniture, the signs and memories of the green
forest life through which the timber passed in its growth many years
aijo, and which the carpenter's tools and the roughest usage have

234 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [dL-J".

is a branch covered with its annual sets of rings, in-
dicating the position of the winter leaves and the
terminal bud of each season, than is the soul covered

not been able to obliterate. A chair or a table whispers to us in this
way secrets more wonderful far than the so-called revelations of spi-
ritualism. It brings into our presence the fauns and dryads of the
woods, to converse with us regarding the mysteries of their lonely
haunts. It stands connected with the stars in their courses ; and
through the signs of its vegetable zodiac, the sun has passed as truly
as over its own path in the heavens.

But it is not in the interior of trees alone — needing the aid of the
axe to lay them bare — that we see the experiences of their past his-
tory. There are external as well as internal marks. We see very
conspicuously displayed on the twigs of the beech and the horse-
chestnut, for instance, scars, dots, or rings, which show where the
winter and summer leaves were united to the stem, and indicate the
age of the shoot on which they were produced. On a twig of the
horse-chestnut the summer leaves have left behind a large cicatrix,
shaped like a horseshoe, marked by several black dots like nails, being
the broken ends of the bundles of woody fibre which, uniting together,
formed the leaf-stalk, and, separating again at its top, formed the
mid-rib of the leaflets. If the scar has five dots, we know that
there were five leaflets to each leaf ; if there are seven dots, then each
leaf had seven leaflets. Below this broad, open, horseshoe-like
cicatrix left by the summer foliage, occur the contracted ring-like
scars of the winter leaves ; and the number of the rings indicates the
number of the bud-scales or winter leaves. The interval between
two sets of these rings marks out a single year's growth ; and the
variations in its length during diflerent years, indicates the varying
amount of active vitality displayed by the twig. If the interval is
short, there was little growth made that summer, owing to cold
ungenial weather ; if the interval is long, the twig grew rapidly
amid favourable circumstances. The number of leaf-scars in each
interval between two sets of rings, enables us to tell the exact numbci
of leaves that were put forth during that summer. If a twig has on
it, say ten sets of rings and ten scars, then we know that it is exactly
ten years old ; that it stopped growing ten times and produc^-d ten

A.J WINTER LEA VES, 235

with the impressions produced by the experiences of
the past spiritual life. But though the things that are
behind cannot in this sense be forgotten, they should not
be allowed to hang around us like burdens which im-
pede or frustrate all our efforts at improvement. The
ghost-like memories of our sins should not be permitted
to haunt us, mocking our repentance as hypocritical,
and making our hearts sink down in self-contempt and
despair of renewing efforts so often defeated. As the
branch is not impeded in its development by its scars,
but carries them on in its growth, so the Christian's
progress in grace should not be hindered by the memo-
ries that are indelible, the deeds that are irrevocable.
Out of his past experience he is to gather what will be
of use to him in his future course — a better knowledge
of himself, of his weak points and besetting sins, a firmer
faith in God and a humbler walk with Christ ; and all
the rest is to be forgotten. He is to remember the
failures of the past in order to mag-nify the mercy that
forgave. He is to remember former seasons of spiritual

generations of winter leaves, and again commenced growing ten times
and produced ten generations of smnmer leaves ; while the peculiar
appearances presented by these sets of marks, place in a moment
before our eyes the exact history of the twig during its whole past
life, the amount and the date of the growth it made, the number
of the leaves engaged in its constmction, the character of the weather
to which it was exposed, and the nature of the circumstances in
which it was placed. These hieroglyphics of nature are as significant
as regards the peculiar variable history of each branch of a tree, as
the cuneiform inscriptions on the palaces of Nineveh are significant
of the life of the ancient people who inhabited them. Nothing
thus perishes without leaving a record of it behind.

250 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

activity and fervour for his encouragement, and thai
he may be reminded of what he was if he should sink
into a state of declension. " Remember whence thou
art fallen, and repent, and do the first works."

Taking a comprehensive view of the universe, we
find that everything has a special object to perform, and
when that object is accomplished the agency perishes.
The material system of nature, with all its wonderful
and beneficent physical arrangements, is intended to be
the abode of man, to minister to his wants, and to
develop and educate his mental and moral powers ;
and when that purpose is accomplished, the prediction
of the Apostle will be fulfilled — "The elements shall
melt with fervent heat, and the whole earth and all
the works therein shall be burnt up." Life on earth is
not an end, but a means — a state of discipline and
preparation for something higher and nobler beyond,
and is therefore transitory in its duration. It has a
deeper spring than the ordinary sources of pleasure
or pain, a wider scope than the round of common
duties, a loftier purpose than the efiforts to procure
a brief and petty subsistence. It has more reality than
toil, more recompense than wealth or fame or enjoy-
ment. All the circumstances of this v/orld are winter
leaves, nourishing and protecting the bud of immor
tality, and destined, when that bud is unfolded in
the eternal spring, to fall off and perish. So, too,
the means of grace are the scaffolding by the aid
of which the spiritual life is built up, and will be
removed as a deformity when the building is com-

X] WINTER LEA VES. 237

pleted. Forms of church government, human ordinances,
and those intellectual labours which are employed in
their establishment and defence, are adapted only to
a state of imperfection, to the condition of individuals
preparing for a higher existence ; and, so far from
being ultimate objects, are only instruments and
agencies, to be discarded when their purposes are
accomplished. "Whether there be prophecies, they
shall fail ; whether there be tongues, they shall cease \
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But
when that which is perfect is come, then that which
is in part shall be done away." Everything that is
purely subordinate and distinctive in religion — everything
that is extraneous to the spiritual nature, however
necessary to educate it — everything that bears the
stamp of man's weakness, ignorance, or sinfulness, will
vanish as the winter leaves of time from the expanding
bud of everlasting life ; and out of the wrecks of earth
only a living faith in the atoning Saviour, the hope that
maketh not ashamed, and the charity which is the bond
of perfectness, will escape. "And now abideth faith,
hope, charity, these three."

It is through loss that all gain in this world is made.
The winter leaves must fall that the summer leaves may
grow. But in heaven a different law of development
will prevail. In the trees of warm climates the buds
have no winter leaves or protective scales, being simply
formed of the ordinary leaves rolled up ; consequently
they expand in growth >vithout losing anything. And

'238 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

SO it will be in the eternal summer above. There will
be a constant unfolding of the fulness of immortal life
from glory to glory ; but there will be no loss of the
processes and experiences through which the unfolding
will take place. The means and the end will be one
and the same. There will be a constant reaching forth
unto those things which are before, but there will be
no forgetting the things that are behind.

X.] A GRAVE BESIDE A STREAM. 239

A GRAVE BESIDE A STREAM.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall
lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes." — Rev. vii. 17.

How Strange the union of the stream and grave !

Eternal motion and eternal rest ;
Earth's billow fixed, beside the transient wave
Upon the water's breast.

The summer cloud upon the height distils

Each sunny ripple hurrying swiftly past ;
And man's proud life, like fleeting vapour, fills
This wave of earth at last.

The streamlet, through the churchyard's solemn calm.

Sounds like an ancient prophet's voice of faith,
Chanting beside the grave a glorious psalm
Of life in midst of death.

The living water and the burial mound

Proclaim in parable, that through death's sleep
Flows on for aye, though none may hear its sounds
Life's river still and deep.

The grave like Laban's "heap of witness " seems,
Raised 'twixt the sleeper and the world's alarm,
O'er which no anxious cares or evil dreams
May pass to do him harm.

No more he wrestles by the brook of life ;

The night is past — the Angel stands revealed ;
He now enjoys the blessing wrung from strife,
And every wound is healed.

CHAPTER XI.

LIGHT m DARKNESS.
" And the light shineth in darkness." — ^JoHN i. c.

n^HE use of light is to illumine or reveal. Without
light there can be no vision. The eye and the
light are so wonderfully adapted to each other, that by
their mutual co-operation we are enabled to see. When
complete darkness envelopes the earth, we see neither
the shape nor the colour of any object. All within the
horizon is reduced to one uniform blackness and empti-
ness. On the contrary, when the sun rises and pours
his universal daylight over the world, a beauteous scene
of varied forms and harmonious colours is created, as it
were, out of the seeming void. Colour is the flower of
light, and has no existence apart from light ; and form
and outline can only be distinguished when traced out
for us by the same luminous pencil. And yet, para-
doxical as it may seem, light conceals as well as reveals.
Extremes meet here, and excess of light blinds as much
as excess of darkness. At mid-day the unprotected eye
cannot gaze upon the sun ; when it attempts to do so for
the shortest period, it sees nothing in the dazzling radi-

CHAP. XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 241

ance, and on turning to other objects a filmy cloud for a
while interposes and obscures the vision. When the sun-
light is concentrated in its full effulgence upon an object,
its hue and shape are lost in a uniform white glare ;
when the vivid summer noon broods over the landscape,
its varied details are rendered vague and indistinct in a
dim haze of liglit. Many objects are entirely hid from
us by light. The stars are shining at noon as truly as at
midnight, but the veil of light conceals them from our
view. The phosphorescence of the sea is as fully dis-
played in the day as in the night, though w^e do not
see it. The fires that are burning constantly upon the
volcano-peaks — the Vesta-altars of the earth — have their
splendour paled by the sunlight. It needs the tender
twilight to bring out the exquisite brilliancy of the even-
ing star ; and the midnight gloom of winter to show the
illimitable spaces beyond the sun, and to cover the sky
with the glories of Orion and the Pleiades, of Arcturus
and his sons. It needs the sable curtains of darkness to
fall, ere the pillar of lurid cloud that ascends all day from
Vesuvius becomes a pillar of fire, lighting up the firma-
ment with its crimson glow. It needs the solar lamp to
be extinguished and the theatre of nature darkened, to
show to us the tropic sea in some measure as St. John
saw the mystic sea before the throne — a sea of glass, as
it were, mingled with fire.

Light cannot be seen in light. The more luminous over-
powers or extinguishes the feebler. We cannot see the
light of a candle if we hold it up against the sun ; and
the recently discovered lime or Drummond light, whose

R

24? THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

brilliancy is such that few eyes can stand its dazzling
glare, becomes as black as a coal when placed between us
and the full sunlight. It needs the background of dark-
ness to bring out light. Darkness and light, shade and
sunshine, together make vision. Were it all light we
could not see, any more than we should if it were all
dark \ and the face of nature without its shading — like a
Chinese painting — would be featureless. The body of
the sun itself, the great source of light, is dark and non-
luminous ; changing spots of greater or less dimensions
appear on its glowing disc, and show its opaque inner
constitution. And from this interior atmosphere of dark-
ness radiate the heat and light that vivify the planets of
our system. This solar light, too, passes through spaces
of intensest darkness and coldness, without sensibly
affecting them, in order to reach our atmosphere and
illumine our world. And finally, every ray of solar light
that comes to us passes through the transparent medium
of the retina, and on its way to the brain is absorbed in
a black membrane that lines the inside of the back part
of the eye. This black membrane, from its perfect opa-
city, not only completely absorbs the rays of light, but
darkens the interior of the eye, and so prevents indis-
tinctness of vision through the straying of the rays of
light. In this little darkened chamber of the eye, the
world within and the world without hold their twilight
tryst, and reveal to each other by means of light the
secrets of the universe. Thus, the light of the sun comes
from its own interior darkness, passes through the dark-
ness of space on its way to us, and finally penetrates

.XL] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 243

through the darkness of the eye to the audience-chamber
of the soul, there to be transformed into intellectual light.
Truly- the solar light shineth in darkness ; and we see all
physical things through a glass darkly.

Passing upwards from a lower to a higher platform of
thought, we find that as it is in regard to material light,
so it is in regard to spiritual light. It too shineth in
darkness. The Apostle John spoke in his Gospel of
our Saviour under the beautiful emblem of " the light of
the world." He it is that brightens and beautifies
every earthly object ; that reveals the unseen and the
unknown, whose words and works enlighten not only
mankind, but the whole universe. He is Himself the
essential attribute of spiritual health and life and pro-
gress. His life is the light of men ; and without Him is
death. But it needed the darkness of sin— the strange
awful shadow of evil which crept from the abyss over
the world when man fell— to bring out the full brightness
and beauty of that heavenly light. It was sin that
brought God down to man in the incarnation of His
Son. He who dwelleth in light v/hich is inaccessible
and full of glory, whom no man hath seen or can see,
becomes visible in Jesus, the express image of His per-
son, through the darkness of man's ruin. Had man
not sinned, there would have been much in God which
Adam, in his state of innocence, never would have
known. I dare not say that Adam's knowledge of God
was inferior to ours, but it was a different kind of know-
ledge ; he had not that special manifestation which was
destined for fallen humanity alone. Nay, more ; had man
R 2

244 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

not sinned, there would have been much in God which
even the angels would never have discovered. These
pure and holy beings could not see God owing to the
light which their own love and adoration threw around
Him. They veiled their faces with their wings in all
their approaches to Him. But the manifold wisdom of
God is made known to these bright principalities of
heaven through the fall and restoration of man. They
desire to look into the things that concern the salvation
of the human race, in order that in them they may see
reflected the knowledge of God's glory, which they could
not obtain by a direct study of His attributes.

It needed the black background of man's guilt to
bring out in all their glory for the admiration of the uni-
verse the wonders of redeeming love. We know that
God is merciful and just and good, but it is sin that has
given to us the blessed knowledge. His more abounding
grace is made known in the midst of our abounding ini-
quity. His love that passeth knowledge is gauged by the
standard that He so loved the world as to give His only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might
not perish, but have everlasting life. Our own sad expe-
rience has given to us clearer insight into the perfections
of His nature, and enabled us in fuller measure to un-
derstand the deep thoughts of the Infinite Mind. Just
as the dark and vaporous layers of the atmosphere in-
vesting our earth at sunset, by absorbing and decomposing
the rays of light, deprive the sun of his dazzling fierce-
ness, and fill the western sky with crimson hues ; so the
dark moral vapours that have risen from our earth in the

XT.] LIGHT m DARKNESS. 245

sunset of our race, by modifying sand softening the cha-
racter of God's revelation of Himself, have brought out
new excellences in His nature, and filled the horizon of
our faith with glowing colours of love before unknown.
It is true that all that the Fall disclosed was eternally in
His character, that not a trace has been added to His
personal glories by the work of redemption. But these
pre-existent glories have been tangibly expressed and
produced in real evidence before us ; these otherwise
inaccessible perfections have been poured out into the
world's bosom, and opened up even to our sight, in the
shadow of our sin. And through the mild softness of
the Shechinah cloud, in which, in condescension to our
weakness and sinfulness. He now wraps Himself, we can
gaze undazzled into the innermost centre of the sapphire
light, and behold at the burning core of the uncreated
glory, upon which none before could look and live, a
heart beating with love and tenderness to man — God
in Christ reconciling a guilty world unto Himself, not
imputing unto men their trespasses.

When the Evangelist says that the light shineth in
darkness, he appears to refer primarily to the period of
our Saviour's appearance on earth. That was a peculiarly
dark era in human history. All the ages previous to the
Incarnation were dark ages, times of shadow and type, in
which men were groping blindly after heavenly truth, if
haply they might find it. But the age of Jesus surpassed
them all in the wide extent of its sorrow and the poig-
nancy of its suffering. Just as, in the period immediately
anterior to the Flood, human wickedness had reached its

246 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap,

highest pitch and was fully ripe for destruction ; so, in
the period of our Saviour's appearance, human wretched-
ness had attained its maximum, and was calling loudly
for deliverance. Fearfully dark is the picture of the
times which St. Paul draws, as it were in Indian ink, all
shade and no sunshine. The peace which prevailed in
the vast Roman empire was the peace of exhaustion, not
of contentment. Social life was corrupt to the very core ;
and such thought as existed was the mere iridescence
that shone on the seething fetid waters of licentiousness
and infidelity. Life stained by reckless passion, blunted
by vicious excess, wearied itself out in its vain restless
search after happiness, so that suicide was openly reconv
mended by the wisest counsellors as the best mode of
ending the fitful fever. Never was the need of a Saviour
more keenly felt than when the midnight heavens over
Bethlehem — fit symbol of the dark and awful sin of the
age — were illumined with the vision of angels, and the
glad tidings of " Glory to God in the highest, peace on
earth, and good-will to all mankind," sounded in the ears
of the watching shepherds. The True Light shone in-
deed in deepest darkness, and the signs of the coming
salvation appeared with brighter lustre because of the
universal gloom.

And as that incarnate Light moved in its short earthly
orbit, how softly and beautifully its rays shone amid the
twilight shadows ! The clouds of suffering that rose
before it, transfused by its radiance, showed their silver
lining. Blindness opened its long-sealed eyes, and saw
at one and the same sublime moment the beauty of earth

XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 247

and the giory of heaven. Even death became a sleep
from which the weary one rose strengthened and re-
freshed. Sunless hearts were thawed by His rays, and
a new life of light and love was generated in them. The
tainted air was sweetened by His breath ; and His touch
diffused a healing virtue through all the bitter springs of
nature. Evil of every shape and hue cast its baleful
shadow on His path only to vanish in the Light of His
presence. Yes ! that meek and lowly Light, that did not
cry, nor lift up nor cause His voice to be heard in the
street, amid the splendour of human pride and the
haunts of wealth and pleasure was pale and unheeded,
like a hydrogen flame in daylight; but in the presence
of human want and woe it shone forth in wonderful
brightness and power, Hke that flame of hydrogen when
burning on a piece of lime at night. Gleams of the in-
dwelling brightness shone through the earthly veil, when
suffering — the shadow of sin — was near. The God in-
carnate, concealed from the wise and the prudent, from
the prosperous and self-sufficient, was rev.ealed through
the meekness of His mortal guise to the simple and
the weak, to the mourner and the child. Then, too,
when the man in Him was most conspicuous, the God
was also most conspicuous. His divinity shone brightest
when His humanity appeared most perfect. Over the
manger of His humiliation shone the star of His glory ;
the poverty and meanness of His birth were counter-
balanced by the grandeur and power of His words and
works, and the rejection of men, by the vision of angels.
It was He who thirsted by the well of Sychar, that could

248 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

give living water, of which, if a man drink, he shall thirst
no more. It was the weary worn-out sleeper in the boat
on Galilee who, when roused from His pillow, bade the
winds and the waves be still. It was the dying Jesus,
nailed helplessly to the cross, numbered among the trans-
gressors, and despised and rejected of men, who said to
the penitent thief by His side, " To-day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise." The Light was indeed seen to be
very God, when it was seen to be very man. And when
at last, blazing brightly for a moment on the Mount of
Transfiguration, that Light descended into and passed
on its lonely way within the awful shadows of the dark
valley, what sunset glories does it disclose ! Brighter and
more beautiful does it become as the dark clouds prevail
against it, and it is about to disappear below the horizon.
The flaring torches of the robber-band amid the midnight
olives of Gethsemane, reveal to us a scene of unparalleled
suffering, and yet of noblest self-sacrifice. In that hour
and power of darkness we have a whole heaven of love
lit up, into whose starry depths unfathomable we gaze,
overwhelmed with wonder and awe.

