human sin, let us not fail to realise the deep lesson which the sight of that sorrow ought to teach us, of unworldliness and of preparation for the future world. Let us not fail to feel that this life is verily a pilgrimage, a sojourn; that we are placed here to seize the few moments to prepare ourselves for another world, and that the evil of this life may be our very best preparation for the future, if only we are victorious through the help of Him who has loved us. We must learn to feel that here all is fleeting, there all eternal; here the shadow, there the substance; here the dream, there the awaking; here all marred and imperfect, and unable to satisfy the deep cravings of our immortal souls, there all blessed perfection, and God and goodness as the everlasting fountain and satisfaction of our intensest appetitions. Then we shall use the world without abusing it, and live here as heirs of immortality. And the strength of that conviction will make us tremble, lest, when we have entered on that other state of being, when return to this life is impossible, when our souls are stamped with an everlasting destiny, when he that is unholy must be unholy still, we should find that we have made an everlasting mistake, that we have allowed ourselves to be cheated by the dream of life, hurried away by its gaieties, bound down by its business, and have neglected to use its opportunities to secure a fitness for a home above. Let us learn this lesson, and carry it out in our lives. While we consecrate our efforts to bless our fellows, let us gather ourselves in the secresy of earnest prayer to our common Father, and seek that He would keep before our souls the vision of the eternal world, and make our lives the means of preparing us for it. Let us ask the mercy which is free as the air we breathe to all who ask it in the merits of Christ, let us crave His help against sin, and His favour, which no one ever yet asked in vain. Then, if we do so, we may well hope, that, as the evening of life closes. around us, and we are ready to lament with the ancient patriarch, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life," we shall, in the recollection of a life well spent, catch a prospect in the future, a bright home beyond the dark valley of the shadow of death; and that with consolation cheering us such as fell upon him in his last moments, our souls may pass away from earth with the joyous thought: "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord." "Life, I repeat, is energy of love, 1 Wordsworth's "Excursion," b. v. end. NOTE On the Evidence of Geology. Ir is hardly necessary, considering the manner in which a knowledge of Geological discovery now enters into the education of all cultivated persons, to add remarks on the irrefragable character of the evidence of those discoveries; yet some objections to them deserve notice, which exist in the minds of those whose reverence for old truths inclines them to adopt any excuse for declining to accept new ones. These objections are, (1st,) that the phenomena of fossil remains can be entirely explained by a general deluge, without assuming the existence of death antecedently to the creation of man; and (2nd,) that Geology is so young a science, and has so often changed its theories, that hesitation in accepting its present teaching is excusable. The former position cannot be held any longer by any one who will put himself to the trouble of examining conscientiously the steps of Geological proof; indeed, the persons who in future assert it, must abdicate their claim both to impartiality and intelligence. The latter position, though more plausible, is equally fallacious. The cause why Geology has changed its theories is, that the discoverers of the science were so conscientious, so afraid to draw inferences hastily which would clash with received beliefs, so unwilling to admit the new truths which God was teaching them through the revelation of science, that they adopted premature attempts to adjust old beliefs to new discoveries. Accordingly, from time to time they were compelled to throw away some element in their conclusions, which fresh investigations showed to be no longer tenable. The changes in the theories of Geologists have not been those of men who were guessing at random ; they have been the uniform progress of minds who had humility enough to lay aside their preconceived hypotheses before the newly opening visions of truth. In reference to the allegation that Geology is a young science, it should be remembered that since the establishment of ascertained methods of investigation and of proof, a science con structed upon such methods possesses immediately the certainty of older sciences, the larger portion of the history of which has only been the random attempts at discovery, which were made antecedently to the establishment of correct methods.1 Bacon said that the method of science would grow together with the sciences,- a remark which experience has confirmed. Men have, as it were, stumbled upon discoveries, and having done so, they have turned back and read in those discoveries the theory of the method by which they attained them. They have read in science the logical method of scientific discovery, and hence the modern inductive logic of scientific method, as shown in the great modern writers on the subject3, is itself a strictly inductive science, a rigorous statement of the methods which have led to the verified discoveries in the sciences. Hence the allegation that Geology is an uncertain science, because a new one, disappears, inasmuch as it is a science founded on ascertained methods; indeed, such a charge is as absurd as if a person were to object against some modern astronomical calculation that it has been executed too quickly, because the astronomers who lived before the perfection of analytical methods of investigation, would have taken much longer time in the discovery of it. 1 This is exhibited clearly in Dr. Whewell's "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," in the chapters where he traces the gradual evolution of scientific ideas; and in Professor Baden Powell's "History of Natural Philosophy." 2 Nov. Org. B.I., in fin. 3 Sir J. Herschel's "Introd. to Nat. Phil.," Part II.; Dr. Whewell's "Philos. of Induction;" Ampère's "Essai sur la Philosophie des Sciences;" Comte's "Positive Philosophy;" Mr. J. S. Mill's "System of Logic." 103 SERMON IV. JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY. (PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, FEBRUARY 24TH, 1856') ISAIAH vi. 9. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. THESE words were spoken in the marvellous vision which was vouchsafed to Isaiah at an early stage of his prophetic ministry. In the year that King Uzziah died, he saw "the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, 1 On occasion of the annual Sermon, designed to refute the medieval Jewish schools of prophetic interpretation. |