NEW THOUGHTS FOR THE SCHOLARS.
The little class which has been introduced to the reader came together the
next Lord's Day interested and expectant, yet not knowing what to expect.
They had chosen a course of study, yet they could not tell what that
course was to be. They had tried to think of something definite about it,
but could fix their minds upon nothing. In fact, the whole subject was
new, and they could not decide where or how to take hold of it. They came
together, therefore, with no more knowledge of the subject than when they
separated.
Mr. Wilton himself came before his class in a state of doubt. He had given
the subject many hours of thought, and had carried it to his closet and
besought the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for he believed the divine
Spirit to be the best guide in understanding the works as well as the
word of God. He felt that his prayer had been heard and answered. He was
prepared, therefore, to speak with the force of clear understanding and
positive convictions. But the precise line of study he had left to be
determined by circumstances, perhaps by the previous studies of his class
in their academic course. This was to be decided by further consultation.
"Since no lesson was assigned upon which you could prepare yourselves,"
Mr. Wilton said, after the opening exercises of the school were finished,
"I shall spend the half hour to-day in a kind of conversational lecture.
You may call this the preface or introduction to the lessons which will
follow. I shall try to make plain some general principles which we must
keep in mind, whatever department of God's works we shall attempt to
examine. I wish you to feel entirely free to interrupt me at any time, and
ask any question or present any objection which may strike your minds. We
must, if possible, have no prowling bands of enemies in the rear. I wish
to make everything as plain as the case will admit.
"One thing let me remind you of in the beginning: I shall not try to prove
to you that there is a God. I shall not try to prove that the world had a
creator. There are some things which men do not believe merely on account
of good evidence, nor disbelieve for want of proof. Men believe in their
own existence, but not from a course of argument. Most men believe in the
real existence of the outward world--the earth, the hills, the rivers, the
trees, everything which we see and hear and feel--but not on account of
proof. Here and there a strange man is found who professes to disbelieve
the real existence of all material things, but he disbelieves not for want
of proof. Men believe that their sight and hearing and touch do not
deceive them, but their confidence in them is not the result of a course
of reasoning. To believe in our own existence, and in the existence of the
world outside of us, and in the truthfulness of our senses, is natural; to
disbelieve these things is unnatural: it shows a state of disordered
mental action. When such disbelief is not practically corrected by a man's
understanding he is counted insane, and is treated accordingly.
"Belief in the existence of God is also a natural belief. A denial of
God's existence shows, not disordered mental action, but a disordered
moral and spiritual state. It shows the absence of that spiritual faculty
by which we receive spiritual impressions, and are brought into contact
with the spiritual world, and hold intercourse with God and Christ and the
Holy Spirit. Men must be convinced of the existence of God through their
conscience, their moral and spiritual nature. Do not misunderstand me. I
do not say that good evidence cannot be brought to prove to one's reason
the existence of God, but God has not left his existence to be _proved_:
he has _revealed_ himself to men's consciences and to their faith; and
those in whom conscience and faith are well developed, sound, and right do
not need an elaborate argument to prove the divine existence. I shall
simply try to show that the works of creation exhibit the wisdom and
goodness of God. If any man, looking at such indications of wisdom and
kindness, can believe that it all comes by chance or is the work of some
evil agency, and that no Being of boundless intelligence, wisdom, power,
and goodness has anything to do with the making and governing the world,
he certainly shows great prejudice: he does not want to recognize God's
existence. He must be one of those spoken of by the Psalmist who say, 'no
God.'
"During my recent visit to Greenville I visited a mill, the largest of its
kind in the country. In one room was a machine, something like a huge
straw-cutter, working with great power. In another room was a large steam
boiler hung upon a shaft and made slowly to revolve while filled with
steam. In a third room were large oval tanks, or cisterns, which might be
filled with water. Across each tank was a heavy shaft carrying a drum set
with steel blades, and as the drum revolved these blades passed other
blades in the bottom of the tank, cutting whatever came between like
scissors. In a fourth room were certain long and complicated machines.
Each machine was composed mostly of rollers. There were large rollers and
small rollers, solid rollers of enormous weight, and hollow rollers to be
heated by steam within. Over and around a portion of these rollers passed
a broad wirecloth belt. Over others passed a like belt of felted cloth.