And then think of the eclipse of that Light in death
When are astronomers enabled most thoroughly to study
the sun ? Not when his meridian splendour is dazzling
their eyes and covering the secrets of his nature with a
veil of insufferable glory. It is when the dark disc of
the moon entirely covers his face, and there is a total
eclipse. During such a crisis, phenomena are observed
which cannot be seen at any other time, and a detailed
account of them would fill vokuPxes. Glimpses are then

XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 249

given of his constitution — the materials of his surface —
the depth and nature of his atmospheres. His physical
history, so far as it can be known to us. is disclosed by
the peculiar signs which then appear. Now, as it is with
the natural sun, so it is with the Sun of Righteousness.
During the awful eclipse of His death, when He passed
under the mysterious shadow which falls upon all men —
during the darkness that overspread the land for the last
three hours that He hung upon the cross, and which was
the outward symbol to the spectators of the extremity of
loneliness and sorrow which He endured, we have a dis-
play of His love and grace such as we receive not from
all His words and works besides. His greatness and
goodness culminate in that eclipse. That life, which is
the most beautiful and perfect cf lives, expands into
blossom on the cross. All the excellences of His life
are there sublimated to the highest degree, and converge,
as it were, into a single focus beneath a single glance.
The light that shines amid the piofound darkness of
Calvary, brings out into full relief all the features and
extent of His teaching and example, and vivifies and
makes them the power and the wisdom of God unto
salvation. The perfect fulness of His trust in God is
most strikingly disclosed amid the very horrors of the
spiritual darkness — amid the awful sense of divine aban-
donm"ent that overwhelmed Him. The same cry — "My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" — which
proclaimed the extremity of His trial, witnessed to the
greatness of His faith and the perfection of His inno-
cence. The burden of darkness lay upon Him apparently

250 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

unrelieved to the very close ; — He sank out of life under
the pressure without one ray of heavenly comfort to cheer
Him — and yet, with His last breath, He commits Him-
self into the keeping of Him by whom He had fell
Himself forsaken — " Father, into Thy hands I commend
My spirit." Where else can we see faith and patience,
and trust in God and love to men, and holy innocence,
so signally displayed as here ? And when we think, too,
of the light shed on the work of redemption by the dark-
ness of the cross, how are our ideas of God's holiness
and mercy exalted ; how are our convictions of man's
sinfulness and necessity deepened ! We see the evil and
desperateness of man's sin in a way that we could never
otherwise have seen it We know the greatness of man's
primitive excellence and dignity, and the estimation in
which he was held by Heaven, when even God Himself
consented to die for him. We are reminded of the true
loftiness of man's nature, a nature worthy of pardon and
redemption, worthy to be the object of immeasurable
love. When the Just thus suffered for the unjust, and
our Brother born exhibited all that man has ever con-
ceived but never reahzed of self-sacrifice and purity, of
faith and love, we are shown what man may become ; and
can look forward with hope to the day of restoration that
shall place redeemed man above angels and archangels
nearest the throne.

And as thus with the true Light of the world, so with
every lesser light that He kindles to be a revelation of
Himself — it shineth in darkness. This is pre-eminently
true of the Church. Its light is beautifully symbolized

XL] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 251

by the seven-branched candlestick which stood in the
holy place of the Levitical tabernacle. That holy place
was the pattern of the Church on earth, just as the Holy
of Holies was the pattern of the Church in heaven. The
common garish light of day was excluded by the cover-
ings of goats' hair and badgers' skins ; and a profound
darkness created within. In this mystical darkness the
perfumed light of the golden candlestick shone unceasingly,
as a token that the light of the Church is not the light
of nature, but the light of grace ; that, dark itself, it is
illuminated solely by the spiritual light which the Lord of
the Church supplies. It was the duty of Aaron to trim
this candlestick and supply it with the needful oil, and
keep its golden stem and branches bright, and its lamps
perpetually burning. We see in imagination the high
priest, in his gorgeous dress, moving about among the
lamps that dimly illuminated the darkness of the place ;
and we see in that ghostly earthly vision the type of the
glorious heavenly vision which appeared to the seer in
Patmos, of a greater than Aaron moving about among
the seven golden candlesticks of the Christian Church,
feeding them with the oil of grace, and causing them
to bum with brighter radiance. And as the light of
Christ thus shines in the darkness of the Church, so the
Church thus enlightened shines in the darkness of the
world. " Ye are the light of the world," He said to
that inner circle of disciples — the immediate satellites
that revolved around Him and bathed in His effulgence.
God's people are lights shining in a dark place — lamps
in a sepulchre. His servants are stars. The seven stars

252 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap,

which He holds in His right hand are the angels of the
Churches. The candlestick and the star are both
images of the night. And these two figures may be
regarded as emblematic of the two dispensations — the
Jewish and the Christia.n : the candlestick, symbol of an
artificial dispensation of types and shadows destined soon
to burn out and be extinguished; the star, symbol of
eternal realities shining serenely amid the glooms of this
world, and destined to shine most brightly when the
shadows of all temporal things have passed away. In
both cases the light shone, the light shineth in darkness.
No other light has a dark, guilty world, but this reflected
light from heaven. The Church collectively, and the
Church as represented by each believer, is the bearer of
Christ's transmitted light, not in daylight, but in midnight
^loom. Not having light of its own, it is to diffuse through
the dense misty atmosphere of sin the blessed light
which it receives from Him. It is to dispel the spiritual
blindness and gross ignorance of perishing souls, and
bring them to the saving knowledge of Christ. What a
high and sacred office this is, to hold forth the Word of
life to those whom the god of this world hath blinded !
How careful should each believer be who has this sacred
light entrusted to him, not to hide it under the bushel
of busy worldliness, or under the bed of carnal sloth ! It
may be a mere glowworm spark, but it is inconceivably
precious, just because it shineth in darkness. In the day-
light other light is not needed, and may therefore be ex-
tinguished without loss or regret ; but in the night there
is nothing to compensate for the loss of any light that is

XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 253

put out. Suppose you had penetrated into the farthest
depths of an intricate man/-chambered cavern, far from
the hght of day, and that all the torches you had brought
with you to dispel the gloom had one by one expired,
leaving you with only a single torch half-burnt in your
hand, — how carefully you would carry it, knowing that
upon its continuing to burn and shed its light upon your
path, depended your hope of reaching the upper world
of light and life. In like manner, every believer in the
cave-like darkness in which he dwells, should guard and
tend the light that has been given to him by God to be
the light of his feet and the lamp of his path, to lead
him and all whom he can influence from the outer dark-
ness of the world to the marvellous light of heaven. If
the light in thee be dark, how great is the darkness !
There are no means to dispel it. In the Church and in
the believer the light shineth in darkness ; and if it be
extinguished, all is lost. It is a total eclipse within and
without, a blackness of darkness for ever.

My subject is capable of endless applications. Our
eyes see visions when they are shut. The feeling that has
withdrawn from the exquisitely sensitive surface of the
eye in the blind, is concentrated in the finger tips and
in the ear ; nay, the whole body becomes one eye ; and
the air acts in place of the light as a medium of commu-
nication with the outer world. Intellectual light shineth
in darkness. The mind becomes phosphorescent at
night. What was smoke at noon becomes flame at mid-
night. Passion awakes, and the imagination becomes
more vivid and active when the material world is

254 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

wrapped in gloom. When the light of perception is
extinguished, the light of meditation gleams brighter in
the vacant shadow. It is the law of mind that vividness
of sensation and clearness of perception exist always in
an inverse ratio. Vision, which is the clearest of our
modes of objective perception, is ordinarily attended
with scarcely any subjective feeling ; and hence we shut
our eyes when we wish to think clearly and feel strongly ;
and hence, too, the reason why the darkness appeals so
forcibly to the passive sensibility. As Jean Paul says,
" The earth is every day overspread with the veil of
night, for the same reason that the cages of birds are
darkened, so that we may the more readily apprehend
the higher harmonies of .thought in the hush and stillness
of darkness." Then, too, the light of knowledge implies
the darkness of ignorance ; and the wider the circle of
light spreads around us, at just so many more points
does it touch the surrounding darkness, so that we are
thus constantly taught the limit of our powers, and kept
humble and reverential. The light upon the great pro-
blems of the soul and of man's destiny which the heathen
enjoyed was like the feeble light of a moonless night,
when the stars are few and faint. It was a vas^ne, wide,
general conjecture, which did not oppress the heart or lie
heavy upon the life. It was free from the distressing
doubts which in these days constitute the peculiar trial
of many of the best and most thoughtful minds. But
Christianity, while it has brought life and immortality to
light — while it has disclosed to us things which it con-
cerns us most of all to know — has nevertheless filled the

XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 255

horizon with profounder darkness than before. The fore-
ground is illuminated, but the background is enveloped
in deeper mystery. The Word of God is, indeed, the
light of our feet and the lamp of our path. But just as
a lantern makes the night darker all around, while it casts
a strong light upon the objects at our feet, so the Gospel
of Christ makes the secret things which belong to the
Lord our God more inscrutable — while the things that are
revealed and that belong unto us and to our children that
we may do all the words of God's law, are rendered plainer
and easier of comprehension. It suggests difficulties even
by its clearest doctrines, and casts dark shadows of spe-
culation from its brightest revelations of grace and truth.
We need to pray, " Send Thy light forth and Thy truth ; "
for Scripture truth has no significance to us without this
heavenly illumination. It is hke a dial, with all its divi-
sions and lines perfect, yet revealing nothing of the times
and the seasons which God hath kept in His own power,
except when the Sun of Righteousness shines upon it,
and even by its very shadows brings out light, — enables
us to discern the signs of the times, and to know the day
of our merciful visitation.

Religious doubt — that is, not a final but a transitional
state, not an end but a means; when, as Sir William
Hamilton says, " we doubt once in order that we may
believe always, renounce authority that we may follow
reason, surrender opinion that we may obtain knowledge "
— is light shining in darkness — the birth-pangs of clearer
light. It is better in one sense, no doubt, to grow in
knowledge by quick steady increase of light, without any

20 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

intervals of darkness. But most thoughtful men increase
in faith and spiritual discernment by often doubting, and
by having their doubts cleared up. Religious thought in
this way grows into a personal feeling ; and the solid
rock of truer conviction and deeper trust, as a firm
foundation for the soul to build upon for eternity, re-
mains behind after all the abrasion of loose and more
perishable materials through speculation. A different if
not a truer revelation of heavenly realities is given to us
through the dark distressing process of doubting, than
through the bright joyful exercise of unhesitating faith ;
just as our knowledge of the chemistry of the sun and
stars, of the physical constitution of distant worlds, is
derived not from the bright bands of their spectrum,
which reveal only their size and shape, but from Fraun-
hofer's wonderful lines — those black blank spaces breaking
up the spectrum bands — which tell us of rays arrested
in their path and prevented from bearing their message
to us by particular metallic vapours. Unto the upright,
just because of the purity and singleness of their motives
and the earnestness of their quest after truth, there
ariseth light in the darkness. We must remember that
light is S0W71 for the righteous j that its more or less rapid
germination and development depend upon the nature
of the soil on which it falls and the circumstances that
influence it ; that, like seed, it at first lies concealed in
the dark furrow, under the cheerless clod, in the cold
ungenial winter; but that even then, while shining in
the darkness, while struggling with doubts and difficul-
ties of the mind and heart, it is nevertheless the source

XI] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 257

of much comfort, and in its slow quickening and hidden
growth the cause of Uvely hope, and of bright antici-
pation of that time when it shall blossom and ripen in
the summer-time of heaven — shine more and more unto
the perfect day.

The light of comfort shines in the darkness of sorrow.
To use a homely illustration, a towel when wetted
becomes darker than before, but at the same time it
becomes more transparent. In quitting one medium
for another — the air for water — its power of reflecting
light is diminished, but its power of absorbing light is
increased, so that the darkness of the towel is due to
its increased transparency. This is the case, too, with
such minerals as tabasheer and hydrophane, a variety of
opal, and also with table-salt and snow, which are opaque
when dry, but when immersed in water become trans-
parent. Thus it is with sanctified trial. When passing
from the element of joy into the element of sorrow, life
is darkened ; but it is made more transparent than
before. It does not reflect so much gladness, but it
allows us to see deeper into its true nature. When deep
calleth unto deep, and all God's billows pass over us,
our souls may be very gloomy and sad , but we have an
inner light, a deeper peace, that clears away all obscurity
from our character, and gives distinctness and beauty to
our piety. By the gracious compensation of Heaven,
the loss of reflection becomes a gain of absorption. The
sunshine that we cannot reflect in joy is imbibed into
the very being of the soul, and becomes part of its rich
Christian store. And thus it is always. God changes

258 THE MmiSTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the medium in which we live as our condition requires
it, in order tliat we may have in the one element what
we lack in the other — that for self-manifestation we may
have self-knowledge, and for the loss of comfort and
happiness may have true insight and enlarged experi-
ence Now He places us in the air of prosperity, that
we may improve its advantages in the way of gratitude
to God and beneficence to our fellow-creatures. Anon
He pours the floods of adversity over us, in order that
our gaze may be turned inwardly upon ourselves, and
we may discover our true characters, and see things as
they really are in their moral relations. It is the law
of celestial optics that, amid the gloom and desolation
of earthly scenes, the cross of Christ shall shine forth
with new and surpassing glory. It is in the dark valley,
and accompanying our friends on the last sad journey,
that God shows us the path of life. It is down in the
dark grave, where our bereaved hearts lie with them,
that we see stars of promise which the noonday of joy
hides from others. When a lower light is put out, a
higher light appears in the darkness thus created. When
the earthly lamp is broken and extinguished, the Sun of
Righteousness arises upon us with healing in His wings.
When the common daylight of the world fades away,
the mystical daylight of other worlds glitters in the twilight
sky. To the weary outcast Jacob, the vision of Bethel
appears.. The light of home had vanished in the black-
ness of his own base guilt ; the light of hope itself had
almost expired in the dark consequences of that guilt ;
the night was his curtain, the earth his bed, and a stone

xr.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 259

his pillow \ but through his troubled sleep he saw and
heard what encouraged him to the last moment of his life.
And to every Nathanael whose heart God is purifying by
drawing over it the veil of sorrow, it is promised that he
shall see the heavens opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man —
ascending with his tears and prayers to the throne of
grace, and descending with comforting blessings to his
heart — along the new and living way, the golden ladder
of Christ's sympathy and sacrifice.

All light shineth in darkness ! The one is the com-
plement of the other. There is no light without its
sister shadow, and no shadow without its sister light.
The visibility of shadow is the evidence of light.
Evil is the correlate of good. It needs the darkness of
hell to define the outHnes of heaven ; fear to define hope ;
disease, health ; misery, happiness ; guilt, hoHness. No
physical object, and no moral truth or experience, can
have an outline without its corresponding darkness. If
seen in its own light, it is all light, and therefore has no
precise shape or form. Strange thought, that which
darkened the universe contributed most to its light ! Sin
under the training of the Spirit turns to such regrets and
penitences that it becomes an element in the soul's
education, through which it struggles to greater purity
and sanctity than it could have attained to, untempted
and unfallen. All things that seem to be against us,
under the transforming influence of grace work together
for our good ; and Adam's fall is a moral recoil by means
of which we rise ultimately to a far better paradise than
s 2

?6o THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

that wliich he lost. In short, no poetry, no art, no philo-
sophy, no religion such as we know it, could exist if the
cloud of sorrow, and the shadow of sin, and the night of
death were not thrown over the world, if the light did
not shine in darkness.

Our great epic poet called night " eldest ot things ;"
and darkness was represented by the ancient poets as the
"mother of all things." It is not light first and then
darkness ; but light comes out of darkness — the morn-
ing out of the womb of night. The Bible narrative of
the creation opens with the announcement that " darkness
was upon the face of the deep " — and the first creative
fiat was, ''Let there be lig.it;" while the serial creations
are described as beginning with darkness and terminating
with light; ''and the evening and the morning were the
first day," &c. Such also is the order of the cosmogony
of every nation — the order acknowledged by all the poets.
Goethe calls Mephistopheles in Faust, ^^ Ein Theil der
Finstei'iiiss die sick das Licht gehar " — part of the darkness
which brought forth light. And this natural order sym-
bolizes the spiritual order. The night of ignorance pre-
cedes the dawn of knowledge ; " weeping may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." It is at
midnight that the song of the angels announcing the
Nativity is heard ; it is at midnight that the cry announ-
cing the second coming of Jesus startles the darkness.
" Behold the Bridegroom cometh ; go ye forth to meet
Him." In the evenings and mornings of the natural
creation are pictured the evenings and mornings in the
progress of the new creation of God in the soui. What

XL] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 261

are all the times and the seasons of earth but watches of
the night preceding the everlasting dawn ; the evening
of earth and the morning of heaven making the one
day of eternity. We cannot but believe that the hours
which in this shadowy dispensation are marked by the
circling of the stars and the opening and closing of the
flowers, have something corresponding to them in the
world of eternal realities, even although we are told that
there shall be no night there ; and that the inhabitants
need no candle, neither light of the sun. These hours
are outward types of inward spiritual states ; and there-
fore the Lord, who is the light of heaven, will repro-
duce them there. All darkness will vanish, and yet
there will be a rainbow round about the Throne, and
the brightened memory of earth's gloom will add to the
beauty of heaven. The times and the seasons of glory
will be caused directly, no more by creature means, but
by that Sun that shall no more go down, and that Moon
that shall no more withdraw itself; only the sun shall
no more light on us, nor any heat, and the darkness of
night shall lose all its terror and loneliness, and bring
with it only its solemn tenderness and its holy rest

'* For we have also our evening and our morn.

