w that God works by very simple, or seemingly
simple, means; that the whole universe, as far as we could discern
it, was one concatenation of the most simple means; that it was
wonderful, yea, miraculous in our eyes, that a child should resemble
its parents, that the raindrops should make the grass grow, that the
grass should become flesh, and the flesh sustenance for the thinking
brain of man. Ought God to seem less or more august in our eyes,
when we are told that His means are even more simple than we
supposed? We held Him to be Almighty and Allwise. Are we to
reverence Him less or more, if we hear that His might is greater,
His wisdom deeper, than we ever dreamed? We believed that His care
was over all His works; that His Providence watched perpetually over
the whole universe. We were taught--some of us at least--by Holy
Scripture, to believe that the whole history of the universe was
made up of special Providences. If, then, that should be true which
Mr. Darwin writes: "It may be metaphorically said that natural
selection is daily and hourly scrutinising throughout the world,
every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad,
preserving and adding up that which is good, silently and
incessantly working whenever and wherever opportunity offers at the
improvement of every organic being"--if that, I say, were proven to
be true, ought God's care and God's providence to seem less or more
magnificent in our eyes? Of old it was said by Him without whom
nothing is made: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Shall
we quarrel with Science if she should show how those words are true?
What, in one word, should we have to say but this?--We knew of old
that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He
is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make
themselves.

But it may be said: These notions are contrary to Scripture. I
must beg very humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion.
Scripture says that God created. But it nowhere defines that term.
The means, the How of Creation, is nowhere specified. Scripture,
again, says that organised beings were produced each according to
their kind. But it nowhere defines that term. What a kind
includes, whether it includes or not the capacity of varying (which
is just the question in point), is nowhere specified. And I think
it a most important rule in scriptural exegesis, to be most cautious
as to limiting the m