often saw more genuine truth in some men's "I do not believe" than in others' "I do believe;" when his heart was actually breaking in the dreadful loneliness to which his spiritual superiority had brought him; when he was really dying, a martyr-we say that it is refreshing to hear this voice speaking from out of this painful isolation:

I could not tell you too strongly my own deep and deepening conviction that the truths which I teach are true. Every year they shed fresh light on one another, and seem to stretch into immensity. They explain to me life, God, and the Bible; and I am certain that what fresh light I shall receive will be an expansion and not a contradiction of what I have. As for the words in which I try to make others see what I see, they indeed are poor and bewildered enough. But there is no bewilderment in my mind, though much that is incomplete. The principles are rooted in human nature, God, and the being of things, and I find them at the root of every page in Scripture. The principles cannot be reversed. They are not opinions nor theories, but convictions: part of my being, of my habits of thought and life, coloring everything, "the fountain light of all my day, the master light of all my seeing." These are the truths for which men go to the stake, and relinquish, joyfully, friends, sympathy, good name, worldly prospects. They do not depend upon the accuracy of an intellectual process, but upon the verdict of all the highest powers of soul. But if I am asked to surrender convictions, I cannot do it for any reward, nor for fear of any loss; these depend upon all I know of God; they are the things seen in the noonday light of my soul; and I cannot pretend to submit my judgment in such things to wiser men or better men. It would be mock humility. I might just as readily, at their bidding, say that green is scarlet. It may be so; but if it be, my whole vision is deranged by which I have walked and lived, and by which this world is beautiful. To say that I am ready for any martyrdom in the defense of my convictions, and that I cannot affect to have doubts or misgivings about them, is only to say that they are convictions.

The question is asked, Is Robertson's influence to continue? We believe that this rare life will never wholly disappear from the consideration of thoughtful men; his portrait will never fade altogether from our memory. But he was the prophet of a day. Like John the Baptist, whom in many respects he resembled, and who found his ablest interpreter in him, Robertson only prepared the way for a larger ministry. We have with great carefulness been asking scores of our younger ministers and intelligent laymen whether

they were familiar with him who so wonderfully stirred us in our youth; and if not, who are they who are most powerfully influencing their ministry? With rare exceptions none acknowledge any great obligation to Robertson. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that a new ministry has arisen. Our hero must decrease while another increases. With almost unbroken unanimity, the men who have replied to our inquiries have named Phillips Brooks as the man whose great healthful nature and broad Christian culture and wide spiritual vision have captivated their hearts and given them their model. A goodly number have added to this name that of Harnack. It is a significant fact that both these men came up into the sweet atmosphere of this twentieth century Christianity from out of the intellectual restlessness of the last half of the nineteenth. Brooks openly declares that the man who prepared the way for him was Robertson. Harnack is giving to the restless men of his country Robertson's sermons, which the professor himself edits; and we think that we can discover without his express testimony that the Englishman's spirit stirs profoundly in that of the German. And what is true in these conspicuous personalities is true also of a great multitude. The pulpit of our day has learned immensely from the pulpit of Brighton, and has reflected its light till it fills the age. Robertson's principles, so startlingly new in his day, are the familiar thought of ours. Thus his work lives on, as the iron in the blood, not easily detected yet surely there. Only the Infinite One can trace the wideness of his influence on the spiritual life of the world.

A.H. Tuttle.

ART. IV. THE ARGUMENT FROM MATHEMATICAL

ORDER.

