CHAPTER IV. DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF? MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER--MOUNTAIN CHAINS--PHENOMENA THE EFFECT OF CAUSE--EXTENT OF UNIVERSE--MANIFESTATIONS OF DESIGN--THE HUMAN EYE--MATTER INERT--DID THE PAVING-STONES MAKE THEMSELVES?--THEORIES OF BUFFON--OF DR. OLBERS--HISTORY DECLARES GOD'S GOVERNMENT.

"Nature is but the name of an effect whose cause is God."—COWPER.

"The infidel astronomer is mad."—HERSCHEL.

Had the world a Creator, or did it make itself? Let us look out upon nature, and see what there is to suggest the idea of God. Infidels tell us that faith is destined to be left behind in the onward march of intellect; that it belongs to an infantile stage of intellectual development; that children and childish notions are prone to superstition, which is only another name for religion. To account for the wonders of creation they will coolly talk of the eternity of matter, and the action of natural laws, as if these assertions would lead them out of their dilemma.

One of the most impressive lessons that a person ever learns, is from the manifestation of power as shown in the phenomena of nature, as, for example, when he gazes upon the phenomena of a thunder storm. The dark and thickening cloud, the flashes of the lightning, the roaring of thunder, the dashing of the rain and the wild sweep of the winds, sometimes crushing forests in their pathway, are all manifestations of an unseen power. Among the works of human hands, the traveler gazes with amazement at the ponderous bulk of the pyramids. But what are the pyramids to the Alps, which have been lifted by some power to an altitude thirty-three times the hight of the largest pyramid? And yet the Alps are little more than half the hight of the Andes, and not more than a hundredth part of their mass. These ponderous mountain chains have been upheaved bodily, tearing their way through masses of solid rock miles in thickness, uplifting, crushing, tilting and dislocating the solid floor of half a continent. Here is a power which may well amaze us.

Again, no strain, that man has ever applied, has compressed or stretched, in the least perceptible degree, a block of building stone. In fact, the architects and builders of the most ponderous edifices, such as the Salt Lake Temple, make not the least allowance for the compression of the stones which lie at their very base. Yet such is the strain which nature exerts upon the rocky slabs built into the hill-sides, that they yield like india-rubber to the pressure; and when, by quarrying, the strain is relieved, the crushed rocks, with a groan, ease themselves back to their original dimensions. (See Winchel's Reconciliation of Science and Religion, page 334.)

Section of Uintah Mountains

[IDEAL SECTION OF THE UINTAH MOUNTAINS, SHOWING UPHEAVAL OF STRATA AND UNDERLYING GRANITE—AFTER POWELL.]

And yet, after all, this is but one of nature's feeblest efforts. Look beyond the phenomena of uplifted mountain-masses, deep-scooped ocean basins, forest-laying tempests and land-consuming waves. Look out into limitless space! There hang worlds of ponderous bulk. They were fashioned by some skillful hand; they are upheld by some mighty agency; and moved onward in their majestic course by some mysterious power. We cannot bring our minds to comprehend that power; but let us raise our thoughts and try to understand something concerning it. There is the sun whose bulk is so great that, if its center was placed where the center of the earth is, its body would extend in every direction as far as the moon. Nay, farther, it would extend beyond the moon a distance of twenty-four times the diameter of the earth. This vast sun, still in the fiery vigor of its youth, imparting light and life to all that dwell on the planets which revolve around it, is only one of the numberless orbs that shine in the abyss of heaven.

Now, what is this power that has formed these glorious suns and sent them whirling onward through the cycles of the ages? The infidel tells us it is gravity. But what is gravity? Whence proceeds that mighty force which men call by that name? Matter is inert, that is, it does not possess the power of moving itself. It is evident, then, that matter is acted upon by some power outside of itself. In human affairs we can find no result without a cause, no design without a designer; and, on thinking carefully, we find that every designer is under the control of a will. So, in the field of nature, every phenomenon is but the effect of some cause, and that cause must have acted under the control of some intelligent will.

We are still more amazed when we consider the inconceivable space over which this power extends. The bulk of the sun is beyond our mental grasp. How then shall we comprehend its distance from us? It is generally considered that the sun is about ninety-two millions of miles distant. It is easy to say these words, but difficult to realize their meaning. Our express trains move at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Now if a railway stretched from the earth to the sun, it would require three hundred and fifty years for an express train to pass over it. If Champlain, the founder of Quebec, and Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, so famous in early Virginia history, had stepped on board this train it would still require nearly eighty years more for their descendants to reach the end of their journey. The distance would still be so great, that only the great grand-children of the present generation could expect to reach the sun. And yet there is a power that reaches across this vast distance, swings the world around its orbit like a haltered colt trotting around a hitching post, lifts the ocean into a mighty tide and lashes the rocky shores with the fury of the angry waves. But this is not all. Light flashes across this mighty chasm in the brief space of eight minutes and a half. The light by which we read these lines started from the sun about the time we read the heading of this article. What shall we say of a space so vast, that this light must travel a year, a hundred, aye, even a thousand years before it reaches its destination? And yet there is a power that governs even there, a power so mighty that He "grasps the whole frame-work of stars and systems, and sends them whirling and wheeling through the depths of boundless space like a handful of pebbles thrown through the air." Well might the great philosopher and poet, Addison, exclaim:

"The spacious firmament on high
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
"In Reason's ear they all rejoice
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine."

