the love of God, and by the fear of God, but even
by sense and reason. Not sense and reason, but nonsense and
unreason, prejudice and fancy, greed and haste, have led them to such
results as were to be expected--to superstitions, persecutions, wars,
famines, pestilence, hereditary diseases, poverty, waste--waste
incalculable, and now too often irremediable--waste of life, of
labour, of capital, of raw material, of soil, of manure, of every
bounty which God has bestowed on man, till, as in the eastern
Mediterranean, whole countries, some of the finest in the world, seem
ruined for ever: and all because men will not learn nor obey those
physical laws of the universe, which (whether we be conscious of them
or not) are all around us, like walls of iron and of adamant--say
rather, like some vast machine, ruthless though beneficent, among the
wheels of which if we entangle ourselves in our rash ignorance, they
will not stop to set us free, but crush us, as they have crushed
whole nations and whole races ere now, to powder. Very terrible,
though very calm, is outraged Nature.

Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though He sit, and wait with patience,
With exactness grinds He all.

It is, I believe, one of the most hopeful among the many hopeful
signs of the times, that the civilised nations of Europe and America
are awakening slowly but surely to this truth. The civilised world
is learning, thank God, more and more of the importance of physical
science; year by year, thank God, it is learning to live more and
more according to those laws of physical science, which are, as the
great Lord Bacon said of old, none other than "Vox Dei in rebus
revelata"--the Word of God revealed in facts; and it is gaining by so
doing, year by year, more and more of health and wealth; of peaceful
and comfortable, even of graceful and elevating, means of life for
fresh millions.

If you want to know what the study of physical science has done for
man, look, as a single instance, at the science of Sanatory Reform;
the science which does not merely try to cure disease, and shut the
stable-door after the horse is stolen, but tries to prevent disease;
and, thank God! is succeeding beyond our highest expectations. Or
look at the actual fresh amount of employment, of subsistence, which
science has, during the last century, given to men; and judge for
yourselves whether