Ecce terra; or, The hand of God in the earth

Preface

The characters which a divine Hand once traced on the walls of Belshazzar's palace have all disappeared. The walls themselves are gone. If the broken materials could now be found, it would be quite impossible, by any art or chemistry, or other science known to us, to discover the faintest trace of those radiant words which so dazzled the court of Babylon.

Not so with the characters which a divine Hand has traced on the walls of the heavens and the earth. These walls are still standing, apparently as strong and fair as ever. Some of the inscriptions on them are as legible as when first made. Others, like the original writing of some palimpsest, have been thickly overwritten by clumsy later scribes till it is hard to make out the nobler underlying scripture. And others still were originally traced in lines that were never meant to be visible to men, save when warmed by the fires of an earnest piety or touched by the chemistry of a reverent science. But, in one state or another, all these heavenly scriptures are still extant, and may, with suitable pains, be read and interpreted.

I am no Daniel. Yet I have ventured, in Ecce Coehim, to attempt the reading and interpreting of some of the divine inscriptions on the sky. In the present volume I attempt a similar work for the earth.

4 PREFACE.

But not after the former manner. This would require me to summarize all the sciences that deal with the earth. But assuming (what I have endeavored to show in other volumes) that there is a personal God, and that he has given the Christian Scriptures, I first seek to show that the earth is thickly covered with a divine handwriting by showing, in a general way, that the hand of God is active in every event, and consequently in every earthly /^^^, inasmuch as every fact is an event or includes many events. But to show this is far from being enough. For many reasons the general doctrine of a universal divine activity in the world, when accepted, is not as real and impressive to our thought as it is desirable to have it. The natural way of meeting this diflficulty is by (ist) setting aside the chief apparent objections to the doctrine; (2d) bringing forward its chief points of harmony with the constitution and course of nature; (3d) instancing decisive examples of divine action, especially of the larger and more striking sort. Examples are the eye of philosophy.

Accordingly, this is the way I have chosen. In using it I have drawn freely from history, science and Scripture, as being parallel authorities. The reader who can freely accept them all has an evident advantage, so far as strength of impression is concerned ; but whoever is not prepared to do this, let him take the fractional light that is left him and make the most of it. It is better than none. And it may lead him to more light, as even a lantern may lead to an illuminated palace.

Lyme, Connecticut.

PAGE

Part Third, — Great Facts Positively Demanding

1. Matter 124

2. A Habitable Globe 129

3. Lower Organisms 137

5. Insignia Common to Organic Species 162

6. A Great Unity 183

7. Language 191

8. Universal Faiths 197

9. Sacred Writings 202

10. Moral Wonders 221

12. A Marvelous History , 245

I.

I.

HISTORY holds a high place in public esteem. And deservedly. It is both entertaining and useful in a high degree. We know of no better instructor in the science of human nature, that exceedingly practical science. In the conduct of our affairs it gives us the benefit of many ages of experience. To governments it is perpetual privy councillor. Society could hardly do without its testings of laws, principles, and institutions. Were we deprived of its lessons on the perils which beset society, and the best methods of dealing with those perils, it would be the eclipse of a great light — very much such a disaster as one would suffer if he should lose from his memory all the records of his past life and be compelled to pursue his way among men with the inexperilO ECCE TERRA.

ence of an infant, though with the age of a Methusaleh.

