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Page 68
Faith laid her bow and arrows by before men in pursuit of worldly
knowledge discovered theirs.
What becomes of the force of the sun that is being spent to-day?
It is one of the firmest rocks of science that there can be no
absolute destruction of force. It is all conserved somehow. But
how? The sun contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all
encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible
by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, and declares that
that force has journeyed from its source through incalculable years.
There is no encircling dome to reflect all this force back upon
its sources. Is it lost? Science, in defence of its own dogma,
should [Page 240] assign light a work as it flies in the space which
we have learned cannot be empty. There ought to be a realm where
light's inconceivable energy is utilized in building a grander
universe, where there is no night. Christ said, as he went out of
the seen into the unseen, "I go to prepare a place for you;" and
when John saw it in vision the sun had disappeared, the moon was
gone, but the light still continued.
Science finds matter to be capable of unknown refinement; water
becomes steam full of amazing capabilities: we add more heat, superheat
the steam, and it takes on new aptitudes and uncontrollable energy.
Zinc burned in acid becomes electricity, which enters iron as a kind
of soul, to fill all that body with life. All matter is capable
of transformation, if not transfiguration, till it shines by the
light of an indwelling spirit. Scripture readers know that bodies
and even garments can be transfigured, be made astrapton (Luke xxiv.
4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens and
a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.
When God made matter, so far as our thought permits us to know,
he simply made force stationary and unconscious. Thereafter he
moves through it with his own will. He can at any time change these
forces, making air solid, water and rock gaseous, a world a cloud,
or a fire-mist a stone. He may at some time restore all force to
consciousness again, and make every part of the universe thrill
with responsive joy. "Then shall the mountains and the hills break
forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap
their hands." One of these changes is to come to the earth. [Page
241] Amidst great noise the heaven shall flee, the earth be burned
up, and all their forces be changed to new forms. Perhaps it will
not then be visible to mortal eyes. Perhaps force will then be made
conscious, and the flowers thereafter return our love as much as
lower creatures do now. A river and tree of life may be consciously
alive, as well as give life. Poets that are nearest to God are
constantly hearing the sweet voices of responsive feeling in nature.
"For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware."
Prophets who utter God's voice of truth say, "The wilderness and
the solitary place shall be glad for holy men, and the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice, even with joy and singing."
Distinguish clearly between certainty and surmise. The certainty is
that the world will pass through catastrophic changes to a perfect
world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension; it transmits impressions
186,000 miles a second; it is millions of times more capable and
energetic than air. What may be the bounds of its possibility none
can imagine, for law is not abrogated nor designs disregarded as
we ascend into higher realms. Law works out more beautiful designs
with more absolute certainty. Why [Page 242] should there not be a
finer universe than this, and disconnected from this world
altogether--a fit home for immortal souls? It is a necessity.
God filleth all in all, is everywhere omnipotent and wise. Why
should there be great vacuities, barren of power and its creative
outgoings? God has fixed the stars as proofs of his agency at some
points in space. But is it in points only? Science is proud of its
discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
intensely active than the coarser forms of matter can be. But in
the long times which are past Job glanced at earth, seas, clouds,
pillars of heaven, stars, day, night, all visible things, and then
added: "Lo! these are only the outlying borders of his works. What
a whisper of a word we hear of _Him!_ The thunder of his power
who can comprehend?"
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