SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 178, 14 December 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

LAW, MIRACLES AXD PRAYER. An Address to tin; New Plymouth JJrutherhood by REV. H. J. LEWIS. One of llii; watchwords of modern science is the iiiiivevsiility, uniformity and invariability of the laws of nature. Every educated man of to-day is compelled to believe that the laws of nature iire uniform and invariable. That fact forces upon us the question, How are we to reconcile our belief in the uniformity and invariability of the laws of nature with our belief in the reality of miracles and the efficacy of prayer ? The fiist step towards the solution of the problem must be a cautious and candid consideration of the meaning of the word "miracle." The old traditional interpretation of the name was a violation, or at least a suspension, of some law of nature wrought to prove the supernatural power of the worker. That definition, however, cannot any longer he accepted by any sane, honest man. It reminds us of the alleged definition of the name crab. It is said that the compilers of a dictionary proposed to define a crab as a red fish which walks backwards. Before inserting that definition in their dictionary they submitted it for criticism to the naturalist Agassir, whose reply was: "Gentlemen, there are only three objections to your definition. First, that the crab is not a fish; second, that it is not red; third, that it does not walk backwards. With these three exceptions your definition is remarkably correct."

WHAT IS A MIRACLE? A miracle cannot be a violation of a law of nature. Nothing can reconcile the mind of any educated man to the idea that such a. thing as a violation of the laws of nature ever took place. But this only raises the further question: If A miracle is neither a violation nor a suspension of the laws of nature, what is it? Now, instead of starting our discussion with a cast-iron definition of a miracle, let us start it with a careful consideration of the question: What is the relation of the powers of man to the laws of nature forced upon us by facts we see every day with our own eyes? Well, the first fact is that though the laws of nature cannot be either violated or suspended, they can be controlled, they can be balanced one against another, they can be so arranged and adjusted as to make their joint e fleet totally different from what would have been produced by any of them if left to itself. Every great mechanical invention is an instance of the eontrol of the laws of nature by the mind of man—i.e., it is a law of nature that heavy bodies sink in the air by the force of their own weight. But birds do not fall. Therefore the action of the law of gravity on their bodies is counteracted and conquered by the construction of their wings. It is a law of nature that solids sink in water. But a ship carrying a load of 10,000 tons can be made not only to float on the surface of the water, but to travel over it almost as easily as a train does on land. An authority says that surely the'most beneficial discovery made by man was the discovery of the man who built the first boat. It is a law of nature that the sound of the human voice can only travel a few yards, but the construction of the telephone can carry it 50 miles. It is a law of nature that the human eye can only see objects within a certaiv. limited distance, but the construction of the telescope can make stars billions of billions of miles away from our earth as distinctly visible as the houses in our streets, or the trees by our roadsides. In fact, the telephone, the phonograph, the biograph, the aeroplane bring us every day sights and sounds which, if our forefathers could rise up from their graves would seem to them miraculous.

THE MEANING. What is the meaning of all these facts? Just this: That the laws of nature are not our masters, but our servants. The supreme force is not the laws of nature, but the power of mind. Man yokes the lightning to his car and makes it obey his will. He harnesses the waters of the earth and makes them dynamos to flash the electric light into his streets and houses. Very well, if even man, with his limited knowledge of nature, can make her laws obey his will so wonderfully as he does, is there anything incredible about the supposition that One to Whose knowledge there was no limit could make them obey His will so much more wonderfully than we are compelled for want of a better word to call His control over them and His conquest of them miraculous? THE SUPREME .MIRACLE is. after all, personality. If there is so little limit to what the personality of a Marconi or an Edison, or a Stevenson can do with the powers of nature, is there any wonder that there should be no limit to all to what a person like Jesus Christ could do with them? I repeat, the supreme miracle of nature is not the deeds of Jesus Christ, but his personality. Not what lie did, but what He was. The character of Jesus Christ is infinitely more miraculous than any of his mighty works. There stands before us in the New Testament the portrait' and personality whose superhuman nature shines by its own light. According to the Test anient-and the 'Gospels the life of Jesus Christ began in a miraculous birth and closed in a miraculous resurrection. It' anyone says to me,