A still higher place in the public regard has lately been obtained by Natural Science. Perhaps deserv^edly. It gives a very pure and wholesome pleasure. It strengthens, expands and disciplines the intellectual powers. As a purveyor to the more practical side of human life its uses are enormous and almost innumerable. Commerce sails safely on all seas with the help of its chronometers, nautical almanacs and star-seeking instruments. It is the mother of inventions : from its teeming womb come the leading contrivances which have added so immensely to the safety, conveniences and powers of our modern life. Some claim that the study of nature is the creator of the nineteenth century. Certainly not a farmer ploughs the land, not a sailor ploughs the sea, not a printer makes up his forms, not a manufacturer turns the power on his looms, not a trader or broker sends orders by cable, not a sick man takes his medicine, not a woman does her housekeeping, not a day-laborer works with mattock or hod, — not a person, whatever the name or work in this toiHng and moiling and swift-handed, swiftfooted civilization of ours, but is immensely a debtor (though he is often mysteriously ignorant of the fact) to the sciences of nature. The

THE PARALLEL RAYS. II

peasant has become a king. We make by millions what we used to make by units. We fly where we used to creep. Years of work are condensed into moments. Distant countries say daily Good-Mornings to each other across the oceans. We ride through the seas or under them, over cities or under them, as we please. Science has set to work for us workmen more fleet, tireless, powerful, and yet tractable, than ever Oriental genii, or even the gods of the Greeks and Romans, were supposed to be. Our fathers of only a few generations back, suddenly brought down to our times, would think them almost miraculous. Men now living have almost seen with their own eyes the time when the announcement of some signal discovery was sure to find a profoundly incredulous, if not scoffing, public ; now, that public is almost ready to accept on demand the impossible without question ; it has seen actually realized so many astonishing and unbelievable things. With eyes aflame and uplifted hands we stand gazing earthward and heavenward, and exclaim, ''What next?'' And we shall accept it when it comes, though it be the Seven Stars or the Seven Thunders.

A still higher place in the public regard than is held by history, and even by natural science in its most genuine and useful forms, is claimed by Christians for the Christian Saaptures, Shall I not say, Deservedly ? Beyond all comparison the Bible is the greatest impersonal benefactor the world has ever seen. This follows at once from the fact (which I have sought to make plain in another volume) that the Book is a Divine Message. This Message, as being largely history, has the same sort of uses with other history, though in much larger degrees on account of its far greater reliableness and wiser discriminations ; and ministers various pleasure, wholesome instruction, just views of human nature and invaluable suggestions on the management of states and families, as well as of individual life. As being largely science (for it gives us, though in popular forms, the principles of the most effulgent and useful of all the sciences, that of God and duty), it has the same sort of uses with other science, only in much larger degrees, owing to its vastly greater importance, and breadth of application, and variety of literary form ; and, as the most universal of all textbooks, has been more of an educational force among the masses, more stimulative of thought and discussion and eloquence and philosophy and literature, and even the fine arts, than any other book. That it wrestles mightily against those gross vices and crimes which exhaust the body, fill prisons, burden the public with taxes and strike at the very vitals of society, goes without saying ; and it is equally plain that it frowns on envies, jealousies, selfishnesses, hatreds and all those evil passions which do so much to vex and disfigure human hearts, disturb the peace of communities and prepare the way for the worst deeds.

We see in the Book the guardian, not to say the founder, of homes and of all the home virtues — of parental authority, filial dutifulness, family concords, and fidelities of every name. It beckons men to all the traits of good neighborhood and good citizenship. If families and states do not live in harmony with each other, and in the interchange of all delightful courtesies and good offices, it is not the fault of the Bible. It almost scourges them to such things. It is the foe of social excesses and disorders of all sorts; the upholder of law ; the father and mother of industry, prudence, good faith and business integrity. It says to rogues, whether mature or incipient, whether individuals or corporations or states. Stop Thief! — says it with a majesty of emphasis such as the united voices of all mankind could not compass — and with the same majestic and menacing voice warns us off from trespassing on each other's rights in all directions. Behold its great placard frowning conspicuously over the fences of all private property — itself the highest fence of all — saying, No Thoroughfare ! And yet behold the friend alike of labor and capital, of the peasant and the peer, of the masses and the magistrate ! — the only daysman that can successfully lay hand upon them both.