******

The face of brightest heaven had changed
To grateful twihght (for night comes not there
In darker veil), and roseate hues disposed
All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest. "

But though the light shineth in darkness, the darkness

does not always comprehend it. How little true faidi

is there on the earth ! Where the lairp of knowledge

burns most brightly, there the darkness of scepticism is

262 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

densest. Those who feel themselves to be, in the beautiful
language of the poet, infants crying in the night, infants
crying for the light, and with no language but a cry,
too frequently are insensible to the little light that does
break in upon their sorrow and ignorance. Men of
science are satisfied with a blank universal negative in-
stead of religion, are content to live and die in a cold
orphaned spiritual darkness, instead of echoing the noble
cry of the old heathen hero to the gods, '-^ En de phaei
kaiolesson " — " In light destroy us," willing even to perish,
if it were only in light. In how many simple souls
the interfering rays of light from different creeds, all
professing to come from heaven, destroy each other, and
produce an utter blackness of darkness ! In how many
sensitive minds, as in the negative picture of the photo-
grapher, the very lights of truth have left a darkened im-
pression, and become shadows ! Multitudes love darkness
rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. Spi-
ritual light is to them an ungenial, unwelcome element,
as the natural light is to the foul crawling reptiles that
hide themselves from the sunshine under stones or
rubbish-heaps. And, alas ! how numerous are those who
have never been taught any portion of the truth about
God, and Christ, and heaven, and right and wrong, at
ail; who have no thought beyond the present world
and the needs of earth, and who prove to us by the con-
trast of the darkness and vileness of their lives what we
owe to light and knowledge, how much of God's goodness
is wrapped up even in our worldly civilization. The rays
of the sun at night pass over our dark heads, and we do
not recognize them to be sunshine until we see them

XI.] LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 2Xii

reflected in the face of the moon. So the rays of Christ's
glorious light are shining in darkness, passing over the
dark ignorant heads of thousands upon thousands, and are
only seen to be light and life when reflected back in the
faces of the faithful, believing few. The gross darkness of
the people comprehends not these heavenly rays j they
find nothing in them, no spiritual susceptibility against
which to strike back into brightness.

The law of the natural world is here also the law of
the spiritual. Natural light requires a medium^ if it is to
have any efl"ect upon the darkness. Those ethereal
vibrations that come to us from the sun, can only be
diffused with warming and illuminating power when they
come into contact with our atmosphere. In the vast
spaces beyond, the profound darkness comprehends them
not, because they have no atmosphere to reflect them.
Were there no atmosphere, the illumination of our earth
would be most fragmentary and imperfect, even though
the sun shone brightly. No objects would be visible
except those on which the solar rays fell directly; and
around these brightened surfaces there would be
Egyptian darkness. The varied beauty of the land-
scape would vanish, and the azure tint of the sky would
disappear in an inky blackness in which the stars would
shine brightly at mid-day. As it is, v/e see how small
is the power of the sun's rays to illumine at great eleva-
tions, owing to the rarity of the air. Every traveller is
familiar with the peculiar darkness of the noonday sky at
lofty elevations on the Alps and Andes. The eye can
look on the rayless sun in the deep violet ether without

264 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [cflAP.

being dazzled, and the scenery beheld in this nameless,
eclipse-like light looks indescribably wild and unearthly.
Now, so it is with the True Light of the world. It needs
the medium of faith to make it visible to us; it needs
the atmosphere of believing, trusting love to make it
illumine our souls and fill them with the beauties of
holiness. In proportion to the greatness of faith is the
illuminating power of this Light. Souls deep down in
self-abasement on account of sin may have much light,
because they have much faith, — may hear Christ's words,
" Great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt."
While souls exalted to heaven, like Chorazin and Beth-
saida, by reason of their privileges, may yet, on account
of the absence of faith, be covered with perpetual snow,
and overarched with hopeless darkness, cast down into
hell. All men have not faith; therefore all men have not
light. Let our prayer be, " Lord, increase our faith,"
that thus we may have a powerful reflecting and refract-
ing medium, by means of which the light that shineth in
darkness may be comprehended by our darkness, and
may warm and illumine and vivify us more and more.
In this dark world of probation let us stretch out the
tendrils of our soul's longings and affections towards the
bright and the morning Star, let us grow and blossom to
the coming dawn. As children of the light, let us walk
in the light while we have it — in the light of Christ's
Word to direct us, in the light of His example to guide
us, in the light of His approving smile to comfort us —
until at last, all darkness vanished, all shadows passed
away, in His own everlasting light we see light clearly.

XI.] A WATERFALL. 265

A WATERFALL.

' When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee : and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow thee." — Isaiah xliii.

Beside a lofty waterfall I've stood,

Formed by a torrent from a snowy height,

And gazed far up to where the foaming flood
Burst from the sky-line on my awe- struck sight.

So vast its volume, and so fierce its shock.

No power at first its headlong course might stay ;

It seemed as if the everlasting rock
Before its furious onset -A^ould give way.

But as it fell, it lingered in mid-air.

And melted into lace-like wreaths of mist.

Decked by the sun with rainbow colours fair,
And swayed by passing breezes as they'd list.

And when at last it reached the dimpled pool,

Hid in its granite basin far below.
Its spray fell softly as the showers that cool

The sultry languor of the summer glow.

The aspen-leaf scarce quivered to its sound.
The bluebell smiled beneath its benison ;

And all the verdure of the forest roimd
A fresher greenness from its baptism won.

So have I watched for coming sorrows dread,
With heavy heart for many a weary day.

Foreboding that the torrent overhead

Would bear me with o'erflowing flood away.

But when the threatened evil came, I found
That God was better than my foolish fears ;

The furious flood fell gently to the ground,

And blessed my soul with dew of grateful tears.

God mingles mercy with each judgment stern, —
Brings goodness out of things we evil see ;

Then let us from our past experience learn,

That as our day our promised strength shall be.

CHAPTER Xir.

SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING.
"That seeing they may see, and not perceive." — INIark iv. 12.

" I ^HERE is a small round spot in the human eye,
about the twentieth of an inch in diameter, and of
a decidedly yellow colour, called, after its discoverer,
the yellow spot of Sommer'mg. Situated in the exact
optical axis of the eye, and being more transparent than
the rest of the retina, it has long been recognized as the
seat of most perfect vision in man. Its precise use,
however, is still somewhat doubtful. Some eminent
physiologists are of opinion that it performs the same
part in human vision which a yellow medium performs
in photography. It is well known that in the sunshine
there are three different constituents — light, heat, and
the chemical or actinic rays which produce a photo-
graphic image on a prepared surface. A sunbeam pass-
ing through a yellow medium transmits its light and heat
rays, but its chemical or actinic power is intercepted ;
so that a room glazed with yellow glass will be flooded
with biilliant light and feel oppressively warm, while the

CH. XII.] SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING. 267

sensitive plate of the photographer, which in other cir-
cumstances would blacken at once on the least contact
with the sunshine, may be exposed there for weeks with-
out the slightest change. Unless, therefore, the yellow
spot of the eye differs from all other transparent yellow
media known to us, its use may be to arrest and extin-
guish the chemical rays of the sunlight, which in all
likelihood would prove injurious. We know indeed that
even minerals are susceptible of actinic change, and that
if the rays of the sun shone uninterruptedly upon a
granite pillar or a bronze statue, it would perish under
the delicate touch of this most subtle agency, indepen-
dently of all other influences. It is reasonable, there-
fore, to suppose that the actinism of the sunlight would
produce a destructive effect upon the tender tissues of
the retina and the brain behind, if allowed to reach
them. Thus, He who has so marvellously constructed
the human eye, and adjusted it to the sunHght and the
various requirements of man, has put this small yellow
spot in its axis, in all probability, that the innocent rays
of light and heat may pass through in order to produce
vision, but that the destroying chemical rays may be
kept out.

Employing this interesting fact in natural history, as
an analogy in supernatural history, it may be said that
in the spiritual eye there is often a similar yellow spot,
which prevents the full influences of spiritual light from
reaching the soul. The analogy, however, is not in all
respects apphcable ; for, in the bodily eye, the yellow
spot is a \Ndse provision of nature ; whereas in the

268 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

spiritual eye it is a defect caused by sin. To the bodily
eye the ray of natural light which the yellow spot keeps
out would be injurious ; whereas to the spiritual eye the
ray of spiritual light which the yellow spot keeps out
would be the most beneficial of all. Still, so far as the
one point of its power in excluding a certain constituent
of the light is concerned, the yellow spot furnishes a
good illustration of what blinds the soul to the truth of
God, and in this aspect I shall consider it.

In the sunshine of the heavenly world, just as in the
sunshine of the earthly, there are three constituents.
Every ray of spiritual light may be said to contain three
ingredients — knowledge, emotion, and impression — cor-
responding to the light, heat, and chemical power of the
sunbeam. Faith, which is the vision of the soul, implies
three things — intellectual knowledge of the truth, an
emotion produced by the truth, and a cordial reception of
the truth ; or, in simpler words, knowledge, belief, trust.
The Apostle sums up these three elements of faith in his
address to the Romans : " How, then, shall they call on
Him in whom they have not believed ? And how shall
they beheve in Him of whom they have not heard ?
And how shall they hear without a preacher ? " It is
possible to have one of these elements of faith without
the otheis. A man may be ever learning, and yet never
able to come to the knowledge of the truth. He may
hear the Gospel, and yet not believe it; he may helieve
the Gospel, and yet not call upon the name of the Lord,
The whole system of Christianity may be compreliended
AS perfectly as any scheme of science or philosophy, and

XTi.] SEEING AND I^nr PERCElVmC. 269

yet there may be no actual belief in its divine origin or
saving efficacy. In these days of universal inquiry, when
scepticism is so prevalent and self-asserting, we see
numerous instances uf knowledge without belief. For
every thoughtful mind there is a deep interest in the mere
form, plan, and character of the sacred writings — a
literary and intellectual interest ; and hence we see
scholars studying the Bible as they would do a book
of science or philosophy — investigating all its truths and
relations on critical and philological grounds, classifying
and arranging them, exploring the antiquities of Nineveh
and Egypt, and the animal and vegetable productions of
Palestine, in order to shed light upon every allusion in
it ; while all the time the main function of Scripture has
been forgotten. It has been regarded as an end, and
not as a means, leading to the personal Christ, whom it
reveals. What is arrogantly called "the higher criti-
cism " has eliminated from it the whole spiritual element,
for the sake of which it exists Everything that appeals
to the conscience — the love, the faith, the will of man
as a spiritual being — has been excluded by this destruc-
tive process, and only that left which appeals to the mere
intellect of the natural man. This is a sad state of
things; but it is a sadder thing still, in the sight of
Heaven, to see men convinced of the divine origin and
inspiration of Scripture, acknowledging the importance
of those central and eternal verities which are inde-
pendent of the minuter questions of criticism, deeply
impressed with the moral beauty of the Gospel and its
fitness for unfolding the spiritual life of man. and yet

270 THE MINISTRY OF NATV RE. [chap.

coming short in their own experience of its great end —
neglecting the great salvation which it reveals. There is
also a traditionary belief of the Gospel, which may
always be expected to prevail in those places where it
is preached ; and though this can produce nothing
but a customary profession, it is too often mistaken for
that living faith which changes the heart and sancti-
fies the life. Very many take it for granted that they
believe the Gospel, if they have no better reason than
this, that they never called in question the truth of any
of its doctrines, and have often been deeply impressed
by its beauty and power. Thus men may know the
truth, and yet not be savingly affected by it; they may
have hght without heat and renewing power.

They may go further, and have not only knowledge,
but behef of the truth, not only light, but heat ; and yet
be ignorant of what is the most essential of all, the
saving, transforming influence of the truth. The preach-
ing of the Gospel produces a powerful impression upon
them. The entrance of the Word not only gives light to
the understanding, but creates a glow of emotion within
the heart. The judgment is not only convinced, but
the feelings are roused. A Felix trembles when a Paul
preaches of judgment and eternity ; an Agrippa is so
deeply moved by the personal appeal of the truth that
he is almost persuaded to be a Christian. We have
known persons profoundly affected by a sermon upon
the Saviour's self-sacrificing love. And yet nothing came
of it. All this emotion was worse than wasted ; for,
failing to produce an abiding change, it petrified the

XII.] SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING, izyi

heart. We attach undue value to mere emotion in reli-
gion. We imagine tears to be a proof that the whole
nature is stirred to its depths. It may be so, but
not necessarily. The rain that falls with a loud noise
speedily runs off and disappears ; but the snow, that
falls silently, remains and accumulates. And so the
emotion that is demonstrative quickly vanishes, while
the quiet inward sorrow of soul broods over its loss.
The sensibilities may be moved while the heart is un-
changed, and the inner nature cold as the ice beneath
the prismatic hues of the Northern lights. Every ob-
server of human nature has noticed that weak, shallow
natures, which are ready to shed tears on the most
trifling occasion, are nevertheless often the most stub-
born of will and the most callous of heart. And hence
the beautiful verisimilitude of the parable that represents
the seed sown on stony ground as springing rapidly up
and withering as rapidly away.

Thus it will be seen that we may have the two ele-
ments of faith, the two constituents of spiritual vision,
and yet not have the third and most important of all.
We may have the light of knowledge and the heat of
emotion, and yet v/ant the actinism or chemical power of
the spiritual world. It is by this actinism of faith alone
that a deep and lasting impression is produced upon
our whole nature. It renews the heart ; it transforms
the life. It makes us new creatures in Christ. Just as
the actinism of the natural sunshine produces a por--
trait upon the photographer's plate, so does the saving
power of faith produce the image of God in the souL

272 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

Beholding His glory as in a glass, we are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of God. It is for this purpose that the Gospel is
preached. Only for the sake of this salvation does the
testimony of the Saviour exist. Not merely to create
a literary or intellectual interest, or to excite the emo-
tions, were the Sacred Writings given. "These are
written," says St. John at the close of his Gospel, " that
ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God ; and that believing ye might have life through
His name."

When the disciples asked Jesus for an explanation of
the parable of the sower. He replied, *' Unto you it is
given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God ;
but unto them that are without all these things are done
in parables, that seeing they may see and not perceive."
Some have supposed from these words, that our Saviour
veiled His meaning in the parabolic form for the very
purpose of preventing His hearers from understanding
it. Each parable was like the pillar of cloud — a light to
the di-sciples, but darkness to others. It is surely un-
necessary to say that nothing could have been more
opposed to the character and mission of Jesus than such
a design. There was no eclecticism, no esoteric myster}'
in His teaching. He had nothing in common with those
philosophers who initiated a favoured few into the
secrets of their theories, while the multitude were baffled
by the abstruse and mysterious forms in which they w^re
veiled. It was the glory and the grace of His Gospel
that to the poor it was preached, that the common

XII.] SEEIiVG AND NOT PERCEIVING. 273

people heard him gladly. Every truth which He pro-
claimed concerned the whole human race — ever)* human
being — more than even daily bread. And, therefore, He
spoke in parables for the very purpose of making spiritual
truth plainer to the comprehension of the dull and igno-
rant Galilean peasants. He came down to the level of
their own earthly things. He made use of the objects
of nature around them, the things of their daily life,
to teach them the mysteries of heaven. And when He
told them to what the kingdom which He attested by
His miracles might be likened, the least they could do
was to ask for a solution, to inquire into the nature of
the resemblance. The disciples and a few other superior
spirits had their curiosity excited by these parables. They
felt that there were important truths hidden behind them,
and they wished to have light shed on them by Jesus.
They had that interest in the things of the kingdom, and
that spiritual susceptibility, which were necessary to re-
ceive and understand them ; and, therefore, Christ said,
"Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the
kingdom." They obtained a solution, not because they
were friends, but because they were inquirers ; sight was
given to them because they were willing to see. But the
rest of the multitude had no such spiritual susceptibility.
They went away uninterested and unimpressed. Their
dull, carnal minds had not been excited by the parable ;
they felt no curiosity to know its meaning ; they did not
come to Jesus to have its spiritual significance explained.
And therefore Christ said, " But unto them that are with-
out these things ar^ done in parables, that seeing they

T

274 7 HE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

may see and not perceive." The judicial blindness that
was inflicted upon them was owing to their own perverse-
ness and unbelief. The kingdom had come to them in
a peculiarly interesting pictorial form, had been brought
down to the level of the humblest intellect by means of
homely and familiar images ; and if in this form it failed
to produce any impression upon them, their case was
hopeless — no abstract teaching would have a chance of
succeeding. If they understood not the truth- when
shining through the transparent medium of earthly things,
how could they be expected to understand it when veiled
in the exceeding glory of heavenly things ? No simpler
method of instruction than these illustrations could be
devised ; and therefore there was no alternative but to
leave them as before to their self-chosen blindness and
ignorance.

To us, too, Jesus speaks in parables. He condescends
to the humblest intellect. It has pleased Him to clothe
His Gospel in the simplest form. It is brought near
to every man's business, heart, and home. It uses the
vocabulary of the field, the market, and the household.
It employs every man's occupation — the things that are
most familiar and interesting to him — as illustrations of
spiritual truth. Why is it, then, that it produces so little
impression upon us — that, seeing its all-importanftruth,
we nevertheless do not perceive it ? It is not more light,
more knowledge that we need. We are in possession of
the clearest and fullest information upon everything which
it IS essential to our spiritual well-being to know. Divine
truth shines in every part of the Gospel message with a

XII.] SEEING AbTL NOT PERCEIVING. 275

brilliancy which at once penetrates and reproves us. The
Bible, for the purpose for which it was intended, is the
easiest book that ever was written. The way of life has
been made so plain that the wayfaring man, though a
fool, cannot err therein. The momentous question,
"What must I do to be saved?" has been answered
once for all in one simple sentence — so simple that
nothing but wilful blindness can ever more misunderstand
it — " Believe on the Tord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved." What is it, then, that prevents us from per-
ceiving when thus seeing we see ? What is it that stands
in the way of a saving impression being produced upon
our souls by the Gospel ?

In explaining this strange anomaly, let me revert to the
opening illustration. I showed that the yellow spot in
the eye, while it lets in the light and heat of the sun-
shine, keeps out the chemical power which would
modify the tissues of the eye and brain. I showed that,
in a room glazed with yellow glass, the photographer
would get heat and light from the sunshine, but he could
not produce a photograph, because yellow glass, while
it lets in the light and heat of the sun, keeps out the
chemical or actinic ray necessary to produce a portrait.
And so it is true of many of us, that while we live in
the free light and warmth of the Gospel day, while the
true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world shines upon and all around us, we are not savingly
changed, we are not transformed by the light into the
image of God. And the reason of this is that we have
a yellow spot in our spiritual eye, and live as it were in a

T 2

276 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

house of yellow glass. We get the light and heat of the
Gospel, but not its renewing power. Our eye is not
single, <and therefore our whole body is not full of light.
The medium in which we live and move and have our
being is unfavourable to spiritual impressions, and there-
fore we are not spiritually impressed.