"I do not believe either in the miracle of the Virgin birlli. or in that of the Resurrection," 1 reply. ''Whether you do or not. there is something else standing between those two things more wonderful, more miraculous than either of them —viz.. the life Jesus led. the character he wore, the might he wielded." Yon must believe in the miracle of the unique personality, the inajeciic character, the sinless life of .lesns Christ: it is too original to have been invented. To say that men who wrote the Gospels invented the perfect personalities of Jesii> Christ is to say that they were greater geniuses than Sir Walter Scott or Shakespeare. As Dr. Kairbairn said: "Kvery other attempt to portray a perfect character has only resulted in portraying a prig." How could the attempt of the evangelists to portray A I'KRrT.CT UIAUACTER succeed ill painting a portrait which ha» commanded the allegiance and the homage of twenty centuries? The only explanation of the majority is the fact that the portrait was painted from the life. The original iuu>t have been greater, not less. Ihan the portrait of Mini held up before us in the gospels. I'eshles the inlltietice -lesus Christ has wielded over the earth, and still wields over it to-day. shows what He was. That a man wl nly lived on this earth ■>'.') years, only worked in it about two years, who never wrote a line, who never resorted ti force, who never had an army to support him. nor a scrap of social prestige to back him, should have wielded an iulluence over 3 the world which eclipses that of Plato and Shakespeare as completely as that of the sun does 'that of a candle, is (he wonjler of Jhe" ages. T|ie personality ijf Jesus is'

to-day. If we cast ourselves on Him in prayer He. will give, us power to do better and greater works than miracles. Prayer is not .dictating to God. it is nut''prescribing lo Kod. It is simply drawing on liim for power to do works liko His own. work of benevolence and nsef uiness to our fellow-creatures. Prayer is the circulation of the Divine life in man. It is the lung by which we draw into our life the breath of His own. If we do that we shall find the worth oil prayer by the fullness of power with which it changes our lives. The gist of the whole truth about the relation of law to miracles and prayer may be summed up in

A LITTLE PARABLE, A boy and girl were standing on the deck of a steamer looking down into the engine-room, watching the rise and fall of the pistons. The boy said to his sister: "Do you think the captain could stop those engines in the middle of the voyage?" "Of course he could," she replied. "Well, I don't believe he could," said the boy. The girl went away and asked an old sailor the question' whether he believed the captain could stop the engines in the middle of the voyage. "Of course he could, my dear, if he had a good reason for doing so." "What do you call a good reason ?" "Well, once many years ago there was a cry, 'Man overboard!' Instantly the captain had the engines stopped. A boat was lowered, and the man saved." The girl ran back and told her brother, to which the boy replied, "That's only an old sailor's yam.' "Well, I believe him." "Of course you do. Girls will believe anything." A few days afterwards the girl dropped her doll down into the engine-room. Instantly she ran to the captain and asked him if he would stop the engines to rescue her dolly. He replied, "No, my dear, we can't do that, but we will see if we can't get your doll up without." He took a long thin doll with a hook at the end, carefully fished the doll up and restored it to the child. Oil' she went in high glee, to tell her brother, who scornfully replied, "But, he didn't stop the engines, and, what's more, he couldn't." Next day the boy was bouncing his ball on the deck when it went over the bulwarks into the water. Then he went to the captain and asked if he would stop the engines to recover his . ball. "No," the captain replied, "boys must be more careful with their balls." Whereupon the boy sulked and said that captains, like everyone else, always favored the girls. But when the ship came to the end of the voyage the captain bought the boy a far better ball than the one he had lost. God is the captain' of the ship of your lives. When we are in distress and cry to Him for help, He will answer our prayers, whether He stops the engines or not, and even when He does not give us the thing we, ask for ab the time that only means that He is going to give us something far better by-and-byc.