While we are amazed at the manifestations of power in creation, let us not forget the indications of intelligence and design that exist all around us. For example, I see a friend walking along the street in the rain, with an umbrella over his head, and I feel that somebody contrived that instrument with the design of keeping off the rain. In one word, it was intended for that purpose. In like manner we perceive marks of design and intelligence in the countless contrivances and instruments used in every-day life. In fact, we cannot look upon the simplest invention without feeling that it is the result of design and intelligence. Now the world is full of contrivances, which were not made by human hands, nor invented by human brains. The hand that wrote these words or the hand that set up the type to print them is a more ingenious contrivance than was ever made by human skill. If it required intelligence to make a pen, did it not require still greater intelligence to make the hand that wields the pen? If it required design to fashion a metal type, did it not require a still greater design to form the hand that manipulates that type? not to speak of that subtle and mysterious power, called the mind, which guides the hand under both these circumstances.

In like manner we might observe the marks of design and mechanical skill displayed in the formation of the eye. First, there is the cavity in which it is placed, composed of seven little bones nicely fitted and glued together, lined with the softest fat and enveloped in a tissue, compared with which the softest silk is only coarse canvas. Then the cavity is so shaped as to exactly fit the eye, while the brow projects over like the roof of a veranda and the lids close down over it to protect it from injury. Again, we find that the ropes and pulleys used in the rigging of a ship are simplicity indeed as compared with the nerves and muscles used in the movements of the eye.

Section of the Human Eye

Most persons have seen a ship, and know the way in which the yards are moved, and the sails squared by means of ropes and pulleys. Now, there is a tackle called a muscle to pull the eye down when you want to look down; another to pull it up when you have done; there is one to pull it to the right, and another to pull it to the left. There is one fastened to the eyeball in two places, and so arranged that it will move the eye in any direction, as when we roll our eyes; and a sixth fastened to the under side of the eye to keep it steady when we do not need to move it. Then the eyelids are provided with suitable gearing, and it needs to be durable too, for it is said to be used thirty thousand times a day, in fact, every time we wink.

Not less wonderful is the construction of the eye itself. The optic nerve is the part of the eye which conveys visions to the mind. Suppose instead of it being where you observe it, at the back part of the eye, it had been brought out to the front, and that reflections from objects had fallen directly upon it. It is obvious that it would have been exposed to injury from every floating particle of dust, and we would always have felt such a sensation as is caused by a burn or scald when the skin peels off and leaves the ends of the nerves exposed to the air. Also the tender points of the fibres of the optic nerve would soon become blunted and the eye of course useless. How then is the nerve to be protected, and yet the sight not obstructed? If it were covered with skin as the other nerves are, we could not see through it. For thousands of years after men had eyes and used them, they knew no substance at once hard and transparent, which could answer the double purpose of vision and protection. To this day man knows no substance clear enough for vision, hard enough for protection, and elastic enough to resume its form after a blow. Now observe in the eye, that forward part, called the cornea, is as it were the watch-glass. It it is made of a substance at once hard, transparent and elastic; something which man has never been able to imitate.

It may be asked, what is the use of so many lenses in the eye? Light when refracted through a lens, becomes separated into its component colors—red, yellow, green, blue and violet. So that if the crystalline lens of the eye alone were used, we should see every white object, bluish in the middle, and yellowish and reddish at the edges. This difficulty perplexed Sir Isaac Newton all his life, and he never discovered the mode of making a refracting telescope which would obviate it. That remained for M. Dolland, a celebrated physician, to do; and he did it by studying and imitating the formation of the eye. Now what absurdity to say that a law of nature, such as gravity, or electricity has such a knowledge of the principles of optics and mechanics as the eye proclaims its Former to have! In all this we see marks of the most admirable design. The eye is fitted both to gaze at the stars millions of miles away and minutely examine objects only a few inches distant. In the brightness of sunshine the pupil contracts in order to protect the optic nerve from injury; in twilight it expands so as to admit a greater amount of light. When we wish to regulate the admission of light to our rooms we have recourse to very clumsy contrivances. A self-acting window which shall expand in the twilight and partially close of its own accord as the light increases towards noon, has never been manufactured by man. In short, anatomists have already observed more than eight hundred contrivances in the dead eye, while the greatest contrivance of all, the power of seeing, is utterly beyond their ken.