One of the most effectual preventives of spiritual im-
pressions is covetousness, or the lust of the ey a. The golden
atmosphere of the world hinders the soul from perceiving
the truths which it sees and knows. A life devoted to
the things of time and sense can never comprehend the
things of the Spirit, which eye hath not seen nor ear
heard, and which are spiritually discerned. There is a
peculiar substance called santonine, formed of the leaves
and seeds of several species of Artemisia or wormwood,
which produces, when a decoction of it is drunk, the
strange phenomenon of coloured vision. All light or white
objects are seen of a most brilliant yellow hue. So is it
when a man has drunk deep of the world's absinthe cup.
He sees everything through a golden medium ; there is
a yellow spot in his eye, which allows the light of know-
ledge and the heat of emotion to penetrate, but which
completely excludes the saving influences of the Gospel.
And of all modes of intercepting the power of divine
light, none is so effective, none is so common as this.
It is Satan's masterpiece. He makes the heart to go
after the things of earth, so that the things unseen have
no attraction. " If any man love the world," says the
Apostle, " the love of the Father is not in him." You
may as soon expect a photographer to take a portrait of

XII.] SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING. Ti^i

a person in a room glazed with yellow glass, as expect a
man who lives in the golden atmosphere of the world,
and sees everything through the jaundiced medium of
worldliness, to copy the beauty of holiness, to become
spiritually minded, and like the divine example placed
before him. He may see the divine ideal, but he does
not perceive it. It produces no effect upon him. And
in the end he loses even his admiration for what is great
and good, and becomes as blinded in mind, as he is
hardened in heart and sordid in life.

Another yellow spot in the spiritual eye, another yellow
medium that allows us to see but not to perceive, is lust
of the flesh. Worldliness has a tendency to this sin. The
result of the old idolatry of graven images was sen-
sual mdulgence; and very often still those who begin
with the idolatry of the world end with the lust of the
flesh. And when this is the case, the transforming and
renewing power of Divine light is extinguished. The
man who gives himself up to carnal indulgence is inca-
pable of appreciating, even of understanding, the spiri-
tualities of Christianity. His conscience is blunted, so
that he ceases to recognize the sinful nature of his habits ;
his moral sense loses its delicacy; his spiritual eye is
unable to discern the true nature of God's requirements.
His very body ceases to become the ready instrument of
his spirit; its fine harp-strings are unstrung and yield no
response to the tuneless soul. Memory is impaii-ed;
thought is confused ; the mind is listless and languid,
and no longer capable of taking a firm hold of an idea,
or seeing it in its entirety. He may retain much outward

278 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

refinement of manners and even amiability of disposition,
but his soul becomes sensual and foul, having no room
for the self-surrender of true affection, and the humility
of a heavenly mind. If every man has a deity of his
own — the shadow projected from his own nature — what
is the precise divine representative of his capacity of
spiritual appreciation ? His god must be like himself —
carnal, earthly. If every deviation from right involves a
mixture of the atheistic element, his bodily indulgences
will produce an atheism proportioned to their degree and
extent. There can be no true acknowledgment of God
where there is a practical defiance of His laws. The
optical law that " the angle of incidence is equal to the
angle of reflection, and lies in the same plane," is equally
true in the spiritual world. For only as we become like
God, do we form right conceptions of His nature. He
is to us what we are in ourselves — " upright to the up-
right, but Iroward to the fro ward." Surely there is solemn
warning in such considerations as these, against all
fleshly lusts — as impairing, if not altogether destroying,
spiritual vision, and preventing us from seeing the things
that belong to our peace.

Another yellow spot in the spiritual eye — another
yellow medium which allows us to see but not to per-
ceive— is unbelief. This is one of the most common
forms in which "the pride of life" manifests itself. Un-
belief does not spring from ignorance, as many suppose.
Were ignorance merely the ground of it, then the Gospel
explained and understood ought to remove it ; but the
fact that unbelief prevails where the Gospel has been

XII. 1 SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING.

279

thoroughly known from infancy, is a clear proof that
something else must be at the root of it. There are
truths which are simply intellectual, by which neither
our feelings nor our characters are affected; and these
truths cannot but be believed as soon as the terms
expressive of them are stated and understood. But
there are other truths which are moral, which involve
our interests, and are intimately connected with our
character; and these truths will inevitably be re-
sisted when brought into antagonism with our wishes
and the prevailing habit of our nature. Of this last
description are the truths of the Gospel to the mind
and heart of the sinner. The deep-rooted enmity,
the self-righteous pride of the unrenewed nature prevents
the cordial reception of them. Their bearings and
implications are so exceedingly humbling ; their call for
the abandonment of beloved lusts is so imperative;
their injunctions to practise what is altogether repug-
nant to the corrupt inclinations of the carnal mind,
seem so difficult of performance, that the unbeHever
refuses to receive them, listens eagerly to every objection,
and shuts his eyes to everything that has a tendency to
remove his prejudices. "The preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness." " The heart of this
people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see
with their eyes, and hear Avith their ears, and understand
with their heart, and should be converted, and I should
heal them." Such texts as these imply that the truth
had to a certain extent impressed those who are spoken

28o THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

of, for otherwise they could not have been guilty of shut-
ting their eyes and ears, and hardening their hearts
against it. Warned by an enlightened conscience of their
sinful state, they could not bear to admit the full reality
of a "21th which imperatively demanded a change of life.
We must never forget that knowledge is as necessary to
unbelief as it is to faith. There is a kind and degree of
knowledge which a man must have before he can actually
hate the truth and steel his mind against conviction. A
measure of light does at times burst in upon the minds
of the unbelieving, but " the pride of life " intercepts and
neutralizes it.

Such are the reasons why we see the truth and yet
perceive it not. It is because our hearts are not pure,
our eyes are not single, our minds are coloured by our
prejudices. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,
and the pride of life, surround us, as it were, with an
unfavourable medium, which obstructs the full power of
the truth. The "True Light " indeed shines around us;
it enlightens our minds, it moves our hearts, but it is
shorn of its convincing and converting power by some
darling lust, some besetting sin. The god of this world
hath blinded us by worldliness, by carnality, by unbelief,
lest the full light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ
should shine into our hearts, and we should be con-
verted and Christ should heal us.

There is an optical peculiarity called Daltonism or
colour-blindness. It is so common that nearly one in
twenty have it. It consists in an inability to distinguish
colours. Green is confounded with red. Those who suffer

XII.] SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING. 281

from this defect are unable, so far as the colour is con-
cerned, to distinguish the petals of a rose from its leaves,
or the blossom of the scarlet poppy from the unripe corn
among which it is growing. The beautiful hues of sunset
are a delusion to them ; the faces of their friends wear a
strange complexion ; and the fair aspects of nature appear
quite different from what they are to others. And yet
the eye of the colour-blind seems the same as an ordinary
eye. Its structure and appearance look precisely similar.
The peculiarity is almost unknown or unrecognized by
those who have it ; and being ignorant of its existence
themselves, they cannot easily be persuaded to believe it.
And so are there not many coming to the Lord's house
as His people come, worshipping the Lord as His people
worship, making the same profession of religion, and
walking in the same ways, and yet who are colour-blind
spiritually? The whole economy of redemption, the
entire scheme of grace, is to them altogether different
from what it is to those who know the power of godliness.
The things that are spiritually discerned are to them un-
interesting and incomprehensible. The colours of the
heavenly landscape are confounded by them, and appear
of one uniform dull hue. Christ Himself, who is alto-
gether lovely, has no form or comeliness to them that
they should desire Him. While the believer utters his
rapturous song, " My beloved is white and ruddy," they
say, "What is thy beloved more than another beloved ?"
They cannot see the beauties and glories of the world
unseen ; and in the very midst of them are crying out,
" Who will show us any good ? "

282 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

It is to be feared that the very brightness of Gospel
light conceals from many their true character. Living
in the full sunlight of grace, they do not realize what
manner of persons they are. They are self-righteous,
self-confident, and self-satisfied. Associating with God's
people, and addressed as such by God's servants, they
take for granted that they are truly God's people. They
see the faults of others, but they are ignorant of their own ;
the mote in their brother's eye is patent, but they neglect
the beam in their own. Now it happens with such
persons when the Word of life comes to them with de-
monstration of the Spirit and with power, and they are
convinced of the error of their ways and led to repent-
ance, as it happen^ with those who are seen by what is
called monochromatic light — that is, light of one colour.
Ordinary sunlight contains seven colours, and is poly-
chromatic. But a spirit-lamp burning alcohol saturated
with common salt, produces light of one colour, which
gives a ghastly hue to the features of the bystanders.
We read that this property has been made use of in
China for many years as a means of distinguishing
persons affected with leprosy. The virus can be thus
detected in the blood of a person who has been infected
with this dreadful disease only one or two days. '' By
ordinary daylight it is impossible at this early period
to remark any difference between the tint of his skin
and that of a person in perfect health; but when the
faces of both are lighted up by the flame of a spirit-
lamp saturated with salt, whilst the face of the healthy
person appears deadly pale, that of the individual affected

XII.] SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING. 283

with leprosy appears red as fire." Applying this fact to
spiritual things, Peter saw his true character in the mono-
chromatic rays that streamed from the True Light when
he said, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." And
the light above the brightness of the noonday sun that,
on the road to Damascus, first blinded the self-righteous
Pharisee, thinking that he was doing God service when
persecuting His Church, and then caused the scales oi
unbelief to fall from them, so that he saw his true
character, was surely monochromatic light. And we too,
regarding ourselves in the ordinary daylight of the world,
comparing ourselves with others, may have no idea of
the leprosy of sin that is working the work of death
within us. No symptoms of it may appear to others in
our outward conduct, which, as touching the righteous-
ness of the law, may be blameless ; we ourselves may be
ignorant of its existence. But when we view ourselves
in the monochromatic light of God's law — when we are
brought into the presence of the Holy One of Israel
who cannot look upon sin — then we see how vile and
polluted is our own image. We have an awful sense of
sin, as something deadly, haunting, indestructible, sitting
close to the springs of our personal being; and smiting
upon our breasts we cry out, " God be merciful to us
sinners,"

Beyond the seven bands of colour described by
Newton, other coloured rays unknown to him have
since been discovered. These rays, called fluorescent
rays, are not visible to the human eye, except through
the medium, of various substances — unless peculiar

284 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

conditions are established ; but they are probably seen
under all circumstances by those animals whose eyes are
adjusted, as the eyes of all nocturnal animals are, to
admit the rays of least refrangibility, and to vibrate
in unison with their vibrations. So is it with God's
Word. This spectrum of the Sun of Righteousness has
rays beyond those seen by ordinary eyes — which are
appreciated only by those who have spiritual vision.
All whose spirits are in harmony with the mind of the
Spirit see wonderful things out of God's law. So is it
also with nature, which is God's Book. It has heavenly
hues and deep meanings, which only the educated eye
and the sanctified heart can detect. We are surrounded
on every side by objects fitted by their very constitution
to point us to spiritual realities, but sin has blinded us
to their significance ; seeing we see and do not perceive
them. By neglect and carelessness we have made our-
selves unable to discern hundreds of beautiful things,
which are well fitted to furnish matter for constant
delightful and devotional thought. We see only truths
of development and creation in nature, and not those
of love and redemption — of moral and spiritual life.
The evidences which it afi"ords of God's existence are
merely mechanical demonstrations, proofs of design
and of skilful workmanship — not symbols of spirit
and love — correspondences between the outward and
the inward — the fleeting shadow and the eternal sub-
stance; consequently our hearts are not touched with
reverence, our spirits are not humbled and purified
by the vision of God's holiness. He who made

XII. J SEEING AND NOT PERCEIVING. 285

man in the image of God, made earth in the similitude
of heaven ; and therefore the enlightening of the soul is
the apocalypse of nature — the anointing of the eye with
spiritual eyesalve is the discovery in v/hatsoever things
are pure and lovely here — the type of brighter things
above. Let us seek, then, this true euphrasy — let us
train our eye to truth and openness — so that we may
behold with open face the " open secret " of the uni-
verse ; that, since it is the law of Heaven to confer
spiritual gifts in the presence of their material repre-
sentatives— to baptize with water and with the Holy
Ghost — to give the blessedness of Divine communion
with the bread and wine of the sacrament — we, as
Christ's disciples, may have the explanation of His
heavenly parable spreading around us, when like Isaac
we go out to meditate in the fields, and may hear
His voice saying to us, "Blessed are your eyes, for
they see I "

286 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

ORIZABA.

" In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." — Genesis xxii. 14.

[In ascending Orizaba, or any other of the giant peaks of the Andes of Quito,
the traveller passes successively through all the climates of the earth, the seasons,
of the year, and the zones of vegetable and animal life. He can see, when he has
reached the summit, what is elsewhere spread horizontally over the earth's sur-
face, and over the whole year, vertically represented along the side of the moun-
tain below him ; while above him, if he be there over night, he can behold the
whole firmament of stars — those of the Northern as well as those of the Southern
hemisphere — the Southern Cross and the Magellanic clouds around the Antarctic
Pole, and the constellation of the Plough around the Arctic Pole. Such a moun-
tain summit is the watch-tower of creation, from which, with overpowering
emotion, the eye may embrace, in one glorious view, the whole universe ol
things.]

There is one spot where man may stand.

And at a single glance
All glories of the sky and land

Behold in rapture's trance.

The heavens unroll their mystic scroll

Of stars above his head ;
The Cross and Plough at either pole

Their rays together shed.

All climes of earth beneath his feet

Their varied spectrum show,
From glowing hues of tropic heat

To white of arctic snow.

Ranged dovfn the mouutain-side, his eye

All zones of life may trace,
From lichen on the summit high

To palm-tree at the base.

All seasons meet beneath the same

Triumphal arch of blue ;
And all earth's charms combine to frame

One picture to his view.

XII.] ORIZABA. 287

Oh, could we find some central peak,

High in the world of soul,
From whence the broken views we seek

Might blend in one great whole ;

"Where we above all doubt might soar.

In air as crystal clear,
And every mystery explore,

And bring all distance near ;

And focus in one field of light

Truth's star-beams scattered wide ;
And both the poles of life unite

Harmonious side by side !

We stand upon a point so low,

We see of earth and sky
But one small arc ; in part we' know ;

In part we prophesy.

Along th' horizon's narrow rim

No opening we discern ;
And mists of sense arise to dim

The wisdom that we learn.

We walk amid the world's vain show.

To higher glories blind ;
The very lights of science throw

Vague shadows on the mind.

By lines of blackness * we unfold

The plan of woi'lds afar ;
And darkly through a glass + behold

The insect and the star.

The smallest moss upon a stone.

Like "writing on the wall,"
Can only be explained by One,

Though seen and read by all.

* Fraunhofer's lines in spectrum-analysis.
t Microscope and telescope.

283 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap, xii,

In vain we long for larger views,

Which loftier heights impart ;
The limits of our life refuse

The wishes of our heart.

Whene'er one mystery is revealed,

Into the foreground brought,
Another, by its form concealed,

Starts up to baffle thought.

While here, the wisest sage must live

By faith and not by sight ;
For duty only, Heaven v/ill give

Enough of guiding light.

But when at last, from life's dark road.
We climb heaven's heights serene,

All light upon the hill of God
In God's light shall be seen.

All kingdoms of the truth shall there

To tearless eyes be shown ;
And, dwelling in that purer air.

We'll know even as we're knoA\Ti.

CHAPTER XIII.

LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES.

" And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son
of God, command that these stones be made bread." — Matt. iv. 3.

T7ORMERLY miracles — separated from their doctrinal
teaching — were regarded solely as evidences of
Christianity ; the master proofs of the divinity of Christ.
Their evidential character is now, however, admitted to
be only part of their significance, not the whole of it.
They are found to gain more in the power of convincing
us, when they are considered not as mere bulwarks, but
as essential parts of Gospel instruction. If the sceptic
is ever to be satisfied regarding the reality of the won-
derful works which our Saviour performed, I believe it
will be, not by the consideration of the abstract question
of miracles in relation to natural law or human testi-
mony, but by an attentive and earnest study of the
miracles themselves individually and as a whole. Their
soberness and grandeur — the laws of harmony, modesty,
and physical consistency pervading them — their pure
morality and lofty religious teaching — their intimate
relations with the scheme of grace — will produce an
impression, when investigated in this way, which no
u

290 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

arguments derived from the exact methods of science,
and the intense realism of the present day, can remove.
Comparing the miracles of the authentic Gospels with
those of legendary lore and of the apocryphal gospels,
every candid, unbiassed mind must be struck with the
vast difference between them everywhere — in the essen-
tial reason, in the inward spirit, in the outward form.
The glory of the true comes out in strongest light by
contrast with the false. All the apocryphal miracles
were assigned to the infancy of Jesus ; whereas none of
the true miracles were performed until after the baptism
of our Lord and His entrance on His public ministry;
thus showing the perfect consistency between the deve-
lopment of Him who grew in wisdom and in stature,
and the growth of human nature in all its stages — no
part of His life being forced and unnatural. Not only
are the apocryphal miracles childish and absurd, but they
exhibit our Lord as capricious and passionate, causing
harm and mischief, indulging in petty contrivances for
revenge, utterly at variance with our conceptions of a
Divine childhood. They are recorded solely to show
the power of Jesus, and to pander to a love of the mar-
vellous, in striking contrast with the actual conduct of
Him who never sought this kind of testimony — who said
to the multitude, " Except ye see signs and wonders ye will
not believe ;" and who regarded it as a condescension to
obtuse spiritual susceptibilities, when, instead of claim-
ing a spiritual faith and obedience. He had to substitute,
" or else believe me for the very works' sake." They
have no connection with one another ; no harmony as a

xiii.l LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 291

whole. They do not illustrate any doctrine \ they have
no spiritual significance. These remarks apply with
even greater force to tlie later, or ecclesiastical, mira-
cles, with which the hagiology of the Church of Rome
abounds. We turn with a blessed sense of relief from
the marvellous records of saints, haloed with glory, enter-
ing into dark chambers and illuminating them, — of monks
hanging in the air in the cloister while they read their
breviary, or floating up and down churches like birds, — to
the simple yet sublime words which describe the walking
of Jesus on the waters, or the glory upon Tabor, or the
ascension from the Mount of Olives. We here come
out from the dark haunts of superstition to the clear
sunshine and the pure air of heaven, and feel that
the place on which we stand is holy ground.

