two things, by their interaction, extending over long periods of time, produce rational and progressive results, the only legitimate hypothesis is that they were intended and adapted for that purpose. So that, after all, the watch made according to the ingenious theory of the professor has not been made without design. He has got rid of one kind and method of contrivance only by substituting another.

"Two ignorant men," says an anonymous writer, "might have a controversy as to the origin of a bronze statue. Says the one, 'He must have been a great sculptor who made that statue;' to which the other replies, 'You are quite wrong, my friend; no sculptor ever touched that statue: I saw it made myself. I saw the metal, a formless molten mass, flow out of the furnace into the sand, and then in a while come out, as you see it, a bronze statue. It was not the sculptor who made the statue, but the sand. There was, first, "a tendency" in the molten metal to "vary indefinitely;" and secondly, there was something in the surrounding sand that helped all variations in the direction of a beautiful statue, and checked all those in other directions. The result is a statue made not by contrivance but by natural selection." The

answer to this is of course very simple. The molten metal and the sand were intended and adapted to work together for the production of the statue. Hence, natural selection turns out to be but another form of contrivance.

So we may still rationally hold with the Psalmist, that there is a God who "maketh the winds his angels, and the flaming fires his ministers." The fact that these natural agencies work together regularly and methodically does not prove that they have no master-it suggests rather His absolute control. The fact, if it should prove to be a fact, that lower forms of existence are continually evolving higher, does not prevent us from recognising God in nature. On the contrary, this eternally progressive evolution of the more desirable from the less cannot be logically accounted for except on the ground that it is effected by Infinite power and wisdom and skill.

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I

The Vision of God.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

-MATTHEW v. 8.

APPREHEND that Christ was referring as

much to our present as to our future life when He uttered these words; and it is to the former phase of the subject that I propose in this sermon to direct your attention.

This

There are three distinct kinds of vision. There is, first of all, physical sight, which depends chiefly on bodily organs, and by which we merely distinguish material objects from one another. Then, secondly, there is mental sight -the sight of the scientist and the poet. enables us to discover analogies, resemblances and connections between the most distant and dissimilar things. Hence it gives rise to the metaphors and similes of poetry, and leads to the discovery of the laws of nature.

It was

this faculty of mental vision, for example, which suggested to Newton that perhaps the earth might exercise the same influence of attraction upon the moon which it did upon a falling apple, and which thus led to the establishment of the widest scientific generalisation. Then, thirdly, there is spiritual sight, which belongs to the metaphysical philosopher and to the religious man-religious I mean, not in the sense of merely going to church and that sort of thing, but religious in his heart of hearts. This faculty enables men to see Him who is invisible, unseeable, by either the first or the second kind of sight.

We may, as I have intimated, call these powers of vision, if we please, the sight of the body, mind and spirit respectively. Of course this is only a rough classification. Strictly speaking, it is the mind that sees, and not the bodily eye. Still, for the lowest kind of vision there is needed only such an exercise of mind as it is possible for a brute to put forth without an effort. Again, in our present state of existence there is no such thing as sight that is purely spiritual. Spiritual sight depends, to a large extent, upon materials which must be received through the senses. If we are spiritually to see God in nature, it is necessary that we, first

of all, physically see nature itself.

"That is not

first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." And, once more, you must remember the distinction between mind and spirit does not imply two separate entities, but only distinct faculties in the one indivisible man. The mind stands for the lower intellectual faculties, such as imagination or reason, the spirit for the higher, such as faith and the religious affections. With these qualifications, we may, if we please, talk of the three kinds of sight as bodily, mental and spiritual, remembering that these adjectives refer only to the most striking or the most important factor in the process of vision in each particular case.

Now not one of these three faculties of sight is used by any of us as much as it should be. Even the first and simplest kind we often allow to lie dormant, though it requires no more exertion than to open our eyes and look about us. I remember noticing one summer's evening at an English watering - place, while the spectacle of one of the most glorious sunsets ever seen was being unfolded on the horizon, there were a number of persons sitting on the promenade with their backs to it. That is just an example of the way in which nature's beauty is not un