But the Bible is not content with negations. To its ''Thou shall not'' it proceeds to add, '' Thou shall!' It summons men to all mutual helpfulness. They must treat each other as brothers. They must be compassionate and loving as well as just, free-handed as well as free-hearted. So it has become the founder and chief supporter of almost all the humane and educational institutions and private charities which are so great a glory of our time. Hospitals, reform schools, ragged schools, infirmaries for the blind or intemperate or idiotic, homes for the aged poor or orphans or incurables, — what an immense variety of such things in every Bible land ! Christendom, especially where the Bible is most diffused and influential, is studded with public charities almost as the sky is with stars. Every Bible Christian, doing good to all as he has opportunity, is an incorporated benevolent institution endowed with unlimited privileges of traveling and self-support. Were the world stripped of the educational chairs and fellowships and lectureships which the Bible has created, our unbeUeving scientists would find their financial foundations almost wholly swept away. They would have no platform from which to attack the Bible. They sit at its table and eat its bread, and then, worse than an Arab, waylay and strike at their generous host. It is the old story, old as Judas : "He that eateth bread with me has lifted up the heel against me.''

The Bible has been the main factor in making the difference that exists between Christendom and Dahomey. It would be hard to point out any necessity, utility or ornament of our homes that does not credibly say *' Mother!" to the Bible, and is not daily carried in its arms and fed at its breasts. For one thing, were woman put back into the position from which the Bible has raised her, what an eclipse we should have!

The Bible is the greatest and cheapest of all known civilizers. This is denied by some who have much to say about Advance and Progress, and who are fond of representing religion as the foe of such things ; but it is open to all observation that the little finger of the gospel is thicker than the loins of all these men put together as to practical work in behalf of humanity. Our Bible-sent and Bible-bearing missions have reduced rude languages to writing, created in them a vast and pure literature, founded educational institutions, revolutionized the healing art, suggested wise laws, relieved and prevented famines, pestilences, wars and superstitions; poured out long-accumulating treasures of art, science, invention and comfort with free hand into the lap of heathendom. In so doing they have wonderfully pushed outward the luminous outposts of civilization, and are fast carrying the nineteenth century to the ends of the earth.

Besides what it does directly with its own hand for the various secular interests of the world, the Bible has been a great pioneer and caster-up of highways for all sorts of beneficent agencies. They best see how to work by the light that shines from its face. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that it furnishes the only foundation, broad and^ strong, on which Science and other human benefactors can, for any length of time, securely stand, let alone work. Without it. Omnia ruunt in pejus.

While thus vigorously shooting their rays into the darkness of distant lands, our Bible missions have reflected great light upon their own. They have opened new highways for Christian commerce, new markets for Christian manufactures, new channels to wealth, comfort and power for Christian peoples. While busy in carrying the gospel to every creature, they do not forget to send back to their native shores brilliant contributions to Geography, Ethnology, Archaeology, Geology, Natural History, Philology and other sciences. In short, the services which the Bible has rendered to the secular interests of mankind are wonderfully great. All other benefactors are but echoes and shadows of this. Never a cornucopia so large and full as that which it holds — never one so freely emptied in every direction ; for this Briareus has and uses a hundred hands for its glorious distributions. Were the Bible quite without religious pretensions, it still ought to be crowned as the foremost philanthropist the world has ever seen.

Shall we call that useful, brilliant and revealing thing named History, Light? At least a ray. It illumines the past, and, by reflection, the present, and even the future.

Shall we call that more useful, brilliant and revealing thing termed Natural Sci^nc^, Light ? At least a ray. It reveals the laws of material nature. In so doing it largely reveals the Author of nature — also innumerable sources of comfort, profit and power. All sensible people allow that it is an illustrious illuminator of our times, and some even go so far as to say that in comparison with it there is no other.

