It was discovered some few years ago that a peculiar bacillus
was present in all persons suffering from typhoid, and in all
foods and drinks which spread the disease. Experiments were
carried out, and it was assumed, not without good reason, that
the bacillus was the primary cause of the malady, and it was
accordingly labelled the typhoid bacillus.
But the bacteriologists further discovered that the typhoid
bacillus was present in water which was not infectious, and in
persons who were not ill, or had never been ill, with typhoid.
So now a theory is propounded that a healthy typhoid bacillus
does not cause typhoid, but that it is only when the bacillus
is itself sick of a fever, or, in other words, is itself the
prey of some infinitely minuter organisms, which feed on it
alone, that it works harm to mortal men.
The bacillus is so small that one requires a powerful microscope to see
him, and his blood may be infested with bacilli as small to him as he is
to us.
And there are millions, and more likely billions, of suns!
Talk about Aladdin's palace, Sinbad's valley of diamonds, Macbeth's
witches, or the Irish fairies! How petty are their exploits, how tawdry
are their splendours, how paltry are their riches, when we compare them
to the romance of science.
When did a poet conceive an idea so vast and so astounding as the
theory of evolution? What are a few paltry, lumps of crystallised carbon
compared to a galaxy of a million million suns? Did any Eastern inventor
of marvels ever suggest such a human feat as that accomplished by
the men who have, during the last handful of centuries, spelt out the
mystery of the universe? These scientists have worked miracles before
which those of the ancient priests and magicians are mere tricks of
hanky-panky.
Look at the romance of geology; at the romance of astronomy; at
the romance of chemistry; at the romance of the telescope, and the
microscope, and the prism. More wonderful than all, consider the story
of how flying atoms in space became suns, how suns made planets, how
planets changed from spheres of flame and raging fiery storm to worlds
of land and water. How in the water specks of jelly became fishes,
fishes reptiles, reptiles mammals, mammals monkeys; monkeys men;
until, from the fanged and taloned cannibal, roosting in a forest, have
developed art and music, religion and science; and the children of the
jellyfish can weigh the suns, measure the stellar spaces, ride on
the ocean or in the air, and speak to each other from continent to
continent.
Talk about fairy tales! what is this? You may look through a telescope,
and see the nebula that is to make a sun floating, like a luminous mist,
three hundred million miles away. You may look again, and see another
sun in process of formation. You may look again, and see others almost
completed. You may look again and again, and see millions of suns and
systems spread out across the heavens like rivers of living gems.
You will say that all this speaks of a Creator. I shall not contradict
you. But what kind of Creator must He be who has created such a universe
as this?
Do you think He is the kind of Creator to make blunders and commit
crimes? Can you, after once thinking of the Milky Way, with its rivers
of suns, and the drop of water teeming with spangled dragons, and the
awful abysses of dark space, through which comets shoot at a speed
a thousand times as fast as an express train--can you, after seeing
Saturn's rings, and Jupiter's moons, and the clustered gems of Hercules,
consent for a moment to the allegation that the creator of all this
power and glory got angry with men, and threatened them with scabs
and sores, and plagues of lice and frogs? Can you suppose that such a
creator would, after thousands of years of effort, have failed even now
to make His repeated revelations comprehensible? Do you believe that
He would be driven across the unimaginable gulfs of space, but of the
transcendent glory of His myriad resplendent suns, to die on a cross,
in order to win back to Him the love of the puny creatures on one puny
planet in the marvellous universe His power had made?
Do you believe that the God who imagined and created such a universe
could be petty, base, cruel, revengeful, and capable of error? I do not
believe it.
And now let us examine the character and conduct of this God as depicted
for us in the Bible--the book which is alleged to have been directly
revealed by God Himself.