SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 101, 6 August 1910, Page 6

SUNDAY READING.

THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF NATURE AND LIFE. NOTES OF A SERMON PREACHED BY REV. DR.- WILKINSON. "He hangoth the Earth upon Nothing."—Job. 20-7. The basis of the world is spiritual. The Hindu in his mythology has a different conception touching the stability of the world. He rests the earth upon an elephant and the elephant upon a tortoise. These two conceptions of the Stability of nature pervade the whole intellectual world. You .have one school of thinkers who find the basis of ail things to be spiritual and who hang the earth upon nothing; you have another great school who rest everything upon second causes.

'Now we believe that the ultimate factor in nature is spiritual. We believe that the phenomenal world arises out of the spiritual. It finds its unity in the spiritual, and all thing*, we believe, are regulated to one distinct intelligent and magnificent design. He hangeth the earth upon nothing. The basis of the Visible is the divine. There are plenty of thinkers to-day who disagree - with us altogether on "this point. They will acknowledge no transcending element visible or invisible. Physical processes exhaust the whole matter; they stick to the elephant and the tortoise. But as we recognise certain causes, we also recognise certain interesting connection of tilings. We recognise that the last phenomenon hangs on the first, but when we have done that we recognise Him Who was before all things, and in Whom all things .hang together. We refuse to accept the elephant and tortoise explanation of things. We know that the unbelieving 'biologist tells us that "the splendid organisms we admire to-day had their origin in the primitive germ of the primitive slime." Now, we do not mind the course by which we arrive, but we refuse to 'believe that the splendid organisms of to-day found their prime antecedent in a germ of cosmical slime. That germ we regard as a microscopic tortoise. 80 with the astronomer. He tells us that one star follows another star, until the sphere at~ last ends upon some topmost star Or central sun. We don't know about the mechanism. That top-most star or central sun is Jhe glorified tortoise that we refuse to stand for. <

The chemist takes us back to the primitive electron; the geologist to the original fire-mist. No doubt the programme in each case is correct, but we ■ Tefuse to end our quest with either the electron or the fire-mist. It is an apocryphal -tortoise; and it shall come to pass in that day I will hear, saith the Lord; I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shah hear the corn and the wine and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. Thev are the true links in the chain of things. The universe is not a chaos; it is a chain. And the last link of the golden chain is about the feet of God. So we J nave no objection to the- methods, to the .processes, to the laws that are demontrated by .the scientists. But we postulate, that back of all is the eternal mind and will of God. This is the view for us to have perpetually in mind, especially in these days in which we live. Our fathers knew something about the grandeur of the world. They perceived that the earth was full of God's riches. Thev dreamed about the treasures of the sea. They heard the heavens telling of the glory of God and the firmament speaking His handiwork. They were filled with amazement by the glory of nature. But we know a great deal more than they did. God has permitted us to perceive the structure of the world; to mark its I majestic' laws; to become familiar with I its complicated articulations; and there is a temptation when a thing has become so complex as we feel nature to be to-day, to think that anything so rery complex is self-sufficing. When you get a simple thing like a wheel-barrow, you see at once that it required a maker, and 'someone to push it, too. But when you get a locomotive or chronometer, full of intricate mechanism, there is' a temptation to think that it contains in itself the can-e of its existence and its motion. So 'with ourselves and the universe. Our fathers saw the world in simple grandeur, but our eyes have been opened to all kinds of delicate adjustments and movements and reciprocations that a thing that is thus involved and complicated is self-creative and selfsulHcing. But the truth is the more complex a thing is the more it demands a creator. And we believe in a wise •Creator, an Omnipotent Ruler, Who moves all things to one distinct. i\nd splendid issue: "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." As representatives of the spiritual we j have no need to 'be ashamed. We note I a wonderful change in the attitude of ' scientists. What a change from the | days df Tyndale and Huxley to the days ! of Lord Kelvin and Sir Oliver Lodge! j The scientists lately have found the old j foundaries melting and find the paths 'i of science leading into the great spiritual I universe which is the last reality of j things. But if all this is true in respect to the tangible universe Is it not true in ! respect to all civilisation ? Is it not the last factor in civilisation spiritual? "He ihangeth the earth upon nothing"—does j He not hang society upon, the same at- | tenuation society ? Oh,- says the superfieialist, society rests upon usages; it rests upon legal compacts; it rests upon institutions; it rests upon commercial reciprocities. The elephant and the tortoise again! We must go further than that, if the spiritual element is the fundamental element of the physical universe, spiritual laws and dynamics exj plain society. Now, what are the great forces of ' society? What are these forces that lie at the back of politics and utilities and commerce as the imponderable lie at the back of nature? What are they ? Love, Righteousness and Hope; and I say that on this trinity all civilisation hangs; and if you think of it a. moment I think you will agree with what I advance. What do I say? Society rests upon love.

there is an ethereal thing for you. As the world gets older and men think more deeply they are becoming conscious that there ia no force in society like the force of love. What are they talking about to-day? What are their great words?'. Fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, sympathy, mutuality-, sacrifice. I say that your great sociologists are coming to perceive that love is the dominating force in physic*. The prime dynamic of society is love and sacrifice. And then what of Righteousness. A nation may have freedom and a nation may have power, but without righteousness civilisation as we have seen it again and again dissolves. What is righteousness? Is it utility? You know better. You know that righteousness is only another word for Godliness. The prime guarantee for morality to-day ia not social influence, not commercial advantages. Morality fends its last guarantee in the luring and righteous God. There are ghostly things, tout don't be afraid of them; don't be ashamed of then—they are the ultimate realities. He hangeth the earth upon nothing. He hangs civilisation upon the same invisible poles— Love, Justice, Hope. In these great words society inherits a-i 1 fends its dynamics, and the men outside who know the ropes are not in it, because this is the only cosmos on which God has p'inned our civilisation. The electrons and the ethers and the ponderabilities are not the last secrets of God; do not let us be ashamed of ourselves because we stand for the invisibilities. Our mission is to teach the men of our age the most serious factors of civilisation.