thing except from the first cause as the point of departure); assume that God is almighty and all-knowing, and then it must follow that he who is the author of nature, the eternal spring of all the modes of action or laws in nature, would originally, because omniscient, have selected and ordained from among the numberless modes possible, the one which in view of all his purposes would be the best possible in its sphere? and having selected omnisciently, to depart afterward from uniformity, in the mode, would be for omniscience to defeat itself. Man is often so thoughtless as to infer from the unchanging uniformity of natural law, by virtue of which from its universality, there often arises destruction or disaster to single persons or things, to have avoided which would have required such special and perpetually recurring departures as to nullify the law-from this uniformity, I say, man infers a blind action in the law which he dissociates from intelligence.

Yet the fact is nevertheless eternally real, that precisely because the law was ordained and is sustained by the supreme intelligence-precisely because omniscience reigns in the mode and SPHERE, there can be no departure. Hence, the very uniformity of nature is proof that its modes and spheres are the expression of the almighty and infinite intelligence. God looks at the modes and spheres in relation to the whole scope of his purposes. Man sees them from an inch of time and territory. What to man seems disjointed and contradictory, God sees to inhere in an eternal unity.

We are brought here, had we time to dwell upon it, in full view of the great problem for created, and consequently finite souls--the question, what is law in its ultimate essence? Is it everywhere and alway the expression of the instant and ubiquitous presence and power of the Lawgiver, acting in the law? Or is it delegated, or deposited power, imparted primarily by the Almighty and Omniscient, and assigned, each mode or law to its allotted realm? I lay no claim to power to solve this problem, insoluble in its fullest scope by the finite mind. The tendency, however, of mere physicists to gravitate toward the conception of natural law, as something which, though primarily born of God, is now in its mode and

sphere in no wise dependent upon his instant power and presence, thus practically enthroning a vague idea of law, and putting God afar off in his own universe, may well prompt us to a more spiritual acceptance in nature of the Supreme Intelligence, in whom we live and move and have our being, and by whom all things consist. While we accept gladly, as ever enlarging the horizon of our knowledge, the dicta as to modes and spheres of natural law, gathered by just scientific and inductive exploration of the varied fields of nature, we should beware lest we become " alienated from the life of God." We should take heed that in no realm of his creation, the Creator be eclipsed to our souls. I am content, or ought to be, with the intuition made native to right reason, that God, immediate or mediate, is the only solution of the problem of existence. Though He be inscrutable and ever past finding out, from an eternal necessity, yet it is just as necessary that if I am a creature He is creator. If He is not, I am not, and nothing is.

To a soul having its starting point within the universe of Him whose name is Holy and who inhabiteth eternity; to a soul enlarging to wider contact with truth through the successive acquisition of truths in detail, which must be assimilated to and built into its personal intelligence; to such a soul there must ever, at any stage of its expansion, lie beyond the open day of its then present consciousness, measureless realms of truth, which the Omniscient only can inhabit; and to which the finite soul must be related of necessity alone by faith; realms, in which truth seen first through faith, will constantly, in the ever widening outlines of the soul's spiritual sight, rise upon it from twilight into the clear consciousness of day.

For a created soul, at or near its birth, with little but its own being, wondrous though that be, and with the whole infin itude of truth yet unknown around it, to project itself from its inch of time and consciousness into the eternal, and come back from transient glimpses into the fathomless profound, with oracular deliverances to its fellow creatures of what God in the scope of his omniscience must be, and must do, and

cannot do; of what is of the divine essence, and what is not-is simply for infantile imbecility to assume to give law to the Almighty. Yet this is just what self-elected seers, known as such only in the diction of human folly, have assumed, and are assuming to do.

All along the track of a philosophy, falsely so called, there lie the wrecks of Babel towers which tongues of self-destroyng jargon had sought to rear up to the Most High upon the great highways of truth. In the solemn march of providence, made luminous through inspiration, these towering systems as they rose, darkening counsel by words without knowledge, have been tumbled into ruins, with scarce one stone left upon another.

Had a nursing babe been placed beside Newton, when in the maturity of his majestic consciousness of the laws which he demonstrated in the Principia, could that babe have told Newton anything which was or was not real? We shall learn as much concerning God as Newton could have learned of the babe, if, discarding the relation of faith toward God, we deny that God is beyond what each instant we can see; and contemptuously ignoring the revelation by God of himself in his own spiritual modes through miracle and inspiration, we accept instead the dogmas of infantile presumption, and founder in our own imbecility, as we strive to see without light, and to know without knowledge.

It is a sign of growing manhood when the soul comes to see, that, related to its finite powers, there must as certainly be mysteries which will be eternally insoluble, as that there are clearly comprehended truths.

The soul shows not only manhood, but high healthfulness, when, like Arnold of Rugby, it can lie as serenely still in the presence of such mystery, as in the presence of such truth. All along the endless way from the infinite down to the finite, the voice of mysteries to present consciousness is calling the soul to rise by faith derived through revelation from the Holy Spirit to ever loftier heights, whence it can see grander realms. Eternity will not exhaust the exceeding weight of glory which will become thus the inheritance of the child of God in Christ.

We cannot be armed with a nobler maxim than that of old John Mason, who said nearly two hundred years ago, "Then does religion flourish in the soul when it knows how to naturalize spiritual things, and to spiritualize natural things."

We should study science, study nature, study law, for all is theology. All find their harmony in their eternal Source and Unity. Amid the works of God, wherever and whenever revealed to us, in nature and in grace, we should stand erect as the conscious children of our Father. Living toward Him in time and in eternity, the language of Heaven may be native to our hearts-"Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints."

ARTICLE III.-THE MILTONIC DEITY.

BY J. W. STEARNS, WINONA, MIN.

There is one scene in Dante's Inferno which, for its simple grandeur, we have always loved to picture to ourselves. Under the guidance of Virgil, the poet has entered that desolate region where the loss of all hope of change is the only and bitter punishment.

These were the spirits of Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan, who thus welcomed back the bard of Mantua.

"Lo! I beheld united the bright school
Of him the monarch of sublimest song,
That o'er the others like an eagle soars."

We are thrilled with pleasure as we thus do homage to those whom all ages have delighted to honor. A peculiar charm rests upon the works of these men, like that which lingers over old castle walls, and "spots of earth renowned in story," a subdued but impressive splendor reflected from the minds of those who have done homage there; and we feel that their works are nobler and grander than those of other men, because for ages they have not failed to awaken a responsive feeling of admiration in the hearts of intelligent readers. The estimation of more modern times would add Milton also to this illustrious group, and award to him the meed of immortality for verses which, like the mountain stream, flows with a perennial freshness. We therefore feel no fear that we touch upon a theme grown old and threadbare, when we venture to call attention once more to Paradise Lost.

In doing so it is our purpose to examine the poet's representation of the Deity; to develop some of the peculiarities of that representation, and their apparent causes; and to review, in part, the grounds of that opinion which we find advanced in Prof. Draper's History of the Intellectual Development of Europe: "Posterity will perhaps with truth assert that Paradise Lost has wrought more intellectual evil than even its base contemporaries, since it familiarized educated minds with images which, though in one sense sublime, in another are most unworthy, and has taught the public a dreadful materialization of the great and invisible God. A Manichean composition in reality, it was mistaken for a Christian poem." This strongly expressed opinion has perhaps startled many of the readers of the work, and it may not be uninteresting to inquire how far such a charge can be substantiated.