wings of the wind? What power should save him from the bursting of the volcano and the jaws of the earthquake? What care could give him knowledge of the qualities of all natural substances, that he might avoid their dangerous properties? We can suppose a divine care over man that should do all this and save men from harm, but it would be a providence superseding all human knowledge and exertion—it must be a providence to which the human race is now a stranger; miracles would then be the rule, and the undisturbed course of Nature the exception.

“If, however, we suppose that God designed the world as a training-school, so to speak, of fallen beings, such as the word of God declares the human race to be, all is plain, everything is suitable and harmonious. We can see the fitness of at least the chief outlines of man’s earthly condition, and can perceive God’s wisdom and goodness in the constitution of the world.

“The pain and woe-producing agencies of Nature are seen to be not at all contradictory to goodness, but on the other hand eminently wise and righteous. The whole sum of human misery expresses God’s displeasure at sin. By their sufferings men learn how abhorrent is sin in God’s sight. By the consequences of evil-doing they learn not to transgress. As none are free from the taint of depravity, none are free from pains. The necessity of labor—one of the elements of the primal curse—is a check to sin on the part of the vicious, and a discipline and trial to virtue on the part of the penitent. The multiform trials of life—which can indeed be borne well only by the grace of God—while they teach the evil of sin and keep the heart chastened and subdued, nourish heroic and dauntless virtue in the faithful. ‘Daily cares’ become ‘a heavenly discipline.’ Dangers and calamities startle the stupid conscience, and keep alive the sense of responsibility to God on the part of the wicked; they quicken the sense of weakness and dependence in the believing and educate their faith in God. The more sudden and overwhelming these evils, and the more these dangers are placed beyond the possibility of being warded off by human care, the more do they awaken in men a sense of the divine presence and of responsibility to God.

“But would not all these natural agencies subserve essentially the same ends in the discipline of unfallen and sinless beings? By no means. If sufferings came upon a sinless being, he could not feel that they came as chastisements; he could not feel them to be deserved. They would be to him a ‘curse causeless,’ and hence would bring no advantage. He could only cry out in astonishment, ‘Father, why am I, thine obedient son, thus smitten?’ Calamity falling upon the innocent would be an anomaly in the universe. But now the sufferer, pierced through and through with a sense of ill desert, meekly bows his head, murmuring, ‘Father, all thy judgments are just and right.’

“One very important feature of the world we live in is its moral symbolism. The world is full of most suggestive symbols and emblems of moral good and evil. There are all beautiful and glorious things, to stand as types of goodness, truth, and righteousness; there are all loathsome, malignant, and hideous things, to serve as the types of folly and wickedness. Was it merely an accident that the dove was fitted to become the emblem of purity and of the Holy Spirit? the lamb, to be the emblem of gentleness, of Christ the gentle Sufferer, and of his suffering people? the ant, to be the type of prudent industry? the horse, of spirit and daring? and the lion, of strength and regal state? Was it only an accident that prepared cruel beasts and disgusting, poisonous reptiles as the types of evil passions and sins—that made the venom of the viper, the cunning of the fox, the blood-thirstiness of the wolf, the folly of the ape, and the filth of the swine, symbols of foul, subtle, malignant sin and folly? Nature is full of these emblems. The palm tree with its crown of glory, the cedar of Lebanon, the fading flower and withering grass, the early dew and the morning mist, the thorn hidden among the leaves of the fragrant rose, poisons sweet to the taste, and medicines bitter as gall,—how all these natural things preach to men sermons concerning spiritual verities! There is no virtue or grace which is not commended to man by its image of beauty in the animal tribes; there is no vice against which men are not warned by its loathsome, disgusting form shadowed out in the instinctive baseness of irresponsible brutes.

“Thus we find earth, air, and sky to be full of silent voices proclaiming in the ears of man that which he most of all needs to remember. These types and symbols of virtue and vice are specially needed by fallen beings. They seem fitted for beings whose spiritual eyes are blinded and all their spiritual senses blunted—beings with whom there is no longer ‘open vision’ of spiritual realities. These pictures of evil are most impressive to men who see in them the reflection of their own base passions. How the fetid goat and the swine wallowing in the mire speak to the lecherous man and the drunkard! In a world of sinless beings these mimic vices would seem rather to mar God’s handiwork.

“Set the human race, fallen as it is, in a world where the patience of daily industrious toil would not be needed, and the race would rot with putrid, festering vice. Remove all danger, and men would forget and deny that the Creator holds them responsible. Let no evil consequences follow evil-doing, and men would cease to make a distinction between right and wrong. Take away death, and they would deny the existence of a spiritual world. But in this world God has hedged men around with checks and penalties and painful discipline, such as are of use only in dealing with sinners.

“I conclude, therefore, that God prepared this world as it now is as a place of discipline for a fallen race. This is the use to which he has devoted it in the past; and when there is no longer need of such a world for the discipline of men, we learn from the word of God that a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ shall be provided. This world is thus declared to be an unfit abode for the glorified saints. To judge, then, of the wisdom and goodness of God in the works of nature, we must keep in mind the object for which the Creator prepared the world. Ansel, tell us how this strikes you.”

“I never thought of it in this way before,” he answered; “indeed I have thought very little of this subject, but—” Tinkle, tinkle went the bell upon the superintendent’s desk. This was the second time the superintendent had struck his bell, but Mr. Wilton had been so intent upon his subject that he did not hear the first ringing.

The school was dismissed, but Mr. Wilton remained with his class to fix upon the particular department of nature which they would study. He found that all were studying natural philosophy, and had recently gone over the subject of heat. At his recommendation, therefore, they agreed to examine, as a specimen of God’s works, his management of heat in the world. Mr. Wilton requested them to review the subject during the week, and be prepared to state and apply the general principles touching the nature, phenomena, and laws of heat which they had already learned. This work they will enter upon next Lord’s Day.