HIDDEN SPRINGS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 189, 10 November 1876, Page 12

HIDDEN SPRINGS.

Now, the whole universe, is moved by Hidden Springs, or unseen influences. From the sleepless universal operation of gravitation to that movement in the heliotrope which turns it the sun ; from the mysterious laws which regulate the milky way to those which govern the fern fronds, ice-stars, and saline crystals of our planet ; from the highest star on the forehead of night to the lowest gem in the bosom of the ocean — everything is hidden from us except outward operations and sensible phenomena. Dubois Reymond, who said he scanned the whole heavens with a telescope and found no God ; and Lawrence, who remarked that on opening the brain with a scalpel he fonnd no soul — simply declare in their own language a fact, patent to any thinking man, namely, that the world of matter and the world of spirit have more in them than the lense or the knife can discover ; and that science, when the microscope, the telescope, and the test-tube have done their utmost, has, after all their scrutiny, to declare that were they to probe, Deeper than did ever plummet sound, they would be as far from the initial forces, the Hidden Springs of the Universe as they were when they began. And as that which builds and weaves and quietens all matter is invisible, impalpable ; so is it with the master-forces which sway that great world of man which makes up the human family. The actions of mankind, from that day on which a solitary pair trod the green slopes of Eden to the present day, with its countless nationalities and many-sized civilizations, are catalogued and compared in ■what are called the annals of the world ; but underneath these actions, as the root is underneath the flower, as the works are con-

cealed -within the clock, energize those hidden forces which are at once their origins and their explanations. Nob that the complicated movements on the world's wide stage are always or ever set in motion by simple operations, The influences are generally manifold and divergent, thwarting and crossing each other, being jarred and dislocated by antagonistic impulses, which turn the direct motion into curves, zig-zags, and diagonals, creating such eccentric velocities as at times absolutely to defy the calculation of man. Still, there is generally to be found in every a^e some steady master-pressure urging in one direction, and that so powerfully that the vortices and eddies, the counter-streams and cross-currents, are carried along with it; and in spite of opposition, and coni fusion, and appearances to the contrary for a time, it fires the destiny of an era, and gives its direction to generations of mankind. Such are those master-springs which, whilst they maintain society in its present status, are not without their influence on the individual heart. It is evident that such centres as these must be intimately bound up with moral and religious principle J for no other powers possess that permanent force and th at piercing character necessary for moulding nationalities, for creating civilizations and for developing, or stunting the spiritual elements of man — Archbishop Vaughan.