AND SABBATH HERALD. " Here is the Patience of the Saints ; Here are they that keep the Commandments of God, and the Faith ofjesus." VOL. XVII. BATTLE CREEK, MICH., THIRD—DAY, JANUARY 29, 1861. No. 11. The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald that those races which are best adapted to the ional deviation from established rules is the pre- is:published weekly, at One Dollar a Volume of 28 Nos. in advance J. P. KELLOGG, CYRENIUS SMITH and D. It. PALMER, conditions of life, live, whilst those which are less rogative of intelligence. Without any actual ev- Publishing Committee. adapted become extinct. idence on the subject, it would be vastly more Uriah Smith, Resident Editor. J. N. Andrews, James White, 3. H. Waggoner, R. F. Cottrell,and Stephen We have not the least reason for supposing reasonable to suppose there would be special inter- Pierce, Corresponding Editors. .4%-.Address REVIEW AND HERALD Battle Creek, Mich. there is any such thing in the universe as force, ferences with nature's laws, thin that there would except what comes from mind. One of the pri- be none. That there should never be a miracle, GROWING IN GRACE. mary characteristics of matter is, that it is inert. would be the greatest miracle of all. It would It cannot move of itself, nor when put in motion, lead almost inevitably, to the atheist's conclusion, Tuts did not once so trouble me, can it of itself cease from moving. The Almighty that there is no God ! That better I could not love Thee; impresseP upon a particle, or collection of parti- Hence the importance of miracles, in any sys- But now I feel and know, tem of religion that is expected to secure cre- That only when we love, we find, cles, motion in a straight line, and were there no How far our hearts remain behind other force to counteract, these particles would dence. So far from a religion of miracles being The hive they should bestow. move on in a right line forever. But he also im- repugnant to the common sense of mankind, we presses matter with gravitation, and forthwith find that the inhabitants of all countries, when While we had little care to call suns and systems are imbued with a compound unsophisticated by science, are believers in super- On Thee, and scarcely prayed at all, natural interpositions of the Deity. The relig• We seemed enough to pray ; motion, projecting them in wonderful order But now we only think with shame, through the orbits to which this union of forces ious want in man's nature creates a necessity for How seldom to thy glorious name confines them. The power to move the human something above and beyond the operation of Our lips their offerings pay. frame comes from the mind. We have a certain physical causes. A supernatural religion man portion of matter included within our physical will have, must have, by the very constitution of And when we gave yet slighter heed his being. Infidels, atheists even, are obliged to Unto our brother's suffering need, organism, and connected with the mind by nerves Our heart reproached us then and muscles through which that matter is con- resort to their superstitions as a substitute for the Not half so much as now, that we trolled; and when we will that the hand should revelation they have discarded. With such a careless eye can see rise, it rises ; or that the foot should fall, it falls. Christianity can only be rejected from dislike to The woes and wants of men. The power that we have over a hand, but in high- its doctrines. The miracles of the Old and New In doing is this knowledge won, er perfection, God has over every particle of mat- Testaments are certified to us by an amount of To see what yet remains undone ; ter in the universe. Every seed that germinates evidence unequalled in any other department of With this our pride repress, does so by means of force, impressed by the Crea- human history. Writers in defense of Christian- And give us grace, a growing store, tor; every winged ray of light is sent on its er- ity have portrayed and argued these evidences That day by clay we may do more, rand by God's hand ; every hue that variegates with such clearness and force, that nothing fur- And may esteem it less. [Richard Chenevix Trench. the face of nature is an impress of his will. 'Man ther in this direction can be desired. And yet acts upon matter indirectly as well as directly; there will, no doubt, be skeptics till the day when the motion which he communicates to the hand the Son of man shall appear in the clouds of ARE MIRACLES PRECLUDED BY THE LAWS OF NATURE? is transmitted to the implement which the hand heaven. Men who claim to be philosophers pro- wields, and is thus comunicated to other bodies fess their inability to accept the Scripture mira- IT has long been with infidels a standing argu- with which it comes in contact. God acts in like cles. They would not be so averse to a belief in ment against Christianity, that its miracles are manner; his machines are at work throughout the special exercise of omnipotent power, if it contrary to the laws of nature, and therefore un- the whole system of nature. One of the most were only exerted on great occasions. They worthy to be credited. The laws of nature, say wondrous laws he has given her is that each or- would allow that the Creator may have started the they, are uniform; we never knew them vary; ganized form shall reproduce itself, like giving primordial germs of vegetable and animal life ; but we have often found human testimony false ; birth to like, from the hyssop under the wall to they would admit the reasonableness of his setting hence, when the two are in conflict, we are bound the cedar of Lebanon ; from the mammoth to the the worlds in motion ; they would feel no strong as philosophers to reject the uncertain in favor of animalcula ; from nervous man to the sense- repugnance to the idea of a general divine gov- the certain. less polyp. The same rule is extended to other ernment through the operation of natural causes ; It becomes us therefore to inquire, What does than organic substances; anger begets anger; but a special providence, a universality and minute- nature teach ? Has she any testimony to offer on love begets love ; smile begets smile ; terror be- ness of direction that includes the sparrow's fall, this subject, and what is it? Has she made any gets terror; virtue and vice spread their likeness a positive interference with the course of nature laws that bind the action of the Eternal ? wherever they can find objects to influence; the for the sake of rewarding or punishing, advancing We reply, Nature makes no laws. To make thoughts and opinions of one man reflect them- or preventing the purposes of mankind ; above laws requires intelligence ; but of this, nature is selves in the thoughts and opinions of others; a all, the bestowment of supernatural power on not possessed. She cannot tell why it would be pulsation of music multiplies itself through all mortals, in answer to faith and prayer, the con- better to impress upon the planets two forces than the air; a single ripple becomes a thousand waves ; nection, through an atoning Mediator and an in- one; if she can, then she becomes mind, and is flame spreads flame ; disease propagates disease ; tercommunicating Spirit, of man with his Mak- raised to the rank of divinity, an elevation which so far as our knowledge extends, image mirrors er; these are doctrines incomprehensible to the many would, no doubt, accord her, if by that image, throughout the whole extent of being. carnal man, whose only life is the life of the flesh, means they could disprove the existence of a God. This is but one of the Creator's laws; he has who has no spiritual experience, who " receiveth Nature has no laws except what God has given made others of like universality in their applica- not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can her. The term " laws of nature" appears to be a tion, and under them he has set the wheels of na- know them, because they are spiritually dis- philosophical expression, invented for the purpose ture in motion. But will he never change their cerned." of avoiding any direct recognition of them as modes of operation ? Will he never stop the ma- It is here that our treatises in defense of Chris- God's laws. So of the new phrase which Darwin chine ? Will not the wheels be sometimes turn- tianity fail; and fail they always must, to a great- has invented, " natural selection," as though na- ed off the track in order to a special end ? In- er or less degree, not through the imperfection of ture selected such individuals and species as are terrogate nature on this point. What says rea- evidence, but through the lack of spiritual per- best adapted to existing circumstances and condi- sbn7 What says probability ? What says analo- ception, the blind eye, and the deaf ear, and the tions, and rejected the rest. Nature makes no gy ? Does not the mower's scythe sometimes pulseless heart of the- dead sinner to whom the selection. The phrase is an absurdity. The make a balk in order to spare a bird's nest ? If reasoning is addressed.