Shall we call that most useful, brilliant and revealing thing known as the Bible, Light? At least a ray. I would much prefer to call it a sheaf of rays ; brilliant benefactor of the world as it is, grandest illuminator of dark lands and times. It throws more light on the character and will of God, on the nature and destiny of man, on what constitutes a wise and righteous ordering of life, than does anything else we know of. Nothing else can so brighten the world's glooms, whether of sorrow or of sin. While it illumines this world, it discovers to us two other worlds beyond this, and faithfully shows the two paths that conduct to these final and wndely-differing homes of mankind.

History, Natural Science, the Christian Scriptures, — certainly these three illuminators of our times are entitled to be called at least so many rays of light. Are they parallel raj/s—3.nd so, when made to enter the eye at the same time, mutually corroborative ?

What is the supreme drift of the Bible ? What is the great end toward which its Old Testament and New, its histories and poetries and parables and epistles, its examples and instructions and exhortations, tend ? Certainly not its secular uses. Many and great as these are, they are merest ciphers by the side of its religious use. So to manifest God and his government as to bring men to honor, love and serve him, — this is evidently the Gulf Stream to whose warm bosom all other currents are drawn and made tributary.

It is but reasonable to suppose that Natural Science and History have at bottom a like religious bearing. This notwithstanding some professional students of these branches of knowledge have been anything but religious, and have even claimed that their studies teach away from God and his government instead of toward them. We ought not to be surprised at such claims. Is it a new thing for men to misinterpret and pervert the plainest and best of things? Despite the bitter tongues and pens of those men, and their more bitter example, the stress of the reasonable study of nature and history, as well as of the Bible, is strongly toward setting in a striking light the existence, perfections and government of God. It ought to be so ; every intelligent Christian knows that it is so. Our case is that of people living in a land all of whose rivers and mountain-ranges descend on a common trend to a common sea, and are seen to do so when one stations himself at a proper elevation, though their parallelism is not visible to him who lives amid the fogs and narrow horizons of the lowlands.

What are Natural Science and History but interpreters of nature and its ongoings ? Of course, when genuine, they must be thoroughly in sympathy with nature. But every intelligent Christian believes that nature and the Bible, as having a common divine Author, must be thoroughly in sympathy with each other. When placed side by side and fairly interpreted they will be found not only not contradictory, but positively explaining, confirming and enhancing each other. They will be found like parallel and complementary rays from the same sun ; which have the same brilliant essential nature, move in the same direction, encounter the same obstructions, obey the same laws, are successfully studied by the same methods, conspire to produce the same image, give together a whiter and brighter image of the luminary from which they come than either can do by itself.

So History, Natural Science, and the Christian Scriptures are not only light of various ray, but the rays are parallel, and together illumine the character and ways of God as neither could do by itself As different children of the same parents m.ay be expected to show a family likeness; as different works of the same author may be expected to show certain common features of thought, style and influence; so it may be expected that God's book of words and his book of thmgs, will, when properly set together, exchange llofht to mutual advantage. What we actually find different parts of the Bible doing for each other in the way of mutual interpretation and enforcement (and this, as Christians all know, is very much) we may reasonably look to see done in a good measure by the different parts of that larger Bible which includes the whole scheme of thinofs comino[' from the divine Hand, together with its outworkings through the ages. We shall see the Scriptures brighter from being set in the light of the results of historic and physical inquiry, and these again brighter from being shone upon by the Scriptures. As a matter of fact, many a dark text has been brilliantly cleared up by the researches of the historian and scientist. At least one man, Bishop Butler, has been made illustrious, not to say immortal, by his success in relieving the Bible of difficulties by comparing it with the constitution and course of nature. On the other hand, the successful scientist or explorer of the past has often taken his inspiration and cue from something he has found in the Bible.

Accordingly, in the present work I propose to show the hand of God in the earth by the joint means of Scripture, Science and History — believing that the picture of this Hand given by these three parallel and complementary rays will be a whiter and brighter one than either could give alone.

II.