With these machines before you, could you tell me whether the inventor
were a wise and skillful machinist?"
"How could we tell," asked Peter, "without knowing what kind of work the
machine was designed to do?"
"You could not tell," answered Mr. Wilton; "you would need to know both
what the machine was designed to do and all the processes by which the
work was to be carried on. This brings out the first point which I wish
you to fix in mind. It is this: To judge of the wisdom of any contrivance,
we must understand the purpose, or object, which the inventor had in view;
we must understand the work to be accomplished, and also the difficulties
to be overcome. An ordinary locomotive steam-engine is admirably fitted to
run on iron rails, but he would be a foolish man who should purchase such
an engine to draw a train of loaded wagons over a common road of earth. On
such a road it could not even move itself. It is good for that for which
it was made, and for nothing else. How would you apply this principle to
the subject we are now considering? You may answer, Samuel."
"I think you mean," said Samuel, "that, in order to judge of the wisdom
and goodness of God in creating and governing this world, we must know
the object he had in view in making such a world."
"That is my meaning, and I am glad that you understand me so perfectly. If
this world were created with no other object than to be the grazing-field
for herds of cattle, which see no difference between the beauty of the
violet and the dull shapelessness of the cold earth upon which it grows,
and never lift their eyes above the horizon, then all the beauty of earth
and sky would be useless; there would be no wisdom or goodness in the
creation of this beauty. There would be no wisdom or goodness in laying up
in store beds of coal, buried deep beneath the surface of the earth, if
God designed the world to be inhabited only by savages too rude and
ignorant ever to mine it, and turn it to some practical use.
"But let me give you another illustration, which can better be applied to
the condition of things in this world. Just in the outskirts of one of our
inland cities I once saw a large and elegant building, whether a private
dwelling or a public institution I could not at first tell. It stood high
and airy, commanding the most pleasing prospect that all the region
presented. We will follow a visitor as he goes to examine that noble
establishment.
"As he comes nearer, he sees that the edifice is simple and classic in its
style and chaste in its architectural adornment. It is a pleasure for the
eye to rest upon its graceful symmetry. But in place of the light and
graceful fence which he expects to find enclosing its grounds, he sees a
stockade strong and high. The janitor turns the heavy key, the rusty bolt
flies back, and the visitor enters the enclosure. Within the stockade he
finds a portion of the ground laid out with taste and cultivated with
choice and beautiful flowers; another part is devoted to the culture of
garden vegetables. He finds workshops also for the manufacture of pails
and tubs, brooms and mattresses. The visitor is ushered into the mansion
itself. He finds everything more than comfortable; the rooms are heated
from furnaces below; every part is perfectly ventilated; the windows
command a view of the country around which must please the most cultivated
eye; a school-room is provided with all needed apparatus for the most
thorough instruction. 'Surely,' says the visitor, 'the founder of this
institution must have been both wise and good. He must have loved the
young in order to study and supply all their needs so completely.' But
some things strike the visitor painfully. The windows are grated with
iron, and some of the rooms are almost like prison cells. 'Can it be
possible,' he thinks within himself, 'that the young need to be confined
by a stockade in so pleasant a place and shut in by grates of iron for the
enjoyment of such advantages?' The master as he teaches his pupils seems
as kind and gentle as a mother, yet there is a firmness and authority in
his tones and a rigidity in his training, as if his government were kept
braced against a mutinous spirit. The means of punishment also are
provided, and, when occasion requires, stern chastisement is employed. All
this seems to the visitor like an enigma. The institution appears to him
like a bundle of contradictions. A father could not have provided a
pleasanter home or larger advantages for his children, but fathers do not
commonly surround their homes with stockades, and cover their windows with
bars of iron, and train their obedient children with a hand of such firm,
unyielding force. 'Pray, sir,' he says to the master, 'what is this
strange contradictory institution?' 'It is the State Reform School,' the
master answers. 'And who are these lads and young men for whom all this
work and wisdom is expended?' 'They are those who have taken the first
steps in crime, but have not as yet become hardened and fixed in
wickedness, and are sent here with the hope of overcoming their vicious
propensities and training them to virtue and an honorable manhood.'
