which are so extended and complex that it cannot trace them to their ultimate cause, do not originate in the action of an independent will ?

We have not undertaken to present the positive argument for prayer. This would open a wider field than we may enter. The Christian believer rests his belief in prayer preeminently on the authority of revelation. The arguments aimed at prayer are equally fatal to all revelation, for revelation implies the intervention of God in the affairs of men. They involve the exclusion of all miracles, for a miracle must be regarded as a more striking manifestation of the same power which is supposed to operate in the answer of prayer, a power constantly present and operative in the world, but having its operation compressed within so narrow a compass that the connection between the divine purpose and the effect produced is appar ent to the understanding of man, the design being partly, perhaps, to teach by a striking example the existence of such a connection, which might otherwise escape him. So, too, we have been accustomed to regard much of the Old Testament narrative, not as recounting any peculiar action of the Almighty in His dealings with His creatures, but as an epitome of His government, in which the connection between His plans and their accomplishment is laid bare, and we are enabled to see how His will is ever present, working out its great purposes alike through the minds of men and the forces of nature. We find authority for prayer even in the Logia of Matthew, which well nigh baffled the resources of Strauss and Renan, in their endeavor to explain away all Scripture. The Bible throughout constantly represents it as an efficient power in both physical and moral world. That this is not the kind of evidence demanded in the name of science we know. But the existence of the Scriptures, of the Christian faith, and of all the conceptions of Deity connected with them, are facts which science can no more dispute than the law of gravitation. The primitive and almost universal belief in a Supreme Being who answers prayer, is another indisputable fact. These facts have all had a cause. Has science any test which will unerringly determine that cause?

The theory we have been considering is not fatal to revealed religion alone. It denies God all conscious presence in the world, and if extended to the universe, denies Him all present conscious existence whatsoever. For on the theory of science, there can be no conscious existence which is not all the while giving rise to some phenomena, and the argument assumes that the divine mind is by its present action giving rise to no phenomena. If, then, there has been a God who once contrived this wonderful mechanism and set it in motion, He must have ceased to exist immediately upon its creation. Science is making astonishing progress in unfolding the mysteries that have been hidden from the knowledge of man. We are amazed at the wonders of the material universe. So extraordinary is the sight that bursts upon us that our eyes may be dazzled and our minds bewildered for a time. Gazing into the marvelous truths it has revealed, we may in sudden rapture salute it as the mis tress of all truth. But are we not repeating a folly written on many a page of history, in exalting to the supremacy what is but one of Truth's mighty auxiliaries? Men intent on one pursuit, are apt to forget that there are others worth living for. He whose study is in the immensity of space, finds little worthy his attention in stones or plants or beasts, while the geologist sees more beauty in the fossil protozoa than in all the stars of heaven.

Every age has its idol. When the schools of intellectual philosophy were in the ascendancy Abstract Reason was placed on the throne. Must Science now hold the scepter? Then the world must believe all matter but phenomena of mind. Must we now confess all mind but phenomena of matter? Let us beware of supposing that no other path than the one in which we are walking leads to truth. Science has taught us many lessons, but none more plainly than the folly of assuming that to be impossible which we cannot understand. It is not a thousand years since the spherity of the earth was shown to be impossible, by the most unanswerable demonstration. Its revolution was utterly absurd. When the facts seemed beyond dispute, they were as inexplicable as ever. Had revelation affirmed either of these facts, it would have been demonstrated out of the world at a very early date.

Had it told us that for long ages the earth was the abode of no nobler creatures than reptiles, how speedily and indignantly would philosophy have resented the insult to divine wisdom?

It has been common in this discussion to remind us that Christianity has always been the enemy of scientific progress. This is no more true of Christianity than it is true of science itself. Every innovation is opposed by those who have be come wedded to old forms of belief. Men are always unwilling to acknowledge that they have believed an error. The Galileos, the Columbuses and the Harveys have encountered alike the opposition of the churches and the schools of science. And when we remember how many false theories have been proposed for every one that has survived the test of time and further investigation, we can neither wonder at the existence of this spirit, nor regret it, though we may deprecate the manner in which it has sometimes found expression. The world cannot help remembering how frequently men who have made some discovery in itself valuable, have supposed themselves to have found the key of all mystery, and proceeded to construct upon it some universal theory of genesis and destiny, and asking how large a proportion of these theories have survived, unmodified, the life of their author?

