"Surging, seething torrent, Bubbling, sparkling spring, Hum of insect nature, Birds upon the wing, Evening's flush of beauty, Morning's streaks of light, Noonday's radiant glory, All in praise unite.

"See His kind provision Waving in the grain, Shining in the sunbeams, Falling in the rain; Parching days of summer, Cool the dewy fall, h.o.a.ry frost of winter, Sheltering snow o'er all.

"Swift o'er trackless region Runs the lurid flash, Sounds from hill to moorland, Deep resounding crash, Towering peak and cranny, Eagles' dizzy height, Dignity and splendour, All reveal His might.

"Nature's varied voices Chant the sweet refrain, Echo o'er the mountain, Linger on the plain, Thunder in the ocean, Whisper in the sh.e.l.l, Murmur in the breezes, Sighing in the dell.

"Shall our lips be silent?

Shall our lives be still?

Tune our hearts, O Father, To perform Thy will; Fill our souls with rapture, Fill our hearts with praise, Give us grace to follow Gladly all our days."

M. A. E.

THE SIXTH DAY

THE CROWN OF G.o.d'S CREATION.

"_The Spirit of G.o.d hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life._"--JOB x.x.xiii. 4.

"_In Him we live, and move, and have our being ... for we are also His offspring._"--ACTS xvii. 28.

"_I will praise Thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made._"--PSALM cx.x.xix. 14.

"_Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify G.o.d in your body._"--1 COR.

vi. 20.

Before we speak of the last work of G.o.d upon the last of those wonderful days of which we are told in the first chapter of the Bible, let us read the verses about it, from the twenty-sixth to the end of that chapter, and to the tenth verse of the next. And then let us read the eighth Psalm, unless indeed you can repeat it, as my little scholars once could--and I hope they have not forgotten it now.

I think the first thing we noticed as we read was, that after the verses which speak of the beasts and creeping things which G.o.d made on the SIXTH DAY, there is, as it were, a close to the history, and then a fresh beginning.

We read, "And G.o.d saw that it was good." There is a full stop there; and again we read--now for the eighth time--the three words, "And G.o.d said."

But this is not all; a very wonderful expression, which had not been used in connection with any part of the work of G.o.d, is employed to tell us of the creation of the man who was placed by G.o.d as the head of all that He had made, the one to whom He gave dominion, after He had made the earth, and brought it all into order.

G.o.d had said, "Let the waters bring forth.... Let the earth bring forth"

living creatures. "And G.o.d made the beast of the earth"; but before man was created He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

Of no other creature could it be said that he was made in the likeness of G.o.d, and of no other do we read that he was "formed" by G.o.d "of the dust of the ground," and that the Lord G.o.d "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"; then, and not till then, did man become a "living soul." The body was made of earth, but the soul came immediately from G.o.d.

The more we learn about our own body, that wonderful and beautiful house in which we live, the more we shall see, in what G.o.d thus formed from the dust of the ground, to call forth our admiration; but the body of the first man, although fashioned with such perfection in all its parts, did not _live_ until G.o.d breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Let us never forget how great a difference G.o.d has put between man, about whose creation He took thought, and who was made in His image, to whom He has given speech, reason, and a deathless soul, and all the creatures concerning which we read none of these things.

And now let us learn just a very little about the way in which G.o.d has formed what His word speaks of as our "house" or "tent"--the dwelling-place of the soul and spirit.

It would be strange indeed if we did not care to know something about our own home; but our body is not only the house in which we live, it is also the means, through those five senses--the eye, the ear, and the organs of touch, taste, and smell--which have been so well called "the five gateways of knowledge," by which we learn all that can be known by us of the world outside us.

More than this, it is the wonderfully perfect instrument, and implicitly obedient servant, by which all that we do is performed.

But the science that teaches us all that is known about our bodies is a very difficult study, and there are many hard names to master, even at the very outset. For instance, when we speak of the bony framework--that skeleton which, as you know, belongs to us in common with the vertebrate animals--there is a great deal which you would find very difficult to remember.

Still, as I daresay you have found out, the more we learn, even of difficult sciences, the more we _can_ learn, and little May (though, to be sure, she is now four years older than she was when you first made her acquaintance) _has_ learnt a good many of the hard words. She could show you upon her own round arm, just where the bone which reaches from the shoulder to the elbow begins and ends, and tell you its name, and the names of the two bones which reach from the elbow to the wrist, and of the wrist-bones, and of those which you can feel in the palm of your hand, and the finger-bones.

But when you hear that you have more than two hundred bones in your body, you will be inclined to agree with me that it would take both of us some time to learn even their names, much more to know all about them.

The spine consists of twenty-four short bones, each with a little ring.

These vertebras are piled up one upon the other; for G.o.d has made our bodies upright; our faces, are lifted upwards, and our eyes look straight before us. These twenty-four little bones are closely and strongly bound together, and between each one and its neighbour there is something so soft and elastic that we can bend our heads, or move in any direction, without the slightest strain or jar.