"Everything is now made plain. The need of the stockade, and the grated
windows, and the rigid government, as well as of the pure air, the
garniture of beauty, and the kind loving care, is manifest. It is a place
unsuited to a family of obedient children, and equally unsuitable as a
place of confinement for confirmed criminals, shut up, not for reform, but
for punishment. It is wisely adapted to the work designed to be
accomplished, and to no other.
"In like manner, if we would judge of the wisdom and goodness of God in
the creation and government of this world, we must understand the use for
which the world was designed. Is this plain to you, Ansel, and does it
seem reasonable?"
"Yes, sir; I think I understand it, and I can see no objection to the
principle. I think even Mr. Hume could find no fault with that. But how
shall we know the object for which God made and governs the world?"
"That is the next point to be considered. Perhaps you will tell us what
seems to you to be that object? Young people sometimes have thoughts and
opinions upon the greatest questions."
"I have never formed an opinion of my own," Ansel replied, "but I have
always heard it said that God designed to show how perfect and good and
beautiful a world he could make. But many things in the world seem to me
neither perfect, nor good, nor beautiful."
"Why, Ansel!" exclaimed Samuel; "the Bible says that 'God saw everything
that he had made, and behold it was very good.'"
"And, Mr. Wilton," asked Peter, "does not the Bible say that 'God created
all things for his own glory'?"
"Before answering any of these questions, let me ask Samuel a question.
What do you understand to be the meaning of the words you quoted from the
last verse of the first chapter of Genesis?--'God saw everything that he
had made, and behold it was very good.'"
"I suppose it means," answered Samuel, "that God made everything just as
good and beautiful as it can be, so that any change must be a change for
the worse. The lecturer last winter said that if men could entirely
destroy any one of the most troublesome species of insects, their
destruction would be a great loss to the world, and that if a single atom
of matter belonging to the earth were annihilated, it might throw the
solar system out of balance, so that it would finally be destroyed."
"I remember," said Mr. Wilton, "that some lecturer last winter made
statements of that kind, and I have heard other people declare that the
least possible change in the world would be injurious, if not destructive,
to the interests of man, and that the most troublesome beasts and insects
and the most loathsome reptiles are necessary to human happiness. Does
that seem to you to be true, Samuel?"
"I have always tried to believe it, because I thought I ought to believe
it. It has seemed to me to be dishonoring God to believe that he did not
make the best possible world."
"You are right in trying to believe what seems to be right and true, even
though difficulties do lie in the way. Difficulties do not by any means
show that an opinion is false. We must certainly believe that God made
this world perfect for the object which he had in view in making it. But
not a few skeptics deny the existence of a good, wise, righteous Creator
and Governor, because they have a wrong idea of the end for which the
world was created, and, consequently, a wrong idea of that in which its
perfection must consist. Let me ask you a few questions which will lead
your minds in the right direction. Do not men produce by cultivation
better fruits and vegetables than Nature ever grows when left to herself?"
"Yes, sir," said Ansel; "the peach and apple and potato have been brought
up to their present state of excellence by great care and exertion.
Originally, they were almost worthless."
"And not only that," said Mr. Wilton, "but when once that careful culture
is relaxed they begin to return to their former badness. Again, do we not
improve upon Nature by drainage and improve upon the climate by
irrigation?--in fact, do not men by drainage and irrigation and all
manner of culture greatly improve the natural climate of a country?"
"I think that is true," said Ansel.
"I never thought of that before," said Peter.
"Moreover, do you not suppose that heaven will be more beautiful than the
earth, and that a thousand troublesome things besides sin--loathsome
sights, discordant and jarring noises, disgusting and nauseous odors--will
be absent from that 'better land'?"
"And _I_ never thought of that before," said Samuel. "I am sure that many
unpleasant things besides those which sin has brought into the world will
not be found in heaven. I see that this world might be changed and not be
made worse for holy beings to live in."
"The world is very good," said Mr. Wilton, "for the purpose for which it
was created, but we need not look upon it as designed for a specimen of
the most beautiful, pleasant, and desirable world which the Creator could
produce."