II.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN said in Congress, '' I have lived, sir, a long time ; and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men.'' Our illustrious American sage and statesman only echoed the thought which the illustrious Roman Cicero had written out some eighteen hundred years before : '' Quid enim potest esse tam perspicuum, quam esse aliquod numen quo haec regantur?'' — What can be so thoroughly plain as that there is some Divinity by who7n these things are governed?

An infinitely perfect Being ought to be the ruler of the world. As much is demanded of him by every consideration of justice and kindness. Being infinite, he can give us a government of incalculable value ; and, being infinite, to give such a government will be to him no burden whatever. Accordingly, he has given it. As say the Scriptures, "The Lord is a great King over all the earth.''

More than this. It would not only be no burden to an infinite Being to maintain a royal government over the world, but he can, just as easily as not, maintain one that deals powerfully with every actual event. He is therefore sure to do even as much as this. Accordingly, we find it to be the tenor of Scripture that the God who is "Governor among the nations" and "directeth the steps of a man,'' and whom we are to ask for ''daily bread" and every ''good thing," is one without whom " not a sparrow falls," who "numbers the hairs of our heads," whose is " the disposing of the lot that is cast into the lap " — who, in short, " worketh all things after the counsel of his own will ;" so that universal Christendom is established in the doctrine not only that God is King, but that his hand potentially touches every event in the whole range of fact — that there is absolutely no particular, however inconsiderable, which is not obliged to ask permission of his sovereignty in order to be, and around which, when it has come into being, do not effulge and throb his all- knowing thoughts and the regulative forces of his sleepless and tireless monarchy.

It should be clearly noticed just what is, and what is not, implied in this doctrine of the divine Hand in actual events. To say that the wisdom and power of God are brought to bear in a commanding manner on every event ; that he supervises and, so to speak, manipulates in a royal manner whatever occurs, — is not saying that each event is a just expression of his preferences or that he is active in promoting it. His activity may be that of one who hates and hinders. A government may be fully as active in the way of hindering as in that of helping. A large part of the activity of every human ruler consists in opposing and lessening, as far as possible, undesirable things. Perhaps it w^ould not be too much to say that our civil governments commonly display more power in opposing what is wrong than in promoting what is right. Their laws, their magistrates, their courts, their prisons and other penalties, their armies, their police (that is to say, their most conspicuous and representative things), express the principle of hindrance rather than that of help. They say to disorder and wrong, '' We will fight you as well as we can.*' And such may be the attitude of the divine government toward many things. The Scriptures say that it is. The sceptred Hand is vastly busy with them ; it is above, beneath, on either hand, and within even ; but it is as an enemy. It is our experience as well as Scripture that the best that can be done with some things is to fight them, to minimize them, to overrule them. And it is both conceivable and scriptural that the fight may be carried on by a government that brings even infinite resources into the battle, and yet, owing to moral and other limitations, be unsuccessfiil in winning a complete victory. Actual cases of this sort will hereafter be given. It will appear that there are very many actual events which God neither assists nor favors in any way, but w^hich he struggles against with all the forces he can consistently bring into the field. Sins of all sorts are such events. Every one of them is like a pirate ship beating through stormy latitudes and hunted down by the fleets of all nations.

The doctrine of a divine Hand in every event gives the divine government, even in this world, a very large field. Just think of the number of events about us daily in all the wide realms of mineral, vegetable, brute and human history! Even what happens to a single man from sunrise to sunrise, including his thoughts and feelings, would make a more ponderous journal than ever yet came from human pen. But, like the endless break of waves on the shore ; like the endless pulses in the still more restless ocean of air ; nay, like the light- waves that come and go in every direction with such amazing swiftness, numbers and complexity in that still wider ocean in which all the stars are islands, — must be the events of all sorts ever taking place in all quarters and histories. In each of them, however small, we are to hold the hand of God to be royally active.

