of the Mind, p. 186.) The eternity of God is before all time, above all time; it is without time. God is the great fountain. whence time flows, the creation which we know is all afloat upon its stream; but it was He that launched it, and so its every movement is His, since all times are in His hand. Time then had a beginning but not eternity. This is without beginning of days or end of years, without days or years at all. And so God is without beginning, but He is not so because His existence has been running on through an infinity of periods of time past, for His existence is not a movement as is ours, but He is without beginning because He inhabiteth eternity; and time, though it makes up our experience, does not enter into His. He comprehends time as He comprehends space, He rules one as He rules the other, He fills the one as He fills the other. But we do not conceive of Him as filling space by being an infinitely extended substance diffused through space, and no more should we conceive of Him as filling time by living through it as we do. All we can mean by His filling space, all we can mean by His omnipresence, is that His omniscience extends and His omnipotence rules over all objects that exist in space; and all we can mean by His filling time, is that the same knowledge and power reach through time in like manner as they reach through space, comprehending whatever exists in time the same as whatever exists in space."

*

"We hear those who would be startled at the assersion of the independent existence of matter, speaking of a nature of things as limiting God's action, and constituting laws external to Him; of geometrical principles and of right as assigning superior rules to His rational and moral nature. This conception is that of a necessary framework of order found by Deity, anticipating and giving conditions to His action. Thus God ceases again to be the absolute, in Himself the complete and only source alike of all things, events, and their rational forms. God as the supreme, uncreated reason, finds every law of thought, of rational action in Himself, and under the laws of His own mind, as frameworks of order, He constructs a universe. That nature of things which we find, which rules our thoughts and actions, is to God His own nature. Geometric principles arising from the nature of thought, of mind, do not flow in upon God from matter, but out from God on matter, to and through His universe, receiving its fixed, necessary constitution from those rational powers which shaped it. The immutable foundations of nature are not laid in itself, but rest back on the rock-the Rock of Ages. Mind is the source of law to nature, not nature to mind." (Prof. Bascom in Bib. Sac., Oct., 1867, p. 727.)

Time then had a beginning, and in the beginning God created the universe to which we belong. Before the creation, time was not, for there was no succession, no revolution of days or years, no periods, no cycles, no changes of any kind, nothing but God and He without change. And when we say that God was before all worlds, it is not that the time of His existence antedated the worlds, for that would be to carry the element of time back into His eternity, it would be to suppose a time previous to existing time, to suppose time to be before time began. It can only mean that from him as its source sprang the creation, from Him as He is in His timeless eternity came the universe the universe with all its times and its spaces-the universe to be the abode of rational beings, to whom time and space are such realities that we are unable to conceive of their nonexistence.

We are indeed unable to form an adequate notion of God's timeless eternity. We are compelled to conceive of Him as coëxisting with us, i. e., as existing in time as we do. We have no experience of any mode of existence different in this respect from our own, and we can have no observation of any. By reason of the limitation of our faculties, therefore, we are unable to form the notion of God's timeless existence, but it is not above our comprehension that there can be such an existence. may see that it is, without being able to see how it is. And seen in this light the self-existence of the Eternal One is no longer the "inconceivable" and the "unthinkable" idea which it is to Herbert Spencer and his fellows, as they look upon Him only as dwelling among temporal things-Himself temporal like unto them. We seem to hear His voice saying to such a man, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

There is self-existence somewhere; the fact of existence in any wise necessitates self-existence as the starting point. The universe can not be self-existent because it must have had a beginning. The eternal God, whose eternity precludes a beginning, must be self-existent if He is at all, and He must be, else there is no accounting for the things that did begin. Nay, no sooner is it seen that there is a mode of existence for Him which does not carry Him into the region of the unthinkable

verse.