"But you have not told us," said Peter, "what the Bible means when it says
that God created all things for his own glory. Does it not mean that he
made the world so good and perfect that all creatures ought to praise him
on account of it?"
"We ought," said Mr. Wilton, "to praise God for the wisdom and goodness
displayed in the works of creation. That is the teaching of the Bible in
many places; it is also the sentiment of the Bible that God created the
world and carries on all things for his own glory, but it nowhere uses the
exact language which you have employed. In Isa. xliii. 7, speaking of
'every one that is called by my name,' the Lord says, 'I have created him
for my glory.' In Prov. xvi. 4 it is written, 'The Lord hath made all
things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil;' and the
four and twenty elders fell before the throne of God saying: 'Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast
created all things, and for thy pleasure they are'--that is, exist--'and
were created.' I might quote other texts of similar meaning. We are taught
also that our first and supreme aim in all our conduct should be the glory
of God. 'Whatever ye do, do it all to the glory of God.' But here two
questions arise: What is the glory of God? and, What is it for God to
glorify himself by his works of creation and government? Who will tell
us?"
All were silent, and Mr. Wilton went on speaking: "The word glory means,
first and literally, a halo of light. The glory of God is the radiance, or
halo, so to speak, of his infinite attributes and holy character. God
glorifies himself when he reveals himself, and makes known his character,
and causes the uncreated splendor of his attributes to break forth, so
that his creatures recognize them and adore him. This, you see, is very
different from the idea of glory among ambitious men. God glorified
himself in the creation of the physical world, because from that creation
his wisdom, power, and goodness are manifest. He glorified himself in the
creation of angels and men, because they were created in the image of God
and are finite pictures, so to speak, of the infinite Creator--a
revelation of his spiritual being and personality. He glorifies himself in
his government of the world, because his administration of affairs
exhibits his justice, mercy, and holiness. This is what we mean by the
glory of God and his working all things for his own glory. This is
somewhat difficult for persons of your age, so we will leave it and
return to the exact subject of discussion. Admitting that God created the
world and governs it for his own glory--that is, to reveal himself--for
what specific purpose did he design this earth?"
"I don't know," said Peter, "that we understand what you mean by 'specific
purpose.'"
"Very well, then," said Mr. Wilton; "I will suggest the answer. Does the
world seem as if fitted up to be the dwelling-place of holy beings?"
"I have never thought of the question before," said Ansel; "but it seems
to me that many things in this world would give pain even to angels if
they lived here with bodies like ours."
"I agree with you, Ansel. If men were sinless and holy as the angels of
heaven, many things in this world would bring them distress. But does it
seem reasonable that the world was designed merely as a place of
punishment for men by reason of their wickedness?"
"Some men are not wicked," replied Samuel. "There have always been men
willing to die rather than disobey God. Surely, God does not punish such
men. And many beautiful and pleasant things are found in the
world--arrangements plainly designed for the welfare and happiness of
men."
"I think you are right, Samuel. But, without asking further questions, I
will give you the conclusions to which my study upon this subject has
brought me, and some of the reasons for those conclusions.
"This world was made chiefly as the dwelling-place of man. The world was
not planned merely as the abode of brute animals. Men are nobler than the
brutes. Men have permanent interests and advantages. Aside from the glory
of God, men are an end unto themselves. To become and be _men_ is the
noblest object of human life, but the animal tribes exist for the use and
benefit of others. To be an end to itself, a creature must be immortal;
but the brutes exist for the use and advantage of man, live out their
transient life, and exist no more. This is the view presented in the
sacred Scriptures. God gave to man lordship over the earth--not only over
the soil to subdue it, and over the great forces of Nature to bring them
into subjection for human advantage, but also over the brute creation,
'over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and every living thing
that moveth upon the earth.' I conclude also that God did not prepare this
world as a prison-house and place of punishment for rebels against his
government. Too many pleasant things abound for me to believe that. The
pleasant breezy air, the glorious sunlight, the refreshing showers, the
treasures of mineral wealth stored up in the earth, the fertile land and
golden wheat, the beauty spread over all nature, the sweet consciousness
of existence, so that just to live and act is joy, and the comfort and
hope of immortal pleasure enjoyed by truly Christian men,--all these
things, and many more, assure me that not the subtle shrewdness of a
tormentor nor the unmingled justice of an inexorable judge, but the heart
of a kind and loving Father, planned our earthly dwelling-place. You said,
Samuel, with truth, that there are many pious men in the world who are
dear to God, and Paul says, 'We know that all things work together for
good to them that love God.' For those dear ones Christ has such love that
he counts everything--whether good or bad--that is done to them as if done
to himself. 'Inasmuch,' he says, 'as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' Moreover, Jesus said:
'For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'
From these words of Jesus we see that there is love manifested in the
dealings of God with the inhabitants of our world. Were it not so, there
would nothing remain but a 'fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery
indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.'
