to the admission of creation in general, in opposition to the senseless doctrine of unbeginning and unending series and sequences; and while we do not pretend to determine the manner in which God proceeded with his work, we likewise hold that the gradual appearance of planet after planet of the innumerable orbs that stud the firmament, of genus after genus, and species after species, can be far more philosophically referred to the positive act of an infinite power than to the vague operation of law. Draper, therefore, shivers a lance against a windmill when he sets up his doctrine of evolution against a purely imaginary creation. While he thus arraigns the doctrine of creation as shortsighted and unphilosophical, it is amusing to contemplate the substitute therefor which his system offers. On page 192 he says: “Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to illustrate the divine power; but that continuous, unbroken chain of organisms which extends from palæozoic formations to the formations of recent times--a chain in which each link hangs on a preceding and sustains a succeeding one--demonstrates to us not only that the production of animated beings is governed by law, but that it is by law that it has undergone no change. In its operation through myriads of ages there has been no variation, no suspension.” We have already proved that whatever is finite or contingent in the actual order must necessarily have had a beginning--a fact which Draper himself seems to admit when he speaks of the creative agency of law; and the question arises what it is which Dr. Draper substitutes for the creative act. Creation by law is an absurdity, since law is but the expression of the regularity of phenomena, once the fact of the universe has been granted. Unbeginning and unending series are not only an absurdity, but a palpable evasion of the difficulty. We have, therefore, according to Dr. Draper, a tremendous effect without a cause. When we view the many-sided spectacle of nature, the star-bespangled empyrean, the endless forms of life which the microscope reveals, the harmony and order of the universe, we naturally inquire, Whence sprang this mighty panorama? What all-potent Being gave it existence? Draper’s answer is, It had no beginning, it will have no end--_i.e._, it began nowhere, it will end nowhere. There it is, and be satisfied. The Christian replies that it is the work of an eternal, necessary, and all-perfect Being, who contains within himself the reason of his own existence, and whose word is sufficient to usher into being countless other worlds of far vaster magnitude than any that now exist.