minutest details, can be otherwise
than useful to man, and can bear witness of aught, save the mind and
character of Him who made it? And if so, can it be a work unfit for,
unworthy of, a clergyman--whose duty is to preach Him to all, and in
all ways,--to call on men to consider that physical world which, like
the spiritual world, consists, holds together, by Him, and lives and
moves and has its being in Him?

And here I must pause to answer an objection which I have heard in my
youth from many pious and virtuous people--better people in God's
sight, than I, I fear, can pretend to be.

They used to say, "This would be all very true if there were not a
curse upon the earth." And then they seemed to deduce, from the fact
of that curse, a vague notion (for it was little more) that this
world was the devil's world, and that therefore physical facts could
not be trusted, because they were disordered, and deceptive, and what
not.

Now, in justice to the Bible, and in justice to the Church of
England, I am bound to say that such a statement, or anything like
it, is contrary to the doctrines of both. It is contrary to
Scripture. According to it, the earth is not cursed. For it is said
in Gen. viii. 21, "And the Lord said, I will not again curse the
ground any more for man's sake. While the earth remaineth, seed-time
and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall
not cease." According to Scripture, again, physical facts are not
disordered. The Psalmist says, "They continue this day according to
their ordinance; for all things serve Thee." And again, "Thou hast
made them fast for ever and ever. Thou hast given them a law which
cannot be broken."

So does the Bible (not to quote over again the passages which I have
already given you from St. Paul, and One greater than St. Paul)
declare the permanence of natural laws, and the trustworthiness of
natural phenomena as obedient to God. And so does the Church of
England. For she has incorporated into her services that magnificent
hymn, which our forefathers called the Song of the Three Children;
which is, as it were, the very flower and crown of the Old Testament;
the summing up of all that is true and eternal in the old Jewish
faith; as true for us as for them: as true millions of years hence
as it is now--which cries to all heaven and earth, from the skies
above our heads to the green herb beneath our feet, "O al