"On the other hand, I conclude that God made the world as the
dwelling-place, not of obedient, holy children, but of those who are
disobedient, fallen, and alienated. These disobedient and alienated ones
he holds under discipline and chastisement, in order to keep their
wickedness in check, to recover them from their sins, and train them up in
virtue and holiness, or to remove from the obstinate and incorrigible all
excuse for their sins and all plea against their final condemnation. In
doing this he glorifies himself by manifesting his wisdom, goodness,
mercy, and holiness.
"This opinion seems probable from the fact that this is the purpose for
which God has actually used and is now using the world. Here he keeps and
governs the human race. This race is made up neither of holy beings nor of
hopeless reprobates. They are the creatures of God; fallen indeed, yet
loved; sinful, but objects of divine compassion; deserving of righteous
wrath, but the recipients of the offers of salvation through Christ. Even
penitent believers in Christ and devoted servants of God are not free from
evil propensities, but need to be kept under constant training and
discipline. This is the use to which the Creator has actually put the
world. Is it not reasonable to believe that he designed it for their use?
Ought we to believe that God planned the world for an object for which it
never has been and never will be employed?
"If sin were removed from the world, the chief part of human suffering
would be removed. This no man can deny. Wars would cease; the want,
disease, and woe resulting from selfishness, idleness, and vice would
disappear, and nothing would stand between man and his Maker. What new
life and joy would fill the world if free communication were restored
between man and God, and the divine smile were again to enlighten the
world! It would seem that heaven had enlarged her borders to embrace this
earthly ball. But the fact would still remain that this physical world is
unfitted to be the dwelling-place of sinless beings. The constitution of
the world would bring upon them pains and evils which would seem a most
unworthy heritage for loving and obedient children of our heavenly Father.
Let sin be taken away, and wearisome toil in subduing the earth would
remain. The soil of the earth is hard and clogged with stones, and clammy
with stagnant waters, and sown well with the seeds of noxious weeds, and
overgrown with thorns and thistles. Endless watchfulness and toil is the
price of a livelihood. With the sweat of his face man must eat his bread.
An army of enemies have pre-empted the soil which man must till. This
state of things the word of God refers to sin: 'Cursed is the ground for
thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.' The necessity of toiling
as we do now for our daily bread, God denounced upon man as a curse on
account of sin. We cannot, therefore, regard this as a suitable condition
for sinless beings.
"This burden of toil is lightened by the progress of modern sciences and
inventions much less than some men think. Every step of progress has been
made by the sacrifice of hecatombs of human lives. From our laboratories
and workshops products of human skill, rich and rare, are sent forth; but
what are they but smelted and hammered and graven and woven human bones
and sinews, the health and life of men? No means have been discovered by
which the most necessary processes of the arts can be made otherwise than
dangerous to health. Only when thousands of miserable workmen had perished
was Sir Humphrey Davy's safety-lamp invented; and now the danger, to say
nothing of the hard toil, of the collier's life is only lessened, but not
removed. Still, our furnaces roar and the whole tide of civilization goes
on by the health-destroying servitude of men, buried alive as it were in
the dark bosom of the earth. Would that seem to be a fitting employment
for the sinless children of the all-loving Father? Employes in many kinds
of manufacture slowly sink under the accumulated evils of daily toil, and
no means of making their employments healthful have been discovered. The
friction-match, which has become so nearly a necessity, is made by a
process so destructive to health that only a certain class of laborers can
be prevailed upon to do the work. I might go on to speak of other painful
circumstances in which men find themselves by the almost antagonistic
attitude of Nature. But if we reject these dangerous processes of
manufacture and art, we go back at once to the wooden plough, the distaff
and tinder-box of primitive times, and also to primitive poverty and
primitive toil, and, I may also add, to primitive exposure to the hostile
and pitiless forces and inclemencies of Nature. Purge the earth of sin,
and wearisome toil would still remain. Nature must be nursed and
cultivated or she yields no bread. Her hostile attitude must be overcome;
the thorns and thistles must be rooted out; and every step of progress,
won by suffering, must be held by painful work and watchfulness; otherwise
Nature returns to the wild and savage state. Relax the culture of the
choicest fruit, and it begins to deteriorate; leave the best-blooded breed
of cattle to itself, and it returns again to the level of native,
uncultured stock.