Vast as have been the achievements of science, the mystery of the universe seems vaster than ever. A little knowledge has been hewn from the infinite unknown. The larger the sphere of knowledge becomes, the more of the unknown does it touch. Every answer suggests many more queries we cannot answer. We think then it cannot be the scientist that would have us believe the universe has no room for a power he has not traced.

Christianity and science are alike in search of truth. Alike they encounter mystery at every turn. Alike they will be embarrassed and dishonored by those who misconstrue or misapply them. Alike they will often fall into error. May they learn more and more to recognize the beauty and the worth of each other, and the wisdom and goodness of the great Author. While we revere science, we would still worship God.

ARTICLE II-MODERN PHYSICAL DISCOVERIES AND THEIR LIMITATIONS.

IF two pieces of metal-for instance, bismuth and antimony -be united by their ends and the place of contact heated, a current of electricity will be generated. The heat, as such, disappears in this case, and by some unknown process becomes converted into, and reappears in the form of, electricity. This electricity may then be conducted along wires laid parallel to the direction of a magnetic needle, and that needle will at once turn itself into a line, at right angles with that of its former position. Here we have electricity producing, or causing, mechanical motion. If now the electric current be conducted around a piece of bent iron, the iron becomes magnetic. Here we have electricity producing magnetism. If then the current be conducted through or along a wire of platinum, that wire will become heated, to the degree of giving off a brilliant light. Here we have electricity producing light. If, finally, the current be conducted through a chemical solution of some salt, or other compound, the compound will be decomposed, and its elements will either appear at the ends of the conducting wire or enter into new combinations, according to the conditions.

Thus with heat as the initial force the entire list of physical forces, as now known, may be made to appear in succession; electricity; magnetism; mechanical motion; light; and chemism; by fulfilling certain conditions. Hence it appears that heat, light, electricity, mechanical motion, magnetism, and chemism are so intimately related that they produce each other or may be resolved or transformed into each other. This is what is meant by the term "Correlation of Forces."

But this law includes yet more than this. Not only will any one of these cause or produce the rest, but the quantity of resulting forces produced by the given initial force of the series is fixed and constant. If one unit of heat be applied at the junction of the metals, a certain fixed quantity of electricity is always generated. This in turn will produce another fixed

quantity of magnetism, and so through the entire series. If the initial heat be doubled, the resulting quantities of all the others will be doubled; or, if but half a unit of heat be applied, then but half the resulting quantities of the other forces will be produced. This completes the law of Correlation.

What is called "Conservation of Force" is only a form of this quantitive side of "Correlation." The idea of "Conservation" is simply this: no force is either created or annihilated in any of the manifold processes of the universe; but only transformed. When the blow of a hammer is arrested on an anvil, the force of the hammer's motion is not destroyed, as it seems to be, but is transformed, mainly into heat. And it produces an increase of heat in the anvil, sufficient, if properly applied, to raise the hammer to the exact height from which it fell in the blow. When a moving train is brought to rest, the mechanical motion of the train and its momentum are not destroyed, as they appear to be, but they are converted into heat by the action of brakes and track; and into an amount of heat such, that, could it all be placed back again in the boiler so as to act as steam, and be thence applied, it would restore the train to the exact degree of its lost velocity and momentum.

And so always. Whenever any form of force disappears it is not destroyed, but only gives place to an equivalent amount of some other form of force, perhaps less obvious, but always equally potent.

So too, as there is no such thing known as annihilation of force, there is no such thing as its creation. But wherever any form or result of force appears it is derived from some preceding, though perhaps concealed, force, of which it is the exact equivalent. This is what is meant by "Conservation of force."

Passing out of the inorganic into the organic world, these principles of Conservation and Correlation hold good in both branches of it, vegetable and animal. A tree is no less a product of physical forces than a house. Nothing less than a given and exact amount of physical force, actually put forth in preparing, combining and fixing its parts, will produce a house. Exactly so with a tree. It has been rather loosely held that all the power used in building up a giant oak, for instance, was originally locked within the producing acorn. A directing and