Similar arguments might be brought from every department of nature to prove the marks of design in creation. The question therefore returns with double force, had the world a creator or did it make itself? There are persons who say it did, and with a brazen-faced impudence declare that the Bible tells a falsehood when it says that, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." "Whereas," say they, "we know that matter is eternal, and the world being wholly composed of matter, therefore, the heavens and the earth are eternal—never had a beginning nor a creator." Profound reasoning indeed! In the same manner we might say, "Here is a well-burned brick, fresh from the kiln, which may last for a thousand years to come; therefore, it has always existed."

Again, it is claimed by some that matter is indestructible. The foundation of the argument is as rotten as the superstructure. Who knows that fact? for the very reason that no one can tell what matter in its own nature is. We may heat water to a certain degree and change it into steam, but it is all there in the steam. We may burn coal and thus change is appearance, but its particles are all there, in the form of gas, ashes or tar. All that any one can say is, that matter is indestructible by any power or agency known to man. But to assert that matter is eternal, because man cannot destroy it, is as if a child should try to beat a locomotive to pieces with his stick, and failing in the attempt should say, "I am sure this locomotive existed from eternity, because I am unable to destroy it."

But, supposing that matter is eternal, how does that account for the formation of this beautiful world? The earth consists not of one substance known by that name, but of a great variety of material substances as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, iron, and some fifty-two or three others already discovered (see Turner's Chemistry, section 341). Now which of these is the eternal matter referred to? Is it iron, or sulphur, or carbon, or oxygen? If it is any one of them, where did the others come from? Did a mass of iron, for example, becoming discontented with its condition, suddenly change itself into a cloud of gas or a pail of water? Or are all the elements eternal? Have we fifty-eight eternal substances? Are they all eternal in their present combinations, or is it only the simple elements that are eternal? Whatever may be the answers to these questions, they give no light on the formation of this world, which is not a shapeless mass called matter, but a beautiful building composed of a variety of substances. Has this earth existed as it is from eternity? No man who ever was in a quarry or gravel pit will say so, much less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. If the elements which compose the earth have not always existed as we now find them, then how came they to put themselves in their present shapes? Matter has no power of putting itself in motion when at rest, nor of coming to rest when in motion. A body will never change its place unless moved, and if once started will move on forever unless stopped. For example, if we leave our room, and on our return find a book missing, we know that some one has taken it—the book could not have gone off at its own suggestion.

Now will the infidels presume to tell us, that the fifty-eight primary elements danced about till the air, sea and earth somehow jumbled themselves together into the present shape of this glorious and beautiful world, with all its regularity of day and night, Summer and Winter, with all its beautiful flowers and lofty trees, with all its variety of birds, beasts and fishes, not to speak of the beauties of the morning, the gorgeous dyes of sunset, or the silent glories of the midnight sky. Or to bring the question down to the level of the intellect of the most stupid atheist, tell us in plain English, did the paving stones make themselves?

Absurd as it seems, there are persons claiming to be philosophers who not only assert that they did, but will tell you how they did it. One class of them think they found it out by supposing everything in the universe reduced to very fine powder, consisting of very fine grains, which they call atoms; or, if that is not fine enough, into gas, of which it is supposed the particles are too fine to be perceived, and then by different arrangements of these atoms, according to the laws of attraction, electricity, or some other law, the various elements of the world were made, and arranged in their present forms. But then the difficulty is only multiplied millions of times. Each bit of paving stone, no matter how small you break it, can no more make itself or move itself, than could the whole stone composed of all these bits. So we are landed back at the sublime question, did the paving stones make themselves?

Others will tell you that millions of years ago the world existed as a vast cloud of fire-mist. What this fire-mist is they do not know, but only that there are certain comets, which come within fifty or sixty millions of miles of this earth, which they suppose may be composed of fire-mist. Hence they imagine that the earth also may have been made from the same fire-mist. But where did the mist come from? Did the mist make itself? Where did the fire come from? Did it kindle of its own accord? Who put the fire and the mist together? Was it red hot enough from all eternity to melt granite? Then why is it any cooler now? If it existed as a red hot fire-mist from eternity, why should it ever begin to cool at all? Infidels claim that there was nothing else in all the universe except this fire-mist. Then the cause of all this must have been in the mist itself. In other words, the fire-mist made itself, then the paving stones and the infidels afterwards. Others suppose that the world was once in a stage of solution, in primeval oceans, and that the mixing of these waters caused them to deposit a sediment, which hardened into rock, then vegetated into plants and trees, then grew into animals, these in turn developed into monkeys, and finally the monkeys into men. Thus it is clearly demonstrated that there is no need for the Creator if we only had somebody to make these primeval oceans, somebody to mix them together, and somebody to establish these laws of development.

