becomes coal, which is reserved
power; surplus carbon becomes diamonds; sediments settle until
the heavens are azure, the air pure, the water translucent. If
that is the progress of the past, why should it deteriorate in the
future?

There is a system of laws in the universe in which the higher have
mastery over the lower. Lower powers are constitutionally arranged
to be overcome; higher powers are constitutionally arranged for
mastery. At one time the water lies in even layers near the ocean's
bed, in obedience to the law or power of gravitation. At another
time it is heaved into mountain billows by the shoulders of the
wind. Again it flies aloft in the rising mists of the morning,
transfigured by a thousand rain bows by the higher powers of the
sun. Again it develops the enormous force of steam by the power of
heat. Again it divides into two light flying airs by electricity.
Again it stands upright as a heap by the power of some law in the
spirit realm, whose mode of working we are not yet large enough
[Page 262] to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on
earth, and in air according to the grade of power operating upon it.

The constant invention of man finds higher and higher powers. Once
he throttled his game, and often perished in the desperate struggle;
then he trapped it; then pierced it with the javelin; then shot it
with an arrow, or set the springy gases to hurl a rifle-ball at
it. Sometime he may point at it an electric spark, and it shall
be his. Once he wearily trudged his twenty miles a day, then he
took the horse into service and made sixty; invoked the winds,
and rode on their steady wings two hundred and forty; tamed the
steam, and made almost one thousand; and if he cannot yet send his
body, he can his mind, one thousand miles a second. It all depends
upon the grade of power he uses. Now, hear the grand truth of nature:
as the years progress the higher grades of power increase. Either
by discovery or creation, there are still higher class forces to
be made available. Once there was no air, no usable electricity.
There is no lack of those higher powers now. The higher we go the
more of them we find. Mr. Lockyer says that the past ten years have
been years of revelation concerning the sun. A man could not read
in ten years the library of books created in that time concerning
the sun. But though we have solved certain problems and mysteries,
the mysteries have increased tenfold.

We do not