as a main element of that purpose, the cultivation of these faculties; the education, in no trifling degree, of the rational creatures so situated. Now, if this be true, if there be such adaptation between the world without and the world within us, calculated to develop intelligence, and bring men more or less into appreciative communion with truth, and the God of truth, and if this pertain to the condition of things, not only as man was originally, but as he is now, a fallen creature, then does the conclusion seem unavoidable, that herein is verily a divine promise of at least mental training for men in general. And if mental, then more, as we shall see. Unfavorable influences have, with the greater part of mankind, long frustrated this purpose. But the scene has now changed. Agencies awakened by the Bible have set the intellect of the world in motion, and the adaptation between rational endowment and a universe appealing to intelligence, seems destined surely to fulfill its appointed service. Some may learn slowly. But learn they will. Learn they must.

Observe a few of these adaptations. First, there is the instinct of the mind by which every occurrence is an effect to be referred to a cause. Not an isolated accident, happening by chance, separated from all things else, unrelated to aught before or after; but a fact associated with other events, a consequence implying some peculiarly related antecedent, a product resulting from power. And corresponding with this mental law, the actual structure of the world offers to view causation every where. A present or absent sun gives day or night. Clouds or sunshine appear, as the wind is from one or another quarter. Harvests depend upon tillage, soil, and season. Life itself fails if not duly nourished. Now these two elements of nature, the mental endowment looking to causation, and the universal system of causes in the world, do certainly constitute a most instructive instance of adjustment. And the object of that adjustment is clearly seen in its bearing upon the education of mankind. The one of these elements, the mental law, principle, faculty, whatever we call it, is a powerful stimulus to inquiry among all the children of men. The other, the vast array of natural causes, is a provision meet

ing, encouraging, rewarding investigation. Nay, more. Here comes to notice one of the points of connection between the natural training spoken of, and influences of higher significance. These second causes can not yield that ultimate satisfaction the soul was created to require. For this it must proceed upward to the Great First Cause. And thitherward it is beckoned by the provision now mentioned. Doubtless, then, one of the processes by which those are to be recovered, whom God of old "gave over to a reprobate mind, because they did not like to retain the knowledge of him," is to be their coming to understand the invisible things of him, as they are clearly seen in the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. 1: 20–28.)

Next we may notice the power or faculty of generalization in the mind; its tendency to compare, associate, classify, and group together all resembling objects and operations; the necessity under which it exists of thus distinguishing, arranging, combining the infinitely varied particulars presented to observation; the spontaneous alacrity with which it looks for analogies; and the delight it experiences in tracing them.—In keeping, too, with this attribute of our inner being, we find the world constructed on a great plan of general laws. They come under notice every where. The beautiful order of the universe is involved in them. And they underlie all science, all forethought, all rational action. The agents of nature are so ar ranged into a system, or rather system of systems, that events fall out in an orderly manner. The heavenly bodies move with a precision unvarying from century to century; our planet with undeviating constancy holds its onward way, and its materials are bound in adjusted form and fellowship; under one pervading influence. And by a few simple arrangements connected with this, darkness for repose, and light for daily toil, return to us in sure succession, and the seasons roll on with all their kindly characteristics. Spring, fair with bud and promise, Summer in full-blown beauty, Autumn rich with precious gifts, and Winter with its bracing blasts and fireside comforts. The relation between these two adjusted constituents, the order effected in creation by general laws, and the generalizing

faculty of the mind, is, we say again, plainly of immense significance, as a great educational arrangement for the human. race. Abrogate either of them, and the very foundation of knowledge is gone. Associate them in mutual adaptation, as at present, and start the faculty in a right course, and with a right method, and inductive science is inevitable.