Another favorite theory among infidels, is that of Buffon, the vain-glorious French philosopher. His theory was that the sun is a vast melted mass, and that once on a time a huge comet struck the sun in such a manner, that portions of it splashed off, just as a stone thrown in a slanting direction into a bucket of water would cause portions of the water to splash out of the vessel. These portions of matter (acting under certain laws) then formed themselves into spheres and being condensed by cold have become solid planets and satellites. Thus, according to this idea, creation was only an accident after all. Still, as might be expected, thinking men kept asking: "Where did the sun come from? What melted it down into a fluid state fit to be splashed about? Where did the comet come from? And who threw it with so correct an aim, as to hit the sun exactly in an oblique direction."

Solar System

[SOLAR SYSTEM]

This idea received considerable encouragement from a certain class of scientific men during the early part of this century. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is a vast space which was supposed to be unoccupied. In the first seven years of this century, three small planets were discovered revolving in orbits midway between Mars and Jupiter. Afterwards many others were discovered until now the number exceeds two hundred. Dr. Olbers, the discoverer of two of them, Pallas and Vesta, finding that their orbits were comparatively near together and sometimes crossed each other, imagined that they were formed by the explosion of a large planet or by a comet coming in contact with a large planet and thus shattering it to pieces. This theory seemed all the more plausible seeing that these minor worlds or "pocket planets," as Herschel styles them, are exceedingly diminutive. So, to use a familiar illustration, he imagined the boiler of a large locomotive had burst and the fragments had all alighted on the track in the shape of hand-cars; much more, that the hand-cars had magnanimously resolved to keep running and do the business of the line. At first sight this theory seemed strengthened by every new discovery. It is true, reflecting men could not help wondering at such a strange event, that would produce beautiful little planets all by accident. They never heard of the blowing up of a palace producing cottages, or the fragments of a steam-ship changing into yawl-boats, nor even the pieces of a wrecked locomotive becoming neat little engines or even respectable hand-cars. However, as the theory removed God out of sight, it was generally accepted by the infidels and freely used by them, to show that the world has no need of a Creator.

Genuine scientists, however, were not long in seeing the absurdity and demonstrating the impossibility of such a theory. It was found that their orbits did not coincide by more than twenty millions of miles. Again, it has been proven that comets are incapable of greatly affecting a sun or planet. Herschel says, "It is evident that the most unsubstantial clouds which float in the highest region of our atmosphere must be looked upon as dense and massy bodies compared with the filmy texture of a comet."

Thus Reason declares, that the world did not make itself. The soul of man did not make itself. The body of man did not make itself. They must have had an intelligent Creator, who is God. The work is not the workman; the house is not the builder; the watch is not the watchmaker. The maker is always distinct from the thing made and superior to it. You, and I, and the universe have been made; therefore, our Creator is distinct from us, and superior to us.

The consciousness of our ignorance and weakness confirms this fact. The soul of man is not the highest intelligence in the universe. In his present state he has not yet acquired a knowledge of the laws and functions of the body he inhabits, much less the laws that sway the universe. He may know much about what does not concern him; but he feels his weakness where his dearest interests are concerned. He may be able to tell the place of a distant planet a century hence; but he cannot tell where he himself will be next year. He may calculate for years the motion of the tides; but he cannot tell how his own pulse will beat to-morrow, or whether it will beat at all. Ever as his knowledge of the laws of nature increases, his conviction deepens that a wiser head and a stronger hand than his planned and rules the world.

The world's history declares the existence and government of God. History is but the record of men's acts and God's providences, of men's crimes and God's punishments. Once He swept away the human race with a flood of water because the wickedness of man was great upon the earth. Again, He testified His displeasure against the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah by consuming those cities by fire from heaven, and leaving the Dead Sea to roll its solemn waves of warning to the end of time. No amount of learning or skill, wealth or commerce, power of arms, or extent of territory, has ever secured a wicked nation against the sword of God's justice. Read the black record of the past. Where is the greatness of Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon and Petra? Tyre had ships, colonies and commerce, Rome an empire of half a hemisphere; Greece had philosophy, arts and liberty secured by a confederation of republics, Spain the treasures of the earth's gold and silver? but these did not exempt them from the moral government of God. His laws sway the universe, and link together sin with misery, and crime with punishment, in the brazen fetters of eternal justice. These nations have been hurled down from the pinnacle of their greatness, to dash themselves in pieces against each other in the valley of destruction; and there they lie, wrecks of nations, ruins of empires, naught remaining, save some shivered fragments of former greatness, to show that they once existed and were the enemies of God.

The Dead Sea

[THE DEAD SEA]