The miracle which Satan suggested to our Lord in the
wilderness of the temptation belongs to the same class
as the apocryphal miracles. It is a type of mere thau-
maturgical displays, which are eminently undivine in
their nature and prejudicial in their operation. In our
short-sighted selfishness we might wish that miracles like
these were performed for us daily ; that instead of having
to work and to wait during long months for the slow pro-
cesses of nature, we might have the stones converted into
bread for us at once. But where would be the gain ? How
much beauty would be thus overpassed and lost to the
world ! Man does not live by bread alone, but also by
beauty. He has a hunger of tne soul as well as a hunger
of the body. He has spiritual tastes as well as fleshly
appetites. The eye longs as much for beauty as the
u 2

202 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

mouth for food. Nature's beauty is intended — though,
alas ! it often fails — to lead us up to the beauty of holi-
ness, which is its true objective; to "the King in His
beauty," whose image is mirrored in all the works of His
hands. Ever in Nature's loveliness there is something
that we long to make our own, and yet cannot grasp.
It is not merely that it is fleeting, that it perishes with
the changes of the seasons. Even in the full meridian
of summer's perfection, the deep green languor of the
woods, the purple splendour of the sunset hills, the glory
of the flowers, mock as it were the longing of the soul
to embrace and appropriate the subtle charm. The
Greeks of old pictured this unapproachableness of na-
ture's beauty, in the myth of the transformation of
Daphne — chased by her lover — into a laurel bush, which
he could no longer clasp in his arms. We chase the
beauty of Nature, and we find it imprisoned in every
tree and flower ; and while it attracts, it repels us, and
leaves our hearts unsatisfied and craving, just because
God meant that the finite should lead to the infinite,
that in the sensuous we should see the t)rpe of spiritual
beauty hidden, and through disappointment at the unreal
phantom learn to believe in the Angel whose living love-
liness is burning in every bush. For this twofold hunger
of man God has made provision in the roundabout way
in which our food is prepared for us. The com that
yields bread to nourish our bodies, yields in its gradual
growth from the seed, and ripening to the harvest under
all the gracious influences of heaven, beauty to delight
our hearts and lefine our minds — beauty which is a puri-

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 293

fying vision of God's character, a ray of the Divine
Nature shining through the indications of mere intelli-
gence and capacity which its organization and adaptation
of means to an end display. All this beauty would have
been obliterated in the conversion of stones into bread.
Some whose hearts are callous to such gentle influences,
and alive only to utilitarian considerations, might think
this no great loss. But those who know and feel the
value of beauty in the education of a pure mind, its
sanative influence over our bodily organization, and its
reaction upon our moral nature, disposing us to deeds of
purity and peace, — the earth growing more beautiful as
we grow better and wiser, and we growing better and
wiser as we learn to see more of the beauty of the
world, would regard the destruction of this quality by a
mu"acle as one of the most serious privations.

But besides the loss of natural beauty and all its edu-
cative influences, there would be the loss in the miracle
of the temptation, of the spiritual lessons connected
with the growth of bread in the ordinary way. There is
no natural object which from first to last is so intimately
associated with the heavenly world as the growth of
man's bread. God has given more abundant honour to
the corn than to any other plant. It is in the vegetable
kingdom what Israel was among the nations — the pecu-
liar, the chosen plant. It is the subject of a covenant
between God and man, wherein the present succession of
the seasons — of seed-time and harvest, summer and win-
ter— is guaranteed, and God has promised to preserve
and provide for the com so long as man shall faithfully

294 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

perform his part in its cultivation. He has ordained
that the sceptre of the world should be literally a straw ;
that the great power which should reolaim the wilderness,
found empires, build cities, and subdue nations, and upon
which the fate and fortunes of mankind in all ages should
depend, should be the growth of the corn. It has
pleased Him that music, which has soothed or quickened
humanity, should trace its origin literally as well as
mythically to the Pandean pipe — the humble oaten
stem. He has told us in Scripture, and confirmed it in
history, that all the glory of man is literally, as well as
metaphorically, the flower of grass ; that all the wonders
of civilization, the arts of life, the refinement of manners,
the blessings of social organization, and the securities of
settled government, are owing to the cultivation of this
grass of the field. He has made the corn the basis of
man's home and all its gentle virtues, and the starting-
point of man's intellectual and moral progress. Through
the cultivation of it God has made him amenable to law,
cognizant of moral obligations, capable of receiving and
understanding a written Divine revelation, and has en-
dowed him with the power of worshipping and holding
communion with his Maker. And as He has made its
ultimate product in bread the visible instrumentality by
which He most effectively nourishes man's natural body,
so in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper He has given
it the highest honour, and consecrated it to the most
sacred purpose, in making it the symbol of Him whose
flesh is meat indeed, and a help to faith in the nourish-
ment of the soul.

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES, 291;

Every corn-field is a witness for God. Its visible
things are signs of the invisible ; its objects of sight
are also objects of faith. The kingdom of heaven is
indeed literally as if a man should cast seed into the
ground, and the seed should spring and grow up — first
the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear.
The whole process is a divine parable, a mute gospel
from beginning to end. Every stage suggests the most
apposite symbols and analogies of truths pertaining to
the spiritual world. The seed committed to the earth,
and dying there, in order to grow and produce the
harvest, is a visible representation of that great mystery
of godliness — the necessity of Christ's death, and the
necessity of man's self-sacrifice. The different results
of God's Word, according to the varying dispositions
of the hearers, are interpreted by the various fortunes
of the seed in the parable of the sower. By the growth
of the tares with the wheat is signified the intermix-
ture of good and bad members in the visible Church,
the different uses to which they put the same advan-
tages, and the different fates that await them in the great
day of trial. By the seed growing secretly from stage to
stage is taught the doctrine that the life of faith is main-
tained by God, and that as He is the author so He will be
the finisher of it. By the reaping of the corn in harvest
is symbolized the judgment of the world ; and finally, by
the germination of the corn in spring is typified to us the
grand lesson of the resurrection — that death in the human
body, like death in the vegetable seed, is only the highest
and essential part of its life pausing awhile that it mav

296 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

start anew, casting away the form in which it was clothed
in order to appear in brighter and nobler lineaments
of immortal youth. All these deeply interesting and im-
portant spiritual teachings of the com, and many others,
expressed alike in the parables of Scripture and in the
metaphors of the Oriental mystics, suggested to medi-
tative minds of every age and country, would be lost to
mankind if the stones were converted at once into bread.
But further still, the miracle of the temptation would,
if performed, have produced confusion in the affairs of
the world, and unsettled men's minds. Suppose a
miracle-worker were to appear amongst us, and convert
the stones into bread, what would be the effect produced
by his presence ? Would it not help to develop the very
worst features of our nature, — foster an idle, greedy,
gambling disposition ? The demoralization of a lottery,
the disorganization of society caused by the sudden dis-
covery of a rich gold-field in the midst of a populous
community, would be nothing to it. The quiet, trustful
industries by which daily bread is earned would be
universally abandoned ; men and women would flock in
crowds to the magician, and urge him to action in their
behalf by any flatteiy or honours which could be paid
to him. God's ordinary gifts and ordinary methods ot
supplying human wants, the tedious operations of com-
mon labour, would all be despised; prudence and
economy would be disregarded ; a spirit of selfishness,
recklessness, and speculation would be engendered ; what
was easily got would be speedily wasted. There would be
no charity or beneficence; man's expectations and de-

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 297

sires would always exceed the most boundless miraculous
power, and bitter disappointment would be felt at its going
only so far and no farther. In short, no greater curse
could be inflicted upon a community, than the presence
among them of such a miracle-worker; and every sensible
man would earnestly long to be delivered from it.

Yet more, the miracle of the temptation would have
left the wilderness a wilderness. It would have wrought
no change upon the face of nature. Bread would have
been gathered from the earth as the Israelites gathered
manna in the desert, without affecting in the least de-
gree the ground upon which it lay. Inorganic matter
would have become organic without the agency of that
vegetable life whose developments and changes give
the principal charm and interest to the material world.
Stones would have been at once transformed into bread
without the intervention of the corn of wheat, whose
germination and growth make the wilderness and the
solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice and
blossom as the rose. It is the law of God's providence
that the same process of nature which yields food to
man clothes the earth also with verdure. The seed
whose ultimate product is bread which strengtheneth
man's heart, is endowed, when sown and quickened,
with the power of appropriating crude mineral particles,
and converting them in its growing tissues into vital
elements, bright colours and shapes of beauty ; and thus
an intimate relation is established with the soil, which
converts its barrenness into fertility, and its desolation
into life. The green blade which it first puts forth

298 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

spreads a rich carpet of verdure over the naked earth ;
and the different stages of growth add their own peculiar
beauties of form and colouring to the landscape, until
at last the ripe corn in the ear rolls its golden waves
beneath the blue autumnal sky, and is one of the loveHest
and most gladdening sights upon which the eye can
rest. Besides contributing to the amenity of the earth,
it leaves behind it in its decaying stubble the elements
of increased fertility in the soil. Thus the growth of
the corn adorns the earth while it is going on, enriches
the earth when it has served its purpose as man's food,
and prepares the world by its labours and its products
to be what God intended it to be — a bright green home
of abundance and love, the suburb of the celestial city.
All this would manifestly have been overstepped and
lost, if the miracle of the temptation had been performed.
Bread would have been artificially manufactured, not
naturally grown; and the wilderness of Adam's fall,
which Christ was to restore to more than Edenic fruit-
fulness, would have been totally unaffected.

Lastly, the miracle of the temptation would hav-c
obliterated that wonderful process of mutual adaptation
by which the plant and the animal benefit each other.
The corn and the vine are sanitary agents in the economy
of nature. Every corn-field and vineyard remove from
the air a certain quantity of that carbonic acid which
is exhaled so abundantly from the lungs of men and
animals, and during the combustion and decay of sub-
stances; and by absorbing this deadly product and assi-
milating it in their tissues, and giving off in exchange

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 299

oxygen gas, the atmosphere is kept in a pure and
healthy state. Every stalk of corn and every vine
make themselves felt in the good they do the air — a
beautiful return for the benefit they receive from the air.
What would be death to us is life to them ; they feed
Tipon what we reject as poison, and return it to us as
bread and wine ; and in the process they help to main-
tain the atmosphere in a fit condition for our breathing.
This striking combination of the functions of one order
of living beings with the necessary wants of another, by
which the whole world of animated existence is bene-
fited, would have had no place for its exercise if the stones
were converted into bread; and no provision would
have been made for counteracting the operation of various
causes constantly contaminating the atmosphere, which
would have gone on to such an extent that life on the
earth would soon have been impossible.

Such are some of the most prominent losses involved
in miracles of Satan's type. Such would be the effect
produced if the conversion of stones at once into bread
were to become general. And we must remember that
the temptation of Satan was typical. A single exception
of that kind to the ordinary plan of God's administration
would have been fatal to the whole. Just as, in the
sphere of God's commandments, he who offends in one
point is guilty of all, because God is the Author of all ;
so, in nature's economy, the single act of commanding
the stones to be made bread would have been a violation
of the whole divinely-planned and intimately related
scheme. We can see no reason why, if there be one

300 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

infringement, there should not be many, and the sug-
gested miracle be the pattern of a general derangement
reflecting upon God's all-present wisdom and goodness,
and seriously impairing our trust in Him.

To all these objections the miracles of Christ them-
selves, considered as mere thaumaturgic displays, are
liable. Nature's beauty is loss in them too. When the
bread was multiplied at Capernaum, all the revelations
of nature's loveliness — from the sowing in spring to the
ingathering in harvest, the graceful form and bright
colouring of stem and blade and ear — were at once
overstepped. The multitude had the utiHtarian result —
but not the aesthetic process. They had bread, but not
beauty. So also at Cana of Galilee. The living agency
of the vine was dispensed with, and the water was at
once converted into wine. But how much wonder and
loveliness were overpassed by the miracle ! The gradual
unfolding of the tender greenness and graceful shape of
the foliage ; the slow disclosure of the hidden sweetness
and fragrance of leaf, and blossom, and fruit; the ela-
boration of the wine, first in the vessels of the yellow
stem and branches, and through the intricate cells of the
leaves, then through the odorous blossoms, and lastly in
the transparent goblets of the golden or purple grapes :
all this wonderful series of ever-changing but ever lovely
forms and colours, into which the dews and showers of
heaven are metamorphosed in their passage into wine in
the vineyard, was obliterated. And instead of the long
feast of beauty for almost every sense, spread over a
whole summer, there were a few firkins of wine, created

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 301

at once, to gratify a single sense, during an hour or two's
social enjoyment. In the sudden stiUing of the tempest
on the Lake of Gennesaret, the vistas opened up in
the wreathing vapours, the strange effects of light and
shade, the dissolving glories of the clouds, the rainbow's
pencilled petals of light, the white foam of the billows
sinking slowly into blue ripples — all the grandeurs and
beauties of sea and sky which are disclosed in the
gradual subsidence of a storm in a natural way — were
overpassed.

Then, too, the moral lessons which the processes of
nature teach were lost in the miracles of Christ. In the
multiplication of the loaves and in the changing of the
water into wine, the spiritual truths symbolized in the
growth of the corn and the unfolding of the vine were
a-wanting. The profitable meditations on heavenly things
suggested by a walk through a harvest-field or a vineyard,
found no place in the suddenness of these wonderful
works. Experiences of trust and dependence upon a
higher Power, acquired during the continuance and
gradual subsidence of a storm, and the discipline of
faith and patience which moulds and strengthens the
character during the progress of an illness, or in the
season of convalescence, were overstepped by the mi-
raculous calming of the tempest, and the miraculous
curing of disease. Yet more, the Gospel history plainly
reveals to us that the miracles of Christ were regarded
by the multitude, and even by the disciples, as the
performances of a thaumaturge, and actually produced
the undesirable influences of such performances which

302 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

I have indicated. The feeding of the five thousand in
such an extraordinary manner, unsettled their minds.
Looking upon it as a special piece of good fortune, they
wished the miracle to be repeated. They greatly pre-
ferred to have their hunger satisfied in this convenient
manner than by their own toil and industry ; and there-
fore it is recorded that they followed Christ for the sake
of the loaves and fishes, and wished to take him by
force and make him their king.

If the miracles of Jesus involved these losses, and
were liable to these objections, why then, it may well be
asked, did He perform them at all ? Why did He decline
to do the miracle which Satan suggested, and yet after-
wards do miracles apparently of a similar nature ? In
reply to these questions it may be stated that the miracle
which Satan suggested would have been a mere thauma-
turgic display, a mere juggling with the secret powers of
nature. It would have had no moral purpose. It would
have given no compensation whatever for the loss in-
curred in it — revealed no higher moral beauty, taught
no nobler spiritual lesson, in return for the beauty and
typical significance of the natural process which it would
have obliterated. How widely different were the
miracles which Christ actually performed ! They were
like the exceptions in the physical world. Every depart-
ment of nature contains some exception to the general
law by which it is regulated ; and each of these excep-
tions reveals a higher law of beneficence and wisdom
than the common order of things. For instance, water,
instead of contracting and becoming heavier as it freezes,

XIII. J LOSS AND GATN IN MIRACLES. 303

on the contrary swells and becomes lighter. Had it been
governed by the general law, the layer of ice formed on
the surface would immediately sink to the bottom ;
another layer would form on the top, and in its turn
fall to the bottom, and thus the freezing would go on
until every lake, and river, and collection of water on
the globe would become a solid mass of ice, which no
summer's sun could ever thaw. But by the exception to
the law the ice expands and floats on the top, and thus
preserv^es the water beneath fluid.* In like manner, the
miracles of Christ in their higher sphere, while exceptions
to God's ordinary administration, were uniformly charged
with some errand of love, some purpose of wisdom and
mercy beyond the common course of nature and provi-
dence. They more than compensated the losses incurred
in them. They were far higher than mere thaumaturgic
displays. The mere elements of wonder in them were
always absorbed in the loftier and more solemn moral
purposes which they served. Nature was set aside that
the supernatural might be revealed. The beauty of the
veil was drawn up out of sight that the surpassing beauty

* This property, long supposed to be peculiar to water, is found by
recent experiment to be shared by bismuth, a substance upon whose
expansion in freezing no such vital consequences depend ; and hence
the above beautiful theory of special design, in connection with the
formation of ice, is regarded by some as a mere devout imagination.
This result, however, by no means logically follows from the dis-
covery. It renders, indeed, the old phenomenon no longer unique, but
it does not lessen its value as a remarkable evidence of divine adap-
tation of means to ends. Though the property in question in the
one case should be comparatively useless, it cannot be inferred that
the special use which it serves in the other case was not intended
and is a mere coincidence.

304 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

of the object which it concealed might be clearly shown.
That which was obliterated in what seemed a dead course
of things in the corn-field and vineyard, was found in a
living Person. The attention usually given to the objects
of nature, and to the ordinary ways of God's providence,
was concentrated in Jesus. The True Vine, by whose
living power the water was changed at once into wine,
displayed a greater glory in the act than the natural vine
in all its long course of development. The True Bread
revealed a higher wonder, in multiplying the loaves for
the hungry multitude, than the corn exhibits in all its
stages of growth, from the sowing to the reaping. The
loss of the natural beauty in the miracle — a beauty which
is relative, passing and perishing — is truly a great gain
when it reveals to us the higher moral beauty of the
altogether lovely One — a beauty that is absolute, perfect,
and self-sustained ; and a finite process of creation may
well be obliterated without regret, when in its place we
find Him in whom creation and the Creator met in
reality, in whom God united and reconciled all things
that are in heaven and in earth.

Then, for the loss in Christ's miracles of the spiritual
lessons taught by the ripening com and the growing vine,
we have the interpretation and application of these
lessons by His living lips. For mute symbols we have
articulate words; for the dull unchanging signals of
nature, that may be misunderstood, we have our own
human language — our own human thoughts and feelings.
The miracles of Jesus were not silent wonders, arbitrary
works, but acted parables — illustrated and illumined

xiii.] LOSS AND GAIN JN MIRACLhS. 305

truths; They were seals of holy doctrines, a representa-
tion to dim-sighted mortals of the mysteries of the king-
dom in the typical language of external acts. Christ's
miracles and parables must be combined, if we would
understand the perfection and oneness of their teaching.
The True Vine Himself gives us die spiritual teachings
of nature which we miss at the marriage-feast at Cana, in
the exquisite fifteenth chapter of St. John; and the loss of
the analogies of the corn-field at Capernaum was more
than compensated by the discourses of wonderful depth
and meaning, proclaiming Himself to be the True Bread —
to which the feeding of the five thousand was made the
introduction. In short, all Christ's miracles were the
natural texts of spiritual discourses. They rang, as
Foster grandly says, the great bell of the universe, that
those who had ears to hear might come and hear the
divine sermon that followed.

