I grudge that epithet of
"secular" to any matter whatsoever. But I do more; I deny it to
anything which God has made, even to the tiniest of insects, the most
insignificant atom of dust. To those who believe in God, and try to
see all things in God, the most minute natural phenomenon cannot be
secular. It must be divine; I say, deliberately, divine; and I can
use no less lofty word. The grain of dust is a thought of God; God's
power made it; God's wisdom gave it whatsoever properties or
qualities it may possess; God's providence has put it in the place
where it is now, and has ordained that it should be in that place at
that moment, by a train of causes and effects which reaches back to
the very creation of the universe. The grain of dust can no more go
from God's presence, or flee from God's Spirit, than you or I can.
If it go up to the physical heaven, and float (as it actually often
does) far above the clouds, in those higher strata of the atmosphere
which the aeronaut has never visited, whither the Alpine snow-peaks
do not rise, even there it will be obeying physical laws which we
term hastily laws of Nature, but which are really the laws of God:
and if it go down into the physical abyss; if it be buried fathoms,
miles, below the surface, and become an atom of some rock still in
the process of consolidation, has it escaped from God, even in the
bowels of the earth? Is it not there still obeying physical laws, of
pressure, heat, crystallisation, and so forth, which are laws of God-
-the will and mind of God concerning particles of matter? Only look
at all created things in this light--look at them as what they are,
the expressions of God's mind and will concerning this universe in
which we live--"the Word of God," as Bacon says, "revealed in facts"-
-and then you will not fear physical science; for you will be sure
that, the more you know of physical science, the more you will know
of the works and of the will of God.
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