The head is most wonderfully built up, like an arch, of several bones beautifully joined in a very strong and perfect way which carpenters call "dove-tailing." We can understand why the head, which is so much exposed, and is almost entirely occupied by the brain, should be so carefully protected; for thought, memory, will, and what we can best express as "consciousness of our being," all depend upon it.

Pa.s.sing from head to foot, we find that our feet, which are not large, yet must bear the weight of the body, are also made upon the arch-principle, which has been found, like the hollow bones of the bird's wing, to combine lightness and strength. The twenty-six bones are so fitted together that this wonderful arch is quite elastic, as you can prove by moving your own foot up and down.

The joints, where two bones which are to play upon each other come in contact, as they do at the elbow or shoulder, are made in different ways.

The elbow only moves to and fro like a hinge; the hip and shoulder, like a "ball and socket," move every way. You do not need to be told that each kind of joint is found just where it is needed for the work it has to do; for there is no mistaking or misplacing in G.o.d's workmanship, as there so often is in the very best of _ours_.

I cannot at present tell you anything about the muscles, except that it is by their means that we move arms, legs, head, eyes--every part of the body, for bones cannot move of themselves, but are acted on by the muscles.

Nor can we learn much about the nerves, because the subject is very difficult to understand. They come from the brain in the head, and from that part of it which runs all down the backbone, through the little bony rings of the vertebrae; and they are protected, because they are so very delicate, and so precious to us, by a strong bony sheath. At first these nerves are like coa.r.s.e twine, but they divide and divide until they become as fine as threads of white silk--almost as fine as the stronger part of a spider's web--and they go all over the body, reaching to the very tips of the fingers.

The first pair of nerves goes to the nose, for smell; the second to the eye, for sight; and so on for hearing and taste. These are the nerves called "sensory," which carry to the brain sensations from outside the body. The "motor" nerves are those which take orders from the brain, to be instantly obeyed by the muscles.

In the hand, which has twenty-seven bones--one more than the foot--and is a more wonderful "tool" than any which G.o.d has given to the lower animals, wonderful as _their_ tools are, the sense of touch is stronger than in any other part of the body.

Suppose you put your fingers upon something very hot or very cold. "Quick as thought," as we say, you draw them away again. But before you did so, what had happened?

The nerves at the tip of your finger had sent a telegram straight home to the brain, "Too hot!" or "Too cold!" and the brain had telegraphed back to the fingers, "Keep out of the way of it!" whatever the hot or cold thing may have been.

To think, even for a moment, of these lightning messages running backwards and forwards, to and from the brain, gives us some little idea how very wonderful the brain itself must be, and also how G.o.d has made one part of the body to depend upon another.

Apart from the brain, the ear would be conscious of no sound, whether the soft wash of the waves along the sh.o.r.e, or the mighty roll of the thunder through the sky. On the other hand, none of these voices could reach the brain if G.o.d had not "planted the ear," and formed it so perfectly to receive the waves of sound which, striking upon its delicate little "drum,"

cause it to vibrate, and so are pa.s.sed on by the nerve which takes messages to the brain. For it is the brain which takes charge of every "impression"

conveyed to it by eye, ear, hand, nose, or palate; but _how_ these impressions conveyed to the brain give rise to what we call "thoughts" and "ideas"--this is one of the secret things which belong to G.o.d, and of which He has not allowed the wisest man to say, "Oh yes, I understand all about it!"

And there is another secret thing which cannot be explained. The heart has been called "the fountain of life," because by it the blood, which is the life of the body, is kept in continual motion, and sent to every part. How little we think of it! But whether we are waking or sleeping, at work or at rest, this busy fountain still goes on playing. We may hear the throb of it, as it strikes against the chest, in its ceaseless working; and we may count these regular "beats," and find that there are about seventy-five of them every minute. It has been calculated that during an ordinarily long life there are three thousand millions of beats without a break. But what has set this fountain at work? and what keeps it going night and day without any thought or care of ours, all our life long? Of all this it can only be said, "We do not know; we cannot find out. G.o.d in His wisdom has so ordered it."

Many years ago a doctor, who had observed very carefully, and thought much about what he observed, found out that every time the heart beats, the blood rushes from it into a great curved tube called an artery, and so pa.s.ses through tubes which, like the nerves, are constantly becoming finer and finer, to every part of the body.

He also discovered that the blood takes its journey back again to the heart by a different road: it does not return through these tubes, but through softer ones, called veins. Thus far he could go, and the story of the "circulation" of the blood is very interesting; but the _cause_ of the heart's perpetual motion, and the blood's continuous flow, this he could not discover.

Is it not wonderful to think that this rapid motion of the fountain within us goes on so noiselessly that even a baby whose little heart has only just begun to beat, is not disturbed by it, as he sleeps in his cradle?

To all the "higher animals" G.o.d has given both heart and brain. He has also given them, in more or less degree, that mysterious sense of which we have spoken before, and of which we have had so many proofs; a sense which is not at all dependent upon reason or intellect, but is found in a less degree in men than in animals to which reason has not been given.