The records of science furnish us with examples in which complicated
causes have operated through vast periods of duration anterior to man’s
existence, or even anterior to that of the existence of any of the more
perfect animals, in order to provide for the wants and happiness of
those animals, especially of man. Laws, apparently conflicting and
irregular in their action, have been so controlled and directed, and
made to conspire, as to provide for the wants of civilised life untold
ages before man’s existence. In those early times, vast forests, for
instance, might have been growing along the shores of estuaries; and
these dying, were buried deep in the mud, there to accumulate thick beds
of vegetable matter over huge areas; and this, by a long series of
changes, was at length converted into coal. This could be of no use
whatever till man’s existence, nor even then, till civilisation had
taught him to employ the substance for his comfort, and for a great
variety of useful arts.
Dr. Hitchcock illustrates this position as follows: Look, for instance,
at the small island of Great Britain. At this day 15,000 steam-engines
are driven by means of coal, with a power equal to that of 2,000,000 of
men; and thus is put into operation machinery equalling the unaided
power of 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 of men. The influence thence
emanating reaches the remotest portions of the globe, and tends mightily
to the civilisation and happiness of the race. And is all this an
accidental effect of nature’s laws? Is it not rather a striking example
of special protective providence? What else but divine power, intent
upon a specific purpose, could have so directed the countless agencies
employed through so many ages as to bring about such marvellous
results?[121]
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Footnote 121:
_Religious Truth illustrated from Science._
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