The undesirable effects of His miracles to which I have
alluded, our Lord strove earnestly on ever}' occasion to
counteract. So far from seeking to unsettle men's minds
by them, His sole object was to lead men through them
to the exercise of greater faith and trust in God, and to
be more quiet and contented in their usual occupations.
So far from desiring to undervalue the common things
and the ordinary ways of life, by the display of extra-
ordinary powers, His mighty works were all meant to
reflect a heavenly glory upon common laws and every-
day affairs. The constancy and uniformity of nature had
made men insensible to the ruling providence of God,
and Jesus performed miracles to prove to men God's

3o6 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

presence in all things, and to show that the law and Him
who works according to the law, by them confounded,
are separate and distinct. Familiarity had spread a film
of blindness over men's eyes, and our Saviour wrought
miracles to act as a sacred euphrasy, and open their sight
to the wonders that were always around them. Five
thousand men were fed in a miraculous manner, that
men might be taught in this striking way the ordinary
lesson, that it is God who gives us our daily bread by
means of the ordinances of nature and of human society,
and in whom we live and move and have our being. The
miracle was performed because the circumstances of the
case required it. It was no needless, ostentatious display
of supernatural power. The wilderness supplied no natural
food ; and without the multiplication of the loaves and
fishes, the impulsive multitude who followed Jesus into
it, would have fainted with hunger. He gave thanks to
the Father, and blessed the miraculous provision, to show
that it came under the same obligations of dependence
and gratitude as human nature's daily food. He com-
manded the disciples to gather up the fragments that
nothing might be lost, to guard the disciples against the
assumption that they might fairly waste what could be so
easily supplied. When He found that the effect pro-
duced upon the u.ultitude by the miracle was not that
which He desired, He withdrew Himself from them. And
afterwards when they discovered Him, He upbraided
them for seeking Him, not because they saw the sign of
His redemptive work in the miracle, but because their
bodily wants were satisfied by it ; and exhorted them to

xitl.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 307

labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat
that endureth unto everlasting life, for the spiritual truth
of which the miracle was the mere outward vehicle.

One of the most striking characteristics of the miracles
of Jesus, is the fact that they all fell in, by a natural
harmony, with that law of man's economy which ordains
that in the sweat of his face he shall eat bread — that
all blessings shall come from toil and pain. These
miracles were not irregular wonders, but Divine aids to
human labour — Divine developments and completions of
human beginnings. Miracles were performed not with-
out human means, but through them. The miracle of the
loaves and fishes was not the creation of new food alto-
gether— of "ambrosial cates," but the multiplication of
one poor fisher's rude ond scanty store. It did not start
from the primary natural source of the corn of wheat, but
from the latest artificial result of bread ; not from the
embryo or roe, but from the full-grown fish caught and
conveyed to the spot by the fisherman's toil, and pre-
pared as food by human hands. The miracle of Cana
was not the creation of a heavenly beverage unknown to
earth, in empty vessels, but the conversion into the com-
mon wine of the country— only of better quality — of
v/ater which the servants had drawn with toil and trouble.
There is nothing in the narrative which supports the com-
mon notion, that all the water which was poured into the
six jars was turned into wine. Indeed the exact words in
the original altogether exclude such an idea. Only as
much of the water as was drawn yr(?//« the jars — by the
labour of the servants — was changed into wine. And

X 2

3o8 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [okap.

while this interpretation removes the difficulty which
some feel regarding the enormous quantity of liquor sup-
posed to have been manufactured by our Lord, it also
confirms, in a striking manner, the truth that it was the
results of human toil only which Jesus blessed. It was
not till the fourth watch of the night, when the disciples
were fairly exhausted with rowing against the tempest, that
Jesus came to their aid, subdued the storm and brought
the ship immediately to the land whither they went.
The miraculous draught of fishes, and the finding of
the coin in the fish's mouth, were both direct results of
ordinary toil. In the Moabite war, the Jewish army,
about to perish with thirst, had to dig ditches in the
valley in which they were encamped, at the command of
Elisha, ere the Lord, without wind or rain, sent the
abundance of water which supplied their wants, and,
by the blood-red reflection of the rising sun in its wide
expanse, proved the means of destroying the enemy.
The widow of Obadiah had to pour a little of the oil,
which v/as her last possession, into each vessel which she
borrowed, in order that it might be filled to the brim
with the miraculous increase of the Lord. Even in the
supreme miracle of raising Lazarus from the grave, the
aid of human labour was called in. The bystanders were
commanded to roll away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre, and to loose Lazarus fium the cerements of the
tomb, to do all in fact that man could do towards raising
the dead. In like manner, it would be easy to show that
all the other miracles in the Old and New Testaments,
"instead of dispensing with human labour, crowned it

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 309

with a blessing which it could not itself work out. that
in them human effort not only preceded, but carried to
its end the aid of God."

And in this respect how different are the Divine
miracles from the marvels recorded in the mythologies
and fairy lore of every nation ! Aladdin rubs his ring or
his lamp, and immediately a magic feast is provided, for
which no tiller of the ground toiled in the sweat of his
brow ; a gorgeous palace is raised at once without the
slightest intervention of human labour or skill. Fortu-
natus puts on his wishing-cap, and immediately all that
he fancies is accompHshed without any trouble. All
these myths are objective expressions of the intense
human longing to change stones into bread by the
mere exercise of arbitrary power — to realize the ideals
of creation without the toil and trouble through which
alone they can be wrought out. Men have dreamed
fascinating dreams of removing the disabilities and
limitations of the world and the evils of life, without
sorrow. Poets have pictured earthly paradises, where
life would be one long festival,

" Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea."
But vain are all such dreams and longings. They are
of human, not of Divine origin, and spring from a root
of selfishness and not of holiness. They cannot be
realized in a fallen world, full of sorrow because full of
sin. All blessings in man's economy are got from pains.
Happiness is the flower that grows from a thorn of sor-
row transformed by man's cultivation. The beautiful
myth which placed the golden apples of the Hesperides

%io THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

in a garden guarded by dragons, is an allegory illustra-
tive of the great human fact, that not till we have slain
the dragons of selfishness and sloth can we obtain any of
the golden successes of life. Supposing it were possible
that we could obtain the objects of our desire without
any toil or trouble, we should not enjoy them. To
benefit us really, they must be the growths of our own
self-denial and labour. And this is the great lesson
which the miracles of our Lord, wrought in the manner
in which they were, unfolded. They teach us that, in both
temporal and spiritual things, we should not so throw
ourselves upon the providence or grace of God as to
neglect the part we have ourselves to act, — that God
crowns every honest and faithful effort of man with
success. " Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord ;
that walketh in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labour
of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be
well with thee."

But the miracles of our Lord were also wrought as the
result of His own toil and sorrow. As they fell in with
the ordinary ways of providence in the case of others, so
they did in His own case. We are accustomed to think
that His mighty works cost Him no exertion, that they
were accomplished by a simple exercise of will. But He
Himself told the disciples the secret of His wonder-work-
ing, when on one occasion they asked Him why they
failed in casting out the evil spirit from the demoniacal
child. " This kind cometh only by fasting and prayer."
They thought that they could have cast him out by a
single word, as Satan thought that Christ could command

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 311

the stones to be made bread. They mistook both the
motive and the means by which miracles were performed.
They would have exorcised the evil spirit with as little
expenditure of labour and self-denial as possible, and
without any regard to the state of the lunatic child, or
their own state. They would have given the boon which
she craved at once to the Syro-phenician woman, in
order to get rid of her importunities. But Jesus showed
them that not thus could miracles be performed. Just
as in the sphere of mechanics, there must be an equiva-
lent in time or force expended to the amount of v/ork
done ; if there be a saving of time, there must be a losing
of force, and vice versa. The pulley that lifts up the
enormous weight, gives an equivalent in loss of time for
the gain of power ; and so in all the mechanical appli-
ances of man ; and so in all the arts and relations of life.
There must in every case be loss for gain. In the sweat
of a man's face shall he eat bread. By the bruising of
his own heel, he shall bruise the many-headed hydra of
the world's evil. And the miracles of Christ were no
exception to this great law of life. Not by a simple word
of arbitrary power did He perform them, but by the power
of personal self-denial and painful effort. They were
wrought as the result of the closest sympathy with the
condition of the sufferer. He paid the full price for them
in self-sacrifice. The disciples and the multitude saw the
open reward in the glory of the miracle ; but they did not
. see or know the secret prayer, the fasting and fainting, the
strong crying and tears alone before God which preceded
them. As Jacob wrestled with God at Peniel. in secret

312 THE MINIS TR V- OF NA TURE. [chap.

and the unexpected reconciliation with his brother on
the morrow was the open reward ; as every Christian
who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, has the
open reward which astonishes every one in the victories
and immunities mentioned in the 91st Psalm; so Christ
Himself, made in all things like unto His brethren, was
enabled to perform His wonderful works as the open
result of long, lonely hours of fasting and prayer in the
desert and on the mountain.

Scripture more than once lifts the veil and gives us a
momentary glimpse of the struggle before the triumph —
the loss before the gain — the suffering before the glory.
It reveals to us that Jesus was moved with compassion
for the multitude when He fed them — for the widow of
Nain when He restored her son to life — for the leper
when He put forth His hand and touched him and said,
" I will, be thou clean," — while by this contact, He
Himself, according to the ceremonial law, became un-
clean. It tells us that He looked forth on the Pharisees
with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts,
when He healed the man with the withered hand. He
looked up to heaven and sighed, when He said to the
deaf and dumb man in Gahlee, " Ephphatha ; that is, Be
opened." Three times we are told that before Lazarus
was raised from the dead, Jesus was deeply moved.
'* He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled ; " " He
wept." " Jesus again groaning in Himself cometh to the
grave." Not by any magical effluence, not by any exer-
cise of arbitrary will, costing Him nothing, did the Lord
ot Life recall the vanished life to the corpse of His

XIII. ] L OSS AND GAIN IN MIR A CLES, 3 1 3

buried friend. On the contrary, it seems as if the very
greatness of the miracle required a correspondingly great
expenditure of sorrow and self-conflict. The same
thought, too, is suggested by the " loud voice " with which
Jesus cried, " Lazarus, come forth." More effort, as it
were, was needed to raise him who had been four days
in the grave, than was expended in raising the daughter
of Jairus, or the widow of Nain's son, who were newly
dead — for His summons to them was in a low and gentle
voice. When the woman's touch of faith drew healing
virtue from Him, He felt the loss — a loss af energy to
Him equivalent to the gain of health to her. In short,
in every miracle the outward glory was the result of an
inward suffering. As St. Matthew says, " When the even
was come, they brought unto Him many that were
possessed with devils : and He cast out the spirits with
His word, and healed all that were sick : that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying.
Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."
His miracles were significantly called " works," and were
therefore placed in the same category with man's labours,
and subject to the same law. " In sorrow — in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread." He bruised the serpent's
head through the bruising of His own heel. He won
back all that Adam lost, not by His crown of glory, but
by His cross of shame — not by separating Himself from
the common lot of humanity and falling back upon His
power as God, but by making Himself one with us, and
thus entering into the fellowship of the penalty which
man's sin had entailed.

314 THE MINISTRY OF STATURE. [chap.

The miracles of Jesus were not creations out of nothing.
He did not manifest Himself in them as a Creator, but
as a Redeemer. There is not a single instance of His
furnishing a new member when an old one had been lost.
All His miracles required a fulcrum — in objects already
existing — for their operation. There was a blind eye to
open, a withered hand to restore, a dead body to re-
suscitate, a storm to calm, a meal to multiply. They
invariably made use of old materials — raised the former
state of things to a grander platform. The works of the
devil in man and in nature were to be destroyed, but
che fundamental identity of man and nature was to be
faithfully preserved. Christ's new creation is just the re-
storation of God's image in man, and God's goodness in
nature. His miracles therefore, as actual parts of the great
work of the restitution of all things^ — beginnings and speci-
mens of that new genesis under which all old things shall
pass away and all things become new — were not viola-
tions of nature's laws, but deliverances of the original per-
fection of nature and human nature from the limitations
and defilements of sin, from the bondage of corruption
under which they groaned. The presence of the Second
Adam in our world was just like the presence of the first
in the primaeval world. The birth of the first Adam was
miraculous, and therefore the works which he performed
were miraculous, in the sense that they implied the exier-
cise of higher powers than those which were found in
nature before. But all that he did, though above nature,
was no contradiction of nature — no violation of the
system by means of which it had for unnumbered ages

X n I . ] Z OSS AND GAII^ m MIR A CLES. 3 \ 5

carried on its operations. He as the archetype of all
prior forms— the crowning point of the world to which
its various changes had reference, and in whom the whole
mundane system was, as it were, gathered together into
one — gave intelligent meaning and force to the blind
order of nature. His mastery over the material things of
earth was the mastery of intelligent will and intellectual
and moral purpose, and was designed of God to carry
out the great end of the world's perfection, towards which
all things were working together unintelligently and in a
lower sphere from the beginning. And so in a higher
degree it was with the Second Adam. His appearance
in the world was still more miraculous, and therefore
more wonderful works did show themselves by Him.
He came to carry on with unfaltering power and unerring
wisdom the work of the world's perfection, which man
had not only failed to perform, but had marred and de-
graded by his sin. But even the miracles of the Second
Adam, the Lord from heaven, though above the nature
which had been blighted and impoverished, were not
contrary to it. The great miracle of the Incarnation,
upon which all our Saviour's miracles hang, was an un-
mistakeable proof of this ; for it was an i7icorporatio7i oj
Deity with the works of His hands. In the first creation
God wrought outside and simply as the Creator of all
things, but, in the new creation, God was most intimately
associated with His material works. In Christ the union
of the Creator with creation was not a mere union of
proxy or semblance, but a real union. He ^vas the
glorious and perfect Creator and the glorious and perfect

3 t6 TrJE MINIS TR Y OF NA TURK. [chap.

creature, the Son of God and the Son of man, the image
of ihe invisible God and the first-born of every creature.
He was before all things, and in Him all things consisted.
This Incarnation is a perpetual miracle, for He still wears
our human form, and completes our salvation in the very
same nature in which He had wrought it out on earth.
Nature by this union was perfected and sublimated, net
confused and destroyed. And therefore all the miracles
of the Incarnation were not contradictions of nature, or
confusions of order, or even abnormal or eccentric forms
of growth, but, on the contrary, revelations of the true
order of nature — manifestations of the true law of life.
They were tokens of the presence of One who, in His
person and 7vork, came to fulfil all law — the moral law,
written on the tables of stone ; and the physical law,
written on the materials of which these tables were
composed.

Nature is ever witnessing to the beauty and harmony
that lie deep down at its heart, to the blessing of " very
goodness " bestowed upon it by its Creator. Our Saviour
drew the attention of His disciples to this on eveiy suit-
able occasion, and particularly in those discourses in
which He spoke of the lilies, the grass of the field, and
the fowls of heaven. Science is revealing year by year
to us more and more of this inherent, deep-seated order
and loveliness. From these qualities of nature, the
signet marks of the Almight}^, we derive all our natural
theology, our beautiful and interesting arguments from
design and from final causes. They have been in a
great measure overlaid, concealed, and thwarted in their

xiji.] LOSS AND GAIN IN MIRACLES. 317

manifestations by the presence and pressure of the alien
principle of evil. Nature under this hostile principle is
striving to develop its ideals of perfection, like a patch of
grass in a field striving to grow under a stone. Lift up that
stone, and you will find every root, stem, and blade
flattened and blanched, dwarfed and distorted, but still
endeavouring to preserve the ideal shape. Our Saviour's
miracles lifted the curse from nature, let in heaven's
sunshine upon its pale and crushed forms, and allowed
them to develop themselves freely, and fulfil their pur-
poses fully. They brought order out of confusion, light
out of darkness, health out of disease, calm out of storm,
abundance out of poverty, life out of death ; and thus we
perceive their true harmony with God's scheme of grace
to man, with the purpose of the laws and covenants of
the Old Testament, and the precepts and principles of
the New. Thus we perceive their true harmony also with
the purpose and design of God in the creation, and with
the development of nature; which lies not in a downward
course of disorder and degradation, but in an upward
course of greater beauty and brighter glory. As the pro-
cess of crystallization, by which the amorphous mineral
mass is changed into the diamond or the ruby, testifies to
no new law, to no broken order, but is a manifestation of
the underlying harmony and beauty of matter, so the
miracles of Christ are crystallizations, most lovely and
most rare, of the world's chaos of disorder and sin. As
the face of nature speaks of no interruption or violation
of its laws, but simply manifests its real nature, when its
winter sterility breaks out into the glory of April flowers,

31 8 THR MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

so the miracles of Christ are the first pure and lovely
flowers of the si)ring of grace, testifying to the power of
the Sun of Righteousness that will go on to develop the
true life of earth and the true life of man, and make the
winter wilderness a summer garden of the Lord.