and unknowable, than the logical mind must grasp the idea as the key that unlocks the mystery of the existence of the uniFor the Eternal One must also be infinite, and infinite power conjoined with infinite wisdom is adequate to the production of all possible effects. God's existence being once made conceivable, we should be obliged to assume it even if we could also conceive of an infinite series of worlds. For were the infinite series of worlds possible, even this would not adequately account for the existence of the worlds, as has been well stated by Herbert Spencer himself. He says, "Even were selfexistence conceivable "-he is speaking of the self-existence of the universe "it would not in any sense be an explanation of the universe. No one will say that the existence of an object at the present moment is made easier to understand by the dis covery that it existed an hour ago, or a day ago, or a year ago; and if its existence now is not made in the least degree more comprehensible by its existence during some previous finite period of time, then no accumulation of such finite periods, even could we extend them to an infinite period, would make it more comprehensible. Thus the Atheistic theory is not only absolutely unthinkable, but even if it were thinkable would not be a solution. The assertion that the Universe is self-existent does not really carry us beyond the cognition of its present existence, and so leaves us with a mere restatement of the mystery." (First Prin., p. 31.) And if its bare exist ence would fail thus to be accounted for, much more the wonderful order and harmony that pervades every part of it— much more the evidences of adaptation and intelligent design of which it is full to overflowing, which press themselves so strongly upon the attention, and which to the popular apprehension will doubtless always be the chief considerations among the evidences nature can give us. If what exists needs accounting for at all, we can not follow any track in our attempts to do it that will not lead us ultimately to God. If we “take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts," whether of space or of time, we shall be able to find no infinite stretch of either where His hand shall not lead us and His right hand hold us. There is no escaping this conclusion, let us take what path we may in accounting for the things that

are. Only by denying either the necessity of the inquiry, or the competency of our faculties to make it, can we fail to find God eventually. And in the end we believe the brunt of the battle for theism will be, not where just now its greatest noise is heard, viz: in the domain of physical science, but upon a dif ferent and a more difficult field. Our knowledge-what are the grounds of its certitude? Where lie its foundations? Are the senses the only inlet of our knowledge, or does it come through the intuitions of the reason also? Is experience the primary ground of belief or are there native born convictions, which we not only may but must use or stop reasoning altogether, and relying on which we may know that our foundations can not be shaken? Is there an infinite or is there nothing but an immeasurably great? Are causes and effects to be to us matters of mere sequence or is there a veritable bond uniting them -a power, an efficiency, a force whose origin we may seek and find? It is the battle of the philosophies. These and kindred questions settled and settled aright, the rest will follow. Here is the citadel. The other questions are the outposts. When the citadel is carried the outposts will fall. Let the fight go on indeed all over the field, and we know the right shall prevail.

ARTICLE VI.—THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

THE recent convocation of the Evangelical Alliance held in New York, if it did not claim or have the authority of an ocumenical council, was a significant event as marking the advance of a true idea in the world. Its occurrence in the New World itself showed progress in the widening circle of liberal Christian sentiment. The meeting was a far more impressive and important one than had been anticipated by its most sanguine advocates. It was the testimony of all who watched its progress that it grew upon them steadily, that its interest was profound and wide-spread, and that its spirit was of a primitive type of Christianity. It was characterized by a forgetfulness of what was narrow and selfish in the past, and by a large and scriptural hopefulness prophetic of greater things to come. Were it not too bold an expression we would say that the Spirit of God took possession of this simple instrumentality to teach men divine lessons, and there flowed forth from the meeting a secret power of good which was confessed by all who participated in it, and was confirmed by the enlargement and elevation of spirit that resulted from its silent influences. Many who came from curiosity went away deepened in their religious convictions and purposes. The whole Christian community was unexpectedly ripe for it, and it met the earnest though undefined yearnings of hundreds and thousands of souls, in all sections of the Church, for a freer common expression of thought and feeling upon themes that belong to man's higher nature, and that rise above the incessant clamor of temporal interests who were tired of differences and wished to show their common love for Christ. Even if it aroused opposition and has stirred up controversy upon new and old issues, that showed it was a power. As its crowded sessions went on day after day with increasing enthusiasm, calm but deep, it was seen by all, whether friends or enemies of Christian faith, that Christianity possessed an intellectual vigor at least equal to the demands of the age; that it was also thoroughly in earn