breath of
God. He considers his own body: how fearfully and wonderfully it is
made; how God did see his substance, yet being imperfect; and in God's
book were all his members written, which day by day were fashioned, while
as yet there was none of them. "Thou," he says, "O God, hast fashioned
me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too
wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain to it." "But," he says
to himself, "there is One Who has attained to it; Who does know; for He
has done it all, and is doing it still: and that is God and the Spirit of
God. Whither"--he asks--"shall I go then from God's Spirit? Whither
shall I flee from God's presence?" And so he sees by faith--and by the
highest reason likewise--The Spirit of God, as a living, thinking, acting
being, who quickens and shapes, and orders, not his mortal body merely,
but all things; giving life, law, and form to all created things, from
the heights of heaven to the depths of hell; and ready to lead him and
hold him, if he took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermost
parts of the sea.

And so speaks again he who wrote the 104th Psalm, and the text which I
have chosen. To him, too, the mystery of death, and still more the
mystery of life, could be explained only by faith in God, and in the
Spirit of God. If things died, it was because God took away their
breath, and therefore they returned to their dust. And if things lived,
it was because the Spirit of God, breathed forth, and proceeding, from
God, gave them life. He pictured to himself, I dare to fancy, what we
may picture to ourselves--for such places have often been, and are now,
in this world--some new and barren land, even as the very gravel on which
we stand was once, just risen from the icy sea, all waste and lifeless,
without a growing weed, an insect, even a moss. Then, gradually, seeds
float thither across the sea, or are wafted by the winds, and grow; and
after them come insects; then birds; then trees grow up; and larger
animals arrive to feed beneath their shade; till the once barren land has
become fertile and rich with life, and the face of the earth is renewed.
But by what? "God," says the Psalmist, "has renewed the face of the
earth." True, the seeds, the animals came by natural causes: but who was
the Cause of those causes? Who sent the things thither, save God? And
who gave them life? Who kept the life in floating seeds, in flying
s