EACH step of exploration and discovery which man has made during the recent matchless century of scientific progress has brought him face to face with fresh revelations of mathematical data, involved in every province of physics, chemistry, art, and manufacture with which he has had to deal. Back of all material phenomena he finds rhythmical, arithmetical, or geometrical relations, significant numbers, numerical ratios, and manifold quantitative arrangements imbedded in the very heart of the system of things in the midst of which he is placed. Matter, force, law, atoms, and chemical combinations, suns, satellites, and stellar systems, all are weighed, measured, and balanced with an exactness and a precision which transcend all the delicate tests and instruments which inventive genius has devised. Every science and every art and all manner of investigation only serve to introduce the inquirer into new realms where definite units, magnitudes, quantities, calculations with logarithms, geometrical and trigonometrical problems, and other vast and intricate mathematical elements abound. To the thoughtful student, indeed, pondering this phase of the world into which he has been born, the universe appears a vast school of mathematical science, in which he finds, back of all that he sees, hears, discovers, infers, or feels, a boundless array of symmetrical, orderly, and commensurable phenomena. While this truth has been now and then emphasized by writers on natural theology, yet it has not been recently amplified and illustrated with the adequacy and elaboration which its importance demands; and our aim in this paper is to furnish fresh illustrations and additional data bearing upon the argument which irresistibly concludes from the presence of mathematical order everywhere in the universe the existence and administration of a Being from whom these manifestations of a definite and calculated system are constantly arising.

When once the facts come before an intelligent and candid man, when he considers that the elements of the mathematical sciences are discoveries and not inventions, and that they are integral components of all material phenomena; when he confronts numbers, geometrical relations and figures, definite numerical adjustments and unchangeable proportions, fixed in almost every realm of human knowledge-can he resist the conviction that these all have their source in an infinite Mathematical Mind?

Perhaps a citation or two may serve to introduce this principle aptly to our attention. Professor B. P. Bowne, in his latest work, Theism, writing on the orderly, systematic, and rational structure of the world, says:

The numerical exactness of natural processes illustrates the wonder of this adjustment. The heavens are crystallized mathe matics. All the laws of force are numerical. The interchange of energy and chemical combination are equally so. Crystals are solid geometry. Many organized products show similar mathematical laws. Indeed, the claim is often made that science never reaches its final form until it becomes mathematical.

Rev. Dr. W. N. Clarke, in his notable work, An Outline of Christian Theology, pages 106, 107, suggests:

We are able to trace and formulate the laws of universal motion; and to discern the principles of mathematics that run through the universe. . . . The laws of geometry are normal to the human mind; how significant then the fact that these laws have been followed in the construction of the universe, so that if we give to the constructive Mind the name of God we shall say with Aristotle [or Plato] that God geometrizes.

This reference to the Greek philosophers may remind us that the habit of discerning the elements of mathematical order in the universe is not a modern one; it has simply come in our day to have universal application by virtue of the amazing extension in all directions of material discovery. Twenty-five hundred years ago Pythagoras declared that "All things are number-number is the essence of everything. The world is through all its departments a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose." A century and a half later Plato discerned the truth that the laws

of the physical universe are resolvable into numerical relations, and that they may be expressed by the formula of mathematics. In his Timæus he sets forth by a variety of considerations his sense of the harmony and symmetry which are visible on every hand, and traces them to an All-wise Source. In his discussion he anticipates by happy guesses some of the discoveries of our own day in regard to the laws of geometry as embodied in crystals, and the principle that the laws of nature generally are susceptible of mathematical statement. And in all the ages since his day the hints which he gave and the facts which he laid stress upon have helped to call attention to the truth now under consideration, while they also suggest a chief reason why he inscribed over the door of the academy where he taught his disciples in Athens the well-known motto, "Let None But Geometricians Enter Here."

Astronomy a Starting Point.

In this task of indicating the principle, now familiar to all students, that all material phenomena are conditioned by laws which are susceptible of mathematical expression, it makes but little difference where we begin—the field which illustrates the truth is everywhere. Possibly the science of astronomy, as one of the most obvious, will afford a good starting point. Here it requires but little thought to discern the fact that the distances, weights, motions, mutual attractions, and all other relations that can be indicated are subject to mathematical laws. We cannot attempt to describe the moon, for instance-to take the heavenly body which is nearest to us-without using terms which denote distance, magnitude, weight, orbit, and motion-all of them mathematical conceptions. We have no other phraseology in which to describe the satellite except that which tells us that she is 240,000 miles distant from the earth, that she weighs about one eightieth as much as our globe, and that her diameter is 2,163 miles. Thus our first step into the universe of space through which we are whirling brings us face to face with the mathematical data which interpenetrate all the phenomena