Is it not with some such faith as this, that the modern explorer faces the facts and problems of Nature? He knows—and he constantly acts upon the knowledge that the strangest facts can be explained, the most resistless forces measured, and employed to some human service. For untold ages men have lived and labored over the coal-beds and under the shadow of mountains of iron. Had any one pointed to the out-cropping veins of dark, barren-looking treasure, saying to the world, "These are wonderful gifts of God: all these things are yours," who could have understood such a message? For ages men have seen steam puffing uselessly away, and electricity has been flashing and snapping, no one knew how. There is not one force, of all which serve or gladden human life, but has been wasted by numberless generations as worthless or as unmanageable. The modern mind. has addressed itself to a task never systematically attempted before. It is hopefully searching for the

hidden treasures which nature holds. Dark continents are mapped out into provinces. The most remote wildernesses become the Eldorado of the miner, the ranchman, the planter. In common things, such as are found in every land, men are finding new uses, new preciousness. Clay is the ore of a noble metal; coal-tar is a philosopher's stone. Every known substance is enthusiastically studied, in the hope that in some happy combination it may effect services before impossible.

All this means that men now look to Nature, not as an enemy, but as a friend. We know we have a heri

tage there; and, with her secrets made ours, we shall win her kingdom also. Not a problem in mechanics but somewhere has been solved in the cunning architecture of plant, or vertebrate, or shell; not a task for chemistry which has not been already accomplished in the laboratory of the air, in the alembic of the ocean. How does the bird fly on against the storm? What supports the cedar against the fury of the gale? What dyer can rival the pigments of plume and petal? What chemist can mix the elements which make our bread and wine? What physician's drug or cordial can withstand the ravages of disease as does healthgiving Nature every day? Do not all the inventions of human art follow lamely toward what Nature has already accomplished? Her powers, her substances, her processes, all these things are ours. Nature, in her beauty and her silence, ever invites us to possess her, ever offers us new gifts of God, as we acquire the wisdom to receive and to honor them.

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But surely, it will be objected, these enlarging borders of science are not what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he says, "All things are yours." did not mean that man wins supremacy over Nature by reason and invention, but something deeper, something more personal. He meant that, if you follow the divine life as it is in Christ, you will get a mastery over the external conditions of your life; so that the material necessities which seemed but an unprofitable burden of the flesh will be all helpful and subservient. It is no triumph of mechanics he is rejoicing for, but for the triumph of your higher

spiritual life over all the obstacles the lower life can bring.

Let us put these two conceptions strongly in contrast: our nineteenth-century gospel, of science subduing nature; our first-century gospel, of the soul which lives like Christ getting a victory over the world.

I would not have you set aside either of these great ideas for the sake of the other. Both may help you to say, with a kind of proud joy, "All things are yours."

But see how each of these triumphant conceptions of human life needs the other to interpret it. Christ offers to men a certain mastery over life. He offers freedom and power. That is what his so-called miracles mean. For, when departing, he promises his disciples, "Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father." Never at any time has Christian enthusiasm, though uplifted to transfiguring visions of the love of God, and of the preciousness of each human soul, been indifferent to the outward and material conditions of men. Not only has the kingdom of God been preached as spiritual and eternal, but they who may claim any place whatever in that kingdom must be sincerely concerned with man's lower wants and necessities. The Christian spirit does not stop with the inner man, but feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, heals the sick.

All these things the Christian Church, wherever it is alive, is to-day honestly trying to do,- trying to give men healthier bodies, better homes, stronger,

happier lives, and more cheerful surroundings. It says, as its Master did, to a hungry, needy, suffering world, “Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."

Out of the large, indefinite commandment, "Love thy neighbor," so spiritual, so simple, come the highly specialized activities of Christian philanthropy, Christian education, Christian politics. Out of what is, at first, a heart-impulse, a profound spiritual faith in the dignity and preciousness of human life on earth, comes a stimulus to man's whole intellectual and practical life. Inspire a man to love God and love his brother, and more and more his whole being will be roused to study all nature's laws and powers, that human life may be healed, enriched, and set free by such reasonable service as he can render. Naturally and inevitably, therefore, in this age we now live in, Christianity becomes practical, scientific. To the aid of the great central purpose, which is love, every instrument may be employed, until every art and every truth is made fruitful in humane results. The clear meaning of what we call practical religion is simply that, while science and civilization are crying that man is king and master of the world, and "All things are yours," the aim of Christian faith and life is to give to the victories of man's force, and cunning, a deeper and holier purpose.

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The message is not only "All things are yours, but also "Ye are Christ's." It is not good that you should have mastery over what is below you, unless you recognize some master above you.

St. Paul never loses sight of these two glorious facts in man's spiritual life,— mastery and submission. He conquers the world, he counts all things as God's gifts to him; but always he is the servant of Christ.

I will not inquire here how far our thought of Christ's nature and authority is one with that of Paul. Let the sacred name stand to you now as that of the King of Love and King of Righteousness, as our true and higher humanity made manifest to men.

The truth which is the kernel of St. Paul's thought in this passage is that the more completely you get the mastery over the external and the mechanical conditions of your life, the more you must recognize some master above you.

What message does the world more truly need to-day? Never before was the power of man so great. It is an age of wonder, of hopefulness, with a proud self-consciousness that to the mighty and the wise among the sons of men, hardly anything is impossible.

We must, therefore, keep faithfully and steadily before us the old question, "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world?" All power must have a purpose. Riches and opportunities,—all this gorgeous and energetic civilization we are getting the harvests of, do they make better, purer, gladder lives, happier homes, more peaceful hearts? The negroes of San Domingo, the unconverted natives of Hawaii, in their untutored way, can enjoy life better than we. What can be the only justification of civilized life? Nothing less than a civilization which shall bring forth the "fruits of the spirit."