"The inhabitants of this world are also liable at all times to diseases
and destructive accidents. This condition of things could not be changed
without changing the entire structure and plan of the world. Is that a fit
dwelling-place for a sinless being where chilling winds one day shrivel
his skin and fill his bones with rheumatic pains, and the next, sweltering
heats pervade all his system with languid lassitude--where miasma lies in
wait unseen to poison his blood, kindle the malignant fever, and bring him
to the shades of death, and every form of accident crouches in ambush,
ready to spring upon his victim unawares and tear him limb from limb? We
cannot see that the absence of sin would dissipate this liability to
disease and the danger of accidents. Nay, this liability and danger are
written upon the very constitution of the human body. The finger of God
has engraved it upon every muscle and bone and life-cell. The Creator gave
the body that wonderful power called the _vis medicatrix_--the power of
recovering from injuries and repairing damage done to itself. Pull a leg
from a grasshopper and another grows in its place. By this we know that
the Creator understood the liability of this little insect to lose a limb,
and prepared him for it. In like manner the power in man's body to heal a
wound or join a broken bone gives us to understand that the Creator
expected man to live in the midst of danger. The precaution proves the
risk.
"These accidents are such as no possible carefulness could guard against.
To say nothing of the fact that all our knowledge of these perils comes
from a painful experience of danger and death, what care, even after ages
of sad experience, could ward off the thunderbolt? What carefulness could
guard against the tornado on the land, or the hurricane and the cyclone
upon the sea? Who should stand sentinel against the unseen poison borne
upon the wings of the wind? What power should save him from the bursting
of the volcano and the jaws of the earthquake? What care could give him
knowledge of the qualities of all natural substances, that he might avoid
their dangerous properties? We can suppose a divine care over man that
should do all this and save men from harm, but it would be a providence
superseding all human knowledge and exertion--it must be a providence to
which the human race is now a stranger; miracles would then be the rule,
and the undisturbed course of Nature the exception.
"If, however, we suppose that God designed the world as a training-school,
so to speak, of fallen beings, such as the word of God declares the human
race to be, all is plain, everything is suitable and harmonious. We can
see the fitness of at least the chief outlines of man's earthly condition,
and can perceive God's wisdom and goodness in the constitution of the
world.
"The pain and woe-producing agencies of Nature are seen to be not at all
contradictory to goodness, but on the other hand eminently wise and
righteous. The whole sum of human misery expresses God's displeasure at
sin. By their sufferings men learn how abhorrent is sin in God's sight. By
the consequences of evil-doing they learn not to transgress. As none are
free from the taint of depravity, none are free from pains. The necessity
of labor--one of the elements of the primal curse--is a check to sin on
the part of the vicious, and a discipline and trial to virtue on the part
of the penitent. The multiform trials of life--which can indeed be borne
well only by the grace of God--while they teach the evil of sin and keep
the heart chastened and subdued, nourish heroic and dauntless virtue in
the faithful. 'Daily cares' become 'a heavenly discipline.' Dangers and
calamities startle the stupid conscience, and keep alive the sense of
responsibility to God on the part of the wicked; they quicken the sense of
weakness and dependence in the believing and educate their faith in God.
The more sudden and overwhelming these evils, and the more these dangers
are placed beyond the possibility of being warded off by human care, the
more do they awaken in men a sense of the divine presence and of
responsibility to God.
