the problem of the universe, cannot be too often urged to ask themselves whether their whole fabric of science rests, at last, on anything more solid than just such instincts of the soul as this religious instinct which compels men to pray, and necessitates the belief in Providence. What are the perception of the relation of cause and effect, and of the existence of matter, the craving for unity of physical law, the sense of the constancy of nature, but intuitions as intangible and transcendental as the instinct of religious reverence and worship, and the sense of accountability? Which of these necessary axioms of physical science has not been disproved by one philosopher or another with arguments' which admit no refutation and produce no conviction,' and relegated by general consent to the category of things that cannot be proved, and yet must be believed? If Professor Tyndall repudiates prayer for physical blessings as being irreconcilable with science, wherein is he more rational than those theologians of the old school who repudiate science as being irreconcilable with religion? It is worth while to anticipate one practical objection which may, perhaps, be raised from the religious side against the views presented in this paper. What, it may be asked, is the practical value of prayer to mankind in general, if it can be intelligently exercised only through the apprehension of a metaphysical argument like this? To which there are several obvious answers to be made; as (1) that the metaphysical defence is level to the comprehension of any mind that is liable to be embarrassed by the physical objection; (2) that to minds, even of plain people, habituated to the devout contemplation of God, the sublime thought of His 'most pure act' as absolved from the relations of time and space becomes not only possible, but natural and customary; but chiefly this (3), that prayer does not concern itself with the processes by which it is to be accomplished. The heavy-laden heart, coming to the heavenly Father with its burden of anxiety, does not come asking for a miracle, or a special providence,' or a suspension of natural laws, or arguing that to absolute foreknowledge the relations of antecedent and consequent are as nothing. It asks with childlike simplicity for the end that it seeks, and leaves the means, the processes, and the difficulties with God. The greatest anatomist in the world cannot lift his hand by reflecting which muscle he shall contract. He may sit all day concentrating his volition on the biceps flexor, and not a hand shall wag for him. But by-and-by he has occasion, in earnest, to lift his hand, and all the muscular machinery is set agoing of itself. So prayer goes straight for its object, confident that the needful means, whatever they may be-miracle, special providence, natural cause and lawwill all be, nay, have all been, cared for. Sometimes the very miraculousness of miracle may be the needed and desired end, and if it be, then prayer is not afraid to ask for it. But, in view of this discussion, the question ought soberly to be considered, how far the current theological definitions of Miracle may need amendment. Does even Miracle, any more than Prayer and Providence, necessarily imply the violation, or suspension, or overriding of natural law? Try the question by a particular and very signal instance--the fall of the walls of Jericho. Certainly, no event in the Old Testament history is more distinctly miraculous in respect to the impression which it made, and was intended to make. Seven successive days the host of Israel made the circuit of the town, with hushed voices, to the music of the sacred trumpets. On the seventh day, at the end of the seventh circuit, at the word of command from Joshua, the people shouted with a great shout, and the walls fell down flat. If this event was absolutely isolated from all relation to natural causes, was it any more miraculous-any more demonstrative of the Divine presence and commission-than if one of those earthquakes which within the historic period have left their scars all over the Jordan valley, had been so timed in the prearrangements of creation as to spring forth at theeternally foreknown moment of that martial call of Joshua ? In the day when the abysses of the earth and sea shall yield up the secrets that are in them, it may be that we shall curiously scrutinise the long hidden machinery of this great wonder. It may be that we shall then trace the long series of moral causes and conditions, extending, not through forty years only, nor four hundred years only, which terminated in the moral exigency that demanded the miraculous demonstration. Possibly, too, we may then be able to detect, running parallel with this line of moral influences, the vestiges of an old train of geologic causes, working down through all the periods of creation, until the two lines of diverse operation converge upon a distinct, predeterminate point of time and space; as when under the orders of some great commander, issued from his secret cabinet, two army columns march ing, without mutual concert, by different and remote routes, debouch at the same moment into the open plain. Would there be anything less miraculous in such an adjustment, from eternity, of physical 170 causes to specific moral ends, than in a sudden, utterly disconnected explosion of thaumaturgic power? Sometimes the action of natural causes in producing a miraculous result is distinctly suggested in the text of the Scriptures, as when, in the story of the Exodus, it is said: 'Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land.' A devout and intelligent nobleman, burdened with a sense of responsibility for traditionary theological definitions, was painfully shocked that the Father of Biblical Geography, Dr. Edward Robinson, in describing what he believed to be the scene of this miracle, should have adverted to a shallow strip across the tongue of the Egyptian Sea,' as if that shoal might have had some part in the miraculous event. And yet wherein the mention of a shallow in the bay is necessarily more distressing to an orthodox mind than the mention of a strong east wind' it might be difficult to explain. Manifestly it is nowise essential to the miraculousness of this part of the story that the relation of this particular east wind to meteorological causes should be different from that of east winds in general. There is no hint that it was an afterthought of the Creator, or that His causing it to blow was not a part of the common programme of creation, when He looked to the ends of the earth, and saw under the whole heaven, to make the weight for the winds.' Considered independently of its relations to humanity, that east wind was simply a meteorological fact. Considered as opening a way of relief to a distressed and helpless people, it was a fact of providence, and, as being specially adapted to awaken their attention and grati Lord Nugent's Travels in the East. I am compelled to quote from distant recollection. tude, it was (as the clumsy phrase goes) 'a special providence. But considered as having answered at the moment, like an obedient servant, to the outstretched rod of Moses, so