material world, science seems only to have made progress to humiliate and to humble us!
Let us accept the lesson of humiliation, with a proper sense of reverence! But, while humbling ourselves in the presence of the overwhelming vastness of God's creation, let us not degrade ourselves: let us not imagine that so insignificant—so ephemeral a being—groping about on so minute a speck in the universe—is totally unworthy of a Creator's care; or entertain the debasing idea that there is no life—no hope—beyond this transient state of existence! Such a view is not the legitimate result of the proper sense of humility which true science demands. She teaches us that grand humility which annihilates self, and places the soul as a child-like learner in the face of God's universe! Like the sacred Shepherd, with unsandalled feet, we advance with reverential awe upon the holy ground, and receive assurances that our minute sphere is benignly noticed by the eye of Omniscience; that, amid the surrounding grandeur, man is not overlooked!
But let us not forget, that there is another aspect under which such contemplations may be viewed, which is calculated to exalt man in the scale of creation. When we reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and solved: if we ask ourselves how such results have been attained; how have we been enabled to assure ourselves of this stupendous scale of creation—of the resplendent glories of the illimitable realms of space—the feeble being resumes all his wonted dignity! By the side of such wonderful achievements of the mind, what signifies the weakness and fragility of our body; what signifies the dimensions of the planet—our residence—the grain of sand on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!
From this point of view, man is exalted to his true dignity, through his spiritual and intellectual nature. A mind capable of accomplishing such results must indeed be an emanation from Deity! We must have within us some feeble spark of Divinity! Yes, there is a life and a hope beyond and above this transient existence!
"'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us,
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man."
Yes, the lofty aspirations of humanity are not delusions; they are realities. They link us with a purer order of existence, which makes us heirs of immortality. We repose under a confident and unwavering assurance that, in God's own time, these earth-mists will be dispersed, and the dim twilight of conjecture will yield to the glorious, unclouded noonday of knowledge.—The California Teacher—Abstract of a Lecture.
