or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What
sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm--and
what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion it?"

"Oh that," says the scientific intellect--"that just happens to be one
point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate
in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory."

"Well then," say I, "here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind,
each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they
were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been
determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which
surpasses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I
am yearning to know. All the details, complications and assumptions of
your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a
quibble on words and meanings.

"Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual
cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He
undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of
selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his
only son."

Here we are living together on earth to-day, and here were our fathers
and forefathers living, in the same general way with the same general
instincts and feelings, as far back as we have any record of; and here
presumably will our children and their descendants continue to be
living, as far as our imagination can carry us. Whether the process of
our creation involved a bit of protoplasm in the midst of chaos, or
whether we were evolved from a thought and a breath of an Almighty God,
is of very slight consequence as a human consideration.

In view of the wonderful harmony and fitness of the countless processes
and things which we see everywhere about us in nature, it is not strange
that mankind seems always to have taken it for granted that a supremely
wise and a supremely resourceful intelligence of some sort is
responsible for it all. The beginning, the end, the scheme and purpose
of so many miracles, extend into the beyond, the unknown, the
incomprehensible. What the Supreme Being is like--how or why He came
into existence--where matter or life first came from--or even what the
connection is between the creatures of this world and the countless
stars and planets which may be other worlds--all this is shrouded in t