demonstrating his 'Divine legation,' and illustrating how the baser and material creation is timed and adjusted to keep stroke with the exigencies of God's moral government, it was a miracle. The pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, has never been, in itself, a miraculous incident, in Egypt. But when suddenly it darkens the heavens at the waving of 'the rod of Amram's son,' it is recognised at once as a miracle, and none the less a miracle even though its origin had been traced by finding in the desert the dry pupa-cases from which it had emerged, and though the genealogy of every insect of the swarm had been traced back, through ordinary generation, to the original locust that nibbled the leaves of Paradise. Do not mistake me. I am not arguing that there is never, in miracles, any interruption or supersession of natural law. The sole point of the argument is that such interference with natural law is not (as the definitions imply) essential to the idea of miracle. But I know no good theological reason for limiting the freedom of honest and reverent conjecture as to how far this principle may be applied in the explanation of particular miracles. If there are minds so constituted as to find relief from intellectual difficulty in the hypothesis that from the foundation of the world had been laid a multitude of separate trains of subtile causation terminating at every step along the paths that Jesus of Nazareth was to tread, and so timed and adjusted that at the touch of His hand and the gracious words of His mouth the blind should see, the deaf hear, the lame man leap asa hart, the paralytic lift his bed and walk, the bodies of the dead awake, and the storm hush itself to sudden calm, I do not see that this hypothesis would necessarily derogate from the honour of the Son of God, or diminish the evidence that He had 'power on earth to forgive sins,' or make men less likely to believe Him for the works' sake.' The prophecies of His career distinctly declare that it had been Divinely purposed from of old that these mighty works should show forth themselves in Him; and if purposed, why not prepared? There will be reasons enough, grammatical, philosophical, and even scientific, against the application of this principle in individual cases; but of à priori theological presumption against it, there is nothing. There is only the general anterior probability of direct miraculous efficiency in the action of Jesus Christ, which arises from the study of His Person and Nature, and from the crowning fact of His Resurrection. To return for a moment to Professor Tyndall's objections to the Christian doctrine of prayer: I desire to express, in all sincerity, the acknowledgments which theology owes to him. The very best services to theology are often rendered by the attacks of shrewd, clear-headed objectors. Let us thank Professor Tyndall for his effective help in exploding the vulgar error in practical theology, that prayer has no function except in the realm of irregularity and caprice. As the advance of science has encroached more and more upon this realm, conquering from it province after province to be annexed to the kingdom of light and law, it has been pitiful to see how the vindicators of prayer as something to be used in matters beyond the control of law, have dodged from point to point, starting at every new announcement of scientific discovery, 'like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons.' Naturally enough, this defence of prayer has long intrenched itself in the weather, as being an inexpugnable domain of caprice. It is a genuine service to sound doctrine whenever such defenders of a false position suffer a new defeat. Theology may look on "with entire equanimity when Professor Tyndall sends those treacherous champions the summons to evacuate the ground, and may even smile when he graciously suggests that they get themselves quite over the border, into the region of Psychology, if they would be out of the range of his guns; which some of them seem to be preparing to do.6 Science could not have done better service to sound doctrine than by blundering into the vulgar error of supposing that prayer is applicable only where law is suspended, and where the sequence of cause and effect ceases, and then by showing that, if such be the case, it is applicable nowhere in the physical universe. LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON, CLK. SOME MRS. ARCHER CLIVE. OME weeks ago the closed grave over one of the noteworthy women of this century: distinguished for gifts unlike-we might almost write at variance with-the ordinary graces of her literary sisterhood; yet a true woman, notwithstanding, in all the highest and noblest attributes of her sex. It is now thirty-three years since Mr. Lockhart, in an article in the Quarterly Review, drew attention to a small volume of poems by V.' then lately published. The writer was unknown; but the originality of thought (in one of these poems, especially) and terseness of style indicated power of no ordinary kind; and the eminent critic was not wrong in assuming that the world would hear more of the authoress, though his prophecy was long of fulfilment. In this volume of verse, one of the most remarkable poems is The Grave, some stanzas of which were characterised by. Mr. Lockhart as worthy of any one of our greatest poets in his happiest moments.' It may be questioned whether some more recent critics, to whom melody is everything, and matter of comparatively little importance, would endorse this opiThe distinctive features of V.'s poems are virile force and a stern simplicity which aimed at the most direct expression of a thought, without much heeding verbal delightfulness. nion. The following stanzas from The Grave may serve for an example of the writer's style: I lit a torch at a sepulchral lamp, Which shot a thread of light amid the gloom; And feebly burning 'gainst the rolling damp, I bore it through the regions of the tomb. Around me stretch'd the slumbers of the dead, Whereof the silence ach'd upon mine ear; More and more noiseless did I make my tread, And yet its echoes chill'd my heart with fear. The former men of every age and place, From all their wand'rings gather'd, round The dust of wither'd Empires did I trace, Whole armies whom a day beheld expire, I saw the old world's white and wave-swept bones, A giant heap of creatures that had been; Far and confused the broken skeletons Lay strewn beyond mine eye's remotest ken. How soon forgotten are the Dead! A splendid throng the Palace calls To meet and revel in its halls; And of the names that thus are sped, Seven score and ten of them are dead. They had been living when the crowd Last met within these portals proud; They shared the Banquet with the rest, They glitter'd brightly in their best, The gliding dance they join'd, and smil'd, While Time was mark'd, and Care beguil'd; Since then on dying beds they lay, And weeping friends, one mournful Day To the dark vault their relics gave; They heard it in their narrow grave, Full many a one refus'd his ear 'Twas wrong to 'mind him of his woes; And made a signal with his head, That they should leave him to repose. |