Had man been differently constituted, it is conceivable that a different system might have obtained. It is possible that, somewhere in the universe, there may be a world where second causes, if employed at all, do not operate uniformly But if so, intelligent beings there must be differently constituted from men, and must acquire knowledge by some other process. In such a world, man, with his existing faculties and needs, would be a homeless, hopeless, perishing outcast. In our own world, were the beneficent adjustment changed or interrupted, what utter overthrow must it at once occasion to all human plans and pursuits. "If Nature," says the judicious Hooker, "should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower sphere are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way; the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by confused mixture; the winds breathe out their last gasp; the clouds yield no rain; the earth be defeated of heavenly influence; the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve?" (Eccl. Pol. bk. i. sect. 3.)

This great system of law is so beneficent to creatures like men, precisely because it is adapted to their mental constitu

tion. It is "the mother of their peace and joy," only as they can discern and appreciate something of its mighty harmonies. By means of the adaptation, we can observe, arrange, classify, comprehend the agencies around us, and thus come to know, anticipate, wisely act. Herein, therefore, the order of the world as it proceeds from divine, so is it beyond question addressed to human intelligence. And, as such, we can scarcely err in interpreting it as a pledge, on the part of Him who has effected this adjustment in every region of the globe, that its purpose shall be sooner or later accomplished; that mind in every zone, beneath every sky, shall be quickened into sympathy with the processes addressed to it; that human creatures, wherever their home, shall be educated, improved, elevated in the scale of rational existence. And, be it remarked, there is more contained in this than assurance of mere earthly knowledge. In certain proportion it implies more or less of that also which is heavenly, for as order thus speaks to human understanding, it afterwards points this upward to Divine intelligence; so that the influences under which the indicated purpose of general culture for men is to be fulfilled, will bring them to "look from nature up to nature's God." "Forasmuch," says Hooker again, (Ib.) "as the works of nature are no less exact, than if she did both behold and study how to express some absolute shape or mirror always present before her; yea, such her dexterity and skill appeareth, that no intellectual creature in the world were able by capacity to do that which nature doth without capacity and knowledge; it can not be, but nature hath some Director of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who the Guide of nature, but only the God of nature-in whom we live, and move, and have our being?"

There is still another of these adaptations, to which we must ask attention before proceeding to other indications of the Divine purpose to elevate mankind. A faculty has been given to man, the most benign, perhaps, of all those not strict ly moral, and if itself not actually of that class, intermediate, as it were, between the moral and the intellectual, by which beauty, in its every character, is discerned, enjoyed, contem

plated with delight. And there are, all through nature, the lovely and sublime addressed to this faculty; objects of exquisite grace, scenes of surpassing sweetness, spectacles of entrancing glory, melodies of delicious tone, "harmonies beyond the painter's pencil, and the poet's pen, falling upon the soul with a more melodious rhythm, and a sweeter cadence, than the most exquisite music." In this correspondence again, between the mind and its surroundings, we find a world-wide provision for quickening the imagination, awakening emotion, and refining mankind. "Had there been no such taste," says Dr. McCosh, "much of the pains bestowed by God upon His works, in their graceful forms and delicate shades of coloring, for instance, would have been lost. Had there been no means of gratifying it, the taste would have been worse than useless; it would have been the source of an exquisite pain, for it would ever have craved, and never been satisfied. In the beautiful correspondence between the two-between the taste so capable of enjoyment, and so susceptible, too, of cultivation and increase, and the beauties in nature around us, which do really satisfy the longings of the heart, deep and large though they be-we discover how much God has multiplied our more refined and elevated pleasures, and what encouragements He has given us to pursue them. When men follow mere sensual enjoyments, the more eager their pursuit, they become the more incapable of relishing them. It is different with the love of the beautiful, (much more with the love of the good ;) the more the taste is exercised, it becomes the stronger and the more capable of enjoyment. While there are limits to the one, and primitive restraints appointed by God, there seem to be no limits to the other. The taste grows with the growth of our refinement; and the means of gratifying it are large as our globe-nay, to sainted beings, may be wide as a boundless universe. Let us mark, too, as an additional proof of design, the divinely appointed connection between the beneficent and the beautiful. God might have so constituted man, and the world, that the two had been totally different, and the good approved by our conscience might usually or always have been repugnant to our natural tastes and sensibility; we find in