and the
culminating-point of the whole creation. We have already had occasion
to refer to this as a result of zoology, geology, and Scriptural
exegesis, and may here confine ourselves to the moral consequences of
this great truth. Man is the capital of the column; and, if marred and
defaced by moral evil, the symmetry of the whole is to be restored,
not by rejecting him altogether, like the extinct species of the
ancient world, and replacing him by another, but by re-casting him in
the image of his Divine Redeemer. Man, though recently introduced, is
to exist eternally. He is, in one or another state of being, to be
witness of all future changes of the earth. He has before him the
option of being one with his Maker, and sharing in a future glorious
and finally renovated condition of our planet, or of sinking into
endless degradation. Such is the great spiritual drama of man's fate
to be acted out on the theatre of the world. Every human being must
play his part in it, and the present must decide what that part shall
be. The Bible bases these great foreshadowings of the future on its
own peculiar evidence; yet I may venture humbly to maintain that its
harmony with natural science, as far as the latter can ascend, gives
to the Word of God a pre-eminent claim on the attention of the
naturalist. The Bible, unlike every other system of religious
doctrine, fears no investigation or discussion. It courts these.
"While science," says a modern divine,[150] "is fatal to superstition,
it is fortification to a Scriptural faith. The Bible is the bravest of
books. Coming from God, and conscious of nothing but God's truth, it
awaits the progress of knowledge with calm security. It watches the
antiquary ransacking among classic ruins, and rejoices in every medal
he discovers and every inscription he deciphers; for from that rusty
coin or corroded marble it expects nothing but confirmations of its
own veracity. In the unlocking of an Egyptian hieroglyphic or the
unearthing of some implement it hails the resurrection of so many
witnesses; and with sparkling elation it follows the botanist as he
scales Mount Lebanon, or the zoologist as he makes acquaintance with
the beasts of the Syrian desert; or the traveller as he stumbles on a
long-lost Petra or Nineveh or Babylon. And from the march of time it
fears no evil, but calmly abides the fulfilment of those prophecies
and the forthcoming of those events with whose predicted story
inspiratio