Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/181

 undergoing some change, and so are all created things; but this mutability, instead of tending to their destruction, assists their perpetuity. If change implied dissolution, then the angelic heavens might be destroyed, for the angels, as finite beings, will necessarily experience variations of state. Change is not destruction; to the mind of the philosopher it is the means of renewal, that by which nature effects her renovation. Physical science tells us that the earth has experienced a variety of changes; but it also tells us that every change has contributed something to its preservation. From the earliest strata to which geology calls attention, to the latest when man came upon the scene, the changes have been in favour of perfection, and thus towards the attainment of greater security. Other changes may occur, and convulsions be experienced, but such things do not imply that destruction which theologians suppose to be involved in the conflagration of the universe. Changes are but successions in the operations of nature, and destruction is utterly foreign to her existence. Winter is not the destruction of summer, it is only one of those mutations through which the year passes; summer comes again. The decay of flowers is not the destruction of their sweetness: in fading, their seed has been ripening, and so provision is made for its continuance. Animals die, but others succeed; the matter which composed their bodies is not destroyed, its form is changed but its elements remain, and these contribute to other uses; yea, to the building up of similar forms in the economy of nature, and so mutations perpetuate existence.

There are various intimations in speculative astronomy, such as the apparent diminution of certain stars, and the actual appearance of others from the stellar vault, together with the presumption that the earth is making nearer ap-