FOOTNOTES
1 [this particular note is from the editor of the Drummond Tract “Home Truths” edition published soon after Bishop Ryle’s death in 1899].
Science has moved forward since Bishop Ryle penned these lines: still his reasoning is valid for to-day. The Bacterial or Germ Theory of disease has not cleared up all the mysteries connected with its origin and nature. Again, as regards the ultimate constitution of matter and force, the conclusions which held ground among scientific men until lately have been completely overthrown by the discovery of the remarkable metal radium, and the study of its phenomena. Lastly, the more recent convulsions, volcanic and seismic, which occurred at St. Pierre, San Francisco, and Messina, accompanied as these have been with tremendous loss of life, prove that the progress of science still leaves the human race as helpless as ever in the presence of this class of calamity.
2 The following page from Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” contains so many useful thoughts about miracles and the so-called laws of nature that I make no apology for giving it to the readers of this paper, and commending it to their attention. In giving it I must not be supposed to be a wholesale admirer of the writer, or of his peculiar style.
“But is not a Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of Nature’? ask several. Whom I answer by this new question, What are the Laws of Nature? To me, perhaps, the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper Law, now first penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have all been, brought to bear on us with its Material force.
“Here, too, some may inquire, not without astonishment, ‘On what ground shall one, that can make iron swim, come and declare that therefore he can teach religion?’ To us, truly, of the nineteenth century, such declaration were inapt enough, which, nevertheless, to our fathers, of the first century, was full of meaning.
“But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant?’ cries an illuminated class. ‘Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to move by unalterable rules?’ Probable enough, good friends; nay, I, too, must believe that the God whom ancient inspired men assert to be ‘without variableness or shadow of turn ing’ does indeed never change; that Nature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases can be prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable rules. And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry, ‘What those same unalterable rules, forming the complete statute book of Nature, may possibly be?’
‘They stand written in our Works of Science’ say you; ‘in the accumulated records of man’s experi ence?’ Was man with his experience present at the Creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundation of the Universe, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His counsel, that they read His ground-plan of the incomprehen sible All; and can say, ‘This stands marked therein, and no more than this’? Alas! not in anyone! These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we also are, have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the Deep that is infinite, with out bottom, as without shore.
“System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion; and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles. The course of Nature’s phases, on this our little fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows what deeper courses these depend on, what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) our little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every cranny, and pebble, and quality, and accident of its little native Crack may have become familiar; but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon’s Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little world is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough) be quite overset and reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth, his Ocean the immeasurable All, his Monsoons and Periodic Currents the Mysterious Course of Providence through Æons of Æons!”
3 The language of Rousseau about Christ, referred to in this sermon, is so remarkable that I think it may be useful to give it in its entirety:
“Is it possible that He, whose history the Gospel records, can be but a mere man? Does He speak in the tone of an enthusiast, or of an ambitious sectary? What mildness, what purity in His manners! What touching grace in His instructions, what elevation in His maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses ! What presence of mind ! What ingenuity, and what justness in His answers! What government of His passions! What prejudice, what blindness or ill faith must that be which dares to compare Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, with the Son of Mary! What a difference between the two! Socrates dying without pain, without disgrace, easily sustains his part to the last. The death of Socrates philosophizing tranquilly with his friends is the mildest that could be desired: that of Jesus expiring in torments, injured, mocked, cursed by all the people, is the most horrible that can be feared. Socrates, taking the empoisoned cup, blesses him who presents it to him with tears. Jesus, in the midst of a frightful punishment, prays for his enraged executioners. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God.”-Emile Rousseau.
The words of Napoleon at St. Helena towards the close of his life were these: “I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is not a man.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
