le. If, simply referring to the progress of
science in our own times, we compare the imperfect physical knowledge of
Robert Boyle, Gilbert, and Hales, with that of the present day, and
remember that every few years are characterized by an increasing
rapidity of advance, we shall be better able to imagine _the periodical
and endless changes which all physical sciences are destined to
undergo. New substances and new forces will be discovered._"[217]

Thus, all true science, conscious of its ignorance, ever leads the mind
to the region of faith. Its first lesson, and its last lesson, is
humility. It tells us that every cosmogony, which the children of theory
so laboriously scratch in the sand, must be swept away by the rising
tide of science. When we seek information on the great questions of our
origin and destiny, and cry, "Where shall wisdom be found, and what is
the place of understanding?" The high priests of science answer, in her
name, "It is not in me; the measure thereof is longer than the earth,
and broader than the sea."

We receive this honest acknowledgment as an inestimable boon. We are
saved thereby the wearying labor of a vain and useless search after
knowledge which lies not in her domain. We come down to the Bible with
the profound conviction that science can give us no definite information
of our origin, no certainty of our destiny, and but an imperfect
acquaintance with the laws which govern this present world. If the Bible
can not inform us on these all-important questions, we must remain
ignorant. Science declares she can not teach us. The Word of God
remains, not merely the best, but absolutely the only, the last resource
of the anxious soul.

The Bible gives us no theory of creation. It simply asserts the fact,
that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," but does
not tell us _how_ he did so. The knowledge could be of no use to us, for
he never means to employ us as his assistants in the work of creation.
Nor could we understand the matter. The force by which he called the
worlds into being, and upholds them in it, exists in no creature. "He
stretcheth forth the heavens alone. He spreadeth abroad the earth by
himself." "He upholdeth all things by the word of his power."

But it presents anxious, careworn, humbled souls with something
infinitely more precious than cosmogonies; even an explicit declaration
of the love toward them of him who made these worlds.

"Thus saith th