"But would not all these natural agencies subserve essentially the same
ends in the discipline of unfallen and sinless beings? By no means. If
sufferings came upon a sinless being, he could not feel that they came as
chastisements; he could not feel them to be deserved. They would be to him
a 'curse causeless,' and hence would bring no advantage. He could only cry
out in astonishment, 'Father, why am I, thine obedient son, thus smitten?'
Calamity falling upon the innocent would be an anomaly in the universe.
But now the sufferer, pierced through and through with a sense of ill
desert, meekly bows his head, murmuring, 'Father, all thy judgments are
just and right.'
"One very important feature of the world we live in is its moral
symbolism. The world is full of most suggestive symbols and emblems of
moral good and evil. There are all beautiful and glorious things, to stand
as types of goodness, truth, and righteousness; there are all loathsome,
malignant, and hideous things, to serve as the types of folly and
wickedness. Was it merely an accident that the dove was fitted to become
the emblem of purity and of the Holy Spirit? the lamb, to be the emblem of
gentleness, of Christ the gentle Sufferer, and of his suffering people?
the ant, to be the type of prudent industry? the horse, of spirit and
daring? and the lion, of strength and regal state? Was it only an accident
that prepared cruel beasts and disgusting, poisonous reptiles as the types
of evil passions and sins--that made the venom of the viper, the cunning
of the fox, the blood-thirstiness of the wolf, the folly of the ape, and
the filth of the swine, symbols of foul, subtle, malignant sin and folly?
Nature is full of these emblems. The palm tree with its crown of glory,
the cedar of Lebanon, the fading flower and withering grass, the early dew
and the morning mist, the thorn hidden among the leaves of the fragrant
rose, poisons sweet to the taste, and medicines bitter as gall,--how all
these natural things preach to men sermons concerning spiritual verities!
There is no virtue or grace which is not commended to man by its image of
beauty in the animal tribes; there is no vice against which men are not
warned by its loathsome, disgusting form shadowed out in the instinctive
baseness of irresponsible brutes.
"Thus we find earth, air, and sky to be full of silent voices proclaiming
in the ears of man that which he most of all needs to remember. These
types and symbols of virtue and vice are specially needed by fallen
beings. They seem fitted for beings whose spiritual eyes are blinded and
all their spiritual senses blunted--beings with whom there is no longer
'open vision' of spiritual realities. These pictures of evil are most
impressive to men who see in them the reflection of their own base
passions. How the fetid goat and the swine wallowing in the mire speak to
the lecherous man and the drunkard! In a world of sinless beings these
mimic vices would seem rather to mar God's handiwork.
"Set the human race, fallen as it is, in a world where the patience of
daily industrious toil would not be needed, and the race would rot with
putrid, festering vice. Remove all danger, and men would forget and deny
that the Creator holds them responsible. Let no evil consequences follow
evil-doing, and men would cease to make a distinction between right and
wrong. Take away death, and they would deny the existence of a spiritual
world. But in this world God has hedged men around with checks and
penalties and painful discipline, such as are of use only in dealing with
sinners.
"I conclude, therefore, that God prepared this world as it now is as a
place of discipline for a fallen race. This is the use to which he has
devoted it in the past; and when there is no longer need of such a world
for the discipline of men, we learn from the word of God that a 'new
heaven and a new earth' shall be provided. This world is thus declared to
be an unfit abode for the glorified saints. To judge, then, of the wisdom
and goodness of God in the works of nature, we must keep in mind the
object for which the Creator prepared the world. Ansel, tell us how this
strikes you."
"I never thought of it in this way before," he answered; "indeed I have
thought very little of this subject, but--" Tinkle, tinkle went the bell
upon the superintendent's desk. This was the second time the
superintendent had struck his bell, but Mr. Wilton had been so intent upon
his subject that he did not hear the first ringing.
The school was dismissed, but Mr. Wilton remained with his class to fix
upon the particular department of nature which they would study. He found
that all were studying natural philosophy, and had recently gone over the
subject of heat. At his recommendation, therefore, they agreed to examine,
as a specimen of God's works, his management of heat in the world. Mr.
Wilton requested them to review the subject during the week, and be
prepared to state and apply the general principles touching the nature,
phenomena, and laws of heat which they had already learned. This work they
will enter upon next Lord's Day.