hich was held by
the earliest Biblical writers, has imposed itself upon countless
millions of minds since then, and will continue to impose itself--how
much longer?

As regarded, then, his place in Nature, this boy became a contemporary
of the Psalmist; looked out upon the physical universe with the eye of
Job; placed himself back beside that simple, audacious, sublime
child--Man but awakening from his cradle of faith in the morning of
civilization. The meaning of all which to him was this: that the most
important among the worlds swung in space was the Earth, on account of
a single inhabitant--Man. Its shape had been moulded, its surface
fitted up, as the dwelling-place of Man. Land, ocean, mountain-range,
desert, valley--these were designed alike for Man. The sun--it was for
him; and the moon; and the stars, hung about the earth as its
lights--guides to the mariner, reminders to the landsman of the Eye
that never slumbered. The clouds--shade and shower--they were
mercifully for Man. Nothing had meaning, possessed value, save as it
derived meaning and value from him. The great laws of Nature--they,
too, were ordered for Man's service, like the ox and the ass; and as he
drove his ox and his ass whither he would, caused them to move forward
or to stop at the word of command, so Man had only to speak properly
(in prayer) and these laws would move faster or less fast, stop still,
turn to the right or the left side of the road that he desired to
travel. Always Man, Man, Man, nothing but Man! To himself measure of
the universe as to himself a little boy is sole reason for the food and
furnishings of his nursery.

This conception of Man's place in Nature has perhaps furnished a very
large part of the history of the world. Even at this close of the
nineteenth century, it is still, in all probability, the most important
fact in the faith and conduct of the race, running with endless
applications throughout the spheres of practical life and vibrating
away to the extremities of the imagination. In the case of this poor,
devout, high-minded Kentucky boy, at work on a farm in the years 1866
and 1867, saving his earnings and reading his Bible as the twofold
preparation for his entrance into the Christian ministry, this belief
took on one of its purest shapes and wrought out in him some of its
loftiest results.

Let it be remembered that he lived in a temperate, beautiful, bountiful
country; that his work was done mostly in the f