But this does not express the whole fact. Broad as must be the divine government that bears on every actual event, it is but narrow as compared with that we actually live under. For this covers also the undesirable events which never become actual, but which would become so save for its interference ; and we have good reason for thinking that the number of such events must be very great. Every good man, with his small power and wisdom, prevents many evils — suspicions, slanders, hatreds, quarrels, frauds, diseases ; in short, sins and sorrows of all names. He hails them while they are yet, as it were, in the offing, and successfully warns them off from the shores of being. Of course, God with his infinite power and wisdom can do infinitely more. Every good civil government has an eye on the homely maxim that " An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure," and manages to prohibit the arrival of many public evils which it sees approaching. Of course the divine government, with its immeasurably greater foresight and forces of all kinds, can prohibit to a vastly greater extent. Our modern society has many great institutions, not merely to alleviate and cure existing- evils, but also to quite forestall others, to close and bolt the gates of the future against them, to reach forth into the void and cancel their very possibility. This is really the great philanthropy. And it has been very successful. What it does, on by no means an inconsiderable scale, God, the greatest and best-equipped philanthropist ever known, doubtless does on a scale inconceivablv laro^e. He is an optimist, and gives us the best possible system. He keeps many a litter of pests from comino- to the birth. His amazino- fleets blockade all the coasts of being against interloping evils as no scanty dories of our building and ordering can do. It must be that a host of sins and harms find themselves unable to make a landinor throuo^h that watchful and terrible leaeuer on which the sun never sets.

Accordingly, the Scriptures call God '' a shield,'' '' a fortress," ''a high tower," ''a Saviour," ''One mighty to save" — epithets that vividly describe how largely he negatives evil for individuals and communities. And so, the world over, we learn to pray, '' Deliver us from evil," and to believe that, bad as the state of the world is, it would have been far worse had not God swept with his great hand the expanses before us, and laid waste to the greatest possible extent the very seeds and possibilities of evil.

This general doctrine of a divine government that extends to all actual events, and even vastly beyond, is illustrated in the Bible by a great variety of examples. There is scarcely any sort of thing we can think of, actual or possible, which is not there instanced as touched potentially by the divine sceptre. The movements of the heavenly bodies ; the rise and fall of nations ; the fortunes and policies of rulers ; the course of parties and populaces and armies; victories and defeats ; famines and pestilences ; the course of each individual life, its prosperities and adversities of all sorts ; food, raiment, riches, honor, health, long life, friends, influence, eloquence, wisdom, and their opposites; thoughts, feelings, purposes, sins and virtues in great variety ; deliverances from all sorts of evils ; conversions, sanctifications, salvation ; all sorts of things in the inanimate world, as winds, rains, droughts, storms, calms, crops ; in short, the particular things which the Scriptures, in one way or another, say are dealt with by the divine government, — seem to cover by specimen the whole field of being and event. One who will take pains to bring together the vast variety of examples in their Scripture form of statement will feel himself forbidden by them to except anything whatever from the stress of a divine Hand — from the rush of suns and heavenly armies to the ripple of a pool and the beat of an insect's wing, and even to that dim waste beyond where lie unquickened only the seeds and possibilities of the actual. So large an induction of particulars would be enough to establish any scientific doctrine. It is enough to establish the scriptural doctrine of a providence that bears on the whole field of actual and possible event; that is, on ^v^ry fact, for every fact in this world began in an event, and concerns us only as being the source of events. I have already briefly called attention to the wonderfulness of this universal providence. It is so beyond what human rulers can do ! Nay, it is so beyond what our thought can grasp ! If you sweep around you a radius of ten feet in every direction you include hundreds of millions of living things, each of which is having at any moment hundreds of millions of changes, chemical, mechanical, vital, spiritual. How unequal are you to the summing up of even these! How much more unequal to the task of bending the horizon of your thought around the all things that are, have been, or shall be, or shall have been prevented from being, on this ancient, populous, ever-changing and long-enduring world! Not even an archangel could do it.