been, and doubtless will be, the duration of life upon the earth (and it has certainly existed for myriads and myriads of years), it seems less than a second when compared with those two awful time-intervals,-one past, when as yet life was not, and one future, when all life shall have passed away. Long after the earth has ceased to be the abode of life, other planets will become fitted for this purpose. Even these time-intervals will pass, however, until every planet in turn has been the source of busy life, and afterwards become inert and dead. Then, after the lapse, perchance, of a lifeless interval (compared with which all the past eras of the solar system were utterly insignificant), the time will arrive when the sun will be a fit abode for living creatures, and will continue so during ages infinite to our conceptions. We may even look forward to still more distant changes, seeing that the solar system is itself moving round an orbit, though the centre around which it travels is so distant that at present it remains unknown. The end, seemingly so remote, to which our earth is tending -the end, infinitely more remote, towards which the solar system is tending-the end of our galaxy-the end of systems of such galaxies as ours, are but the beginnings of fresh eras

comparable with themselves. The wave of life which is now passing over our earth is but a ripple on the sea of life within the solar system; and that sea of life is but as a wavelet on the great ocean of life that is coextensive with the universe."

These are not fancies, but facts. In the Milky Way, as La Place showed, we can see worlds in the very process of creation, in all stages of transition from the gaseous, through the liquid, to the solid state.

It has been believed too, by some, that our earth is being slowly forced nearer to the sun, into which it will ultimately fall; that a similar fate is in store for the whole solar system, for the system of which that forms a part, and so on ad infinitum; that, as Shelley has magnificently put it in his "Hellas,"

"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever

From creation to decay,

Like the bubbles on a river,

Sparkling, bursting, borne away."

In the presence of such thoughts as these, one is tempted, like the Psalmist, to say in despair, "What is man?" We, who are considered tall if we are seventy-two inches high, who cannot walk faster than three or four miles

an hour, who die almost as soon as we are born, must feel very, very insignificant, if we look only at our relations with space or time, and then compare ourselves in these respects with galaxies of worlds. We shall be inclined to adopt the poet's words,

"See how beneath the moonbeam's smile
Yon little billow heaves its breast,
And foams and sparkles for a while,

And murmuring then subsides to rest.
Thus man, the sport of bliss and care,
Rises on time's eventful sea,

And having swelled a moment there,
Then melts into eternity."

This kind of sentiment is just now in the air. One of the most striking characteristics of the modern mind is the tendency to think less of man, in proportion as larger views have to be taken of the universe in which man dwells. Human beings are often nowadays regarded as mere ripples upon the infinite ocean of matter.

But this way of looking at things seems to me thoroughly erroneous-I may say absurdly erroneous. It assumes that we have nothing on which to pride ourselves except our physical extension and our physical weight. It assumes that we are merely small masses of matter. But our real glory lies in that which is not material, in

The

that which is absolutely destitute of extension and weight-viz., in our mental powers. proper comparison to make, is not between the small bulk of a human being and the vast bulk of the material world, but between a human being who has a mind, and the material world which has not. Why should we be depressed by the knowledge we have acquired of the physical greatness of the universe? That very knowledge is a proof of our own more amazing greatness. The material universe does not know itself. We know both ourselves and it. And since, further, we are endowed with sensibility, imagination, memory, hope, affection, reason, conscience, will, and the material world is not so endowed, we are in reality great, it is comparatively insignificant. If we would but remember this, the more progress that we made in science, the more we should be elevated and cheered-the more we should be stimulated to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we have been called.

That there is not the slightest incompatibility between true science and true religion, was long ago seen and acknowledged by our illustrious fellow-countryman whose remains were last week received into Westminster Abbey. No one was

1 This sermon was preached the Sunday after Darwin's funeral.

ever more worthy of that honour,-the last and greatest honour which the world can pay. The writings of Charles Darwin are supposed, by those who have never read them, to be subversive of faith in a Creator. This is precisely the opposite of the truth. There are no books so full of illustrations of the design and purpose and adaptation to be found everywhere in nature,— no books, therefore, which give one such an exalted view of the wisdom and beneficence of God. I cannot but regard it as a most happy omen that the author of the 'Origin of Species' should have been buried where he was, and that men like Canon Farrar and Professor Huxley should have stood side by side at his tomb. I cannot but see in it a prophecy that science and religion, after so many centuries of conflict, will before long learn to understand and love one another, and that, even in your time and mine, they may be joined in a happy and indissoluble union.

But though there is no necessary incompatibility between science and religion—though a growing knowledge of the physical universe need not make us despise ourselves, but should rather give us a deeper sense of our God-given dignity and glory,-yet it must be confessed that many modern scientists have been too much