The miracles of Jesus, I have said, were the beginnings
of a new and higher order of things. They inaugurated
the new creation of redemption \ and therefore, like the
almighty acts of the first six days of the world, they
cannot be repeated or imitated. But as acts of the new
creation, we can go on working and developing in the
nobler course they have indicated. As beginnings of a
new order of things, we can act in harmony with the
higher laws which they reveal. We cannot create, but
we can work with the materials which have been prepared
for us. We cannot begin, but we can carry on what has
been begun. We cannot change water into wine or mul-
tiply loaves and fishes, but these miracles indicate that
the Divine energy displayed in them is still working
mightily although silently in us, both to will and to do of
His good pleasure. They show to us the reality of His
conquest over the limitations of the world ; they prove
that all the prophecies which describe the future palin-
genesis are possibilities \ they supply the link that con-
nects the weakness of man with the strength of God.
By the union of the Divine and human nature in Christ,
He was enabled to perform His wonderful works ; and
by faith in Him, union with Him, we, too, can have the
Godhead united with our humanity ; and, through Christ
strengthening us, do all things It is a grand thought

XIII.] LOSS AND GAIN- IN MIRACLES. 319

suggested by a modern writer, that all the results of our
wonderful civilization have been the extejisive carrying
out of what Jesus wrought intensively. He wound up, as
it were, in His miracles the spring of the machinery of the
world's destiny; and all the progress of the world since has
been the working down of this concentrated force. He
multiplied bread in connection with the people following
Him into the wilderness to hear His words, that through
the cultivation of man's spirit by Christianity the waste
places of the earth might also be cultivated, and famine
be unknown; that the earth might yield her increase,
when all the people should praise the Lord. He healed
the sick, that " in the reverence for man's body which the
Gospel teaches — in the sympathy for all forms of suffering
which flows out of it — in the sure advance of all worthier
science which it implies and ensures — in and by aid of
all this, these miraculous cures might unfold themselves
into the whole art of Christian medicine, into all the
alleviations and removals of pain and disease which are
so rare in heathen and so frequent in Christian lands."
He stilled the storm and walked upon the sea that, in the
calm courage and skill which the religion of Jesus in-
spires, man's spirit might have the lordship of the winds
and waves, and Christian nations might build their noble
fleets and guide them over the trackless ocean, and
spread the blessings of Christian civilization over the
whole earth. Once, the Bible tells us, the Holy Land
was plastic to man's will. All nature there was obedient
to the people who were obedient to God. Its rain and
devr, the setting of its sun, the flow of its waters, t};e

320 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap. xiii.

increase of its harvests, were all dependent upon the
faith of Israel. And this state of things, the miracles of
Jesus teach us, was not unique, but representative. The
miracle without will still rise to meet faith — the miracle
within. Nature still will manifest her sympathy with
grace. All things will be possible to him that beheveth.
And it needs only that the people should be all righteous
to give to man that dominion over the whole earth whicli
Israel possessed over its ancient heritage.

CHAPTER XIV.

REJUVENESCENCE.

*' Who satisiieth thy mouth with good things ; so that thy youth
is renewed like the eagle's." — Psalm ciii. 5.

"P VER since our first parents were banished from the
Tree of Life, by whose blessed medicine they were
kept in undecayed vigour, mankind have sought a substi-
tute for it in ways of their own. In Greek mythology
we read the story of Medea, who, by the magic of her
incantations, restored the aged to the bloom of youthful
beauty. In Eastern fables we are charmed with descrip-
tions of the Vijara Nadi, the ageless river^ which makes
the old young again by only seeing it ; and of the spring
of immortality flowing in caverns below the earth, and
guarded by the pundit Kabib, where the bodies of those
who bathe in it shine as if anointed with oil, and are
fragrant as with the scent of violets. The South Sea
islander, seeing the sun sinking, dim and weary, in the
western waves, and rising again from the eastern main
fresh and bright, conceived the beautiful myth of " the
Y

322 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap-

water of enduring life," which removes all deformity and
decrepitude from those who plunge beneath its silvery
^irface. Among the Aleutian islanders the legend is
current that in the early ages of the world men were im-
mortal, and when they grew old had but to spring from
a higli mountain into a lake, whence they came forth in
renewed youth. In the Mediaeval romances we are
familiar with the " Fountain of Youth," and with the
wanderings of pilgrims in search of its miraculously-
healing waters — wonderful and adventurous as those in
quest of the Sangreal, or the treasure liid at the foot of
the rainbow. In Holy Writ the scene of one of the most
striking of our Saviour's miracles was laid beside the
Pool of Bethesda, in whose porches lay a great multitude
of impotent folk, of bHnd, halt, and withered, waiting
for the moving of the waters. " For an angel went down
at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water : p
whosoever then first after the troubling of the water
stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease
he had." By aid of the " philosopher's stone " and
the " elixir vitse " the alchemists and physicians of the
Middle Ages sought to ward off the infirmities of old age,
and to restore the freshness and fairness of youtli. Nor
has this fond dream of humanity altogether vanished in
our more prosaic days. There is still the same deep-felt
and wide-spread desire to preserve and restore the bloom
and vigour of life's early years ; and in spite of all our
scientific culture and material pursuits, in not a few in-
stances, the charms and potions of superstitious ages are
still used for this purpose.

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 323

Rejuvenescence is the one great poetic idea of the
universe. It underiies all the processes of nature ; it is
the end and mode of all its operations. All the pheno-
mena of the spiritual and material worlds are illustrations
of it. Nature, as its name signifies, is always about to
be born ; always going back from maturity to the natal
state, from the end to the beginning, ever renewing its
youth with the process of the suns. The dream of
humanity is the fact of creation ; the longings that in the
human world have been expressed in myths and ro-
mances have been symbolized in the objects of nature,
in the epic poem of the seasons and the ages. Geology
is the history of rejuvenescence on our earth. It shows
to us how, throughout its time-worlds, the old has given
place to the nev/, and out of former combinations new
ones have arisen. It reveals to us contitiual disintegra-
tion counterbalanced by continual construction ; decay
everywhere followed by renewal ; so that all things have
continued as they were from the beginning, and the earth
looks as young to-day as it did on the first morning of
creation.

The surface of the earth has been devated, by succes-
sive stages, from a primitive state of chaos to the present
arrangement of sea and land. Again and again it sank
beneath the ocean, to emerge after a time quickened into
a new life — born again, remodelled. Exhausted by bear-
ing countless generations of plants and animals, it re-
covered its fertilizing principles under the baptism of the
great waters, and became fit for bearing new orders of
life when the sea changed its bed. Continents and

Y 2

324 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

islands arose out of the sea, young and full of vigour ;
they became clothed with animal and plant life ; they
grew in beauty and luxuriance ; they did their appointed
work — matured and died, as it were : and the great tidal
wave which overwhelmed them exposed virgin lands pre-
pared for the production of new races, destined to go
through the same process of growth and decay. By this
grand method of cyclical rotation, Nature secured in the
wide field of Ihe globe the same beneficial results which
the Nile annually produces by its ebb and flow over
Egypt; and which the farmer obtains on his glebe by
allowing the land to lie fallow, and shifting his crop from
field to field. In this way also, by the alternate action
of igneous and aqueous forces, the globe was articulated
into its present shape, and developed the highly-organized
continent of Europe, so admirably fitted by its physical
construction to be the home of the foremost race of
mankind. And as a plant lengthens its stem, and re-
peats its foliage more abundantly and luxuriantly year
after year, until at last it bursts into flower, so Nature, in
carrying out her grand scheme of organic evolution, in-
troduced new races of plants and animals, of a higher and
yet higher order, corresponding to the progress of the
cosmical changes ; until in the end the animal kingdom
produced the bee and cow, and made the land to flow
with milk and honey, and the vegetable kipgdom blos-
somed into the rose and the lily, filHng all the air with
the beauty and fragrance of Eden.

The history of the earth as a whole is repeated by
each of its component parts. Fragnients of limestone

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 12%

rocks on mountain summits mimic in a remarkable
manner the cliffs out of which they have been weathered.
Mr. Whymper, for instance, found the piece of mica-
schist which he broke from the loftiest point of the
Matterhorn, an exact miniature of the whole peak ; the
same atmospheric causes which sculptured the huge
homogeneous mass having at the same time shaped
each of its parts. The changes through which each
plant and animal passes in its embryonic develop-
ment are similar to those through which the whole
earth and its inhabitants have passed in the course
of its geological history. All organic beings begin
existence at the bottom of the scale, and, taking on
one type of Hfe after another, finally assume the parent
type. The perfect state of one organism is but the
embryonic condition of another ; the highest forms being
the sum of all the lower series. The body of the
mammal is the archetype of all the inferior animals down
to the monad, and is in itself a representation of the
whole animal kingdom. The oak-tree exhibits all the
grand peculiarities of structure upon which the classifica-
tion of plants is founded. Its wood is exogenous, grow-
ing from within outwards ; its bark is endogenous, growing
from without inwards, which is the reason of its rugged
and withered appearance ; while its roots are acrogenous,
growing at their extremities. Thus all the distinc-
tive features of the vegetable kingdom are embraced
in the oak. The larva of a caterpillar may be con-
sidered as an independently existing embryo, which
nourishes itself instead of being fed by its mother, and

326 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

undergoes, in its progress towards the butterfly state,
transformations externally before our eyes, similar to
those which in other creatures are accomplished unseen
within the maternal organism. Applying the analogy to
the whole world of life, it may be said that Nature ex-
hibits externally before our eyes the gradual development
within her womb of the vegetable and animal kingdoms
as an organic whole, by the introduction of successive
animal and vegetable species. These various forms,
however, are distinct beings; not the same beings in
different stages of growth, as in the case of the insect.
The link by which they are united is not the consequence
of direct lineage or parental descent — not founded in
the laws of reproduction, but in the councils of the
Almighty, carrying out a great work of art conceived
in eternity and elaborated throughout all time. Nature
renews her youth, not by the extensive and varied deve-
lopment of one and the same primeval form, but by the
introduction in full perfection of new forms, which will
sooner part with their life than with their specific cha-
racter. I believe that Nature has progressed in time as
she progresses in space. In passing from the summit to
the base of a tropical mountain, or from the poles to the
equator, we pass from one geographical flora and fauna,
from one species to another, but we observe no genetic
connection between them ; so in passing from the oldest
geological to the present fauna and flora we pass from
one set of species to another ; but the change has been
eff"ected, not by transmutation, but by substitution.
The cell is the organic atom, the basis of all life. It

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 327

is the epitome of the great globe, a miniature world
having its summer and winter, its day and night, its life,
death, and renewal \ mimicking in its changes and pro-
cesses those of the vast sphere in which it is included.
Into this little world, however, the senses of man cannot
enter. How the grain of sand becomes a cell we cannot
comprehend. The construction of the first rounded
bridge between the dead, inert world and the world of
life is one of the profoundest mysteries of creation. It
is capable of an independent existence, as in the red-
snow plant, which performs within itself the whole series
of vital functions, running through its entire vegetative
development in a single cell. The rejuvenescence of
this cell consists first in the decay and reconstruction of
its walls and contents in the process of growth; and then
in its multiplication by self-division. All the immense
variety of forms, colours, and conditions in the vegetable
kingdom result from the combination of cells ; and hence
the phenomena of growth in the higher plants, which
consist in the changes and multiplication of individual
cells, are all phenomena of rejuvenescence. The indi-
vidual cells interwoven in the totality of the organism of
the higher plants lead the same kind of life there,
undergo the same transformation and renovation, as
when forming isolated unicellular plants. In the tree
the cells, as soon as produced, die and give birth to
others ; but they do not decay and disappear into gases
and mineral substances. They are enclosed in the
tissues of the new cells, and thus preserved from the
weather, which would otherwise decompose them. They

328 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

afford soil and mechanical support to the new cells. The
new cells in their turn give birth to other cells, and in
their turn die ; and their offspring encloses them agaiiL in
their protective mantle. And thus the growing tree goes
on and stops, grows old and becomes young again, ends
and begins, until it has reached its highest ideal of form
and its longest term of existence. It is built up by a
constant process of interstitional rejuvenescence. In
the annual plant, when the seed is produced, the multi-
plication of cells ceases, and the plant dies ; but it re-
juvenizes itself by the seed which it sheds producing tlie
plant aiiew. In the perennial plant, the multiplication
of cells ceases each year with the formation of the bud ;
but the cells already formed have a more enduring
subsistence, and therefore afford soil and mechanical
support to the new growth of the bud. The growth
of the annual plant is thus from the seed to the seed
again; and of the perennial plant from the bud to
the bud again.

Every spring there is a rejuvenescence of the vegetable
kingdom. But although most apparent at this season, —
showing itself in the tender verdure of green grass, and
fresh beauty of bright leaves and blossoms, — it is not the
work altogether of spring. This magic clothing of dead
boughs with foliage, and bare earth with grassy carpets,
is not the result of the few sunny days of April in
which it comes so suddenly into view. The labour of
renovation begins at an earlier period ; and the breath
of spring only unfolds that which was preparing in
silence and secrecy during the dark chill season of

XI)^] REJUVENESCENCE, 329

winter. For, as Dr. Braun* says, in proportion as the
vegetable world advances in summer and autumn, in
shoot and leaf and wood, in flower and fruit, and all the
outward manifestations of life, so does it simultaneously
retreat into itself in the formation of buds and seed, to
prepare the germs of new life. Thus in August we find
in the terminal and lateral buds of the oak the rudiments
of the leaves destined for next summer ; in the twin ter-
minal buds of the lilac, not only these, but also the rich
thyrse of blossom for the future year ; and, strangest of
all, in the adder's -tongue, a fern which unfolds annually
only one leaf and spike, the bud hidden underground in
May contains not only the leaf and spike for the next
season, but also the rudiments of the leaf and spike for
the season after that. Winter puts plants into the deep
sleep which allows this rib to be taken out of their side.
It prepares for the rejuvenescence of spring. Nature
then withdraws into her recesses, and fashions indoors
as it were, in the hiding-places of her power, the leaf
and the blossom, which come out when the summer
shines. Nature looks dead in winter because her life is
gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to
the root that she may grow it up again fairer and
stronger. She calls her family together within her in-
most home to prepare them for being scattered abroad
upon the face of the earth. And it is curious to notice
that the colouring of spring is like the colouring of
autumn. The first sprout of the hawthorn-hedge is of

* See Dr. Braun's admirable " Verjiingung der Pflanzen," trans-
lated for the Ray Society by the late Professor Henfrey.

330 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

the same reddish hue as the last withered leaf that
clings to the oldest branch. In a rich glossy olive hue
the ash-tree unfolds its young foliage in April, and
sheds its aged foliage in September. The autumnal
tints of the oak are prefigured by those of its vernal
promise; its leaves come in and go out in a crimson
blaze. As Nature begins, so she ends ; her extremes
meet. Each birth is a prophecy of death, and each
death a prophecy of birth.

The illustrations of rejuvenescence which zoology
affords are still more interesting, because connected with
a more complex organization and a higher function of
life. Animal growth differs very widely from vegetable
growth. The vegetable grows by means of additional
cells ; the animal by means of substituted cells. The
cells of the plant die as soon as they are produced
and have served their purpose, but they are retained
in the structure and help to build it up; there being
no provision made in the economy of the plant for
the expulsion of dead cells. The cells of the animal
on the other hand also die, but they are expelled from
the body, and new ones take their place. The new cells
of the vegetable are added to the dead cells; and
living and dead cells together make up the plant. A
tree, for instance, has only one generation of living
plants on it, but as many generations of dead built up
in it as the tree is old. Only each year's growth is living ;
the rest is all dead heart-wood, which would decay, were
it not that it is protected from the weather by the living
tissue outside. On the other hand, the new cells of the

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 331

animal structure are not added to, but substituted for, the
old, which are consequently eliminated from the body.
The sap of the plant is employed to add new tissues to
the structure ; the circulation of the blood in the animal
is employed in repairing the old tissues. It may be said,
indeed, that in the young growing animal, there is a com-
bination of the two modes of growth. By the animal
mode it retains the stability of its system ; its body com-
ing back at the end of twenty-four hours to the same
condition from which it started, and all the old cells
being transformed into new cells. By the vegetable
mode of growth, it accumulates that small variation and
sum of uncompensated forces, which constitute the
growth and progressive development of its body ; new
cells being added to the old. Every movement of the
animal's body is caused by the destruction of so much
vital tissue. This effete substance is removed in breath-
ing, and in the various excretions of the body ; while
the circulation of the blood is continually repairing the
waste. The animal thus grows and maintains its sta-
bility by a constant process of rejuvenescence. In youth
the restorative process outruns the destructive, new cells
are added to the old, and the animal consequently grows
after the manner of a vegetable ; in maturity the con-
structive and destructive forces are equally balanced, and
new cells are substituted for the old, according to the
distinctively animal type ; while in old age the destruc-
tive process outruns the restorative, and the animal conse-
quently decays and finally dies, approximating to the type
of the mineral which is disiDtegrated by the weather.

332 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

But besides this continual molecular change which
takes place in the animal body, there are certain great
changes occurring in it which are conspicuous to the eye,
and which are also changes of rejuvenescence, corre-
sponding to the vernal changes of plants. Many animals
have periodical and most curious replacements of entire
organs and parts of their structure. Every one is
familiar with the process of moulting in birds, in which
the old feathers drop off every year and new ones are
formed ; this change in the plumage being accompanied
by corresponding constitutional changes. It is an
ancient fable that the eagle is able to renew his youth
when very old, and poetical allusion is made to it in the
103rd Psalm ; but this idea is doubtless founded in reality
on the great longevity of the bird, and its power, in com-
mon with other birds, of moulting its plumage periodically,
and so increasing its strength and activity. Lizards,
serpents, and spiders statedly cast their entire skin, and
are furnished with a new one. The crab even replaces
its stomach, forming a new one every year and casting
away the old one. Just as plants rejuvenize by the
annual renewal of their leaves and flowers, so animals
rejuvenize by the annual renewal of some of their parts
or organs. Perhaps the most striking illustration of
rejuvenescence in the animal kingdom is the transforma-
tion of the sluggish crawling caterpillar into the active-
winged butterfly, and of the headless and footless maggot
into the highly articulated fly. The winged state of the
insect is analogous to the efflorescence of the plant. The
butterfly is just the blossom of the caterpillar. For as

Xiv.j REJUVENESCENCE. 333

the blossom of the plant is formed for the purpose of
producing the seed by which the species is perpetuated ;
so the butterfly is developed by the caterpillar in order
to lay eggs and produce future caterpillars ; this being its
only occupation, many kinds having no mouth to eat.
And it is curious to notice how closely nature followed
the type of a papilionaceous plant in making the insect.
As the butterfly corresponds to the flower, so does the
caterpillar correspond to the pod, and the chrysalis to the
stem, from which comes forth again the flower. Blossom
and pod and stem are thus for ever put forth in succes-
sion by the living flower. No less striking is the vernal
rejuvenescence of birds, in harmony with that of nature
around them. Their richer plumage answers to the
beauty of the spring buds ; and their sweeter song to
the fragrance of the blossoms. And as the purpose of
the flower is to produce seed, and of the bird to produce
young, and thus in both cases to rejuvenize the species ;
so in this design they prefigure the beauties and sancti-
ties of human love in its bridal spring. The final meta-
morphosis which man undergoes at the period of puberty,
with its new physical and psychical endowments, corre-
sponds to the passage of insects to the perfect or imago
state, and the spring rejuvenescence of birds.

