Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/339

Rh man, and which assures of the divine favor and begets the hope of eternal life; and a less prevalent conviction that this divine element has in times past performed miracles, and may even now be controlled to heal the sick, and cure the lame, and do superhuman deeds.

It is not questioned that there is an enlightening, encouraging, and comforting spiritual influence in the world; but why assume that it is supernatural? or that it is a new and distinct agent which is superior to and supersedes Nature? No one has yet fathomed the mysteries or power of a single element of nature, and therefore can not reasonably assume that Nature is insufficient to account for all the phenomena attributed to the supernatural, nor can any one show that the supernatural has ever done or can do more than is done by Nature in its ordinary processes. And if, as claimed, the natural occurrences are divine operations, then, certainly, no supernatural agency could be more subtile, or more powerful, or more beneficial, than a common process of Nature. Even the advent of Christ can not be regarded as a new or superseding force in human life if he be "God manifest in the flesh," for God has ever made himself known by his works and providence, "even his everlasting power and divinity." The mere form of his appearance would not be a superior component, and if he were a creation he could not be a supernatural power.

The profound conviction of the Christian mind is, that the God who created, upholds the universe, and watches over and guides the movement of every atom day and night, and guards the thoughts of every heart and gives them the impulse of their transforming energy. This is the divine in nature, and there could be no course of nature without it; but it is neither a new, nor a distinct, nor a superseding element in nature. It is God as the ever-present and efficient force in matter and mind, who "rides in the whirlwind and guides in the storm," who lives, and moves, and has his being in the human heart, and who helps in every infirmity. He is the unseen, intangible subsistence in and of self, and yet not self, which purifies the heart and ennobles the life, and which improves society, and "makes for righteousness" from age to age, and to the ends of the earth.

He is the Holy Spirit, sent by our Lord, who vitalizes every letter and word of the Divine utterances, and abides in them so that they are living words, and scintillate with the radiance of their divine significance as the light from the urim and thummim of the high-priest of old, and as the shekinah from the mercy-seat between the cherubim over the ark of the covenant. He is the light which enlighteneth every man who cometh into the world, the persuasion in every invitation, the comfort in every promise, the encourager in every prediction, and the inspiration in every hope. Every sigh over a wrong is of his awakening; every smile started by a kindness springs from him; every incident that teaches some good to do or some evil to shun is