" In tlie spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast ;
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ;
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove ;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. "

In all the phenomena of rejuvenescence, there is a
depression of life preceding the new upraising. Tlie song

334 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

of the blackbird and thrush, and the bright crimson of
the robin's breast in spring, were preceded by the long
silence and the dull russet hues of winter. The new
gi-owth of perennial plants commences with bud-scales,
which are leaves of the lowest formation ; and the new
growth of annual plants, with cotyledon leaves, also of the
most primitive construction. These transition or lowest
leaves in dicotyledons are parallel-veined like the perfect
leaves of the monocotyledons ; while the leaves belong-
ing to the most advanced structure of the inflorescence
come back in typical character to the cotyledons and
bud-scales of the earliest formation. The germander
speedwell of our waysides droops its erect shoots after
flowering, and strikes root in the earth, to be renewed
again in the following year and bear flowering branches.
The wood anemone prolongs for several years its
creeping subterraneous growth, putting forth alternately
leaves of the lowest and leaves of the highest type,
before it rises into an upright stem, producing the
well-known three-leaved whorl of perfect foliage and
the beautiful drooping flower. Our native orchids by
the yearly decay of one of their two bulbs form a
fresh one on the opposite side, and thus the flower
marches slowly onwards in the meadow. The blossom
of the lily springs from a sheath or leaf of the lowest
type. The plant contracts in the seed that it may arise
in the stem, and again contracts in the calyx that it
may expand in the blossom and fruit. The silkworm
moth comes out of the cocoon which was produced by
the decomposition or retrograde action of its own tissues

XIV. ] R-EJUVENESCENCE. 335

in the caterpillar state. By all these depressions or
recoils of life, an impulse is communicated by which the
organism attains a more elevated grade. The force
necessary for organization is the result of disorganiza-
tion; and death and destruction are the necessary con-
ditions of life and development.

Passing on to man, who sums up in himself all ani-
mal and vegetable types of structure and function, and
connects them with the spiritual world, whose existence
is the aim to which the infinite rejuvenescences through-
out all nature strive, we find that his body is subject to
the same laws of growth which rule in the bodies of
other animals. He, too, grows by the substitution of new
particles for the old. So thorough and complete is this
change, that in the course of seven years it amounts to
the entire renewal of the whole body. The body be-
comes young again eveiy day and hour by the molecular
change of its substance through the disintegration of
work and the repair of food. It becomes young again
once eveiy seven years by the entire renovation of all its
materials. But besides this particular and general mole-
cular renovation, there are also periodical renewals of
some organ or conspicuous portion of the body itself.
The body renews its youth through fever, producing new
liair and new skin, and becoming stronger and healthier
afterwards. Occasionally an old man or woman resumes
the external signs of' youth. There are numerous
authentic instances on record of the cutting of new teeth,
of the growth of hair, of a return of the power of suck-
ling in extreme old age. Scripture informs us that issue

336 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE, [chap.

was bom to Abraham and Samh, though Abraham said
in his heart, when the angel told him of the predicted
birth, " Shall a child be born to him that is an hundred
years old ; and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear ? "
The parents of John the Baptist were both aged ; and
when the angel announced the birth, Zacharias said,
" Whereby shall I know this, for my wife is well-stricken
in years? " Indeed, such examples of rejuvenescence in
old age are so numerous that they have been systematized
into a distinct department of physiology.*

Sleep is one of the most wonderful phenomena of re-
juvenescence. It is through sleep that worn-out nature is
recruited and renews its youth. As the French proverb
says : " He who sleeps, eats." Our bodies return in
sleep every night to the ante-natal state, in order that
our exhausted energies may be concentrated and re-
freshed, and, obtaining a new draught from the great
Source of all life, we may issue every day from the v^^omb
of the morning new creatures. We sink to a lower con-
dition of development analogous to that of the vegetable,
that we may rise to a more perfect animal condition than
before. The inner formative processes do not rest
during this depression and retreat, but rather act the
more vigorously, as they do in the plant, because of the
absence of all the distractions and interferences of self-
consciousness. So, too, the mind in sleep relaxes its
hold of the outward world, and becomes a mere passive
mirror to reflect its images and sensations in dreams;

* See "Ueber Viriliscenz und Rejuvenescenz thierischer Korper,"
by Dr. Mehliss of Loipsic.

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 337

but in this state of passivity it gathers itself into new
force — into a renewed recollection of its specific purpose
— and rearranges in an orderly manner all the confusions
and perplexities of its waking state. Hence the prudent
maxim which enjoins us to sleep over some important
step or question is founded not only upon outward expe-
rience of life, but also upon inward physiological reasons.
Innumerable instances might be quoted in which problems
insoluble before going to bed had been clearly wrought
out by the mind during sleep ; and the result written
down by the unconscious somnambulist has astonished
him next morning. It is also through the soft soothing
sleep which occurs at the crisis of severe diseases that
the rejuvenescence of the body occurs. " If he sleep,
he shall do well," said the disciples regarding Lazams.
The patient falls into the same state as the caterpillar
when it prepares the rejuvenized body for its future
resurrection into the butterfly. In this pupa-sleep — this
chrysalis state as it were — all his exhausted energies are
gathered in and restored, and he afterwards emerges into
a freer and more mobile existence. But there is one
organ of the body which seems never to sleep, and yet
wastes itself by its action, and needs to be repaired.
How is the heart rejuvenized? We explain the secret
of its apparently unceasing exercise of power by re-
ferring to its action of systole and diastole, its exact
rhythm of alternating contractions and dilatations.
Every contraction by which it forces blood into the
vessels is succeeded by an interval of rest of precisely
the same length ; and during this period of sleep, brief

r.

33« THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [cttap.

as it is, the changes that occurred during the contrac-
tion are repaired, and it becomes a new heart.

One day is an epitome of hfe's long day of threescore
years and ten. We pass every day through all the
changes of human experience. We are children in the
morning, with their fresh young bodies and feelings ; we
are middle-aged at noon, having seen an end of all
perfection ; we are old and weary and worn out at night.
So, too, every human being is a miniature of mankind ; for
just as we find the child, and the grown-up man, and the
aged person side by side in the same family and society,
so in the corporate structure of the individual we find
that youth and old age are not separate and successive
periods, but contemporaneous. All seasons with their
corresponding changes on the broad scale of the world
are synchronous ; so all ages are synchronous on the
broad scale of society, and in the microcosm of the
individual. Throughout life the phenomena of youth
and age run side by side in the same person. If decay
attends upon age, so does it attend upon youth ; and if
youth is a beginning, so, too, is maturity. Many organs
have already become old, and lost their vitality before
birth. The child has old teeth — the milk-teeth destined
to early destruction ; and young teeth — wisdom-teeth-
appear at a later age. The cotyledon and radical leaves of
plants wither away through age when the flowers are yet
in the bud, and the blossom becomes old and . decays
when the fruit merely begins to form. The body of man
may be old, while his mind is merely in its first stage of
development. Indeed, so closely are youth and age inter-

XIV] REJUVENESCENCE. 339

mingled in the same organism, thr.t one of the most
difficult problems of physiology, as Dr. Braun has sug-
gested, is just this — "How are youth and age to be
distinguished ? When does youth cease and age begin ?
How do they pass into one another? and which is
the more perfect condition of life ? "

The mind rejuvenizes itself as well as the body. " It
is the youngest and yet the oldest existence in nature,
destined to attain in its last age its eternal youth —
the freedom fitted to its essential nature." The heir
of all the ages, all the elder things, shall indeed serve
this younger. It is continually renewing itself in the
originalities of genius — in the resuscitations of intellectual
life from its stereotyped monotony — in the invention of
new methods of inquiry. The so-called heresies of
science, art, and literature, are in reality the rejuve-
nescence of mind seeking a new expression for its new
life. Poetry keeps the mind ever young, brings it back
from the irksomeness of exhausted human invention to
the fresh freedom and beautiful simplicity of nature.
The poetical mind ever and anon touches its native
earth, and rebounds strengthened and ennobled. Every
new thought v/e acquire — every mastery we gain over
truth — is a renewal of our minds. So, too, with our hearts !
Scripture speaks of a new heart, and we all know what
is meant by the youth of the heart, which may exist
even in extreme old age. One of the sweetest promises
connected with the '* times of restitution," is that the
child shall die an hundred years old. To have the
child-heart amid the cares and sorrows of life, and the

z 2

340 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

infirmities of old age — to have the same freshness and
elasticity of feeling, the same trustfulness of disposition
and magic power to extract an all-sufhcing happiness
from the simplest things, which so peculiarly belong to
childhood — to have them perpetuated and unimpaired
amid the changes of the years, who would not wish for
such a gift ? It may be said that the old myth of trans-
migration, of successive avatars, is true of our hearts,
for they pass through many lives, each with its own
opportunity of acquiring some new good, and casting
away the slough of some old evil. Whenever we return
from selfishness and worldliness to the tenderness
and self-forgetfulness of love; whenever a new and
noble emotion takes possession of us; whenever the
pressure of a sore trial passes away, or we are lifted by
faith and hope above it : in these experiences the heart
renews its youth. We go back to the freshness and fair-
ness of life's early days, and in the green pastures, and
beside the still waters — upon which the valley of the
shadow of death through which we have passed has
opened — our souls are restored, and we find the crocus
of spring blooming again in our happy autumn fields.

In conversion the soul becomes youthful. " Except
ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot
enter the kingdom of heaven." Of the host of Israel
it was the children and not the fathers who entered the
land of Canaan; and they entered that high mountain
land not by the highest pass, but at the lowest point in
the valley of the Jordan — the deepest depression in the
world. And so it is by the deepest humiHty and con-

XIV. 1 REJUVENESCENCE. 341

trition that we enter into the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. It is not as a teacher come from God perfect-
ing our imperfect knowledge that we are to regard
Jesus, but as a Saviour saving us radically from sin
and death. It is not instruction that we need, but a
new birth — of the water and of the Spirit — in which a
complete cleansing shall take place regarding the past,
and a new spiritual life shall be communicated as regards
the future. It is not in the clear rivers in the uplands of
Damascus, but in the dark waters deep down in the
defiles of Israel, that we are to wash away our spiritual
leprosy, to have our heart and life purified, and our
flesh made like unto the flesh of a little child. In
conversion the whole man is renewed ; the whole work
of the devil in man is destroyed ; all the effects of sin in
his whole nature eradicated. "If any man be in Christ
Jesus he is a new creature ; all old things have passed
away, and all things have become new." Body, soul, and
spirit are sanctified, and preserved blameless unto the
coming of Christ. " Then He is gracious unto him, and
saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit : I have
found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a
child's : he shall return to the days of his youth."

Humanity rejuvenizes itself in the birth of every child;
and grows young again in the youth of its children.
Full of selfishness and falsehood — of sorrow and evil —
as is the world, it has, at least, one redeeming point in
the constant presence of children in it. This inspires
hope and sustains faith. It is the most powerful element
in human progress. Growing old ourselves, with hearts

342 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

dry and withered, we take our little ones by the hand,
and traverse the wearisome, monotonous round of life
with them again, and find it all new. Our own character
fixed, our opinions become prejudices — this young gene-
ration with plastic minds comes forward to carry on the
work of the world a few steps, and to become stereo-
typed in turn. In the rise and fall of nations, in the
birth and death of individuals, humanity rejuvenizes
itself. The individual and national life are parallel, for
the birth and death of an organic particle in the person
answers to the birth and death of an individual in the
nation. " Man is the archetype of society," and indi-
vidual development the model of social progress. Races
become old and efi"ete, and yield the van of progress
to young races, with fresh enthusiastic blood in their
veins; and those pestilences and famines that have
periodically occurred in history seem to have favoured
this renovation of mankind by cutting off the old and
feeble, and leaving only the strong and healthy to per-
petuate a more vigorous race. Humanity rejuvenizes
itself in the progress of civihzation, which is disclosing
more and more of what is contained in human character
and capacities, and is a constant recollection of the
original destination of human life.

But the greatest of all rejuvenescences was the origin of
Christianity. This sums up in itself all other rejuvene-
scences, and gives them a significance and a value which
they do not otherwise possess. The birth of our Lord
13 the most wonderful illustration of the great law by
which life of every kind returns to an earlier condition,

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 343

in order to obtain a point of departure for renewed pro-
gress on a higher plane. " For unto us a Child is born,
unto us a Son is given." In the person of the child
Jesus, humanity became young again. By His works the
world became a new creation. Sin had made nature old
in barrenness and poverty and disorder ; sin had worn
out the human frame with disease and defect and death ;
sin had subjected the spirit to the bondage of evil. From
all these disabilities and evils the miracles of Jesus
delivered nature and human nature. By the multiplica-
tion of the loaves and the changing of water into wine,
our Lord removed the poverty of fallen nature, and
brought back the fertility and abundance of the unfallen
world, before the curse had been pronounced, " Thorns
and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee ; in the sweat
of thy brow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."
The miracle of walking on the sea re-asserted the
sovereignty over nature which man had lost. The
calming of the storm brought back nature to the peace
and order of Eden. The healing of blindness, deaf-
ness, dumbness, fever, leprosy, and all the other diseases
caused by sin, brought back man's body to the healthi-
ness and vigour which it had when it sprang fresh
from the Creator's hand; while the casting out of
devils and the forgiveness of sin restored man's spirit to
the freedom and purity of its first estate.

Across all these rejuvenescences comes the terrible
" Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther," of death. But
this most mysterious riddle of nature's Sphinx is inter-
preted by Him who brought Hfe and immortahty to.

344 THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

light. He has shown to us in His miracles and in His
own person, that death is but the sleep of rejuvenescence
— the greatest retreat and gathering in of life for the
greatest transformation — deeper and longer-continued
than the embryonal or pupa sleep; but as certain to
issue in a higher state and in a nobler form. It is not
the storm or the blight that decays and pushes off the
autumn leaf, but the growth of the bud behind it. So
it is the expansion of immortal life behind that pushes
off this mortal life. The outward man perisheth because
the inward man is renewed more and more. " It is not
death that destroys," says Fichte, " but the higher life
which, concealed behind the other, begins to develop
itself. Death and birth are but the struggle of life with
itself to attain a higher form." The body is shed, like
an autumn leaf from the bough of life, every seven years,
leaving its bud to perpetuate the same existence ; but in
death it leaves behind not a bud, but a seed or germ —
sowing not that which shall be but bare grain— from which
will be developed the body of immortality. The body
that is laid in the grave is only the last, it may be, of a
long series, out of which the soul has successively
departed ; and as the soul has moulded and preserved
the identity of these successive bodies raised from the
bud, so it will mould and preserve the identity of the
last glorious body that shall be raised from the seed.

Every rejuvenescence which man experiences is an
additional assurance to him that," as he has borne the
image of the earthy, so he will bear the image of the
heavenly. We have proofs and anticipations of this in

XIV.] REJUVENESCENCE. 345

the fact that there is hardly one of our organs which
fulfils a mere animal purpose. The brain, while it is
necessary to the process of digestion and locomotion, is
also the medium of thought ; the lungs that purify the
blood are also organs of speech ; the heart that circulates
the blood is also the seat of the emotions and affections.
The spiritual stamps its impress upon every part of the
body, and claims it for its own purposes. The very
waste or dross of the body which is carried away by the
breath, is minted in language into the coinage of the soul.
In the development of the body through all its stages,
we see the complete subordination of structure to spirit
and spiritual purpose. The nervous system, which is
the noblest part of our body and the immediate instru-
mentality of the spirit, is the first part that appears in
the human germ ; and as it develops from the primitive
groove, all the rest of the structure is introduced to
minister to it. The digestive, the circulating, the secre-
tory, the respiratory apparatus, are all merely its subor-
dinates and servants. It uses them in succession in
carrying out its great aim at psychical development;
leaves behind the germinal membrane when the stomach
is prepared, and passes from aquatic to aerial respiration.
It changes the very nature of its organs. It breathes by
a membrane, by gills, and by lungs ; it carries on its cir-
culation wi-thout a heart, with a heart of one cavity, and
finally with one of four. The particles of the body asso-
ciated with it at birth all pass away at maturity, and are
replaced by new ones. And in this elevation and dis-
carding of the means by which it is attained, the principle

34<i THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. [chap.

that animates the nervous system remains unchanged, and
goes on from strength to strength. Do we not see in
this, as Dr. Draper has so admirably pointed out, the
complete subordination of structure, and the enduring
character of spirit ? And is there not good reason to
conclude that the universal instinctive feeling of the ages
and nations, that the spirit will exist after death, is not a
vulgar illusion, but a solemn, philosophical fact ? If the
spirit has already survived so many changes, the renewal
of organs and structures that seemed essential to its
existence, are we not justified in expecting that it will
survive the dissolution of the whole body, and complete
in a future state the archetype towards which from the
beginning to the end it has been advancing here.

This is the glorious hope set before us in the Gospel ;
tliis is the climax and consummation of all rejuvenescences
here — the renewal of nature — of man's body — of his mind
— his heart — his soul. All these renewals are leading to
and preparing for the great renewal of heaven. The
kingdom of heaven in its highest sense is the r-estitiction
of all things. It is the New Jerusalemi, the realization at
once of the true tendencies of man and the fulfilment of
the ancient promises of God. It is the new heaven and
the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness — not another
physical world specially created for the dwelling-place of
glorified humanity ; but this earth itself which in all its
various phases has been so closely united and bound up
with the nature of man, and hallowed by the footsteps,
yea, even by the tears and blood of the Son of God himself,
and which in the end shall share in the new and wondrous

XIV. 1 REJUVENESCENCE. 347

birth of redemption, — "put on its glorious resurrection
robes and minister delight to the ennobled senses of the
redeemed." " Behold, I make all things new," says the
Alpha and the Omega — the Beginning and the End — not
in the sense of a new creation, but in the sense of the
perfect renovation and exaltation of the old. Mankind
will return to the youth of Eden; paradise will be restored.
The tree of life will bloom again, and the river of life will
flow as the true fountain of youth through the unfading
landscapes of immortality. All that Adam lost through
disobedience will be restored in a higher shape through
Christ's obedience. All that we loved and lost here will
meet us there, and we shall rejoice, and our joy no man
shall take from us. All the old things of the curse will
pass away in the everlasting spring. The spirits of just
men will be made perfect. There will be neither marr)--
ing nor giving in marriage — no birth, and consequently
no death, for all will be as the angels of heaven. The
angels wear the bloom of eternal youth, for v/henever
they appeared on earth they were seen as young men.
And the redeemed in glory will have the body of their
humiliation changed and fashioned like unto the body
of Christ ; and we know what a body that is — incor-
ruptible, undefiled, unfad-ng — Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, to-day and for ever. " We shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him f?? He is."

THE END.

HicliARD Clay <fe Sons,
bui:ad stbekt hill, London, k.c.

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